#its actually still xmas eve here

[todaaru]

kissy serennedy.. just some doodles from the RE whiteboard (which u can still join!! i think it expires in two weeks) happy holidays everyone!!:3

[disneyprincemuke]

the other woman * mv1

everything falls into place in your mind when max fails to show up for you at the one event you desperately wanted him to be at

pairings: max verstappen x fem!reader

warnings: cheating, jake gyllenhaal type behaviour

notes: hi i know i promised this on xmas eve and then i failed to deliver mY BAD BABY GIRLS! i am trying my best but then again i did get a fever and all but its ok lfg and NO I WILL NOT BE WRITING A PART TWOOOOO

(f1 masterlist)

your eyes watch your front door, bottom lip caught between your teeth as you try to hold yourself back from crying. there's a sob bubbling from the deepest part of your gut as you glance at the clock one more time.

he's late.

but one can also say that he's simply not coming. did he lie when he told you that he would make sure he showed up for you this time? or did he just simply forget about you again?

your eyes have been staring at that door for the better part of the last hour or so since guests started arriving for the party you'd thrown.

a party you'd thrown, admittedly, just to get his attention. you were never one to make a big deal of your birthday anyway, but he made you think otherwise. because he promised you that he would be here no matter what happened. it's stupider that he was the one that encouraged you to throw a party today.

only for him not to show up?

this is the one time you needed him to so desperately show up for you. but here you are, looking like a fool waiting for somebody who wouldn't come; for somebody who didn't even make you a first choice.

because you know that when if push comes to shove, he would still pick her. max would always pick kelly and penelope over you, no matter how much he tells you that he loves you. no matter how many times you endured him telling you that he no longer wants to be with her.

you know better than to be his little secret. your parents had not raised you to be a potential homewrecker, but are you really being one if he's the one that keeps coming back to you?

you've tried staying away, and you've attempted to cut all sorts of contact with him, but he eventually crawls right back to you a couple of weeks later claiming that he will break up with kelly soon.

you've even bought a new dress for the occasion; in max's favourite colour and a cut that you knew he would say you look amazing in.

only for him to bail on you. you'd even taken the effort to sit for an hour to do your makeup and hair. for nothing, essentially.

fast forward a couple of hours of holding back tears and forcing smiles, you're hunched over the couch, picking up empty beer cans and tears streaming down your face. at the end of the day, you're left alone in your apartment with a heavy heart and the eerie silence the room can only offer you.

you watch the last car from your guests drive away. you sigh and throw yourself on the couch, finally letting the tears fall from your eyes. you had no idea it was so difficult to pretend like you're okay until today.

it's totally different when it's got something to do with the heart, it seems. you were totally banking on the fact that he would be here today, at least today. just today. because it's your birthday.

it's your day.

a knock on the door sits you right up, hands darting up to wipe the tears that smudged your makeup. "give me a second!"

"it's just me."

the anger suddenly hits you. so he is available to travel out to come and see you. just not a couple of hours prior when everybody else was here? just not at the time when you actually wanted him to be here?

you stomp your way over to the door and swing the door open and a string of apologies quickly spill from his mouth. you immediately notice the wrapped present in his hand and the bouquet of flowers.

"i'm sorry, i got held up at home," max apologises with a frown. "p had a fever and she wouldn't go to bed unless i tucked her in. i'm sorry, i know i'm late."

you sigh, rolling your eyes. "you're not just late," you scowl, "you missed the party entirely, max."

"oh," he slumps his shoulders, "i was wondering why it was so quiet when i was walking up."

you shake your head and walk further into your apartment. "max, just go home. you don't have a reason to be here."

"what do you mean? it's your birthday," he says gently, following you in. he closes the door behind him and follows you into your living room. "is there still cake? maybe you can blow the candles with me before the day ends? i even got you a present."

"no, i let people take home pieces of the cake," you say softly, returning to your agenda of cleaning your home from the traces of the party your friends left. "what am i going to do with cake that i don't even eat?"

"you bought chocolate cake on your birthday? you don't even like chocolate," he points out softly. "nevermind that, i got you a present!"

"i don't give a fuck about your stupid present, max!" you burst, standing up and turning to finally face him. "i didn't ask for a fucking present! i asked you for one thing and you couldn't even do that!"

he stares at you, dumbfounded with his lips parted in shock at your outburst. you're not typically one to have outbursts, which is the one thing he claims he finds very refreshing about you. you're calm and collected most of the time, and you assess the situation before picking fights. "p was sick. what did you want me to do?"

"you're telling me you're a sole parent to this little girl?" you ask. "kelly couldn't have tucked her in so you could show up to the party that you asked me to throw? on my birthday? max, you had one job and it was to show up for me tonight! i waited for you all night!"

he seems to have lost all ability to speak because he just pulls out a chair from your dining table and takes a seat. "i'm sorry. you're right, i should have been here."

"seriously, max! are you actually ever going to leave them or do you just lie straight through your teeth whenever you tell me that?" she scolds him, throwing her arms in the air. "i'm not stupid, max! this has gone on long enough!"

"i am, and i will!" he answers you, running his hands through his hair. "i just need more time. there's a child involved, i really hope you understand. i can't just leave."

"you say that every single time! it's been seven months!" you cry. "you've made me the other woman for seven long months! am i supposed to just sit here and take that? just because i love you?"

"i do love you! but it's complicated, okay? i can't just leave p like this!"

you clench your jaw. how many times have you heard that excuse in the past year? and how many more times will you be fooled by the sweetness in his voice and his glistening blue eyes? "max, i think you should go. lose my number, and forget that i ever existed. i can't do this anymore."

his head snaps up to you. he quickly walks over to you, throwing his arms around you from behind. "wait, don't say that. please, i promise. i'll leave in the next month. don't leave me. i really don't love her anymore."

"i'm so tired of the lies, max," you sigh, desperately tearing his arms away from your body. you take a step back and turn to him. "you will always choose them over me. it doesn't matter how much you love me, max. you're too attached to them to leave."

"listen to me, okay? i will leave them. and then we can be happy together like we talked about all those nights we spent together," max coos, putting his hands on your shoulder. he bends down slightly to look into your eyes. "please, just give me one last chance - more time. i just need time. i will let p down easily and i'll leave kelly. please."

"i don't know how many more times you think you can fool me with that lie, max!" you frown, shoving him back. "just leave! leave me alone! i refuse to let you make me look like an idiot! i'm better than this."

"i thought you said you understood my predicament. with p in the picture..."

"yeah, for seven long months. do you know how many days that is? how many hours i'd spend with you wondering when you'd finally take me off the backseat and make me your own officially?" you throw your head back and a dry laugh passes your lips. "max, just leave. don't call me again."

"you don't really mean that."

"i do this time," you say firmly, turning around to face him.

you circle around him and walk over to your front door, pulling it open and gesturing towards the hallway. "i'm done. take your flowers and your stupid present and leave."

he does what you say, hesitantly. he keeps his eyes on you, hoping that you will immediately change your mind. he travelled this far to get to you, hoping that you would somehow forgive him for missing your birthday party.

but you're right, now that he's had a couple of seconds to think about it. in the past seven months, he's told you that he'd up and leave kelly and penelope so he can finally be with you openly. it's much harder to keep you in the shadows when everyone's got eyes on him all the time.

perhaps it's the attachment to penelope that he can't get himself to pack his things and call it a day. he genuinely does love that kid. and his girlfriend has her good days - not all make him want to pull at his hair in frustration anymore.

but he also really does love you. if there hadn't been a loveable child in the picture, one that's grown very attached to him, he would have been able to walk away months ago. it could've been that easy.

"just hear me out," max says, stopping right by the door and giving you one last pleading look. "don't leave. not like this. we haven't even had a real fighting chance."

"that's because of you. not me," you answer dryly, looking up at him. "just go. i can't keep having this conversation with you."

"please."

"i gave you too many chances to make this right," you sigh, putting a gentle hand on his back to guide him out the door. you press your lips together as a lump forms in your throat. you're more shocked that you hadn't fully started bawling moments ago. "i should have done this a long time ago."

"i'm sorry."

"i'm sure you are. too little too late." then you close the door on him and whatever could have been with max.

[autisticlancemcclain]

fic rec friday 54

hello and welcome to fic rec friday! where, on friday, i rec five of my favourite fics.

all i want for christmas by tusslee

“Listen,” Lance squeezes Keith’s fingers in his hands, “I’m as bad at this as you probably are and this is going to be really cheesy, but that’s the way I was raised and I know I act like an idiot around pretty girls, but I’m an even bigger idiot around you. Go ahead and try to guess why that is. No, actually don't do that."

this one is gonna be an xmas special!! even though im writing this before halloween lol. anyways. this was so cute!! lance being all stressed about what he should get keith bc he's all in love w him any everything. so real.

2. You're Here (Where You Should Be) by @blue-wanderer

"And if you’re worried about the cameras just take care of them.” “Take care—! Take care of them? With what, Keith?” “I don’t know?” Keith asks, busily testing his foothold in the gate and generally ignoring the rising storm cloud of ire behind him. “With a gun?” “A gun? This isn’t some sort of black ops storming an enemy base thing! This is a Christmas tree thing!” “I don’t see a difference? You’re the sharpshooter. Shoot out the cameras.” “Let me just pull a gun out of my ass, Keith!” “OK, problem solved,” Keith agrees, taking another step up the gate. “Nothing is solved you dumb country space redneck!”

Or Keith and Lance may be disasters at decorating, but Christmas still manages to work its magic on them.

i bookmarked this like a year ago and let me tell you all i needed to hear was dumb country space redneck and i was hooked 😭😭 and it lived up to the name fr. hate the canon ending? want lance to not be a farmer while still acknowledging his struggles with homesickness? want some whipped keith and meddlesome kosmo? want some cheesy xmas feels? click ahead!

3. make my wish come true by angelbolt

“A world where one has to fight for custody of one’s boyfriend is a godless one,” Lance muttered, slumping so he was leaning against Hunk. Shiro exchanged some final words with Kolivan before the screen blipped out. Ah yes, the ideal Christmas Eve: long boring talks and war meetings. Wonderful. ❆❅❆ keith comes home for christmas.

fun game idea: take a shot every time you see a klance xmas fic with a mariah carey lyric. lol. ANYWAYS yall know me and established relationship + early season dynamics!! i am obsessed!! and this fic delivers!! grumpy lance pov who just wants the rest of the world to fuck off for a couple days so he can have his bf around. he's such a voice of the people

4. i'll be home for christmas by @thespacenico

A severe bout of winter weather threatens to stop Shiro from making it home for his first Christmas with Keith. Shiro is ready to do whatever it takes to keep his promise.

okay this one is from darcy's i've got you brother, which i am obsessed with and have cried over several times, and which just recently updated! this fic is so cute and a adashi with young keith always fucking gets to me, man. they're just so. shiro being so desperately determined to keep his promise to young keith who has had so many promises broken that he doesnt even expect shiro to try. but is happy that he does. sobbing.

5. the greatest gift of all by dumpsterdiva

Keith’s mouth hung open for a few seconds before he stammered, “D-do you really mean that?” Lance looked a bit sheepish as he said, “I… It’s crazy, right? I mean, it’s way too soon. You know I was kidding.” Keith straightened up. “Well, I’m not. Marry me.” “What?!” “You heard me, you coward. Marry me.” “That’s the worst proposal ever!” “Worse than you threatening me with marriage so I would stop talking about how amazing you are?”

YOU GUYS KNOW HOW I FEEL ABOUT PROPOSAL FICS. i feel ksjbskdbqjdbqwlwd about them. okay. and throw in a christmas setting??? and banter?? and a MODERN AU?? i am doing my best, people. this fic had me shoving a pillow into my face and screaming.

that’s it for today!! happy holidays! merry christmas!! i’ll see y’all back next friday for the next fic rec post!!!

[lewdladylily]

Hiya, how have the holidays been for you? We had pork ribs/belly, angeldicks (sausages :P), mashed potatoes +more on xmas eve and it was delicious! Newyears eve was turkey day, I'm so stuffed and for once it's food and not by toys or dicks xD Glad we have the cabin to go to so Em and the kitten don't have to be freaked out by the fireworks. -Anna

The holidays have been pretty good. Some nice family events, it was a lot of fun watching my daughter open presents. Exhausting though, my daughter hasn't been the easiest lately. And fewer opportunities to do lewd things while she is on winter break is disappointing of course. But things are generally going well.

There is one fun thing I've been able to do somewhat consistently over the holidays. I don't know how much I've talked about it on here, but Raven has been training me in endurance walking while wearing high heels, with the basic goal of working me up to pony boots. The idea is it helps me get in my regular exercise and lets us indulge in one of our favorite kinks, pony play. I started back in October I think, using some ankle boots with a block heel that was fairly high. I've been walking in place, its the most practical thing right now, but I would love to get a treadmill for this someday. Maybe I will if I keep this up long enough, prove it wont be a waste of money. For the time being I am using a metronome to keep me on pace and a timer.

Anyway, I was becoming pretty expert in walking in heels like that, so mistress decided it was time for a step up in difficulty and bought me some thigh high boots with a 6" spike heel for Christmas.

I love my new boots so much. The feel so good to wear, nice and tight with some resistance when I bend my knee without hindering movement, and they are a lot of fun to walk in. I was pleased to find that my experience with easier heels transferred quite well to these boots and I could easily walk around short distances from the start, but they are significantly harder in terms of endurance. It's the balance. Not that I feel like I am going to fall over, but keeping your balance is a full body effort. You have to keep disciplined, not letting yourself tilt or let your posture get too bad, and you have to step straight and distribute your weight correctly because the heel barely helps with any of that.

The result is that before with my ankle boots it was fun, but this really feels like pony play training. I've always loved pony play kink, and one of my favorite fantasies involving it is being made to walk until I am too exhausted to continue, then fucked to orgasm (or excessive edging, depending on how masochistic I am feeling) while dead exhausted, dripping in sweat, and unable to resist even if I wanted to. Pony training with these boots plus edging during my breaks and after my training is finished has been an excellent approximation of that fantasy.

Hopefully at some point I can upgrade to true pony boots, but even then I am sure I'll be enjoying these boots regularly.

I'm actually just about to go do a training session now, boots on and everything, just decided I should answer this before I did.

Oh, and I am sure some people are wondering so I might as well say it here, I'm still in denial from last time I reported it I believe, with my last real orgasm back on September 15, and my last ruin on October 11th. I don't anticipate my next orgasm being all that soon either, we've just not had enough time to do things so I've not been worked up into the kind of horny mess Mistress likes me to be. Hopefully we can change that soon :)

Thank you for the ask!

[justcahttingtothevoidcat]

Highs and Lows 

It was 17"c in Scotland today, in November, which is almost unthinkable. Tis Midnight on Friday 11th of Nov, which is Armistice day, the day remembers the ending of the Great War (World War 1) which ended on Thur 11th 1919 at 11am. The wee motto that went with it was "Never again" which lasted sooooo well.

It actually pisses me off that people still say it, like that bridge was crossed mere decades after the initial war, let's stop pretending otherwise. The red poppy is a symbol often worn, because the fields in France grew poppies as the land began its recovery. Some were white poppies as a symbol against war which I much prefer, not that I wear either now.

We are in the middle of a gale, it's not been too bad here actually but it's stronger the more exposed you are to the Atlantic so I am glad I'm not in the Hebrides atm. We had planned to go to Gran and Grandad's grave today but the weather made us decide against it, which is disappointing but grandad would have wanted us to be safe and we couldn't risk being stuck because of a tree downed with the cats at home.

Nursing staff across the countries in the UK have decided to strike for the first time ever (possible exception is N.Ireland who may have striked previously) Teaching staff look the next to strike, I am still hoping for a general strike to sort this mess of a Government out.

Did I tell you we had another new Prime minister? First person who is of Indian decent, he was born in Southhampton so he's 2nd Gen but really it doesn't matter except it's a first. Sadly the man is as incompetent as any of the other Tories he works with. Not that we got a vote as to who would be prime minister, full fascism that's what it is.

We are in the process of repacking the Halloween decs and bringing down Christmas ones, the Xmas decs really help to combat the misery of the darkening days and the mental exhaustion from the time change back an hour into GMT time. I love Christmas in a totally secular way. For me it's a celebration of light, of our favourite things, of nature of family and friends. I adore getting gifts for folk, I am not as much a fan of wrapping though, I used to be but it's so much harder now my back is so sore. We have a buffet of party food for Xmas dinner, when dad was still alive mum would make a roast chicken and do the more formal thing but I am not a huge fan of it. We used to have a roast every Saturday so it wasn't special and it was so formal it just wasn't me.

On Christmas Eve I get dressed up in something Xmas themed and do some nice makeup and mum and I drive about the area looking at the lights, listening to Christmas music and then we might get a takeaway or do party food nibbles. On Christmas Day we get up when we get up, have a cup of tea, sort the cats food and chill in our PJ's until we want to open the presents. Then we have another cup of tea, sort out the recycling from the rubbish and have breakfast. When we had Heather our Collie (border and Sheltie mix) we would take her a Christmas walk but now we tend to stay settled and watch a film or read or whatever. Then for tea we have our buffet and we just enjoy each others company.

Hogmanay, I used to go out with friends, actually I used to meet my best friend (for many years, now not) on Christmas Eve as I lived too far away to see them on Xmas Day which was the thing folk would do when I was a teen particularly, all meet up on Xmas day, but I could never join in and felt awfully left out. So we started that tradition on Xmas eve where we would swap gifts and head to the pub. Mum would have to pick me up because transport stopped at 6pm initially then later 10pm.

Hogmanay we used to meet and go out with a group of friends to wherever and after dad died, I would ask mum to meet me just after the bells and go home early with her because I didn't want her to be on her own into the New Year. Now I've lost most of my friends so I don't have the opportunity because of disability and higher standards for behaviour, it's awfully hard to make good friends as an adult, particularly as a disabled one. Though to be honest I had been scunnered with the drinking culture years ago so I would prefer to be home with mum anyway.

Mum and I stay up to the bells, calm the cats down from the inevitable fireworks and then open a door to let the old year out and the new year in. We never had first footers, we lived so far away from my parents friends and we don't have any close neighbours as such. We were never physically close to my grandparents either.

Although we did tend to go see my Granny Coulter on Boxing Day which is December the 26th, I remember one year there was a wicked storm, trees falling all around us as we drove back home from Dundee where Granny still lived, it's 100 miles exactly from where she lived to us, and that night when we got home the windows in our living room which are huge 6ft by 9ft were shaking so hard it was quite scary.

I've been a bit battered physically recently, first with my shoulder blade being injured and painful, my knee clunked sometime last week and has been swollen and sore since. My back still is a problem, still haven't heard form the Dr, I'm thinking maybe next week I should hear from him, if not I may send another email to remind him I would like my MRI results back, I so hope there is something that shows why my upper back has been in agony since 2018 and why it hasn't healed and that its something that can be fixed easily.

Still apart from the first day of my shoulder blade injury, when I couldn't dress myself without help, it hasn't dampened my mood too much. I think the trick is really just to live in the moment, not to worry about the future and not to mope about the things that I have missed out on or been unable to complete. Although I do on occasion ruminate, but when I see how much of my Youth has been robbed either by mental illness or physical illness I just feel so angry and frustrated It really doesn't help.

I am where I am and I ain't where I ain't.

I quite pride myself on still being of a rather sunny disposition, although I am tired a lot more often. Disability has stolen a lot but it hasn't taken my good nature.

Midnight is watching me, I wonder if he is thinking "go to bed Freyja, I want to relax in peace". I had best end this here then, I am sure you will hear from me soon, yelling my thoughts and stories into the void for your amusement.

