#i wanted to draw mimosa like i said but i felt like drawing her would be more fun cause i haven't seen any fanart of this precious girly!!

[yuriyuruandyuraart]

HAPPY BDAY @bluepallilworld 🎂

Do I really need to cite all the reasons why I think you're an absolute sunshine and how much I admire and appreciate your presence and support? Because I'd drill it into your skull if I could with how much your happiness matters to me you sweet ol bean<333 have the best birthday ever and don't you dare forget how amazing you are >:'D ♥️

[bellaxgiornata]

Falling For the Devil [Part five: "The Wedding Day"]

Pairing: Matt Murdock x Fem!Reader

Summary: It's finally the day of Foggy and Marci's wedding and you're one of the bridesmaids.

Or

You admire how handsome Matt looks in his tux while feeling sick to your stomach as a pretty bridesmaid flirts with him all day.

[Series of one-shots about Reader meeting, falling for, and dating Matt Murdock.]

Warnings: 18+ for this series; contains humor, fluff, romance, angst, smut (like...a lot of it later in the series), language, some violence

Word Count: 3.2k

a/n: Okay, I lied, I got another one up on tumblr. Y'all, there are so many of these. For real. I feel like putting up 74 of them is going to be a bigger task than I thought. Anyway, this wedding day saga spans like three installments. You can find the list of installments that are on tumblr here. "The Wedding Night" seems to be the most loved installment on AO3 so I'm trying to get that one up next!

You took a sip of your mimosa, eyes glued to Marci in the large mirror as the hair stylist finished pinning back the blonde curls on her head while the makeup artist finished touching up her lipstick. She looked absolutely stunning–not that she didn’t always–and you and the five other bridesmaids had been dying to see her finally fully dressed in her wedding dress.

"How was dealing with the hotel mishap last night?" Karen asked you, leaning in on the couch beside you to whisper. 

You sighed, frowning down at the mimosa in your hands. Last night when you had arrived before the rehearsal dinner to check in with Matt and Karen, you'd found out that the rooms blocked out for you and Matt were adjoining rooms. Which for some reason had made you utterly nervous knowing there was only a single locked door between you and Matt for the two nights you'd be staying here. 

And it shouldn't have made any difference. It was just one locked door. Which had remained locked last night. But somehow knowing Matt was just beyond that door had made you stare at it more than you should have been staring at it last night. But the comments from one of Foggy's cousins to Matt during dinner last night about you needing ear plugs after the wedding, implying beforehand that Matt would be hooking up with someone–a perk of being in the bridal party he had joked–had only upset you further. You'd been anxiously dreading tonight, terrified you'd have to overhear Matt having sex with someone else just in the room next door. You were pretty sure that would kill you.

"It was fine," you lied. 

Karen rolled her eyes. "So naturally you're freaking out?"

You shrugged before bringing the glass to your lips, taking a sip. "I just don't want to hear his activities tonight," you mumbled.

Karen shot you a pointed look. "You know he's not going to do that tonight, right?" she asked you. "How many times do I have to tell you he's into you before it gets through?"

You sighed, shaking your head. "We're just friends, Karen," you said. 

She leaned in closer to you, her voice dropping even lower as she whispered, "But you're one of the few he's told his secret to."

"Yeah," you responded, talking out of the side of your mouth as you whispered back, "only because I'd nearly gotten myself killed looking too far into a story and he showed up to save me. It was sheerly because I have embarrassingly memorized his mouth, jaw, and voice that I'd figured it out myself. He didn't actually tell me."

Karen opened her mouth to say more, but was quickly cut off as Marci’s cousin Rosalie turned her attention on the pair of you. 

"What are you two whispering about over there?" she asked curiously, drawing the attention of everyone in the room to you both.

"It's about Matt, isn't it?" Marci called out, her knowing eyes on you in the mirror.

You felt your cheeks burn hot as your right hand fidgeted with the hem of your robe–sage green, matching each of the other bridesmaids and the same color as the dress you'd be wearing later.

"Did something finally happen?" she pressed you, her eyes widening.

"No," you answered her quickly. "Nothing happened. We're just friends, Marci, you know that."

Allison, a pretty brunette who had been friends with Marci since law school, let out an audible sigh of relief from where she was sitting in an armchair across from you. Your eyes immediately darted to her and she smiled.

"I was totally thinking you and him were together at the rehearsal last night," she explained quickly. "I had a thing for him back in law school but was too afraid to make a move. Now that I know he's available though…" she trailed off, a sly grin on her face as the girls in the room besides Marci and Karen squealed.

Your eyes landed back down on your drink, cheeks further reddening as you tried to ignore the sympathetic looks Karen and Marci were both giving you. Of course there’d be a gorgeous bridesmaid chasing after Matt all day today. Could you have expected anything less?

You followed the line of bridesmaids down the hall, the loud clattering of multiple sets of high heels echoing with each step. Foggy's laugh was unmistakable as he stood surrounded by his groomsmen all waiting for guests to finish filling into the church before the ceremony began. You couldn’t help but smile at the sight knowing how long he’d been waiting for this day. 

And then your eyes instantly found their way straight to Matt in the hallway as if drawn by an unseeable force. He was gripping his cane in one hand and smiling beneath the dark glasses currently on his face. He looked handsome with his hair slightly gelled to keep it neat–probably Foggy's doing, you thought–and his black tuxedo and black bow tie. Despite Matt matching the five other groomsmen in the same outfit, it looked infinitely better on his muscled body and your heart beat just a bit faster at the sight. With a shuddering inhale beside Karen, you tried to will the traitorous organ to relax before Matt could pick up on it. For now, if he was even paying attention, he'd surely assume it was nerves. He knew you had been anxious about having to be in front of so many people today, even if you weren't remotely the person of interest. 

As if Karen knew who you were thinking about as the pair of you headed over, she gestured her head at Matt before grinning and wagging her eyebrows at you. 'Make a move' she mouthed wordlessly. Your eyes widened, heart speeding up just a bit faster. Vigorously you shook your head 'no' in reply. 

And then you heard Allison's voice complimenting him loudly. The sound drew your attention and your heart felt like it was constricting at the sight before you. He was smiling charmingly back at her and indulging in her small talk. Your hands gripped the bouquet of white peonies and garden roses just a bit tighter.

"He won't wait around forever," Karen whispered into your ear.

A heavy weight fell around your shoulders as you plastered on a smile, turning and chatting with the bridal party around you for the next ten minutes as everyone waited for the start of the ceremony. Your eyes occasionally lingered on the way Allison's hand would find moments to reach out and grab onto Matt's forearm or shoulder. Your stomach twisted unpleasantly each time. You were grateful when the wedding coordinator for the church ushered everyone to finally pair up and line up for the processional. With a sigh and a horde of butterflies in your stomach, you headed over towards Matt.

"Hey," you greeted him with a tight smile, placing a hand nervously on his shoulder.

He said your name and you felt your heart flutter wildly in your chest. "Was wondering when you'd come say hi," he teased.

"I didn't want to intrude," you replied. "You ready?"

He smiled back at you, his mouth spreading into a cheeky smile. "I'm not the one getting married today," he joked, folding up his cane.

You laughed, rolling your eyes. "I meant to line up," you told him.

His smile never faltered as he offered you his arm. You licked your lips nervously before looping your arm through his, your hand grasping his firm bicep. 

God, he has amazing arms.

After he placed his cane on a nearby table, not needing it for the ceremony since you would be walking him in and out, you silently led him in line to where you'd been situated at the rehearsal last night. Karen looked over her shoulder from her place in front of you both, shooting you a wink that only further caused your cheeks to burn.

You felt Matt fidgeting beside you and you glanced over, spotting him removing his dark glasses one-handed. He slid them into an inside jacket pocket, smoothing a hand over it and frowning lightly for a moment. You knew he felt uncomfortable without his glasses in front of large gatherings of people, but you also knew Foggy had asked him if he would be alright having them off for the sake of photos for the important parts of the day and that Matt had happily agreed.  

You leaned over towards Matt, lightly squeezing his arm. "You look handsome, Matt," you assured him softly, hating that he even worried about how people reacted to his unfixed stare. "Don't worry."

His head turned, his sightless gaze falling fondly back on you, landing at your collarbone. A warm smile spread across his face now, his eyes crinkling at the corners. You felt your heart involuntarily stutter in your chest when he whispered back, “And I’m sure you look beautiful. No need to be so nervous.”

You ducked your head, some of your curled hair that wasn’t pinned back curtained your face at the movement. “You know I’m always nervous,” you muttered. But then you sighed, raising your head and squaring your shoulders as the processional music began. “But you’re right, no one’s going to be paying attention to me today.”

“Well I wouldn’t go that far,” he whispered back.

You didn’t respond, your eyes watching as Foggy walked his mom down the aisle to her seat, giving her a teary eyed hug before he took his place at the front of the church. And then Foggy’s brother Theo walked out with his arm linked with Rosalie’s and the line at the church entrance shuffled a few inches forward. You and Matt took two steps closer and you felt your palm lightly sweating along the stem of the bouquet as nerves swirled inside of your stomach. There were easily more than a hundred people seated in the pews staring at each couple as they walked in. Suddenly you felt a little unsteady in your heels as Karen and one of Foggy’s cousins now stood at the entrance to the church.

“Relax,” Matt’s voice came from just beside your ear. His warm breath blew over your neck as he spoke, goosebumps lightly dotting your forearms. “I won’t let you trip.”

Your hand gripped his arm a little tighter at his words as Karen and Foggy’s cousin made their way down the aisle next. You shuffled Matt and yourself to the edge of the church entrance. 

“Thanks, Matty,” you whispered back, your eyes on Karen as she gracefully strode down the aisle. “You know I’m like Bambi in heels.” 

“Just smile and focus on me,” he told you. “I’ll be right beside you.”

You glanced at Matt next to you for just one moment, taking in the sight of him smiling back at you. He looked heartbreakingly handsome and your heart squirmed inside of your chest. And then your gaze swept back to the aisle in front of you that somehow seemed vastly longer than when you’d practiced walking down it with Matt last night.

“We’re up,” you whispered to him.

You both stepped forward, slowly making your way down the aisle to the soft music the string quartet was playing. You kept your gaze focused ahead, smiling wide and paying attention to the comforting warmth of Matt along the right side of you. When you neared the front of the church you shot Foggy a grin, then turned to the right with Matt, guiding him up to stand on the step next to the groomsmen already there. Quickly you turned, making your way back towards the opposite side where the bridesmaids were standing and took your place. You exhaled a slow breath, trying to calm your nerves as the next couple began their way down the aisle. Minutes later Allison and the groomsmen she was paired with made their way down the aisle and the doors to the church were closed behind them. Your eyes darted over to Foggy where he was nervously fidgeting and shifting his weight back and forth on his feet. 

Shortly after the last couple had taken their place, the doors opened and Marci stepped out, her arm linked with her father’s. Everyone rose from the pews as she made her way down and you felt your eyes watering watching the emotion on her and Foggy’s face as they stared back at each other. For a brief moment your eyes slid their way across the church and landed on Matt; his gaze was focused somewhere around Foggy, a big smile on his face. Your heart sped up a little, taking a moment to appreciate the sight of Matt dressed like he was as he stood at the front of the church. You saw his eyes slowly shift towards you and you momentarily ceased breathing all together as your gaze quickly shifted back to Foggy and Marci. You could feel your face burning as you watched Marci’s father place her hand in Foggy’s.

The rest of the wedding ceremony was beautiful and you’d cried with Karen through the entirety of it, managing to laugh a little during some parts of the vows they’d written for each other. Foggy had pumped his fist in the air as him and Marci made their way back down the aisle as the recessional began. The pairs of bridesmaids and groomsmen began meeting up in the center and exiting the church together. When Karen began her walk back down with Foggy’s cousin, you made your way over towards Matt, his gaze already finding you before you’d said anything.

“Back already?” he teased you lightly.

You reached out, linking your arm through his offered one with a smile on your face. “You say that like you didn’t miss me, Murdock,” you teased back.

You both began making your way down the aisle with you leading Matt. After only a few steps you felt him lean in beside your ear.

“I did,” he whispered.

Heat rose to your cheeks, your smile widening a little more nervously as you walked. Not knowing how to respond to Matt’s usual teasing flirtation, you kept your mouth closed. Once out of the church, you led him back towards the table where he’d left his cane, reaching out a hand and grabbing it for him. 

“Thank you,” he said when you’d passed it to him.

You reluctantly unlinked your arm from his, fidgeting awkwardly with the bouquet in your hands. Matt slid his glasses out of his pocket, slipping them back on before he began to unfold his cane. He shot you a quick smile as he did.

“See? Wasn’t so bad, was it?” he asked.

You swallowed hard, the corner of your mouth twisting up ever so gently. “No,” you answered. “It wasn’t. Thanks for not letting me fall.”

He opened his mouth to say more, but Allison appeared beside the both of you. She placed a hand on Matt’s arm and greeted him before shooting you a friendly smile. You returned the smile, your heart aching as you turned and headed over to Foggy and Marci to offer them your congratulations as Allison began chatting with Matt behind you.

The past few hours had gone by in a blur after the ceremony. The bridal party had gone with Foggy and Marci for a while to take photos with their photographer after the newlyweds had gotten their family photos taken in the church. And then everyone had headed back for the beginning of the reception. You and Matt had walked in arm in arm to the reception, Matt spinning you on the center of the dance floor while you laughed before you led him up to his seat at the head table and then took your seat by the other bridesmaids. Dinner had passed quickly after the toasts and then you’d teared up watching Foggy and Marci’s first dance. Shortly after Marci had danced with her father and Foggy had danced with his mother, the dance floor had opened up.

You’d ended up with Karen by the open bar, downing a few cocktails before heading out onto the dancefloor for a bit. Eventually Marci had come out and the three of you had danced to a few songs, drinks in hand while loudly singing to the music. 

“We should do shots!” Marci abruptly exclaimed over the loud music.

“Marci, you sure you can even handle more to drink?” Karen asked her, brows raised.

Marci shot her a flat look which had you laughing. “I’m the bride, you’re not supposed to say no to me today, remember?” she told Karen.

“Good enough for me,” you announced.

Marci beamed, grabbing both your’s and Karen’s wrists and then dragging you both to the bar with her. As you swerved through the crowd, your eyes scanned the guests. Eventually they landed on who you were looking for. 

Matt was sitting at a table with Allison, his arm over the back of his chair, his suit coat long abandoned on the back of his chair at the head table. He looked comfortable as he talked animatedly and Allison was leaning forward, her chin resting on her hand as she laughed at whatever he was saying. You felt a little tug in your chest at the sight, your gaze darting away.

Marci asked the bartender for the drinks as you situated yourself against the counter, resting an arm along it. Your eyes were focused on the man pouring the shots, watching as he slid the three glasses forward when he had finished. The three of you each picked up a glass, raising it high.

“To you and Foggy,” you said.

“And to a long, happy marriage,” Karen added.

“And hopefully great sex tonight,” Marci blurted, knocking her glass into your's and Karen’s.

You and Karen exchanged a look and laughed before the three of you downed the alcohol. It burned as it went down. You set the glass back, your eyes unintentionally finding their way back to Matt and Allison. You couldn’t fight the way your mouth curved downwards at the sight of them still smiling and chatting at the table together. You felt Marci nudge you with her elbow and your eyes darted towards her.

“You should say something,” she told you. “Cut in. Something .”

You shook your head, your sad gaze falling on the pair again. “No,” you answered slowly, sighing. “We’re just friends, Marc. Besides, he looks like he’s having fun.”

“I also am of the mind that you should go talk to him,” Karen said. “For what it’s worth, he might just be being polite.”

You shook your head, forcing a smile onto your face. “I think I’m actually just going to step outside for a minute and get some fresh air. It’s getting pretty warm in here.”

You didn’t wait for them to respond, pushing away from the bar and maneuvering your way around the crowd and the tables. You desperately needed air and a minute to get away and clear your head.

[yeahimwiththeband]

with the band chapter 18

husband and wife (part 1)

warning: truth telling, new year's eve revelations A/N: izzy learns about george and lydia. word count: 1.8k

Izzy ran out of the party, leaving Meg and Olivia by the bar. She spotted Harry getting into the back of a car, catching him just as the door closed—

“Harry!” He paused, and cracked the door. He looked out at her sheepishly. 

“Izzy,” he said. “I’m in a rush, I’ve got to—“

“If you think—“ Izzy huffed, out of breath, “—I’m going to sit here super oblivious while you bounce to fix everything, you don’t know me.” 

Harry smiled. It was a genuine smile, but it collapsed quickly. He was realizing that he would have to tell Izzy the truth. All of it. He could see it on her face. She was done.

“No more lies,” said Izzy. Harry stepped out of the car and walked towards her. She led him around the side of the hostel, finding a mimosa tree to sit under. Izzy could just see the stars peeking through the branches; it was serene, but she didn’t feel that way. She felt ready. She was bracing herself. 

“Since high school, I feel like I’ve just been watching other people live their lives from far away—from my bedroom above the store. Looking out, living in my laptop. Everyone seemed to be separated from me and I felt like I could never get there. I thought I’d be trapped in that room forever, alone. And then I heard your voice.” 

Harry allowed himself a tight smile. 

“And it was so good for a while. We had fun, right?” The word “fun” felt so cheap to her all of a sudden. Fun didn’t cover it. “It was all so beautiful, all those nights in the arena. But even when I was with the band,” Izzy said, breath catching in her throat, “I was still outside. Even on the inside, I was outside. Because nobody told me anything. I found things out by stumbling on them, finding clues. The tour felt like a crime scene to me and I was always just trying to piece things together. There was this inner circle of truth I was never admitted to. I was with the band, but I wasn’t really with the band, was I?”

“When I called you—“ Harry started. It was the phone call she got back at home, when he tried to warn her about George.  

“That helped,” Izzy said, cutting him off. “But you were still hiding a ton from me.”

“When I told you to leave—“ That night in the arena, when he taught her to dance.

“I remember. But you still didn’t tell me, like, anything.” 

“I was trying to protect you.” 

"Thanks for that."

Harry laughed.

"Everything's perfect now. Ten out of ten."

Harry laughed.

"Five stars."

"I tried," Harry said.

“I’m not a kid, Harry. I know you’re six years older than me, but I’m not a kid.” Izzy thought about her new apartment, the few months she had in her new life with Olivia; the classes, and even the surprise inheritance (if you could call it that—her worthless, but very aesthetic house).

Izzy was grown and she knew it.

She took a sharp breath in, but kept her eyes steady on Harry. She wanted to sound like she felt. “Lydia and George are getting married. A guy I dated seriously for three months, even though the whole time it was super fucked up, is getting married to someone else. Like, just a couple of months after we stopped dating. He’s marrying someone who’s like my sister.” Harry’s eyes glistened. He felt Izzy’s pain. “I want you to tell me everything. I can’t talk to you anymore—“ Izzy said calmly, surprising even herself, drawing Harry’s eyes back up with worry, “—I can't talk to you anymore, if you’re going to keep hiding things from me.” 

It was as if she had plunged a knife between his ribs.

Harry folded forward and pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers. He held his face like that, all lines, hair falling over his eyes, for a long minute. Then he clasped his hands together and looked up at the sky through the branches, up at the yellow mimosa blooms. Faint sounds of music and chatting and dancing from the hostel next door floated over the brick wall. Izzy and Harry could be in there dancing with them, together, if it weren’t for the brick wall of lies he had built up around her and between them.  

“You really want to know all of it?”

Izzy nodded. 

“Please, Izzy—please don’t make me tell you.” 

“Tell me,” Izzy said. She felt bad for him. But she needed to know.

“I’m sorry, Izzy,” Harry said, barely above a whisper. “I’m sorry for what I’m about to tell you. ‘m sorry for not telling you earlier. I don’t know how to…”

Izzy stretched out a hand tentatively, resting it on his forearm. Her fingers felt cool on his skin. Harry started talking.

…

August, five years ago. Lydia sat on her front steps alone in the evening, on the left side. Her mother would always sit beside her, on the right, and she still left the space open. She sat on the porch to feel like she was with her mom. 

She was supposed to go back to school tomorrow. But she hadn’t packed anything; hadn’t bought any binders, any new pens. She didn’t know what the reading lists were, hadn’t looked up where her locker would be. Signing into the online portal? She high key hated the idea; it seemed seemed absurd to her now. All her friends at school felt very far away, living in a different word—the mom is still alive world. Lydia felt like she was on a new planet all alone. She was barely holding her phone, letting it dangle over the last step. 

A door had opened.

A way out: a friend of a friend of her cousin’s was looking for social media help for a group of artists, and she had been helping them all summer. They were the openers for Jess Harper and they were really good—three girls, three guitars. Folk stuff. Lydia had gone to twelve local shows at local bars, making posts, and getting lost in the music. Her ears rang and rang after every show, and even now. It was a lot better than the deafening silence of grief. She could forget, when she was out. It was loud and crowded and hectic and bright. She needed it—she couldn’t says that she loved it. But she needed it.

And now they were going on tour, across something called the rust belt. Lydia had looked that up, and it meant the southern US, which she had never seen. Austin and Asheville and New Orleans. It was healthy, too, she told herself; she could always talk about what happened with the three girls, who were just a few years older than her. And Olivia and Tara, in Jess’s band, had taken her under their wing. She could always tell the truth with them. They knew about the accident, about everything. They seemed to understand, whereas the girls Lydia was friends with at school super didn’t. They sent her TikTok videos on mourning. Lydia knew they didn’t know what to do. But she hadn't told George yet. Couldn't tell him. She was still lying to him and to everyone else.

Lydia finished the 11th grade. She tried not to dwell on her dad—her dad sitting inside, waiting for her to walk in the door. That's how she pictured him, at least. She thought she should stay for him, like Izzy was staying for her mom. Her cousin Izzy gave up that great college offer—the best school in their state—to stay back with her mom.

Lydia thought she would do that too.

But as the tour got closer, Lydia began to wonder: if Izzy was staying back for her mom, wouldn’t that be enough for her dad—to have his niece around? Couldn’t Izzy be there to support, since she wasn’t going anywhere anyway? And Lydia told herself that she could always come back for Izzy. She could always fix it later. She knew she wanted to escape and she thought it was her only option, the right option. This feels right, she told herself.

It didn’t help that she had developed a crush on the lead guitarist in Jess’s band, who was too old for her. Sometimes she thought she saw him wink at her from the stage, but it could have just been the lights and the bottles. Olivia said it was the bottles. She was always lifting them out of Lydia’s hands whenever she saw her with one, and trying to get her to wear ear plugs; Olivia wore them at every show. But the bottles helped too much—with the grief, and with the ringing in her ears that she always heard no matter where she was now. No one said anything if she sipped responsibly on a beer or three at the show. It’s not like she was smoking or anything. Tara was always able to sneak her something from the bar. She was with the band, and it was okay. 

She texted Ryan, who they were trying to bring in as their new manager: yah. i’m in. He thought she was 18 and done with high school. The woman who did the paperwork was in another city. Who had to know the truth, when it could keep her from so much happiness? Lydia had thought. The next morning, she was gone.

By the next summer, she was doing socials for Jess Harper, working directly under Ryan, who had just started helping them out on the side. The band was becoming real.  

The following summer, she went on tour with them. And finally, finally, finally started dating George. The one she had her eyes on since she first heard him strum his guitar. Harry didn't know how they had started, or how long it had really gone on. But just two weeks into their first, short tour, George had spent all the band’s money—somehow, ALL the band’s money. The merch money. The ticket revenue. The crumbs from streaming. All their savings to cut an album in a real studio. So George had asked for a bailout from his rich parents and he and Lydia broke up. Harry wasn’t specific about that. He just said that it ended. And now, they're married. George and Lydia, husband and wife.

For the first time in her life, Izzy craved a cigarette. She wished she could take a big drag on something: she suddenly understood smokers. The air had grown cool and hung around her shoulders, pushing up goosebumps on her arms. She realized she was sitting in a tightly coiled ball, knees drawn up to her chest.

Harry paused. He reached out and put his hand around her forearm, squeezing. The goosebumps went down. Izzy shook her head. Lydia, trying to fix everything. Trying to rescue Izzy.

“They kept it secret, you understand,” Harry said, voice low. “They kept it to themselves.”

Izzy hadn’t even gotten to that part.

“Did everyone know?”

“Jess knew,” Harry replied.

“You knew.” 

“Olivia didn’t know. She disapproved from the beginning; Lydia knew not to tell her. Lydia begged me not to tell anyone. Izzy, she had no idea that he would try it on with you.”

“Is that what he was doing? Trying me on?” 

“It had been months since they had been together. When you two met at the concert… Lydia saw how happy you were. She didn’t want to take anything away from you. That’s what she always said: ‘I don’t want to take anything more away from her.” 

“Oh, Lydia.” Izzy said. She let her head rest on her knees. Harry reached his arms around her. 

“You should have told me, Harry.” She could feel the secrets expanding between them, pushing them further and further apart. Harry sounded so far away, even though she could feel his breath on her neck. 

“I know. I’m so sorry.”

“Have you told me everything now?”

Harry paused. Izzy waited.

“No,” he said. “Not yet.” 

Izzy wanted to throw her phone across the courtyard, cracking the screen against the stones. How could Lydia marry someone like George? 

But if Lydia were there, she would have said… Izzy could almost hear her voice. From across the ocean, staring out at the water from California, where she lived with her husband, Lydia could feel her cousin’s worry, and she thought to herself: you don’t know him like I do. 

chapter 19 ->

[eternally-writing]

color me surprised | jjk.

Pairing: Jungkook x reader Genre: fluff Theme: established relationship! AU, dad!jungkook Warnings: none (rating: G) Word count: 1 k Synopsis: When Jungkook spends the day with your daughter, it is full of surprises.

--♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡--

“I’m home!” you yell as you pass the threshold of your home. 

It was normal for Jungkook to take care of Gidae alone while you were out and about doing chores. Today, you were returning from hanging out with your friends, a “girl’s day” of sorts, and despite all the fun you may have drinking mimosas at brunch and window shopping for clothes you’d probably never get a chance to wear, there was nothing you liked more than being able to spend time with your little family. 

You had already been mentally preparing yourself for what you were going to face in your living room - toys thrown everywhere, the sink stacked full of dishes, traces of Jungkook and Gidae’s fun adventures around the place. Instead, your brows furrowed as you are met with a clean room and silence.

Instantly, you panicked. Where could Jungkook and Gidae be? You felt your heart start racing as you went through each room, peeking through each door to only be met with an empty (albeit clean) room. 

It wasn’t until you reached the last door that you found what you were looking for. 

You can’t stop the smile that graces your face as you see the scene in front of you. Gidae was wrapped up in Jungkook’s hold, him bouncing her slightly on his knee while she clutched a big marker in her tiny fist. It seemed like time was frozen as you admired your perfect family in front of you. All those sleepless nights, petty arguments, and long days of work over the years seemed to pay off in moments like this. You were only able to maintain your secret view of the situation for a couple minutes before your cover was blown when Jungkook caught you in the doorway. 

“Gidae look who’s here! Mommy’s here!” Said Jungkook in his oh-so-cute baby voice. You told him weeks ago that the doctor said you both could just talk to her like a normal human, but he was having way too much fun with it that he had no interest in breaking his very cute habit. 

You quickly made your way over to your favorite duo, pressing a kiss to Gidae’s forehead and then Jungkook’s lips before plopping down beside your husband.

“So… what have you two been up to all day?” You whispered to Jungkook, letting your head fall onto his shoulder.

“Well… Daddy forgot to go buy more paper last time you told me to…” Jungkook said to you sheepishly. You could barely stop the “I told you so” from slipping out of your lips, although Jungkook could tell exactly how you felt from the look on your face.

“So when Gidae wanted to draw today I had to offer her a much more interesting canvas to prevent a little meltdown.” Jungkook said with his best baby voice still intact, one hand combing itself through Gidae’s small locks.

He then turned to show you his tattooed arm, the empty spaces filled with the squiggly colouring from every color under the rainbow. There were some trademark Gidae triangles (her favorite shape, of course), that crossed some of the ink boundaries, but it was sweet nonetheless.

You cooed slightly as you ran your fingers over the drawing. Jungkook had started his sleeve long before he met you, but as the years progressed in your relationship, it had filled out more and more to take up the expanse of his limb. It was just purple marker really, nothing more than a couple squiggles and some pretty decent colouring within the lines, but for some reason it felt like so much more. Jungkook always worried about whether he would be a good dad, whether he would be able to relate to a tiny human and have them be a part of his life. So this was much more, this was Jungkook sharing a special part of him with his daughter.

Gidae was unbothered by your appearance and was still hard at work on Jungkook’s other arm now. Although there were no ink patterns to follow there, she was having the time of her life giggling with her blank canvas, probably muttering to herself about her Picasso type-tendencies. 

Your heart was swelling with emotions as your daughter crawled into your lap, proudly waving her markers around in your face to show off her artistic skills.  She started pulling at your bare arm, trying to gain a new place for her to show off her triangle drawing skills. Were you planning on taking a shower today? No. But how could you possibly say no to your daughter’s doe eyes staring at you with all the love in the world. 

Your daughter had decided she wanted to make matching drawings for you and Jungkook - “an abstract masterpiece” was what Jungkook named it as he proudly boasted about how Gidae was destined to be a world class artist. “Your tattoo artist better watch out Kook, our little princess is going to take her job,” you joked as you showed off your daughter’s artwork to him. You lovingly looked down at your daughter, peppering her with kisses even when she started fussing (she was 100% focused on her art, of course). Jungkook could sense your sentimental side starting to show - he always had a second sense for your emotions, even from the first day he met you, and he pulled you into his chest. 

