#scraping this man's hair off with a butter knife

[wombywoo]

yearbook photo 📷

[trashmouth-richie]

Eddie x Fem! reader

master list

the conversation of the century finally happens, grab your tissues.

**edited to add as a content warning— the major character death I talked about in chapter 12— happens within this chapter, if we remember, Tooty experienced heavy trauma to her abdomen……… this story has never and will never be a pregnancy fix all trope. — sorry it wasn’t labeled correctly the first time. **

no minors 🔞, talk of trauma, another traumatic event, miscarriage

a/n: this is a shorter chapter the next one will be longer and not out as soon. Thank you again to @sweetsweetjellybean for beta reading for me and helped me tweak this chapter @blueywrites who helped me months ago come up with this plot. And @jo-harrington who helped also. This story would be nothing without all the people liking and reblogging it— so T H A N K Y O U for continuing to read it even when it got dark, when weeks went by and there wasn’t an update in sight, I appreciate each and every single one of you. Here’s to our two dumbasses, finally figuring it out 🥂

“Eddie.”

  Your throat was bruised and weak. The slow painful flick open of your swollen eyes have you paralyzed with doubt. 

  Deceiving sight of a beaten man sitting in front of you with a hard cast covering his right hand, the fingers are deeply swollen and bruised, the nails tinged with dried blood.

  This wasn’t a version of Eddie you had seen before.

  His normal pale skin is purpling and raised around his cheek and left eye. His top lip is split and agitatedly red against black stitches, probably from him picking at it. 

  He was handsome, even with his face twisting into relief and sorrow. Tears flow down the colorful sunset painting of healing and broken skin on Eddie’s face. He stands quickly, leaning over you carefully.

  Quivering, timid hands reach for your cheeks, realizing the cast would probably scratch or scrape you, he settles for one hand laid dainty on your cheek, thumb stroking the skin like a ghost.

  The dark pools of his eyes pull you in as his tears fall freely, and your heart begins to sew itself whole again. As his lips meet your hairline he whispers a cut off sob of his worries. Your tears flow with his. Merriment of grief and comfort as you cry into his shirt. Wishing you could live in this moment forever. 

�� A dark wave full of emotions crash down on you  all at once. The joy of seeing Eddie mixing with shame and guilt over what he must have braved while defending you. Finally, confusion on what exactly had happened and how you both ended up here and alive? 

  “You’re here,” you choke, a tubing clustered hand strokes Eddie’s face, “I was so scared,” you mumble weakly, “I thought we were d—” your throat tightens on the word and won’t release it, lost on a sobbing gasp that is muffled into his shirt as he pulls you into him. 

  The soft cotton of his shirt envelops you in a calming light state, the same smoky essence of Eddie washes over you, settling your hiccuping cries. His hand is stroking your hair, careful around the stitches. And if you listened close you could hear his heart breaking. 

  Eddie would find a way to melt the galaxies for you if you asked, hearing you crumble about the thought of him being dead is almost too much for him to handle. 

  “You don’t have to worry about that anymore,” he says, strongly, firm toned to get his point across in as few words as possible, no need to go into detail about how it was done, you and the baby were safe and that’s what mattered, “he’s gone.” 

  Gone? Did he get away? 

  “Wh—-” you try your best to make any sort of sense register and click in your brain, but it’s not connecting, “Eddie?” 

  He took a deep weighty breath, the final swing of the wooden bat playing behind his eyes like a film in class, he watched Chad’s lifeless body slump to the floor, the dirty and blood riddled nails wedged into his temple like a knife through soft butter. The horrified expression Mr. Derry gave as blood splattered on the walls, and coated Eddie’s face. 

  He lowered his head and shook the image from his mind, “I took care of it,” he whispered gravely, “he won’t be bothering you again.” 

  The muddied storm in his eyes thunders as you comprehend his words. Would you be afraid of him? The same hands that held you so tenderly were also capable of murdering a man who nearly took your life. The thought of you being terrified of him tingles his spine and makes his knees weak, he turns away from you before you can see him cry again.  

  Chad is dead. And you want to scream at yourself when you feel remorse. He was terrifying. A real life in the flesh monster. Quite literally tried to kill you. All he brought to you was pain. And he was dead at Eddie’s hand. The nightmare finally over.

  He tried to hide the distressed pain burrowed deep in his face. He was everything the town always said about him. Satanic. Future convict. White trash, just needed to stitch  ‘murderer’ to the long list of insults he’d worn his entire life, like a cloak to shield others away from him. 

  With your head held high you wipe the tears from your eyes and pull Eddie’s chin to face you, and you’re surprised when he jerks away slowly. 

  You forget the time spent away. Finding it easy to fall into sync with him again, your Eddie. Would he ever be yours again? He’s been left out in the cold, sick from the frigid heart you peacocked off to him, boundaries up and lies in your head. 

  He was the most important person in your life. And it was time you told him so. 

  “Look at me, Eddie,” you coax, trying to make your voice seem velvety instead of the scratchy crack of desperation you currently are pleading to him, “you saved my life.” 

  The brooding deepens and he presses his lips tight together before looking at you, guilt and shame riddle his features, “I’m sorry, baby,” he whispers, closing his eyes, “I’m so fucking sorry,” the tears fall freely down his face, and he wipes them away hastily with the back of his leather covered arm, “I should have been there.” 

  The words stab like a knife into your soul. Everything happened because of your actions, your apprehensive heart. Eddie almost got himself killed and in turn had to kill your abuser, yet he was the one apologizing for not being there. 

  “It’s my fault,” you say weakly, reaching up to brush a tear away from his wet eyelashes, “I’m the one that pushed you away, and then… I’m sorry Eddie…I couldn’t..” 

  He pulls you into him, his lips skirting your hair line, kissing sweetly and soft like butterfly wings. He shushes you, and whispers that everything will be okay, and in that moment you realize you didn’t have to stroll the pearly gates to be his. 

  His eyes drop slightly to the blanket cozied up around you, flitting over your stomach. When his eyes find yours again, there are fresh tears, and a sad smile. It takes a nano second for the realization to hit you like a ton of bricks in the chest. A gasp breeches your lungs and guilt forms in the shape of tears in your eyes.  

  He knows. 

  Regret is billowing from your body and you try to cover your eyes, terrified of Eddie’s reaction to not only you being pregnant with his baby, but keeping it from him for months. 

  Outside of telling Eddie to leave and trying to convince him that you didn’t love him—- this was the hardest thing you’d ever done. But you told yourself he wouldn’t want to be a part of you with a baby in the mix. A baby that would ruin plans and put a halt to dreams. He didn’t need to be tethered to you because of one night. 

  One single night that you had been lying to yourself about— trying to ease away the pain of loving Eddie and pushing him away for his own good. People had been distancing themselves from you your whole life.. you were guarded and as hard as it was to let the barrier fall around your heart, it was just as easy to put it back up, barricaded in yellow caution tape of lies. 

  Unworthy 

  Before you can drift into a full fledged spiral Eddie’s warm hands find your cheeks and tilt your head upwards to look at him. 

  “I’m here,” his eyes search yours, and they flood with the warmth of the sun behind the black storm, “I’m not going anywhere,Tooty.” 

  The drop of an aluminum can and spray of carbonated soda fills the room behind a loud shriek, making Eddie jump and stand up, instinctively placing his body around yours, his back covering you in a leather shield, and you grab his hand between your fingers, an instant comfort to your panic.

  “STEVE!” Robin screams, her hands fly to her face like that little punk Kevin McCallister in Home Alone, mouth hung open in shock.

  Steve enters the room with a fancy company cell phone tucked between his shoulder and ear. A package of Oreos in his hands, “No, Jack— I don’t care how long it takes just fucking f—“ his eyes go wide in disbelief, and he slams the presses a button to end the call when you smile weakly and wave your fingers between Eddie’s at him.

  The next half hour is full of tears and hugs, calls to the Wheeler’s and the rest of your friends, letting them know you were awake. 

  The nurses flood in like a gaggle of cadets. Checking monitors and adjusting tubing. Letting you have your moment with your friends, explaining you were still going to be weak and the doctor would be by in a while to go over things with you.  

  Steve hasn’t stopped crying since seeing your eyes opened, blowing his nose every few mins. Robin talks enough for everyone, your throat still rubbing raw whenever you tried to say anything so you work with nodding along when asked questions. Eddie is unusually quiet, sniffing loud every now and then, offering you ice chips the nurses brought to you, a plastic spoon to your lips.

  “So what hap—” Robin starts and Eddie immediately glares at her, shaking his head and a firm “no” falls from his lips, and nobody tries to bring it up again. 

  Eddie didn’t want you getting upset, he’d protect you for the rest of his life if that’s what it would take. Fuck, he’d even be happy to sit in jail for a life sentence for killing that mother fucker. Pride swelling his chest knowing Chad was dead at his hand. Finally making his mother proud for protecting someone when he couldn’t do the same for her… and now there was someone else to protect. A tiny little someone. 

  The days you had been sedated he was beside himself. When he wasn’t in your room holding your hand and humming songs to you, he would be down in the gift shop. Thumbing through baby books, familiarizing himself with the favorite nursery rhymes of Mother Goose. His fingers traced the lace on a pair of tiny little white socks. Blue plastic baby toys that he found were called a rattle and made a clunky noise when shook. 

  He looked out of place. Torn jeans and chains hanging from his waist amongst the delicate pastels of the baby section, but he didn’t care. He made himself a promise. That when this was fall said and done and you were healed—he  would move you all into a new house. Out of Hawkins, away from this shithole of despair that only held bad memories. 

  And he intended to keep his word. 

  “Umm, I know it’s a little soon to figure this all out— but none of us want you staying… there, Tooty,” Steve says, blowing his nose one more time, hands on his hips in his typical mother hen style, “we didn’t know when you would… but eh…Leighanne already has the spare bedroom set up for you… and you can stay as long as you want.” 

  You hadn’t even thought about the house. But the thought of possibly having to go back there had you trembling. The smell of your own blood dripping onto the carpet filled your nose, Chad’s maniacal laugh…

  “Later,” Eddie says, shutting the conversation down by clearing his throat, his eyebrows pulled in and he tries to hide his worry again by wiping his hand down his face. 

  You’re thankful when visiting hours are through, your body aches and the bruises lining your stomach are tender, each movement making sharp bolts of pain shoot all over. Everyone says their goodbyes, you squeeze Eddie’s hand, a panic set lightning strikes in your eyes. You didn’t want to be alone. Not now. Not anytime soon. 

  He doesn’t pause, doesn't recoil. He stands tall, squeezing your hand, his eyes finding yours, a silent comfort washing over you as he whispers so only you could hear, “I’m here, always.” 

  He needed you to know how serious he was taking this. You, the baby, everything. He wanted to be there for it all. 

  Small waves from your friends and powerful hugs with murmured conversations between Eddie and Steve, leaving them both nodding and agreeing on something out of earshot. 

  The room feels small without them there. The elephant in the room hovering over you and weighing heavy on your chest, bigger by the second and you can’t wait anymore.

  “Eddie?” you croak, barely audible, vocal cords rubbing raw trying to speak. 

  The tears are already brimming in his eyes, he looks up at the ceiling, his thumb rubbing small patterns on the back of your hand, “when?” 

  You remember the exact day and time you felt something off in your body. Tired and achy all the time you couldn’t catch believe the amount of hours you could sleep uninterrupted. 

  The same calendar that once held your schedule for you and Eddie also held when your period was supposed to begin, but since Nancy had crossed Eddie’s name off you hadn’t even thought about possibly being late. Flipping through the pages you realized you were 3 weeks late. And blamed it on the stress. When February came and you still hadn’t gotten your period, you made an appointment with the clinic, and on the black monitor the doctor pointed out the tiniest baby growing in your belly, almost eight weeks along. 

  “When what?” You answered feebly, throat aching with each word. 

  Taking a deep ragged breath, Eddie looks at you, concern shadowing his face, he looks haunted, and depleted, “when did you find out you were pregnant?” 

  “Last month,” you clear your throat and reach for the ice chips, but Eddie helps you spoon them into your mouth. The ice melting on your tongue, pooling slowly and sliding down your throat to ease the ache. 

  “Eddie, I—” tears fall as you look into the hurt man’s whiskey colored eyes, “I was scared to tell you.” 

  He's blinking back tears, dropping your hand to walk around the room, landing at the window and pretending to look at the sky, “Did you think I wouldn’t care?” 

  A long pause between you is more than enough of an answer for him, and he sniffs loudly, “I’m not my dad y’know?” His voice hurt and wavering the delivery , “If you thought for a second that I wouldn’t give a shit about you or the baby, you’re wrong.” 

  Words you never thought would be said flow so easily from him, and you’re embarrassed you ever doubted him, “We aren’t together, Eddie,” you explain, letting the tears free fall, “I didn’t want to hold you back.”  

  Eddie scoffs and pushes off from the window, pouring his heart into his words as he explains his hurt,  “hold me back? From what the band? Tooty, I’ve been trying to prove to you for months that all I’ve ever wanted was you,” he moves across the room, sitting next to your legs on the bed, reaching for your closed fist to thread his fingers with yours.

  “Every part sweetheart, the good and the bad. Don’t you see that?” 

  Of course you did, but it was never that easy. 

  “I just— ” you couldn’t find the words, even though he deserved them, it was too much,  “I can’t even say that…how could I tell you that I’m pregnant after what I did and how I treated you?” 

  That night with Eddie blurred in your mind. He was gentle and sweet, you had never experienced such passion in all your life. It was everything you could have hoped for and more, but your scared heart ruined it. 

  “I’m a bitch, Eddie. Look at what happened to you because of me!” yoj gesture to his bruised beautiful face, and the tears flow quick down your cheeks, “you deserve someone who doesn’t hurt you,” you mumble, tearing your eyes away from him and looking at the ceiling tiles. 

  “Goddamnit Tooty, you are possibly the most stubborn person, biggest pain in my ass… but I have cared about you since you were 14. And I have loved you since the minute you opened up that front door and yelled at me.”

  You both laugh through the tears and he brings your chin to face him, his dark brown eyes swim with the glitter of fallen happiness, and he quickly blinks, “let me take care of you, sweetheart, both of you.” 

  It could be that simple. He loved you and you loved him. It wasn’t rocket science or poor willed fate. This was two people who cared about each other enough to look past all the ugly shit the world had to offer and chose to stick together. The epiphany sewed your heart closed and locked it tight, a branded “EM” on the lock and Eddie held the key.

  You grab him with more force than either of you were expecting and collide your lips with his. Tears and stitches fill the gaps where your tongue danced the last time these lips touched yours. But it was somehow sweeter than any kiss before. 

  “I love you, Eddie Munson…” you breathe, “but I swear I will cut that hair of yours down to the scalp if you try to name this baby ‘Ronnie Dio’, or ‘dragon slayer 86’ or whatever the hell you used to call yourself in your demon club in high school.” 

  For the first time in days, Eddie belly laughs, and kisses each of your cheeks, “ohh princess, don’t tell me your still jealous because Eyeball wouldn’t let you join?” 

  You cross your arms in a pout and Eddie laughs again, “there she is, that’s my girl.” 

  Pushing him away with a playful shove he comes back and kisses you again, both of you smiling and giggling, two idiots in love. With a wince, you scoot over in the bed and make room for him to sit with you, adjusting the wires and tubing around you both you snuggle into him, placing his hand on your belly where you assume the baby to be. 

  He snuggled into your neck and sniffs quietly. Content. 

  “Promise me something?” you whisper as your fingers thread through his curls, he nods into you, kissing your neck sweetly and humming a yes. It’s a big ask, and you’re new to this feeling, “please don’t ever stop loving me.” 

  Eddie’s grin is warm on your cheek as he sits up, looking so far into your eyes your souls reach out and hold hands, “I couldn’t even if I wanted too, baby.” 

  A knock on the door interrupts the moment and you both turn to see a doctor in a long white coat, and green scrubs. His face is jolly and caring, an instant comfort.

  “Ah yes, the nurses told me you were awake,” he says with a big smile, “it was pretty touch and go for awhile there but you look good considering what happened, how are you feeling?” 

  “Sore,” you answer, “everywhere.” 

  “That’ll be expected with the hellish ordeal you went through. Mr. Munson here gave us a brief rundown on what happened, and your injuries coincide that statement. We will be helping you both set up counseling appointments, usually with instances such as these, there will be panic and trauma that will develop from it. I urge you both to take them seriously.” 

  Eddie nods and answers for you, “yes sir.” 

  “Good. Now this soreness, is it generally all over or more localized in one spot?” 

  “I mean my head and face feel pretty awful, but mainly it’s my stomach.” 

  A small look of panic settles on the doctors face but is quickly replaced with a gentle smile, “we will schedule from scans for later today to make sure everything is okay, if you don’t mind— while I’m here,” he says, removing his stethoscope from his neck, “I’ll have a little check, alright?” 

  Eddie moves from the bed and settles by your shoulder,  briefly pressing his lips to your hairline, his warm hand rubbing your arm slowly. 

  “Just routine,” the doctor says, lifting your hospital gown to the top of your stomach, pulling the blankets down to the stop of your knees, “nothing to worr—” his broad smile fades and Eddie lets out a loud gasp. 

  The inside of your thighs and the sheet beneath you are soaked in claret colored blood. You don’t have time to register what is happening before the doctor crosses the room and begins yelling orders through the phone, “this is Dr. Newby, prep OR 2 for a D&E…possible c-section, I’ll need everyone available.” He hangs up with a loud click and turns to address you and Eddie. 

  “What’s going on?!” Eddie demands, fear stricken eyes almost onyx in color, his fingers gripping yours tight. 

  “She needs to be prepped for surgery,” he answers Eddie curtly but still politely. 

  You balk, “Surgery?! Why?!” 

  The doctor looks into your eyes with a sympathetic expression, “you’re having a miscarriage.” 

——

[cheerynoir]

Pity the Children: Ch. 1

A Fragment. What do you get when you cross a grungy neo-noir sci fi with the gay agenda and a truckload of trauma? Mostly, this. Enjoy!

Jon sat in the Nite Owl diner and considered throwing himself off the wagon. His empty stomach chewed on itself, but it was a distant thing. He hadn’t been himself for a while. Stubble burned his palm when he rubbed at his chapped mouth, and his shaggy black hair hung in limp curls across his brow. His dark eyes burned from lack of sleep, and his skin—a freckled, burnished bronze on his best days—was wan and dry. He needed a hot shower, ten hours of sleep, and a fresh tub of shea butter. Even the synthetic stuff would be better than nothing. He had a bad idea and a flask. It was heavy as a dying star in his palm, cut in blue and violet from the neon sign shining out front. Anniversaries were always hard. Another one of his loomed, dragging itself closer with every hour. With it came the same old gang: dread and grief and remembrance. The cold, helpless anger that stuck in his windpipe like a knife. Guilt. Always, always guilt. Years ago, before this planet was terraformed and the many-Ringed city of Centralia and her mines were dug deep into its crust, before the scattered Generation ships touched down at all, before ice and fire swallowed the first Earth, Jon’s ancestors were Catholics in Mexico City. Santa María, Madre de Dios, ruega por nosotros pecadores, ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte. Amén. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Passed down from parent to child in a language people rarely spoke anymore. These days English was the new Standard. “English has always been the standard,” Jon’s Abuelita had told him once, before the air rotted her lungs and they’d had to burn her. “Al diablo con eso, nieto.” To Hell with that, she’d declared, time and again. She’d taught them Español along with God, same as her mother before her, and didn’t give a lick whether or not the government approved. Maybe that was where the guilt came from. Maybe his grandmother had planted that seed good and deep, when Jon was still young enough to sprout it. Or maybe you’ve just got a lot to be sorry for, Jonny. Do you even remember Tommy’s voice? That was Roan’s gravelled rasp in his ear making him flinch, though the man was three years dead. Dead, and the only one who’d ever called him that. Guilty and ghost-ridden, that was Jonny Wilde. With the flask still in his hand, standing at the crossroads and waiting for the devil. Three years alone, one year sober. Fourteen years a failure. Lord, anniversaries were hard. His fiancée, his best friend, and at the root of it all— He derailed that train of thought. Some graves were best left untouched. Christ, Mother Mary, turn your eyes away. I’m a sorry sight tonight. His throat was parched. Bone dry. His thumb worked at the cap of his flask with a soft metallic scraping— A mug thumped down onto the table, and coffee splashed down into it.