[intuitive-revelations]

Had a couple of (related) theories.

“Time” is actually...

First of all, I was thinking about the "Time" we saw in Flux. While TARDIS wiki and others have taken her to be Time the Eternal, who we met in the VNAs, a lot doesn't match up perfectly.

There's never any previous indication of that Time having to be imprisoned by the Time Lords, nor is she particulalrly connected to the pre-Anchoring universe. In fact, if anything, she seems quite the opposite, taking up the Seventh Doctor as her Champion, whose duty was to protect history.

Now, a lot of this can arguably be put down to different forms. since we see members of the Menti Celesti being 'born' in the VNAs (and we have met multiple versions of Death, from Torchwood’s grim reaper to the goth girl resembling Death from The Sandman at Benny’s wedding), but it's still not a perfect match.

Instead I have an alternative suggestion: the "Time" in Flux is actually the Carnival Queen.

I’m the one who starts the carnivals, Christopher Cwej. The one who makes the music that plays when civilizations fall. Sister to superstitions, grandmother of gynoids. The spirit imprisoned in every piece of clockwork.

Both were imprisoned by the Time Lords around the time of the Anchoring of the Thread to make the universe logical and establish the laws of physics as we know them. The Carnvial Queen also seemed to be captured on a desert world set out of time.

Her personality and history matches the Time we meet a lot better than VNA!Time. She attempts to escape back into the universe for much the same reason the Ravagers wanted to free Time - to undo the Anchoring.

– All that time. All that time I’ve been trapped here, shut off from the universe outside. Ohh, I’ve managed to influence things a little. Pushing a few irrational ideas out into the Majestic Clockwork. Little spanners in the works. A sorceress here, an alchemaître there, a pocket universe somewhere else. I’ve whispered words into the occasional ear. I’ve even managed to nurture a few, ah, special powers. Latent abilities, waiting to be triggered, wrapped in little genetic parcels marked ‘Do Not Open Till Xmas’...

– But I could never venture out into the rational universe. Not without an invitation.

Though she pushes it as a paradise, there is of course a lot of danger in an irrational universe, as we get to see a glimpse of in Flux, let alone all the Eldritch beings that would be able to exist again.

Interestingly, the “Watchmakers” in Christmas on a Rational Planet also refer to “their temple” a couple of times. They also grant Catcher a gun from their temple which marks him clearly as an agent - an “electro-static galvanistic rifle“.

Perhaps the kicker though? Just as the TARDIS seemed sick throughout Flux and into Eve of the Daleks, so too was the TARDIS directly threatened by the unleashing of the Carnival Queen to the point she even gives Chris false memories to be sure he’ll choose order over chaos, out of self-preservation.

No?’ The mouth twitched at the corner. ‘Please, Doctor, consider the situation. The "force" in the desert, as you describe it, wanted to create an irrational universe. Yes?’

‘Yes, yes.’

“And who has the most to lose from that? Consider what the TARDIS represents. The ship is the ultimate expression of reason. Its heart is made of mathematics, its architecture the very model of order.’

This isn’t to say that this Time / the Carnival Queen couldn’t in a sense still be the Time of the VNAs. If we are imagining the Menti Celesti split into multiple incarnations, then it’s just as reasonable that Time could have been split into the rational Gallifreyan God and an irrational imprisoned demon.

In fact, they almost definitely ARE linked. It’s already known that Time was born from Time Lord dreams and while the Carnival Queen was “born from the irrational parts of their souls”, she too is linked to Time Lord dreams in some way:

‘You’re the one the Watchmakers... I mean, you’re the thing that...’

– That they couldn’t live with . They don’t remember me at all now, and don’t even let themselves dream of me. On their homeworld, buried in the deepest archives, there are books, that only the Highest of the High are ever allowed to read. The only books that describe the old time before the days of the clockwork universe, locked away from the eyes of the world.

Side note: the “Highest of the High” and the “Deepest Archives”? 100% the Division.

The Missing Link of TARDIS Evolution?

I am far from the only person to have spotted some similarities between the “Passenger-forms” (which, we should note, sounds quite similar to the “N-forms” used first against the Great Vampires then later in the Time War) and TARDISes, which themselves can be humanoid.

Well while thinking about the previous theory, I considered the “Gynoids”, the Carnival Queen’s granddaughters. They’re kinda set up as a gender-essentialist manifestation of feminity in the universe, vs the ‘orderly masculinity’ of the Time Lords. Which, is uh...

But getting past that, there’s a lot more interesting about them. For one thing, they can change their forms:

It had just lain there, pockmarked and sand-blown, its big, bloated body expanding and contracting, like a sea creature washed up on a beach and gasping for water. Quite dead, the Doctor had insisted, though he couldn’t tell the cause. Its movement had been some kind of automatic function, the thing constantly adjusting and re-adjusting its shape even after death, still uncertain of the exact form it should take.

They also aren’t built, but exist independently of a creator:

‘Gynoids aren’t "built". Only androids are "built". Gynoids just are.’

And are bigger on the inside...

There was a whole new world trapped inside every little piece of glass, and whenever the pieces locked together to form a ‘circuit’, an entire alien universe was born inside its body, the shape becoming something totally new and unfamiliar, sculpted by different laws of physics. Roz felt she was just looking at a fragment of the thing, if ‘thing’ was a big enough word, one face of something that had a million faces. And was that all the gynoids really were? Walking windows, that you could look through to catch glimpses of something bigger and older and stranger?

You should see what I’m getting at. TARDISes too are largely considered female (not that TARDISes would have gender identities anything like humans or other species, but they have usually been referred to as “sisters” or by “she”), of course dimensionally transcendental, and can change their form. They also are speculated to exist, in a sense, beyond their creation by the Time Lords, according to Toy Story. They also, again, can be humanoid.

In Christmas on a Rational Planet, where we learn about these Gynoids, we even also see an “un-TARDIS” which literally manifested seemingly on its own, without being manufactured (which I’d argue also sounds a lot like I.M. Foreman’s Travelling Show).

The fact that the Gynoids are described as Cacophany’s granddaughters also rather evokes the idea of the TARDISes being children of the Matrix, as if establishing a lineage between them.

Then add Passenger-forms in as well. Physically, they may not seem to exactly have the more stereotypically ‘feminine’ forms of Gynoids or TARDISes (‘masculine’ TARDISes seem to exist to some extent too though)  but there is a pretty strong resemblance in abilities and their roles in regards to the Carnival Queen / Time. And hey, who knows, it’s not like we know that much about Passengers:

But there’s one more creature / technology that resembles all of the above. Feminine-seeming, glass robots, capable of shapeshifting, time manipulation, perception filters. Literally full of people, who interestingly are being preserved in a manner akin to Matrix soul-catching.

Am I suggesting that Testimony’s glass avatars are literally TARDISes? Not exactly. But I think, in the same way we see certain themes echo through some of the major time-sensitive civilisations that could have been / could become the Lords of Time (eg. regeneration/renewal, central databases/afterlifes, bridges to the next universe), the avatars may well be humanity’s technology equivalent to the gynoids or TARDISes.

And perhaps these are all indeed parts of the one conceptual species with multiple possible histories we know primarily as TARDISes, depending on the time track of the universe (pre-Anchoring, post-Anchoring, War in Heaven, post-Ancestor Cell, Time War etc.)?

Maybe they really do, quite literally, form a meta family of sorts?

“However, there are other things that can have distortional effects on the continuum.’

‘Such as?’

‘Gynoids. And their friends and families.’

[mourntheantagonist]

Lingerie and selfie, for the banned tags prompt list

oh CERTAINLY (and xmas themed cause it’s still december)

***

The mall was packed, to say the least.

Everyone and their mother was out, rushing from store to store in the final hours of the mall being open, the line for Santa Claus seemed to be an hour long filled with crying toddlers complaining that their feet hurt, because it was Christmas Eve, the time for all those who procrastinated on gift buying, left to scrounge for the remaining few scraps.

Billy didn’t exactly procrastinate… so to speak…

He just couldn’t seem to settle on the perfect gift for Steve.

So, there he was, weaving in and out of large groups of people who didn’t know how to walk on the right side of the path, looking in through every damn window he passed hoping that just something would catch his eye before the clock struck six and every store in the mall simultaneously closed.

It was beginning to feel like a lost cause when the light outside seemed to vanish, the early sunset serving as a reminder of just how limited his time was. He had found nothing. He had come up entirely dry after having walked the entire mall nearly three times… he really didn’t want to have to throw cash into an envelope but that reality seemed to inch closer and closer with each passing second.

Until he saw it. The one thing that finally caught his eye in all of its contrasting red and white twinning with the blush of his cheeks as he looked at it.

Steve was going to have a great Christmas, because Santa was coming to town.

That was the gift. No, not actual Santa. Billy didn’t just yank the old man off his sleigh by the pull of his beard. No, this Santa was the kind that would scar their children for life.

It was a Santa teddy. Red with white fur and a black accentuating belt, all tied together with long, black fishnets stockings and a tiny little Santa hat.

Billy walked into the store, feeling so out of place as the one 45 year old man surrounded by women in their thirties who lugged around kids with covered eyes and men in their early twenties who looked at each piece of fabric with a kind of confusion he’s only ever seen while Steve watched the kids play dungeons and dragons. He walked directly over to their holiday display, picked up one of the garments, and he was just going to buy it and get out of there just as quickly as he came in, but he paused just short of the register.

This wasn’t really for Steve. Not in the way it could be wrapped up and gifted to him. The real gift wasn’t something he could put under the tree.

So when Billy got up to the counter, he didn’t just pull out his credit card.

“Can I have a dressing room?” he asked the woman, who just looked behind him, looking for someone.

“Is your wife here?” she asked, looking down at the ring on his finger, getting more confused when Billy shook his head no. “Then what do you need a dressing room for exactly?”

Billy just rolled his eyes at the comment. It wasn’t the 80’s anymore. Hell, it wasn’t even the 00’s. It was 2012. Gay marriage was legal in their state and this was a lingerie boutique, she was in the wrong place to act like a prude. “To try this on.” he said, holding the teddy up by the hanger.

He felt a little bad when her cheeks pinked up and her eyes grew wide, stumbling on her words. “oh… Oh!” she said, the pitch of her voice raised up the octave with the second ‘oh’. “Of course, my-my apologies, I’ll get right on that.”

He laughed as he watched her fumble with her key trying to unlock the door, told him to tell her if he needed help with anything else, and then she was off as quickly as her feet could take her.

Billy quickly put it on, careful not to tug too hard on the delicate fabric, kicking the stripped off clothes into the corner as he looked at himself in the mirror. The fit was almost perfect considering he was certainly not the body type they were marketing towards. He was a little fuller than he was when he was a teen, silver highlights in his hair and more texture to his skin, he was five years from being over the hill, but he looked at himself in the mirror and said to himself “damn, I still got it!”

He stared at himself for a bit longer than a person normally would, fixing his hair a little bit trying to tame some of the flyaways, allowing himself to be a little vain for just a moment before bending over to sift for his phone through his discarded clothes.

Billy opened up the camera application.

It was the reason they upgraded from their old Nokia flip phones. It wasn’t because of the chips and cracks and batteries that died within the span of thirty minutes… it was because of the camera, and the ability to send high resolution photos to each other with just a click of the button.

Sometimes, it was just for simple, mundane things like “Steve can you send me a picture of the shopping list?” or “Which color tie looks better with this shirt?” or just sending pictures of their kids back and forth between each other while the other was at work.

But other times… they used the feature for other reasons. That was the other thing they liked about the iPhones, they had passcode lock, which prevented their kids from having to see anything unsavory in their father’s text messages.

But this time, Billy wouldn’t be sending this one. He took the photos, taking his time, trying to make the most of the small confined space, taking photos of himself like a model in a photoshoot just without a hype man in the background. By the time he took nearly a hundred different pictures, he noticed the time on the clock, just fifteen more minutes before the mall would close.

Billy quickly stripped himself out of the lingerie and hung it back on the hanger, throwing himself back into his regular clothes and practically running over to the counter to pay, because the pictures wouldn’t be Steve’s only gift of course.

Billy took himself to the Walgreens, one of the only places that was still open that late on Christmas Eve, and sprinted over to the photo counter.

“You need some photos printed?” the guy behind the counter asked. Billy just nodded his head and whipped out his phone. “Alright, go ahead and just plug that in and pick out the photos you want and I can have them ready for you in like five to ten minutes.”

Billy plugged in his phone and nearly panicked when the screen lit up with a collage of pictures of him scantily clad, momentarily forgetting that in order to get these printed, other people would have to see the photos. He thought for a second to just unplug and print it off their computer at home, but they were out of color ink and no way would he be paying for a new cartridge for just one picture when they could do it at Walgreens for under five dollars.

Billy just covered the screen with his body by moving in extra close, and scrolled through all the pictures he had taken, trying to choose quickly which one was the best. Some were out of focus, some were over exposed from the flash, but most were okay.

But one, one was great.

It was taken from the floor with the countdown setting. Billy was squatting with his hands on his knees, half profile to the camera giving a perfect view of the curve his ass and thickness and of his legs and strength of his muscles. It was the one. He knew it was the one.

Billy clicked on it, hit 8x10, and hit done, and all opportunities of turning back washed away. Billy just walked over to the other area, partly because he actually wanted to purchase a frame for the picture to go in, but mostly he didn’t want to see the look on the face of the guy when he finally saw the photo.

When he heard his name called, he quickly paid and ran out of the store without a second thought.

***

He wrapped up the teddy along with the framed picture and snuck it underneath the tree at one in the morning after Steve had finally fallen asleep.

Christmas morning approached only a few hours later with their youngest pouncing onto their bed chanting “Santa came!”

They both slapped on the Christmas cheer with the help of a mug of freshly brewed coffee they were able to make in the time between them waking up and their oldest finally waking up.

They watched their kids open up their gifts, taking pictures of their son holding up his new lego set from Santa and ripping it open almost immediately after even though there were still unopened gifts with his name on them underneath the tree. During that lull, Steve took the opportunity to open the one present under the tree with his name on it.

To Steve

From Billy

Billy got lucky because none of his kids were lying any attention to them.

Steve slowly peeled the paper off and lifted open the box to suddenly be met the the photo.

Steve’s eyes grew wide and he immediately shut the box.

“Are you insane!?” Steve asked, somehow yelling and whispering at the same time.

“Maybe a little bit.”

They both just laughed and looked out at the kids, all still completely entranced in the sea of gifts.

Steve looked back over at Billy and raised his eyebrows. “Later?” he asked, pointing to the closed box.

“You bet.”

[sorry-apsalar]

Santa Claus is Real But He Kills People, How Fucked Up is That?

Holing up and covering all the doors windows and other possible entrances with blast proof shields as if hunkering down for an impeding nuclear war was even more surreal this year because Fry had known it was coming. Last year it taken him so by surprise he hadn’t had any time to fully process it. But now, he’d had too much time to think about it in the weeks leading up to Xmas.

They holed up in the Planet Express building of course, it was well outfitted for this and it allowed for a lovely Xmas Eve into Xmas party. Fry participated of course, exchanging gifts with everyone, wearing his best smile even if he didn’t exactly feel like smiling any time he thought about… well anything having to do with what Christmas had become. Which was hard to do with how quiet they all were, no music or anything; couldn’t risk Santa hearing them through the walls when passing by.

Eventually Fry had had enough and ended up pulling a chair over and sitting in the corner of the room staring up at the ceiling. It was a weird parallel of how he’d used to stay up on Christmas Eve as a kid and listen for the sound of Santa’s reindeer on the roof, ready to run out in time to see Santa enter into the living room through the chimney. He’d never heard anything of course; Santa hadn’t been real back then. Now though if he did hear it, it would mean danger was close.

How bizarre was that? A merry jolly lie, meant to encourage children to behave and be excited for Christmas had been made into a reality that was the opposite of merry and jolly. Surely there was some kind deeper meaning type thing there that a smarter person than Fry could’ve thought up. Or doubtless had already thought up and written out but was too far from Fry’s usual interests for him to have ever encountered. Regardless it was strange that Santa was a homicidal robot.

“Hey Fry, what are you doing over here?”

With a start, Fry looked down to see that Bender had approached. “Uh… nothing really. … You think it’s possible to fix Santa? Like reprogram him or something so that he’s not… you know.”

Bender scoffed. “People have tried, none of have ever come back alive though. He indiscriminate, he’ll even kill robots, so there’s no way it’s ever going to happen.”

“It would be cool to save Christmas though, don’t you think?” Make it into what childhood Fry had believed it to be. It had lost its magic long before he’d been cryogenically frozen, Santa being a killer robot had only made the holiday even less jolly.

“I hate it when you get like this.”

“Like what?”

“All sad and mopey like this.” Bender made a vague gesture in Fry’s general direction. “It makes me feel bad.”

“I’m not being sad and mopey.” Was he? … Okay, maybe he was a little bit. Could anyone actually blame him though? “I just wish Christmas was still like how it was when I was kid or… at least not as bad as it is now. I mean like… Santa Claus is real but he kills people, how fucked up is that? You don’t have to hang out with me if you don’t want to though. It looks like everyone else is having a good time over there.” Without him. He’d been the one to remove himself so it was wrong of him to be bitter about it even if it was hard not to be when he was in this kind of mood. At least Bender had come over though, that was nice even if he was annoyed by Fry’s downer mood.

“That’d make me feel worse though.” Bender groaned. “Ugh, I swear you fragile meatbags and your dumb emotions are going to be the death of me one day. Give me a minute, I’ll be right back.” He turned and left.

Fry watched him go for a couple seconds before sighing and pulling his legs up to hug to his chest as he resumed staring up at the ceiling. Part of the reason he’d come over here was because he didn’t feel like continuing to force himself to be good company tonight. He’d get over this bout of whatever, he always did eventually, but for now he just kind of had to deal with it.

It wasn’t long before the clank of Bender’s footsteps drew his gaze back down. Bender had a chair with him now which he placed next to Fry’s before sitting down in. “I brought you a drink.” He reached into his chest compartment to pull out two beers one of which he held out towards Fry after opening it with his thumb.

Lowering his legs, Fry accepted it, pleased to find it was cold. “Thanks.”

“Yeah, whatever. Now talk about whatever it is that’s making you sad. Or don’t. I don’t care. Whatever’ll get you out of this mood faster so we can actually enjoy Xmas.”

Honestly, Fry already felt a little better. He didn’t know how to thank Bender for that though without it being weird and sappy. So instead, he started telling Bender about his experiences with Christmas and what it and Santa were supposed to be like. How much attention Bender was actually paying him was hard to say but it didn’t really matter much anyway, it was just nice to get a chance to talk about it with someone.

[underoossss]

A Christmas Plan [1 /2] - H.O

pairing: Harrison Osterfield x f!reader

words: around 2k

warnings: none, just lots of yearning

AN: lmaoooo guess who’s back just in time for the holidays!!! Sorry for being so MIA and my crazy update schedule, things have been crazy in my mind my life and the world. I asked for prompts a while back and @hollandharrison asked for a best friends to loves fic with the prompt “It’s so hard not to fall in love with you.” SINCE ITS XMAS I DECIDED TO MAKE IT A XMAS FIC! This is a best friends to lovers, fake dating, mutual pinning, wedding and oh no there’s only one bed fic! Enjoy! And please leave some feedback I’d love to know if you enjoyed it. Part 2 on Friday!!!!! I hope you like this Rosalie!! ❤️❤️❤️

Masterlist

———-

There’s jazzy Christmas music playing in the busy restaurant, it’s Holly Jolly Christmas, you think as you try to listen over the chatter coming from the various tables surrounding you. The restaurant’s floor is cream colored, shiny, and marble glazed. There are fancy lamps hanging from the ceiling and many plants in expensive looking pots all over the main entrance and windows. One wouldn’t think one the best burgers you’ve tried in your life comes from a fancy restaurant in London like this, or that it’s the only thing you and your best friend order from the menu. It’s only during special occasions that the two of you meet to enjoy them, as the bill is quite high and always a problem. Harrison always wants to pay, and so do you. Right now, though, as fancy dishes like salmon, ravioli and gorgeous little desserts are being served all around, you’re not sure if you can even eat anything at all.