You stopped yourself from crying then, but you couldn’t stop the tears from pouring down your face a week later when Jungkook showed you his newest tattoo; “Gidae”, written in her all too squiggly handwriting.

--♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡--

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this please let me know - Emily♡

[egcdeath]

checkmate

summary: you’ve always refused to lose, and love was no exception. (gone girl-ish au)

pairing(s): ransom drysdale x dark!reader, a special mystery guest ;) 

word count: 3.7k

warnings: 18+ because of heavy themes! faked death, framing of crimes, manipulation, alluding to sex, alluding to cheating, terrible relationship dynamic, very loose usage of the word crazy/psychotic, implied mention of self harm, brief choking & slapping (in a non sexual way lol), pregnancy trapping (idk if thats the right term), the reader is a very bad human being, overuse of italics  *please let me know if i’m missing any warnings!

author’s note: this is my 2nd submission for @stargazingfangirl18’s 5k soft dark challenge, i decided to make the reader dark >:) but ransom is also not a good person. I used these prompts: “I’ve waited a long time for this, sweetheart.” & The town golden *girl isn’t as sweet as everyone thinks.

this is definitely the most unhinged thing i’ve ever written, but blame @literate-lamb for making me write this because when i pitched this to her and said that i’d probably never write it, she enabled me. 

okay that's enough from me. join my taglist if you want :D

“I know women whose entire personas are woven from a benign mediocrity. Their lives are a list of shortcomings: the unappreciative boyfriend, the extra ten pounds, the dismissive boss, the conniving sister, the straying husband. I've always hovered above their stories, nodding in sympathy and thinking how foolish they are, these women, to let these things happen, how undisciplined. And now to be one of them! One of the women with the endless stories that make people nod sympathetically and think: Poor dumb bitch.” Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

Your whole life, you’d considered yourself a competitive person. Constantly overcompensating for one thing or another, whether it was the chronic desire to achieve perfection that had been installed in you since you were a little girl, or your persistent internalized sense of inadequacy. You realized early on that it was much better for you to win than for you to lose, no matter the physical, emotional, or mental cost of the prize of perfection.

For the most part, this mindset worked out for you. You graduated as Valedictorian from your high school, neared the top of your graduating class at Harvard. God knew you earned it, all those tears you shed into overpriced textbooks, all the popping of unprescribed Adderall, and robbing yourself of the parties and social events that the rest of your peers gladly indulged in. 

You were just different, which was why you gained a job nearly immediately after your exit from school, quickly climbing to the top at the Blood Like Wine publishing company after only a few years of being there. 

And one night, at the party celebrating the release of A Thousand Knives when you laid your eyes on Hugh Ransom Drysdale, the grandson of your boss, you knew that you needed to have him. Rich, hot, a bit of an asshole. You deserved to finally complete your image, and that socialite flavored eye candy seemed to fit the part perfectly. Luckily for you, he was desperate. It only took a few tugs on your dress’ V-line, and a number of knowing smirks to find yourself being finger-banged in his family manor’s bathroom.

From there, you wormed your way into his life. Leaving belongings at his place as an excuse to come back, and offering booty calls in the middle of the night. Ransom must’ve been much more desperate than you originally thought, as it really only seemed to take one night of stroking his hair while he vented about his family to make him want to be with you. Men with mommy issues were always so easy. 

Except, he wasn’t that easy. The longer you got to know Ransom, the more fucked up you realized he really was. He had no boundaries at all, became jealous and enraged at the drop of a pin, and occasionally told you things that made the hairs on your arms rise. 

This of course all came to a head after the night of Harlan’s 85th birthday party. When the news broke of his tragic death, you’d immediately known it was the works of your Hugh. If your intuition wasn’t enough, his confession in the shower, where he’d demanded you take off your clothes to display that you were without a bug, certainly was. 

You were completely devastated. The man that you’d invested so much into for years had thrown both his and your reputations down the drain in just a matter of hours. Of course, you felt bad for Harlan too. He was a good guy (when he wasn’t instigating a family fight).

Still, you showed up during the funeral in your best mourning clothes and dawning your biggest crocodile tears. You rubbed Linda’s back while she mourned the loss of her father, and the new truth about her husband. You played dumb when interrogated by some Southern private investigator, even giving Ransom an airtight alibi. You testified on his behalf in court with enough conviction to grant you an Emmy. 

You’d gotten so far, devoted so much energy into him, that you simply refused to lose now. 

To your friends, you’d seemed to lead a near perfect life. Dream job, dreamy boyfriend, dream bank account, but it wasn’t enough. You wanted more, you just didn’t know what. 

It dawned on you while sipping mimosas at the country club, Ransom playing tennis with his friends just a few yards away from you while Danielle showed off her brand new engagement ring, a .59 Carat Asscher Diamond, that if you heard her speak of again, would probably make you lose your shit.

You zoned out as she droned on and on about the shape, and how Matt proposed to her in their own private room in one of the most exclusive Parisian restaurants, instead focusing on how you could find yourself in the same position as that airhead next to you. In all honesty, you couldn’t stand the idea that someone was doing better than you, let alone someone in your own social circle. Dani got all the bragging rights of being engaged to the heir of some tech giant, being the first in your friend group to get eloped, and worst of all, Matt wasn’t even making her sign a prenup. 

You blankly watched Ransom from afar, taking occasional sips from your sweet drink, while you thought of how you deserved all of that and more, and you were going to get it one way or another. 

——

It didn’t take much to come up with something, your first and most obvious plan being to simply ask Ransom when he was going to propose to you. Of course, this wasn’t the first time you’d tried to approach him about this subject, you just wondered if maybe this time things would be different.

Panting heavily after a rather rough night in bed, you rolled off of your boyfriend’s chest and gave him a messy, yet sincere kiss. You knew your man well, and if there was any time to pop the question, it was in his post-nut haze.

“Baby,” you said breathily, “I wanna ask you something.”

“Shoot,” he responded casually, glancing over at you. 

“When’re you gonna propose to me?” you hummed.

Ransom groaned and shook his head, rolling his eyes, “this is about Matt and Dani, huh?” he tutted, then extended a hand out to your warm cheeks so he could gently caress one with his thumb. “Thought we agreed marriage is just a piece of paper and it’s stupid.”

You huffed in response.

Of fucking course.

“I never said that,” you muttered, setting a hand on his broad chest. “Besides, it’ll be good if you get pissed and decide to like, kill your dad or something. Y’know, spouses don’t have to testify against each other in court.”

Ransom chuckled as if this whole thing was funny, like your feelings were some kind of sick joke to him. “You know my lawyers, babe. They could prove that bees don’t make honey. That bears don’t shit in the forest. I appreciate your attempt, though. This has been some really nice pillow talk.” 

“Whatever,” you muttered, pinching his nipple in retaliation before turning your back to him and yanking the blanket onto your side. 

You weren’t sure why you were so surprised that he was being stubborn, most of the time you felt like you were pulling teeth from the man. But that’s why you had a backup plan! You always had a backup plan. That’s what separated you from your boyfriend. Where Ransom was extemporized and impulsive, you were calculating and prudent. 

Although you devised your plan that very afternoon while watching your partner backhand small green balls, you were going to need some time to get everything in order, to prove Murphy and his stupid law wrong in making sure that everything that could go wrong wouldn’t. 

After all, love was a game. And you sure as hell weren’t losing to Hugh Drysdale. 

——

You sacrificed too much to have your plans ruined by some trust fund baby with impulsivity issues. You deserved your dream marriage, the stability you wished you had as a child. You wanted the white picket fence, and everything that came along with it. Your desire to be the best, to be perfect was what drove you to poke holes in every condom in the box, what led you to draw liters of your own blood in hopes of staging a fake crime scene, to buy a cheap getaway car and burner phone off of Craigslist, and reach out to a high school boyfriend who you knew was in a position as desperate as you. 

You planted seeds of doubt in your friends throughout the following weeks, feeding them lies about Ransom’s behavior, how you were afraid of telling him that you did in fact see two faint red lines on that damn plastic stick– only half of the statement truly being false–, telling them that he was behaving erratically lately.

It all was going without a hitch. Ransom didn’t seem to notice anything was off, despite your frequent visits to the bathroom and newfound affinity for true crime documentaries. 

You almost felt guilty, knowing the world of pain you were about to throw the man into. Granted, he deserved the pain. You were in a relationship with a genuinely terrible person, and that person had made a conscious effort not to commit to you. You tried to make this easy for him, give him a chance to say a few words to you and slide a ring on your finger, but no, he always seemed to take the hard route.

You slept like a baby the night before you were setting your plan in action. You made sure to uphold the facade of everything being fine, making Ransom a nice breakfast before sending him halfway across town to the hardware store with an oddly incriminating list.

Once he was out of the house, you hurried off to the fridge in the garage where you’d been keeping a small stash of your own blood. It wasn’t pretty, but it had to be done. You poured the blood throughout the kitchen, splattering bits of it on the counters and cupboards. You poorly cleaned the mess, just as he would.

You put your next move in motion, falsifying a home invasion. You tossed over a table and some chairs, throwing books and photos onto the floor, but left some aspects slightly untouched, like an upright picture frame to give yet another hint that things were not exactly what they appeared. 

You left a tiny blue post-it note on the nightstand of Ransom’s side of the bed, a quick and simple doodle of a ring along with the first initial of your name inked onto the tiny piece of paper. 

With that, you were off. Technically missing, soon-to-be presumed dead.

----

 The days following your disappearance had gone even better than you’d initially planned. Local news coverage had been all over you, search and rescue groups were assiduously looking for you, your parents had opened a tip line, and begged for you to get home safe on news segments. But the best part of it all was that Ransom had been briefly found himself in police custody, only to be released shortly thereafter. His past of an accused murder quickly made your disappearance even more of a national story, and you watched the whole thing unravel from the safety and comfort of your high school boyfriend, Andy Barber’s Newton home. 

Of course, you fed him the same lies you’d given to your friends, and seeing the rather lonely position he was in, he gladly let you stay with him. You were absolutely having a hay-day with it all, dedicating hours of your day to watching Ransom slowly unravel. Maybe it was a bit sadistic of you to enjoy torturing your partner so much, but he needed to learn his lesson. You deserved better. You needed Ransom to rise up to your level, allowing you to finally complete your image. To let you two appear to be the perfect couple. Really, this was all on him.

Andy, for the most part, had been a good host. He was gone for the majority of the day, dedicating himself to his work while you lounged around on his dangerously cozy couch. Around two weeks into your stay, you were sharing a box of pizza in the living room with your old lover when something interesting on the television caught your eye.

Ransom, broadcasted on CBS, being interviewed on your disappearance. 

You watched with wide eyes as Ransom begged for your return on national television. It was one thing seeing your mother plead for you to come back, the same woman who had installed such toxic behavior in you sob for your return, but Ransom. You’d never loved him more than in that moment.

“Hugh, if you could tell Y/N one thing, what would it be?” the interviewer asked.

Ransom turned, looking straight at the camera, directly into your soul, “Y/N, I love you so much. More than you’ll ever know. I need you to come back safely, to see you, to hold you again. I’d give anything in the world for that right now,” he looked down, a tear falling down his cheek. “I can’t live without you in my life, I-”

His sentence was cut off by Andy grabbing the remote, and turning off the TV. You turned your head and frowned deeply at him.

“Why’d you do that?” you asked with a bit of a pout.

“I just couldn’t stand listening to him talk about you like he hasn’t treated you like shit for the past few years. C’mon, let’s get ready for bed.”

Your blood boiled. Andy was once a means to an end, but now he was interfering. He was clearly much too selfish to see that you and Ransom were quite obviously soulmates. A match made in hell. 

You followed him to bed regardless, curling up on what had been your side of the bed for the past few days, and staring at the wall until Andy’s breaths moved from a soft and rhythmic pattern to loud snores. God, those snores were obnoxious. 

You slipped out of bed and to his dresser, grabbing two soft ties from the drawer, and daintily tying his wrists to each side of the bedpost.

“What‘re you doing?” he mumbled, instinctively yanking both of his wrists as he awoke.

“I’m going back home,” you whispered.

“You can’t be serious,” Andy huffed, tugging on the restraint attached to the headboard.

You shook your head, “I am.”

“I should’ve known. Why would you do something like this? Do you know how much trouble you’ll be in with the law?”

“Do you know how much trouble you’ll be in when the world finds out that you kidnapped me?” you retorted.

This threat seemed to wake him up right away, “what about this was kidnapping? I gave you a nice home, fed you, I didn’t even make a pass at you. I didn’t do shit to you,” he hissed. “You think I can’t prove that? I’m a lawyer, for god's sake!”

You nearly laughed, “Okay, Andy,” you paused for a moment, “As a lawyer, who do you think everyone’ll believe? Someone who the world was on a wild goose chase for in the last two weeks? Or the man with a family history of violence? Must I remind you that your father and your son have killed people?”

Andy shook his head, face pinched in sorrow at the mention of his deceased son, clearly a low blow. “You’re insane,” he muttered.

“Swear to god that you won’t tell a soul what happened here,” you leaned over him, getting right in his face. “Or I promise, Andrew Barber, I will ruin you. You’ll spend the rest of your life behind bars, or disbarred, or whatever the hell I decide to do with you. So keep your goddamn lips shut.” 

You pulled away and he solemnly nodded, not bothering to put up a fight. You loosened the fabric around his left wrist and walked out of the room. You picked up the keys to Andy’s Audi on your way out, checking the time as you adjusted the driver's seat. 

9:45 PM. Fatherhood really changed the man.

You pushed that thought aside and began your drive home, which turned out to be a surprisingly short trip. When you pulled up in front of your home, you were met with a slew of reporters outside of the house, along with a police car that seemed to be permanently camped there.

As you slowly got out of the car, a gasp, followed by a loud silence fell across the crowd. You limped for dramatic effect up the driveway as cameras followed you, and glanced back at them pathetically. From your peripheral view, you noticed the officers get out of their vehicle.

You finally got to your door, ringing the doorbell and waiting. You blinked harshly a few times, conjuring up the tears you needed to really make a spectacle of the event. After a few minutes, Ransom opened the door, eyes widening as he looked at you. He stepped out, and you wrapped him in as big of a hug as you could manage, genuinely missing his embrace. It was possible that you even let out a few real tears in the moment.

Your emotional embrace was interrupted by the man you recognized as Lieutenant Elliott, the same officer who’d been assigned to Harlan’s case. 

“Ma’am,” he began, only to be shut down by you. 

“Please, just let me be with my boyfriend,” you pleaded, crocodile tears streaming down your face as you spoke with the officer. You still needed time to get your story straight.

“Just give us the night, Lieutenant. We’ll come in first thing tomorrow morning,” Ransom added, furrowing his brows at the officer that he’d come into contact with far too many times. 

He looked to his partner, who shrugged, then to you, “enjoy your night.”

Cameras flashed around you as civilians, journalists, and newscasters alike attempted to catch your attention. You grabbed Ransom’s hand and dramatically pulled him inside, insincerely attempting to hide your face by ducking and covering half of your face with your arm. 

As soon as you were in the privacy of your own home, Ransom threw you against a wall. 

“Why. The fuck. Would you pull a stunt like that,” he hissed through gritted teeth, eyes wild, and a hand around your throat. 

You whimpered as he tightened his grip, rage clearly flowing through his system uncontrollably.

“Do you know what you did to me? You almost had me thrown in fucking jail. Do you understand that?”

You nodded weakly, “Ran,” you whispered, “the baby,” you glanced down at your stomach.

He paused, dropping his grip on your neck and staring at you in awe, “no…” 

You nodded again. 

“How…? You told me you were on the pill… You- you made me use protection…”

“Surprise?” you said weakly. 

“You’re a psychotic bitch.”

“I’m your psychotic bitch. And no child of mine will be born out of wedlock,” you taunted. 

“That’s what this is about?” Ransom laughed manically. “You did this all because I won’t fucking marry you?”

You didn’t even have to respond.

“I should send you to the loony bin right fucking now.”

“What happened to all those things you said to me on TV?”

“You’re fucking delusional. I can’t do this.”

“Yes, you can. And you will. I’ve had to put up with you and your stupid little antics for way too long. How do you think I felt when you killed your own grandfather?”

Ransom scoffed, throwing his hands up in exasperation, “you are so fucked up.”

“I’m the fucked up one? You killed your own blood in cold blood! You’re unhinged!” 

“You faked your own death for attention, and got pregnant while doing it! Is that baby even mine?”

“The fuck are you trying to say, Hugh?”

“I asked if it’s even mine.”

“Really. You’re accusing me of cheating on you. That’s rich considering Mia, Layla, and whoever the fuck else. You’re being ridiculous.”

“I’m being ridiculous? You couldn’t have a normal adult conversation with me!”

“Are you kidding me? I asked you time after time to marry me and it was always some bullshit excuse!” you wagged a finger in his face as you spoke. “Oh, commitment scares me, oh, marriage is just a piece of paper, oh-“ you mocked his voice in a deeper tone before you were cut off by the sting of his hand against your cheek.

“Can you shut the hell up?” he growled at you as you held your own cheek, before you reached out and slapped him back, “I can’t believe that I’m stuck with such a deranged bitch for the rest of my life.”

“Maybe work on your vows a little, dear. I don’t think that those words are as charming to me as they’d be to the rest of our family and friends.”

“You can’t be serious,” he groaned.

“But I am,” you hummed, rubbing your cheek softly once again. “Look at how fast your life fell apart without me here. How quickly the public turned on you. Imagine how upset they’d be if you left me. I love you, Ran. I really do. You and I are perfect for each other, can’t you see that now?”

Ransom took a step away from you, pacing slowly in front of you. He ran a stressed hand through his hair, and took a long and drawn out breath, clearly at a loss for words.

“So when should we have the wedding? I’ve always wanted a Spring wedding, and I know it’s a little short notice, but I don’t want to be showing too much in my wedding dress,” you grabbed Ransom’s bicep gently, as if you were just having a regular old day with him, as if you hadn’t been choked and slapped moments ago. “But we can make it work. We always make it work, right?”

Your now fiancé stared vacantly at the wall ahead of him, giving you a slow, empty nod of agreement. 

“It’s settled then,” you smirked. “I’ll start looking at venues. You find me a nice ring, okay Honey? One that puts all those other bitches’ rings to shame,” you sighed pleasantly to yourself, “I’ve waited a long time for this, sweetheart.”

You pressed a soft kiss to his cheek before hurrying up the stairs and into your bedroom. You heard a distant shriek of  “fuck,” from Ransom, but you truly could not care less. 

You hopped into bed, grabbing your laptop from its charger and promptly opening it. You couldn’t help but to smile at your own reflection on the empty black screen. This wasn’t how you imagined your engagement, but you did the impossible. You tied yourself down to Hugh Ransom Drysdale, he went down kicking in screaming, and you were likely in for a lifetime of cheating and resentment, but you did it nonetheless. 

You finally won.  

[redgillan]

Under Pastel Skies - 9

Sugar daddy!Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: Modern!AU Bucky doesn’t need anyone, especially not a sugar baby. He isn’t that desperate… but she smiles so sweetly and she’s endearingly awkward, and he’s so lonely. She’s an artist, a painter, the type of person who always puts others before herself. Throwing caution to the wind Bucky offers her a place to live, a place where she can finally paint whatever her heart desires. He doesn’t need much in return; a friend, a muse.

Word Count: 6,257

Warnings: mention of accident, mention of blood

A/N: I’m sorry this took longer than usual but it’s pretty long so yay! I hope you’ll like this chapter. We’re slowly getting there :’) Thank you for the feedback, I truly appreciate all of you! Also 1 marvel quote and several Bob Ross quotes that I obv don’t own.

Wannabe sugar daddies don’t interact, idc if you have money, eat it and leave me be.

Good luck on your interview xx

Bucky had just hit ‘send’ when Sam cleared his throat noisily, drawing Bucky’s attention away from his phone. His friends were frowning crossly at him, their glasses raised in a silent toast. He set his phone face-down on the table and picked up his glass.

“Sorry, you were saying?”

Sam shot Steve a ‘see?’ look and Steve replied with a shrug and a little smile. They looked like two sassy grandmothers judging their only grandson. Bucky checked his phone again, and out of his peripheral vision, he could see his grandmothers share another look.

“What?” he barked, annoyed.

“Nothin,” they both answered at the same time before they took a synchronized sip of orange juice.

Smacking his lips together, Sam opened the menu and began to skim through the choices. A waiter suddenly came out of nowhere to take their order. Bucky ordered a cranberry rosemary scone, smoked bacon, an eggplant sandwich, and a plate of lemon-ricotta pancakes.

“Excuse-me,” Sam called out to the waiter. “Could you make his pancakes in the shape of an angel?” he asked, ignoring Bucky who was openly glaring at him.

The waiter, albeit a little surprised, kept a smile on his face. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Bucky told him, handing him the menu. “Thank you.”

Without another look to his friends, he grabbed his phone and checked his messages for the third time in less than two minutes. Steve snatched his phone up and sat back in his seat, waving the phone at Bucky.

“Enough! Live in the moment.” He pocketed the phone and gave Bucky a pointed stare. “You’ll get it back later.”

“What the hell? You’re not my father, give it back!” Bucky snapped, extending his hand, the palm facing up. Steve shook his head. “Give it back, you fucking meatball.”

He got up and tried to reach inside Steve’s pocket for his phone but Steve kept shifting in his seat. They wrestled like that for a minute while Sam watched them, eating a breadstick and looking mildly entertained.

“Okay, fine,” Bucky panted, pushing himself away from Steve. “You leave me no choice, Rogers.” He cleared his throat like an actor about to jump on stage. “Give me back my phone, Steve!” he said, raising his voice. “Do you enjoy stealing from disabled people?”

He nearly shouted the last two words, and to Steve’s horror, the buzz of conversation around them had died. He could feel people staring at him. Cursing softly under his breath, he reached into his pocket and dropped the phone into Bucky’s awaiting hand.

“It’s okay, we’re friends,” Steve said to the people sitting behind him. They looked at him with a disapproving glare. “Jesus, Bucky, you’re making me look like an asshole.”

An amused expression crossed Bucky’s face as he sat back in his seat. “Don’t touch my stuff.”

It was quiet while he checked his messages. Slowly, those around them returned to their own conversations. Sam pointed his half-eaten breadstick at Steve.

“Do you think the waiter will spit in your omelette?” he said the last word with an exaggerated French accent. Steve glared at him.

Their waiter arrived a moment later carrying a large tray with their brunch. Steve poked at his omelet with a suspicious frown, then looked over at Bucky who was still on his phone. Sam stole a slice of bacon from Bucky’s plate and gave it to Steve.

“I hear you’ve got a date tonight,” Sam said, making conversation.

“Yeah,” Steve chuckled, embarrassed. “It’s not a big deal. I’m just looking for something casual. I’m leaving in two days.”

“Where’re you going this time?”

“South Africa,” Steve replied, stealing another slice of bacon. “What about you? What’s that big emergency?”

Sam glanced at Bucky who was grinning like an idiot at his phone. “Not now. Let’s eat first.” He took the plate of bacon, took what he wanted then handed it to Steve. “Want another?”

Steve kept looking over at Bucky while they finished his bacon but Bucky didn’t seem to acknowledge their presence. He was in his own little bubble.

“It’s like we don’t even exist,” Steve remarked out loud.

“I know, it’s amazing. Look!” Sam straightened up in his seat and cleared his throat. “Bucky Barnes is the biggest idiot on the planet, and he can eat my farts.” Bucky was hunched over his phone, his thumb typing away. “See?”

“Impressive.”

“That’s the angel effect,” Sam said.

With a happy little sigh, Bucky pocketed his phone and turned his attention to his friends. He frowned at the amused look they shared.

“What are you guys talking about?”

“Steve’s first date in two years.” Sam turned to Steve. “You must be nervous.”

“Strangely, no.” Steve broke off a small piece of omelet with his fork. “I actually know him. He’s an old friend from college.”

“Nice,” Sam said.

“He’s a fashion photographer now.”

“Wait, what?” Bucky’s brows pinched in confusion as he stared at Steve.

Undeterred, Steve continued. “We’ve been facetiming a lot lately.” He shot Bucky a glance. “Why do you think I go to bed at 8?”

“But I thought-”

“You thought I had a date with your girl,” Steve said with a warm smile. “Listen, man, I like her. She’s cute, funny, talented. She’s a real sweetheart. But I like her because she brought back that light in your eyes. You look happy. That’s all I ever wanted for you. You had to go through so much crap, Buck. You deserve this.”

Bucky looked down at his pancakes, feeling tears pool in his eyes. He blinked them back and sniffed quietly. “So you were never going to ask her out.”

“I was until you called her ‘angel’,” Steve replied with a shrug. “You kept saying you were okay with this but, I mean, I’m not that dense.”

“Why do you keep going out with her then?” Bucky grumbled.

“Jeez, Mother Gothel, I didn’t know Rapunzel wasn’t allowed to leave the tower,” Steve exclaimed. “We were bored. You’re in your office all day. It was fun to mess with you though. You’re a grumpy Gus when you’re jealous.”

“I wasn’t jealous, okay. I was annoyed. There’s a difference.”

“Uh-huh.”

Bucky looked over at Sam who had been strangely quiet throughout this whole exchange. He loved teasing Bucky, and he always had something to say about Bucky’s love life. Sam wasn’t looking at Bucky, he just pushed his food around with his fork, his lips pinched shut. He met Bucky’s eyes, then lowered his head again.

Bucky had a feeling something bad was about to happen.

“What’s the big emergency?” he asked quietly, afraid of the answer.

Sam set his fork down beside his plate and leaned back against his chair with a sigh. He trained his gaze on the front door, seemingly deep in thought.

“I’m moving to D.C.” He paused to let the information sink in. “They’re transferring me to the D.C. office. I’m their new chief financial officer.”

“Congrats, man!” Steve exclaimed. “You deserve it.”

“Yeah,” Sam replied with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “That’s what I’ve always wanted.”

“So why the long face?”

“I’m a little anxious to leave New York. What will Barnes do without me? Without his mentor? Without someone to look up to?”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “I think I’ll be all right.” He hesitated before he asked, “Did you tell her?”

“Tell who?” Steve inquired, polishing off the last of his omelet.

Bucky felt the wave of long-held sadness his Sam’s eyes. “I’ll tell her tonight.”

“Can someone tell me what’s going on?”

Sam and Bucky shared a look. They weren’t sure how Steve would react.

The word sugar daddy held a pejorative connotation. Every single one of those relationships featured a powerful, rich man and a poor, vulnerable man or woman. There was a clear power imbalance here that never appealed to Bucky, and he was pretty sure it never appealed to Sam either.

Whether it was a no-strings-attached service or an emotional service, it was still a hole in your resume. One that would be hard to explain to your future employers. He was afraid people would call you names, treat you differently or harass you if they knew.

He often wondered if he had unintentionally ruined your life.

Deep down he knew Steve would never call you a whore or treat you differently but he was still trying to protect your reputation. He believed that Sam had Natasha’s best interest at heart too.

Sam told Steve everything. He remembered the day he had met Natasha, their instant chemistry, the subtle flirting, the arrangement, their first night out, their first kiss, their first time together, their new arrangement. Steve listened attentively. When Sam told him that you were Natasha’s best friend, Bucky interrupted him and told his own story.

“Wow,” Steve deadpanned, leaning forward to take one of Sam’s poached egg and avocado toast. Sam slapped his hand away. “Is that a thing now? Sugar daddies, I mean?”

“Is that all you have to say?”

“Yeah.” Steve sipped his mimosa with a bored look on his face. “You’re both not ready for the real conversation, so I’m just making small talk.”

Sam and Bucky exchanged confused looks. “What real conversation?”

“Sam, you just got an amazing promotion, you’re going to be the Prince of D.C. and you’re sitting here like someone kicked your puppy,” Steve replied, then turned to Bucky. “And you, well... I’ve been living with you for the past two weeks and you’ve gone all Alpha male on me, Buck. Cut the shit. You’re both in love with your sugar babies. Companions, or whatever the fuck you want to call them.”

Sam and Bucky sat in silence with their heads hung low. Steve opened his arms wide like a lawyer in a bad TV show saying ‘I rest my case’.  When he spoke again, his voice was soft.

“Look, as maybe the world's leading authority on waiting too long, don't,” he said. “What’s the worst that could happen, um?”

It made Bucky think. Best-case scenario, you loved him too and life was a breeze for the next fifty years. Bad-case scenario, you didn’t share his feelings. Worst-case scenario, you shared his feelings but couldn’t make the transition from sugar baby to girlfriend.

Yeah, worst-case scenario sucked...

He came home around three in the afternoon, and smiled when he saw your shoes and coat. Knowing you were home always put him in a good mood, but his heart was heavy. He felt conflicted. He didn’t know if it was better to tell you how he felt now or to just keep living in this little bubble with you until it’d inevitably burst.

And to make things worse, Sam was going to end his contract with Natasha tonight. He made Bucky promise not to tell you about it. Bucky felt sorry for Natasha, he wondered if she had feelings for Sam. He wondered if she had a backup plan.

He found you in your studio, sitting on the floor, huddled against the wall, with one knee drawn up to your chest and your arms loosely wrapped around your leg. You were staring at the painting you’d just made, the still wet paint glistened under the artificial lights.

This painting was different from your usual landscapes and occasional portraits. There were various shades of blue and grey intertwined, and five big splotches of dark red paint layered on top of the canvas.

Bucky knew just by looking at you that something was wrong. You looked defeated, sad, upset. He reasoned that your interview didn’t go as planned. Quietly, he stepped into the room and sat down on the floor next to you, his left shoulder brushing your own.

“I just got home,” he said.

“Where’s Steve?”

“He said he had some errands to run. He’ll be back later.”

