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alexiroflife · 11 months ago

Text

"in every life"

curse reincarnation, fluff

ryomen sukuna x reader

Synopsis: you, a former sorcerer and sukuna's wife, are killed in the heian era. sukuna does not believe in a life without you, so he takes it upon himself to bring you back a thousand years later

to sum it up: you are sukuna's life, and no matter how long he has to wait, he will bring you back to him by any means necessary

WC: 3,621

Warning(s): angst in the beginning, reader death (but you're revived), brief icky descriptions of a vessel's possession

-> ask | sukuna fic list

Sukuna remembers the exact moment you left him, soul fluttering almost gracefully from your eyes as your body fell limply into his four arms.

The moment replays in his mind as though it had only happened yesterday, or perhaps as recently as a few hours prior. Time has never been something the king of curses worried himself over, for his strength and existence exceeded such mortal constructs, but when his thoughts wander to you as frequently as air fills and deflates from his lungs, the very concept grows skewed and suddenly, time is a matter of great importance to him.

A king is nothing without his queen beside him, his rock, his partner, and that is what you are. That is what you were, but Sukuna refuses to address you in any form of past tense because your temporary withdrawal from the planet and from his side would never alter the fact that you are his, that you have been his, and that you will be his until the end of time.

Sukuna has never been one for romantics, for connections that tie his free spirit down from the unfettered, terrifying rule that he leads, but when you entered his life, his opinions shifted and his ambitions changed, making room for you at his side upon his throne.

The two of you had been married for years before you left him. Sukuna had never bothered to count, but now he finds himself mulling over the years’ contents in search of a piece of your memory that can stay with him until the time comes for you to return to his hand.

When you were alive, Sukuna never fathomed you leaving his side. He almost feels he should punish you for so abruptly taking an absence from him without permission, castigating your spirit until he feels that the space you once occupied close to him emanates remnants of an apology, of guilt, of a promise to never do such a foolish thing ever again.

When you were alive, you were a sight to behold, a perfect fit for the title of his wife. You were deserving of each and every privilege he bestowed upon you; of holding his face in your small, dainty hands, of pressing your lips to the textured plate of his face, of throwing your legs over his thighs as you settle onto his lap with a large, burly arm coming around you and securing you there for all of his servants and former concubines to see how high you sit amongst him and how low they remain beneath the two of you.

You always said what you were thinking. While he ensured that everyone within and outside of his temple feared him, you were always unaffected by his intimidating presence. He remembers one instance in which you were lying beneath him, a mess of silk fabrics swarming your bare figure over your reserved place in his bed with your hair splayed out messily over the pillows and your eyes weighted with a foolish look of what he could only describe as enchantment and tender allegiance.

He feels the ghost of your fingers trace his jaw as he looks down at you quietly, dwarfing you in his mass. A smile touches your soft lips with a rosy hue swirling over your (s/c) skin.

“Your eyes are quite beautiful.”

Your voice is a whisper of past enamorations through Sukuna’s ear as his brows arch in reminiscence. He remembers how he glared at you in confusion, face hard though he always allowed you to continue admiring him, to continue touching him without consequence. His eyes, which mirror the color of fresh, crimson blood as he has watched it gurgle from the mouths and limbs of his victims, staining the streets, his hands, and his monstrous legacy, are windows you believe to be… beautiful.

Your sentiments never failed to befuddle him. He never did understand why you associated such a ferocious beast with beliefs so light and pure. He is not beautiful, he had thought. He never desired to be beautiful. He is simply Ryoman Sukuna, enough of himself to be categorized in unique isolation, separate from your labels of aesthetic charm and peace.

You’re silly. Silly with love and submission, he thinks, but he has never denied you of these admirations though he fails to agree.

Besides, you are his wife. He would have allowed you to worship him in any way you pleased if you asked, and in truth, you hardly did ask. You knew what you were to Sukuna, how you and only you remained the only soft spot that the salmon haired demon withheld in his breast. You were beyond requesting approval to love him in the ways you saw fit, and Sukuna was pleased because you knew, in all spaces, that you were his and he was yours.

Among all the trophies of battles won, of cities conquered, of titles obtained, you are Sukuna’s greatest prize.

His love for you was always silent, long glances and grips of the waist, orders to slaughter on your behalf and the pat of his hand over his beefy thigh to beckon you over. His love was an unrestrained space for you to express your desires, to demand his attention, and his compliance with a veil of frustration poorly masking his easy willingness to give you anything you pleased. His love was long, sleepless nights, the marking of his territory by means of stinging bites and purple bruises over your smooth skin that no living being in his wake could mistake for anything but a reminder of your connection to him.

His love was you incarnate, just a woman before hell’s greatest crown, but his love no less. His wife. His queen. His eternity.

Sukuna does not know why he mourned you when you died. He found himself reacting impulsively, in a short-lived panic when your blood spilled over his skin and your eyes lost the light that he’d been following through the tunnel of his rein for years.

He knows death is a taboo concern only for mortals to fret over, but when you die, he feels as though he has died himself. Your life flashes before his eyes, your time with him, and this strange ache swarms his body and manifests as a ball in his throat as his ruby hues melt over you in alarm.

He struggles to accept your parting. He’s viciously angry, a horrible wreck that his servants fear stepping too close into proximity as the time passes and your vacancy weighs itself over his temple and his body like a mountain. He had believed your death to be painful, but the period that follows, the period of waiting stings him like no pain he has endured before.

A king needs his queen, and without you, no matter for how long, he feels empty. He rampages his heartache away, but it no longer holds the satisfaction it did when you were with him, watching from the sidelines and cheering him on. His estate feels colder somehow, the dent you’ve left in his bed losing its shape and the memory of you fading from others’ minds, but not from his. Never from his.

Sukuna knows that he will see you again. In any era, no matter how much farther into the future, he will find you once more, bring you back to his embrace, and dust off the crown that he has reserved for your pretty head alone.

He holds onto a piece of you, storing it safely, awaiting the time to revive you even within his own cursed slumber after having sealed himself for a millenia, severing parts of him and scattering it over the country.

You, however, remain stowed safely in one place. A place he will remember to return to when he reawakens in rebirthed flesh.

Now, a millenia following your untimely death, Sukuna stares emptily at the woman before him, curling and tossing around with bound wrists and ankles at his feet.

She’s crying, screams of horror rising into the starry sky as Sukuna’s eyes glint menacingly beneath the moonlight. He watches her carefully, curling his lips. He looks at this pest, this fragile, forgettable mortal woman and sees everything that you are not. For a moment, he hesitates, his fingers clutching over the ancient parchment wrapped object he holds protectively within his grasp at his side.

His brows draw together in frustration induced by your vessel. He knows he picked wisely, however, he can not deny the hesitation that captures his mind when he contemplates whether this vessel will do your worth justice. Whether it will truly bring you back the way he plans for you to be.

He holds up the object in his hand, your energy emitting from behind the paper and through his veins, easing into his blackened soul. You are practically calling to him, holding his hand, murmuring into his ear that it will be okay.

Sukuna is reminded then and there solely by the spirit of you that nothing in this world could even begin to dwindle the brilliance in which you shine, that even within the body of a bird or a squirrel, your essence would burst through. You will reincarnate wholly as how you left him, and as nothing less.

With a heavy exhale through his nose, Sukuna unravels the object, tossing the parchment to the ground, and takes a step forward to approach the young woman squirming in the grass before him. He walks over her, feet planted on either side of her figure, and bends down. Her eyes go white with terror as snot and tears dribbles over her nose and down her cheek. Sukuna looks into her coldly, grasping a hand over her face and digging his black nails into her jaw.

She shudders an agonizing, shrill screech that is soon muffled by the manner in which Sukuna squeezes her cheeks inward and forcefully pries her mouth open.

With a steely, disconnected glare, Sukuna takes the object imbued with your cursed energy, your ring finger. He pulls your wedding band from the decrepit digit and pushes it to the woman’s lips. Her eyes go wide as she chokes over her jaw’s lack of mobility, and the taste of something foreign and timeworn on her tongue. Her stuttered, whimpering gasps release and she gargles once Sukuna pushes the object down her throat. He slaps his hand back over her mouth as it slides down her throat and she twitches uncontrollably, eyes cracking with red veins.

The king of curses holds her still as her body flops wildly, her chest lurching forward and limbs flying about. Her body can not handle the intrusion of a thousand year old sorcerer’s influence, so it fails. Her eyes roll into her skull and her fingers twitch once her limbs have stilled in the grass. A symphony of crickets chirping lifts into Sukuna’s ears as the woman beneath him goes completely silent, dead, still.

He waits. After a millennia of existence confined to cursed flesh, after years of the cold left in your wake nipped at his skin, after battling bodies for dominance over a vessel, he waits just a few seconds more for you.

After it seems as though he has lost you for a second time, the body’s eyes flicker. Sukuna stills above you, pupils shrunken in anticipation.

Movement shifts beneath him. A chest rises, and breathing begins steadily through it. The color of this vessel’s skin shifts, transitioning slowly, milking into the hue of gentle (s/c) that Sukuna once caressed with his rough fingers. Color flushes through pale cheeks, and irises of (e/c) roll back from the skull and stare widely ahead, directly into Sukuna’s gaze. Finally, your voice comes, a gentle hum of confusion and discomfort as you regain your lost senses.

Sukuna’s heart skips as the familiar warmth of your body emanates from beneath him again, and his hand is slowly sliding from your parted lips. He feels as though he’s just run a marathon despite his inability to wind himself. He breathes out heavily, gradually, and silence envelopes the two of you in the darkness of the late night.

While Sukuna had planned this from the very moment you went dead in his hands, he feels somehow starstruck by you. You look as beautiful as you were centuries in the past, skin smooth, brows curled, lips soft as though you had not been gone from his life for more than a brief second. You have returned to him as he had thoughtfully calculated, and yet, he can not fathom the fact that you are here at long last, mere centimeters away, manifested into truth by his graze of your chin.

The muscles in your brows pull together in disbelief, glimmering eyes shining over as you take in the sight before you. The last thing you felt was a blade slicing into your heart and ripping down through your body, the last vision of Sukuna racing to throw you into him as your opponent met his end with the selective mutilation of his internal organs at your husband’s hard, feral, red glance.

You blink hurriedly, shooting a hand out to your husband’s bicep. “...Ryo?” you whisper in a trembling voice, knowing him by gaze and presence and touch alone.

The said demon’s brows angle and his body lurches forward with a sharp exhale upon hearing your voice utter his name outside of the confines of his mind’s nostalgia and imagination. He is overcome by the return of you to him, eyes fiery with longing for his once lost love and shoulders aching as the weight that had been crushing down finally releases. The sensation of your fingers curling over his arm sends chills down his spine, for time has never altered Sukuna’s course of existence, but time tells in the way he physically shivers when your loving contact revives on his skin after having been stripped of him for what feels like eternity.

Tears pool in your eyes and your shaky hands raise to smooth over his face, exploring his marked skin and familiarizing yourself with the structure of the being you fell in love with many lifetimes ago. Sukuna’s brow flinches as you feel over his face, and his own palm cradles over your cheek, dwarfing your head in the fashion it always used to as the back of his fingers skim over your heated flesh.

“Ryomen,” you say his name again, voice crumbling and your shoulders jerking in awe.

He trips down into you, hands clutching over your head as you guide his face down with his hasty movements. Your name tumbles hoarsely from his rumbling voice, against your lips, and slotting into your mind in a haze as his lips meet yours urgently.

You cry gently into him, lips parting and pushing back in as he kisses you fervently, savoring you, burrowing you into his body’s memory to recover the time he has spent deprived of you. Your hands fly over his neck, down his back, detailing the ridges and the muscles rippling beneath the fabric of his shirt that you know so well. He presses himself down into you, pulling you in closer by your head, flushing your chests together to intertwine your souls once more. Heady grunts and growls heave into your mouth between frenzied, stunned, satisfied kisses, and each time a tear of yours catches into the liplock, Sukuna is pulling it into his lips, saltiness swirling through the sweet release of his misery.

He’s missed you. So very much, he’s missed you. He doesn’t know how he has managed to go so long without you now that you are here again, now that he is holding you again, kissing you again.

“My king,” you whimper when you get a chance to break away, foreheads bumping as Sukuna shushes you gently.

“Do not fret, peach,” he soothes you, lips brushing yours as his now loving gaze spills into your own. “You are alright.”

Despite Sukuna’s ruthlessness and his wild murderous expeditions, as well as his blood-curdling tone that further accentuates the weight of his threats when thrown into the direction of others, Sukuna melts into calmness for you, his low voice mellow and meditative, enraptured in the peace that you bring him. You know all sides of your dear husband, and yet this is the rawest side of him that you know, that he treats you with.

“What happened?” you whisper as his hands run over you, catching your tears and tracing the curves of your flesh. “Where are we?”

“In the garden,” he answers you easily, kissing the corner of your mouth gently.

“At… at home?”

He hums in affirmation, leaning back just a bit to stare into you. The pairs of your eyes shine as they absorb the image of one another, still and sincere. Grass tickles your ears and your arms, and you look down, realizing that you are lying in a patch of greenery. You slowly tilt your head to the side, and Sukuna keeps his gaze glued to you like you will disappear before him. Your eyes capture the stems of daffodils and lavender that sprout around your head, pointing into the night sky and swaying gently in the warm breeze. You recognize the plants as the ones you had always taken to tending by the creek behind Sukuna’s temple, which he had the servants fashion as a suitable garden for you to indulge in.

You do not recall being here last. You recall dying. You recall your world going dark.

You turn back to meet his heavy eyes. “What did you do?”

He is silent for a moment, taking his time to study you before answering as though the question is the simplest one he has ever been asked. “I have brought my queen back to me. As I have always sworn to do if we were ever separated.”

“...How long have we been separated?”

“It does not matter.”

“How long was I away from you, Ryo? How long did I leave you for?”

“It does not matter,” he reiterates gently yet ever so firmly. “Do not think of it.”

“Please-” you frown, eyes shining over again. “I hadn’t- I didn’t mean to leave you. I don’t know how I even let it happen… I can’t imagine what that must have gone through…”

Ryomen catches the guilt in your gorgeous eyes and he is quick to gather you up in his arms. He pulls you up slowly, keeping your eyes locked as you allow him to lift you from the ground with his arms wound tightly over your waist. Your hands go to Sukuna’s shoulders as he kneels over you, keeping you steady and upright, face to face, nose to nose, eye to eye.

“I refuse to allow the first thing you do in reincarnated life to be reminding me of what life was like without you,,” he says. “I do not wish to revisit it. It does not matter,” he repeats for a third time.

You tilt your head with the tug of your lips downward sadly, threading your hands through his pink locks and holding onto the nape of his neck. The moonlight milks over you regally, as though the stars have aligned for this very moment, to illuminate you both in the universe’s joyous eye. You swallow hard. “Am I a curse?”

“You are my wife. I will not tolerate you labeling yourself as anything different..”

You inhale deeply, bringing your forehead back to him and closing your eyes. His arms pull you in tight, rhythmic breaths easing you into this reality complacent, affectionately, lovingly.

“I’m sorry I left you, my love,” you murmur.

Now that he’s heard you apologize, seen your remorse sparked by something out of your control, he doesn’t fare well with it.

You are not a plague to him, a burden, and telling him that you are sorry in his mind now insinuates such. Even after leaving him, after stealing away his warmth, after haunting his slumber and his consciousness for eons, he does not fault you. He would never fault the woman he chose to keep by his side in wellness and in death.

He does not accept your apology. You have done nothing but love him, yet Sukuna is the one who should have protected you.

He runs a hand over the back of your head, down your hair, and exudes his message of impenetrable love to you through his embrace and sweltering red eyes. “All I ask of you is that you stay. In this era and the next. Stay by my side as you are meant to be.”

You nod eagerly against him. “I will,” you whisper. “I will, I promise.”

Sukuna reaches down at his side for the ring he had set down. With one hand to your back, he pulls your wedding band forward and presents it to your twinkling eye. You gasp.

“You still have it,” you sigh.

“In what world would I not?”

You bring your hand down, spreading your fingers, and you watch as the kind of curses slips the rusted treasure over your finger, fitting it perfectly into place with the renewal of your marriage and the reunion of your hearts.

You admire the way it looks upon your hand happily, and Sukuna drags you back into his lips, pecking you tenderly before moving back in with his hands firm to you. You shift further up so that his arms can completely take you in, heads bumping as your lips swim together in commemoration of a rebirth into a new life.

#jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen #jjk fandom #jjk fanfic #anime #jjk #jjk season 2 #jjk x you #jujutsu kaisen sukuna #ryomen sukuna #sukuna x reader #ryomen sukuna x reader #sukuna ryomen x reader #ryomen x reader #sukuna angst #sukuna fluff #sukuna x reader fluff

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apatheticsunday · 4 months ago

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Dead Serious Oblivious Dating Trope

AKA "Damian thinks flirting/dating entails a lot more violence than the average person and Danny's confused as to why this vigilante keeps prepositioning him for battles" idea!

Okay, so, I know Damian went to live with Bruce when he was still a kid, 10 or something, but what if he joined the Batfam when he was older? Like imagine he's had an entire childhood and adolescence in the League of Assassins, so he's raised in this culture of being The Best (i.e., strongest fighter, intelligent and knowledgeable, etc.). And maybe the LoA typically follows the tradition of arranged marriages, but you may court someone if they're seen as an equal. Talia with Bruce, for example. And!! It's not courting like the "sweet serenading, fan-fluttering, going for a walk in a park with a chaperone" Bridgerton-type courting.

In the League of Assassins, you court by battling your intended's guardian to the death.

So, fast-forward to Damian learning how to assimilate into Gotham city culture. He still struggles to learn his place in the Batfam, but he's older and has a better grasp on his emotions; no trying to kill Tim, no constant threats of death and dismemberment, no jealously protecting the title of Heir. He's... kind of like Bruce actually. Damian is scarily competent, logical, and level-headed but super intense.

Danny, who's been living in Gotham for awhile and has gotten to know the Batfam fairly well, meets the newest addition while on patrol. Let's say he's still Phantom but cosplays as a Meta. Bruce let him stay in Gotham because he's a sucker for a black-haired, blue-eyed, abused kids.

Their introduction goes about as well as the Batfam expects. Damian is all business, only offering a quick nod and his name before returning his focus to patrol. Danny's maybe a bit taken aback but doesn't take it too personally since he'd already been given the rundown by Tim.

Damian and Danny end up patrolling together while Batman and Cass investigate some lead by the docks or something. Their night turns pretty badly when Clayface attacks. Damian ends up being the damsel in distress since he's only ever faced human enemies; even the deadliest opponents in the League could still be killed using swords or the usual combat weapons. Danny ends up using his powers to defeat Clayface before Batman can come back.

And then Danny goes home, content that he was able to let loose a little without Batman there to supervise him, and doesn't think about it after. Damian, however, is downright enamored because Danny was terrifying while fighting. His movements were lupine like a panther, a comfortability in his posture that spoke of decades in combat; his eyes turned Lazarus Pit green, chilling in its intensity. His skin took on a ghostly pallor and Damian could've sworn his teeth sharpened. He looked like a deity of War.

(Danny doesn't know this, of course; he was just happy to enjoy a really good fight since he hasn't unleased his Full Ghost powers in a long minute.)

A couple weeks pass and Danny's invited to a Wayne family dinner. Except when he shows up, Damian - who he thought he'd kind of bonded with since he'd literally saved the guy from Clayface - tries to kill him. Straight up: full assassin regalia, recently polished sword, genuinely throwing his all into the battle.

The Batfam try to intervene but Damian easily (and painfully, as Jason was flipped face-first into a table, Steph was stabbed, Dick broke his elbow) fought off. In the end, it was Danny who froze Damian and yelped a frazzled, "What the fuck, dude?" Bruce agreed to dethaw his son if he never, ever drew his sword at the dinner table again and explained why in the world he randomly attacked Danny unprompted.

Except Damian's response is to apologize and formally proposition Danny to a "battle to rights"... and the Batfam are all like, wtf?? What is that?? They're thinking maybe the rights to the Wayne inheritance, but Danny was never adopted by Bruce (he'd had enough of millionaires trying to adopt him so he'd politely declined all the Batfam's attempts to rope him into the family; Dick, Babs, and Jason of all people included).

The thing is that Danny's parents disowned him, he doesn't consider Vlad to be his guardian, and Jazz isn't really in the picture here. Bruce isn't considered his adopted father figure, either. So, Damian concluded the next reasonable course of action was to fight Danny for his right to marry him.

Cue months of hilarious misunderstandings where the Batfam try to keep Damian separated from Danny since he keeps trying to fight him... and worse, is that Damian loses every damn fight. Danny has non-human powers and endless knowledge of dead languages, cultures, space, history, etc. Damian likes him so, so much but he can't win the battle to rights and it's driving him insane!! He calls his mother to vent his frustrations and she only encourages him, tells him that he shouldn't want to marry someone he can beat so easily, that he picked his intended well.

It gets to the point where Damian's trying to use any and all knowledge of Danny's weaknesses. It just makes him more obsessed because there doesn't seem to be any (there are, but they aren't on Earth and/or are locked down in the Fenton Works labs, untraceable to anyone not in the GIW).

