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two-white-butterflies · 10 months

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emma falls in love | aem. targaryen

Description: You are the biggest swiftie in world. After finding out that Taylor's having a show in town - you line up immediately. Minor problem - your enemy is the only person to secure tickets and he has one condition. Date him.

Author's Note: Got the idea from @ilikeitbetterangsty thank you for letting me have this 😭

You had a certain pull in your body - a magnetic force that lured any person deeper, until they are forced to be your friend. Aemond was the only one immune to your charms - he found you too annoying for his liking. "Did you get tickets?" Rhaena peeked over your shoulder.

"I'm 10,293 in line." you stared back at her, already feeling the migraine begin to form at the back of your mind. "How about you?" you turned to look at the twins. Baela was the first to close her laptop loudly. "No email." she responded with a sigh. "Same with me," Rhaena agreed, moving closer to your side of the bed.

You were their only hope now.

"Helaena got ones in advance," Baela groaned - closing her phone and throwing it across the room. "How?" Rhaena's eyebrows merged into each other. "Daddy's connections," she rolled her eyes - heck, the only reason they didn't use Daemon to secure tickets was because he played John Mayer one Sunday afternoon.

"Unfair," you sighed, eyes widening because the internet connection began to fade away. "What's going on?" Baela moved towards your desktop - tapping the CPU in an aggressive attempt to make the internet work. "Gently. Shit. I forgot to pay for wifi," you scratched the back of your neck - feeling the frustration begin to pool.

"Come on, bitch." Baela pretended to die slowly. Taylor was all of your lifelines. "Looks like we're not going to the tour. Unless, we convince Mr. Targaryen to buy us some from the scalpers." you suggested, knowing that the girls' dad was loaded.

Daemon Targaryen basically owned half of Dragonview - the other half belonged to his equally chivalrous brother, Viserys Targaryen. It was going to be a piece of cake - the twins just had to swallow their pride in order to enjoy a better concert.

"Nah, I had a full blown debate with him the other day. I'm not paying for the concert using his dirty John Mayer scented money." Baela raised her arms in mock surrender. There were other means to attend the concert - one of them included sleeping with someone.

"Don't worry girls, we'll find a way." you smiled.

"I know someone who got tickets," Jacaerys sat beside you in the bleachers, his hoodie was raised - covering half of his face while he gobbled down the sandwiches that his mom made him. "Who?" you were quick to inquire - seeing that you were desperate to see Taylor's shadow. Fuck, you'd pay a lot of money to even see a strand of her hair at this point. "You won't like it," he grinned.

There was a lot of tension between his mother and his step-grandmother. They'd always give each other the cold shoulder when it came to family reunions. Surprisingly, the kids got together well. Jacaerys and Aemond were the closest. "You wouldn't be telling me unless I have an actual chance to get the tickets," you crossed your arms - glaring at him.

"Aemond. Has. Tickets." he enunciated ever word, before taking a bite of his sandwich. "Son of a bitch!" you cursed - and he began to laugh. "Okay but - he told me that he bought twelve tickets and he has 9 available ones." he shrugged, seeing the way your eyes began to glimmer with lust.

Lust over concert tickets.

"Thank you. I will get those tickets." you stood up, bolting to the direction of the school building - leaving your lunch on the chair. Your mom was going to kill you for leaving the tupperware - but it was going to be worth it. Anything for you Taylor Swift.

God, you hated the way Taylor made you do things.

After finding out that Aemond had tickets to see the concert, you decided to sit beside him during Chemistry. "Are you a big fan of Taylor?" you leaned in his direction, shoulders brushing with his. "What?" his eyebrows merged into each other, not bothering to turn to your direction - but listening to everything you say.

"Jace told me that you got tickets." you repeated.

That was the moment he turned to look at you - his smirk deepened seeing those wide eyes of yours - anticipating his every move. "Yep," he popped the 'p' in the word. What would you do for a ticket?

"Can I buy some?" you asked in a low whisper - praying that Sir Criston wouldn't catch you chatting with his favorite student. "They're not for sale, pumpkin." he snorted - amused by how desperate you were. Oh, all those tickets were for close friends only.

"Come on, I'll do anything." you moved closer to his body - close enough to the point that your lips were almost nibbling his ear. "Anything is a very tricky word," he rolled his eyes, writing down notes in his notebook. "- you shouldn't use it." he warned.

A silent groan escapes your mouth.

"But I really mean it!" your voice raised by a decibel. The bell began to rang - signaling the end of the class. He stared deep into your eyes - gaze trailing back and forth between your lips and your orbs. He bites his lower lip. Plan in mind. "I'll think about it - meet me in the yogurt shop, after school." he smirked - before walking away.

6 PM, standing alone in a yogurt shop.

"There's no such thing as fashionably late," you rolled your eyes - feeling his figure sit down beside you. "Apologies," he muttered sarcastically - settling a yogurt ice cream beside you. Chocolate.

"So, why did we have to meet here?" you inquired, left hand in your pocket and playing with the wad of cash that you assumed he'd ask for. "I wanted you to be prepared." he answered cryptically.

"Name your price." you turned to look at him.

"It doesn't have a price." he responded with a stoic face. "I need your help - and if you agree with me. I'll promise to give you three tickets." he held up three fingers to enunciate his proposal. "What is it?" your eyes narrowed - hopefully nothing too tough.

"Be my girlfriend for three days."

"Even during the concert?"