You nodded, still staring straight ahead. “Okay. I bet you can’t wait to have some time to yourself. I asked Natasha if I could stay with her, but she’s going out with Sam tonight. I’ll stay in my room, I won’t bother you.”

Bucky felt his heart drop, his breath caught in his throat. He had made the woman he loved feel unwelcome. God, he wanted to kick his own ass.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, tilting his head to look at you but you were stubborn and refused to meet his eye. “I thought you were going out with Steve and I- I didn’t want you to feel like you had to stay with me.”

“I’m not interested in Steve. I told you that.”

“I know.” He moved so that he could see your face. “I’m sorry for the way I treated you, and for the way I treated Steve. It won’t happen again. I promise. Can you forgive me?”

“Of course, Bucky,” you huffed.

He saw your chin quiver slightly and your eyes glaze over with unshed tears. You looked utterly broken. He reached up and wiped a stray tear from your cheek.

“Sorry, I had a difficult day,” you said.

His palm cupped the side of your face, his thumb stroking a caress across your cheek. You met his eyes for the first time and he smiled softly at you.

“My angel.”

His words made you cry even harder, silent tears streaming down your cheeks. With his hand still cupping the side of your face, he leaned closer and pressed his lips against your other cheek. You closed your eyes and basked in his affection.

He could feel the warmth of your tears, could taste the salt on his lips as they streamed down your cheek to his mouth. Slowly, he pulled back and looked at you, a smile forming on his lips when he saw a fleck of dried blue paint above your eyebrows.

“Painter Smurf,” he teased, wiping it off. You let out a huff of air that sounded like a laugh. “I’m here for you, angel, whatever you need.” He pulled you against his side and you rested your head on his chest.

“My interview didn’t go very well,” you said after a long moment of silence. “She said that I’m really talented, that my technique is perfect. But my work is too figurative. It’s not what she’s looking for.” You paused to wipe your nose on your sleeve. “It’s just- It wasn’t my first meeting. They all tell me the same thing: I’m not good enough.”

“That’s not true,” Bucky said, kissing your hair. “Your work is unique. It’s raw and beautiful. If they can’t see that then they’re morons.”

“She told me that if I had been a white man in the nineteenth century, people would still talk about me today.” You sighed. “I don’t know, Bucky. Maybe I should work on something more abstract.”

Bucky tilted his head to one side as he looked at your painting. “Is that why you painted this?”

“Mhhh,” you hummed. “She told me to play with the textures, the forms, the lines, the colours. Suggest rather than show. Let the painting tell its own story.”

“Yeah, I think you did it.”

“You think it’s good?”

“I don’t think those adjectives apply here. Not with modern art. It’s in the eye of the beholder,” he said, running his fingers along your shoulder. “Abstract art isn’t supposed to be beautiful, it’s supposed to make you feel something, right?”

“How does it make you feel?”

“Unsettled, sad.”

You straightened up and sat shoulder to shoulder. “My brother died in a hit-and-run.” You let the information sink in for a minute. “I was with Okoye, we got a call from our mom but by the time we got to the hospital, he was already dead.”

Your voice was surprisingly calm and controlled. Bucky wanted to reach out to you but he was unable to move. He listened attentively, his heart squeezing painfully in his chest.

“He was wearing some kind of compression shirt, grey-blue with two white stripes, and it was covered in blood. When I close my eyes and think of that day, all I remember is that shirt and the blood.” You tilted your head and gave him a little smile. “That’s what I painted.”

Bucky didn’t know what to say. He just sat there, opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water. He couldn’t think of anything to say.

“Sorry,” you let out a small laugh. “I had a shitty meeting and then I came home and basically relived one of the worst days of my life to put it on a canvas. Now it’s staring at me and all I want is to shred it to pieces.”

Bucky noticed that your hand was close to one of your palette knives. Your fingers brushed against the handle, debating whether you should pick it up and slash the canvas. He laid his hand on top of yours.

“It won’t help,” he said. “Trust me. I can put the painting somewhere else if you want. You won’t have to look at it again. I promise.”

“Yes, please.”

“C’mon, beautiful, let’s go downstairs. I know someone who can help you.” He got to his feet and extended his hand to you. You frowned up at him, a silent question in your eyes. “His name is Bob and he paints happy little trees.”

A bright, wide smile spread until it lit up your whole face, and Bucky’s heart melted at the sight. He grinned at you and pulled you to your feet.

“I love Bob Ross,” you said, and Bucky gave your hand a little squeeze.

In the living room, you sat down on the sofa, crossing your legs under you and grabbed a blanket while Bucky connected his YouTube account to the TV. He sat down beside you, propping his feet up on the coffee table and adjusting the blanket in his lap.

“Hi, welcome back. Certainly glad you could join me today.” The show started and you melted against Bucky’s chest, pulling the blanket up to your neck. “Thought today we could do a fantastic little painting-”

You were pressed against his bad side, but Bucky didn’t mind. As the show progressed, you slid further into his lap until your head rested on the armrest of the sofa, close to Bucky’s right hand.

“People know when you’re happy. They can look at your paintings and tell how you were happy. They reflect your moods. Paintings are a reflection of your innermost feelings.”

He gave your head a little massage while you both watched Bob Ross create a stunning lake view painting.

“Cuz in your world, you can create any kind of illusion that you want. I spent half my life in the military, and I had to live in somebody else’s world all the time. Painting offered me freedom, I’d come home after all day of playing soldier and I could paint the kind of world that I wanted. It was clean, it was sparkling, shiny, beautiful-”

You shifted a little, and Bucky wondered if those words resonated with what you had been through. Being adopted, losing a brother, taking care of your sick mother when your siblings left, graduating, making ends meet... Those experiences had shaped you into the woman you would be for the rest of your life. A kind and strong woman who never really got to live or enjoy life.

He understood how important painting was to you. He was an artist too. He wasn’t a painter, but writing offered him a kind of freedom he had lost a long time ago.

“We should paint along,” you said, tilting your head up to look at him. “Then I’ll sell yours. I bet people would pay a lot of money to own an original Grant Thomas painting.”

Bucky chuckled. He knew you were teasing him, the slight curl of your lips said as much. “I’ll sign it James Barnes. It’ll be worthless.”

“It’s not worthless to me,” you said.

“Would you hang it in your room?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then, okay, I’ll paint along with you.”

When the episode ended, you decided to eat dinner first and paint later. You were sitting at the kitchen island, eating a bowl of leftover pasta from the night before, when Steve came home.

“Hey guys,” he greeted, throwing a plastic bag on the kitchen island before he made his way to his bedroom.

“I’m so fucking late. I still need to take a shower and get dressed.” Steve came out of his room, shirtless, and working his belt buckle open. “Hey, Buck, can I borrow some clothes?”

“I swear to fuckin’ God, Rogers, if you undress in the middle of the kitchen I’ll make you eat your jeans.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

He rushed to the bathroom and closed the door behind him. A minute later, Bucky heard the shower running.

Later, you went upstairs to gather canvases, paint brushes and paint while Bucky helped Steve pick out an outfit.

Steve was too excited about his date to remind Bucky that he was an idiot, and Bucky was happy that for once they didn’t talk about his feelings for you. He teased Steve and watched as Steve squirmed, the tip of his ears bright red. Just like old times.

Then they met you downstairs where you had two easels set up in front of the television. Steve stood in front of you, visibly nervous and agitated, while you looked at him from head to toe.

“How do I look?”

“Like you’re wearing clothes two sizes too small for you, which makes you look even bigger than you normally are so... pretty good.”

“Yeah?”

You chuckled. “You look great, Steve.”

Steve responded with a relieved sigh and a little bashful smile. Bucky liked that look on Steve, it reminded him of their childhood when Steve awkwardly flirted his way through Brooklyn.

Bucky jerked back to the present when Steve turned to him for confirmation. He gave him a firm nod and a thumbs-up, then walked him to the kitchen. They talked about Steve’s plans for the night while Steve gathered up his things.

Bucky was walking back to the living room when Steve called out his name and threw something to him. Bucky caught it in mid-air, then looked down at his hand. A shiny looking condom wrapper was nestled in the palm of his hand. He scowled at Steve.

“Just in case,” Steve said with a shit-eating grin.

“You’re a dead man.”

Steve’s laughter echoed down the corridor as he left the apartment.

Blowing out a breath, Bucky pocketed the foil packet and joined you in the living room. You were sitting at your easel, blobs of paint arranged in a semicircle on a palette. There was another easel next to yours, with a palette resting on a stool to make things easier for him.

You selected the lake view episode you had watched earlier, thinking that it would make things easier. Bucky was in awe of you, you made painting look so effortless and beautiful. You added your own trees and clouds, shifting things around to create your own world.

Bucky followed Bob Ross’ instructions closely but, in his opinion, it looked like someone had made it with their feet. You laughed at his comment and told him that you would still hang it in your room. It boosted his ego a bit.

When you both finished your painting, Bucky looked up at the clock. It was close to midnight which made him do a double take.

“Time for me to hit the hay,” he said, yawning. “This is as good as it’s gonna get.”

“Mhh,” you mused, turning the TV off.

“You okay?”

You shrugged. “Yeah, I- uh, I was kind of hoping we’d do this all night,” you said, playing with a mostly dried paintbrush. You looked at him from under your lashes. “But it’s fine. I understand, you’re tired. I think I’ll wait for Steve.”

Bucky looked at you with a pained expression. He could tell something was bothering you. He placed his index finger under your chin and tilted your head up. “Angel, I don’t think Steve is coming home tonight.” You pinched your lips together and nodded. “Talk to me. I want to help.”

“I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

Your words hit him like a punch in the chest, leaving him momentarily breathless. He pulled you close and pressed a long kiss to your forehead. You clung to him for dear life, your warmth and familiar scent made his heart ache.

“It’s okay,” he mumbled against your skin, then pulled back a little so he could look you in the eye. “Let’s change into something more comfortable, um? Then we’ll catch some shut-eye. I have an idea, the first person to fall asleep has to make breakfast tomorrow.”

“You sure?”

“You’re right. I’m exhausted, I’ll fall asleep first,” he said, shaking his head. “New rule, last person to fall asleep has to make breakfast.”

You snorted. “No, I meant... are we going to sleep in the same bed?”

“I promise I’ll stay on my side. But if it makes you uncomfortable, there’s a bunk bed in Steve’s room.”

“No, it’s fine. I want to wash my face first. I’ll see you in a minute.”

Bucky tried to play it cool but his heart was pounding. He kept seeing flashes of his dreams in his mind: skin against skin, steady puffs of air brushing against his skin, the smell of sweat and something uniquely you surrounding him.

He was absolutely terrified.

He went upstairs, took a quick shower, brushed his teeth and changed into his pyjamas. His night-time regimen took longer than he had anticipated so he wasn’t surprised when he found you sitting cross-legged on his bed, scrolling through your phone, looking so calm and peaceful.

You were wearing your pyjama bottoms and a fluffy sweatshirt stained with blue paint and tomato soup. He felt his stomach flip when you raised your head and smiled at him. A chill ran through his spine, and made the hairs on his arm stand on end. He’d never seen you look more beautiful.

“Hey,” you said, placing your phone on the nightstand. “Which side of the bed do you sleep on?”

“The side you’re sitting on.” You rolled to the other side of the bed and slid under the covers making him laugh. “You didn’t have to move.”

“It’s fine. I prefer this side.” You looked around the room. “I like your room. It’s very you.”

“Ah?”

“Yeah, neat, organized, lots of books, a cosy armchair, stormy blue comforter. It looks intimidating but it’s actually really soft. Like you.”

He suppressed a laugh. “Thanks.”

Bucky climbed into bed beside you, turned off the light and drew the blanket over him trying to get warm. He lay on his back looking up at the ceiling. He was so stiff and nervous, he forced himself to breathe normally. You turned onto your side and slid one of your hands under your pillow.

“Do you usually read before you go to sleep?” you whispered, afraid to disturb the silence.

“Yes,” he whispered back. “Do you?”

“Sometimes.” There was a moment’s silence before you spoke again. “I’ve started reading your book.”

“Oh, Christ,” he let out a small laugh and turned his head to look at you, his eyes adjusting to the darkness. “I hope I didn’t traumatize you.”

“You have a very dark sense of humour,” you said. “But I already knew that.”

“I’ve always had a dark sense of humor, but trust me, when I lost my arm I wasn’t in the mood for jokes. Therapy helped a lot. Besides, laughing is good for your health, right? My books are very personal, I don’t censor myself.”

“I know. I wasn’t expecting it to be so honest.” You shifted a little and looked away from him. “I don’t know if I’ll finish it, I feel like I’m intruding.”

“I understand.” He shifted slightly so he was lying on his left side, facing you. “I wrote it like a diary. Talking isn’t my strong suit. I don’t know, I think I’m trying too hard and I just end up being rude or not making sense. When I write, I take my time, I find the right words. It’s easier when I don’t have to look anyone in the eye.”

He knew his book was a little rough. He focused on his depression, his rehabilitation, relearning basically everything. He talked about rediscovering his body, intimately. He talked about his friends, his family, strangers, therapy, dating.

“Can I ask you a very personal question?”

“Of course.”

“Have you ever been in love?”

He swallowed hard, his throat raw and tight. “Yes.” In fact, he was in love right now. “Once. I don’t trust easily.”

“I know I read what happened between you and your girlfriend.”

She had been his first girlfriend since the accident. She was kind, patient, a little over excited but he found it cute. In a way, she reminded him of himself before the accident. She wasn’t afraid to touch him, and God, he needed to be touched.

Sam had witnessed little things that irked him but Bucky had ignored him, refusing to see the warning signs. He wanted to be happy again. But then he couldn’t bury his head in the sand anymore.

She treated him like a child in front of their friends, and her friends praised her for taking such good care of a man like him. A man who, in their mind, was high maintenance. She cut his meat for him even though he was perfectly capable of doing it himself. She helped him dress, tied his shoes, zipped up his coat, etc... He felt infantilized, humiliated.

He didn’t think she was a bad person though. It was just her personality.

“How’s Natasha?” he asked suddenly.

A puff of air caressed his face as you snorted out a laugh. “Why do you ask? You don’t like her.”

“I like her a lot,” he argued. “She seems wary of me, which I understand, but she’s great.”

“Yeah, she is.” You considered his words. “She’s doing well. She went on work date with Sam.”

Despite his promise to Sam, he couldn’t bear the thought of keeping things from you. “I have to tell you something about Sam and Nat.” You waited for him to continue. “Sam got promoted, he’s moving to D.C. He broke things off with Natasha tonight. I mean, their arrangement.”

“I know,” you said. “She texted me while you were in the bathroom. I’m going to spend the night at her place tomorrow. It’s been a while since we had a girls’ night, and we both really need it.”

“Good.” He cupped the side of your face, let his thumb brush your jaw. “I’m going out with the boys tomorrow. Steve’s leaving soon.” He pulled his hand back. “We should try to get some sleep.”

“No, please,” you said, shifting closer to him. “Not yet.”

“Angel, we can’t stay awake all night.”

“I don’t want to be alone in the dark.”

“I’m right here with you,” he spoke gently.

“But once you fall asleep I’ll be alone.”

Bucky raised his head and kissed your forehead, his lips lingering on your skin. When he pulled back, he rested his hand on your forearm and let his warmth seep into your skin. His thumb caressed the inside of your wrist, stroked over your racing pulse point.

“I’ll wait until you fall asleep,” he said.

“Thank you, Bucky.” You smiled and let your index finger run down the length of his nose. “Does it hurt when you sleep on your left side?”

“Not really,” he replied. “Most of the time it’s just weird. It feels like my phantom limb hangs down through the bed. Like my arm is invisible and just goes through the bed.”

“What do you miss the most?”

He let out a long exhale. “Not much. Hugs. Proper hugs... I guess. Holding someone close and wrapping myself around them. Squeezing someone against my chest, making them feel protected. I used to be a great hugger. Now I give bro hugs.”

“I love bro hugs.”

His chuckled dissolved into a grin, and you both stayed quiet for a moment. He knew you weren’t asleep, he could hear you thinking. “What’s on your mind, beautiful?”

“I was wondering,” you started, then trailed off. “One day we’ll have to end this arrangement. Do you think it’ll end well, or is it going to be messy?”

It took him a minute to respond.

“Y’know, one of the things I learned in therapy was to stop worrying about things I can’t control,” he said. “That’s in the future, for future-you and future-me. I don’t know how it’ll end but I can promise you one thing: I’ll always be there for you. Arrangement or not.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” you breathed out. “Right-now-me is a lucky bitch.”

You both laughed softly, then fell into a contemplative silence. There was something so peaceful about lying in bed with you, his hand loosely wrapped around your wrist, sharing warmth. He didn’t want to fall asleep.

For the next hour you talked about your families, your childhood, your friends, your likes and your dislikes. You told him about being an adopted child and living with other adopted kids. He could tell you were holding back when you talked about your siblings.

The only one you gushed about was Okoye. You were evasive when you talked about Scott and Wanda, though you did tell him that you had agreed to meet Wanda.

“What’s your favorite comfort food?”

“Breakfast for dinner.” Your voice was soft and small, he knew you were falling asleep. “When I was a kid, we had breakfast for dinner every Sunday night. We’d grab a bowl of our favourite cereal and eat together in front of the TV. I miss those days.” Your face was half buried in your pillow. “What’s yours?”

“Easy, pancakes.”

You smiled, your eyes were closed. “I like pancakes too.”

He watched you fall asleep and made a mental note to make some pancakes for breakfast. Your breathing evened out, and he waited a few more minutes to make sure you were asleep before he rolled onto his back and closed his eyes.

Bucky woke up to the sound of rain striking against the window. He opened his eyes and noted that the room seemed brighter than usual. A quick glance at the bedside clock told him that it was already a little past eight.

He stretched, sighing contentedly, and rubbed the sleep from his eyes with his closed fist. He tilted his head to look at you, still sleeping next to him. You lay on your stomach with your face turned away from him and your arms hugging your pillow. He adjusted the covers around your shoulders and stealthy slipped out of bed.

He went to the window and fixed the shades to make sure they didn’t let any light in. Then he made his way downstairs where he found Steve cracking eggs into a bowl. He was still wearing Bucky’s clothes, but his hair was a mess. Still he looked positively glowing.

“Mornin’,” Steve greeted with a wide smile.

“Hey, man.” Bucky took a seat at the kitchen island. “When did you get back?”

“About ten minutes ago. Long enough to notice that your angel hasn’t slept in her room last night. Wanna talk about it?”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Bucky said with a shrug. “She didn’t want to be alone.”

“So you slept with her.”

“We slept in the same bed. Nuance.”

“I’m gonna nuance your face with my fist if you don’t talk to her soon,” Steve exclaimed. “She’s not going to stay single forever, Buck. Things are gonna change, one way or another.”

“I know.”

Steve set the bowl aside and held the edge of the counter behind him. He sighed, exasperated. “If I were you, I’d talk to her before something happens and takes your choices away from you.”

Bucky pinched his lips together, hard, and looked down at the counter. A muscle in his jaw jumped. “I- I don’t know how to talk to her,” he said, feeling tears gather in his eyes. He met Steve’s eyes. “I physically can’t talk to her. It hurts. It’s stuck here-” he aggressively grabbed his stomach “-all the time. And it hurts, Steve, you have no idea how painful it is.”

“That’s love,” Steve replied, smiling at him like he, too, knew how it felt.

“Well, it fucking sucks.”

Bucky wiped the back of his hand against his runny nose. Steve stood there in silence.

“This book I’m writing,” Bucky said, breaking the silence. “It’s about her. Just her.” He paused. “I can’t back down now, my publicist’s too invested in our story. I know it’s an eccentric way of telling someone you fell in love with them but... writing’s easier than talking.”

Steve nodded, his eyes glued to the floor. “It’s like a long love letter.”

“Something like that.” Bucky climbed off the stool and rounded the kitchen island. “Now, I’m going to make breakfast. I promised her pancakes.”

Steve smiled and watched him move around the kitchen. “I hope it works out for you, Bucky. I really do.”

Part 10

[kylejsugarman]

wow i wasn't expecting so much kind feedback from that post :’) below the cut is the fic, “love will not break your heart”. PLEASE remember this was written five years ago and i wasn't expecting to fall back into moral orel but here tf we are ❤️ 

i. idolatry

"Who does that cloud look like?"

"Umm…" The brunette tilted her head pensively, tracing the arbitrary peaks and valleys of the cloud in question with a critical eye. Her expression of solemn concentration buckled under a luminescent smile as she finally identified the cloud's likeness. "It's Joshua! See the beard?"

"Oh, wow, you're right!" He pointed to an adjacent puff of condensation on the verge of dissipating under the snowy glare of winter sun. "And there's the city of Jericho!"

She giggled in agreement and rolled onto her side; verdant streaks of earth branded her baptism-white cheek. A strand of sandy hair had escaped her new red headband (he had nervously presented it to her and promptly melted at the sight of her grateful beam) and now unfurled down the length of her pearly face. He brushed it back into place, then blushed.

"Uh, sorry."

"It's okay, Orel," she said with an adoring laugh. His timid eyes--coppery pools into which one's best qualities were inevitably reflected--found her own, then flicked downwards in humility. Though she appreciated his respect for her, the reverence with which he treated her was slightly disquieting. There was something to worship in both of them, something she felt she failed to adequately express. "Orel?"

The eyes, lit dreamily by a refulgent sky. "Yes, Christina?"

She touched a hesitant hand to his face and waited for the momentary tension of his form to abate as he recognized the tenderness of the gesture. There was the inexorable flutter of panic in her gut, as if her father were crouched behind one of Inspiration Peak's many bushes waiting to snatch her and drag her back into the study, but she quashed it readily. Her love for Orel was stronger than her fear of her father and with its pristine power she could have demolished that study with a single fiery glance.

But Christina had always favored creation over destruction, so she leaned over and pressed a soft, pink kiss to Orel's mouth. She tried to whisper "Happy Valentine's Day" to establish her motive, but was immediately silenced as he braced himself up on an elbow and shyly reciprocated the kiss. He tasted like candy heart chalk and mint.

"I love you," he said after he had bashfully withdrawn his head.

The world was shiny and new, the clouds morphing cheerfully behind him into benevolent figures who would shelter the tender bloom of their love. And Christina Posabule reached up to frame Orel's face in her gentle hands and said "I love you too" for the first time.

.

.

ii. respect

"Ugh. I never did understand the appeal of French toast."

Dottie scrutinized the buffet offerings, her angelically-proportioned visage contorted into a rictus of disgust. Her plate was sparsely garnished with a serving of greens and a mimosa, which she had already taken a drag from. As she eyed the decadent bricks of syrup-drenched toast, Florence calmly forked an omelet onto her own plate and waited for Dottie to make a decision. The Valentine's Day brunch was rarely an extravagant affair, but there were certainly enough dishes to satisfy even Dottie's impossibly high culinary standards.

"I think French toast is wonderful," Florence said. She expected this remark to be met with a haughty sniff or snide comment, but Dottie abstained. She even summoned a mordant grin.

"Well. I suppose the French are the superior culture for a reason." The blonde delicately pronged a lone slice of French toast onto her plate, taking care to select the most lightly-sugared piece on display. "Alright, I'm done. Quick, before I change my mind."

Florence led Dottie back to their booth, which had been denoted by the placement of their respective pocketbooks on the table (Florence's sturdy handbag looking markedly haggard next to Dottie's designer clutch). The two women supped here together after church, a tradition that had been inaugurated shortly after the Reverend's Easter sermon. Dottie had apologized to Florence in a rare fit of humility and promised to stop berating her roommate for her figure; Florence, ever the victim, dutifully accepted her apology. However, Dottie had surprised her by making a noticeable effort to curb her cruel commentary and even started contributing to the community by taking on sewing projects. Her lovely dresses soon filled the closets of every woman in Moralton--including Florence's. The rather flattering candy-pink wrap dress that Florence was wearing now was Dottie's handiwork, a fact the blonde managed to work into every conservation.

"Darling, that dress is absolutely divine on you," Dottie said, lighting a cigarette.

"Yes, thank you." Florence smoothed down the collar and smiled at the sight of her freckled hands. A modest diamonded band adorned her ring finger.

Dottie noticed her admiring of the piece of jewelry; she pursed her polished lips expectantly. "I really think you should've sprung for something bigger."

"Oh, I think this is just lovely the way it is," Florence insisted. She elevated her hand in order to demonstrate the diamond's iridescence. A slant of noon light caught the mineral and fissured apart into chromatic prisms; diamonded specks twinkled across the laminated tabletop. It was a rather appropriate expression of Florence's own appearance, something the ring's buyer had obviously taken into consideration. "Aren't you happy with your ring?"

"Me? Why I'd rather die than have this ring taken off my finger." Dottie inspected the arrangement of jewels gracing her own finger, which were independently lustrous and set into an ingot of platinum. The colors matched the sheen of her blonde curls perfectly.

An inexorable smile pressed dimples into either of Florence's cheeks. "You really like it?"

Dottie flicked her cigarette ash into the table's decorative vase with an insouciant tap of her manicured finger. Her expression was characteristically enigmatic ("you can't let them think you're interested," she had lectured Florence as she practiced looking jaded in the mirror), but the favor with which she regarded the ring was unmistakable. Finally, she said "I love it" in an emphatically decisive voice tempered with genuine affection. An affection that Florence reciprocated with an echoing of the sentiment before cutting into her omelet and watching Dottie slice willingly into a piece of French toast.

.

.

iii. requited

"Um, anything else, Steph?"

The tattooed, pierced, and freshly dyed vision of beauty glanced up from her book, eyes lightly glazed from an hour of reading. She had salvaged a rather intriguing volume of essays about evolution from a seedy bookshop in Sinville and was determined to complete the tome before it could be snatched and tossed on the literary pyre. Forghetty's wasn't exactly the ideal location for intellectual pursuits, but Stephanie had abandoned the shop at the mere notion of Karl and Kim Latchkey requesting some disgustingly romantic apparel for the holiday and decided that she deserved  some discounted Valentine's vodka for soldiering through the week unscathed.

"Another vodka would be great."

Dolly smiled warmly. "Coming right up."

As the blonde scooped ice into a tumbler, Stephanie became suddenly and acutely aware of the candy-pink heart branding the small of Dolly's neck. Despite having stitched ink into countless arms and sides, she was shocked by the heart's symmetry. It was absolutely flawless.

"One vodka," Dolly said, sliding the glass across the condensation-varnished bar. Her fingers were impossibly long, slender--piano fingers. Stephanie could not fathom why these trivial details fascinated her so, but she was suddenly pressed to learn more about the daisy-pretty bartender who had dutifully refreshed her tumbler for the past hour. Starting with that immaculate tattoo.

"Thanks. Uh, Dolly? Where'd you get that ink on your neck?"

"Ink on my--?" She palpated her neck in befuddlement before remembering the previous night and giggling wanly. "Oh, it-it's just pen. My friends thought it would be funny if I actually got a tattoo, so they had the guy draw it on, but I… I chickened out, I guess."

"Oh."

"It's not that I don't want a tattoo," Dolly quickly amended, tipping Stephanie's colorful arms an appreciative nod. "I'm just kinda chicken about needles."

Stephanie quirked an amused eyebrow. "So you would get a tattoo?"

"Well." She sheepishly wrung a damp cloth out over the bar top and made a concentrated effort to appear occupied by the menial task. "Maybe."

"That heart's pretty cute. I think it would look nice back there."

Roses bloomed in Dolly's porcelain cheeks. Though her friends had never abstained from making passively nasty comments about Stephanie's unusual appearance and proud deviance from Moralton's constrictive status quo, Dolly had always fostered a secret respect for her. There was something alluring about Stephanie, something that begged back story: Dolly longed to read the text that accompanied the illustrations trellising her arms like ivy. "You think so?"

"Definitely. And if you're scared of needles, I've got an assistant who could probably distract you," Stephanie added with a playful smirk. Orel had curbed several customers' needle anxiety with breathless sermons about the incredibleness of Jesus and anecdotes about his occasionally distressing adventures ("and then I died! Three times! It was neat!")

"Would you really give me a tattoo?" Dolly asked, equally hopeful and horrified.

"If you're up for it."

Dolly twisted the cloth in her hands for a moment. The yearning to know Stephanie--to know every corner, every fold--was blossoming urgently in her chest. She wanted more than a tattoo. She wanted to familiarize herself with the inky mysticism enshrouding Stephanie Putty and if that meant romance, if that meant public scorn and disappointment and disgusted looks, so be it. She wanted Stephanie. She wanted all of her.

"Doll?"

"Y-Yes," Dolly sputtered, visibly flustered. Then she grinned cautiously and set down her hands on the bar top, allowing Stephanie to admire their delicate whorls and pearly nails at a closer proximity. "I'd love that."

.

.

iv. infatuation

"I know you think I'm stupid, Marionetta."

They had cloistered themselves away in a small clearing that provided some margin of protection from their schoolmates' scorn. A mild sky opened above them, achingly empty, painfully wide. As he stared into its doleful depths--oppressing himself not to betray the shame making dewy his eyes--he recalled the passages he had studied about the atmosphere. His old teachers had refused to teach the subject, citing the lack of a Heaven in the textbook's diagram of the Earth's atmosphere. He imagined it was sandwiched between the mesosphere and thermosphere, an impossible realm illuminated by auroras and burning space debris. But in the absence of substantial evidence that such a place existed, he was content to call the clearing Heaven, as long as Marionetta was there.

The girl smoothed imaginary wrinkles out of her dotted skirt. Even

[kisses-for-cas]

Summary: When a witch hunt forces the Winchesters to go undercover in a suburban neighborhood, Dean finds himself fighting with his upcoming feelings for a certain angel. To be more precise: the angel, who currently pretends to be married to his brother Sam.