And Danny's just like, what the hell!! Why the hell is this guy targeting him over and over again? The worst part is that Damian is actually very intelligent and thoughtful - during their duels, they quip back and forth in ancient languages, discuss thought-proving topics, and when Danny beats him, they have a quiet moment to compliment each other's fighting styles. They discuss ancient history and art together. Damian is one of the few people who can actually match Danny's odd tidbits of random knowledge, as he'd been extensively educated while in the LoA.

Finally, Danny just asks, "Why do you keep trying to fight me?? Do you just hate me or something??" (He hopes not. Danny's starting to like Damian a bit too much, especially after their fights when Damian offers to cook him some of Alfred's most popular recipes. Danny's a terrible cook so he actually looks forward to having a surprisingly good meal, sans the attempted poisoning at times.)

And Damian just... stops. He's utterly flabbergasted and perhaps a little bit exasperated since it's been months of being unable to win the battle to rights. "Why would I request to court you if I hate you, habibi?"

Danny's like, "Huh???"

Damian explains how courting works in the LoA and why it's been on-sight ever since the Clayface fight. And everything just clicks for Danny!! He's also kind of... flattered? Like, he's never been wanted so badly that someone would fight to the death for him (Danny's just like "he's confused but he's got the spirit!" about the whole "if Danny doesn't have a guardian, I'll just fight him instead" logic).

So, he's like, "Of course, I'll date you!!"

It'd probably be an adjustment period since Damian's idea of a romantic date is watching his boyfriend go Full Ghost on supervillains. He'd just be heart-eyeing at him the entire time. And it's not like Danny's not having a good time!! He just expected there'd be more date-night activities and less patrol-night activities. So, Danny introduces Damian to more "regular" hobbies, like going to the zoo, movie nights, bookshop dates, etc.

(another side idea in my head is Damian introducing Danny to Talia and Ra's al Ghul, like, "This is Danny Fenton, my intended." But Danny is decked out in his Ghost King attire, crown included, and introduces himself as King of Infinite Realms, Space, and the Dead. Meanwhile his boyfriend is just looking at him with this look of utter besotted lovesick pride. There's so much potential!!)

#dpxdc #damian waye #danny fenton #danny phantom #batfam #dead serious #damian wayne x danny fenton #damian wayne x danny phantom #mine

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jinx-xxed · 22 days ago

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I need Remmick being so down bad for his human wife pretty please

Work Song

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆ .。.:*

A/N; I needed this too so thank you for this request 🙏 I love a man that’s down bad and obsessed, those are the best kind ^_^ the title for this one takes after Hozier’s Work Song of course since I was thinking about it while writing this :P I hope you enjoy, and thank you again for requesting!! (Also apologies for me going overboard, I got way too invested in the backstory and couldn’t stop myself :’D)

Summary; Remmick comes home to his wife.

Content; NSFW 18+, AFAB reader, human reader, down bad Remmick!!, soft Remmick, possessive Remmick, vampirism, cleaning him up, married to Remmick, soft sex, fingering, piv sex, cuddling, he doesn’t know how to handle “I love you”, fluff

Wc; 6.2k

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆ .。.:*

The house is dark and quiet when the door opens with the smallest squeak, resting on old hinges gone too long without oil.

The curtains are drawn tight, the material thicker than your typical run of the mill, assuring no light can sneak through the cracks. The air is fresh with recent movement, signs of a home well lived in with pictures hung on the wall and shoes in a small rack by the door. That’s where Remmick leaves his dust covered boots so he doesn’t track red speckled dirt all over your nice clean floors. He tosses his stained button up in the wash bin you set out for him too, just his white tank remaining as his suspenders fall loose around his hips. Stepping inside your place is like a balm on his unsettled, angry soul, letting him leave everything else behind just for a little while.

Your home is the only one he’s allowed himself to become familiar with, the only one he’s stayed at for longer than a couple months. He knows every hall, every creaky wooden floorboard, every small detail at an almost intimate level. He follows the path he’s gone down hundreds of times, the one that leads him right to your bedroom. Your scent brings him there just the same—sweet and flowery like a perfect spring day, a tantalizing whisper of iron hiding beneath.

Remmick nudges the bedroom door open, his eyes flickering in the dim lighting, red simmering in the blue-gray like the last embers of a dying fire. It’s strange how instantly something within him is calmed at the sight of you, something deep and possessive and maybe even predatory that finally quiets when it realizes you’re still here. Your form is tucked beneath the sheets, blissfully warm and cozy and utterly perfect. He sees a book tossed aside to the corner of the bed, like you’d tried to stay awake for him but ultimately gave up and fell asleep. He can hear your gentle breaths, the quiet thrum of your heart that taunts him.

His steps are near silent when he makes his way over to you. You lay on your stomach, a pillow hugged between both arms, your pretty mouth parted just slightly. You look serene in sleep, an angel come down to earth just for a devil like him. Remmick reaches forward, brushing a stray curl from your face with a tenderness most would think impossible for himself—with his hands that have taken too many lives to count, that are stained with blood every night. But with you they’re gentle, able to rediscover a mushy part of him that was buried centuries ago.

Your eyebrows pinch and you mumble indistinctly when his chilled hand rests on your cheek, relishing in the feeling of your soft skin beneath his calloused palm. He’s a little warmer tonight though, with fresh blood still flowing through him, but it’s never enough to completely chase off the cold bite of death. He leans down to pepper kisses across your face, steadily moving to your neck where he pauses, his blunt teeth teasing along your jugular and inhaling your scent like it’s a lifeline.

Under his attention is how you finally wake, shaken from meaningless dreams by frigid fingers and loving kisses. You smile lazily, stretching your arms and twisting so you’re on your back to face him. You paw at him, pulling him in with no resistance—he’d happily follow your touch wherever you wanted him to go. Your lips meet briefly, a pleased noise rumbling from him before you pull away. “You’re back.” You say, sleep still edging your words. You breathe him in contentedly, your fingers coming up to run through his short hair. He still has that signature metallic tang on him despite his efforts to clean up before coming home. “Was worried ‘bout you.”

“Aw darlin’, you ain’t have to do that. You know I’ll always come back to ya.” Remmick says, his deep voice sending a pleasant shiver down your spine. One of his hands rests above the covers on your waist now, the weight of it comforting and familiar. He huffs, shaking his head. “Shit, thought ‘bout ya all night.”

It’s true, he really was thinking about you the whole time—something he finds himself doing a lot recently. He thinks about you from the moment he leaves your house because of the undeniable call of his hunger, all the way to when he finally returns hours later. He’ll think about wishing he could stay around when your eyes start to droop and the mortal need for sleep takes you away, when you subconsciously curl into him searching for warmth that isn’t there. He hates having to move you off of him so he can go, so he can step out into the unforgiving darkness of night in search of a life to steal. You do make the cutest little noises though, something like a disgruntled cat’s. He’ll tuck you in real nice and kiss you sweetly to make sure you don’t miss him too much, and so he can seal the image in his memory to keep him motivated—a reminder of what he gets to come home to.

“You were gone for so long.” You say with a small pout, holding his face in your hands, his light stubble tickling your palms. The gold ring you wear glints in the darkness, a twin to his own.

He tilts his head so his lips connect with your hand, nuzzling into your touch that he always seems to crave. “Just got caught up with some things s’all.” He’d cut it close tonight, the sun appearing like a reckoning seconds after he’d shut the door. “I’m here now, darlin’.”

You smile at that, pulling him in again to kiss him, enjoying the taste of him. There’s always something metallic hiding beneath every bit of him, something too old for your mind to comprehend, something otherworldly. For most it would be unnerving and terrifying but for you, that’s just your husband, your Remmick. You’d accepted that when you agreed to marry him about three years ago, opening your arms and home to him and every unnatural part that came with him.

It was two years before that when you’d actually met him, the memory always sitting clear in your mind like it happened yesterday.

You’d spent the whole day baking—cookies, pies, cobblers, tarts… the list went on as you prepared for the market happening in town the next morning. You prided yourself on your baked goods, and people always bought you out. The whole house smelled of your efforts, the scent carrying out the open windows and into the trees beyond. You hadn’t heard it at first, the whispers in the leaves, the way all the animals went silent, the world seeming to hold its breath for just a moment. You’d been too busy singing a song you knew by heart as you were prone to do whenever working in the kitchen. (Remmick has told you countless times how much he adores your voice, he says it’s like a fine wine).

You were rotating the food left to cool on the windowsill when you saw him, standing out there by the tree line, watching you with eyes that at first gave you the willies. “Hey there,” you’d called, watching as he flinched at the sound of your voice, “what brings ya over?”

He’d taken a few curious steps towards the house, letting you get a better look at him. Worn button up loosely tucked into high waisted trousers, a white tank hidden beneath, suspenders over the shoulders, old boots, and a banjo slung across his back. He looked like a man who traveled often, never staying in one place long enough to learn the style of it. His face looked kind, set with strong features on stocky shoulders that suggested he was no stranger to hard work. His short black hair was messy but in a presentable way, curled bangs sitting on his forehead. Still, you knew there was something deeper about him that was off, that didn’t belong in your realm of living.

His hands were loosely in his pockets and he shrugged. “Smelled somethin’ mighty sweet, heard somethin’ even sweeter. You got a beautiful voice, darlin’.” He’d given you a close-lipped smile, one that made his eyes crinkle at the edges. His southern drawl was thick like syrup, coated across every word with something mixed in that you couldn’t quite place.

“Oh, I‘ve got years of church choir to thank for that.” You’d joked. You’d tilted your head. “Would you like to try anything, sir? I could always use a taste tester.”

He’d hesitated for a moment longer than would be normal, as if debating something serious in his mind, before shaking his head. He chuckled. “Nah, I’m tryin’ to cut back.”

“Aw, that’s a shame. If you change your mind, I’ll be at the market tomorrow. Feel free to stop by.” You’d said. He’d smiled back at you in a way that suggested he knew something you didn’t, told you that you wouldn’t be seeing him at the market or any day after that.

As soon as the sun went down though, he continued appearing in your backyard. He never stayed long at first, only sticking around to strike up a brief conversation. You’d learned his name, Remmick, and he had learned yours. Your name was always soft on his tongue, like he needed to be careful with something precious. He listened to you talk like you spoke the gospel, reverence in those blue-gray eyes as he never missed a word. In turn he would tell you stories of a time long ago, weaving vibrant imagery that made you feel as if you were standing in the green fields of a country far away. It confirmed things about him that you already suspected, like how he wasn’t from here at all, that he came from something hundreds or maybe even thousands of years old.

You’d sit on your little porch swing while he’d remain in the grass leaning against the railing, never truly breaching the line of your home. The night was warm and muggy, and there was a lull in your conversation, causing your gaze to travel to the banjo he continued to carry with him. “You any good on that thing?” You’d asked with a nod towards it.

Remmick huffed. “I like to think I am.”

You smirked. “Play me somethin’.”

He’d given you that signature smile. “Well, can’t deny a pretty thing like you, can I?”

He was always quick to flatter you, and you had to admit it was getting to you a little, something foreign fluttering in your chest. He’d swung the instrument around, resting it in deft hands and idly strumming a string or two as he thought about what to play. He’d then struck the first few chords and you quickly realized you recognized the song, it being one your family had shared together for years. You couldn’t help but sing along, shutting your eyes and letting yourself feel the music within as your body swayed. It meant that you missed the way Remmick looked at you, like you were heaven come to earth, adoration and reverence burning in his eyes like the hottest fire. That was the moment something clicked into place for him, that cemented his need to have you in whatever way he could.

He was downright obsessed with you. He couldn’t stay away from you and your sweet voice, your mouth watering smell, your entire being that seemed to be kissed by the sun. He knew he’d do anything to stay in your warmth, in your blessing. He kept coming by night after night, staying as long as his hunger allowed or until you couldn’t stop yawning and finally headed to bed with a sleepy goodnight. Part of him wished to follow you inside, thinking of how easy it’d be to take you in the carnal way he secretly desired, to lock you to him for eternity, but Remmick always held back, another part of him not wanting to ruin what you have. After all, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a civil conversation with someone that didn’t end with their blood smeared along his face. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been shown such simple kindness, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so human.

You didn’t know how much time passed like that, with easy talks and shared songs into the late hours when everybody else would be asleep. You always kept your physical distance, as did he, like some unspoken understanding. The emotional distance was another story, something that was shortening by the day. Feelings were blooming into something out of control, mixing with your desire in order to make a sickly concoction.

You both knew you were onto him, onto the fact he was something unnatural and ancient, but you never bothered to bring it up. You’d heard enough stories from your momma about things like him, you understood how dangerous they were but… you couldn’t find it in yourself to chase him off. You’d grown too fond of him, of his stupid smile and charming words, his endless stories and soothing voice. He felt much the same and yet… you were at some kind of mutual standstill, neither of you quite knowing what to do with it.

Until the one night he didn’t show up.

You’d waited. You’d sat on the porch with furrowed brows and downturned lips, disappointment sitting heavy behind your heart. Had he gotten bored of you? Decided to disappear without a word? You’d supposed it wasn’t a shock, it happened to you all the time. You gave him an hour before you sighed in defeat, heading back inside so the bugs didn’t eat you alive for nothing. You tried to ignore the hurt you felt, knowing it was useless to feel it over someone—something—like him. He didn’t owe you anything, hell, you were lucky he hadn’t killed you. Maybe it was some kind of sign. You’d gone to bed just as thunder rumbled outside, lightning flickering between the clouds.

You were woken hours later by a knock on your back door. You’d grumbled and wrapped a robe around yourself, trudging down the hall and to the kitchen, eyeing the silhouette hidden behind the mesh screen. There was something whispering to not open it, to protect yourself and just crawl right back into bed. You noticed the silence that had settled around your home, the one that made the frogs quiet and the crickets cease their songs, the one always followed by a familiar figure. You knew something was off, could feel it in your bones, but it didn’t stop you from opening that door.

You’d gasped so sharply that it hurt, your body stumbling back a step. Remmick stood there, blood covering his front half, his eyes gleaming a deep red that reflected in the same way an animal’s did. The whole way he carried himself was different, more predatory and deadly, poised to kill at a moments notice. His clothes were disshelved, his bangs plastered to his forehead from sweat. The wind carried the smell of him to you, ancient earth and leather tainted with the iron of blood. He opened his mouth and you saw the teeth sharpened to fangs, coated with his meal.

He smiled at you, and it was no longer one that made your heart flutter. It sent a cold shiver down your spine. “You gon’ let me in, darlin’? Or just keep starin’?”

He liked the way you looked at him then, like everything finally snapped into place for you. Mixed with your fear was a kind of defiance, like you were trying to tell yourself not to be frightened. He liked you seeing him for what he truly was, liked knowing you still wouldn’t cower. It’s what made you step aside and say those simple words, even though you knew your momma was surely rolling in her grave at your stupidity.

Something heavy shifted when he stepped inside your home. Something that told you it could never be undone and you’d have to bear the consequences, but you found that you didn’t care. “So that’s what you are,” you muttered, “a vampire.” You’d heard of them before from your momma, you knew how to kill one. You were pretty sure there was even some kind of emergency kit hidden in a closet somewhere.

Remmick chuckled low and dark, shaking his head. “You knew this whole time and you ain’t ever run or scream or cry…” He smirked, triumphant. “I knew you was somethin’ special, darlin’.”

He sat in a chair at your dining table like it belonged to him, his eyes traveling around your home as he swallowed down every bit of information he could glean about you. The floral designs on the dish cloths, portraits hung on the walls, keepsakes littering empty spaces, and a thick recipe book sitting on the counter—all of it a testament to you, the woman he didn’t stop thinking about night after night. Your scent was so heavy in your home it made it feel like he was breathing in a drug every time he inhaled and fuck- he couldn’t get enough. He wanted it to live inside him, he wanted you to make your home in his veins, in the space between his ribs. He wanted you with him forever.

He watched with a predator’s gaze as you filled a bowl with water, desperate to do something to keep yourself busy. It was brave of you to keep your back to him, but it was like you knew he wouldn’t do anything unless you asked. He’d get on his knees for you if you wanted, he’d beg just to hear his name fall from your lips.

You grabbed one of your pretty little dish rags, setting it and the bowl next to him while you sat in front of him, so close your knees almost touched. He could tell how much you were trying to hide your fear from your expression but he still saw it in your furrowed brows and pressed lips and your eyes that were just a bit too wide. “I’m scarin’ ya.” He said it like a fact, one without room for dispute. His fierce red irises bore into yours, seeing everything you wanted to hide. You went to protest, your trembling mouth opening before he shushed you. “Don’t lie. I can smell it.” It was potent and intoxicating, seeping from your pores and making drool threaten to fall down his chin.

“I ain’t scared of you.” You said with a false confidence. You dipped the rag into the warm water and suddenly grabbed his face in one hand as if to prove it, shocking the both of you with your boldness. Remmick visibly shuddered under your touch, his eyes fluttering briefly and a small noise coming from him, even as your fingers dug into the plush of his cheeks. Oh, how long he’d waited to feel your hands on him, the warmth of your humanity, the softness of your skin. He couldn’t believe he’d gone this long without it, without something that was clearly so vital to his very existence. He knew then he could never go another day without touching you.

“Don’t want you makin’ a mess in my house.” You muttered like an excuse, dragging the rag across his upper lip and moving down, taking the blood with it. He was more than willing to relax into your ministrations, letting you clean him as if he was a child. Nobody had ever done it for him before, after all. He watched you all the while—the crease between your brows, the determined curve of your mouth, studying every detail and committing it to memory.

“I ain’t a stranger to blood, you know. My daddy used to be a doctor.” You began after a good few minutes, talking to keep yourself distracted from the reality of your situation. Remmick didn’t mind of course, he loved your voice more than life itself. His attention immediately shifted towards the sound like a dog with its ears perked.

“Used to?” He’d asked.

“He died in the war. Momma went soon after, they basically said heartbreak caused her stroke n’ killed her.” Your head shook. “She really loved that man to death. Couldn’t blame her, he was the kindest soul you’d ever meet. Always helpin’ the poor and needy, bringing ‘em into the house to heal ‘em when they couldn’t afford their bills. He’d make me help sometimes, getting fresh water and whatnot. That’s why you ain’t nothin’ special.”

“How sweet of ya.” Remmick teased, his fangs showing with his uneven smile.

You’d ignored him, rubbing the cloth along his collarbones and across the gold chain he wore, clearly beginning to discolor from age. The water in the bowl had long since turned red, your dishrag officially ruined but it was the least of your concerns (and Remmick had gotten you a new one later on).

When you’d deemed him clean enough, you moved to get up and dump the bloody water before his large, cold hand latched onto your wrist, stopping you abruptly. It was like the tension was pulled taught as a bowstring at that moment, some small seedling of doubt in you saying he was about to kill you while he just stared at where your bodies were connected. It was slow and purposeful when Remmick brought your hand up to his mouth and ran his lips along your palm, breathing you in, tasting you with darts of his tongue. You felt the flush crawl up the back of your neck and across your cheeks, watching as he nuzzled into your hand, looking at you with those wide red eyes, every reminder of the last couple months together hanging there. Every shared story, every vulnerability, every song sung together.

“I need ya, sweet thing, shoot- I’ve needed ya since that first day. I’ll treat ya nice and good, I swear it on my dead heart.” Remmick said to you, his words thick, heavy, and gravelly with his desire. “You’ll never want for nothin’, darlin’, I’ll give ya everythin’, I promise. Please, baby, let me prove it to ya-“

He continued to kiss along your arm, so determined to show you the truth behind his words, to make you give in to him with murmured pleas and prayers. He relished in the taste of you, his breaths growing labored from his excitement. You stopped him with your hands on either side of his face to pull him back, his lips parted and shiny with spit, his eyes still glowing red but full of unbridled desire for you. You already knew your answer, had known it the whole time. You were so tired of being alone, so tired of searching for someone, anyone, to love you and understand you. You didn’t care that the only one who did was a monster in the body of a man—there was something about it that made it even sweeter.

So you’d agreed.

There was only a second of pause, like Remmick was processing it, those simple words that tilted his entire world, before he was on you. He kissed you with such ferocity, such possession, his hands roaming all over you, gripping you so tightly you had no choice but to submit to him. He’d swept you up with ease, carrying you into your bedroom where he’d fucked you stupid until the sun rose, pulling more orgasms from you than you thought possible, pinning you beneath his sweat soaked body and filling you again and again, whispering his thanks and devotions the entire time. You’d slept through the whole day after that with Remmick cradling you against his cooled body, encasing you in his arms like he was afraid you’d take it all back if he let go.

That was how you fell into the routine of your relationship. He’d spend the light hours tucked away inside the safety of your house while you went about your day, then he’d leave most nights in search of food before coming back hours later and fucking you senseless, exhilarated from both the hunt and seeing you again. Remmick made you feel more loved and protected than you ever had before, always saying praises and promises into your skin like a prayer you’d hear in church, always giving you everything he had to offer. He’d sometimes even bring you gifts after his hunts, little things he knew you’d like. Fresh berries he stole from a garden or farm, beautiful flowers to go right on the table, a book or two he was able to snag off somebody.

