#my man spent most of the war probably covered by a cloud of his trauma and ptsd and this probably intensified after wwx's death

[clownxian]

jiang cheng antis always acting as if they'd do different in his shoes. as if losing your entire family, sect and home was just something you could brush off and get over. as if there wouldn't be an anger and a need for vengeance, that your entire bloodline wouldn't need avenging and more. they seem to struggle with humanising him and realising that all grief comes in different shapes. jiang cheng simply couldn't curl up in a ditch somewhere and accept his fate, he couldn't put himself in solitude and have someone else take charge — jiang cheng was the only one left to restore the yunmeng jiang sect, he was quite literally the surviving hope for his home and people. there's an immense sense of pressure on his shoulders, combined that with survivors guilt and then followed by the loss of jiang yanli and wei wuxian, jiang cheng really was going through the works.

[winterromanov]

and the story’s all over you - bucky x reader

PART ONE - VANITY FAIR

parts: masterlist

pairing: bucky barnes x (female) reader

extract: You’ll take this moment, revel in it for a while. Maybe this is some weird joke for somebody, maybe it’s someone you do know, maybe it’s absolutely anything. But it’s nice to think that someone loves you foolishly.

genre: soulmate au (+ roommates au, friends to lovers au)

taglist: @beautiful-aravis​ @chubby-tink​ @captainmaka​ @ninaminaromina​ @kindadeadinside235​ @to-the-road​ @verygraphicink​ @feistytravel​ @sagechanoafterdark​ @grumpylittledoctor​ @sunmoonandbucky​ (still open, reply/message to be added)

“My God, what is the point?”

You examine your figure exasperatedly in the changing room mirror, pulling at every wrinkle in the dark blue fabric of the dress you’ve just thrown on. The four other dresses hang limply on the rail, all decidedly okay but not wholly right. You have no idea why you’re putting in so much effort for a dumb Tinder date that will inevitably lead nowhere. They always lead nowhere.

“The point in what?” A voice calls from outside the curtain, a little distracted. “The point in wearing clothes?”

“No, dumbass. The point in even being here.” You throw open the curtain dramatically, making exasperated eyes at the figure waiting for you leaning against the opposite wall. Bucky’s eyes lift from his phone to your figure. You ignore the fact that his jaw drops a little, preferring to shove that deep, deep down. Bucky finding you remotely attractive is not a thing. Especially in this absolute state of a dress. “Greg, thirty-two, from Manhattan will buy me dinner and a drink. He’ll laugh at my jokes and my ego will be suitably boosted. We’ll probably go back to his apartment, he’ll take my dress off, but then he’ll see my mark. And realise there is absolutely no point in pursuing this encounter.”

Bucky blinks, shuffling his feet. “Maybe he isn’t looking for his soulmate.”

“Buck, if he’s not looking for his soulmate, he’s looking for an easy fuck. There is no in-between with men.”

“And you…don’t want an easy fuck?”

You scowl at him, turning back to the mirror. You watch his reflection as he tries to be nonchalant. “I want someone to see me and think, it doesn’t matter that she isn’t my soulmate. In fact, I think that would be more meaningful than actually finding my soulmate. To fall in love with someone that the universe doesn’t dictate for you.”

Bucky shrugs, which is a more mild reaction than you were hoping for. When you’d told your mother this, she’d looked at you with absolute horror, claiming that no love is real love unless it’s with the person who matches your mark. But surely real love is subjective? Your heart and your mark aren’t connected in the slightest, despite what all the romantics say. You feel what you feel. You want what you want.

But of course, Bucky is a romantic, through-and-through. He’s the most romantic person you’ve ever met. He’d waste his whole life waiting for his soulmate to fall into his life, even if that meant he spent his remaining years always alone.

It’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard. The odds of meeting your soulmate are one in almost eight-fucking-billion. It’s a statistical impossibility, and everyone should just get a grip and find someone they can tolerate before they grow old and die. Love is what you make it. Not what statistics command.

“I think if I ever found my soulmate I’d tell them to get fucked,” you say primly, straightening your posture. Bucky raises a bemused eyebrow at that. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. I don’t want to be with someone because I’m supposed to be.”

“It’s not supposed to feel like that, though. It’s like a…murmuring, under the skin. Magnetisation. Something uncertain that keeps pulling you back to them, again and again. The marks are just a side effect.”