Ships: Dean/Castiel

Word Count: 8,200

Read on AO3

Tammy has lived in this neighborhood for almost 30 years – she raised her kids around here and now is enjoying her well-deserved retirement with her husband Harold. And if she knows one thing for certain, then it’s this: there’s something wrong with the new neighbors. It’s not because they are gay, Tammy tells herself. She believes herself to be quite open-minded, one of her nieces is actually a lesbian. It’s something else, but she can’t quite put her finger on it yet.

The men moved in today, only a few days after the last tenants died in a horrible and tragic accident involving the lawnmower and a malfunctioning electric wire. Tammy doesn’t like to admit it, but she always knew those two didn’t fit the neighborhood. Sarah brought it up several times at Sunday Brunch, and as it turned out, the entire neighborhood held a grudge against the deceased couple. At least the house still looked well enough to get sold almost immediately again.

It’s hard to catch glimpses of the movers, but she catches a few sights as she stretches out of her bedroom window. One of them has dark hair and is wearing a tan trenchcoat, the other one seems to be taller and is coated in a flannel shirt. Not really the type to be moving into this street, but they might turn out to be nice. She tries to keep an open mind, she tells herself, even though she doesn’t understand how somebody could possibly move while wearing a trenchcoat.

Shortly after dinner, the doorbell rings, and Tammy almost jumps forward to get it. Sarah told her she’d call once she had a proper talk with the new neighbors, but the phone’s been quiet so far. But to her surprise, it’s not her friend in front of the door, but two handsome men holding a basket with muffins.

“Hello, you must be Mrs. Philipps. We’re the Winchesters,” the taller of both says, as he holds his hand out. Tammy shakes them politely, as she smiles at them.

“Tammy is fine, and my husband Harold is probably already asleep in his lounge seat,” she jokes as she shakes their hands. The man in the trenchcoat seems a bit more reserved, but he still gives her a small smile when she looks at him.

“Nice to meet you, Tammy,” the other man says again. “I’m Sam, and this is my husband Cas.”

5 days earlier

“Lawnmower accident?” Dean laughs, as he re-reads the headline again. “Well, if this isn’t our kind of thing, I really don’t know what is.”

“Exactly what I thought,” Sam replies, turning his laptop back to himself. “Apparently there were several deaths within the last 10 years in this neighborhood, and all of them were classified as accidents.”

“All over the area? So less likely a spirit, and more like –“

“Witches?” Sam finishes his brother’s sentence. “Probably, the victims weren’t exactly popular in the area. One of them had a kid, but the couple wasn’t married. Another person wanted to move in with her wife, but she died before she could. Seems like they are most likely targeting people, who don’t fit the community.”

Witches and conservative suburbs sure aren’t Dean’s favorite things in the world, that much is sure. But if people are in danger, there’s no way he’d let them down. Especially, if he might get to kill some fundamentalist witch.

“Huh, so what we’re thinking? I’d say go undercover, but brothers usually don’t go buying some white picket fence house in a conservative neighborhood,” the older Winchester proposes, while settling back in his seat. He remembers how they tried to infiltrate that neighborhood so many years ago and how the salespeople kept mistaking them for a couple.

“I thought Eileen and I could maybe do it, but her leg isn’t healing as we hoped,” Sam thinks out loud, wincing at the thought of his injured girlfriend. The recent werewolf hunt was tougher than expected and left Eileen’s leg badly hurt. Cas tried his best to heal her, but she was still struggling.

“Maybe one of us could team up with Mom?” Dean suggests but cringes once the words leave his mouth. “Urgh, never mind. I’m not very strong on the Oedipus thing.”

“What about me?” Cas chimes in, all eyes turning to him. Dean didn’t even realize the angel entered the room. “Since we are not related, it might be less awkward to pretend a relationship.”

Dean is left more or less speechless, as he babbles incoherent words. He likes Cas very much; they are best friends for a reason. But pretending to be in a relationship? Heaven and Hell have been teasing them for years about their “profound bond”, so they might even get away with it. But Dean’s stomach twists uncomfortably at the mere thought of calling Cas a pet name or holding his hand in public.

“Uh-Uh, no way I’m getting fake-married to Cas!” Dean protests once he finds the ability to speak again. His reaction was apparently a bit harsh, judging by the looks both Cas and Sam give him.

“Okay…,” Sam sighs, drawing the word out in a long breath. It sounds like he wants to say more but instead turns to face the angel. “Castiel, would you like to pretend-marry me?”

Dean can feel a blush creep up his neck, as he stares at his brother. It’s the reasonable thing to do, but it just feels wrong. Nobody ever questioned their status as friends, and Dean can’t even picture the both of them acting in love. When he thought his stomach felt bad before, he’s now actually feeling sick.

He’s close to suggesting a fake relationship with their mom again when Cas simply nods to answer Sam’s question. “Of course, Sam. I mean, I do.”

The two share a hinted smile as if they are both part of a joke Dean doesn’t get. The sick feeling still doesn’t leave him, as he stands up from his seat. He must have eaten something wrong today, that’s the only logical explanation.

“Well, Mazel Tov to you guys then,” Dean mutters, more to himself than to the other men. They don’t even look at him when he leaves the room behind.

———————————————————————————————–

“I still think this is a stupid idea,” Dean protests, as he puts the meatloaf in the oven. Somewhere behind him, he knows Cas is preparing the salad and Sam is busy fluffing some pillows on the couch.

“We need to connect with all the neighbors, and a housewarming party is the easiest way to do so,” Sam replies annoyed. He and Cas introduced themselves to everyone in the neighborhood, but nobody seemed guilty so far. Cas tried his best to “sniff the witch out” but only found some kitchen herbs in the local gardens and a loud laugh from Dean, when he explained his plan to search for witch-like smells. So far, they had no clue who the responsible party could be.

“Dearest, could you make space in the hallway closet for the coats?” Sam calls out to Cas, and Dean almost burns his hand at the stove. He had a few days to adjust to the idea of Sam and Cas pretending a relationship, but the term of endearment still surprises the hunter.  

“What’s next? You’re gonna kiss goodbye on the porch when Cas drives to work?” Dean snaps at his brother, who seems confused by the sudden anger.

“If the situation needs it, sure…,” Sam replies, but Dean interrupts him before he can continue.

“What the hell, Sammy? Dearest? What kind of weird pet name is that even supposed to be?”

“The one Sam and I agreed to,” Cas replies drily. The look in his blue eyes leaves no space for any further discussion. “This act is completely planned out, and we can’t risk our standing because you are having trouble adjusting, Dean.”

Just as Dean wants to argue again, they are interrupted by the sound of the doorbell. They can only hope nobody heard their yelling, the last thing they need is unnecessary gossip from the neighbors. Cas and Sam waltz towards the front door, while Dean stays a few steps behind them.

“Hello Tammy, Harold. Welcome to our humble home,” Sam greets the guests, as the couple enters their hallway. Cas takes their jackets from them, hanging them in the biggest coat closet Dean’s ever seen. Well, at least the house got some perks. Before he can think more about the architectural features of the house, his brother calls for him.

“This is my brother Dean,” Sam introduces him, and Dean tries his best to give a fake smile and nod politely at the boring stories the neighbors tell him. This is going to be a long evening…

—————————————————————————————-

“Well Ladies, let’s begin Sunday Brunch,” Irene happily pronounces, as she raises her mimosa in the air. The other women do the same, cheering each other. It’s the first Sunday Brunch after the Winchesters moved to the area, leaving more than enough gossip material for the group.

“They seem nice enough, but I heard Sam is unemployed. He just sits around all day at home and waits for his Cassiel to come back home!” Jennifer complains with a deep sigh. It’s no secret she isn’t the biggest fan of the new couple, but even she can’t deny the quality of the served meatloaf at the housewarming.

“His name is Cassiel, dear,” Beth replies, eying the salmon pieces hungrily. “They said Sam’s working in IT and can do it from home. Clearly, an excuse, if you ask me.”

The gossip continues happily: Tammy found out they only have one toothbrush. Irene asked about Cas’s job, and apparently, he’s working in a nearby library. And all of them agree, their marriage is weird. Whenever Sam touched his husband, it felt unnatural, and they didn’t kiss once the whole evening.

“We need to address the elephant in the room,” Sarah sighs, and the group’s attention draws over to her. She’s been quiet so far, which means her news are far bigger than everyone else’s: “The brother.”

“If I were only twenty years younger…,” Beth starts, earning a peal of laughter from the women around her. “He’s very handsome, that’s true.”

“Yes, and I think Castiel would agree with you there,” Sarah speaks, before taking a long sip from her teacup. The reaction is immediate, as all the women start talking at once. The Winchester barely lived a week in the neighborhood, but they already produced the best gossip they had in a while.

“Do you think they are having an affair?” Tammy asks shocked. Of course, she had felt the tension between the family members, but she blamed it on the stress of moving. But now that Sarah suggested it, it seems like a possible explanation.

“We can’t be sure yet, but I bet something is going on. Dean surely looked rather unhappy every time he saw Sam touching his hubby. And Cas got some serious heart-eyes for his brother-in-law.”

“Besides,” Irene steps in “their marriage just seems – off? There’s more sex happening in the way Cas looks at Dean than in his marriage bed with Sam”

“Irene!” The shocked gasp from the elder women makes the other guests laugh, as they refill their mimosas.

“Oh, poor Sam,” Tammy sighs, fiddling with her wedding ring. Being cheated on must be awful on its own, but having your husband fool around with your own brother? That’s a new level of tastelessness.“

“Anyways, have you seen Mrs. Ericson’s new haircut? Just awful…”

——————————————————————————————

Dean excuses himself early from the housewarming party, not knowing how much more of the charade he could have handled. He expected to get some blackmailing material for his brother, it was supposed to be a funny sight after all. What he didn’t expect was the burning sensation on his inside, as he regarded the play right in front of him.

He’s still mad about the whole thing, and how caught up both of them were. It’s one thing to hold hands and present in the couple in front of others. But Sam calling Cas by a pet name in private? That’s just unprofessional, even Dean knows that. And then Sam told him, he would even kiss Cas if the situation needs it…What the hell was that even supposed to mean? Nobody is going to force them to kiss, the party guests are all far too old to play “spin the bottle” anymore.

Would Cas even kiss back, if Sam initiated a kiss? The angel doesn’t seem the type for physical affection; hell, he only lost his virginity a few years ago! The image of Cas pressing Meg against the wall, kissing her passionately, popped back up in Dean’s mind. And then the image changed to Cas and Sam in the same manner…God, Dean’s gonna have to swallow some holy water to get rid of that mental image.

Carefully, he watched the way his brother and his friend interacted, and the sight made him feel uneasy. He thought it was a stupid idea for them to fake a relationship because it would just be weird. But now that he was watching the way Cas’s hand rested on Sam’s lower back, Dean realized it’s something entirely else: he’s jealous. It’s not a feeling he knows very well; after all, none of his relationships ever lasted long. But as he watched Cas laugh at one of Sam’s stories, their sides pressed together – it’s setting something inside of Dean loose.

If he hadn’t acted like a child, he might have been the one standing beside Cas at that moment. He would have been the one holding his hand, laughing at his jokes, and maybe even pressing soft kisses on Castiel’s cheek. Nobody would even question their act, he’s sure of that. And then his mind kept wandering, back to the memory of Cas showing off his kissing skills. Except now it wasn’t Meg, but himself getting pinned against the wall.

Dean’s not stupid; he knows he likes men the same way he likes women. It’s been a long journey to finally find self-acceptance, but he’s finally contempt with it. That doesn’t mean he’s going to buy pride stickers and tell everyone around him he’s bi. No, it’s his secret and he’s the only one who needs to know about it.

He also knows Cas’s vessel is very attractive. But those two things – his attraction to men and his profound bond with Cas – were never something he considered might be related. But thinking about Cas kissing him – it’s something Dean never knew he wanted that much. When the sight of the happy couple got too much for him to bear, Dean excused himself to get a drink. Only then he remembered they are actually on a job, and he’s supposed to be on the watch out for possible bad guys.

And he’s totally going to do that.

Once he had a proper drink.

——————————————————————————————

“Please tell me your stupid charade is at least getting you somewhere,” Dean groans, once Cas is settled in his seat across from him. They decided to meet up in a close diner to discuss their next steps, while Sam is hacking the public security cameras from their house. Dean refuses to call it their “home”, hating the implication it’s setting.

“There are a few people we can surely rule out,” Cas replies, stirring some sugar into the coffee mug Dean pressed into his hands. “On my drive yesterday, the energetic waves were much stronger at the end of the street.”

“Great, so what’s next? You and Sammy going to play house for some more weeks, until we finally got our suspect?”

Dean can only hope the hunt will be over rather sooner than later. He barely slept the night after the housewarming party, his mind racing with thoughts. Not even liquor helped to drown them out and the night left him feeling not only exhausted but more upset than ever.

Castiel releases an annoyed groan. “Can you just…you’re undermining this plan at every given opportunity, and Sam and I are getting worried you might risk the entire thing.”

“I just want,” Dean starts, the words twisting in his throat. He knows exactly what he wants, ever since seeing Cas and Sam casually holding hands and snuggling on the couch. But at the same time, he knows it’s something he can’t have. Angels aren’t supposed to have emotions, he knows that. But when he catches Castiel’s blue eyes carefully watching him, Dean can’t help but feel a spark of hope.

“Do you ever think things could be, you know, different between you and me? Maybe we could be…more…or…”

“Dean,” Cas replies, his name sounding almost like a prayer from his lips. “Are you saying…”

“Well, hello you handsome fellas,” a sudden voice snaps them back to reality and when they look at its owner, Beth is smiling at them. “I thought it was you, so I just had to pop in and say hello.”

“Hello then,” Dean grumpily answers, his eyes focused on the table before him. Of all possible times, Beth had to disrupt them just now. He remembers the way those nosy neighbors had eyed him at the housewarming party, and how it made him uneasy. But then again, he only had eyes for Cas that evening.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at work, Cas?” Beth asks, an obnoxious tone hidden under her sweetly sick smile. Right, Dean remembers, they told everyone Cas works at the library. Good enough of an excuse to spend their time there.

“Uhhh – Lunch break,” Castiel answers stiffly, his eyes shortly glancing over to Dean. The hunter seems to have grown smaller by the second, as he fiddles with the menu.

“Well, tell Sam I said hi,” she comments cheerfully, as she finally leaves them alone again. Silence falls over the table, only disturbed by the noise of the diner around them. Dean can feel Castiel’s watchful eyes on him, but he’s not ready to face them yet. He might not believe in fate or destiny, but the disturbance came just at the right time. A few seconds more and he might have destroyed the best friendship he had his entire life.

“Dean…,” Cas finally breaks the silence, but Dean interrupts him before he can speak more.

“Just forget it, Cas…Let’s focus back on the case.”

They don’t pay any attention to Beth, who silently snaps a picture of them from the outside. It feels like the ultimate proof those two are actually having an affair; why else would they meet up in a diner during Castiel’s work hours? She can’t help but grin, as she sends the picture to her friends.

TO: BRUNCH LADIES

“Look who’s having dinner instead of working….”

——————————————————————————————

“It’s Jennifer,” Cas says, once the image of Dean flashes over the laptop screen. After several neighbors pointed out how attached Dean seems to be to his brother, they decided to stick to virtual conversations for the moment.

“You sure?” Dean asks as he watches his brother and his best friend sit on their couch. He should be glad to once have an entire motel room for himself, but for some strange reason, he misses his family. Okay, he knows exactly why: he hates not knowing what’s happening between his brother and Cas. Sammy isn’t interested in Cas that way, he knows that. But the thought of them holding hands is enough to get Dean bothered.

“Absolutely,” Sam replies. “She was already one of our suspects due to some lucky incidents in the last few years, but when I was at her house, I clearly saw some witch supplies.”

“Her magic doesn’t seem too powerful, destroying her supplies and her altar should be enough to stop her,” Cas adds up, and Dean nods along.

“She’s working from home, right?” Dean asks while trying to remember everything about the suspect. Jennifer didn’t talk to him a lot; she was more of a loner. Apparently, her husband died a few years ago and left her enough money to start her own jewelry company. “How are we going to get her out of the house long enough to take care of the situation?”

“We could throw another party. Maybe celebrate a birthday or a wedding anniversary. And you and Mom could handle the house in the meantime,” Sam suggests.

“She didn’t stay long at the housewarming,” Cas throws in. “We need some more time, there might be warding at her house – maybe we could try a distraction, so she stays longer?”

“You could fake-break-up your fake marriage,” Dean huffs under his breath, knowing already they won’t agree to it. If their plan fails, the entire cover-up story would be blown up. There’s a bottle of beer in Dean’s hands and he takes a deep gulp from it. It may not be noon yet, but he stopped caring about that years ago.

Cas answers once Dean finished drinking. “No, that’s hardly enough to draw her attention.”

“We could call Jack, maybe he can help out. He could be your unknown son from a secret affair,” Dean jokes next. It sounds almost like a cheap plotline from Dr. Sexy – except Dr. Sexy’s secret son actually appeared in season 3 and needed an organ transplant, which could only be donated by his father. While Dean tries to remember how the episode ended, Sam and Cas nod in agreement.

“I’ll call Jack right away,” Cas speaks, his phone already halfway pressed to his ear. A second later, the angel disappears from the couch, leaving only Sam in his view. The younger Winchester seems to wait for Castiel to leave the room before he addresses his brother again.

“Dean, promise me you won’t act up,” Sam tries to reason. “We can’t risk the entire thing because you are getting jealous.”

“Jealous? Don’t be ridiculous, Sammy,” the older Winchester mumbles, trying his best to not sound petty. “Scout’s honor, I’ll be on my best behavior.”

——————————————————————————————-

Dean’s promise lasts around 20 minutes, which is already longer than he honestly would have expected. He and Mary will enter Jennifer’s house at 1800 sharp, leaving them with just enough time to trash her little altar and the supplies. Jack is going to start with his distraction around 10 minutes earlier, giving Dean enough time to slip out quietly. It’s all planned to the minute, which of course means, it’s destined to fall apart.

They invited their neighbors under the premise of Castiel’s birthday, even though the angel technically doesn’t even have a birthday. It doesn’t matter anyway, since Sam promised some BBQ and apparently that’s enough to motivate everyone to show up. Dean watches the spectacle from a distance, occasionally sipping his cold beer. He planned to handle the grill, but some bored husband hushed him away to deal with it instead.

Cas looks beautiful, Dean notices as he watches his best friend talking to his guests. He’s wearing a light blue dress shirt and a pair of dark jeans, and Dean makes a mental note to thank his brother for finally getting Cas out of his usual outfit. Then he remembers it means Sam took Cas shopping at some point, and Dean’s gratitude turns sour in his mouth.

“How long have you two been married?” one of the ladies asks Cas, and Dean tries his best to hide a snickering laugh.

“Too damn long,” Dean jokes under his breath, but loud enough for several heads to turn in his direction. Maybe he had a beer too much, but watching Sam and Cas acting in love isn’t a thing he can handle sober.

“Two years,” Cas replies shortly, shooting angry glances at Dean. A second later, he mumbles to his guests again. “May you excuse me for a moment?”

Dean steps back, ready to hide from Castiel’s anger, but it doesn’t work. Barely a moment later, Cas is already in front of him. His hand closes tightly around Dean’s arm, keeping him from turning away.

“What’s the matter with you, Dean? You’re acting like a child,” Cas hisses when he catches him in the hallway. It’s enough to make Dean angry again, as he pulls his arm away from Castiel’s tight grip.

“The matter with me?” he shoots back. “This is honestly so ridiculous, you’re acting so…”

A middle-aged man bumps into them, and Dean stops talking immediately. There are far too many people around and if he says anything about the case, it could ruin their entire plan. The guests are spread all over the house, leaving no place to talk in private. Well, almost no place…

“We need to talk,” Dean whispers, before dragging the angel into the coat closet. Some curious eyes seem to follow them, but Dean shuts the door before anyone else can spot them. The closet is surprisingly spacious, but the walls seem to suffocate him. There’s a bit of light coming in through the shutters, and he can see the concern written all over Cas’s face.  

“What’s going on? Ever since Sam and I began working this case, you’ve been acting weird,” Cas presses on and Dean knows it’s finally time to come clean about his feelings. He doesn’t want to lose Castiel’s friendship, but he can’t keep lying anymore.

“I wish it were me,” Dean rushes before he can chicken out again. “Instead of Sam. I wish it were me you’re married to. And I know it’s all fake, and you’re just pretending, but it’s driving me insane. Watching him hold you and call you those cheesy pet names. Because - because it’s something I want to do with you…not pretending, but for real.”

Once Dean starts speaking, the words don’t seem to stop rushing from his mouth. Cas just regards him with those hauntingly blue eyes, his head tilted in a way that always makes Dean’s heart melt. When all is said, Dean feels like the air was punched out of his lungs, as he awaits his friend’s answer.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“Because I was too stupid to realize it for the longest time. And then I just didn’t know how to say it,” Dean admits. He came close to confessing in the diner, but Beth interrupted them and afterward, Dean felt ashamed and stupid.

“Dean,” Cas whispers. “I want those things too.”

There’s the beginning of a bright smile on Castiel’s face, and Dean swears his heart skips a beat when the words finally dawn on him. Before Dean can overthink the situation, he presses closer to the angel and is relieved when Cas is doing the same. And then their faces meet in the middle. Kissing Cas is the easiest thing in the world, it turns out. Whatever Dean was so afraid of, is right forgotten once their lips slot together.

It starts out innocent and gentle, just like the way relationships start. But then Cas opens his mouth a little bit, letting Dean lick inside and,  oh  – now things are getting heated. Dean presses even closer to Cas, their chests flushing together and their arms holding each other close. Somewhere, Cas’s back hits a wall and Dean pins him against it. The moan that falls from Cas’s lips is almost obscene while motivating Dean only further.

It’s perfect, and amazing, and breathtaking – until the closet door opens and they stumble onto the floor. Tammy’s surprised gasp draws everyone’s attention over to the couple, still entangled on top of each other on the floor. Everyone’s, even Sam’s.

“What the hell do you two think you are doing?” he yells loud enough to attract the entire house to the hallway, where they are watching them closely. Dean and Cas are still on the floor, slowly stumbling back to their feet.

“Sammy, I can explain…,” Dean starts, but now Sam turns his attention to Cas. He steps closer to them, his pointed finger slapping against Castiel’s chest.

“You’ve been screwing my brother?!” he yells, before locking eyes with Dean. “And you! Is this why Fernando broke up with me?”

Dean is taken aback for a second. Who the hell is Fernando? It’s only then when Dean remembers their lesser-used codewords. He can still recall how he wrote it down in his own leatherbound journal:  Fernando – just play along.

“This got nothing to do with Fernando, this is about me and Cas!” Dean replies with an angry voice, before taking Castiel’s palm into his own hands. Cas gives him a quick squeeze, and Dean decides to have at least a little fun with the situation.

“I finally understand now, why I was so against your marriage. Because you two don’t belong together! Your whole marriage is a scam! You act all perfectly happy when in reality, you’re not even sleeping in the same bed anymore.”

Dean can hear the people around them gasp a little. He wouldn’t be surprised if one of the elder people would end up with a heart attack due to all the fake drama being uncovered right now. Besides him, Cas draws in a deep breath, before speaking to his (fake) husband.  

“It’s true, Sam. I’ve been having feelings for your brother for a while now, but I never knew how to address them.”

Sam just looks at them with the biggest puppy eyes Dean’s ever seen. His time in drama club surely played out. “Are you two in love?”

Dean takes a deep breath, looking over to the familiar blue eyes, and the truth slips easily over his tongue.

“I think I love Cas more than I’ve ever loved myself.”

The look on Castiel’s face is everything and without even words, Dean knows he feels the exact same about him. The room is quiet around them, and from the corner of his eye, Dean spots Jennifer amongst the watchers. At least their little distraction worked well enough for her to stay.

“As your brother, I wish you all the happiness in the world,” Sam speaks, his eyes fixed in the distance. When Dean turns his head, he spots their mother coming in through the entrance door, breathing heavily but otherwise seems okay. She gives them both a small nod, signaling them she took care of the altar.

The crowd seems satisfied for the moment, and Dean is about to lead Cas out of the house when a voice stops them midway. It’s Jack, who is shouting loud enough for everyone to hear: “Sam, I am your secret son!”

The drama is enough to make at least one elder lady faint.

——————————————————————————————-

Dean and Cas depart soon enough, leaving Sam to deal with the rest of the concerned neighbors. Everybody seems to be too caught up in the drama to notice their quiet leave. They end up back in the diner, this time holding hands on the table. Surprisingly, everything feels the same and yet, completely different than before. Dean can’t put it in words, but for the first time in years, he knows he’s truly happy.

It takes a bit of time for Sam to finally text him, saying his guests finally left them alone and they can come back to talk about their next steps. When the Impala roars down the road, Dean can feel the eyes of every household staring at them. They are probably wondering why he would be back so soon enough, but Dean doesn’t care. He just holds Cas’ hand on the way to the house, fully knowing he won the grand prize.

Jack and Mary greet them happily, and even Sam can’t hide his grin as he approaches his brother. “Well, if it isn’t the homewrecker himself.”

“Come on, I bet several of your neighbors would have consoled you all night long, if you had asked them,” Dean shoots back, throwing a wink at Sam. He remembers the way one of the ladies had clung to Sam’s arm, trying her best to cheer him up about his failed marriage.

They all settle in the living room: Cas and Dean on the couch, Mary and Sam seated in each of the armchairs, and Jack sitting cross-legged on the floor. It may not be much, but it’s their own little screwed-up family. While Sam gets them beers from the fridge, Dean considers putting his arm around Cas. They haven’t had time to label their relationship yet, but they’re both too old to play games. So, Dean decides to go with his gut and wraps his arm around Castiel’s shoulder. The returned smile lets him know it was a good decision.

“Sorry for the way I acted earlier, it was just for show,” Sam says when he passes the beer over to the couple. “I’m actually glad you two finally figured things out.”

“Me too,” Mary chimes in with a laugh. “Even though I was patiently waiting for your back-up at the house.”

“Bet you still did an amazing job without me,” Dean returns, an honest smile on his lips. He holds his beer towards her, and she clinks it with her own.

Sam fills them in with the details of the last hours, and how he watched Jennifer leave her home in a panicked state. She packed a few bags, before driving away with screeching tires. Well, another case successfully solved. They talk for hours while laughing about stories and eating the leftovers from the party.

“Damn, I could really use some sleep now,” Dean yawns, stretching his arms. A short glance at the clock lets him know it’s almost 2 am and they gotta hit the road early the next day.

“How about you two head to the motel, and Jack and Mom stay here?” Sam proposes. When Dean checks on Jack, the kid is curled up in his seat, snoring quietly. No way they’re going to move him somewhere else, so this plan might be for the best.

“You just want me to stay, so your neighbors see this pretty lady leave your house tomorrow,” Mary jokes, earning some quiet hollering from her elder son and a laugh from Castiel.

“Guess we’re heading back to the motel,” Dean finally decides, before clumsily standing up from the couch. If it weren’t for the awful neighbors, this place might actually be nice. The furniture for one thing is comfortable enough. And the closet sure gave him a few ideas what to do with Cas in the future. He takes a few steps towards the door until he notices something is missing. “Cas, you coming?”

“You want me to come along?” Cas asks, and Dean just nods.

“Of course, would be weird to stay with your husband now that you scored the hotter brother,” Dean replies, pressing a gentle kiss on Castiel’s cheek. He never knew angels could blush, but it’s a sight he will never get enough of.

“We’ll pick you up tomorrow at nine, better be dressed!” Sam shouts after them when Dean is already halfway out of the door.

“You’re such a buzzkill, Sammy. No wonder your husband left you”

“I’m just glad you’re finally out of the closet,” Sam shoots back with a grin. Dean already knows it’s a joke he’ll hear a thousand times in the upcoming years, but when he looks over at Cas, it sure is a price worth paying.

The drive to the motel is rather short, and soon enough, Dean unlocks the door to his room. Luckily, he had booked a room with a king-size bed. He rarely had a room for himself during hunts, so he had decided to enjoy that. Cas closes the door behind them, while Dean strips out of his flannel and his jeans. He’s still wearing a shirt and his boxers, but compared to a fully dressed Castiel, he almost looks naked.

When Dean comes near him, the angel wraps his arms around his torso and pulls him even closer. Once again, their lips meet in a kiss, growing more heated by the second. It’s with a sigh that Dean slowly pulls away again.

“Maybe we should take it slow, honey. How about we just cuddle tonight?” Dean murmurs, pressing gentle kisses along his jaw. The exhaustion of the day lies heavily on Dean’s bones, and all he wants to do is cuddle into bed, his lover beside him.

“Honey?” Cas asks with a raised eyebrow, and Dean feels himself blushing yet again.

“It’s just – every time I see a bee or something, I have to think about you,” he admits. “Remember how you collected honey yourself? Or when you showed up covered in bees?”

Cas smiles at the memory. “Of course, I remember, but why would you bring that up now?”

“It’s just a term of endearment, a pet name. I can stop if you want”

Dean was never a big fan of pet names. He usually called his partners by their names, not some silly phrase. But then again, he was the one who turned  Castiel  to  Cas,  so maybe the angel has always been the exception for him.

“No, I like it,” Cas decides, before pressing another quick peck onto Dean’s lips. “And I am fully contempt with cuddling you.”

After some discussion about clothing choices, Cas also strips down to his underwear. Cuddling in jeans and a dress shirt would have been awful, and Dean luckily managed to convince the angel of it. The bed is more than big enough for the both of them, as they lie facing each other in the dark.