"Yes."

BAELA TARGARYEN, RHAENA TARGARYEN, Y/N L/N | MAIN GC | THE REAL ONES | NO BITCHES RAHH |

Y/N L/N I'm gonna regret this but I got the tickets 💀

BAELA TARGARYEN How much did he ask for? I'll venmo u

Y/N L/N He didn't make me pay but he's asking something from me...

RHAENA TARGARYEN what...? like sell ur soul kinda thing he always kinda look witchy ngl BAELA TARGARYEN LMAO 😭

Y/N L/N He asked me to be his gf for 3 days 💀😭 pray for me sisters

RHAENA TARGARYEN who would've thought that mr. meanie had these feelings for you heheheheeheheh 😛 BAELA TARGARYEN This is some wattpad shit prayer reveal sis 🛐 RHAENA TARGARYEN But you agreed tho?

Y/N L/N hell yeah! those were taylor ticketz

BAELA TARGARYEN Mood RHAENA TARGARYEN respect sis 🫡 but we will venmo u $490 each 😭

seen by you and, baela targaryen...

(DAY ONE - PDA)

Your mother always told you the first day of a relationship was always going to be amazing. Normally, the couples want each other to believe that they are free of sins - perfect without any flaw. But that's not real - relationships cannot be perfect - but she didn't warn you about fake relationships? Why would someone make an effort on something that wasn't real?

"Good morning ma'am," Aemond smiled at your mother, helping her carry your lunch inside his car. "Who is this young man?" your mother's eyes narrowed, eyes trailing back and forth between you and Aemond. "He's a friend," you answered - glaring at him.

You were only supposed to date for three days - but the damage that he wanted to make was going to last longer than that. "Alright, I best not keep the both of you waiting - you'll be late for class again." your mother sighed, eyes twinkling as she sees Aemond open the door for you. "Thank you," you mumbled - he placed a hand on top of your head - making sure that your head wouldn't bump the roof of the car.

"I'll bring her home at six, ma'am." he smiled, walking around to the driver's door. A sigh escapes your mouth. Fuck him.

---

You weren't completely oblivious to Aemond's reputation. You were aware that everyone had a crush on him - the juniors wouldn't stop talking about how 'hot' he was. And honestly, you didn't get the hype.

"It's not nice to eat alone," he landed his ass on the chair parallel yours. "I'm not alone, my friends are ten minutes away." you responded - already feeling everyone's gazes fixed upon you. "-but they're not here." he smirked, taking a bite of his sushi.

"Well the point is, I'm not alone." you scoffed. "I have a question anyways." you stopped chewing for a second. Watching as his eyebrows merged into each other. His single pupil dilated. "What?" he inquired. He didn't expect you to ask any questions. "Why are you doing this?" you whispered.

Did he have no friends? Why did he have to pay someone to be his girlfriend? Why did he choose you? Why did he buy that many tickets? A lot of questions were pounding your head.

He bit his lower lip - smiling for a split second.

"Because I like you."

BAELA TARGARYEN, RHAENA TARGARYEN, Y/N L/N | MAIN GC | THE REAL ONES | NO BITCHES RAHH

Y/N L/N I asked him why he chose me and he said "bcs i like u" LIKE WTF???

RHAENA TARGARYEN Bruh y u blushing

Y/N L/N Bcs it was hella weird 😭 I thought he hated me

BAELA TARGARYEN Tbh everyone knows that he likes you (in our house) i think uncle vis knows ur name too 💀😭 RHAENA TARGARYEN That's real tho 100%

rhaena targaryen changed your nickname to 'mrs. aemond'

Y/N L/N Kill urself byee stopp

you changed rhaena targaryen's nickname to 'mrs. garmund'

Y/N L/N girl has a crush on her step-grandmother's nephew??

BAELA TARGARYEN Help me step-uncle, i'm stuck 🤤 RHAENA TARGARYEN Baela i thought you was on my side 😭

(DAY TWO - IT GETS REAL)

ISISAURUS (Y/N L/N) Did you really mean it?

DEVIL INCARNATE (AEMOND TARGARYEN) what do you mean?

ISISAURUS (Y/N L/N) That you like me

DEVIL INCARNATE (AEMOND TARGARYEN) don't you believe me?

Aemond smiled seeing your figure walk past him. It was free period - and all of the students were gathering on the school grounds. "Thank god for Taylor Swift," he mumbled to himself while adjusting his uniform. He knew that it was partly wrong to ask this from you - but he still would've given you the tickets if you denied.

Actually, he assumed that you'd deny. His gaze returns to the book on his lap. He could still remember the day he fell in love.

It was a chilly winter - just after the kids stopped going to school, but the parents still had work. Aemond was left inside a daycare, one that wasn't known for taking great care in their kids. He was frustrated. Five years old, and his parents still brought him to daycare? "Watch where you're going," a little girl rolls her eyes, shoving him away from her body.

"Excuse me?" he turned sassily. No one talks to a Targaryen that way.

"You're in my way," she crossed her arms, and he couldn't help the scoff that came out of his lips. "You can say it nicely, you know that?" he responded, never the one to back down from a fight.

"To be honest, I didn't expect anything from an Isisaurus lookalike." he chuckled to himself, and the pout on her lips began to deepen. "What's that?" she inquired and he scoffed one more time - mocking her slightly. "A dinosaur. You look like a dinosaur." he laughed.