Nervous is an understatement. You arrived at the restaurant 15 minutes early to rehearse what you wanted to say and get ready for the likely rejection that could follow, but from the moment you sat down, you’ve done nothing but fidget with the napkin in front of you. The beautiful swan that had been placed on your plate when you arrived is nowhere in sight, it is only a wrinkled square in your hands.

“The worst that can happen is that he’ll say no.” You whisper to yourself, reaching for the glass of iced water next to your empty plate. “Harrison won’t judge or get mad because you asked.” Nodding to yourself you bring the glass to your lips and look around as you take a sip.

You nearly choke on your water when your eyes land on the main door and see Harrison walk into the restaurant. You’re quick to put the glass down and dab your chin with the napkin in front of you to make yourself presentable again and not caught off guard. Being 15 minutes early didn’t prepare you enough for this. He is like an apparition, dressed in brown checkered pants, a white t-shirt and a plaid brown jacket the host is soon to take from his shoulders. His dark blonde curls are styled backward, just enough to tame them but not too much that they look neatly combed. It’s just… perfect. You can’t look away from him, he is gorgeous, so much in fact that you have to make sure your jaw isn’t hanging right before he spots you. His smile is bright as the sun when he raises his hand a little and waves at you.

You can’t help but smile back as fireworks go off in your stomach from being at the receiving end of his. You fear that these fireworks will fly out of your mouth and ears before exploding around the whole restaurant if you’re not careful. Yeah, that wouldn’t be ideal.

You stand up when he reaches the table and embrace him. He’s warm and hugs you back tightly so you let your eyes close as you take enjoy his embrace. “Harrison! It’s so great to see you.”

“Tell me about it! I’ve missed you so much.” Harrison says once you step back and sit back down. Harrison takes his phone out of his pocket to sit down, then proceeds to turn it off and set it on the table. “It’s been what, two weeks? My schedule has been crazy, sorry I haven’t had time to hang out. You look beautiful by the way.”

You are still looking at his phone, not containing your smile at the small but very meaningful gesture before you meet his gaze again. “Oh! Thank you, so do you.” A chuckle leaves your lips as you glance down at your outfit. It’s a mid-length burgundy silk dress on top of a black long sleeve blouse with ruffles on the sleeves, a belt and black booties. “That’s alright, you don’t need to apologize Haz. We always try to make time to meet every once in a while, and here we are.” Everyone is busy, especially during this time of the year, when any free time is consumed by shopping, gift wrapping or preparing for any Christmas tradition.

Harrison is about to say something else when the server arrives. She’s tall and gorgeous and barely spares you a glance before addressing Harrison, all smiles and charm. “Have you had enough time to check the menu? What can I get for you?”

You move your gaze away from them and focus on fidgeting with the ruffle of your shirt sleeve. Better to let Harrison flirt back and give her his number if he wants without you looking. You’re forced to bite the inside of your cheek and think of something else other than the interaction in front of you, doubting if you’re still going to ask him or not. That all stops when you hear Harrison call your name, which makes you look up and meet his eyes.

He is smiling at you with a curious tilt to his head. “The usual, right love?”

You feel your chest warm at the smile he gives you and the endearment that makes the server twist her lips sourly. She loses all interest in the guy in front of you when you nod at Harrison, answering his question.

His smile turns even brighter for a second and he closes the menu. “We’ll have two of the Chef’s burgers with fries for the side dish and ketchup for the beautiful lady here.” The server nods and writes the order down.

“Drinks?” She asks, her tone much different than it was a minute ago.

This time it is you that speaks up. “Iced tea for me, please, and he’ll have a glass of lemonade.”

“As usual.” Harrison smiles and winks your way.

You roll your eyes playfully, dismissing the feelings your heart is bringing to the surface at the moment. Another server brings breadsticks with dipping sauces over to the table before you’re both left alone.

“How have you been?” Harrison asks while placing his napkin on his lap and reaching for a breadstick.

You take another sip of water. “Great actually. I got promoted at work.”

He puts his breadstick down, a smile appearing on his lips. “What! That’s amazing Y/N!! Congratulations!”

A laugh leaves your lips as you shrug your shoulders. “Thank you Haz. I’m the marketing manager now, which is pretty cool.”

“That’s huge, love, and well deserved as well. You’ve done an amazing job there since you started as an intern.” Harrison continues to praise you and you feel your face and ears burning up at his words and enthusiasm.

You smile, you’ve loved your job from day one and as years have gone by you’ve been constantly improving, but the promotion is still a bit of a shock. With another shrug of your shoulders, you thank Harrison again, knowing that his congratulations are genuine.

“What have you been doing?” You ask this time, wanting to know how filming for his upcoming project had gone. “Filming went alright?”

“Yeah, it went brilliant! We’re all done now but I still have to record some additional audio next week for a couple of days.” His eyes light up and he smiles while he talks about the series, making your heart warm. You know how much he’s worked to get the role and being cast as the main character, the Prince of England in fact, in a Netflix series had been his dream come true.

“So, the Prince of England has been busy.” You tease, resting your chin on your palm. Harrison only chuckles and looks away almost shyly. “I’m so happy for you and so proud, truly. This is going to be huge, Haz.”

“We’ll have to see, but yes I think it can be. Thank you.” He meets your gaze, a soft smile on his lips and an indecipherable look in his eyes. You smile at him for a couple more seconds before the food coming to your table makes you look away.

Your orders are served in front of you and the drinks placed by your side when you remember why you asked Harrison to meet you for lunch. The thought makes you nervous all over again as you pick up a fry and use it to poke the other ones on the plate.

“What’s on your mind?” Harrison asks, looking at you curiously. “Something tells me this isn’t just about your promotion and my new role. You’ve never been so hesitant to eat your fries before.”

You sigh and look at him again, he knows you too well, which is why you think this might work. Summoning all the courage you have you open your mouth to utter your proposal. “My cousin, Travis, is getting married on Christmas Eve.”

“Oh yeah I remember Travis, nice bloke. You need a plus on at the wedding?” Harrison takes a sip of his lemonade before leaning forward, giving you all his attention.

“It’s more complicated than that.” You squeeze your eyes shut. “The wedding is going to be at the family’s country house, but most of the family will go to the house on the 22nd until the wedding. They want to spend time together and catch up then instead of the night of Travis’ wedding.”

You finally pick up a fry and eat it, breathing in deeply to explain the most important detail. “I want to ask you to be my fake boyfriend that week.”

Harrison chuckles in disbelief, clearly thinking that you’re joking. “What?”

“Please Harrison, you’re an actor and one of my best friends so you know me better than anyone. Which make the chances of us getting caught in the lie very slim.” You look into his beautiful blue eyes to try and convince him. “Christmas is the worst time for single people. You remember my cousin Gladys?”

“Yeah. Superficial, conceited and can’t stand the conversation not being about her.” Harrison rolls his eyes. “Not to mention she’s always been rude to you.”

“She got married.” You state somberly. “Which means that because we’re the same age, every dating question from my family will be directed at me, and they’ll compare me incessantly. Not to mention her teasing and criticism will be even worse now that she has ‘accomplished’ something I haven’t.”

With another sigh you look down at your food, instantly regretting asking Harrison in the first place. You dip another fry in ketchup and chew it silently as you look around the restaurant. Harrison is staring at his food, seemingly lost in thought and hesitant to say anything. “You know what, never mind. Please forget that I asked, it’s a dumb request.”

You’ll deal with your nosy and presumptuous cousin on your own. You’re used to her criticism anyways, so you can take three more days. She’ll probably talk about her about her nose job all the time and her wedding ring, or if she’s bored, she’ll comment on your appearance. You hate it but you’re used to it.

“I’ll do it.” Harrison’s voice breaks you out of your own thoughts.

“What?” It is your turn to have a tone of disbelief. “You’ll really do it?”

“Y/N, you know you can always count on me. If this will help you have an enjoyable Christmas, then of course I’ll help you.” Harrison reaches his hand out to grab yours, its freezing and his warms it up in seconds. “Besides, can’t say no to a wedding.”

That brings a laugh out of you, your eyes glazy as they look into his. Gosh you love him, you love him so much. Will being in a fake relationship with him for three days hurt your heart once it’s over? Absolutely, but a selfish part of you wants to know how it would be, to date him whether it’s real or just pretend.

“Only if you’re sure.” You speak up, not wanting to force him into anything. “It’s only until the wedding. You’re free to spend Christmas day with your family, I wouldn’t want you to miss it.”

“I wouldn’t have said yes if I wasn’t, love.” He squeezes your hand, a soft smile on his face. “So, now that you’ve told me what made you so nervous since the moment I walked in, how about we eat.”

You chuckle and nod. “Thank you, Harrison. I don’t know what I would do without you.”

Harrison smiles at you again, in that shy way he had previously done, before he steals some of your ketchup. “Now, tell me more about your promotion.” He says and takes a bite out of his burger.

The days seem to fly by between your lunch with Harrison and the 22nd. You were swamped with work all week as you got everything done and ready to leave for the holidays. It was a perk though, because it didn’t let you overthink every single scenario you could encounter with your family while lying to their faces. Hopefully you won’t be caught in your lie, and you won’t end up more heartbroken than you expect after your fake relationship with Harrison ends.

There’s a knock on your apartment door that brings you out of your own head. You take one last look around your home, making sure everything is in order before you go and greet Harrison by the door. His smile is soft just as his curls look, especially with the cream-colored sweater than brings out his eyes.

“Hello, love.” He gives you a hug. “Ready to go?”

You nod your head yes when you step away. “All ready, let me grab my bags.”

“I’ll get them.” Harrison says, stopping you from picking up your suitcase and doing it himself. “Not because you can’t but because I want to.”

You chuckle, that’s what he always says, and it always makes your heart skip a beat. “I know. Thank you.” You lock the door and make your way to the elevator where he two of you share a look before giggling.

“Last chance to back out.” You say, using a smile to mask your nerves. You need to get your feelings in check if you’re going to fake being his girlfriend. He must not know you’re actually in love with him, you’ve tried that before and he never took a hint. No use trying it now. “Oh, and what about–”

“Don’t worry about your dress, I got everything under control.” He bumps his shoulder against yours and smiles. “Trust me.”

He had asked you if you had your dress ready for the wedding during the same lunch you had asked him to pretend to be your boyfriend. Upon hearing you still had to go shopping for it, he had asked for your best fitting dress and claimed that he’ll handle the dress shopping. It took some insisting but finally you had agreed and given him a dress the next day, trying not to become anxious at the thought that if anything were to happen, you’d be dress-less on the day of the wedding.

Harrison opens the door for you when you both reach his car before placing your suitcase on the trunk and getting into the driver’s seat. “Here we go.” You smile, letting out a deep breath. “Who gets the aux cord first?”

“You’re the guest of honor, you’ve got dibs.” Harrison hands you cord and starts the car. “I hope you have some Christmas songs there.”

“Mhm.” You nod scrolling through your playlists to find the one you made for today. “I have a whole playlist ready.”

“I knew it.” He glances your way with a soft smile as he drives into the main road and starts to make his way to the highway. “You have Mariah Carey, right?”

You laugh. “Do you even have to ask?”

Half an hour has gone by when you bring up the plan for the next three days. The scenery that surrounds you is beautiful, though still not covered by snow, and Christmas songs are still playing through the car’s speakers. “So, let’s go over what will happen once we get to the house.” You take your journal out and find the small to-do list you had written down ever since you got the idea.

“We’ll pretend that we are a couple. If anyone asks, we got together during that trip we had with friends over the summer and we don’t have to kiss on the lips.” You keep your eyes on your journal when you bring up the kissing part, knowing that if you kissed him there would be no going back to being ‘just friends’ anymore. Your friendship would be gone. “I won’t make you do that.”

“Okay.” Harrison says, keeping his eyes on the road. “We can say that our friends set us up during the trip to finally tell each other how we feel, and we’ve been together ever since.”

“Right, good idea. If they ask why they haven’t seen us together in our social media, we’ll go for the ‘we don’t need to post pictures for our relationship to be real’ route.” You glance to your right to see his profile, looking for any reaction but his face doesn’t give anything away. “And if at any time, any of us wants to stop the lie, we can.”

You look out of the window now, not wanting Harrison to see the longing in your face. The one thing you want most of the lie to be real so there will be no stopping it from your side, if you have to fake a break-up it’ll be because Harrison asks you to.

“I don’t think anyone wants a break-up during Christmas.” He chuckles and you can see on your peripheral that he’s shaking his head and smiling. “Do I know everyone that’s going to be there?”

Going back to the journal you scan the list of guests and nod. “Pretty much, yes. The ones that will be staying until the wedding are my parents, granny, my aunts Ruth, Katherine and Cass, their husbands, my 2 younger cousins, Travis with his fiancé and my dreaded cousin.”

Harrison keeps nodding as you mention the people on your list only noting that he doesn’t know your cousin’s fiancé or your aunt Katherine, but other than that he’s met all of them.

“You shouldn’t let your cousin get to you. You know?” He says after a few minutes of silence. “Just ignore her. She craves attention, if you don’t listen to her, you’ll piss her off.”

“It’s harder than that I’m afraid, she seeks out to bug me specifically.” You laugh. “But now with you, dearest boyfriend, she won’t comment on me being single while bragging about her husband and being a trophy wife.” You take his hand that’s not on the wheel and give it a squeeze.

The smile he sends your way makes an even bigger one takes over your face. “I can instead brag about my beautiful girlfriend.” Harrison says squeezing your hand when you laugh and nod.

“Alright, if you want to.” You shrug, your eyes still trained on his face. The light coming from his window makes his hair look almost golden, and it takes your breath away. You feel your ears burning though when he turns to you briefly and catches you staring.

“Y/N?” He asks, moving his gaze back to the road.

“Hm?” You wonder if he’s going to ask you to let go of his hand, but another squeeze proves you wrong.

“Relax okay, it’ll be fine.” He brings you hand to his lips and places a kiss over your knuckles. “Now, do you still have that greatest hits playlist you made a while back?”

Your heart is beating a mile a minute and it’s threatening to climb out of your throat at Harrison’s kiss, only fueling your longing. Not trusting to speak right away, you clear your throat before you answer. “Yeah, I have it right here. Any requests?”

Harrison tells you the song he wants you to play and starts to sing along when it starts to play over the speakers, but you can’t focus on it. Your eyes and your thoughts are on the hand that’s still holding yours between both of your seats, the way they look intertwined and the warmth that his gives yours. How are you going to keep your feelings in check for three days when one tiny kiss has you in a frenzy?

Hopefully, you’ll figure it out in the rest of the car ride.

—— part 2 coming soon——

Tagging: @sunflowerspidey @hollandharrison @peeterparkr @soft-haz @angelhaz11 💖💖

[anomander-dragnipurake]

Important Gift

MERRY XMAS!

This fic doesn't relate to the Xmas Eve fic. I actually had the idea for this one first, they just happened to end up being in the same location. So I guess you can view this happening the same night as the Xmas Eve fic if you'd like to.

~

Bowser usually made a point not to leave his castle in the winter months, he’d forgotten why until now. Away from the lava flows all throughout his kingdom, it was freezing. Up high in the atmosphere aboard his airship, it was even worse. The cold felt almost like a malevolent presence sapping his strength. He was tempted to produce fire to warm himself both inside and out but he’d accidentally burned down airships in the past with only a little bit of fire; he didn’t dare risk embarrassing himself like that during his first official trip to Peach’s Castle as an ally.

Thus it was a huge relief when they finally reached the castle and descended to land in its courtyard. It was still quite cold though and the snow crunched rather horribly beneath his feet when he stepped out onto it after descending the boarding plank. The airship crew – all shy guys because piloting the airships was their forte – seemed rather fascinated by it though, waddling around in it and even bending over to touch it.

Leaving them to it, Bowser turned and started for the castle entrance, resisting the urge to pull his arms in and hug himself for warmth. At least he’d chosen to wear a suit which proved as a small barrier against the cold. Next year though he was going to host an Xmas party and then everyone could come his castle and enjoy the warmth. He’d even deck it out in pretty Xmas lights the way Peach’s Castle was.

Peach met him at the entrance, letting him in with a smile. She’d been the first person to accept and believe Luigi’s promises that he’d changed. “Merry Xmas, I’m glad you came, I wasn’t sure if you would accept my invite.”

“Merry Xmas,” he replied with a grunt, trying to hide his relief over how much warmer it was in here compared to outside. It still wasn’t nearly as warm as he’d like but given a little time for the chill to leave his bones, it’d be bearable.

“Now before you go mingle, no arguing with Mario, okay? This is supposed to be a pleasant evening for everyone.”

Now that was just unfair, it was Mario who started their arguments every time he tried to suggest that Bowser was using and lying to Luigi for some kind of nonsensical evil scheme. But… whatever. “Yeah okay, I’ll be good,” he said before splitting off towards the fireplace. He didn’t want to reveal that his weakness was being too cold but at the same time he needed its warmth to drive out the last of the cold dragging him down like a ball and chain.

As he made his way through the milling party goers made up of mostly Toads, his presence unsurprisingly caused a stir but no overt protest. The whole Mushroom Kingdom had to know about him and Luigi by now and seemingly, like Peach, it didn’t bother them as much as one would think, most of them seemed to be willing to blindly trust Luigi’s judgment that Bowser was better now. Gosh, it’d be so easy to exploit that trust for potentially massive gain but… he didn’t want to. It probably hadn’t been Luigi’s intent when he’d gone to Bowser to convince him to make peace with the Mushroom Kingdom but a lot of his kindness had rubbed off onto Bowser. He was far too cute, trusting, and kind for Bowser to ever desire to cause him any kind of harm. Though annoying at first, it actually felt quite nice now that he was used to it.

He hadn’t been standing by the fire for more than a few minutes before Luigi found him. Instead of his usual outfit, Luigi wore an endearingly ugly green Xmas sweater with a green Santa Hat to match. It was kind of tacky but in a cute way. He greeted Bowser with a warm smile as he came up to stand beside him.

“I’m surprised you came,” he said after Bowser had returned his wordless greeting.

“Why wouldn’t I have come?”

Luigi shrugged. “I don’t know just… didn’t think Xmas parties would be your thing. You look nice though.”

“Thanks.” Suits – and just clothing in general but especially nice clothing – were a bit of a pain for him to put on but the effect was almost always worth it. As far as he could tell, Luigi always seemed to like it when he dressed up too which was a large part of why he’d chosen to do so tonight. “You look good too, very cute.” Though he was always cute as far as Bowser was concerned.

Luigi blushed a little but didn’t look away. “Thanks.”

They chatted for a bit, catching up on things while full feeling finally returned to Bowser’s extremities. Mario eventually came by but thankfully he was mostly cordial, only underhandly implying he didn’t trust Bowser a few times. It was a struggle but Bowser pretended to not pick up on those implications, tonight was too important for him to have another spat with Mario.

Soon after that Bowser and Luigi ended up at the drink table. There was no hard liqueur, just mildly spiked punch but to be honest Bowser preferred sweet drinks anyway even if everyone he’d ever told was surprised by that. There was food on the other end of the table too but he was a bit to nervous to eat anything yet.

