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joshslater · 3 years

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Matt and Liam

This is a rewrite of scallylads89's untitled story that I had sitting forgotten in a folder for two years. Similar stories and bonus material on my Patreon.

It was Thursday again already and Matt had been dreading this afternoon all day. It wasn't the best sixth form college, but he was more than happy to finish his diploma in IT there. He'd always been into computers and programming, and his parents had always encouraged it. The problem was the way the college ran its classes. Despite running completely separate courses and qualifications, they ran a set of mandatory mixed classes throughout the week. All students had their normal lessons in their program specific classes, but subjects like art, PE, and social studies were taught in cross qualification classes, practically making you have two different sets of classmates. It was supposed to promote integration and team building among the students.

In theory Matt didn't mind. He could see the value of it, and even enjoyed some of the classmates in his mixed classes. In practice though there was Liam. Liam studied for his builder qualification and came from a different background to Matt, and spent most of his childhood running free on the estate away from his mum who was usually sat in front of the TV or down the local with her mates drinking. He was lacking respect for others and didn't mind punching up, but positively relished punching down or sideways with Matt as a frequent target of his bullying. PE had never been a strong subject for Matt, so he knew that every Thursday Liam would be there taking the piss out of him and embarrassing him in front of all of the other students. Students that came from all over various classes at the college.

They hadn’t long kicked off the game when out of nowhere Matt felt a jolt in his back and a stomp on his foot as he flew forward onto the ground being shoved by Liam. Liam smirked chuckling to himself. He had timed it just right, the tutor was looking the other way and hadn’t seen a thing. The thud of Matt's face planting the pitch immediately drew the attention of the tutor. Liam wasn’t in the least bit worried. He knew Matt was too chicken to dob him in. The tutor asked Matt if he was ok, and Matt a bit shaken stuttered “Yes sir, I’m ok I just tripped and I think I’ve done my ankle.” The tutor quickly inspected Matt’s ankle and suggested he go back to the changing rooms and sit this week out. Despite his thankfully only minor injury and the way Liam had treated him he was actually kind of pleased, at least it meant he got to skip PE this week. The pain was almost worth it.

He sat down in the changing room and took a deep breath as he slowly pulled his shoe off, his ankle was a little swollen. He continued to get undressed taking his kit off and folding everything up neatly when out of the corner of his eye he saw the pile of clothes on the opposite bench loosely laid out. It was Liam’s tracksuit. He didn’t know why but he really had the urge to try them on. Matt was about as far from a chav as you could think but he kind of liked the style of Liam’s clothes. He justified the idea to himself as if it would be a big fuck you to Liam knowing he had dressed up in his clothes and pretended to be a dick like him and Liam would have no idea. Besides there were ages yet before anyone would be coming back to get changed. Matt began dressing himself in Liam’s clothes.

To Matt’s surprise Liam’s boxer briefs were also in the pile of clothes, that must mean he was commando in his football shorts out there! The thought actually turned Matt on a little. He wasn’t gay but he couldn’t get the image out of his head. Matt thought to himself that if he was going to dress up as Liam he may as well do it properly. As he picked up Liam's boxers he froze. He could feel his heart racing. Off in the distance he could hear the rest of the class cheering a goal or something. According to the wall clock he still had plenty of time. It was now or never.

He slipped on Liam’s boxers and joggers, and felt a bit of a rush as he looked down on the somewhat baggy clothes on his frame. The socks were a bit discolored from the inside of the sneakers, by having been worn a bit too long between washes. He put them on and then slipped his feet into Liam’s 95’s. They were a little big for him. Liam was a size 11 and Matt only a size 8. Slopping around in Liam’s trainers, Matt hastily pulled the T-shirt over his head, putting on the hoody and zipping it up. Wafts of stale cigarette smoke and Lynx body spray came off the clothes. He was as excited as he was nervous.

He finished the look by taking off his glasses and putting on Liam’s cap, tucking his hair into it to make it look short like Liam’s. Matt could see the growing bulge beginning to poke through Liam’s joggers. Either it was the fear of being caught or his growing attraction to Liam he was finding it harder and harder to ignore how turned on he had begun to feel.

Matt paraded around the changing room pretending to be Liam, walking around with an over exaggerated swag in his step and a cocky stance of self importance. Matt’s boner was really starting to become a pain. He lowered his hand to his crotch to try and adjust himself from outside Liam’s joggers, grabbing a handful of his package. To Matt’s horror he hadn’t realized how close to the edge he was. All it took was just the extra bit of movement for him to lose control and pass the point of no return “SHIT SHIT SHIT!” Matt blew a huge load into Liam’s boxers! Fuck! How the hell was he going to get away with this? Liam was going to notice this! And it couldn’t be anyone else! He sat back down on the bench in a panic, lifting his foot he tried to slip off one of Liam’s trainers. Something wasn’t quite right, they didn’t fit this snug before! Surely they hadn’t shrunk, and both his feet couldn’t have swollen up that much so quickly for no reason. He slipped his foot back in and paused for a moment aware that everything seemed clearer, he felt his face in disbelief checking if he had forgotten to put his glasses back on, but there was nothing there.

Matt stood back up and walked over to the mirror. He couldn’t help but notice the way he involuntarily walked with a similar stride to that he had before whilst mimicking Liam. Matt gasped at his reflection, the strands of hair that he had tucked up into Liam’s cap had gone, rubbing the side of his head with the tips of his fingers the sides of his head were shaved to almost nothing. Taking his cap off Matt revealed the exact same haircut Liam had, shaved back and sides with a short trim on top combed forward to a short straight cut fringe. As Matt continued to examine his hair his attention was drawn to his face, his jawline was narrowing, his facial features growing sharper like Liam’s, Matt’s nose also narrowed to the same shape as Liam’s. Matt in his disbelief looking at himself in the mirror said to himself “holy shit! What the hell is happening to me?” This only made things more confusing as he uttered the words in Liam’s voice and accent. The final physical changes taking place as his arms, legs, and torso stretched making him as tall as Liam.

Liam had continued playing football with the lads while Matt had been gone, something wasn’t right though, he just couldn’t seem to get into the game. Liam was making all sorts of mistakes and getting a bit of stick for it too. To make matters worse he had started to get an awkward boner, he usually liked to go commando in his kit but this suddenly felt like a bad idea. It was getting harder to conceal his erection which only further distracted him from the game, then without warning he blew his load into his shorts! Liam suddenly thought to himself “shit! I have to get out of here before it shows and starts dribbling down his leg!”. He was so embarrassed which was unlike him. Liam made an excuse that he was desperate for the toilet, so he could go clean himself up in the changing rooms.

On his way back Liam was oblivious to the changes he was going through. He had lost the swagger in his walk, his slim, toned body was softening as were his facial features, he was beginning to look more and more like Matt with every step. Liam’s hair had grown so much he had to sweep his fringe across his face. Approaching the changing rooms Liam was finding it harder to focus on his surroundings, his eyesight was so bad. Liam looked up at the door frame as he walked into the changing rooms, he was sure it wasn’t that tall before.

Once inside the changing room door the transformation was so far along that Liam started to have trouble walking in the now slightly too large shoes and loose clothes. If it hadn't been for that he would have spotted Matt right away, instead of stumbling upon him mere steps away. Matt too had been too absorbed in his own changes to notice Liam, so it was a surprise to both of them when they saw each other.

Matt looked at Liam, now looking like Matt, in amazement. They hadn't switched bodies in the consciousness transfer way, but rather both of their bodies had independently transformed into each other. He tried to look for small imperfections he knew all too well, and found them. He kept racking up question after question. How? Why? What now?

Liam had no such subtle thoughts. "You fucking, thieving body snatcher! Give it back!", he shouted and hit Matt hard in the guts. Matt took a step back and tried to shield himself. "Mate, this isn't proper innit. Yous gotsa stop." But Liam kept attacking. Matt, realizing that he was now the larger and stronger of the two grabbed hold of Liam. Liam, much more street-wise, kicked out Matt's legs from under him, so he went down on his back with a thud. "Have it fucking your way!" Liam shouted and threw his kit shirt in Matt's face.

In a few swift motions Liam was out the rest of his ill-fitting football kit, grabbed Matt's backpack and bundle of clothes, and rushed out of the changing room naked with Matt's stuff in his arms. "If you come anywhere near your old house I'll call the police and hit you with an ASBO so hard you'll pick trash for a year," he shouted as he exited.

Matt sat on the floor, still confused about exactly what had happened. All his belongings were gone and he was wearing Liams clothes. And body. He got up and collected Liam's kit from the floor. When he got to the shorts he saw that Liam too had shot a load. He stuffed all of the clothes into Liam's bag and left.

Where to though? Liam had made it clear that he shouldn't go home. Matt had no idea how ASBOs actually worked. He'd never even spoken to a police officer, but he was pretty sure that Liam knew what to say to make problems for him. Did Liam's body have any records? He didn't know, but Liam did. Fuck. He would have to go to Liam's home, wherever the fuck that was.

He searched his pockets. Some coins and a key with "E" stamped on it. Not very helpful. He made a guess that someone like Liam would live at a council estate, and King's Gardens was the closest, though not really that close. He immediately felt bad for making such a conclusion based on stereotypes, but it was all he got.

Matt looked at the route map at the bus stop and took the next bus towards King's Garden. Why does such shitty complex always have nice names? As he sat down on the bus and watched the neighborhoods getting worse it suddenly hit him what a fucking crazy awful day it was. He saw his own reflection superimposed over the brick buildings outside the window. What if he stayed like this? How could he prove to his parents he was he? He couldn't even speak properly anymore.

The smell was coming from him, he realized and snapped out of thoughts. Mingled in smell of Lynx, sweat, and smoke was the unmistakable aroma of his hour-old cum drying in his underwear. That he sat so wide with his legs probably didn't help. He really needed to smoke a fag. He'd never smoked anything before in his life. Is his stop soon? His mind was wandering. That in itself annoyed him too.

The bus stopped very close to the estate, and helpfully there was a map of the complex. Buildings numbered 1 through 15, but also the six tall, ugly buildings named A through F. Perhaps he had some luck today. Was his surname Calder? If so he lived on floor 6.

The key did fit in the door of Cindy Calder. Matt stared in disbelief when he opened the door. His mother was upset if he didn't vacuum the floor once a week. Here he could hardly see the floor. Newspapers, ads, shoes, a bike wheel, and other crap cluttered the entrance.

"Orite!" No answer. From the small hallway one door led into an even messier living room with a big sofa in front of the TV, and a bed by the window. Straight ahead was a small bathroom. On the other side of the hallway was a small kitchen, and the room he assumed was his. There was a desk, a bed, a cheap workout bench, and a mess of clothes and bicycle parts strewn all over the room. A laptop was lying in the messy bed, charging.

He put down the bag and picked up a dumbbell. Never before had Matt even touched one, but now holding one in his hand, moving it up and down comes naturally. Liam's body of course would have done this hundreds of times, so Matt wasn't surprised he could do it more or less with muscle memory.

He had barely done a few curls when someone knocked on the door. It was a black man, a few years older than him, with long rasta hair, and matching track top and joggers. "Oi. Got you text. I can take it right now." Having no idea what this was about Matt stepped aside and answered "Ok". The black man entered and walked into Liam's room as if he has been there many times, and quickly returned with the laptop. "Two days tops. Cash or products, your choice. See you bruv" and walked out.

Wait. Did he just sell his laptop? Or rather did Liam just sell his laptop? Matt realized that he didn't have either of their cell phones, not that having Liam's cell phone without the PIN would do him any good. Was Liam messing with him? Why would he do that? Matt walked back into the kitchen and sat down at the table, lit a cigarette from the packet on the table, and let his eyes wander in the room. It was in need of a good scrubbing. There were grey marks around all knobs and handles. Matt decided he needed to know more about Liam, and then it became clear to him. Without a phone or a computer he was useless. There was nothing he could do besides digging through the trash in the apartment, or leave and randomly talk to people. The latter was a horrible concept to him. He lacked both confidence and social skills to strike up conversations with strangers, or people that were strangers to him at least.

The black man had talked about getting products as payment. Did he mean drugs? Did that meant Liam had a stash somewhere in the apartment. Matt decided to hunt for it. Perhaps he could use it to blackmail Matt into meeting and sorting this out. Liam's room was such a mess you had to shift things around, move things from one pile to the next. Bicycle parts, dirty clothes, old comics, machine parts, clothes with anti-theft tags still on, an overall, empty cans. After almost an hour of work he had just uncovered Liam's stack of porn magazines.

Then it hit him that of course Liam would hide any drugs in a different room for some sort of deniability. He was just about to search the bathroom when another thought crept up on him. If he did find any drugs he was in no position to use it against Liam while he was in his body. At best he could get rid of them to prevent Liam from blackmailing him! He would have to know about something about himself to use it against Liam, but there really wasn't any.

Matt had a chilling though. If Liam and he had swapped bodies, did that mean that he is now as stupid as Liam was? Was Liam stupid to begin with? Matt didn't feel stupid, but all decisions he had made so far had all been pretty bad. Or had they? Fuck! He threw himself at the bed and glanced at the bag on the floor.

This all started when he cummed while wearing Liam's clothes. Perhaps he could do something like that again and set everything straight. He slowly removed all his clothes and dropped them in a pile on the floor. Then he unzipped the bag. There in a big, moist, wrinkled bundle is the football kit. He shook it all out on the floor. Damp football jersey, cum-sticky shorts, knee-socks, and boots.

He stepped into the sorts and pulled them up. The damp cloth feet cold against him. Then the socks and the football boots, also cold. All he could smell was lingering cigarette smoke, but he imagined this would smell at least as much as when he got dressed in Liam's street clothes in the changing room. After having tied both boots he was surprised to notice his hard on had come back. Surprised but pleased. He put on the jersey and went to the bathroom to have a look.

He was taken aback as he looked in the mirror. For some reason he hadn't really expected to see Liam looking back. He knew that was what he was going to see, but it was still jarring to see it. He did a bit of acting, trying different faces. It just turned him on more. With nothing under the shorts there was plenty tenting.

He went back to his bed and lied down on it, grabbed his dick through the glossy shorts fabric, and begun to slowly jack off. It felt amazingly good, and in his mind he struggled with both feeling incredibly sexy as Liam, but also hated almost everything about his life. As he exploded with a second load of cum in the shorts he felt a sharp pain in his head and yelped out loud.

The drug stash was in the boots just inside the door. His mother wasn't coming home until nine, probably. Darell picked up his laptop. Suddenly he remembered everything about Liam's life. As the pain subsided he slowly came to realize he couldn't remember anything of his own life. He could remember both trying out Liam's clothes and running in from the field at the same time, somehow, but nothing prior to that.

As Matt showed up for metal shop class the next morning Mr. Fox told him to go to the headmaster's office. He was quickly shown into the headmaster himself, someone he had never met before, at least not as Liam. "I've been informed of yesterday's incident. I'm always willing to give people a second chance if they are willing to take responsibility for their actions. Are you willing to do that, Liam?"

"Sound, mate."

"I've only heard the other side. You assaulted Matt on the soccer field during yesterday's practice, then went after him again in the changing room so he had to flee without any clothes on him. Is that what happened?"

"Mate, I didn't..."

"I'm gonna stop you there before you make a mistake. Matt has graciously asked for no punishment as long as you two are separated from now on. So I'll ask again, is that what happened."

"Yes. Whatev."

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xsarcasticwriterx · 3 years

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Au Volant-part 1

Summary: You were free, you had control until bucky and Steve showed up at your door.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x reader

Warnings: Angst, swearing, minor tfawts ep 2 spoilers.

Notes: This is a series btw and I'm not sure how long it'll be (not like I do for any of my series) and yea that's all just know it will be pretty....dark pfft. Also, this does NOT fit in the marvel timeline even if references are made to such.

Steve knew when he was out-matched, hell even before the serum he knew when he'd lose he just didn't know when to stop. Bucky did though and nothing about that had changed in 100 years. Not even now when steves ass was being handed to him. after getting bucky back steve and bucky had gone off on their own mission to find other super-soldiers who may still be alive. of course they expected this to be easier than it was.

Of course, bucky could've just brought steve to Isaiah Bradley but he still knew steve would be pissed after finding out what had been done to him and he just wanted to leave Isaiah to his own thing still.

Then there was you. Bucky met you back when he was first becoming the winter soldier. you were their first test into becoming one of them. of course, your trigger words hadn't been finished before you killed those who were working on you and escaping. it s why they advanced buckys mechanism. You'd had tried to free him but they were already in the works of triggering buckys words.