Mayhaps the start of your friendship was a little shitty. But you grew into the closest of friends that Winter break. He even welcomed you inside his house for a playdate.

Until suddenly, he stops.

He stops seeing you, but he doesn't stop adoring and respecting you. To him - you're the kind of book that he can't put down.

He stops sending you letters - he stops attending the daycare. He stops existing in your world. And when the winter break ended, he barely acknowledged you in school. A sign escapes his mouth - unable to focus on the book at hand. He felt bad for ignoring you - he assumed that you'd hate him after he lost his eye. The other kids at school bullied him anyways.

The friendship that you treasured and built for a few weeks, came crumbling down and the both of you turned into enemies.

"There's a difference between reading and staring at the words." you hummed, sitting beside him and opening your ice cream bar. "I don't think that you know how to read," he teased, still staring at the book.

"Whatever - I need your help for something." you smiled, thinking that it was best not to get on his nerves. "What?" he asked.

"I need your help getting into a restaurant."

---

A chuckle escapes his mouth seeing the big smile on your face. "Why were you banned here anyways?" he frowned, cutting the meat into small pieces and putting them on the grill. "The owner thought it was unfair that I was eating to much, which is bullshit because it's an eat all you can." you rolled your eyes, swirling the cooked meat on the cheese fondue. "- and you needed me here, because?" he asked.

"Your dad owns everything, they're not going to deny Viserys Targaryen's daughter-in-law." you smiled and another laugh escapes his mouth. "Don't be too cocky, pumpkin - deal ends tomorrow." he tapped your chin, placing the vegetables on your plate.

"Anyhow, did you but your outfit for tomorrow?" he inquired, knowing that Helaena spent the entire day looking for hers. "Yep, I'm going as T-Swizzle." you informed. "How about you?" you ask.

"I don't have an outfit - Helaena told me that the only people allowed to wear are the girls, gays and theys." he placed a slab of meat on your plate. He felt full just seeing you eat.

"And she's right." you smirked.

"What is this thing called again?" he stared at the restaurant. "Samgyupsal," you informed.

---

After eating in the restaurant, he offered to bike around town - to get rid of the calories. "Knock knock?" he asked, following behind you in a slow pace. "Who's there?" you turned to look at him, before returning your gaze back to the road ahead. "Tank," he replied.

"Tank who?"

"You're welcome." he laughed at his own joke. You rolled your eyes. "Haha that's funny, but I have a better one." you argued, easily navigating the sharp corner.

"Okay - okay. Knock knock?"

"Who's there?"

"Kanga,"

"Kanga who?"

"It's actually kangaroo." you laughed at yourself, and he pretended to have no reaction. "That's the most copy pasted joke ever," he tried to keep a straight face - but ultimately he ends up laughing (not because of the joke but because of your laughter). He stops the bike for a moment - attempting to regain his composure.

"It wasn't that funny," you laughed, stopping your bike and walking towards him. "Stop laughing." his face turned red with too much joy.

"I'm not!"

(DAY THREE - CAN THIS BE A REAL THING?)

"I'm so ready for this!" Baela screamed, staring at the LED display in front of her. You know I adore you, I'm crazier for you - than I was at 16 lost in a film scene. You couldn't help but blush at the feel of Aemond's arms around your shoulders. Waving homecoming queens, marching band playing. I'm lost in the lights. Ahhh.

You turned slightly in his direction.

Eyes interlocking with his.

American glory faded before me. Now I'm feeling hopeless. Ripped up my prom dress. Running through rose thorns. I saw the score board and ran for my life. Ahhh.

"Are you having fun?" he whispered in your ear, seeing the childish glimmer in your eyes. "Yeah," you smiled - leaning deeper into his touch. You weren't even sure if this was pretend anymore.

It's you and me, that's my whole world. They whisper in the hallway, she's a bad, bad girl. "The whole school is rolling their eyes, you play stupid games. You win stupid prices." Rhaena belted out - sing screaming all of the lyrics. Your eyes interlocked with each other - somehow the lyrics made sense for the both of you.

This entire thing was a stupid thing right? A stupid game.

It's you and me, there's nothing like this. Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince.

His grip tightened around your shoulders - seeing your body tense with every word that flows out of Taylor's mouth. He moves his body closer to yours - pressing a soft kiss to your head. You could already feel Baela side-eyeing you.

(DAY FOUR - THE AFTERMATH)

DEVIL INCARNATE (AEMOND TARGARYEN) You free today?

MY ISISAURUS (Y/N L/N) always.

DEVIL INCARNATE (AEMOND TARGARYEN) No more pretending this time. let's be real

MY ISISAURUS (Y/N L/N) yes

@mizfortuna @bellstwd @nyctophilic0vitnir @pearlstiare @fan-goddess

#aemond targaryen x reader #aemond targaryen #the one eyed prince #aemond targaryen social media au #aemond targaryen modern #modern au

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rainbowsky · 5 months

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Hi, how do you know Jackie Chan is a part of LOCH? I’ve been trying to find as much info on this film as possible and I never came across anything mentioning Jackie Chan. Also this film is already a big budget film, which is also the reason why I feel Tsui Hark chose Xiao Zhan specifically because he’s number one in popularity and with immense popularity he comes with good acting so it was a win-win but although I want this film to be released internationally really badly especially my country, I still fear being disappointed. Would they really invest in an international release? and is there a way if fans could get their messages across to them asking for an international release? because i will honestly cry if xiao zhan’s first movie (during my time as his fan) is released and i as a die hard fan can’t even watch it on big screen!!