[twofrontteethstillcrooked]

Suptober 20 Oct.: Spa day

"You're in the plush chair and this nice lady who smells like a million dollars' worth of fantasies comes in and leans the chair back. She's gonna give you the hottest, cleanest shave of your life. Your face, afterwards, is gonna feel like butter."

A few beats. "Is that good?" Cas asked.

deancas ust

"Okay, so the first thing they do is ask you to change into this soft pajama-like top and pants ensemble. You put your regular clothes, boots, wallet, phone, gun, knives, all that, in a locker to keep 'em safe. You with me here?" Dean asked.

Cas hummed. Good sign.

"The second thing is, you walk into this nice quiet room and sit down in one of those kinda long chairs, you know, like you'd sit in at a dentist office? Only velvet plush and much more comfortable, right by a big wraparound picture window, all filled up with a beautiful view of lots of trees on the hill outside. The October colors have been spectacular this year, haven't they?" When Cas didn't respond, Dean raised his voice. "I'm asking – you've been outside, right? Looked around? Taken in the dazzling hues?" 

Cas said, "Yes. I've seen them."

Dean grinned. "All right. This window, man, I'm telling you; there is one tree, I guess it's a maple, it's like a pumpkin for a giant, all round and orange. I could sit and stare at that tree for nine years. 

"You're in the plush chair and this nice lady who smells like a million dollars' worth of fantasies comes in and leans the chair back. She's gonna give you the hottest, cleanest shave of your life. Your face, afterwards, is gonna feel like butter."

A few beats. "Is that good?" Cas asked.

He sounded more alert; Dean was elated. "Yes, buddy. Rich creamery butter is what you're going for. She pats on some aftershave that makes you smell better than you ever thought possible, and then. Then! She raises the back of the chair so you can sit up and put your feet in a basin of warm soapy water. Delightful. While your terrible, godforsaken, aching arches and weird toe knuckle corns are soaking in those luxurious waters, a different lady – equally beautiful – comes over with a tray. You will never guess what she's gonna do."

"Trim my nasal hair." Cas's voice was fading, but Dean found it hard to fret too much because that answer was funnier than he'd expected.

"She is gonna hold your hands one at a time. Hand massage. It'll feel miraculous. She's gonna do something to your cuticles with a little stick and rub in something that smells like almonds."

"Cyanide," Cas offered.

"No," Dean said loudly. "Just a good nourishing oil. She's gonna cut your nails and file 'em smooth. Your hands will look like your family has a butler. When she's done with all that, she'll do the same thing to your feet, after drying them off. Bonus, she's gonna scrape off all the dead skin on the soles of your feet that catch on your socks and the bathroom rug and are generally disgusting." 

"How do you know what the soles of my feet are like?" Cas sounded bewildered and possibly offended.

"That's what everyone's feet are like, man. Don't sweat it." 

Dean listened to Cas's breathing for a moment; god, it sounded labored. Worse. He made a 'hurry up' gesture to Sam, who gave him a pinched look and kept throwing herbs out of his travel bag into the makeshift circle of stones. 

"What's next?" Cas rasped, too quietly.

"There're a lot of options." Dean tried to swallow down the panic rising in his chest. "Full body massage. Hot stones. Oh, that thing where they wash and deep condition your hair and, like, detox your scalp with scrubby salt or something. There's acupuncture, maybe? And that thing with the cups?"

"Cupping," Sam confirmed around a sprig of rosemary in his teeth as he tried to pry open an ancient bottle of horehound and crow feather elixir with his pocket knife. The blade cracked the glass and Sam just whacked the bottle against a nearby rock; he poured the foul liquid onto the pile of smoldering ingredients in the middle of the rocks. Sizzling intensified.

"What about mud therapy?" Cas asked, voice faint, too faint for Dean's liking, but Dean blurted out, "Yes! Cas, yes! Mud therapy is a thing, I guess. They – what do they do, Sam?"

Sam gave him a crazed look and squeezed a little more blood out of his own fist onto the spell's fiery herbs. "I think they just slather it on you and I don't know what else. You sit there for a while and it draws out toxins?"

"Wish we had some of that right now," Dean quipped.

Sam rolled his eyes at him and started reeling off some latin.

"Cas?" Dean asked, frantic as the strange, brittle, magical door began to shake like an earthquake. The crumbling noise was deafening as the door blew off its ornate hinges and took most of the iron threshold with it. "Cas?"

Sam ran past him to help Cas off the ground beyond the rubble, slapping dust and detritus from his trench coat. "You okay?" 

Cas staggered upright and took a deep breath that Dean was certain, under normal circumstances, he wouldn't need to take. "Much, much better since that angel warding was demolished." He peered at Sam and touched two fingers to his forehead. 

Sam opened, closed, and opened his hand; the wound was gone. Promising, Dean thought.

Cas too was looking healthier with every passing second, the color in his face returned to normal from its zombie pallor mere moments ago, and while there was a large blood stain running down his leg, he seemed capable of walking. Dean saw Cas's expression as it landed on him, confusion twisting to alarm in an instant. 

"You're injured," Cas said, speeding his way to crouch beside Dean. 

Before Dean could finish the phrase, "Demon got the drop on me before Sam knifed it," Dean had been healed. He removed his palm from where he'd been pressing it hard atop the giant slash on the side of his neck; even the slick of blood was gone.

Cas was paler again, though. "I'm fine, Dean," he said impatiently. "You, on other hand, almost died."

"I wasn't worried." Dean brushed a few crumbs of dirt out of Cas's hair gently. "Anyway. Wards broken, demon gone. All in a day's work." He let Cas look as much as he needed to; his own heart beat in his throat like a hammer. "I'm ready for that spa day myself." He smiled at the pained expression that crossed Cas's face. "Not interested in joining me?"

"Let's just go home," Cas said with a sigh. 

"Oh," Dean said, putting his hands in Cas's, "gladly."

[chaoticgremlinwholikescheese]

3 AM Cookies

AO3 LINK

Hurt/Comfort

Angst

Hurt Evan "Buck" Buckley

3 am cookie making

very dialogue heavy

Drabble

One thing people know about the Diaz family is that they are notoriously heavy sleepers. Eddie and Chris could sleep through a tornado. Actually, according to Eddie, they once genuinely slept through a tornado while staying in Texas with his family. So yeah, the two of them sleep like logs. One advantage of this is that Buck can wander around the Diaz house at night without worrying about waking them up. Hell, he could probably blast music at full volume and they'd be unaffected.

Even so, Buck is careful to stop the microwave before it beeps. He pulls out the melted butter, gently pouring it into the mixing bowl on the counter. He's working on a batch of chocolate chip cookies. The last of the snickerdoodles are in the oven, and the oatmeal cookies Eddie likes are on the cooling rack. It's a lot of cookies. He'll bring some into the station for their next shift. Besides, you can never really have too many cookies, right?

"Hey."

Buck turns to face Eddie. His hair is all over the place. He wipes some sleep from his eyes before walking over to see what Buck's doing. Eddie can't help but smile at Buck when he sees the man with flour all over his face and shirt. Buck's always been a messy cook, much to Bobby's chagrin.

"Dare I ask why you are making cookies at-" he looks at his watch. "-Three in the morning?"

"Because. What are you doing up anyway?"

"Got up to get some water. Came in and found you going on a baking spree."

"Do you want an oatmeal cookie? Fresh out of the oven."

Eddie gladly grabs one and bites into it. He comes over and lays his head on Buck's shoulder. Buck is measuring out some flour, scraping the excess off with the dull end of a knife.

"Once you finish this, you should get some sleep. Chris wants us to take him to see a space exhibit tomorrow." Buck hums in response. "You know, you never really answered my question about why you're baking in the middle of the night."

"Can't sleep. I'm going to be up anyway, might as well do something productive." Buck laughs, but his heart isn't in it. He always uses humor to deflect from whatever is bothering him. Eddie knows Buck better than anyone. He can tell when something is wrong. Even if he didn't know Buck as well as he does, him making cookies at 3 AM is a good sign that something might be off.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Time Apart

CW: Trauma survivor, referenced noncon and assault, heavy internalized victim-blaming and self-loathing/anti-asexuality (Chris has serious issues from his conditioning around this)

(references events from this small series)

I think you should spend time apart, not with me.

When Chris picks up his phone, it's not at all the message from Laken he expected to see. Not the kind of thing they've ever sent before.

He has to read it two times, then three. The letters swim and shake along with a dull pounding inside his head, but no matter how he tries to make them into other words - tell himself he must have misunderstood, must be missing something - they come back together the same in the end.

I think you should spend time apart, not with me.

Each letter is as crisp and clean as a sterilized blade between each rib, one by one by one by one.

The words are a body blow. They're a hundred blows, beating him into a barely recognizable shattered shell of himself. It wasn't supposed to happen this way - it's been a bad few days, yeah, a bad week really, but until yesterday's fight it had never occurred to him that Laken might give up on him.

The fight was his fault, anyway.

He meant to apologize last night, but then Nova had come into his room, and he'd lost the rest of the night to lying next to Jake, trying to remember how to stop living inside his head again, how to stop being still.

He'd woke up this morning with his stomach doing butterfly flips inside him, nervous, but he'd really wanted to say he was sorry, for the fight, for all the weirdness lately. He'd wanted to apologize for being difficult.

Instead... he'd woken up to find a missed text from the night before, sent after he'd shoved Nova away but before he could stand to look at anything again.

I think you should spend time apart, not with me.

There it sits.

He hasn't unlocked his phone yet. Instead, he keeps tapping the button to light up the screen, looking at the message preview that has all he needs to see. Lets it go dark again. As if one of these times he'll click and it'll say something else.

But it doesn't,

It just says the same damn thing.

I think you should spend time apart.

Not with me.

He's still staring at it when another one comes in. He feels the soft pulse of his phone in his hand, and the screen lights on its own.

LAKEN - NOW Did you see my message? 

He thinks maybe Kauri had it easier when he was the age Chris is now. Back when Kauri carried on entire conversations in emoji form, letting the nuance and ambiguity take over, the recipient working through the meaning on their own. With this, each letter is merciless, each word is unmistakable. He can’t misunderstand it. 

Can he?

He opens the phone with shaking fingers, types back yes, presses send, and turns his phone off.

Then he throws it at the wall.

He’s grateful for the heavy plastic case that makes it bounce off and drop to the floor without breaking. There's a strip on the back, textured and a soft purple, gray, white, and black. He rubs his fingers over it sometimes in class to keep himself from rocking and being distracting.

Now he just... stares at it.

Laken bought that for him. They bought the shirt he's wearing right now-

He yanks it off his head before he can think, balls up the soft fabric and throws it as well. It just sort of drifts pointlessly to the floor, a single eyeball from the print of a band he likes staring back at him.

Laken has ranted before about people who break up by text message, and Chris has to breathe through a physical ache in his chest that tightens every muscle at how awful he must be that they're not doing this face to face. How awful, how used-up, how shredded apart, how fucking pretty he is.

After all, he and Laken have been together for more than a year, and he still held perfectly still for Nova to touch him before he remembered how to move. After all, he’s a grown man who still cried and fell apart when Jake was hurt. After all, after all, after all...

He scrambles across the floor for his phone again, turns it back on. Part of him hopes he’ll see a new text saying they take it back, they didn’t mean it. Or just asking him to apologize for what he’d said that night before, for how he’d thrown their confusion over his reaction to something back at them, echoing out the way Kauri fights sometimes, talking about himself the way he thinks everyone else might be thinking about him, so he says the insult first and no one else gets to surprise him with it.

But there’s nothing new.

He manages to open the texts again, barely, and breathes in gasps, nearly pants, as he types out, you don’t want me at your place?

Not right now.

Is it because of what I can’t do?

It takes them a minute to answer. Every single second ticks by with a slowness Chris hasn’t felt since his days in the cold white room, tied down to stillness, forced to endure every minute that passed in perfect silence or to the soundtrack of his own tears and pleading for it to stop.

When they do respond, it’s just, it’s because of what you won’t do.

His breath catches in his throat. The ache in his head starts to pound harder, and he has to close his eyes against a sharp stab behind them. 

What he won’t do.

They’ve never cared before. How-... how could they suddenly care now? The fight had only a little bit been about that, it’d really been about something else. About his nightmares, how he’s not sleeping, not seeing his friends, skipping therapy. It hadn’t even been about... that. About what Chris can do and what he can’t, in bed. 

But that was the thing - the fight had started when Chris had flinched back from Laken’s touch to his back, and snapped at them, and accused them of wanting too much, and...

And now this.

It’s like they knew about Nova. Knew that he could be good just fine - better than fine, Handler Petrus said he was one of the best he’d ever worked with once - he just... wouldn’t. Won’t. Doesn’t want to. Never wanted to. 

Can’t do it without tearing himself to pieces all over again. 

It was always a scream inside his mind, but should he have pushed it down and tried harder to be more like everyone else? Is he losing Laken because of it? Did Nova pick up on something Chris himself doesn’t know?

Should he have... tried?

Even if it hurt?

He drops the phone again, then kicks it viciously under his bed, listening to the scrape of it sliding across the floor, the thump as it hits the wall. He hears it vibrate again, but this time he doesn’t care what Laken has to say.

They’ve said enough.

He understands.

Part of him expected this eventually.

He leaves the room, doesn’t bother to pull on his compression shirt, even. He lets his skin prickle bare and exposed to the air. He accepts the discomfort, the uneasy feeling of being too seen, too felt. 

The house is quiet, this early. 

He makes himself toast with butter, wincing at the scrape of the knife against the crisp bread, the sound boring into his ears. But eventually it’s done, and he slumps into a chair at the kitchen table, willing himself to cry. Somehow, the tears just... don’t happen.

He can hear Jake snoring softly from the living room. He’d been up with Chris until nearly 4 am, then Chris was awake again at 6:30, looking at that text, looking over and over and over again. Two hours of sleep leave him weirdly euphoric alongside his despair. Like he’s floating in some nightmare place that isn’t awake and isn’t sleeping, either.

He’s probably slept nine hours in three days at this point. He keeps seeing Jake with a knife sticking out of him every time he closes his eyes. Jake, screaming as Antoni pushed cloth into his wound to stop up the bleeding. Jake with a bullet wound, sitting up against the wall, staring at him with wide eyes whispering, It’s okay, Tristan, I love you, it’s okay as he dies. 

He can’t sleep. He can’t leave for long. He can’t breathe. He can’t think.

Him being what he is, it’s the reason Jake is hurt. If he hadn’t been his brother, he wouldn’t have decided to run a house for Romantics, and he wouldn’t have ended up dealing with all the dangerous bits about them.

Jake said it himself, didn’t he? It’s a mistake, running a house for Romantics. Not his best idea. A mistake.

Chris is a mistake.

Him being weak, and cowardly... it’s hurting Jake, making his life harder.

He makes everyone’s life harder.

There’s a soft sound of footsteps behind him, and he turns to find Nova in the doorway, staring back. She’s in a sleeveless gray dress and has her long dark hair pulled back from her temples, spilling in a waterfall down her back. Her eyes are dark and fathomless, and she gives him a faint, slight smile.

She had smiled like that with one hand down his pants.

Chris turns around, too fast, his head spinning a little, and hunches over his toast. “Good... good, um, good morning,” He mumbles. 

She clears her throat. “Morning. Chris, about-... about last night...”

“Don’t, um, don’t-... don’t don’t don’t worry about it.” He takes a breath. He doesn’t want his toast any longer. 

“I’m sorry,” She says, simply. “I spoke to Sarita about it, and... and she said this happens with us, and I should apologize, but, um. So I am. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have-... I thought I was helping.”

“I... know you did.” His words are slowing down. Chris can’t hold on to his thoughts, they want to drift away somewhere else, somewhere safer. Somewhere darker. 

“When I was with-... with my Miss, she would always say, if you are sad the best way to fix it is to make your body forget that feeling, replace it with something else. And that was what we replaced my sadness with. So, you were sad and upset, and I thought I could fix it that way.” She pauses, flushing a little, looking down and to the side as she moves with effortless grace to get a glass and fill it with water, take a small sip. 

“Kauri used to... to do that,” Chris says after a pause, thinking about it. Kauri, who would show up in the small hours of the morning reeking of liquor and someone else’s cologne, or just didn’t show up at all. Kauri, who would laugh instead of crying, and laugh with someone’s arms around him, a guy whose name he didn’t know. 

Kauri, who ran and ran and ran and can do things and be things that Chris can’t.

Or... won’t.

What if he’s been hurting Laken this whole time and didn’t know it, because he was already hurt himself?

His foot starts to tap tap tap on the floor until he stops it. 

“Did he? Did it-... work for him?” Nova asks it with genuine curiosity, and her eyes are so pretty. He looks up at her, and then down again, pushing the plate of toast away from himself. 

“I don’t know,” Chris whispers. “I, I don’t know. He’s happy now, but...”

“Was he happy then?”

“No. But, but, but... maybe we aren’t supposed to be. At least... not with, with anyone... who isn’t like us.”

“Jake isn’t like us,” Nova points out. Her presence in the room feels heavy, like a weight pushing down on him. But what does it matter? He’s not with Laken anymore, anyway. If he wanted to, he could stand right up and kiss Nova right now, press her back into the counter, and learn what it’s like to be the one doing things and not just having them done to him.

But his body doesn’t stir at the thought. It never has.

“He is,” Chris answers. “A, a little bit. I’m, I’m, I’m sorry, too, Nova. Sorry that I-I can’t.”

“No, I know. You have a partner, and I shouldn’t have-”

“I don’t have... I, I, I I don’t have a partner anymore.” Chris stands up, leaving her there with his plate of untouched toast. The sky outside is bright as the sun rises, as if mocking the way he feels like a stormcloud inside. 

Nova watches him leave, and whispers to herself, “No partner?”

Chris goes outside, pulling a sweatshirt that hangs on the coatrack on over his head to protect his skin, curling up on the porch swing and watching cars pulling out of driveways as the neighborhood starts to head to work in ones and twos. 

He doesn’t cry.

He sits very, very still, and he is silent. 

Upstairs, under the bed, his phone vibrates, again and again, unnoticed.

Just go talk to Nat, Chris. That’s all I said. Just go see Nat and get a night or three away from the house. Being there all the time is overwhelming you. Are you even looking at these? Chris you can’t just ignore me every time I say something you don’t like Chris answer me ... ... Oh shit, Chris, my phone autocorrected earlier and I didn’t notice I meant “some time at Nat’s”, not apart Chris? Are you seeing my messages? Baby? Chris, please check your phone and answer me. Please.

-

@burtlederp @finder-of-rings @endless-whump @whumpfigure @astrobly @newandfiguringitout @doveotions @pretty-face-breaker @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @boxboysandotherwhump @oops-its-whump @cubeswhump @whump-tr0pes @downriver914 @whumptywhumpdump @whumpiary @orchidscript @nonsensical-whump @outofangband @eatyourdamnpears

[space-mermaid-writing]

House Arrest [Reader X Loki] Chapter 3

Summary: You are Clint’s 'little' sister and actually a trained Shield agent. But you gave that up a few years ago and became a Chef, because you wanted a normal live. Then one day Natasha shows up at your door and takes you to the Avenger Tower for a while for security reasons.