It went on like this for months, and then it became a year, then two, until Remmick couldn’t take it anymore and he decided he needed you in a way that was deeper than what he’d been indulging in. It didn’t mean you getting bit, no, not yet, it meant you got presented with a pretty gold ring that matched his own. He asked you to marry him on a warm summers night, when fireflies were dancing outside and the critters of the moon were singing their songs. You’d said yes without hesitation, flinging your arms around him and kissing him until you both ran out of breath. You’d spent the rest of the moon hours dancing and singing and making love, too full of joy to do much else.

It was the best way for Remmick to have you forever, for every other man to know you belonged to him. He knew that one day he would bite you, he would drain the life from your body, he’d taste the sweet nectar of your blood that he so craved, he’d make you just like him and truly keep you for eternity. But that day wasn’t coming anytime soon.

He refused to be greedy just this once, deciding he wasn’t ready to take away your love of sunny days and the warmth of your skin, the thrum of a pulse in your veins. He wasn’t ready to ruin the simple pleasures of being a human being. But he knew he could never stand to lose you to something as menial as old age, or stand by and let some tragedy befall you. Biting you is like his sick way of protecting you, of showing you his love and devotion, even if you don’t know it yet, even if it takes you time to understand. It’d happen no matter what, he knew, but he’d let you enjoy those bright days in ignorance a little while longer.

Remmick can smell it on you now, the hours you’d spent in the sun earlier today, selling your baked goods at the market. The coldness within his bones seeks out your heat, desperate to bask in it and take it for his own. You give him a pleased hum as he grips your waist, blankets being moved aside to reveal your body to him. You’re pliant in his hold, always eager to give in, always eager to let him take control. It’s nice when you can step outside of yourself and just be, something you’ve only been able to do with him.

You can tell that he’s softer this time, his touch more reverent, something about it full of more longing like he’s memorizing every bit of you. He holds you like a man making love to his wife, not a monster clutching his possession so nobody else takes it. His mouth on yours is sensual, a twin to the hands beneath your nightdress, steadily bunching the material up your body so the air kisses along your flesh and leaves goosebumps in its wake.

“Shit, darlin’, yer too perfect.” Remmick mutters, nearly breathless as he looks down at you, your supple curves, the expanse of your breasts and stomach that nearly has him drooling—not from hunger, but from pure want- no, pure need for you. Even after all this time, his attention still makes you squirm, your thighs squeezing together subconsciously. His eyes track the movement like a predator, the burning hue of red steadily consuming his irises once more.

One of his hands moves lower, parting your legs with ease and running his fingers along your clothed cunt. He hums to himself, feeling the way your wetness has dampened your underwear. “Missed me, huh?” He says, his crooked teeth showing in his smirk. He loves that all you can do is nod, a pathetic little noise coming from you. The scent of your arousal hits him like a truck, a guttural groan tearing from his chest as it seems to ignite his blood with desire. You smell so goddamn sweet, like the ripest fruit sitting ready for him to take and sink his teeth into.

Your underwear is moved aside and you jolt at that first contact, his fingers dragging up through your folds and collecting your slick. You whimper as he buries his face in the crook of your neck again, a deep groan coming from him with his inhale. As his thumb rolls your clit, his other hand comes up to knead a breast beneath his palm, the cold metal of his ring nipping at your skin. You can feel the way Remmick’s chest heaves against you, his desperate breaths fanning across your throat between his open-mouthed kisses.

You gasp when two fingers sink into your heat, your hands coming to scrabble at his shoulders. You always take him easily, your body attuned to him alone, like he’s branded into your very essence. It drives him crazy. “Fuck, Remmick-“ You whine, arching into his touch. He responds instantly to you saying his name; a harsher squeeze to your breast, a little show of his teeth against your neck, his hips rutting against you in search of friction. His name coming from you is like touching two wires together, sending sparks through his rotten veins. He’d happily walk into the sun as long as your voice is the last thing he hears.

You writhe under his weight, pleasure running like a wildfire beneath your skin. He devours every moan, whine, and gasp he pulls out of you, his erection painful in his pants from his lust and need. His fingers draw in and out of your cunt in smooth motions, pressing against the spots that have you keening, scissoring you open while your slick coats his palm. His thumb traces quick circles over your clit, listening to the way your body sings for him. He knows you’re close, your noises raising in pitch, your nails digging into his back, your pussy clenching around his fingers.

“C’mon darlin’, give it to me.” Remmick encourages, lifting just enough to look at your face, your expression twisted with pleasure. Tears edging the corners of your eyes, your pretty mouth dropped open, your cheeks flushed. Your hands rest of either side of his jaw, drawing him in and kissing him deeply as your orgasm crashes over you. He groans appreciatively while you moan into his mouth, shudders wracking your body. He rides you through your orgasm, steadily bringing you down from that high as he practically engulfs you with his muscled form like he needs there to not be a singular inch of space between you. “My sweet girl.” He whispers against your mouth, a string of spit connecting you, his eyes ablaze with his desire.

As your underwear is tossed to some unknown corner, he fumbles with the buckle of his belt, shoving it aside to finally free his aching cock, precum beading at the tip. He runs his slick-covered hand along his length, happily coating himself in your release. He gives a sound halfway between a hum and a moan. “Fuck, darlin’, I need ya…” He practically gasps against your collarbones, his cock slipping between your folds, collecting the remainder of your cum. “Need ya so bad.”

You both moan in tandem when he at last thrusts into you, his hips flush to yours and filling you so completely in the way he’s done countless times before. His hand suddenly finds yours, your fingers intertwining and gripping on to the other so tightly it’s like you’re scared they’ll disappear if you let go. He draws out to the tip only to then slam back in, ecstasy simmering in his veins now that he can take you. He bites your skin between his blunt teeth, teasing that goldmine of ambrosia waiting just beneath, calling to him. He’s dreamt of the day he can finally drink from you, can finally have more than just the few drops that bubble to the surface from a cut or him biting too hard. He pushes those thoughts away now, not daring to tempt his appetite and instead focusing on the way your pussy holds onto him like a vice.

Your free hand comes up to card through his sweat-soaked hair, his short bangs plastered to his forehead. You grip at the strands for purchase as he sets an unrelenting, steady pace, his desperate pleas and vows to you a constant in your ear. You know for a fact no man’s ever loved you the way he does, no man’s ever been this desperate for you, so willing to get on his knees just for you to look at him. You welcomed him in, gave him something to hold on to and call his own, some place to belong—and he’ll spend the rest of his eternity showing you his gratitude.

You moan loud after a particularly harsh thrust, his grip on you tightening as he hits that sweet spot inside of you, the one that knocks the breath from your lungs and has you seeing stars. “So beautiful, sweet girl, y’sound so nice.” Remmick pants, his drool that’s begun to fall smearing along your skin. “Feel so good, so fuckin’ tight fer me.”

You practically chant his name mixed with a slew of curses, voice punctuated by his rutting into you. He has you pinned to the mattress, his muscles flexing against you with his efforts, making sure you stay right where he wants you. He licks up your neck, tasting the saltiness of your sweat, inhaling the drug that is your scent, heightened by your pleasure and mixed with something intoxicating. His groan falls off into a whine, mind overridden by his adoration for you and his lust, chasing the release he can feel building.

He knows it’s the same for you, he can feel your flutters around his cock, that knot within you growing to the point of soon coming undone. His free hand releases your hip to find your clit, rubbing jerky, uneven circles over the sensitive bud while you writhe in an attempt to get away from the overload of pleasure. Remmick never gives you the chance, your body tensing as that second orgasm crashes over you like an angry wave, your noises becoming broken and breathless.

Remmick’s eyes nearly roll back from the way your pussy grips his cock, his forehead falling to your chest as he tries to laugh and fails. “Shit, suckin’ me in. Fuck, sweet thing- I can’t-“ He manages one last thrust before he cums deep inside you, his words breaking off with a wail, your walls painted white with his spend.

You both lay there for a moment, motionless in the aftermath of release, combined sweat covering your bodies and your hands still locked together. You and him shudder when his cock slips out of you, your shared cum beginning to seep from you in his absence.

Remmick is the first to regain himself, as always, his lips leaving gentle kisses on the space between your breasts and up your throat and jaw before reaching your mouth. He kisses you sweetly, then pulling back to bring your hand to his lips, leaving a gentle kiss on your knuckles, on your wedding ring. “My perfect girl.” He murmurs. “So good to me.”

You smile tiredly, your arms slinging across his shoulders. “Could say the same to you.” You tease. You then sigh contentedly, bringing him in and encouraging him to lay on your chest. “I love you, Remmick, I hope you know that.”

Those three words, so simple and yet so damning, always make him stop. He has to run them over in his mind, like he doesn’t believe they can actually be said to a thing like him. His hold on your hips tightens, his face nuzzling into you as if to hide from that phrase. “‘Course I do. Love you too, darlin’.” He mumbles, the words still foreign on his old tongue. Your smile softens, your fingers running soothingly through his hair. You pull the covers back up around you both, encasing him in the warmth that he lacks.

Outside, you can hear the familiar early morning sounds of the South; the birds chirping, the bugs buzzing in their swarms, and the occasional car sputtering by. The world wakes up beyond your reinforced curtains, basking in the sunlight that Remmick so violently hides away from. He knows that in a few hours you’ll go out and join them, greeting your neighbors and sharing recent news, playing a game of normalcy so nobody asks too many questions about the husband they’ve never seen.

But for right now, he’ll enjoy being able to hold you and feel your body right against his, your steady heartbeat drumming in his ear as sleep pulls you away. He’ll enjoy having you all to himself in the safety of the dark before you step out into the daylight and leave him behind.

#finally finished editing this omg #sorry for the wait!!#I hope this is alright 🧎#sinners Remmick #remmick #remmick x reader #remmick smut #vampire fanfic #jinx-xxed asks

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chahnniesroom · 8 months ago

Text

night again

pairing: bang chan x female reader

summary: in hindsight, visiting chan's studio right before a comeback isn't one of your best ideas. what was supposed to be a pleasant surprise leaves you spiraling into self-doubt, wondering if chan even wants to be in a relationship with you at all.

word count: 6.4k

tags/warnings: angst, hurt/comfort, misunderstandings, insecurities, reader not eating due to stress

a/n: the long awaited 'he calls you clingy' fic! title is from the english translation of 또 다시 밤 (twilight)

read it on ao3 | masterlist

You love your job. It's challenging for sure and the expectations from upper management are often unforgiving, but you’re proud of how hard you've worked and everything that you've accomplished in the past few years at your company.

As you've gained experience, you've slowly been given more and more responsibility. You've grown out of your junior role and though you're thrilled by the pay raise and prospect of being a team lead rather than being led by one, it's also daunting.

When you and your new team are assigned an important project with tight deadlines, you're determined to prove yourself. It's implied that you're going to have to have to dedicate a significant amount of time to finish it and while you're no stranger to long hours, it means that any plans you have of seeing your boyfriend, Chan, are out the window.

The timing is not terrible, Stray Kids has a comeback scheduled in about a week so you didn't think that you would be able to spend that much time with Chan anyway, but you usually try to surprise the boys at one of the music shows with a cake and some home cooked food.

Luckily, you've already been planning for this. Although nothing had been confirmed, you had expected that this project would be awarded to your company and you've already been trying to spend more time with Chan than usual in preparation for the busy season ahead for both of you.

Still, you can't help but agree with your best friend at work after she complains how little she's going to see her partner this month. Jinjoo doesn't know who your boyfriend is, but the two of you are close enough that you’ve shared that you have one and that work takes up a lot of his time. You've gushed to her about the sweet things that Chan has done for you and you've admitted that you think he's the one.

“You should bring him dinner sometime!” she exclaims when you mention you're not sure when the next time you'll be able to see Chan will be.

“Well, he’s really busy-” you start to say.

“That’s the beauty of it. I’m sure he would appreciate if you brought him food at work, especially if he’s anything like my partner and gets so caught up with work that they forget to eat sometimes,” she insists.

“That’s true.”

“Just trust me, Y/n. I wouldn’t be telling you this if I wasn’t sure that it’d work. My partner loves when I do this. It’s literally the perfect way to take some time for each other before you’re both too busy. Even if he's super busy, his work can't be bad enough that he’s not allowed to eat, right?”

You agree somewhat reluctantly. You're still unsure about whether or not Chan would appreciate you barging in unannounced, but it is a cute idea and Jinjoo's confidence is enough to convince you.

The next day after work, you head to the company and order takeout for a late dinner for you and Chan, picking it up along the way. It reminds you of earlier in your relationship before you had gotten your current position and when Stray Kids were just gaining popularity. Both of you enjoyed having more casual date nights that provided more privacy as opposed to going out to fancy places and it makes you even more excited to see his reaction.

About a year after you started dating Chan, he insisted that you get a pass to get into JYP Entertainment without having to fill out a visitor's form and have someone pick you up. It has definitely come in handy more than a few times, although you try to limit the number of visits you make. Even though you're allowed to be there, it still feels intimidating to be in the building, like someone is going to recognize that you're not an employee and accuse you of being a sasaeng.

Luckily the late hour means that you make it to Chan's studio without having to interact with anybody except the security at the door, who had waved you through without a second thought. You had double checked with Felix earlier in the day to make sure that Chan didn't have any schedules or dinner plans, so you directly knock on his door without texting or calling him beforehand.

“Y/n?” he asks, a bit baffled when he sees you. “Did we- Did I forget that we had plans tonight?”

“No,” you say, a little nervous for some reason. It's just Chan, you tell yourself, but it doesn't make you feel any better. “I didn't think that you had dinner yet and wanted to see you.”

“Oh, I see. Come in,” Chan responds slowly, still processing your sudden appearance. “I just have something that I need to finish up-”

“It's fine! You can work,” you assure him quickly. “I don't want to interrupt you too much, I just wanted to drop by since I don't have plans and wanted to make sure that you're eating well.”

Chan’s studio isn’t messy at all, but he still gets up to clear some space on a side table for you, before returning back to where he has Cubase opened up. You pass over his food and feel relieved when he immediately digs in, but your appetite seems to have vanished, you can only get yourself to pick at your meal.

Chan is short with his responses all evening and continues to work on his laptop, even while eating. It throws you off a bit, you thought that he would be able to get to a stopping point and at least make a bit of time for you, but you did tell him that he could. Even so, you're determined to make the most of the last time that you’re going to see them for a while. You know they’ve been super busy the past few days, or more like the past few weeks, but still you had thought he would be a little bit more engaged or at the very least seem happy to see you.

Finally, after half an hour of eating with minimal conversation, you decide to broach the subject that’s been on your mind this entire time. Chan’s finished his food and you know that you won’t be able to get yourself to eat anymore, so you shuffle everything off to the side and inch closer to Chan.

“You know that client we’ve been trying to work with for a while?” you start tentatively.

Chan hums noncommittally, continuing to type on his computer. Not quite the reaction that you're hoping for, but you forge on anyway.

“We got awarded the job! It’s a great opportunity for the company and everyone is really excited, but-”

“Y/n,” he interrupts. “I’m sorry, that’s amazing and all, but you know that it’s not a good time for me right now. I have something I really need to work on and now that you’ve finished eating, can we please not bother with the small talk?”

“Oh,” you say, a bit caught off guard. Chan has never been the type to cut you off when you're speaking. “No, yeah, I get it. Uhm. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, just-” he sighs, sounding frustrated. “Next time can you please ask me when you want to visit in advance so this doesn’t happen again? You chose the worst timing to come by. I just need some space, from all of… this,” he says, waving a hand between the two of you.

“Sorry, I know it’s a busy time, but I just wanted to see-”

At that moment, an alarm on Chan's phone goes off, interrupting you. When he turns it off and notices the time, he swears lowly, unlocking his phone and typing out a message to somebody. You’re scared to break the silence. Less than a minute later, someone knocks on the door.

“Come in,” Chan calls. When Changbin and Jisung step into the room, they eye you curiously. You keep your head down and try to prevent your hands from shaking as you stand and start to haphazardly shove away all your belongings and the garbage from your dinner into bags.

“Noona, it's good to see you!” Jisung says brightly, although his smile dims when you make eye contact and can only manage to weakly return the smile. “Sorry for interrupting you two.”

“Hi Hannie,” you reply quietly, not wanting to make conversation, but not wanting to be rude.

“It’s okay, Y/n was just leaving,” Chan says, his obvious annoyance making things even more awkward.

You say bye to the boys quietly and apologise as you shuffle past them to the door.

The handles of the bag from your dinner are digging into your hand painfully and your purse can’t close with the way that you’ve thrown everything into it. You only take a few steps before you have to stop for a moment to save a container from falling and decide to put down everything and reorganise it all.

When you crouch down, you take a second to mentally berate yourself. Everything you had worried about had come true. Instead of being a pleasant surprise, you had come across as a nuisance.

In your rush, you hadn't fully closed the studio door behind you and you're close enough that you can just barely pick up the conversation that happens inside.

“Sorry,” you hear Chan say faintly. “I don't know what's been going on, but Y/n has been… really clingy these days. She just showed up today without asking and I hate-”

You leave before he has the chance to say anything else. You look like a mess for sure, you had just grabbed all the empty containers without bothering to put them back into the plastic bag, your jacket is partially dragging on the ground, and your purse is hanging off your elbow, having slipped off your shoulder. You're pretty sure you hear an empty drink bottle clatter to the floor behind you, but you don't look back to check.

You don't have it in you to care, you just need to leave.

Even waiting for the elevator feels humiliating, so you bypass it and stumble down the stairs. You dump the garbage into a bin on the first floor, not bothering to sort it properly, and step out onto the street, bee-lining to the nearest subway station.

The ride home passes by in a blur.

It hurts, of course it hurts.

Honestly the reason that your relationship had worked out so far was because you weren’t the kind of person that needed a lot of attention. You understood that both of you were busy and were content to just exchange messages every couple of days because you knew how important Stray Kids was to Chan. Of course you did, they were just as important to you.

If Chan wanted space, well. You were more than capable of giving it to him.

In fact, your upcoming schedule had been the reason that you had wanted to meet up in the first place, the source of your so-called clinginess. You’d never been called that before. You were hyper-independent and tended to get lost in your own mind, easily distracted by different thoughts. It had gotten to a point that most of your exes had complained at least once about you being distant or inattentive.

With Chan, you had been determined not to be the same. It had been difficult at first, to make the effort to send messages throughout the day. You had to convince yourself not to spend too long drafting replies in your head and try not to worry that you were bothering him, especially if you knew that he had schedules at the same time that you were texting.

By the time that you make it to your apartment, your pain has faded into a mixture of resignation and numbness. You don't want to talk to Chan about how you feel, it's your clinginess that he didn't like in the first place, and you don't think you'll have time or the energy for a long, emotional conversation in the next few weeks anyway. If you keep your distance for a while, it just benefits both of you, you tell yourself. You won’t be a distraction to Chan as Stray Kids has their comeback and he won’t be one to you as you take on this new project.

As much as you want to spend the rest of your night overthinking- something you’ve done more than you’d like to admit- you know that you have a busy day at work tomorrow. Feeling a bit like a zombie, you force yourself to shuffle through your usual nighttime routine, swallowing a melatonin pill before climbing into bed.

Normally, you would send Chan a good night message. Actually, normally you would have sent him a message the second that you arrived home. It was something that he was insistent on starting from early on in your relationship, wanting to make sure that you were safe.

Tonight, you just turn off your phone, plug it into its charger, and sleep.

—

In the morning, you allow yourself to wallow in bed for 5 minutes, before you get ready for work. You’ve never been good at eating breakfast and today’s no exception. Your stomach turns uneasily at the thought of food so you only force yourself to drink some water before you leave.

Your team at work has agreed to get to work earlier than usual just to get a headstart on everything. Though you’re more of a night owl, you’re grateful to find that deviating from your usual routine means that the subway is empty enough that you can find an empty seat, a luxury that you’ve rarely experienced.

It feels eerie to walk through the streets of Seoul when the sun has just started to rise and you’re relieved when you finally make it to your office.

Unsurprisingly, you’re one of the first to arrive. You’re grateful for the time that you have to unpack your things and make a much needed coffee before the rest of your team shows up.

“How did it go last night?” Jinjoo asks you excitedly when she comes in.

“Uhm, it was okay,” you reply noncommittally. “He was definitely surprised.”

“Oh,” Jinjoo pouts at your lack of enthusiasm.

“I mean, it wasn’t bad,” you backtrack, hating to see her disappointed. “It was just so short, he was kind of… busy. But that’s what I expected anyway so that's fine I guess. Thanks for suggesting it to me though! I really appreciate it.”

“That’s good,” Jinjoo brightens. “At least you got to see him one last time.”

“Oh yeah for sure! I think that after seeing him yesterday, it’ll be easier to deal with how busy we’re going to be for the next few weeks,” you say truthfully.

It’s not a lie, you justify. For the first time since you started dating, you’re not looking forward to the next time that you’re going to see Chan.

You know that your communication is about to reduce to an all time low for the next few weeks, and while you had originally been worried about how Chan would react, now you’re thinking that he’s just going to be relieved not to hear from you. You’ve never thought yourself to have been overly chatty with Chan during the day though, preferring in-person conversation over texting and knowing that he’s generally not available to read your messages anyway, much less send you a reply. It seemed that you were wrong.