This is in reference to a previous post.

The full cast has not been officially announced yet, but it was all over the media at the time of GG was announced as Guo Jing. You can find articles mentioning it just by Googling. There were several big name actors mentioned in smaller supporting roles, and it actually caused a bit of controversy at the time among netizens (who, of course, always stress out over who can do justice to their favorite literary heroes).

Feng Shaofeng - Genghis Khan

Hui Yinghong - Li Ping

Jackie Chan - Hong Qigong

Official accounts haven't confirmed (or denied) these widespread rumors, but we will likely know a lot more soon. The film is slated to be released for Spring Festival, which is the second weekend in February. No doubt there will be some promotional materials, etc. coming out in the next couple of months.

As for whether it will be released abroad - I honestly don't get why fans are always hand-wringing over whether their films will be released internationally. I find that confusing as heck.

It is safe to assume that pretty much all of their movies will be released to international audiences. It would be odd for them not to appear outside China.

Keep in mind that - alongside non-Chinese speaking international audiences who take an interest in international films - there is a huge population of Chinese people living all over the world. In my region, for example, 20% of the population are Chinese Canadians. There is a demand outside of China, for Chinese films.

Legend of the Condor Heroes is one of the most popular novels in China, and is appreciated all over the world. It's an outstanding book. I urge everyone to read it (or enjoy the audiobook). I can't overstate how good it is.

GG is also very popular, and his international fame is growing. Films stand to make more money the more screens they're seen on. It's simple math.

This film WILL be seen outside of China. Any agonizing over whether it will is a waste of one's mental health. It's going to be a big release. It will be seen far and wide. It's will probably make a lot of money. It's got a good formula, a good director, etc.

And even if it doesn't come to some countries - as with all of their projects - it will eventually end up on streaming services. You will get a chance to see it.

Edit: as I said in the comments of this post, there will always be some countries where there really won't be legal options for viewing. That's just the unfortunate reality of the situation. In those cases, there is no shame in watching a pirated version. I feel that it is better to watch their projects, thereby being able to write a review and promote the project to other people, etc. than to not watch them at all.

As long as we are supporting the film financially if there is any option to do so at all. There have been people who have bought tickets for their films in regions that they are unable to travel to, just to support the film. People can also buy tickets for other fans who cannot otherwise afford to go.

There are also often official merchandise and things like that which can be purchased from anywhere in the world.

You can also contact your favorite local streaming services and request for those projects to be made available to you. The more fans who express an interest in their films, the more likelihood a streaming service will make an effort to obtain rights.

There is no guarantee, of course, but it's worth a try. I also encourage people to be patient, because it can take a while for a movie to make it onto streaming platforms. Just because it is available in some regions and not others doesn't mean it won't eventually make it on to yours.

As long as we are supporting to the best of our ability, that's all that anyone can do.

#xiao zhan #legend of the condor heroes #ask

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menalez · 2 years

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can you give me hope about finding lesbian love by telling me about how good your relationship is

okay!! sooo my gf and i originally met thru an online dating app and bc i was still living n bahrain n she’s living in germany, we couldn’t meet for the first 7 months that we were talking on. we got to a point where we were calling each other every day and being on call together for 24+ hours and falling asleep on the call too (keep in mind she was already working full-time back then),,, it was nice bc we rly got to know each other n understand each other which also helped build a trust. after 7 months, it was nearing my bday, and so she used the money she earned to buy a ticket and meet me on my bday. she flew all the way to bahrain and when i was walking up to her at the airport to pick her up, her first words were “ur shorter than i thought” (im somewhere around 168/169 cm and she’s 153 cm….) and it was the end of july,, she stayed w me in my room and we kissed not long after bc we were smoking together n i said “we basically just kissed!” and she said “not good enough. i want the real thing” and i said “ok u can have the real thing” so that was our first kiss. anyways like 2 days later we were laying in bed and we were talking n she said sth about wanting us to be official or sth or we were both implying it and so i asked her if she’s saying that she wants to be my gf & she said yes & she asked me the same thing n i said yes. then 4 days later it was my 24th bday and she and my sister were sneaking around so she can wrap the gift she bought for me n then we went out for dinner w my family (found out that night that my homophobic uncle has a crush on her lool and he then found out that she’s with me n was pissed at both of us -_-) anyways she then gives me this present lmao and she tells me she was scared she’d get jailed for it and i was like girl chill… ur not going to jail over silly wrapping paper.

some time later she insisted that we hire a lawyer bc i was being discriminated against by the german immigration people with my visa and she even paid for it at first!! anyways it helped me get my visa in the end bc their delaying and rejection was unlawful lol and i ended up moving to germany & living with her about 2 months after we became officially gfs. fast forward to a year later (together for over a year & living together for almost exactly a year), we’ve travelled around germany & to another european country together, developed a shared hobby in bouldering, seen our bouldering idols, adopted a kitty together, celebrated 4 of our birthdays together, she’s surprised me for my bday, and more. here’s a recent pic of our lil family (she was sleeping n i was a mess hence my face being censored)

idk what else to add but mentioned everything i could think of 🥺 you’ll be able to find someone im sure,,, it just takes time & patience cause the lesbian dating pool is tiny but if i, a lesbian that was living in bahrain (where the hetero dating pool is limited nvm the lesbian one), could somehow find another lesbian n we not only got along n have aligning views n are compatible but also ended up loving each other then i don’t see why it wouldn’t be possible for u. before this relationship i had only ever been in abusive or toxic relationships, i rly felt hopeless n like im gonna die alone but im rly glad i didn’t settle for someone or give up bc otherwise i wouldn’t have found her 🥰❣️