Bucky knew you were free but only by self-discipline and no one knowing the words aside from hydra who, by this point, you'd spent the last century running from. He wanted you to stay out even if he knew where you were at.

That was until now, they needed another super soldier to win. Sure he could call Isaiah but as far as triggers go you were more likely to not only survive this but even join it. So with that process bucky grabbed steve ignoring his words and ran to your house.

you were 95 years old, despite how you looked. you had managed to escape hydra. Ever since hydra fell you ere truly free for the first time in a long time. you had enrolled in college majoring in history, ironic yes but you figured with your overextended life maybe you could use it and become a history professor.

This was your plan until there was a knock at your door. you figured it was the pizza you had ordered until you opened it seeing a bloody avenger and the weapon that hydra used over and over again to kill people. So with that you slammed the door, locked it, and walked back to your living room. "y/n come on" you heard bucky say. "nope" you yelled back.

"I thought you said shed be willing to help?" you heard steve groan. "I never said willing I said she could help" bucky replied. steve sighed "look y/n I know-" steve started to say "you don't know shit about shit star-spangled man with a plan," you said back.

"I spent the last 70 years running from this man ok. Now I know he is back to Sargent Barnes or whatever crap he was before but guesses what it does mean I am willing to just jump back in the man who was on my ass trying to kill me just yesterday, and it sure as fuck doesn't mean that I am willing to jump back into war" you wished they just go away. You were finally free safe. "steve go" "huh?" "go ill be back with you in a few minutes" and so steve walked away out of hearing distance. bucky said down but your door.

"look y/n I know what you've been through ok. I know they hurt you because they hurt me too. See this difference is I was a soldier before this...you were just someone in the wrong place wrong time. Me and steve here are looking for the others those who were like us, set them free too. Though they seem to either be like you, Isiah, or are still trying to fight. now I'm here because most are trying to fight and they're gathering together and fighting. I don't blame you for not trusting me I get it, some days even I don't trust me but know that I never wanted to hurt you." bucky cleared his throat "I am James 'bucky' Barnes and you are part of my amends" bucky said before the door opened and he fell back.

You stuck your hand out "give it" you said which bucky only looked up at you confused. "come on there's only so many therapists for brainwashed murderes give it" you said again. bucky handed you the tiny book. you opened it and crossed out your name handing it back to him. "get up and get your boy toy over there to come inside. I need to get ready if we're going to war." you said walking upstairs. "so you'll come?" bucky asked. "sure James why the fuck not but be aware you may be fixed but I'm only free out of pure will, soon as someone says the words I'm no longer free" you said walking to your room.

Bucky opened his notebook writing down ten words. he handed the paper to steve. "what's this?" he asked looking down at the words in both Russian and English. "her trigger words. just know as soon as there said she's one of them" bucky knew the words. hydras orders were if he found you to trigger you. "so she's not...." steve trailed off "nope she's only free out of self will" bucky shrugged sometimes he wished he had been able to be like you. "is it safe to bring her?" steve asked fearing what would happen if you became like bucky. "ill be fine" you said from the top of the stairs. you were wearing your gear which consisted of a black long sleeve made out of bulletproof gear that you stole from the police, black leggings for movement, black boots, and a hoodie. your hair was out of your face and you had your daggers on one side of your belt and your guns on the other.

"don't be a moron and say those words and everything will be fine," you said walking down. "now what's the game plan what do I need?" "what you have and spare clothes and weapons," Steve said. you nodded walking to your garage where the rest of your knives and guns were at along with your disguised clothes. "so you said that the soldiers are grouping up and fighting. know why?" "There are only rumors some say they want new hydra, others say they're scared some say they are forming a 'better' hydra," bucky said following you.

you grabbed a bag stuffing clothes in and ammo along with some daggers. "so are we staying with the rest of the little einstens?" you asked turning to steve. you were met with two confused faces. you blinked, how on earth are you, a person on the run, more educated on pop culture than these two "its....its a kids show" you said clearing your throat "im asking if were staying at the avengers headquarters" you said awkwardly. "oh no were tracking the group and certain people, those suspicious and then we just stay in hotels" steve said. you nodded and walked to the front door. "lets go then shall we"

you two got into steves car. "so how come no ones ever heard of you if you were on of them?" steve asked. "got out before i become one fully they never were able to trigger me" you shrugged. "she tried getting me out but...she was too late" bucky looked down. steve shut up from that point on. you all drove to a motel close to where they had seen a few people hiding out at from the sights of it.

the motel was kind of well really bad, not quite what you expected when rolling with the avengers. they said it was to stay undercover, large purchases and such could trigger that someone famous is rolling in. So here you were sat on a rigidy bed in the motel. there was 2 beds but 3 of you so someone had to share. "not it" steve said flopping back onto a bed. you and bucky looked at each other. "come on you two have known each other for almost as long as buck and I" steve said sitting up.

you grumbled sitting on the bed before sighing. not like you slept much so maybe you wouldn't have to actually share the bed. "for tonight we will fill you in" steve said. you 3 sat at a table and they told you the information they have and what they're plan is.

They said how they have a few places where they think people are hiding out based on the hours of activity and a few spots look like people are hiding out there. They said their plan was talk until people started noticing bucky and then chose to fight, then they came to you. Now their plan was talk but with back up incase shit takes a turn again.

Bucky and steve had gone to sleep but you were still up sat at a table. you were sharpening your daggers. you were zoned out for a while at this point. you didn't sleep often due to fear that if you let your guard down you wouldn't be able to hold back the soldier part of you. you really only slept when you were on the verge of passing out. This started when one night you had a dream, not long after you escaped, of the man saying the words. you felt your whole brain shift, luckily you woke up and were able to push back before anything happened. since then it was too close of a call to risk anything ever again.

You saw movement and looked up seeing bucky look around in almost a panic before he saw you. his breathing steadied "hey" he whispered out of breath. you nodded to him "you ok there?" "hmm? yea why are you up isnt it late?" you looked at the clock. last you looked it was 12am. you shrugged "same reason your up" "guess being brainwashed has its cons" you huffed "ysupposeou could say that"

"you sleep at all" bucky asked standing and walking to you. "i sleep when i feel like im going to pass out" you returned back to sharpening your daggers "last time i casually slept the world almost had another winter soldier" you scoffed "never doing that shit again" you looked up at bucky. his hair was a mess and a thin layer of sweat covered his chest. he was definitely muscly and you'd be lying if you said he wasn't hot.

"you should rest ill watch over you make sure you don't change" he said looking at you. "no its fine got another" you looked down at your watch looking at the date "few days before i pass out" you shrugged. "y/n. sleep" he stated. you shook your head. bucky groaned, walked to you and threw you over his shoulder "come on sleep time" he said putting you on the bed. you groaned but soon as you were laying down you felt your eyes insticntly close. "stupid body" you grumbled

soon slumber took over. bucky smirked down at you. you two were one in the same except while he was forever free you, you were free on pure will and keeping your guard up. "ill keep you safe doll, no one will change you even yourself" he said brushing the hair from your face. soon he felt as peace seeing you so calm and he laid next to you. the bed reminded him of the ones in the military. sleep took him over not too longer after.

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x reader #the winter solider fanfiction #the winter solider x reader #james bucky barnes #james buchanan barnes #sebastian stan #mcu #mcu fanfiction #mcu x reader #marvel cinematic universe #marvel

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obsessivelyloved · 3 years

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I lied about not working on this, it's android time. This time it's Tord pulling a Twilight Edward and scaring the shit out of Tom. Also, Tom and Co. finding out what it means that their friend is a military-type robot. I.E Tord lugs them around sjidsfhdsg . Bad headache hit in the middle of writing this so it could be seen as unfinished. Might continue off this tomorrow, dunno yet.

Under a Read More since it's kinda long. Here's the first post with the context and a conversation between Edd and Tom. ___________________________________

“What the fuck,” Tom gasps. He jolts up, throwing himself against his wall.

Two glowing silver eyes stare at him from his doorway, unblinking. Tom hears his light switch being flicked before his lamp lights up his room, revealing Tord standing in his doorway.

“Sorry about that,” he says, an apologetic smile on his face. “Just wanted to check on you.”

Tom unclutches his blankets, still feeling his heart throbbing in his veins.

“Why the hell are you in here at-” he squints at his alarm clock, “4 in the morning? I thought you were supposed to charge at night.”

Tom feels uneasy. Tord’s never done this before as he normally spends all night charging in the living room.

“I’m currently at 95%, so I left the charging port. My current task is checking on my friends. You seem frightened, Tom. Do you want hot chocolate or tea?”

“I’m frightened because I woke up to you staring at me in the dark. I don’t want anything from you, just get out of here.”

Tord frowns and the little led on his forehead flickers between blue and yellow. Tom waits for him to close his door and leave, but he just stands there.

“Why don’t you want my help?” Tord asks. He sounds so upset and something in Tom’s mind screams at him to get away from Tord. “Am I not your friend? I want to help you.”

“I don’t want your help! Get out of here, Tord, I just want to go back to bed without you staring at me,” Tom snaps at him. He can’t shake the fear off and his head’s starting to hurt and he just wants to sleep. Calming himself down won’t be an option until Tord leaves.

Tord still doesn’t move. Instead, his led flickers red. He scowls and stomps over to Tom’s bed.

“I don’t understand why you’re acting like this,” he angrily tells Tom. “I want to help you and you aren’t letting me. You’re clearly distressed and it is my main priority to keep my friends happy. I gave you an option, Tom, I really tried.”

“What the fuck are you-”

Without the slightest bit of trouble, Tord grabs Tom by his waist and tosses him over his shoulder like he weighs nothing.

“Put me down!”

Tom bangs his fists against Tord’s back. Panic claws its way through his throat and his breathing starts to quicken.

Tord doesn’t say anything as he carries Tom to the kitchen.

Countless thoughts race through his mind, half cursing his friends for being such heavy sleepers and the other half remembering every sci-fi film and book where the A.I kill humans. He’s dumped into a kitchen chair and watches, paralyzed with fear as Tord moves around.

“Hot chocolate or tea?” he asks, looking inside the pantry.

“What?” Tom croaks.

“It’s a simple question, Tom. Do you want hot chocolate or tea? I could make both if that’s what it takes to calm you down.”

“Tea.”

Tord hums and as he passes Tom to start the kettle, Tom notices that his led has turned back to blue.

Now that he knows Tord isn’t going to kill him, he wants to bolt back to his room. But he has a feeling that if he did that, Tord would either drag him back to the kitchen or harass him until he opens his bedroom door. One thing's for sure, he’s going to look up the model number on Tord’s hoodie and find out just what kind of android was mailed to them. Edd was right in that Tord was acting weird.

* * * * *

“And you’re sure this will tell us what’s up with Tord?” Matt asks.

“It should.” Tom types in the website he found while Edd and Matt peer over his shoulders, staring at the screen of his laptop. “This is pretty much a database. From what I’ve seen, it has general information on androids and details about what the model was meant for.”

“Neat,” Matt mutters.

Model Number: 10197620

Description: Military Model.

Name: Red Leader

Occupation: Classified.

Abilities: Classified

Personality: Classified

“Oh my god,” Edd says.

Tom seconds that. “This is insane. Didn’t the pamphlet we got with him say he was ‘Built for Friendship’ or something like that?”

Matt bolts to his room. He returns a moment later with the pamphlet clutched in his hand.

“Tord is a friendly A.I built to be your friend. He’s harmless and will do all sorts of things friendship entails. Will love you forever and will take orders,” Matt reads aloud. “That’s all it says, along with how to turn him on and stuff.”

“Military huh? That explains last night.”

“Hm? What happened last night?” Edd asks.

“I woke up to Tord staring at me in the dark and he got agitated that I wanted him to leave. Picked me up like it was nothing and carried me to the kitchen.”

Edd stared hard at the laptop, thinking.

“He’s done something similar to me,” he admits. “I was up late working on a commission and he dragged me to bed, shutting off all my stuff too. He just….. It was like I weighed nothing to him.”

“That honestly sounds like something a military robot could do,” Matt says. “Dunno what Tord was built for specifically, but I’ve read that they’re supposed to be strong. But no idea why someone would-”

They all jump as Tom’s laptop is slammed shut.

“Do you really need to search my number?” Tord asks. “You could’ve just asked, you know.” For a moment, his led is red. Then it’s blue again and he’s smiling at them. “I’m your friend. Why not just ask me if you want to learn more about me?”

#android tord au #yandere tord #android tord #yandere ew tord #platonic yandere #yandere eddsworld #proof reading this was hell. im turning off my lights and going to bed #maybe this is a sign i should stop taking sleep gummies

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your-average-weeb-dealer · 4 years

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Hey could I please ask for a Kageyama x fem!reader where she has a medical condition to the point where it hurts to be touched sometimes she also gets really cold and starts shaking sometimes she faints from over working (just shitty fatigue issues) I have something similar so haha self indulgent request- ⚡️

I’m so sorry babes! that sounds really hard and annoying to deal with ):

Kegayama with a Fem! s/o who has a medical condition

anime: Haikyuu

Style: Headcannons

Genre: Fluff/comfort

Warnings: Mentions of severe pain, illness and fainting

He’s constantly worrying about you

You’re never going to be alone again

Seriously, he’s never leaving your side (even if he can’t touch you sometimes)

He’s just going to be standing next to you all. the. time.

Oh you’re cold?

Here take his shirt and jacket! he doesn’t need it

It doesn’t matter if its 95° or -20° he’s giving you his jacket.

If you fainted around him he’d immediately panic.

It.👏 does.👏 not.👏 matter.👏 how.👏 many.👏 times.👏 you.👏 tell.👏 him. 👏what. 👏to.👏do. 👏when.👏 you.👏 faint.👏

He’s going into panic mode

He’ll go with you to hospital appointments. And he’ll hold your hand because it comforts him

You’re probably never going to have to lift anything heavy ever again, or lift anything at all-

If he was holding you/your hand and it started to hurt, expect him to apologize into the next universe

He’s always carrying things for you, no matter how heavy they are- or how much you want to carry them

You’re also probably not going to do as much work as most people

(this wasn’t Kagayama’s doing... it was Suga and Daichi, they had a little “talk(;” with your professors and convinced then to give you less homework)

He’s really scared that one day your going to work yourself too hard and end up having to go to the ER

It’s actually one of his greatest fears

Please reassure him that you’re going to be ok; he stresses about it so much

#tobio kagayama #kagayama x reader #kags x reader #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu x you #haikyuu kagayama #tobio x y/n #tobio headcanons #kagayama hc #tobio scenarios

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pcttrailsidereader · 3 years

Text

Part 2 - Profile of Will 'Akuna' Robinson

Part 1 posted on Sunday, November 14. This is an article originally featured on ESPN. As was noted in the Introduction to Part 1, Akuna also contributed a story to Crossing Paths: A Pacific Crest Trailside Reader, an anthology of stories from the PCT that the Mountaineers Books will be releasing in March, 2022.

By Matt Gallagher

AKUNA PROVES A bona fide celebrity in the Goat Rocks. Hiking is a fairly insular community, prone to celebrities who mean everything to the initiated -- like CrossFit stars. He doesn't bask in it, nor does he run from it; it's just become a fixture of his trail life. Strangers take selfies with him, eager to post to their social media accounts. His DMs fill with queries of when he'll pass through. ("Having a girlfriend make those happen more, somehow," he says.) A hiker asks that Akuna attend his engagement proposal on the nearby Timber Trail in Oregon, to be there as some sort of high cleric of the life. Once, as we're taking a snack break, Akuna's mere presence causes a potentially relationship-ending argument between a young thru-hiking couple.

"That was him!" the woman says down the trail but not out of earshot. "That was Akuna!"

"It was not," we hear the man say, ever certain. "I can't believe you would think that."

It's hard not to laugh, so we do. The subtext in the argument may've been because Akuna's Black.

"I'm a unicorn in this world," he says, estimating that thru-hiking is "at least" 95% white, an assessment that seems accurate during my minor trail sampling. (A 2018 survey conducted by The Trek, specifically about Appalachian Trail hikers, supports that figure.)

This discrepancy, and Akuna's growing public profile, has led to him becoming a sort of ambassador for people of color in hiking and the greater recreational outdoors community. He considers himself a helper and carries himself like a leader, even if it happened more out of necessity than choice. When he speaks to hikers of color, or aspiring ones, he tells them one of the biggest hurdles is "getting over your own barrier of disbelief." The rest, he says, is easy.