Luckily your team now has to use a shared box that you’re required to put your personal phones into during working hours and only have a little bit of time during lunch and dinner breaks, if you take them, to fish them out. It’s a policy that your company enforces when teams are working on confidential projects and you can’t blame them due to past litigation that they’ve been involved in after a former employee leaked sensitive information.

For once, you're glad for this excuse to not look at your phone, even if you feel a little bit naked to look at the side of your desk or reach into your pocket and not have your phone there. You’re relieved to bury yourself in your work and forget all about your personal life. Even though your project is just starting, you feel like you're already behind.

When you're finished work for the day and take back your phone, you find yourself reluctant to check your notifications. It's only when you're waiting for the subway to arrive at your station that you finally force yourself to take a look.

No new messages or calls from Chan.

You’re not sure what you expected, but somehow you’re still disappointed.

You get back to your apartment late, you had wanted to finish a couple of things before you left the office and it had led to you being one of the last to leave. You had also stopped by the convenience store closest to your place, not having the energy to cook anything for yourself.

You pick at your dinner half-heartedly. You're used to eating alone, Chan often had his meals at odd times due to his schedules, but tonight the silence feels more oppressive.

It haunts you, the tail end of the overheard conversation. You have no idea how Chan was going to complete the sentence, but your mind unhelpfully fills in the blanks with worse and worse suggestions.

He hates the timing of your visit.

He hates that you visited at all.

He hates that he has such a clingy girlfriend.

He hates that you are his clingy, annoying, bothersome girlfriend.

He hates you.

In moments of clarity, you can recognize that it's not true. That's not the Chan that you know and he would never say something like that about anybody, least of all you. It's just hard when a small part of you has never really been able to believe that someone as talented and amazing as Chan would want to date someone as unremarkable as you.

You find yourself falling into a new routine, waking early, working overtime, and trying not to cry yourself to sleep. You succeed most of the time, you keep yourself occupied by thinking about work and you're so physically exhausted by your long hours that you fall asleep the second that you get into bed. Luckily, your coworkers are just as overworked as you are and it’s easy to blame your declining condition on the project. Weekends don't help you rest at all, you've committed to your manager that you can work on Saturdays and Sundays are spent completing the chores that you've neglected during the week.

You still talk to Chan sometimes, either right when you wake up or on the way home after work. The conversation is stilted though, both because of the long delays between messages when you text and the limited time that you have when you call. It's enough of a difference that Chan asks you multiple times if everything is okay. Even though you try your best to assure him that you're fine, just busy, you're sure he knows that something is off, although he doesn't question you further.

Most exciting is the day that the new Stray Kids album releases. You've already heard most of the songs for this comeback, perks of dating the member that's the most involved in the writing and production of the album, but it's different now that they're available to the public too. You make sure to organise your schedule so that you're on break when the music video drops and you send a number of messages in the group chat that you have with the group cheering them on. Usually, you try to take a day off to deliver some food to them at the music shows, but you've had to settle for arranging with one of their managers to treat them to a meal.

You can tell when they get breaks because when you check your phone after work, notifications from the members are all in the same blocks of time. It's mostly them thanking you, taking pictures of the food you sent, flowers that they've been gifted, and letters from fans. They have a short promotion period this comeback, but it's packed with different interviews, performances, and fanmeets. At one point, Felix even sends you a picture of Chan sleeping slumped over on one of the waiting room couches. As much as you're relieved to see that he's able to get some rest, the picture has your stomach twisting uncomfortably.

You're proud of Chan, of all of the boys. They've worked so hard and each comeback seems to be more and more successful. Even if you're not confident in what's going to happen with you and Chan in the future, you want to celebrate with them while you still can.

—

After almost four weeks, your project is nearing completion and you've never been more grateful to have a deadline arrive.

You only have a couple more days left until your last submittal is due and after getting off work, you want nothing more than to collapse into bed even though your stomach has been growling the whole walk from the bus to your building. You had caught a significant mistake in a document right before it was going to be sent to a client and the whole afternoon had been spent trying to fix it in time. Your team had just barely managed it, but your head has been pounding for hours and your whole body is tight with stress.

You’re not quite sure how you make it to your apartment, your exhaustion has made you clumsy. You struggle a couple times to enter in the code to unlock your door and trip over a pair of shoes that are scattered in the entryway.

You manage to catch yourself before you fall, then squint back. Yes, you haven’t had the chance to tidy your apartment in a couple weeks, but you’ve never been the type to leave your shoes on the walking path.

A light is on, further in your apartment. You know for a fact it wasn’t like that when you left this morning, it would have been obvious since you've been leaving before the sun rises. Someone else is here.

You stare at the light for a few seconds in disbelief, then slowly reach to grab something, anything that you might be able to use to defend yourself. Your shaking hands close around a full sized umbrella that you keep beside your closet.

You’ve already made enough commotion that there’s no way the intruder didn’t hear, but you try to keep your footsteps light as you creep down the hall to where your kitchen is. It’s stupid to try and confront them, but the idea of someone in your space, potentially taking your things, is enough to inspire a sudden bout of bravery.

You hold your breath as you turn the corner, launching forward to attack the second that you see someone. You recognise the figure halfway through your swing, and though it’s too late to fully stop, you manage to pull back enough that they’re able to easily catch the umbrella before it hits them.

Chan wraps his arms around you then eases the umbrella out of your hands, resting it against the wall. You sag into his embrace, adrenaline draining away, leaving you exhausted again.

“Chan?”

You've missed this. His warmth, his comforting scent, the reassuring steadiness that he always provides. You can almost pretend that everything is fine.

“Sorry for scaring you,” he says, sounding more amused than apologetic.

“You should be,” you grumble into his shirt. “I could have seriously injured you if I didn't realise it was you!”

“I don't think that was going to be a problem.” Even though you can't see Chan, you can hear the grin in his voice.

“Hey!” You lightly smack his arm. “You take that back!”

“Fine, fine,” Chan acquiesces, holding up both his hands in surrender. “I'm very glad that I didn't have to experience the full power of your self defence.”

“Yeah yeah,” you huff. “What are you doing here anyway? Other than trying to give me a heart attack, that is.”

“I made you dinner,” Chan says shyly, turning pink.

“For what?” you ask suspiciously. It's easy to fall back into the banter that you typically exchange with Chan, but you can't help but be a bit wary these days.

“No reason. I uh, just haven't seen you in a while,” Chan says sheepishly, scratching at the back of his neck where it’s now flushed red. “We had so much preparation to do and then all our schedules… Anyway, I wanted to surprise you, so I thought I could cook for us.”

Now that he's mentioned it, you can see that he's set your tiny kitchen table and that there's a couple of pots on the stove. Chan doesn’t cook often, but he’s expressed a desire to learn before and you’ve taught him how to make a few of your favourite recipes.

You stare at him for a moment, lost for words.

It's only been a few weeks, but you feel like you've forgotten how to act around Chan. Instead of a comfortable silence, it's almost awkward, neither of you knowing what to say.

“Oh,” you say finally, touched and still a little shocked that he's actually here. “That's- that's so nice, I just- is it okay if I wash up a bit quickly first?”

“No, yeah, of course. I'm sure you had a long day,” Chan says. “Go ahead, I’ll- the food should be reheated anyway so I’ll get on that. Take your time.”

You skirt around him to go to the bathroom, taking a moment to splash yourself with water. This feels like a bizarre dream and you wonder for a moment if you’re making this all up. But when you leave to go to your bedroom, Chan’s still there, puttering around in front of your kitchenette. You change your clothes slowly, mind racing as you try to puzzle together why Chan has decided to visit all of a sudden.

You eventually settle on the most logical reason that you can think of.

He’s finally decided to break up with you.

You’ve figured that this was coming for weeks by now, but somehow it still hurts. Instead of feeling resigned, it feels like you’re shattering into little pieces. You twist your work blouse into a tiny ball as you try not to cry, even though you know the fabric is going to wrinkle terribly. You finish cleaning up in a daze, already drafting what you're going to have to message your manager later. There's no way that you're going to be in any shape to work tomorrow if you’re right.

“Y/n?” Chan calls eventually. You know you're procrastinating leaving your room, but you want to put this off for as long as possible even though you know it’s just delaying the inevitable. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” you reply with a heavy heart. “I’m fine. I'll just be another second.”

You can tell that Chan doesn’t quite believe you. He hovers around you when you emerge from your bedroom, knocking away your hand when you try to pull out your own chair from the table.

He's set the table, going so far as to fold little napkins under your utensils. There's even a tiny vase with your favourite flowers as a centrepiece. All this effort just hurts more.

“You look exhausted. You got home so late. Where were you?” he asks.

“I was at work,” you reply stiffly. You know that if you try and say any more, your emotions are going to spill over and you're either going to scream or cry. Maybe both.

“So late?” Chan's forehead creases with some sort of emotion. You can't quite tell if it's concern or scepticism.

“You're not the only one that has a demanding job.”

“Y/n, you know that's not what I meant-”

“Sure,” you say. “Whatever, let's just eat. Thank you for the food.”

You don't want to deal with this. You're so tired.

You have no idea why Chan’s dragging this out longer than it needs to be. Why he’s forcing you to sit through a meal with him like he’s not about to break your heart. Chan is one of the kindest people you know, he’s probably trying to make this easier for you, giving you one last nice memory, but it just feels cruel.

Chan reaches out, stopping you before you can pick up your chopsticks. He stares at the way his fingers overlap each other around your wrist.

“You’ve lost weight,” he says quietly. You look away, watching steam curl from the bowl of rice that has been set in front of you instead of returning eye contact.

“I’ve been busy.” Is all you can say in response.

You don’t want to tell him that you’ve been basically subsisting on iced americanos and various convenience store meals in part because of your work schedule, but mostly because of your lack of appetite. Every time you thought of Chan, it made your stomach turn and well, everything reminded you of him. You hadn’t realised how much it had actually affected your physical condition until now though.

“You're not taking care of yourself,” he scolds you. You can feel yourself bristle at his comment even though you know it’s true. “I haven't been around to take care of you either. I'm sorry.”

“Chan,” you protest. It has been weeks since you last saw him in person and you’ve spent more time that you’d like to admit micro analysing your relationship, but you still can’t make sense of his behaviour, especially how he keeps switching between criticism and tenderness.

“What?” he asks in genuine confusion.

“Why are you here?”

“I missed you,” Chan says, sounding hurt and confused. “I haven’t seen you in so long.”

“I just- I don’t understand what you want from me!” You run your hands through your hair in frustration. “One day you don’t want me around, we go weeks without seeing each other, then you’re at my place cooking me dinner? You said you needed space, I gave you space."

“Woah woah woah, what do you mean I don’t want you around?” Chan asks, alarmed. “When have I ever said that?”

“You made it pretty clear that you didn’t appreciate it when I went to bring you dinner that day,” you start.

“No, baby!” Chan stands up abruptly before you can say anything else. He falters when the loud scrape of his chair causes you to flinch back. He slowly walks towards you and kneels in front of you, reaching out to hold your hands in his. His eyes are wide with earnestness. “Of course I wanted to spend time with you. I always want to be with you.”

“So why did you call me clingy?” you ask in a small voice. Gone is your anger, replaced with a self-consciousness that you can’t hide. You look away as tears prickle your eyes.

Gently, Chan lets go of your hands and cups your cheeks instead, turning your face so that he can see you better. His thumbs swipe under your eyes, brushing away the tears that have managed to escape.

“Baby,” he says, sounding even more upset and angry than you feel. “I'm sorry. Did someone tell you I said that?”

“Nobody had to tell me, I heard you say it myself!” you burst out, pushing Chan away. You know that you’re being dramatic, that you keep oscillating between different emotions, but you don’t care. “That day, in your studio, you told Han and Changbin that I was really clingy.”

“You heard me talking to Binnie and Hannie?” Chan asks slowly.

“I didn't mean to eavesdrop,” you sniffle. One of Chan's hands shifts and he carefully tucks behind a lock of hair that has fallen in front of your face. The gentleness makes even more tears well up.

“It's okay, I think I know what you overheard now. It must have hurt, right?”

You can't muster up a response, choosing instead to just nod slightly.

“I’m sorry, I'm sorry,” he soothes you. “Can I explain myself?”

You pause for a moment, then slowly nod again.

“I don't mind that you're clingy, actually, I like it. I shouldn't have used that word. I like that you want to spend time with me, Y/n,” Chan says carefully. “I like that you take time to visit me, even though I know that your work is busy too. I think that it's cute and thoughtful that you think of me and try to take care of me by bringing me food. I know that you intentionally take the time out of your day to text me because you know that I like hearing from you, even though I might not see it or respond right away.”

Chan pauses for a second and you use it as an opportunity to pull away slightly. His hands tighten briefly, before he lets them fall away, giving you the space to process.

It's not that you don't like what Chan is saying, it's just hard to reconcile it with the thoughts that have been eating away at you for the past few weeks. You still don't understand what you overheard though, how it fits into all of this. When you voice your concerns to Chan, he sighs, before continuing to speak.

“I don't know what I did to have someone as caring and thoughtful as you in my life.” You want to protest, but Chan carries on before you can say anything. “It's just that- you visited me without notice and were the sweetest person in the world. I wanted to spend time with you, believe me, I did, but I can't just ignore my deadlines when the rest of the members are relying on me. It makes me feel like garbage when I can’t give you all my attention. That's the thing I hate the most. That I can't be the boyfriend that you deserve. That I can't show you how much you mean to me the way that I want to.”

It makes sense, in some sort of twisted way. You know that similarly to you, Chan often feels insecure. It had taken a while before you had been able to convince him that you really did want to be in a relationship with him even with all of the difficulties that were associated with being an idol. You hadn't realised that your visit had fed into his worries that he wasn’t enough.

“I didn't know,” you say quietly. “I'm sorry.”

“Hey, I didn't tell you how I was feeling and that's on me. I’m the one that’s sorry, you have no reason to be. I should have been clearer about what was going through my mind and it wasn't any excuse for the way that spoke to you. Even if I wasn't at my best, I can't believe that I made you feel like I didn't want you to be around.” Chan shakes his head and you can tell that he's beating himself up about it. This time, you're the one that reaches out to him, grabbing one of his hands in both of yours.

“I am sorry that I put you into that position, though. I got caught up in the idea of how fun and romantic it might be, that I didn't give enough consideration to your schedule. Even though I wanted to surprise you, it would have been better to check with you beforehand. I don't ever want you to have to feel like you have to choose between me and work.”

“It was a really nice surprise,” Chan agrees. “I wish that I hadn't been so wrapped up that I wasn't able to enjoy spending time with you. I really hated not being able to see you these past few weeks.”

“It was really hard for me too,” you admit.

“I missed you so much. I missed your beautiful voice, hearing your laugh, seeing your smile. I missed all the texts that you usually send, they make me feel like I'm not as far away, that I'm a part of your day too. You kept saying that everything was fine and- I know it's hard for you, especially during comeback periods when I'm not as responsive. I didn't want to pressure you into messaging me more often if I'm not able to do the same.”

“No, it's not that. It doesn't bother me. Work was, is still really busy for me,” you explain. “I was trying to tell you that day, but-”

“But I basically shut you down,” Chan realises. He laughs bitterly. “I’m just the worst, aren't I? No wonder you were so confused by why I was here.”

“I thought you were going to break up with me tonight,” you whisper. Chan looks devastated by your statement.

“No- you know I wouldn't-” Chan stumbles on his words in his haste to correct you.

“I don't think that anymore,” you reassure him. “I understand everything now, it was just that we didn't communicate well and I assumed… It's okay, we're together now, this won't happen again.”

“I promise that I will make it up to you. I love you and I will prove it to you in every way possible. And I'm going to start right now. You still haven't eaten yet, please go ahead.” Chan moves back to his abandoned chair and doles out a portion of the stew from the pot that's on the table.

“I am really hungry,” you confess. Your stomach chooses that exact moment to growl loudly and the two of you can’t help but burst into laughter.

Just like that, it feels like things are back to normal.

You know that there's still more that you and Chan have to talk about. The two of you have only scratched the surface on your insecurities, communication, and how those things led to such a significant misunderstanding.

But tonight, it's enough that you get to share a meal with the man that you love.

read it on ao3 | masterlist

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kittsuneriyu · 1 month ago

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For a while I really wanted to make my own designs for a "role swap" AU.

The idea is that characters change roles, not in between, they change sides but still have their own unique quirks to hunt or survive.

007n7 basically goes insane after losing both Noli and c00lkidd, turning back into his old hacker persona, he decides to make his sorrow into everyone's problem. 007n7's actions are way more destructive and reckless, with nothing else to lose, why should he fear getting hurt or punished? This mentality is what pushes him further into keep living to make hell break lose.

Elliot is still a worker on Builder Brother's Pizza's, the best as always. But sometimes you never felt like making some jerk pay for his actions? That's Elliot's mindset, using his freetime to hunt down anyone that dared to mistreat him or other employees. Having a twisted kind of satisfaction on making "justice" with his own hands. Of course, he would never let it affect the Pizzaria's service.

Chance is a thrill seeker, to achive it he always took the most risky choices. It lead him into involving himself with some shady people. Now working as some hitman, Chance uses this title to coerce his targets into gambling with him in change of their mercy. But somehow Chance always wins either way.

The rest of the survivors aren't as elaborated as those three.

Noob is just some generic killer, the kind that looks like an average person but later shows themselves as some maniac.

Guest 1337 as stated on the drawing works like Fliqpy, genuinely feeling guilty for hurting someone, his flight or fight reaction really blinds him when something triggers him.

Two Time achived a very high connection with the spawn after a bunch of sacrifice's. One life in change of a extra one, this allows them to insta-heal a deadly injury an keep going, of course it doesn't comes without consequences. Each scar and rebirth disfigure's Two Time's form further and further.

Builderman alongside Telamon started an iron fist moderation, punishing and banning anyone that broke rules or defied their ideals.

Builderman didn't changed much design wise, glasses to only focus on their ideals, headsets to not hear their pleas or opinions and a hardhat to protection of course.

Telamon never gave up on his hatred, some still spilled over his creation but most of it still with him.

Dusekkar never agreed with this nonsense, and the two Admins didn't took it lightly, now Duse doesn't mind that much, afterall he doesn't have a thinkng mind at all anymore.

Taph would do anything for builderman, so they hopped along with the two Admin's, Taph happened to mess up a few times but now that they got the message they're not going to fail Builderman anymore.

And of course we have our survivors.

"Poor kidd there's something about us people never really liked." Not sure about what happened to c00lkidd for him to disappear. Up to you I guess.

1x a vessel for the admin's experiment, nothing but that. And when falling purposeless they felt anger, a powerful need for revenge. 1x and 2x never happened to become sepparated entities.

John Doe a mere moderator, only wanting to ensure that robloxia's problems were solved, too good for his own sake. This was his ruin.

Noli since the start aspired that one day he would reach out the starts, but now that he has them in hands theres no one left to share their glimmer with.

Guest 666 was just some rebel, a trouble maker as people say. Unable to properly speak without an account, but also unnable to be properly punished. Not sure how his relation with Noob could go.

Azure was, alongside his partner, one out of the most faithful ones of their cult. This feat led him and Two Time into a huge sacrificial rabbit hole. After being killed Azure turned his back to anything related to spawn or cults in general.

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haru-dipthong · 10 months ago

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Gendered pronouns in Japanese vs English

In Revolutionary Girl Utena, the main character Utena is a girl (it says so in the title), but very conspicuously uses the masculine first person pronoun 僕 (boku) and dresses in (a variation of) the boys school uniform. Utena's gender, and gender in general, is a core theme of the work. And yet, I haven’t seen a single translation or analysis post where anyone considers using anything other than she/her for Utena when speaking of her in English. This made me wonder: how does one’s choice of pronouns in Japanese correspond to what one’s preferred pronouns would be in English?

There are 3 main differences between gendered pronouns in Japanese vs English

Japanese pronouns are used to refer to yourself (first-person), while English pronouns are used to refer to others (third-person)

The Japanese pronoun you use will differ based on context

Japanese pronouns signify more than just gender

Let’s look at each of these differences in turn and how these differences might lead to a seeming incongruity between one’s Japanese pronoun choice and one’s English pronoun choice (such as the 僕 (boku) vs she/her discrepancy with Utena).

Part 1: First-person vs third-person

While Japanese does technically have gendered third person pronouns （彼、彼女） they are used infrequently¹ and have much less cultural importance placed on them than English third person pronouns. Therefore, I would argue that the cultural equivalent of the gender-signifying third-person pronoun in English is the Japanese first-person pronoun. Much like English “pronouns in bio”, Japanese first-person pronoun choice is considered an expression of identity.

Japanese pronouns are used exclusively to refer to yourself, and therefore a speaker can change the pronoun they’re using for themself on a whim, sometimes mid-conversation, without it being much of an incident. Meanwhile in English, Marquis Bey argues that “Pronouns are like tiny vessels of verification that others are picking up what you are putting down” (2021). By having others use them and externally verify the internal truth of one’s gender, English pronouns, I believe, are seen as more truthful, less frivolous, than Japanese pronouns. They are seen as signifying an objective truth of the referent’s gender; if not objective then at least socially agreed-upon, while Japanese pronouns only signify how the subject feels at this particular moment — purely subjective.