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brightdeadthing · 2 years

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- Ocean Vuong, from Time Is a Mother (text under the cut)

We are shoveling snow, this man and I, our backs coming closer along the drive. It’s so quiet every flake on my coat has a life. I used to cry in a genre no one read. What a joke, they said, on fire. There’s no money in it, son, they shouted, smoke from their mouths. But ghosts say funny things when they’re family. This man and I, we take what will vanish anyway and move it aside, making space. There is so much room in a person there should be more of us in here. Traveler who is inches away but never here, are you warm where you are? Are you you where you are? Something must come of this. In one of the rooms in the house the man and I share, a loaf of rye is rising out of itself, growing lighter as it takes up more of the world. In humans, we call this Aging. In bread, we call it Proof. We’re in our thirties now and I rolled the dough just an hour ago, pushing my glasses up my nose with a flour-dusted palm as I read, reread, the hand-scrawled recipe given me by the man’s grandmother, the one who, fleeing Stalin, bought a ticket from Vilnius to Dresden without thinking it would stop, it so happened, in Auschwitz (it was a town after all), where she and her brother were asked to get off by soldiers who whispered, keep moving, keep moving like boys leading horses through wheat fields in the night. How she passed the huddled coats, how some were herded down barbed-wired lanes. The smoke from our mouths rising as the man and I bend and lift, in silence, the morning clear as one inside a snow globe. How can we know, with a house full of bread, that it’s hunger, not people, that survives? He pours a bag of salt over the pavement. From where I’m standing it looks like light is spilling out of him, like the dusty sunray that found his grandmother’s hands as she got back on the train, her brother at her side, smoke from the engine blown across the faces outside, which soon fell back into pine forests, washed pastures, empty houses with full rooms. The man clutches his stomach as if shot, the light floods out of him—I mean you. Because something must come of this. When the guard asked your grandmother if she was Jewish, she shook her head, half-lying, then took from her bag a roll, baked the night before, tucked it in the guard’s chest pocket. She didn’t look back as the train carried her, newly twenty, toward where I now stand, on a Sunday in Florence, Massachusetts, squinting at her faded scrawl: sift flour, then beat eggs until happy-yellow. The train will reach Dresden days before the sky is filled with firebombers. More smoke. A bullet or shrapnel, failing to find her. The brother under rubble, his name everywhere outside her like the snow falling on your face forty years later, on December 2, 1984, while your mother carries you, alive only three hours, the few steps to the mini-van where your grandmother, sixty now, crowns your head with her brother’s name. Peter, she says, Peter, as if the dead could be called back into new, stunned bones. The snow has started up again, whitening the path as though nothing happened. But to live like a bullet, to touch people with such intention. To be born going one way, toward everything alive. To walk into the world you never asked for and choose a place where your wanting ends—which part of war do we owe this knowledge? It’s warm in this house where we will die, you and I. Let the stanza be one room, then. Let it be big enough for everyone, even the ghosts rising now from this bread we tear open to see what we’ve made of each other. I know, we’ve been growing further apart, unhappy but half full. That clearing snow and baking bread will not fix this. I know, too, as I reach across the table to brush the leftover ice from your beard, that it’s already water. It’s nothing you say, laughing for the first time in weeks. It’s really nothing. And I believe you. I shouldn’t, but I do.

#this and reasons for staying. they just. ugh. him. words #poetry #ocean vuong #quotes #lit #archive #also fun fact when doing the text transcription from this i copy + pasted from an old version of it online #and its so FASCINATING to see what he switches out and what he leaves in rlly and truly #maybe an analysis ab that too soon. maybe

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some-kindofgnome · 3 years

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meet me in the afterglow

After college graduation, you took an all-summer backpacking trip around Europe with your best friend. Now you've got one last night together before coming home as lovers.

characters: eijirou kirishima x f!reader

wc: 2.4k

tags: smut (18+ please!), aged-up characters, quirkless au, implied friends-to-lovers, fluff, mentions of drinking/the sliiiiightest bit of tipsiness, swedish condoms, no beta we die like that bottle of wine

notes: @the-moons-raes and I discussed travelling with BNHA boys at some length a lil while ago, so I wrote this sweet lil scene for her! Consider it a (very) belated birthday present my dear. 💖 xoxoo

MASTERLIST

The sky’s faded from powder-blue to apricot by the time you stumble together into the bedroom.

“Oh my god,” you giggle. You’ve been grinning all night, so hard it’s starting to hurt your wine-warmed cheeks. But this is the happiest you’ve been in a very long time.

“That was,” Eijirou starts, “one of the- no, the best meal I’ve ever had.”

“We should’ve ordered another bottle of that wine,” you muse. He’s got his hands on your hips and you twist in his grip, curling your fingers around his palms. His face has gone pink, but his eyes are sparkling and you’ve already decided you want to preserve this feeling for the rest of your life.

“I don’t think you need anything else to drink tonight,” he teases smoothly, pulling you close with his fingertips digging into the gauzy fabric of your dress. He leans down and pushes his lips against yours, the last tartness of the strawberry gelato you finished on the boardwalk still lingering in the tender flick of his tongue.