That "rest," though -- the not infrequent Confederate flags in some trail towns, the not infrequent-enough racist jokes told when people think he's around the bend -- still happens. The trail may be the trail, but it's still America, too. Just this spring, a notorious leader in the political extremist group the Proud Boys was seen hiking the Appalachian Trail. Most thru-hikers are good people, Akuna stresses. But he's been a Black man his entire life. He knows what stares to steer clear of.

He dresses "strategically," his hiking clothes bright and cheery, never matching blues or reds for fear some country hunter panics that the Crips or Bloods have come for the holler. He speaks loud and clear, something ingrained in him young by Willie Senior. Unlike a lot of those on the trail, he abides by local and state laws with marijuana, despite its positive effects for his PTS.

"Not worth it," he says. "I don't blend in out here, I know that."

Of course, Akuna's more than a Black thru-hiker: He's an excellent one. He made it about 1,600 miles on his maiden PCT voyage in 2016 before a knee injury returned with wrath. The trail taught him then, he says, to listen to his body. But somewhere in the misery of the Sierras, that year changed something in him, and for the better. He flew home a man renewed.

"My best friend said, 'Dude, it's so good to see you back,'" Akuna recalls. "He didn't mean Louisiana. He meant in spirit. He said I was smiling more, joking more, loving life again. He was right."

Akuna returned to the southern terminus of the PCT the next spring. His pack was lighter, his trail knowledge deeper, and he'd found a fitting brace for his most troublesome knee. He did the whole thing this time, all 2,650 miles. Other hikers kept mentioning the Appalachian (2,190 miles), so he did that the next year. Then came the Continental Divide (3,100 miles), which traverses the Rocky Mountains, in 2019.

All three major trails conquered -- less than four years since he'd stumbled across "Wild" in the self-made prison of his own room. Overseen and facilitated by the American Long-Distance Hiking Association-West, just 525 people have ever completed it. Akuna's feat came one year after the first recorded Black woman, Elsye 'Chardonnay' Walker, accomplished the same.

Each of the trails took Akuna roughly five months to complete. At 6-feet tall -- a former point guard who first dunked at age 12 -- his rapid ascension to thru-hiking's pantheon defies the norm. The competitive parts of thru-hiking skew Generation Z-young, and most new arrivals to the trail don't come with Akuna's unique blend of desperation and military training. Be inspired by Akuna, certainly, but don't try to be him.

Only months after his accomplishment, the COVID-19 pandemic arrived and stayed twice as long, disrupting best laid plans across the globe. Akuna debated hiking through it but decided it wasn't worth the risk, both for his own health and that of the small communities that line the various trails and don't always have access to immediate, top-notch medical care.

He stayed in Louisiana during the pandemic, which came with its own trepidations. "Would I revert back to who I was?" he asks now. "That was a big fear." He didn't.

His isolation was different this time. Instead of bringing his world, darkness and all, to the trail, he brought lessons from the trail home, day-hiking through nearby marshes, exploring his native state in ways he never had.

Still, it wasn't until he got back to the show and hiked the Tahoe Rim Trail with his girlfriend Dawn in July 2021 that he felt right again.

"Getting back out there was like reentering life, you know?" he says at Shoe Lake, words that resonate well beyond the trail. "I'd already been given a second chance. I know how important it is to enjoy that, to appreciate that."

MODERN AMERICAN SCHOLARSHIP and understanding what we now call "post-traumatic stress" owes a great deal to clinical psychiatrist Jonathan Shay, who's widely credited with naming and spreading the concept of "moral injury," an affliction not unique to war veterans, of course, though still one often associated with them in post-9/11 America.

Not to oversimplify Shay's books "Achilles in Vietnam" and "Odysseus in America," which blend cognitive and mental health research, therapy experiences with veterans of the Vietnam War, and contemporary analysis of ancient Greek literature, but it's all been done, for centuries. This is something that's given me comfort over the years, both as a person and as a combat vet navigating his own way through life in the afterwar. It's all been done.

For example, take thru-hiking. One of the godfathers of the Appalachian Trail, perhaps the first man to thru-hike its entirety, was a man named Earl Shaffer. Shaffer served in the Pacific with the signal corps during World War II, then returned home to his native rural Pennsylvania, decades before the Greatest Generation mythology congealed. A 1947 War Department survey reported that 1 in 5 World War II vets were "completely hostile" to civilians -- and the resentment wasn't one-sided, either. Some Americans saw the G.I. Bill, which revolutionized education legislation, as a societal bane. The Saturday Evening Post tapped into that dread in 1946 when it asked, "Are We Making a Bum of G.I. Joe?"

Like many of his generation, Shaffer felt aimless, adrift. He missed his best childhood friend, killed at Iwo Jima. So he took to the trail in 1948, to walk the war and the army "out of my system." He kept hiking until he passed away in 2002, only four years after he'd walked the full Appalachian Trail again at the age of 79.

Akuna hikes in this tradition, though he's hardly alone. "There's a lot of vets that hike," he says. "It's not a coincidence ...veteran or not, the majority of people coming out here are working on something."

It's not normal to leave behind society for six months to test one's own limitations, I think. It's an open rejection of normal.

How does Akuna recognize other military veterans on the trail? It's all in the little details. "We walk like we march," he says, monitoring my navigation down a ridgeline. "There's physically a kick-step." A couple times, he's seen men and women field-strip a cigarette. "When they do that, I don't even need to ask."

Not unlike the army, being a good trail leader sometimes means being a good follower, Akuna says. He pushes groups to be as democratic as possible, something domineering young men occasionally bristle at. If and when his background comes up, Akuna addresses stereotypes head-on: "I want them to know," he says, "I won't go Full Metal Jacket on you. I'm a pretty chill guy."

Despite his own mixed experiences with VA healthcare efforts, he tells younger vets to seek medical treatment there, as a baseline, if nothing else. He's learned the hard way to "embrace the fight," that his PTS is not unlike his wrist and knees, a chronic thing that's just part of his body and being now, not something to be vanquished but tamed.

Helping newer hikers adapt to the life is one of his favorite things, figuring out which equipment works best for them, how many miles a day they should aim for. Still, "you can keep things to yourself," he admits. "Nothing wrong with that. Sometimes I go off by myself because that's where I need to be in that moment."

"People get that out here," he continues. "If you need to, you're allowed to be dark."

With Kabul falling but the forever war we both served in enduring, talk turns to the world. We're not in a VFW beer hall but at the shores of Shoe Lake, soaking up sun, listening to the sounds of a breaking day. The three of us talk love, God, war, country.

"America doesn't care about veterans, not in that hard, meaningful way," Akuna says, the sweet tang of his Black & Mild floating through the air. "If it did, would Afghanistan have lasted this long? It cares about active-duty because that's when we're young, fit, healthy, can't ask any of those messy questions ... it's sad, man, the only time we're united is when we're at war.

"People have lost a sense of community, and I get that, I get what that lack of connection can do." He means his own journey, going from the shared purpose of the military to the screaming isolation of trapping himself in his room in Southeast Louisiana. "Thru-hiking has that community and it's why I love it so much. People need to know they belong to something."

He says things like this, sometimes -- a lot, actually. My notebook becomes full of eminently-quotable lines Akuna tosses about with the freedom of a man who's doing something he cherishes. A standout: "They say you're a thru-hiker when you finish a trail. I disagree. I think it's as soon as you get out here. Because you've already done the hard part."

Out of gratitude, manners, humility, or something else, Akuna tends to reference the trail as an active force that intervened on his behalf. It's an object, stunning and vitalizing, yes, but a physical place cultivated and stomped into being by humans.

Akuna wasn't saved by happenstance. He made a choice. He saved himself.

Robinson dresses strategically, favoring bright colors; hiking's demographic skews overwhelmingly white. "I don't blend in out here, I know that," says Robinson. "I'm a unicorn in this world."

AKUNA BELIEVES THAT every thru-hiker needs a call, something that belongs to them and them alone and identifies them to others. It's, at once, greeting and statement, a strident claim that ruptures the stillness of the trail but disturbs nothing permanently.

His goes: "Ai-eeeeeeeee!!!" Equal parts Cajun yowl and Peter Pan crow, fittingly his.

He asks us to deliver ours atop the Goat Rocks. Andy, the photographer, bellows from deep within his soul. I shout "Olly olly oxen free." It's stupid but fun as hell.

Akuna's call finds utility our second morning out. A classic Northwest mist has cast Shoe Lake into in a heavy, dank gray. Visibility extends no further than ten feet, and the three of us hike up to a ridgeline to wait out the haze for photographs. While Andy scouts out some locations and I snack, Akuna stares down into the void, in the direction of our campsite.

"Ai-eeeee!" he shouts into the misty void. "Ai-eeeeeeeee!!!"

I think he's just playing around. Ten seconds or so later, a voice calls back. "Which way?"

Akuna guides a pair of thru-hikers up the correct path. I have no idea how he saw them through the gray but he did, and as the wanderers pass by, one looks grateful and the other embarrassed.

"How'd you see them?" I ask later. "That was some superpower s---."

Akuna smiles and winks. "Heard 'em first."

Robinson advocates for hiking as therapy. "People have lost a sense of community, and [I] get what that lack of connection can do," he says."Thru-hiking has that community and it's why I love it so much. People need to know they belong to something."

OUR LAST MORNING on the PCT crackles with high-summer luster. "A good day to be an outdoors model," Akuna jokes. We even come across a herd of mountain goats sunbathing along a rocky slope, seeing us out of the wilderness that carries their name.

We've earned our trail names, Andy and me. He's Billy Goat from all his climbing and hopping for shots. I'm Sir Doodle. "I figured out you'd been an officer pretty quick," Akuna says.

To the northeast, dark smoke plumes scar the sky, the inimitable marker of a distant forest fire. Smoke on the horizon -- a bit too explicit a symbol for returning to the world. Akuna's got plans for what's next. First, Louisiana, to catch up with his family and tutor up his nieces. Then the 800-mile Arizona Trail in the fall, followed by a day-hike event in Huntsville, Alabama, to raise money for a local veterans' home and welcome people of color to hiking.

Next year, he's aiming to be at the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail, if and when another Black hiker completes their own Triple Crown attempt. Beyond that? New Zealand's Te Araroa Trail is on his bucket list. There's the Jordan Trail in the Middle East, the Great Wall of China, over 5,000 miles long, which would take roughly a year and a half to hike ...

More places to begin again.

We finish our hike and head to the Kracker Barrel gas station at White Pass. Laundry costs $10 a load, showers are $5 for thirty minutes. So goes the free market. Dozens of self-proclaimed "hiker trash" have gathered at the picnic tables outside, some coming off-trail to resupply, others prepping to get back on. Boxes full of old shoes, flashlights, freeze-dried food packets and spare fuel line the side of the building, communal grab-bags for those in want or need. Akuna spots MacGyver in his rainbow foam clogs and sits down to shoot the breeze.

In the coming hours we'll learn that Hurricane Ida's inbound and for real. Akuna's flight to Louisiana gets canceled because of it. He'll fly to inland Texas to visit Dawn instead.

On the shuttle to the airport, I ask Akuna about that. He smiles.

"It's cool," he says. "I've taken the long way back before."

#Will 'Akuna' Robinson #BIPOC #PSTD #Goat Rocks #white pawn cookie #Triple Crown

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theprettyinthemundane · 4 years

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Who’s right about the myths and what does it mean to be culturally Christian? (using Pan as an example)

Thanks to @will-o-the-witch for looking over the part on Judaism!! : )

Disclaimer:

The ancient world was incredibly diverse and ideas about the gods themselves and the myths varied a lot across space and time, which is something I’ll be mentioning again later. I feel like it’s important to have a better understanding about the myths since they’re so prevalent in culture. Essentially, while many people today may tend to think there’s only one “right” way to see the myths or a god this was and is not the case for many faiths. To show this, I wanted to use Pan and his parentage as an example. This also connects to a broader idea: cultural Christianity (which isn’t “bad” or “good”, it’s just something to be aware of). This isn’t about Christians either, just about how cultural Christianity can affect peoples’ perception of other faiths. Whether or not someone is Christian themselves, growing up in a Christian place can incorrectly inform how they learn about other faiths which can lead to misinformation being spread. Sometimes it can (even accidentally) reinforce very harmful ideas that can contribute to bigotry like antisemitism, which we have to fight against! (Seriously, bigotry sucks! Also I hope the way I word all this makes sense because it’s something I care a lot about!)

So, who are Pan’s parents and who’s right?

Pan is often known as Hermes’ son, even the Homeric hymn to Pan says so (1). Hermes is widely known as the “second youngest Olympian”, which would make Pan among the very youngest if this genealogy is considered (2).

However, that isn’t the genealogy everyone in the ancient world used to describe Pan. There are many variations on his parentage, and I think it’s worth going over because of how interesting it is. Who Pan’s parents are often changes depending on who you ask or where you ask it. For example, at times he has been called the son of Hermes (1, 3: pg90,151), if you ask 5th century Athenians he is the son of Chronos (3: pg42, 88), he was also known as the son of Zeus and twin of Arcas’ (3: pg43), the great grandson of Pelasgos who was a mortal, bother or foster brother of Zeus (3: pg113) and in Thebes he was believed to be the son of Apollo (3: pg180). He was also called Son of Aix (the solar goat too bright to look at, equated with Amalthea nurse of Zeus) (3: pg100). There were likely other variations too that were lost to history.

One thing worth noting is that Pan originated in Arcadia and before the Battle of Marathon in 490 BCE, his worship was mainly preformed here and it was only after that battle that his worship spread widely to the rest of Greece (4, 5). So, the myths of Pan from Arcadia are typically older and reflected older views that worshipers held of him. One example is that Pan helped Zeus in the war against the titans and these myths point to Pan’s father being Chronos (or at least placing him before Hermes’ birth):

Pan has been described as “the source of that "panic" fear with whose aid he helped the gods in their war against the Titans …” and the son of Cronos and a she-goat (3: pg42). In fact, Aeschylus believed Pan to be two gods: both of which had the power of panic and one of them fought against the titans with Zeus (3: pg42) this is interesting because in other myths Pan was able to split up into a swarm of pans, so Pan being a multiplicity of gods and also a single god isn’t unheard of (3: pg100). Overall, most people understood him to be one god (like we do today), but this just shows how much diversity there was in how people saw him.

And in Egypt he was viewed similarly to the Pan who fought in the war with the titans (as one of the oldest gods):

“…the Egyptians Pan is considered very ancient and one of the eight gods said to be the earliest…(6)”

Here he was identified with the Egyptian god Min, which may seem a bit problematic to some because otherwise they were revered as different gods (6). However, the practice of identifying gods with other gods (aka syncretism) was not uncommon in the ancient world; Hekate-Artemis, Selene-Hekate, and Selene-Artemis were identified with each other commonly (7, 8). Other syncretisms were between Isis and Demeter, Isis and Persephone, Isis and Aphrodite, and Isis and Venus (9: pg 20). I am not a classics student, but what I have taken away from this is that the identity of the ancient gods is somewhat fluid and many worshipers could have differing and even contradictory views without either of them being “wrong”, even though some likely did argue or disagree to some extent (6). I’m not claiming there wasn’t debate in the ancient world about the gods, there definitely was. What I’m saying is that people did not fight to discredit new or different ideas just because they conflicted with already established ideas. There was a great deal of variation in how people worshiped and most weren’t interested in a one “right way” to do things.

This isn’t only an ancient practice: it still happens today in Shinto in general and with the kamisama* Inari Ōkami (稲荷大神), who has been portrayed as a group of kamisama, as masculine, androgynous, and feminine (10). So in general this practice of seeing kamisama (or supernatural beings, or gods) in many different ways with acceptance is more common than one might expect (10, 11). This also happens today in Judaism, where debate is very common:

“Nevertheless, the general trend throughout Jewish history is to value debate and not to stifle it, and the history of Jewish texts supports that trend. (12)” Some examples of this are how many Jewish people debate the Talmud (a religious text) and how there are many different sects of Judaism.

One important thing for people who are interested in this subject and were raised in a Christian culture (even if they aren’t religious) is to not overextend the characteristics of Christianity onto other religions ancient or modern (this is often accidental, which makes it even more important to be aware of it). This is relevant to both ancient and modern religions such as Shinto and Judaism because misunderstanding these faiths can contribute to terrible things like antisemitism and xenophobia (more so with Judaism). So, we need to guard against bigotry like that by being open to learning and changing our opinions when they are wrong both for learning and fighting bigotry.