The little gift box in his pocket seemed to grow heavier with every passing hour. He needed to just take it out and give it to Luigi already. Kamek had advised him not to, saying that this was moving too fast and that doing it here when so many witnesses were around wasn’t a good idea in general. But that had only hardened Bowser’s resolve because he did what he wanted when he wanted. Besides, while Kamek’s counsel was good for a lot of things, he was single so taking his advice on romance related things would be stupid.

So, before he could chicken out…. “I got a gift for you,” Bowser said during the next opportunity. “I know we already exchanged gifts the other day,” they’d done so because due to their sort of long-distance nature of their relationship as well as needing to spend time with their separate families, they wouldn’t be spending Xmas together in person, “but this is special.” He pulled out the little box and handed it to Luigi. “I’d like it if you opened it now.”

“Uh… okay, thanks.” Luigi gave it an almost nervous look before grabbing one end of the neatly done bow and giving it a pull, allowing him to lift the lid and pull out the little ring box. He froze at the sight of it. He didn’t look scared though, just very surprised.

After some hesitation but without need of further prompting, he opened that too, letting out a small gasp at the sight of the ring inside. Finding a jeweler capable of making a ring sized to fit a human had been hard but well worth it. Bowser of course had spared no expense, ordering the fanciest everything possible, only the best would do for his hopefully soon to be fiancé.

Luigi’s eyes lifted to look back up at Bowser. “Are you uh… um…”

“Asking you to marry me?” Bowser finished for him with a grin. “Yes, I am. So, will you?”

“Well I uh… I don’t know what to say. I uh… um…”

People were taking notice of them, they’d obviously overheard. Mostly Bowser didn’t care. Asking Luigi this here and now was both supposed to be special because it was Xmas Eve but it was also a bit of a power move towards the people who disapproved of their relationship – mostly Mario but Toadsworth too and probably others as well – all of whom should be here. But if Luigi said ‘no’…

“Yes,” Luigi finally answered, nodding and blushing quite hard. “Yes, I’ll… marry you. Now uh… if you’ll excuse me…” He turned and fled.

The folks who’d gathered nearby turned and murmured something amongst themselves in excited whispers. The news of Bowser’s proposal and Luigi’s ‘yes’ to it would be known by everyone in this room in a matter of minutes, at most half an hour before everyone in the castle knew. Which was good; Luigi was officially engaged to be Bowser’s now and he wanted everyone to know it. So, letting his pride swell his chest out, Bowser went after his shy and flustered fiancé, not rushing for he wanted to give Luigi some time to collect himself but he also wanted to be with him when Mario tried to confront him about their newfound engagement.

[oceanselevenism]

I've seen that most of the stories on ao3 about them are mostly canon-compliant (and I don't have anything against that tbh) but I was wondering if you have any aus that you think could fit them or that you'd like to see?

omg i have SO MANY aus!! (it got Very Long so its under a cut)

- college au! danny gets kicked out (hes on full scholarship and does Thiefly Things to cover his expenses so hes not endangered just fairly fucked up abt it) (does it count as kicked out if u only live w ur dad three months a year) in freshman year, he befriends rusty (1 year below him) in sophomore year, debbie also befriends rusty (she and danny dont talk much but shes 2 yrs below him at the same college), and when reuben comes calling for a job he thinks debbie has a boyfriend (thanks to debbie telling her dad that she does) so she fake dates rusty. who ends up joining the job. and danny is Very Jealous

- snl ripoff au! danny and rusty are the weekend-update-adjacent anchors and they get gay. i Would have this take place in la (reuben is taking A Risk producing a late night sketch comedy show on the west coast but the 11/12/however fuckin many are fantastic cast members so even though they lose revenue from the other timezones not watching as much as they watch snl or whatever, they still make BANK... but danny and rusty getting gay throws the equilibrium out of whack) BUT la sucks DICK so its happening in new york. also this way u get Ocean Sibling Banter (debbie and lou are the anchors for The Actual Weekend Update and when debbie/lou get together and also when danny/rusty get together there are so many ‘just switch out the blondes/brunettes nobody will be able to tell and we won’t have hr down our necks’ jokes)

- au where the caldwells, abt to go deep undercover on a Huge Fucking Case, have to give up custody of 6 year old linus to tess and danny. the case stretches on for twelve years and linus grows up w tess and danny (who get divorced like right after they adopt him bc tess finds out abt dannys Thiefly Activities-- he confesses to her bc he doesnt rly want to predispose the kid to said thiefly activities) and also isabel (she and rusty break up like Right Before tess and dannys wedding and its very funny; she then goes on to marry tess) parenting him (rusty isnt as much in the picture bc he doesnt feel bad at all abt stealing and tess doesnt want linus to pick up that mentality also rusty Feels Things abt danny)! then when linus is like 18 or 19 danny disappears (tess and isabel think its Thiefly Activities again and arent concerned, just disappointed, but linus is very concerned for his dad-slash-stepdad-slash-sort-of-uncle) and he tracks down rusty so they can find danny. they roadtrip across america and eventually catch up to danny, who is helping the caldwells, and the five of them take down whatever gang the caldwells were chasing. linus now has 6 parents

- au based on this post where some archaeologist finds a bunch of dannys [french person voice] Love Lettairs 2 rusty and so obviously the logical course of action is to rob the museum (which happens to be the museum that tess is curating. funny how things work out) without telling his team What Theyre Stealing. they successfully pull off the heist but turns out the letters were not among the items they stole!! danny is getting desperate. as a last-ditch attempt he calls tess and asks her to let them rob the museum. shes like Why The Fuck Would I Do That. he explains and she begrudgingly agrees. danny and livingston go break into the museum Again but rusty tails them bc dannys been acting Weird and he finds out abt the letters bc livingston sweats more whenever he tells a lie. they live happily ever after (literally, theyre immortal) the end. also even though dannys a werewolf the 11 all call him the new jersey devil (its not his fault that legend came to be ok!! he was very drunk!!)

- childhood friends au!! danny and rusty were best buds as very young kids and then the oceans had to move. flash forward 2 present day where danny and debbie r robbing a museum (theyre building a flower shop over the vault and tunneling in, the dudes in brazil who came up w it are very very clever) and guess which two people are the assistant curators (is that even a title?). guess. ill tell u its tess and rusty! danny recognizes rusty, rusty ‘does not recognize’ danny (which is valid. look at photos of child george clooney and tell me you would recognize him). the 11 demand that they use this to their advantage and so danny and rusty Sort Of Date while the rest set up for the robbery, and danny feels really bad abt it so on the day of (after everyone has gotten away, ofc, he might be a lovesick bitch but hes not a snitch) he confesses and rustys like lmao i was onto u from the start. what kind of a name is [insert alias here] anyway. then they go live a life of crime and its great

- @sanduschism came up w a fantastic au where danny pickpockets rusty and feels bad so he sends the wallet back and they strike up a Correspondence

- HOSPITAL AU!!! danny and rusty r er techs while theyre doing med school and nobody knows how they juggle their shifts w school but also rusty can do a tracheotomy in like 5 seconds and danny can tell when a person needs an mri before they even list their symptoms so nobody questions it and nobody splits them up Ever. when they eventually become surgeons, danny does cardio and rusty does neuro, and whenever they have to work together not only do they never have to say what theyre doing, they don't even have What Do U Want To Cook For Dinner convos fully out loud. tess is head nurse... she makes so many excel spreadsheets... they are ALL color coded. isabel is head er doc and nobody dares to halfass things on her watch. reuben is head hospital admin, saul is chief surgeon, basher is head of the burn unit, the malloys r the HUNKIEST nurses in town, frank does plastic surgery/ent (every patient loves him bc he is just So Calm), livingston is The IT Guy, yen does like orthopedics or physical therapy, and linus is their fav resident who they all lovingly tease 24/7. the ocean sibs r both Cardio Gods and each dominate their respective coasts. debbie is an nyc doctor and if she sees a mass gen doctor its on SIGHT. the few surgeries that she and danny collab on go so fast that the med students in the gallery Cannot tell whats happening. lou is also a plastic surgeon and she and frank r best buds. linus requests time off like 6 months in advance Every Time and everyone hates it bc then They have to be on call but he doesnt realize his Extreme Overachieverness is causing so much strife. whenever tess and danny get in an argument she colorcodes his rounds spreadsheet to be the most neon shit youve ever seen. can you tell i never fully progressed past my greys anatomy phase this one is like 93489302 lines long

- superpower au where rusty has midas touch and danny has corrosive touch and when theyre too young to have control over their powers (abilities develop throughout adolescence and the user gains control at the end of adolescence) they accidentally brush hands and are terrified they just killed each other but turns out their powers like. cancel out. so until they reach like 21 or 22 and can touch things without fucking them UP they just. hold hands all the time. bc otherwise they have to wear gloves to prevent Accidents and both of them “hate gloves” (and also love holding hands. gayasses)

- uhhh hallmark au where danny is a crime fiction writer out on some beach north of ocean city nj and rusty is his fancy nyc editor. everyone else is a thief including debbie who is just Very weirded out that her brother, who robbed boston’s institute of contemporary art at age 22 and got away with it, has decided to spend the rest of his life churning out books. he is very critically acclaimed and about half of the 11 are buds with him and use his published books as heist inspo. the other ~half of the 11 are buds with rusty, and they tell him if danny’s heists are feasible or not (they always are. scarily so.) anyway rusty and isabel break up 12 days before xmas and danny and tess break up 8 days before hanukkah so dannys heading to debbie’s place in upstate new york to mope for the holidays when A BLIZZARD HITS and he gets stranded in midtown. and he and rusty are buds but like. Email Buds. they dont hang out irl and therefore they dont let their Totally Bud-Like Feelings mess up their professional relationship. but danny is stranded and its hanukkah and he ends up crashing at rustys place for the duration of the blizzard. and then rusty ends up coming to debbies place for the rest of the holidays. and then they kiss on new years eve and debbie kicks them out bc theyre being gross

- And More! thanks for the ask, anon! sorry it got so long lol i just have Many Thoughts

[btsmosphere]

Sweet Surprises | KTH

~summary: The story of how Taehyung’s fridge filled up with fruitcake. Taehyung x reader ~word count: 2.8k ~neighbour au, strangers to lovers, fluff Rating: pg ~warnings: I don’t think there are any :) ~a/n: Happy birthday Taehyung!! Here is my offering for the bingo square ‘fruitcake’! Wasn’t sure I was even going to write for this square since I don’t personally like fruitcake, but that itself inspired this one hehe.. I have so enjoyed all my xmas projects (and I managed to do 8 bingo squares!) but I am also excited to start posting different things in the new year! I have some new series in the making so stay tuned...

In the quiet corridor, your tentative knock rang out clearly.

Shifting between your feet, you stared at the unbudging door, on the verge of dashing straight back home.

But before you could give the idea any more thought, the click of the handle turning from the other side made you freeze. Glancing down, you reassured yourself with the sight of the plate in your hands.

And then you were face to face with your most gorgeous neighbour, a fruitcake the only barrier between you two.

“Hello!” the guy greeted, surprising you with a smile. You would have expected him to be at least a little annoyed at being interrupted by a neighbour at the door. Relaxing a little, you offered a smile too.

“Hi, I’m Y/N. I, er, made some fruitcake, but I have way too much so I, er, thought you might like some?”

The man’s eyes dropped to the plate you extended to him after getting through your little speech. Meeting your eyes again, his smile returned.

“Wow, thanks!”

He plucked it from your hands, leaving them with nothing to do.

Awkwardly fiddling with the hem of your shirt, you nodded.

“Okay, well, er, I hope you enjoy, and I should probably-“

“Wait, Y/N!”

As bidden, you stopped, waiting for his next words.

“Tell me,” he grinned, taking a step out of his apartment, “how come you have too much fruitcake? Of all things?”

“Oh,” you chuckled lightly, “well, every year my mum picks a load of fruit from a local farm, and she makes fruitcake for all the family at Christmas, and she sent me some of the fruit this year now I’m living alone, but she hasn’t really got the memo that I don’t have a family to feed, so now I have all this fruit and- sorry, I’m rambling,” you cut yourself off, one hand tangling in your hair.

Nonetheless, your neighbour’s smile had stayed in place.

“No, no,” he assured you, “don’t worry. You should come by again if you have more to get rid of!”

“Oh,” you said, taken by surprise, “okay, great!”

“Thanks,” he smiled, “oh, and I’m Taehyung, by the way.”

“Good to meet you, Taehyung.”

When you closed the door behind you, safely back home, you let out a heavy breath, smile taking its place on your face.

You definitely had more to get rid of. After your brief interaction with Taehyung, you had to restrain yourself from making another batch of cake right away. The man needed some time to eat it!

About a week later, you had deemed it time.

So here you stood, two cooked and two uncooked fruitcakes spread in front of you, one more in the oven, all before noon had even come. Unfortunately, you knew you would have to give some to your other neighbours too: Taehyung couldn’t possibly eat five fruitcakes even if they were his favourite food on earth. Well, perhaps he could, but it would take him a while, and you would like to have the excuse to go back and deliver another in another week’s time.

Undoubtedly, it was silly, but you couldn’t help but be drawn to your handsome neighbour. Prior to last week, you had only ever seen him in passing on the staircase, but now you were dying to talk to him again, if only for a minute.

This time around, your rap at the door was a little more confident.

“Hi again!” you smiled when his head poked around the door.

“Y/N! Hi,” he beamed, letting his door fall open and leaning against the door frame, revealing he was still dressed in his pyjamas, though he still seemed perfectly at ease, “you brought more!”

“Presuming you’re still hungry,” you chuckled.

“Ah, always,” he affirmed, leaning forward to take your latest offering, “the last one… it was really great. Can’t wait for this one!”

“I’m glad,” you said, “you’ll have to let me know when you get sick of them.”

“If,” he corrected, laughing, “and why’s that? Still got your fruit problem?”

Grimacing, you nodded.

“There is just so. much!” you let out an exasperated laugh, “I’m not even sure if I can use it up by Christmas.”

“Well, I’m always here for that,” Taehyung sent you a winning grin. “So, this is a Christmas tradition for your family?”

Nodding, you explained, “definitely, and the recipe I use has been passed down from my great grandmother. And there’s always one on the table on Christmas day. My mum taught me to bake it ever since I was four.”

“Wow,” Taehyung raised his eyebrows, “that’s impressive. No wonder they taste so good!”

“Thank you,” you smiled, looking down at your feet.

“Listen, I should go and get ready, but I’ll pop round and bring back your plates at some point, yeah?”

“Sounds great, thanks,” you smiled before bidding him farewell and returning to your other fruitcakes.

Another week, another fruitcake plated up and waiting on your counter as you dashed around the apartment like a mad woman. You had completely forgotten your promise to meet with some old friends in town, having remembered mid-shower, and now you were doing your hair, brushing your teeth and picking an outfit that might make you look like a functioning person, all at once.

So a knock on the door was not what you needed.

With every intention of not answering, you poked your head around the curtain just to see who it was.

And just like that, you were dashing down the stairs to let in Kim Taehyung.

“Hi!” you greeted breathlessly.

“Oh, hi,” he smiled, “am I… interrupting?”

“Don’t worry, it’s fine!” you stepped back, one hand holding onto the hair you were plaiting, “I was going to come round later anyway.”

“Nice,” he held up the two plates you had given him, now spotlessly clean, “I was just bringing these back.”

Though you made to take them from him, you soon thought better of it.

“Sorry, if you could just-“

“Through there-?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

“Thanks,” you laughed nervously, following him through to your kitchen. Of course, it wasn’t as clean as you would have liked him to see, but he didn’t take any notice.

“Since you’re here, you could just take it now,” you nodded towards the latest fruitcake as he set down the plates.

“Ah, yes, great, thank you,” he shot you a smile, “I look forward to it.”

“No problem!” you grinned, finally finishing up your plait and freed your hand.

“I should probably get going,” he said, then grimaced. “Christmas shopping awaits.”

“Good luck to you then,” you laughed, “I’m just about to head into town too.”

“Oh! Walk with me?” he asked, “I’ll just go and put this inside…”

“See you in a moment!” you called as he headed back out the door with your cake.

Walking into town was a lot nicer with Taehyung at your side, you noticed. You two chatted more about your Christmas traditions and families, and how much of a nightmare they were to buy presents for. It seemed your mothers were very similar, always asking for things only to never use them, or worse, send them back.

“Why ask for it then?” you threw your hands out in exasperation, both of you laughing little clouds into the air.

Not long later, Taehyung pointed out that you had reached the café you were heading to. You were definitely late for your friends, but that didn’t matter at all when he gave you a quick parting hug.

Waving at him, you wished him luck with the shopping, ignoring the way your heart fluttered more after that one hug than it had during the entire walk here.

Inside, you were pleasantly surprised as your friends didn’t care at all about you being late, instead inundating you with questions about who you were with. You did your best to wave them off with just a friend, just my neighbour, but you couldn’t help the pang in your heart.

If only you could call him more than that…

Fortunately, he really seemed to like your baking.

“I’ve never known anyone who eats so much fruitcake,” you laughed one day, the second time he had turned up that week.

“Oh, you know me,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck, “can’t have too much fruitcake…”

“Coffee?” you asked.

“Go on then,” he smiled, following you inside, “but it’s definitely my turn next time.”

Rolling your eyes, you placed his fruitcake on the table and started on the coffee. It had been a week after your walk into town that you had turned up with the next cake and he had invited you in for tea. Incredibly excited about this development, you returned the favour the next time he came around.

Now it was approaching Christmas and he was eating your cakes quicker than ever.

Just two days before the big day, or Christmas eve eve as you liked to call it, a knock at the door.

Smiling to yourself, you abandoned the suitcase you were packing and rushed to open it.

“Happy Christmas eve eve!” you greeted Taehyung.

Instead of returning the enthusiastic greeting, he looked stumped.

“Happy what?”

“Christmas eve eve,” you repeated.

He burst out laughing.

“Um, sure, I guess.”

“I promise it’s a thing!” you insisted, “well, with me anyway… sorry, would you like a drink?”

“Actually, I was coming to invite you for a drink at mine,” he said, “I told you it was my turn next, right?”

Considering you could use a break (and not at all because you would never turn down an offer to spend time with Tae), you hurriedly agreed. Slipping on your shoes only to take them back off a few seconds later across the threshold of Tae’s house, you followed him through.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got it!” he smiled brightly, “you can wait in here.”

As he disappeared into the kitchen, you made yourself at home in his sitting room, noting, as you did every time you had been here, his immaculate taste in decor. Soft sounds of mugs and teaspoons clinking came from the kitchen, and soon you found yourself with a hot drink between your hands.

“Oh no!” you exclaimed as he set down a slice of cake too, “can we share it? You didn’t bring one for yourself.”

“Uh, sure,” he sat heavily, “thanks.”

Taking your first forkful, you sat back.

“I never said it before, but your house is really nice.”

“Thanks, I’m glad you think so,” he blushed, hiding his face with a sip of his drink.

“Especially the artwork… will you tell me about that one?”

“Oh, that’s actually one of mine.”

“What?” you gaped, “No way! That’s incredible!”

To your dismay, a phone call soon interrupted your… thing. Whatever it was you were having. Tea, you supposed. Certainly not a date.

Quickly apologising, Tae peeked at the screen before excusing himself.

“My mother,” he said, “probably panicking about Christmas plans. I’ll be right back.”

With a laugh, you nodded to show you understood. The moment he left, you let out a sigh. Your mothers should meet each other, it sounded like they would really get along. But perhaps meeting family was going a bit far.