Tags: Reader is an former Shield Agent, chef!reader, Reader Barton, 2012 Avenger vibes, everything is still alright, Slice of Life, Avengers Family, Loki has a good heart, still the god of mischief, Slow Burn, mention of food and cooking

Read it on AO3

Chapter 3: Nighttime pancakes

The next few days you got to know everything a little better: The tower, the Avengers - as far as they were present and showed themselves - and the rest of the staff that you ran into from time to time. You also discovered that the tower had its own training halls. Actually this was just logical given the team that lives here. Often when you were out and about in the building, you got the faint feeling of being watched. It was a little disturbing, but you dismissed it by saying that the environment was still new to you. Also, you had learned that JARVIS had access to all the public rooms and most of them were probably video monitored too. You weren’t sure about your own quarters yet, but you were also not sure if you wanted to know the answer.

Unfortunately the nights are very long, because you sleep very badly here. Despite the short time, you miss walking outside, through the streets, and besides, you are used to a rather strict daily routine. Sure, it's nice to switch off for a few days and not have to do anything. A little vacation, so to speak. But you're someone who soon gets bored with that. You chose a profession that requires you to spend hours running around the kitchen, preparing dishes and finishing orders for a reason after all. The price of your now lazy life is that you toss and turn in your bed at night without really being tired. Maybe there are some additional worries that keep you awake. For example, the Hydra question that was still unresolved.

This night you turn from side to side again, sighing, and at some point take a look at the digital alarm clock. Its digits glowing a light red in the darkness. It's three in the morning. Or night. Depending on how you see it. After a few more unsuccessful tries to sleep, you give up and decide to roam the halls a bit. Just walking around and stretching your legs. Outside, it's quiet. Only the soft whirring of some working machines can be heard. The corridors are discreetly lit, so you have no trouble finding your way, which leads you into the large lobby. It’s actually the first time since your arrival that you find it completely empty. Still, you have the familiar feeling that you are not alone. Jarvis probably never sleeps.

Out of habit, you end up in the kitchen and take a bored look into the fridge. Nothing in there appeals to you, but you're not really hungry either. Not even for a little snack. Still, you feel like cooking. Maybe pancakes. You could eat them for breakfast later. Without thinking too long about it, you get a bowl from the cupboard and tie an apron around yourself, which you have obligatory lying here by now. Flour, milk and eggs are quickly mixed and a few other ingredients are added for flavor. You put some butter in a pan on the stove. When it became liquid, you start to fry the first pancake and gradually got more and more, so that you quickly have a respectable pile together. Quietly, you hum to yourself.

"It's been a long time since anyone has been here at this hour”, you suddenly hear an unfamiliar voice behind you. Surprised, you whirl around, holding a knife that had been lying next to the stove. A dark-haired man in a green shirt is standing by the kitchen island, watching your actions curiously. When he sees the knife, he raises both hands to calm you down. On each of his arms you notice a narrow silver hoop with a red dot flashing. You hadn't heard a door, and you're not sure how long he's been standing there. "What’s your deal? Can’t sleep?", you ask him. "Just like you apparently." You raise an eyebrow and set the knife aside as the pancakes demand your attention. "You're Loki, aren't you?" It's more of a statement than a question, and the man nods. "And you're the archer's sister", he respond, which makes you in turn nod. "I‘m Y/N, pleasure to meet you." "You don't often hear that as a prisoner", he says amused, but still keeps eye on you, waiting for your reaction. "Heard about it. I guess we're sitting in the same boat." "Oh, really?" "Well, I probably won't be tasered right away if I try to leave the building." "Probably?", Loki follows up. "Yeah, I'm not entirely sure about that."

You talk for a while until you hear the elevator ping quietly in the lobby. But you're not paying attention right now, as you're busy scraping the last bit of dough out of the bowl and then turning off the stove. "Would you like some?" you ask Loki, turning to him only to find that he has disappeared. Taken aback, you turn your attention to the room next door, where you hear muffled voices. Then the door opens. "THAT'S what I call a nice welcome," Clint grins, looking at the stack of pancakes. "Brother dear", you greet him equally pleased and surprised at his unexpected appearing. Smiling, you walk up to him and hug him. Along with him, Steve Rogers, whom you've also already seen on the news as Captain America, came in. He seems a little confused at first, but after you fill him in on who you are, he welcomes you as well.

"What are you doing here?" your brother then asks you. "You can see that. I'm making breakfast for you." "No, I mean, what are you doing here?" He specifies the question with a gesture that included all the surroundings as well as the Tower. "Oh..." It's clearly too middle of the night for you to be that precise. In a few words, you explain your situation. Clint has some encouraging words for you, but can understand that you are not enthusiastic. "At least we can get more on each other's nerves again. Why don't you start right now and join us while we eat?", he laugh, putting his arm around your shoulder in a brotherly fashion as he pushes you toward the stove. You have to laugh, too. "You mean while you eat my breakfast." "Exactly." You go get two plates from the cupboard and serve the men each a good stack of pancakes with maple syrup. They thank you and the group of you make yourselves comfortable at the kitchen island. "Where and how do you guys usually eat here?", you ask in the meantime. "We each order our own food. Probably have a flat rate with all the suppliers in the neighborhood," Clint explains. Steves' gaze is on you questioningly. "Don't you want some pancakes, too?" "In the middle of the night? No thanks, I'm not hungry." "Then why did you made them, if you don't mind me asking?" "I knew you'd come and could use something in your stomach", you reply with a serious expression, to which Steve shoots first you and then your brother a scrutinizing look. He’d seen enough weird shit while working with the Avengers to take such a statement quite seriously. And he wonders whether you, unlike Hawkeye, have superpowers. But only until you can no longer stifle the broad grin, because his facial expression is just too funny.

Before you can say anything, though, Clint interjects. "As siblings, we've just developed some sort of telepathic ability." You nod in agreement. "Exactly. That's how I always know when he's going to say something stupid and deserve a head butt." "To be honest, I never heard him talk about you before”, Steve admits. "See”, you wink, "It‘s working out just fine." You laugh, and while they continue to eat, Clint tells you about the mission they just came from.

Afterwards, you put another stack of pancakes on a plate to take it with you back to the lobby. "Hungry now, are you?", your brother asks you, clearly tired after the long journey and at this late hour. Just as the super soldier. "Maybe”, you answer shortly and wish them both a good night. The greeting comes back double and you head into the large lobby with the elevators. "Jarvis?" "Yes, Miss Barton?" "Where is Loki's apartment?", you ask the computer. "You are not exactly authorized to receive this information." "I just want to get him something to eat."

You raise the plate in your hands a little higher and apparently your answer is analyzed, because for a few seconds there is silence. But then you get the information you want and are directed to the door you are looking for. It was on another floor and at the end of a long corridor.

You knock, but at first there is no response. So you try again. "Come on, my prince, I know you're not asleep and it's rude to leave a lady at a locked door." You hear an amused sound from the other side and shortly after the door is opened. With his arms crossed, Loki stands before you. "It's also rude to disturb a prince in the middle of the night, M’Lady", he replies. "Rude would be to refuse a dinner from a lady. Especially when she personally hands it to you", you add, giving him the plate. It's impossible for you to tell if he's amused or annoyed as he looks from you to the pancakes in his hand. "I never said I wanted any“, he states. "But you didn't say you didn't want them, either. Just give them a try. I'm pretty good at cooking." With that, you turn to go. "Good night, dear prince," you wish him, but without turning around. So you miss the grin on Loki's face as he closes the door.

[just-horrible-things]

Dyad

"I thought you were supposed to be the scarred one," the Rebel jokes through a tight throat as the knife cuts a long line across his cheekbone. "Do you think the Lionsmith has no scars?" the Tyrant retorts. "I thought you weren't supposed to lose." "That's -- nonsense." The Rebel's voice catches as the knife slips under his jaw bone, forcing his head back and back and still cutting deep. "Win some, lose some. That's how we work."

"Not like this," the Tyrant snarls. "You're not supposed to lose this badly. I could kill you!" The knife is very close to the jugular. "You could kill us," the Rebel breathes. "Exactly!" The knife is ripped away, nicking the jawbone on the way out, provoking a short "Ah-!" of pain. "Why," the Tyrant continues, "did you think I was quite so fucking pissed?" "I didn't think," pants the Rebel, "you needed a reason."

The knife slams down into one tensioned shoulder joint. The black steel cuts skin and flesh like butter and scrapes across the bone. The Rebel tosses his head back again and groans loud. "You are right," sighs the Tyrant, "I have enough reasons without this latest fuck-up. I still have every senseless betrayal to repay you for, every little thing you took from me to punish." He twists the knife as he speaks, and delights in the waves of pained tension that ripple through his enemy's bound body. "Haven't I -- given you so much -- in return?" gasps the Rebel. "Ah yes, immortality -- at the cost of having you around always as a thorn in my side!"

At this last he wrenches the knife out of the rebel's shoulder and stabs it forcefully into the bound man's side, between the ribs and into the lung. The Rebel cries out, voice hoarse with the effort of restraining what would be a scream to a less undignified shout.

"What good is immortality," the Tyrant snarls, "when it cannot bring back the dead, or turn back the march of time! What good is immortality when we still suffer." He twists the knife, feeling the twin edges scrape slivers from the bone on either side. The Rebel's voice is loud, but the Tyrant speaks over it nonetheless. " “Shall we test the limits of yours, enemy mine? Shall we find out how much pain the Long can feel and still live?”

He yanks the knife free once again and lays into the Rebel with barely-mastered fury. Slash after slash leaves long, curving lines of crimson across chest and abdomen. Blood wells and spills down the man’s sides in rivulets. Beneath the skin, every muscle is corded and straining.

“Give me -- too many --” the Rebel forces out between clenched teeth “-- and your Colonel -- will love me -- better than you.” The Tyrant’s usual veneer of calm dignity is in tatters. His perfectly coiffed hair is in wild disarray. His uniform is flecked with the Rebel’s blood. “The Colonel,” he snarls, “will never look on you with anything but disgust and hate. These are not the scars of victory.” Another slash. “These are a loser’s scars.” “All scars--” the Rebel tries to say, but a particularly deep slice down his breastbone steals his voice and leaves him gasping. “Aren’t you supposed to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat? You are failing, you wretched creature -- in the eyes of Colonel and Lionsmith both.” For the first time, the Rebel has no retort.

Over the next several hours, he loses not just his wit but his dignity too. He is no stranger to pain -- you can’t walk this path without getting intimate with pain -- but there is something uniquely degrading about this. The helplessness. The restraints. He didn’t choose this. There is no end in sight. He screams long and loud, and he cries floods of helpless tears.

But for all the pain inflicted, the Tyrant is holding back. He makes hundreds of cuts, but he doesn’t cut anything off. He spares eyes and ligaments and even the sharp tongue that he has threatened before to cut out. The Rebel is not oblivious to the mercy.

“Why -- this?” he asks, exhausted, as the Tyrant pauses to wipe the blood from his eyes. “Why? Do I need a reason?” The Tyrant echoes the Rebel’s words back to him. The back of his hand brushes the Rebel’s cheek, smearing blood and tears together. His thumb caresses the cut along the cheekbone, the first he made today. “I am punishing you, dear pupil. As I should have many years ago. If I had been harder on you, perhaps you would never have dared defy me.” “Punishing me…” The Rebel hisses as the Tyrant’s hand strokes down his neck and his fingers dig in beneath his jaw. “For fighting you? Or for losing?” “It can be both,” the Tyrant smiles. “Next time, you won’t let me take you alive.” “I didn’t let you this time,” the Rebel protests. Exhaustion and misery have sapped the edge from his tone. “You’ll fight harder.” They both know it is true.

“You… want me to win?” He tries to force a grin, but there’s nothing of mirth in the bared, bloody teeth. “No. I want you to try your hardest before I crush you. When I defeat you, I want you to know that it could not have gone another way. That you gave your everything, and it was not enough.” “I’ve won before,” the Rebel snarls, but he is a chained dog snapping his teeth. “Not like this though, have you?” Fingers curl into claws and rake down the shredded ruin of the Rebel’s chest. He throws his head back and cries out yet again. “This defeat will be one for the ages. Come dawn, I’ll tie your broken body above my gates, and all your followers will see you brought low. Your revolutionaries will scatter to the corners of the earth, and they will be hunted down like dogs.”

“There will -- always be another,” the Rebel promises. His voice is thin and weak. “Yes, yes. You will come after me again,” the Tyrant smiles. “I am counting on it. But,” he traces a blood-coated finger up the Rebel’s throat, over the Adam’s apple and the tightness under his jaw, up to the chin. “You will wear these scars forever, enemy mine. They will itch and ache, and you will think of me and remember being helpless.” “Never helpless,” the Rebel whispers.

And he snaps his head forward, and his teeth snap closed on the hand of the Tyrant like the jaws of a trap, and they dig deep and clamp down on the bone. The Tyrant roars like a wounded animal, all fury and outrage.

The Rebel suffers for his defiance, as he always has and always will. But his teeth leave their mark on the hand of the Tyrant. Another scar, to be worn forever.

Think of me, the Rebel smiles to himself even through the throes of agony, and remember what I am.

[Cont]

[sirthisisa-wendys]

The Aristocracy: Part 2.5 (Geto Suguru x Fem!Reader)

AND WE'RE BACK!

wc: 814

tw: none

masterlist

The man in front of you stirs his bowl of soup, scraping up the last bits of vegetables before he spoons them into his mouth.

"So," he says, mouth full of food. "You want an infertility tincture. How soon do you need it by?"

"As soon as possible," you say, lacing your fingers together.

"M'kay. If I get this to you by... let's aim for next week, how much are you willing to pay for it?"

"How much are you willing to part with it for?" The man falters, green eyes analyzing you carefully.

"Seven thousand Nafka," he mentions, pointing his spoon at you.

"That's a year's worth of wages for a commoner," you debate, frowning.

"Okay, how about six-thousand and ninety-nine Nafka*. Lowest offer."

"That's absurd--"

"Going once."

"You're not pricing it fairly--"

"Going twice."

"If you really think I'm going to spend that much on this, you're absolutely insane."

"It's not like you don't have the money," he mentions, standing from the table slowly. "But hey; I'm not the one who needs to make their future husband infertile so I can annul my marriage." You lean back in shock, and the man smiles widely, knowing he's caught you off-guard.

"You're not the first little princess to come through my doors, and you sure as hell won't be the last. So, I'll say it again: six-thousand and ninety-nine Nafka. I'll even throw in a cute little knife to make it worth your while." He flashes a small butter knife over his shoulder, laughing. You give him a stern look and he sobers up, just as the door opens again.

"Master Toji!" A little boy with light-colored hair comes rushing in, carrying a sheet of paper under his cloak. "It's from the--"

"What did I tell you about running in here and yelling my name, Naoya?" Toji hisses, and you smirk.

"Toji, huh?" you ask, turning to look at the Poison Master. He flinches, and you stand from the table, spreading your hands wide. "It looks like I'll have to report you to the Royal Guard for fraud, Toji." Before you can walk away, the man groans, rolling his head around and glaring at you.

"Fine," he huffs and sits across from you again as Naoya climbs onto the bench next to him. "Three thousand Nafka."

"Much better," you answer, dropping a bag of coins onto the table. "I'll give you half today and the other half when the potion is done."

"Deal."

_____________________________________________________________

"Your Highness, there's a visitor for you in the foyer."

Toji's child assistant, Naoya, stands in the foyer of the palace with his hands laced together, shuffling around nervously.

"You have something for me?" you inquire, holding out your hand.

"You have something for me." You glance around the halls of the palace before waving Naoya on.

"Come. Your payment is in my room." The child can barely keep up as you walk around the palace's winding hallways and up two flights of stairs. He's practically out of breath as you arrive at your chambers, and you turn to deliver him the second bag of coins. Naoya gives you a small bag in return and a letter along with it.

"Master Toji wrote all of the instructions in the letter. Follow them and you'll get what you want."

_____________________________________________________________

"You look quite cheerful, your Highness," Hajime murmurs as she twists flowers into your hair. "I suspect you received your... purchase from...?"

"Of course," you murmur, tapping rouge into your cheeks. As you sit there, you think about the special wine mulling with the spices Toji put together.

An annulment is for certain.

You sit across from Suguru at dinner with a smile, making conversation, and being cordial as you should. You even allow your flirtatious side to come out a little, and when you're ready to enact the final part of your plan, you wave over a servant and whisper,

"Fetch the special wine from the kitchen for His Highness." The servant nods and heads to the kitchen.

"Enjoying your stay, Your Highness?" you wonder, and Suguru's eyes flick up to you as your toe caresses his calf under the table. He drops his fork onto his plate on accident, mouth still open, but quickly recovers and clears his throat.

"I'm enjoying everything this country has to offer," he smiles, and you nod, just as the servant brings a glass of wine to the table.

"For you, your Highness," he murmurs and places it in front of Suguru.

"A toast, then." Suguru raises his glass, looking you in the eyes. "To our future, and the future of our families." You raise your own wine glass and take a sip, watching Suguru down his in one go. "This is exquisite," he murmurs, looking at the dregs of wine in awe before turning to the servant and saying:

"Bring me another glass."

_____________________________________________________________

TAGLIST: @missbonekitty @wack0-genius @thankuary @jsqeeut @r-i-m-f-009 @sunfloweroranges @leanne-tamashi @girlruby23 @rein-icu @brownskinnedgirll @jibe-gajima @chilledlucifer @amnxsia @kontentious @fiona782 @fuyuko26 @everybodylovescayrayray @flare-on @just4readingfics @sammytamaki @meena-in-a-nutshell @falling-through-pages @naoyasdarling @vabybizzle @debevv

[ohheyitsokay]

classic

pairing: Jack Daniels (Agent Whiskey) x reader

wordcount: 3k

warnings: none, tropes on tropes on tropes, weird descriptions of things

summary: good, old fashioned fan fiction chaos

notes: there’s no getting around it - everything I write with Jack is inevitably influenced and inspired by @scribbledghost s version of him, particularly her neighbor!whiskey. I tried not to, but I still feel I should give credit!

>>

It was the kind of razor your grandfather would have used – more of a knife than anything, because of course it was.

Of course this would be edge that your housemate used to slide along his jaw and chin and cheeks to make that perfect mustache before work in the mornings. He was the type to love old fashioned, traditional, dangerous things - it made sense. After all, that was why you were staying in the guestroom of his ranch home while your apartment was being renovated. Old fashioned courtesy between friends, of course.

Dangerous.

Jack had caught you watching him, impressed in spite of yourself as the sharp blade scraped over his neck, neatly slicing the hairs on his throat, and pushing your heart into yours. It was unnecessarily intense, dramatic, the touch of risk for the sake of vanity. It made you swallow, awed that he wasn’t covered in little cuts, and almost aroused at how casually he used something so akin to a weapon. And that alone made him smirk, cocky, as though he had been waiting for you to notice, hoping to impress you.

A few days later he’d coaxed you to him, settled in a chair with his legs spread wide with confidence as he handed you the tool, smug with confidence – almost a challenge. He had gotten wrecked at work – he actually had, and it was the perfect excuse to draw you close, make you bend to his will. Schoolyard tactics, really, but all of this was, and it was worth it to have your eyes on him alone, face a breath away from his.

It was about trust more than anything. Not that you would ever hurt him, but the power of being over him was heightened by the intimacy as you lathered the cream over his skin.

His deep eyes bore into you, not flickering to the blade as you tried to focus on your task. If he had asked you a different time, another day, you maybe could have refused, but somehow his wanting your steady hand felt heavy with implication.

Ignoring the quickening steps of your heart, your fingers grasped his chin, shaving away the stubble he’d let grow just for this. Each slice of smooth skin revealed left a thick line of froth and hairs on the blade, and you got to breathe as your turned away to wipe it off. You could feel his gaze, still, but you couldn’t bring yourself to meet it. Hovering over him while he was seated, touching his jaw, leaning close, and meeting those brown eyes would have been too much.

