#same thing about the ads i keep getting about monitoring body temperature to know when you're fertile or not

[albonium]

this is the kind of bullshit the people who think "natural" stuff are better leads to. pleaaaaase if you're young or unaware: this is false and will get you pregnant. monitoring body temp or pulling out doesn't work either because spermatozoïdes can be present in precum. the only way to reduce pregnancy risk is with condoms and/or birth control (iud, pill, implant). you can get pregnant even during your periods.

[cooloddball]

This is going to be a super long analysis of jib3 starting with the opening ceremony to the closing ceremony so brace yourselves. 

Please note I believe in the breakup theory so maybe my opinion in this one might be biased so please don’t come for me, lol.

I will put it under the cut to avoid overcrowding your dashes with cockles shenanigans. 

Also, watch out for profanities and mature language.

And so it begins...

Opening ceremony

The camera used to record the opening ceremony is shaky. 

Misha, Jason Manns, and Jarpad seem to be having a lot of fun together and Jensen is just looking at his besties talking to the man he loves and he knows he can’t have that so he just stands there looking at them. Poor guy.

Jarpad asks who took Misha’s riffle? Things are awkward, I honestly don’t know what’s going on.

Misha kisses a plushie while making eye contact with Jensen and Jensen is like “oh, oh, wow” while making eye contact with Misha. LOL. Jack help me. This is a lot!!!

Jensen takes a plushie from Sebastian and Jared takes the one Misha had.

Are you guys flirting about trying to see whether you can keep plushies alive?

Misha throws something at the fans, I think he was throwing treats from earlier or whatever it was and Jensen says “Misha is still throwing” I mean why?

Cockles Panel

Jensen is so extra in this panel.

First of all, when he and Misha come out (no pun intended) a song starts playing and he starts dancing. Jensen is usually so poised while dancing but he is over the top throwing his back and shaking his tush for the mish.  I think he was trying a little too hard. Misha spares his ex-boyfriend’s tush a glance smiles and looks away. LOL. The whole thing was cringey, tbh. It was so unlike Jensen.

When Sebastian touches Jensen’s shoulder and says something to Jensen, he [Jensen]  laughs way too hard. I would say he laughs abnormally-it’s loud and he throws his whole body into it like he’s trying to prove what Sebastian was funny and it probably wasn’t. He laughs so hard he ends up right on Misha’s side. and Misha laughs at that though.

Rich says something about something in the sac that hurts(It’s incoherent) and Jensen says it hurts right here pointing at his heart (I can’t hear what they are saying exactly so if anyone knows please let me know)

I don’t know if Mark P. was going to hug Jensen or not or he was pointing at something behind Jensen, but at that moment, Jensen sees Sebastian going to hug Misha and whips his head away from Mark P’s direction so fast he almost broke his neck.

Sebastian humps Misha (these two are so playful I love them) and Jensen is just there acting awkward 

There’s a comment by Rich about “It’s over, the convention’s over I’m no longer your bitch” I don’t know who this is about.

Now, now, now. This whole time Rich is doing a kissy mouth with his fingers on the monitor behind Jensen and Misha. His hand is right where Misha is standing (you’ll understand once you watch it) so Jensen makes a kissy face back and Misha is blushing? Ummm wtf is going on here?

Jensen also does something strange that he never does during cockles panels he pulls his seat away from Misha.

Misha makes a very weird comment about Sebastian’s libido drying up and they have a weird conversation about libido and Viagra ads. It’s weird.

It gets even more awkward Jensen talks about bringing a total stranger, and a blind date. And it goes downhill from there with them. The it wasn’t you it was me speech. It was special. So heartbreaking. It was clearly not about the show but about their relationship. I always have a difficult time getting through that part. It’s so awkward that the fans are just there wondering what the hell is going on.

They decide to take questions and the fan is all over the place so Misha interjects but Jensen won’t let Misha say what he wants to say so he says, “This is why you make it awkward. You never let people finish what they are saying.” Ouch. Domestic dispute vibes anyone?

The way Jensen is looking up at Misha when he’s answering that question. It’s like he wants to sear his face into his memory before they leave Rome.

Jensen is explaining to a fan how one of the four sound stages they had on set was full of furniture and Misha adds “and soiled mattresses”  I mean what was the reason? Did they soil the mattresses with their [redacted]

A fan mentions something about Dean and Cas so these two adorable dorks smile and share a look. Things are starting to look up. Thank Jack.

The fan says something again (I can’t make out what he’s saying) but it must be something nice because they look at each other with smiles on their faces again.

Jensen playing with the head of his microphone. Is it just me or did the temperature rise a notch higher?

The way they look at each other when the fan says to help him choose the hottest female cast member on the show 

Then something freaky happens they say the exact same thing as twins or bffs do sometimes. LOL.

When they start talking about the hot women with the fans Misha moves his entire body and now instead of looking at the fans, he is seated facing Jensen.  The tension is simmering down.

A point to note is that in all their panels they always sit angled facing each other as opposed to facing the crowd save for this panel and DCCON 2019. But for DCCON I can understand that they weren’t comfortable being meant to be a J/2 panel and a creation event. So you know some people in that crowd are super mean to Mish and others to Jensen, so they had to tread carefully. But I digress back to the chaos.

They ask who wants to have a cockles panel the next year and they both raise their hands. I thought that was sweet

 It’s adorable how Jensen keeps repeating everything Misha is saying.

Misha forgets himself and moves too close to Jensen to listen to the song on the phone. Jensen turns to look at Misha, I don’t know what that look is but Misha backs away laughing.

Jensen’s face journey while listening to that song is gold.

Misha moves closer to listen to the song.  I have to say the way they are standing is not usually how two bros listening to music usually stand. If you know what I mean

 Misha agrees that’s definitely Jensen singing. Of course, he knows because Mr. “Jensen sings to me all the time”

He looks so proud of him.  I’d venture to say he’s happy to hear Jensen sing because he has always been so shy about that fact about himself. He even gives him a standing ovation. That’s so adorable. He loves him. My heart.

Jensen is so cute trying to deny it’s not him singing that song.  Yeah, it’s you, Jensen. Even your ex agrees it’s you and we bet he knows how your voice sounds in all kinds of situations ;)

we get a tingly feeling so we know it’s you. Jensen’s adorable smile when Misha says that. Aww.

The way they are not even looking at each other but they are seated the exact same way.

Allow me to explain to my friend here. Explains how his parents didn’t know whether he was a boy or a girl. Misha with the steel chair, “when did they figure out that you were a boy?”

How many years did they call you holly?

For six to seven years

Is it just me or is this conversation a flashback of teenage twink-lesbian Jensen years?

Fan asks whether Dean will ever forgive Cas. Watch Misha’s body language, he is trying to pacify himself by rubbing the back of his neck and fumbling with his shirt.

When Jensen says “ No!” without a moment’s hesitation, Misha looks distraught? I don’t know maybe I’m reading too much into this but I feel like this hit too close to home being that they were most likely broken up.

Misha however has a different opinion, “I think he has” 

Jensen says, “Wishful thinking” and that elicits a smile from Misha.

A fan asks about Dean giving Cas the trenchcoat back and things get interesting.  Weirdly, that Jensen can’t say the word gay out loud. He literally uses the word “unmanly” in its stead in the guise of censorship? It’s not a bad word Jensen you can say it. However, Misha and the fans say the word so I’m wondering who is censoring Jensen’s use of that word. He eventually says it but super fast.

Jensen says that saying “I always knew you would come back” is not something he would say to another human being, especially a man. Jesus, there’s nothing wrong with saying that to another human being you care about. He’s the one making it gay. He was extra when answering that one.

They spent one and half hours making that scene just to end up not saying anything and it ended up looking gay anyway. Anyway, that’s interesting.

 Jensen angles his body towards Mish and says in a very low soft and sexy voice “I guess I really hoped that you would come back some day” I would venture to say that Jensen at the moment in the panel was actually saying them to Misha. Who knows though?

They talk about it a whole lot for something that bothered him that much. 

Misha being so excited about recreating a scene when a fan told Jarpad he’s amazing and Jarpad said "you are welcome. 

 “I think I understand what she wants. I’m not sure what she’s gonna get.” This is a very good line Misha. I will be using it often.

The way they awkwardly stand too close and whisper to each other. Umm…what is going on here?

Jensen folds over laughing because of something Misha says. They are back. The tension is almost 90% gone now and they are in their element.

The chaos of recording the alarm ringtone for the fan was just great to watch. They kept getting closer and closer and I think they might have shared spit at that point. Gross….LOL

The way Misha is sitting is he you know.

Jensen asking Misha whether he was saying anything or just screaming while they were recording. I think he just wanted to see Misha smile.

Jensen’s joy when a fan mentions that they have Misha’s résumé.

Jensen saying the word shit made my day. I curse a  lot and it made me feel validated somehow.

Misha calls him dickhead in return and Jensen stops functioning and laughs instead . He also gets all hot and bothered trying to fumble with the lapel of his shirt.  He does this a lot when he is turned on. He has a humiliation kink I think.

They start talking over each other about Misha’s special skills. Looks like Jensen might have known beforehand because he went straight for that. Or maybe he didn’t know but he knew since Misha is a mad genius there must be some amazing things in there. Either way, it was a good moment.

OMG Jensen is so excited and the way he motions to Misha to bring that résumé to him, LOL. This man was thirsty AF.

He even goes down from the stage to meet Misha and invades his personal space trying to reach the résumé. I think this is the moment the tension between them dissipated completely and they were back to some form of normalcy.

Misha holding Jensen’s shoulder trying to get his résumé back. Unsucessfully, I should add.

They read something funny and they fold over laughing and spin around like overjoyed seals. It is far removed from the mollusk family but at least it’s still a sea creature (I don’t know what I’m saying please don’t mind me)

Jensen is still on his knees laughing and can’t get up. As I said, he is being too extra in this panel.

 Misha is trying to talk but they both can’t stop laughing. I think Jensen laughed so hard he got an extra set of abs that day.

Jensen is still laughing and you know what he is laughing at? Misha’s special skills being acting on camera. I mean it’s funny but man, prayforjensen.

 They are still laughing. Jack, help them.

The way Jensen looks at Misha with pure adoration here makes me so happy and reminds me of the fictional characters they played being all heart eyes for each other.

 Misha laughed so hard he cried.

Jensen trying to read the next ‘special skill’ Misha has but he can’t even talk because of how funny he thinks it is. He’s trying so hard not to laugh but he can’t help himself.

Jensen agreeing and also asking the audience to agree that Misha has a knack for certain accents. Accent kink anyone?

 Jensen is so excited when Misha starts Tibetan throating singing and does the unicorn laugh facing away from the crowd. Bet he has experienced Misha’s Tibetan throat singing skills on a personal when they are (loud overhead helicopter noises followed by thunder rumbling)

Jensen falling to the ground after feigning a heart attack once he saw that Misha is a certified EMT. I mentioned before that I honestly, 100% think he wanted mouth to mouth. There’s no other explanation. He could’ve feigned a nose bleed or just about any other illness but he chose to fall on a dirty floor and lay down so Misha could either give him the breath of life or straddle him. Luckily for him his dream came true 7 years later at Jib9 when straddle gate happened. But I digress

Too bad Misha was still mad at him and heartbroken so he kicked him instead.

Jensen knowing that Misha kayaks seems to be part of his personal knowledge. Maybe they did it together sometimes.

Horseback riding. Hmm is it just me or do they seem awkward here?

 Misha is so close to Jensen’s armpits. Must be missing his man’s musk and being held in those muscular arms again. Poor baby.

Misha can’t talk because of how funny he finds bicycle touring. I mean…I don’t see what’s funny but I guess he knows why it’s funny.

Misha laughing and raises his legs because Jensen is elaborating on the bicycle touring. Maybe it’s an inside joke or maybe it’s no longer funny to me because I’ve watched this panel like 5 times.

 I think Jensen’s goal was to see Misha laugh and be happy because he turned to look at Misha who was still laughing hard and the joy on Jensen’s face. Aww.

Misha gravitating towards his man again. He must smell really nice Misha. And those arms. Bet he used to lift you against the wall and (this fucking thunder won’t stop rambling. Are chuck and Amara fighting again?)

Jensen marketing his man’s carpentry skills but then makes sure to make it ‘no homo’ by saying he would never sit on anything Misha has built. Sure Jan. Then he circles back and says that he knows that he can build things.

Misha walks away from him and he looks up to make sure where he is going. Maybe he was afraid Misha was walking out on him. (PTSD from their breakup?)

They mention acting on camera again.

And laugh 

Jensen keeps talking about the acting on camera and watches to see if Misha is still laughing  He still is and Jensen is happy that his baby is happy. He looks at him again and he is still happy that Misha is still happy. Then once the laughter dies down he starts talking about bicycle touring  and checks again to see if Misha is laughing which he is so Jensen throws his head back  unicorn laughing and then looks at Misha again to see that he’s still laughing. Then they look at each other and say something maybe it’s about that was a good laugh. Jensen is wiping tears from his eyes because of how hard he laughed  Misha does the same. That entire thing was insane and they seemed to love it.

 Jensen starts saying that being this happy or goofing around is how they are on set sometimes and have to take a 5-10 minute break and Misha doesn’t seem too happy at the mention of the set. 

Jensen knowing that you can buy résumés on eBay. Did he buy Misha’s and then plant someone in the audience to bring it up or? Okay, yeah I know I’m reaching here but it’s probable.

 I guess my theory wasn’t farfetched because Jensen says that he’s pretty sure that Jarpad put it on eBay the previous night so maybe he is the one who did all that to win Misha back?

Jensen knows the appellation clogging is a stretch. Seems like Misha has told him about it before.

Jensen looking at his watch to see if they have time for  Misha to be telling a story about his high school sweetheart and now wife. I bet he wishes Misha could tell their love story so openly. He can’t stop looking at Misha.

The way Jensen is looking at Misha here. WTF man? He’s literally confused about what the question is.

The personal space question. This whole thing was just so many things. It was awkward, cringey, thirsty, funny.

when the fan asks whether there’s a funny fact between Jensen and Misha. I almost fainted. What? And Jensen repeats it. The two men are so stoic. They are not even looking at each other. They are looking at the fan like the way a statue stares at you, unmoving. Cringe.

The room is so quiet. Poor girl, I hope she didn’t feel awkward afterwards because if it were me, I would’ve cried from how stoic they looked and how quiet everyone was.

How they both scratch themselves, Misha on the head and Jensen on the nose. Maybe the question hit too close to home

Jensen turns to look at Misha as if to say ’help me out here man. We don’t wanna disappoint our fans.”

Misha gets it because he gets up. This whole thing is gold.

The way Jensen breathes out in anticipation. I know it was like they were playing a skit about personal space but why was he breathing like that? Shouldn’t he have been playing it as ‘uncomfortable’ not ‘turned on.’ Boudoir mannerisms.

Moving on Misha is unsure on where to touch Jensen 40.31. This is weird in and of itself because usually, they don’t have a problem touching each other’s faces, tush, eggplants, (jib4 anyone), backs et cetera. But now it’s weird? *cough* breakup *cough*

Misha touches Jensen’s ear and Jensen literally moans. He frigging moans people. In case it is not clear in the video, here is an isolated audio version of it. Jensen is also fumbling with his shirt like he’s all hot and bothered. Just like Misha did earlier. Was Jib3 their couple’s therapy that reminded them how happy and horny they made each other?

Jensen is really not answering the question, to be honest. He’s fumbling for words and trying so very hard to make sense but his word are  incoherent.

Misha going in for the nose dip. I know friends do this all the time but you have to be very close and familiar with someone such as a friend friend or a sibling for you to poke a finger in their nose. I mean noses are slimy and eww…anyway. That happened. They seem so comfortable with it. Jensen I love you but please stop talking.

The way Jensen looks at Misha. He has the cutest smile on his face as if saying thank you for making that fun and making me horny, I still want you.

Misha wiping his pinky that touched Jensen’s nose on his pants. (I wanted to add something disgusting about what heshould’ve done with that pinky but I won’t so let’s move on)

Jensen wiggling his nose.

When Misha suggests that Spn moves to Nickolodeon. Jensen laughs a bit too hard.

Misha talking about spn being a puppet show reminds me of how he mentioned them having a puppet show in Jensen’s backyard after the show is over.

Jensen also saying that in a way spn is a puppet show. I mean is someone making snide comments about how their strings get pulled and sometimes they are not happy about it. Like how they fired his boyfriend. It seems like it’s an inside joke.

They named the plushie Zippy aww :))

For jack’s sake guys, the way they look at each other when they mention that the  résumé was the highlight of the panel.

Jensen saying the more dirt you dig up on Misha, the more rewarded you are. Aww, someone’s trying to win his man back by any means necessary. You go girl…I mean Jensen.

He talks more about how he’s looking forward to next year when fans have more dirt on his friend Misha. Jensen didn’t want to leave the stage, he was lingering so he could spend more time with Misha.

It’s over guys.

Closing Ceremony

I know you didn’t ask for the closing ceremony but here you go. It’s a free gift.

Can I just mention how Jarpad is an overactive puppy? He has to play with anything and everything he finds.

The mc announces Misha twice for some reason. The second time Jensen looks in Misha’s direction with a small smile on his face. He [Jensen] is also chewing vigorously.

Jensen and Jarpad being typical dude bros and karate chop Rich. This is why the difference between his relationship with Jarpad and Misha stands out. He would be too busy making heart eyes to Misha to kick another guy. LoL.

Jensen hulking out when Jarpad is taking a video of everyone. Lol. This video keeps reiterating my point that his relationship with the two men is just different.

Jensen keeps looking in Misha’s direction, Misha who is busy talking to Steve and having fun. Let me also mention Steve is Jensen’s bestie and so are Jarpad and Misha, but I’m sure that Jensen felt some type of way, jealous when they were having so much fun with his man and he couldn’t. Jarpad also takes a while filming Misha for Jensen of course. They remind me of me having a crush back when I was in school. Wait, did Misha look at Jensen? It’s hard to see because the angle of the video is not expansive but I guess he was.

As soon as Jarpad gets back, Jensen takes the camera from him and starts filming fans. I’m sure he just wanted Misha to look at him

Rich mention’s Misha and something about acting on camera and Jensen licks his lips looking at Misha (I think).

Jensen then vigorously grabs the microphone from someone immediately and mention’s Misha. Jarpad’s reaction at that moment tells you everything you need to know about what’s going on between Jensen and Misha. It looks like he is pleading with Jensen in his head saying, “Don’t embarrass yourself bro. Please don’t” but it’s too late.

Jensen again talks about Misha’s résumé and specifically about acting on camera, the thing that made Misha laugh out loud during their panel. Someone’s smitten. Defending his ex-man.

Jarpad goes to whisper something to Misha. And they laugh while Jensen is thanking the jib staff for doing an amazing job. But when he sees the duo laughing, he loses track of thought and says “and they are all getting married”  dude what ??? How do you go from thanking people who worked on the convention and in .1 seconds you are talking about they are all getting married? Who is? Are you okay? Do you need to sit down? No one gets it, he says he’s kidding and gives Jarpad the microphone, spares a glance at Misha and he seems distraught from that moment on. I wish I could see Misha’s face through all this.

He’s glancing in Misha’s direction again. Man’s got it bad. What?! Oh to be loved by Jensen Ackles. Misha must be a prize, I know he is a mad genius and gorgeous and sexy as hell with that golden skin that looks like it was dipped in gold and honey, big blue eyes that are bluer than the bluest blue, but Jensen wtf man? You are in public.

 I think Jarpad is telling Jensen something maybe it has to do with what he and Misha were talking about earlier?

And it’s over people.

Overall, I agree with the breakup theory. I mean the way these two were acting around each other was very strange. If you watch Misha and Jarpad, they seem okay from the opening ceremony up till the end but Jensen and Misha are just being weird.

The panel was mostly fun but their body language told a story that something was definitely going on between them. 

@littlewolf2703

[aetheternity]

How to be a big brother when you've never been a big brother P2 (1k followers special)

Synopsis: In which Levi's been dating you for a year and a half and gets the news that Kuchel's pregnant.

Emergency in babysitting (cont):

Levi.."

"Hug me back." He demands you tug him in by his shoulders and he grips your shirt. Meanwhile you're also trying to keep Chance from crying again by swaying your hips. "Boys, I need to get to the stove." You say, already smelling the mashed potatoes burning.

As if you weren't struggling enough the smoke alarm blared so loud it shocked Chance back into tears. You groaned into your hand, "Levi please.. do you think you can fan the alarm?"

He pulls away from you slowly looking around the kitchen, "Grab the pot holder!" You say "Wait, I need the pot holder!"

You yank it before he can reach it and he looks back at you for some kind of instruction. Eyes glazed over with a softness you'd rarely ever seen from him.

"It's ok." You explain not completely sure on who it was directed towards. You swipe at the burning pot on the stove, pulling the lid off to give the ingredients some air while the smoke alarm continued its obnoxious blaring. "Levi, the place mats!" You point; clumsily turning the stove off.

You turn to hug a still fussy Chance in by the waist; shhing and swaying him while Levi weirdly swatted at the still screaming alarm. The alarm finally dissipated and you held Chance close kissing the sides of his forehead and running a thumb soothingly under his eyelashes. Thankful for the eventually sigh of relief that left his lips.

"There that's so much better right?" Without a second thought Levi dropped the place mat trotting over to you to bury his face in your chest. "Ugh my sweet boys what're we gonna do about this??"

You keep Levi's head resting against your shoulder with one hand carefully and gently walking both boys towards the discarded place mat. Not even bothering to fix it properly you toss it over to the table. Might as well deal with it early in the morning before Levi wakes up.

With both boys resting against a part of your body, you walk your way back to the stove sighing over the amalgamation of your struggle with both of them and too little water added to the pot.

"Chance.."

"Mashed potatoes.." He gestures, tiny fists reaching for it.

"I don't know babes it looks kinda gross." You place Chance on the counter not wanting to try to grab a utensil while holding him and Levi.

You scoot a couple feet away reaching out for a tablespoon. In the process of this a loud clatter echoes through the kitchen. You let go of Levi turning to see the disgusting mixture of mashed potatoes splattered all over the floor, Chance's pants his shoes and the counter.

Chance screamed, mouth agape, tears flowing down his face. He kicked around, voice a higher pitch then the smoke alarm minutes ago.

"Aww Chance no please don't cry." You whispered close to his ear.

"Y/N." Levi immediately tugged at your sleeve seeing your attention diverted.

Your free hand came up to run through your hair, eyebrows etched together on your face. The realization that this was probably going to be the rest of your night hit you like a freight train.

"Levi, I have to take care of Chance for a little while ok? I'm gonna give him a bath and put him to sleep then I'll be back to sleep with you ok."

Levi reached out for your sleeve again not quite as satisfied with your answer as you would've hoped.

"Right after?" He questioned, playing with the fabric.

"Yes, I promise." You reached out for his cheek and he leaned into your touch.

"I won't fall asleep, I'll wait for you." He says

You give him a little nod and he takes off towards your shared bedroom. You rock Chance softly, curling your fingers through his soft hair as his crying falls slowly into little hiccups and whines.

"It'll be ok." You whisper

"Mashed potatoes." He replies, burying his face in the crook of your neck as you search around his bag for a towel, body wash and his pj's.

"I promise I'll make you more if you let me get you out of these gross clothes."

The same gross clothes that were currently dripping mashed potato onto your once clean shirt. But that was something you could fix later. You headed into the bathroom hanging his towel next to Levi's with his kiddie bubble gum body wash on the edge of the tub, placing his clean clothes on the sink top.

"Ok can you lift your arms for me?" He did as he was told and you pulled the article of clothing seamlessly off his body and onto the bath mat he was currently sitting on. "Don't cry sweetie it's ok."

You pressed your thumb to his cheeks tracing the lines his tears had left behind. Opening the little drawer under the sink you pulled out a clean wash cloth quickly removing the rest of Chance's clothes and turning on the water for the sink.

Once you'd checked the water to make sure it was a good temperature cleaning Chance off went smoothly. You ended up splashing water on his back a lot and gently patting the shell of his ears (because it made him giggle). And the body wash smelled so good that Chance was yawning with heavy eye lids by the time you'd dried him off and gotten him into his pj's.

His fingers etched into your sleep tee, head heavy on your shoulder as you slowly but surely get him down into the crib for the night. His thin blue blanket eventually tugged into his mouth. You decide to only dim the light in case he'd wake up afraid and slightly shut the door turning the baby monitor on the dresser on.

You make your way to the stairs, stopping when you see the soles of Levi's shoes at the edge of the banister.

"Oh God, Levi!" A part of you is still trying to be quiet while another part is basically throwing caution to the wind as you kneel next to where Levi's laying on the second to top stair and a couple in between.

"I didn't fall." He mutters, squeezing the banister between his fingers.

"Oh Levi.. why didn't you go to bed?"

Levi blinks, pulling his knees into his chest. "Mm so hungry.." He huffs

"At this rate you'll eat us out of house and home." You giggle. You reach for his hand and you expect him to get up when he takes it but he doesn't move.

"Levi?"

"Why.. doesn’t Chance like me?.." You crouch to his level and he sneaks a glance at you over his shoulder. "Please don't tell me he doesn't. He smiles at Kuchel, Kenny, My step dad, you, Mikasa and even Armin and Eren. So what could I possibly be doing wrong that he already wants nothing to do with me?"

"Levi, he's only two! He doesn't know what he wants yet." You chuckle warmly hoping to break the tension. "And I know you said don't tell me he doesn't hate me but he doesn't. Who knows why he acts differently towards you but it's not hatred. He's probably conflicted because you show the least amount of affection towards him on a daily basis."

You reach out to his face stroking his hair back from his eyes. Under the thin veil of dark hair you can see the smallest shield of tears forming over his pretty grey irises.

"Really?" He exhales as if that's the best thing he's heard all night.

"Yes baby, I think he's nervous around you and he's putting up his shields. But it definitely won't last forever."

He unclenches his fingers from the banister reaching out for your arm with shaky fingers. He pushes his free hand under your arm leaning into your chest and gently presses his head to your boob.

"Are you still hungry?"

"Sleepy." He whispers, gripping you a little tighter.

You pat his knee with the hand he's not holding, "Let's go to bed then."

Chance's first day of Preschool

• You and Levi had offered to walk Chance to his first day of preschool as Kuchel and his father had to be to work earlier than normal that day.

• By the time you and Levi arrived at the house Kuchel was up and arms with supplies for work and Chance's stuff.

• It took the two of you almost twenty minutes to separate everything which you got a quick thank you for and just as soon Kuchel was out the door quickly kissing her sons goodbye followed by Chance's father.

• "Ready for you first day?" You asked Chance

• He nodded smile small with a little blush tinting his cheeks.

• He laid his head on your shoulder as you, him and Levi exited locking the door with the emergency key.

"You're coddling him again." Levi didn't fail to mention as the three of you left the house.

"I'm not coddling." You replied as you rocked Chance on your hip.

"What word would you rather describe it as?" He asked

"Well, I'm just being supportive of my favorite boy. This is his first day of preschool after all." You rubbed Chance's tummy and he snuggled in closer to you.

"Mmhm." Levi murmured 

"Are you excited?"

"Should I be?" Chance asked without missing a beat.

"Sure, I mean you're finally at the age where you can learn stuff, meet new people and finger paint. You don't have to agree but I think that's the best part."

Chance straightens looking up at you with warm eyes, "Are you staying with me?"

"No, no I'm not but Levi might." You gesture to Levi with a smirk.