“We should make you a proper Winchester someday,” Dean mutters, gently kissing Cas’s knuckles. He isn’t thinking about marriage, not yet at least. Most marriages he’s seen over the years ended in death: his parents, Bobby and his wife Karen, Ellen and her husband…The list goes on and on, including those couples they couldn’t save during their hunts. When he saw his own father stricken with grief for his lost wife, part of Dean swore he’d never marry. But then again, Dean never would have believed he’d ever live past the age of 30. It’s with a smile upon his lips that he finally falls asleep.

All his life, he expected monsters in every dark corner, and more than enough times Dean was proven right. He’s been long enough in the business to smell danger from miles away, Dean believes. Which is why he’s surprised to wake up to the sound of Castiel shouting his name.

When he opens his eyes, all he sees is purple. The room seems to be painted in the color, reflecting on every surface possible. And in the middle of it all stands Jessica, glaring at them with violet and angry eyes.

“You! You really thought destroying my altar was enough to stop me?”

Dean’s hand finds its way under his pillow but returns empty-handed. He must have forgotten to place it there, too caught up with his lover. And when he looks around, he can spot his faithful gun sitting on top of a dresser, which is inconveniently placed behind the wrathful witch in the room. Cas is already standing beside the bed, and the sight of a half-dressed angel ready to fight would be hilarious if it weren’t for the mortal danger they’re in.

“You’re an abomination,” Jessica yells again. “Dirty and sinful, and…”

The angel blade hits her right in the chest. Her purple eyes glance downwards, where the blood comes rushing out of her body. Apparently, she was so caught up in looking dangerous, she actually forgot to ward herself. And with Castiel’s heavenly aim, that could only end deadly for her. Jessica sinks to her knees; the purple flashes of lightning slowly disappearing from the room. It’s only then when Dean decides to approach her. Blood is running down her mouth, but she’s still alive, watching the hunter carefully as he kneels down in front of her.

“I’ve had a voice like you in my head my entire life, whispering awful things about myself,” Dean tells her, keeping eye contact as he pulls the angel blade out of her bleeding chest. “But now, that I’m finally happy, do you know what happens to this voice?”

Jessica doesn’t answer, and he doesn’t need her to.

He would have slit her throat either way. 

———————————————————————————————

“Welcome to Sunday Brunch, Agnes,” Sarah announces, as the women settle down at her dinner table. It’s been a while since they had another brunch, but it was long-awaited. Today, a new face sits at the table with them.

“So sad Jennifer decided to move away, but we are glad we got you in the neighborhood now.”

“Thanks for having me,” Agnes replies with a shy smile, as she glances around at the other women. “It’s wonderful to have such nice and caring neighbors, my old neighborhood was so scandalous…”

“Scandalous?” Irene laughs, shaking her head in disbelief. “Oh dear, you ain’t seen nothing yet!”

“Are you referring to the Winchester?” Tammy replies while stirring her tea. It’s been weeks since those men came and went, but it’s still everyone’s favorite topic of discussion.

“Don’t be silly, of course I mean the Winchesters!”

Beth releases a deep sigh. “I’ve heard they did it right in Dean’s fancy car after the party.”

“No, they threw Sam out of the house and then had sex in the bed Sam used to sleep in. How tasteless of them,” Sarah corrects her immediately.

“That can’t be.” It’s Tammy’s turn to speak now. “I saw him the next day with a blonde woman in front of the house”

“Guess he got over it quickly then,” some other woman giggles. “Have you seen the kid too? Sam can’t have been older than maybe 25 when he was born”

Agnes just smiles quietly, as she listens to the stories. She may not know the Winchesters, but they sure are entertaining as heck.

———————————————————————————————

Castiel becomes a Winchester on a sunny day in July.

It’s been months since the case that started their relationship, and they never spared another thought to those nosy neighbors. Dean suspects the rumors they started that night, but he couldn’t care less. Once the town disappeared from the Impala’s rearview mirror, none of them ever spared another thought to the neighborhood. Dean and Castiel couldn’t be happier, and that’s all that matters to them.

Jody invited all of them to her cabin at Lake Alvin, just outside of Sioux Falls. They are celebrating Claire’s graduation from college, and Dean couldn’t be prouder of the kid. He talks Cas into buying her the cheesiest greeting card they can find, paired with the most beautiful gun in the entire bunker. It’s got engravings all over and Dean even finds somebody who puts “C.N.” onto the side of it. He would rather have Claire live a normal life, but he knows it’s not going to happen.

It appears like everybody in the hunter community got the invitation: Sam and Eileen, Mary, Donna, the Banes twins, even Garth and Bess together with their kids. It’s not often hunters get to celebrate something, so everybody immediately jumped the opportunity. It’s a beautiful day, and at some point, Dean finds himself standing next to Claire.

“So, when you gonna put a ring on it?” she asks, nodding over to Castiel, who is chasing his little namesake all over the lawn in a playful game. Dean’s heart swells at the thought of this man being his husband. They hunt less and less these days, especially since Sam decided to move in with Eileen. It’s still a secret, but he and Cas recently bought a house in the same street as them. It might finally be time to leave the hunting life behind.

“There’s no rush,” Dean simply answers, trying his best not to settle on the thought. If he’d ever marry someone, it probably would be Cas. His eyes are still fixed on the laughing figure when Claire continues speaking.

“Whatever, old man. But if you ever want to tie the knot, just call me,” she says, shrugging with her shoulder. When Dean looks at her with a raised eyebrow, she continues. “I’m actually a licensed officiant, not that it would matter for you two anyways. Could marry you just like that –“

She snaps her fingers, before taking a gulp of her soda. Dean looks over to Cas again, his thoughts running in his head. What if…? The idea seems insane to him, but Claire seems to catch his thoughts. A smile breaks over her face: “Go ahead, dude. Just ask him.”

“Don’t want to steal your thunder, kid.”

“There would be no thunder without you,” she confesses, and Dean can’t help but pull her into a tight hug. He never expected to have kids, but he loves Claire just like his own blood. Her first weeks in college were rough, he remembers. But every time she came close to quitting, she’d call Dean. At this point, she’s just as much his kid as Jack, and he couldn’t be prouder of the people they’ve become.

When they step apart, Claire pulls a necklace from her neck. Two golden rings are connected on it, and Dean immediately knows who they belonged to.

“Here, this one should fit,” she says and presses the larger ring into his shaking hands. Dean mutters an honest thanks, smacking a gentle kiss on her forehead, before sprinting over the lawn.

“Hey Cas, can we talk for a moment?”

“You’re not dragging me into a closet again, are you?” Castiel laughs, but willingly follows his boyfriend a few feet away from the crowd.

“If I remember correctly, you rather enjoyed that…,” Dean counters with a grin, before kissing the angel gently. Cas is still smiling against his lips, and Dean pulls away with a deep breath.

“I have an idea…well, actually Claire had the idea, but I think it’s kinda awesome. And since everyone we love is already here, it would just be such a good opportunity and…”

“Dean,” Cas simply says, putting a stop to Dean’s blabbering.

“Will you marry me? Tonight? I know, you actually deserve a much better proposal and a wedding that doesn’t take place in flannel, but I love you so very very much”

Dean’s stammered words are silenced by a loving kiss. When they pull apart, Cas is smiling brighter than the sun.

“I’ve adored you ever since the moment I touched your soul in hell, of course, I’ll marry you”

The biggest smile flashes over Dean’s face, and Cas returns it just as much. A moment later, a loud shout draws their attention over to the cabin, where Claire is cheering in a way, that reminds them far too much of Dean. And when they tell everyone else, the mood just keeps going up.

It’s not a traditional wedding, but then again, their whole lives aren’t exactly normal. Jack insists on being the flower girl, even though Dean and Sam try their best to correct it to “flower-boy”. The music comes from a beaten-up boombox, which plays “November Rain” on repeat and the couple agrees not to exchange vows, deciding to wait with them until they can talk privately.

Dean’s hands shake when he slips the ring onto Castiel’s finger. It’s only now that he realizes they only got one ring, but before Dean can freak out, the angel pulls another golden band from his pocket.

“Where did you get that ring from?” Dean asks, and Cas casts a glance over to Jody, who is currently trying to stop crying. They barely knew her husband, and sometimes Dean still feels a pinch of guilt they couldn’t save him. The ring, he knows, is not only a final peace offering but an official invitation to the family. Dean shoots her a thankful smile, and she just nods in return.

“Speak now, or forever hold your peace,” Claire announces from the front, but the crowd remains luckily silent.

“We’ve been waiting for ages, no way we’re going to object now,” Sam shoots from the side, making everybody laugh. If Dean wasn’t close to bawling his eyes out, he’d probably throw a witty remark at his brother.

“Well then,” Claire says, clearly holding tears back herself. “I shall pronounce you officially hitched!”

Everyone cheers when Cas pulls Dean in a kiss, marking the beginning of a new chapter. The rest of the evening passes in a blur: they dance, they sing, Sam proposes to Eileen, Claire and Kaia finally get together, and Dean and Cas once again find themselves fooling around in a closet. But it’s perfect in every way.

Not every family contains of two parents and a bunch of kids. For them, family contains of two washed-up hunters, their time-traveling mom, a badass Irish huntress, a fallen angel, the devil’s son, and dozens of other people they got to know over the years. Bobby once told Dean, family don’t end in blood, but it doesn’t start there either.

And as Dean watches his happy and fucked-up family, his hand tightly holding onto his husband, he just knows truer words were never spoken.

[prettyboybarzal]

Dancing with Our Hands Tied (6)

Word Count: 4.2k

Warnings: Smut (because of course there would be)

Previous Chapter // Masterlist

The arm around your waist was heavy, tattooed, and most definitely not Charlie’s. 

“Pierre,” you hissed. “Get up.” He stirred and tugged you closer. You pushed back against his chest, sounds of struggle falling from your lips as he curled his arms around you. “Let go of me.”

“YN, I’m severely hungover,” he grunted. “Can we fight later?”

“No.”

It’d been two weeks since you ended up in Pierre’s bed after a failed attempt to tell him off and since then, you’d slept with him at least three more times. You fell into a strict routine, one that didn’t include sleepovers. Surprisingly, though, you didn’t put up a fight when he started to nod off on the pillow the night before.

You shoved him one last time, this time successfully, and pulled yourself from bed. The first thing you did was pull the shades back to allow light into the room. He exclaimed at the invasion and pulled a pillow over his head.

“I’ll make you coffee, but then you gotta leave because I have things to do.”

Pierre watched you leave and sighed as soon as you were out of sight. Before getting back to your apartment the night before, he was yearning for you. Each time you were near him, he felt his hands twitch. Your midriff was exposed, jeans sitting low on your hips, and each time you passed, he wanted to sink his fingers into your flesh, or better yet, his teeth. But he couldn’t do that, not with all the eyes around you, not when Josh was clearly confused by the lack of fighting going on. 

It felt like he could breathe when you texted him to come back to your place, and when he finally slipped through your front door and his lips met yours, he was satisfied.

“You know,” he spoke as he entered the kitchen where you were making coffee. His voice was still rough from sleep. “We’ve never fucked in the morning.”

“And I’m okay with that.”

He laughed out loud, shuffling to grab a mug from the cabinets above him. You reached out and placed it back inside, then handed him a to-go cup. He rolled his eyes. 

“You’re the worst host.”

“That’s not what you were saying when I was blowing you last night.”

There was a knock at the door that prompted both your heads to snap up in confusion.

“That better not be one of the boys,” you grumbled. “I don’t think I could explain your shirtless presence in my kitchen.”

“Sure, you could,” he murmured, dropping his hands to either side of the counter beside you. He leaned in close, whispering, “You could just tell them what you tell me every time I’m inside you; I fuck you so good. You just can’t get enough.”

If there was one thing you’d learned about Pierre throughout these past few weeks, it was that he knew exactly how to throw your own attitude right back at you. 

“Gross, Pierre,” you said, slipping beneath his arms.

“You were the one that started talking about giving me head before either of us has even had coffee!”

You only allowed yourself to laugh once you were out of the kitchen and away from his ego. 

The person started to knock again and you stepped up to the door to pull it open, revealing your overly excited parents.

“What are you doing here?” you asked, panic in your eyes as they pushed past you to enter the apartment. “What do you mean?” your father asked as he helped your mother shed her jacket and hang it on the hook beside the door. “It’s your birthday! You didn’t think we’d forget to celebrate with you, right?”

“A warning would’ve been nice,” you muttered, thoughts fleeting to the shirtless man in the next room. You stood in their way, blocking the path to the kitchen in hopes that they’d just head straight to the living room and you could discreetly get rid of Pierre. Your mother had other plans, grabbing a cooler bag from your father’s hand before marching to put the food she’d brought away in the fridge.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, hands fluttering up to her eyes as she shielded herself from Pierre’s naked chest. You were only a step behind her, your father two behind you, and when she turned to look at you, you could see the blush on her cheeks. “I didn’t know you had company.” “Pierre’s leaving.”

“Pierre? No way! He’s gotta join us for your birthday brunch!” your father exclaimed. Pierre’s eyes flickered to you and then went back to your father. “We still have to thank you for dealing with Sadie when she came to visit, and also for dealing with this one every day.”

“You have your work cut out for you with her,” your mother grumbled from where she stood in the kitchen, already reorganizing all your draws and cabinets.

“Just send him a fruit basket or something.”

“YN,” your mother chastised, plates set on the counter for just a moment so she could glare at you. “If your father wants to treat him to brunch, then we will treat him to brunch.”

“I love brunch,” Pierre spoke, voice just above a whisper. You glared at him and that stupid little smirk toying at the corner of his lip, but then your father clapped in excitement. “Besides, it’s your birthday,” he emphasized, eyes wide. “I couldn’t miss that.”

“Great! Then, it’s settled,” he spoke. “I’m just going to run to the bathroom, and maybe your little boyfriend will put on a t-shirt.”

You spoke in unison.

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

“I’m not her boyfriend.”

But your dad was already down the hall, not that he would’ve listened to either of you anyway.

Pierre narrowed his eyes at you, you stuck your tongue out at him, and then he tried to catch it between his fingers, but you shoved him away to the hallway.

“Put on a damn shirt.”

As soon as he disappeared, your mother was cooing, “That’s Pierre?”

“Why do you say his name like that? Sadie says his name like that too.”

“Well, I mean, look at him.”

“I’d prefer not to,” you grumbled. She began chastising you about how miserable you were, and how there was a handsome man right in front of you, right in your kitchen as a matter of fact, and you better take advantage of it! You’re another year older! But, you let the words fall on deaf ears before leaving to find Pierre in your bedroom.

He was still shirtless, shuffling about the room for his belongings. He glanced up when you entered, and smiled as he asked, “Why didn’t you tell me it was your birthday?”

“Because it doesn’t matter,” you said. “I don’t know when yours is either.”

“Mine’s June 24th.”

“It doesn’t matter,” you repeated. He rolled his eyes at you and pulled the shirt over his head. “This isn’t how this is supposed to work. We fuck and you leave, or I leave. That’s it. You don’t need to spend the day with me and my parents. Are you out of your mind?”

“I think it'll be fun,” he said. “Maybe not for you, but definitely for me, and that’s my favorite kind of fun.”

---

From: Sadie

WTF? Why is Pierre at brunch with you guys? What’s happening? Call me ASAP. I’m freaking out!!!!!

You and Sadie were freaking out for entirely different reasons. She was freaking out because she thought this meant something. You were freaking out because you were stuck with Pierre for longer than you ever wanted to be.

“You’re one of Josh’s friends?”

“Teammates,” you corrected. Pierre took a glance over at you with a soft smile. “They play for the Blue Jackets together.”

“Oh! Oh, wow,” your mother remarked. She gave you not-so subtle wide eyes that screamed, again, how perfect she thought he was. “That’s an excellent job!”

“I’m very lucky to get to do what I love for a living.”

“And you two met because of Josh?”

“Yes,” you answered tersely, not wanting to entertain this conversation for the sole purpose of keeping your mother’s nose out of your personal, or not-so personal, life. But Pierre gave in to her, as you expected him to.

“Yeah, he introduced us during my rookie season,” he answered after swallowing a forkful of eggs. “I’ll admit that I made a really bad first impression,” he began, meeting your eyes over the mimosa you were bringing to your lips. “But she never really gave me the chance to fix it, so we just went on hating each other for a really long time.”

“Well, look at you two now,” your mother raved, waving her hands between the two of you. “All is well.”

“What fixed it?” your dad asked. “I mean, this one can be as stubborn as a mule.”

“Dad.”

“Sweetheart, I love you, but sometimes you just make your mind up and that’s that. You don’t budge. I want to know how he got you to change your mind! Teach me your ways, Pierre.”

“Uh, well,” he began, choking a bit on the drink in his mouth. He knew he couldn’t give them the real reasons. He couldn’t explain that the only way you could stand each other was if he was inside of you, so he met your eyes with a look of uncertainty. 

“It was after he helped Sadie,” you answered for him. “I figured that if he’d ruin his own night to make sure she didn’t die of alcohol poisoning then maybe he wasn’t as bad as I thought he was.”

Pierre looked up at you again, eyes softer than before, but you avoided his gaze and instead focused on the food in front of you. 

Conversation picked up again, but it didn’t involve him. Your parents asked about work, you asked about home, and the conversation ended up circling back to Sadie once more. Pierre remained silent, taking in the relationship you had with your parents and how much you cared for your sister. He felt like he saw another side to you during brunch, a side that every other guy on the team had experienced and he’d yet to see. 

When the bill came, Pierre immediately reached for it, but your dad was faster and you yourself had placed your hand on his to push it away.

“They made you come,” you reminded him. “You don’t have to pay.”

“I wanted to come,” he corrected you. He leaned forward to speak directly to your father. “Mr. YLN, at least let me pick up the tip.”

Your dad sized him up for a moment, then sighed, “Fine.”

Pierre sat up victoriously, turning his hand in yours to squeeze the fingers that were resting against it before taking some cash out of his wallet. You flushed at the intimate moment and pulled your hand away. 

“Your father has one last request,” Mom announced as the group of you exited the restaurant. You turned to face her on the sidewalk, panic in your eyes. She glanced at your father, already nose deep in his phone. “Honey?”

“Huh?”

“Your next birthday surprise for YN?”

“I’m really okay with the birthday surprises, guys,” you murmured. “You being here is definitely enough.”

Pierre stifled a laugh beside you, and this time didn’t earn a glare. “Your father wants to go mini-golfing,” Mom butt in. “It’s this indoor glow-in-the-dark mini-golf he’s been following on Facebook for months now. If he doesn’t go, I’m gonna hear it for the next three months.”

“I can head home,” Pierre spoke, low and intended for you, but your father clapped him on the shoulder.

“No way, hockey star, I want to see that golf swing of yours.”

“Dad!”

“It’s not every day I get to hang out with an NHL player!”

And that’s how you ended up playing golf, in the dark, with your parents and your fuck buddy.

You never thought you’d be thankful to have Pierre around, but you were glad he stayed for mini-golf. Truthfully, you’d never been very athletic, but your dad loved sports, so you played them to humor him. Having Pierre with you just meant that all the competitiveness could stay between the men and you could enjoy sucking at sports with your mom. 

Then, you started losing all the golf balls. Honestly, your dad should’ve expected this very outcome when he decided to bring you to a glow-in-the-dark mini-golf place. 

You lost your ball, and then Pierre offered his and you lost that one too. Three holes later, there was only one ball left and your parents, as well as Pierre, were doubtful that you wouldn’t lose the last one.

“We’ll go get some more,” your dad muttered. “Hopefully, you don’t lose those too.”

You glared at him, earning a chuckle from both of your parents before they walked off to the front desk. As soon as they were gone, Pierre asked, “You’re not very good at this, huh?”

The smile was evident in his voice. 

“I don’t get three months of the year for golf practice like you do,” you muttered, refocusing on the club in your hand. “So, no, I’m not very good at this.”

“Well, for starters, you’re holding the putter all wrong,” he said. His voice was closer now and when you peeked back at him, he was only a few steps away. “Can I show you how you’re supposed to hold it or are you going to hit me over the head with it?”

“Try your luck.”

Pierre stepped up behind you, hands curling over yours to fix their placement. He peeled your fingers off the club, then placed them a bit higher than they had been. His breath fanned across your neck and your shoulders pulled up as a reaction, the tuft of air sending shockwaves through your body. He almost leaned in to place a kiss against your skin, but shook his head as if to scold himself for even thinking about it. 

“Don’t hit the ball too hard,” he spoke before taking a step back. You did as he coached you to and the ball went in the hole with one put. You exclaimed at your hole-in-one and twirled around to share the moment with him. His arm wrapped around your shoulders to tug you into his chest.

“Atta girl,” he remarked in the same voice he used in the bedroom. His hand trailed along your spine and down to your ass, fingers curling into the flesh as he drank you in. You almost got lost in the moment with him, despite yourself, but then your parents appeared over his shoulder and you were shoving him away.

“What are we celebrating?”

“Tiger Woods over here,” Pierre answered, nodding at you. “She just got her first hole-in-one.”

“She’s never done that before,” your dad laughed heartily. His hand came down to pat Pierre’s shoulder. “Maybe you’re rubbing off on her.”

“Maybe,” he repeated, eyebrows quirking up at you. The twitch of your lips gave away the smile that you were suppressing, but he let it go, considering it a small victory.

---

Your parents said goodbye after mini-golf, citing the long drive home as the reason for an early departure, but your mother gave you and Pierre a fleeting look that gave you the impression that they were only leaving to give you time with him. You must’ve said it a hundred times in a hundred different ways that you weren’t dating him, but your mom always liked to believe her own delusions and you could never change her mind. 

Pierre was quiet as you drove away from mini-golf and in the direction of your apartment building, but you weren’t any more talkative than he was. How could you speak when the day sent you into a tailspin? For the first time ever, you enjoyed being around him and when the day was coming to an end, you didn’t want to see him go. 

“Are you hungry?” you asked, voice light, simultaneously trying to keep the day from ending and also all serious conversation at bay.

“Yes, starving,” he answered. “It feels like we ate forever ago.”

“Do you wanna grab something quick?”

Pierre nodded and ended up pulling into a McDonalds not far from your apartment. He ordered a large meal after you ordered your usual, and then he threw a few other unnecessary things, like a kid’s meal and a third McFlurry. 

When you got back to the apartment, he spread it all out like a buffet and you filled your paper plates with food in silence. He felt like he was struggling to come up with something to say to you for the first time ever. It was always easy to rile you up and get you talking, but he was at a loss now and he didn’t have a clue what to say.

He settled on, “I like your dad. Not that it matters, or whatever, but he’s a funny guy. Loves to chirp you almost as much as I do.”

“That’s why I can put up with you,” you responded. “I’ve had years of dealing with him.”

“Did you just compare me to your father?”

“Don’t be gross,” you barked, smacking his arm. He laughed heartily at that, crinkles at the edge of his eyes as he dug into the fries in front of him. You laughed with him, amazingly so.

Conversation died as you ate with both of your minds running at warp speed. It was hard to make sense of the day, of how much you enjoyed each other’s presence, when you were still together. But you didn’t want him to go, and he didn’t want to leave, so neither of you even suggested it. 

As he started cleaning up what was left of his meal, your phone chimed and Charlie’s name flashed across the screen. He met your eyes over the phone momentarily before you unlocked it to read the message. You stared at it, biting the inside of your cheek as you thought, then responded quickly and placed the phone face down on the counter. 

“I’m going to run to the bathroom,” he spoke. “And then, uh, I guess I’ll head out.”

He disappeared down the hall and left you feeling slightly stupid after texting Charlie that you were busy. In hindsight, maybe you shouldn’t have done that, but you had and now you needed to convince Pierre to stay. That’s what you wanted anyway, right?”

When he came back to the kitchen, you were throwing your food out and as soon as he stepped in to grab some of his belongings, you stepped up in front of him. 

“You’re not actually leaving, are you?”

“Don’t act surprised,” he murmured. He took a step forward, forcing you to tilt your chin up further to keep eye contact with him. His thumb came up to caress your cheekbone. “You wanted me gone all day.”

“And now I want you to stay,” you whispered. You pulled him closer from the belt loops and watched his eyes rake over your body. “At least for a little while longer.”

“Why are you playing with my head?”

The smirk you shared with him was wicked as you answered, “Because it’s fun.”

His fingers slid to the back of your neck while his other arm curled around your waist to pull you into his chest. You kissed in the kitchen for what felt like an eternity, much longer than you’d ever spent on doing it before, and finally, he lifted you up to carry you down the hall to your bedroom. 

He laid you back on the bed and undressed you slowly. He kissed each inch of skin as it was exposed from beneath the fabric covering you and his hands were everywhere, squeezing the meat that he hadn’t been able to touch all day, the skin he was dying to touch. He kissed down your stomach to your thong, finger hooking beneath the waistband to tug them down and get you completely naked in front of him.

“YN, tu es si belle,” he whispered, eyes flickering back up to your face. You flushed beneath his gaze and gasped as he situated your legs over his shoulders and leaned in, breath fanning across your core. He kissed the inside of your thighs while his blue eyes drank you in. Your chest heaved in anticipation.

He held your hips down as he dove in, and within minutes your back was arched and your legs began to shake over his shoulders. You cried out as you came, fingers curled into his hair, grinding against his mouth and nose as he worked you through it. 

When he finally pulled away, he kissed up your inner thigh to let you come down from your high. Then, he crawled up the bed to hover over you, shuttering as your hands slid beneath his t-shirt to pull it over his head. His jeans were next, and finally, his boxers. When his cock was finally free, he reached over to the drawer and grabbed a condom. You slid it on for him and he dropped his head to your shoulder at the touch of your fingers around him. 

The moment it was on, you began to flip onto your stomach. That’s how he usually wanted you, but he stopped you from moving and gathered your wrists in his hand to pin them above your head. His lips met yours again, desperate and needy.

You felt the head of his cock against your mound and groaned in sexual frustration, so he reached down with his free hand and aligned himself with your core. 

“You’re okay?” he asked. You nodded, bottom lip pinned between your teeth to the point of breaking the skin. He kissed you once more, hoping that you’d relax with him and you did. With his knee, he nudged your legs apart and then he pushed his head past your folds. As you arched, his lips met your collarbone. 

“Happy birthday, baby.” 

The pet name set you on fire, but you could hardly focus on it as he thrust into you. The movement of his hips was shallow and slow, nothing like the other times he’d been between your thighs. He held you close, chest-to-chest. The level of intimacy so intense compared to those times you’d shared before when you were simply using each other to chase a feeling. This was different, and you both knew it. 

“Luc,” you sighed as he filled you up, stilling inside of you for a moment to breathe and take in the way you spoke his name--a name you’d only ever called him once and he’d wanted to hear every day since then. “Please.”

“Patience,” he spoke, rolling into you some more. “I’ll take care of you, but I wanna take my time.”

So, you let him take his time and basked into the feeling of the way he filled you up and surrounded you. You listened to the way he spoke to you, softly and often in French, and you noticed the way he responded to your body, the way that no other man ever had. He read you like a book, as terrifying and insane as it felt to realize that, and you couldn’t get enough.

He finally dropped your hands and immediately, your nails curled into his back as he worked your body. He propped your leg up on his hip to thrust even deeper than he had before and with each roll of his hips, you felt him deep inside you. You moaned against his shoulder and he cursed loudly in French as you rolled your hips to match the movement of his.

“I want to cum with you,” you whispered in his ear. He sighed, then nodded before pulling back to thrust into you with a little more power behind it. His hands found your hips as he leaned back on his knees and thrust into you, pulling you down onto his cock as he did so. You were a mess beneath him and he watched your breasts bounce as he fucked you. 

“Cum, baby,” he whispered, returning to the position he’d been in moments ago. He knew you were close, he was right behind you, and as he returned to the previous position, you shouted out. “Come on. With me.”

“Luc, you’re so good,” you moaned. “You fuck me so good.”

Pierre’s hand found your clit, thumb circling the sensitive nub as his lips met yours in a rough kiss. His heart pounds in his chest as your orgasm finally reached you, whimpering and moaning beneath him as he chased his own high. It wouldn’t take long with you unraveling beneath him and, finally, he cums, hips stuttering as he filled up the condom. He dropped his weight onto you, breathing ragged, and your hands began to scratch the skin of his back soothingly as you both caught your breath. 

About a minute later, he rolled over onto his back and discarded the condom while you ran to the bathroom. He rested against the headboard and waited for you to come back, heart still hammering in his chest from an orgasm like no other. You returned and his eyes tracked your movement across the room. 

“Do you want me to go?”

You looked up at him, a bit like a deer in headlights, and answered, “Um, no. You can stay, if you want.”

“Okay,” he said, voice cracking just a bit. He coughed to clear his throat and nodded. “I’ll stay.”

[dontcare77ghj]

Parker Luck

Natasha x reader x Wanda

Notes; Trigger Warnings. Past rape. Sexual harassment. Skip fucking Westcott. Panic attacks.

You and your brother had a thing called 'Parker Luck.' Parker luck struck whenever and didn't care who got hurt or what it ruined. Parker luck had killed Mary, and Richard Parker, had stolen Uncle Ben, almost killed Peter, and tried to destroy you, your brother, and your Aunt's lives.

But the three of you were strong and so far had beaten the Parker luck. May, ever the optimist, liked to point out that the results of Parker luck weren't all bad.

May had gotten to raise you and Peter, something she said she was incredibly proud of. Peter had joined the Avengers and worked alongside his heroes. And because of Peter, you were able to meet Natasha and Wanda, your partners of three years.

Being with the two was the most natural thing, and the best decision, in your life. 