Part 2: Context dependent pronoun use

Japanese speakers often don’t use just one pronoun. As you can see in the below chart, a young man using 俺 (ore) among friends might use 私 (watashi) or 自分 (jibun) when speaking to a teacher. This complicates the idea that these pronouns are gendered, because their gendering depends heavily on context. A man using 私 (watashi) to a teacher is gender-conforming, a man using 私 (watashi) while drinking with friends is gender-non-conforming. Again, this reinforces the relative instability of Japanese pronoun choice, and distances it from gender.

Part 3: Signifying more than gender

English pronouns signify little besides the gender of the antecedent. Because of this, pronouns in English have come to be a shorthand for expressing one’s own gender experience - they reflect an internal gendered truth. However, Japanese pronoun choice doesn’t reflect an “internal truth” of gender. It can signify multiple aspects of your self - gender, sexuality, personality.

For example, 僕 (boku) is used by gay men to communicate that they are bottoms, contrasted with the use of 俺 (ore) by tops. 僕 (boku) may also be used by softer, academic men and boys (in casual contexts - note that many men use 僕 (boku) in more formal contexts) as a personality signifier - maybe to communicate something as simplistic as “I’m not the kind of guy who’s into sports.” 俺 (ore) could be used by a butch lesbian who still strongly identifies as a woman, in order to signify sexuality and an assertive personality. 私 (watashi) may be used by people of all genders to convey professionalism. The list goes on.

I believe this is what’s happening with Utena - she is signifying her rebellion against traditional feminine gender roles with her use of 僕 (boku), but as part of this rebellion, she necessarily must still be a girl. Rather than saying “girls don’t use boku, so I’m not a girl”, her pronoun choice is saying “your conception of femininity is bullshit, girls can use boku too”.

Through translation, gendered assumptions need to be made, sometimes about real people. Remember that he/they, she/her, they/them are purely English linguistic constructs, and don’t correspond directly to one’s gender, just as they don’t correspond directly to the Japanese pronouns one might use. Imagine a scenario where you are translating a news story about a Japanese genderqueer person. The most ethical way to determine what pronouns they would prefer would be to get in contact with them and ask them, right? But what if they don’t speak English? Are you going to have to teach them English, and the nuances of English pronoun choice, before you can translate the piece? That would be ridiculous! It’s simply not a viable option². So you must make a gendered assumption based on all the factors - their Japanese pronoun use (context dependent!), their clothing, the way they present their body, their speech patterns, etc.

If translation is about rewriting the text as if it were originally in the target language, you must also rewrite the gender of those people and characters in the translation. The question you must ask yourself is: How does their gender presentation, which has been tailored to a Japanese-language understanding of gender, correspond to an equivalent English-language understanding of gender? This is an incredibly fraught decision, but nonetheless a necessary one. It’s an unsatisfying dilemma, and one that poignantly exposes the fickle, unstable, culture-dependent nature of gender.

Notes and References

¹ Usually in Japanese, speakers use the person’s name directly to address someone in second or third person

² And has colonialist undertones as a solution if you ask me - “You need to pick English pronouns! You ought to understand your gender through our language!”

Bey, Marquis— 2021 Re: [No Subject]—On Nonbinary Gender

Rose divider taken from this post

#langblr #japanese #japanese language #language #language learning #linguistics #learning japanese #utena #revolutionary girl utena #shojo kakumei utena #rgu #sku #gender #transgender #nonbinary #trans #official blog post #translation #media analysis

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bucketbueckers · 3 months ago

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SUPERSTAR

pairing: paige bueckers x fem!reader

content: party!p being drunk and clingy and a maybe a little annoying, fluff without plot, the fuck ass net, language, the authors love language is physical touch and you can really tell

wc: 3.0k

synopsis: Paige Bueckers is a lightweight. Knowing that, you really shouldn’t have been all too surprised by the post-win afterparty.

notes: obligatory post natty fic?? i say yes! cooking one up for azzi too, idk when it will get posted but expect it soon. i dont care how much homework i have to procrastinate. side note, watching them play live was such a surreal experience, i'm still thinking about it and there are so many emotions that i can't put into words. they deserved this win so bad and i love my team so much 😩 i also wrote the second half of this while watching the men’s natty and all i have to say is im a misandrist and go huskies! as always i hope y'all enjoy 🫶

You liked to think that you were an expert in a few niche categories.

The first is basketball. You grew up listening to the reverb of the bounce echoing in the gym. You learned how to dribble before you learned how to multiply. More often than not, you could usually tell when a shot was going into the net as soon as it left your hands. This is all to say you were pretty decent at basketball, although you’re sure that dropping a modest fourteen points in the national championship match and taking home the trophy makes you a little more than decent at ball.

Basketball aside, you weren’t lacking in the skills department. KK jokes that you and Carol share the title as the moms of the group since you’re so good at conflict resolution – although you prefer the term “trying to keep everyone alive.” More often than not, you’ll find Morgan standing at your door with a bag of groceries in hand, a wide smile on her lips in hopes that you’ll cook her dinner because, according to her, you just make the best carbonara she’s ever had. You’ve never been good at saying no to Morgan – she was yours and Aubrey’s shared freshman and after her surgery, you’ve made a point of spending as much time with her as possible because you can tell she’s not having an easy time with watching everyone play while she’s on the sidelines.

The one thing that you’re certain you’re an expert in is Paige Bueckers. You know her inside and out and on and off the court. The two of you started as rivals in high school, although your friendship truly blossomed during AAU competitions and Team USA where you had to play together. The distance and the competition kept the both of you from being anything more than friends, but when the both of you committed to UConn without the other knowing, Paige asked you out after the first summer practice and you were sure that you were a goner when she ran into a pole trying to spin a ball on her finger in an attempt to impress you. You grew up together, saw the best and the worst parts that came with dating an athlete, and stuck it through until the end – you even used your COVID eligibility to stay one extra year with her. Whether the universe wanted it or not, the two of you were going to win a natty together, damn it; and win it you did.

Which leads you to where you are now. You’re an expert in Paige Bueckers. There’s not a single thing you don’t know about her, just like there’s not a single thing she doesn’t know about you. That’s why you knew you were doomed when, during the group picture, she exclaimed “We get a parade! And we get to get drunk!” The thing about Paige is that she’s a D1 clinger when she’s plastered. She’s loud and annoyingly charming and honestly, you’re so in love with her that you’re not bothered by it. You’d hold her hair back while she vomited for the rest of your life as long as it meant the two of you were together for it. You just knew she’d be inconsolable and grumpy in the morning when she’s hungover, but after five years of blood, sweat, tears, surgery, rehab, and hardwork, your girlfriend has just won a national championship, so if she wants to get a little plastered and sing at the top of her lungs, then you have no real reason to do anything but ensure she gets back to your room safely.

A few minutes after the conclusion of the net cutting ceremony, you’re taking a few more photos with the trophy in your hands, your hat tucked neatly over your head when Paige comes over. The photographer leaves you two be as Paige reaches for the brim of your hat, turning it backwards to match hers. She’s got that soft, mischievous, slightly wide-eyed look on her face as she looks at you and you can’t help but melt at it. You can tell from her expression that it hasn’t fully set in that she’s won a natty, but you know it’ll hit her later.

“You want something or are you just here to annoy me?” you ask teasingly, handing the trophy off to Ice, who’s taking selfies. You reach out to adjust the net around Paige’s neck as she responds.

“What, I can’t come say hi to my girl?” she goads, the look on her face far too pleased. One of the other things you knew about Paige Bueckers after so many years together was that she loves attention. Specifically, from you, and you can tell that she loves how easily you handed off the trophy to focus fully on her.

“Hello,” you deadpan, which just makes her smirk.

“I ever tell you how proud I am of you?” she asks, shocking you slightly, and heat rises to your cheeks as you try to process the sudden praise.

You blink, rolling your eyes slightly, but the fond smile on your face gives you away. Your girlfriend curls her arm over your shoulders as she leads you through the crowd towards the tunnel. “C’mon, P. I should be saying that to you.”

“Nah,” she disagrees. “You brought us back in the second quarter with those threes.”

You shrug a shoulder, feigning nonchalance. “I did see Coach Staley crashing out when I was getting back on defense.” That makes Paige laugh a little, pulling you flush into her. “I’m serious, though. I’m proud of you, you know?” The two of you slow to a stop once you’re safely away from the cameras and the onlookers, so you turn towards her, resting your hands on her chest and threading your fingers through the net around her neck. “You just…you don’t know how special you are. As a person, a player, a teammate. You’ve been the heart and soul of this team, Paige. You’re here now. And you did it.” You give a teasing tug to the net, watching the affectionate smile spread across her lips, the tears pooling at her waterline again. “You deserve every bit of this.”

“We can be proud of each other,” she suggests. “But I’m definitely prouder than you.”

“You’re full of shit,” you say fondly, patting her cheek. “You’re lucky I love you.”

“I really am,” she agrees, leaning in to press a gentle kiss to your lips, one that makes you smile, and one that lasts not nearly long enough because KK walks by and gags dramatically. You raise a middle finger to her as she cackles. Paige laughs against you, too, wrapping her arms around your waist and sinking into your embrace instead. You rub her back, feeling her relax against you, and you kiss her head over the hat.

“I don’t suppose this means you’re gonna behave tonight?” you ask jokingly, already knowing that Party P will be in full effect.

She scoffs like you’ve just said something egregious. “I’m always on my best behavior,” she declares, and all you can truly do is smile and roll your eyes. You know.

The moment Paige finds the ping-pong table, you know it’s wraps.

She’s only a few shots in, but Paige Bueckers is a lightweight. You learned that much when you were both freshmen and you convinced one of the upperclassmen on the team to buy you drinks at Ted’s. Paige was laid out in the bathroom by 10pm and the two of you went home early. You spent the better part of the morning after tending to her hangover, but you’d told her to slow down, so everytime she whined that her head hurt you simply said, “I told you so” (although you felt bad enough for her that you rubbed her back for a few hours until the ache subsided).

Paige is playing one on one with Sarah – mind you, she’s still wearing that fuck ass net, but it’s a little endearing by this point. It reminds you of a little kid who can’t go anywhere without their emotional support blanket. Somehow, you’ve been roped in to being the referee, and as much as you tried to argue that ping-pong didn’t really need a referee, Paige was already inching into that clingy state of being drunk, so she’d just pulled you along and planted a wet, obnoxious kiss to your cheek as she steadied her paddle, unmistakable confidence in her expression.

At first, it’s tame. You watch the ball bounce back and forth between the two of them, still nursing a drink of your own. You alternate between saying Point, Sarah, or Point, Paige. Sarah, in typical Sarah fashion, hardly reacts, although Paige is either crashing out or celebrating every point like it’s another natty win. You weren’t too sure where she got the whole “nonchalant final boss” thing from, but it definitely was not true.

A few rounds later, a small crowd has formed, and she takes a breather to sidle up next to you. She wraps an arm around your waist and leans into you, taking a sip from your drink (much to your amusement), her expression is unbearably blissed out. Paige has a soft look on her face, her eyes a little hooded, but beyond the clear drunkenness, you can see a whole lot of love reflected in her eyes, an appreciation for tonight’s win. “You having fun, baby?” you ask her, a grin on your face.

She hums, tightening her grip, uncaring of the way Ice and KK are laughing at her. Paige pulls back suddenly, concern and slight guilt on her face. “Are you?” she echoes, like it would physically pain her if you weren’t enjoying your night. Knowing her, it probably would.

You laugh a little, rubbing your hand down her back, adjusting the cap on her head because it’s about to fall off from all of the bouncing around she’s done. “I am, don’t worry,” you say honestly.

“Good,” she murmurs, kissing you soundly. Without another word, she extracts herself from your grip and gears up for the next few rounds of ping pong with Sarah. She catches your eye and winks. “This one’s for you, baby,” she promises.

The serve immediately sails out of bounds. You try not to laugh too hard when you say, “Point, Sarah.”

“Shit,” Paige states.

“I think you’re supposed to keep the ball in bounds,” Sarah says helpfully.

“I got distracted,” Paige argues. “Didn’t count. 0-0.”

“It’s 1-0 for Sarah,” you call out, taking your job very seriously. You ignore the pout Paige sends your way, as if a pretty face would make you give up your refereeing integrity. It won’t.

Paige and Sarah take turns hitting the ping pong ball. You stay focused, although Paige’s expression endlessly amuses you. Her brows are furrowed, concentrated as she follows the ball, her movements strangely coordinated and precise for someone who’s a few shots in. Then, Ice announces she’s on live, which distracts Sarah, and Paige scores an easy point on her. Immediately, she launches into a celebration, chanting something that sounds like “Little Rah.” You and Sarah exchange a glance. A smile spreads across your face as you announce, “Foul on Paige. Unsportsmanlike conduct. Point, Sarah.”

Paige spins on her heel immediately. “Bruh, what?” she exclaims. “How was that unsportsmanlike? Since when does ping pong even have foul calls?”

“Careful, Lil Paigey,” Sarah says somberly, although her lips twitch like she’s trying to hold back a smile. “Arguing with the ref can get you a tech. Just ask DT.”

“Bruh,” Paige says again, looking at you pleadingly, like you can take away the egregious foul call you just made on your girlfriend. “Babe, come on. You know this is bull–” you raise a brow at her and she falters, “–crap. Bullcrap.”

You grin when you say, “2-0, Sarah.”

Paige stares at you like you’ve just betrayed her. You can tell she’s not actually upset, but she’s competitive more than anything. She takes a deep breath and reaches for her paddle again.

For the rest of your round, you do your best to throw Paige off her game, ranging from rolling up your sleeve as you pretend to inspect your conveniently flexed bicep or making increasingly more bullshit calls. You award Sarah a point for having a double double in the natty and subtract one point from Paige’s total because she had one turnover (you ignore her when she points out that Sarah had two turnovers, like that’s any of your business).

Finally, you call it at 15-9 in Sarah’s favor because you can tell the drinks are catching up to Paige. It’s already well past midnight and your flight back to Storrs tomorrow morning is early and you know Paige is going to have a rough morning. She pouts when you tell her that you’re taking her back to the room, but she knows it’s for the best so she makes her rounds, hugging everyone in the room and refuses to part with the net when KK reaches for it. Paige tangles your fingers together, not letting a single inch of space separate the two of you as she rambles on about how you and Sarah were most definitely cheating (you were).

When you make it back to the hotel room, you guide Paige into the bathroom, squeezing toothpaste onto her brush and pulling her hair tie out while she cleans her teeth. “I’mma be so sick tomorrow,” she complains, spitting, and scrubbing again as you reach for your toothbrush.

“That’s why you’re gonna take some medicine before you sleep,” you tell her. “And in the morning. And I’ll get you some coffee.”

“You’re the best,” she whispers, rinsing her mouth out. She stands behind you and wraps her arms around your waist, burying her head in your neck. Her breath tickles your skin as she tries to melt into you. She behaves like she’d die if she wasn’t under your skin, but you love your clingy girl just the same. “I’on know what I’d do without you. Like, for real. I wouldn’t be here without you, y’know that?”

“You’d still be here. Just a little less house trained, I think,” you promise her. Paige laughs against your skin, amused, as if she knew that’s what you would say. “But I’m glad you didn’t have to do it alone.” That makes her soften, her hands trailing under your shirt to brush against your skin. “You never have to do it alone as long as I’m here.”

“I know,” she says, kissing your neck tenderly. She squeezes you around your waist, then releases you, her gaze a little sleepy and hazy.

You offer her a grin, reaching for her hand. “Let’s get you to bed, superstar.” She nods and trails behind you. You flick on the lamp as she gets settled into bed. Paige tugs meaningfully at the net around her neck and you laugh, shaking her head. “You’ll choke and die in your sleep,” you deadpan. “I’d really like it if my girlfriend made it through the night.”

Paige juts out her bottom lip, grumbling under her breath as you pull the net off, draping it over the desk chair. You take the hat from her and set it on the nightstand, brushing your fingers through her hair as her eyes slip shut in relaxation. Before she can get too comfortable, you pass her a water bottle and the tylenol, which she takes without complaint.

Once she’s finally settled, you crawl into bed next to her. She wastes no time before wrapping you up, drawing you into her body and tucking her face into the crook of your neck and breathing soundly. You’d thought it would take some time before Paige would realize that she just won a natty, but now, it’s sinking in for you. You’re a national champion. So is your girlfriend. You’ve accomplished the very goal that you came back to UConn to seek out. You’re overcome with this heavy feeling of peace, gratitude, an overwhelming amount of love and admiration for the woman who put the team on her back when she needed to, who took a step back to let her team do their thing when needed to. Most of all, you’re overcome with a feeling of belonging, the feeling that you’re right where you’re supposed to be, wrapped in Paige’s arms like you’re more important to her than the trophy.

You think she’s fallen asleep until she murmurs, still slightly in awe, “We did it.” Her hand tightens around the fabric of your shirt, her voice exhausted and dripping with something that sounds like accomplishment.

Your fingers brush her knuckles, a smile of your own spreading across your face as you agree, “We did.”

You can feel the smile she presses against your skin, the subsequent kiss that follows. “I love you,” she murmurs. “Thank you for doing this with me.”

You don’t think you could be anywhere else. You lift her hand to your lips, kissing her knuckles, and she squeezes you one more time as you whisper, “I love you, too.”

When the two of you wake up that morning, you have her coffee ready and you make sure she takes her medicine to keep the headache away. And when she looks at you hopefully, holding up the net and the hat, you really don’t have it in you to protest.

You place the net around her neck again and you tuck the wisps of her hair under her hat, pressing your lips to hers, and she hugs you tightly with an emotion that feels a hell of a lot like relief. You know she’s relieved for a lot of reasons, but the top reason stems from a deep thankfulness that the both of you were able to win the national championship together, just as you’d spent years dreaming about.

Paige grins at you again, her expression adoring, and you know that what the two of you have is worth a whole lot more than the trophy you’ll be transporting to Storrs.

#paige bueckers #paige bueckers x reader #uconn wbb

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what-the-floofin · 2 months ago

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Just for the aesthetics

Babble of thoughts under the cut ;)

It's a ramble, fair warning

I love the concept of an eventual Ghost King Danny, simply because there are so many questions you can ask for the whys of it and then build up endless answers in a cosy lil sandbox. I love the themes of Space and becoming an Ancient that many folks tie into Danny as well. It's just fun! I'm a real sucker for space aesthetics.

The first obvious question is why does the Infinite Realms have a King? Why does it need one?

I like to dabble in the concept that the state of the Infinite Realms just about runs its own sentience. It's so big and so expansive and so vital to everything it touches that it very well behaves as a being in its own right. And the reasons to have a king is actually to let something as far reaching as the Realms have any ability to focus whatsoever.

(Also the Infinite Realms is the place of everything inbetween. I'd refer to the Ghost Zone as being a territory within that space!)

If you embrace the concept of ghost cores, you could expand on this further. The structure of a Realms Being could be a reflection of the Realm itself – if they function by having a core, it's because they are following the design of the Infinite Realms in the first place (meaning: the Infinite Realms has its own core)

Take a core as being the center of a ghost's everything. Its thought, form, emotion, memory, everything that makes them functional. It lets them exist and it focuses all that energy into something comprehensible. A core is a ghost's stability.

Then give the Infinite Realms the concept of a core – something that provides it a point of focus that lends stability and structure to itself. It lets it tick along without a rampant kind of chaos to its energy that would see realms torn apart as fast as they are made. Having a core to the Infinite Realms provides a coherent consistency. (And thus the ability to reside in it with relative safety)

So here, the title of King could actually be assigning oneself as the Infinite Realms' functioning core. But that's a big ask, taking on something of that much energy and being something like a conduit. Infinitely huge, even. Takes a lot of willpower and strength to maintain without fracturing oneself in the process.

And that could lead us to why ancient artifacts such as the Crown of Fire and Ring of Rage exist in the first place. Why would something like that be made, or need to exist at all?

The Crown and Ring are a combo deal – its only together that they expound one's power 'infinitely'. That's a pretty intense thing to make for the hell of it. But if the reason was because a king needs to be able to cope with the demand of their role, to actually stand up to the task long term and provide that existence-maintaining stability for all, then maybe that was worth the risk to create them.

I like the idea that Danny isn't someone who wanted to have the Ring and Crown, ever. Nor the Ghost King title tbh. I also like the idea that he's already an insanely willful and powerful ghost in his own right by the time this entire concept becomes a tangible issue – enough so that when the Realms began to really need a replacement actually after Pariah Dark, and the purpose of the role is actually made clear to him, and that not just anyone can withstand it frankly, Danny did stubbornly uphold the title without the Crown and Ring for a time! An unintentional display to the public of just how insanely beefy he is by ghost standards (of which perhaps he wasn't actually aware of that doing. He took the title bc someone had to and just… got mad amounts of respect about it??? Crazy).

But even he has his limits, and though exceptional, eventually has to cede to accepting the Crown and Ring if only so he doesn't shred himself completely and fuck up a lot of people in the process. Bc that's a yikes on so many accounts.