"I don't want Levi, I want you." Chance huffs resting his forehead back into the crook of your neck.

"I was just kidding babes he's not staying either ok? This is just your thing. Your first experience as a lone wolf."

You snicker a little at the feeling of tiny nails gripping you a little bit tighter. You knew the reference to Chance's favorite animal would be the thing that drew him in. You give his backpack a little pat,

"Is this heavy? Do you wanna let Levi hold it for a bit?" Levi sticks his hand out as if already ready to receive the item but,

"No!" Chance reaches for the strap gripping it roughly.

"Ok ok." You replied

A couple stray hairs blew back from his face and you coaxed them down with the palm of your hand. Using the same hand you carded your fingers through his tousled bangs redirecting hair back from his face.

"Kuchel's gonna pick him up later right?" Levi asked

"Yup she wants at least one part of this experience." The entrance to the school stood as plain as day and you froze with Chance still in your arms.

"Don't tell me you're having doubts now." Levi sighed

"No, no of course not."

Chance shook his head wildly, "Wanna stay with you." He blubbered as if feeling your hesitation.

"She has work." Levi replied plainly

"Chance." You start when you see the glimpse of tears forming. "You'll see me later." You start walking again.

"Only you?"

"Me and Levi."

Chance grunts bringing the arms once wrapped around your neck to fall over his chest. "Not Levi. Just you." He whimpers

"Levi and I are together so we'll both see you. And I promise we'll ask you lots of questions about your day when you get out." Chance shook his head as Levi held the door open for the two of you.

"If you're gonna be a brat you'll see neither of us." Levi said

"Levi-"

"I don't wanna see you anyway." Chance screamed

"Chance!"

The halls were cold and you felt yourself walking just a little bit faster as you could see the light from the classroom and Chance's teacher's name embroidered on the door.

"That's enough from both of you, alright."

"Hello." The woman in charge of the class stepped into the hall. "And who might this little cutie be?"

She lowers herself so that she's eye level with Chance, smile wide and hair tied in a messy bun. You're honestly surprised when Chance introduces himself.

"Hi Chance, it's fabulous to meet you." She replies "Wanna come inside?"

Chance nods rather quickly and you let him down only for him to race inside without another word.

"He's more excited then I thought he'd be." You say

"Let's go, we have work." Levi says but he pats your back as if sensing your hesitation.

Before the two of you can actually leave the click of Chance's sneakers on the polished tiled floor makes you stop in your tracks.

"Bye Y/N!" You hear him call.

You wave, smile bright as you turn back around. Levi looks too stands as if having his own apprehensive thoughts.

"Say goodbye to Levi too!" You call to him. But he quickly vanishes sneaker sounds trailing away until it was like they were never there at all. "He says goodbye."

Levi doesn't say a word. Just guides you back through the halls the way you both came in.

An Ackerman Christmas (Sorry to all the people who don't celebrate Christmas but I also don't so this is excluding me too.):

• On the day before Christmas Kuchel had invited you and Levi over as well as Mikasa and Kenny.

• The entire drive was silent thanks to Levi being a radio hog.

• When you guys arrived Mikasa was sitting on the couch with Chance's dad and Kenny making a little holly necklace for Chance.

• You'd both been there less than four minutes when Kuchel invited you and Levi into the kitchen.

• Kuchel had the house decked out in lights, smelling like gingerbread and covered in little Santa dolls.

"Listen Levi, you're gonna hold Chance for the family Christmas card." She said handing you and Levi Santa hats. "I know you and Chance have some kind of weird sibling beef between you but it's the holidays and I want my two children to get along and take one decent photo."

You snorted, "You have beef with a five year old.."

Levi gave you a look over his shoulder, "You know it isn't my intention to constantly fight with Chance." He explains to Kuchel.

"I know sweetie but this has gone on too long. There isn't one picture of you holding Chance at all. Everyone else in our photo album has at least one picture with him in their arms."

You chewed the edge of a cookie Kuchel had handed you when you'd walked into the kitchen. "How is this picture going to be festive with a plan like this."

Kuchel sighed, running a hand through her dark hair. "Catching Chance off guard is the real plan." She says more to herself than you. "We'll do it now before everyone's eaten so that we can get some genuine smiles."

She walks out into the living room with the camera she'd taken off the table announcing the Christmas card just to be met with a long range of sighs and groans from the peanut gallery.

"Hey." You nudge Levi with your elbow. He pops his head up making eye contact with your warm smile. "Break a leg."

"Tch, that's for performances."

"Getting Chance to stay still in your arms will be a performance everyone looks forward to."

The sounds of both your shoes clicking on the hardwood alerted Kuchel who was busy pushing everyone into a small sort of formation. Eggnog promptly snatched from Kenny's hand ignoring his grunts and Chance taken from Mikasa.

When she reached for him again Kuchel jerked her head to the side gesturing to the bowl discarded on the lounge chair in the corner of the room.

"Mikasa I need you to hold that." She explained "Here Levi." With a quick kiss to both boys temples she dropped Chance in Levi's arms.

Chance wore slacks and the warmest (ugliest) Christmas sweater you'd ever seen. Though he cooperated smoothly. Holding Levi's arm as he was repositioned with Kuchel's help. His little hat almost falling over his eyes until Levi pushed the brim back up.

You stood beside Levi on his left with Mikasa standing on the far right a little bit behind him. Kenny and Chance's father just behind you and Levi as Chance squirmed a bit but that was really the only noticeable discomfort he showed.

"Ok, it's on a count down timer so I put it on 1 minute." Kuchel clapped getting into position at Chance's back. Close enough that Mikasa was still in view.

"One minute?!" Kenny groaned "Man, I don't wanna stand here that long.."

"You will stand there for one minute it won't kill you. Unlike all that drinking you do." Kuchel huffed

"Why'd you make the countdown so long??" Chance's father was next to complain.

"I don't know how to do seconds on that thing."

"Oh I do." You chimed in.

"Never mind that honey, it'll probably snap the picture while you're standing back there." Kuchel looked over her shoulder. "Mikasa, make sure to hold the bowl so the seeds are in full view."

"Seeds?" Levi asked

"She's holding a bowl full of different dyed seeds and little beads. I thought it'd be pretty."

You couldn't help but trail your eyes to Levi his smile small but so warm and sweet. Head tilted just enough that you could see every bit of the pretty glow this lighting had on his face. Perfectly accenting his cheek bones and the cool grey of his irises.

"Ok get ready guys!" Kuchel announced, leaning in just a little bit closer to Chance who you noticed had his head tilted down. Lips parted for little breaths to fall off his lips.

Before you could say a word the bright flash nearly blinded you. Your smile coming back at the last second. Two more clicks and everyone was relaxing back into their normal stature. In that same second Chance heeled over, coughing and spewing up everything he'd eaten within the past hour right onto Levi's pants and shoes.

"Oh God." Kuchel reached out for Chance lifting him into her arms as Mikasa snatched a napkin off the table to wipe his mouth. "Levi, go get a wet towel from the bathroom."

"Did he eat too many cookies?" You asked as Kuchel rocked Chance in her arms.

"I told you not to give him anymore." She huffed finger pointed at Kenny.

"He looks so cute eating them!" Kenny shrugged

"Ugh."

You ran to catch up with Levi who sat on the toilet seat in the bathroom furiously rubbing at the stains on his pants.

"Baby.." Your heels clicked as you settled onto the floor taking the wet napkin from his loose finger tips. With gentle hands you grazed the item over his knees and down to the soaked strings of his formal shoes. "It's ok, or it'll be ok-"

"I'm gonna pull the car out front." He muttered "And we can go home so I can change."

You placed the napkin at your feet. "Do you wanna come back later?"

The door peaked open and Mikasa poked her head in before quickly entering and shutting the door behind herself.

"How's Chance?" You ask biting your tongue.

"He'll be fine." She assured "How're you?"

"Covered in a little kid's vomit." Levi answered

Mikasa came closer, plopping down on her heels in front of you. "Why does Chance hate him so much?"

"Mikasa!"

Levi huffed, slumping back where he was sitting against the back of the toilet.

"I don't know." You shrugged with a laugh. "I don't know and it's like I thought it would get better I figured whatever weird grudge that kid has against Levi would eventually go away! I mean it had to right? But here we are five years after Chance was born and I'm sure if it had been anyone else holding him that wouldn't have happened."

The break in your voice made Mikasa throw an arm over your shoulder. You sighed leaning into her touch and without warning the palm of Levi's hand came down to rest on your temple.

"At some point he'll give in and the truth will come out." He says "You'll see."

Chance gets in trouble at preschool

• Somehow you and Levi had been written as the school's emergency contact instead of Kuchel

• So not only did the two of you have to head down to the school to pick up Chance but you also had to change the emergency contact information the teacher had.

"Ok Chance what's your deal today? Why'd you throw paint and that boy?" Chance didn't speak but the squeeze of his nails against the back of your hand let you know that he was listening.

"You might as well talk otherwise we're just gonna get into the car and sit there." Levi warned on Chance's other side.

"I don't have to tell you anything." Chance muttered "You're not my parent."

"When Kuchel finds out you're gonna have to talk anyway so you might as well explain." You said

"I have nothing to say to you!" Chance screamed

"Chance-"

Levi stopped you with an outstretched arm as Chance yanked his hand from yours. "Go back to work." He said plainly

"Levi-"

"I'm gonna take him to Kuchel, you need to head back to work you have paperwork to finish."

Your eyes dart between a sniffling Chance and Levi. "Are you sure?"

"Do you think I can make this situation worse?"

"You don't want me to answer that.." You giggle he sends you a blank stare. "Ok.. ok let me know how it goes later." You press a quick kiss to his cheek trying to give Chance one as well only for him to dodge you with a loud grunt. And with that you're off.

"Get in the car Chance." Levi pulls the door open gesturing to the seat.

"No!" He pouts

"Ok. I'll just send mom to come pick you up later. Maybe she'll still find you here."

Unsurprisingly Chance doesn't move when he sees Levi leave his sight and for a couple seconds after the drivers seat door shuts he still doesn't move. It isn't till Levi turns on the ignition that Chance wrenches the door next to him open. Yanks his bag off to throw it inside and hops uncomfortable into the seat next to it. Pulling his seatbelt through the loop haphazardly and needing Levi's help to click it into the clasp.

With a little bit of trouble Levi pulls out of park and smoothly drives into traffic with a slow sigh.

"Hey, mom's jobs that way." Chance mentioned tugging on his seat belt.

"You've got a smart eye." Levi replied "I'm taking you home instead."

"What for?"

"So you can spend the hours you would be at school with me instead. I already took the rest of the day off."

Safe to say Levi enjoyed the subtle bulge of Chance's already doe eyes and the huff when he realized there was no way he could get out this.

Out of force of habit Levi knocked on the front door before turning the key in the lock and pushing the heavy frame in for Chance to walk into his house.

"Put your book bag down and join me in the kitchen." Levi explained, pointing to the rack next to the door as he headed toward the kitchen. "Are you hungry?" He asked as Chance followed

"Why?" Chance asked the slight tension in his voice making Levi turn from where he'd already begun raiding the fridge for ingredients.

"I was going to make sandwiches."

"Why would you bring me here? Why're you being so nice? And why aren't you putting me on time out or something?" Words flowed out of Chance's mouth as Levi placed a sandwich right in front of him. His favorite in fact: tuna with the crust cut off and little tomatoes mixed in.

When Levi finished making his own sandwich he plopped into the seat across from Chance. "Because I've realized something about our relationship. I've never talked to you alone, I've never pulled you aside and really talked to you man to man. I only know what mom or Mikasa or Y/N have told me about you."

Chance peered down at his sandwich, tears glazing over his grey eyes. "Don't you hate me?"

"For?"

"Mom calls you less cause she's busy with me and Dad says you've never had to share her cause you grew up as an only child.."

Levi yanked a couple napkins from the center of the table, patting Chance's wet cheeks.

"I don't know if you've noticed but Kuchel loves being a mom. And when she had you she had this glow to her that I haven't seen since I was kid. You're the reason for that."

"Then.. don't you hate me.. for how much trouble I cause you?"

Levi lets his gaze flicker away as if he's thinking only to make eye contact with Chance again. "I don't but the way you treated Y/N today was unacceptable, you owe her an apology because she's done nothing but love you since the moment you were born and before that."

"Ok.."

"Hey." With his thumb under Chance's chin he coaxed Chance's face back towards him. "Let's not wait until you get in trouble at school to do this again."

Once Chance had finished his sandwich Levi had automatically done a half house inspection. Cleaning up any clothes left on the floor, wiping down counter tops and with Chance's help sorting clothes that were going to go in the washing machine.

By the time they'd finished Kuchel was walking through the door seemingly tuckered out but still managing to tackle her when she came in the door.

"Chance? Levi?"

"Rough day." Levi explained

"So that's what your father was on about on the phone." She directed her attention to Chance as she held him up. "I'm so sorry you had to call off work for this." She said, pressing a soft kiss to Levi's cheek.

"I wanted to do it." Levi replied

Kuchel turned her attention back to a guilty looking Chance. "And you, why'd you throw that paint on that boy."

"I just.. he.. he was telling me about his older brother in the sea."

Kuchel turned to Levi with an eyebrow raised, "Deployed Marine." He patiently explained

"And.. he was saying that when his brother was home him and his family would do everything for him and his brother would take him fishing and to the movies and and.." Chance sniffed

"Sounds like jealousy to me." Kuchel sighed rubbing the back of her son's head. "You know you have to apologize right?"

"Yes, mommy."

"Thank you again Levi." Kuchel smiled warmly the lines of her face slowly beginning to relax.

"Thank you Levi." Chance whispered

With a nod and a small pat to Chance's back Levi was off climbing into his car with a long exhale. Before he could start it though the buzz of his phone caught him off guard and he wiggled it from his pocket opening the notification immediately.

How'd it go?? Y/n asked with praying hands accompanying the text.

We bonded like you wanted was all he sent back.

[loudlypanickinginvenezolano]

Life is a Big, Bad, Joke. Chapter 3, edited. (Not the final version.)

If I were to do things right I would show the second chapter but it really didnt spark a lot of joy...So, here is chapter 3 instead! (Suggestion are accepted.) 

Really, with how skinny was his actual body, and with all of his experience backing him up, it barely took Shadow 10 seconds to slip between the bars of his cell, counting on his retreat to search for his juice box, and tiptoe his way to the big locks on the Misters cage, trying hard not to smile at the fella`s indignant squawk.

If Shadow hadn’t been able to slip in and out, how did the blue one thought that that bread had appeared next to him, close enough that even in his state it could be picked up and eaten?

Maybe the mister could pick up a healthy diet, better yet? Maybe a book?

Trying his best at suppressing an amused smile, Shadow plucked a quill from his back, even though the skin there was still tender and bloody, and charged it both with chaos energy and actual electricity, rubbing it between his hands and some of his fur over and over. It was a technique that took him a few tries to master completely, but one that he was sure was or had, actually, saved his life.

The small pain was but a nuisance when it got the job done, wasn’t it?

A lot more if there were lives in danger. Worse of all, your own live.

“What are you doing?!”

“Mh, well. How do you think I-uh, sneak out of my cage back in the ARK? By crying?” He snorted softly, trying not to raise his voice, as he used that same quill to open easily the heavy electronic lock just by tapping on its end. Stopping all kind of movement, his ears perked up and swiveled in various directions, straining himself just to make sure there wasn’t any hidden mechanism, or alarm ringing up. He couldn’t even detect an added mechanical hum, let alone brisk movements close to the entry. Uh, would you look at that? They never learn, apparently. Daring to slightly relax his defensive stance, his gaze came back to this curious fellow. “I think I did once, if I remember correctly. Fried some…electronic-something-thingy. Funny night if you don’t mind blood.” Or almost dying 3 times in a row.

Shadow opened the door with some difficulty, frowning at how heavy it was, and how much the back of his neck and upper back were hurting now. Hell, his shoulders were cursing him, his tights felt jelly, and even his chest was acting up. It felt…strange.

Something was strange, amiss completely, and so glaringly obvious it hurt him deeply, but…he couldn’t really tell what it was. He just knew, he just had a feeling…and feelings didn’t gave you things to work by. They just make you mess it up and fail like a dumbass.

They held no worth.

It didn’t matter how strongly he felt it, how sure he was that he was right, how it felt like it was a screech ringing in the distant, so loud it could be heard even there where he was, even if just as an echo, a rather persistent echo Shadow couldn’t really translate…he had no proof about it, no way to back up what he kn- What he was feeling.

It was better to keep quiet.

The scientist knew better, after all. He knew nothing compared to them. Pure instincts of no base that could be easily tricked or simple paranoia. Nothing to worry or pay attention to, certainly not something he should make a fuss about and make everybody lose their time.

Scientist always got mad when they lost their time in this kind of shit.

It was better this way, wasn’t it? Safer, definitely.

He still wasn’t sure if they were being monitored, not to say. If he were to let slip the wrong thing…

It cost him a lot to swallow it, though, and act like everything was all right. It was too big of a feeling; he could have chocked in the words.

Shadow slipped into the cage, and bit on the tip of his middle finger, taking his glove off without missing a beat as he kneeled in front of the blue hedgehog. They didn’t have time to lose, after all.

In response, the un-ducky mister spluttered loudly, in an overly startled way that was a bit funny, though he didn’t really stop to pay it a lot of mind. His pale sweaty face seemed flushed, and he looked everywhere but Shadow as he quickly started to pick up the chains and locks with his claws, frowning once again at what he found.

Yas, he could see now why the hedgehog was having problems with them.

When he finished in the mess of the ankles, Shadow was sweating himself. Buckle after buckle, knot after very strange knot in certainly not a friendly temperature or position, and there was no doubt about wherever this was intentional or not.

They wanted this blue mister to suffer. Or at least, to be highly uncomfortable.

Disaster. Total, inhuman, disaster.

And he knew about inhuman things.

There where the chains dug on the skin were rubbing burns and swelling, red hot patches of skin and sore looking scratches. Shadow couldn’t contain himself from massaging and stretching the sir`s legs slightly and slowly, hearing the fella mumble and complain about the pinpricking sensation, but they needed the blood to run normally again if they really wanted to get out of here in one piece, and be able to search for this T-guy. Besides, it had been the hedgehog who had asked Shadow for help and helping he was. Blue dug his own tomb and no whining was going to, uh, un-break the egg or whatever Gerald said when this kinda shit happened.

He really couldn’t recall what did his creator so often said. He…he tried not to dwell too much on it.

Back to the…eh, thing he had been thinking of? Previously? Neither of them was in their best form, it seemed. Tired, hurting, burn or bleeding, in Shadow´s case.

Oh no, forget about it, the blue sir was also bleeding!

Yeah…He didn’t wanted to be a party pooper but the odds weren’t looking so peachy right now. Trying to do something, going outside into lord knows what, wouldn’t it be like dancing into the trap?

He didn’t even have some cloths to wrap the hedgehog injuries…

Shit.

Nonetheless, he helped the other thoroughly stretch his muscles and check for strains and broken bones, finding a few but ``nothing to really worry over`` as the sir said. He was worried though, about the mud and burns he could so clearly see. If Shadow could just heal him… Oh, how he wanted to, but, his Chaos energy resources were so low. Trying something right now would just add to the injury rather than really help matters. And it didn’t seem like he was going to be able to make the sir change his mind. That face of his, he looked like a stubborn one, that much was clear.

Once he came to this conclusion, Shadow helped the mister to stand up once he was sure the hedgehog wouldn’t crumple under his own weight, almost tripping himself when he was letting go, as he stepped on something.

Oh goofy, now even his paw was bleeding. And the socks looked so pristine to begin with…

“Oh shoot, are--Wait, where are your jet boots?”

“My what-thing?”

Geez…

They both stared at each other in surprise and confusion, dumbly and doing funny faces, as if they could explain things and communicate by scrunching the nose, raising the eyebrows, or blinking.

Neither noticed or seemed to care about how idiotic they looked, or how they kept holding hands.

“Your, uh, skates?”

“ Skates? Ah. Ah! The invention! I know where they are, but they aren’t mine. They Professor Gerald and Hanna´s.”

“What-What do you mean by that they aren’t yours? Of course they are! Don’t…don’t tell me you also forgot how to skate?” The blue sir sounded horrified and concerned at the same time, his hold on Shadow getting just slightly stronger during his outburst…which, uh…Yeah, he really didn’t understand. It did bring a warm feeling to his belly, though, so that should be something, right? Even if just for him to cherish in silence, wondering what that something may be. It felt inappropriate, considering everything around them, but at the same time it was just… good.

“Well, I mean, they are not? I don’t-I don’t remember ever…I mean, ok, I did have them on, but…! I don’t remember, I can’t answer with exactitude.” He stopped his babbling with a frown, choosing to report in a short, straightforward way, even if a little frustrated by the end. His guards around this blue fella suddenly fell during their little interaction, so silently that not even him realized it until he found himself rambling so carelessly.

And that was a bad strategy when you are trying to survive, or escape.  

On the other hand, few and short sentences were always easier to say, went straight to the point, and seemed to be liked by his superiors, and that? That always was a plus in whatever you did, even if just eating, or the way you walked. Appealing at their good side, their ego? Ha! That was one of the first thing he learned to do in order to survive.

Maybe it would be better to just try his best, and keep to them for the time being, maybe like that he wouldn’t anger someone who was better left alone.

Though, looking at the mister in front of him… He wondered for how long his resolve would last, how long would it be until he messed up and enraged someone…

What was going on with him lately?

Realizing that they had run into a dead end in their conversation, they dropped the theme and reassumed the silence, albeit a bit awkward this time. It was obvious Shadow didn’t felt comfortable yet, still unsure about many things and understandably anxious about his spotty memory, while Sonic was struck down by another wave of uneasiness, his breath stuttering once again before he got it under control. Indeed, it was a dire situation, and his heart was beating hard enough that it felt like it was trying to break free as well, trying to burst out of his chest and…do what?

What really could he do in this situation?

He ached so bad, but it was hard to tell for what.

They hadn’t let go of each other arm, or well, Sonic hadn’t at least, and so, he indulged himself a bit and allowed his thumb to rub softly on Shadow wrist, as comforting as that little gesture could get to be, and little as it was, it caused that Shadow´s troubled gaze softened a little.

Using each other as support, they stepped out of the holding cell in no time, Shadow noticing that the blue hedgehog looked better with every passing moment he was outside of the cage, resting on top of some strange curved surfaces near the wall.

It was like he could finally breathe.

Shadow wouldn’t be surprised if he was tied enough to choke.

There was that buckle right by his throat…

Leaving the sir to gather himself up privately, or as privately as they could afford in that moment, Shadow padded away, slowly and taking his time in surveying the place they had been holed up in, taking in every little detail that he may have passed during earlier revisions, now that he had a more advantageous position, and could get closer or see things from a different angle.  He was surprised about the construction, about the little trinkets that now he could see were scattered around, and by the feeling of the walls and the floor under him.

It was really different to anything else he had ever seen or feel before. Or maybe, would it be better to say anything else he remembered having seen before? He…he couldn’t recall.

He couldn’t recall a lot of things. There were names without faces, blood poodles without bodies, faces without name, feelings without sense, and so many hands reaching back for him for unknown reasons floating aimlessly in the blank space of his mind.

This walls were new for him. The texture under his pads, the smell wafting to him… it was like nothing that there ever was in the ark. And yet, the more he stared at things, the more familiar he felt about them.

He surely must have seen them before.

But what was feeling familiarity with something, if you didn’t know what it was?  Or from who? Or why?

Why was he doing this? What was he, exactly, trying to gain, roaming around under the pretense of checking for cameras or video feeds, as if he hadn’t been doing that since he came to himself and finds that he is stuck in this situation?

His memories weren’t there, after all. No matter how many rocks he turned, they wouldn’t come back just like that, right?

There was no point and yet, there he was! Loosing time, doing the same thing over and over while waiting for a different result.

He just…he just needed to do something. He couldn’t just sit there and wait, right?

Just… what was he supposed to do now? He didn’t knew what was his state, or rank if he even had that. Who was an ally, and who was a danger, where was his family or if he had been carrying a mission when something went wrong.

The information he had was shit, and no matter how many times he went over it, it never made more sense! He didn’t even remember looking like that, when had he grow so much?!

What could have happened in those years he missed, or, actually, forgot about?

Just, how much time have passed? What major important events he may have lost? Besides the fact that apparently he was now older than what he thought he would ever get to be, that he was on earth, and that it was also called Movious-or something, not earth, as he had been taught during all this time?

Just, what the fuck?

This was…all of this was just, so fucked up Shadow didn’t even knew where goddamn shit he should start on. The fact that he was alive? How much had he changed? Why couldn’t he remember what happened to him? WHY was he so damaged? What was this guy doing here? Who was that white corpse? Why did that…person… clung to him so tightly?

Just WHAT?!

What was he supposed to do?

He could feel the anger and confusion boiling down on his stomach, fear lacing its way through his body and soon enclosing all of it in its paralyzing mist.

He was scared. No way of trying to downplay it.

He hated it.

Being afraid was never a good thing.

They could practically smell it on you. Feel it on you.

They just fucking knew. And once they knew, and their ego was strocked, fury and disgust would set in.

That sneer would just meant that more pain was going to come.

AO3 link.  

[yes-i-am-happyaspie]

The Definition of Anything-happyaspie [2020-2-27]

The heater in Peter's apartment goes out on the coldest day of the year and the landlord seemed to be overrun with maintenance requests. Calling Tony to help him out seemed like the next logical solution. After all, he had told him many, many times that he should call him if he ever needed anything.  The man had never really specified what 'anything' meant but he figured that by definition, 'I'm cold and you know how to fix things.', fell into that category. Right?

                                    ❄----❄----❄----❄----❄

--Anything--

Pronoun: Any thing whatever; something, no matter what.

Noun: A thing of any kind.

Adverb: In any degree; to any extent; in any way; at all.

Link to AO3-The Definition of Anything-happyaspie

It was the middle of February and the temperature had decided to take a sudden nose dive into the negative numbers.   Not that those kinds of things would stop Peter from patrolling.  Seeing as Tony had helpfully provided him with an in-suit heater, he was sure he would be fine and for a while, he was.  Though once the sun had completely set, the wind started to become so bitter that, eventually, the heater could no longer keep up.

Seeing as the icy negative fifteen-degree weather seemed to be enough to detour any major crime from taking place in the borough, Peter began to swing him towards his warm bed. The first thing he noticed as he stood inside his closet shimmying off the suit was that it wasn't particularly warm in the apartment.  It wasn't cold... it just wasn't as warm and cozy as he'd imagined it would be.  So, once he was in a pair of joggers and t-shirt he walked down the hall towards the thermostat.  He wasn't surprised by the display saying that it was sixty-one degrees in the house.  The entire system was old and a little touchy.   It wasn't unusual to have to knock the desired temperature up a few degrees in order to get the unit to kick in.  Therefore, he hit the up arrow a couple of times, went back to his room to crawl under the covers and fell instantly asleep.

A few short hours later, he woke up to the sound of May getting ready for work.  Though, having not gotten to bed until late he didn't bother to climb out of bed.  He did instantly realize that his room was still cold and looked towards his window to make sure that he'd remembered to close it.  When it was indeed locked shut, he sighed and pulled his comforter up a little more tightly under his chin.  He wasn't worried.  If it was really that cold in the apartment, May would turn up the heater before she left.  