In fact, one scholar noted that even in Arcadia Pan’s cult and myth were not standardized although what I have mentioned before was certainly the more popular (13: pg 63) So, even though Herodotus heard from people in Egypt who worshiped Min, it is not unheard of or unreasonable to understand that some people did understand him that way. To answer the question I asked earlier: each myth about Pan’s parentage has some element of truth to it and none of them are completely “right” or “wrong”. For example, Hermes being Pan’s father echoes the fact that both of them are liminal deities and usually are shown being close to mortals (3: 178).

Conclusion:

Pan is commonly considered the son of Hermes, however there was immense variation in how others saw him, both across space and time. One specific idea- that Pan helped Zeus in the war against the titans and that he is among the eldest of the gods- would contradict the Hermes genealogy and was prevalent in some areas. This is the case in Egypt where he was conflated with the local god Min. While this could seem confusing to modern readers (both the Min thing and the various genealogy thing), many faiths both ancient and modern do not push for one “right way” of seeing things and this is important to understand when learning about these things.

Another way of looking at this concept is the idea of cultural Christianity. It does not matter if a person is religious or even Christian, by growing up in a culturally Christian place their assumptions about other faiths are automatically informed by Christianity, which does not reflect most other faiths. This is not good or bad, it’s just something to be aware of and work around so that we can better understand these other faiths. It is especially important to keep in mind today as misunderstandings about religions can contribute to dangerous bigotry like antisemitism, which we must stand against!

*In Shinto kami (or kamisama) are supernatural beings who inspire awe, they are the main object of worship in Shinto. Please don’t call Shinto kamisama “gods”, it’s inaccurate and doesn’t represent how people see them. Due to how Shinto and Japanese mythology are different from Western mythology we need to take care when talking about it to keep it in its original context.

Citations:

1: Hymn 19 to Pan Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Ed. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=HH+19

2: da Costa Martins, P. A., Leptidis, S., & De Windt, L. J. (2014). Nuclear Calcium Transients: Hermes Propylaios in the Heart. Doi: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.114.010675

3: Borgeaud, P., & Atlass, K. (1988). The cult of Pan in ancient Greece. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 13: 9780226065953

4: GARTZIOU-TATTI, A. (2013). GODS, HEROES, AND THE BATTLE OF MARATHON. Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies. Supplement, (124), 91-110. Retrieved June 23, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/44216258

5: Haldane, J. (1968). Pindar and Pan: Frs. 95-100 Snell. Phoenix, 22(1), 18-31. doi:10.2307/1087034

6: Griffiths, J. G. (1955). The orders of Gods in Greece and Egypt (according to Herodotus). The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 75, 21-23. Doi: 10.2307/629164

7: MANOLEDAKIS, M. (2012). Hekate with Apollo and Artemis on a Gem from the Southern Black Sea Region. Istanbuler Mitteilungen, 62, 289-302.

8: E. Hijmans, S. (2012). Moon deities, Greece and Rome. In The Encyclopedia of Ancient History (eds R.S. Bagnall, K. Brodersen, C.B. Champion, A. Erskine and S.R. Huebner). doi:10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah17276

9: Witt, R. E. (1997). Isis in the ancient world. JHU Press. ISBN-13: 978-0801856426

10: Smyers, K. (1996). "My Own Inari": Personalization of the Deity in Inari Worship. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 23(1/2), 85-116. Retrieved June 23, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/30233555

11: Lya. 2015. Interview with Gary Cox - Inari Faith International (VO) https://www.equi-nox.net/t10647-interview-with-gary-cox-inari-faith-international-vo

12: Mjl. Conversation & Debate. www.myjewishlearning.com. https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/conversation-debate/

13: Ogden, D. (Ed.). (2010). A companion to Greek religion. John Wiley & Sons. Print ISBN:9781405120548 |Online ISBN:9780470996911 |DOI:10.1002/9780470996911

#pandeity #hellenic gods #cultural christianity #i hope i worded this well enough because i really care about this issue #happy to hear other peoples' thoughts too!#greek mythology #hellenic polytheism

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imjustthemechanic · 4 years

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The Price of a Soul

Part 1/? - Agent Russel Part 2/? - The Letter

Of course Agent Russel isn’t who she said she was... but who is she really? And what is the significance of the letter she left in Peggy’s purse?

It wasn’t until she was packing up her things to head home at the end of the day that Peggy noticed the envelope.

Peggy was used to finding envelopes on her desk – it had taken her a while to find a proper apartment in Los Angeles, so she’d used the SSR office as her address and still got mail there. Her colleagues also left things for her. But this wasn’t on her desk or even in her desk, it was in her purse, which had been sitting next to her desk all day, except for when it had been sitting next to Daniel’s desk in his office while she spoke with Agent Russel. Peggy didn’t recall anyone coming near it, but then, she hadn’t been paying that much attention. What she was sure of was that there had been no envelope in it when she’d left home that morning.

She pulled it out. There was nothing written on it and the flap was not sealed. Inside was a single sheet of typing paper. Peggy unfolded it, and found two typewritten lines of numbers:

74 47 35 95 25 03

Below them was a quickly scrawled drawing of a five-pointed star with two circles around it.

Peggy’s breath caught. Her first instinct upon just seeing the numbers was, of course, that it represented some kind of code or cipher, but noticing the star… perhaps she was biased, but she was fairly sure that represented Captain America’s shield. And if it did, maybe the numbers were far simpler than a code. Maybe somebody knew where the Valkyrie had crashed. Ninety-five degrees was a long way to the west, and seventy-four was further north than Howard had ever looked.

Who had left her this? Her initial idea was that it must have been Russel, but why would Russel do that and where would she have gotten such information? If she had it, wouldn’t she give it to Daniel or to Chief Thompson in New York, or even to the joint chiefs or the president, rather than to Peggy Carter? Everybody thought of her in association with Captain America, yes, but she’d been a comparatively minor figure in his career. Maybe it was some kind of trap or a distraction? But why do that? It seemed entirely incompatible with Russel’s goal. But if not her, who?

She folded the page up again. She was getting ahead of herself, wasn’t she? She didn’t yet know what those numbers meant. Possibly she was jumping to conclusions. She needed a map or a globe. Peggy did not own one personally. There was a large map of North America on one wall of the SSR office, but she didn’t want anyone seeing her poring over that and asking why. Perhaps a public library? But what if she were followed?

Remaining calm, Peggy put the page back into the envelope and the envelope into her purse. She gave Daniel a kiss and wished him good night, and said goodbye to Rose on the way out, as if she were simply going home at the end of a tiring day and nothing was wrong in the world.

She did not go home, however. She went to Howard Stark’s house.

Howard himself wasn’t home, but Edwin Jarvis answered the door and looked delighted to see Peggy, as he always was. The man never seemed to learn.

“Agent Carter,” he said with a smile. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I’m afraid it’s a business call,” said Peggy. “I need to borrow a book.”

“Of course, come right in,” Jarvis said, standing aside. “I’ll make tea. Can I interest you in a slice of apple torte? Anna has the dog outside, so there’s no need to fear an immediate assault upon entering the kitchen.”

Peggy smiled – the Jarvises had recently acquired a Bernese Mountain Dog puppy, which Anna had named Zoltan. It was already twice the size it had been when they brought it home and showed no signs of slowing down, while having no idea that it was already much too big to fit in a human lap. Anna adored the monster, and Edwin pretended to be annoyed with the amount of hair it shed, but could not bring himself to truly dislike an animal that made his wife so happy.

“Thank you, Mr. Jarvis, apple torte sounds lovely.”

In the library she quickly found what she was looking for – an enormous leather-bound Atlas of the World, the sort of book Howard bought because he was supposed to have one and then never looked at because he had the entire geography of the earth memorized already. Mr. Jarvis brought her pie and tea while she flipped pages, until she found one showing the islands of Northern Canada.

She took the paper out again and spread it out. Seventy-four and a half degrees north was… just about there, and ninety-five degrees west was… just off the coast of Cornwallis Island, a place choked by sea ice for nearly the entire year. As she’d suspected, it was very far north of where they’d thought the Valkyrie might have gone down based on its last known trajectory. Perhaps they’d underestimated the speed of the craft?

Could it really be? Could somebody have simply handed her the location of Steve Rogers’ body?

The only way to find out would be to look… but looking would be a big undertaking, with people and ships and winter gear. Peggy did not yet have nearly enough information to start something like that. Before she could even begin she had to find out who had given her these coordinates, where that person had gotten them from, and how many other people might know about them. For all she knew, this was some kind of trap.

“Agent Carter?” asked Mr. Jarvis, coming to collect her empty teacup. “Have you found what you needed?”

“I believe I’ve made a start,” Peggy replied. “May I use the telephone?”

“Of course,” he said.

She pulled out the card Agent Russel had given her, and asked the operator for the number. The phone rang… and then rang again… and rang again. Peggy waited with increasing impatience until it had rung twelve times, and then hung up. Maybe Russel was still busy, or perhaps she’d gone out for dinner or something. There were plenty of explanations that didn’t involve her deliberately avoiding Peggy, and Peggy would not improve the situation by becoming paranoid.

She put the envelope back in her purse, thanked Mr. Jarvis, and headed home again.

When she arrived, she rang Russel’s number again but still got no answer. This was annoying for several reasons, not the least of which was that Russel would be the easiest suspect to eliminate. Peggy could just ask Russel about it, while her colleagues were a different matter. If she asked the wrong person and they weren’t the culprit, they might spread the news around and then there would be a big fuss over what might turn out to be nothing. Peggy didn’t want that.

It did occur to her that this might just be a ploy to distract her from looking for Dottie so that somebody else could take the credit. That would have been infuriating if Peggy hadn’t long ago let go of caring who got credit for saving the world just so long as it ended up saved.

Before she turned in that evening, Peggy did try one last time to telephone Russel and still got no response. She told herself not to get cranky about it. She’d only met this woman yesterday, and an FBI agent was doubtless busy… especially a woman, who would have to be twice as good as the men to get half the respect. Peggy herself could be almost impossible to contact sometimes. Howard, Mr. Jarvis, Angie, and even Daniel had all complained of it. When it was time to panic, she told herself as she shut off the lights, she would know.

As it turned out, the time for panic was around four o’clock the following morning, when Peggy was awakened from a sound sleep by her phone ringing. She turned the light back on and picked up the receiver.

“Hello?” she asked.

“Peggy?” it was Daniel. “Did I wake you up?”

“I should say you did – do you know what time it is?” she asked, having to turn her alarm clock in order to find out for herself. Ten past four. If Daniel were calling her now, it was something serious. “What’s going on?”

“They found Agent Russel,” he said.

Peggy’s heart went into her throat. “She’s dead?” That had not been an expected outcome.

“No…” Daniel said. “The woman who came to see you yesterday wasn’t Agent Russel. Agent Nedrick Russel has been found tied up in the trunk of a car at the airport.”

Having only just leaped, Peggy’s heart now sank, all the way down to the floor and possibly through it into the apartment below. “Bloody hell,” she said.

“Can you meet us at the police station?” asked Daniel.

“Absolutely.” Peggy threw aside the covers and stood up. “Give me a moment to get ready.”

She hung up without saying goodbye, because now was not a time for pleasantries. In the washroom to give her hair a quick comb and put on makeup as best she could, Peggy caught her own eye in the mirror and scowled.

“Bloody bugger,” she declared. “Bloody, bloody bugger.”

She might not know what was going on with the mysterious envelope, but she now knew in her gut exactly what had happened yesterday and it was not at all nice. Peggy had always been as lenient as she could with Dottie Underwood, though that wasn’t very, because she knew Dottie had been brought up by cruel people who’d twisted her into a monster. The same was doubtless true of this woman calling herself Nadine Russel… but Peggy was going to have a much more difficult time trying to be kind.

When Peggy arrived at the station near the airport, dressed and groomed but definitely not looking her best, a police officer escorted her into a room where three men from the SSR, including Daniel, and several more police were standing around watching a man devour a ham sandwich. He was in his early fifties, with graying dark hair and a chisel-straight nose, wearing a white shirt with sweat stains under the arms, his tie and his blue plaid blazer draped over the back of his chair. His audience didn’t seem to interest him at all. He was entirely focused on his food.

“Agent Russel?” asked Peggy.

The man glanced up at her, then quickly swallowed his mouthful and washed it down with half a glass of water. He’d clearly been imprisoned in the car trunk for some time, and it had left him both hungry and dehydrated. “You must be Agent Carter,” he said. “This isn’t how I pictured us meeting.”

“Nor I,” said Peggy. She looked at the police. “You questioned him?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” said the nearest man. “He says he was having a drink at the Coconut Club when a pretty blonde came up and started flirting with him, and the next thing he remembers was coming to locked in the trunk of his car. His wallet and his briefcase are both missing.”

Peggy had heard of the Coconut Club, though she’d never been there. It was a fairly swanky pub not too far away from the airport. “Do we have a description of the suspect?”

“We’ve got a sketch artist on his way,” the policeman promised.

“She was about so tall,” said Russel with his mouth full, holding his hand at the height of his shoulders to suggest a woman significantly shorter than he. “Blonde hair, blue eyes, great skin, nails like a tiger. Black dress with a little bolero, and a choker necklace with a great big rock on it.” He pointed to his adam’s apple to suggest where that had sat.

“Did she give her name?” Peggy asked.

“She said it was Katherine. Told me to call her Kay,” Russel said. “You’re not going to tell Alice, are you?”

Peggy rolled her eyes, and Daniel looked like he badly wanted to. “Agent Russel,” he said, “the SSR wants to know who this woman is and why she’s interested in finding Olga Barynova. We don’t care where your wife thinks you were last night.”

Russel had been about to bite into his sandwich again. Now he hesitated. “You mean Underwood? She’s got a real name now?”

“Was that not in the information your assailant took from you?” asked Peggy.

“No…” said Russel. “No, we’ve got a list of her aliases but none of them were Russian.”

Peggy had already been fairly sure this mysterious Miss Kay must be from the same organization as Dottie herself… now she suspected she knew it for certain. Had she assumed that the SSR already knew Dottie’s real name? Or had she only called her that by mistake? Either way, she’d covered for herself very quickly.

Had Kay gotten the coordinates from Russel? Peggy would have to find a more private moment to ask him. In the meantime, she took out the business card her visitor had given her yesterday, and showed him the number.

“Does this telephone number mean anything to you, Agent Russel?” she asked.

His mouth was once again full. He shook his head.

“Then that’s where I’d like to start,” said Peggy. Maybe Kay hadn’t thought they would find the real Russel so soon, and was expecting Peggy to try to contact her. Or maybe it had only been a ruse, to keep Peggy from being suspicious. She offered the card to one of the policemen. “Would somebody mind tracing this for me, please?”

The man looked at Daniel, who nodded. “Do it,” he said.

“And I’ll want to speak to the sketch artist, myself,” Peggy added. At the moment it was technically only a suspicion that ‘Nadine’ and ‘Kay’ were the same person, but it would be nice to have it confirmed. Then she could decide what she would try to do next.

#fanfic #captain america #agent carter #peggy carter #steve rogers #steggy #fix it fic

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awko-orange-potato · 3 years

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LGBT Representation During the 1960-80s

Homosexuality has a history of being a taboo in the United States, but from the 1960s to the 1980s, more widespread awareness of homosexual prevalence in the country led to massive panic. Many attest the increased awareness of homosexuality in the United States to the popular published works of American biologist, Alfred Kinsey, in which revealed there were at least 20 million gay men and women in the United States at the time (Schiller & Rosenburg, 1985). Prior to The Kinsey Reports, which were published not long after the conclusion of WWII, there was more of a common perception that homosexuals were only a small handful of the population (Schiller & Rosenburg, 1985). The reports revealed to everyone that their previous perceptions about the world were incorrect, so naturally many people started to panic. Not only did the start of the Cold War bring widespread fear to the United States over nuclear missile strikes and the spread of communism, but it also brought an increased fear of homosexuals.