About a year ago, the three of you had made the decision to move in together. You were all together at the Tower, and life was great because you were surrounded by those you loved.

You felt happy about where you were in life. Until Parker luck had to strike again.

"I'm going to pick up our dresses," Natasha told you, picking up her keys.

"You know you two don't have to come to this, right?" You asked, pulling your hair up. "It's just a gala."

"A gala where your work will be displayed. We want to support you." Natasha said, kissing your cheek. "Let us be the proud girlfriends and brag about you to anyone who'll listen."

"You already do that." You pointed out with a smile.

"Well, we're going to keep doing it." Natasha shrugged. "I'll be back in an hour. I'll pick Wanda up on my way." She told you.

"Okay, be careful." You said, standing to kiss the woman. "And give Wanda this from me." You added, kissing her again.

"Will do. Love you, dorogoy." Natasha said, giving you a soft smile.

"Love you too, Natty."

After Natasha left, you moved into your 'office.' It wasn't a traditional office, technically it was an art studio, but it was your space. A space where you could usually forget everything and everyone bothering you.

But not today.

'I miss you, sweet girl.'

The words seem to jump off the screen as your heart stutters. You were suddenly sixteen years old again, and you couldn't breathe.

'You and my little Einstein. The two of you look so beautiful.' 

Bile rose in your throat at that one.

'I want to see at least one of you again. Should I see if I can find Peter?'

You were going to be sick. You were so sure you were going to be violently ill.

Skip fucking Westcott. The perverted bastard had seemed to have vanished off the face of the Earth nine years ago. You thought he was out of yours and Peter's lives for good. You'd prayed to anyone who would listen that he was gone for good.

Damn Parker luck.

'Don't you dare go fucking near him.' You typed back.

'What's to say I already haven't?'

You dropped the phone to the ground as you leaned against the wall.

"Miss Parker, you seem to be experiencing some distress. Should I alert someone?" JARVIS asked you.

"No. No, thank you, JARVIS." You breathed heavily, forcing yourself to calm down. "I'm fine, thank you for your concern."

"Of course."

"Is Pete in the building?" You asked. "Is he okay?"

"Peter Parker is currently in the lab with boss, his vital signs are well within the normal range. Would you like me to alert him you're looking for him?"

"No, thank you, JARVIS." You sighed, sliding down the wall. 

You didn't know what to do. You couldn't tell Nat or Wanda, and you didn't want to scare Peter if Skip hadn't contacted him. 

No-one could know, you decided. No-one could ever be told the shame you felt.

"Agent Romanoff would like me to inform you she and Miss Maximoff will arrive in ten minutes," JARVIS said, drawing you out of your head.

Natasha and Wanda could never know, ever, you reminded yourself. You pulled yourself from the floor, took a deep breath, made yourself look presentable, and forced the memories to the back of your mind.

They didn't need to know.

Skip hadn't stopped. Skip hadn't left you alone. Skip had continued, messaging and calling to the point you barely turned your phone on. 

You blocked the first number, thinking you were incredibly smart, but he'd just got a new number.

And he did it every time you blocked him.

You’d been keeping a closer eye on Peter, you’d called May for check-ins every night now. You’d been watching, waiting, for any changes in his behavior, to see if Skip would contact him. 

So far it seemed as if he was leaving your brother alone.

"I'm going to get going now, zaika," Wanda announced, entering the kitchen in her yoga attire. 

She and Bruce attended a yoga class every Wednesday, and you loved seeing her walk around with her high pony and in her yoga clothes.

"Here, hon." You smiled, handing her two thermoses. "Yours is the yellow one, and I've put green tea in Bruce's."

"Have I said I love you today?" Wanda asked before kissing you.

"Not yet."

"I love you." Wanda grinned cheesily.

"I love you too. Now go, Bruce is waiting for you." You laughed, pushing her towards the elevator.

"Yes, ma'am. I'll be back soon. Love you!" She rushed out her sentence as the doors closed. 

With Wanda gone and Natasha in the gym with Clint, you let the smile fall off your face.

On the counter behind you, was a bomb. Not a literal one, though right now you would prefer it, a figurative bomb.

On the counter behind you, sat a letter. 

A handwritten letter. A handwritten letter, with a small red heart drawn onto the envelope. And you immediately recognized the scrawl that had written your name.

Squaring your shoulders, you picked up the letter opener and moved back to the bomb.

The envelope felt dirty. It felt disgusting in your hands as you cut it open.

Out fell two newspaper clippings and a card.

The clippings were of you, Natasha, and Wanda at the gala. The three of you were smiling in both pictures, and you had their arms wrapped around you.

'Look at how they wrap their arms around you, whore. Would they look at you like that if they knew who you were?'

Was written onto the back in black sharpie.

Ignoring your shaking hands, you picked up the card on the table. It was your business card.

'Check your email.'

Your phone was immediately in your hand, and you rushed to open your inbox. There were several business inquiries, and the sixth email was labeled, 'Whore.'

You swallowed harshly before opening the email and felt your breathing hitch as you saw the attachments. 

Photos of you. But they weren't recent, they from nine years ago. Your phone fell to the floor with a clatter, and you rushed to sink. 

The contents of your stomach emerged from your lips, the acidic smell causing you to gag again. 

It took several minutes before you were finished. Your eyes and throat burned, your stomach hurt, and your head was pounding. 

You felt disgusting. You needed to get clean.

You were in the shower for an hour. Your skin was raw, your eyes stung, and you were exhausted. Emotionally and physically.

When Natasha came into the bedroom, you were in half-asleep in the bed. You had forced yourself off the shower floor and crawled onto the mattress.

"You not feeling well, dorogoy?" Natasha asked, laying beside you. You didn't have the energy to respond, so you only grunted. "Go to sleep, dorogoy. Everything will be better when you wake up."

But it wouldn't. It would never be better.

"This was a fantastic idea." You sighed, taking a long drink of the raspberry mimosa. "I'm so glad you talked me into this."

"I'm glad we got Wanda to not come in her pajamas," Natasha smirked.

"I like my pajama pants," Wanda whined, cutting into her waffles. "They're silk."

"We're in public, hon. And those pants leave little to the imagination." You reminded her with a smile. You felt lighter than you had in weeks.

"I'm an Avenger. I save the world, I should get to wear whatever I want." Wanda reasoned.

"Unfortunately, it's illegal to walk around nude," Natasha said, rolling her eyes fondly as you giggled.

Wanda and Natasha both stared at you and smiled brightly at you. 

"What?" You asked, raising a hand to your face. "Do I have something on me?"

"No, you're perfect," Wanda assured you, taking your hand.

"We just haven't seen you this relaxed in a while," Natasha said, looking at you and Wanda with a soft look.

"I'm sorry. I've just been so distracted lately." You said, looking down.

"It's nothing to worry about," Wanda promised, raising your chin with a finger. "It's just not a state we want to see you in."

"Maybe you should take a step back from work. Give yourself a week's break, and we could go on a trip." Natasha suggested. 

"That sounds really good." You smiled shakily. "I'll be right back. I need to use the restroom." You said, standing from your seat.

Guilt coursed through you as you locked yourself in a bathroom stall. They’d noticed. They’d noticed what a mess you were.

You couldn’t continue being a burden to them. You needed to be better. Happier. 

You took several deep breaths before you decided to rejoin your girlfriends. You’d opened the stall and froze at what stood before you.

“Hi, sweet girl.” Skip smirked, leaning against the sink. “Miss me?”

“This is the ladies room. You need to leave.” You stuttered. 

“Don’t say that. I just wanted to see my girl.” Skip said, pushing off the sink and moving towards you.

“I’m not your girl.” You told him. “I have never been your girl.”

“We both know that’s not true.” Skip chuckled. “There was a time you were mine.”

“You raped me.” You spat out. “You raped my brother. You ruined our lives.”

“You and Petey used to be so sweet. I don’t know what happened to you.” 

“You did.” You stated, shuffling along the wall. You tried to rush for the door only to be stopped by Skip holding it closed.

“What’s your rush, sweetheart?” Skip asked as you backed away into the wall behind you. You gasped as your back hit the tiled wall and Skip’s body suddenly caged you in. “We’re just getting started.”

Your mind went blank as Skip’s hands were on your body. You were suddenly sixteen again and you were too scared to move.

“Hey!”

The door slammed open.

His hands left you.

You slumped to the floor.

You couldn’t breathe.

“Zaika, breathe. You need to breathe for me. You’re okay, zaika.”

“You’re having a panic attack. You have to breathe for us, dorogoy. That man can’t hurt you.”

It took an eternity of coaxing before you were able to focus. To breathe. You were still on the bathroom floor, Skip had disappeared, and now Natasha and Wanda were kneeling before you.

“There you are.” Natasha smiled, holding her hands in front of her. 

“Where is he?” You whispered, voice breaking.

“In avengers custody.” Wanda informed you. “The police wanted to take him but he said some things that made it clear he knew you. Steve came and took him.”

“Can we go home?” You asked, looking down.

“Of course.” Natasha said. “Can I touch you?” She asked, and you nodded. Natasha helped you stand and you slumped your head against her shoulder.

“We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” Wanda said as the three of you drove home. “But we’re here for you, always.” She added.

You didn’t say anything, simply continued staring blankly out of the backseat window. 

“He was our babysitter.” You announced. 

It had been three hours since the incident. After returning to the Tower, you had locked yourself in the bathroom. You’d almost boiled yourself alive as you sat on the shower floor sobbing.

You didn’t come out for two hours, despite the water turning to ice long ago. But Natasha and Wanda had been there. They sat on the bed three of you shared, neither made a move or said a word until you crawled onto the bed between them.

None of you had said a word since. You laid there, silently crying, as Natasha and Wanda soothingly ran their fingers through your hair.

“He was our babysitter.” You repeated, fingers tracing the duvet pattern.

“You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to.” Wanda reminded you. “We won’t push you.”

“I have to.” You murmured. “I have to say it out loud.”

“Go as slow as you want.” Natasha said. “We’ll wait.”

“Pete was eight. I was sixteen. I found my girlfriend after she hung herself. I couldn’t sleep for months, so May got me a prescription for sleeping pills. They knocked me on my ass, it was impossible to wake me up.

I wasn’t in a good place to look after Pete. And Skip lived next door. He was twenty-five. I was always asleep when he came over. He was raping Pete in the room next to me for weeks, and I didn’t know.

I started getting better, not sleeping so much, but Skip still came over. It took him a week before he pinned me down. Pete and I were too scared to say anything to May or Ben.” You explained.

“How long did he,” Wanda began slowly. “You?” She asked, unable to say the word.

“Two months.” You whispered. “At least while I was awake. Apparently he did it while I was unconscious too.”

“Why didn’t he go to prison? Did you not report him?” Natasha asked.

“We did. His father paid people off and he was never charged. The whole family moved a day later.” You told them. “He’s been contacting me for a month.” You added after a second.

“What? Why didn’t you tell us?”

“I didn’t think you’d want me.” You said, beginning to cry again. “I’m filthy. I’m disgusting. I couldn’t stop him, I couldn’t protect Pete. I don’t want me. I should’ve tried harder, done better.” You listed, breathing becoming a struggle again.

“Zaika, you need to breathe. You’re going to send yourself into another panic attack.” Wanda soothed, pulling you closer. 

Natasha and Wanda took their time to calm you, and continued whispering soothing words after you had calmed yourself.

“We always want you, dorogoy.” Natasha said, breaking the silence. “We’re never not going to want you.”

“You can’t blame yourself for what happened. No-one blames you. Peter doesn’t blame you. The only person that can be blamed is him.” Wanda added.

“I hate him. I hate him.” You said. “I hate Skip so much.”

“And you’re allowed. You’re allowed to hate him with everything you have.” Natasha told you.

“But you’re not allowed to hate yourself.” Wanda added.

“I’m tired.” You whispered, body sagging into the mattress. “I’m so tired.”

“Go to sleep, zaika.” Wanda murmured, pushing the hair off your face.

“We’ll be here when you wake up. We’ll always be here.” Natasha added, squeezing your hand.

Peter came to you in tears two days later. Crying because of the fantastic news he had just received.

Skip Westcott was going to be behind bars for the rest of his life. He could never hurt either of you again.

You joined Peter in his crying as the two of you embraced each other on your couch. Peter fell asleep there and you left to seek out Wanda and Natasha.

“I love you.” You murmured against their lips as you kissed them with tears streaming down your cheeks. “I love you so fucking much.”

“We love you too. Always.”

Don’t forget Taglist’s and requests are always open.

Taglist

@rvgrsbrns @smilexcaptainx @hopingforbarnes @starlingelliot @piper-koko-barnes-rogers @jelly-fishy-babie @skeletoresinthebasement @agent-barnes40 @reann-loves-sebstan @skadikh @summergeezburr @buckybarton03 @miyaeadys-blog @bindythedemon @natasharomanoffismywife @keenmarvellover @alissaginger

Natasha Romanoff Taglist

@natasha-danvers @5aftermidnight @ohfuckno

[ti-bae-rius]

Malec couple’s yoga one shot

“I can’t believe you agreed to this.”

“What? Yoga is a really great training activity. It keeps your muscles strong and toned and is great for flexibility and stamina.”

“Flexibility and stamina? I do like the sound of that.”

“Magnus!”

The two of them walked along the streets of New York, both in workout gear – though that phrase meant two wildly different things for each. Alec’s runes were glamoured and he wore his training gear – sans the heavy leather fabric shadowhunters donned for battle – which mainly consisted of a pair of loose jogging pants and a t-shirt that (like all Alec’s t-shirts) had seen better days. Magnus, however, had taken this as an opportunity to acquire some truly magnificent new clothes. A tank top reading ‘I’m heavily meditated’ and a pair of tight-fitting joggers, cuffed at the ankle and tailored to hang just right, completed Magnus’s outfit. Alec had to smile. No one else, in the history of workouts, had tailored yoga pants. But then no one else was quite like Magnus.

“We don’t need mats or anything, do we?” Alec asked, as they passed under the archway into Central Park. “The information seemed really vague. Do you think it’ll run over – my mom can only handle Max and Rafe for so long.”

“All this worrying doesn’t seem very zen of you,” Magnus chastised, taking Alec’s hand and swinging it like they did when they were making Max and Rafe ‘fly’ as they walked along the paths. Alec always thought this was somewhat of a big ask from Max, who actually could fly without the aid of Alec’s arms that were usually already somewhat tired from demon-hunting all day. Nevertheless, their squeals of joy made it all worthwhile.

A small throng of people were gathered, couples stretching together and chatting, in Central Park’s Sheep Meadow. Though still busy, it was somewhat less crowded and tourist-populated than the majority of the Park. Alec squinted to look who was there as the two of them walked closer and leaned up to whisper to Magnus, “There’s more gays than I thought there’d be.”

“Oh please, couples yoga is for three sets of people: bohemian lesbians who have squeezed this in between sensual pottery and live drawing where they only draw Cate Blanchett, straights whose marriages are on the rocks and are in desperate need of closeness not derived from brushing past one another on the way to write something on their family planner by the fridge, or gay couples – that’s us – whose marriage is just where it’s supposed to be.”

“And who want a brief moment of respite from their children – one of whom transforms into a bat when annoyed and one who loves annoying his brother?”

“I don’t think that’s quite as universal as you might expect,” Magnus pointed out and Alec laughed.

Thankfully, no one else seemed to have yoga mats. Despite Magnus’s assertions, most of the couples here looked calm and happy to be there. Alec relaxed a little and when a man and woman came over to introduce themselves as the instructors, he leaned casually against Magnus’s side, content to let his husband do the talking. He glanced round, watching the sunlight filter through the leaves of a nearby tree, mottling the grass below it with little pools of soft illumination. This was pretty nice, he thought, a feeling of serenity washing over him. Maybe Magnus was right, maybe Alec did just need to loosen up and relax, try and enjoy these new experiences. Maybe they’d become that couple, the couple that did yoga in the park and had brunch with their kids where they didn’t even drink mimosas or bloody marys because they didn’t need the pick-me-up of socially acceptable mid-morning alcohol. He’d always thought Izzy would be that person.

“Right,” the female instructor said in a voice that commanded the group. Though she’d raised her voice to gather them, she still sounded soft-spoken. “Let’s all find a space and let that space be our own bubble. Today, you and your partner are one being, two halves of one yogi. Together, let your hearts find a space. Be led by your shared heartbeat.”

Magnus and Alec exchanged a look and Magnus raised an eyebrow. Perhaps this was a little…much. Alec gave Magnus a miniscule frown and mouthed “that’s not very zen”. Magnus rolled his eyes but put a hand out and rested it on Alec’s chest, then put the other hand to his own.

“Our collective heartbeat is telling me that we should get out of here,” he said, with the same whimsical timbre to his voice that the instructor had. “It also says that the guac in the refrigerator needs eating tonight.”

Alec gave an inelegant snort and the instructors looked over at them. They didn’t look annoyed – Alec wasn’t sure people who were that at peace could be annoyed – but Alec schooled his expression into neutrality.

“I think just here is fine for our bubble,” he said and Magnus nodded, eyes glittering with amusement.

“I see we have some new energies in our space today,” the male instructor said, his speech with the same gentle lilt as his wife’s. “We welcome you into our family.” Magnus tried very hard not to think of how much this sounded like late-stage Crimson Hand rhetoric. “For our new friends, let me introduce us. This is my wife, Kelly, and I’m Gareth. Family, let’s emit some extra good vibes today to make our new souls feel welcomed and cherished.”

Alec firmly kept his eyes on the instructors instead of giving Magnus the weighted look he wanted to. Okay, this seemed a little full-on, but they’d just got here. They couldn’t judge it yet.

“What we’re going to do is start with a really easy pose that will help to solidify your connection to your partner and maintain your unity throughout our time together today,” breathed Kelly. “Let’s start with a stacked child’s pose. One half of your team transition now from mountain pose down to child’s pose, copying Gareth.”

Alec and Magnus exchanged looks and Alec shrugged, watching Gareth fold himself down onto the floor, facedown, as if having an existential crisis. Alec copied, and immediately felt the grass tickle his nose. From somewhere above him, Kelly continued talking.

“Now for our other halves, gently climb on your partner’s back and settle into the same pose. This is a really easy starting position and will keep us grounded and unified ready for our next step.”

Alec was about to say something when he felt Magnus’s weight settle atop him, pushing him further into the tickly grass. He breathed around the extra weight on his spine and Magnus bent to whisper in Alec’s ear.

“Wanna admit I was right to say we should’ve left?”

“No, this is very soothing,” Alec mumbled, and coughed on the grass that got in his mouth.

“Also, why is this child’s pose? Have Gareth and Kelly ever seen a child? If Max and Rafe were laid on the floor on their faces like this, I’d call an exorcist.”

“Shhh, I’m getting in touch with my inner peace,” Alec mumbled, and spluttered again on the grass in his mouth. “And also with this dirt.”

After a few minutes of relative calm, Gareth’s voice rung out, soft but commanding.

“Let’s all return to mountain pose now, stretching our arms up over our heads to transition to extended mountain.”

When Alec straightened up again, he glanced around, just to make sure he wasn’t being pranked. But no, a dozen other couples were all doing the same as them, lightly holding their hands above their heads, arms outstretched toward the sunny sky of New York. He settled back into it a little and tried to relax, wondering if relaxing was meant to take this much effort.

“Now we’re going to move into couple’s tree pose,” Gareth instructed. “Stand beside your partner and raise the arm closest to them into the air, touching their palm with yours. You can interlock your fingers here for extra emotional support, if you so desire. With your outside leg, rest the flat of your foot against your upper thigh, and bring your outside hands together to press flat against one another in the space between you.”

“Are you interlocking our fingers for emotional support?” Magnus whispered and Alec huffed a laugh.

“I’m doing it for structural support. I’m on some uneven grass and I feel like I’m about to fall over.”

“Consul Lightwood?”

Alec spun so fast that Magnus stumbled sideways, righting himself just in time and shooting Alec a furious look. In fact, the whole group were staring at them, looking as displeased as a group of people who had dedicated themselves to inner peace could look. Which, to be fair, wasn’t that displeased.

“Is there something disrupting your practise today?” Kelly asked, and Alec gave a nervous laugh.

“Just give me one second,” he said, staring off into the treeline where the call had come from.

“The forces outside your bubble are of no consequence during your practise,” Gareth told him, but Alec was already starting to walk over to the trees. Magnus gave a shrug to the instructors and an apologetic glance to the others in the group.

“He’s got a bad knee,” Magnus explained lamely and set off after Alec, jogging to catch up with him as he spoke to two younger shadowhunters. They couldn’t have been more than sixteen and were gaping up at Alec – and now Magnus too – with wide eyes.

“So how about I report back that you guys have been doing some great work on patrol, and you don’t tell anyone about…that,” Alec bartered. The two shadowhunters nodded and hurried off, casting looks over their shoulders as they went, heads bent together as they whispered. Alec looked at Magnus and burst out laughing. “Okay, you were right. We should’ve left before it started.”

“You mean you don’t want to get in touch with our shared heartbeat and become one soul in two bodies?” Magnus asked in mock-offence.

Alec gave him a sly side-eye and took his hand. “I didn’t say that. I’m sure we can work something out. We still have the apartment to ourselves for an hour or two before we have to get the kids.”

“What happened to ‘my mom can’t cope with them for too long’?” Magnus challenged, a devilish glint in his eye.

“She’ll be fine,” Alec assured him.

 “Why are we going to yoga night school?” Magnus asked as they reached the building indicated on Alec’s phone.

“Because it’s the only class I could find in the area when we had someone to watch the kids,” Alec explained. “Don’t worry, I made Simon promise to make them dinner.”

“Well hopefully this one is less traumatic.”

Alec groaned. “Don’t remind me. At least in a building we don’t risk random shadowhunters walking past.”

“Unless they’re in the class too!” Magnus pointed out chirpily and Alec shot him a glare as they went inside.

Much like the last class, people were milling about in couples. Alec gave the crowded hallway a quick scan but couldn’t see anyone they knew – thankfully. Alec relaxed a little. There were about the same number of couples here too, around twelve, and Alec couldn’t tell who the instructors were. Mostly people were talking in soft voices, sipping bottles of water, and leaning affectionately into conversations with their partner. Magnus glanced around.

“What kind of yoga is this?”

“I don’t know, tandem or something,” Alec said. “It was the only one available, but it looks good. The website said something about building trust and closeness or whatever.”

“Clearly imperative for us,” Magnus said dryly. “What with us being so distant and untrusting and all.”

Alec rolled his eyes but smiled.

Before he could respond, a door opened at the end of the hall and a woman emerged in a pair of leggings and a sports bra. She smiled at them and beckoned them all in. As Magnus and Alec passed her in the door, she turned and beamed at them.

“You must be our new sign-ups. I hope you enjoy the class and feel more in touch with yourselves and your bodies when you leave.”

No cult-like mentions of joining a family, or bubbles, or shared heartbeats. Alec heaved a sigh of relief and gave a glance toward Magnus, who was looking around the room. Everyone did seem quite touchy-feely, Magnus thought, but brushed it off. What else should he have expected from couple’s yoga – particularly couple’s yoga with a majority hetero clientele? He and Alec took a seat at the back of the studio, removing their shoes like the others had done and putting them behind their mat, and chatted between themselves until the woman who’d greeted them stepped to the front of the room with her own partner, a tall and well-built surfer-dude type.

“So as most of you know, I’m Carly and this is Dale, and we’ll be your guides tonight. As always, please feel free to take breaks as you need them, communication with your partner is encouraged, and remember to open a conversation after tonight’s class about what you learned about each other and yourself. These classes can really prompt strong feelings, and those should be embraced and discussed in a non-judgemental and loving way.”

“How intense is this class meant to be?” Magnus whispered to Alec, who shrugged, looking a little nervous. Was this for expert yoga-people? Yogists? Yogurts? What kind of relaxation came with a warning?

“While Carly lights the candles and I bring the lights down and close the blinds, feel free to come to rest in any pose that feels comfortable for you. Perhaps that’s child’s pose, a seated position, or maybe even corpse pose,” Dale said, and began readying the room.

“I’m starting to think we might all end up in corpse pose by the end of the night,” Alec hissed quietly, glancing round. “This looks like how most demonic rituals begin.”

“Maybe this is all a trap and Elyaas is just trying to get us to let him see Max again,” Magnus suggested and Alec laughed, looking round at the other couples to see how they were sat. Many were laid side by side, like bodies in mortuary shelves, but a handful of them were laid on their sides, pressed close together as if they were cuddled in bed. Alec raised his eyebrow sceptically and settled for sitting with his legs crossed before him, his back against Magnus who was in the same position.

“I’m getting in first to say we should leave now,” Alec whispered, eyes closed. “Just so if this is as bad as last time, I’ll get to be right.”

Alec felt Magnus’s shoulders move against his as he chuckled, then start a little as Dale spoke again.

“Okay, excellent. Let’s all slowly move to sit opposite our partner, ready to start the session with some synchronized breathing. You can do this in whatever way works for you. You could put a hand on your partner’s chest to feel their inhales and exhales. You could close your eyes and focus on the sound of their breath or maintain eye contact and build a direct channel of communication. You could hold hands. Or you can just meditate, keeping your inhalations and exhalations as one with your partner.”

Alec shuffled round to face Magnus and immediately had to close his eyes. Something about staring into the face of your significant other in a quiet and meditative room made you immediately want to burst out into loud and obnoxious laughter. Instead, he let Magnus’s hand find his in the dark of their closed eyes and tried to match their breaths. Despite himself, Alec relaxed, his shoulders drooping, jaw unclenching. Being a shadowhunter wasn’t a relaxing job, and it was sometimes hard to find time to de-stress. Maybe he’d judged this whole thing too quickly, put off by the last time. Actually, this was pretty nice.

After a while, Carly’s voice came softly through the haze of meditation, instructing them to gently come back to the present. Alec blinked open his eyes and met Magnus’s soft gaze, smiling. Maybe this wasn’t so bad after all.

“Okay, now we’re going to move to our first real position, yab-yum,” Carly said. “You can stay crossed-legged for this, though one of you will have to move a little. One partner will stay seated and the other will climb into their lap, hooking their legs around the other’s back, coming to rest in a lotus position. Dale and I will be transitioning into yab-yum so you can observe us if you get lost.”

Magnus beckoned Alec forward and put his arms around Alec’s waist as the shadowhunter settled onto his husband’s lap, feeling a little uncomfortable doing so in a crowded room. He glanced around to confirm this was right and found everyone else doing the same.

“Relax, we’re married,” Magnus grinned and Alec nodded, laughing to himself. Magnus was right. This was totally innocent; he was just being coy.

“Gently, you can start to rock forwards and backwards,” Dale instructed, resting his hands on Carly’s hips. “Just a slight movement is fine to start. You can time this to your breathing. Breathe in, rock forward. Breathe out, rock back.”

Magnus raised an eyebrow but shrugged, following as instructed. Alec wrinkled his nose. Was it just him or did this feel weirdly…intense? Even personal?

“Are you starting to get seasick?” Magnus teased and Alec shook his head.

“I’m just really confused. What is this meant to do?”

“Help us breathe together I guess. Though, I don’t want to brag, but I’ve been breathing for centuries and I’m pretty excellent at it. I’m currently on my high score of most breaths breathed. I bet I’ve been breathing way longer than all these assholes.”

Alec laughed and tried to relax into the exercise, but he couldn’t help feeling strangely fidgety, like something wasn’t right.

“For a more connective experience,” Dale said. “You can add extra elements, especially if you’re the partner sat on the floor. Try rocking your lower back as well and raising your hips towards your partner’s.”

Alec and Magnus exchanged confused looks, and Alec felt his eyes widen when a few nearby couples began breathing more shallowly, less controlled. Magnus covered his mouth to stifle a laugh at Alec’s scandalised expression.

“Did you know—” Magnus began and Alec shook his head vehemently.

“Is this…” He dropped his voice and mouthed, “sex yoga?”

Magnus gave a loud snort of laughter and Alec shushed him, but the laugh was contagious and the sound came out disjointed and breathless. Instead, Alec put a finger to his lips, and looked up at the ceiling, trying not to meet Magnus’s eyes and start their laughs again. It was going well until Carly gave a breathy sigh and continued.

“This pose represents the mother and father in the act of sexual union, and really appeals to both genders’ need for interpenetration.”

“Well this isn’t going to help us at all then,” Magnus muttered, rolling his eyes.

Alec lost his composure completely and gave a cry of amusement that was smothered too late by Magnus’s hand. Both of them were laughing now, bent forward towards one another with tears in their eyes. Alec could feel the disapproving stares of the other people in the class and tried hard to compose himself, but it was no use. From somewhere above them, someone cleared their throat and the two of them looked up to see Carly stood there, with a face like thunder. And who could blame her, Alec thought. Two total newbies had signed up for her class, been totally blind-sided by what it actually was, and had some kind of hysteric moment in the middle of their session. Before she could say anything, Alec climbed to his feet and pulled Magnus up after him by the hands, still grinning uncontrollably.

“I, ah, don’t think this is our class,” Alec muttered apologetically.

“Yeah, I’m sure it said Bridge club was next door,” Magnus added and Alec had to press his lips together so he didn’t laugh in the poor woman’s face. Alec swept down, grabbed his shoes in one hand and Magnus’s in the other, shoved a pair at his husband, and stumbled gracelessly from the room, weaving between yab-yumming couples, and shutting the door quickly behind them.

As soon as they were out of the building, the two of them exploded into laughter, the sound ringing out on the quiet New York streets. It was already dark, though not even gone seven, and Alec sank down onto a bench to lace up his sneakers, still shaking with amusement. Magnus was bent double, wiping a tear from his eye.