Except, the next time he woke up he could no longer ignore the chills that were dancing up and down his spine.  He lay there for several minutes waiting to hear the hum of the heater begin to blow warmth into his room but it never did.  So, with a huff, he pulled the blankets over his shoulders and sat up.  May was long gone for her first shift of the day and he was going to have to finagle the stupid thermostat himself.  However, once he placed his socked foot onto the laminate flooring, he sucked a hiss in through is teeth.  The floor was so cold that it burned but he powered through and hurried towards the thermostat in the hall that showed the temperature to be a balmy forty-six degrees.  

As he stood there hopping from foot to foot to avoid having any kind of prolonged contact with the floor, he tapped the arrow to send the desired temperature up well past eighty.  Though he knew it wouldn't do any good.  Something had finally given in and it was broken. There wasn't much he could do outside of requesting maintenance and he could do that from his bed.  

After leaving a message with the landlord, Peter tucked himself back down under his covers.  It crossed his mind that maybe putting on his Spider-man suit and swinging across the city with the heater running might warm him up but one look at the outside temperature had him changing his mind.  Even with the sun up, it was still below freezing.  Besides, he was already back to warming up under the blankets and the Spider-suit was all the way on the other side of the room.  

For quite a while, Peter patiently waiting for someone to come to fix the heat but they never arrived.  In fact, between the thin walls and the drafty windows, he could feel it becoming even colder in his room.  His nose was frozen and he could feel it starting to run as a result.  To make matters worse, his stomach was starting to protest his lack of breakfast.  However, rather than get up, he grabbed at his phone with his suddenly uncoordinated fingers and attempted to leave another message with the landlord, only this time it seemed that the message box was full.  Clearly, he wasn't the only one being affected by the cold snap.

Groaning in annoyance, Peter opened and closed his hands a few times to try and warm them up as he tried to decide what to do next.  He considered trying to call May but there was no reason to do that, really.  He'd already called to request the repair and it wasn't like she could do anything else.  Calling her would just make her worry.  Then he thought about going over to Ned's house because surely it was toasty warm in there but then he remembered he wasn't even home.  Unlike him, he was still in the Robotics Club and would be spending the weekend at the school working on all the last-minute programming.  Then, as he was flipping through his contacts list, his thumb landed on Tony's name... and that had him thinking.

The man was a genius.  He knew how to do everything from fixing old car engines to creating an arc reactor and an Iron Man suit out of a box of scraps.  Surely he could fix a broken heating unit.  That and he had told him many, many times that he should call him if he ever needed anything.  He'd never really specified what 'anything' meant but he figured that by definition, 'I'm cold and you know how to fix things.', fell into that category.  So, with only slight hesitation he decided to send him a message.  If nothing else, but to feel out the situation.

'Hey, Mr. Stark.  Are you busy?', he typed out knowing that he probably was and that he'd just asked the stupidest question of all time.  The man was a superhero who owned a gigantic tech business.  Of course, he was busy.  Then, just as he was about to retract the question he received an answer.

Tony, who had been in his workshop all night, literally knee-deep in a new Iron Man suit, smiled down at his phone when the familiar contact popped up on his screen.  Peter rarely texted him before noon and he found himself curious as to what the kid was up to.  'I'm always busy.  Why? What's up?', he typed back in return before his brain filled him on at least three thousand reasons why the kid could be texting him at nine o'clock in the morning.  Especially on a weekend.  Those were the days the teenager spent the majority of his time Spidering all over the city.  'Are you okay?', he added while simultaneously pulling up the information from the Spider-suit.  

Still feeling, slightly apprehensive about asking his mentor to come over to his house, of all things, he decided to once again remain somewhat vague. 'I was sort of hoping that maybe you could come over to my apartment and help me.', he replied not realizing that by leaving out all context he was sending his mentor's heart rate through the roof.  

A glance at the tracking information on the suit verified that it was inside of the Parker's apartment as Peter had indicated.  However, the suit didn't seem to be on and the last activity that had been recorded was from the night prior.  Upon further inspection, he saw that all of the vitals were within a normal range, short of a slight drop in body temperature and that there was no other indication that anything calamitus had happened.  That was all well and good but at the same time, he knew that the teenager had been known to mess with the coding to prevent him from getting certain kinds of notifications.  However, what was most worrying was that he'd straight-up, asked for help.  He never asked for help.  He could be bleeding out in an alley and would still insist that he had it all under control. He wouldn't put it past the kid to lay in his bed overnight, nursing a life-threatening injury, on his own, and then casually text him when he finally decided that maybe he didn't have it all under control, after all.  That was all it took for him to call in a functional suit so that he could take off towards Queens.  'I'll be there soon, kid.  Hang Tight.'

Being utterly relieved that help was on the way, Peter threw the comforter over his head completely and inadvertently drifted back to sleep.  He never once considering how odd it was that his mentor had so quickly agreed to come over help him, despite having no idea what he needed help with.  

While Peter was curled up in a tight ball, sound asleep in the little pocket of warmth he'd created for himself, Tony was flying towards him.  He'd spent the first few minutes of the trip having FRIDAY go over the Spider-suit's video monitoring in an attempt to narrow down what he would be dealing with upon his arrival but the AI found nothing.  He was trying to decide if that was more or less concerning when the familiar building finally came into view.  

Deciding that it would be suspicious for Iron Man to go running through the halls of the Queen's apartment, Tony ditched the suit on the roof and began to climb down the fire escape that led into an alley, cursing himself the whole time for not thinking to put on a coat before he left.  However, between the fridged air and the nagging worry, he managed to make quick work of the ricketty ladders and was soon inside, taking the stairs two at a time all the way up to the Parker's seventh-floor apartment.  

Once he was outside the door he didn't even bother to knock, instead, he took the key that May had entrusted to him for emergencies and walked right in.  He was unsurprised at the lack of activity in the large open room.  Peter hiding an injury from his aunt would be a given.  He wouldn't want her to worry.  The fact that she'd already left for work was to be expected.  Then, rather than announcing his presence, Tony bounded down the hall and threw Peter's bedroom door open steeling himself for the worst, only to end up face to face with a wide-eyed, sleep disheveled teenager looking back at him in surprise.

Having been abruptly pulled from his sleep by his bedroom door squeaking open, Peter rapidly sat up and pulled the light blue comforter off of his head while being careful to keep it tightly wound around his shoulders. "Mr. Stark!", he half croaked in surprise when he saw that it was his mentor and not his aunt standing in his doorway.  He didn't know how long he'd been asleep but apparently it had been long enough for Tony to dive all the way there from Manhattan.

For several seconds Tony stood there and took in the kid's appearance.  Well, what he could see of him anyway.  Which wasn't much.  All that was exposed was his head but his hair was a tangled mess, his nose was red and he could see him shivering where he sat.    Upon further scrutiny, he realized that there were no signs of blood anywhere in the room and that all in all the kid didn't seem to be in any kind of distress.  With that realization, he allowed himself to relax and it was then that he realized how cold it was in the room and involuntarily shivered himself.  "Do you always keep your room this cold?", he asked as he crossed the room, carefully stepping over the various legos and school books that were strewn across the floor.

"N-no.", Peter replied through chattering teeth.  "The heater's broken and the landlord hasn't sent anybody by to fix it yet.", he added before running his hand under his nose with a loud sniff.  "I'm f-freezing."

After standing there for several more seconds the dots slowly began to connect and Tony huffed a laugh. "Is that why you called me?", he asked with amusement.  "You're cold?", added, though he realized it was more than a little chilly in the apartment.  It was near frigid.

"Well...", Peter replied with a small, although it be a bit sheepish smile tugging at his lips.  "You said I could call you for anything, right?"

"I did.", Tony replied seriously.  He'd been trying to drill it into the kid's thick skull for months that he not only could but defiantly should call him whenever he needed help with anything.  Whether it had to do with Spider-man or not.  Though, he'd assumed that whenever that first call for assistance came in, it would be over something a little more... detrimental.  Not that he minded in the least but that wasn't going to stop him from giving the boy a hard time.  "I just wasn't expecting it to be because you needed me to put an extra blanket on your bed and tuck you in."

"Actually I was kind of hoping you could fix the heater, Mr. Stark.", Peter replied as another violent shudder wracked through him.  "...but an extra blanket would be nice too."

Tony then crossed into the room and patted Peter's leg so that he could sit down beside his shivering form.  As he did so, he was more surprised than he probably should have been when the kid immediately leaned over onto him in an attempt to sap up his warmth.  "Are you really that cold?", he asked with a chuckled as he wrapped an arm around the boy's blanketed shoulders. "How long has the heat been out?"

"I've been cold all night.", Peter replied with a contented hum, as the man started to run his hand up and down his back.  "The heater in the suit, which is super awesome by the way, thank you...  wasn't keeping up once it got really, really cold so I came home and I think the heater was already broken then."

"So, you never warmed up?  Geez, kiddo.  Come here.", Tony replied with genuine sympathy as he opened his arms up so that Peter could fall fully up against his body. They sat there for several minutes, Peter trying to absorb as much heat as possible from his mentor's warm embrace and Tony trying to come up with a plan that didn't have him sitting there acting as a human heating pad all day.  "Alright, here's what we're going to do.  We're going to move you out to the couch so that I can make you something warm to drink and then you're going to point me towards your tools so I can take a look at what's going on with the heater, yeah?"

"Mm-hmm.", Peter replied though he made no effort to remove himself from the comfortable position he was now in.  That is until the man stood up and begin to pull him to his feet.

"Come on Linus Van Pelt, get your blanket and start walking.  I'm too old to carry you.", Tony said once he had Peter standing reluctantly beside the bed.  

"You're not that old, Mr. Stark...", Peter said in return, though he'd meant it as a compliment and not as a request.

Tony laughed as he continued out of the room shouting, "Still not carrying you.", over his shoulder as he went.

After a very quick stop in the extremely cold bathroom, Peter was settled on the couch and being handed a mug of hot tea.  He took one small sip and then another, sighing as the warm liquid coated his throat and began to warm him from the inside out.  "This is really good.  Thank you, Mr. Stark."

"You're welcome.  Now, where can I find some tools.", Tony asked and once Peter had pointed him in the right direction he got to work.  First looking over the thermostat and then moving on to the heating unit its self.  He had it apart in no time and was quick to diagnose the problem.  "Looks like the capacitor's blown. That's why the fan won't cut on. Other than that, it looks okay."

"You can fix that, though, right?", Peter asked as he craned his neck around to where Tony was standing at the sink washing his hands.

"I can, but we need to get a new capacitor.",Tony replied with a casual shrug of his shoulders.  "They should have one at the home improvement store around the corner.  You coming with?"

"Sure.", Peter replied because that sounded better than sitting, cold and alone, on the couch while he waited for the man to get back. He was also sure that whatever fancy car the man had driven over would have seat warmers.  Then before anything else could be said, his stomach grumbled so loudly that he was sure they could hear it three apartments over.  "Can we get some food too, please?"

"Of course.", Tony replied with a chuckle. "I already messaged someone to bring me a car.  It should be here any minute.", he then said.  He'd actually done that the second changing the batteries in the thermostat hadn't done the trick and he was sure he would end up needing to go to the hardware store.  Then he glanced over to see the look of confusion on his mentee's face he rolled his eyes.   "What are you looking at me like that for? I didn't drive over this time."

"Then how did you get here?", Peter asked with perplexity.  There were only so many ways one could get to Queens from Manhattan and he couldn't imagine the man taking the bus or subway.

"Before I answer that...", Tony began as he pointed an accusatory finger in his mentee's direction. "...let me make it very clear that you were being oddly cryptic and I thought you were dying...", he said with seriousness but rather than looking any kind of remorseful, he saw a smile spread across the teenager's face.

"Mr. Stark!  You flew here in an Iron Man suit?", peter squawked with delight.  While he felt just a tiny bit bad that he'd scared the man enough to make him think that he needed to rush to his side in an Iron Man suit, he was also extremely amused.  It was sort of nice to know that his mentor cared that much about his well being.

Rather than playing into the kid's obvious enjoyment of the situation, Tony placed his hands indignantly onto his hips. "I repeat... you led me to believe that you were dying.", he stressed but even he could admit that maybe he'd overreacted just a little.  It wasn't like he'd taken any amount of time asking what was wrong.  The kid had said he needed help, his brain had demanded that he jump into action and his body had followed through.

"I'm sorry.", peter said though he continued to practically cackle at the mental image of Iron Man busting through the Tower's ceiling, jetting full speed across the city and landing on his building's rooftop.  

Tony took a moment to wait out the teenager's continuous giggling, before even attempting to reply and when he did it was with playful sarcasm.  "Yeah, you look it."

The trip to the store was quick, the fast-food was warm and soon the two of them were back in the apartment in their previous positions.  However this time, Peter had a small electric heater sitting on the coffee table in front of him, blowing warm air in his direction.  He'd been hesitant to accept the purchase when Tony had picked it up but now that it was there and cutting through the chill in the room, he was happy to have it.  Even if it did take the man no more than twenty minutes to replace the part.

"Thank you for coming and fixing everything, Mr. Stark.", Peter said once, Tony had successfully turned on the heater with a celebratory, 'Yay.', and was sitting down beside him on the couch.

"You're welcome, kiddo.", Tony said before leaning back on the couch and watching whatever nonsense show the kid had turned on while he was doing all the work.  Not that he was upset about that.  He was just glad that the kid, who had buried himself in his side the second he'd sat down, was finally starting to shuck some of the blankets that had ended up piled on the couch and was no longer sniffling every three seconds.  It wasn't until another thirty minutes had passed and he was really starting to feel the rise in temperature that he said anything to the kid who was still pressed tightly up against him.  "You do know that the heater's been running for the last half an hour and it's no longer cold in here, right?", he questioned as he poked the boy's side in an unsuccessful, though admittedly unenthusiastic, attempt to get the boy to get off of him.

"I know.", Peter replied before happily scooting just a touch closer making Tony smile.

"Alright, just so long as you know."

[fallenfurther]

You can’t save everyone

The next part to my FabFiveFeb-Alan Entry. Alan’s not fixed yet but I had to show the brother’s responses. They are on there way. I will fix him. 

Warning: Hinting and reference to Character death

****

".... everyone." Scott finished but the feed was gone. "Alan!? John! What happened?"

John's hologram appeared next to the visualisation of the two ships. John didn't look happy. "He's turned off the com on both Three and his wrist."

"Grgh!" Scott roared, "That boy is going to be in serious trouble when he gets back! He knows the rules!"

Scott fumed, and sat down hard on the sofa. He noted the worried look he got from Brains out the corner of his eye and tried to calm down a little. Damn it, Alan! You know better than this! Scott crossed his arms over his chest and watched the feed, John's hologram now gone. He knew his brother would be trying everything to get back in contact with Alan. But until then, all Scott could do was watch the small hologram of Thunderbird 3 continue the rescue. Worry sat deep in Scott's gut as be watch Thunderbird 3 manoeuvre around the spiralling cargo ship. It was never the safe cargo that got into situations, was it? Always the delicate stuff that could blow a hole in the side of a hull. The ship's design didn't help, with multiple smaller sections sticking out that were obviously not part of the original design. Brains' was muttering about it under his breath, as he watched his own design pushed to its limits. The man's eyes also glued to the protection.

"He can't do it! He won't be able to move out the way!" Brains exclaimed standings up. Scott looked at the man, whose face was one of horror, obviously having done the calculations in his head, before looking back at the projection. Quiet 'Oh no's' came from his companion. Grandma sat down beside Scott and took his hand. Virgil and Gordon were on a rescue and Scott was thankful they didn't have to watch their youngest brother do something stupid. Alan was doing tremendously well manoeuvring Three; however, he must not have seen the amber warning over one of the added-on sections go red. A few seconds later and it exploded, swivelling the ship straight into Thunderbird 3. They watched in horror as Brains' pulled up the readings that were being transmitted from Three.

"One thruster is destroyed, and the other c-could function but not for long. Certainly not long enough to land. The ion engine is undamaged, s-so he'll still be able to get back to Earth’s orbit."

Scott's heart was in his throat as he watched the hologram of his brother's rocket move in close to the cargo ship. He knew it was currently manoeuvring using thrusters, but it still felt like it was limping. Thunderbird 3 would be out of commission for a while. They'd have to dock it with Five until parts could be transported up. Damn it! It was going to take time and hassle to do that! Scott put his head on his free hand and took a deep breath. He wanted to start pacing, yet he had to watch, he had to make sure Alan was safe. His Grandma rubbed his back, and he looked at her. The worry on her face added more to his load, and Scott turned away to watch the now steady Thunderbird 3. It looked like Alan had managed to grasp the other ship, so they moved together. With no more detail than what was in front of him, Scott took both his Grandma's hands in his and waited anxiously for Thunderbird 3 to move away and head home.

***

John watched the hologram in the observation room. EOS was fielding calls, fully aware that John couldn't concentrate on anything but his brother. She may not be human, but she was starting to understand their complex emotions. EOS also knew John. She knew that he would monitor everything, even the smallest details, to make sure his brothers were safe and aware of any perils. Then there were times like this, when his brothers pushed themselves further than they should, and the concern crept into his face. EOS knew not to speak up. John was focused and would startle. Instead, she predicted what he would want and need, and monitored Virgil and Gordon, who thankfully were just tidying up their rescue. She was thankful she could do many things at once, and she flipped between each task swiftly.

EOS tried the scanners again, trying to work the code to make it clearer and to pick up life signs. She knew what John needed to know, but it seemed that she just couldn't give it to him. She wanted to blow the scanners circuit in retaliation for not working as she wanted it to but held back as John's heartbeat picked up. She was at his side immediately, ready to compute anything he desired.

***

John flicked through the readings coming from Thunderbird 3. He could only get the basics on the limited data stream they had, and there was a delay due to the distance. Scrolling through the damage to the engines caused John's heart to sink. It was going to be a big repair job. John was glad he wasn't on the island right now. Scott would be fuming and worried, which was never a good combination. He could imagine quite clearly his eldest brother pacing back and forth, and the exhausted sighs he'd be making. It was like Tracy Island had its own resident tornado at times. John sighed. He didn't envy the responsibility on Scott's shoulders, and considering all, Scott handles it as well as he can. John flipped back to the engine readings, he knew Brains had read through them, so he didn't have to inform Scott of the situation. The ion engine popped up. All were within range, but they weren't active. John left these up and went back to the hologram. He wanted to be the first to know when Thunderbird 3 moved.

Another explosion from the cargo ship made John's heart jump.

"Come on, Alan. Get out of there." John said to himself. Eyes on the warning signs, indicating the weaker points and volatile parts of the ship. Why did people think they could get away with such poor modifications and not jeopardise safety? He floated impatiently waiting for Thunderbird 3 to move. His eyes flitted over the diagram as two more of the orange hazard lights turned red. Seconds later, they exploded, tearing the cargo ship apart and sending shrapnel towards Thunderbird 3. John eyes were glued to the hologram as the part attaching Thunderbird 3 to the ship came away. Alan, get out of there! John willed, as more warning lights went red and another explosion occurred sending more wreckage at Thunderbird 3.

Out the corner of his eye, John saw one of the sensors change. The fuel temperature sensor was no longer producing a reading. Fear filled John. Alan should be able to fly without the sensor, but what if it indicated damage that they couldn't see? The indicators changed in front of his eyes, and relief filled him. The ion engine was starting up, Alan was on Three! John flipped the sensor display away, zoomed in on Three and he watched for movement. A smile crept on his face as the rocket started moving away from the exploring ship. His eyes stayed on it as he waited for Alan to clear the blast radius, the fuel sensor forgotten, and already thinking ahead to welcoming his brother onto Five.

Then he watched it happen. The hologram of Thunderbird 3 flickered as the sensors struggled to keep up with the changes. John watched as Thunderbird 3 was torn apart. The explosion tore up the side, along the fuel and oxygen pipes. John quickly pulled up the readings from Three, but there were none transmitting. His baby brother was on Three. He knew the cabin was self-contained with its own oxygen supply, but it wouldn't last long, a day at max. Most of the oxygen was carried in the main body. That was assuming the cabin hadn't been breached. John accessed Thunderbird 5's sensors and tried to boost them, frantically setting them to scan for life signs. He needed to know if Alan was alive. He had to find his baby brother. But it was just too far away, and John closed his eyes and held his head in his hands.

Alan.

Not Alan.

John was brought out his thoughts by a call from the island. He snapped himself to, took a deep breath and slipped into professional mode, pushing the pain deep down. He answered the call and he came face to face with the terrified hologram of his eldest brother.

"Tell me he's okay, John. Tell me you can get a reading on him." Scott's voice was desperate.

John looked into his brother's eyes and said nothing. John watch Scott crumple and fall into the sofa, and he knew Scott was running through options. The same options that were now running through his head.

“It too far for me to go in the exosuit. We need to find a vessel willing and able to take us there. EOS, scan the area and check the GDF log of authorised and unauthorised ships that are in orbit and a day’s flight from Thunderbird 3.”

“Right away, John.” His dependable AI replied. John turned back to Scott. He had to give Scott something to do, otherwise he’d pace a hole in the floor of the villa, though he might do that anyway.

“Scott, get onto Colonel Casey. Explain the situation and see if they have any vessels up here or on the ground that we might be able to use.”

“FAB.”

Scott’s hologram disappeared and John’s head dropped. They all knew the odds. They would all tell themselves this was a rescue, but deep down, their hearts were breaking. John wiped away the tear he couldn’t stop and turned to EOS. A nod and a list of vessels, their routes and maximum speeds were listed in front of him, along with a hologram of all their locations in respect to the remains of Thunderbird Three.

“Thank you, EOS.” John started the task of assessing which vessels could help them and contacting them.

***

EOS watched John work. She had only stopped to inform him that Virgil and Gordon were back on the Island. Continuing to field calls elsewhere, she had listened in when Scott had sat his brothers down and broken the news. Gordon had struggled to believe it, and he and Virgil watched the holograms. EOS had learnt how each brother showed and expressed pain, and she could see it in all three. Grandma had comforted Virgil and Scott had sat down with Gordon. Scott had explained what the plan was, and after a short time of sitting in silence, the younger Tracys disappeared in different directions. EOS fielded Gordon’s call to Penelope, who changed her plans and had Parker fly straight to Tracy Island. There was tension and worry in every Tracy, and EOS had concerns about John. She monitored his bio-readings, breaks, meals and sleeping patterns. He was overdue a meal by two hours now, and she was starting to see the effects of mild dehydration, but the look on his face as he worked told her she shouldn’t inform him.

EOS continued to monitor the wreckage. She was aware that Thunderbird Five’s scans couldn’t be improved, but she still scanned. Hope was an amazing thing for humans. She’d learnt that first-hand, and she wanted to give it to John. There was nothing new in her last scan, just wreckage moving as it should. EOS scanned again, then analysed every byte of data that came from them. She analysed it again. Something was different. There was a blip. One piece of the wreck had moved in a direction it shouldn’t have. It was only a fraction out, nothing to concern John with, but she noted it for later. Five minutes later she ran the scan again. The wreckage had moved further in the wrong direction. She rechecked the data. Whether it was significant, she couldn’t tell, but John was on a call to a nearby vessel, and it could wait. The call lasted a while, and another five minutes passed, and another scan was performed. The blip was definitely moving, and EOS plotted its trajectory. It was heading for Earth.

***

John hung up. Another ship wanting to help but unable to due to the superiors wanting the schedule to be kept. They considered it a recovery. That meant it wasn’t a priority. Well it was for him! It was his little brother out there. Lost in space. Anger churned inside him. Anger at the lack of help, anger that his brother was lost, anger the he couldn’t do more. John took a breath and tried not to let it surface. He had a job to do.

“John.”

“Yes, EOS.”

“Something has shown up on my scans.”

John looked up at EOS, gazing into the lens and seeing his reflection. He turned to the holograms before him.

“Show me.”

The picture changed and EOS highlighted a small scrap of debris on it. EOS displayed the time next to it and then flipped through the scans from the past forty minutes. John saw what she saw. The wreckage changed direction. Only something with an engine could do that. It was a flicker, a small spark of hope in his heart. Alan was a Tracy. John zoomed in, but the scan struggled to resolve the image. A quick run through Thunderbird 3’s inventory and the idea came to him.

“It’s moving a little too fast to be Alan on his board, but it could be the space pod. I would expect it to go faster if configured, but if damaged it might be slower, or if not configured, the basic engine would go about that fast.”

“A space pod would not have enough fuel or oxygen to get back to Earth.” EOS stated.

“But if we, or someone, could meet it halfway we might just…”

John could feel it now, the hope. He headed back to the list of vessels, trying to find one that might just be able to make a detour. As he was searching, a call came from Tracy Island. John accepted it and was greeted by Scott.

“There is a small spacecraft attached to Global One. Colonel Casey and the GDF are going to allow us to use it. It should be able to get you there and back. There is a shuttle being prepared now, but it won’t be able to launch until tomorrow. I’ll be on it and will meet you when you return to transport Alan back to Earth.”

EOS brought the information on the GDF vessel up in front of him, and John scanned the data. His eyes fell on the maximum velocity. It really was a small ship.

“Scott, it’ll take almost two days to reach Thunderbird Three in this ship. Alan won’t have that much time.”

The sorrow in Scott face tore into John.

“I know, but we have to bring Alan home.”

“FAB.”

John cut the link and looked at the last scan of the wreckage.

“You didn’t mention the pod.” EOS stated and John swore he could see the confusion in her lens.

“I don’t want to give him false hope. There is limited oxygen on the space pod. There is no guarantee we’ll make it in time.”

[thedistantstorm]

Project Compass 18

Read along on AO3 Here

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This time: Vah’nya teaches Ezra something new. Thrawn miscalculates.

Next time: Ezra tries to navigate the fallout.

-/

Vah'nya sat entirely motionless in Ivant's office located just off the main bridge. Her eyes were not closed but barely open, their muted red glow creating a soft purple gradient against her cheeks. In her lap, her hands were folded as if serene. Every so often, they would twitch or jerk, but the rest of the time they remained still and unmoving.

When the door to the hallway opened, she did not stir. Ivant moved slowly. He did not raise the lights, nor did he comment on the Navigator sitting behind his desk. Methodically, he retrieved two mugs from a cabinet that by all accounts would have held liquor if it were a more traditional Chiss officer in command, filled the equally out of place kettle, and programmed the warming pad.

Once the water reached optimal temperature, Ivant pulled two sachets of tea from the back of a drawer. The smell was grounding - frosty wintermint with the subtlest hint of Csillan evergreen. He dipped one sachet in each mug, set one before the Navigator sitting at his desk and sat down as if he were the visitor. He picked up the datapad he’d left on the chair when he’d arrived, muted the brightness as not to be blinding, and tasked himself with requisitions and reports while he waited.

After a few moments, she shuddered and came back to herself.

“Still too hot to drink,” Ivant said mildly, not yet looking at her. She wrapped long, slender fingers around it anyway. It was a familiar motion. An anchor.

“How long?”

“I’ve been here for about fifteen minutes.”

Vah’nya nodded. “Then I have been here for about an hour,” She commented. Then, delicately, she added, “Something is coming.” She watched him turn off his datapad and set it aside. The Navigator scrubbed at her face. “The Jedi’s meditation helps,” She told him. “Things are clearer than if I were only to see.”

“Have you any control over it?”

She shook her head. “Not exactly. But I feel as though I can recall more detail. I see-” She closed her eyes and exhaled, focusing. “I was on a Grysk vessel. You were there. I did not see you, but I felt... But it was not like before,” She was quick to correct. Her grip on the teacup was the only thing that kept her fingers from shaking. “We were not alone.”