During the Cold War, “homosexuals were cast as a serious threat to the moral health and security of the United States by both politicians and journalists” (Hall, 2013, 1110). Homosexuality became associated with communism because many conservative politicians at the time, like infamous Senator Joseph McCarthy, used the rhetoric publicly as a tool to fit their political agendas (Schiller & Rosenburg, 1985). The media perpetuated this trend by broadcasting many of these instances of homosexuality, and because at this time many homosexuals did not have a voice, they were being falsely represented and often demonized. This widespread panic surrounding homosexuals during the Cold War, became known as the “Pink Scare,” an homage to the “Red Scare,” the phrase in which described the increased fear of communism in America at the time (Hall, 2013, 1110). Because of the Pink Scare, many gay men and women lost their jobs and livelihoods, especially homosexuals in the military in which were often dishonorably discharged, received no veteran benefits, and were no longer allowed to reassume their positions (Schiller & Rosenburg, 1985). However, in spite of these issues, groups began to form amongst the people affected by them, and as time moved forward, more and more people began to join these groups either because they felt it was a way to be represented, or simply just to support the cause. Gay rights activists argued against the idea that homosexuals were a threat to national security and even used patriotic ideas in order to appeal to the rest of the population. This became a frequent strategy during the early 1960s, in which many advocacy groups invoked the rhetoric that anti-gay discrimination is “against American ideals” (Hall, 2013, 1112).

As a result of gay advocacy groups becoming more popular, how many gay people viewed themselves changed. Many homosexuals started to believe that the issues that they faced in regards to their homosexuality was not their fault, an idea in which they were made to believe for so long, but that it was fault of “the social attitudes of the people around them” (Schiller & Rosenburg, 1985). The common ways in which grassroots organizers portrayed themselves started to evolve. Following the Stonewall Riot of June, 28, 1969, many activists and organizations embraced Revolutionary Politics and more radical rhetoric, rather than continuing with their patriotic-centered approaches (Hall, 2013, 1114). By this time, queer media outlets were continuing to increase in popularity, therefore increasing representation for the LGBT community. Queer media outlets were able to publicize the falsities presented by more mainstream outlets, and specifically tackle the common rhetoric of homosexuality being a mental illness in which many psychologists of the period claimed (Gross, 2002, 25). With further representation and advocacy on gay issues, homosexuals and other queer people started to “think of themselves as a political force and not just an oppressed minority” (Gross, 2002, 29). From the 1960s up until the early 70s, increased awareness of homosexuality was commonplace, and a lot of progress was made in order to abolish the frequent inaccurate views of the masses. However, the sexual revolution and the beginning spread of the AIDS virus proved to complicate this progress in many ways, arguably for better or for worse.

In the United States during the 1970s and 80s, there were a lot of media outlets which framed sexual infections to be the “consequence” of the sexual revolution (Gross, 2002, 94). Consequently, because one of the first people in the U.S. to be discovered with the AIDS virus was a gay man, it became common to associate the virus with homosexuals. At the start of the AIDS epidemic, many started to call the virus, “G.R.I.D.,” meaning “Gay Related Immune Deficiency,” which then became casually known as the “gay plague,” (Gross, 2002, 95). Because of the rhetoric associating gay people with the AIDS virus, it was viewed as a “gay issue,” and therefore the mainstream media chose not to publish much about it when it began (Gross, 2002, 95-96). That proved to be very damaging for the population as a whole, because many people who did not identify as homosexual were under the impression that they could not get the virus, which was not the case. “What society judged was not the severity of the disease but the social acceptability of those affected with it,” (Gross, 2002, 97). In part due to the societal, governmental, medical, and legislative failures of the United States at the rise of the AIDS epidemic, the amount of AIDS deaths went from approximately 500,000 in 1987 to 1 million in just two years (France, 2012). A lot of human rights issues began to arise during this time because of how gay people were treated in the country due to the arising illness. Advocacy groups began to form and gain more backing in response to issues such as overpriced AIDS medication, crippling side effects to medications due to improper testing, hospitals turning patients away completely, and much more (France, 2012). One of the most famous organizations that arose during the time of the AIDS crisis was called “ACT UP,” which stood for “AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power.” ACT UP, along with many other organizations of its time, made strides for gay rights in the United States (France, 2012). Because of the organizations advocating for these issues, more progress was made for gay rights than almost ever before. Public protests forced much of the population to acknowledge that people were dying in masses from the AIDS virus and it would not stop until they did something about it (France, 2012). Public protests and sit-ins at press briefings also proved to push the government to remain accountable for the issues surrounding the AIDS epidemic because they were highly publicized. It seemed that simply because homosexuals were dying, that was when the general population began to look at them as more human. However, unfortunately millions of lives were lost in the time it took for much of the country and the world to wake up to the idea that this was an event which needed to be taken seriously. In the movie, “How to Survive a Plague,” a man inflicted with the AIDS virus brought up the important notion of, “what does a decent society do with people that hurt themselves because they’re human, who smoke too much, who eat too much, who drive carelessly, who don’t have safe sex? I think the answer to that is a decent society does not put people out to pasture and let them die because they’ve done a human thing.” A lot of organizations formed at the time of the AIDS crisis simply wanted to convey that sentiment to the rest of the country.

Works Cited

Before Stonewall: the Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community. (1985). Kanopy. Retrieved September 2021, from https://temple.kanopy.com/video/stonewall.

Gross, L. P. (2002). Up from invisibility: Lesbians, gay men, and the media in America. Columbia University Press.

Hall, S. (2013). Americanism, Un-Americanism, and the Gay Rights Movement. Journal of American Studies, 47(4), 1109–1130. https://doi.org/10.1017/s002187581300145x

How to Survive a Plague. (2012). Amazon. Retrieved September 2021, from https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/amzn1.dv.gti.5aa9f74b-8bff-7782-0d22-0822e7f6abcc?autoplay=1&ref_=atv_cf_strg_wb.

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spectraspecs-writes · 4 years

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Korriban - Chapter 95 (Bastila, Carth)

Link to the masterpost. Chapter 94. Chapter 96.

CW: Lime

@averruncusho @ceruleanrainblues @chubbsmomma @strangepostmiracle thank you for reading, you get a tag. @skelelexiunderlord thank you for support, you get a tag.

———–

“… so it’s pitch-black, right, I can’t find my pants anywhere, and there’s something growling outside my tent.” I recount the story to Carth, both of us sitting on containers in the cargo hold. Passing the bottle of Tarisian ale back and forth. Carth laughs, as well he should, it’s a funny story. In hindsight, anyway. “I’ve got my T1 unit’s head in my lap, I was trying to upgrade its sensors so it could get a more nuanced readout to find the exact thing that was outside my tent!” He laughs again, tears starting to come out of his eyes. “My tent mate is closer to the entrance, she’s sitting there in a panic, because she knows this is her fault --”

“Why the hell did she take that egg in the first place?” he says between laughs.

“I told her it was a bad idea, but did she listen to the ecologist? Noooo - God forbid Tania ever admit she was wrong about something. But I was like, you’re a freaking anthropologist, you should have realized how taboo it was in the local culture to take one of those freaking eggs! Screw your breakfast - you’re about to be dinner! And I’m sitting there like, you are not taking me with you. But we are both frozen until we see the tent flap open and this giant nose pokes in.”

“Oh, shit!”

“Right? And I panic, I just chuck the droid head, Tania screams and ducks, but now I’m sure I just pissed this thing off even worse so we’re both screwed. And now Tania’s screams have woken not only the rest of our team, but the Mandalorians who also made a camp in the ravine. You know, the same Mandalorians she had antagonized earlier? And I wasn’t about to save her ass again - if Arus wanted to fight her, at this point, I didn’t give a shit.”

“Man, you’re heartless!” he joked.

“This was the tenth time in half as many days she had threatened my life with her bullshit - even I have my limits! And by the way, this was not the last time we were in life-threatening situations on this mission. But after this time she was far more willing to actually listen to me. But anyway, so the Mandalorians were pissed and Arus was out for blood, but first he had to take out this animal, which was too huge for even a Mandalorian to take out alone. He gathered a few of his men and they took care of it in no time. I finally managed to find my pants so I finally get out of the tent to get a good look at this thing, and it is. Huge. Arus split the meat with us and there was still way too much. Afterwards he was still a bit thrilled by the kill so Tania thought it was fine, but then she got cocky and tried to play it off, got in Arus’ face again, but he was having none of it. He looked her dead in the eye with that Mandalorian intimidation glare and said ‘I should have known you were behind this.’ And her face drops. He’s like ‘Is it your goal in life to challenge as many combatants as foolishly as you can?’ Calling her out big time. ‘And for what, this time?’ So she goes into her bag and pulls out the egg. Arus takes it and smashes it on the ground. And you’ll never guess what happened next.”

“Tell me.”

“The egg? The one that almost got us killed? Was made of WOOD!” Carth breaks down hard, cannot contain his mirth. “A Sith scout team had been there earlier, a bit of a rival of mine, and thought it would be a fun prank on me to swap out one of the eggs with a wooden one. He told me about it later, but he had just planned to frustrate me. When I told him he almost killed me with that shit, he never stopped apologizing.” I take the bottle from Carth. “And that is my worst story. What have you got?” I ask as I take a drink.

“Nothing that good,” he says, “You’ve got me beat.”

“Oh, come on, no war stories where you got screwed over hard? No piloting lessons where you came out of a nebula upside down?”

“My life has been boring compared to yours, if that story is any indication.”

“Hey, I have plenty far more mundane stories - that planet was just a wild ride from start to finish. If Arus was here, he’d tell you the same thing. Albeit, he and I did have different definitions of wild.”

“I thought you had just crossed paths with him - did he hang around for the rest of the scouting trip?”

“That was the first time we met him, but he kept finding excuses to hang around our campsites. The shameless flirt that he was, I’m amazed he never just came out and said he was into me.”

There’s that face of his again. He gets so uncomfortable when I make off-hand mentions of former partners. “You don’t need to be jealous, Carth. The very nature of a scouting fling is that it’s temporary. The few times something has gone on longer than a single mission we quickly got sick of each other.”

“I guess,” he shrugs. Is there… something else on his mind?

But before I can ask, Canderous comes in behind us. “Hey, Rena,” he says. to get my attention.

“Something up?” I ask.

“We’re kind of in the middle of something, Canderous,” Carth says gruffly.

“And ordinarily I wouldn’t interrupt,” he says before looking back at me, “but Bastila wants to talk to you.”

Oh joy and rapture. I scoff. “If she wants to talk to me so bad she can come see me herself.”

“What happened?” Carth asks.

“Long story, I’ll tell you later,” I shake my head. “I’m not going to her, she’ll have to come to me.”

“She won’t,” Canderous says, “not this time, but I can tell if she doesn’t say what she needs to say she’ll never forget it.” Oh yeah? “She regrets that things aren’t working as smoothly as they could between the two of you.”

“Bastila regrets something?” Well there’s a shock. “Jedi princess admits a wrong?”

“Look, I get that you’re upset with her, I understand,” he says, trying not to get angry at me, “and you’re right, she needs to keep her nose out of your business.” At least he’s on my side. “But she’s as proud and as stubborn as you are and admitting something like this is hard for her. Would you just let her say what she has to say?”

I sigh heavily. “Fine,” I say and I stand up. I set the ale down on the container. “I’ll be back.”

“I’ll be here,” Carth says.

I follow Canderous to the port side quarters, where Bastila is sitting and meditating. When we cross the threshold she opens her eyes and sighs. “Canderous, you didn’t need to do that.”

“Like hell, I didn’t,” he says, “You’re not the only one who can read the tension in a room. Now, I don’t care if you two want to talk this out or use your fists, but I’m not letting either of you leave until that happens.”

Oh, for God’s sake. I’m pretty sure I could take Canderous in a fight but that’s the wrong way to go here. I idly look around the room before feeling Canderous’ glare on me and look at Bastila. “If you try talking to me about giving into my emotions again, I’m gonna throw up.”

“Our conversations on that topic have a tendency to end abruptly, so I wouldn’t be surprised,” she says.

“Well, it’s not exactly my fault that happens, is it?”

“No, you’re right. I do share fault for that,” she sighs, “I admit I have questions, and perhaps a Master could have addressed them all with the proper wisdom, but I never should have brought them up here. And not with you.” Canderous shifts behind me, and Bastila must be reading him. “It’s not solely about you, Canderous,” she says, before turning back to me, ”Or even about you and Carth. It’s… “ She stops, orders her thoughts, and starts again. “Part of my purpose on this mission was to guide you in the way of the light; to help you avoid the temptations of the Dark Side. But I fear I've failed in that task.” What makes you say that? I haven’t fallen to the Dark Side. I’ve done nothing but help people for the past two months, even before I knew her. “I don't think I'm the proper Jedi to guide you. I am no Master. You should have remained with the Council.”

“I have no idea where this is coming from,” I say, “Even if you take Carth out of the equation - and that’s an argument we’re not having again, because there is no way you can without being hypocritical and you know it - I haven’t fallen to the Dark Side.”

“The fact of the matter is that I have never possessed much skill at controlling myself,” she says, “With the bond that joins us, it seems I have even less. You have maintained the path of the Light Side, yes, but it has been in spite of my influence, not because of it. It is increasingly obvious I am unable to guide you properly.” She sighs again. She feels very anxious and upset. “I think… I think I may have made a very big mistake. I simply hope that you are not the one who pays the price, ultimately, for the fact that I can't help you enough.”

There was definitely an apology in there somewhere, even if it wasn’t in so many words. But we still disagree on a major point and if she — “This has nothing to do with our respective relationships, I assure you,” she says. Reading me again. “As Jolee is the closest thing either of us have to a Master, he has been kind enough to consult me on these matters, and I have come to the conclusion that we should both let the matter lie.” Hey, I’ve been willing to do that. But that means her concerns make even less sense.

“Honestly, I think you’re being too hard on yourself,” I say, “I mean, I already had impulse issues, so a lot of what you’re feeling might be me influencing you rather than the other way around. This bond works both ways, right?”

She smiles softly. “That’s a kinder response than I deserve,” she says, “And I can see there is wisdom in your words. Perhaps you can help me then.”

“On the impulse front? I’ll do my damnedest - so long as you don’t start building droids in the middle of the night. That’ll be lesson one - don’t do that.”

She laughs a little. “I will leave that in your capable hands,” she says, “Hopefully this will all work out, for the both of us. And for the sake of the mission.”

“Good!” Canderous says suddenly, “And with that settled, you are free to go.” He moves away from the door and lets me leave. Glad that’s over with, Carth and I really were in the middle of something. He seemed more bothered by the interruption than I was but that’s probably because he had something to say and Canderous broke his train of thought.

Carth’s still in the cargo hold, like he said he’d be. He’s taken his jacket off. Hot damn, he’s got some strong arms. It’s a good thing he keeps that jacket on all the time, otherwise I’d never get anything done. He’s also moved so that he can lean against the wall. He looks at me when I come in. “Everything all right with Bastila?”

“Yeah, she‘s agreed to stop being nosy in my personal life,” I say.

“Oh, because you’ve never been nosy in our personal lives,” he says sarcastically.

“Yeah, but I’m also not a hypocrite,” I say, “For weeks she’s been riding me about the Dark Side and my feelings for you, and the whole time she’s got the same thing going on with Canderous. So yeah, naturally I was quite pissed about that.”

“You’ve had feelings about me for weeks and didn’t say anything?”

I shake my head and sit back down next to him. “Somehow I knew that would be the part you heard,” I say, “In my defense, I’m not accustomed to making the first move. Every other time it’s been someone thinking with their crotch sick of beating around the bush with me. And it was different before anyway. This is different.”

“Good different or bad different?”

“At the moment?” I say, “Good different.” He smiles at me. I love his smile. He’s just so soft. When he actually gets soft, that is. “But anyway,” I say, “Before Canderous came in, you wanted to say something.”

“Oh, you could tell, could you?”

I scoff and take the ale from him. “It doesn’t take Jedi powers to read you, Carth, believe me.”

“Oh, yeah?” Oh, excellent, it’s play time. “Well, listen, beautiful, I don’t need to take this abuse. I get enough female Jedi bashing from Bastila, thank you very much.”

“Oh, I get it, there’s something between you and Bastila.”

He sputters, like I’ve caught him completely off-guard. “What? No! I mean… no! Don’t be crazy!”

“So someone would have to be crazy to like Bastila, huh? I’ll have to tell her that!”

“Oh, no, you don’t!”

“Or better yet!” Better idea! “I’ll tell Canderous! Oh, Canderous?”

“Don’t you dare!” he says playfully, “I’d have to shoot you down first, and I’m not kidding!”

“Sure, sure,” I say sarcastically, “You’re all talk, Carth, and you know it.”

“And just what would you do if I wasn’t?” I open my mouth to answer, but he stops me before I can. “No, no, wait, don’t answer that,” he says quite wisely, “I don’t want to know.” He shakes his head and smiles, sighing. “Anyway… as fun, uh, as this is, I do have to talk to you about something serious. Really serious.” It must be if you’re stopping the game.

“What’s wrong?” I ask. What has my Bunny Man in distress?