Tonight falls at the tail end of a long backpacking trip across Europe that you’ve been wanting to take for as long as you can remember. You’d never planned to take anybody with you at all, let alone the man you’d wind up falling for.

But Eiji’s always been pretty good at defying your expectations.

The rest of the summer hasn’t been this glamorous. You’d spent most nights shacked up in rickety little hostel beds, bunking together in rooms of six or camping out in the backseat of a tiny rental car. But the sleepless nights and sore backs and restricted luggage hadn’t changed a thing. You’ve been in heaven all summer long.

To celebrate your last couple of nights in this hemisphere, you checked into one of Naples’ top-rated hotels. It’s still not the most luxurious room on the market, but compared to the military-issue bunk beds you’ve been sleeping on for the past eight weeks, it might as well be paradise.

Especially now, given the changed nature of your relationship.

You got on the plane together two months ago nursing a deep, intense crush on your best friend. You’ve been close with Eijirou since your first year in college together, when he was assigned to the dorm room beside yours. And for as long as you’d known him, you assumed you’d be loving him from a distance.

But somewhere between Brussels and Berlin, the line between friend and lover started to blur. Since then, it’s been completely erased.

“Come on,” you protest, flinging your arms around his neck and clasping them together behind his head. “I can hardly feel a thing.”

He ran out of hair gel two weeks ago and he’s been wearing his hair down ever since, tied into a loose little ponytail at the nape of his neck. The dark roots of his natural colour are starting to show at his crown after going nearly two months without so much as a haircut.

To you, he’s never looked sweeter.

“That’s my point,” he insists, descending into tipsy, cheerful laughter. “You’re so drunk y’can’t feel a thing. C’mere, it’s time to get you to bed.”

His euphoric grin twists around the edges with mischief as he stoops, sweeping you off your feet with a quiet little grunt of effort. You burst out laughing, letting one arm drop around his neck as your head falls back in deepening mirth.

“Take me to bed,” you swoon, dropping purposely limp in his arms. You haven’t been able to do any of this since that night in Athens a couple of weeks ago where you miraculously had an entire hostel bunkroom to yourselves.

Even then, those cots didn’t make it easy.

Tonight you’ve got a king bed all to yourselves, which Kirishima plants you on before crossing to the window and throwing it open. The night air is velvety and sweet, rolling in like heady steam and waking your senses as you watch him ditch his shoes and crawl across the plush bedspread to settle down beside you.

“You are insanely beautiful,” he croons, propping one head on his arm and smoothing his fingers affectionately down your temple. “I can’t believe I get to tell you that.”

He leans in to kiss you after that, tasting you carefully as his hand drifts from your cheek to your neck to your side. He’s a careful kisser, tasting of the last hints of that sweet summer wine that’s filled both your heads.

Picking up on your eagerness, he breaks from your lips to push attentive little kisses down the side of your neck. But as he reaches the hem of the floaty little dress you wear, he pauses and finds your eye.

“Can I?”

He’s already sliding one palm down over the curve of your hip, but it pauses at your thigh, and the earnest little quirk in his brow is so cute you can’t help but giggle.

“Do you really need to ask?” you quip.

He hums thoughtfully against your skin, already mouthing at your collarbone. “Just making sure.”

There are oversized buttons lining the center front of your dress, and he takes his time popping open every single one. He opens the dress far enough that he could have easily pulled it down over your hips, but he doesn’t stop there. Instead, you get to watch as he works open the last button with quiet, deep concentration, and when he finally does, he pushes the folds open around your body with a loving little triumphant smile.

“There’s my girl,” he croons as he crawls atop you once more, shedding his sweaty t-shirt in the process. You’re chest-to-chest when he catches your lips again, and his skin is still a little warm from the afternoon you’d spent at the beach before dinner.

He kisses you long and low and slow, giving you plenty of time to let your thighs fall open around the slope of his hips. Eiji presses naturally forward, pushing the ridge of his pelvis and the stiff denim of his shorts against your flimsy underwear. He huffs quietly into your mouth, and as you shift and squirm beneath him you can feel his cock stirring against you.

“Eiji,” you whimper, turning your face sharply to one side. “Don’t make me wait.”

In the absence of your mouth, he noses attentively down the column of your throat. His eyelashes flutter at your jaw and you feel it when he purses his lips and swallows hard.

“Okay,” he rasps. “Okay, I gotcha.” He rears back, sitting up on his haunches to unbutton his shorts. Before he gets up to shed them, he rests a hand on the plane of your belly, smiling so innocently down at you it shouldn’t make you throb.

But it does.

“Ready for me already, pretty girl?” Eiji muses, and you have to bite your lip hard to keep from rolling over and screaming into your pillow as loudly as possible.

“Been ready for you since the beach,” you tease back, and it works, since his ears are turning red as he slips out of bed. He hooks his thumbs into the waistband of his undershorts and shucks both garments in one smooth motion, hunching over to let them drop to the floor while he steps unceremoniously out of them.

His cock’s half-hard already, sitting full and heavy between his thighs and swelling self-consciously under your gaze. He’s exactly as big as you always sort of knew he was. He’s not shy about it, either. He can’t afford to be.

But he doesn’t know how beautiful he is, sunburned and sweating in the fading golden-hour light of your last sunset in Italy. You want to pet the soft little bristle of dark hair that dusts his chest, follow the taper of it all the way down to that perfect trail that always used to disappear under his shorts.