“Who?”

“I’m not sure. Other Chiss,” She said. “I remember,” She trailed off, looking up at him. “They had the Jedi.”

Ivant sighed, rising from his seat and rounding the desk to tap the consoles that faced where Vah’nya was sitting. “I have to tell her.”

“Yes,” She agreed slowly. “I-” She flinched. “Even now, after,” She emphasized, “I can feel the malaise, Eli. It’s close. It’s not just they Grysk. There’s something-”

“I know,” Eli said softly. He keyed the required combination that would ping the Admiral directly but discreetly. While they waited, he stepped to the side of her, reaching across the desk for his own mug, taking a sip of the soothing tea while his free hand squeezed her shoulder, encouragingly. “It’ll be alright,” He told her.

“I hope so,” Vah’nya murmured, looking up to him in concern while the Admiral’s face appeared on the holo projector, face tense, but not quite surprised. Vah’nya was certain they were all tired of relying on the vagueness of hope.

-/

“I wish to teach you how we,” The Navigator smiled, “For a lack of a better term, how we navigate,” Vah’nya explained, approaching Ezra when he and Thrawn arrived at their station three days after Commander Esmadi’s outburst. “It is a valuable skill, should you never need to do so without warning and you do not have someone like Commander Thrawn to guide you through it.”

Ezra had not seen or heard from Vah’nya since they’d returned to the Compass following their time in Copero City. There was a sort of severe quality about her now. He got the sense that she hadn’t been sleeping, though the glow of her eyes and her deeply blue complexion hid any traces of bags or dark shadows.

He also had the feeling Thrawn was seeing the same thing that he was, considering the way the Chiss Commander scrutinized her. Instead of her hair being in a free-fall or the braids other navigators had adopted, Vah’nya’s hair was pulled back in a very sharp knot at the apex of her crown, her long mane cascading like a pin-straight waterfall from the bottom of it.

Beyond the glow of her eyes, Ezra recognized a grim sort of determination in her gaze. Wary, yes, but he knew without a doubt that he needed to listen to her. Whatever her reason was to teach him now, it was important. He looked to Thrawn, but found his attention being held by that of Ivant, standing alone on the command walk. Ivant wasn’t looking at him, even, his back was to them. But there was something about it, about how he was standing alone, looking out at the stars and the Steadfast in the distance.

Ivant turned toward them. His face was blank as he gave the order to his second.

“Clear the bridge,” Commander Slasha’s lips curved, as if he’d already anticipated the order. There was a good chance he had already been informed of the maneuver about to take place, Ezra realized. In total, it took no more than a minute for the bridge to be cleared, the Commander inclining his head to Ivant before striding off to the secondary control room where the bridge staff would be able to monitor the situation without being physically present.

Without preamble, Admiral Ar’alani’s voice echoed across the bridge speakers. “You are ready to begin, Captain?”

“Yes, Admiral. Just getting underway now,” Ivant informed her.

“Excellent. We will rig for stealth and await your return.”

Vah'nya led Ezra to the navigation console, the two seats located at the bow of the ship, with a perfect view of the stars. She explained how each lever and knob worked, then how she utilized her Sight to navigate to and from a destination. She explained how sometimes it was as simple as following a heading or emissions, and other times, it was from memory. The latter was what he would need to learn. Navigating with the assistance of coordinates was a much easier affair. Navigating to a place in the abyss of space without it was something else entirely.

When they were ready, Vah'nya nodded to Ivant, and Thrawn was motioned over to the Captain's side, instead of lingering just behind and to the left of his seat at the controls.

"We will compare," Vah'nya said. "The secondary controls are not actively capable of steering the ship. However, you will treat this as a simulation. We will see how your choices match up with mine. If you score highly enough, you will be responsible for bringing us back, while I man the secondary controls. Understand?"

Ezra did. They both looked back up to the command walkway. Ivant and Thrawn stood side by side, talking quietly. It seemed Ivant was explaining what would be happening to Thrawn. Vah'nya nudged his shoulder, gracing him with a sly smile. "It is obvious now, hmm?"

The Jedi huffed, covering his laugh. Now that Thrawn had told him just about every detail of his and Ivant’s together, it was easy to see. Sure, Thrawn had the underlying desire to learn about Ivant's secret project, but he was acting carefully within the limits he'd been given, much to the surprise of everyone, it seemed. Thrawn's body language, still rigid and militaristic, and his eyes gave him away. There was pride, but it wasn't in himself. Trust, as if Eli could lead him blindly and he'd welcome the loss of control. Yeah, it was obvious, all right. "About as obvious as an Imperial Star Destroyer," Ezra said.

Vah’nya hummed. “Glaringly so,” She agreed.

“I guess my question is whether or not he cares about him - like that,” Ezra was quick to specify, “back.”

The Navigator straightened. “There are a great many things you do not know about our Captain,” She said. “You, and Mitth’raw’nuruodo both.”

“That’s what I mean,” Ezra said. “I just-” He sighed. “He doesn’t express feelings like that. I don’t think he ever has, at least. Not recently. And I don’t want-”

Vah’nya squeezed his shoulder, seeing through to the heart of what he was trying to say. “You are a good friend, Ezra’Bridger. He is lucky to have you.” She smiled softly. “Eli wants what is best for him. I promise you.”

“This all feels sudden, is all,” Ezra said. “All of a sudden-”

“He is still being kept at arm’s length,” Vah’nya said. “Eli has simply made the line known. The only difference is in perspective. But,” She admitted, “It will not be forever.”

“I hope not,” Ezra said. “Thrawn and I came back to help. Not to sit around and wait.”

She smirked. “Eli.”

Captain Ivant turned to them expectantly, breaking off from his quiet conversation with Thrawn. Thrawn looked surprised, but Vah’nya didn’t waver from lack of protocol.

“Vah’nya,” He said back, and there was respect there. Respect of equals. Partners. Thrawn looked between them in a way that Ezra couldn’t miss. No doubt he was considering their shared history, and not for the first time. “At your leisure.”

“Let us begin,” She replied, nodding to him before returning her attention to Ezra. “If the bridge crew were here, he would give the order and we would begin the route. Because they are not, we may go at our own speed. Our Sight is much like the senses you use during battle. We will use them to keep the ship clear of any dangers, like other ships and anomalies like solar flares, asteroids, and sunspots.” Vah’nya keyed the comm system. “Bridge control, this is Senior Navigator Vah’nya. Standby for jump.”

The comms hissed. “Acknowledged.”

“I like to give them a heads up,” She said, nodding to indicate the lever that would propel the ship to lightspeed. “We will trigger it together.”

Ezra looked back at Thrawn. The Chiss nodded. Beside him, Ivant’s eyes were cool and contemplative, jaw set. “Okay,” The human said. He positioned his right hand on the edge of the hyperdrive lever and Vah’nya matched him like a mirror, her left hand on the left edge. “Ready when you are.”

The Navigator dipped her head, beginning to push. “Now.”

-/

The stars blurred, and Ivant immediately queued up three separate holo screens. He sat back in the command chair, Thrawn watching him carefully but not approaching.

“I know you want to know what I’m doing,” Vanto mused after a cursory glance to assure all the information he was looking for to be present. “It’s not a secret. This is a test.”

Thrawn joined him, lingering on his right side, so close that his tunic brushed the arm of the command chair. “Comparing him with Vah’nya in real time?”

“That, and the rest of the Navigators aboard.” He motioned to the lower portion of the middle screen. “All five navigators, Vah’nya, and Ezra. This run is relatively straightforward. The Admiral wanted me to compare them all to each other. And, as this is a much smaller group than the one we had before, I have the facilities aboard to test them all at once. Simulations are no good. In the younger navigators, it tends to overstimulate them, since their brains are looking for physical stimuli but they’re trying to outsmart a computer program.”

“Their Sight can work like that,” Thrawn mused, “But it does seem as though it would cause more harm than good.”

“Right.” Something blipped on the screen in front of them, automatically outside of parameters and thus blocked immediately in yellow. “It appears Navigator Un’hee is ahead of the curve.”

“I’m not surprised,” Ivant said. “The rest are clustered in the same half second. They’re not as well versed with this region, but it’s on the edge of the Hegemony. Un’hee is familiar with this sector.”

“You would have them trial through Grysk space?”

“Technically,” Ivant said with a wry look, “It’s our space.” He inclined his head to Thrawn, even more amused, “They just haven’t gotten the memo.”

“They’ve encroached significantly on our space,” Thrawn said. “We have been pushed back by entire systems in some areas.”

Eli nodded. “Yes, that’s true. All unoccupied systems, ones we don’t particularly need, unless you’re house Chaf and you’re very concerned about where your imported liquor was coming from.” He smirked. “I saw your friend over it.”

“My friend?”

“Ah,” The smirk sharpened a little, revealing a peek of white teeth. “Maybe not the right word. Your gift to the Admiral.”

“Admiral Ar’alani gave Ronan to house Chaf?”

“As a ‘Liason,’” Ivant revealed, then nudged him with his shoulder. Thrawn almost commented on it, but remembered that he was not the superior. This wasn’t particularly against protocol, considering Admiral Ar’alani had the tendency to latch tightly to her subordinate’s arms, occasionally to the point of bruising when she insisted upon retaining one’s attention. “They deserve each other, if you ask me. Apparently after they got over their mutual disdain of each others’ species, they gave him the ability to wear a cape again. Only difference is that it’s neon yellow.” He smirked, “She tried to give him to Thrass first, but your brother refused him within five seconds of meeting him.”

Thrawn smirked at that. “He’s not a complete imbecile. That man is… exhausting.”

“Thrass suggested giving him to House Inrokini, but Sarvchi’s at least somewhat friendly to non-Chiss. Wasn’t like we were trying to kill him. He still calls me a traitor, though,” Eli mentioned. “He was Chaf’s representative sent to see me on my deathbed. Made sure to tell me I was a turncoat, but at least I did something with my life. Only mentioned Krennic twice that I could remember, but I was pretty out of it.” At Thrawn’s pensive frown, he added, “I think I started recovering as he said the words out of spite.”

“That is hardly possible,” Thrawn said. His gaze bordered on intense as he shifted to a more serious topic. “Still, I regret that I was not able to come to you sooner. I would have-”

Vanto turned in the chair, his knees brushing Thrawn’s thigh. The Chiss looked down at the point of contact, but didn’t move away. “We can’t change the past, Thrawn.”

“I know, Eli.” He looked down into Vanto’s eyes. At his sides, his fingers twitched microscopically with the urge to reach up and touch his captain’s face, to affirm eye contact between them with a physical aid. This was wholly inappropriate, some part of him knew. And yet, he couldn’t stop now. This territory was new, begging to be explored. “But the future…”

“Thrawn,” Eli murmured in warning.

Around them, the starlines stuttered and stopped. Vah’nya and Ezra’s heads came up. The Navigator recovered first and immediately turned to the Jedi. He seemed shaken, but Vah’nya instructed him very easily through the post-procedures, including comming the bridge crew on standby.

The Chiss jerked backwards with the slightest twitch. Vanto’s hands, which had come up to prevent Thrawn’s from reaching their intended destination, braced his forearms. He blinked. “Forgive me, Captain,” He said, stepping back. “I don’t know what came over me.”

There was no facial heat, no indication Vanto was particularly moved by the moment they’d just shared. To Thrawn, it seemed that Eli didn’t perceive anything having happened between them at all. The thought left a bitter taste in his mouth. Then, Ivant dismissed him. It struck like a blow. “You should join your charge. No doubt he could use your expertise.”

“Of course, sir.” Thrawn dipped his head respectfully, resisting the urge to move faster, to put distance between them and whatever this had almost been. His voice sounded like it’d been dragged through gravel and shards of jagged transparisteel. “Excuse me.”

The Captain watched him go. As Thrawn descended the two steps down to the Navigators’ station Ezra met his eyes over the Commander’s shoulder. It lasted only a three-count before Thrawn was upon him and he turned away. Eli leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his thighs, steepling his fingers over his mouth. He allowed himself one lengthy, covert sigh before turning his eyes to the status board and comparing the numbers.

[ohgodanothersideblog]

5 Times Tony Stark Fell Asleep on Someone, and the 2 Times Someone Fell Asleep on Him

@bookeatingworm posted this in a discord we’re a apart of, and I wanted to write it. I hope you guys like it ❤️ any weird format issues I’m sorry, had to post on mobile 😭

Tony Stark didn’t fall asleep next to people. That didn’t change when a certain Sorcerer Supreme became his boyfriend. In fact it almost made the whole thing worse.

“Tony you need to rest.” Stephen sighed, bandaging up the engineers wounds. He had multiple lacerations on his chest and back and probably a few broken ribs. They both sat in the common room, the debrief had already happened, now it was time to patch everyone up.

“I’ll be fine doc, I swear.” Tony said, gently batting at the sorcerers hands. He didn’t need to rest, he needed to make his suit better. Tony attempted to get up but strong arms wrapped around him, pulling him back down onto the couch. He winced at the sudden pressure on his ribs before settling against the taller man behind him.

“How about this; we watch a movie and rest for a bit, if you’re still feeling up to attempting to not listen to me, we can go down to the lab, together?” Stephen offered, kissing the top the smaller mans head. He was going to convince Tony to rest whether the engineer wanted to or not. Tony just sighed and nodded. “Good.” With that, FRIDAY put on a movie without being told. The AI knew what the Doctor was doing and was planning on assisting him as best as she could. Tony was running on 12 hours sleep combined this week. He had a fear of sleeping because of his nightmares. They had been really bad the past few months. He also didn’t want to almost kill Stephen like he had done to Pepper a few years back.

“I can hear you thinking.” Stephen rolled his eyes, carding his shaky fingers through the engineers hair. Tony sighed, it was becoming harder to stay awake between the warm body behind him and the feeling of someone gently massaging his scalp. Soon enough, soft snores could be heard and the sorcerer smiled down at the sleeping figure against him.

__

It was another nightmare. The wormhole again. Dying again. Only this time he saw Peter and Stephen die too. Stephen tried to wake up Tony. He called in the suit again. Stephen wasn’t hurt, but Tony was shaking.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t--” Tony was cut off by Stephen pulling him into a hug. He sighed, resting his head against the bare clavicle, feeling Stephen run his scarred hands up and down his back.

“I’m not going anywhere, you’re safe.” The sorcerer whispered into Tony’s hair. Stephen pulled Tony back down to the bed and continued to draw small circles along the engineers back.

“Just go back to sleep, it’s okay.” Stephen whispers, Tony sighs and gets comfortable, laying on top of Stephen basically. If it were anyone else, he’d leave. He would go to the lab and stay up until he passed out.

___

Tony was on day four in the lab. He was running on coffee and sheer willpower. He needed to update one of his suits. He was reconfiguring one of the gauntlets that malfunctioned during a fight. Stephen had to patch him up after that fight. He was so absorbed in what he was doing, that he didn’t hear the door to the lab open.

“Tony...c’mon. You’ve been down here for four days.” Stephen sighed at the smaller man who was hunched over one of his work benches. He looked exhausted.

“‘m fine, jus’ need more coffee…” The engineer got up and staggered to the coffee pot. Stephen intercepted him and forced Tony to look at him. His eyes were bloodshot, the bags that were under his eyes were dark, he looked like a wreck.

“You’re going to bed.” Stephen sighed. Tony looked like he was about to argue “Try me, Beyonce.” He glared at the engineer, gently pushing him over towards an open portal.

“I don’t need sleep.” Tony huffed, trying to leave their room, quickly the cloak that was hovering in the corner swaddled the man and laid him on the bed, not retracting from said swaddle. “Asshole.” The cloak smacked him upside the head.

“Your tech can wait, sleep is important.” The doctor was coming out, Tony knew he wouldn’t win this argument.

“I’ll stay...can you please have your cloak let me go?” He asked. Almost instantly the cloak released him and went and settled in the corner. Stephen rolled his eyes and propped himself against some pillows. He began to read silently. Tony laid his head on the sorcerers stomach and soft snores filled the room.

______

“Boss, Peter is entering your bedroom.” FRIDAY’s voice filled the master bedroom. Tony was propped up against some pillows, doing work on his STARK pad. Peter pushed open the door and looked at the engineer sheepishly. He was trembling and looked a little pale.

“Nightmare?” Tony asked, looking at the teen. When Peter nodded, he patted the bed. Peter wasted no time climbing up and leaning into his dad. Normally he went to Stephen for nightmares. But the sorcerer was away on a mission of sorts. He never really had to talk about it with the sorcerer, he always knew what it was about. So they’d snuggle and watch a movie. When he went to Tony about his nightmares, he’d want to know to an extent what the nightmare was about.

“It was the water again.” Peter mumbled. Tony sighed and put down his work and put an arm around the kid, pulling him in a little closer. “Only you didn’t save me.” His voice started to quiver. If Tony could, he’d have squeezed the kid even harder.

“I did save you though. You’re safe. You’re alive.” Tony reassured him softly. Peter wrapped himself around the man and made himself as comfortable as possible. “Don’t use your spider grip on me and we should be good.” Peter just nodded. Tony turned on a movie and relaxed. Normally he would have tried to get the teen to go back to his room, but with Stephen gone for a bit, he was lonely. He began to match his breathing with Peters. Slow and steady. It was causing Tony’s eyes to feel heavy.

Peter looked up at his dad, not realizing he had fallen asleep. His dad never really slept around anyone, aside from Stephen. He was too scared of his own nightmares and of hurting those he loved. At least that’s what Aunt Pepper had told him when he asked. Stephen told him it took months for Tony to fall asleep around him, and it was only because he had gotten hurt during a battle. “Night dad.”

____

It was movie night in the compound. Most of the team was already sprawled out in their select spots. Tony strolled in last second and plopped himself next to Stephen. He leaned into the sorcerer this time. Stephen wrapped an arm around him and kissed the top of his head. Peter, once again, draped himself over both his parents only this time he also grabbed a blanket. Tonight's movie was Clint’s pick: Lord of the Rings.

“Of course Legolas would pick Lord of the Rings.” Tony rolled his eyes, only to be hit in the head with a piece of popcorn. “You’re cleaning up the mess if you keep it up.”

“Children, please.”

“I thought you were on my side!” Tony’s eyes widened with feigned shock. Stephen just smacks him lightly earning a grunt from the engineer.

Once the movie started, Tony settled back against the sorcerer and pulled Peter closer. A small smile played on his lips as he realized this was his family. With that, the engineer willingly fell asleep in a room full of earth's mightiest heroes.

“Is he actually asleep?” Rhodey’s eyes were wide. He hadn’t seen Stark fall asleep in front of anyone since their MIT days, and that was even a rarity back then. The others all stared at the engineer in shock. It was a few moments of silence until someone cleared their throat.

“Wake him, and I’ll kill you.” Stephen glared over at the others. He was terrifying when he needed to be and this was one of those moments. It had taken almost a full year to convince Tony to sleep in the same bed. Now that he was comfortable falling asleep here, in front of all of them, he wasn’t going to have it ruined. The others silently nodded and returned their attention to the movie.

__________

Stephen stumbled through the portal and into the lab. He had a few new cuts and bruises, but overall he was exhausted. He used too much magic and now he needed to sleep. He hated how much his magic could drain him at times. It made it almost impossible for him to do anything. It didn’t help that he had started to try to heal himself. Wong glared at him for that one.

“Stephen!” Tony rushed to his husbands side. He helps the taller man up and they slowly make their way to one of the couches in the lab.

“‘m fine, used all my magic. Sleep.” Stephen mumbled, collapsing on the couch, pulling Tony down with him. Before Tony could move, a soft snore escaped from the sorcerer. Tony chuckles, and settles in against Stephen before eventually falling asleep.

____

Peter was sick. Really sick. Stephen had barely slept the past week because of Peter’s temperature spiking. He ended up in med bay with Peter around 4 AM to put the teen on IV’s with Bruce. Bruce had also drawn some of Peter’s blood to see if he could figure out what was going on. The teen, who normally put up a fight about med bay, didn’t even care that he was there for once. Stephen was just glad that he was finally getting some fluids that he wouldn’t throw back up. Tony had walked in with a cup of coffee and his STARK pad. He’d be able to monitor Peter, while getting work done.Now it was convincing Stephen to get some much needed sleep.

“Steph, go to bed. I’ll stay here with him. I promise.” Tony reassured the worried sorcerer. Ste “I’ll have FRIDAY call you if anything changes.” He added, hoping to convince his husband to go lay down.

“Okay, make sure he stays here. Hopefully it’s a bad flu. Call when Bruce has the results.” Stephen’s sentences were short. Tony nodded, kissing him and then sitting in the chair. He glanced at Peter; he had lost weight, he was white as a ghost, he looked awful. Tony sighed and had FRIDAY put on a Disney movie to help the kid sleep.

“Dad?” Peter asked quietly, causing the engineer to look up. He had some color back and his temperature was maintaining. The teen moved over a little bit. Tony knew what the kid wanted without him even asking, he climbed into the bed and Peter wrapped himself around his dad.

A few hours had passed and Peter was looking more and more like himself. Stephen had woken up, feeling well rested and ready to take care of Peter.

[summahsunlight]

This Way Became My Journey, CH. 16

It figured that they had to crash land on the most desolate, resourceless planet in the system. Chakotay had spent nearly an hour trying to find water and something to eat besides the emergency rations. At least he had been able to find the stones to help them keep warm by simply heating them with phaser fire. Of course keeping warm would be pointless if they did not find water because they wouldn't survive long without it.

So, he kept pressing onward, talking to Sarah via their personal communicators. He would have preferred to stay with her to monitor her condition, however their need for water took president. Keeping her talking gave him at least the peace of mind to know that she was a wake for the time being and had not fallen into a state of unconsciousness. Since he had started out on this trek he was certain he had heard her life story, but it was the only thing he could think of to get her talking and keep her talking.

Every time that she would nod off, he would press her, yelling until she responded, fearing each time that it was the final time she would respond. It was hard to keep track of what she was saying since he was climbing into higher, rocky terrain, but as long as he heard her voice, he knew she was still with him.

At first he had hoped to find a way off the mountain side they had crashed against but that soon went out the window when he realized that they were wedged onto a cliff and the only way down was to climb up.

The sun was getting low in the sky and Chakotay knew that he didn't have a lot of daylight left. Suddenly his foot sank into something wet and cold. Looking down he realized he had stepped into snow. Snow, he thought with excitement, could be melted down into water. He quickly gathered up what he could in the storage containers he had salvaged from their damaged shuttle. Now, if only there was food to go with the snow, but given the climate and conditions of this planet, he was pretty sure that there was nothing of nutritional value here. The ration bars were going to have to do until Voyager found them.

"Commander," Sarah's voice came over their open comline. "Are you ever going to tell me your life story?"

He had to chuckle at the sarcastic tone in her voice. "Alright, you have a point. I've been making you spill your guts here about your life, it seems only fair that I do the same." Anything to keep you awake, keep you talking so I know you're alright. "What do you want to know?"

"Why did you join the Maquis?"

Leave it to her to come up with the most difficult question. There was a time it seemed like the answer was simple, at least to him anyways, but the more he thought about it, and he had thought about it a lot the past three weeks, he found that the answer was indeed complex. There had been many factors leading up to his joining the Maquis; the Federation's cold shoulder when it came to their colonies they had sacrificed in the name of diplomacy; the death of countless innocent people, the death of his father. "Because Starfleet was more inclined to listen to the Cardassians then their own people," he finally answered her. "However, I think the real reason was I was grieving the loss of my father."

"Funny how the death of a loved one can push you to do things that…you aren't proud of," Barrett replied.

"I wouldn't say I was ashamed of joining the Maquis," Chakotay retorted. "I was angry at Starfleet, yes, and would I have resigned my commission if my father had not been killed, to tell you the truth, I'm not sure Lieutenant. But enough about my joining up with the Maquis. My turn to ask a difficult question: Why did you turn to drugs?"

"Simple, I was stupid."

"I'm not letting you off that easily."

"I didn't know what else to do, really. My brother had turned his back on me and I had no where else to go, nothing to fall back on. I guess I found it weak that a counselor would need counseling. The drugs helped me relax; help me forget for a while that my father had been killed in some terrible accident. But eventually I just had to take more and more until I missed an important debriefing about the mission to study the Borg and I was arrested for dereliction of duty when they found me passed out in my office."

Chakotay closed the last storage container he had filled with snow. "We're more a like then I thought, Lieutenant."

"How so, Commander?"

"We both tried to run from our grief and it only gave us problems in the end. You were yanked from a promising career at headquarters, and I was tagged a traitor of the Federation," he replied, standing up and starting to make his way back down the mountain side. It wouldn't take nearly as long to climb down as it would up and already he could see that it was going to be easy going.

"I think you took a more noble route then I did, going to fight for something you believed in," Barrett said. "Starfleet was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, I read it in your personnel report on my way to the Badlands. If you had helped them gather up more of the Maquis they were willing to give you your commission back. I'm not sure if they were willing to give me the same treatment."

"They allowed you on this mission," Chakotay replied.

"Captain Janeway had a lot to do with that," Barrett replied. "My area of study was terrorism, and no offense or anything, but many saw the Maquis as terrorists. She needed someone that…understood how they thought. But…I have to wonder how much Captain Dawson played a factor into my being assigned to Voyager."

"Captain Dawson?"

"My lawyer, Captain Janeway's brother-in-law," Barrett answered, softly.

Now there was a connection to Janeway that Chakotay didn't know the young woman had. He didn't believe that her relation to Barrett's lawyer had anything to do with the young counselor being assigned to Voyager, however. So far he had learned that Kathryn Janeway liked taking risks, she had taken one on him and his crew. Janeway had to have taken her service record prior to the court martial into consideration, just like she had taken his when choosing him for her new first officer. "I didn't even realize that the Captain was married."

"What, did you think the children came out of thin air?"

Good point, Chakotay thought, but she's never mentioned a husband, to me at least. "What about her husband? What does he do?"

There was a strange moment of silence that passed between them and for a brief second he worried that perhaps she had passed out from the blood loss. "He was a scientist," Barrett finally replied.

"Was?"

"I'm not sure if I have the…right to be speaking to you about this," Barrett finally said, ending the line of questioning. "Whatever happened to speaking to me about your life? Has that suddenly gone out the window? I'm interested to know about you Commander, and, well, the whole reason that we were put together on this mission was to get to know each other better, wasn't it?"

He should have known that she would have seen through Janeway's ploy. "Well…there's a lot to tell about me I suppose, it's just where do I begin?"

Thirty minutes later as he reached the shuttle, he had told her about his sister, his cousin in Ohio, a trip he had taken with his father when he was a teenager, how he had always felt trapped between two worlds. She had listened patiently, like a good little psychologist would, adding her two cents every now and then.

When he arrived back at the shuttle, the sun had already set and he could feel that the temperature had dropped at least ten degrees, and was only going to continue falling. He set up the stones he had gathered in an arc around the base of the hatch and pulled out his phaser. With it set on a low setting he fired it at the stones which absorbed the energy and began to glow orange and let off a nice heat. With their little make shift fire and the blankets they could survive here for a couple of days at least.

He hoped that Voyager found them before then however. Chakotay wasn't sure how long Sarah could hold out, needing the surgery to repair all the damage her body had taken in the crash. He himself was injured, with several cuts and one large contusion going up his right leg, however, he knew he wouldn't die from them.

"Here," he said, handing her a cup with newly melted snow in it. "Drink this."