Obviously, the entire inner workings of the role is not widely known. There's so much room for the ideas to be skewed and mistranslated and understood in very different ways that you get a thousand different interpretations and every one is just slightly wrong. But you kind of want it that way. Don't think too hard about the inner workings of the universes. It's not good for your health.

#danny phantom #ghost king danny #its ART #big ol ramble for y'all in the read more lmao #tippy tappy in my happy lil sandbox playground

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bucky-bucky-bucky-bucky · 11 months ago

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Come Find Me | Bucky Barnes x Reader

I am back back back again! I have missed writing so much, I just don't have nearly the amount of time that I used to. But I'm in my last semester of school! So hopefully I'll be back on a consistent fanfic grind once I'm done :) PS: If you know what the title is referencing, you get a big hug from me.

Word Count: 13,439

Warnings: blood, talk of violence, reader injury

Bucky checked his texts every few minutes. Initially, he lied to himself about the reason behind it. He told himself he must’ve opened his conversation with you accidentally, or that he mistook an email notification for a text from you. Simple, innocent mistakes.

Either way, he always ended up staring at your side of the conversation, hoping for a gray ellipsis to appear.

But after a while, he could no longer deny the truth- and why would he want to? You were coming home.

You hadn’t been gone long, and your mission was projected to be a cake walk. But he couldn’t help it; he missed you. He missed you when you went on missions, when you visited your parents out of state, when you slept in your room down the hall. Missing you was part of him now, woven into the fabric of his being. It matched the material of his soul perfectly, like he was always meant to feel this way.

He fired off a quick “let me know when you land” message and waited, hoping you’d write back soon.

Usually, you texted him when you were headed back to the compound. It gave him a countdown to your return and something to look forward to. It also signaled to him that you were, in fact, coming home alive. Even if a bit banged up, you were well enough to shoot him a message. And that always eased his worries.

Today, however, was different. No text, no call.

It struck him as bizarre and sounded Bucky’s internal alarms. But he silenced them as best he could. He wasn’t going to let himself get worked up, not when you had a perfectly good reason for not messaging him.

This was your first time leading a mission with a new recruit under your wing. Bucky knew you devoted your full attention to your trainee, giving him absolutely everything you had. You took this position- as well as your pupil’s safety and success- very seriously. He knew you were probably busy helping your recruit learn a swath of new things, and who was he to interrupt?

Bucky opened the log and saw your jet had been marked as ‘incoming’ only minutes ago. A sigh of relief left his chest and eased his muscles. Sure, he would’ve rather heard that information from you, but it didn’t matter. Your jet would be here soon; he had no reason to worry.

The moment he saw that your jet was homeward bound, he lost the ability to think about anything else. He counted the minutes, the seconds. You had to be close, right? The log wouldn’t have said ‘Incoming’ if you were still hours away.

To pass the time, he folded laundry, answered emails, reread a few chapters of The Hobbit- but he couldn’t focus. He thought of you, only you. And no matter how hard he tried to distract himself, he couldn’t hang around his room any longer. He couldn’t stand it. He needed to be there when the jet landed. He needed to meet you on the steps of the aircraft and wrap you in a bear hug.

And there was no real harm in waiting near the hangar, was there? ‘If anything,’ he told himself, ‘It’s actually more convenient for her if I meet her there. That way, I can carry her bag- she’s probably tired.’

Anything to rationalize his desperate need to be near you.

He knew in his heart of hearts that you didn’t need him to carry your bag or help you off the jet. But this lie was all the convincing he needed. Without hesitation, he ditched his room and set off down the hall, your impending homecoming pulling him forward.

It was in that moment he noticed just how far the elevator was from his room. The walk seemed to stretch on and on, the hallway growing longer with each step. And how had he never noticed how slowly the elevator moved? It slid downward at a glacial pace, toying with his patience. For such an expensive, state of the art building, the elevator moved like an ancient piece of turn of the century machinery. Bucky cursed Tony’s engineering.

Everything seemed to add time, multiplying his moments without you. The universe liked toying with him, teasing him. And this was just another cruel joke.

The moment the doors opened, Bucky sprang free out into the hallway. He knocked into Clint and his group of trainees and called an apology over his shoulder without stopping. He couldn’t stop, couldn’t waste time- not when you could arrive at any moment.

His field of view narrowed into tunnel vision, only allowing for visualization of the path toward the hangar. He didn’t greet his fellow team members or allow for distraction. You were his one-track mind. That is, until something stopped him.

“Shit, sorry, man,” your trainee, Jake, laughed as he bumped into Bucky. He took a step to the side and attempted to continue down the hall, but Bucky blocked his path.

“Jake?” Bucky eyed a bloody gash on Jake’s eyebrow, “when did you guys get back?”

Jake gave a casual shrug and checked his phone, “I don’t know, five minutes ago?”

“Oh, okay…” Bucky reached for his phone, but found his screen void of notifications. If you landed five minutes ago with your trainee safe and sound, why didn’t you send him a message? It was out of character for you.

“Well, where’s your partner in crime? Or crime fighting, I guess,” Bucky tried to joke, but his tone was strained. He eyed each person who came around the corner, hoping to find your face. “Did you see which way she went?”

“Nah, she’s not here,” Jake was scrolling through Instagram, only half paying attention.

Bucky’s disappointed sigh left his chest deflated, empty. “Oh, did she say where she was going? Or when she’d be back?”

Jake pulled his focus from his phone and stared at Bucky with confusion on his face. His brows pulled together, his mouth hung slightly ajar. But finally, he made sense of Bucky’s words. “OHHH, okay, my bad- I think there was a miscommunication just now.”

Bucky sighed again- this time, with relief.

“Yeah, no, she’s not here,” Jake continued, “because she didn’t make it back.”

Bucky’s ears started ringing.

The sharp, piercing sound blocked out voices. Footsteps on the tile. Maybe Jake was trying to speak to him, but Bucky heard only the shrill sound of shock. Seconds later, his nerves fell numb. The utter absence of sensation disconnected him from his body. He was lost in a liminal atmosphere with no stability, no purchase. His entire being was shutting down, one sense at a time.

Bucky told himself to focus, to compute what he’d heard. He did his best to make sense of Jake’s words, but to no avail. His mind simply couldn’t understand the phrase “she didn’t make it back”. The words had shed their meaning entirely and sounded foreign to Bucky as they rattled around his skull. Goosebumps rose over the surface of his skin, and a cold sweat created a sheen across his face. He feared he might get sick.

“I- I’m sorry,” he forced himself back into his body, back to the present. “I don’t think I understand.”

“Things got pretty hairy- this was not the easy mission they said it would be,” Jake scoffed and rolled his eyes. “It’s not fair, I definitely got a way harder assignment for my first mission than all the other new agents, and I think it’s-”

Bucky’s glare could’ve sliced Jake in half, “get to the point.”

“Right, um,” Jake continued, “I told her over comms that I was leaving. I gave her plenty of time to meet me at the jet, but she didn’t answer. And she never came outside.” He shrugged, “I had to leave for my own safety.”

“So, you just-” Bucky felt himself losing his grip. “You left her there? Alone?” He didn’t realize he was shouting, didn’t realize he’d drawn attention to himself- until Agent Hill showed up.

She placed a light hand on Bucky’s tense shoulder, but instantly withdrew. He was shaking, practically vibrating under her palm. “Is there a problem here, guys? I don’t want-”

“He left her behind,” was all Bucky could manage.

Maria stared at Jake in disbelief, “you did what?”

A strange mixture of rage and heartbreak seethed behind Bucky’s eyes, “You don’t just abandon your partner-”

Jake’s attitude disgusted Bucky. He was detached, irritated. He rolled his eyes like an insolent child. “Relax, man. Jesus Christ, this isn’t the army. I didn’t promise to ‘leave no man behind’ or whatever-”

Bucky had heard enough. He lifted jake by the collar of his shirt, twisting the material in his metal fist. Jake’s head sent a sickening thud resounding through the space as Bucky forced him against the nearest wall.

“What the fuck?” Jake squirmed in Bucky’s grasp, “There are casualties in the field all the time, why am I being punished for-”

Bucky released Jake at once, sending him crashing to the floor.

His voice was quiet, hollow. “Casualties?” He swallowed hard, “Is she-”

Jake shrugged at he rubbed at the bruise forming on his neck. “I don’t know, I assume so. I didn’t stick around to find out.”

And just like that, Bucky was gone.

He took off down the hall, forcing himself forward as a soul-crushing panic swallowed him whole. No matter how many times he blinked, no matter how fervently he shook his head, he couldn’t rid his mind of the picture Jake painted for him. Each time he shut his eyes he saw you- alone. Your bloodied, broken body laying collapsed against a wall of a Hydra base. Your skin slick with blood. Your skin cold. Void of life.

He moved quickly, but not quick enough. He simply couldn’t outrun the familiar feeling closing in on him. His heavy, well-worn cloak of grief wound its way across his shoulders and twisted itself around his neck. He knew the suffocating sensation all too well. It weighed him down but couldn’t dampen his pace, nothing could; not when your life hung in the balance.

He was too well acquainted with loss by now, too familiar with mourning. There’d been a time when he wondered if he’d ever grieve again. He’d lost his family, his friends, himself- what else was there? What more could he possibly lose? But the moment he met you, he knew he’d one day mourn again. He just didn’t realize that time would come so soon.

A startling cold prickled at his skin, his lungs refused to inflate. How much time did you have left? How long would it take him to get to you? Were you even-

Hill’s voice yanked him out of his spiral, “Barnes, hey-” She made a grab at his shoulder, but her feeble attempt was no match for Bucky’s pace. “Where are you going?”

“To get her back.” Bucky’s tone was firm, resolute. He was going to bring you home or die trying.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Hill nearly tripped over her own feet as she tried to keep up with Bucky’s long strides. “You heard what Jake said, it’s a dangerous location- more dangerous than we thought. I think it might be best to wait it out for a few days, let things calm down and then-”

Bucky turned suddenly, stopping Maria in her tracks. “I’m not just going to leave her there.”

Maria shrunk away from the fierceness in his eyes, “I know you’re upset, but she might not be-”

“I don’t care.” His gruff tone dissolved, making way for the fear he’d so desperately tried to hide. “Whether she’s alive or-” he couldn’t bring himself to voice the alternative.

Bucky knew what it was like to be assumed dead. He knew what it was like to be left in the field.

“She deserves to come home,” he said.

Maria couldn’t argue with him.

“Round up as many members of the med team as you can and have them meet me in the hangar. We’re leaving in ten minutes- sooner if we can.” Bucky turned and resumed his previous path, “I’ll be in the armory.”

Bucky grabbed as much weaponry as his duffel would carry without splitting at the seams and made his way to the hangar. He hoped to find ten, maybe fifteen members of the medical team waiting for him on the jet. He wasn’t sure of your condition, didn’t know how many breaths you had left. He wanted to give you the best possible chance at surviving the onslaught you endured.

But when he turned the corner into the hangar, he found only three scrub-clad bodies.

“Is this it?” Bucky boarded the jet and dropped his bag to the floor. He eyed the scant amount of medical support, their uncertain expressions. His hopes of bringing you home alive dwindled.

A nurse who’d stitched Bucky up more times than he could count gave him a nervous smile. “The med bay is swamped, the team could barely afford to let us come with you.”

Bucky didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t want excuses or rationalizations. All he wanted was to bring you home with your heart still beating. And three medical professionals, he decided, was better than none.

The flight to your location only gave Bucky more time to worry. He obsessively checked his weaponry, hovered over the med team’s supplies. But no amount of double and triple checking could save him from the spiral. He traveled down the path of every possible “what if?”, leading him only to heartache. No matter where he searched, he couldn’t find a positive outcome. And though he didn’t want to acknowledge the odds, he knew yours were slim- impossible, even.

And as the jet grew closer to your location, Bucky steeled himself for what he knew he’d find: you, his best friend, his reason for living, his everything- dead. Cold. Lifeless. None of the horrors he faced in the past could compare; no pain could ever be greater. Bucky knew he’d hurt for the rest of his life.

The clouds parted as the jet began its descent. Slowly, a large stone building appeared out of the fog like a monster in the horror movies you loved so much. It stood in an otherwise empty clearing, its shadow looming over the dying grass. Smoke billowed from holes in the roof, the walls. Whatever happened here was catastrophic. Disastrous.

Bucky’s heart sat lodged in his throat as he imagined you trapped in there. Goosebumps rose over the surface of his skin as he stared at the looming structure. He had to get you out, even if he died trying.

Just before the jet touched down, an idea popped into Bucky’s head. It scaled the high walls he’d tried to erect to protect himself from thoughts of your demise and grabbed him by the throat. It was smart- brilliant, actually. He was shocked he could even think straight given the circumstances.

“FRIDAY,” Bucky called out, “is comm 1209 working?” He shoved his own comm in his ear and waited for a response.

“Comm 1209 is on and in range,” Friday said. “Would you like me to connect you?”

He couldn’t say yes fast enough.

A few staticky clicks and pops vibrated against Bucky’s eardrum as his comm connected to yours. But he was too scared to speak. What if you didn’t answer? What if he heard you take your dying breaths? Just the thought was enough to make him sick.

He owed it to you, though, to at least try. He’d always said he’d do anything for you, that he’d risk it all for you- and he meant it every time. If reaching out to you over comms exposed him to something horrible, something traumatic and unforgettable, at least he tried. At least he attempted to keep his promise. And after everything he’d been through, what was one more life-shattering, soul-crushing nightmare?

“H- um…” Bucky swallowed the large lump obstructing his throat. “Hello?” He waited a moment, holding his breath the entire time, and tried again. “Hello?”

He waited.

No response.

“Doll? It’s me. It’s Bucky…”

The dead silence on the other end of the line dragged on. It seemed like his words disappeared into the air, unacknowledged. Unheard. Maybe the sound of his voice was reverberating inside your ear as you lay dying. Or maybe he was talking to your corpse.

The thought made him nauseous.

“Please, sweetheart. If you’re there- if you’re able- just say one word. Say anything,” he pled. A long bout of silence followed.

He clenched and released his metal fist again and again, desperate to rid himself of the panic settling into his bones. He was stupid to think you survived, stupid to let himself be optimistic. He made it here as quickly as he could, but he couldn’t save you. He was too late.

He wanted to take one of his many weapons and turn it on himself.

But a small sound stopped him.

“Buck…”

He almost fell to his knees. At the sound of your voice, an overwhelming warmth banished the cold that infiltrated his bones. Against all odds, you were alive.

A deep sigh of relief seeped from Bucky’s lungs, “Sweetheart…”

A hurricane of emotion rattled against the storm doors inside Bucky’s mind. He couldn’t stop thinking about the ‘almosts’. How he almost lost you, how you almost died alone in a Hydra base. But he couldn’t allow it to swallow him- not yet. There was no time for a breakdown. He needed to move, he needed to get to you.

He shrugged off the grief that rested heavy on his shoulders and swallowed the impending sob that vibrated inside his throat. “I’m here- I’m gonna come get you. Just tell me where-”

A staunch refusal came from your end of the comm, “No- no…” You took a sharp, rattling breath, “no way.”

Bucky didn’t like the way you had to fight to get your words out. You were clearly struggling, doing everything in your power to stay on this side of consciousness. He wondered how much time you had left.

But still, there was a familiar strength to your voice. Maybe it was the adrenaline, maybe it was the renewed hope of rescue; something was keeping you alive.

“It’s okay, sweetheart, just tell me where you are. The jet just landed. I’m gonna get you out and-”

“I said- I said no,” you breathed. “You can’t c-come in here, it’s too dangerous… we were a-ambushed.”

Even in your condition, even when Bucky was your only hope of rescue, his safety was your first thought. You’d rather die alone than put Bucky’s life at risk; the thought made his cheeks pink and filled his chest with a fuzzy warmth. But he didn’t have time to enjoy the feeling.

“If you don’t tell me where you are, I’ll just sweep the whole building,” Bucky said, using your worry against you. “That means more opportunities for me to run into Hydra operatives. More time inside the base- it’ll be way more dangerous.” He could practically see you rolling your eyes, “so it’s probably better if you just give me a direct route, don’t you think?”

Bucky smiled to himself as he envisioned you on the other end. He was certain you were arguing with yourself, cursing his rationale.

He waited for you to come at him with a sharp retort or a sarcastic quip but heard nothing. The silence on your end of the line dragged on. And on. It lasted far too long for Bucky’s comfort. Surely, you couldn’t still be thinking about his proposition? He’d given you more than enough time to make up your mind, more than enough time to come up with a response. It was time you didn’t have.

What if you’d fallen unconscious? What if, in those quiet moments, your soul vacated this earth?

Bucky couldn’t take it anymore. He disembarked the jet, resolving to search every inch of the base. But just as he reached the dark, unsettling building, you spoke.

“F-fifteenth floor. Northeast… northeast quadrant,” you sighed, defeated. “There’s a- a room at the end of this hall, I think it’s maybe an office?” Again, you took a long pause. The energy required to think, to speak, was energy you didn’t have. “Just f-follow the trail of blood.”

Bucky’s breath caught in his throat. He shuddered at the thought of your blood leaving a path down the stark white, sterile hallways of the base. But he didn’t have time to focus on anything other than getting you out; this was a rescue. He owed it to you to keep his head level. To focus on getting you out as quickly as he could.

“The power is… it’s out”, you said. “You’re gonna h-have to take-”

Bucky wanted to save you from wasting any extra energy, “The stairs. Got it.”

And while he normally didn’t mind getting a few extra steps in, he knew the time required to climb fifteen flights of stairs would push the limits of your survival.

But he pushed the ever-encroaching sense of doom to the side and put on a brave face for you. For himself. “Okay, I’m coming to get you,” he promised. “Stay awake, and don’t move.”

“As if I h-have a choice,” you laughed a breathy, hollow laugh. A long groan followed.

Your pain radiated through Bucky’s chest. He didn’t want to climb stairs or scour hallways- he just wanted to be there. To instantly materialize at your side. To bring you instantaneous comfort. He lamented the super soldier serum’s lack of teleportation abilities.

“You know what I mean, doll. Just stay awake, okay?” Bucky drew his gun and stepped inside the building. “Don’t fall asleep. Do anything you have to do- just stay awake. Can you keep talking until I get there?”

“W-what am I…” You let out a raspy exhale, “supposed to talk about?”

Bucky cleared a long hallway and found the stairwell, “Anything, just keep talking.”

Another extended silence filled the air; it nearly drove Bucky crazy. Your silences held limitless possibilities, horrifying ‘what ifs’.

“It w-wasn’t supposed to be… to be like this,” you finally said. “It wasn’t supposed to be this dangerous. This was Jake’s first mission- it wasn’t f-fair to him.” Heartache coated your every word. Even after your partner abandoned you, even after Jake forced you to suffer and bleed all alone- you still sympathized with him. Still felt sorry for him.

Bucky felt no such thing.

“I know, doll. Keep talking, okay?”

You sighed. “We s-split up for recon… that’s when they- when they came at me.” Your next few breaths were so shallow, your lungs barely inflated; the lack of oxygen left you dizzy. A thin veil of glittering spots sparkled and danced on the edges of your periphery. “It all h-happened so fast… there were so many of them. I just- I remember pain. And I hoped Jake was okay, w-wherever he was.”

Your heart was too good for this job. For people like Jake. Bucky admired your kindness, your empathy, your selfless nature. Even in the face of pain, of death- you thought about others. You often told Bucky how unfair life had been to him, lamenting his treatment at the hands of fate. Bucky found himself doing the same for you and your kind heart.

“I called out for h-him, I needed backup… I kept asking him to come help me-” A sharp cough rattled out of your throat.

Bucky cringed at the sound. It was the only sound in the building. He hadn’t heard anyone else. Hadn’t seen one Hydra operative- at least, not a live one. He came across their bodies every now and again but didn’t see a single living soul. He was sure they deserted after the explosion. Just like Jake.

The destruction, however, was everywhere. Bullet casings littered the floor. Blood stained the tile floors. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead. He had to get you out of here.

“But he n-never answered. And then he told me he was leaving. He said he was- he was outside already. He gave me n-ninety seconds to meet him at the jet…” Your words were tinged with devastation, with hopelessness, with betrayal. “I tried- I did my best to make it down the stairs. But I was- I was dizzy… I was b-bleeding.” The memory stung like your fresh wounds. “I kept slipping on- on my own blood. I just c-couldn’t move fast enough. It hurt too much.”

Wrath burned inside Bucky like a raging forest fire. But his utter heartbreak doused it completely, extinguishing the rageful flames. He found himself unable to think, to breathe. It took everything in him to keep moving forward. Who could ever leave you behind like that? Who could ignore your suffering and sentence you to death without a second thought? The image of you stumbling, struggling to run for your life gutted him.

“And then- and then I heard the jet t-take off,” you sighed. “And I listened as it got farther and farther away… until it was g-gone. And I was- I was alone.”

He thought of you sitting alone in cold silence as the noise from the jet quieted. As your hope dwindled. The entire base must’ve felt like a tomb, like a massive, lonely grave meant just for you.