Your denial was as a solid as a wall with half sunk into the ground with cement – almost rooted in your fear of rejection.

It was a challenge to ignore the shots of adrenaline that filled you when he’d reach around you to grab something in the fridge, his chest against your back, hand on your hip. Already you had shoved down the butterflies in your stomach when he’d offered you a place to stay, carried your boxes, and called you sweetheart. You had spent far to long ignoring the way he hadn’t brought a single girl home since you’d been there to fold now and admit anything. Because if you did, there was a chance you would lose your friend forever, and that was out of the question.

You kept your eyes down to keep your hands steady.

For his part, Jack’s plan was only half working. He liked your attention, liked the way your breath hitched as you wiped him clean. But you were closer than you had ever been, patting in the aftershave and you wouldn’t look at him, wouldn’t open the door for him to push the tools and towels aside and kiss you. All he wanted was to grab hold of you and pull you into his lap and make you melt against him but there wasn’t a moment.

You’d been friends for a long time, been there for each other countless times and he had yearned for you almost as long. At first, he tried to deny it too, grabbing at random women and hating himself when he imagined they were you as he pulled them into his room.

Then he’d given that up, stopped pretending anyone could replace you, that anyone else occupied his dreams, anyone else could be as good a fit for him, and went after you full speed. It had honestly been innocent to invite you to stay, instinct instilled in him from his childhood. Still, he had begun to see the opportunities for the two of you to enjoy intimate domesticity right away, when he’d cooked you dinner and you’d talked at his table for hours, finally not worried about having to drive home. He ached for that – not ever really having to leave you, and he spent more nights than he’d like to admit thinking of knocking on your door.

Only… you were still in your denial phase. Not sleeping around just pretending it was normal to sink into his arms after a bad day, to let your friend play with your hair until you fell asleep, to watch his lips as you gently helped him shave.

It was too vulnerable, to high of a risk to go after you with the chance that you weren't ready. The last thing he wanted was to scare you away.

-

“What, really?” you said, genuinely surprised. When you’d accepted to stay, he’d promised you there would be no problems, but now you felt guilty.

His mama was coming to town, and would more than likely be staying with him.

“I’ll find somewhere else!”

Jack was already shaking his head at you, like you were missing the joke, but he looked… almost nervous? You couldn’t tell, it wasn’t something you saw on his face often.

“Actually, sweetheart, I was hoping you could do me a favor,” he was asking, but it’s not like you could actually say no you him, when he shot that winning smile your way. It was like not petting a puppy – and you were the opposite of allergic to cowboy secret agents.

“You know Mama Daniels,” he said and you smiled, having spent many a summer helping her in her garden, and being thanked with dinners heavy with butter and love. “She’ll like you here, she’ll be over the damn moon.” And you conceded. It would be more than nice, to spend time with such a wonderful woman, an Jack had invested in a very comfortable couch. For a week you enjoyed a hopeful bliss, that she would help remind you Jack was just your friend.

The sun was shining through the windows, the winding almost singing a quiet, breathy song, and everything was as spotless as you could manage. Well worn quilts were clean, and you had set up a little station for yourself in the living room determined to make it your home for the week.

Then she came with a jacket that matched her slacks and shoes with little buckles and a paisley suitcase full of presents for her son, who she insisted wasn’t really grown. She hugged you and scolded you for being at work instead of coming to pick her up, and finally settled at the kitchen table, her intentions clear. You were to sit and catch up - Jack was already pulling the sweet tea you’d made from the fridge and a reused sewing tin filled with butter cookies appeared out of her purse.

Meekly, you sat, knowing if you didn’t eat the cookies in quantity, she would pout her whole visit. You could feel Jack settle at your side as she talked, warm and solid, a comfort, despite the heat of the day.

The cookies disintegrated on your tongue, melting with a burst of sweet before the bite was gone. They were full of love and maternal affection and things that you hated to spend money on and made all bad thoughts disappear. You were thankful your mouth was full of one when she mentioned, offhandedly, how plum delighted she was when she found out the two of you were finally dating. Abruptly, you remembered just how wrong your previous hope was.

The sweet lady had been hinting for you to marry her son since before he’d mastered his first lasso, and apparently, she was sure that moment was well on its way.

“And living together, no less!” she was beaming with pride, tradition apparently irrelevant as she chatted happily about it.

Turning to the man by your side, you found him choking, trying to breathe through the cookie he’d accidentally inhaled. There was a white ring around his irises as he stared at you, panicking and aptly confused. Sure your face matched his, you jerked your head at his mother, a silent argument ensuing.

Did you do this?

No!

What do we do?

We can’t break her heart!

It went unnoticed. You felt helpless, drinking your tea and trying not to have a small meltdown in front of a very misinformed lady who had brought you cookies.

He was your friend! And sure, you liked the weight of his arm around your shoulders or could get lost in the drawl of his voice but that was normal! It was normal to be so comfortable with him as the beginning, end, and highlight to each of your days.

Sounding weak even to yourself, a crack, solid and formidable, formed in the wall you created to protect yourself and the friendship you had built.

“Ma’am, I’ll be back in a moment,” you whispered, grabbing your phone as you grasped at air, hoping beyond logic that you could pretend it was an important call.

You didn’t exactly run away, but you walked very quickly outside, mourning the loss of your little guestroom, and the privacy it offered.

Jack would never, ever smack his mama but he did want to say some choice words. Nothing could have prepared him for the last two minutes of his life, first the embarrassment of the misunderstanding and then… the fear in your eyes.

He hated it, hated it so much more than he ever thought he could, hated that it was probably his fault it was there. And he hated that it shrouded the longing he had begun to see there, these past few weeks. Long strides carried him after you, hearing his own voice distantly saying words, explaining maybe, as he left the table.

There was a tree, trunk too wide to wrap your arms around, thicket of leaves creating bean-shaped shadow on the ground, by one corner of his home.

You were behind it, almost like a child, letting the bark press lines into your forehead. The dappled lighting did wonders for you – you looked the perfect picture of a storybook wanderer in distress.

Jack slowed, overwhelmed with the desire to encompass you in his arms, slay your dragons, and whisk you away. Now was not the time.

He kept his voice soft, reaching for you in place of his hands, trying hopelessly to find the root of your panic.

You were just as quiet, telling him it was fine, you would pretend, as long as you’d talk tonight, after she went to sleep. His heart was creating dramatic movie scenes where you would float into his room, declaring your love for him, before settling in his arms, but he shook them away, agreeing.

Smile over-bright, you touched his smooth cheek a moment too long, before pushing past him back towards the house.

He allowed the afterglow of his daydream to wash over him only a moment before he jogged go catch up with you.

-

The quilt on Jack’s bed had chickens on it, of all things. It was one of those that had clearly been homemade, years and years ago, taken care of, but worn at the edges with memories and use. One pillow had a dent for his head, the other was squashed into an unrecognizable shape

You didn’t know that it wasn’t like that, before. That his arms had only started searching for something to hold onto since you had been around.

All of his room was new to you – it made you feel strange, realizing that for weeks you’d been in his home but not this part of his space.

The afternoon his mother came, he’d been called into the field. You had never quite seen the look on his face as he reasoning fell on deaf ears – desperation and frustration like ants ruining honey on a picnic. The flannel across his back bunched as his shoulders had filled with tension before he stripped it off to change into his work clothes. Jack kissed his mothers cheek and spewed instructions for the both of you, some apologies spilling out and others kept just behind his eyes as he grasped your hand.

His final command was for your ears alone -  that you take his room, and you’d been too panicked to refuse. The last three days, the smell of him and the memorabilia  scattered around the space kept you company when his mother went to sleep and you slept in his bed for the first time, alone.

It was surprising how sentimental he was. His hooks had another cowboy hat on them, a little wider, brown, and considerably more worn. There was a stack of printed photos in a little box by his bed – it was open, and some of the photos had oil-worn fingerprints along the edges. You found ones of you, and your heart flipped inside your chest.

You should have realized it was impossible to deny yourself, your feelings, with him surrounding you like this. Each thing you learned, each reminder of him practically reached off of the walls, as if he were there, coaxing your heart into his hands. It felt silly, almost, that you even tried to ignore it - you had missed him the moment his hand left yours. Now you had all the time to process, surrounded by his neatly folded shirts and the line of his favorite boots.

The idealized illusion of your relationship had only lasted half a day of living with his mother. Her warm brown eyes were too much like her son’s – you couldn’t lie to them. It was good though, for her to hold your hand a listen to you talk as the birds gossiped outside the window and steam seeped out of the pie you helped her bake. Miraculously, she wasn’t disappointed with you, commending your honestly, and explaining that if she was patient until now, then she could certainly continue to do so.

The more you talked to her, the more you suspected that she was right, all along. She helped you dig up the walls, her kind determination the shovel you needed for those concrete roots.

You would work and talk and tuck yourself into his chicken-clad blanket at night and finally, finally let yourself think of him, allow yourself to be in love with him.  You didn’t know he had started actually living in his room again, when he’d started letting himself love you. That he thought of your smile when he’d found his old quilt. Still, the more you thought, the more you could admit to yourself that maybe, just maybe, he loved you too.

That was how Jack found you - absorbed in your thoughts - the whiskey in his hand as forgotten as the mission and the agent he’d played for the past seventy eight hours and twenty one minutes.

He watched through the half open door, words failing him as you sat up, startled and the way your eyes searched for injuries made him want to eat you alive. 

There was nothing that could’ve prepared him for the sight of you in his bed, even though he had told you to be there and three days to daydream about it. It was intensely intoxicating, having someone care for you so intimately. 

With his sheets sliding down around your waist, you looked as good as the pie on the counter, as if a single snapshot could encompass everything he wanted home to be.

You were wearing a shirt he’d given you, years ago, and he swallowed, hard.

“Are you up for that talk?” his voice was rough. It would have been nice, to relish in the feeling of you checking him over, attention on him as he unwound, but he couldn’t wait. This moment was three days overdue.

“I told your mom we aren’t dating,” you blurted and he smiled, having guessed as much. Smoothing the blanket, your hand patted the spot next to you, your legs crossing.

In that, Jack knew something had changed since he left you. The flickering fear had fled your eyes, and you seemed settled into your skin more than ever before.

He sat next to you, having played over how this talk would go a million times, and still not finding the right words. Confidence was easier to find when he was flirting, poking at you, but seemed foreign in the din lights of his bedroom. Instead he shifted trying to lean back with his arm along the headboard, hoping he didn’t seem like a teenager trying to buy himself time.

You began to talk, saving him, and all the things you’d processed with his mama tumbled out of you before you were realizing that you were confessing how much he truly meant you. In hindsight, it shouldn’t have been strange how comfortable you felt, but in the moment, you were in awe.

Jack was as handsome as always, if a little roughed up, like he’d worn the same clothes a few days in a row. You wanted to run your fingers over the short, patchy beard he had going, and without a second thought, you did, feeling his cheeks move as he smiled crookedly and leaned into the touch.

There was only a moment of quiet, crickets outside, before he said, “I missed you, too.” And then, “Will you stay, sweetheart?”

When you whispered, “Where else would I go?” he kissed you.

It was late, and there were still words unsaid, questions to be answered, but you both let yourselves get lost, exploring each other. Long moments passed, letting all the pent up yearning overflow like cool water after a long, hot day. Then the next steps came out, whispered between kisses and as he moved over you, shucking the final walls between you, you found yourselves actually dating, and maybe even actually living together. 

Old fairy tales and historic romances played in the back of your mind, inserting their logic into your life like had never quite made sense before.

And you wondered if you had time in the morning, and his mama didn’t give you too much grief, if he would let you help him shave, and eat pie for breakfast. Because for the life of you, you couldn’t think of a single reason why not.

<<

Taglist:

@fangirl-316 @scribbledghost @writeforfandoms @0celestialbitch0 @beautyagegoodnesssize

[ifearmetoo]

Future fic to look for:

The shape/xreader/the pig

It's back to the fire after the match. You aren't excited to face your teammates this round, shoulders launching forward to make yourself smaller and thus impose on the group's attention. No doubt there will be some half bitten off sentences and acidic comments about you.

You deserve such.

Unlike Meg, your speed isn't the refined muscle of months of labor but reliant on the candle wick of fear that burns hot and fast when a match begins. You've always been an easy scare. Saying this. You are known to be not so quick to help your teammates. It's pure cowardice that you freely admit you're at fault for. Offering your position up for others to escape is admirable in a moral world. However the entity's realm isn't that.

One of the Legion bagged you this match. However, before that you'd kept quiet while Kate screamed in familiar agony. You had all the chances to help her.

A grudge is there, a physical wall to you making friends. They teeter on feeling pity for your obvious inadequacy and vitriol.

Nea asks you a question. " What do you think about the new guy? Terrifying right?" Nea bless her heart, tries to bring you into the fold. 

The man, if you could call him that, is a unit of solid muscle and steel. "He's big." You say. Best to keep it short. 

She snorts and lays her chin down.

This is the fullest the circle has ever been. Laurie, poor thing, is spaced off looking tired as usual. She's one of the only people kind to you. That's on part because your selfishness has limits when it comes to the younger group members.

They really are just kids. It burns the back of your throat that they are here, the entity is a merciless God. When it comes to the teens, whatever distraction they need to get away from a killer you provide.

She absently gives you a smile.

You open your arms and she timidly sinks into them taking the comfort you offer silently.

Feeling the eyes of other survivors on you, the woods look more tempting by the second. You haven't dared explore them yet but now's as good a chance as any. 

"I'll be back."

A chorus of acknowledgements and you march off.

Stepping in the branches reach for you. The crackle of the fire grows distant. The woods are overall silent. Eerie but what here isn't so? 

Snapp walks these woods and so does Ash. Usually joking and wishing for a beer.

You miss home. Wherever home is. Memories are foggy. Some part if you isn't sure that you had a life outside. 

Whenever they talk about the outside world they do so with yearning, recalling putting up feet on the dashboard of a cherry red car, drinking smoothies, studying, sneaking into a movie theater, skateboarding down a hill with the sun on their back and breeze cradling their smiles.

You don't have that.

So alone. No one to hold.

People at camp fuck. A common secret that everyone keeps low. They savor the serotonin a quick orgasm gives them and chase the feeling of being in a better place, less blood, more sunshine. A grown woman like you should be taking these escapades too.

You haven't had the chance nor the urge to seek a partner of your own.

A familiar pant of breath grazes your ear. Myers. You turn to the camp and make a mad dash for safety. Crying out for Ash or-

Your throat is seized by an ironclad grip. Knocking your temple hard against a thick trunk of wood. Skin scraped off as easily as butter.

Already you're sobbing and tossing your head about, the pain. You're not ready for the pain.

The sticky blood trickles down to his hand in what you imagine is a common feeling. You pant.

"Please don't…" but he sticks his knife to your side with little fanfare. The answering scream is brutal, belts your throat. No matter how many times it happens the stab comes with all the same shock and pain as the very first one. A hot slide as it glides deep into meat, grazing bone, you can barely muster the strength to beg over the pain.

But it's a chore to him. No burst of interest or pleasure when he thrusts it in deeper.

You cradle the back of his shoulder. Fist grabbing the jumpsuit. Futile.

You go limp, without will or fight. The pain doesn't cease

Your shirt is a caked rag. Your skirt is a hiked belt over your stomach. Covering nothing. You would have noticed except the piercing hurt overcomes all other sensation.

He doesn't miss this.

It's an alianting feeling that sticks out like an awful squishy bruise against emotions such as anger, annoyance, disdain

It's calling his name, tugging at his pinky. This way. Come here. The voices are murmuring, hissing in response, grudging recognition.

What is this sudden shift?

He twists.

Blood bubbles out.

A female voice. Cold. Unaffected, branches through. "What are you doing?"

But like fog his form turns insolid. Gone.

You lie there with the pain as a bedfellow, shake it off your still in danger your mind screams. You manage a jolt upwards. 

Looking for the voice among the branches proves futile as does cupping waterver blood seeps out the wound. A figure is formed in the fog, shockingly crimson.

"We can't kill you outside the match." The Pig. Her voice barely registers in the aftermath. Coppery stream slides down your throat in a warm spill, the only thing warm in your body.

"Thank you." It's strange to say that to someone that has killed you before. You smooth down your skirt over chilled thighs and thumb the edges.

 The pig mask is a gruesome sight but strangely less so than the man you were faced with earlier.

She lunges close. Snarling. "But we can hurt you as much as we want."

You stumble blind into the light of the campfire. A sound, soft chuckling follows.

Exclamations of concern meet you. Ash guides you down onto a mat to look over the damage.

Your mind replays the chuckle and feel of light brown hair when entering sleep. Your dreams, usually blank and too exhausted to come up with a scene,  now have a personal mind real with a front row seat.

The two killers you met in the woods are there. Not hinting you, but watching, always watching 

Lucky you.

[nocturnememory]

this softness (a knife, a knife, a knife)

 I was with you, he says, with his fingers ghosting along her scar. Right here, always.

She’s curled up against his side, Tales of Beetle the Bard, sits splayed open on the other half of the bed, but there’s no story she likes hearing more than the one he’ll tell her and only her, in the low light of her bedroom, half-asleep and pressed up as close as she can get to him.

Prompt: This is two prompts mixed into one, hopefully that works out for both prompters... the first was “What if Voldemort won the first war but harrie still ended as a hocrux?! Their life and story then. Would he watch over her as she is raised? Maybe care for her more or less?“ and the second, “How do you think Voldemort would raise Harrie? If he took her or kidnapped her from her parents instead of trying to kill her.”

This doesn’t quite match up with both exactly, but it merges the two together because I think they were too similar to not meld together into one prompt.

hopefully the two prompters enjoy it anyway!

Warnings: Underage, age-gap, Voldemort raises Harrie, Minister of Magic Voldemort, morally grey!Harrie. Pureblood rhetoric/prejudice. Pureblood culture/beliefs.

This is definitely pretty dark and like, very very morally complicated. Don’t be fooled by the fluff in the first part. If you’re at all sensitive to underage/age-gap stories, this one is definitely not for you. While I’ve done my best to keep it from being squicky with grooming, there’s definitely still going to be threads of this story that cross like, a lot of boundaries.

this softness (a knife, a knife, a knife) 1/3

                  Outside of her cupboard, there’s a knock on the front door of Privet Drive.

In the kitchen, a chair scrapes back, her uncle grumbles and mutters about dinner time and no good nuisances. His footsteps are heavy and thundering as he passes by her cupboard, blocking the striped, reaching light from the slats for a moment as he heads to the front door.

His footsteps fade as he turns the lock and yanks the door open, his voice sharp and hard. “Do you know what time it is? What kind of f—”

There’s a thump and a sliding sound, like something heavy being pushed across the floor. Like when Aunt Petunia has Harrie vacuum the front room and she has to push and push the big couch back to get at the dust underneath.

The light to her cupboard gets blocked again, that sliding noise louder and louder like whatever is being pushed is sliding right past her cupboard door along the strip of carpet in the hallway.

Beneath that noise, just beneath it, something gurgles and gasps.

And then, there’s a scream. A thump, more thumps, something breaks and shatters and underneath it all, that choking, gasping gurgling sound.

Harrie huddles into the corner of her cupboard with her knees to her chest and her arms shaking, clutching at her little tin soldier in her sweaty palm.

No one ever looks in her cupboard, she tells herself, they won’t find her in here. She’s safe in her cupboard, she’s always been safe in her cupboard.

It gets louder, the thumping and gurgling and screams outside of her cupboard and Harrie tucks her head into her knees, squeezing her eyes shut—

Until—

Until—

It goes quiet.

Her ears strain and she pulls in a breath and holds it, trying to hear what’s going on in the kitchen.

There’s a drip, drip, drip… and Harrie swallows, turning her head towards her cupboard door, watching the light stripping through the slats, her heart thundering in her ears as she holds her breath just a little bit longer.