"You found water on this hell hole?" she quipped, taking the cup from his hands.

He smiled, wearily. "I may have learned a few survival skills growing up." It was a good thing too, because quite frankly, he didn't know how long they were going to be trapped on this planet.

"Good morning, Captain."

Kathryn Janeway looked up at Lieutenant Commander Tuvok. If she didn't know him any better she would almost say that the remark had been sarcastic because she was thirty minutes late. She had Ava's separation anxiety to thank for that. Although, she had to admit, that it was getting better. Instead of clinging to Kathryn for over an hour today, the baby had only latched onto her for thirty minutes. Small steps, that's what Sarah Barrett had told when she had complained to the young counselor how frustrating it was. "Any report from Commander Chakotay this morning?"

"Negative, Captain," Tuvok reported.

Janeway didn't find it odd, but she had asked anyways hoping that there was something about how their first night on Karva had been. She was sure that she would hear something by the end of the day. "How are the repairs proceeding?" she asked, blue eyes settling on Tuvok's face. For the past two days they had been docked at one of Karva's space stations doing routine maintenance. They had been lucky that their new friends had allowed them access to the space station, or Kathryn wasn't sure how much longer her ship would be able to hold out on the power levels it had been working on.

"They should be completed by thirteen hundred hours," Tuvok answered.

She felt a frown form on her face. She had wanted the repairs to be done and over with so they could be on their way. "Any chance they could be completed before that?"

"I supposed it could be arranged," Tuvok replied, "however, if we are to be thorough, I would not recommend pushing up the completion time, Captain."

Of course you wouldn't, she thought, amused. "Well, as soon as they are done, set a course for Karva. By then we should have heard from Chakotay on how things are going." Tuvok gave her a small nod of his head and she turned about, moving down towards the command station. It seemed strangely empty without Chakotay and Sarah Barrett there and she prayed that their mission was going well. It could mean safe passage through a long stretch of space if it did.

"Captain," Harry Kim said from Ops. "The Karvaian Prime Minister is sending us a message. He wants to know when to expect our diplomatic party."

Janeway turned her head to look at the young ensign with a confused gaze. "Commander Chakotay and Counselor Barrett should have been there already."

"He claims that they didn't show up," Kim replied, anxiously.

She stood, moving towards his station. "What's their last known coordinates?"

"The last time they reported in, they were about an hour from Karva," Harry commented, raising his dark eyes to his captain. "That was almost twenty-four hours ago, ma'am."

Janeway lowered her head, gripping the railing tightly. Then, with a determined look she spun about on her heal and gazed at the back of Tom Paris. "Mister Paris," she said, firmly, "set a course according to Chakotay's last report, maximum warp. Harry, inform the Prime Minister that we will investigate what happened to our people and thank him for notifying us. Our meeting with him will just have to wait a few days, I suppose."

Both Paris and Kim responded with a "yes ma'am."

"Captain, I should not have to remind you, that repairs are not complete," Tuvok spoke up from tactical, like she knew he would.

"I understand that Tuvok, we're just going to have to continue them en route," Janeway replied. "Our people could be in trouble, and I'm not waiting around for routine maintenance to be completed. That could mean life or death for Commander Chakotay and Counselor Barrett."

Slumping down in her seat, she heaved a heavy sigh. This was not the way that Kathryn had wanted to start her shift. Having Ava throw, what was becoming a ritual fit, that morning had been a rocky enough start, but now two of her officers were missing. They just could not afford the loss of another two officers, and not this early in their journey home.

She rubbed her temples thoughtfully for a moment. Perhaps they had run into some maintenance trouble themselves and been forced to set down on a planetoid before they reached Karva. No, no, they would have contacted Voyager, she concluded. Maybe they had miscalculated the time it was going to take them to get there and were actually touching down now as she sat there worrying about them. The Prime Minister would be back on the comline telling her that they had arrived and to stand down their search. But even as that thought crossed her mind, she quickly dispelled it. The Prime Minister had waited twenty four hours to contact her, meaning he had waited to see if perhaps her officers were simply late.

Could they have deviated from their flight plan that much that they were this late? She thought it highly unlikely. Something was wrong and she was sure whatever they found was probably not going to be good news.

"Captain, I've analyzed Chakotay's last known cooridnates and I think I can project their flight path," Kim said, breaking her concentration. "If my calculations are right, they would have crossed out of Karvaian borders for approximately an hour."

"Tom, adjust our course to match," Janeway ordered, standing up. "I'll be in my ready room."

Getting up rather quickly, Janeway exited the bridge leaving Tuvok in charge and retreated into the privacy of her ready room. Here she could think, perhaps get a grasp on all the information that she had just been forced to process. Like why did Chakotay's flight path take them out of Karvaian space? She had looked over the purposed course before they had left; it had cut a path through the outer rim of Karvaian space, close along the borders, but not that close. Had they run into trouble along the border? Is that what had happened?

Was the shuttle now in a million pieces and she had to find yet again replacement officers?

Sighing angrily, she fell onto the sofa. When we arrive at their last known coordinates we'll follow their ion trail. They can't be too far from their last known position, she mused, crossing her arms over her chest and peering thoughtfully at the glass coffee table. Can they?

Leaning back so her head touched the top of the sofa she realized how tired she was. She had not gotten a good night's sleep since, well since they had first been flung out here in the vast reaches of the galaxy. She constantly was worried about something, whether it was her ship or her children, there was something on her mind, nagging at her when she laid her head down every night. Lately it had been Ava's inability to let her mother go in the mornings when Tal Celes came to watch them. But now, she knew she had something to add to the constant bombardment of worries; the whereabouts of her first officer and counselor.

Tom Paris pulled open a panel to access the navigational array and sprawled out onto his stomach to get a better look. One hour of flying at maximum warp had burnt out the power relays. Janeway hadn't been happy when he had to slow the ship to impulse. In fact, Tom was certain that he could see steam coming out of her ears when she had burst from her ready room demanding a report. Tom had instantly volunteered, much to the dismay of B'Elanna Torres, to repair the power couplings.

It wouldn't take long and it got him off the bridge. The main center of command wasn't the place to be at the present time. It was clear that the stress of their situation was wearing Janeway down but no one had the guts to tell her to take it easy.

"What are you doing?"

"Jesus!" Tom cursed, dropping his tool on top of his hand at the sudden appearance of Michael Janeway.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."

Tom shook his hand out, where the tool had dropped, and looked at the kid. "Next time, you might want to warn me. Why aren't you with your nanny anyways?"

Michael shrugged his shoulders. "Ava was crying. She's awfully loud and it hurts my ears. Tal's too busy trying to get Ava to stop crying to notice me gone."

Great, this kid needs a permanent security detail, Tom thought as he picked his tool back up and began to work. "You know kid, you ain't half bad. I used to sneak away from my baby-sitters all the time when I was your age. Used to drive my father crazy."

"Because you left your nanny?"

"Because I broke the rules. He loved rules."

"Mama likes rules," Michael said. "She gets mad when I break them. Why are rules so important, Lieutenant Paris?"

Of all the people to ask, the kid had chosen him. Tom stopped what he was doing and looked the boy in the eye. Dark brown hair was messy from probably climbing through the Jeffery's Tubes and his little rounded face reminded him of Janeway. "Well, if we all didn't follow rules...things would be a little crazy around here," Tom said, thinking, if they aren't already crazy around here. "Rules make sure we're safe."

"Is that why you were in jail? Because you broke the rules and weren't safe?"

"Yes, in a manner of speaking," Tom replied getting back to his work.

"Why didn't Mama put the Maquis in jail? They broke the rules," Michael said.

"Well, she had her reasons."

"They don't like it here," the boy said, plopping down onto the floor next to Tom.

Tom closed his eyes for a moment praying for a little bit of extra strength. The kid was making it hard for him to finishing the repairs that Janeway was ready to throttle someone if they weren't done. "We're in a... unique... situation. Your mother did what she thought was best for her crew and to make sure that we find a way home."

Michael looked at him pensively. "Are we really that far from home?"

"Afraid so."

"Mama feels bad," Michael said. "She doesn't tell me, but I know. She feels bad that we're far from home."

Tom finished what he was doing and went to close the panel. "Your mother didn't have an easy choice to make." He fastened the panel and turned to glance at the boy. "Everyone feels bad about what we had to do."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why do they feel bad? We helped people."

Leave it to a child to simplify something so complicated. Tom smiled gently and reached out and ruffled his hair. "You know something kid, when you look at it that way, it's hard to feel bad about what we did." He gestured that it was time to go.

As they stood up and made their way back to the turbo lift Michael slipped his small hand into Tom's. "Are we friends now?" the boy asked, looking up at him in admiration. Tom had never seen anyone look at him that way, never in his life. It made his heart swell with emotions.

"Yeah," he rasped out finally. "We're friends now."

[ktrivia]

All Men Dream

Bucky x Reader

Summary:

Reader is enhanced with the powers to enter dreams. She originally entered Captain America's dreams just to see if she could, but kept returning to them because she loved spending time in the 1940s ease of life in his idyllic versions of the time. But what happens when the good Captain figures out something is amiss?

Author’s Notes:

If you would like to be tagged in this story (I’m so excited that people actually want to read this) please send me a message!

Also let me know what you think of this chapter! I always love getting comments, questions, and theories!

I will be trying to post an update this week but I have to have a quick surgery done and may not be able to post!

Chapter 4

               If you had asked me yesterday what I would be doing today, I would have told you that I’d go to work and then binge Netflix with Meatball at my side. Instead, I sat in the middle of a large, state of the art lab with electrodes attached to my head and chest and leather binds around my wrists. After Bucky’s brilliant idea to have me enter his and another Avenger’s dreams, or in this case their subconsciousness, I had been dragged through the compound, blindfolded, until we reached the lab. Throughout the march I could hear Steve interjecting with protests against Bucky’s plan, but the darker haired man just ignored his friend’s concerns.

               Now that I sat in the chair, and more people gathered in the lab, my already frayed nerves became further taxed. I had never even thought of entering two consciousnesses at once and the thought of it terrified me. What if I couldn’t do it? What happens if I do?

               When a red-headed woman walked in, Bucky immediately made his way over to her and pulled her aside to speak with her. After a few moments of hushed whispers, they then approached a man with dark blonde hair. The expressions on the three faces were grim and I could only assume that was because of me. After five more tense minutes, the trio approached where I was sitting. Bucky began his explanation.

               “This is Wanda and Clint,” he introduced.

               “Well I’d shake your hands, but this kinky fucker has strapped me down once again.”

               Wanda’s shoulders shook as she tried to contain her laughter at my sarcasm, but the man named Clint remained silent. Ignoring my comment, except for an eye roll, Bucky continued.

               “You’re going to go into Clint and I’s dreams. Both of us have experience with mind control and are the best candidates to do this.” He paused for a second. “Wanda reads minds. While you’re in our heads, she’s going into yours.” He waited quietly for my reaction. Rather than address him, I spoke to Wanda.

               “Have you gone into someone’s head before?” I asked solemnly. Bucky looked shocked by the question and even stone-faced Clint seemed a little surprised. Rather than scold me for what apparently was a stupid question, Wanda responded seriously.

               “Yes. Many times. I know the risks of entering one’s mind and how to avoid them as best as possible.” At here statement, and with another moment of visual assessment from me, I nodded and turned back to Bucky, so he could continue his explanation.

               “While you’re in our heads, Bruce and Tony are going to observe our vitals and make sure nothing is going wrong health wise,” He told me with a nod to the two men who had hooked me up to the electrodes. Bruce was a new face to me, but I had been in one of Tony Stark’s dreams, without his knowledge of course, and seen his face plastered in the news countless times.

               “Don’t worry Dream Weaver,” Tony said with a smirk, “we’ll keep an eye om everything from out here in case it goes wonky.”

               “I’m so reassured,” I muttered back as I turned to face the trio in front of me again.

               “We also want to see how your powers work, so you’re going to show us what you can do in our heads when you’ve connected us both. Got it?” Bucky asked. I nodded in affirmation as a bead of sweat formed on my forehead out of nervousness.

               The doors to the lab opened and Steve walked in with who I could only assume was Sam Wilson. Like Tony, but on a lesser scale, I had seen Sam on TV doing the whole superhero thing before. The men were wheeling in two gurneys. This is where I assumed Clint and Bucky would lay, while I was strapped to another stupid chair. After they moved the portable beds into position, Steve signaled Sam to step outside for a moment to speak about something. I noticed Bucky Watching this, and the second the doors closed, he walked over to me and made a show of adjusting an electrode on my head.

               “When we’re in there, don’t mention being in my dreams last night. It won’t end well for you if you do. Clint also doesn’t take well to mental manipulation of any kind and will end the test before Wanda gets a chance to see your intentions. If you really are innocent, then you want this test to last so Wanda can see that.” Bucky explained quietly. It dawned on me that he had waited for Steve to leave the room because he would have been able to hear Bucky speaking to me even in hushed tones. All I could do was give another nod of agreement as the weight of this test weighed on me further. If I couldn’t do this properly, then the Avengers would probably assume it as a sign of guilt, rather than an inability to perform the task they asked for.

               When Sam and Steve returned to the room, Bucky straightened and walked over to one of the gurneys. Clint took this as a signal for him to do the same and both men laid down on the portable beds. Bruce and Tony made their way over to the two men and added electrodes, similar to mine, to their heads and chests. Bruce reached over to a desk next to the gurneys and pulled a box from it.

               “I’m going to inject them with a sedative,” He explained while removing two syringes from the case. “I will let you know when they are completely unconscious.” I gave an affirmation as he handed Tony one of the syringes. Tony’s syringe seemed much smaller than Bruce’s, and I figured Bucky’s body required more sedative because of the whole super soldier deal. Without preamble both men stuck the needles into Bucky and Clint’s arms. The liquid was depressed and then the entire room waited.

               Clint’s eyes closed first. I could see his heart rate monitor begin to slow as he slipped off into the world of sleep. Bucky was struggling to keep his eyes open, but finally they fluttered shut. At an unspoken command, Wanda moved to stand behind me.

               “You may now enter Bucky’s mind. Once you do, I will enter yours.” She stated. I could see the stares of everyone in the room were on me. The only way to avoid them was to go into someone else’s head. As my eyes shut, I heard Captain America mutter something about killing me if I hurt his friends. Ah, how I loved threats before going to sleep.

                               Blackness surrounded me. The void was endless, and nothing was around me. The world was empty. Which meant I was in a mind with limited thought, or in this case, a sedated mind.

               “Y/n,” Bucky called from behind me. I turned to face him and analyzed his facial expression.  His face was blank as he instructed me to enter Clint’s mind. I shut my eyes and tried to quiet my mind. After using this power for so much of my life, I didn’t normally need to focus too hard on the mind I was entering, but this was an entirely different situation. One part of my mind was holding on to the tether I had with Bucky’s consciousness, while the other searched for Clint’s. At first, separating the two tasks seemed impossible, but after a few minutes of effort, I was able to vaguely feel Clint’s mind. I opened my eyes to check Bucky was still in front of me, and then closed them again to continue my process. Slowly, but surely, Clint’s mind became less of a blurry outline but a clear image that I could see. I pictured the two separate minds as strings which I could weave together slowly. When I opened my eyes again, a faded image of Clint, who seemed to be becoming less blurry, was in front of me too.

               With a sigh of relief, I let a small smile appear on my lips before a grimace overcame it. A sharp stab of pain filled my head but was quickly gone. When I glanced at Bucky, I could see the space between his brows furrowed, potentially in worry I’d normally guess, but this wasn’t exactly a normal situation.

               “Ok Y/N,” Clint called to get my attention. “Let’s see what this power of yours does.” I considered what to do first and decided to start with something easy. I changed the world around us to something relatively simple. The world now was an endless field of green grass with a shining sun and bright blue sky looking down on us. The two men seemed confused as the scenery probably looked familiar. The reason for that was that it was literally the windows default screen background. The screensaver was something I’d seen a thousand times and didn’t have too many intricate pieces within it. Clint made a grunt of approval and asked what else was possible.

               After a moment of thought, another man appeared next to our group. A loud guffaw escaped Bucky as he took in the image of Captain America in his original suit, smiling broadly with his hands on his hips. In the style of the school PSA’s he did, he said:

               “So, you’ve found yourself trapped in the middle of a field in a dream. That is a real pickle boys and girls, but with some hard work, and lots of fruits and vegetables, I think we can make it through.” The image paused and went still after he finished talking. Bucky was still grinning and after a minute, Clint finally gave in and started laughing hysterically.

               “Alright kid,” He said with a smile, “if your sense of humor is good even in this situation, then you may be just be ok. Really fucked up, but ok.” I smiled softly at his statement, but my smile didn’t last very long. Even though the temperature in this dreamworld was probably a comfortable seventy degrees, I could feel myself begin to sweat. As Clint decided to start poking the fake Steve Rogers, and move his arm to make it look like he was picking his nose, Bucky made his way over to me.

               “You doing ok?” He questioned with concern on his face.

               “I’m fine,” I grunted out. I didn’t want to show weakness in front of these men or Wanda, who I knew was present even if I couldn’t see her.

               “Alright Clint,” I stated getting his attention. “Shall we continue with this little tour of dreamland?” Clint stopped his poking around and agreed.

               “I can remember any dream I’ve been in perfectly. So, I can also go to any setting from past dreams that I want. Like this.” With a snap of my fingers, the scenery changed and we were in the middle of the ice cream shop from Steve’s dreams. Clint seemed confused at the change but Bucky immediately realized where we were.

               “Holy shit,” he muttered. “This is from Steve’s dream. It has to be. We came here all the time as kids.” Bucky walked over to the counter with a look of awe on his face as he took in the familiar surroundings further. When he sat down, I froze the world around us. Clocks stopped ticking, people stood frozen in place, drops of melted ice cream stayed suspended in mid air instead of hitting the floor. The only thing that still occurred was the soft music playing from the record player in the corner. Clint raised a questioning eyebrow at my choice.

               “I don’t like silence. Being in a dream with no sound is absolutely silent and it can be a bit maddening.” I explained, recalling walking around in other dreams with nothing around me but a deafening silence.

               “Here,” I said and with a wave of my hand, a scoop of ice cream appeared in front of both men. Bucky began digging into the frozen treat immediately while Clint seemed hesitant.

               “It’s fine Clint,” I said. “It’s not like fairy world where eating the food there kills you. I’m just showing you that all of your senses work here.” With a hesitant expression, Clint took a tiny taste of his ice cream. His eyes shut, and a small moan escaped his mouth.

               “Shit that is the best ice cream I’ve ever had.”

               “Told you the forties were great,” Bucky mumbled through a full mouth. I let out a little laugh at his speaking with his mouth full, and at that sound Bucky seemed to grow concerned again.

               “Are you sure you’re ok doll?” He asked. “You’re starting to get a bit pale.” I glanced at the mirrored back of the bar and saw what he meant. The color had mostly drained from my face and all that was left was an ashen appearance.

               “I’m fine. Let’s just move on,” I said as I stood from the chair. When I got to my feet, a rush of dizziness swept over me and I began to sway. Strong arms grabbed my shoulders to steady me and I felt the cool hold of a metal one grip my chin to lift my head.

               “Y/n!,” Bucky said sternly. I hadn’t realized it, but my eyes were beginning to close. I tried to keep them open as he spoke.

               “You need to wake up now.” At his instruction my eyes flashed open. I couldn’t wake up yet. I didn’t know what would happen if I didn’t separate Clint and Bucky’s consciousnesses from one another.

               “No,” I mumbled. “Clint needs to wake up.” The world around us faded into endless black again as I focused on Clint. I froze him in place and began trying to unwind the threads of consciousness between his and Bucky. Slowly, the strings began to disentangle themselves, but I could feel myself fading fast. Pushing my mind harder, I focused solely on the separation and finally was able to command Clint to wake up. With only Bucky left in the dreamworld with me, and the feeling of his arms holding me upright, everything went dark.

Tag list (Please message me if you would like to be added to it):

@paradisiacalsparks @cals-cigarette @searchingforbucky @mavelfanatic @some-person-somewhere @marvel-th @unfortunately-im-awake @jessicakimba @fandom-addict-aesthetics @simplysaying @spnsquirrel @bxrnsfeyson @magnolialikes @buckyinantarctica @fluffymadamina @willowtree42095 @horsesandwolvesaremyanimals @pieofawkwardness @mirajanestrauss987 @nerdypisces160

[bobbyonboard]

You and I [John Deacon x Reader]

Summary: Based off of some anons @deacytits was getting in regards to different articles of clothing you wanted the boys to be wearing/you wanted to wear while they fucked you, this just wouldn’t leave my brain until I word vomited it all out. John Deacon. Montreal. Leather jacket.

Warnings: swearing, oral sex (male receiving), unprotected sex, it’s lots of build up and then just smut.

Word Count: 5.8k

Author’s Note: Okay, this is my first jump back into writing in a long time. Please be kind, I’m a very sensitive person LOL.

Montreal, 1981

The crowd was deafening before the music had barely started. You were standing just hidden enough behind a black curtain on stage right, arms crossed and a hand on your chest, almost trying to get your own breathing under control. Just two more, you thought to yourself. Tonight and the next night and then ‘The Game Tour’ would be over.

It wasn’t that the tour had been unpleasant; on the contrary, it had been amazing. Each city, each crowd, louder, bigger, and hungrier than the last. Being able to top it all off with a recorded performance? The icing on the cake.

Well, it should have been. But the director had been a bit of a prat, none of the boys agreed with his camera angles, his odd way of shooting. His incessant hounding of them for the project probably didn’t put the best spin on things either, but it would be good in the long run. That’s what Miami kept telling them, anyway.

The introduction was getting louder, the crowd wilder, and the lights above the stage were beginning to slowly open up, flashing every once in awhile and making the fans scream each time. With each glimpse of light, you looked over to see the faces of the boys you’d known for ten years, bathed in hues of reds, greens, blues, and yellows.

Brian was on the opposite side of the stage, and you could barely make out his face in the dark, only able to see his curls whenever the lights came back up. You glanced to your immediate left, seeing Roger start to head towards the back of the stage in a moment of darkness, shaking his hands out to relieve a mixture of nerves and excitement. Freddie was bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, clapping his hands above his head and twisting at his hips, reminiscent of a fighter preparing for a match.

It was almost as if your eyes had instinctively saved the best for last. You looked slightly to Freddie’s left to see your husband of six years, John, nervously nodding his head to a beat that was playing in his own head, his bass held tightly in his hands. He didn’t spare a glance over at you and you weren’t the least bit offended. After ten years of doing this, they all had their own quirks and things they did before a performance, and you certainly weren’t going to get in the way of that. You just watched from your spot in the corner, your own nervous energy starting to bubble up into your chest.

You knew the introduction well enough now, that after a certain ‘clap of thunder’, you watched as John began to make his way onto the stage first, Roger climbing up behind his drum kit, and a guitar ringing through the monitors signaled that Brian had just come on stage as well. After a few opening notes, Freddie ran out behind them, and you let out a breath that you’d been holding ever since the lights had begun to flash. It was finally underway.

You were able to settle in comfortably in your viewing spot, your foot tapping to the faster-paced “We Will Rock You”, your fingers digging into your bare arms. It was absolutely freezing in Montreal, the highest it managed to get that day was a balmy thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit, so by this point in the evening, it was dipping dangerously close to the teens. But you knew how hot it got in every place they played, thousands upon thousands of bodies packed into an arena would make anyone’s body temperature skyrocket. So you opted for jeans and a short-sleeved shirt, knowing you’d prefer not to have to keep up with a jacket all night long. Besides, the only time you’d be outside would be the short, brisk walk from the venue to the limo that would wait for you and John outside.

When your mind drifted to your husband, you snapped out of the slight daze you were in so you could look around the stage for him. A small smile crept across your lips as you watched him dance across the stage during a particularly jamming section of “Let Me Entertain You”, and it was only then under the bright lights of the stage did you really get a good look at him.

He was wearing a monochromatic blue outfit, matching shades for his tight pants and shirt. The colors were only broken up by the bright white sneakers he wore, and a black leather jacket. Your shifted your weight slightly as you let your eyes rake over his entire body, your bottom lip caught between your teeth. God, he looked good. Really good. Especially good. Jesus, when did he get so…

You shook your head slightly as if the act would physically remove the thoughts from your brain. Of course John had always been sexy, it’s one of the things that drew you to him so many years ago. You’d seen him go through so many stages of style, hair, and clothes, but you had to admit, he seemed older, somehow. More mature. More sure of himself. Watching him strut around the stage, popping his leg in the air as he spun around, and before you even knew what was happening, your thighs were clenching together of their own accord.

Somewhere between “Play the Game” and “Somebody to Love” the leather jacket had been removed, much to your disappointment, but watching John’s muscles flex as he worked a particularly fast bass line, or the way his t-shirt stretched across his chest certainly wasn’t anything to complain about. However, your mind still drifted back to the image of him in that leather jacket every once in awhile.

Whenever there was a break or a particularly long guitar solo, you stayed tucked away in your corner of the wings. You knew they were all in a particular headspace for the duration of the show, so you just watched from afar as John paced around, sipping on whatever drink was in his hand before heading back out on stage.

Your heart felt a sudden tug, wishing you’d had more time with him before the show. You’d had to fly in separately, and had only made it about two hours before showtime. Just enough time to have a cuddle with your husband, laugh and talk with the group and the crew, and grab a bite to eat before they were being whisked away to get dressed and get ready. But you knew you’d have plenty of time later, and the thought calmed you for now.

When “Another One Bites the Dust” began to blast through the speakers, you smirked a little to yourself, hips popping from side to side just slightly. The song had been released just over a year ago, and you thought about how successful it was, how it really shot Queen to the top over in America, and how it had done absolute wonders for John’s confidence. It was the boost he needed, the extra push to really make him more vocal in rehearsals, to press for his songs to be included just like the others. You were beyond proud of him, your chest swelling as you watched him hop and bounce along the stage.

You still had chills every time you heard “We Are the Champions”, watching as the crowd sang along, the entire building coming together for those moments, and by the end of the song, when the boys were taking their final bows to Brian’s rendition of “God Save the Queen”, you’d practically forgotten about the leather jacket and all the sinful, dirty things you’d wanted to do to your husband.

You quickly moved over so you were waiting for them as soon as they got off the stage, feeling a little bad that there wasn’t anyone else there, family-wise. Chrissy and Dominique were both back in London, unable to make it for this leg of the tour, so you tried to make sure your smile was extra enthusiastic when they filtered by you.

“Wonderful, as always, boys!,” you grinned, pecking Roger’s cheek as he walked by, chuckling as his own smile was growing by the second on his face.

“It was, wasn’t it?,” he smirked, voice dripping with a smugness that made you want to roll your eyes, if it wasn’t for the tinge of pride that coated his words.

“If the fucking cameras weren’t so distracting,” Brian huffed, walking behind him, and you gently patted his shoulder.

“It’s going to be great, don’t worry about it. You were great,” you added with a small smile, and he gave you one in return, although it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Thank fuck that’s over!,” you heard Freddie shout, his voice scratchy and breaking on the last syllable. “Y/N, it’s wonderful to see you as always, darling,” he told you, leaning down to brush his lips against your cheek before running off, leaving you there just shaking your head, unable to even get out your words of praise for the frontman.

“Nothing for me?” a soft voice said from beside you, and you turned with a grin, arms immediately opening for John.