Bucky almost fell to his knees. Sobs throttled the inside of his chest, begging for release. Tears burned inside his lash line. Jake didn’t just leave you behind, he marooned you without care. And in his departure, he sealed your fate.

“I d-didn’t have a way to call for… for help. My phone was on the j-jet with jake.”

The sorrow that stained your words was all too familiar to Bucky. It was the same hopelessness that accompanied him every day that he was at Hydra. When he laid in the snow for hours upon hours after falling from the train. He never wished that kind of despondency, that kind of misery on anyone. And knowing that you, the person who deserved it the least, experienced it for even a moment shattered him.

“I realized I… I didn’t h-have any options,” you breathed.

A collapsed column blocked Bucky’s path as he tried to make his way from the sixth floor to the seventh. The concrete was too high, too precarious to scale. If he tried to climb it and got hurt, it would only serve to diminish your chances of survival. And he wasn’t willing to risk that. With a huff, Bucky exited the northwest stairwell in search of another route. This was a waste of time- time you didn’t have.

He painstakingly checked every hall until he finally found another stairwell. His breathing came a little easier as he rocketed his way up the stairs, growing ever closer to you.

“So, I found this- this room. It’s quiet. It’s out of the w-way. I needed somewhere to hide. S-somewhere to…” A small crack of emotion cut through your voice, “somewhere to die.”

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that Jake got to return home safe and sound while you struggled to stay alive. It wasn’t fair that you had to seek out your own deathbed. Bucky wanted to scream, to break things, to spill every last drop of Jake’s blood. But he was a soldier, and this was a rescue mission.

“This seemed like as g-good a place as any,” you choked on a weak laugh. “Beats dying in the middle of a h-hallway, I guess.”

Bucky’s automatic response was to swear that you’d make it out. To promise that you weren’t going to die. But he bit his tongue. He couldn’t make those kinds of assurances. He’d do anything to bring you comfort but swearing that you’d return home alive seemed almost cruel.

He pushed himself to move faster. He couldn’t let you die alone, especially not in this godforsaken place. As he sprinted up the last flight of stairs and ripped open the door to the fifteenth floor, he struggled to orient himself. You were in the northeast quadrant, but where was he? He searched for anything to indicate his location- but found no signage. No directory.

Everything inside of him rattled with dread, with anxiety. Any moment now, you were going to die. You were going to take your last breath. All alone. A thick, suffocating wave of panic crashed over Bucky as he realized- you were going to die disappointed. You were going to leave this world knowing that he hadn’t gotten to you in time.

It was then that he noticed a faded arrow painted on the wall, with “NEQ” painted below it in block letters. Northeast quadrant. He was closer than he thought.

“I’m gonna be there in just a second, doll,” he said as he followed the arrows. “I think I’m right around the corner.”

This was just his way of making you feel better, you were sure of it. The hallways were long and winding. Each floor was a maze of its own. Even with your vague instructions, it could take him a while to find you. Still, Bucky’s words brought you comfort in the way that only he could.

“I know, I t-trust…” A metallic taste filled your mouth. A warm ooze trickled down your chin and dripped onto your chest. The warm, fuzzy feeling brought on by Bucky’s assurances faded. Of course, you knew you were in bad shape. But as blood leaked from your mouth, you wondered if these were your last moments.

Instantly, you searched for the words to say goodbye to Bucky. Time was slipping through your fingers, life draining from your body with each passing second. But before you drifted off into a never-ending sleep, you had to tell Bucky what he meant to you. You’d use all your strength, your last few breaths- whatever it took. He just had to know.

But how does one say goodbye to a soulmate? You didn’t have the energy or capacity to make a grandiose speech. And the blood filling your mouth impeded your ability to speak. You wanted to tell bucky everything- how he comforted you, cared for you, made your life worth living. How your life revolved around him as though he were your personal sun. But nothing quite encapsulated the things you felt for him. Every word in the English language, every sonnet fell short. And the lack of oxygen getting to your brain sabotaged your phrasing.

“Buck, I think it’s… I think it’s almost t-time,” you rasped.

But just as you opened your blood-stained mouth to proclaim every feeling you ever had for him, the door flew open. Alarm coursed through your veins at the threat. Surely, a Hydra agent had stumbled upon your hiding place and was here to finish you off. The severe blood loss was no match for your training, thought. And, on instinct, you pulled your gun on the tall, dark silhouette standing in the doorway.

“Woah, hey!” Bucky raised his hands in surrender. “It’s me, it’s just me.”

At the sound of his voice, your arm fell limp. Your gun clattered to the floor. Your head lolled back against the wall. It had taken everything in you to try and protect yourself one last time. And now that your energy reserves were nearly depleted, you allowed your eyes to close.

“S-sorry…” A barely-there smile pulled at your lips. “My… my bad, Buck.”

“No, don’t be sorry, doll.”

Bucky knelt in front of you, taking in your broken, bloodied body. He’d seen carnage before, witnessed more death than anyone should. But this, you- it was different. It hurt in places he didn’t know he had. But he didn’t let it show. Knowing you, you’d spend your last few moments comforting him, trying to make him feel better. And so, he forced a warm smile and tabled his breakdown for the moment.

“I’m actually impressed. I mean, you might be hurt, but you were ready to take me out just now,” he forced a chuckle. “That’s my girl.” His cool metallic hand brushed against your blood-stained cheek.

And in that moment, something within you changed. Your eyes shot open. You blinked a few times before forcing your eyes shut once again. You gave your head a few good shakes. Surely, this wasn’t real- it couldn’t be.

You opened your eyes wide once again, taking him in. “Bucky?”

With one shaking hand, you reached for him in the most pathetic attempt he’d ever seen. You were weak, dangerously so; it scared him to his core. But you were alive.

He leaned in, meeting you in the middle, and let you stroke at his stubble for a moment.

“Yeah, I’m here,” he kissed your palm. “I’m so happy to see you.”

“You’re…” you other hand reached for him, but made it only a centimeter or two before falling into your lap. Bucky opted to take it in his. “You’re here?”

He nodded, “I could never leave you behind, sweetheart.”

He may have continued speaking after that, but you didn’t quite hear him. The emotion you’d tried so hard to swallow came bursting forward, crushing your every attempt at remaining levelheaded. Your fingers smoothed over Bucky’s cheek again and again. His name fell from your lips in what resembled a prayer. Tears rolled down your cheeks and mixed with the blood crusting over your skin.

A soft, warm wave of peace rolled in, covering you like a well-loved quilt. The pain disappeared; the sorrow evaporated. All that remained was Bucky. This was the warm spring that followed a dark, bitter winter. The first rays of sun after a vicious storm. The first taste of home after a long time away. You let the familiar warmth of Bucky’s presence drown out the rest of the world until only you two remained.

“Sweetheart, did you hear me?” With a gentle squeeze of your hand, Bucky called you back to the present. “I need to look at your wound, okay?”

A sharp rush of pain nearly blinded you as you lifted your shirt, exposing the bloody mess. But even as Bucky appraised the gunshot wound that turned your abdomen into horror scene, you couldn’t find it in you to worry. Your hands lazily found his shoulder, his chest, his face; you just wanted to touch him. To know, without a doubt, that he was there. That he was real.

“Hey, we… we need to t-talk,” you whispered as Bucky did his best to quickly bandage your wound for transport. “I n-need to talk- to talk to you…”

Bucky nodded, “sure thing, doll. Absolutely. We can talk about whatever you want. But right now…” he returned your shirt to its rightful position and met your gaze. “Right now, I need to get you out to the jet, okay? We can talk later.”

He guided your arms around his neck, lifted you into his arms, and moved as fast as he could through the winding hallways. His quick gait set your nerves alight with pain. Every bump, every jostle had you gasping for breath. And though it was a necessary evil, the guilt still sat in Bucky’s stomach like a rock. His repeated ‘I’m sorrys’ were nearly constant, doubling with your every grimace and groan. But he couldn’t slow down, couldn’t let the time slip away; you didn’t have much left.

Between pained sounds and twisted expressions of discomfort, you said the same thing on a loop. Again and again and again, you pled with him, using energy you didn’t have.

“We need to… to t-talk.”

“I h-have to tell you.”

“Can I talk to y-you about- about something?”

And though Bucky would’ve loved nothing more than to have a long heart to heart with you as you two often did, you weren’t strong enough. He couldn’t let you waste your finite energy on a conversation with him. And so, he responded to each of your requests with an ask of his own, begging you to save your strength. He promised that the two of you could talk tomorrow, that there was plenty of time for a conversation later.

But ‘plenty of time’ almost seemed like an empty promise. And ‘tomorrow’ felt like a lie. Would you have a ‘later’? He didn’t know. But he didn’t want you wasting your oxygen, not when he feared it might be your last breath.

Boarding the jet with you alive in his arms almost felt like a win to Bucky. Almost. Sure, he’d gotten you out with your heart still beating, but your condition worsened by the second. And the grave looks the med team wore as Bucky gently rested you on the treatment table dug a deep pit in his stomach.

They sprang into action, placing IVs and delivering medications. Scissors glided through your shirt and exposed your broken body to the med team. Bucky knew they’d seen their share of gnarly injuries over the years, but he swore that they recoiled at the sight of your wounds.

With a shake of his head, Bucky refocused. He had to get you out of there- to get you home. He headed for the controls and planned to set the jet in motion. But he made it only a step toward the cockpit before a hand caught his.

“S-stay…” you whispered. “Please.”

His heart shattered. “I’m not leaving you, doll, I promise. I just have to get us in the air, okay?” With great care, he placed a kiss to your hand and set it at your side. “I’ll be back in just a minute.”

Bucky’s body operated on muscle memory alone as he initiated take off. His mind was occupied, completely and totally, by the sound of your weak voice begging him not to leave. The sound played on a loop inside his brain, cutting him deeper each time. You’d already been abandoned once today; he was certain you feared it would happen again.

With a deep breath and a quick reset, Bucky did what he had to do. He needed to be on his A-game for you, needed to be his very best. Only a few hours ago, you’d trusted someone with your life, and they failed you. Bucky wasn’t about to do the same. He worked carefully to chart the fastest route back to the compound, opting to forego FRIDAY’s proposed path. It kept him from your side longer than he would’ve liked, but less time in the air seemed like the best option. The sooner he could get you to the med bay, with its massive, brilliant medical staff and unlimited resources, the better.

Just as he finalized the flight plan and asked FRIDAY to notify the med bay of your impending arrival, an unsettling sound pulled his focus. It was an ominous beeping, alarming your care team of a sudden, life-threatening change.

Gloved hands moved at lightning speed; voices yelled medical jargon back and forth. And you laid there on the table. No heartbeat. No respirations. Deathly still.

Bucky stood on the periphery, too horrified to get any closer.

He thought it best, of course, to stay out the med team’s way. But knew deep down it was an excuse. He was simply too terrified to lose you. If he got closer, if he saw you struggling to stay alive, all of this would suddenly become real. And he couldn’t handle that.

“Barnes!” A nurse screamed at him, “did you hear me?”

Bucky forced himself back to the present. “No… I, um-”

“She has no pulse- get over here, we need you to do compressions!”

Bucky’s desperate need to help you, to save you, overpowered his fear. And in an instant, he was at your side. He loomed over you, his hands locked together, preparing to help resuscitate you. But once again, his fear reared its ugly head. You were already so badly injured, so weak. And he was far too strong. What if he made your condition worse? What if he-

“Come on!” The nurse yelled at him, “start compressions- now!”

He did as he was told. He pressed into your body with a measured pressure, careful not to crush your chest. But his cautious compressions didn’t cut it. The nurses instructed him to push harder. To “actually compress” your chest- and Bucky followed instructions.

But as he did so, a sickly snapping sound exploded from your body. Bucky recoiled instantly; his face contorted in horror.

“What are you doing? Keep going!”

“I can’t- I think I broke her ribs,” Bucky shouted at the doctor. “What do I do?”

“Keep going!” The nurse yelled, “It happens- just keep going.”

Bucky broke out into a cold sweat. His stomach turned at the thought of hurting you, of causing you even more pain; you’d been through enough as it was. But he did as he was told. With each round of compressions, he swore he created new fractures. He felt every splinter, every crack as he put pressure on your chest.

He wanted to sever every last nerve-ending in his hand; anything to rid him of the sickening sensation creeping through his palm. But if doing this saved you, it was worth the nightmares.

He watched as the two nurses provided your supplemental breaths and tended to your endlessly bleeding wound. The doctor called ‘clear’ every so often, shocking you with a defibrillator in an attempt to restore your heartbeat.

Round after round of compressions, breathing, and shocks passed by without signs of improvement. You remained lifeless, unresponsive. A syringe of epinephrine delivered straight to your chest did nothing. And Bucky felt what little hope he had slipping through the cracks in your ribs. He couldn’t believe he was about to lose you; couldn’t believe he’d have to watch you die. Hot tears blurred his vision and streaked down his cheeks. His legs went numb. At any second, he knew his knees would give out, knew he’d crumble to the floor under the crushing weight of grief.

The doctor deemed the next shock your last, and Bucky almost doubled over.

“Come on, doll, just-” He swallowed a sob, “just stay. Stay. Do it for me, I’m begging you. Please?”

The doctor called one last “clear” and delivered your final shock, only to be met with the rhythmic beeping of your heart monitor.

“Sinus rhythm restored,” announced the nurse to Bucky’s left. She appraised the waves on your EKG and gave a nod. “She’s stable.”

After what felt like an eternity, Bucky took a breath. He stretched his tense fingers and did his best to relax the rock-hard knots forming in his shoulders. A new crop of hope bloomed cautiously inside his chest, but he couldn’t allow it to blossom and flourish just yet. You weren’t out of the woods; there was a very real possibility that your heart might stop again. And he wasn’t sure how many times the doctor could revive you before throwing in the towel.

Less than a minute after Bucky’s cautious optimism sprouted anew, a soul crushing sight dashed it completely. A sharp gasp filled his lungs, a shudder rocked his frame. Shades of deep, dark blue bloomed under the skin of your chest. Black and purple splotches stained your sternum. Some spots were already starting to swell. He extended a hand in your direction but recoiled in an instant, fearing he’d hurt you yet again.

“Happens all the time,” one of the nurses said with a shrug. “Believe me, broken ribs are the least of her worries.”

Somehow, her words didn’t make him feel any better. He ached to hold your hand, to sweep a gentle caress across your cheek. But he didn’t dare touch you after what he did. Every glimpse of your bruised, swollen chest sent bile rushing into his throat.

The three dedicated members of the med team worked tirelessly for the rest of the flight. They did everything in their power to keep your condition steady, to maintain the life they worked so hard to save. It brought Bucky comfort to see them staying so close, ready to jump into action if need be.

Bucky, like the med team, hovered. He couldn’t bring himself to leave your side. You seemed too fragile, your condition too tenuous. He counted your every breath, took stock of every beat of your heart on the monitor. Stepping away for even a second felt wrong. He needed to be there if you crashed again, if the doctor needed extra hands. He needed to be there to help.

And if you woke up, he wanted to be the first face you saw.

But you didn’t wake. A groan here, a muscle twitch there- that was all you could spare. And though Bucky wanted nothing more than to see you open your eyes, he thanked the universe for keeping you unconscious. He knew tsunamis of pain rippled in the wings, waiting to overtake you the second you woke.

Bucky held his breath as the jet landed. Every jarring bump, every vibration, forced his heart into his throat. He feared that even the slightest impact would send you into cardiac arrest. He flicked his eyes from the rising and falling of your chest to the rhythmic flashing of your heart monitor and back again. Nothing changed, no alarms sounded. And when the jet finally stilled, Bucky breathed a deep sigh of relief. He just needed to get you to the med bay for treatment, and this whole nightmare would be over.

He didn’t like being optimistic. It felt like a set-up, like false hope. If he told himself you’d survive and you didn’t, the fall would be that much harder, that much more devastating.

But being realistic wasn’t any better. Telling himself that you were too far gone, that you weren’t going to make it, felt wrong. To him, it seemed like he was cursing you. Like willing your death into existence. Like begging the universe to end your life.

And so, he opted for a neutral mantra. “She’s home,” he told himself. “She’s home. She’s home. She’s home.”

The distance to the medbay felt longer than usual. The hallways seemed to stretch on forever, the double doors to the triage center seemed to grow farther and farther away. Bucky followed your gurney closely, only allowing a few inches of space between the two of you. He couldn’t be separated from you again. He wouldn’t. He needed to be with you every second, watching over you.

A dark cloud of impending doom loomed over his psyche. It whispered to him, telling him that if he left your side, if he let you out of his sight, you’d die. You’d be gone forever. And it would be his fault. He knew it was nonsense, that this was just his anxiety operating on overdrive. But he couldn’t shake the fear. And risking it wasn’t an option.

“No visitors past this point,” a security guard placed an arm in front of Bucky as he tried to enter the triage unit.

Bucky tried to go around the man, watching as the medical staff carried you farther out of reach. “I’m not a visitor, I’m an agent-”

“No agents past this point, then,” the guard rolled his eyes. “Only patients and medical staff. You can have a seat over there.”

A small table sat against the wall, flanked by two chairs. It was a sad, makeshift excuse for a waiting room that operated as a device to keep people from hanging around. But bucky couldn’t be discouraged. He took a seat in one of the chairs, determined to wait there as long as he had to. He knew he’d missed a number of important phone calls by now, and probably several meetings. But he didn’t care; all that mattered was you.

Dread circled Bucky like a buzzard as he waited. It was taking too long- why was it taking so long? How much time did the medical staff need? You were stable when the jet landed, the nurse said so. Why were there no updates? All Bucky needed was a nod, a bit of information. But he remained in the dark, wondering if you died on the operating table.

Maria found Bucky slumped in a chair with a zombie-like air about him. He was expressionless, his gaze hollow. His palms traced the same track up and down his thighs in a never-ending cycle. One look and she knew: something was very wrong.

“Hey,” she called softly, hoping not to startle him.

But Bucky didn’t respond- he didn’t even react. He just sat there, his unblinking stare burning a hole in the tile. An uneasiness enveloped Maria. She’d never seen Bucky so empty, so despondent. As she stared at him, she found herself fearing the worst. ‘Maybe he just received terrible news’ she thought. ‘Maybe he’s grieving’.

“Hey,” she tried again, nudging her foot against his.

He came back to life with a start. A sharp inhale filled his chest, his eyes blinked wildly. But his palms never stopped moving in their endless cycle against his tactical pants. And he never actually looked at her.

“Hi…” he breathed.

Hill took the seat opposite him. She conjured the gentlest, warmest tone she could find, “is everything okay?”

Bucky balled his hands into tight fists and stretched them out again. Maria noticed blood- your blood- crusting under his fingernails and staining his skin. But before she could get a good look, he grabbed the arms of the chair. His palms rubbed fervently against the plastic handles for a moment until they moved to his face. He ran his hands along his jaw, his spiky stubble poking into his skin.

“Barnes, what happened? Are you-”

Finally, his head snapped in her direction, “I can still feel it…”

“Feel what?”

Bucky’s head fell into his hands. He pressed his palms against his eyes and dragged them down his face. Maria watched him fall apart in slow motion. He seemed to be unraveling, one cell at a time. And when he finally spoke, shame made his words almost unintelligible.

“She crashed on the jet…”

“Oh...” Maria did her best to keep a calm, even tone. Her concern for you vibrated in her chest, but she didn’t dare let it free- not when Bucky was moments away from a meltdown. “Is she-”

“The med team needed help. There weren’t enough of them- they needed me to do chest compressions,” Bucky said, his voice low. “And I broke- I crushed her ribs.”

A sharp shudder rocked his entire body. Just thinking of that moment, when his too-strong hands destroyed your chest, was enough to make him sick. To scar him for life. To haunt him. Of all the horrible things he’d done in over the years, this was the worst. He gave his hands a quick shake, hoping to rid his nerve endings of the sensation.

“I felt her bones snapping under my hands,” Bucky’s words dripped with shame. “And I can still… I still feel it.”

“Okay,” Maria said gently. “Well, if she-”

“She was already in such bad shape,” Bucky swiped a tear from his cheek. “And I… I hurt her. I made it so much worse.”

His head fell into his hands once again and did not reemerge.

“Hey, look at me,” Maria gave his arm a gentle touch.

Bucky only shook his head.

“Come on, Barnes, just look at me for a second.”

Again, he refused.

Maria abandoned her chair and sat instead on the small table. She never got this close to Bucky. Usually, she preferred to give him his space. He wasn’t the touchy-feely type- unless you were around. But he was lost in a shame spiral, adrift with no hope of return. And he needed rescuing. She placed her hands on his and gently removed them from his face.

“You saved her life,” Maria said. “Twice. You rescued her from the base, and when the med team needed help, you came through.”

“But I-”

“Did it work?” Maria asked, her tine almost stern. “Did the chest compressions work?”

Bucky nodded.

Maria gave him a shrug, “That’s all that matters. She can recover from a few broken ribs, but if you hadn’t been there-”

Bucky averted his gaze as his eyes filled with tears.

“Hey,” Maria grabbed his face, bringing his focus back to her. “If you hadn’t been there, she’d be dead.”