Drip, drip, drip.

Like spilled milk over the edge of the kitchen table, she thinks, or juice from one of Dudley’s tantrums that Harrie always has to clean up, girl.

Drip, drip, drip.

Shaking, she hears footsteps, a pair of shoes over the hard kitchen floor turning into softer steps on the carpet in the hall. Steady and slow, coming towards her; they sound too heavy to be Aunt Petunia’s, but much too light to be Uncle Vernon’s.

A stranger, she thinks. It’s a stranger in the house, isn’t it?

She huddles smaller, hugging her knees tighter as the footsteps stop in front of her cupboard; it blocks some of the light, the pair of legs just outside of the door.

Her heart pounds, wild and unsteady and so loud in her ears it sounds like Dudley jumping on the stairs above her head. Thump thump thump.

The latch slides and drags back in a metallic scrape.

She goes cold at the same time something hot burns through her stomach and— and she feels— she feels—

So angry. So angry, her palm’s slippery and hot and it was over too quick, too quick, should have taken longer. Drawn it out. It’s clawing at her insides and— and the knob turns and the feeling cuts off, sharp and sudden enough to make her hitch a little breath.

The door pulls back.

A man crouches down slowly, he’s tall and big and fills the little, angled doorway of her cupboard up until there’s barely any space left.

He holds his hand out, it’s red and shiny, even in shadows of her cupboard.

“Hullo, Harrie,” the man says with a careful, slow smile that makes her feel…makes her feel…

It makes her slide forward, unfolding from her tucked-up, tight huddle in the corner, makes her slip her hand into his sticky one so he can pull her out towards him until she can tuck her head into his neck and wrap her arms around his shoulders and cling onto him so tight she thinks it has to hurt him.

But his fingers are long and warm as they push into her hair to cup the back of her head as his arms wrap around her like they’re swallowing her up in the size of them; his voice is low and warm and she can feel it inside of her chest, her belly, the clench of her knees digging into his ribs, trembling to cling on tighter and tighter and tighter.

His head turns into her shoulder, his chest shifts against hers as he breathes out, long and slow and warm over her skin, his arms tightening just a little bit more around her.

“I’m sorry it took me so long.”

                                                                            She’s so much smaller than he expects.

He doesn’t burn the house down, no matter the desire to wipe the filth of that family off the face of the Earth like God’s hand coming down with a vengeful flood.

No, no. That’s almost kind, isn’t it? Fire purifies in so many ways, and they deserve to die like the bugs they are. A smear of gore on glass. Crushed beneath his palm.

He seals the house and leaves them to rot.

The girl, his girl, breathes gently against his neck, her cheek soft and warm, her arms lax over his shoulders. She hasn’t spoken yet, but she knows him.

She knew him as soon as she saw him.

In a cupboard. A cupboard. (He killed them too quickly, too easily. He should’ve taken his time taking them apart. Chained them to a rockface and picked at their organs and bones like a vulture. Left them to be gnawed on by rats and birds a little more each day.)

His girl whimpers at the heat of his anger and irritation, and he ducks his head and presses his lips to her forehead, his voice low and easing, shh, sweet girl, it’s alright.

She weighs nothing, and it’s his own fault for being so caught by it. She’s taken up so much space in his mind for years that the reality of her, no matter that he knows she’s nothing but a four-year-old child, leaves him staggering to process it.

He’s been hunting for her for so long. Four years since he knew about the idea of her. Three years since he’s known her, known her voice and her face in flashes, known her hunger and her tears, known the terribly rare sound of her laughter. (Once, just once, a kitten-lick on her palm, a stale house with an awkwardly-kind old woman surrounded by cats who fed her stale cake.)

A squib, he’d found out later, a kind old fucking squib faithful to Albus. She’d lived only long enough to seal her own fate. (A terribly small girl, she’d said around her tea cup, her eyes glassy and unfocused, I’m not sure they treat her very well but—)

But.

But.

                                    When he was a boy, he imagined that when the day came that he and Albus came wand-point to wand-point, it would be bloody and beautiful and biblical. The battle of Armageddon; the orphan boy and the false king.

(His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself.  He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God.)

A final stand that would raze Britain to its foundations and let the victor rebuild it in whatever image they chose. A fanciful, violent dream shaped by a boy sculpted by his childhood. Verses twisted to fantasies. Recitation twisted to conception.

It would have been something.

But now— now Albus has fashioned himself a noose of his own making and it tightens by the hour. Inches tighter by the minute. There will be no crowns and no battle, no fire and no brimstone.

There are bruises on her and she weighs nothing.

                                      He holds her through the twist of Apparition, carries her into his estate that’s been sitting empty, sitting waiting, sitting ready for the moment he finally found her.

He peels her out of her too-large muggle clothes and sinks her into a bath so overloaded by bubbles from an overeager house-elf that she nearly disappears into them.

The house elves send food and Harrie picks at apple slices with peanut butter and sliced fruit with slick little fingers.

He sinks himself onto a conjured stool beside the tub and does not even once think about what anyone would think about Lord Voldemort sitting at the side of a child’s bathtub.

Instead, he rolls his sleeves and pulls bubbles into little animal shapes to move around her head. Sends an Erumpet charging through a bubble-boulder, a snake winding over her head, a little fluttering pixie that blows bubbles out of its little bubble mouth.

Her laughter is sweeter than that one echoing sound of it he heard once in his chest— sweeter than any sound, in truth, in all the years he’s been alive or a shade or something caught between the two.

Harrie laughs and giggles and soaks until she’s pink and pruned, until all the filth of those muggles is nothing more than dirt sinking down the drain.

After, when he plucks her out of the tub and wraps her in a too-large towel, she stands between his bent knees and shivers in the chill outside of the tub, the fluffy thick, white towel tugged up to her mouth as she blinks at him all wide-eyed and green; hopeful, resigned, curious, cautious.

“Are you real?” she asks, her voice small and muffled as he rubs his hands briskly over her shoulders and back to warm her up again.

His anger is a sudden and ice-cold dagger inside of him. Harrie's brows furrow and her body tightens, shoulders tensing, pulling the towel higher and tighter until its right under her nose.

He reigns it in, swallowing it down and resumes rubbing over her shoulders and back. “Yes, I’m real,” he says, as light and easy as he can manage. “Do I not feel real?”

She shrugs her little shoulders and leans into him, tucking her head against his shoulder. She’s warm and damp and he can feel it soaking into his clothes slowly, but he wraps her up in his arms and lets her burrow closer, still clutching at the towel but pressing herself into him.

“I’m real,” he says as her hair soaks his shoulder and she turns her head and presses her cheek against his chest. “I’ve been looking for you for a long time, Harrie.”

She’s quiet, her body slowly easing in his arms as her shivers subside. “You promise you’re real?”

“I promise.”

                                     (Albus has lost the right to be remembered. He’ll be no more than those muggles dead in Four Privet Drive, a smear of bug guts on glass.

He’ll leave the man to rot in a field, he thinks. 

Nothing but dead and rotting meat.)

                                                                                               I was with you, he says, with his fingers ghosting along her scar. Right here, always.

She’s curled up against his side, Tales of Beetle the Bard, sits splayed open on the other half of the bed, but there’s no story she likes hearing more than the one he’ll tell her and only her, in the low light of her bedroom, half-asleep and pressed up as close as she can get to him.

He’s warm and so big and Harrie never feels like she can get close enough, no matter where she tucks her head or how hard her hand curls into his shirt. His heartbeat is steady and familiar, even when it wasn’t. Even when she isn’t sure she knew his face, she thinks she always knew him.

I had to put myself back together, he’ll say, with his fingers on her cheek or her scar, his voice this low-rolling thing that fills her up so nicely, rumbling out of his chest and into her. You were my little guide in the dark for all my scattered parts.

She doesn’t like the idea of him being apart but in her mind he’s like a puzzle and she’s piecing him back together with her own little hands, fitting all his edges into hers the way her still-bony knees and elbows fit so nicely into the warmth of his chest or under his arm. The way her cheek will fit hotly against his shoulder and she can hear that wave-like whump-bump of his heart that always reminds of her when she was in her cupboard and it was dark and empty but not so empty at all. When she’d shut her eyes and plug her ears to cover the sound of the Dursleys forgetting about her. In the quiet, in the press of her palms, she’d hear that ocean-like sound, whump-bump, whump-bump.

It’s her favourite place to be, listening to that sound inside of him; her ear pressed up against his shoulder or chest and she thinks he knows it, too, because sometimes he’ll slide his hand over her cheek until it covers her other ear, until the world fades away and there’s nothing but that sound. Nothing but the weight of his palm, his fingers in her hair and his thumb tracing slowly over the edges of her scar.

Whumpbump.

                                                                                              There’s a man kneeling on the floor, and he’s bound in shackles and he looks at Harrie with the saddest look Harrie’s ever seen, like those dark paintings she’s seen hanging on the walls in the Malfoy’s long hallways, their faces twisted and dark.

The man in front of her and Tom says her name like it’s something other than just a name.

“Harrie,” he says with a face that twists almost painfully towards tears. Harrie, I’m so sorry—

She doesn’t know what he’s sorry for, but one of the Death Eaters standing next to him yanks a thick silver chain that’s attached to a thick silver collar around his neck and the man grits his teeth as his eyes flash yellow and something growls low in his throat as he winces in pain.

Tom carries her as he walks in front of the man, but there’s a smile on his face just for her, and in her ear he says: he thought he could hide you from me, like it’s a funny little secret just for them.

Harrie almost laughs, burrowing her smile into his chest instead; she doesn’t think it’s the right place to laugh, it’s too cold and tight in the room. It doesn’t feel right. But it’s funny all the same and she feels it bubble inside of her because—

Because Tom hunted giants for her, she knows the story; she was hidden away like a princess in those adventures in her picture books.

The half-giant came thundering through the rubble and stole you away from the battle right when I’d finally found you.

The giant had been the one to leave her with the Dursleys, Tom said.

Sometimes, Harrie thinks she remembers it, this cracking roar of a sound that she thinks must’ve been the giant; she remembers being carried so high up that it must have been something very tall carrying her.

He was the key to finding you, he’d tell her whenever she asked for the story, and I fought him until he fell like a great, old tree and then I cracked him open until he spilled all those terrible secrets in his thick, giant head.

It’s silly, she thinks, that anyone could think Tom wouldn’t find her. The man kneeling in front of them should have known better.

“This one,” Tom says as he shifts Harrie in his arms and walks around the chained man. “Was one of Albus’ most loyal little dogs. But he’s been hiding away in the muggle world, hasn’t he? Like the little traitor he is.”

The last comes out sharper, harder, and Harrie feels Tom’s anger in her belly; sometimes she’ll get echoes of it when he tells the story but it’s brighter now, more real.

It isn’t just a bedtime story, she knows, no matter how many times she asks for him to tell it. She knows it’s all real.

Tom fought giants for her.

“Not even a dog,” Tom says and then he smiles again and presses it into Harrie’s cheek until Harrie looks at him and wraps her arms around his neck and drops her cheek to the thick of his shoulder to watch the bound man from the comfort of Tom’s heartbeat beneath her ear when he pulls back.

“No, not a dog,” he says lightly. “But we’ll let him find himself, won’t we, sweet girl? We’ll show him what sort of beast he truly is.”

The man swallows and jerks in his chains, his eyes closing as his shoulders slump. “I’m so sorry, Harrie.”

She frowns and fiddles with a button on Tom’s shirt, blinking at the man; she doesn’t know what to think about him, only that he’s awfully silly for thinking Tom wouldn’t find her, and must not be that smart to think he could hide.

Tom’s very, very good and Hide and Seek. He always finds her.

“It’s a full moon tonight,” Tom says lightly. “We should go to the beach, shouldn’t we?”

Harrie sits straighter in his arms, glancing at the other man. She doesn’t think Tom means to bring him along, they usually only go to the beach together but… “Just us?”

Tom chuckles and nods. “Just us. He’ll be much too busy tonight, I’m afraid. He’s been cooped up and hiding for so long, I’d imagine he needs some time to be himself, hm?” he pinches her side, his smile growing at her laughter before he turns his head to look at the other man. “And he must be quite hungry, I’d imagine.”

                                                                                                           Nagini, Tom tells her, holding her in the waist-deep water along the edges of the lake as the snake slides through the waters around them like a glimmer of dark oil just under the surface. She’s big and long and endless, circling Tom’s waist, brushing slickly against Harrie’s toes where they dig into his hip.

She isn’t sure if she’s afraid, because Tom’s with her and nothing bad will happen to her if he’s there, she knows, but she clings on a little tighter to his shoulders, peering down into the dark waters, the sun above them lighting only the first few inches, just enough to see the metallic, colourful scales along the snake’s skin as she circles them.

Tom walks further into the water, until it laps coolly over her waist and his stomach and she’s only half-listening but ever attuned to his voice in her ear.

Naga’s prefer the water, he says, but Nagini loves to hunt in the fields. Fat cows and wild deer, the bigger the better. She’ll squeeze and squeeze, he says, his arms tightening around her, until they fall asleep, and then…

He pinches her side and makes her squeal out a laugh and slosh the water around them as he sinks them up to their shoulders.

She’ll bite them, quick and sharp, sinking her venom into them.

You’d be nothing to swallow up, he teases, a little mouthful. A little appetizer with sharp little bones.

You wouldn’t let her eat me, Harrie insists.

No? he asks, with his crooked smile that makes her whole tummy do this happy little dance and makes her grin back as she shakes her head, the damp edges of her hair flying around them.

I’m not food.

Aren’t you? he says, with a laugh as he takes her hand in his and moves it out into the water to stroke over Nagini’s winding scales. What are you then?

Yours, she says and his grin is wide and so happy she can feel it, like little bursts along her insides.

You are, he says and brushes his nose over the soft of her cheek before he lets out a little snarl and bites her cheek lightly. You’re mine to eat up, aren’t you?

Harrie squirms in his arms, giggling at the scrape of his teeth over the soft of her cheek, before she bites him back, snapping her little teeth at him, her nose scrunching with a growl. No. I’ll eat you. She says and wraps her arms around his neck, tighter and tighter. Like Nagini, she decides, I’ll swallow you up.

He laughs into her shoulder, and she barely pulls in a breathless squeal of surprise when he dunks them both into the water, Nagini winding around them, her voice as smooth as silk.

Hello, little hatchling. He’s been hunting for you for ssso long.

                                                     The door creaks open and he glances up, even though he already knows who it is, sneaking into the room. Though, he thinks, sneaking isn’t quite the word for it.

His girl slips sleepily into his office, clutching a throw blanket from her bedroom around herself, her hair wild and her eyes heavy with sleep. Her bare feet quiet little pats in the lull in the room, the blanket dragging behind her like a cloak.

Abraxas’ lips turn up at the sight, hiding a smile in the way he leans on his elbow, his fist just covering his mouth. Bellatrix’s jaw tightens in irritation, as young and too eager as she is vicious and cruel.

Severus watches the girl, his mind carefully, perfectly blank.

Harrie stumbles up to his side and he turns in his chair, letting her clamber onto his lap, pressing her warm cheek into his chest as she curls up in her blanket. She grabs at his arm, dragging it over her middle, a soft little pout in her lip.

“Spoiled girl,” he whispers before shifting her, settling her more comfortably on his lap, listening to her little inhale and sigh, feeling the curl of her hand into the front of his shirt, holding onto him.

She’s asleep in moments, the gentle hum of her mind always at the back of his, fades into a soft, blurry thing full of contentment.

“The papers are already running the story,” Abraxas continues after clearing his throat and schooling his face. “The attack on the Ministry will be blamed on the Order. I edited the article myself, malcontents targeting Purebloods and Minister Bagnold, who so recently and tragically lost his wife to the very same violent insurgents.”

“How terrible,” Tom smiles, feeling that same contentment that comes with Harrie’s steady heartbeat against his. “I look forward to tomorrow’s paper.”

                                               Albus dies alone a week later. A poisoned candy rotting away in his stomach.

(He lets them bury him and lets them mourn. He takes Harrie to Italy for the week and lets her press gelato-sticky kisses to his cheek in the heat of the Italian sun and the salty spray of the ocean. He’s never been partial to lemon, but he smiles around glass after glass of Limoncello and laughs at the face Harrie makes when she insists on tasting it.)

Lemon has never tasted better, he thinks.

  (He digs him up when they get back. Strips him naked before dumping him in a field just outside of Hogwarts wards. No final words, no victorious speech; Harrie’s waiting for him already, tucked into his bed no matter how many times he carries her back to her own.)

 Victory, Tom realises, looks entirely different now:

Sleep-warm cheeks, bony knees in his ribs, a little reaching hand that curls around his finger. 

                                   .

.

[page150]

The Stain 🧼 Peter Parker x Reader

Request: None 

Pronouns: None stated 

Word count: 3430 

Warnings: Mentions of glass shards  

It was huge. Right above the famous Spider-Man logo and neon pink. Neon pink! 

You stared at the stain in horror. In a few hours Peter was supposed to be on a stage in front of hundreds of people to accept an award and you had gotten a neon pink stain on his super suit. 

You had been in the lab to start working on a new project, but Tony and Peter always left it in a mess. After spending two hours getting it organized you started working. It was hard to focus, though. The lab smelled bad and no matter how hard you complained about the darkness Tony didn’t want to install better lights.

 You were mad you always had to clean up after them and that now you were starting late. It was just too much and when you added 35 ml of chlorine to your formula instead 30, the test tube you used exploded. Chunks of glass flew everywhere and just missed your face. Luckily you had ducked just in time but when you looked down you sighed at the spots of pink that were forming on your lab coat. 

“Just what I need,” You mumbled. “I’ve always wanted to look like a pink dalmatian.” 

 But when you looked down to start picking up the large pieces of glass you felt the world stop as you realized some of the formula had splashed onto Peter’s suit which had been crumpled up on the floor. 

“Shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, no!” You shouted. You took off your googles and with a shaking hand picked up his suit. Uncrumpling it lo and behold, a bright pink stain where everyone could see it. You sat back down at the table and placed your head in your hands. This couldn’t be happening. Peter and Tony had spent hours customizing the suit and you ruined it.

 Regular dye wouldn’t have affected the suit but this wasn’t dye. It was a combination of chemicals, the wrong combinations of chemicals. A 5ml difference doesn’t seem like a lot but in this sense it was everything. The formula could have made that area of the suit weaker or caused something to short circuit. You wanted to continue to sit there in your misery, allowing yourself to snowball the situation but there was still the ceremony to worry about. 

You looked at your watch. The award ceremony was at 6 and you still needed to get dressed. It was 1:00pm on Saturday and you had 5 hours to get that stain out if you wanted to get to the place on time. You sat up and groaned. 

“I have to- I have to call him. But he’s going to be so mad at me. This is so so so bad, stupid!” You whispered to yourself. You fought the urge to smack yourself on the forehead and picked up your phone. Dialing the numbers you thought about what you would say. 

“Oh hey baby, you know that important event tonight that you have to dress up nice for. Well I ruined your suit! Yes, your super suit that you and your mentor worked on and you were super proud of.” That wouldn’t work, but before you could come up with another idea Peter answered the phone. 

“Hey, baby!” He chimed. His voice instantly made you relax a bit. 

“Hey, babe. Are you busy?” You replied nervously. 

“Actually I am. I was just about to call you for a favor. I’m with Steve and training’s going a bit longer than expected and I still have to practice my speech. Can you put my suit and my tux near the front door. Tony said he’ll bring it to the place.” 

“NO,” You shouted. “I- I can bring it when I arrive.” You felt your heart beat faster. If Tony came to get the suit now you wouldn’t have time to get the stain out. Peter sounded like he was thinking about it and you were hoping he would say yes. His voice came back over the phone. 

“Okay then! I’ll send you the address once I’m done working out. I love you.” 