You had to control yourself. Nothing had ever happened, nor would ever happen with Tae. This whole perfect boy-next-door thing was reserved for movies. Not for someone like you.

A few minutes of you twirling your fork around a now empty plate, and Tae was still talking in the hallway. Deciding to make yourself useful, you heaved yourself up from his sofa with your empty dishes in hand.

Leaving what must be the softest, squishiest sofa in the land was a tragedy you didn’t enjoy, but you were only going to pop into the kitchen and ditch the plate.

Right?

But when you did step into the kitchen, you stopped in the doorway.

“What the…” you breathed, venturing one more step in.

Spread across half the counter were your fruitcakes. All of them were still wrapped up, except one that you presumed he had just served to you. Still staring at the stack, you set your things down as softly as possible.

Spinning, slowly, silently, on your heels, you cast your eyes over the rest of the kitchen. Though the counter had a tower of cake on it, you were sure it wasn’t every one you had given to Tae. Then a crack of light caught your attention.

The fridge was open, just a crack, but you walked towards it, eyebrows creasing together. Reaching your hand forwards, you pulled.

A loud thud sounded as a fruitcake launched from the fridge, landing with a slight splat at your feet. And what’s more, the fridge itself was equally stuffed with your fruitcakes.

An instant hush fell outside. Tae had heard.

Spinning around, eyes wide like a child caught breaking into the cookie jar, you were just in time to see Taehyung come to the doorway. When his eyes met yours, you found much the same expression there as you wore yourself.

“I’ll call you back,” he mumbled into the phone, lowering it slowly without taking his eyes off you.

“…sorry,” was the first word to fall from your mouth, “I was just putting back the mug and-“

“Let me explain?” he cut in, “I- I do want them, I swear, and thank you- “

“You clearly don’t want them,” you spoke, confusion lacing your voice, “What are you going to do with all these?”

Following your gesture, he cringed as he took in all the fruitcakes he had amassed.

“I was hoping my friends might like some,” he muttered sheepishly, now looking resolutely at his shoes, “and- and my mum really wants to try some…”

“You don’t like fruitcake?” you whispered.

Finally, Tae looked up.

“No…”

“But- why did you keep asking for more?”

“I… I…”

Watching him closely, you waited. He was so endearing, all flustered like this, but you were honestly perplexed.

“How else was I meant to keep seeing you without seeming weird?”

Your eyebrows raised.

“No offense… but this also seems pretty weird.”

“Yeah, point taken,” he sighed, rubbing at the back of his neck, “but it was a good excuse. And look how much fruit you used up!”

In the face of his hopeful grin, you could only laugh.

“You… you wanted to see me?”

“Yes! I did try the first cake, I promise, I tried so hard to like it, but I just-“

“Taehyung!”

Snapping his mouth shut, he looked up at you with big eyes.

“You could have just said so! Do you not know why I kept coming here with those cakes?”

The expression that met you was blank, only a blink coming in answer.

“Taehyung, I wanted to see you too. I like you.”

For a moment, you were afraid he wouldn’t respond. That perhaps you had got the wrong idea, that this silence was his way of rejection. But then he sighed, a laugh hidden within it, and finally spoke.

“Well that makes things simple,” a small smile spread onto his face, “because I like you too. And I would eat every fruitcake in this room if you let me take you out on a date.”

“That won’t be necessary,” you returned the smile, “I would love to go out with you.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

The boxy smile that lit up his face found its way quickly to your own as well when he stepped towards you. Reaching out his hand, he gently took your own and tugged you closer. Before you knew it, his lips were on yours, his other hand at your jaw, barely grazing the skin as if he would wake up and find it all to be a dream if he held you too tightly.

Eyes closed in bliss, you covered the hand with your own, assuring you both. Yes, this was real.

Pulling back, all either of you could do was stare into each other’s eyes as they creased with the smiles you wore.

“I guess all those fruitcakes were a good thing after all?” Taehyung whispered.

Looking over your shoulder at your baking, piled up around his kitchen, a laugh bubbled slowly from your throat. Head falling onto his shoulder, you closed your eyes as his own laughter rumbled through you.

“What are we going to do with them?”

There was more than one fruitcake on your Christmas table that year. But an extra seat at the table was definitely worth it.

Thank you for reading and reblogging!!

Taglist: @aianloveseven​ @preciouschimine​ 

Main masterlist here

[endlessdoom]

DBP19: A Doomer Boards Christmas Carol

25 Maps by the Doomer Boards Community

2019

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/themes/xmas/dbp19xmas2

MAP01: Christmas Eve Part I by Big Ol' Billy

The first teaser to this new adventure is a small hub that shows us a cozy house that follows a simple Christmas narrative to set the mood. 4/5

MAP02: Hornaments by Big Ol' Billy

The first actual map with combat, and it is quickly let go. A circular arena with a considerable amount of enemies surrounding us. The dark design and simplistic architecture give it a rather ominous feel. We will also quickly discover one of the new hidden mechanics: shooting the bells. 3/5

MAP03: Christmas Eve Part II by Big Ol' Billy

All maps will have an intermission that leads to the main hub, which also acts as a progress and rest center for reading Christmas letters. A fantastic idea that generates a unique identity. 4/5

MAP04: Festive Neighbours by Phobus

Following the tradition of MAP02 but this time in a frame. Enemies are far away and in ambush positions, waiting for the perfect moment to attack. With a claustrophobic design and a bit lost at times (the bells are well hidden) is a map that takes relatively a little more than it should. 3/5

MAP05: Christmas Eve Part III by Big Ol' Billy

Next intermission, this time we realize that our lovely home is starting to be invaded by bad guys. Oh, Sa(n)tan will be mad. 3/5

MAP06: The Pilgrim and the Hermit by Gaspe

A large map with a rather intricate and claustrophobic design that leads to a variety of paths with various small puzzles and bloody combat. The cold is felt in the hooves. 4/5

MAP07: Christmas Eve Part IV by Big Ol' Billy

Haha. Good times. 3/5

MAP08: Surprise! by glenzinho

A medium-sized Doom-city style map with a surprising design, a multitude of secrets, a small ''bell hunt'' and a progressive combat that changes and varies constantly. Fun and full of Christmas spirit. And demonic spirit too. 4/5

MAP09: Christmas Eve Part V by Big Ol' Billy

An intermission with a... surprise... ending. 3/5

MAP10: Winter Wonderland by Phobus

A surprising wonder, dark, cold and with a unique touch that delivers a variety of visual designs on a large map with fun gameplay that flows seamlessly. 4/5

MAP11: Christmas Eve Part VI by Big Ol' Billy

A hot little adventure. 3/5

MAP12: The Nut After November by SuperCupcakeTactics and glenzinho

That name is unique. For that alone it deserves an extra point. Anyway, this is a medium-large map with a multitude of interconnected roads and tight combat. Fun and with a good Christmas charisma. Hope you aren’t afraid of spiders. 4/5

MAP13: Christmas Eve Part VII by Big Ol' Billy

Ah yes, hello. 3/5

MAP14: Two Sizes Too Small by Doom_RO

A huge adventure that involves hunting different bells and quite aggressive combats through a detailed map with a pleasant and well designed design. Unfortunately, the bell hunting can be a bit irritating due to the simple nature of switch-hunting in its primordial state, but it's still a great map. 4/5

MAP15: Christmas Eve Part VIII by Big Ol' Billy

Did you know that Xmas in Romania is beautiful? 3/5

MAP16: Christmas Tree Mountain by Scrangus McBrickdad/Jaxxoon R and glenzinho

A large map with a relatively small population for its size. With an intricate design and variety of scenarios, it has a fun formula but its layout is somewhat slippery and the progression is somewhat affected. 3/5

MAP17: Christmas Eve Part IX by Big Ol' Billy

Now we explore more and more of the city in these short intermissions. 3/5

MAP18: Xmasphobia by Thundercunt

A claustrophobic and cramped map with a labyrinthine design vaguely reminiscent of Tricks 'N' Traps meets Fear of Plutonia. Interesting premise with great design. 4/5

MAP19: Christmas Eve Part X by Big Ol' Billy

Probably the hottest intermission, to the point that it could be considered a tiny map. 3/5

MAP20: Krampus Anomaly by dmdr

An excellent map with a great flow and exquisite combat, varied and with constant dynamics between the player and the fun, coupled with a good design and understandable layout. 4/5

MAP21: Christmas Eve Part XI by Big Ol' Billy

An intermission that reveals us beyond the labyrinth. Optional but rewarding exploration. 3/5

MAP22: Where Cybneezer Hid Christmas by joe-ilya

A small adventure through a kind of infnerla mansion. Secret paths and dense combat make this map a fun mission. 3/5

MAP23: Christmas Eve Part XII by Big Ol' Billy

The last intermission makes us take a walk through the wintry and dark city to get ready for the last adventure... or maybe not. 3/5

MAP24: Realm of Christmas Time by Big Ol' Billy

The "fine" map, in quotes, is a great entertaining arena with a kind of dynamic IoS that makes us face a huge variety of enemies in a small circular arena. Fun and frenetic in an expansive Christmas violence. 4/5

MAP25: Christmas Morning by Big Ol' Billy

The so famous city of the intermissions is finally given its own use in a magnificent slaughter map that will stop us in our tracks. Enormous, large and with an incredible challenge for all players. The ultimate Christmas present goes out with a boom. You're not supposed to win it (it's technically impossible) but it's a fun and crazy way to end this wad. 4/5

Overall:

» DBP19: A Doomer Boards Christmas Carol (2019) By the Doomer Boards Community

We all want to get into the enchanting spirit of the sweet Christmas season as December approaches. Nothing like celebrating the times of peace, love and understanding among all beings as by doing it in the most holy and fantastic way possible: Killing demons. Those infernal sinners are not going to clean themselves and we are here to do it. Thanks to the fantastic criminal minds of the members of the Doomer Boards Community, we have been given a fantastic Christmas installment that has all the necessary requirements to recreate a good Christmas spirit; blood, violence, guns and many, many demons. Ready to celebrate Christmas? Hit it.

A Doomer Boards Christmas Carol is a project created by the famous krew that this time is launched towards the winter celebrations of Christmas, creating a theme focused entirely on the Christmas touch of the game and redesigning textures and skins for almost the entire project, perfectly invoking that Christmas spirit that few can achieve with a game that was practically identified as a form of 3D Satanism (although it was not exactly released at Christmas, it is a Christmas game in my heart) that would launch to the market a re-copied and unique style. That of being gory and disturbing. Well, let's take the core of Doom and now give it a new twist, one that has lots of snow, cookies, warm milk, presents, red socks and some coal for the bad kids. The result? A grandiose 25-map project (half of them small intermissions) that perfectly re-invents the celebratory style into a Christmas mood that successfully recreates the game on, you guessed it, Christmas. Or something like that.

DBP19 is a fascinating project like no other that really manages to reach those standards and deliver white maps full of passion, identity and a lot of fun. Thanks to the new use of textures and the hilarious re-skins, we now have a new paint scheme for the entire game that takes us out of the hellish air and into a cooler and, uh, wholesome kind of hell.

Starting with MAP01 by @Big Ol Billy, the first map actually works as a kind of intermission/hub-styled map that makes us progress the game accompanied by a small Christmas narrative where the different members of the team give us little stories and messages about what awaits us or the story. A little touch that gives it a nice charisma. @Big Ol Billy does practically all the intermissions, as well as a few other independent maps. MAP02 continues the adventure and this time throws us directly into a combat arena that presents us with two important aspects: 1) the visual style and 2) the new mechanic of hunting ''bells'', something like switch-hunting but more simplified. MAP03 is one more intermission made by the same author, and from now on all the maps with odd number are intermissions. MAP04 by @Phobus is a re-interpretation of the first map but with a more painting style and less mercy. Gaspe comes into action with his MAP06 which gives us a great rock fortress in a world of ice full of action and beautiful visuals. MAP08 by @Glenzinho is, as the title says, a violent surprise that shows an excellent Doom-City style. @Phobus returns with MAP10 in an intricate and tight map with dark corners and welcoming demons. MAP12 by @SuperCupcakeTactics and @glenzinho wins the award for most innovative and fun title I've read all year, luckily not all is title but also essence as this is a fascinating map that combines the two styles of mappers under a perfect synergy of emotion and visual sweetness. MAP14 by @Doom_RO is a huge odyssey that makes us look for different bells while we go through different scenarios making our way through rivers of demons, all in an exciting Christmas adventure. Oh yeah. MAP16 by @Scrangus McBrickdad/Jaxxoon R and @glenzinho pits us against a huge map with amazing visuals but a somewhat confusing layout that compensates with a nice touch of detail and variety of scenarios. Thundercunt (hehe) delivers a labyrinthine and different adventure that contains as many goodies as the demons in MAP18. MAP20 by @dmdr is a fascinating ice adventure that takes us on a journey with good flow, fun combat and excellent presentation. @joe-ilya delivers a mysterious and cold mansion in MAP22, full of demons, Masterminds and a few surprises in the basement. Finally, MAP24: Realm of Christmas Time by Big Ol' Billy is an excellent final scene as we face off in a small arena-style map against a variety of enemies and a sort of modified IoS that delivers thrills and excitement. Like the good little kids, we've been. Of course, the final intermission in MAP25 is what we call a total beast that actually works like a credits map but with a twist.

Wow that was a lot of maps! Probably among the biggest (or actually biggest) DBP, quite the gift!

This winter adventure deliberates with solid greece a delivery of 25 maps full of charisma, fun, gifts and everything we need to feel comfortable and accompanied on a lonely Christmas night while the snow crashes against our windows. Not that I can relate to that because where I live it doesn't snow, but at least with this project I have managed to relate the sweet effect of nostalgia with the innocence of yesteryear where we simply wanted to enjoy Doom in its purest form. Well, this is the purest way to enjoy it at Christmas! Or practically any month, after all I'm playing this in the middle of summer. Hehe. Anyway, want some cookies? Come and get them.

[mydearesthrry]

places we won’t walk (chapter one) || peter parker

summary - the doors at midtown seem a little boring, but when you get introduced to someone you seem to remember, what happens when they seem to remember you too?

word count - 2.9k (wow shes gettin better!)

pairings - peter parker x fem!reader

warnings - like mild mention of s*xual assault, angst if you squint really hard, mj being a softy for you, mj being a lowkey bi, peter being stupid as always, y/n calling peter a colonizer.... thats it ok enjoy

a/n: so i know i last updated in october, but as u all saw i have a 25 days of xnas thing going on (PLS I WROTE THE A/N LIKE A MONTH AGO PLUS I FORGOT ABOUT THE XMAS THING DISREGARD) so pwww updates will be slow (as if they werent already omg) but the next chapter will be arriving hopefully, fingers crossed, on xmas eve or xmas! also, are you guys watching the new euphoria episode? also, i’ve stopped using the word ‘stuttering’, as it may be ableist, and i’d never wanna come off as insensitive. anyway lmao, enjoy chapter one, the trials and tribulations of hitting someone in the nuts.

also side note psa: biggest thank you to @blossomparkers for helping me so much w this chapter. i owe it all tooooo u lani yani. thank u for everything !!!!!

series masterlist | regular masterlist | series playlist

(gif not mine!)

when y/n y/m/n stark was in her early years, she was never aware of the impact her father would and did hold over her life, and in turn, the whole world. for the longest time, you’d always assumed that your father wasn’t real, and everything that had been told to you by malicious family members who were jealous over your father’s “successes” had been lies, and you had it believed yourself. no one would even think that you were tony stark’s daughter until it had been mentioned. tony’s snarky attitude had been a character trait that you’d gotten, and you always took pride in your humor and attitude.

the story of your mother and tony had been messy and all over the place. from a drunken hook-up followed by multiple days of morning sickness, to a surprise pregnancy test, the storyline of your parents had been.. well.. interesting to say the least. you never focused on your family’s history, solely based on the fact that you didn’t have two fucks to give about your family history, but you also never knew your father which was-- bizarre. 

when tony had found out about you, he claimed it was a drunken accident, a mistake, and one he made when he was “less responsibly a stark”, which was actually just some fucking bullshit, but he didn’t wanna admit that he hooked up with some random chick at a bar that he thought was hot.

since you had been raised by a mother who was barely there, you had to raise yourself. you were kinda street smart and book smart, and you were always smart when it came to books, because you were the type to want to learn-- unlike others.

when you were in your teen years, you had tabs on you and the media on you 24/7 to make sure you didn’t royally fuck up. the unwanted attention became too much when you started realizing that people didn’t want you for your personality, they wanted you for your title. but this was after you moved from brooklyn. nuvale and peter never saw you as some “movie star”, or some famous person in the media because you weren’t. but when you had grown to learn what your father did, he had forced you to not fuck up to maintain his-- somewhat okay reputation. 

you always wanted that superstar life, as a fantasy of course, but when you got to it, you realized the cliche-y-ness of it all. you’d idolized the famous women in the media-- idolized how they looked like. you realized fairly quick how fucked up the media truly is. you realized how things really aren’t as they seem. its not just the galas that look extravagant, or getting to wear a fancy new gucci outfit every night. it honestly was a whole bunch of other shit you wouldn’t even imagine. it comes with the no privacy thing- people stalking you in public, the death threats, so much shit that wouldn’t happen as common if you were just anonymous.

being an avenger (basically), your dad had natasha teach you the ropes; the basic rules of how to kick someones ass. it was a handbook that the women of the avengers had created, and it had all the rules and regulations of how to spar someone on the team, and basically how to righteously beat someone's ass up. it was never really something you found too important, but as you grew older, you realized that it was very important to know, especially since you were a girl.

despite your harsh remarks and snarky attitude, your father always knew how to hit a sensitive point in you that always managed to break you down. you never quite understood why he would want to make you feel worse about yourself than you already felt, but regardless, you always felt underappreciated by him. being a stark, you were expected to be a genius, get over the top grades, and constantly be able to keep up, but with your luck, you were graced with depression, social anxiety, and a 4.0 gpa. fun, right? 

wrong.

when you were 11, you had made friends with the kids in your apartment halls, and you learned that their names were nuvale jones and peter parker, and you were basically the golden trio. you were hermione, peter was ron, and nuvale was harry. which, now that you look back at it, makes much more sense than any other arrangement. you also had another friend, harry osborn, but once he moved away, there was no way for you to talk to him anymore. he had moved across the country to california, and from then, it was just you, peter, and nuvale. your best friends ha been there for you for what seemed like decades, although you only knew them for about three.

peter was the boy with the rosy cheeks who little 12 year old you would get butterflies in her tummy. or the type of boy to bring you an extra snack if you weren’t able to pack it the night before. he was the type of boy to walk you to the nurses office if you got hit with a dodgeball. he was the type of boy to fall for someone like you. but he didn’t. or so you thought. 

little prebubescent y/n was an awkward girl who thought the world would be on her side when she needed it the most, or that whenever you needed peter or nuva, they would be there. you didn’t think your best friend would stop talking to you after you had moved away. you were too naive to know that peter liked you, and you were too naive to know that he had liked you back, but you wanted to believe what your brain would tell you, so you decided to flush your feelings down the drain and forget about them, which, in hindsight, was a pretty shitty idea. who would’ve known?

your alarm clock blared loudly from beside you, causing you to let out a loud groan in protest. you hit the side of your head angrily, then whining and rubbing the spot which you hit. whines and loud sighs fell from your lips as you rubbed the sleep from your eyes and pulled the covers over your head, knowing what would come next after you would try to snooze your alarm.

“good morning, miss stark, how could i be of service to you this morning?” friday’s voice echoed through your large bedroom. you peaked your eyes and forehead from beneath the covers, your eyes slowly starting to adjust to the light that was pulled through the big blinds which were now open. 