“Side effect, my ass.” A person comes out the cubicle next to you, eyeing you with suspicion, like you’ve been talking about robbing a bank or enacting a murder. Bucky grins. He’s used to you and your somewhat controversial views. “Either way. I don’t want a soulmate. Doesn’t matter who they are. I don’t want them.” You sigh at your reflection, hand trying to grip at a zipper that’s just out of reach. “Can you unzip me?”

Like the weary long-term best friend he is, Bucky accepts your demand. His hands are warm against the exposed skin of your back and you let out a subconscious shiver as his skin skims yours, right down to just above your tailbone. Then his hands inexplicably freeze.

“Is that…is that your mark?”

Your mark is small, and dark, and shaped like a crescent moon blurred by the haze of clouds. When your eyes catch his reflection, he’s frozen over it, like he’s been paused in a movie. You narrow your eyes at him. “Yeah. Why? Is there something wrong?”

He seems to snap out of his trance, but he gulps loudly. His smile looks strained. Which only leaves you more confused. You feel the pad of his finger swipe over it, like he’s checking it’s not just dye from the dress imprinted on your skin. “No. Nothing wrong. I’ve just never seen it before.”

“I don’t like to show it off.” His glare still feels weirdly zoned in on it, which makes you think… “Do you know someone with the same mark or something?”

His tongue runs across his lips. For the first time in this strange interaction, his eyes actually meet yours. They look bluer than usual. Blue, like the clear bright pools along the Cabo coast from your senior year graduation trip. “Would it change your mind if I said I did?”

You don’t like the way your heart feels in your chest at the possibility. It goes against everything you’ve ever wanted to feel, everything you’ve coached yourself into thinking, believing it’s easier if you just stop trying. But you’re too proud to be a hypocrite, even in front of the man you’d tell almost anything to. “No. Of course it wouldn’t. But I am interested, if you do know.”

His smile is tight and resigned, but there’s something else behind his eyes that you can’t put your finger on. “I don’t know, so I guess it doesn’t matter.”

“I guess.” His answer and his reaction don’t exactly match up, but Bucky is like that sometimes. “Now, some privacy, please.”

Bucky steps back, holding his hands up, settling back in his position against the wall. There is something off about him and he desperately tries to pretend that there isn’t, smiling like the last few minutes have been totally normal and not tinged with unease. You pull the curtain closed, letting the dress drop so the fabric pools at your feet. You turn so you can see your back in the mirror, the bare skin and freckles and the mark, like an inkstain, flecked on your flesh like a careless afterthought.

The universe was careless when it created soulmates. They cause more pain, more emptiness, than if they didn’t exist at all. The love is supposed to be exuberant and effervescent. But the loss—the loss stings like a bitch.

It’s a good job you have no interest in finding your own.

-

You remember the exact day you met Bucky for the first time. It’s easy to remember, because your first time turning up to a support group for royally fucked-up individuals is not a day you easily forget. He was riddled with war trauma. You were dealing awfully with the death of your older brother. The two circumstances don’t really interlink, but you found yourself drawn to him anyway, because he was quiet and reserved and emotionally vulnerable and you were (are) loud and blunt and also emotionally vulnerable. He was the only one who laughed when you told the other startled members of the group that you were sad when the bus that almost hit your bike didn’t kill you that morning.

Ever since then, you’d become kind of inseparable. He’s your partner in crime. He’d put his whole life on hold to help you. You’re also both pretty good at getting the other to remember to take their meds, as both of you care for others way more than you’ve ever done yourselves. Moving in to an apartment together just made sense.

(It also meant that it stopped your sister from worrying about you, his sister from worrying about him, and Steve from worrying about you both. That being said, Steve might as well be your honorary third roommate, he’s round here that much.)

You’ve rented your little place in Brooklyn for about two years now, just about managing to pay the rent between your two salaries (and the remnants of Bucky’s military pension). It’s pretty modest—two small bedrooms, a kitchen, a living space, one bathroom. You’re genuinely surprised that you’ve not accidentally seen each other naked before; the towel-wrapped walk from the only bathroom to either of your bedrooms is barely a few steps which, honestly, you’ve made a dash for totally nude in the past.

But you’re happy, which is saying something. Living with Bucky is a pretty sweet gig. For the first time in a long time, you feel like you’ve settled into something comfortable. Manageable. You won’t change, Bucky won’t change, and it will always stay that easy forever.