“You were perfect. You’re always perfect,” you hummed, draping your arms on his shoulders, leaning up for a soft, warm kiss. Your hands drifted up to his hair, giving his relatively newly grown curls a soft squeeze.

As the two of you pulled away from each other, John’s hands moved from your waist up to your arms, rubbing them lightly. “You’re going to freeze to death outside,” he warned, fingertips tracing down from your elbow to your fingertips, lacing your fingers together as you started the fast-paced walk towards the back of the venue.

You just shrugged, not able to imagine being cold at this moment, beads of sweat at the base of your hairline from the heat backstage, and from your earlier impure thoughts. The same thoughts that were creeping back now that John’s calloused fingers were brushing against your knuckles, practically able to feel the warmth radiating from him.

As everyone began rushing around backstage, a few people coming up to each member of the band and making sure they had a drink, a cigarette, or whatever else they desired, you thought back to the early days. How the four of them would all go back to a shared room and get changed into their regular clothes together, girlfriends and wives laying on couches, roadies laughing and tossing things to each other to pack up. Sometimes they would go out and party, or even just get some dinner together. These days, they just each got in their own limousine and took off towards whatever evening entertainment they wished.

The further you got from the stage, the more your skin began to prickle with goosebumps, and God, where was that cold air coming from? You looked ahead to see the back doors had been propped wide open, with trucks backed up to the entry way for easy access to load up all the equipment.

“Don’t.” you warned, not even having to look at your husband to know he was giving you that glare, the one he saved for when he knew he had been right about something.

“I didn’t say anything!” he held his free hand up in surrender, but you looked over to see a small smirk on his lips, and you rolled your eyes so hard you thought they might roll out the open doors.

It was just a moment later as everyone lined up to start the mad dash to the limos waiting outside when John turned to look over his shoulder. “Ratty!” he called out, his roadie looking up from a conversation with another crew member.

“Yeah, Deaks?,” he responded, exhaling a mouthful of smoke and giving you a smile and a wave. “Hey, Y/N!”.

“Have you got my jacket?” John asked, and Ratty nodded his head, stepping back into the dressing room around the corner and returning with the  aforementioned item. “Thanks,” he nodded, taking it from the roadie’s hands and holding it open.

“Arms in,” he told you, and it felt almost like a parent dressing a toddler.

“But now who’s the one that’s going to freeze?!,” you huffed, arms crossing over your chest and narrowing your eyes slightly. “You’re the one who needs to wear it, I’ll be fine for a quick walk to the car,” you attempted to assure him, but your body betrayed you, a shiver running up your spine and down into your fingertips and toes as your finished your sentence.

John just rolled his eyes, popping his hip to the side which proved he was settling in, not planning on moving until you did what he suggested. “I’ve been sweating for two hours, I think it’ll be alright,” he told you, raising an eyebrow as he held the jacket out towards you.

You muttered under your breath something about a stubborn bastard, ignoring the way his lips turned up slightly when you began to put your arms through the black leather, wrapping it around your middle.

“Looks nice,” he commented, draping an arm around your shoulders and dropping a kiss to your temple before leading you towards the back entrance.

You nuzzled into his side, head tucked comfortably under his chin as you walked, your arm wrapped around his waist, sneaking your thumb under the the hem of his t-shirt to rub lightly at his warm skin, causing him to jump slightly.

“Colds hands!,” he whined, pinching your arm playfully, although you could barely feel it through the leather. “And to think, I was willing to freeze to death for you,” he sighed dramatically, but he let out a huff of air when a bodyguard opened the doors in front of you, a cold wind smacking the two of you in the face.

You clutched tighter to your husband, face turned to try and block out some of the cold, and almost running to your waiting limousine. You practically jumped inside, curling up with John and immediately sticking your hands in front of the vents, feeling the heat blasting out in the already warm car. “”Fuck, it feels good in here,” you moaned, rubbing your hands together.

“Bloody freezing,” John was muttering to himself as the door shut behind him, and the driver started towards the hotel, ready to make a change if requested.

You flopped back against John, head laying on his chest as you closed your eyes, enjoying the heat. It was quiet for a few minutes, you knew John had to be tired. Between their non-stop few days and your long flight from earlier, the different time zones were neither of your friend.

“Sleepy?,” you heard him ask you, brushing your hair out of your face, leaning down to press a soft kiss to your forehead, and you made a noncommittal noise.

“A little. We can go somewhere, if you want,” you told him, noticing the driver’s ears perk up slightly, ready to turn somewhere else and adjust his route if need be.

“No, we’ll go out tomorrow, I’m sure. Last night of the tour and all. Besides, you’ve had quite the day, haven’t you?,” he smiled, fingers tracing along your chin and jawline.

“Hasn’t been so bad,” you smiled up at him, stretching out slightly, your shirt riding up to show a sliver of skin on your middle before you relaxed once more against his chest. “Bet you’re hungry, though. We can order room service,” you offered, playing with his fingers and noticing they were slightly swollen, so you just began to massage them gently.

John hummed slightly at the feeling, his own eyes fluttering closed for a few moments as your worked his knuckles and fingers. “Food sounds good. Especially if I can eat it laying down,” he chuckled softly, looking out the window and bracing himself for the cold. “Up, up, we’re here, love,” he told you, holding his hands in front of the vents for a few moments to prepare them for even a few seconds of cold.

You sighed as you sat up, tugging John’s jacket tighter to your chest and taking a deep breath before your driver got out and opened the door. The two of you practically ran inside, pleased that you had seemed to beat the crowd of press that usually camped outside of whatever hotel the band stayed at.

The two of you immediately slowed down the second you were inside, thankful for the heat as you reached out and pressed the ‘up’ button for the elevator, leaned against John’s side the entire time. You shuffled in once the doors opened, yawning slightly once they closed and the elevator began it’s ascension. Someone from the crew had taken your luggage to the hotel earlier, and you were never more thankful than in that moment, able to just follow John to the hotel suite and not have to do anything. “What sounds good?,” you asked, looking around at the large room and smiling a little to yourself. Ten years later, and you’d never get used to the lavish rooms and gifts.

“I’d kill for a pizza,” he called over his shoulder, going to kick off his shoes and groaning when his feet stretched out, heading into the bathroom to find some ibuprofen and fill a glass with water.

“Pizza it is then!,” you announced, snatching the menu off of the table and giving it a quick glance. You saw where the restaurant had an entire section for pizza, so you picked up the phone, placing your order of a pizza, two bottles of wine, and a slice of cheesecake before you hung up.

John had flopped down on the couch in the suite’s living room, stretched out completely as he lazily watched whatever was on TV, and you shuffled over slowly, standing in front of him. “Hi,” he smiled, reaching out to take your hand, pressing a kiss to your knuckles.

“Hi,” you responded in kind, putting one knee by his hips, throwing your leg over him so you were straddling his lap, flopping down so your entire weight was on his body, causing him to let out a soft ‘oof’ at the sudden addition. “You’re comfy,” you hummed, closing your eyes and trying not to slip into too relaxed of a state.

“Wish I could say the same for you,” he teased, yelping when reached down to pinch his side. “Kidding, kidding!,” he giggled, and you just stuck your tongue out, nuzzling your face into his neck, the two of you lazily watching ‘Singing in the Rain’ as it played as the late evening movie.

You had just finally gotten completely comfortable, John’s hand rubbing slowly at the small of your back when you heard a knock at the door.

“C’mon, food,” John mumbled, giving your rear a gentle pat, giggling softly when you made an indignant noise before getting up. You walked over to the door, but managed to put on a smile for the man who pushed in the tray, putting the plates of food on the table, and pouring two glasses of wine before bidding you two a nice evening, leaving almost as quickly as he came.

“God, I’m starving,” you groaned, settling into one of the chairs at the table, putting a few slices of pizza on your plate and taking a sip of your wine, humming at the taste.

You and John ate mostly in a comfortable silence, more focused on alleviating your hunger than anything else. You talked a bit about what he’d missed by coming out for the end of this tour early, how things were going, what the plans were in terms of a new album. He wanted more of a disco sound, and you tried to hide your laugh with a large bite of pizza thinking about how Brian was going to react to that.

Most of the pizza, all of the cheesecake, and a bottle of wine was polished off before you popped open the second bottle, pouring you both another glass before you moved from your seat back into your seat from earlier--your husband’s lap.

“Mmm, hi,” you smiled, taking a sip of your wine before putting the glass on the table behind you, your arms wrapping loosely around John’s shoulders.

“Hi,” he grinned back, much like your earlier conversation, placing his own glass on the table before letting his hands move to your hips. “You know, I quite like this jacket on you,” he commented, giving the bottom of it a little tug.

You stretched your back slightly, turning and making a semi-seductive pose that had you both dissolving into a fit of giggles after a few moments. “I quite like this jacket on you,” you responded, pushing your finger into his chest for an added effect. “You looked so good tonight, John,” you whispered, fingertips gently tracing along his jawline, your foreheads pressed together as you moved a bit closer.

“Yeah?,” he asked huskily, voice thick with arousal, but there was a slight tinge in his voice that sounded secretly pleased, almost relieved, that you thought so. Married six years, but there was always that nagging voice in the back of his head that you’d find someone better. Especially when he was compared to people like Roger and Brian every day.

“God, John,” you whimpered, and Christ, you could already feel how hard he was underneath of you, and you gave a tentative roll of your hips, relishing in the soft noise he made in response. “I couldn’t keep my eyes off you. These pants,” your purred, your lips barely an inch or two from his, and your hands had moved now to rub lightly at his hips. “This shirt,” you added, hands sliding up to his sides, fingernails gently raking across the soft material. “And this,” you grinned wickedly as your hands went to tug at the edge of the leather jacket you were still wearing. “Took my breath away, baby,” you whispered, and God, you hoped if you somehow got to Heaven, it was just a constant loop of the soft whimper that John just let slip past his lips.

“Missed you,” was all he managed to get out, his lips brushing against yours as he spoke, his arms tightening around your waist, pushing you flush against him, and now it was your turn to let out a sinful mewl, your fingers moving up to tangle in those beautiful curls.

“I missed you mo--oh!,” you gasped as John suddenly stood up, keeping you held tightly in his arms. You were giggling now, biting lightly at your bottom lip as he carried you wordlessly to the bedroom, and you felt your heart ache a little at how one side of the bed was still carefully made, thinking about him sleeping alone for the past few days.

John sat on the edge of the bed, keeping you in his lap as he swung his legs up, leaning against the headboard and giving your hips a light squeeze. “What were you saying, Y/N?,” he asked with a grin, and you couldn’t stop yourself from smiling brightly if you tried.

“That I missed you. I really, really missed you,” you hummed, hooking your fingers under the hem of his blue t-shirt, tugging it over his head immediately. God, you’d never get tired of this sight, the way he looked up at you like he’d just won the lottery, a mixture of elation and pure love.

“Show me?,” he whispered, licking his lips as he studied your features, his hands moving around to your ass as he squeezed gently, pushing you down against his thighs.

You reached between the two of you and unbuttoned his pants slowly, your fingers gently tugging his zipper down, never once breaking eye contact. You just slid your hand down his chest, tugging the extra material out of the way before your fingers wrapped slowly around his cock, eyes lighting up when John’s head fell back and a low moan rumbled in his chest.

“So hard for me, baby,” you purred, stroking him slowly, surely. Your thumb brushed lightly across the weeping head of his cock, rubbing the bit of precome across his flushed skin.

“Fuck, Y/N--,” he choked out, and you knew he’d had this pent up for awhile, He was always a little clingy if you’d been apart for too long, even a few days could make him a needy, wanting mess.

“Shhhh, baby. I’ve got you. Let me take care of you, hm?,” you cooed, stroking him a bit more before pulling away, leaning in to kiss the corner of his mouth when he whined at the loss of contact. “You were so amazing tonight. God, so fucking perfect,” you whispered, moving so you were standing beside the bed. You leaned over, slowly pulling his pants down his legs, tossing them, along with his underwear, over into the corner, leaving him naked before you.

Taking a step back, you gave him a seductive grin, gently removing his leather jacket and placing it on the bed. Your fingers danced across your own skin, hooking under the edge of your shirt and tugging it over your head, your black, lacy looking marvellous against your skin. You popped the button of your jeans carefully, giving your hips a slight wiggle as you pushed them down your legs, and you could practically feel John’s eyes boring a hole into your body with the intensity of his stare. You reached behind you, gently unhooking your bra and letting it immediately fall to the floor, in no real mood to tease John any longer, especially with the way he’d started to stroke himself, hips rolling up as he fucked his fist, mouth hanging open slightly.

You practically shoved your panties onto the floor, about to crawl back on the bed when the leather jacket caught your eye. You picked it up with a mischievous grin, putting it back on your naked body, and feeling your wetness grow between your legs as John moaned your name.

“Lay down for me, my love,” you whispered, letting John move so he was laid down completely, his head resting on the pillows, his cock hard and leaking against his stomach. You didn’t think you’d seen anything so wonderful in your life.

Carefully placing your knees on either side of John’s, you took him once more into your hand, stroking him as you looked up through your lashes, smirking a little to yourself when he let out a small huff of frustration.

“Are you just going to sit there looking like that all night?,” he asked, and no matter how hard he tried, his words could never really sound annoyed at you. It made your heartbeat quicken, and you leaned down a bit more.

“No, I have other plans,” you hummed, your legs tucked up under you as you leaned forward to wrap your lips around the head of his cock.

“”Fuck!,” John cried out, immediately thrusting into your mouth, his hand moving to tangle in your hair and give it a gentle tug. “Christ, Y/N,” he was panting now, already a mess above you and you only had half of his dick in your mouth.

His actions were enough to spur you on, your free hand rubbing lightly at the inside of his thigh while you took his length deeper, relaxing your throat until you felt the head of his cock slip inside, causing tears to prick the corners of your eyes.

John was now a whimpering, moaning mess above you, trying his absolute best to keep his hips still, letting you do your work. He didn’t think he’d ever get used to your hot, wet mouth, the way it accepted almost every inch of his cock perfectly.

Your headed bobbed up and down slowly, humming softly around his dick as you took in the sight above you, admiring the way he was looking at you like you were God’s gift specifically for him.

You snuck a hand down between your thighs, spreading your legs enough so John got a real show, a finger dipping between your wet folds and plunging into your heat, allowing you to moan sinfully, the vibrations going straight to John’s cock. You didn’t dare touch your clit just yet, you wanted to wait until you were nice and full.

Pulling off of your husband’s dick with a soft ‘pop’, you grinned up at him wickedly, licking your lips. Your smile turned more loving and less cheeky when you felt his hand go from your hair to your cheek, thumb brushing under your eye for a quick moment before he extended both arms to help you maneuver back to his lap.

“You’re perfect, you know that?,” he whispered, hands moving to your hips, and you began to rock down against him, the juices from your now throbbing pussy spreading along his cock.

You blushed slightly at his words, your skin beginning to heat up as you moved a little faster. “John, I need you,” you whispered, lifting yourself to your knees and reaching between your legs. Without so much as a warning, you pressed the head of his cock to your entrance, and sank down on him slowly.

“Shit--,” he gasped, his grip tightening on your hips, rocking his hips up to get as deep inside of you as he possibly could. “So tight for me, baby. So wet,” he moaned, looking up at you through his lashes, absolutely lost in how breathtaking you looked.

The moans and mewls you were letting out couldn’t be stopped, feeling John so deep inside of you. You reached down to put a hand on his chest for balance, and after a few moments of just enjoying your husband inside of your tight heat, you began to roll your hips, a string of curses and his name leaving your lips as you felt him hit all of the right places.

It was lazy, it was loving, and God, it was amazing. Small little movements that drove the two of you wild, one of John’s hands moving up to let his thumb brush lightly against the underside of your breast before moving a bit higher, his hand under the cool leather of the jacket to feel the heat of your skin.

“I love you,” he groaned softly, his curls beginning to stick to his forehead from the thin layer of sweat that was now covering his body.

“I love you, too,” you moaned, head thrown back in sheer ecstasy as your hips moved to a slightly different angle, causing John to go even deeper inside of you, the head of his cock pressed right up against your sweet spot.

The noise you let out with pornographic, almost doubling over in pleasure as you leaned forward, and for the first time that evening, your lips met. The kiss was desperate, loving, and hot; everything the two of you needed in that moment. John managed to sit up, allowing you to wrap your arms around his shoulders and move more to your knees, bouncing sinfully on his cock.

“So beautiful, baby. Absolutely perfect,” he whispered, your foreheads pressed together as you pressed soft, quick kisses to each other’s lips. The leather was sticky between the two of you, but John didn’t think he’d ever seen anything so close to Heaven in his life.

One hand slid up into John’s hair, pulling him closer for another round of messy, passionate kisses, and your husband seemed to know you better than you knew yourself. He reached down with his free hand and began to rub your clit with his middle finger and thumb, just the way he knew you liked it.

“John!,” you gasped, clenching around his cock inside of you as you felt yourself get closer, your fingers grabbing almost painfully at his curls as you kept him close.

The proximity of his face to your chest made it easy for him to push his jacket open a bit more, quickly letting his lips wrap around one of your nipples, sucking, licking, and biting at the hard bud until he was satisfied. Only once you were writhing in his lap did he turn to it’s twin, and he could practically feel the way your body was trying to keep itself upright from the overstimulation it was receiving.

“Are you gonna come for me, baby?,” he whispered against your breast, voice low and heavy with passion. “Gonna come on my cock?”.

Those words were going straight to your soaked cunt, and you could feel yourself getting closer and closer with each roll of your hips, John’s cock going deeper and deeper. You nodded, unable to even form a coherent sentence at this point.

John knew you were close, his own orgasm was within reach. He quickened his pace, moving his face up so he could nip at your bottom lip as he began to lift his hips against yours, wanting to be as deeply inside of you as possible.

“Come for me, Y/N.”

That was all you needed. You let out a sharp cry as you felt your orgasm wash over you, your pussy spasming around John’s hard cock inside of you, causing you to whimper his name with each wave of pleasure.

A handful of thrusts later had John spilling his load into you with a groan, biting lightly at your bottom lip as he gripped your hips tightly, keeping you on top of him as he filled your dripping wet pussy with his come.

The two of you sat there in silence for a few moments, the only sounds your heavy breathing and the soft mewls you let out whenever he would shift inside of you. Once you two had managed to get your breathing under control, you moved off of your husband and tossed the jacket on the ground before laying down, your head resting on his chest.

“Don’t get too comfy, let me clean you up,” he yawned, leaning down to kiss your forehead before he got up, going to get a washcloth, rinsing it with warm water before he came back to wipe you down, unable to keep the smirk from his face when you whimpered a little, still sensitive.

“Don’t look smug,” you teased, but you yawned in the middle, taking out a bit of the sting of your words.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, love,” he chuckled, crawling back into bed and covering you both with the duvet, pulling you up against him. “I’m glad you’re here,” he sighed, and you smiled a little against the warmth of his neck.

“Me too,” you whispered, closing your eyes and finally allowing yourself to drift off to sleep.

[worryinglyinnocent]

Fic: Everything Money Can Buy (5/12)

Summary: The Greatest Store in the World AU. When misfortune strikes and leaves Emma Swan and her son homeless just before Christmas, the ever-resourceful Emma has a ready solution. They’ll move into Mills Department Store, a place they can only dream of affording to buy from. It’s not easy, having to deal with a perpetually grumpy doorman, a nasty assistant manager, and an extremely suspect Santa, but Emma and Henry soon learn that the kindness of strangers is something money can’t buy.

Swan Believer centric, with eventual Swan Queen and background Rumbelle and Dwarf Star.

Rated: G

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[One] [Two] [Three] [Four] [AO3]

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Five

Henry had to admit that he felt a lot safer sleeping in the tent in the basement than he had done in beds and bedlinen. The zipped-up tent flap added an extra layer of security against, well, the security guards, and sleeping in sleeping bags with the lantern hanging above them reminded him of the van. It was almost a home from home. As much as he didn’t really want to live in Mills for any longer than they had to – the risks seemed to far outweigh the benefits, in his opinion – he could see himself being happy camping indoors for a while.

Or at least, he could have done, until the moment that he woke up on Sunday morning. The main lights in the shop were up, and he could hear people moving around outside the tent.

“Please let it be the cleaners,” he whispered to himself, and he unzipped the tent flap a minute fraction to peep out.

It was not the cleaners. The people just a few feet away from him, looking at sleeping bags, were most definitely customers, and to make matters even worse, they definitely had a sales assistant with them, pointing out the various merits of various different kinds of sleeping bags. As pleased as Henry was to know that the particular model that he himself was currently inside was one of the best they sold and the one that the shop assistant would personally recommend, that did not stop the rising feeling of dread that and Mum had found themselves in what could euphemistically be termed a bit of a pickle.

“Mum!” He scrambled out of his sleeping bag and shook Mum’s shoulder. “Mum! We overslept! The shop’s open!”

“What?” Mum grumbled. “It’s a Sunday, they don’t open till ten, what are you talking about…” She grabbed her phone and looked at the time.

It was ten fifteen.

“Well, bugger.” She looked at the tent flap. “No one’s going to want to look inside this tent, though, are they?”

Henry shrugged. “Maybe not, but we can’t exactly get out whilst they’re out there.” He pointed at the vague shadows of bodies that could be seen through the tent material.

“Good point. Right. We’d better get dressed and think of a plan.”

Henry and Mum had had to make some daring escapes from some daring places before in their time, so gathering together all of their things in either the dead of night or the middle of the day, or from a very small space, was nothing entirely new to them. All the same, Henry was quite certain that this was the most fraught that the experience had ever been. The need to keep very quiet wasn’t exactly helping, although thankfully the background music of looped Christmas pop tunes drowned out most of the noise of them moving luggage around.

Once they were ready to leave, Mum listened at the tent flap for a while. They really couldn’t stay here much longer; Henry’s stomach was growling and the longer they stayed, the greater their chance of discovery would be.

“Is there anyone there?” Henry whispered.

Mum shook her head. “I can’t tell. I think we’re just going to have to make a break for it.”

With a sudden, decisive movement, she unzipped the tent flap, startling the couple who had been looking at sleeping bags and who had appeared to have opted for the sales assistant’s recommendation. Thankfully, the assistant himself had wandered off. She grabbed her backpack and ushered Henry out of the tent.

“Well, the tent is definitely big enough for us and the backpack,” she said brightly, brushing herself off. “Come on Henry, we’ll come back and buy one later. We’ve got other shopping to do.”

They hurried off towards the escalators, leaving the astonished shoppers behind them.

“Do you think they bought it?” Henry asked.

“I have no idea, but we only have to get outside, I don’t think they’re likely to raise that much of a fuss in the time it takes us to get up one escalator and out of the door.”

There were all kinds of things that were wrong with that statement, and Henry couldn’t help but be nervous about all the luggage that they had left piled in the tent with the post-its on, but before he could point this out to Mum, they tripped at the last hurdle. Literally, almost. They were nearly out of the door, going as quickly as they possibly could without drawing attention to themselves, when Mum almost collided with Gold.

Henry had always thought that Gold looked very impressive and very terrifying in his uniform, and right now, he looked even more terrifying than he had ever done.

“Sorry,” Mum said cheerily. “If we could just…” She made to dodge past him, tugging on Henry’s hand, but Gold stood steadfastly in their way.

“I didn’t see you come in this morning,” he said, his tone accusatory, and Henry gulped, glancing up at Mum and hoping that she could talk their way out of this one like she’d talked them out of so many other scrapes in the past.

“Well, you know, it’s a big shop and there are a lot of shoppers. Only have to turn your back for a moment and someone can slip by you. I mean, what about now, you’re not monitoring everyone coming in and out now, are you?”

“That’s not the point,” Gold snapped. “I don’t recall you leaving last night, either. I generally have a good memory for these things.”

“Good for you. Keep eating the carrots. Or is that seeing in the dark? Anyway, if you don’t mind, our purchases have been completed and we’d like to leave the store.”

Gold looked her up and down. “Where are your bags?”

Emma patted the backpack. “Save the planet, cut down on plastic waste. Honestly, where are your environmental credentials, Mr Gold?”

“It’s ok, Alistair.”

Belle from the customer service desk came over to them, smiling brightly.

“I saw them come in earlier,” she said. “You were helping unfold Mrs Rothschild out of her taxi.”

Gold looked from Belle to Mum to Henry and back again, then gave an unsure nod and stood aside. Mum gave him her sweetest, butter wouldn’t melt smile, and they left the store just as Zelena’s high heels clattered down the main steps and her less than dulcet tones could be heard admonishing Gold.

“Mr Gold! I believe we had a conversation yesterday about the doorman’s primary location being on the outside of the building!”

Mum and Henry sped around the side of the shop before Gold could come out and find them loitering on the doorstep. It was only once they were out of sight that Henry felt able to breathe freely again.

“She knows, Mum,” he said mournfully. “Belle must know that we’re sleeping in the shop. Because she definitely didn’t see us come in this morning.”

“Yeah.” Mum leaned back against the wall to get her breath back. “Yeah, she must realise that something’s up. Damn it! Oh Henry, I’m so sorry. I was so certain that we’d found somewhere safe.”

“It’s ok.” Henry knew that Mum was trying her best. “We can find somewhere else.”

Although maybe, now that he thought about it, they wouldn’t have to. Belle had covered for them. She hadn’t seen them go in, and she had lied anyway and got them out of their scrape with Gold. And Belle liked Gold, Henry knew that much just from watching their interaction the previous day. She wouldn’t be doing it to get one over on him.

Maybe, just maybe, she was helping them out of the goodness of her heart, and she was actually helping them.

Henry put this tentative hope to Mum as they walked along in search of breakfast. She said nothing for a long time; Mum was used to not trusting anyone to have her best interests at heart. It had been so long since they’d benefitted from the kindness of strangers that she had begun to believe that it did not exist, although Henry still had faith in it.

He had faith in Belle not to give away their secret.

X

Gold was not having a good day. In fact, a day when Gold did have a good day was a rarity lately. His ex-wife had announced that she would be having their son for Christmas this year despite having had him last year and promising that he could stay with his dad this year, and Gold didn’t have the money or energy to try and dispute her. On top of that, he was cold, tired, and in pain, and he was feeling extremely old. His ankle was complaining bitterly about the long days spent outside in the freezing temperatures; it had been so swollen when he’d woken up this morning that he could barely get his support on, but if he’d left it off then he wouldn’t be able to move by the end of the day.

And, of course, there was the woman and the boy, the ones he wasn’t sure about. There was something fishy about them and the vast amounts of baggage that they always had whenever they came into the store. The fact that they’d left without the vast amounts of baggage this morning gave him even more cause for concern than them leaving with the baggage did. If they’d left with it, then he could put them down as petty thieves – not that it was possible for any kind of thievery in a store like Mills to be petty. Leaving the bags was altogether more perplexing. And he really hadn’t seen them come in this morning, and he wasn’t sure that Belle was telling the complete truth either. Still, he trusted Belle. She would have had her reasons for covering for them, he was sure.

Adding the cherry on top of this rather fine cake of complaints, Zelena was acting like a complete nutcase again, seeming to take a great delight in dressing him down in front of myriad customers whenever she found him inside the building in an effort to stop himself from freezing solid outside, and yet being rather overly friendly whenever they were together in private. He tried to avoid her at all costs, but she always seemed to have a way of finding him after staff briefings and trying to corner him. He couldn’t really tell exactly what she wanted, and he had come to believe that her constant reminding him of his place in the proverbial pecking order was some kind of punishment for rejecting her.

Right now, he was prepared to take it as long as it meant that he could stay away from her rapidly widening aura of insanity.