“mmm, fri, just tell happy to get the car ready, ill be ready in a few min- nevermind, tell him to get ready in thirty, im probably gonna fall asleep in the shower.” you croaked, taking your phone from the charger which was on your nightstand. you slipped on your bunny slippers and turned on the heater in your room, the draft filling your room with cold air throughout the night.

-------

once you walked through the large industrial doors of midtown’s cafeteria, everyones voices started to drop into sharp hushed whispers, making you roll your eyes and pull your hood up over your face. you pulled your airpods from your pockets into your ears and tried your best to avoid any and all eye contact with anyone you did end up coming into contact with. you walked over to the food bar where you grabbed a red school tray and plastered on your best smile to the lunch ladies who work oh so hard to make sure you all were fed. as you walked through the line, you could feel the intensified stares on you, making your back erupt in chills. you didn’t like to be watched, and the fact that you were a so-called celebrity didn’t help your cause in any way. 

“hey.” a low voice called from behind you. it was a girl with curly hair with gorgeous light brown skin, and a jawline that would cut you. you were almost astonished by her beauty, but you remembered the facade you had to hold, especially to strangers that you didn’t know.

“hey?” you asked unsurely, wondering if she was with the media or not. which was something that tended to happen quite a bit.

“don’t worry, i’m not with the press. you just seem interesting.” she said in a monotone voice, but still with a strong look of seriousness on her face. you giggled softly when your eyes locked and your faces went totally still, making the girl in front of you laugh as well. she held out her hand in front of you, while also balancing her tray and book in the other hand. you placed yours into hers and shook it, smiling when she told you her name.

“michelle jones.” she smiled, your throat getting a little tight at her last name, and you had to admit that it struck a little chord within you, but you quickly cleared it from your thoughts and introduced yourself as well.

“y/n stark. pleasure to meet you, jones.”

“pleasure to meet you too.”

“so, i get that you’re new here,” she started walking, inviting you to walk along with her. “what- what are you doing here? i mean i get you’re smart and all, but this is a nerd school; you literally could’ve gone anywhere, so, might i ask, why here?”

“hm, interesting question. seriously i don’t know. my dad and i don’t really get along so he makes the decisions and i tell him if i like it or not. which by the way, i’m gonna have to stay near you-- you’re the only one making this bearable for me right now.” you snorted, nudging your elbow to hers. 

“hm, daddy issues. great song, love the artists.” she smirked, making you shoot your head back in loud laughter, gaining some side eyed glances from a few people sitting at the tables around you.

“so, where are we sitting? i usually nev-”

“hey mj!” you were interrupted by a boyish laugh and hoots and hollers coming from a table two tables ahead of you. 

“jesus fucking christ. what? just because i got some and you didn’t doesn’t mean that you have to be that fuckin’ loud about it.” she grumbled, placing her tray down, slinging the backpack on her right shoulder beside her. you looked at her with a nervous but curious glint in your eyes. she gave you a knowing look which said, ‘just go with what i say’, making you nod in understanding.

“woah! holy shit! i m- i mean woah- nice to- nice to meet you!” the boy fumbled over his words, looking at you and michelle in disbelief, shaking his friends shoulder and poking at his cheek.

“nice cut, g. looks nice.” you said to him, giggling as you stuck your straw into the mini juice box.

“o-oh, thanks… g?” he said back to you, observing your looks with a confused expression written on his face making you giggle at his confusion. 

“peter! look! y/n stark is at our table!” he whisper shouted to his friend, making you look at michelle with a smile on your face and playfully rolling your eyes. she looked back at you, rolling her eyes as well, gesturing to her head as if saying ‘idiots’, making you giggle and turn back to them. 

“so, bowl cut dude, what’s your name?” you nodded to him, picking at your salad with the blac spork that was so cordially given to you by mj. 

“n-ned, ned leeds.” he smiled sheepishly.

“and you, colonizer, what’s your name?” you tapped on the table, alerting the boys attention. you could hear michelle and ned hollering and snickering from their seats, but decided to keep your poker face rolling. but i mean, how couldn’t you? the look on his face was absolutely priceless. 

“peter park- wait did you just call me a colonizer?” he cut himself off in his own sentence, looking at his other friends for confirmation, to which they nodded, still cackling at the fact that you had indeed call him a colonizer.

“peter park, hm?” you teased, ignoring the way you hesitated and ignoring the way your chest felt heavy when the name of peter was said.

“n-no thats not my name-” he said, tripping over his words, making you let out a chuckle. 

“i’m messing with you. with what you’ve given me, i could only guess your name is peter parker?” you rested your chin on your hand, engaging in the awkward conversation.

“yeah. thats my name.” he said more confidently, giving you a tight lipped smile.

“nice to meet you, parker.”

“you too, stark, my pleasure.”

----

after the small encounter with your new found friends, you had gone back to your respective classes, which meant that your next class had peter in it. after you had split up, you decided to get there early to avoid any commotion surrounding you.

as the boring class continued, you heard the loud clicking of high heels in the hallways, which had to be one person and one person only.

“stark,” someone shouted from the door which swung open. low and behold, in front of you was the prickly bitch, your principal, mrs cunningham. “come with me, eugene’s parents have requested a meeting with you and your father considering that you had just hit their son in the private areas!” everyone snickered and laughed. finally someone had stood up to flash’s shit. 

“y- you punched flash in the nuts? i thought that was just a rumor?” peter stuttered, looking at you in disbelief.

“yeah, the fuck was i gonna do? let him flirt with me? no. that bitch tried to grab my ass. i’m a stark, i was raised better than that.” you whispered to him, packing your bag as you did so.

“hm, guess you’re right. well, good luck stark.” 

“thanks parker.”

--------

once you arrived in the principals office, you saw what seemed to be his mother in one of the seats decked out in expensive pearls and diamonds. typical.

“little miss over here punched my son in the privates! i will not allow this to happen!” fuck. you thought; another one of those stuck up cunty parents.

“pfft, probably paid to get their son into here.” you muttered under your breath, playing with your protection bracelets incase anything was to ever happen.

“wHAT? mrs cunningham, i will not allow this child to talk about my son this wa-”

“hello! i was called in?” a voice interrupted, one you could only peg as your father.

“ahh! mr stark! you’re finally here!” your hilarious excuse as a principal said cheerfully.

“i am! and i am here to.. come and have a meeting about my daughter's- behavior?” he asked questiongly, already seeing the triumphant and cocky look on your face. he knew you weren’t at fault, and you were gonna lie your pretty ass out of it.

“well, mr stark, we have a student in the nurses room due to the actions of your daughter!” she looked at him menacingly. he shook his head with a smile on his face and walked over to you, grasping your shoulders in his hands.

“well kiddo, wanna explain what and why you did what you did?” he smiled, giving you two taps on your shoulder, already knowing what was next. you two had a pretty good acting schedule when it came to it, when in reality, you despised eachother.

“sure daddy! eugene had been hitting on me for several days now, and even found my private social medias in use to.. how can i say this, use me for my fame? he tried talking to me, very inappropriately on several occasions, and even went as far as to try and grab me in areas in which i find extremely inappropriate, without my consent, might i add, which doesn’t seem okay with me. does it seem exceptional to you, mrs thompson?” you asked, while only keeping your eyes on his mother.

“why, i am so sorry miss stark! his father will be in contact, i did not raise my baby to be this way! im sorry for any inconvenience he may have caused you!” she gasped, raising a hand to her heart. 

“it’s okay, i just request, may this never happen again? i would not like my privacy to be invaded, much less from your son, and can i please ask that he never try to hit on me, nor any girls at this school ever again? i can only imagine how many other girls this may have happened to, mrs thompson.” you sighed, your eyes filling up with fake tears. you reached up to touch your fathers hand, tapping it twice back, knowing that you both had just won.

“never again miss stark, once again, i am so sorry this happened to you.” 

“it’s okay. now mrs cunningham, shall we see our way out?” your father answered for you, looking over at the old white woman who looked like a piece of cheese. she could only nod in awe, giving you the cue to pick up your bags and walk proudly to the door.

“thanks i guess.” you muttered, pulling out your airpods once more, hoping to seal the conversation with your father.

“yeah yeah, no problemo.” he muttered back, avoiding eye contact and stuffing his hands in his  pockets. 

once you reached the door, you remembered that you had left something in your locker, and informed your dad that you’d be going back to get it. he all but nodded and looked back at his shoes before trudging to the car.

once you entered the seemingly halls, much to your surprise, you saw a scrawny teenage boy lifting open a set of lockers, which you didn’t even know was possible, and pulling out a red and blue suit. once you saw who the hands belonged to, your mouth fell agape as you gasped,

“peter?”

[cicadahaze]

Here’s my entry to the @pnatsecretsanta for 2020! @quarktrinity, I hope you enjoy! It’ll be crossposted to ao3, link will be in a reblog. Thank you for your patience!

Isabel: hey so

Isabel: when are u going to get here

Max: wat?

Max: its xmas ev

Isabel: you really need to get a new phone

Isabel: and remember? youre supposed to come to my place tonight, wait it out

Isabel: max?

Isabel: if you were spacing out again im going to kill you

Isabel: you WERE doing the face again now that i think about it

Max: u guys ned 2 mak imprtnt info cler. Y i spcd

Isabel: you need to listen! this time mr spender remembered to tell u and everything. youre not allowed to be mad at us this time

Isabel: in short, get ur butt over here before midnight. sneak out if u need to, thats what isaac does

Isabel: in long, if u dont santas gonna kill u

----

“Let me get this straight.” 11:30 P.M. December 24th, 20XX. Max sat in Ed’s room on a chair hastily drawn up, with a jacket pulled hastily over his pajamas and hat still jammed on his head, massaging his temples. “Santa’s real, he’s a spirit, and he hates all spectrals and is coming to kill us?”

“That’s a bit of an oversimplification, but yeah,” Isaac said, and Max shot him a glare. He could hear that smugness. “So like, there’s a lot of spirits that kinda grow from ideas humans have, right? I don’t know what’s up with Scrapdragon, but like, Muse came from the ideas around ancient Greek muses, like his name. They can be really off base but still have the same ideas- like Lucifer, Mr. Spender’s spirit, is just some lightbulb guy, but Lucifer does mean light and stuff, so they can just be along those lines. But like, a LOT of kids believe in Santa and think about him a lot, so there’ve been a few spirits that manifested around the idea of a guy who can get anywhere to deliver presents to good kids and punishments to bad ones, especially with stories like Krampus too.”

“But most spirits can’t interact with humans, so this guy mostly goes around to other spirits and ghosts and stuff,” Isabel said, distracted by her attempts to spin her umbrella like a top. “So he likes spirits a lot. And we kick a lot of spirit butt,” she punctuated this with a particular spirited spin of the umbrella, “so he hates us and comes to try to kill us every year. And because he can teleport, he can get inside the barrier. So gramps makes us all stay with him until sunrise every year so that all the adults can fight off santa and his reindeer so we don’t get put in a sack and teleported somewhere.”

Max groans and tries to fall backwards in his chair, but the chair doesn’t budge. “Your paint really isn’t good for drama,” Max informed Ed.

“Don’t be so dramatic then,” Ed snickered. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

“Says you, You just stay at home all night. I have to sneak out! My dad’ll kill me if he finds out!”

“I just put a pillow in my blankets and it’s fine,” Isaac says with a shrug. “If your dad looks harder than that, we probably have a tool lying around that can wipe memories or something.”

“I don’t want to mind wipe my dad,” Max grumbled, but resigned himself to slumping grumpily in his chair to watch Ed play some punching game or whatever. Bad enough that his own baseball bat might want to eat him, and he was trapped in this town with no way out- now Christmas hated him too. 

Isaac caught his eye and smiled sympathetically. “You get used to it,” he whispered.

“I thought I was used to it a month ago.”

Max jumped as a knock on the door sounded, glaring at Isabel’s laughter. The door opened without waiting for a response. Mr. Spender poked his head in through the door with a goofy grin. “Alright, kids! You all ready for this year’s Christmas night?”

Ed didn’t even look away from his video game, waving lazily. “We could use some snacks. That’d be nice.”

“Yeah, where are the snacks, old man? You want us to starve?” Isabel waved her umbrella at him like a grumpy old woman might a cane.

“You’re well fed enough already. I made sure of that.” It spoke wonders to how used to this existence Max had become that Mr. Spender knocking politely had scared him, but Isabel’s grandpa floating through the wall didn’t. The man’s bulk and imperious gaze still caused him some anxiety, though, and he had to consciously remind himself that he’s a punk, he’s cool, and he doesn’t respect anyone’s authority, even a scary ghost’s. Yeah, totally. 

The atmosphere of the room quickly shifted, and Isabel’s eyes dropped. “Yeah, I was just joking. Sorry, Grandpa.”

“Joke or not, this night is too much effort to make light of. My students and I are putting ourselves at risk for you,” Mr. Guerra said, looming over the room, “so only vocalize a need if you need it.”

Isabel glowered at the carpet. “Alright, Grandpa…”

“So. I will ask again. Are you all prepared? Midnight strikes soon.”

“We are, sir,” Isaac said. Max fought not to pull a face at Isaac’s please pay attention to me, authority figure tone, but for once it was helpful, so whatever. He could let it slide. 

Mr. Guerra eyed Isaac. “...good. We’ll get you once the sun begins to rise.” And with that, he turned away and slid down through the floor. Max could already hear him barking at the pupils below.

Mr. Spender grimaced. “Well… good! Everything’s all set then.”

Isabel grumbled, picking at the carpet.

“...trust me,” Mr. Spender said, forcing audibly fake cheer into his voice, “This isn’t a hassle at all. You guys getting stuffed into a sack- now, that would be quite the kerfuffle!”

They all stared as Mr. Spender slowly deflated. “...sure,” Max said. “Uh, we’ll be good, stay up here, it’s fine.”

“Great.” Mr. Spender nodded, stared awkwardly for a moment, and stepped out the door. “Well, Merry Christmas, children!” He shut the door behind him. Max listened with the others as his footsteps hurried down the hall to the stairwell.

Silence reigned for a few minutes, a distinctly uncomfortable experience for Max. It was almost impossible not to ramble, and he was reaching his breaking point and about to open the floodgates of inane and overly verbose chatter when Ed, thankfully, took point.

“That sucked,” he said simply, and Isabel groaned and fell back.

“I hate when he does that!” Isabel laid her umbrella by her side and waved her hands in the air exasperatedly. “It’s like he has no in between and I’m always either The Best And He’s So Disappointed In Me For Not Being Perfect or A Helpless Kid He Needs To Do Everything For! He always gets like this tonight!”

Ed paused his game, and reached around to pat her on the knee. “I mean, we could prove him wrong. We beat up spirits all the time, how hard could this be?”

“Okay, hold up, hand on,” Max said. “No? I- this is a terrible idea, you just got finished telling me about how if I wasn’t here I’d be killed by Santa, and now you want to go out there and fight Santa?”

“Well, not Santa,” Ed said. “Duh. He mostly just sends his reindeer to do everything and hangs out on rooftops.”

“And no offence Max, but uh…” Isaac scratched the back of his head.

“You’d totally get killed if you were on your own.” Isabel flipped herself upright. “All you got is that dinky bat, and magnet powers. You can’t even do a spec shot, dude, you’d get thrown in a sack in no time. We’d be fine.”

Max crossed his arms. “Alright, screw you too.”

“But other than that… that sounds like it could be pretty fun.” Isabel grinned. “Show the old man and his big dumb deer who’s boss. Maybe then he’ll stop coming to Mayview every year.”

“That would be pretty nice actually.” Isaac was clearly thinking hard- he had his broody face on. “I would like to stop having to sneak out every year. Sooner or later my parents will notice.”

Max shuddered. “Actually, yeah, Isaac has a point. I don’t want to die to Rudolph or anything, but if we keep having to do this, I’ll die to my dad, which is way worse honestly.”

“Your dad’s a teddy bear,” Isabel said, and rolled her eyes. “Stop complaining.”

“You haven’t seen him when I fail a test!”

“So are we going or what?” Isabel was already pulling her jacket back on, tucking her umbrella firmly under her arm. Ed bounced on the balls of his feet with a grin, already eyeing up the window and painting himself a rope. 

Max looked at Isaac, who shrugged and got to his feet. Max sighed, and stood up, regretfully leaving his scooter on the floor. “Yeah, alright. We’re going.”

Well, Max was regretting this. He was regretting this so much. He tromped through the snowy woods, eternally grateful for his boots. “Why in the world do we have to fight the spirits of Christmas in the woods? Why can’t we do it in town, or like, on the road at least? The roads we salted. The roads wouldn’t be as cold.”

“Cuz we’d get caught, dummy,” Isabel snorted. Or maybe it was a sniffle. “Either someone from the dojo would hear us and yell at us and get in the way before we can prove anything, or someone in town would yell at us and call the cops or something.”

“Maybe having people nearby to help isn’t a bad thing? You can’t just say that after saying that I’m the most likely person to die!”

“You came out here anyway,” Isaac pointed out, and looked all too unaffected by Max’s glare.

“I hate you. I hate you with everything in my being you- you chump elf.”

Isabel laughed. “Yeah, yeah. Anyway, this place looks pretty good, huh?” She stopped, looking around the snowy clearing they’d come into and turning in place. She nodded, satisfied. “There’s room to fight here, and we could come up with some pretty solid traps. Isaac wouldn’t have to worry too much about blasting a bunch of trees.”

“Looks pretty good!” Ed pulled off a mitten with his teeth and dug his paint brush out of his pocket. “What’re you thinkin, Izzy? Tripwire? Net?”

“Let’s go net,” Isaac said. “They can fly.”

“Plus, last time you tripped Isaac, remember?” Isabel elbowed Ed in the side. “Max and I are pretty fast, but Isaac needs some help.”

“Please. I can jump higher than your house is tall.”

“But you still fell just flat on your face,” she cooed. Isaac grumbled, cursing her just loud enough for Isabel to overhear, but she just batted her eyes and paid him no mind. “Okay, so,” she said, looking up at the sky through the hole in the canopy, “we probably only have a few more minutes before one of the reindeer finds us-”

And that’s when a dark shape, faster than cheetah and twice as forceful, barrelled into Max.  And off he went, hanging by the hood of his jacket on a wicked sharp antler prong, into the sky and away to the sound of jingling bells.

----

Things were quiet this year, Richard reflected. It was honestly a relief- maybe the spirit had finally given up. Probably too much to hope for, but, Christmas miracles and all. In any case, there seemed to be plenty of time to get the kids some mugs of hot cocoa and cookies to wait out the night with.

“Need any help balancing those?” Day asked, and Richard felt his mood become momentarily strained.

“Actually, that would be nice, if you think you could.” The tray of mugs and cookies he was balancing was quite the challenge, after all. Day reached up and somehow grabbed the plates of cookies perfectly- Spender could swear he saw her eyes flash for a moment, smart woman- and left him to balance the four mugs. A much easier task now.

“I really thought things would be more eventful, with how much Francisco was fussing over it, but everything’s pretty quiet, isn’t it?” Day smiled and followed Richard’s footsteps to the stairs.

“Well, usually there’s more cause for it, but the spirits seem to be laying low this year. Not an unwelcome reprieve in the slightest, but I do worry about Max… if this isn’t the new status quo, I don’t want him to get the wrong idea.”

“He’s a- well, he seems like a really smart kid,” Day reassured him. “I think he’ll make sure to be careful next year too!”

“I hope so. He does seem resourceful, but… he can be reckless.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” she said, before stopping with a small frown on her face. “They’re being pretty quiet…”

Spender listened for a moment himself. “Hm, they are… mayhaps they went to bed early?”