Not anymore. You get to see him at his most vulnerable now.

And you will not misuse that trust.

“Come here,” you purr, pushing yourself onto your elbows so he can see the desire burning in your gaze for him.

He leans instinctively toward you, hands twitching by his sides. He snaps out of a little reverie with a hard blink, stooping in front of his shorts and fishing out his slim little travel wallet.

“Hang on.”

He flips through the creased euros and museum tickets, carding out a wrapped condom. He climbs back onto the bed and passes it to you with a shy little grin.

“I know you like to do the honours.”

The condom comes from a packet you bought in the wee hours at some twenty-four hour roadside convenience store before bedding down in a rented car together. The instructions are in Swedish, but you know what you’re doing.

By the time you get the condom unwrapped, Eiji’s on his knees in front of you and his cock is fully hard out of sheer anticipation. You reach between his thighs and wrap your fingers around his warm flesh, making him shudder. And you drop one sweet, warm kiss to his mouth before you focus.

He rolls his hips quietly into your touch as you handle the job with delicate precision, unrolling the condom all the way to his base.

“Ready?” He asks you, but you’re already laying back against the pillows and thumbing off your underwear, slick and aching for him.

“Get over here before I start without you,” you tease, and he is powerless to resist you. He anchors himself on his knees, hooking each of your legs over one of his powerful thighs. He reaches for you and his cock sweeps the inside of your thigh as it bobs between you. You’ve been wanting this from the moment you saw this room, the perfect ending to a life-changing trip.

Eiji sinks lower, letting the barrel of his chest rise and fall with a deep, steadying breath. He reaches between you to line himself up with you, casting his eyes up to yours when he feels you.

“Ready?” He repeats himself, and this time the humor’s gone. You nod quietly against the pillow and reach for his free hand, lacing your fingers together tightly.

You squeeze hard as he starts to slot himself inside you. He stretches you deeply, especially without any preparation. But he knows how to keep you comfortable, moving slowly and smoothly. He braces a hand on your belly as he bottoms out, but he does not pause there. Instead, he starts to ease into a lazy rhythm, sweeping his thumb between your folds to find the swelling nub of your clit.

“Fuck,” you whine, and he flinches a little inside you.

“God,” he gasps, bending over to press his forehead- sticky with sweat- into yours. “Tell me I’m not dreaming, yeah?”

You reach up and lightly pinch his chest with your free hand, and he grins above you.

“You’re good,” you confirm, hearing the breathlessness echo in your own voice.

“I’m not gonna last long like this,” he brushes. You shake your head.

“Don’t care. Just fuck me.”

His brow lifts against yours. After a chuckle of disbelief, he sits up.

“Aye aye, captain.”

He squeezes your fingers tightly and begins to thrust.

He does not hold back with you, keeping the pad of his thumb winding tight circles into your clit as he fucks you with eager diligence. You revel in the slap of your bodies, the fact that you can spread out and make noise, moan for him like you’ve always wanted to. Finally alone together for real. No stolen moments of privacy here. You can take as much as you want.

“Eiji,” you beg, beginning to clench around him as you feel the first twinges of your climax approaching.

“I’ve got you, baby,” he huffs, borderline incoherent as the flush spreads down his neck and chest. “Let go for me, I gotcha.”

In a dozen thrusts he’s got you falling, letting high whimpers escape your throat as your pussy clenches and flutters around his thick shaft. He rubs you diligently through your climax, fucking you steadily until you whine and paw his hand away, overstimulated and sensitive.

“I’m there,” he promises. “I’m there, I’m there, I’m….. f-fuck!” His jaw falls slack as he throws his head back, thrusting headlong into a tight climax that has him trembling against you. His hips go still, but you can feel the way his cock twitches inside your spent walls as he fills the condom.

When he’s finished he stays there for a moment, shoulders dropping while the rest of his body goes slack. He reaches up, scraping sweaty strands of hair off his forehead before he grins sleepily down at you.

“Did you…” He starts, eyes turning inquisitive. Someday he’ll be able to tell, but for now you’re just glad he’s asking.

“Yeah,” you hum, eyes bright despite the weight setting quickly into your limbs. It’s worth it for the pride that surges visibly through him, and he pulls out of you with a triumphant grin spreading his lips.

“Good,” he gushes, slipping quietly away to dispose of the condom. He’s hardly gone for a handful of seconds, and when he comes back he crawls eagerly up to your side and pulls you into his arms, curling his body attentively around yours.

“This is nice,” you confess, drifting pleasantly in the wine-and-sex-induced fog that rests heavy in your brain.

“Hmm?” Eiji’s already half-asleep above you, eyelids drooping as the light fades from the window beside the bed.

“This,” you prompt again. “Not having to get dressed again right away. We should do this more often.”

“I sure hope we do,” he enthuses. “When we get back, I’m not letting you unpack until we consummate our relationship on the right hemisphere.”

That was the longest you’d gone around him without laughing in a while. Even half-asleep, though, his wisecracks are enough to make you snort.

“Deal,” you hum, letting your eyes fall shut as the world bleeds out of focus around you. It’s not even eight o’clock and you’re sure you’ll have him again before nightfall. But for now, you’re more than happy to bask in the afterglow with the one person in the world you never thought you’d make it there with.