“I love you too,” You mumbled out. Once you heard the ending click of the phone call you shot up. 

The suit wasn't like a regular suit made out of just fabric. It was more like fabric that covered plastic that covered hundreds of wires. It wasn’t something that could be just washed out. To deep clean it you had to specifically get the fabric part off and you had no clue how to do that. 

You grabbed the suit and ran up the stairs to the living room. 

“Hey Jarvis!” You called out. Sprinting into “your room” you sat down at the computer and started doing some research. Your room was really one of the many spare rooms Tony had in the building that he let you sleep in when things ran late. 

“Yes y/n?” Jarvis replied.  

“Call Ned please and tell him it’s urgent. Oh! And can you set an alarm for 4:30pm. I was going to leave later but I have to get Peter’s suit to him at 5. Before the award ceremony starts at 6.” 

“Of course. I’ll pair him to your computer once he answers.”

“Thank you!” 

A few seconds later Ned’s face popped up in the corner of the computer screen. Before he got a word out you unloaded everything onto him. You told him how frustrated you were because you were having a bad day, how the suit was now stained and that Peter doesn’t know about it. When you finished he stared at you in shock. 

“Wow y/n,” He gasped. “That’s uh, a lot.” He noticed your worried expression and gave a small smile. 

“But, I can help! I’ve even helped him with some updates to the suit. We’ll get the stain out, you’ll get dressed, and then you’ll deliver the suit to him and everything will go fine, okay?” 

You took a deep breath and nodded. Ned and Peter were both really good at calming people down. 

After a few minutes of brainstorming ideas you moved to the kitchen and had Ned on a tablet, propped up against a leftover cereal box. 

“Okay so I don’t think the formula will affect the internal composition of the suit, so that’s good. All we have to do is worry about getting the stain out and I already helped you disconnect the fabric from the plastic.” Ned chatted through the device. He watched as you came back into frame with the blue and red fabric. 

“Yeah, I checked the wires and everything seems fine. I had Jarvis pull up some of Peter’s available notes about the suit but most of them are private. It’s been in the washer twice and the stain hasn’t budged so we’ll have to go with plan B.” You explained. 

Plan B was to use fire to remove it. Fire should break up the molecules in the compound and have them float to the top of the fabric. Then all you would have to do is scrape off the remaining bits and then the suit was going to be fine. You placed a fire extinguisher and a bucket of water on the table. 

“Jarvis, please put 911 on speed dial.” You yelled. Natasha’s old mini flamethrower was placed firmly in your hand and even Ned had backed away from his camera. 

Flipping the switch, fire shot out from the tip and ran against the fabric of the suit. The stain seemed like it faded through the smoke but to your surprise once you turned off the flamethrower it was still there. 

“Maybe once I start scrapping it it will go away.” You thought to yourself. 

You grabbed a butter knife and began violently scrapping the neon pink imperfection. No matter how many times the silver knife went over the fabric, nothing changed.

“Look!” You cried. You held up the suit to Ned and he stared at it questionably. “I’m running out of time Ned!” 

You sat down in anger, your head heading back in your hands. 

“It’s okay y/n we still have time. How about you go get ready and when you come back we can try something else. I’ll even come with MJ to pick you up so we can get to the ceremony at 5. I think you would rather want to ride with us other than some random chauffeur.” He reassured. 

“Thank you so much, call me when you get here and Jarvis will let you in.” 

He said okay and hung up, leaving you in silence. You had to get this stain out before Peter saw or he would be furious. He would be embarrassed, humiliated. A superhero that can’t even have a clean suit, the news would eat him up! In a way you knew that you were overreacting but you were so stressed and this was another problem, YOU had to deal with. 

You took a shower and slipped on the outfit that someone had arranged for you. You did your hair and even though you realized how good you looked you couldn’t seem to get excited. Suddenly Jarvis spoke, “y/n it is 4:30pm and I have just allowed Ned and MJ to come into the building. You have 30 minutes to get to the award ceremony at 5. Leaving an hour before it starts.”

“Thank you Jarvis!” You replied. When you left your room and headed back into the living room you saw Ned and MJ coming out of the elevator. The theme of the ceremony was black and white and Ned was wearing a cute black tux along with his “formal” fedora. MJ was wearing a gorgeous white dress that had a slit in the middle of her stomach. Her heels clapped against the floor as she ran towards you, embracing you in a big hug. Feeling her warmth and remembering what you had done made you almost want to cry.

  “How are you doing? Well Ned told me how you’re doing but we’ll get the stain out.” You let out a long sigh. 

“I don’t know what to do MJ. I wish I could go back in time and just forget about my stupid project.” 

“It wasn’t stupid. It’s practically his fault for leaving his important suit on the floor. He’s always been gross. One time his room was so messy when we came over he had to make a web hammock attached to the ceiling so we could have somewhere to sit.”

You felt a smile creep onto your face, but you still didn’t feel completely better. In your head it made sense that it wasn’t your fault  but you still felt like it was. In a way though, MJ had given you an idea. 

“Wait! MJ, can you get the car running? This should only take a second.” Ned tossed her the keys and she walked back to the elevator. “Ned can you get the suit off the table and come with me to the lab? I have an idea!” 

“To the lab? Cool!” Ned exclaimed. He grabbed the suit and followed you into the hallway to the lab. You punched the code in while Ned was ooing and awwing at the super suit in his arms. The door opened and you both went into the lab. The dim lights went on and on the floor was what you needed. You handed Ned some goggles and a lab coat and you put one on yourself.

“Peter and Tony don’t like to wear these but Tony always sets his clothes on fire so I think we need them.” You explain. You and Ned walked over to the table you had been working on earlier. 

“This is where my test tube exploded. We don’t have much time but I think I know how to get the stain out. Can you place the fabric on the table?” Ned laid it on the table and backed away. 

“If you're doing what I think you’re doing you’re either a genius or a future hospital patient.” He joked. 

You felt a smile form on your face as you poured another 5ml of liquid nitrogen into a test tube. 

“I added an extra 5ml to my formula last time and the glass bottle exploded. I think if I add another 5ml to the stain the molecules will have more space to dissolve, making the stain turn into a fume that will disappear.” You said excitedly. 

“And if that doesn’t work what will happen?” Ned questioned. 

“I have no clue.” You replied. And with that you fastened your googles, tightened your lab coat, and poured the liquid onto the stain. A loud hiss was made and to your surprise pink smoke started to rise from the fabric. It went on for a few seconds until the hissing stopped and you waved your hand over it to clear the smoke. Setting your googles on the table you peered down at the fabric.

There was no stain! You leaped up and Ned ran over to give you another hug. 

“I can’t believe that worked!” Ned exclaimed! “I thought we were just going to have to lie to him. I already came up with two in my head!” You laughed at him and picked up the suit. 

“Okay, it’ll dry in the car and you can reattach it to the plastic. We have 20 minutes to get to the ceremony!” 

The both of you quickly took off your equipment and ran up the stairs, to the elevator, and out to the car that MJ had been waiting in. Once safely inside she drove off, fast enough that if you looked out the window for too long you would get sick. The minutes seemed to be passing by at twice their speed but you got to the ceremony with 5 minutes to spare and Peter was waiting for you at the entrance. 

“Hey, baby! I got worried you forgot to get here an hour early. Wait are you okay?��� 

You thrusted his suit towards him and finally took a break. You rested your elbows on your thighs and tried to catch your breath. You had ran to get the suit to Peter and when MJ and Ned caught up they were also out of breath. 

Peter stared at the 3 exhausted people in front of him, confused. “Uhh, hey MJ, hey Ned. What happened?” He slowly rubbed your back and worried you were going to throw up. “It’s okay, y/n, you got here on time. Everything’s okay, heck even if you came a hour late I think it would be hard for me to get mad at you.” 

You gave a small smiled and stood up straight. He was so perfect. Peter gave you a smile and kissed you. You forgot about the suit, and the mess, and everything. It was like you two were in your own little word until Tony came in. 

“Y/N, MJ, Ned! I’m glad you made it. Thanks for bringing the kid his suit. Of course he forgot it.” Instead of messing with his hair like usual, he gave him a pat on the back. “Where’s the tux?” 

You felt your heart fall to your shoes. You forgot the tux! You had been so focused with the suit you-. 

“Here you go.” MJ stated. She handed him the tux in its protective covering. “He was so busy doing the smooching I couldn’t hand it to you.”  She gave you a wink and you grinned even more. 

“Great, great!” Peter beamed. “I’ll put the tux on and meet you guys back here. Then I can show you around.” He gave you another kiss on the cheek and went with Tony to the dressing rooms. Once they were gone you turned to MJ. 

“You’re a lifesaver MJ! And thank you Ned, I really couldn’t have done this without you.” You thanked. Both Ned and MJ gave you a smile. 

“Don’t worry about it! I got to go down to the lab! And I’m at a ceremony with The Tony Stark!” Ned exclaimed. His hands were waving around frantically and kept going up to adjust his fedora. 

“You’re welcome y/n, but I think you should tell Peter the truth. Maybe not all of it but if the lab is too messy for you to work maybe he can do something to fix it.” MJ added. You hadn’t thought about that, but this whole situation was a big wakeup call. 

“I will,” You decided. “ Once the ceremony ends I’ll talk to him. Now, I just want to relax, though.” You all laughed and sat down in the chairs that were placed in the lobby. 

The ceremony went great. Peter wore his tux and kept sneaking over to show you some new moves he learned. When the ceremony actually started he put on the Spider-Man suit in secret. The crowd was so loud when he came onto the stage you would have covered your ears, but you were too busy clapping with everyone. After it was over, Spider-Man “had to leave” but Peter returned. You pulled him off to the side. 

“Can we talk?” 

Peter looked at your worried expression and led you to an area where there weren't a lot of people. “Of course. I knew you looked bothered.” 

You let out another sigh and pulled up the picture of the suit with the stain on it on your phone to show Peter.

 “I ruined your suit earlier. I was in the lab working on something and I couldn’t see. I added too much of a chemical to my formula and the test tube exploded. Some of the formula went onto it.”  

Peter looked at the picture while you looked at the floor. You could feel some tears forming in your eyes. 

“I’m really sorry. I was able to get it out, but I still should have cleaned better before I started and I get I’m sorta new and I shouldn’t expect you to change how you and Tony work for me but it’s just so messy and dark and I can’t focus and-” 

“Darling it’s okay, it’s okay, don’t cry.” Peter reassured, he pulled you into a hug and started to rub your back again in a circular motion. “I can’t believe you got the stain out. I wouldn’t have known what to do if I had gotten it there.” He joked. “But, you could have told me, I would have gone home to help you.” This time he let out a sigh. “It’s not your fault, though. I definitely should have put it back in its case.” You nodded and let out a small laugh. With each breath you could smell some of the cologne Tony probably sprayed on him. It was a good decision. 

“I’ll clean up better and Tony will just have to manage. I’ll talk to him about it, okay? But the suit looks amazing, babe. You did a good job. I don’t think the logo has shined that bright since I got it. Plus Karen even told me that it felt fresher.” 

You pulled away and looked at his eyes. “You’re the best, you know that?” 

He flashed his famous smile, “I can’t be The Best if you're around. I can’t even compete.” He said sincerely. 

“And neither of you two are the best in general because I am.” Tony added. You rolled your eyes at his comment. “How much of that did you hear?” 

Tony frowned and shook his head. “Enough to wish I had left with Pepper when she said she was headed toward the Bar. And by-the-way neither of you get any ideas. I already notified the bartender I have four underaged guests that can only be served water and caprisuns.”  

“What type of caprisuns?” You asked. 

“Lemonade ones are the best.” Peter added. 

“I don’t know ones.” Tony mocked. “But anyway y/n I hear your concerns and that was good problem solving skills you had. The suit did look great. I’ll work on getting you your own section in the lab. It’ll be nice and bright and you can keep it however clean you want it. So, you’ll be close to us while we’re working and I won’t have to listen to you and Peter compliment each other 100 times a day.” 

You and Peter laughed and you felt his arm go around your waist. “That sounds great Mr. Stark, thank you.” You chimed. 

Tony had already started to walk away but you heard him call out, “Stop calling me Mr. Stark and I’ll buy you your own building to work in.” 

With that Peter grabbed your hand and you left the quiet area to where the after party was, to meet up with MJ and Ned. 

Author’s Note: Wow first Peter Parker imagine and it’s my longest one. Is this a sign? jk anyways I hope yall enjoy this! I might rewrite it and change it to first person because I keep getting confused lol. I think I should start getting into Marvel as this was really fun to write.  Please like, follow, and remember requests are open! I hope you have a wonderful day ~c’ k

[yeenybeanies]

Could u do #36 with Hawkeye? If not Hawkeye then could u do Logan?

you can still send prompts & questions -^w^-

36. “ what do you want me to do about it? i’m three inches tall. ” 

clint would be great for this but i gotta go with my favorite manlet this time :> also i am once again spending time designing characters that i’ll only use once smh

marvel | logan howlett / wolverine & joy fredericks / heartbreaker ( oc )

1,394 words

mild language warning

thanks for sending!! 

A guttural growl rumbles, sounding like something that would come from a beast more than a man. There’s a familiar pressure in his forearms, but he holds the metal claws housed within at bay. They wouldn’t be particularly useful in this situation anyway.

“ I could use a little help here, ”  the man snaps. He glances down at his flannel shirt, at the pocket on his breast.

“ Hmm. Looks like you’ve got it to me, ”  comes a reply from within the pocket.

“ Kid. ”  He growls again, both in frustration and from exertion. He shifts his grip on the crumbling concrete to try and hold it better. It’s only just barely keeping together. Every second, every movement, threatens to bring the whole wall and ceiling down.

“ Yes, Logan? ” 

“ Ghrr––help me with this damn wall! Before it buries the both of us! ” 

The pocket shifts. Out pops a little head-full of tight, red curls. From underneath them, proportionally tiny eyes look up at Logan, and then at the wall, unimpressed. Her lips purse.

“ What do you want me to do about it? I’m three inches tall. You’re Wolverine. ” 

“ Kid, I swear to god––– ”  Logan starts, but another jolt in the wall cuts him off. He leans into the weight, eyes closed, features pulled into a snarl.

The little one rolls her eyes and sighs, exasperated. She pulls herself further out of the pocket, then summons up her mutant abilities. Her minuscule weight lifts into the air, powered by her telekinesis. The casual clothes on her body start to glow a bright pink and morph, leaving her in her pink-and-black uniform when it fades. A black mask appears on her face in a similar fashion.

“ Fine. Heartbreaker clocking in for hero duty. ”  She flies out from between Logan and the wall and raises her hands, fingers splayed. With another breath, she channels her energy, her willpower. For several seconds, nothing happens, much to her alarm.

“ Any day now . . .! ”  the man says. His arms are shaking.  “ Joy! ”

“ I’m trying. Hold on––– ”  She pushes again, willing the concrete back with growing desperation. Under her breath, she curses. Focus, she tells herself. Push. Lift. She squeezes her eyes shut in concentration. The concrete is much heavier than she’d anticipated.

Fucking LIFT!

The rubble starts to move, no longer pulled by gravity, but by mind power. Joy moves the large chunks away from Logan, using her hands to guide her energy. Her breath is heavy. Once the weight is off of his shoulders––literally––Logan backs away. Any abrasions from falling and scraping concrete quickly seal shut, vanishing as though they’d never happened to begin with.

“ Attagirl, ”  he says. His hands lift up to cup around her tiny body. With her in his hold, the man turns on his heel and breaks out into a sprint, making for the door. Cracks in the ceiling match his not-inconsiderable speed.  “ C’mon, Joy, hold it for another minute . . .! ” 

A minute is about all she has left in her. Logan only just makes it through the door as the ceiling comes down behind him. The shock wave pushes him down to his knees. Acting on instinct, he curls around the little one, surrounding her, using himself as a shield from any flying debris.

Though her efforts were not physical in nature, Joy still suffers physical and mental fatigue from her exertion. She lies limply in the man’s hand, her chest rising and falling with exhausted breaths. Logan stays curled around her for several long moments––longer than she’d normally allow without some sort of snarky comment. Luckily for him, she’s too tired to come up with any such comments.

Only when he is sure that the rubble has settled does Logan unfold himself. He pushes himself to stand, hands still cupped around Joy. He spares a quick glance over his shoulder to the collapsed building, then turns his attention to the little mutant.

“ Hey. Still alive? ”  It’s a rhetorical question; he can hear her breathing and her heart’s beating.

The initial answer he gets is a groan. Joy sits up, a hand to her forehead to try and nurse her rapidly-worsening headache.  “ No, ”  she says flatly. Dust covers her, muting the fiery red of her hair. Everything hurts.

“ Yeah you are. ”  Logan gently hooks a thumb under her chin and tips her head up towards him. One corner of his mouth is quirked up in a half smile.  “ How ya feelin’? ” 

Joy does not resist him. She meets his eyes, her brows furrowed.  “ I feel like shit, Logan. ”  On top of her exhaustion, she feels a sense of shame. She couldn’t hold the collapse. Any other psionic mutant wouldn’t have had a problem with it! 

“ You did good, ”  Logan says, sensing her internal turmoil.  “ Maybe a little less lip next time. ” 

Joy rolls her eyes and groans. Logan picks the worst times to make jokes.  “ It still came down. ” 

“ It was coming down anyway, ”  the man says with a shrug.

“ I should have been able to hold it, ”  she huffs.

“ Nah. You did fine. You’re still learning your powers. ”  He looks back to the debris, thoughtful.  “ I’m more curious about what caused the collapse. I didn’t detect anyone else in there with us. ”

“ Neither did I . . .. ”  Joy shakes her hands through her hair to try and clear some of the dust, then gathers her focus and levitates up from Logan’s hands. His head whips back around to face her. Were she in better spirits, the little mutant might tease him for being so outwardly concerned. Unfortunately, both her spirits and energy are pretty low. She only manages to hover for a few seconds before dropping back down. Logan, having not moved at all, easily catches her again. His fingers curl, giving her something to lean on.

“ Easy now, pipsqueak. You’re gonna have to rest a while. ” 

Joy huffs indignantly and supports herself against the man’s thumb. This is embarrassing. She hates feeling so weak.  “ I’m fine. ” 

“ Uh hunh. And you’re gonna rest while I investigate. ”  Before she can offer any sort of retort, Logan stuffs Joy back into his breast pocket. She squeaks in protest, but he pays her no mind.

“ Logan! ”  Once she’s regained her bearings, the little mutant pushes her head out from the pocket and glares up at the underside of Logan’s jaw. She narrows her eyes and pushes with her mind, but finds a familiar barrier blocking her out.

“ Can’t read me, kid, ”  he says knowingly. There’s a smug twinkle in his eye. He gives his temple a tap.  “ Steel trap. Well––adamantium. ”

“ I wasn’t going to read you, ”  she says.  “ I was gonna insult you. Telepathically. ” 

Logan pushes a sharp, amused breath through his nose.  “ Heaven forbid. ” 

“ But that’s fine; I can just do it out loud. ” 

“ Can’t wait. ”  He shoves Joy’s head back down into the pocket, more teasing her than anything, and makes for the door he’d come through. For the most part, debris obstructs it. He can’t squeeze through. With a contemplative hum, the man lets his eyes wander, looking for alternative entrances.

There.

“ Hold on, ”  he says. He jumps to grab a handhold in the cracked brick face and clambers his way up to a barred window on the second story. Joy peeks out from the pocket in time to see the Wolverine’s famous claws slip out through his knuckles with their characteristic snikt! 

Gross.

She grimaces, but keeps her comments to herself. She knows it’s worse for him; he has to feel the pain every time he pops those claws.

Logan makes quick work of the bars, dispatching them with two easy slashes. His claws slice through them like a hot knife through butter. They retreat back into his knuckles with another sickening noise, freeing his hand to punch through the glass.