“That doesn’t sound like them.”

“No,” he said, dread creeping into his heart. “It doesn’t.”

He set the tray of cookies on the floor. He approached Ed’s room. He knocked.

He opened the door.

Richard’s lips thinned into a grim line as he surveyed the dark room. “They’re gone.”

------

Max screamed for his life as he was lifted faster than he could process into the sky. It was a clear, starry night, and they all looked like streaks as his captor circled through the sky, closer and closer to the top of the dome before colliding headfirst into it. Max didn’t have any more air in his lungs to scream as he was jostled loose and began to fall down, down- only to be caught again, this time like a sack of potatoes on the spirit’s back. He was overwhelmed by the sound of silver bells as he caught his breath, eyes screwed tightly shut.

Eventually, his lungs rallied to his call, and he was able to take in an unpleasant few gulps of animal-scented air. Max cracked his eyes open a peek- and immediately shut them again. Too high. He was way, way too high up. His heart felt like it was about to beat out of his chest, and the wind burned his face and the tips of his ears.

Hold on.

“My hat,” he wheezed reaching one hand up to grope the top of his head. “My hat’s gone!”

“Soon that will be of no matter.”

Max screamed- even he was getting fed up with his own screams at this point, but instinct didn’t seem to be on the same page.

“Quiet,” the rumbling voice said, and the spirit turned to look at Max. “Your sounds irritate me.”

The spirit that held Max on its back was by far the biggest deer of any Max had ever seen. It was shaggy and majestic, even as its fur was electric yellow, and its huge rack of knife-like antlers shivered as if they were made of candle flame. Its many eyes blinked, and it beared serrated teeth- a stark contrast to the many silver bells that seemed a part of its pelt. Max looked away, avoiding its cruel gaze, to see three pairs of legs, hooves thundering over empty air. And below him, seven more enormous shapes were blazing their way towards the distant forest clearing, led by an eerie red light. “Oh no, oooooh no, no no no no no no…”

“But yes, child. At last you have been retrieved, and soon your friends will be as well. Then, you can all face your punishment.” The spirit laughed cruelly. “I am Dasher, and I was simply the herald.”

“So you’re just, you’re just Dasher? Like from the poem? One of those things down there is…” Jeez, this was surreal. “...Donner? And, Vixen?”

“Many tremble in fear before those names. It would do you right to show some respect.”

“What? No, nobody does! You guys are like, goofy little stop motion dolls, man, how’d you guys end up looking like this?”

“Our powers are untold by your human poems-”

“Aren’t you guys based on the poems?!”

Dasher snorted and tossed his head in anger. “That is an egregious oversimplification-”

“I thought your name was Dasher, not Dictionary.”

The spirit cried out in frustration, and Max felt something in him settle a bit better. Poking things with words, he could do that. Just don’t look down. “So, uh,” he began, shifting a bit so it was less like he was thrown over Dasher and more like he was riding him, “why am I not in a sack yet?”

“Our pilot is attending to his annual business in Mayview,” Dasher growled. “It is we who have the ability to fight and fly- so it is we who collect naughty children. Once your compatriots have been obtained, then we may return to our stations.”

“Wow,” Max drawled. “I can’t believe Santa needs his reindeer to deal with three preteens.”

“You do have a teenager within your ranks. That does provide some extra challenge.”

“Whoa, wait, really?”

“Yes. He cannot fully be counted as a child by our pilot any longer- he has aged enough to become a teenager. It is not he that we seek.”

“Wow, that’s weirdly arbitrary and nitpicky.” Max was so going to tease Isaac about this later. If he didn’t, well, get thrown into a sack and… baked into a pie? Eaten alive? Thrown into a dungeon? Whatever. Try to be positive.

“If you take issue, you may air your complaints to our pilot.”

“Taking it straight to the manager, alright.” Max stared at his hands, balled in bright yellow fur, and took a deep breath as he relaxed them. He wasn’t going to fall, he was certain Dasher wouldn’t allow him, channel a Karen- and he released the fur, balancing on the spirit’s back with only his legs. Before he could lose his nerve, he swung his backpack off his shoulder and grabbed his bat. Okay, weapon acquired. Just… what to do with it.

Dasher huffed. “Puny weapon. Even with the power of an enslaved spirit, you cannot defeat me. Especially not with a spirit as weak as that one.”

“Ugh, not you too,” Max grumbled. At least this thing wasn’t getting aggressive. “I’m kinda tired of being called the weak one, it’s getting old.”

“It would have been better, then, if you had kept your power to yourself, and not bothered the true denizens of this world, as the other child does.”

“Other child-? You know what, I don’t know what you’re talking about and I do not care. Now let me think.” Max re-gripped Dasher tightly, this time grabbing the reigns, and looked around. Man, of course Max got magnet powers in the place where there’s no tall buildings anywhere- it would be great if they could pass by a skyscraper or two for Max to attach himself to. But alas… then, his eyes caught a gleam, a dark silhouette against the colorful lights of Mayview. 

A transmission tower in the woods. And they were heading right for it. Max shrugged his backpack back on to his shoulder and gripped his bat as tight as he could.

“Thinking will get you nowhere, child.”

“Yeah, but it’ll keep me quiet,” Max mumbled.

“True,” Dasher said. And started to turn back towards the clearing.

“No!” Max yelped, holding his bat out desperately- he knew the tower was too distant still, but he put all his will into the bat, trying to extend its power as far as he can-

Dasher lurched beneath him with a confused cry, the bells jangled, and Max’s focus was broken with a shout. Immediately, Dasher steadied beneath him.

“Child, if you do that again I will throw you off into the ground-”

“What- I don’t even know what I did-” Max’s breath caught as he realized what happened. The bells. They were metal, and he had what was definitely a terrible idea. But it was his only idea.

Quickly, before Dasher could retaliate, Max activated his bat. Dasher howled with rage as all the bells in his body strained in the direction of the magnetic center, and Max laughed with panic. 

“RELEASE ME AT ONCE-”

“No,” Max said, filled with thrill and panic, and directed Dasher back towards the clearing. The spirit barrelled towards it at supernatural speeds, a furious scream echoing through the night as he crashed into the snow like a comet. Max tumbled off of the spirit’s back, and the bat’s angle changed wildly, forcing Dasher in mad circles.

The other seven deer spirits, crowded in the woods, were as thrown into chaos as Isabel, Ed, and Isaac were, but Ed recovered fastest. “Max!” He crowed, head popping out of the snow. “You’re alive!”

“Somehow!” Max laughed, voice squeaky with panic. “For now!” In the corner of his eye, he noticed another spirit- a large one that was on fucking fire, so must be either Comet or Blitzen- and quickly swung his bat around to point at it. Dasher was forced to charge full speed into the other spirit, which dissolved into a wisp with a cry of shock.

Isabel whooped. “I can’t believe it! Magnet powers are good for something!”

“Serves you right!” He felt about to shake apart, and still dizzy from the crash, but spinning Dasher around like a top was easy enough- and the other jingling spirits were drawn in too. It was a glorious explosion of color, sound, and christmas spirits as one by one they melted each other away into whisps. Finally, only Dasher stood in the snow, puffing furious, cloudy breaths into the air.

“You will pay,” Dasher hissed. “Naughty children. You will not escape your punishment, this I swear to you.”

“Whatever you say, bub,” Ed chirped, and raised his scythe above his head.

“Wait!”

Max and the others turned back to look just in time to watch an arrow streak through the night and imbed itself in Dasher’s forehead. “No, no,” he groaned, watching Isabel’s face light up with glee.

Agent Day and Mr. Spender ran into the clearing, both panting and exhausted. “Thank goodness we found you,” Agent Day breathed, hands on her knees. “We were so worried that you were taken…”

“But I saw Dasher fall from the sky!” Spender’s chest heaved, and he swayed with effort, but he somehow managed to stay upright. “I’m so glad you’re all alright, even Dasher alone is quite the challenge to combat…”

“Nah, we got all of them.” Isabel grinned and punched her palm. “Max was able to yank ‘em around by the bells with his bat, and he got em all to poof each other. It was really easy to hit ‘em when they were all clumped up, too.”

“You- you really beat them all? Where are their tools?!”

“Right here, Mr. Spender!” Isaac called, arms full of a few rocks and sticks. “They’re, uh, not much to look at, but…”

“Amazing! Wonderful job, all of you- these will be great for the club’s stores!”

“But you shouldn’t have snuck out. We were so worried about you, and you’re glad we found you! Your grandfather is worried sick!” Agent Day wrung her hands together, cane stuck in the snow.

“Yes, he’s… not happy,” Spender admitted. “But, surely he’ll be proud when he finds out what you’ve accomplished?”

“Probably not,” Isabel sighed, sticking her hands in her pockets.

“...probably not.” Spender came over to put a hand on her shoulder. “But, for what it’s worth, I am.” Isabel looked up at him, then threw her arms around him. Spender smiled softly and hugged her in return.

“This is great,” Max groaned. “But I’m being crushed by a flippin’ reindeer, so can I get some help?”

Oblivious to Max’s irritation, Dasher continued licking Max’s hair life the reindeer he resembled. “You’re not so bad, I suppose. Resourceful child.”

“It always happens to me.”

“The arrow will at least last the night,” Agent Day said thoughtfully. “It should be safe for you to go home, in that case- you too, I think, Isaac! Since all the others are gone, after all… Maybe Dasher can take you home!”

“Nooooo!”

“I think that’s a wonderful idea, Ms. Day,” Spender said. “You could perhaps take Isaac and Ed back to the dojo, and I can take Isaac back to his home…?”

“Yes sir!” Day smiled. “Merry Christmas, Max, Isaac,” she said. “I hope you get back undetected.”

“Thank you, Ms. Day,” Isaac said. “You too.”

“You guys suck,” Max grumbled.

----

It took a bit for Max to wrangle Dasher into taking him home, but under Day’s spell, the spirit was a fairly easygoing ride. As Max climbed back in through his window to his undisturbed bed, he heard the spirit settle on the roof to keep watch for the sunrise. And, taking comfort in not being discovered and in the knowledge that next year, when he’s a teen, he won’t have to worry about any of this, Max changed back into his pajamas, settled into bed, and slipped into a deep sleep.

[looking-for-another-world]

Not Alone

summary: Bucky spends Christmas alone at the compound. Or nah?

pairing: Bucky x reader

warnings: 18+, tiny bit of angst, mentions of family toxicity, cursing, explicit smut, dirty talk, like one allusion to reader being plus-sized, soft!bucky, really sappy - you have been warned

words: 6321

a/n: This is my entry for @honeyhan-123​‘s HOLIDAY SPIRIT WRITING CHALLENGE. I had the prompt “Finding the perfect Christmas tree / decorating it” and looking back, I might have slightly diverted from that oops. This was so much fun to do though. This is literally my first finished piece of writing in years, so be nice to me, ok? Right, tmi. Anyways, this has gotten way out of hand in terms of how many words I wanted to write. I might make 3 separate files of it when I’m in the mood to figure out links, but for now here’s the entire fic in one. Enjoy! Also, I hope your 2020 is going to be amazing ❤💫🥂🎆

Prologue

As soon as Bucky stepped into the kitchen of the Avengers compound, his super soldier senses made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Something’s wrong.

It was Dec 23, one day before Christmas Eve, and everyone except him had gone away for the holidays. Clint was visiting Laura and the kids, accompanied by Natasha (apparently, the boys had been nagging their mom for a solid 2 months whether Aunt Tasha would be staying with them), Wanda and Vision were traveling around Europe, Tony had taken Pepper to some little island in the Caribbean Sea, and Steve and Sam had booked a cozy, remote cabin in the woods to go skiing, hiking, getting drunk (well, Sam at least) and most importantly, getting away from being the Avengers for a few days.

Initially, Steve had Friday book the trip for three persons, but Bucky had refused. This was the first Christmas since many years that he was starting to remember who he was, really was, and although Steve was pretty much everything he considered home, he had preferred to spend Christmas where he actually came from.

In the end, Steve had reluctantly agreed, not wanting to push his best friend, but insisting that they at least spoke to one another on the phone every day. And so, Bucky had spent his day wandering the streets of Brooklyn for hours, fulfilling his best friend duty on his way home and telling Steve how much everything had changed and yet, strangely, still felt familiar. He could hear Steve smile through the phone; he felt the same. That’s when Sam had burst through the door of the hut, screeching “All I want for Christmas is you” next to Steve’s ear and ruining the moment. Steve had said his goodbye, leaving to stop Wilson from inhaling another bottle of Eggnog, and Bucky had wished him good luck with the bird brain. He returned to the compound, more mentally than physically exhausted, and headed straight to the kitchen, suddenly remembering that he hadn’t eaten something in hours. And there it was: A small puddle of water on top of the counter, as if someone had taken something out of the fridge and put it there for a moment. Only that there was no one to do that. He was supposed to be alone.

It couldn’t have been him: his soldier and assassin training had left him with an urge to leave everything neat and tidied; no traces. Silently, he made his way back into the hallway, calling the elevator and going two levels down, to the first level that was officially “Avengers territory”. Going back up, he searched every floor without coming across anything suspicious. And then, as the doors of the elevator opened to the 18th floor with a slight swoosh, he sensed it: There’s someone else on this level. He tensed up. His super soldier hearing going into overdrive, he snuck along the dimly-lit corridor until he heard them: sounds coming from the last room to the left, the entertainment room, stacked up with books, movies, consoles, a pool table, anything you could think of to pass your free time. He tried to hear more intently. The person on the other side of the door barely produced sounds; all he could make out was their shallow breathing. Someone with a normal hearing wouldn’t even have caught up on it.

Bucky conjured up a blueprint of the room: even if he could get through the door unnoticed, there was no place to hide. The whole design of the room practically screamed: “Look who’s coming!” His only advantage was the element of surprise. Trying to calm down his nerves, he took a few deep breaths and braced himself. Not wanting to have his arms in a position he could easily be taken hold of in, he stepped back, raised his right leg and kicked the door down, storming inside, met by a piercing scream and a loud splash as the bucket of ice cream you had been holding met the ground.

“(Y/N)?!”

“What the hell?!”

“Why are you here?”

“I fucking live here in case you haven’t noticed! Why are you kicking the goddamn door down like I’m some HYDRA agent trying to slit your throat?”

“Because-”, Bucky stops, guilt washing over him. Guilt and anger with himself. Even HYDRA wouldn’t be so dumb as to blow their cover like that, and they’d do a bit more than get the kitchen counter dirty if they wanted to make their presence known. “Because I thought you were one.” His voice is low now, almost a whisper, his eyes unable to meet yours, fingers fumbling with the hem of the coat he didn’t have time to take off. And seeing him like this, you understood: He thought someone had intruded.

You let out the breath you were holding. “I’m sorry, Buck. I wasn’t thinking. I should have let you know about my change of plans and that I’d be spending Christmas at the compound.”

His ears perked up at that. “You are? I thought you were going to visit your family.” You smiled sadly and now that his mind and body weren’t overtaken by adrenaline anymore, he took in your state for the first time. You looked pale, your eyes red-rimmed, like you had been crying. You were wrapped in the navy-blue blanket twice your size that Wanda had given you for your birthday. It went all the way down to your ankles where the legs of your sweatpants were peeping through, showing just a small stripe of skin before the fabric of a pair of green fuzzy socks covered your skin again. The ice cream you had dropped started melting on the ground, slowly dampening part of the expensive rug the pool table stood on, which you didn’t seem to notice. “What happened?”

You let out a mixture between a snort and an unconvincing laugh. “I talked to my mom on the way to the airport. She started complaining about how much I’ve been letting them down this year, bringing up things I didn’t even think were an issue anymore, and how she hoped I would pull myself together this time, for the sake of Christmas and our family. So, I figured I’d probably have a more fun time being alone in my room and sleeping for like 2 weeks than I’d have being with them.” The last part was meant to sound casually, but Bucky didn’t miss the twitch of your lips and how your eyes started to gloss over again. He wanted to say something to comfort you, but his mind didn’t know where to start and so he just kept staring at you wordlessly, which you took as a sign of annoyance.

“Don’t worry. I won’t bother you with that shitty Christmas music or candy or anything of that kind. I’m not gonna ruin your alone time. Just pretend I’m not here.”

He frowned at that, then, and as his tongue still seemed to be tied, he did the only thing he felt was appropriate: He put your arms around you and hugged you, hard, all-consuming. “I’m not worried you’re going to ruin my alone time. I like having you around. I’m sorry your family are like that, when they’re the ones letting you down.”

You’d liked to reply to that, thank him for his sweet words, but you were sure you’d start crying again the second you stopped biting down on your lip. So you reciprocated the hug as best as you could; after all you were lacking Bucky’s strength. Bucky squeezed you shortly and let go, and when your eyes locked again, you couldn’t help but mirror his warm smile. Jesus, this guy certainly made you feel things. No surprise you were crushing on him so hard.

“We’d better clean this up”, Bucky said gesturing to the now empty ice bucket head and your eyes widened as you noticed the mess you’d made. “Shit!”. Tony had spent an insane amount of money on that carpet, even for his proportions. He’d shoot you to the moon for that.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.” Bucky jogged back to the elevator, returning a minute later with a wet cloth and a roll of kitchen towels which he handed to you. Getting to work, you suddenly became aware of how much closer than usually you two were. You could smell Bucky’s aftershave – something resembling cedarwood – watch the muscles in his arms flex as he tried to rid the fabric of its B&J make-over, study the stubble on his perfectly sculpted jaw, his hazelnut locks, his plump lips. Oh god, his lips. Just thinking about having those lips kiss every inch of your body got you worked up. Get a grip, for fuck’s sake!

“So you’re really planning on skipping Christmas? It’s your favorite holiday”, Bucky interrupted your thoughts, shooting you a glance to see you shrug your shoulders. “I don’t want to see my parents right now, and I can’t imagine celebrating Christmas on my own. So yeah, guess I’ll be taking a break from it this year.”

“You’re not on your own, though. You’re with me. We can celebrate.”

You felt a pleasantly warm sensation in your stomach which you tried to ignore, quirking an eyebrow at him instead. “You hate Christmas.”

“I don’t hate all of it, I hate what it’s become. I hate that most people care more about what useless shit is in their stockings or under the tree than about who they’re spending their time with. I hate how every shop starts putting up Christmas stuff before it’s even October. They don’t even call it “Christmas” anymore. I mean seriously, xmas? What’s that even supposed to mean?”

Despite yourself, a small giggle escaped you at how upset he could get about it all and realizing he had started ranting without wanting to, Bucky had to stifle a laugh as well. "Point I’m trying to make is ” he concluded “I wouldn’t mind spending Christmas with the right company.”

Oh, and that’s supposed to be me? Right company?“, you shot back. "Sure thing, doll. You’re like an expert on Christmas, I can’t go wrong with you. Also, I like having you around. ” He furrowed his eyebrows. “I’ve already said that, haven’t I?”

“Yeah, you have. But that’s okay, I like hearing it”, you laughed, your hand briefly touching his arm. You were becoming kind of needy, it appeared. Bucky didn’t seem to mind though, or at least he didn’t let it show.

Looking down, you noticed with an internal sigh of relief that the ice cream puddle had given way to the water and the kitchen towels. All that was left was a wet patch that would hopefully disappear overnight.

“Guess that’s as good as it gets”, you joked. “Thanks for helping me.”

“It’s the least I could do, after scaring the shit out of you.” He took the dirty towels from you. “Guess we’re Christmas buddies then” he grinned. It was surprising how excited he seemed to be all of a sudden, but you didn’t let yourself linger on that thought. “Well, as the official Christmas ambassador, I have to let you know that this place sucks. There’s not even decorations.”