You say that into the mirror almost every morning as reassurance. You know it’s unhealthy, because as soon as Bucky finds someone (even his someone) he’ll be out of here and you won’t begrudge him his everlasting happiness. Even if it breaks your heart every time you look in the same mirror and see your smile not quite reaching your eyes.

The thought of you leaving him doesn’t even cross your mind, not really, because your love life is a tragic, warped car crash of a thing that is not aided by the presence of a soul mark. That is—that is, until the first letter arrives. Stamped, addressed, in a pretty blue envelope covered in biro-sketched garden birds and roses, stashed between utility bills and bank statements and a flyer for the pop-up ice rink coming to town in a few weeks. You would have missed it, if it hadn’t fluttered to the floor like a twirling autumn leaf while you were emptying yours and Bucky’s mailbox.

Brows furrowed, you’d teared into it carefully at the kitchen table. Inside is a note on matching blue paper, covered in capitalised handwriting, like the sender is deliberately trying to hide their real hand.

It reads a singular quote from Thackeray’s Vanity Fair:

It is better to love wisely, no doubt; but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all.

“Huh,” you say to yourself, reading the lines over and over again. It’s a love letter. Or a love quote, rather, addressed and posted to you. Someone has written you a freaking love letter.

“You look…perturbed,” Bucky says, snapping you out of your reverie. He’s just come out of the shower, his hair wet and messy, dressed in a clean t shirt and jeans. He glances over at you as he grabs a carton of milk from the fridge, unscrewing the cap and taking a swig from it.

You roll your eyes. You hate it when he does that, and he knows it. “I’m perturbed that you’re drinking communal milk like that, yeah.”

He sticks his tongue out at you and you respond by sweetly offering your middle finger.

“God, you’re so mean.” Bucky says, before gesturing nonchalantly at the paper you’re holding. “What are you reading?”

You quickly fold the precious blue paper and tuck it out of his eyesight below the table, even though you’re pretty sure he caught it in his periphery. You tell Bucky everything. It’s like—one of your rules, but this feels precious, private. For now. Bucky would be intrigued, wanting to find out the sender. In a world dominated by soulmate searching deeming any other sort of romantic interaction futile, this feels special. Arguably, you’re also interested in the sender of this snippet of romance—if this had happened to anyone else you might have thought it a bit creepy, but there’s just something about how delicate the paper is, the masking of the hand, that makes you think otherwise—but now… Now it feels like someone is interested in you regardless of the mark on your back.

You’ll take this moment, revel in it for a while. Maybe this is some weird joke for somebody, maybe it’s someone you do know, maybe it’s absolutely anything. But it’s nice to think that someone loves you foolishly.

You smile tightly, offering up one of the many unopened bills in their tidy brown envelopes. “It’s our favourite time of the month.”

If Bucky did see the letter you’re hiding, he doesn’t react or push you. Instead, he gives you a pained expression, dropping two slices of white bread into the toaster and pouring some coffee into a mug. “That reminds me. It’s Sam’s housewarming thing tonight. You going?”

“I think Sam might hunt me down and kill me if I don’t. He needs the numbers to prove to his neighbours he’s a popular dude.”

Bucky laughs, bringing the stripy mug to his lips. He winces as the hot coffee burns his tongue. “I’m under the impression the girl across the hall from him is a bit of a hottie.”

“God, imagine if they’re soulmates,” you remark, “That would be a rom-com in the making.”

“I’m pretty sure that is already a rom-com, (Y/N), and I thought you were all cynical and way above all that anyway.”

You raise a firm, solitary eyebrow, and he mirrors a look he’s all too familiar with by now. “I am. Smart ass. It was just a comment.”

Bucky’s grinning. He grins quite a lot for someone so awfully sad inside. “One minute I’m a dumb ass, the next I’m a smart ass. Don’t know where I stand with you half the time.”

“I like to keep you on your toes,” you tease, before jumping off your bar stool, note burrowed deep within your palm. You can feel his eyes on your back as you walk out of the kitchen and back to your room, leaving him stood barefoot by the kettle.

You will tell him about the letter, at some point, because you want to know what he’d say. You want to share it with him, even though he’d probably say it was stupid and weird because, factually, it is. But you’re happy being a disingenuous fraud who won’t take their own logic for just a little longer. You’re happy being someone’s favourite literary creation for one, two, three, four seconds. You’re happy knowing for half a moment, someone thought of you long enough to send you a letter.

There’s nothing special about you, and there never will be. But right now, following the ink with your fingertip, you feel like maybe there could be. Someone thinks there could be.