“Tantric, you idiot,” Magnus wheezed. “Tantric yoga, not tandem.”

“I don’t know what that means!” Alec protested, gesturing to the building. “Who does sex yoga at seven on a Thursday evening? It’s a school day tomorrow!”

Magnus cackled and threw his head back, reminding Alec of their very first date, the two of them howling with joy at the awful subway rappers. It was the first time Alec had remembered really letting go, really surrendering to the idea of being happy. There, walking the streets with Magnus back to the apartment that wasn’t yet his home too, Alec hadn’t thought about what anyone else would think, or if someone he knew would see him. All he could think about was those terrible performers, and the way Magnus’s laugh sounded like someone opening the door to the rest of his life, and the whisper of evening air like a great spirit whispering at him that he could finally relax.

 Walking home, hand in hand, Magnus nudged a hip against Alec’s playfully.

“So, it’s super important to start a conversation after tonight’s class about what you learned about each other and yourself,” Magnus said, imitating Dale’s rolling Californian drawl.

“I learned that I should read the description of things properly before I book them for $60 a person,” Alec said.

“$60?” Magnus demanded incredulously. “You paid $120 for us to sit in a dark room with a bunch of horny couples and sit on each other’s laps?”

Alec rested his head on Magnus’s shoulder and laughed into the fabric of his jacket. “I just wanted us to have a good night out away from the kids and spend some time together.”

“I like movies, you know? And dinner, and the theatre, and literally anything where a woman doesn’t say interpenetration to me in a room full of other people.”

“Come on,” Alec urged, grinning. “Let’s at least take something from it. What did you learn?”

“I learned…that you are very, very attractive when you laugh,” Magnus said, leaning down to kiss the top of Alec’s head, feeling his husband nestle further into his shoulder. “How about you?”

“I learned…” Alec laughed shyly and straightened up, squeezing Magnus’s hand. “I learned that sitting on someone’s lap while they laugh is a unique experience that is not entirely without it’s…appeal.”

Magnus glanced at him and quirked an eyebrow. “Oh really?”

Alec shrugged and Magnus spun Alec round by the hand.

“I’m sure that could be arranged,” Magnus said softly and watched devilishly as Alec went fantastically red. “Come on, let’s go. Luckily for you we have a ridiculous life so there’s plenty of things to laugh at to get you all hot and bothered.”

Alec swatted at him and shushed him, looking around the near-empty street.

“We can start with the fact that your husband still turns you into a fumbling mess.”

“You’ll always do that,” Alec reminded him, and shot Magnus a winning smile that sent Magnus into his own state of unravelling. “We could swing by Simon and Izzy’s and get the kids early.”

“Or…” Magnus said, with a familiar look in his eyes and Alec’s mouth quirked in a smile. “I don’t know why you look so smug; I was going to suggest we sat in silence and timed our breaths to each other,” Magnus said and ducked away, chuckling, as Alec went to grab for him.

When Alec inevitably caught him, he wrapped his arms around Magnus, pressing a kiss to his neck. “What is our life?” he sighed, and Magnus tilted his chin down so his lips met Alec’s.

“Perfect,” Magnus answered fondly. “That’s what.”

DISCLAIMER

This is a fun fic - don’t take it too seriously. No not all yoga is like this, not all tantric yoga is about sensuality or sexuality, but some of it is and that’s great too. Just...take it in the spirit it’s meant.

[twilitty]

Waiting pt.2

Waiting

@twilitty​

Part 2/?

Word count: 2.5k

Warnings: none

Read this first! Bella is away while Rose and Emmett are watching Nessie. This fic is centered around Bella.

It took everything out of Bella to not draw attention to herself. She had dressed in sweatpants and a ratty sweatshirt that she had to hide in the back of her closet so Alice couldn’t find it. Yet still people stared at her. This was one thing Bella doubted she would ever get used to: the attention.

She liked to lay low, fly under the radar, get lost in the crowd. But, that hasn’t happened to her since her human days. Well, it hasn’t really happened to her since Phoenix. It seemed that Forks high school thought she was the best thing around and quickly she had a band of boys vying for her attention. 

She’s walking down a busy side street in Port Angeles, she hadn’t lied about where she was going. The entire family knows she is in the city, they just don’t know why- except for Alice- and decidedly choose not to ask her about it. She appreciates the faux privacy they give her. It’s difficult living with a family who had supernatural hearing abilities, every whispered argument with her new husband was put on display for all to discuss in private. 

Port Angeles is her monthly retreat from the Cullens, who seemed to be her only socialization after she awoke as a vampire. It’s not that she doesn’t enjoy spending time with them, she loves them all dearly, but most conversations revert back to time periods from before she was born. She was never a fan of history class.

Port Angeles was nowhere near as large as other cities, but it was close to home and she doesn’t like leaving her daughter for long periods of time. 

The street is littered with tourists in heavy backpacks, maps under their noses. The maps are unnecessary, each street has clear signage and you can always cut through alleyways to the next street over if you need to move fast. She can’t imagine how anybody could get lost among these streets and then scolds herself immediately. She had gotten lost in these streets. Her human self was used to getting lost and falling into the lap of trouble. She hates forgetting about her old self. 

Her shoulder bag bumps her hip with every step, inside her car keys, wallet, and a hardcover book. It’s a battered copy of Pride and Prejudice, the edges of the stiff covers frayed with time and use. The words inside bore the stains of past tears, tears she would never shed again. She remembers the last time she cried over these pages, sitting on Charlies beat up couch with her wet hair tied up in a towel atop her head. She couldn’t stop thinking of Edward. This was before they had come together and stayed together. She had hoped that his behaviour was an imitation of Mr.Darcy’s. Hopefully he was just pretending to dislike her because he didn’t know how to work through his true emotions, ultimately her hopes came true, but at the time she felt empty. 

Empty from caring too much and empty from being let down yet another time. A new town she didn’t want to be in, and the one bright side seemed to hate her, how is she supposed to cope with that? She had treated herself with a bowl of ice cream after her hot shower, curling up in a quilt that seemed older than her and reading Jane Austen yet again. 

Everytime Darcy entered a scene another fat tear would drop onto the page, marking the exact spot she thought of the cruel bronze haired boy. A boy so beautiful her heart wanted to sing, yet every time he looked at her with that same disdain she couldn’t help but feel torn apart all over again. How could one human stand so much torment?

A part of her, small and insignificant, sits in her gut and wishes for tears. Wants some physical expression of her emotions. But, that won’t happen. 

The street winds to the right, groups of teenagers clustered outside of an indie coffee shop and giggling amongst each other. Idly she wonders, how is Angela doing? But the thought disappears as quickly as it comes and she finds herself at the end of the street with a four-way stop in front of her. 

She takes the right turn, sneakers scuffing as she lets her heels drag a little with every step. Humans never walk evenly, there is always something to unbalance their gait and mark their shoes. Alice would rather die a million deaths than see Bella purposefully mistreat her shoes, even if they’re knock offs she bought at an outlet mall. 

A couple buildings down, all cement and brick, is the public library. It’s poorly funded and the lighting inside is horrendous. The windows need to be resealed and the doors squeak like mice. She loves it. She enters into the drafty lobby, a bulletin board shows all the events this month, a book club is scheduled for today at noon. She checks her watch, 11:47. 

The next doors lead into the children's section where parents and toddlers sit in a semicircle at the back wall, a poorly constructed stage is used to recreate a story with hand puppets. “Save me!” She hears one of the socks yell out, a few children gasp and her steps slow to a stop. A child sitting up close to the stage has brown hair braided down her back in uneven strips. Her giggles stand out from every other childs gasps of horror. Beside her sits an identical little boy, his brown skin shining just like his sisters. 

“Don’t worry,” the little girl whispers into his ear, “the princess has a happy ending.” The boy looks up at her with big doe eyes, his nose sniffling. “I promise,” she says. Then, as if feeling that someone is watching, she turns around and faces Bella from across the wide room. 

They look at each other, the human and the vampire, the child and the woman, the hunted and the hunter. Her, Bella thinks absently, her senses slow to a dull, focused only on the soft thudding of the little girls heart. She is so beautiful. The girl watches her, wide eyes blinking as she takes in the woman staring at her without seeming to notice it. Then, she raises a dark palm, waving it at the woman.

Bellas senses surge back into her, noises and colours and scents slam into her like a wall and she almost feels the need to take a steadying breath. The girl continues to wave, her little brother looking over his shoulder to see who she’s looking at. 

Walking quickly and a little dazed, Bella makes her way to the staircase and closes the door behind her. She takes a deep, unnecessary breath which does nothing more than fill her lungs. Her chest sits hollow, no movement unless she forces it and no beating of a heart. She wonders idly what would happen if she was opened up, would they find her heart still intact? Did the venom solidify it like the rest of her or is it just simply gone? 

“Isabella!” It’s Nancy, she’s at the top of the stairs holding a book to her chest. She’s an older woman, maybe sixty five, with beautiful grey hair cut into a sleek bob at her shoulders. “I’m so glad you’re here, and looking stylish as always!” Bella just nods with what she hopes is a warm smile, she had heard and smelt Nancy above before she heard her but still widens her eyes to make it seem surprising. 

Coming from anybody else, calling Bella “stylish” for wearing sweatpants would have been sarcastic. Maybe a joke about how she always looks beautiful. But not from Nancy. Nancy is too kind, she likely has never said a poor word to anybody. 

“Thank you,” Bella responds. Taking the stairs up, Nancy has already started talking again. Bella's mind has a difficult time abandoning the little girl in front of the stage. The girl's heartbeat thuds in her ears, carrying through the thick metal door and up the stairs. She isn’t sure if she can still hear it or if her mind is just playing it back on a loop.

“All the ladies are already here, you’re the last to join us.” She continues to talk about who is here and who can’t make it. Someone brought lemon squares and someone else had snuck in orange juice and a bottle of champagne for mimosas. It’s a wonder the book club hasn’t been kicked out of the library permanently, it seems every month they are receiving another infraction for bringing in food and drinks. 

The book club meets once a month to discuss the book they were supposed to read, this week it’s Pride and Prejudice. The room they reserve is tucked into the back left corner of the library, the carpet is dingy and the walls that were once white are closer to yellow. Bella loves this room.

The ladies are all already sitting in a semicircle, a low table in the center is covered in treats and large glasses filled with a sweet smelling drink. A large bottle of champagne sits next to it. “Isabella!” A few of them call out as she enters the room with Nancy. She greets them happily, smiling widely.

“Alright, so this month we read Pride and Prejudice!” A few women whoop at that, giggling and whispering amongst each other. “Now, now,” Dhruvi chastises lightly. She’s the club leader, she makes sure the discussion doesn't get carried away. “Who wants to share their first reactions to Mr.Darcy?” Bella's mind runs faster than any computer, her words and actions are usually well thought through before she reacts, which is why she takes herself off guard when she responds so quickly. She hadn’t even known she had something to add. “I think he was acting a little cruel.” Bella’s voice says without her knowing. All eyes are immediately on her, apparently none of them agreed because their eyes are wide as saucers.

“How could you say that?” A woman pipes up, her bushy eyebrows knitted atop her wrinkled forehead. “He loves Elizabeth.”

“Yeah,” Bella says slowly, her mind whirring but not producing anything. “But that doesn’t mean he can treat her like he doesn’t care for her. He should have been open with his feelings at the start, not play stupid mind games with her.”

The room is quiet, the air dripping in what can only be suppressed judgement and mild concern from the old women. Bella notices this, takes a few looks around the circle and swallows her pride. “I’m sorry,” she enunciates, each syllable crisp with her obvious discomfort. “I guess I’m just projecting my life onto the story.”

“Is it your husband, dear?” It’s Nancy, sitting three women down from her and giving her a soft smile. Her skin is wrinkled, her eyes creasing in a motherly way. Bella’s vocal cords refuse to work, and even if they were functioning she has no idea what to say. None of the women speak and instead watch Bella work the question over in her mind.

Even though Bella could have thought this over in the bare breath of a second, she takes a minute to truly think it over. Was it her husband? Edward who loved her, who she loved? They had a child together, they were both immortal. She served up her human life on a platter and asked him to throw it away. No, it wasn’t her husband. Their relationship was perfect, picturesque, the happy ending everybody always knew they would get.

“My wife,” starts Dhruvi with a heavy sigh, “does this to me sometimes, too.” Bella had met Dhruvi’s wife before, she was a kind woman with long black hair streaked with silver, her skin a nearly identical shade of brown to Dhruvi. “She will go days treating me like a guest in our home, not holding my hand or kissing me. We will eat breakfast at opposite ends of the table and make small talk. The entire time I think, ‘did I do something wrong? Has she abandoned her feelings for me?’ But, no.” She leans over onto her knees and the scent of her floral perfume fills Bella’s head. “The next night she will cook me dinner and kiss me and tell me I’m beautiful. And, yes that is nice but it is also sad like you said-” Bella never said that what Darcy did was sad, but in her head she can see now that that word fits into her sentiment perfectly. “- because for a moment I questioned my wife’s love for me and that is very painful.” 

The room nods and murmurs in agreement, Nancy giving Bella a sad, pitying look the entire time. “I- I’m sorry about your wife not always being open about her feelings,” Bella starts, feeling like she’s being forced into giving confession. “But that’s not my Edward.” 

“Not mine either,” Nancy says quickly. “But when we met that was him. He was my Darcy in the way you described him. I love Patt now but at the time he would take me out on a date only to show up for class the next day with some new broad.” She shrugs her shoulders, “and that was cruel. He played mind games with me.” The grey haired woman doesn’t seem upset by this, instead she seems content with it. Stating it with a resigned indifference. 

“But you’ve got him now!” A woman exclaims and that sends the room into an uproar of laughter. Bella’s is noticeably absent from the mixture. 

The group finishes their discussion about the book in just over an hour, a few women sneak snacks into their purses as they depart, giggly from all the champagne. Bella packages her novel into her bag and puts it over her shoulder. Dhruvi stands at the door, with a styrofoam plate of lemon squares, only three left. 

“Isabella, I’m sorry about your experiences with this month's novel.” She says it kindly, but also as if she’s digging for more information. Trying to reopen the discussion from earlier. 

“No, I enjoyed the book, really. It was quite romantic.” The words rush out of Bella, the last thing she wants to do is start this conversation all over again. Dhruvi laughs off her comment.

“I’m considering hosting dinner at my home, I will be inviting a few of the women from this group and a few others you don’t know.” Bella’s silent heart has jumped into her throat. “Would you be interested in joining us?” What does she say? That she will go but won’t eat a single damn thing? Oh, sorry, I ate just before getting to your house for this prescheduled dinner. How awful is that, there is no way that she can go. 

“I don’t think I’ll be available that day.”

“I didn’t mention the date,” the older woman says slowly, eyelids leveling down over her pupils as if searching for something in Bella. The vampire has no response to this. “Bring your husband,” she says finally, “I would like to meet him.” 

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

summertime sadness .2.

holiday

Sequel to kiss me in the d-a-r-k

Part 1 (masterlist under construction)

Warnings: dub con sex (intercourse, oral)

This is dark!(dad)Steve and dark(professor!)Bucky explicit. 18+ only.

Summary: You enjoy your last days of escape.

Note: Alrighty, we’re building up to the real crux of this installment and I am pumped to begin the next chapters because shit gon get wildin’. I hope you all enjoyed the first part and here’s a fluffy, smutty second chapter. Bon appetit. 💋

<3 Let me know what you think in a reblog, reply, or like.

💋💋💋

The jet lag lulled you into a heavy sleep. Even so, you woke up early as Steve snored loudly beside you. You suspected, had it not been for your exhaustion, your night would have been restless because as soon as you opened your eyes, you were thinking of the day before.

Your phone vibrated as if sensing your thoughts and you grabbed it as you climbed off the bed. It was a text from Kylie. ‘Missing out girl’. You read and crept into the living room. ‘Don’t rub it in’, you replied after several tries. Your stomach was fluttering. 

You were miles away and yet you felt just sending that message would give you away. As if she would sense your secret hidden between the letters. Your phone blipped as she returned a tongue out emoji and you countered with a thumbs up and set the phone aside with a sigh.

“Hungry?” Steve’s voice frightened you and you nearly jumped as you turned to him. “We’ll order some room service.”

He rubbed his eye with his knuckles as he took the menu from the coffee table and sat. “Eggs? Crepes?”

You sat beside him and looked over his shoulder. “Fruit and yogurt’s fine.”

“Boring,” He sounded like Kylie. “This is a vacation.”

“I’m not very hungry,” You argued as you crossed your arms and slouched against the couch. “But thanks.”

“Okay,” He shrugged as he reached for the phone on the table that stood by the arm of the couch. He dialed the extension and the other end picked up almost immediately as you closed your eyes. “Hi, I’ll get the Executive Breakfast and some yogurt and fruit to Suite 3a. Yes. And two mimosas…” You opened one eye and he peeked over at you with a grin. “Coffee too. Thanks.”

He hung up and sat back. He rubbed his shoulder against yours and leaned in. “

What’s going on, miss grumpy pants?”

“Please,” You pushed yourself to your feet. “Don’t talk to me like a child.”

“I’m not,” He argued. “Really? What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” You lied.

“We’re here to have fun so please… just tell me.”

“I just feel…” You looked around. “I dunno. I guess I’m just not used to all this.”

“So enjoy it,” He stood with a groan. “A nice day by the pool, hmm?”

You tried not to smile as he neared and pulled you to him. “I… my apartment could fit in here and more and my mom’s house is barely--”

“Do you ever think of yourself?” He interrupted.

“I think you know I do,” You let him wrap his arms around you. “I’ve grown too comfortable with being selfish.”

“Having fun isn’t selfish,” He insisted. “Don’t think of it like that.”

“Don’t you ever think… about what other people think?” You ran your hands along his shoulders. “When they see us together? I mean, they might not know us but--”

“They probably think I’m a lucky man,” He leaned in and kissed your forehead. “I don’t care what they think. Do you?”

“I don’t know, but I notice the looks.” You shrugged.

“Jealousy. Bitterness.” He said. “Let me tell you, if I could be your age again, I wouldn’t bother with caring about other people. It’s not worth it. Trust me.”

You smiled reluctantly. “I suppose…”

“Hey,” He caught your chin before you could look away. “You’re not stuck with me. If you’re not comfortable, if this doesn’t feel right, we can end it when you want. No hard feelings.”

You inhaled and gazed up at him. “No, I don’t want to end it, I just… am still trying to understand it. To understand myself.”

“You’re young, you’ve got time to figure yourself out,” He stroked your cheek with his thumb. “And this is just a step on that road.”

💋

The day was serene. After breakfast, you changed into your new swimsuit and settled into the pool with a book. Steve didn’t bother you much. You caught him watching you but he didn’t do much. When you climbed out and claimed one of the loungers, he followed you. 

You sat back and closed your book. You set it aside and he took it. He read the synopsis on the back cover and gave a ‘hmm’. A dry history of the American Railroad; two bucks out of the discount bin but surprisingly intriguing. He put it back where you left it and stretched across the other lounger.

“You excited?” He asked.

“About?” You adjusted your sunglasses as you bent your legs.

“Your new job.” He was unabashed as his eyes explored your figure.

“Oh, yeah, nervous.” You answered as you fidgeted. “I’m trying not to think too much about it.”

“Why?” He reached over and touched your hand. “It’ll be a foot in the door and you’re a great writer.”

“Am I? How would you know?”

“Bucky sent me a copy of your article. The one that got you the placement.” He explained and you looked at him, stunned.

“You read my article?” You gaped.

“Enjoyed it,” He smiled. “You’re gonna go far, you know that? You’ll be visiting Hawaii every year. Living the life.”

You laughed. “Okay, sure.” You pulled your hand away and wiped the sweat from your forehead.

“I mean it,” He said. “Any plans after your degree?”

“I don’t know. Maybe another or… We’ll see how this goes first.”

“Gee, I’m sorry,” He shook his head. “This was meant to be a nice little getaway and I just ruined it, didn’t I?”

“No, it’s fine,” You assured him. “Really. I’m just… anxious.”

“I can help your nerves,” He purred and you rolled your eyes at him. 

“Mmhmm,” You hung your arms over those of the chair and closed your eyes. “Nothing a little sun and dissociation won’t help.”

You ignored his shadow on the other side of your eyelids and the subtle shift of his lounger as he moved. You squeaked as you felt his fingers brush from ankle to knee. He pushed your legs apart as you opened your eyes. You tried to resist him but he was strong, insistent.

“Steve,” You whispered.

“Shh, it’s okay,” He bent over the end of the lounger and pulled you closer. You slid across it and tried to catch yourself on your arms. “No one can see us.”

“I don’t--” You gulped as he pulled aside the crotch of your bathing suit. “Steve, please, let’s go--”

His tongue was cool and your legs locked up around his head as he buried it between them. You hissed as he suckled at your clit and unable to push him away, you stretched your fingers across his head and urged him on. He was only too eager to bend to your will.

“St-e-ve,” You shuddered. “Pl-ease.”

He smiled against you as he drank you up. You whined and squeezed his head between your thighs as you contorted in pleasure. How simply he could wrap you around his finger. You arched into him as he grabbed your legs and pushed them over his shoulders. The lounger felt just as weak as you were.

You panted as he pushed you over the edge. Your orgasm was a song; a series of moans smothered beneath your palm. He hummed and lapped up your ecstasy. He was reluctant to pull away. Your legs trembled and slip from his shoulders as he sat up. He licked his glistening lips and fixed your swimsuit.

“Well,” He grabbed the lounger and pushed himself to his feet. “I think I need to cool down.” His shorts were tented with his arousal as he turned his back to you and stretched his arm above his head. He neared the pool and lowered himself into the water with a sigh. “How about you, sweetie?”

“Uh… yeah,” You breathed. “Sure.”

You were slow to rise and slightly dizzy as you got to your feet. You swept off your sunglasses and left them on the lounger. Your cum cooled against your swimsuit. You sat on the edge and carefully slid into the water.

Steve was quick to draw you to him and pin you against the wall. His broad chest pressed against yours as he kissed you. The water swayed gently around you. He held you to him and turned so that he was pressed to the tiled wall.

“You know,” He cupped your cheek with a damp hand. “I wanted to fuck you in the pool last summer but… well… if I’m being honest, I would’ve fucked you in every single room.”

You giggled and kissed him again. “You’re so dirty.” You teased as you pulled away.

“Oh, I never said I wasn’t,” He nuzzled your cheek as his hand glided along the curve of your side. “You should come down again. I can take you for a ride on the motorcycle… finally finished that old beast.”

“I don’t think--”

“Kylie will be visiting for Thanksgiving this year,” He offered. “You can tag along with her if you’re free.”

“I don’t know, my mom--”

“Of course,” He dragged his nose along your chin and pecked along your throat. “We’ll figure something out.”

His hand slipped down and he lifted your leg. He hooked it around his hip and pushed down his shorts beneath the water. You looked down and your eyes rounded. He took your hand and wrapped it around his dick. You grasped him and raised your head slowly. You began to stroke him and he shivered.

“You can take me for a ride now,” You grinned.

“Oh yeah,” He grabbed your ass and lifted you easily.

You clung to him with one arm as you angled him beneath the water. You shoved your swimsuit aside with two fingers and quickly pushed him inside. You bit your lip as you slid down his length and he let out a long breath. You rocked against him and moaned in his ear.

“Mmm,” He purred. “Sweetie, you’re so sexy.”

“Yeah?” You preened as you rode him slowly. “You like that?”

“I love it,” He assured you as he squeezed your ass. “I just… couldn’t help myself. Watching you all day…” His hot breath crept down your neck as he spoke. “Reading over there with no clue how hard you were making me… the way your lips move just slightly…”

You moaned again and he bent to nibble along your throat. He led you up and down as his impatience grew. His teeth pinched your skin, sure to leave a mark, but you didn’t care. The water splashed around you as you crushed him against the wall of the pool. You tossed your head back and sped up.

You were frantic for release. His name rolled off your tongue as you chased your climax. Your core pulsed hotly and all at once the coil snapped. You came with shrill mewl but didn’t slow. You grabbed Steve’s head and smushed your lips against his. You parted as you bounced against him and your lips quivered.

“I want you to cum in me,” The words sent a thrill through you. “Please.”

“You sure?” He rasped and you nodded with a hum.

He smirked and turned you suddenly. He pushed you against the tile and pounded into you harder than before. You cried out with each thrust and he growled as he gripped the edge of the pool. He grunted as his hips jerked wildly. A warm gush filled you, searing as the cool water flowed around your bodies. 

He shivered as he stilled and sank into you entirely. He stepped out of his shorts that had slumped to his ankles. He moved away from the wall, still inside you and walked with you in his arms to the steps of the pool. He climbed them slowly and the water dripped from your intertwined bodies. He carried you through the glass doors.

“What are you doing?” You asked as the haze cleared.

“I’m gonna do exactly what I always wanted,” He snarled and fell onto the couch with you under him. “I’m going to fuck you on every piece of furniture in this place.” He rocked his hips and spasmed as your walls clung to his oversensitive cock. “And then again. And again.” He spoke with each tilt of his hips. “And again.”

💋

Three days and then you were headed back to the city. The weekend had gone much like the beginning. By the end, you’d forgotten the worries that awaited you back home; the underlying duplicity of your tryst. The plane ride was long enough for it all to come hurtling back but you staved it off for your last twelve hours of bliss. With your hand in Steve’s, you let him hold the load for you.

And when you landed in New York and you’d retrieved his rover from the lot, you were ready to sleep off your doubts. He stopped outside your apartment. You could tell he was sad to see it. You lingered in the car as he leaned over to kiss you.

“So…” He said as he pulled back, his arm across your seat. “I’ll see you...later.”

“Yeah, I don’t know how much time I’ll have off,” You lamented. “But I’ll call you.”

“Facetime?” He asked coyly.

“Hmm,” You chewed your lip. “You sure you can figure it out?”

“Hey,” He retorted at the jibe. “I think you know age barely hinders me.”

“We can try,” You said. “I’ve never… it might be awkward.”

“Never,” He assured you. “But I’ll be coming down in September to help Kylie move back into dorms.”

“Kylie…” You echoed. “So, is she still trashin’ your place?”

“As far as I know,” He grumbled. “But I’ll deal with that when I get there. Maybe I’ll just cancel her little girls’ trip seeing as she’s already had her fair share of fun.”

“I wouldn’t even know where to begin with her,” You shook your head. “Well…”

“I can stay another night.” He offered.

“No, no, you should get going. I got a lot of stuff to do for this new job and some commissions to finish.” You said glumly. “Thanks. For everything. I had a lot of fun.”

“Me too,” He kissed you again. “I’ll tell Bucky to take it easy on you.”

“He’s not so bad. I don’t think I’m in his section next year but we’ll see,” You chimed. “Drive safe.”

“I will, sweetie. I--” He stopped himself and glanced out the windshield. “You let me know how the job goes, okay?”

“Will do,” You said as you grabbed your purse. “See ya.”

“Yeah, see ya,” He nodded stiffly. “Goodbye.”

You kissed him one last time before you got and grabbed your bag from the trunk. You stepped up on the curve and he gave a small wave as he pulled away. You watched him go and turned to your building. The ivy creeping along the aged brick dragged you back from the sunny serenity of Hawaii.

Time to get back to real life.

[human-trash-fire]

Shot Through The Heart: Chapter 7 (part 4- Rowaelin) NSFW

First and foremost I want to apologize to all my readers for the delay. This is my 5th pass at this chapter. I lost motivation when it seemed that every time I went to write this it didn’t do the buildup justice.

A few notes going in: 

1.The total money Dorian, Asterin, and Mannon made from their game will be posted at the end of the chapter. 

2. This is the first chapter that will feature a group text, so I’ve changed the formatting on text conversations to make it slightly easier to track. That being said, we see the Group Chat from Aelin’s phone and, as you’d expect everyone has a name. Here is a list of the characters and their text names so it’s easier to understand:

- The Queen: Aelin

-Sexy Liger: Lysandra

-SINnamon Roll: Elide

-Dorian’s Dom: Manon

-Blonde Demon: Asterin

-Elsa Havilliard: Dorian

-Balto: Aedion

-Discount Deadpool: Ren

Lastly, a GIANT THANK YOU to all of you who have kept up with this story and to @starseternalnighttriumphant​ for beta reading this chapter. I hope you all enjoy <3 

(Click HERE to bring you to my masterlist if you need a refresher course on what’s happening bc I took so long to write this)

AELIN:

What the fuck is going on? Aelin thought as she reached for her mimosa, taking care to lean as far away from Rowan at her side as possible. Last night…. Last night was clearly eventful in more ways than one. She had been awake for approximately 15 minutes and wasn’t entirely sure she was sober yet, if she was being honest. The demon 3-way at the end of the table had spent the entire morning cackling like a pack of witches and, not-so-subtly marking tallies for their fucking “bets.” By Aelin’s estimation she’d made Dorian enough money over the course of their friendship to buy a fucking Lambourghini.

“Hey Rowan,” Dorian sounded mild but the smirk playing about his lips gave him away. This motherfucker. Aelin cut him a scathing look over her sunglasses.

“Sup?” He responded, while Aelin lifted her drink to her lips and started a long pull, eyes now locked on Dorian.

“I was just wondering if you enjoyed your night,” Dorian said, all to-casually. “I seemed to have lost track of you after you went out for fresh air.” Four Things happened simultaneously:

Aelin choked on her mimosa. Pale orange liquid sputtered from her lips as she fought to catch her breath.

Aedion loosed what could only be described as a growl from across the table.

Dorian and Asterin fist-bumped, without looking away from the debacle.

Manon muttered “Fucking cheaters.”

Son of a bitch.