That was true. The past weeks had been incredibly hectic, even more than in previous years, and since almost everyone would be gone over the holiday season anyway and Bucky had emphasized several times that having the tower turn into Santa’s village would most likely lift his dinner, rather than his spirits, Tony hadn’t bothered to put up decorations.

Bucky gave you an amused look. “I see you’re getting into it. Alright, what do we need?”

“You mean, like everything?”

“Yeah, like the ideal setting. Can’t be that difficult.”

You gave him a sceptical look. “Oh no, not at all. We just need the decorations, music, candy, ugly Christmas sweaters, stuff to bake cookies, a firepla-”

“Okay, okay, I take it back.” Bucky raised his hands in surrender. “This is too much. What’s the most important thing?”

“The tree”, you replied without thinking. “The tree is the most important, to me at least. When my dad used to tell me he’d be bringing the Christmas tree home tonight, I’d spend all day glued to the window of my room, waiting for his car to steer into the driveway. It’s the one thing we ever did as a family, all three of us, decorating the tree. Everything else would be pretty much Mum and me, since Dad would be out working. The tree is … it just wouldn’t feel like Christmas without it.”

Inadvertedly, your brain had walked down memory lane to pictures of baubles in gold and red and purple and every color of the rainbow, mingled with the scent of fir and your dad’s bass voice singing “Have yourself a merry little Christmas” to you while you were sitting on your lap, and suddenly another wave of sadness hit you and you had to fight back the tears that were starting to well up again. You swallowed thickly before looking back at Bucky and were met with an understanding look. He had noticed your struggle but chose not to bring it up again and you were grateful for that. Grateful for him.

There were a few beats of silence before the super soldier offered you a tentative smile and said: “So Christmas tree is your final answer?” Another giggle.

"That’s my final answer.”

Part 1

You woke up to a sky the color of granite. Gloomy light and heavy clouds. Your heart jumped a little in your chest at the prospect of another downfall of snow. What’s Christmas without snow, right? Too comfortable to get up right away, you snuggled back into your pillow and let your mind wander.

It was embarrassing, really, but thinking about spending the whole day with Bucky filled you with a mix of anticipation and nervousness you usually felt before first dates. Prior to your job interview last February, you had spent hours and hours hooked up on research about the people you might soon be working with – the fucking Avengers! -, but Bucky’s story, or at least what was known of it to the public, had fascinated and moved you the most. It was hard for you to wrap your head around how someone could endure the most appalling things you could possibly imagine, and that for decades. Someone like the ex-Winter Soldier could barely be human anymore, filled to the brink with hatred and disgust for the world and the people in it, that you were sure of. And then, when you got the job and got to know him – he was the exact opposite. Sure, he was careful and hard to read, especially at the beginning, but he was kind. He was funny. He was emphatic. He was a nerd. He was sweet. And when you moved in to the tower and the two of you spent more time together, your feelings towards him grew stronger, and you found yourself imagining waking up next to him, his lips on yours the first thing you taste in the morning. Cupping his cheek and watching his eyes crinkle when he flashes you his million-dollar smile. Stroking his hair while he reads his favorite passages out to you or rambles about how all the things he’s just discovering now are not quite as good as what they had back in the days, but some of them are not bad. Being pressed down by his weight as you get to explore all of his gorgeous body and find out what sounds he makes when he’s buried in you, filling you up, making you feel so good as you’re begging him not to stop because he’s hitting just the right spot and you never want to let go of him, so good, please Bucky, please don’t stop, oh God, I’m so close baby, fuck…

The loud buzzing of your phone jerked you out of your trance and made you sit up straight in your bed, your heartbeat thumping in your ears, cheeks heated, fingers you didn’t even remember putting there coated in your arousal. Breathing heavily, you stretched your neck to see who the caller was: Mum. Oh, hell no. In a sudden burst of resurging anger, you declined the call, threw your phone away from you and let yourself fall back against the headboard with an audible huff.

Finishing the job wasn’t going to happen after yesterday’s events started rolling in, so you forced yourself out of bed and into the shower, washing away the heat of your little daydream with water as cold as you could bear. Putting moisturizer on, you focused your thoughts on today. If Bucky still wanted to help setting up everything for Christmas, they should get started as soon as possible. An actual Christmas tree was a bit too much to ask obviously, but maybe they could find a fake one and some funny tree ornaments to go along with it? Sweaters shouldn’t be that much of a problem either, they practically threw them in your face around this time of the year. And the Christmas music could easily be taken care of by Spotify.

You started listing the essential ingredients for three or four kinds of Christmas cookies in your head when you left your room to get breakfast. Closing the fridge door, you tried to decide where and in which order to go to get everything you needed on time (or should you split up?) when you noticed the yellow, blue, pink and green dots on the cold metal surface, dancing around in a carefully studied rhythm like colorful fireflies. Frowning, you turned around.

The huge panorama windows were decorated with beautifully woven ice flowers up to almost half of their height and framed by several strings of Christmas lights, cheerfully blinking against the grey sky outside and bathing the living room area in a colorful hue. Now that you stepped closer, the living room looked different as well. The couches and armchairs were covered under thick and fluffy-looking plaids and pillows with different Christmas-themed motives; a very kind looking Santa Claus on one, a couple of reindeer holding cups of Eggnog and singing “Jingle Bells” on another and the slogan “Tis the season” in as much glitter as could be fitted on so small a space emblazoned on a third. There were decorations, too: a nutcracker next to the tv, an angel’s choir holding candles on one of the couch tables, a snowman, a sledge, a rocking horse, a squirrel in a scarf… You couldn’t even decide where to look first. Too preoccupied to take everything in, you didn’t notice Bucky’s presence until he cleared his throat. “Do you like it?” You turned around to meet him, dumbfounded and still trying to understand what was going on, even more so when you saw the sweater he was wearing: fir green and depicting a penguin wearing a Christmas hat. You let out an incredulous laugh. “Did- did you do all this?”

Bucky lowered his gaze briefly and gave you a sheepish smile. “Pretty much, yeah. I’d hoped you’d sleep in. Gave me enough time to set everything up.” Your mouth opened and closed, unable to find words. “I-“ “Wait!” he interrupted. “There’s more.” He outstretched a slightly shaking hand and seeing that you didn’t respond, hastily withdrew it. Finally though, your body and mind seemed to have rebooted, and you grabbed his hand with both of yours. It felt hot against yours, hot and slightly raw. Bucky shot a surprised look from your intertwined hands to your face and you could’ve sworn that his cheeks blushed slightly. Is this even real?

Squeezing your hands slightly, he walked past you and into the living room, pulling you with him. Around the corner, out of your line of sight, there was a slightly smaller lounging area with the best stereo sound system Tony could get his hands on and without tv, designed for the numerous occasions you fancied actually spending time with each other and being able to face each other when chatting or playing games instead of just staring at a huge screen in unison. Now though, the bean bags had been moved to the side and in the center of the room stood – a tree. Not just any tree, but a fir tree about 10 or 11 feet high, almost filling up the room with its size and emanating that unmistakable scent that always took you back to fond Christmas memories. Next to it, on the ground and on several of the bean bags Bucky had piled up a seemingly endless number of boxes containing Christmas baubles of all sorts, ranging from the traditional ones to typical Christmas motives, Disney characters, and even the most absurd things such as very small-sized fruits and vegetables.

You couldn’t remember when your heart had last felt so light and full. If Bucky’s hand hadn’t anchored you, you might have just floated up through the ceiling and into the sky. And why not? Who knew what else might be possible after all this had felt so much like a dream already? Giving yourself no time to think about overstepping boundaries and the like, you threw yourself into Bucky’s arms, feeling rather than noticing his strong arms instantly enveloping your frame. “Thank you.” Your voice was muffled because you had buried your face in the crook of his neck and because you were close to crying again. Sensing your state, Bucky started tracing soothing patterns on your lower back and mimicking his movements, your hands started stroking his broad shoulders. “My pleasure, doll.”

He held you like that for several moments, lightly swaying to and fro, taking deep breaths with you. And after a while, when you’d quieted down a bit, you noticed that not only your heart threatened to jump out of your chest; Bucky’s heart beat a lot faster as well, hammering against his ribcage so much that you could almost feel it against yours. You drew back a little so you could see his face and were met with a look you’d never seen on him before, a look that went straight to your groin. His hands tightened on your back, like he was afraid to let you go, and your nose lightly brushed his. And just as you were about to close your eyes… his phone rang.

The noise startled you so much that you jumped in his arms and Bucky let out an audible sigh. “That’ll be Steve. Be right back.” With that, he let go of you to grab his cell from the kitchen and you felt like someone had just emptied a bucket of ice water over you and snapped you back to reality. More than that, you did feel cold. Had your body grown used to the heat radiating off him so quickly? Also, and that was the most important: What the fuck did just happen?

Bucky returned about 10 minutes later and found you in almost the same spot where he’d left you, now sitting awkwardly on one of the empty bean bags, desperately trying to regain composure. His heart still fluttered from being so close to you, and as he wanted this day to be anything but awkward, he’d spent a good 7 of those 10 minutes away thinking about how to proceed. In a manner he hoped would come across as relaxed, he sauntered over to the closest bean bag and picked up one the boxes filled with baubles. “Soooo”, why was his voice so squeaky? “let’s get started, shall we?”

He couldn’t see your heart slightly sink in your chest because the magical moment had officially passed of course; he just had eyes for the warm smile you offered him in return. “Sure.” You got up to take hold of one the boxes as well when he remembered something. “Hang on.” You raised your head and could make out something slightly mischievous in his orbs. “I won’t be the only one wearing an ugly Christmas sweater.”

—

4 hours later, any sign of awkwardness or discomfort between the two of you had officially gone to the wind. As instructed, you’d put on the ugliest Christmas sweater you could find (an awful mix of pink and gold in the shape of a Christmas elf with actual bells that jingled whenever you moved), Bucky had put on some music and you’d gone about your business. At some point (probably after your fourth cup of cocoa with rum and Bucky’s third pint of Asgardian mead he’d snatched from Thor’s quarters), you decided to forego any sense of aesthetics and just put up as many ornaments as would fit on the tree. As a result, it now looked as if the slightest gust of wind would make it collapse on the spot, but you two were oddly proud of your work. Taking cocoa and mead with you, you decided to have a small break and moved over to the living room area.

There were a few beats of comfortable silence, Sinatra softly buzzing in the background. Then, out of the blue, Bucky asked you to tell him your favorite joke. You were too tipsy to question how he’d come up with that, so you pondered his request for a moment and then answered. “I hate Russian dolls. They’re so full of themselves.”

Bucky sat up on his spot of the couch and gave you an odd stare that made you wonder whether he’d understood you at all, and then burst out of laughter, almost spilling his drink in the process and making you laugh in return. You’d never really heard his laugh, just the occasional snort when he deemed something worthy of a reaction, but this was a sound made from the gods themselves and you could listen to it all day, every day, for the rest of your life.

Slowly, his fit came down to a low, melodious chuckle. “Honestly doll, sometimes I want to kiss you all over.” “Don’t hold back.”

The words had come out of your mouth before you could stop them. They didn’t remotely sound as teasing or nonchalant as you had meant them to. They sounded sincere, almost desperate. Because they were. And suddenly, as you watched Bucky’s expression falter, you felt remarkably sober again. Oh god.

Part 2

Carefully, Bucky stood up, moved over and sat down next to you. “Are you serious about this, (Y/N)?”

Heat crept up your skin, all the way from the swells of your breasts to your ears. You’d honestly never felt that put on the spot. Unable to answer, your gaze fixed the carpet, hoping that if you stared long enough, maybe it would do you a favor and swallow you whole. Bucky was now less than inch from you, close enough for you to smell his shampoo, his breath fanning the side of your face, making things only worse for you. Your heart sank deeper and deeper until you could feel it in your stomach, heavy like a rock. This day had been going so well. Why did you have to ruin it with your stupid inebriated brain? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

And then you felt his flesh hand cup your face, softly turning your head to meet his eyes. Those beautiful, cerulean eyes. “Because I’d really, really like to kiss you.” Frowning, you shook your head, your synapses refusing to process that bit of information. You swallowed several times before you found your voice again. “Please don’t mess with me, Bucky”, you heard yourself whisper, at which Bucky violently shook his head. “I promise.” And then his lips were on yours and you kissed him back.

It started out innocently enough, slow, tentative kisses, allowing the other to back out in case they changed their mind. Only that he didn’t back out like you thought he would. And you didn’t back out like he thought you would. Realizing how effortlessly your mouths pressed against each other, how right his lips felt on yours, you gradually grew bolder. You turned slightly to mirror his position and your hands went up to his face, feeling the stubble on his chin and jaw before carding through the silky strands of his locks at the back of his neck. One hand in his hair, you let the other explore more of his body as you felt up his biceps, his back, his chest abs. A content hum escaped his throat which only spurred you on. One hand in his hair and one bunching up the fabric covering his chest, you pressed yourself closer to him. His grip on your face tightened as he opened his mouth and his tongue caressed your bottom lip. Greedily, you welcomed him in your mouth and let out a deep sigh as your tongues met for the first time and the two of you fought for dominance over the other.

Bucky’s hands wandered down your body to the hem of your shirt and his lips soon followed suit. You let out a whimper when he sucked at the sensitive skin of your pulse point, determined to mark you. You’d never really liked hickeys, but this was different. You wanted everyone to see, see what had happened between the two of you. While your hands tangled in his hair, his slowly made their way under the fabric of your sweater, exploring the soft skin of your hips, your waist, your belly, cool on your right side, burning on your left.

It was so much more than you’d ever dreamed of, almost too much to bear, and yet his touches only made you more impatient, more needy, more desperate to have him. “Bucky…” It was barely more than a sigh, but Bucky’s head shot up at the sound and his eyes met yours. “What’s it, sweetheart? Talk to me” You took a moment to take him in, tracing his glistening bottom lip with your thumb. “I need you.” Bucky pressed his forehead against yours. “I need you too, doll. So much. That’s why I’m so scared of messing up with you.” You took his face in your hands again and pressed a kiss to his forehead, his eyes closing at the sensation. “There’s no way in hell you can mess up with me, James. Don’t hold back. Take me.” Bucky let out a shuddering breath. “Please.”

It was like a switch had been flicked. Bucky leapt forward and buried you under his weight, making you sink into the soft cushions. Kissing you even more passionately than before, he positioned himself between your legs. The bulge in his pants now clearly noticeable, he started grinding down on you and the friction made you pool with lust. You let out an audible groan that made Bucky’s cock twitch. Steadying himself with his metal hand, he clumsily lifted your shirt up your body with his right hand so the fabric bunched up over your breasts. Eager to assist, you arched your back to unclasp your bra and pulled it up as well. Bucky’s hand immediately reached out to palm the newly exposed skin while his tongue darted out to massage your already swollen buds. He went from left to right and right to left, making you stick your chest out as much as you could, before suddenly taking one nipple into his mouth and sucking greedily on it. You cried out in pleasure and his dark eyes went to scan your face, lip drawn in between your teeth, eyes pressed shut, your breathing getting heavier by the minute. Too mesmerized by the sight of you, he didn’t notice your hand that wasn’t tangled in his hair move from his back to the front of his pants until you massaged his erection through the fabric, running your palm up and down his impressive bulge. He let go of your breast to take a deep breath and used his right hand to feverishly rub your clothed pussy, causing you to yelp in surprise. Your hand gripped his wrist, urging him to slow down. “Don’t want to finish off like that. Need you inside me.”

Bucky’s answer was an appreciative growl. He stood up, freeing himself first from the sweater that was becoming increasingly hot and then from his jeans and boxers. His size was impressive, the tip swollen and glistening with pre cum and you couldn’t help but rub your thighs together in anticipation.

“Uh-uh. Let me take care of that sweetheart.” His voice was now a husky whisper that sent shivers down your spine. Agonizingly slow, he unbuttoned your pants and pulled them off you, groaning when he got a glimpse of your drenched panties. Sitting back on his haunches, he pushed your knees apart and ran his palms up the inside of your thighs, then softly ghosted over the purple cotton, before hooking his thumbs under the waistband. “Show me your pretty pussy, (Y/N).” In one swift motion, the piece of clothing was gone, and Bucky let out a low hiss at the sight of your wet folds. “Fuck, doll. You’re ven more beautiful than I imagined.” You were at a complete loss for words, but Bucky didn’t give you time to respond anyway. He took a hold of his erection and coated in in your juices, your overstimulated body jumping at the sensation, before locking eyes with you and carefully sliding his tip inside you. You both let out a needy whimper when he filled you up, going deeper and deeper, your pussy obediently swallowing him, until he bottomed out.

Bucky was still on his haunches, giving you time to adjust to him, intertwining his fingers with yours. “You okay?” You nodded. “You can move.” Bucky started thrusting in and out of you, accelerating his pace when it became obvious that you were in as much pleasure as he. Soon, he was mercilessly fucking you into the couch, snapping his hips forward and pulling out until just the tip remained inside you, and then repeating his actions, over and over and over again. When he used his metal hand to draw circles on your clit, you were a whimpering mess beneath him, uttering incoherent curses and multiple variations of his name. You felt the familiar sensation build up in your gut and squeezed his hand to hold off, but he wasn’t having it, only increasing his efforts. With a muffled scream, you came all over his dick, your whole body shaking from the intensity of it. The sight of you coming undone combined with your cunt convulsing around his dick pushed Bucky over the edge as well and his thrusts became sloppier as he painted your walls with his seed and then collapsed on top of you, both of you panting and bathed in sweat.

—

Your second time together was slow and gentle, taking all the time you now knew you had, making sure to leave no inch of your lover’s body unattended to. The third time was rough again, Bucky fucking you against the shower tiles, cold water pouring down on you because you’d accidentally changed the setting when Bucky had lifted you and neither of you had noticed. The times that followed took place in various places of the Tower; the pool table where Bucky had found you the day before, the kitchen island, Sam’s bed (which seemed to give him a particular kind of satisfaction), in several of Tony’s cars, at one of the panorama windows, your front against the shining outline of the city (and the fake ice crystals) while Bucky took you from behind, all the while whispering sinful things to you that drove you insane, how often he’d sat in his room fucking his fist to your image, your plump lips that were just made for his cock, your curves that made your entire body jiggle when he drove into you, that beautiful ass of yours, imagining your sweet voice begging him to make you feel good. After all, it appeared he’d thought about you as often as you had about him.

—

You woke up to a rose-tainted sky and soft kisses peppered across the back of your neck, your shoulders and along your spine. You giggled into your pillow. Bucky’s strands brushing your bare skin gave you a tickling sensation. “You’re up early.” Bucky hummed into the crook of your neck, making your skin vibrate. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about before heading out for my run.” You turned around to face him, his hair tousled, eyes still glossed over from sleep. Nobody should be allowed to look that gorgeous. “What is it?”

“Steve and Wilson will be back from their trip in a few hours and they will pester me about my crush on you and whether I’ve finally done something about it.” He rolled his eyes and your smile grew wider. “What are you going to tell them?” Bucky reached for your hand and gently squeezed it. “I’d like to tell them that I asked you out on a date and that you agreed, but that wouldn’t be entirely true, would it?” You quirked an eyebrow. “So you’re asking me for permission to lie to your best friend?” Bucky laughed at that, that kind of laugh that made his eyes crinkle. “Y/N, would you like to go out on a date with me?”

You tilted your head to the side. “Depends. Does that mean we’re gonna have to sleep in separate beds again?” Bucky raised your hand to his mouth and softly kissed your knuckles, then he stretched his head and planted a kiss on your forehead. “No way. What do you say?”

“Yes.”