Gold rubbed his hands together, stamping his feet on the freezing paving slabs outside the door, waiting for customers coming in and out. The handwarmers that Belle had given him yesterday were a blessing, and Gold wished that they made a suit out of the material that he could wear under his uniform to keep him toasty in his entirety.

Actually, forget the handwarmers. Belle herself was a blessing. Right now, it felt like she was the only bright spark in his entire miserable life, and he desperately wanted to tell her how much she meant to him, but he could never bring himself to make a move. After all, who in their right mind would want him? He was probably twice her age for a start, not to mention the fact that he’d gone through a very acrimonious divorce, and he was still recovering from the alcoholic funk that he’d settled into after that had happened. It was a miracle that he’d landed the job at Mills, if he was honest, which was why he knew that he couldn’t complain about it, or about Zelena, too much. He owed a lot to Regina Mills, and if that meant putting up with everything he hated about his job, then so be it. At least he had a roof over his head and food on the table, and his son didn’t hate him quite as much as he’d done a few years ago.

Gold’s thoughts meandered back to Belle. Maybe he ought to take a chance and ask her out. It could be something very casual. He could ask her if she was going to the staff party on Christmas Eve. That way he could just arrange to see her there. It was a big enough shop, after all, they could definitely avoid each other if it got awkward. And it wouldn’t seem too much like a date then; just two colleagues looking out for each other during an evening of drunkenness and general debauchery. Ever since Belle had joined Mills, he’d always shared a camaraderie with her that went beyond the normal interactions of two colleagues who didn’t really know each other all that well. They were united against Zelena, both of them looking out for opportunities to undermine her whenever they could and lamenting the fact that those opportunities did not come anywhere near as often as they would like.

Or maybe he could begin the conversation by asking her what she was reading at the moment. She always had a book with her under the customer service desk and was very good at sneaking a quick half a page whilst looking like she was busy on the computer. Gold had found that his own reading repertoire had increased greatly since meeting Belle, as she was always so enthusiastic about her books and he wanted to experience the same kind of joy that she did from them. It didn’t always work; there were several titles that they’d ended up getting into passionate arguments about in the staff breakroom after hours, but Gold didn’t really care. It gave him an excuse to talk to her, after all.

The suspicious-looking mother and son were coming back. They’d left the store so early this morning, practically before they’d had chance to buy anything, and he hadn’t seen them again. His eyes met the blonde woman’s as they came past, and she narrowed hers, hurrying her son along the pavement and not trying to come in. He wondered if they’d try again when his back was turned. For all Mills was a large shop and took up most of the block, it only had the one entrance, so if they wanted to get in, then they would have to go through him. Gold sighed. He should probably just let them in; it would be his act of Christmas charity for the year. At the same time, though, knowing that someone was living in the store and not doing anything about it was a sure way to get himself fired, and getting fired just a couple of days before Christmas was not something anyone wanted. Maybe he could plead ignorance. Hopefully, whoever they were, they were canny enough not to get caught by someone who wasn’t Belle and didn’t have a kind heart.

The door began to open from the inside and Gold moved automatically to take it. When he saw who was coming out, he very nearly let the heavy glass slam back in his face. Killian, this year’s store Santa, a last-minute replacement for Marco, came out of the building and pulled his beard down, taking a long swig from a hipflask.

“You know that Zelena will pull your innards out if she finds you drinking on the job,” he said conversationally.

Killian just glared. “If I’m outside then I’m not on the job,” he muttered. “You try dealing with hundreds of screaming kids and even more screaming parents.”

As much as Killian rubbed him up the wrong way, Gold did have the tiniest bit of sympathy for him. Christmas always brought out the worst in people. It was a shame that Santa didn’t have a naughty list for adults as well.

Killian continued to stand on the steps beside him. Quite the pair they made, really, Gold in his resplendent uniform and Killian in his ill-fitting red and white suit, reeking of rum.

“The bird on customer services,” Killian said presently. Gold bristled; calling any woman a bird wasn’t great, but especially not Belle. “Do you know if she’s single?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Gold reply through gritted teeth. The seething anger was lost on Killian, who just shrugged.

“Huh. Might try my luck at the party. You know no-one ever gets fired for a bit of bad behaviour under the mistletoe at a Christmas party.” He waggled his eyebrows and Gold glared, opening the door with rather more force than necessary.

“Get back in there before Zelena throws a fit, and for God’s sake find a breath mint somewhere.”

Killian just laughed, but dutifully went back inside. Gold was so angry that he let the blonde woman and her son back into the shop without paying them any mind at all.

[gayovwimagines]

Hi!! How would you feel about a dub con request for Y!Moira finally cornering her smol!obsession and getting them worked up and flustered before just having her way with them?? I just... Oh goodness I want that woman to pin me down and do terrible things to me and leave me overestimated and just craving her constant touch. Unnff 🤤

Notable tags! Dubious Consent and Yandere!Moria. Dubious consent is due to sex mist. Oh, and Blackwatch!Moira. 

“Hello there~ Do come in.” Moira spins around on her stool. Nonchalant. As if she had naturally noticed you walk in. Not eagerly watching the door, both her hands curled into a fist on the counter. Work in front of her, work all around her. Moira can’t pay any of it any due attention. Absolutely was not carefully monitoring the surveillance cameras on her personal holopad, clearance she isn’t authorized to have. Watching you walk down the halls, stopping to chat here and there. Moira made spiteful mental notes of the people daring to keep you from reaching her at the agreed upon time.  

“Hey!” You greet her back with a nervous grin. “You need me for some testing?”

“Yes, that is what my voice message conveyed.” Moira motions you over to her station with one elegant swoop of her hand, her slender fingers curling in elegantly, one after the other. She points to the stool to her left. “Have a seat.”

You plop down on the seat, as commanded, and patiently wait for Moira to tell you why she has called you here. You joined Overwatch a few months back. Agreed to test some of Moira’s… tamer creations and experimentations. In exchange for a more than just a decent amount of extra cash.

Moira has no problems with prolonged silence. Almost never feels the need to rush anything. She takes her sweet time poking and swiping at her holopad. Making doubly sure the doors to her lab are locked, and her work status is set to ‘do not disturb’, for any of her fellow peers who may feel the pressing need to bother her while she’s in the middle of snaring the only thing she’s been able to think about lately.

Moira’s cool, collected. It takes a lot to make the woman sweat. You, however, are already squirming around in your seat. Her vibe is palpable, you can’t make heads nor tails of it. Your gaze darts to her lap when she cocks her head to the side, assessing you unlike any other specimen she has gotten her hands on. It’s a look that makes your spine tingle. Gives you an abysmal feeling, like you’re about to be taken down by a predator peeking from the tall grass.

“Alright.” Moira puts her holopad away. Her tall, slender legs easily allow her to stand gracefully from her stool. “Allow me to check your vitals first, then we’ll get started.”

Moira’s no medical professional, though she could be one if she found any real interest in the practice. Smart enough and educated enough as she is.

She takes an old-fashioned stethoscope from one of her many neatly organized drawers, an ear thermometer, and a blood pressure cuff.

“Why am I here today?” you ask nervously, such an easily spooked girl you are.  

…Because I want you here. I desire you unlike any other. Because my fantasies of you have kept me up at night. I can’t stand it any longer. I need to know how soft you are, what you smell like during the throws of passion, what your lips taste of.

“I have a mist that needs testing.” She walks over to you with the blood pressure cuff in hand. Gestures to your arm and you offer it up to her.

“Oh…” Moira catches the visible lump and hears your audible gulp.

“Never fear.” She rubs your thigh assuredly, lingering longer than what is appropriate. Goes back to gingerly wrapping the cuff around your arm. Presses a button and it begins to tighten. “It’s simply a new version of an already existing and thriving product.” She rolls her ‘r’ and it sends a cascade of tingles down your spine, causing you to shiver like a cold gust of wind had run through you.  

“Oh, okay.” Nothing about your tone says that you trust her reassurance. “Was it developed by you?”

Dumb question. Coming from you, Moira answers nicely. “Of course, who else?”

You shrug. Moira carries on. Noting that your blood pressure is a bit higher than it should be. It doesn’t take much to understand why. She stands close. And holds onto the back of your neck firmly in her hand, while she takes your temperature. Finds it to be satisfactory. She moves onto your heartbeat. By far her favorite part. Getting that near to your chest, makes her feel young again. Like a horny, immature teenager getting so very close to something that is titillating and intimate and secret. You’re obviously a person who feels your body is something to be covered, and not something that is shared with everyone. You refuse to even change in front of fellow agents in the locker rooms…

…It’s maddening.  

She’d know. On a day, about a month back, she looked forward to casually finishing her workout at the exact same time you finished yours. Casually she followed you into the locker room, hoping. Hoping to get a glimpse of the body she’s been building up in her dreams. Only for you to remove your things from your locker and head into a curtained shower to change. Leaving Moira disappointed and heartbroken, robbed of her chance to take in you in all your bared glory.

Moira slips into the neck of your t-shirt. Presses the cold round hearing piece against your equally as chilly skin. Goosebumps rise on her arms before she even hears your heartbeat, added icing on the cake. It’s hypnotizing, the steady drumbeat of your heart. She closes her eyes feeling her own heartbeat rise just as yours too picks up its pace.

“Moira?” you whisper, alarm apparent in your tone.

When she opens her eyes, she finds that she’s leaning for forehead against your temple. Her hand and slender fingers dancing along the line of your spine. The air in the room has become thick and stagnant. And the listening piece has drifted downwards, along with her hand that is still holding it. Her pinky grazes across your nipple, Moira’s core jumps at the contact.

You gaze up at her with glassy, fearful eyes. Cheeks painted a rich hue of red. Heart hammering away at your ribcage.  

Moira removes the stethoscope. “My apologies, my head took a sudden leave.”

Giggling nervously, you shift. Squeeze your thighs together and readjust your t-shirt attempting and failing to hide how hard your nipples are now. “That’s okay, it happens.”  

You’re perfect, despite the high blood pressure, and ready to get started. So is Moira, she softly claps her hands together. “Up on the examination table.” She points toward the usual room.  

You hop up. Follow Moira to a separated examination room within the lab. The walls are made of smart glass; will darken and make the room private upon request. Not something that should be necessary today. But most definitely has been helpful, and will continue to be so in the future.  

As you climb onto the examination table, you trip over the stirrups. Moira adjusts the back until it’s just shy of a ninety-degree angle.

“Comfortable?” Moira drawls.

You nod. “Yes, thank you.”

Moira leaves the room momentarily to retrieve the aforementioned mist from a securely locked holding cabinet. She may have told you a small fib. The mist is not new, nor recently re-engineered. No need to fix what isn’t broken. It’d be illegal, if it were to ever get to the government. The public’s opinion would be sour on it. Moira supplies it to clients mostly by word of mouth that runs rapid in the type of social groups this kind of mist is most popular in, with a substantial price tag.  

“Alright,” Moira says as she reenters the room. She pushes down on the cap, twists and the cap is released. “Take a few breaths in through your nose,” she commands, enjoying the way your chest rises as you breathe. Her adrenaline drip switches on as she hovers the bottle over your face. Heart racing. Can’t wait to witness the effects. She may be starting to sweat. “On a count of 3, take a big breath… 1… 2… 3…”

She pushes down on the nozzle. A dense mist escapes, blanketing your face as you inhale through your nose. Moira’s whisks her face away. Realizing that, in her excitement, she forgot to be thorough. With no mask on her face, she risks encountering some second-hand side effects.  

With the knowledge that the mist should be taking its course quickly, she recaps the bottle and stashes it away inside her lab coat pocket. She grips each of your legs individually, rolling her shoulders as she goes, fingers digging. Gradually she leans into your personal space, pupils blown. “Tell me,” she croons. “How are you feeling?”

You gulp, darling eyelashes fluttering as you try and remember how to speak. “Ah, um.” You lick your lips and now they’re shiny, and all Moira can stare at. “Hot… I feel hot…”  

Moira hums so low it sounds like a purr. “Tell me more. Be descriptive.”

“I—I… um…” You look down your body but struggle to get past the embarrassment of what’s happening to you there.  

“Don’t be shy.” She leans in more. Her hips wedge between your legs. The closer she gets, the farther your legs spread. “Remember, I’m a professional.”

You grasp onto her coat as she aligns her crotch with your own and presses firmly. You throw your head back, gasping for air. Hips rolling into her own. Not even aware of it. “Oh God, I’m so hot,” you whine pitifully.  

“Allow me to help you with that.” Moira snakes her hands under your shirt. Follows the unique curve of your hips all the way up into your waist, eventually pulling your t-shirt over your head. All with you mewling with every inch of skin that she caressed. She steps back, in order to rid you of your shoes and leggings. Stumbles over her own foot, the misstep making her realize just how much her head is spinning. Just…

…Look at you. Already living up to and far beyond her fantasies. Cold sweat trickling down your temples. Looking at Moira with two of the prettiest fuck-me eyes she’s ever seen. You can’t seem to stop biting your lips, so they’re starting to swell; two puffy kissable buds. Dainty hands opening and closing, searching for anything they can cling to. Hips, on the constant move.

“Exquisite,” she purrs.  

Your underwear is nothing special. A run of the mill bra with sensible multicolored cotton panties. But oh– are those panties soaked and is that bra just a tug away from revealing the heaving breasts beneath it.

Nestled back in between your legs, Moira throws off her lab coat, and drapes herself over your smaller stature, completely engulfing you. You cling to her, desperately wanting her weight and her warmth to envelop you. Thinks on saying something that will keep up the façade, but decides that the situation is well beyond pretending now. Instead, Moira decides to give that busy mouth some attention. Licking, biting, gasping, leaving it wide open— baby girl clearly has an oral fixation.

Slowly she feeds you her fingers. You close your lips around them, sucking while Moira moves them in and out languidly. She dives in a little deeper, causing you to gag. But with the gag, comes a full body moan. So, Moira keeps on doing it. You close your eyes, really getting into it. Cradling and curling your tongue around her fingers. Eagerly take another finger into your mouth. It stretches your mouth open in a lewd way and gives Moira’s core something more to get jumpy about.    

The sight is lovely and the sounds you’re making are musical, but she needs to taste that slutty mouth. She slowly removes her fingers, trailing lines of saliva down your chin and down into your neck where she holds you down. When she kisses you, it’s consuming and a lot all at once. But it is just what you need right now. Tender pecks wouldn’t be satisfactory to you, something she can heap upon you later. Here and now, she invades your mouth with both her own moans of pleasure and her long, skilled tongue. Sucking and nipping at your lips that are so clearly unused to having so much devotion.

Still holding your neck firmly, Moira slips her other arm between you. Down into your underwear, flooded with your arousal. You stop kissing her, but that doesn’t mean she stops kissing you. Your breath stolen away by how relieving Moira’s touch is, simply resting on top your engorged clit. Your eyes glaze over with an impeccable stupefied sheen. She rolls her fingers over your highly sensitive nub, as you seize up, latching onto her shirt dangerously tight. Seems pop, she swears she hears something tear.

When you finally get your breath back, your ministrations are weak to the ears but consistent. A small choked whimper with every breath. A few curses sprinkled in between your attempts to keep kissing her back. The overwhelming sensations take you away every time, and even manage to steal your lips away from her. You throw your head back, hands lurching to grasp onto the sides of the examination chair, back arching more than it ever has.

A problem, with a simple solution. She’ll just have to ravish your neck then.

“I’m gonna—” You stop to catch your breath. “I’m gonna cum!”

“Go on then,” she states coolly. Moira latches onto your neck, treating the soft skin there just as rudely as she did your delicate lips, and rubs your clit with new vigor.

You go silent for a moment before it all hits you at once. An orgasm that you feel all the way from the top of your head to your curling toes. Unable to comprehend that you are experiencing the best orgasm you’ve ever had. All consuming pleasure that leaves your body weak. Complete satisfaction takes over for a blissful, precious few moments where you can catch your breath and maybe have a chance to think a little clearer. But it’s gone in a flash, all that agonizing want and desire comes back full force. And your body is in desperate carnal need once again.        

Once your body stops writhing, Moira rears back. Somewhere amidst all the commotion, your bra straps fell to the wayside. She grabs it at the middle and gives it a good tug. It slips down with no problem, exposing your breasts to Moira’s mercy. You will be leaving this room with both your nipples thoroughly abused and your breasts marked. She must know, if, in your current state, she can make you cum, simply by overstimulating them. But… for now… she has other curiosities that are pressing.

Moira leaves you for a moment. Having a destination, a… drawer in mind. But needs to take a moment just to fall back against the counter, housing said drawer, so she can shove her hand into her own underwear, and give her throbbing clit some of the attention it’s been urgently screaming out for. You pout when you see it, jealous of the attention you’re not getting.    

Moira nods towards your crotch. “Don’t leave yourself wanting.”

Your eyes light up, suddenly remembering that touching yourself is a thing. Immediately you dive between your thighs. Rub your clit and grasp onto a breast. Groping the meat of it and tweaking your nipple rudely.

“Look at me,” Moira demands. The way you snap to her attention does something to make her weak in the knees. Your eyes were trained on your own nipple rolling between your fingers. As nice as that is, she wants to look you in your eyes while she gets herself off.

It happens for her faster than it typically would. It must either be you, or she got a small dose of that mist. She clings to the counter for purchase, leans all her weight back into it as her knees threaten to buckle. She moans lowly, falling silent in the moment when the pleasure crashing through her is too much for her to be able to breathe at the same time. “Yess,” she hisses, as the intensity in her body starts to dissipate. She milks her orgasm of every last little pang and shock it had left, softly rubbing until she was finally satisfied. Removing her hand for her underwear, she spins around, leaving her pants undone and hooks a finger under the handle of the drawer she had in mind.      

“How long does this… this…” You gasp, struggling to find a word to describe what is happening to you. Sex mist, plain and simple. The best on the market. “…Mist usually last?”

Moira’s taken aback. You managed to form a coherent sentence. Shocking. “The effects typically wear off within 4 to 6 hours.”

“Oh my God,” you gasp.

“Don’t worry,” Moira assures as she pulls open the drawer she had in mind, it slides open smoothly. Neatly lined from front to back with medical grade dildoes of various sizes. She ponders on which one she should use on you. Looks back and once again lays eyes upon your dripping cunt, turns her attention back to the drawer and grabs, not the biggest one, but one that would still be described as “huge”. She grasps it at the base, takes it out, and shoves her hips against the drawer to shut it. Showing you what she has in store for you she croons, “I’m here for you, acushla~”

[i-am-too-sick]

Midnight Malady (2/2)

Here is the second part of the whumpy injury fic @nerdlycharming and I wrote. Part 1 can be found here.

Word count: ~2600

Quinn woke up to the incessant hum of fluorescent lights. His head was throbbing, his muscles achy. He shifted slightly, feeling the scratchy sheets beneath his body and an odd sensation at his side of his skin pulling itself together.

His lips parted and he let out a low groan, his throat rough and dry. As consciousness began to fully return to him, he realized he was in a lot more pain than could be caused by mere muscle aches. It took a lot out of him, but he managed to peel his eyes open and was greeted by a room awash in sterile white.

Sunlight wafted into the room from a large window, nearly making the fluorescent lights seem unnecessary.

Michael was holding his hand, sleeping lightly, a worried expression on his tear-stained face.

If he'd had the strength to lift his hand, Quinn would have run his fingers through Michael's hair, playing with the blond tresses while he slept. As it was, he only sighed, letting his eyes slip shut and the knowledge that Michael was there comfort him.

A shrill beeping pulled him from his attempt at sleep, a pressure cuff around his right bicep swelling and tightening around his arm. He furrowed his brows, biting back another groan, his muscles protesting as he tensed them against the uncomfortable feeling. His body was so sore, but he knew the cuff would continue to periodically monitor his blood pressure and it was something he was going to have to get used to.

Michael jumped at the noise, looking around in a panic; he was terrified in his half-sleep state that Quinn was dying again. His eyes settled on his boyfriend and he released a breathe he didn't know he had been holding in and he smiled involuntarily even though his heart was still trying to leap from his chest.

Alert now, he still appeared beyond exhausted. His eyes were bloodshot and he was pale. He looked like he did when his insomnia flared up, clearly Michael hadn't slept in a while.

“You're awake! Oh thank god!” Michael nearly shouted, hastily throwing his arms around Quinn.

Quinn hissed, biting back a yelp as the sudden movement jostled him. Pain laced through his body, stemming from the wound at his side. He let out a whimper before he realized what he was doing.

Michael backed away immediately, swearing as he did. “Sorry, Q, I just… I'm so relieved! I thought I'd lost you!” Michael had tears in his eyes, his relief and happiness simply overwhelming.

He hit the nurse call button so they could take a look at Quinn now that he was conscious.

“How are you feeling, baby?”

Quinn closed his eyes. He would love to stare at Michael all day, but his eyelids were so heavy. “Tired…” he commented. He wondered vaguely if he'd been given some sort of sedative or if the whole ordeal had just exhausted him. “You? Are you okay?” His voice was rough and hoarse with disuse, sounding almost painful.

Now that he was more awake, he could see that Michael had a few scrapes and bruises. His boyfriend had obviously been tossed around, but it didn't look too terrible; he’d looked worse from falling off his skateboards.

“I'll be just fine, Q, I'm far more worried about you!”

Quinn hummed, the tiniest ghost of a smile turning his lips.

The door opened then, and a nurse came in, followed by who Quinn assumed was the doctor. She was young, blonde, and had a warm smile.

“Well, hello,” she greeted. “I'm glad to see you're awake. It was a little touch and go there for a while.” Quinn furrowed his brows, confused. “You had to have surgery on your abdomen. We wanted to make sure the knife hadn't penetrated any of your organs; it was difficult to tell from just the scan. But, the good news is that everything was still intact, and with a few weeks of bedrest, your incision will heal too.”

“Weeks?” Quinn asked, nearly choking on his own spit.

The doctor nodded. “Your body suffered some serious trauma, Mr. Wesley. You don't want to overdo it.” She stepped aside to let the nurse record Quinn's vitals, before continuing. “Are you in any pain right now?”

Quinn shook his head, still trying to process being out of class and work for what appeared to be several weeks. He did feel a bit of a dull ache where he supposed his incision was, but it was manageable, so long as he didn't move or breathe in too deeply.

“Now’s not the time to be the tough guy,” the doctor said. “If you are in pain, make sure to let someone know so we can get you squared away. You're going to be with us for a while. We have you on some intravenous antibiotics—simply as a precaution—and don't be alarmed if you develop a low grade fever. That's pretty normal, but,” she added, glancing at Michael, indicating that she was now addressing them both, “you need to page us immediately if your temperature rises above 101.”

Quinn nodded. He sure hoped Michael was paying attention, because his own brain felt foggy with the need for sleep.

“You might not be hungry for the next few days—that's also normal. Call us, though, if you experience severe nausea or vomiting.” She paused, glancing between Michael and Quinn. “Any questions?”

Michael shook his head, wiping away some tears he didn't realise he was shedding. “Uh, actually…” he took a breath, trying to collect himself. “Sorry, uhm… how long do you think he'll be in the hospital? I need to get an idea of timing to disinfect our apartment and rearrange some things.”

He was sure it sounded dumb, but the doctor had really answered all his other questions and even if she hadn't, he certainly couldn't think of the others he had. His head felt dense, yet electrified and buzzing from the swirl of emotions and relief.

“Three to four days at the absolute minimum,” she said. “We need to keep a close eye on infection, and it would be best if he were nearby in case anything happens. The first 72 hours will be critical.”

Quinn only sighed, but didn't say anything, even after the doctor and the nurse dismissed themselves from the room. He was more worried about falling behind on schoolwork and losing hours at work than he was about anything else the doctor said.

“Take a breath, babe.” Michael told him, knowing how he could get about things like this. “I'm sure your teachers will understand, they'll probably give you an extension.” Gently he rubbed his thumb over Quinn's forehead and smiled, he was so relieved that Quinn was alive.

“I already called your boss too and he just wants you to focus on getting better.”

Quinn closed his eyes for a moment and let out another exhale. His pain was starting to morph into more than just an ache, but the doctor had just asked him and he'd said he was fine. There was no need to call them back in now.

“I'm glad you're okay,” he murmured, settling back into his pillow. He'd do it again—protect his boyfriend—even if it meant taking the brunt of the attack. “I want a refund on our dinner date, though.”

That earned a light chuckle from Michael, but it died quickly as he could see that Quinn was in pain. “I'm glad you're alive too, tough guy, but I'm calling the nurse back in to give you pain medicine, I can tell you're uncomfortable!” He winked and slowly made his way out of the room, he held his ribcage and Quinn was able to see that Michael was wincing too.

Quinn wanted to pour himself a cup of water while Michael was out. He'd found the remote to control the incline of his bed, but the initial movement had not been kind on his abdomen. He was even paler now than when he'd first woken up, his shoulders quivering as he gripped the bed’s side rails.

He felt pretty pathetic, especially now that he realized he couldn't even sit up without a flash of pain, but he managed to stay upright, breathing labored, if only because moving to lay down again would bring back the pain that he was so desperate to try and quell on his own.

A nurse rushed in with Michael trailing slowly behind. It was the same nurse from before, “I knew you'd be wanting something for the pain sooner or later,” she said.

She carefully began setting up another bag of fluids and running it through to his IV line. “This should take the edge off, but it could make you a little loopy too.”

“I didn't want it—he did,” Quinn said, tilting his chin in Michael's direction. He told himself that the grimace on his face or the hard set of his jaw, or even the way his arms were draped protectively over his middle had absolutely nothing to do with his actually needing pain medicine.

The nurse was skeptical, a knowing smile on her face. This was obviously not the first time she'd dealt with stubborn patients. She finished pouring Quinn some water and helped him lay back down, sympathetic to the way he had to bite his lip to keep from crying out. The meds would take another few minutes to fully kick in.

“What time is it?” Quinn asked once the nurse had left him alone with Michael. His face had gone white, his brows knit as he tried to distract himself. “You should go home and get some rest.” The last thing he wanted was his boyfriend to see him like this.

“I'm not going anywhere! Jesus, Quinn, I thought I was going to lose you!” He took a deep breath closing his eyes. He couldn't believe Quinn was trying to push him away after what had just happened!

He took hold of his boyfriend's hand and kissed it with his slightly swollen, scabbed up lip to his skin.

“Please…I know you probably don't want me to see you weak like this, but Q, I don't think I could be away from you right now.” He admitted with a small whimper.

He'd already cried so much during Quinn's surgery and after when he didn't wake up right away. Quinn was safe now and he was still about to cry again.

“Sorry,” Quinn muttered, wincing as he tried to get comfortable. He felt guilty for trying to push Michael away, especially after everything that happened, but he felt even worse for getting them into this situation. As clever and romantic as Michael's gesture had been, Quinn knew he should have convinced them to take their food and eat it at home.

He knew how dark and secluded the campus could be at night, and sometimes unwanted company did hang out near the clinic during the really late hours, but Quinn had been so enamored with Michael and their little midnight picnic that he'd let it cloud all rational judgement.

It felt like only another moment before Quinn was pulled from his thoughts, blinking through his drug-induced haze. He'd been worrying his lower lip enough that now he tasted blood, and when he looked down, he realized he was squeezing Michael's hand just a little too tight. He loosened his grip immediately.

To his surprise, Michael's grip only tightened around his. Casually he swiped away a tear from his eye with his sleeve.

“You're gonna be okay now.” He said, leaning down and kissing him again, tears in his eyes.