***********************************************

He leaned forward, a sensual smirk playing at his lips. Aelin glanced down, then back up to his eyes as she moved forward, their breath mingling. One of his hands slid up to cup her cheek, while the other slid down her lower back to squeeze her ass. Aelin closed her eyes when their lips came together, but as she went to deepen the kiss a loud giggle escaped instead. Fen’s eyes snapped open and he began to pull away. 

“Oh gods, no, I’m so sorry, let’s try this again” Aelin pleaded, once again closing the distance between them. This time as their mouths opened and tongues met Fenrys began to laugh. He was laughing so hard he was shaking, and Aelin couldn’t help but join. 

“I’m sorry, I can’t.” He wheezed  between bouts of laughter. “Don’t get me wrong Ace, I’ve wanted to try that since I first saw you gut a guy in Assassin's Blade. And it’s not that I’m not grateful,” at this point tears were streaming down both their faces and they tried to regain their composure. “It’s just, you’re.. it’s like kissing connall! You’re way prettier, for sure, but it’s just not…” his hand waggled between the both of them. 

“Full of fireworks and shit?” Aelin supplied. 

“Exactly! And as much as I adore you, I think maybe we were just meant to be-“ 

“Friends? Oh thank gods.” Aelin breathed.  She couldn’t help but be relieved he felt the same. As much as she had grown to love him over the past few months, and didn’t want to lose his light in her life, she couldn’t help that as they kissed she found herself wishing it was a different blonde in her arms. 

“Besides, you're nearly as pretty as I am, it wouldn’t be fair to hoard all this to ourselves.” Fenrys responded with a smirk, and grabbed Aelin’s hand dragging her back down the hall and into the festivities.

When they re-entered the room, Fen’s eyes immediately landed on Asterin. She was chugging whiskey from a bottle while standing precariously atop the coffee table. “Soooo… tell me about Asterin,” he whispered in Aelin’s ear. 

She snorted, “I admire your recovery time Moonbeam. She’ll tear you to shreds. But I rather think you’d enjoy that” she said with a knowing look. “Go on,” she nodded. And with one last wink Fen sauntered over to his next conquest. 

“Hello little wolf” Asterin purred as she lowered the bottle from her lips. “Care for a body shot?” Fen’s eyes dropped to the intricate chandelier style tattoo that began somewhere beneath her breasts and spread out across her abdomen. Eyes trailing back up to meet hers, he slowly reached for the bottle in her hand. 

“Lay down,” Aelin heard him say in a commanding tone. Asterin lowered herself onto the table, eyes never leaving his. She was a predator luring it’s prey by feigning compliance. While his face remained stoic, Aelin saw his throat bob. 

“Try not to get me too messy,” Asterin purred. 

“I can’t make any promises.” 

Aelin chuckled quietly and looked away from the, frankly pornographic scene, only to find a pair of pine green eyes watching her across the room. She smiled, and grabbed a bottle of Johnny Walker off a nearby table and headed outside hips swaying.

************************

“Smooth,” Gavriel muttered from somewhere amidst the chaos. Aedion was still glaring daggers, if looks could kill Aelin was sure Rowan Whitethorn would have been obliterated. Overprotective asshole. After catching her breath she snagged her phone from the pocket of her sweatshirt and fired off a text to the group chat.

The Queen: You MOTHER FUCKERS

Elsa Havilliard: ????

Blonde Demon: Problem?? 

Blonde Demon: hahahahahahah

Dorian’s Dom: fucking CHEATERS

The Queen: WHAT WAS THE BET

The Queen: I WILL PAY YOU TO END THIS 

Balto: I will burry his fucking body under the field

Balto: Ren will help

Discount Deadpool: Eh…

SINnamon Roll: Oh shut up Assryver

SINnamon Roll: Go back to eye-fucking Lys

Dorian’s Dom: LOLOLOL 

Dorian’s Dom: $40 and counting

Discount Deadpool: Elide out here snatchin’ wigs

Sexy Liger: Fuck. You. All. Stop making brunch WORSE. 

Sexy Liger: And no one is “eye fucking” anyone

SINnamon Roll: IDK what you’re talking about, this is the best fucking brunch I’ve ever been to

Blonde Demon: 10/10 agree

Elsa Havilliard: One for the ages

Dorian’s Dom: iconic

The Queen: CANCELLED

Discount Deadpool: *gasps in gay*

Balto: …….

The Queen: You heard me, you fucking traitors. 

The Queen: Except you Lys. I love you always.

SINnamon Roll: rude.

*****************************************

Aelin knew he had followed her to the pool, her skin pebbled with anticipation. She took a huge swig from the bottle and turned around, slowly dragging her lips off the top. “Hello Buzzard.”

“Brat.”

Aelin brought a hand to her chest, “You wound me.” She allowed her hand to linger, toying with the edge of her bathing suit top. Fingers drawing his gaze to the valley between her breasts. Rowan brought his thumb up to graze his lower lip, and dragged his gaze back to hers. “I was considering going for another swim, care to join me?” Aelin set the bottle at her feet and slowly removed her sheer bathing-suit cover, letting the material pool at her feet and biting her lip.

“And Fen?”

“Tongue deep in a new prospect, as you saw…” Aelin lowered herself to the edge of the pool and gracefully slid beneath the surface. Breaching the water, she pushed her hair back and swam back to the edge, arms folded in front of her. Looking up with a smirk.

Rowan squatted down in front of her, bringing a finger underneath her chin and forcing her eyes from his spread thighs to his face. “And you?” He asked, voice low and head cocked to the side.

“What about me?” Aelin asked, voice a near whisper and heart hammering in her throat.

“What do you want, Aelin?”

“What I’ve wanted for a while now…” His brow hitched in question, and she swallowed audibly. “Whatever you’ll give me Whitethorn.” Rowan nodded once then released her chin, standing to remove his shirt. HOLY FUCKING GODS she thought. The tattoo that crawled down his face danced across every chiseled plain of his body. Covering the entire left side and disappearing beneath the low-riding waistband of his Terrasen flag swim trunks. 

“Eyes are up here sweetheart,” he chuckled.

“I’m sure they are,” she choked out, licking her lips and continuing to stare at the V of muscles hovering above her head.

“Menace,” Rowan growled and dove over her head into the pool. Aelin turned, resting her elbows against the wall behind her and tracking his body as it moved under the water towards her. He came to the surface a foot from her face, shaking his head and brushing his silver hair from his forehead. 

“Dramatic.” She whispered through a smile.

Rowan brought himself within inches of her, hands on either side of her shoulders, strong arms boxing her in. 

“If we do this, we do it my way.” She tilted her head in silent question. “I don’t do soft. I don’t do vanilla. If you can follow my rules I’ll treat you better than anyone ever has. If that’s not something you’re interested in, we stop now. No harm done. A ‘no’ from you will stop this, no matter what. You’re safe with me, always Aelin.” She was shaking with anticipation, and the smirk he wore was indication enough that he knew he had her. “I have spent months thinking of all the ways I could take you apart.” He leaned in even further, lips ghosting hers. “So I’ll ask you one last time… What do you want Aelin?”

“You, Sir.”

And with that, he kissed her. It wasn’t gentle, it was a brand on her lips, fire licking its way to her core. A large hand slid down her back beneath the water and dragged her body against his. Instinctually she wrapped her legs around his middle, rocking against the evidence of his arousal prominently resting against her ass. He pulled back from her mouth with a click of his tongue. “Did I tell you to move?” he asked, voice almost bored.

“N-no.”

“No, what?

“No, Sir.”

“Back against the wall,” Aelin did as instructed, dropping her legs from his waist and pushing back. Heart hammering a staccato beat against her ribs, her every nerve-ending was both too hot and too cold. “Good, girl.”

His praise shot straight to her core, Oh shit. He moved back into her, pressing her bodily against the wall as he nipped and sucked his way across her jaw, up and down her neck. The hand that had pulled her in initially dragging its way across her stomach… moving south, hooking a single finger into the material he paused. “Yes or no?” he whispered into her ear, and punctuated the question by dragging her earlobe into his mouth. Sucking gently, teeth grazing. 

“Gods yes, pl- please sir.”

**************************************

Aelin thrust her phone back into the pocket of her sweatshirt, and shrank down into her chair with all the grace of a sullen child. Her friends were assholes, and if they didn’t stop they’d fuck up whatever it was that started last night. They don’t know shit, she reminded herself and glanced at the hulking man next to her casually drinking his coffee. There was no way Rowan and the Cadre were unaware of the tension that had settled at the table. It seemed as though the only people exempt from it were Connall and Vaughn, currently feeding Ren at the opposite end of the table. 

What in the actual fuck is happening? 

A hand on her thigh startled Aelin from her highly obvious oggling of the threesome, and she turned her head to fully look at Rowan. He hitched a brow and smirked, his eyes seeming to ask Something the matter? Aelin rolled her eyes and gave him a look that she hope conveyed Not at all, I’m just curious.

Rowan leaned in then, using the movement to drag his hand to the apex of her thighs beneath the table and whisper in her ear. “Connall and Vaughn like… Pets. They’ve been looking for someone new since we got back, looks as though they’ve found one.”

“Should I be worried about Ren?” She whispered back.

“He seems to be handling himself just fine.”

“For now…” Aelin mused. “But if they hurt him I will personally cut them into pieces and feed them to Fleetfoot.”

“If they hurt him Princess, I’ll help.”

********************************************

Mouth sucking a pert nipple through the soaked material of her swimsuit, Rowan slid a single finger along her slit. Torturously slow. Swirling her clit with to-light pressure, and then back to circle her entrance he dipped just the tip in. She was shaking, so tempted to grind into his hand, desperately seeking the release that had been building and now sat on a knife’s edge. 

He kept teasing, holding her at that edge while she begged “More” and “Please Sir” and “I’m so close.” He was taking her apart with a single finger and a set of teeth slowly dragging their way back up towards the shell of her ear. 

“Do you wanna cum, Princess?” he whispered. Pulling his finger from her sex and resting his palm against her. That damn finger now resting lightly against her entrance. She barely held still.

Aelin nodded her head furiously.

“Use your words.” A command.

“Yes, Sir. Pl-Please I need to cum. Please can I cum, p-” Her plea cut off as he plunged two thick fingers inside her and began to fuck right against that spot. 

“Cum.” He growled. And Aelin saw the Gods.

Rowan worked her through her orgasm, thumb circling her clit and fingers hammering, until she was sobbing with over-sensitivity. He eased out of her, pulling his face from her neck and his fingers from her body, bringing them up to his mouth. Pine-green eyes boring into her soul, he slowly sucked her taste from his fingers. 

“Good Girl.”

Rowan lifted her out of the water, setting her on the edge of the pool and hoisting himself up with sheer upper-body strength. The front of his trunks still tented, she gathered what brain cells she had left and nodded towards his glorious erection, “What about you?”

“What about me?” he reached for a towel, and came back to her side helping her to her rather useless feet. How the fuck had he made her like this with only his hands?

“Isn’t it my turn?” Aelin asked dumbly.

“No.”

“No?” She was so fucking confused. Didn’t he want her? “But I thought…”

“You thought, what. That I’d fuck you tonight?”

“Well… yeah, don’t you want to?”

“More than you know princess,” Rowan wrapped the towel around her shoulders. Pulling her in to kiss her forehead. “I want nothing more than to fuck you until you can’t remember your own name. But I won’t do it when you’re drunk.”

“I-I’m not tha-” her protest died in her throat when he gave her an irritated look.

“Mhmm. Enough.” He began to lead her towards the door leading them back to the rooms. “Now, let’s get you dried off and in some warm clothes. Would you like to sleep in my room or yours?”

“Yours please, Sir.” She smiled as he kissed the top of her head.

“As you wish Princess.”

****************************************

FINAL TOTALS FROM THE BETS:

Dorian: $75 (Because Aedion had some fucking opinions)

Manon: $40 (Because Lys and Aedion studiously ignored eachother after being called out in the group chat

Asterin: $40 (Because Aelin was a stumbling mess- though curiously Rowan remained calm)

****************************************

TAG LIST:

@http-itsrebecca​ 

@highqueenofelfhame​

@feyrethedarklady​

@someonemagical​

@thebitchupstairs​

@over300books​

@starseternalnighttriumphant​ 

@musicmaam​

@blueeyes425​

@clockworkgraystairs​

@nalgenewhore​

@illyrianbeauty​

@dazzlinghazee​

@randomtogacotar22

@westofmoon​

@forest-magic6​

@nerdyclementine

@la7sorcellerie

@yikesitsmaddie​

@tswaney17​

@fourshizzle149​

@sjmsstuff​

@clarkesardothian

@mynewdreamwasyou​

@faerie-queen-fireheart​

[captain-b-smooth]

midnight mimosas

Prompt: “If you want to know how she really feels about you, get her drunk.” 

a/n: let’s just pretend that one scene didn’t actually happen in canon, because i started writing this before that day came out. <3 i’ll definitely write the morning after scene, too...bc why not 

Bobby had pinched a couple bottles of champagne and hid them on the rooftop terrace.  He’d even managed to sneak a couple glasses up there.  Half of his plan was complete.  

“If you want to know how she really feels about you, get her drunk,” Graham told him earlier.  Bobby felt inclined to believe the sailor, for whatever reason, and even if he had his misgivings about it, he was determined to try.  

“MC!” He exclaimed when he saw her swaying on the lawn to some music that drifted across the villa.  She turned, eyes huge, a grin replacing her shocked look.  

“Hey, Bobby!” She stretched her arms out, and Bobby indulged her in a sultry slow dance.  Sultry for him was just swaying back and forth with her.  

“Do you fancy a chat on the rooftop?  Just you and me?” He asked, and she nodded, letting him take her hand and lead her away.  She was tottering on stilettos, and he made sure to balance her out.  She bit her lip, flushing as she realized she was walking like a newborn deer.  

Once they got to the stairs, she kicked off her shoes and left them in the dressing room.  Finally, they were on the terrace, and Bobby locked the door behind them and popped a bottle.  

“Oooh, fancy!” MC exclaimed, laughing softly.  It was music to Bobby’s ears.  He handed her a glass, and she downed it without thinking.  

“Thirsty, are you?” He teased, and she blushed as she held out her glass. 

  “I know why you’ve got me up here,” she said, winking. 

“Do you?” He raised his eyebrows.  

“You want to get me drunk!” She giggled, and he sighed, shaking his head. 

“Who told you that?  I do not!” He protested, and she shrugged.  It was Marisol, but she wasn’t going to tell him.  

“Don’t remember.  But I’m game, if you’re patient enough.” She downed the second glass, and he chuckled as he filled it up again. 

“With the way you’re throwing these back, I don’t think it’ll be long.” He teased, and she laughed as she threw back yet another glass of champagne.  

“I have a ridiculously high tolerance, Bobby,” she said, and as he pulled at his glass of champagne, she nursed hers, slowing down just a little bit.  She was tipsy already, and she’d miscalculated her tolerance.  

“Do you now?” he raised an eyebrow, and she glowered at him.  She couldn’t keep a straight face for long before she dissolved into giggles, covering her face.  

“You’d better be ready to take care of me in the morning!” MC playfully jabbed him in the chest, and he grinned, blushing. 

‘I’d be happy to take care of you for the rest of your life,’ he found himself thinking.  She waved her empty glass in front of his nose, and he laughed as he filled hers and then took a long drink of his own champagne. 

“Y’know,” she said lazily.  “This?  This is bliss, Bobby.” She slid to the floor, leaning against the wall.  He sat beside her, hugging a mostly empty bottle of champagne to his chest.  MC pointed at it, blushing.  “I wish that were me.” 

“Are you drunk already, MC?” He asked, and she laughed softly, shaking her head as she pushed the bottle aside and replaced it with herself.  He couldn’t resist wrapping his arms around her, breathing in her sweet scent as she rested her head on his chest. 

“Tip-shee.” She mumbled into his chest, and he ran his fingers down her back, and then up and into her hair.  She hummed contentedly before drawing back and grabbing the discarded bottle to finish it off.  He watched her as she put her lips to the mouth of the bottle and threw her head back.  

“You are something else, MC.” 

“You’re going to regret this in the morning, Bobby,” she said teasingly, and he laughed and plopped a pillow on her head.  She batted it away and made a move for the other bottle.  

“It’s a marathon, not a sprint!” Bobby protested, but she just grinned back at him as she popped the bottle open, yelping in surprise at the pop it made.  He couldn’t help laughing at her antics.  “At least save some for me!” He pouted, and she held the bottle up, a hand on her hip. 

“Bet I could drink this whole bottle!” She exclaimed, and he shook his head, prying the bottle from her grip before she could demonstrate. 

“I’m sure you can, MC!  Hand on heart, I’ll never forget what you did to that cake!” 

“That poor cake never saw it coming!” She tries and fails to be serious.  He can’t help but laugh with her, but when it subsides, he brushes a strand of hair out of her eyes, coaxing her chin up so she’ll meet his eyes.  

“But really, I’m not going to let you get that drunk, lass,” he says quietly, and she nods gravely before holding out her glass.  He fills it again, one hand still on her cheek.  The skin just beneath his fingers is flushed red and she’s hot to the touch.  She pulls away to take a drink.  

“You’ve been quieter than usual,” She says, frowning.  “Is everything alright?” 

He brightens, leaning in to pull something from behind her ear.  “Yeah, I just remembered I left something here.”  He pulls a cupcake from thin air, setting it before her.  She throws her free hand to her face, her mouth falling open.  

“For me?”

“A sweet for my sweetie,” He says as she giggles and downs the rest of her champagne.  She licks the frosting off of the cupcake seductively, but she just ends up with frosting all over her face.  He can’t help laughing, and she flushes under his gaze.

MC finishes the cupcake, setting the wrapper down and going to stand and look over the terrace.  She wobbles, and Bobby rushes to catch her by the elbow to keep her from falling.  “I’m good, I’m so good,” she says, but she’s slurring her words. 

“You’re so drunk,” Bobby breathes, and she turns, melting into his arms. 

“Yeah,” she breathes, before pushing back.  “No!  I’m not drunk!” She protests, and Bobby laughs softly, downing his glass of champagne.  MC sways, and he sits her down on a bench.  “Bobby, why’d you get me drunk?” She asks suddenly, and his eyebrows nearly fly off his face.  

“No reason, really, I thought you could use some fun.” He’s scratching his nose. 

“You’re a bad liar, Bobs,” She slurs, and he laughs softly.  

“Alright, you caught me,” He says, taking her hands.  He’s suddenly shy, biting his lip and blushing.  “Hey, MC?” 

“Yeah?” 

“How do you uh...how d’ya feel about me?” He asks, looking slowly at her.  Her eyes are wide in realization and something he doesn’t quite recognize, possibly amusement, and she smiles sweetly.  

“I love you, Bobs!” she exclaims drunkenly, throwing herself into his arms.  He catches her, and she can feel his heart pounding a million miles an hour in his chest.  She lets him hold her for a long moment before pulling back.  “Gonna leave me hangin’, then?” She’s swaying, and he pulls her back to him. 

“Of course I love you, MC,” he says softly, kissing the top of her head.  

“You didn’t have to get me drunk to ask me this.” She returns, pouting.  “I mean, I’m having fun, but now I can’t have more fun with you.” She folds her arms over her chest, but she sways a little before falling over.  He catches her again, holding on tight. 

“I don’t know if I could have mustered the courage otherwise!” He protests, and she laughs softly.  It’s music to his ears. 

“You’re meant to be the one drunk, then, Bobs!” She clings to him.  “Have you any water?” Her slurs are making her sound almost Scottish, and for a moment Bobby feels homesick and like he’s found home all at once.  Or maybe he’s a little drunk, too, and hearing things.  He passes her his water bottle, watching as she drinks greedily.  Her face is covered in water droplets, and under the moonlight, she looks magical.  

He can’t stop himself from leaning in, and she closes the gap, kissing him deeply.  Just as he’s starting to get lost in the kiss, she pours the rest of his water on his head.  He pulls away, laughing.  “Why would you do that?” He snorts, and she shrugs. 

“Thought it’d be funny!” She giggles, before pushing off of him and running to the door.  

“Wait!  Where are you going?” He asks.  

“To bed!” She stops, looking back at him.  “Why?” 

“I uh...I still wanted to talk,” he says, a little sheepishly.  “Maybe give you a chance to sober up before bed.  I know how you hate going to bed drunk.” 

She totters back to him, throwing herself into his arms.  “You are too good to me, Bobby,” she murmurs dreamily into his chest.  

“You deserve the world, gorgeous.” He returns, passing her his water bottle.  “You should drink this, you’ll feel better in the morning.” 

“I don’t know what I’d do without you.”  She sits down on the bench, her back stick straight.  Her expression is gravely serious, and she seems sober, but Bobby knows she isn’t.  At least, she’s got plenty of alcohol in her bloodstream.  “I mean it.” 

“I know, babe.” he sits beside her, rubbing her back. 

“Is it okay if I…” she trails off, wringing her hands nervously.  He waits patiently.  “If I pour my heart out to you?” 

“You don’t even need to ask, of course it is.” He squeezes one of her hands reassuringly.  “It’ll never change how I feel about you.” 

“When I first got here, I didn’t think I’d meet anyone I even fancied a little.  I figured it would be the same type of men I’ve always been around.  I’ve kept my walls up, and stayed guarded as much as I could, but as soon as I saw you, I knew I was in danger.”  She takes a deep breath, meeting his eyes.  He’s quiet, hanging on her every word.  She continues. 

“And with you, at first, I could not for the life of me figure out if you really liked me, or if you were just playing the game.  I won’t lie, sometimes I still wonder, but tonight has become a turning point for me.  I feel like I shouldn’t be scared anymore, and that I’ve found someone who really gets it.  I love you so much, Bobby, and even if you didn’t feel the same, I feel better for having told you.” 

She squeezes his hand, batting back tears with her other hand.  “I honestly can’t believe how lucky I am to be with you, Bobby.  We’ve been through a lot in here, but the fact that we’re still here, despite obstacles keeping us apart sometimes, tells me we have what it takes to make it on the outside.” She sighs, biting her lip.  

“MC, I love you, too.” He throws his arms around her, and she sniffles against his chest.  “And a lot of it was the same for me, too.  But being with you here, now, I know this is where I’m supposed to be, and it’s exactly where I want to be.  I didn’t think I’d ever meet anyone like you, I didn’t even know if I could ever fall for someone again.  But when I think about leaving the villa without you, it makes me fall apart a little.  

“You’re the only girl in here, in the world, for me, MC, and I want to do everything I can to keep you smiling.  Maybe I should be saving this speech for when we’re in front of everyone, but I can’t help it, I’ve never met anyone like you.” He holds her a little tighter when he feels her shoulders shaking.  “Are you...MC...are you crying?” 

“No!” She exclaims, but her voice wavers.  He leans back and tilts her chin up, wiping her tears away with his thumbs. 

“What’s wrong, cutie?” He asks, frowning, and she smiles, shaking her head. 

“Nothing, I’m just overcome with emotion.  I’m happy.” She cups his face and pulls him to her for a kiss.  He runs his fingers through his hair as he deepens the kiss, but he keeps it short.  

“You’re so beautiful,” he breathes, running his thumb along her cheek gently.  She shuts her eyes, and for a moment, she dozes off before jerking awake.  “I reckon we ought to get to bed, MC.” He tells her, and she nods regretfully.  

“I wish this moment could last forever,” she whispers, and he grasps her hand, pulling her to her feet. 

“Me too, MC, me too.” He squeezes her hand as they walk back to the villa, secure in their feelings.  Next, Bobby thought, I need to ask her to be my girlfriend. 

[supremeuppityone]

Written for Klaroline Valentine's Day Bingo 2020 @kcvalentinesbingo

Prompt: I Never Loved a Man

You can read the sequel here.

Warning: Some angst. Also dick cake. Because who doesn’t love a good dick cake? :)

Please review here.

           Penises were hard. Really, really hard. Caroline sighed, adding more powdered sugar to her countertop before she tried rolling out the flesh-toned fondant again. She had a last-minute erotic cake order to fill for a luncheon tomorrow and given the high-profile event, she wanted to ensure every detail was perfect. And she wouldn’t have time to dwell on all the things that went wrong with Klaus. Coquette Cakes had just started to take off when her asshat of a boyfriend decided to pick a fight with her that grew so explosive she tossed the entire drawer she’d set aside for his stuff out her window and blocked his number.

           In the weeks since then, she’d become even more dedicated to her bakery, from obsessive cleaning to designing a bold new marketing campaign. Partnering with her friend Kat’s male strip club to cater their monthly ‘sweet cheeks’ contest showed business-savvy, despite Klaus’ underwhelmed reaction when she excitedly discussed her plans.

           “I’m not a priority anymore; you’re spending all of your time at the bakery.” She’d been blindsided when Klaus accused her of not putting their relationship first; she’d hired extra staff before her budget could really handle the overhead in an attempt to cut back her hours. She’d even handed over two important cake projects to her staff so that she could attend a family retreat Klaus’ mother and siblings invited them to at the last minute. It had been an entire weekend of skiing at a prestigious mountain resort while fielding invasive and often rude questions about her relationship with Klaus.

           “You could’ve been vague about your profession.” She’d had no idea he was embarrassed by her career. That had been made painfully obvious when he hadn’t bothered to defend her from his family’s thinly veiled barbs when they learned she owned an erotic bakery. His sister, Rebekah, had been especially gleeful in drawing crude comparisons between being a tart versus making them.

           With an irritated huff, she reminded herself to use a delicate touch as she smoothed the fondant along the widest part of the shaft, carefully using the rounded edge of her modeling tool to tuck a loose flap underneath the testicles. Her inner 12-year-old giggled when she had to take extra care not to squish them — cake balls were almost as fragile as their human counterparts. In that moment, she was reminded again that she’d never have more fun at work than at her bakery. It was the best decision she ever made. Even if the price was her relationship. The Mikaelsons were elitist snobs and she was better off without them. Without Klaus.  

           But apparently not all members of the upper class were as judgy as Klaus and his family — this last-minute order was for a fundraising luncheon at the Mystic Falls Country Club. Who knew the pastels-and-pearls crowd would have a sense of humor? She’d just started painting a French-tipped manicure on the fingers encircling the cock when her playlist switched over to the song. Their song.

           They’d been painting her bakery to get Coquette Cakes ready for the grand opening. Caroline was exhausted and stressed to the point that she’d burst into tears twice that day alone. She’d happened to glance at Klaus, suddenly fighting back a smile when she saw the little pink speckles of paint across his nose and dimpled cheeks. Aretha Franklin’s “I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You” started playing in the background and she impulsively leaned over and kissed him, smearing the bright pink paint across their faces.

“Don't ya never, never say that we we're through,

'Cause I ain't never,

Never, Never, no, no loved a man,

The way that I, I love you.”

           Klaus broke away, his accented voice a bit breathless as he said, “You’ve never looked more beautiful, sweetheart.”

           She giggled at his outrageous lie, but before she could respond, his tone grew serious as he confessed, “And I love you.”

           It was the first time he’d said the words, and she’d quickly told him the same, and they’d kissed each other senseless, laughing and swaying to the music.

           She’d been so happy. It was when her hands wouldn’t stop trembling that Caroline realized she’d been bawling hysterically. With a frustrated whine, she set down the delicate brush, momentarily giving into her sadness. One day she would be happy again.

           Everything was perfect. The manicured nails she’d painted holding the penis were the ideal blend of crisp white and blush pink — matching the striped linen tablecloths and napkins folded into swans. The slight curve of the shaft down to the ribbon draped delicately around the balls were the flirty finishing touches her bakery had become known for. As she carefully rolled the cart toward the banquet area, she felt a flutter of excitement. This was the start of something big.      

           There was a collective gasp as Caroline pulled the cake out of its special crate, gently placing it as the centerpiece of the gilt-edged display table. She glanced around the airy room with its crystal chandeliers, gold leaf china, and impeccably coiffed attendees and felt a moment of uncertainty. She didn’t fit in with women like these. Klaus’ sister made that perfectly clear.

           However, a sudden burst of tinkling laughter caught her off-guard, and she began to relax as it washed over the crowd; the women hiding knowing smiles behind manicured hands and playfully toying with their understated pearls. They were delighted. And also slightly drunk based on the seemingly endless pitchers of mimosas being served.

           Distracted by the excited murmurs, Caroline didn’t realize she was being watched until she heard a familiar scoff. “I suppose a subtle penis was out of the question.”

           Caroline whirled around, blue eyes widening in surprise as she took in Rebekah’s flawless nose job and vintage Chanel. She realized she was gaping and finally said, “Subtle is a dirty word in the erotic cake business.” Noticing that Klaus’ sister didn’t seem surprised to see her, she grew suspicious. “You knew I’d be here today.”

           “Obviously,” she responded with a derisive snort, “I’m the co-chair of this committee. No detail escapes my notice.” She gestured toward a door off to the side, indicating that Caroline should follow her.

           Once they were away from the steady hum of the event, Caroline straightened her spine, steeling herself for whatever insults Rebekah decided to hurl at her. She flatly asked, “What do you want?”

           “To apologize.” Rebekah shifted uncomfortably at her sudden outburst, her voice uncertain as she continued. “I’m a bit of a bitch and my behavior that weekend was appalling. I’m sorry for the role I played in your breakup.”

           “I’m not doing this with you.” She turned to leave, her tone flippant as she added, “Try not to choke on your dick cake.”

           “My brother loves you. He misses you terribly and has been absolutely miserable.”

           Caroline hated the way tears started to gather in the corners of her eyes despite her anger. “Seriously?! What makes you think I even care?”

           Klaus unexpectedly stepped into the room, his clothes a wrinkled mess and looking so haggard and morose that she hardly recognized him. “Because I desperately need you to, sweetheart.”