“ The building was already unstable before we got here, ”  Joy points out.  “ It was probably, like, a cat or something that stepped wrong and sent it all down. And you weigh more than a cat. ” 

“ Guess you’ll just have to catch me if I step wrong then, ”  he says. Though his face doesn’t give anything away, Joy can hear the implicit smirk in his voice. 

“ Ugh. Y’know, I don’t think I could yet, even if I wanted to. ”  She sits up further in the pocket, arms folded over the lip.  “ So if you fall, you’re shit outta luck. ”

[tealquacks]

They Share A Kitchen

An intrulogical (can be read as platonic) fic

Originally posted here : https://archiveofourown.org/works/24317644

While the light and dark sides preferred to keep their distance from one another, they had to share some parts of Thomas’ mind. The imagination, for example, was split down the middle just like the two sides that ruled them, a mix of gnarled trees and fluffy clouds, unicorns and demogorgons, living in hostile harmony. They also had to share a living room, a few hallways, and the kitchen. Almost as if Thomas’ subconscious was trying to push the sides together. 

But the sharing didn’t bring them any closer, especially considering recent events. The “dark” sides avoided the “light” sides and Roman avoided everybody. All the shared spaces did was give Logan reasons to share more fun facts at the breakfast table.

“Studies show certain animals that inhabit areas close to human activity have begun to develop nocturnal tendencies in order to avoid said humans,” Logan had said one day over a bowl of dry cereal. 

“And what does that have to do with anything?” Virgil grumbled. Patton yawned.

Logan sighed. “I’ll answer your question with a question. Why do we always wait until eight am to get our breakfast?”

Virgil looked down into his coffee cup, and mumbled something. 

“What was that?”

“...To avoid Remus and Janus.” 

Logan had huffed triumphantly. Really, he found their little schedule fascinating. He made a little schedule on lined paper, marked out by half hours. He practically had their movements tracked down to the minute. Weeks worth of observation, neatly graphed out. It almost made Logan want to cry. 

Six am to seven am seemed to be the hours where Janus, the resident morning person, dragged Remus to the kitchen and got himself a cup of coffee and made himself breakfast, before making a hasty retreat to his room. Remus made breakfast after him, then left at around seven forty five am. Then the ‘light’ sides (minus Roman) claimed the kitchen from eight am to ten. Sometimes even to ten fifteen, depending on what Patton and Virgil made. 

Roman grabbed whatever leftovers there were at ten thirty. Afterwards, (around 11) Janus would emerge to get another cup of coffee and an early lunch, and Patton would get a cup of tea to drink and chat with him. Roman would slip into the kitchen at noon to get water or a snack, then right at twelve o’ eight, Remus would bolt into the kitchen, grab something to eat, then dash away before Patton could enter for another cup of tea at around twelve o’ twelve. At two, Virgil and Patton would sit in the kitchen and chat.

There were only two ‘dead zones’ Logan could find, where nobody visited the kitchen. Between two thirty and four, where everyone kept to themselves in their room until dinner (which Janus and Remus ate at four, himself, Virgil and Patton at five, Roman at around six if he remembered to eat), and from three am to five thirty am. Logan never had the chance to observe the kitchen that early in the morning— which is to say he never had an excuse to disrupt his sleep schedule. 

Even then, his curiosity plagued him. Virgil sometimes woke in the night to grab a midnight snack, but was he ever there at three thirty am? Some mornings there would be a pot left on the stove, or flour on the counters. Maybe it was Roman, trying to cook but only succeeding in making a mess. Or Janus? No, Janus always cleaned up after himself, it wasn’t him. Did Patton wake in the night to cook or bake…?

The logical thing to do was to ask if anyone went into the kitchen at those hours. The logical thing sounded like far much more trouble than simply staking out in the kitchen and waiting to see if someone came along, then ask them if their late night (early morning?) visits to the kitchen were a part of their routine. That would cut out any unnecessary conversation. Certainly it would be the best option— avoid any conversation that could possibly turn into an argument and distress Thomas, while also ridding himself of this curiosity. 

All of those events led to now. Logan sat on the couch, close enough to hear if anyone entered the kitchen, but obscured enough by the couch that he wouldn’t be seen. Not that that mattered, both the kitchen and the common area were pitch black. Not a single sliver of moonlight shone through the windows. He checked his watch. Two fifty-one. He’d been sitting there for an hour.

Logan briefly paused his train of thought. Why did he care so much? He wanted to complete his chart. Why did it matter to him? 

Logan sighed. The mystery person wouldn’t be here for at least another forty minutes. And that is assuming that they follow their schedule every single day. It made sense that there would be nobody in the kitchen. Every single metaphysical person was asleep. Except for him. 

Being thorough is important. What if he had missed something? Or this person's trips to the kitchen add a whole new variable to his chart? Who knows. He certainly didn’t, so he had to find out.

He checked his watch again. Three twenty am. Huh, overthinking truly was a great way to pass the time. Only fifteen minutes to go until the truth revealed itself to him in the form of one of his fellow sides stumbling into the kitchen. Maybe it would be Patton, taking sock-muffled steps into the kitchen on his way to bake, or Janus with a novel and a desire for a cup of tea. The possibility that simply nobody went to the kitchen between three thirty am to five am hung in the air. It didn’t make him any less curious. 

Footsteps. Heavy, thundering things in the kitchen. Logan jolted. Slowly he turned around to look into the kitchen, and found that the lack of light made his eyes useless. All he could see was a shadowy figure in front of the cupboards. He heard one open, then shut a minute and a half later. 

Logan watched the shifting darkness. Metal scratching metal—what the hell was that? He cringed at the harsh sound. More scraping noises. If he could feel anything, he’d classify the prickles running up his spine as fear, or anxiety, but since he certainly had no emotions, he chalked the sensation up to being cold. Even then, Logan flinched hard when the shadowy figure used a food processor. Three thirty five am.

More metallic scraping (sharpening a knife?) mingled with mindless humming. Maybe it was Roman, making himself food. He hadn’t eaten that day, so he would certainly be hungry. So certainly, if Logan were to turn on the light, he would see Roman in his Beauty and the Beast onesie. But then again, Roman was a shit cook. There wouldn’t be any scraping of knives or sounds of rustling in cupboards— maybe the rustling of a cereal box. 

Could it be Patton? No. Patton always loudly sang while cooking. Or maybe it was Patton, and he was just  being considerate of the other sleeping sides. How would he even confront the mystery chef? ‘Hey, not to sound weird but I’ve been keeping track of everyone’s kitchen time and I want to know if you do this every night. I have a chart. Yes, it is laminated, and color coded. Tell me about your schedule.’

Logan stared into the darkness of the kitchen unblinking. Rustling of… something, more chopping and scraping noises. Something sizzled, and Logan slowly breathed in. Oh, it smelled wonderful, rich and herbal… garlic, maybe. And onion. He checked his watch. Three thirty am, and he still had no clue who the hell was making food. What were they making? 

The fridge opened, and Logan could finally see. The cold light glinted off a long, sharp knife. Logan swallowed. There was a hunk of meat on the cutting board. Peering into the fridge was, well, someone, but when they turned their head, Logan could see the bright shock of white in their hair—

“Remus?” Logan exclaimed, bewildered.

Remus jumped and let out a panicked shriek. Logan stood up from his place at the couch, and blindly stumbled to the light switch. Remus flinched at the sudden light, and Logan just blinked as he took in the sight before him.

Sitting on the counter was a baking sheet with a raw rack of lamb perched upon it, covered in some sort of seasoning. On the stove sat a pot of golden broth that barely simmered, and the source of that delectable smell— a skillet of shallots and rice. Another pan of perfectly cooked mushrooms sat close by. Logan blinked.

“What is this?” Logan asked.

“Food,” Remus answered, “and I would’ve let you have some if you hadn’t scared the shit out of me, ‘figuratively’.” 

Logan raised an eyebrow. Remus looked as disheveled as ever, even though he only wore a pair of boxers with little octopi on them. For once he wasn’t wearing his eyeshadow, and his hair looked like he’d just rolled out of bed. A grain of rice was caught in his moustache. What an odd thing to notice.

“I apologize for interrupting your cooking,” Logan deadpanned, “but if you would be more specific?”

Remus shoved the pan into the fridge, then picked up a bottle of white wine. He took a long swig out of it before pouring a bit into the pan with the rice. It sizzled loudly, and he started mixing vigorously.

“I’m making garlic and herb crusted roast lamb and mushroom risotto,” Remus said.

Logan blinked slowly.

“What?”

Remus looked up from his pan, a little smile on his face.

“Come on, Logan! You’re the smart one, you should know what a risotto is!”

Logan sat down at the kitchen table, staring dazedly at Remus. 

“I know what a risotto is,” Logan said, “a northern Italian dish made with rice and broth until it reaches a creamy consistency, sometimes made with white wine or butter. I didn’t know you knew how to make it, though.”

Remus added a bit of the simmering broth to the rice.

“Why not? I mean, gluttony, envy, greed, all those dirty little sins Thomas associates with me,” Remus said with a shoulder wiggle.

“Well—“

“Are you jealous of my skills? I know how to keep a man happy, Logan. Don’t you know? The fastest way to a man’s heart—“

“Is through his stomach.” An idiom Patton had taught him. Remus nodded rapidly.

“Yes, like gutting a deer! You carve open the stomach and poke through the diaphragm to cut the esophagus and pull everything out! And then you yank out the heart!” Remus cackled manically, pouring more broth into the pan and stirring. A bit of rice flew out. “It’s really tasty. Deer heart, I mean.”

Logan nodded, “And very nutritious. High in potassium and protein.”

 Remus nodded even more, his white streaked hair flopping into his eyes. Logan was still in shock over this whole thing. Who the hell knew Remus could cook? Certainly not him. Now came the hard part, talking.

“Did you know that sheep don’t have teeth in their upper front jaws? And that like, a bunch of sheep are gay!” Remus rambled.

“Do you do this every night?” Logan questioned.

“No,” Remus responded, “most of the time I cook in the buff— it’s freeing!”

“That’s… I mean. Uh. Do you cook every night,” Logan deadpanned.

Remus shrugged.

“On and off. Some days I do some days I don’t!”

Logan opened his mouth, then shut it. Remus, as far as he could tell, was every single bit of chaos Thomas had (that wasn’t already represented by Roman). As Remus himself had said, he was the opposite of rational thought. Remus added a little more broth to the rice, stirring quickly. 

“It’s my turn for questions— I have about seven,” Remus said. Logan opened his mouth to respond, but Remus started rattling his questions off.

“One, why’re you in the kitchen? I’ve never seen you up this late, not very logical of you.”

Logan shrugged, not sure what to say. Lying was Janus’ thing. So he straightened his tie, and said:

“Recently, I have been collecting data about the habits of the other sides, namely, when they use the kitchen. A pattern started to emerge, but there were gaps in my data, one of which exists because of the other sides waiting to make dinner, but the other gap I could not fill, nor could I simply ignore. I assumed everyone would be asleep—“

“—And you got me instead!” Remus chirped. “A pleasant surprise, isn’t it?”

Logan started at the knife laying on the counter. Next to it laid a sharpening steel. His wandering eyes landed on Remus’ back. So pale...

“...It’s certainly a surprise. Where did you—“

Something struck him right between the eyes before clattering to the ground. Logan blinked in shock, before realizing Remus had simply thrown a spoon at him.

“It’s my question time, whore!” Remus exclaimed. He summoned another spoon 

Logan nodded.

“My apologies,” Logan said, “go on?”

Remus’ brows furrowed, but he continued.

“Questions two, three, four, and six—“

“Six?”

“I’m going out of order. Question two: is Roman still a shit cook? Question three: why are you surprised? Four, how long were you sitting there, and six, do you want to eat with me?”

Logan’s eyes went wide as he tried to take in all the questions. Remus stirred in a little more broth, but he never took his eyes off of him. A little disconcerting, but in character for him.

“Well,” Logan started, “Roman is not the most skilled in cooking. His ideas are creative, but the execution tends to be subpar. While cooking he is easily distracted, which leads to burnt things. The food he summons is wonderful, though. However, this information may not be recent nor accurate because I have not seen Roman since the events after the wedding.”

“The events— you mean when Padre flipped out and turned into a frog? And Jannie told everyone his name, and Roman got princey pissed?

Logan nodded.

“Yes. But to answer question three as honestly as I can, I did not have any reason to believe you had any cooking skill, especially not of this level.”

Remus tilted his head. “Why so?”

“Because of what you represent to Thomas,” Logan explained, “all of his “bad” creativity. I had no reason to believe you could make anything good, let alone what smells like a finely made risotto.” 

Logan expected Remus to throw something at him again. Instead, Remus seemed surprisingly calm, looking down at his risotto. Logan straightened his tie again.

“Not only that,” he continued,” but also because Thomas does not possess cooking skills of this caliber.”

Remus chuckled.

“Thomas also does not possess knowledge of a lot of the shit you and Jan talk about. Like, philosophy and psychology and a whole lot of other stuff. Roman knows spanish! So who’s to say that I can’t cook? Besides, Thomas’ perception of me hasn’t done shit since the split, ya know? He has no power over me. He sees me as bad, yeah, and I don’t give a fuck. If you ask me, if Thomas let Janus take control instead of Prudey-Patton, we’d be sailing much much much smoother. But that’s only my opinion of course!”

“Really?” Logan asked, surprised.

Remus raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, I think Janus would be a much better ‘morality’ than Patton. He has good opinions of the shit Thomas should be doing. And, he likes me! I’d say it to his face.  Patton’s face. Actually I might have? I’m not sure! I’m not sure…”

“I don’t think you have,” Logan said, “but it would be unwise for Janus to take Patton’s role, since Thomas is attached to Patton and the sudden shift would be detrimental to his mental and emotional health. Besides, I don’t think Janus could actually take his place, since he also acts as Thomas’ self preservation.”

 Remus rolled his eyes.

“Whatever. Question four! Let’s go!”

“I was sitting on the couch for about an hour and forty four minutes. Before that I was in my room. I came out and sat on the couch at one fifty one, so I wouldn’t be tempted to go to bed.”

Remus whistled low. He let go of the spoon, which kept stirring the risotto even without his touch.

“Goddamn, that’s dedication. I can’t even sit still for half that time! What would you have done if nobody showed up?”

Logan looked awkwardly down at his hands. Honestly, he hadn't thought of what he would do. 

“Go back to my room and sleep,” Logan answered, “but stay up this late for at least a week in order to make sure I had proper data.”

Remus crossed his arms and leaned back against the stove. With one hand, he tapped his fingers to his thumb in a quick rhythm— index finger to thumb, middle finger to thumb, ring finger to thumb, pinkie to thumb, over and over again.

“It really must mean a lot to you. Which leads to question five!”

“I thought you said you were—“

“Going out of order? Well, I’m not! I’m unpredictable like that. Question five! Why does charting our schedules mean so much to you?”

Logan stared at the knife laid on the counter. For a split second, he considered standing up and leaving. Because how could he explain the reason he decided to chart their movements? There were so many, each one sillier and more trivial than the last, each one of them soaked in emotion, so much so there was no denying how he felt, and if the others found out they’d never ever listen to him ever ever again— 

But on the other hand he so desperately wanted to tell him, just to get the words out, so they’d stop pushing on him. Logan fiddled with his tie. 

Logan took a slow breath in.  On the counter laid the knife. Logan’s eyes flicked around the kitchen. Sharpening steel, cutting board, some leftover herbs, Remus, the streak of white in his hair. The air was cold, the floor was hard, the chair felt sturdy, and his tie was smooth. Sizzling of the pan, his own foot, tapping restlessly on the ground, Remus’ quiet humming. The air smelled like chicken stock and a bit of garlic. None of Remus’ usual reek, surprisingly. Logan moved his tongue around a little. His mouth tasted like spit. Nothing more, nothing less. He breathed out.

“I realized that all I do is pointless. Every plan and suggestion I give is ignored, or unwanted, unless I push and push… but even then, I’m not listened to. The chart is what I believe Janus would call a ‘coping mechanism’. I know this, too, is pointless, but knowing that I can complete this without any interruption, without any need for input from the others is comforting. It does nothing, and yet I’ve dedicated a good deal of time towards it.”

Remus stared at him, expression unreadable. That was until a bright, manic smile split his features, and he clapped his hands.

“So it’s like jacking off!” Remus exclaimed.

Logan made a face, looking at Remus with nothing but unbridled confusion.’The spoon in the risotto kept on stirring by itself.

“...And how did you come to that conclusion?”

“Well, it makes you feel phenomenal, it’s something you do for yourself, and it’s good for stress relief!”

Logan blinked slowly, then looked down at his lap, desperately trying to keep his composure.

“That is a good metaphor. Just like masturbation, this chart is, in the end, pointless.”

Remus snorted, and rolled his eyes. He sat down at the table next to Logan, and their knees bumped. Remus set both his elbows on the table.

“I don’t see how it’s pointless.” He said, “It’s something you’re doing to make yourself feel better because everyone else is shit. As you said, a coping mechanism. What makes it pointless?”

“It serves no purpose,” Logan deadpanned.

“Ya see, Logan, when you really, really think about it, everything is pointless!” Remus exclaimed. “Every meal we eat and person we see and every idea we have and every place we go and every happy moment is pointless, because in the end it’ll all go away! It’ll all be for nothing! Thomas will die and we’ll go with him, so everything is pointless!” 

Remus leaned closer. Their foreheads touched. How was Remus’ skin so warm? Logan swallowed, trying to push the tingling sensation in his chest down. Fear. It was fear. 

“Every single little thing is pointless!” Remus whispered intensely, “It’s true, you know it is, so don’t you agree?”

Logan looked him dead in the eyes.

“No, I don’t,” Logan said darkly, “Because while death is inevitable, Thomas’ life still matters. It might not matter cosmically, but his happiness and well being matter to me, and I will do everything in my power to give him a wonderful life, a life he can smile at even when he is close to death. So all those things you just said were meaningless? They matter more than anything. To Thomas, and to me.”

Remus smiled, wicked and sharp, waggling his eyebrows.

“So your chart isn’t pointless,” Remus said mischievously, “nothing you do is. As a part of Thomas, anything and everything you do matters. And if you say it doesn’t, then that makes you a hypocrite!”

Logan’s eye twitched. Ah, dammit, he just got played like a cheap kazoo by a guy who eats deodorant. 

“I guess you’re right.”

Remus dramatically leaned back, arms outstretched like a bird.

“I know!”

Logan sighed, hands in his lap. The risotto kept on stirring itself. Was it done? How long had it been? Logan looked at his watch. He couldn’t see, his vision clouded. He blinked. 

“I don’t know,” Logan said, “I’m Thomas’ logic I don’t know why he won’t listen to me anymore. Why none of them ever listen to me. I don’t feel like I belong among the sides even more. I’m a part of Thomas. It’s hard. I know I’m needed, but I don’t feel that way, and I can’t stop feeling. I’ve tried. I’ve really, really tried. Really, everything feels pointless, because none of my efforts yield anything of value.”

Remus pat his head.

“There there,” Remus said, “now about these feelings. Have you tried turning that big brain of yours off and on again?”

A chortle escaped Logan’s month. Then, a teardrop landed on his glasses. He ripped them off and slammed them on the table, taking deep, slow breaths to calm himself. They didn’t work, and dissolved into hiccuping, pathetic sobs.

“Oh boy,” Remus said. He didn’t move his hand from Logan’s head, gently stroking his hair like how one would pet a cat. Oddly enough, it was a little calming. Logan thought for a second of what the others would see. Remus, in only boxers, petting him as he cried. Remus made a few cooing noises.

“Why did I even tell you all this?” Logan whined, sniffling wetly.

Remus removed his hand. Logan heard him stand, then rustle around a bit.

“It’s like, four am,” Remus explained, “everyone is dumb as fuck at four am. Even you, Raisin Brain.”

“Raisin Brain?”