“I’m uh… I’m concerned about you. I’ve been keeping these thoughts to myself, mostly, but with this… if we… “ Find your words, Carth. “I think it’s time I say something.”

“What’s this about?”

“It’s about you,” he says, “I’m worried about what might happen to you.” Well, this is the second time that’s come up in conversation today, but somehow Carth’s concern feels more genuine than Bastila’s. “You have a lot of courage, and the fact that you’ve remained strong is amazing, but there’s even greater danger ahead. I think you might be setting yourself up for a fall. Maybe at the urging of the Jedi, I don’t know… but you’re definitely going to become a target.” I can feel a lot of pain from him. He tries to block it from me, I’m not sure if that’s an accident or on purpose, but I can feel it, anyway. “If, uh, if I’m going to find some purpose beyond taking revenge on Saul, then it’s going to have to be in protecting you.” Protecting me from what? He’s seen me fight - what does he think is out there that I can’t handle? “I don’t know why, but I think some terrible fate is waiting for you. I think the Jedi Council knows it, too. And I don’t want it to come to pass.”

“You think the Jedi have thrown me to the wolves?”

“Don’t call it up to my paranoia just yet.” I wasn’t. Carth has a good - and attractive - head on his shoulders and I trust his instincts. (Well… most of the time. His instinct to not trust me was obviously wrong.) “Something isn’t right. I blamed it on you, before, but I… I think the Jedi didn’t tell us everything.” Which is hardly out of character for them . “If I’m going to live past Saul, I need you to, as well. Let me protect you… from yourself, from the Sith, from… whatever, you have to let me try.”

“Not that I don’t appreciate it,” I say seriously, “but… you’ve seen me fight, you’ve watched me in action. I don’t need that kind of protection. Why are you doing this?”

“Because…” he says slowly, and with difficulty, “... because I never got the chance to save my wife and son. Because I didn’t stop Saul when I had the chance. Because I finally have the chance to do it right. You are an extraordinary woman… you make me think that maybe I might have some purpose beyond revenge. I don’t know whether it means anything to you… but it does to me.”

Oh, my God, this is the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard. ”It means a lot to me, Carth,” I say, “Thank you.”

He smiles softly. “I’m glad to hear that. I’ll do my best.”

I just… can’t stop looking at him. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before. How much I love him. Ever since Taris. Ever since I woke up in that mangy apartment. He’s always been there for me. And it was only a couple days ago that I really realized that I love him. Maybe I just didn’t want to think about it. As a scout you get used to being part of a tight-knit group of people for a few months, a year tops, and then you split and never see each other again. The few times I stuck with someone for longer than one mission, we were dating, and like I said before we would always and very quickly get sick of each other. You start to notice little things that didn’t bother you before but suddenly they’re all you notice. Chewing with their mouth open. Feet that smell like death. A grating voice. And for whatever reason you just can’t live with it anymore.

I’m going to miss this group a lot when we split. Oh, they’ll say we won’t. I know one of them will say, “no, we’re a family, we’ll always be together.” But I also know from experience that it doesn’t work like that. Bastila will go back to the Council. Juhani has a lot to work through on her own. Mission is still a kid with her whole life ahead of her. Zaalbar has a government to lead. Canderous will go wherever Bastila goes. It’s anyone’s guess what Jolee will do. Leaving me and my droids. The way it’s always been. The way I’m used to.

But with Carth… Loving him means I’ll want him to stick around. And maybe he will, maybe he won’t. Maybe he’ll want to, but he’s still a Republic soldier, he may not have a say in where he goes. And if he doesn’t want to stick around, it’ll hurt, sure, but it would hurt worse if he stays. Because I know what will happen then. We’ll get sick of each other. That’s how it always happens. We’ll have a few months of passionate sex and casual flirting before we each drive the other crazy. I don’t want that, I don’t want to get sick of him. But we have nothing in common beyond this mission. We‘re close due to circumstances. It’s happened to me at least a dozen times before. And I don’t want it to happen again.

But I love him. And as much as it could hurt me, I wouldn’t stop loving him even if I could. This feels so different than anything I’ve felt before. Like it’s… right somehow. And I don’t want to mess up a good thing. It makes me nervous but it’s a good nervous.

“What are you thinking about?” he asks me softly, taking another drink of ale.

“I’m… “ I start to say slowly, “… really glad I met you.”

He smiles at me. “I’m glad I met you, too,” he says in that same soft voice. He gets close to my face, just like before. His eyes close. And it doesn’t take a Jedi to know what’s going on, I’ve seen it all before. And I want it. He kisses me gently.

And he doesn’t stop kissing me.

One. Another. Another, pressing his lips into mine. Continuing what we started in the cantina. But no one will bother us this time - I reach out with the Force and close the door to the cargo hold. Carth notices but doesn’t stop or say anything. And I don’t want him to. I want this. He takes my head into his hand and I lean into it. His other hand brushes mine and I take it, our fingers locking together. And between kisses he whispers softly, “I love you.”

“I love you,” I whisper back. And he kisses me again, And again. And again. I unfasten my belt and my lightsabers clatter on the floor. He pulls me closer and I loosen my tunic a little. I can feel this. I want this. More than anything I want this.

Somehow, I know this is a bad idea. If this goes bad it could ruin our entire relationship, either as friends or more than friends. This is the point of no return. And hoping for shit has gotten me in trouble when things don’t work out. But this also feels so, so right, more right than anything has this whole time. He’s right, things have been a little off somehow since Taris. The Jedi adding me to the Endar Spire at the last minute. I’m an ecologist, why did they need me? The Jedi accepting me for training - Master Vandar said I was a special case? What did that mean? The Star Map on Kashyyyk seemed to recognize me, when I’ve never been to Kashyyyk in my life, much less down on the surface. There have just been so many little things that seem to add up to a great big something, but I’ll be damned if I know what it is. But as crazy as things have been, and as crazy as they might get, Carth will still be here. Carth will still be Carth.

I come close, wrapping my legs around him, and he holds me. Which is a great feeling and we haven’t even done anything yet. As he runs his fingers through my hair, I feel loved, so loved, more than I’ve ever felt before. Even if this doesn’t last, and I hope to God it does, it will still be the best I’ve felt my whole life.

--------

He holds me close after. Which is not only sweet, it’s also great because the cargo hold is a lot colder than you’d expect. I wrap myself up in his jacket and cuddle closer. “Have I mentioned how much I love this jacket?” I say.

“You’ve mentioned it once or twice,” he says, smiling. And then he sighs. “We should probably go to bed,” he says.

“You mean sleep here or go back to our bunks?” I ask, “Because that would be a horrible idea.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“For one thing,” I say, trying to look at his face, “I can guarantee you Bastila already knows about this because of that damned Force bond. If she’s spending the night with Canderous, she’ll hem and haw and stew about this despite her promise to shut up about it. But she won’t need to say anything because Juhani will also be there. She’ll be disappointed in me and go on and on about the Dark Side and Jedi attachments so Bastila won’t have to. Mission will try to be my girlfriend and goad me into telling her what happened like we’re two teenage girls at a slumber party. And she really doesn’t want to know.” I know these girls. I know all of that is exactly what would happen the minute I walk into the starboard quarters. “When you go back, Canderous will --”

“You’re right, that is a horrible idea,” he says before I can even finish, because he knows as well as I do that Canderous is going to be insufferable, as a man, as a Mandalorian, and especially as a matchmaker. He’s been trying to put us together since Dantooine. “But we can’t exactly sleep in here, can we? They’re going to come looking for us in the morning. Besides the fact that it’s cold as hell in here.”

“We can grab some blankets from the emergency supplies,” I suggest, “Or we could get dressed again.”

“Let’s grab the blankets,” he says quickly, and he starts to get up to grab them from the plasteel cylinder.

“You slut,” I tease, “If you wanted to see me naked you could have asked sooner.”

He comes back to me with the blankets and drapes one around my shoulders, over the jacket. “It’s not just that,” he says, “Or the fact that you look damn good in my jacket.” He spreads one blanket on the floor, sits down on it and pulls me close again, lying down. He kisses me, and runs his fingers through my hair, sending goosebumps rippling through my body. “I just…” he starts to say softly, sweetly, “…like how this feels. And I don’t want it to end.”

I curl in closer. “Me neither.��

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nuanced-nuisance · 3 years

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SCARY DREAM BULLET POINT TIME

We start of classic. A forest that is supposedly haunted, we're going close to closing so we can sneak back in after. Don't ask me how a forest closes, we were in a clearing so I guess the clearing closes.

It's me and my irl friend group. So let's just say me, M, D, S, and K.

The coming back at closing thing makes sense as, for some reason, M works at this forest now.

Her coworker comes over and tells us it's time to go. For some reason there are a lot of things to put away. After locking up, M tells the coworker we can handle the putting away so she can just head home.

Why does the coworker agree to this?

The place this is being put it stupidly tall against the rest of the forest. It's small in width and length but then about as high as a block of flats.

It's late. It's night. The moon is bright but it's behind the building blocking all light

There's this road we have to cross to get there. We know the road is there. We can hear the cars zooming past. We can't remember the width of the road but we know it's a sort of s shape around the building. So we take a chance and just walk.

The road is a lot bigger than I remember and we're right in the shadow of the building so, for some reason, it's pitch black. I remember grabbing K's hand, the absolute fear of having a car zoom right next to my side and hoping that one of them, any of them would put on their headlights or slow down because one of us is going to get hit.

We make it to the other side. It's brighter here. All the cars going past have their headlights on now. Still too fast and too many for comfort but we're in front of the building and we're safe.

We put away the stuff, K and M go and get the van we apparently have now. None of us know how to drive but M does in the dream.

They half-joke about how they're pretty sure they saw someone fall into the pond next to the building. The top of the water is mostly algea and lilypads but the water is always too dark to see into anyway. Gross pond.

Somehow, we end up splitting up. D and M are driving the van further up, K and S are staying with me cos I need to check the pond. Neither me nor K or S like this but it happens for some reason. I just don't want to cross the road again.

I grab a rope from the supply building thing. It has a knot on the end so I know it probably could just get caught but oh well.

I drop it in, it sinks down and I wait. K and S don't think there's anyone, I don't either at this point but as I start to pull the rope out, I keep getting tucks. It feels like I'm fishing and the fish keep getting off the hook. Eventually I pull all the rope out and a hand is holding onto the knot.

It let's go as it comes out but now there's a full fucking arm on the surface of the pond.

S and K panic freeze, I panic and grab the hand to start pulling. I am pulling out a person. I yell at them to help, they do not.

I pull out J. I know J irl too. He lives down the road from me but I haven't seen him in like a year so tbh it's kind of freaking me out now.

I just kind of hold him because that was traumatic and he's freaked out.

For some reason he's insisting it's '95. Like 1995. We weren't even conceived in 1995. I try to gently correct him.

Eventually I have to get out my phone which he certainly recognises. I show him the date in the corner. It says it's 2020. I go to say that my phones wrong, its 2021 but then it changes. 2026. 2028. 2021.

I'm distracted by a text from M. I cant remember who but apparently they'd found 3/4 celebrities just ~walking side by side~. She doesn't specify where but tells us to come see them.

I'm scared at this point. I don't believe the haunted rumors at this point, I think the forest is cursed. I tell her to send a picture of them so maybe I can tell she's real or something, she says they don't want photos. I tell her to just send a photo of herself or or something. Just a photo.

I yell at K and S to call the police, do something other than standing around.

I don't know who calls but I know the operator on the other end sounded really freaked out.

It took a long time for a police car to arrive but somehow the texts with M have not progressed. At some point I texted D too to try and figure this out but got no response.

The policeman doesn't seem all that bothered about us four. He looks between and then is kinda like 'welp. I'm going to go get your friends. Wait here.'

I object to that and tell them to send another car and him to wait with us.

I somehow concince this police person just as I get a text from M. It says there's a police car and the policeman is telling then to get in. I only now see the parallels.

I tell her not to. To get in the van and drive back. We never saw a second police car go up. The police will understand in the end, just get in the van and drive.

I'm texting this frantically as I try and maneuver into the police car with us, still holding onto J

I'm not getting any response from M

And that's when I woke up.

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kashimos-hajime · 5 years

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demons | amaranthine (5/6) | b.b.

summary: As his sight darkens and her face disappears before him like grainy film, he realizes she has always been the one he’s been searching for.

WARNINGS: swearing, mentions of death, vomit, blood, injuries, hospitals, angst, they get into bed but nothing explicit, ends in fluff!!! we on the road to recovery boys! pairing: bucky barnes x fem!reader word count: 8.2k

a/n: written for @the-omni-princess as per usual and this chapter is dedicated to @forever-trapped-in-my-dreams for her writing challenge as well! my prompt and also the vibe for this chapter is demons by imagine dragons. a lot of character revealing since 40 years have passed since the last chapter. enjoy!

amaranthine masterlist

When you feel my heat, look into my eyes It's where my demons hide, it's where my demons hide Don't get too close; it's dark inside It's where my demons hide, it's where my demons hide

Bucky. Bucky. Bucky.

It is as if the floodgates have opened and he has been torn apart. He is nothing but a shell, everything he knows pouring out of him as he drives. He can taste the blood in his mouth, the shift of what he thinks is broken: bones, mind, heart. He wonders how long he can last before he passes out behind the wheel. He has been bleeding for hours and every bone aches, his muscles torn, his legs crushed. His shoulder popped back in by force, the ligaments screaming at him to stop. His knees and chest are shattered from being crushed underneath that metal beam and he barely has the strength to push down the gas as he speeds up the I-95.

Washington is a burning memory behind him as the sweet cold of the Potomac seeps down his neck, a river of sweat that makes him look at his rearview mirror every two seconds. They’ll track him. After his breakdown in 1972, they’ve tracked his every movement and he knows they want their asset back.

He can’t. He’s done being someone’s reaper of war and he can’t recall why he walked back into their arms when he remembers the light of escape, the temptation of safety. When he remembers a time when his head was full of memories.

Somewhere between leaving Washington and driving past the state line of Delaware, he cuts the tracker out of his neck and half-hopes he nicks the carotid.

He doesn’t and keeps on driving.

He doesn’t know what he searches for in New York but with every passing second behind the wheel, there are flashes of smiles, of warmth and roses. He thinks he can taste something besides the iron in his mouth and when he stops to fill up the tank of some old Ford sedan he wired, he takes the chance to rinse the taste out of his mouth in the tiny bathroom of the convenience store. The owner sent him a strange look when he entered but he doesn’t care as he locks himself in. Running the water cold, he washes the blood off his hands and cools the swelling bruises on his face. Now that he’s out of the car, blood rushes everywhere in his body and his boots skid along the floor.

He didn’t realize how truly exhausted he was.

I’m with you ‘til the end of the line.

Water dripping down his face, he twists the faucet off and raises his head wretchedly up to the mirror. As he stares at his own haunted reflection, his stomach curdles, his whole abdomen clenching in an effort to avoid what happens next.

He throws up into the toilet, knees hitting the floor fast. Blood stains whatever else he throws up as he sucks in a hot breath, trying not to let out a guttural groan that pries him open. He wipes away the saliva that drools down his lips with a disgusted sigh and falls back onto his ass, back pressed against the wall. His head tilted to the artificial light, he lets his eyes close.

His neck aches as he lets his head roll but he can barely breathe. With every breath he takes, his chest seems to collapse and he can barely see when he pries open his eyes again. Black edges at his vision at every turn and he falls to his side, the pressure on his side enough to break bones. Tucking his knees in, he wraps an arm around himself and closes his eyes.

Darkness by choice is better than darkness by submission.

He wonders how long he stays there against that disgusting toilet floor that is more comfortable than any bed he’s ever slept in. He is certain he dreams but he’s not quite sure of what. He can feel it, something warm and soft, the gentle weight on his chest, words he can’t quite make out.

Please. Please, Bucky. Please.

The voice of an angel, the skin of a child, poetry written in charcoal, tears, so many tears.

“Are you alright in there?”

He lets out a soft sigh as the dreams dissipate, grains of sand that slip between his fingers and he opens his eyes blearily.

Death had been so close.

“Hey, man, do I need to call an ambulance?” Sitting up, he knocks his head back against the wall and blows out a breath as his insides scream in protest. Someone has taken hold of every part of him in their fist, and they are twisting with a malicious grin on their face.

Managing to lean forward, he gets back onto his knees despite the strange sensation of not quite feeling any part of his body numbing his senses. His chest is fuller and his lungs struggle, but he fights to stay on his knees with a hard hand gripping onto the seat.