“Are you crying?” Quinn asked dubiously. The medicine was already dragging at his eyelids, and when he reached up to thumb away Michael's tears, his movements were sluggish and uncoordinated. “Lay with me…”

Michael looked around, unsure if this was allowed - pretty sure it wasn't - but deciding he didn't care about getting in trouble, he just wanted to be with the man he loved. He carefully climbed into bed beside Quinn and curled up to his good side, trying not to flat out sob into Quinn's hospital gown. He was supposed to be the strong one right now, for Quinn, but all he could think about was how scared he had been and now how relieved he was. He just couldn't get himself calmed back down.

"I'm so sorry, Quinn…" he whimpered.

Quinn rubbed his back and played with the ends of his hair. His side throbbed from scooting over to accommodate Michael, but right now his boyfriend was scared and needed reassurance, and Quinn was more than willing to let him have it.

“Shhh, everything’s okay. It’s okay.” He felt tears dampening the side of his gown. “Hey, what's wrong? You're shaking like a rabbit,” he said deliriously. He smoothed back Michael's hair, trying to force his boyfriend to look at him. Quinn's eyes were glazed and heavy-lidded from the medication, but the concern on his face was real.

Michael sat up to look at him, struggling to speak. "You al-almost d-died!" He managed to force the 2words out but he was still trembling and he'd started to sob again. His face reddened from the force of attempting to hold his emotions at bay.

"I-it's all m-my f-fault!" He dropped back down against Quinn's side, unable to hold himself up any more. He did it slowly though, gentle enough not to hurt his poor boyfriend. He felt guilty for Quinn having to calm him down but with all his anxiety in general and everything that had happened? He was a mess!

Quinn didn't react immediately. His ability to process information was sluggish and he blinked dazedly before Michael's words truly set in.

“No…” he started. His tongue felt heavy and swollen in his mouth, and he wished he weren't so out of it. His slurred speech probably wasn't doing Michael's guilt any favors. “‘S not your fault. I got—I got there first. Would have hurt you instead. ‘M glad it was me.”

Even as he spoke, absently rubbing Michael's arm because he barely had the strength to lift his own off the bed, he was only vaguely aware that his words were jumbled and nonsensical. Somehow, they made sense in his head, but came out all wrong when he spoke them aloud.

Despite his poor word choice, Michael started to relax slightly and that made Quinn feel better about what he'd said.

Michael continued to cry and whimper but it was slowing down and his shaking was beginning to slow as well. Soon enough his breath began to even out, and Quinn could tell he was falling asleep.

Quinn let out a sigh, wincing at the twinge of pain at his side. He was glad Michael was getting some rest, but his body was an added weight against Quinn's and it made him a little uncomfortable. Still, with the medicine pumping through his veins, the pain was tolerable for now, and it was only another handful of minutes before Michael's rhythmic breathing, warmth, and general closeness had Quinn slipping into slumber as well.

[01010010-posts]

— falling from the doves to the dark of the crow.

1. january – 2037 new year’s eve was just few days ago. you spent a nice evening with some close friends, ate, laughed, drank. but it turned out to be a temporary placebo, as the dread of living has its clutches around your heart again. it’s cold outside and the only thing you’d like to do is sleep forever in the warm cocoon of your white soft duvet. even scrolling endlessly on your phone is useless, everyone is with their relatives and they really don’t have time to think about you. you sigh, pinching the bridge of your nose. it has come to this then, huh. you roll over the other side of the bed. you’ve decided. you could die and nothing would change.

2. february – 2037 you’ve been promoted at work. your colleagues organized a small party during the lunch break. you still felt nothing. rather, you got the urge to throw up. someone else could use that money. someone else with a family, with hopes, dreams, desires. not someone like you for sure. you feel guilty for taking up space, in this economy, in this world. you should enjoy your life and yet. yet there’s something at the back of your mind, gnawing, chewing your brain with steely fangs, unceasing, unrelenting. when you get home you toss your grey bag onto the couch and let yourself fall on the mattress. you silently cry for an hour or so. after your red eyes decide to take a rest you lift your phone and check for messages. none. except an e-mail. weird advertisement about purchasing a house. you guess that since everything is connected lots of estate agencies already know about your new salary. you have enough to buy a modest place in the outskirts of detroit. or enough to buy an android, which is as pricey as that. an android? you stop mid-thinking. where did that come from? you have strange ideas for a person that barely wants to live.

3. march – 2037 “would you like to give it a name?” “no” you nervously blurt out, a bit uncomfortable. give it a name? you’re not its parent, it’s not your duty to give it a name. and were you to give it a name, would it become your responsibility then? you sign some papers about a division into instalments. there they go, your savings. you shrug it off, after all long-term plans were never your thing. you always had the sensation that you weren’t going to live past your twenty but here you are. here you are. outside of a shop, wind howling, leaves moving along the sidewalk, you and between your arms a brown bag of groceries with red apples sticking out on top, your android beside with its fingers clasped behind its back. a sepia-toned polaroid of utter confusion and a simply-led life. you didn’t have a clue about how or why everything was going this way.

4. april – 2037 a caretaker model. you’ve found that it is rather handy. it follows your orders but it is also independent enough to cook you a meal without specifying exactly what you would like to eat. which is nice, you guess. choosing every day was starting to be very miserable. it does the shopping too, as it has a huge amount of free time when you’re away. (it cleans during the night). it’s to make sure you have a healthy diet, it says. fair enough. you don’t actually mind it taking control of your daily menial tasks. it’s easier both for you and for it. usually when you get back from your job you’re already too tired to read or watch some television. and if you had the energy, you think you wouldn’t want to anyway. books are full of ads nowadays and reading one is a hassle. the tv always has bad news and you’re not going to demoralize yourself more. also would it ‘scold’ you? reminding you that staring so much at a monitor will reduce your eyesight? you bet it would say these kinds of things for your own benefit. but still, being a ‘good’ person is hard. a warm hearty dinner. you’re glad. you generally don’t feel like eating after such a long day but gulping down the whole thing it’s rather easy. it seems.... ‘satisfied’ while watching you. probably its mimicking program. perhaps looking at its smile, even if fake, might make you at ease.

5. may – 2037 the third month living with it. you only hear its voice when it needs directions to abide by. any other dialogue would be unnecessary. of course you’re gonna grow crazy if this keeps up. one thing is living alone, but another is living with someone and not talking to him– him? what? don’t tell me you’re considering it as a person? freak. you spent two or three nights with the sheets hiding your body, the blue light of your phone illuminating your little breathing space, searching on blogs about androids and humans relationships. maybe it’ll help you make small talk. the lone comments you find, though, are about that kind of bond. should it disgust you? mhh. you close your lids and try to imagine how something like this would play out. it wouldn’t. there’s a reason why you’re single. but not desperate.

6. june – 2037 you’re fed up. you don’t care about what others will think at this point. you need to talk with– with– him. you’ve thought this. he’s definitely a machine. but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be gentle to him. so screw it. you’re going to have conversations. whether he likes it or not. “hey– um, you don’t have a name, don’t you?” “correct.” “would you– would you like one?” “i see no need to it. but if you want i could search for the most popular names of the past year. in the u.s the first then results are–” “no no– it’s– okay, really. it’s fine like this.” what did you expect? for him to act like a human all of a sudden? to give himself a name in his own volition? to care for you because he wants to and not because he’s programmed to? what? where did this thought come from? you don’t need pity from an android.

7. july – 2037 it’s scorching. it’s the heat of the summer. work is hardly bearable. you have to admit, speaking to him it’s a lot less difficult. you’ve been together for five months now. he’s an okay guy. yeah, he won’t say much unless you directly ask him but he’s okay. he also started to take more liberties with you. like reprimanding you if you’re not sleeping by 10AM. or inciting you about going out with people. is he being friendly? you doubt it. but you let him do his things. it’s nice. it’s nice like this. it’s nice to pretend to have someone to care for you. it’s fine, you keep saying that to yourself. it’s fine to dream once in a while. it’s fine. “aren’t you bothered by how hot it is? like, you don’t overheat or something?” “my model was built with better tolerance to higher and lower temperatures than humans.” “mhh. right.” you ponder for some seconds “new clothes!” the perplexed look on his face makes you laugh. which is.... which is....? what it is? is it odd? is it odd for you to feel.... happy? is it odd for you to feel at all? when was the last time you smiled? the trip to the nearest shopping mall is quiet but you’re giddy with excitement. you need something new to wear, he does too. you’re sick of seeing him in the same old outfit. it’s stiff and ugly. he’s a lot more handsome with a white button-down shirt and black trousers. not that he isn’t normally gorgeous but– normally? you’re lost in these thoughts as you’re swiping your card in the meantime. he is beautiful. was he always so beautiful? you’re being childish.

8. august – 2037 you sigh. how many years have passed since you had a day off? you lost count. you’d like to see the ocean. you’d like to see the countryside. you’d like to be up in the mountains with your friends and a white cup of hot chocolate in your palms. summer is ending. you don’t even have time to feel heavy-hearted about it. in the weekend you ask him to buy you a bottle of beer. he curls his mouth in disapproval but does as told. you close the french door that overlooks the fuming city above your tiny balcony. drinking in the complete quiet of your little world. is this the same as a vacation? around midnight he brings you a blanket and places it around your shoulders. you turn and look up to his tall figure. tired eyes with dark circles beneath, a cirrusly smile. “it’s very late.” “yeah.” “it would be ideal to go to bed as soon as possible.” “.... yeah.” silence. “is something on your mind, [name]?” “i guess.” “would you like to share it with me?” you frown. it’s not as if you have something to lose, right? “sit down.” “i can stand, androids don’t–” “sit down, i said.” he’s almost comical, so rigid in an unadorned wooden chair. he seems uneasy, a student taking an exam he didn’t study for. “do you know the meaning of the expression ‘being a zero’?” he nods “it is a metaphor to imply that someone’s value is nothing.” “exactly.” silence again. “is it how you feel, [name]?” your chest heave with exasperation “i don’t see how i can be something else.” he presses his lips, thinking. you shake your head. you’re about to go and bury yourself in your room “in the binary code....” he starts, hesitant “there are zeros and ones. but they’re both essential. together they can convey anything. were the former or the latter cease to exists the message would be lost. ” you pause, knuckles lingering on the frame of the window. your vision cast on the floor and your feet but you’re slightly smiling “then you’re my one?”

9. september – 2037 seven. seven months. seven months since you said goodbye to your finances. “blah blah blah, robot here robot there, you’re always mentioning it!” “come on, that’s not true.” you give hint of a half laugh. “but it is! what, someone’s got a little crush on their babysitter?” “he’s not my babysitter–” “he?” seven months since you said ‘hello’ to a big, sturdy android. seven months and you still don’t regret that. “do you need anything?” “no, thank you. i’m good.” yawning you stretch your arms. gosh, you’re really tired. you close your eyes, ready to rest. you don’t hear him lowering over your forehead and laying a soft kiss. “goodnight, then, [name].” you freeze until he turns out the light and closes your door. did he– did he just–? sleeping will be a problem if you don’t stop blushing. seven. seven months into this messy cohabitation.

10. october – 2037 you feel like you’re getting the hang of living, proper living. it’s not a chore anymore to get out of bed, to shower, to watch the red sunset while working through the last hours of your shift. even going to the supermarket it’s pleasant. you like to pick what to eat. yes, you don’t need to, he says, he’s perfectly capable of memorizing a list, if you were so compliant in doing one in the first place. you’re not going to tell him that it’s a lot more fun this way. ‘happy’ would be the best term to describe you these days. he noticed too. you never addressed what happened last month. but there was no need to. instead, you both started to hold hands without a spoken word. while you’re watching your favourites sitcoms. while you’re reading a paper book. while strolling in the park nearby. you might ask him to teach you how to cook. it will certainly be a disaster but you two would have a good laugh about it.

11. november – 2037 you close the car’s door with enough force to cause a dull thud. so loud it actually disturbs your already awful mood and makes you close your eyes in distress “breathe, [name]” you shift in your seat but do as you’re told nevertheless. you’re trembling, rage seeping through your clenched fists resting on your knees “[name], your stress levels—” crisp air escapes from your lungs in a big white puff, it’s the end of november after all “i know” you shut him up but suddenly regret it “i’m sorry– i didn’t mean to– i–” you inhale once more and bite your lower lip. no no no please no “fuck–” you manage to grit before placing your head on your legs, covering your face with weary hands. you’re crying again. it’s starting to become a habit: him adamant on getting you from work, you crying for a solid ten or fifteen minutes, him hugging you because ‘although crying is a valid form of venting when confronting stress, contact may help you relax, [name]’ and then going home. not driving is your favourite bit, though, as it would give you anxiety. weren’t you just getting better? where did you progress go? you beg him to sleep with you. he and his tender smile don’t complain. he holds you tightly the whole night.

12. december – 2037 it’s snowing. the loneliness and the wish to kill yourself of last year are nothing but a long gone bitter taste in your mouth. now you’re two in this cosy and warm apartment. he’s helping you decorating for the holidays. “i’m not going to be like them.” you say out of the blue. “them?” “my family.” you firmly state, it’s a promise. he can’t help but halt and hug you from behind “it’s okay, love. it’s okay.” you share a sweet kiss while the fireplace softly crackle. apparently, recovery is not linear.

23. november 12th – 2038

he is alive.

[freerange-rude]

Chapters: 2/2 Fandom: Hannibal (TV) Rating: Not Rated Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham Additional Tags: Fluff, an au where hannibal is not a cannibal, and he also cares about things Summary:

In which Hannibal is not a cannibal, and actually wants to help Will Graham.

@hyperfashionist Chapter 2 is finally done! I hope you enjoy!  Tagging everyone who was interested in chapter 2: @bloodyilaria @ghostgurlgamer @fragile-teacup  

Hannibal and Dr. Sutcliffe stared at the images that Will’s brain was emitting. It was quite literally on fire, inflamed and angry. Hannibal was relieved. No tumors. He pointed to the screen, “Encephalitis?” He asked as if he didn’t already know the answer, but Dr. Sutcliffe nodded his agreement nonetheless.

“Anti-NMDA Encephalitis.” He said, sighing quietly. “We should get him admitted as soon as possible.” Hannibal wasn’t quite listening, staring at the scan. Will had not been being honest with him at all. This was not the brain of someone functioning well. He felt something uncomfortable pulling in the pit of his gut, but he couldn’t quite identify it.

“Yes, we should…” He sighed softly, then pressed the little button that opened the com, “Will, we’re done now. I’ll come get you out.” He informed, before going to do just that.

Will sat up once he could, being careful. “What is it? What’s wrong with me?” his voice was so filled with worry, and it soothed the pulling in Hannibal’s gut.

“You have Encephalitis. Your brain is on fire,” That could have been it, the end of the conversation, as he helped Will stand, “You’ve been dishonest.” But of course he had to say it.  For a few moments Will was silent, just standing there. He licked his lips, Adam’s apple bobbing when he swallowed.

“Some things, I just can’t put into words.” He murmured, and Hannibal grunted softly in understanding. There was a short pause before he turned to grab Will’s clothes.

“Here, go get dressed.” Hannibal wasn’t sure how to respond to that. He didn’t like that Will had kept things from him. It went beyond their doctor/patient relationship, which dismayed him even further. What he had felt in his gut was hurt, a mostly foreign feeling to him. He never let anyone close enough to be hurt. At least Will would be in the hospital for a while and he could have a break from him.

--

Will didn’t like hospitals. He had a hard time relinquishing control. He didn’t feel like he had much control with his body as it were, so when doctors started making the decisions for him he really felt powerless. It wasn’t like he couldn’t say no, or refuse treatment, he just knew better than to do that. Especially with something as serious as encephalitis. He didn’t feel quite as anxious this time. With Hannibal delegating and giving second opinions for his care, he felt he was in good hands. An odd relief, but not unwelcome.

Despite insisting to himself that he needed a break from Will’s company, Hannibal had been coming to visit him in the hospital every day before or after appointments.  Sometimes both. In fact today, Will suspected he may have cancelled appointments to come see him. He had come in the morning, and now that Will was eating lunch, courtesy of Hannibal, he was still there. Scrutinizing each nurse, each medication put in his drip. Checking his temperature and occasionally… Well, he couldn’t be sure, but it did seem as if Hannibal was giving him a good sniff. There it was. He leaned close, and took a deep breath. Surely he thought he was being subtle.

“Did you just… smell me?” he asked, looking over at Hannibal. Hannibal looked just a touch flustered, which meant he was very flustered. Will saw right through his stoic facade.

“Hard to avoid.” he quipped back, his only defense apparently. Will’s sass gun was locked and loaded though.

“Pardon my lack of showering, since I’m connected to five million machines currently.” In response, Hannibal made his classic chin tuck, mouth agape just slightly.

“That was very rude. If you would like to shower, the nurses can assist you.”

“I don’t want strangers helping my naked ass in the shower.” Will was a prideful man, and he wasn’t about to let the nurses giggle about what he had hidden beneath his clothes.

There was a pause before Hannibal spoke. Will watched him, knowing he was handpicking each word.

“Perhaps you would like someone more familiar to help you?” The hesitation in his voice made Will squirm. It made him uncomfortable that Hannibal sounded shy.

“Perhaps.” His gut was churning at the idea. He felt stupid for it. Hannibal was his friend, he just wanted to help. “Fine. Yeah. just help me figure out how to position stuff so I don’t break anything.”

Will started getting out of bed, careful of all his wires and IV. He was doing much better than when he was first admitted. He was hoping to get out soon. However. the doctors were talking about in-home care. Encephalitis wasn’t a quick cold, and some things he might not ever recover. It was scary to think about. Memories he had lost could stay lost forever, and there was potential for adopting other mental illnesses. Like he didn’t have enough already.

“Adopt them like dogs…” He mused to himself, and Hannibal looked to him questioningly. “Mental illnesses.” He smiled drily, but apparently his dark humor was funny enough to make Hannibal smile.

“I predict a full recovery. We caught it fast enough, I think.”

“Doesn’t change that my brain was on fire.” He muttered, and Hannibal conceded with a nod.

After a quick conversation with a nurse, they were headed for the shower. Hannibal made it clear Will would not require help. Although Hannibal didn’t touch, his hands hovered as Will shuffled into the bathroom. He appreciated the courtesy. He wasn’t too proud to allow himself to fall on his ass.

“Here, sit on this.” It was a shower chair, the kind you saw in nursing homes. He plopped himself on it and Hannibal removed his drip and heart monitor patches. “Do you need help with your gown?”

If Will hadn’t known better, he would say Hannibal was flushed at the question. Oh, he could take this and run with it. He wouldn’t though- he was embarrassed as well. “I think I’m fine.” He stood, “You can just… hover by the door. Once I’m sitting I’ll be fine.”

Hannibal was respectful, keeping his gaze turned away visibly until Will was finished and seated. After that he left, standing outside the door. He kept it cracked.

His shower was uneventful. It felt great though, to get clean. He’d already been here for almost a week and this was his first time showering. Fact was, he wasn’t sure he would have showered if Hannibal hadn’t been the one helping him. He was beginning to feel an odd reliance on him, that spanned past a doctor-patient relationship. A friendship, he would tentatively call it, for now.

With Will safely back in bed and finally clean, Hannibal pulled out something surprising. A deck of cards. He pulled them delicately from their box. They were gold trimmed, and black on the back. “Canasta, or Poker?”

It was Will’s turn to surprise, “Canasta.” They settled into a long game, bantering back and forth.

Halfway through the game, Hannibal recalled what he had said earlier. “Will, do you often feel mentally ill?” He kept his voice even, and soft. He knew if it felt like prodding, Will would clam up.

“I’ve been depressed since my early teens.” he admitted, drawing two cards and adding to the massive hand he was holding onto. Waiting for Hannibal to throw down the perfect card.

“From all the moving?”

“From a lot of things. Loneliness, mostly. So I guess that was a side effect from the moving.” Will found it fairly easy to talk to Hannibal ,specially after all his visits to his hospital room. The only one who came to visit, really. Jack came once to reassure him their latest case was going well. Bev came a couple times, bringing along crime scene photos and files. No one just came to see him. Perhaps it was his own fault. He had been trying hard to stay out of the way, while still cooperating and working as a team. Perhaps he would just always be alone. It was better that way.

“I don’t want you to be lonely anymore.” Hannibal admitted, staring at Will over his cards. Will met his eyes, and a smile slowly crept onto his face,

“Are you saying you’ll keep me company?”

“Is that not what I’m doing now?” It was a fair point, and Will sat back with an amused grunt.

“Fair enough.” After Will spoke, Hannibal threw down a card. The perfect card. He had been throwing down a plethora of cards that Will could use. He scooped up the large pile, cackling deviously.

Hannibal watched, mouth gaping as Will lay down almost his entire hand. And then his entire hand. Two blacks, and two red canastas. Hannibal had held the lead by almost a thousand points, but that was now crushed by this naughty empath.

“You cheated.” Hannibal said, a big smile on his face. Will snorted,

“Did not, sore loser.” he was counting his cards, additional points for his amazing comeback. Hannibal started doing the same, trying to salvage what could have been a nice victory. But as he did, Will became quite obnoxious.

“49, 107, 34, 401.” He chanted, and Hannibal huffed,

“Will, you made me lose count!”

--

Will’s laughter made his incredible loss and annoying antics all worth it. Will hadn’t been genuinely happy in a while. To be involved in this happiness was a gift. He would cherish it, hold it close to himself. This hospital room would be renovated into his memory palace. These moments tucked away for any time things became bleak. Will was starting to occupy all the brightest rooms. These rooms had been empty for so long, it was odd to have someone in them. He used to keep his memory palace boarded up, guests were unwelcome. He wasn’t even sure when the boards had come down.

“You are beautiful when you laugh.” Hannibal admitted, and Will stopped, finger placed on the card he was about to draw.

“I… Thank you.” It was obvious Will wasn’t accustomed to compliments. At least not like the one he had just been given. The room was quiet now, and Will drew his two cards.

“When you’re released, I would like to care for you.” Hannibal announced. He felt like he was starting to get irrational. But he also felt if he held all this inside, he might just explode. “I can care for you better than any nurse here.��� This for some reason, made Will laugh again.

“Alright, alright. It’s okay. I’ll let you care for me.” Will was still chuckling a little when he spoke, then sobered. “It has to be at my house. My dogs.” He added, and Hannibal nodded. He could live with that. The question was… How was he going to get a table from his house to Will’s?

--

It was finally time. After a week and a half in the hospital, he was finally able to go home. It wasn’t all that bad really. He didn’t have to go look at death, he didn’t have to teach, and Hannibal fed him and came and saw him every day. His dogs had been cared for by Alana, but oh did he miss them. He was also excited for a good night’s rest. Aside from the night that Hannibal had stayed, the card game night, Will had been woken every few hours to check his vitals or change something or other. Hannibal had fought off the nurses the night he stayed, doing his own checking.

Hannibal’s care had caused more paperwork. Will had to sign that he understood Hannibal was not staff at this hospital, and that they weren’t responsible for any negligence on his part. He was perfectly fine with that.

Will had become quite attached to Hannibal now. He was disappointed when he woke in the mornings and he wasn’t there, but always brightened when he came back around, always with food in hand. The heavy medication, the dizziness and sickness, didn’t seem so bad if Hannibal was there, to play cards with or just talk to. Sometimes they sat in silence, Hannibal reading while Will watched the TV. It was a wonderful comfort, and the nurses seemed to notice that his condition improved in Hannibal’s presence.

He was now signing the final paper, the discharge forms. Although he was still experiencing confusion, memory loss, and some muscle weakness, the promise of at-home care was enough to be able to let him go.

Hannibal took his bags of prescriptions, as Will slowly made his way outside. It felt good to wear normal clothes again. Admittedly, the adult underwear they had there was quite comfy though. Hannibal took his arm at the curb, and helped him step down. He was still weak, mostly from the malnutrition he experienced prior to going into the hospital. Whatever he ate didn’t stay down, so he had stopped bothering to eat mostly. Now that he was lucid he realized how stupid that was.

Will felt carsick on the way home, despite Hannibal’s best efforts not to take any turns sharply, or hit the brakes too suddenly. It was most likely a side effect of the myriad of medicines he was on. Some of them were more like chemotherapies than normal medicines. Another reason he needed someone at home with him until he was through the medications.

At his house, after over an hour of driving and queasiness, Hannibal helped him inside. Alana had the dogs outside, and Hannibal did his best to keep them down. Will shooed Hannibal away, and carefully got down onto the ground with the dogs. He pet each one, talking to them lovingly. He laughed as his face was licked, then ordered them inside.

“Help me up?” Will asked, and Hannibal did as soon as he asked. He grasped his arm, and pulled him up. Inside they went.

Will tried to help Hannibal get the couch prepared for someone to be sleeping on it, but Hannibal had insisted he get in bed, and rest until his dizziness subsided. He went to bed, but he didn’t like it. He busied himself anyways, creating a list of what the dogs needed each day, and what commands worked for what. It was maybe a little overkill, since he’d be there. It was more in case he was asleep and Hannibal wasn’t sure.

He didn’t recall falling asleep, until he was startled awake by weight on the bed. His half asleep brain assumed it was one of the dogs, and he tsked at them. Hannibal laughed softly in reply.. Will opened his eyes, brows furrowed.

“Oh…” he croaked, and a glass of water was offered. He took a drink from it, “I thought coming home would keep me from being bothered awake?” He smiled as he spoke.

“My goal wasn’t to wake you.” he admitted, and Will’s brows furrowed again.

“What was your goal?”

“You were dreaming, and so I thought perhaps the presence of another person would help calm you.” Will nodded softly at that, and relaxed back in the pillows. Resigned himself into them. He was hoping the dreaming would end once the encephalitis was cleared up. Though he wasn’t fully recovered yet.

“Thank you, Hannibal. For doing this for me.” It came out of the blue. He could have kept talking about the dream, or the fact that Hannibal woke him up. It felt important to say it, while he had the guts to say it.

“You’re welcome, Will. I just want you to get better, and to feel better.” Will moved a hand, to gently grasp Hannibal’s. “No one has ever done anything like this for me.” He explained, “You’ve taken work leave, just for me.” His voice was still gravely with sleep, “It means a lot. It really does.”

Hannibal nodded, “I care for you, Will. You are my friend.” Hannibal’s gentle hand felt his forehead, and he sighed softly. “You’re warm.”

“I’m not done talking,” Will said indignantly, “Hannibal, I think we both know this goes far beyond doctor-patient relations.” Hannibal’s expression became guarded, and Will’s stomach dropped a touch. “Hannibal, I really care about you. I’d do the same for you. I would.” He reached down, and grasped for Hannibal’s hand. To his relief, Hannibal’s fingers clasped his.

“Thank you, Will. I care for you too. More than I have been able to admit to myself.” he was smiling now, and Will smiled back. “I meant it, Will. When I said I don’t want you to be lonely anymore. I want to fill all of your needs. Every single one.”

“Then kiss me, Hannibal.” Will whispered. “Kiss me.” Hannibal took no time to obey. Anything. He would meet all his needs. Hannibal pressed his lips to Will’s shyly, a tender little kiss.

You see, when it comes to mirrors and fruit, not everything is as it seems. Grapefruit looks juicy and sweet, but is bitter. Sometimes the fun house mirror distorts our appearance in the worst ways. But sometimes the low-hanging fruit is the sweetest, even if it doesn't look good on the outside. And sometimes the mirror reflects the best parts of ourselves.