“A pun on the cereal and a reference to how scrunchy and smart your brain is, like. A raisin? It is also something that proves my point. But I get you, sometimes the thoughts just have to come out. Here, try some.”

Logan looked up from his hands to see Remus, offering him a spoon with some of the risotto on it. He’d mixed in the mushrooms. The risotto was as pale as his skin. Logan took the spoon from Remus, and put it in his mouth. His teary eyes went wide at the taste. The rice was cooked wonderfully, and he could taste the wine and chicken broth. The mushrooms in the dish added a wonderful earthiness,  and Logan forced himself to chew slowly, relishing every last flavor before swallowing.

Remus peered down at him anxiously, twiddling his moustache with the hand not holding the spoon.

“What do you think?” He asked. Logan wiped his eyes, running his tongue over his teeth to catch the last bit of the taste.

“It tastes wonderful, the wine and the mushroom… it’s a very well done dish, you should be proud of yourself.”

Remus clapped his hands, dropping the spoon and letting it clatter on the floor. He jumped up and down, hopping back over to the pan of risotto and taking it off the heat and letting it rest on the stove.

“Won’t it get cold?” Logan asked. He sniffled.

“Not unless I want it to,” Remus said, “and I don’t want it to! I’m serving it with the lamb, which I’m gonna roast. But it has to marinate for a while. Here, while we wait…”

He grabbed the bottle of white wine from the counter and sat at the table with Logan, offering the bottle to Logan. How long had it been since he’d had wine, or anything alcoholic? One week and three days. How long had it been since he’d had wine somewhere that wasn’t his bedroom? About a year and a half. He couldn’t risk being drunk in front of the others. Then they wouldn’t view him as serious and smart, just as a silly, drunken idiot—

None of those others were here. They were all asleep.

But what would Remus think? Would he care? He could hold this moment over his head for the rest of Thomas’ life, and he would no longer be able to keep him in check. He’d truly be useless, unnecessary.

“I can hear you thinking from here, Teach,” Remus said, brows furrowed, “I can get you some water instead?”

Logan nodded. Remus snapped his fingers, and the golden wine faded until it was clear. Logan hesitantly took the bottle, gingerly sipping. Yes, that was water. He couldn’t help but take a deep gulp, almost choking on the cold, wonderful water. He lowered the bottle. Logan furrowed his brows. 

“Wine to water? Isn't it supposed to be the other way around?” Logan questioned.

Remus smirked, “I think my way is more fun. I still have more questions, if you’re game?”

“I’m not ‘game’. If I was, I’d be chess,” Logan said.

“I’d be strip poker!” Remus cackled, throwing his head back in glee. When he composed himself, he looked at Logan. “But that’s not what I mean. I mean. Okay! Question eight.”

Logan blinked. He put his glasses back on, sniffling pathetically.

“I thought you only had seven questions—“

“Question eight!” Remus proclaimed, “why are you so self conscious?”

Logan spluttered.

“What do you mean?”

“What do I mean? Uh. It’s like, four am, and you’re in your usual clothes. I’m in my boxers. It’s a little weird.”

Logan looked over Remus. Pale, a few small scars unique to him. The octopi boxers. 

“I prefer to remain clothed,” Logan said, “especially in places where I could be seen. I have a reputation to uphold.”

Remus snorted.

“Whatever, I’ll get an honest answer from you one day. Now, question seven and six— question seven! What should I cook tomorrow? Er, tomorrow at this time. Time is weird.”

Logan paused, sipping the water slowly. He could say some basic dish, and join him for that, or he could test the theories building in his head, test the limits of the chart by throwing a new variable into the schedule, that variable being Remus.

“Croissants!” Logan exclaimed. He took a deep breath. “Yes. Croissants. Homemade croissants.”

Remus’ brows shot up. He flicked his wrist, and a piece of worn looking paper appeared in his hand. He glanced at the paper, eyes going wide.

“Ah, fuck, this recipe takes like, twelve hours just to prepare the dough, holy shit! This’ll take all day—“

“If you begin the preparation at three thirty am, you’ll be done at four forty pm on the dot.”

Remus looked at Logan with a bright smile. There was still a grain of rice stuck in his mustache, as white as the streak in his hair. Logan blinked slowly, suddenly struck with the urge to say something was pointless so Remus would get closer, press their foreheads together and do… something. Remus flicked his wrist, and the recipe disappeared in a burst of smoke.

“Perfect!” Remus exclaimed, “Come around the kitchen then, tomorrow, I mean. And I’ll make you the Cwossaints.”

“Croissants,” Logan deadpanned. 

“Oh, keep talking French to me, honeycomb! Ah! But now, it is time for the last question, question six!” 

Remus struck a pose, and a pan flew out of the fridge and clattered onto the stove. Pale, polished bones stuck up— oh, the lamb. With a snap of Remus’ fingers, the pan suddenly burst into a plume of green flame, lapping at the walls and the ceiling, leaving no mark, as Remus’ destruction typically did. The rich smell of garlic and cooked meat filled the kitchen. Logan stared at Remus, unblinking. 

“Question six,” he repeated.

Remus made a face, but nodded and spoke. “Yeah, question six! Do you want to eat with me? The lamb and the risotto? I promise, it’s heavenly! And good company would make it even better!”

Logan stared at the stove. Alright. Pros and cons. It was four am, but he could still be logical, weigh his options. 

Pros: A good meal, conversation with someone who listened.

Cons: lack of sleep, another distraction, what if the others find out. 

“I’m sorry,” Logan said, standing from the table, and gingerly pushing his chair back, “but I really should be going back to sleep. It certainly smells wonderful, but I really must be going to bed.”

Remus crumpled a little, dropping the pose.

“Yeah, sure, whatever! I’m sure Jannie will eat it for breakfast. But you’re eating the cross-I-ants, or I’ll skin you.”

Logan nodded, and took a step backward. 

“I will.”

Remus stood, picking up the wine bottle and passing it to Logan. Logan took the bottle, filled with water, not the wine. He gave Remus a tight lipped smile, and walked to the stairs. Logan set his hand on the banister.

“Remus?”

“Yes?” 

Logan didn’t dare look at Remus.

“You have a grain of rice in your mustache.”

Remus cackled as Logan ascended the stairs, not looking behind him. It was as if he was a child again, running away from some sort of shadow monster that emerged only in the darkness. Running away, not from Remus, but from something. A lot of things. The water in the wine bottle sloshed.

Logan reached his room and flung the door open. His bed was perfectly made, indigo sheets pulled up nice and trim with no sign of being slept in. The lights were still on, bathing the room in clinical white light. His desk was covered in papers that he should’ve already looked over. A well loved indigo office chair sat in front of the desk. He set the wine bottle on his desk, and leaned over his chair. There was his chart. Almost reverently, he took a green marker, and, in the once empty space, wrote Remus’ name. 

There. It was done. He’d finished it. It was neat and tidy, and his. He exhaled slowly. Carefully, he undid his tie, then slipped off his shirt. After that, his shoes, then his jeans. He folded them neatly, and set them at the foot of his perfectly made bed. Sleep. Sleep sounded good. So did a lamb dinner. But there would be croissants, another excuse to sit at the kitchen table and be asked silly, harmless questions while studying the pale skin of Remus’ back.

Logan snapped his fingers to turn the lights off, and sat down in the office chair. Nice and comfortable. He relaxed, and took slow, deep breaths to take himself to sleep.

Each breath smelled like cooked lamb and wine.

[dearest-bucky]

Drunk minds speak sober thoughts (Sequel to ‘Drunk in love’)

Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary:  When you’re unable to confess your feelings for someone, do it drunk! - The story continues.. 

Words: 2.8K

Warnings: just a huge misunderstanding, reader is silly lol, fluff

A/N: Sorry this is a few days late but I haven’t been able to use my laptop the last couple of days. Hope you like it though. Feedback is truly appreciated! xx

Originally posted: March 12, 2020

The early rays of sun peeking through the blinds were the only light in the room, but that was enough to wake her up from the deep sleep she was in.

She poked her head up from under the blanket, eyes barely opening from sleep, and groaned loudly. Her head was splitting in half, brain pounding in her skull.

“God, how much did I have to drink last night?” She mumbled sleepily to herself.

Last night…

She shot up from the bed startled, remembering broken fragments from last night’s events. She averted her eyes to the other side of the bed, finding it surprisingly empty. No trace of another person being there. It was like Bucky had never been in her room last night. She was disappointment to see he had left before she woke up, or maybe he had just stayed until she was asleep and then got up and out of her room.

She hadn’t felt him moving at all. Yet again, the strange quietness of her room was playing tricks with her mind.

What if it had all been just a weird dream her drunk mind had conjured up? But it had felt so real. All of it. His lips on hers, his tongue caressing her skin, his hands roaming her body so delicately and deliciously. It was impossible of her silly, stupid, crazy, drunk mind to come up with all of these very much realistic feelings that he had left behind.

After finally deciding on the reality of last night’s events, it was the turn to question the reason why he wasn’t in bed with her this morning? He had told her he wanted her and she knew he wanted him too, she was sure of her feelings. But maybe he regretted everything? Maybe he just didn’t like her that much to stick around long enough. To wake up beside her.

She sighed audibly and got in bed again. She wasn’t ready to get out of her room and face the others, especially Bucky, yet.

Everything that went through her head was causing unwanted feelings embarrassment, unease, shame. She felt stupid. Maybe she came on too strong. Maybe she just wasn’t that important to Bucky as she thought she was. Maybe she just put too much hope into all of this thing.

And maybe now she was thinking too much.

She opened the drawer of the nightstand next to her bed and fished out a bottle of Advil, taking two in her hand and swallowing them without any water.

She laid down again and covered her head with the thick blanket, shielding herself entirely from any source of light. Maybe if she isolated herself long enough, she would be able to overcome this shame she was feeling and would face the members of the team and most importantly Bucky, like nothing had ever happened.

With these thoughts and the Advils kicking in, she fell asleep soon enough, emptying her mind from everything in the dream land.

*

It was still dark when he felt a hand on his shoulder, lightly shaking him awake. He was startled for a second and his first instinct was to slightly tighten his grip on y/n, who was sleeping soundly in his arms, splayed half over him and snoring quietly.

He opened his eyes, only to be surprised to see Steve hovering over his head.

“What the hell are you doing here, punk?” Bucky asked in a sleepy whisper.

Steve rolled his eyes at his friend’s language, but didn’t comment on it.

“Urgent mission, we have to leave immediately Buck.”

His voice was a hushed whisper too, but Bucky heard it loud and clear. He let out a short breath of annoyance and carefully turned y/n on the other side, releasing himself from under her body.

He gave her a loving look, already regretting having to leave, but work was calling and he had responsibilities, the world needed to be saved. He put a piece of hair behind her ear and placed a quick kiss on her forehead, before getting out of the room and heading to the hangar bay.

Steve would have to brief him on the mission while in the jet on their way.

*

The mission was long and exhausting. He was beaten up, cuts and scrapes everywhere, but only one thought was enough for everything to not matter at all. The thought that he was about to go back to the compound, see y/n, preferably go back to the so rudely interrupted sleep from a week ago.

They would soon be home and Bucky couldn’t stay in his place anymore, despite his wounds.

“How did you even know I was in y/n’s room that morning?” He finally asked Steve, this being the only time during the whole week they had the chance to actually talk something other than mission or attacking strategies.

Steve cleared his throat, feeling a little awkward by the question, his shy personality winning over.

“I, um… When I didn’t find you in your room I asked Friday and she told me where you were.” He stumbled upon his words, sheepishly finishing the sentence.

Bucky just scoffed in amusement and nodded his head.

“So, what’s going in between you two?” It was Steve’s turn to ask. “Did you finally confessed your feelings to her?”

“Kind of. She was drunk that night and you know…”

This time Steve smirked, it was ridiculous how Bucky could lose all his cool and carefree demeanor whenever he would talk about y/n. He didn’t want to make him feel more uncomfortable but at the same time, he loved to see Bucky squirming.

“Actually I don’t know. She was drunk and scared to sleep alone?” He teased.

Bucky, who understood Steve’s purpose, shoved his shoulder playfully.

“Sure Saint America, whatever you say.” Maybe if he teased Steve too, he could get off the hook easily.

He didn’t know what to say about his relationship with y/n, if there even was one to begin with. They had yet to have a conversation where they were both sober and with their heads clear.

After about one other hour of flying, they finally arrived in New York, the jet landing smoothly in the hangar.

Bucky was the first one to get out, heading directly to y/n’s room. Despite being tired and bruised, he paid no mind to his actual state, but sprinted in the direction of her room, not seeing anyone else on the way there.

He didn’t even think to get a shower or change his bloody, dirty clothes, he just wanted to see y/n as soon as possible.

When he got in front of her door, he quickly knocked twice on the wooden surface and waited to her hear voice invite him in. When that didn’t happen, he decided to just turn down the knob to open the door and peaked his head inside the room.

“Y/n?” He called her name but there was no answer.

After deciding she wasn’t there, he turned around, closing the door behind him.

“Friday, where’s y/n?”

“She’s in the common area with the rest of the team, Sergeant Barnes.” The immediate polite answer of the A.I eased his racing heart a bit, but it still wasn’t enough.

“Thank you.”

With that he made his way to the living room. Every step he took towards her, he felt his heart grow heavier. It was weird and he couldn’t explain it. Maybe it was because he hadn’t seen her and hadn’t heard from her in a week, or maybe it was simply the exhaustion catching up on him.

His steps still didn’t falter until he reached the common area, finding there most of the team, including y/n, Natasha, Sam, Vision, Tony and Steve, who was still in his bloodied torn suit.

Everyone’s attention was on the Captain, telling them about the mission and the new information he and Bucky got on Hydra.

Sam was the first to notice Bucky standing at the threshold.

“Hey Tin Man, how you doing?”

With that, five other heads turned to look at Bucky. Y/n’s breath hitched as Bucky locked eyes with her and she quickly averted her gaze down to her feet, feeling suddenly very self conscious.

After one whole week, without so much as a word from him, there he was. She felt lightheaded, like she was going to pass out. Every pep talk she had with herself during the entire week since she learned that Bucky had left in an urgent mission with Steve only to come back a week later, did nothing to ease the anxiety growing in her heart.

She was sure she had made a fool of herself, making herself too available for him that night, now he surely must think she was just an easy lay and nothing more.

God, the embarrassment.

Bucky kept staring at her and she kept staring at her feet, while everybody else in the room kept averting their eyes from one to the other, not understanding what was going on. One thing was sure though, you could cut the tension between them with a butter knife.

After a short awkward period of silence, Bucky decided to let y/n’s weird behavior slip, before he turned to answer to Sam.

“I’m okay Sam. How’s everything around here?”

Despite him trying to sound casual, it was actually very awkward to be present in the room. No matter how much he tried to not make the situation weirder than it already was, he was failing miserably, eyes averting every now and then at y/n’s face, who was still silent on her seat.

Before he had the chance to say something to her, she was quick on her feet and excused herself from the others, claiming she “had things to do”.

With that she left the room without a second glance at Bucky, and he just kept staring at her retreating figure unable to say a word.

“Awkward…” Sam mumbled under his breath and it was the only thing Bucky heard before he made his way out of the room too, following behind y/n.

He would catch up with her and get to talk to her if it wasn’t for Steve who called behind him and asked him to take a shower and change his dirty clothes before going to speak to her.

Bucky didn’t know why, but he agreed with his friend and headed instead to his room to take a bath and get dressed up in clean clothes.

The talk with y/n would have to wait for another hour or so.

**

That “another hour” turned into two whole days of them not talking. In fact, it was more like y/n was purposely ignoring him, skipping meals, movie nights with the team, training, basically every activity that included Bucky too.

It was getting ridiculous and Bucky couldn’t take more of this situation. If she regretted what had happened that night between them it was better to just come forward and be honest with him, rather than ignoring him like this.

It was weird for him and also for the team, none of them understanding what was really going on.

The third day Bucky finally decided he had had enough and decided to finally confront y/n about it. About them.

With a newfound determination he left his room to look for y/n. He was a man on a mission.

It was a little past 11 pm and most of the team had retreated in their own rooms for the day, finally resting. The same couldn’t be said for y/n, who used these late hours to train, since she had been avoiding morning training with the team because Bucky would be there and she didn’t want to face him yet.

She knew she was acting childish, ignoring him altogether, but she figured it was the best solution for them both. If she steered clear of him, she wouldn’t have to have her heart broken every time she laid eyes on him and he wouldn’t have to feel bad about not feeling the same for her.

She had convinced herself this was the only way. After a lot of thinking during that week Bucky was away on the mission with Steve, she concluded the only explanation for him leaving without saying anything to her and also without so much as a single word during the whole week, was because he didn’t feel the same and didn’t want to let her down badly, so he chose this other method to let her know nothing was going to happen between them.

As much as it hurt, she had to accept it and respect his feelings.

She was running on the treadmill, headphones on, listening to some 80’s classics, unaware of anything else in the outside world when she saw a tall shadow behind her and she froze in the spot; the treadmill still working so she lost her balance and fell on the floor.

So much grace for being an Avenger.

She turned her head up to see Bucky’s confused face stare at her and her cheeks flushed in embarrassment.

“Oh my God! Bucky you almost gave me a heart attack.”

She rubbed on her elbow and winced in pain when she tried to get up. Bucky immediately helped her up, gripping om her forearm delicately, careful as to not hurt her anymore.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I only wanted to talk.”

He was already feeling bad enough as it was, now he was responsible for hurting her. Great! Could he be any more of a fool?!

Y/n eyed him for a second, before collecting herself together and calming her racing heart. Then she turned to the closed off person she had been with him these last couple of days and Bucky could see exactly the moment he lost her.  Her eyes lowered on her feet and her body slouched forward, as if she was trying to hide herself from him.

“I was actually hoping we could talk…” He began to talk, unsure of how to proceed, but she cut him off immediately.

“There’s nothing to talk about. I know what you’re thinking and what you want to say but everything is fine Bucky. I mean, I was drunk that night and you didn’t want to make me feel bad about myself so I totally get it. I mean, there’s no need for you to explain anything to me now.” She was in a race with herself to get everything out as soon as possible, she didn’t notice she was starting to ramble.

Bucky was very confused by her words. Did she really think he was just trying to not make her feel bad that night? Just being nice? “No, you got it all wr-”

He tried to stop her and get her to listen to him, but she was in a frenzy. “You don’t have to say anything. I already know you don’t feel the same and that’s okay, it really is-”

Not thinking of any other way to get her to stop talking, he grabbed both her cheeks and slammed his mouth on hers, lips molding together perfectly and kissing her with a wild passion.

She tried to protest but Bucky was having none of it, he tightened his grip on her head and continued kissing her, until she finally gave up and kissed him back.

Every emotion, every feeling, every spark of love he felt in his heart, Bucky tried to communicate to her through that kiss, until the need for air became too much and they both started panting out, foreheads resting against each other.

“You still think I don’t feel the same for you?” He asked her a moment after he gained his breath.

“Oh” she grumbled, her expression pained. “I’m so stupid. I-”

He quickly locked lips with her again, not letting her speak anymore.

“No, you’re not.” Kiss.

“You’re beautiful.” Kiss.

“You’re smart.” Kiss.

“You’re strong.” Kiss.

“You’re sexy.” Kiss.

She giggled and hugged him, her arms circling around his neck.

“You’re sexy too.” She winked at him.

“Well, now that we’ve established all that, what do you say we go be sexy somewhere else? Say, your bedroom or mine?”

She laughed and the sound of her laughter was like music to his ears. With a simple nod of her head he swooped her in his arms and headed to the nearest bedroom.

Despite the fact that her drunk state also brought all the misunderstanding between them, he was actually glad it happened that way, were it any other way or day none of them would never find the courage to confess their feelings to each other.

Drunk minds really speak sober thoughts after all.