Flushing the toilet, he stumbles to his feet although his knees are nothing but smoke and crumbling stone. He can’t go on, not like this. He’s still wet, and he begins to shiver despite the sweat that has streaked across his face ever since he got into the car. His hands are crusted with blood beneath his nails and his skin is see-through as he shakily turns on the faucet.

He can see the shadow of the convenience store owner underneath the door and, splashing water on his face, he gasps against the cold and his mind short circuits as he tries to find a way out of the mess he has created. How can he get out of here without getting himself into federal prison, or worse…

Nothing is worse than this.

Bucky.

Every breath hurts but he swallows the pain anyway, flushing the toilet once again and glancing at his reflection. He does the best he can to stand upright, leaning heavily on the counter, and cranes his neck to examine the incision he’s cut into himself. He hopes some deer has eaten that piece of shit tracker and has thrown H.Y.D.R.A. for a huge loop, if H.Y.D.R.A. even exists anymore. Everything he knows has been a lie, but somehow, he knew that already. Somehow, he knew it was only time before he broke again. Perhaps it is the fear that made him stay, but now… there is carnage and he has hours to disappear thanks to him.

Steve.

Steve broke him and brought him back. Brought everything back. It is as clear as yesterday, like he has been sleeping every day and only now has woken up, although he remembers everything he’s done while he’s been asleep. Asleep with his eyes open. Like he has been a witness for decades and only now takes control of his hands, his bloody hands. He could laugh if he didn’t feel like his chest was about to burst.

Bile pushes up his throat again. His blue eyes unfocused, he touches the site wearily and he hears a gentle voice chide him not to touch an open wound as the dried blood begins to crack.

How many more hours until he can stop running? What is he even running to? His heart and mind say New York, the site of his break in the seventies, and the very thought of it brings him pain. A pain that splinters him in two, crushes him with regret, guilt; he broke for a reason.

He is agony unshackled as he is wrenched forward and spits blood into the sink. His hands clutch onto the edge of the porcelain sink and he drops to his knees, the pain demolishing the very pillars of what he stands on. His world jilts, his vision plunges into black, and his mind goes blank as he sinks to the ground, nothing but blood and ruins.

Everything is tingling. Everything is cold. The door is kicked open and he thinks he might see the light as he lets out a dying gasp. Hands grab at him, something rips. His stomach lurches one more time before he disappears.

When he wakes, he is hooked to I.V.s, monitors, trapped beneath a white sheet and a voice talks to him but he can’t hear. Trying to move his hand, he grunts when it doesn’t move. Pulling harder, a spear of panic, fear, pierces through his stomach and he tries to wrench himself up.

“Woah, there. Calm down.”

Beeping goes erratic. Something tears inside him. Explosive pain splits him into pieces and he lets out a terrified shout. They’ve found him. They’ve found him. No, no, no.

“Sir, calm down. You’re in a hospital! You’ve been out for a few hours.”

“Let me go!” The words come out, torn out and raw, and he thrashes his head, teeth bared in a snarl. More hands swarm, taking him by the shoulders, pushing him down, but his metal arm whirs, a warning that comes too late as it rips free of whatever shackles him to the bed. He swings before he can see. His hand comes into contact with flesh and there is a clatter that rings his head like a bell. Twisting, he pulls off the other manacle and wrenches free of the bodies that surround him, too close. Too close. They want him. Want him back in the chair.

He needs to leave.

Swinging his legs off the bed, he feels the I.V. in his arm twist and with a painful grunt, he rips it out, the tape pulling at his skin. Blood wells up, the sight of it, ruby red and dripping, oddly comforting as he takes a deep breath, eyes darting to the other occupants of the room. The convenience store owner stands in the corner, eyes wide with new found horror while doctors and nurses help place a man onto a gurney. A destroyed cart, its contents spilling on the floor is what is left behind as he looks behind him. Orange light streams onto the floor and onto his face as the sky burns amber and purple.

He can barely feel the dusk light that hits his face as one of the doctors left in the room speaks to him but he cannot hear. Everything is muffled except for the pounding of his beating heart. His tac gear is most likely down a trash chute but a set of clothes rests in a plastic bag on the table at the end of the bed.

The doctor holds out his hand but he can see the syringe the man grips onto like a knife in the other he nearly hides behind his back. He’s nothing but an animal to be put down. He can see it in the doctor’s eyes.

Fear. It’s all he’s good for.

Fear.

I’m not afraid to die.

“We just want to talk to you,” the doctor says and he would’ve laughed if his world wasn’t on fire.

No one wants to talk to him. They can talk at him, order him around all they’d like. He’s done listening to orders that have trapped him away from his past.

It’s always been fire first. No room for questions. Comply or die. Survive. That’s all his life has ever been. Survive. He is not about to fail now.

He grabs the bag of clothes with his flesh hand, twisting to pull his metal hand into a fist. The glass shatters as he punches through and he does not look back before jumping.

He doesn’t know how long he falls, but it’s long enough for the instinct to roll to surge through his body. As soon as he lands, he is rolling to his feet and running, although he doesn’t know where. Bare feet slapping against concrete, he runs no matter the stares, despite the pain that blisters, and until he finds what he’s looking for.

Down the alleyway, there are two dumpsters pressed together and he pushes them apart, standing in the space between that offers protection from both ends of the alley. He rips the bag open, changing into civvies that are slightly too big on him. Tugging up the hood of his jacket, he throws the hospital gown into the bag and tosses it into the dumpster, shoving his metal fist into his pocket before walking out the other side of the alley.

It isn’t long before he finds a car and he’s on the I-95. He drives into the night, the fine layer of sweat beginning to reappear as pale blue-green light shines through his windshield. He remembers to cut off the hospital wristband before anyone notices he’s a runaway, although at this point, he’s running from more than one thing.

He doesn’t stop this time, doesn’t want to take the risk. With driving, it keeps him awake to have something to do, keeps the pain constant in his shoulder that always snaps him awake. Keeps him aware of his breathing problem and keeps him sharp to regulate each breath. With every moment, it feels like his lungs shrink in size. Although his stomach convulses and he is forced to press his lips together and swallow his vomit down, he’d rather taste acid that choke on his own sick in his sleep.

It only becomes too much as he pulls off by the tunnel to New York. Stumbling out of the car, he gives himself five minutes to retch air, water, blood, and whatever’s left in his stomach, cars speeding past him as it lands in the grass and nearly stains his shoes. No one asks to help, he doubts anyone notices him without thinking he’s nothing more than a drunk. He’s thankful for that. Only one car honks at him before he gets back into his car and enters the City of Dreams.

He doesn’t know where he drives to until he’s stopped, somewhere in Brooklyn, before a brick house that looks rustic and lovely and warm, and he stumbles out of the car, nearly falling to his knees when his stomach completely overturns but he doesn’t care. He needs to find whatever his heart searches for, whatever keeps him away from death. Stumbling up the steps of the brickstone house, he holds his flesh arm to his chest to ease the ache in his shoulder, his metal fist rapping knocks into the wood.

There is silence.

And then, the knob twists and metal hinges creak as the door is pulled open to reveal a woman who looks like she’s seen better days. Bucky ducks his head immediately, keeping his arm bent to his chest as she sighs.

“Can I help you?” she asks before she can get a good look at him and he hears the kids inside yelling. A grimace pulls at his lips as he raises his head, the shadow cast from his hood fading to reveal his bruised face. He needs a good look to know what he’s looking for, and when his eyes find some blonde woman with eyes too unkind when she soaks in his face, he knows it isn’t what he is searching for. “What do you want?”

“I’m…” His throat burns and he clears his throat, ducking his head again. “Who lived here before?”

“Sir, I can call an ambulance.”

“I don’t need one,” he rasps. “I just want to know where… where is the owner?” Agony cracks his skull open and he winces, drawing a sharp breath between his teeth. His mind searches for a name, any notable thing about her, and he closes his eyes tight for a moment, hissing out, “The woman… she was a founder of S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“Oh, she was a legend, but she passed away years ago. They said something about a mission going wrong overseas but I don’t know. I only know what my dad told me.” Something drops in his stomach. Eyebrows knitting together, he blinks away the pain that pushes down on his stomach as he tries to think. Tries to clear his head. “He bought the home back in the seventies.”

“Oh.”

“I’m sorry. Did you want to find her?”

“Yes. I—” He coughs and tastes the iron on his mouth but he barely keeps his lips shut, the blood warm against his lips as he swallows it down— “I’m sorry for causing you trouble.” He barely manages to catch her sympathetic frown and he wonders how pathetic he looks. There is no longer fear, just pity for what she might think is some homeless drunk, or some crazy man. He doesn’t know which, but he does know she thinks he needs help, and he does.

“I know S.H.I.E.L.D. has an exhibit at the New-York Historical Site and they are having a special exhibition about her because it’s the anniversary of her passing. Maybe you can find something about her there,” she says quietly above the sound of her children playing and he nods numbly. “Do you need directions?”

“No. I can handle it on my own.” He knows the place. It’s been there before he was born and he thinks there was a time he used to go there with his classmates for school. He remembers reading something about a war. He can see Steve’s face, thin and pale, smiling as he hid behind a stone pillar in some exhibit he can’t remember the name of as they played hide and seek. “Thank you.”

“No problem, and get some help, when you can,” the woman adds in farewell. He turns around just as the door closes and nearly slips down the stairs, walking on rocking legs back to the car. He wonders how many more steps he can take before his aching body gives him up.

The exhibition is a series of conjoining rooms, one for each major part of her life: birth and enlistment, war and time as a Howling Commando, and the founding of S.H.I.E.L.D. Dark oak creaking beneath his feet, he reads every word of biographies printed into the walls as he hugs his stomach tightly. He feels like his guts are about to spill into the floor and black dots have begun to speck his vision once more but he doesn’t care.

He’s searching and the hunger in him won’t be sated until he finds what he’s looking for. Whatever he’s looking for.

A bunch of kids run past him, and he notices they’re all more than eager to read about the woman’s childhood as they stand by an enlarged print of her saluting. The Hippocratic Oath is printed onto another wall along with a glass case that protects a certificate and half his lip twitches into a smile when he sees it is her certificate proclaiming her to be a certified doctor. Raising his head wearily, he soaks in the warm peach tones of the walls, the lamplights that cast the room golden, before walking through an archway into a warzone.

The sounds of guns, artillery shells exploding, men dying, it all rattles his ears as he is plunged into a grey room. Images of the war are projected onto a blank grey wall, and he barely sees any other wall print, the text this time displayed on stands as each document, every picture, every scrap of her in the war is illuminated by orange light. People are mostly congregated around a long display, the biggest one in the war room. They sit down on the benches, soaking in the sound of batlle. He thinks he can almost smell it, the gritty taste of sand, the smell of blood, sweat, shit, piss, mud, vomit. A whole plethora of body fluids and natural grime.

He can see the orange-yellow light on their faces as they soak in whatever it is preserved behind the glass. The few that take their time to read look devastated.

For a moment, he forgets about the pain and pushes himself forward. The display is double sided, each document numbered and arranged by date, and he barely catches the first words before someone wraps a hand around his wrist. For some reason, he does not fight it as he turns to whomever has grabbed him and he nearly collapses when he, for what feels like the first time in his life, recognizes a face from his past.

She wears a cap over her head, a hood pulled over that, but he can still see her gentle eyes, the curve of her lips, the smooth expanse of her cheek. Haggardly, she smiles and soaks in his bruised face before her eyes travel down to where he holds his abdomen.

“Don’t you remember the last time you read those letters?” she whispers, meeting his eyes again, and he doesn’t know what to say, to face her startling beauty and remember it all. It rushes at him, faster than a hail of bullets, as she touches his cut cheek. “And when did I teach you to run out of hospitals?”

“Was looking for you,” he whispers, gasps, and the weight of it all hits him then. Of what he’s searching for, of why he gave up his chance for freedom. As his sight darkens and her face disappears before him like grainy film, he realizes she has always been the one he’s been searching for. A hint of a smile pulls at his lips and he keens over just as her arms take him by the shoulders.

“Stay with me. Don’t worry, you’re safe now.”

The adrenaline that has been burning through his blood drains away, leaving him a hollowed out vessel of blood and bone. He falls to his knees, lurching forward and throwing up at her feet. Blood splatters between his hands, splashes against his skin hot as acid. He feels her hands take him and ease him down onto the floor but he can’t help the painful groan that rips through his chest.

“S.H.I.E.L.D.,” he breathes. Her fingers make quick work of his jacket, ripping open his shirt with a soft grunt. He lets out a wet breath and his abdomen clenches painfully as he coughs hard enough to make his head wrench forward. Blood spurts down his lips and cool fingertips wipe it away as a towel is placed against his burning forehead. “Compromised. Not safe.” He can barely see besides the glow of orange light and he blinks, trying to wipe away the sweat with his flesh hand but she stops him, placing it gently back on the floor.

“I know. I know. Just stay awake for me, love.”

Her fingers tap his abdomen and he hisses against the pulse just as someone else straps an oxygen mask to his mouth. The mask fogging up before him, he sucks in a deep breath and he can barely hear her over the racing of his heart. Something beckons him towards the dreamless sleep that looms over his head but her voice, sharp as ever, breaks through the haze.

“Weak breath sounds.”

“That’s a massive contusion.”

“Yeah, it’s cardiac tamponade.”

“God, how is this guy not dead?”

“Can we not have this discussion now? Give me an eighteen gauge and man the doppler.” Her eyes are the only thing he sees as he lets out a muffled groan. Widening his eyes, he knows he shakes when her hand touches his soaked cheek. He is covered in cold sweat, every inch of him paler than snow as she smiles although he can see right through what she hopes is reassurance. “This is going to hurt, but you can’t pass out on me, alright, Sergeant?” A ring of white surrounds his irises as her smile fades and she presses her lips together. “Sergeant Barnes, am I understood?”

“Please,” he gasps, his mask fogging up with a sticky heat. “Please.”

“Alright. Going in subxiphoid.” Just as soon as she leaves his view, sharp stabbing pain pierces through his chest and he screams despite the heaviness in his chest, despite the bomb about to implode in his heart. His back arches off the floor but hands push him down. The longer whatever’s inside him, the lighter the pressure begins to ease off his chest and he lets out a tired groan, melting back into the floor. “I know, I know. You’re so strong, love.”

She pulls it out just as someone sticks something to his chest. “I’ve got monitors up.”

“Good. Tamponade has been excavated. Do we have the chest tube ready?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Betadine.” Coldness washes over his side. “Make sure transport is prepared for a swift exit. Scalpel.” As fingers gently press against his heaving ribs, he sees her again.”This is going to be a lot worse. We’re about to insert a chest tube and get you out of here.” Something frigid and stiff presses against his chest and she turns back but he raises his head weakly, metal hand stalling her wrist.

“Wait.” The word barely passes his lips but she turns to him anyway. He can barely see, his head swaying against the floor as he tries to keep his mind focused on staying present. With every passing second, it gets harder and harder to do. “Wait.” He removes the oxygen mask shakily and cold, ventilated air sweeps against his lips and cheeks. “Angel.”

“We don’t have time to wait, love.” She brushes hair out of his sweat-slick skin, her fingers barely brushing his lips before she turns back to his ribs. “Put that mask back on, Sergeant Barnes.” He listens just as a stinging sensation pushes into his ribs. “Okay. This is going to hurt but I promise, you’re going to feel a lot better.”

Something shoots through him and he lets out a hoarse groan as it shoves itself even deeper into his chest, twisting and wriggling inside him. Squirming away, he tries to pull it out but she keeps him down, her fingers cold against his burning skin. Tiny little bites prickle his side around the tube and he lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

“Good output.”

“You’re going to be okay, Bucky.”

Bucky. Hearing his name from her lips… it most assuredly tells him he’ll be fine. He can rest, now.

“Bucky, stay with me.”

I will, he whispers. Just let me close my eyes. I ran. I’ve ran for so long back to you. You.

His eyes slip shut. A high-pitched beeping begins to nag at him to keep them open but they weigh heavier than the stares of a hundred dead men and he can’t bring himself to waste what little strength he has left to only prolong what is inevitable.

“Bucky? Bucky!”

“We need one of epi.”

“Get the paddles. Where’s that transport?”

“Charging to 200.”

“Do not give up on me, Barnes.”

“Clear!”

Everything snaps black.

“How was your flight? That’s good. I’m glad Pepper could be with you to do damage control. I’m sorry I couldn’t come with you, Tony. No, it’s not because I don’t like ‘Washington scum.’ Something came up. No, of course I’m fine. How’s Steve? Good. And Nick?” A pause. Bucky blinks with a soft groan and he nearly chokes on air when he tries to speak. “Okay. Look, I have to go. I’ll see you when you land? I will. I love you, too. Bye.”