Maria’s words fought hard against the demeaning voice that lived inside Bucky’s head. It screamed at him, telling him that he shouldn’t believe her, that he was a monster, that he almost killed you. Usually, Bucky allowed his inner demons to run free. He listened to them without pause, believing anything and everything they told him, no matter how vile. But Maria was steadfast and unshakable in her sentiments; she truly believed what she was saying. And by some miracle, Bucky did, too.

“Thanks…” He granted her a hollow smile and a small nod.

Hill sat in silence with him for a few hours. She didn’t try to make small talk or ask what was going on inside his head. She simply existed near him, sharing the space so that he didn’t have to be alone. She ignored important texts and sent every call to voicemail. She knew it was exactly what you’d do for him, if you were able. And she did her best to fill your shoes.

Abruptly, Bucky’s head snapped in her direction. His pulse thrummed against his skin as a new wave of anxiety crashed over him. “She kept saying…” he sighed. “She kept saying we needed to talk. She wanted to talk to me about something.”

Maria cocked her head to the side, “About what?”

He shrugged. “I told her we could talk later because there would be plenty of time,” Bucky’s words grew shaky. He found himself near tears for what felt like the millionth time that day. Guilt sucker punched him. “What if… what if there isn’t more time for us? What if that was all we were ever going to get? What if-”

“You’ll get more time,” Maria said with certainty. “The universe has a way of evening things out. You were robbed of time once; it won’t happen again. Plus, you’re deserved some fucking karmic retribution- you’re owed this.”

Bucky wondered how she could be that sure of something so ethereal. But she was steady, solid as a rock. She didn’t waver in her words or add caveats at the end. She, somehow, knew it to be true. And Bucky couldn’t help but believe her.

But when Fury called her for the eighth time, she knew quiet time was over.

“I have to go, okay? Fury can’t do anything without me, he’s hopeless.” She stood from her seat and rested a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “Call if you need anything.”

Bucky thanked her a million times over and, for the first time, gave Maria a hug. She would never know how much her reassurances helped him. She’d pulled him from the ledge and gave him what he desperately needed: perspective.

In the hours that followed, he let her words play on a constant loop inside his mind. “If you hadn’t been there, she’d be dead,” he heard her say. “You’ll get more time.” The sickening feeling of your bones snapping under his strength never faded, and the fear of losing you still had him in a chokehold, but Maria’s words quieted his mind.

In the sad, empty waiting room, time seemed to mutate. Some of the hours dragged, others whizzed by. Bucky wasn’t sure how long he’d been there. Was it ten hours? Or twenty? He didn’t really care. He’d wait lifetimes for you.

He saw the security guards change shifts once, twice. It was the only thing alerting him to the passage of time, as part of him believed it was standing still. On the third shift change, they told him to go home.

“They’ll call you if there’s an update”, said one of the guards. “It’d probably be a good idea for you to go get some sleep, or something.”

Bucky knew he looked like hell. Your blood left crimson streaks across his face and neck. And the dark circles he usually wore under his eyes were a deep shade of plum. But he couldn’t leave, he couldn’t sleep. Not when your life hung in the balance. Not when you needed him.

A few more hours passed with no news, and Bucky found himself teetering on the edge of insanity. An angry, desperate voice bellowed inside his head. It told him to bust through the doors and find you, no matter what it took- even if it meant hurting people in the process. The gun secured to his hip and the knife strapped to his ankle became eerily attractive. His hands itched to reach for the weapons, to hold someone at gun point until they allowed him to see you. But he couldn’t to give in to the fear, to the violence. It took him years of therapy and long talks with you to stop seeing himself as a monster- and he refused to destroy the progress you helped him make.

A doctor stepped out of the double doors and looked in Bucky’s direction, “Sergeant Barnes?”

Bucky was on his feet before he knew what hit him. This was it. After what felt like an eternity of not knowing whether you lived or died, he was about to have an answer. Sweat dampened his palm, his brow as he stood in front of your doctor.

He didn’t know he was even capable of this kind of fear, this kind of agony. And though he was an impossibly strong physical specimen, Bucky knew he’d never be able to lift the weight of the grief that followed your loss. He knew that, if you died, he’d spend the rest of his life dragging himself from place to place, unable to stand, unable to push back against the overwhelming, oppressive force of losing you.

Your doctor spoke quickly and professionally about your condition, but the words turned to mush the second they reached Bucky’s brain. The combination of medical jargon and pure panic made their meanings imperceptible. But one phrase managed to cut through the fog of Bucky’s anxiety and exhaustion: “you can see her now.”

And just like that, Bucky took off. His fatigued body did its best to carry him through the halls, stumbling every now and then on the smooth tile of the hospital floors. But he didn’t dare slow down. He had to get to you.

By the time he reached the door to your room, he found himself shaking- almost shivering- with anxiety. He knew you were alive, of course. Knew that the doctors had been successful in saving your life. But something in him doubted their handiwork. Something in him swore that if he didn’t get to you in the next half second, you’d flatline. Again.

He could practically feel his brain rattling around inside his skull, his teeth chattered against one another. And the sharp tremors in his hands made it nearly impossible to get a grip on the door handle. Panic and frustration coursed through him as the he tried again and again to gain entry to your room with no luck. A strangled sob forced its way out of his chest and caught the attention of a nurse- one of the nurses who helped keep you alive on the jet.

“Hey…” Her eyes drifted to Bucky’s shaking hands. “Need some help?” Before Bucky could answer, she’d abandoned the medication she was prepping, discarded her gloves, and made her way to his side.

“Here, let me.” Her soft, sympathetic tone was almost too kind; Bucky’s eyes blurred with tears. She turned the door handle and gestured for Bucky to go inside.

His “thank you” was for more than just the door.

Bucky took a few steps inside and drew in a sharp breath; he’d never seen you in such severe condition. Over the many hours that Bucky waited for you outside, all of your bruises grew darker, more menacing. They stained your throat, your face, your arms. He didn’t even want to think about the ones on your chest- the ones he caused. Dried blood crusted in your hair and formed a path down the side of your face. It sat caked under your fingernails and rested in the creases of your palms. Thankfully, your gunshot wound was covered by gauze and concealed by your gown. But knowing it was there was enough to make Bucky sick. He, of course, witnessed and inflicted, his fair share of carnage over the years. But he knew your wound would haunt him for years to come- simply because it was yours.

All he wanted was to be near you. To sit at your bedside and hold your hand. But he didn’t dare to get any closer. Electrodes attached a dozen wires to your chest. IVs sat lodged in the crooks of your elbows, in the backs of your hands. Machines and monitors kept track of your vitals. And who was he to disturb this fragile, vital ecosystem? What if he accidentally pulled out one of your IVs? What if he detached a wire by mistake? He’d already hurt you once today, he wasn’t about to do it again.

He, instead, opted to stand at attention. A few feet away. For your safety. He didn’t touch you, didn’t even say your name. He simply stared at you, counting your every breath.

An hour- or maybe two- passed by with him like this. Nurses checked on you, doctors poked their heads in. And every time, they told him he was permitted to sit by your bedside. But he just shook his head. Sure, slipping his hand into yours, being close to you- it would provide him with incomprehensible comfort. But he couldn’t, not when you were so severely injured.

After the third hour, Bucky feared his sanity was slipping. A wicked voice lodged deep in his psyche suddenly awakened. It whispered to him, taunted him. Maybe this was all a dream. Maybe he was asleep in the waiting room. Maybe you didn’t survive. Maybe…

And he would’ve believed it, had you not snapped him out of the vicious spiral.

“Buck?” He feared he’d never hear you voice again, but there it was. Hoarse and weak- but yours.

Bucky flew to your side. He cradled your face gingerly in his hands, completely consumed by the need to touch you, to feel you, to know that you were real. His palms laid flush against your cheeks, his thumbs sweeping over your skin. And in an instant, the sickly sensation of your snapping bones vanished.

A hurricane of tangled thoughts and emotions crashed over him. He had so much to he wanted to say, so much he wanted to confess to you. But the words refused to arrange themselves properly. Suddenly, Bucky wished he’d used his ample time in the waiting room to better organize his thoughts. He wished he’d sought out a pen and a scrap of paper and used them to plan and articulate his sentiment. But even if he’d found the supplies he needed, he wouldn’t have been able to jot a single thing down. Not with his shaking, unsteady hands.

Anxious words and broken sobs got stuck in his throat and formed a garbled, unintelligible mess as they left his mouth. But it was the best he could do. He stared at you, waiting for your response.

“I, um…” you looked at him for a long moment. The haze of head trauma, blood loss, and pain killers made you foggy. You did your best to trace your steps back through Bucky’s words, certain that your condition was the cause of your confusion. But after a significant pause, you came up empty. “Sorry, I- what?”

Bucky slid one of his hands into yours and gave a soft laugh. “Sorry. I tried to say-” He sat quiet for a moment. What had he tried to say, exactly? He wasn’t sure. With a small shake of his head, he re-rerouted. “Um, it doesn’t matter. Here, how’s this:” He cleared his throat and spoke with the sharpest pronunciation possible. “How are you feeling?”

Your laugh- Bucky’s favorite laugh- bubbled up to the surface. But regret swallowed you whole as pain shot through your head, your chest, your side. The hurt radiated through your entire being. It rendered you breathless, and left your face twisted in an agonized grimace.

Bucky didn’t like how long it took you to recover from the small chuckle you shot his way. A pang of worry shot through him. “Don’t exert yourself, okay?” He swept a thumb across your cheek, “you don’t wanna tear your stitches or...” He cleared his throat, “aggravate any, um, broken bones.” Bones that he broke.

“No, I’m…” you squeezed your eyes shut for a long moment before opening them again. The pain slowly receded. “I’m good, I’m okay. I just- breathing is hard. I forgot how shitty it feels to have broken ribs.”

Bucky nodded. His teeth sunk into the smooth flesh of his cheek. A metallic taste coated his mouth. He didn’t want to tell you the truth. Didn’t want you to know that he was the cause of your severe pain. But you deserved to know, didn’t you? With a deep sigh, he opened his mouth, intent on telling you what really happened. But you cut him off.

“Thank you, Buck. For coming to get me. I really thought I was…” Hot tears stung your eyes and blurred your vision. “I thought that was it for me, you know? And I just want you to know how-” you sniffed, “how grateful I am.”

Bucky left your side for only a second, retrieving a box of tissues from the counter across the room. He was back in no time and swept a tissue across your cheek to catch your tears.

“I know we always say that we have each other’s backs but you… you meant it,” you said. A small smile pulled at your lips, “thank you for meaning it.”

Bucky nodded. He did his best to keep his breathing steady, to stop himself from falling apart at the seams. He knew exactly what it felt like to be left behind, to wait for your last moments- alone.

“I wasn’t gonna leave you there, doll. I couldn’t.”

You gave a small nod. “Yeah, I- I wish my partner had felt the same way…” The hurt in your voice was unmistakable. It sliced though Bucky’s chest. “I didn’t think he would ever do something like that. I mean, I thought we were friends.”

The mere thought of Jake brought a familiar rage to the forefront of Bucky’s mind. He didn’t understand how anyone could be so callous, so uncaring- so indifferent to the well-being of others. The part of him that swore off unnecessary violence remained quiet as the rest of him imagined Jake’s demise. He wanted your disloyal partner to suffer. To squirm and squeal and regret that he ever left you behind. But that could wait- you were the priority.

“Yeah, I didn’t expect him to be that kind of person,” Bucky sighed, “he seemed like a stand-up guy.”

Silence filled the room as you thought over Jake’s desertion. His abandonment hurt. It stung in places you didn’t expect. You’d taken Jake under your wing and did everything in your power to be the best leader possible. All you wanted was to help him. To set him up for success.

And after working alongside Bucky for so long, you’d forgotten that disloyalty to one’s partner was even an option.

“He probably panicked,” you tried to rationalize. “And then once he realized what he’d done, maybe he…”

There was no rationalizing this.

An ugly realization slithered into your mind. “After he left, I think he probably hoped I’d just die… that way I wouldn’t be able to give my side of the story.” The weight of Jake’s actions hit you like a train. Rivulets of warm tears rolled down your cheeks, only to be swept away by Bucky’s gentle hand. With a small shake of your head, you did your best to banish the feelings of abandonment and betrayal. Wallowing would only make you more miserable. And you didn’t need emotional pain on top of the physical agony that already plagued you.

“Well, joke’s on him,” you shrugged, “cause I’m still alive.” Pain radiated through your chest, bringing a grimace to your face. “Kind of.”

Bucky didn’t understand how you could just dismiss the bad feelings. Couldn’t understand your propensity for levity. Your partner left you for dead without a second thought- and yet, you found a way to joke about it. It was something he’d always admired about you, something he wished he was capable of.

You gave a strained laugh, “I can’t wait to see the look on Jake’s face when he finds out that I didn’t die.”

Bucky wasn’t sure what prompted him to say it. It left his mouth without his brain’s authorization.

“But you did.”

He wished to take the words back, but it was too late. They hung in the air, just out of his reach.

“I…” you struggled to grasp Bucky’s words. “I what?”

This was not the time- or the place, or the way- to tell you the truth. But he didn’t have a choice. His clumsy words made his bed, and now he had to lie in it.

“You, um…” Bucky didn’t want to think about what happened, let alone say it out loud. But he owed it to you to be honest. Especially after Jake had lied to you about being a trustworthy partner. Bucky scratched at the stubble on his face, ran a hand through his hair. Anything to delay the inevitable. But he couldn’t put it off for long. “Your heart stopped- you died. On the jet.”

Only one word fell from your lips, “Oh…”

“And while I’m at it, I might as well tell you that…” Bucky took a deep inhale. He was in too deep now. And keeping this from you any longer felt like lying. “That your ribs are broken because of me.”

A quizzical look crossed your face, “what do you mean?”

“I mean… the med team was short staffed on the jet. There were only three of them. And when you crashed, it was- it was an all hands on deck situation.” He flashed back to the moment when the alarms sounded. When your EKG flatlined. A shudder ran through him. “They needed me to do chest compressions. And I- I didn’t want to hurt you, but the nurse said I wasn’t pushing hard enough to actually help you. And when I pushed harder- I broke your ribs.”

Bucky searched your face for something- anything. Anger. Fear. Betrayal. But he found nothing. Your expression was as neutral as they come. He feared that something lingered just below the surface. That once you fully processed his words, you’d erupt into a perfect storm of disgust and disappointment.

He told himself to wait silently until you made up your mind. But the outburst exploded from his lips before he could stop it. “I’m sorry- I’m so sorry, sweetheart. You know I’d never want to hurt you, I would never do anything to hurt you. But I… they told me I had to push harder. Or it wasn’t going to work. And I just wanted it to work, I wanted you to be okay, and-”

It took almost all of your strength to raise your hand and place a finger to Bucky’s lips. He fell silent.

“Buck, it’s okay.”

He tried to form a rebuttal, but you cut him off.

“You didn’t have to rescue me, but you did. No questions asked, no hesitation. You saved my life by getting me out of there. And you saved me again by helping the med team.” Your hand drifted from Bucky’s face and landed in his palm. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Bucky didn’t say anything else. His fingers traced gentle patterns on your palm. His eyes fell downward. You could almost see the shame eating him alive from the inside.

“Hey,” you intertwined your fingers with his. “I can handle a few broken ribs.”

“No, I- I know you can. I just…” A sad smiled flickered across his lips. “I feel terrible. You went through a lot. And I just don’t like knowing I made it worse.”

A long silence filled the room. You’d seen this side of Bucky more times than you could count. And you knew him well enough to know what followed. He was going to feel bad- terrible, actually- about this for a while. There was no accelerating the process or absolving him of his guilt. No amount of reassurances could save him from it. He just had to sit with it. One day, the weight would diminish. But it was going to take time. And that was okay.

You gave his hand a squeeze. “I thought your voice was a hallucination, you know.”

Bucky lifted his head.

“And when you came into the room, I actually thought that was a hallucination, too.” A smile stretched across your face, “I mean, I thought I was losing my mind.”

Bucky gave a half-hearted chuckle. He didn’t want to think about you in that room by yourself. About you struggling to tell what was real.

“But then you touched me…” You raised your hand and brushed it across your cheek, mimicking him. “And that’s when I realized that you were real- that you were there.” You fell quiet for a moment, lost in the memory of Bucky’s rescue. “It was like, in that moment, I wasn’t scared anymore. I wasn’t scared of the pain. I wasn’t scared of dying. I was just scared that…”

“What?”

“You have to promise not to laugh,” you told him with an authoritative tone. “Cause I know it’s corny, or cheesy, or whatever.”

“Sweetheart,” Bucky drew an X over his heart. “I’m not gonna laugh at you.”

You stared at him with narrowed eyes, sizing up his promise. But, of course, you knew Bucky would never tease or ridicule you about something like this.

“Okay, fine, I um… I was scared that I’d never see you again. If I died, I mean.”

Bucky’s lungs emptied. He couldn’t remember how to breathe, how to speak. A sudden ache ripped through his heart as it splintered and shattered into a million pieces. To know that you thought of him in what you believed were your last moments somehow ripped him apart and put him back together all at once.

Your voice cracked. Tears filled your eyes. “I was afraid that we’d already run out of time. I was afraid that we weren’t going to get any more.” A few soft sobs escaped from your throat, followed by a pained groan. But you pushed passed the throbbing in your chest. “But I was so relieved. Because I got to see you one last time. It was the most intense sense of peace I’ve ever experienced.”

Bucky struggled to hold on to his composure. He felt himself crumbling, weakening under the weight of your words.

“But then I realized- I realized I’d never get to tell you. And you kept saying we could talk later, but I didn’t know if there would be a ‘later’. And when I blacked out, I was so full of…” You shook your head ever so slightly, sending a few tears dripping onto your cheeks. “I had so much regret. Because I needed you to know.”

“To know what?” Bucky leaned in close, searching your face for any inkling, any clue. “Doll, it’s ‘later’. Tell me- whatever it is. You can tell me now, it’s-”

Your lips met his in a soft kiss. In it, everything you’d ever felt for him came rushing forward. Admiration. Longing. Lust. Obsession. Adoration. Love.

A sting of pain jolted through you as your split lip brushed his, but you didn’t care. His hands found your face, your fingers curled into the collar of his shirt. It was always supposed to be this way.

When the two of you finally separated, Bucky simply stared at you. He didn’t move, he didn’t speak. He wasn’t sure he knew how.

“I love you, Buck. I’ve loved you- for so long.” A huff left your chest, “So. Long.”

Still, Bucky remained silent. Nerves began crawling through you like vines, twisting their way through every fiber of your being. But you owed it to yourself, and to Bucky, to tell him the truth.

“And I just… I know how you see yourself. And I know you don’t think you’re even worthy of my friendship, let alone love. But I was so anxious, cause I thought you’d never know the truth. I thought I’d die without getting to tell you. And you’d live the rest of your life thinking that you’re not worthy, that no one could ever love you. But I- I love you. I just needed you to know.”

The silence made your ears ring. Bucky’s face still wore a mask of bewilderment. And you feared you’d ruined everything.

“You don’t have to say it back, though,” you said. “I’m not gonna stop being your friend if this is an unrequited thing.”

Finally, Bucky came back to life. He rolled his eyes and let a scoff escape his lips. He leaned in close, the tip of his nose almost brushing yours. “Unrequited? I broke every SWORD rule and policy. Abducted medical staff. Stole a jet. And went on an unauthorized mission. All to get you back. I didn’t even know if you were alive, I just- I had to bring you home.”

He closed the small gap that remained between your face and his and granted you warm, gentle kiss that tasted like home. “I did all that- and you thought there was even a chance that I didn’t love you back?” Bucky gave a playful roll of his eyes, “you don’t know me at all, sweetheart.”

You returned his eye roll. "Well, you're a really great friend to me. And you always have been. So, I didn’t take a rescue as a proclamation of love,” you gave a strained chuckle. “I just thought-”

“I’ve loved you for…” Bucky thought back over the course of your friendship. The day you first met, the first time you helped him through a panic attack, the time he made you the ugliest cake in the world for your birthday. He saw his life in two parts: before he met you and after he met you. And he so preferred the after.

“I don’t even know how long,” he shrugged. It was almost automatic. His feelings for you didn’t need a slow, gradual build up. They descended upon him all at once, like the world’s most beautiful avalanche. “It’s been a long time- an embarrassing amount of time, probably,” he laughed.

“Oh, so we’re both cowards then,” you shot him a wink. “Too afraid to tell the other how we feel.”

Bucky nodded, “It seems that way…”

“But you weren’t too scared to steal a jet and run into possible gun fire?” you quipped.

“Nope. Didn’t even think about it,” he said matter-of-factly. “I just wanted to find you.”

You’d never experienced a love- a commitment- like that. It sent a rush of warmth into your cheeks and somehow eased the pain plaguing your body. You knew in your heart you would’ve done the same for Bucky without a second thought. But knowing that he was so fiercely determined to bring you home felt almost unbelievable. You had the proof, though, right there in front of you. This man, who you loved, loved you too. And loved you enough to risk his life for you. It wasn’t something you’d ever ask him to do, and you knew you’d never have to. He’d do it without hesitation. Without reservation. He’d walk through fire for you if it meant bringing you home.

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