Metal clatters against wood before a button is pressed and the bed beneath him begins to move and he lets out a strangled cough, clearing his throat. Slowly rising into a half-sit position, he blinks and rubs at his eyes with his metal knuckles.

“Careful not to move your other shoulder. I didn’t put it in a sling because it should be back to standard shape soon, but it’d save you some pain since you’ve been putting so much strain on it.” She is perched carefully on the edge of his bed, a cup of water held in her hands. She looks run ragged, like she was dragged through hell and fought her way back as she carefully places the water by his lips and guides the straw into his mouth. Sipping slowly, he lets out a sigh at how the coldness of it settles in his gut like ice before he pulls back. “I sent the others out for dinner. They should be back in an hour or two.”

She sets down the cup on the table at the end of his bed beside a phone and he stares at her, soaks her in. The longer he does, the more he can note the differences between this version of her and the version of her in 1972.

She’s no longer as put together or clean. Her hair is chopped shorter and her clothes are more loose. She looks older, more mature, but somehow still young. Frozen in her thirties. Frozen, he repeats dully. How?

“Where am I?”

“Outside of New York. No one knows about this place except the people who work for me, and I trust them. You’re safe.” He blinks dazedly, trying to figure out which question he wants to ask next. “I thought I lost you,” she whispers, thumbing over his cheek. His eyes flutter closed for a moment, and she gently scoots closer towards him as he flexes his flesh fingers. A dull throb in his shoulder is his answer as she gently slips the remote between his fingers. Pressing a button, he feels the bed move up into a full sit and he takes a deep breath, dropping it to his side. He can breathe easier now, and he glances warily at a clock hanging on the wall. Nearly seven in the evening.

“That woman… she said you were dead.” His eyes dart back to her, confused. “I thought you were gone.”

“I had to fake my death. You can’t kill someone who’s already dead.” His hand rises shakily to touch her jaw, to make sure she’s truly alive before him and not some other hallucination his mind has made to ease the pain. “I searched for you everyday since you’ve left. All I’ve ever wanted was to free you from them and keep you safe.” When his fingers finally brush her jaw, her eyes close and tears slip down her cheeks, crystalline in the low light. “Now that you’re here, I-” She looks down and his hand falls weakly to his bed. “I don’t know if you’re planning to stay, but with S.H.I.E.L.D. and H.Y.D.R.A. collapsing, they’ll look for you.”

“How are you… young?” He doesn’t know a delicate way to phrase it. Not with the aches beating in his body. “I thought you’d age without cryogenics.”

“Science finds a way,” she says and it sits uneasily inside him. It is a hard stone on his gut. “It doesn’t matter. What matters now is that you’re safe.” He swallows the hard knot at the flat smile etched onto her face. Dread is a monster inhabiting her face as she looks up at him again and he can see a darkness stirring behind her mask. “What matters is that you get to choose what happens next.”

He frowns. “Choose?”

“Choose to stay or go.”

“S.H.I.E.L.D. is compromised. You should go,” he replies and she smiles although he can tell there is no heart in it. Lips pressing together, he remembers who sits before him and a vile taste fills his mouth. His next words come out hot, twisted and laced with poison. “How did you not see this coming?”

“I was dead to the world. I have been for decades.” Her tone is bitter, frigid, and he watches as the cracks in her mask spread across her face. He’s hit her in a weak spot, concerning Washington was only days ago, but he can’t bring himself to feel sorry just yet, not when his whole body is sore from the helicarrier falling on him. “I apologize if I couldn’t stop something I wasn’t a witness to. When I stepped back from S.H.I.E.L.D., I left it in the hands of people I trusted.”

“But you knew.” The words spill out of him unprompted, unbidden. Anger at where he is, rage at how he cannot move, burns through his stomach as he glares at her. He’d give anything to be able to merely embrace the woman he loves like how he’s sure it is in the movies, but the woman he loves is the reason he sits here now, battered, broken. Broken again, his mind pried open for secrets. “Like no one else. You knew what H.Y.D.R.A. was, how infectious they were.”

“Yes, and H.Y.D.R.A. was supposedly extinct the minute Captain Rogers drove that plane into the ocean.”

“But it wasn’t! Operation Paperclip gave them a chance to be reborn. You gave them a chance—”

“What would you have had me do?” Her voice cracks like a whip and she wipes the escaped tears from her cheeks angrily, pulling away. “Tell the president to rescind his approval after sixteen months of deliberation? Fight against three other founders simply because I alone personally knew the horrors they have inflicted? We were preparing for another war as soon as the last one was finished. Just because you have been asleep for decades doesn’t mean I was. I wasn’t given that luxury.”

“You want to call what I was given a luxury?” he snaps, his metal hand gripping onto the sheets below the blanket in an effort to prevent himself from tearing anything else. Jaw clenching, he shakes his head. “Killing people without knowing the reason, just a witness to crimes I didn’t want to commit, being handled like some weapon because that was all I was—all I am. There is no luxury in seeing decades pass by and living in a blur when I could’ve been here, with you. At least you got to live your life.”

“Live?” A hollow laugh comes out of her, almost crawling out of her mouth in how uncomfortable it crackles in the air. “I barely survived the war, and I barely lived through losing you again, and there was not a single day that I did not wake up and think I can’t do this before I did. I did everything. Without you.” There’s a pause before she looks into her lap, the tiniest smile on her face. It is a hollow, dark thing. “You know I found my brothers, made good on our promise to do it a few months after I arrived in New York. One of them died in Brooklyn because the war got him anyway. He was shipped back overseas because being a soldier was better than being homeless.

“My other brother got away. He lived in Pennsylvania… and he… he wished that I was dead the moment he heard what I’d been through because he thought I was a monster. Because of what they did to me. Your family was dead. I couldn’t speak to Rebecca lest they find out where she was. My parents lived on the other side of the ocean. My youngest brother had to stay home to take care of them and I had no one but S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“You walked away from S.H.I.E.L.D. anyway.”

“Well, we all leave the things we love, don’t we?” she whispers coldly and he freezes, eyebrows together as he narrows his eyes at her. There is dangerously thin ice beneath their feet. “If you want to fight about whose life was harder, I am more than welcome to it.”

“You let me go.” His voice struggles to remain steady as she looks up again, her head tilted back to take a deep breath. He turns away to examine the room he lays in to prevent himself from lashing out and saying something he’ll regret. She is burned into his memory either way. He doesn’t need to look at her to know the expression inhabiting her face. “I had to protect you. You’re the one who could’ve moved on, found someone else, settled down and had a family.”

“And you’re the only one I have left. There is no moving on.” Freezing water washes down his back and she stares at him with the misery of a deity. He supposes she is. Time has only elevated her beauty to one worthy of a god. No longer a girl, certainly more than a woman, and eternally sad. That is how the gods are—sad, and broken, and stronger than any living man. “There is no going back from the things I did. From the things you did.

“I know you killed Howard, Bucky,” she says. His eyes dart to hers, lightning striking him and sending him into a shock. There is something unforgiving lurking in her eyes despite how much her edges have softened. There is no accusation, only the hard truth. “I know you stole the serum from him.” He sits up straighter as his lips part to speak but she turns her head away, standing up. “I love Tony more than most things in this world. There isn’t a single thing I wouldn’t do for him. What am I going to do when he asks me about you?”

Tick. Tick. Tick. The clock on the wall echoes in his empty chest as he tries to tell her he doesn’t know.

“In the decades we’ve been apart, did you ever realize that we’re no good for each other?” Bucky whispers instead, thinking of that tiny boy that had slept against her chest as he slipped out of her bed. He’d been tiny then, eyes sparking with a fire that burned bright with love and wit. He’d seen the same eyes as he squeezed the life out of his mother. The same blazing intensity, but at that time, of grief for her dead husband.

Sergeant Barnes.

“That all we ever do is cause each other pain.”

“I think about it every day.” She yields to him then. Perhaps she is tired of shouting as he is, and cannot stand being furious. A wrathful silence fills the air.

This is how every one of their arguments goes. It starts with a spark that cracks the air, a fire let loose, devouring too quickly before suffocating itself into an eerie silence. His head aches with the intensity of his heart throbbing between his eyes.

“But I didn’t survive all these years just to give up on you.” She clears her throat, turning to the chair sitting in the corner of the room where a messenger bag sits. She lifts up the flap to reveal a sleek laptop and pulls it out, setting it on the table at the foot of his bed and opening it up. It feels strange to see her with modern tech, but he reminds himself that they’re nearly a century old and the times have changed, whether they liked it or not.

“I think… of how I love you so much it aches,” she says quietly, her fingers tapping on the keyboard. Her eyes train on the screen and he watches the way the blue light places on her face and in her hair. “And how whenever I’m with you, nothing else ever matters.” She taps the Enter key forcefully and something changes in the light as it dims and brightens again. “How, in the past four decades, I have searched every corner of this earth for you not even knowing if you were alive or dead. How Howard asked me to step back from S.H.I.E.L.D. after what happened in 1972 and instead offered me my own task force to help search for you. I didn’t step down, Bucky,” she confesses, finally looking at him with a sorrow he understands. “Howard asked me not to come back until I found you, dead or alive.”

“But, he must’ve understood—”

“He understood nothing but war. Always preparing for one, trying to improve mankind so we could rise above it all.” A bitter smile graces her lips then. “He was a terrible father, but a brilliant man. I’ll never forgive him for the former, but for the latter… it’s the only reason I stand before you today as I do.” There is a decisive click of the mousepad before she turns the laptop around to face him and pulls the table closer towards him. His eyebrows knit together and she sits beside him as if they weren’t at each other’s throats mere minutes before. His metal arm whirs and clicks softly as he raises it to wrap a gentle arm around her waist and she nearly melts into him. Her eyes study his expression intently as he reads the title, and he jerks his head to meet her gaze.

“Test subject,” he whispers. His words come out flat, forced between gritted teeth and she merely stares at him, infinitely full of sorrow. He is sure that that is all they’re made of. Sorrow and science with nothing human left of them. “He tested the serum on you?” His eyes search hers, and he hopes it’s not true. He doesn’t want to see her broken apart like the other Winter Soldiers sleeping in Siberia. He can’t. “Please don’t tell me you let him.”

“Would it hurt less if I told you I volunteered?”

“You could’ve died,” he whispers, and the bite in his eyes comes unexpectedly. He presses his lips together and the hand around her back shifts to her waist when she twists in his grip, and she smiles in defeat. It is a numb smile, one with barely any life, and she forces it deeper into her cheeks.

“I’ve died a thousand times over,” she tells him. He feels boneless when her palms gently press against his cheeks. “The blood on your hands is like the stain on my soul. Neither of us can wash it away.”

“What did they do to you?” An angel with burning wings sits in his arms and she smiles tenderly. It does not chase away the shadows haunting her, roaming behind her eyes.

“I killed every single H.Y.D.R.A. agent I found,” she whispers, leaning in close to him.

“You promised to do no harm.” His eyes nearly flutter shut and he can taste the sin on her tongue as his metal hand rides up her back, hooking on her shoulder. His fingers dig into her flesh and he can’t help the primal urge that stirs in his stomach—he doesn’t understand it.

“Times have changed. So have I.” Her smile is so devilish, so empty, he barely recognizes her, and he wonders if it is he who has tossed her into the abyss or she has simply dragged him to the light and sacrificed herself instead. He fears it—he is insanely in love with it. “You make a demon out of me, Sergeant Barnes.”

Before he can utter a response, that feral urge pushes forward to snag her lips in his. It is a hungry, powerful thing and she submits to him wholly as his hand rakes through her hair and her fingers scratch against his scalp. He is so full of wanton need for something familiar that he doesn’t know anything but the insane desire for her weight on him. Eager to explore the darkness tainting the wings of his angel, he watches as she straddles his hips, his hand tracing up the side of her waist and her shirt is on the floor, scars etched into her side like brush strokes.

He’s hypnotized. His flesh fingers reach for a scar that stretches as she leans over him and kisses his mouth slowly and the ache in his shoulder is nothing compared to the ecstasy of her soft mouth as he lets out a muffled moan. Her fingers in his hair gently pull and he sucks in a stilted breath when his back arches to her whim, his hands flat against her hips.

“Forty years,” she whispers, a mournful thing as he traces where a cicatrix has punctured a hole through her abdomen. The next kiss she presses against his mouth is bruising, punishing for the both of them, and he loves the pain because it is good. “Forty years, love.” His fingers dig into her waist, hook on the waist of her sweatpants and she grins against his insistent kisses as his flesh hand reaches up her back. His fingers don’t snag on wings like they snag on her bra, but he doesn’t care as he undoes the clasp.

Angelfire burns through his skin when she takes hold of his neck with her hands, her thumbs barely pressing into the pulse points. She glances down at their hips pressed together and then at him. Her eyes—they are his saving grace. They remind him that this is real as she kisses him again, her nails leaving crescent moon indents into his skin.

He trails away from her mouth, sitting upright as his hands run up her back, his lips latching onto her collarbone as she twists away to close the laptop and push the table away. When she faces him again, her back arches beneath his grasp and he kisses the tiny scar, a fading pink mark a few inches to the right of her heart. Where he’d shot through her. Just another reminder of how wrong they’ve been.

“Are you feeling okay?” she murmurs against his ear, sounding like the girl of 1945, so concerned, so tender. Her finger plays with the baby hair at the nape of his neck. He purrs at the gentle touch, ignoring the dull pain flaring up in his abdomen and he noses at the smooth expanse of her chest, smiling with eyes closed in bliss.

“Perfect, angel,” he mumbles. “God, you’re perfect.” Pressing his forehead against her collarbone, he can hear her heart beating to the pulse of his own in his throat and he wonders if it is simply one heart beating in two bodies—if soulmates really do exist.

A wonderful burden, a terrible blessing.

Her fingers flatten into a palm that slides down his back, smoothing over his waist and reaching for the sweatpants he’s in and tugging on the drawstring. Their lips meet, then, ferocious, wet, biting, and he gasps against her mouth, eyes closed, submitting to her taste and tongue. She devours him completely, leaving him lightheaded as they part just to breathe. Their noses brush and their lips catch as he simply bathes in her touch, fleeting little things along his waist that dare to travel further.

This is his absolution.

“Make it hurt,” she hisses in his ear. The feral animal inside him snarls at her voice, prowls in his stomach as she raises her hands and takes him by the cheeks, forces him to stare into the darkness of her gaze. His metal arm clicks as he traces the smooth lines of her back and her smile is a dangerously sharp thing. It tastes sour in his mouth, like she isn’t quite there. He can hear desperation bleed through her voice, and he knows the feeling. It is the same one that has seized him. The same terrible fear they will be left alone in this world again. “I need it to hurt.”

“Okay,” he whispers, his lips leaving marks of his own on her skin as his teeth graze her neck, travel to the smooth expanse of her navel, find the delicacy of her inner thigh as soon as he pulls down her pants.

He agrees because the agony of their love is too good to pass up. It is an all-consuming, monstrous beast that lurks in their heads and in their hearts, and he is certain that one day it’ll kill the both of them. The torture that is a split soul will one day become too much, and one of them will pull the other into death’s embrace with them.

She needs the pain to forget the agony of living life as a ghost.

He needs the pain to remember how to come back to life.

“I’ll stay,” he whispers in the depth of night.

Her hands hold into his arm draped over her waist and the sheets are twisted around their bodies. His whole body aches for a different reason this time, and his mind is sedated with the smell and taste of her everywhere. She doesn’t give the indication that she’s heard, and by the slow pulse of her heat, he knows she must be asleep. Smiling wearily, slightly, he kisses a tender mark on her neck and traces shapes onto her stomach, sinking into the pillow.

The heat of her body wraps around his bones, drives itself into his muscles, and he holds her closer, holds her tighter.

Forty years, he thinks to himself as she lets out a soft sound, wiggling against him. Tomorrow seems an impossible task, to face the world outside of her arms and realize the extent of Washington’s damage. There’s so much we have to figure out about us, about everything. It is an insurmountable feeling of hopelessness and he doesn’t know how to fill the hollowness that carves pieces out of him, but he’ll figure it out, whether it takes another decade or not.

She rolls around and tucks underneath his chin, her hands grabbing at him in her sleep. His smile eases and he closes his eyes as her breaths puff gently against his neck.

As long as she is with him.

Perhaps they’re on their way.

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