#bnha x reader #kirishima x reader #eijirou x reader #kirishima #kirishima eijirou #kirishima smut #tw drinking #reader insert

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meetmyblondemuffins · 3 years

Text

Movie Antics

Warnings: unprotected sex, exhibitionism, fingering, penetrative sex

“Tickets for two,” I said enthusiastically to the man standing behind the glass of the old, worn ticket booth. I heard an exaggerated sigh coming from the right of me. Looking over at Sirius, I raised my brows and jutted out my bottom lip, attempting to make him feel somewhat guilty. I squeezed his large hand and further intertwined our fingers. “You’ll live, Siri. It’s only a couple of hours.”

I’d been dying to see this new independent film that had been released a few weeks ago. I had been putting off watching it for some time now because I wanted to watch it with Sirius. I could tell he would’ve preferred being left behind. The entire ten blocks we walked from the cinema he drug his feet like a child who was being forced into a dentists’ office. I was surprised he didn’t throw himself on the concrete; kicking and screaming. Although he didn’t throw a complete tantrum, he did try making up a thousand excuses as to why he absolutely couldn’t bear to see one second of this ‘horrendous-looking film’.

It started from the second we stepped out of the front door and into the chilly breeze of a typical, dreary London day.

“Look how gloomy it is. It’s bound to rain—we should stay in tonight.”

“It’s gloomy every day, Sirius. And besides, I brought an umbrella.”

“But… why walk allllll the way to the cinema in the cold when we could snuggle up in a perfectly warm bed?” I giggled at his suggestion.

“Yeah, I’m sure all you want to do is snuggle up in bed.” I knew that for a fact, Sirius wanted much more than to lie in bed when he’d already try to rid me of my clothing minutes before leaving the house.

He seemed more sex-driven the past few days than I’d seen him before. Everywhere we went, he was ready to go; whether he spontaneously suggested the idea while lounging around at home, or in complete public. Refusing a cluster of his many advances always guaranteed nothing less than spectacular sex later on. It’s like all of his built-up sexual tension was released all at once; It was fantastic.

As soon as we bought our tickets and concessions, we walked into the dimly lit theatre. Scanning the rows of chairs from left to right, I noticed that not a single chair in the entire room was occupied. I supposed nobody was up for a film on a greyer-than-usual Sunday afternoon.

Sirius walked to the first row that was closest to the entrance, leading me with my index finger wound around his. We sat towards the middle of the row.

I would’ve preferred to sit closer to the front, if even just a few rows, but I decided to cut my pouting, child-like boyfriend a bit of slack. Sirius slouched down in his seat and crossed his arms over his chest as the lights dimmed to complete darkness. Immediately following, lights of the previews that covered the far wall flooded the room. It was almost blinding.

Looking over at the silhouette of Sirius’s profile, the glow of the projection outlined the miserable look he had plastered on his face. I almost felt bad for dragging him here, but on the other hand, I think he was being a drama queen about the entire situation.

Reaching over the popcorn that I had resting in my lap, I brought the armrest that was separating us to a vertical position so that I could scoot closer to him. I rested my head on his shoulder and whispered into his ear, his flyaway curls brushing against my cheeks.

“I really appreciate you being here, you know.” He wrapped his arm around my shoulder, lightly kissed my temple, and rested his cheek on the top of my head. So he wasn’t completely resenting being here after all.

Sirius and I always did things for each other that we didn’t particularly want to do. We wanted each other to be happy, and it made our relationship stronger as a whole. I was awoken in the middle of the night to him leaving to go prank students with the other marauders and he went to nearly abandoned cinemas to watch films that he had no-to-negative feelings towards. It balanced out evenly.

Halfway through the movie (and also the bag of popcorn), Sirius’s arm that was resting across my shoulders made its way down to my hip. He leaned in to whisper into my ear.

“It’s not too late to get out of here. We could go out to a nice dinner, go for a romantic stroll through the park,” he drug out the ‘a’ in park, “anything. Anything you want.” Turning my full torso toward him, I cocked my head to the side as to say ‘why, why do you do this to me, Sirius Orion Black’. His expression was originally full of hope—hope that I thought this movie was as terrible as he’d predicted before we’d gotten here.

“Anything, huh?” His eyes filled with glee. But his face dropped immediately as I said:

“Well, I want to stay here.”

He went back to slouching in his chair, his head meeting the back of the headrest. I couldn’t stand seeing him act like this anymore. There was no way I was leaving this cinema until the film came to an end; but perhaps I could offer him a deal.

“If you stay until the end, I’ll do whatever you want afterwards.” A smirk form across his lips and I knew exactly what he had on his mind.

Moments later, I was once again engulfed in the film. The main characters had defied their near-impossible chances of being together, and the romantic/sexual portion came to its peak. I felt Sirius’s lips sneak below my earlobe and begin a trail to my collarbone. “I said afterwards, don’t be so eager,” I said placing my hand on his chest in an attempt to stay focused on what was happening between the characters.

“C’mon, even these poor bastards on screen are enjoying themselves. It’s like they’re mocking me.”

“Well I’m enjoying myself. And what, is ‘fucking in a movie theatre’ something you were planning to cross off of your bucket list before you die?”

“Well it wasn’t before but,—“ I cut him off with a look of disapproval. “There’s not anybody here, we’re sitting in the back. This is perfect!”

Before I could object, Sirius crashed his lips into mine. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t bring myself to pull away. I’d caused him to suffer—or at least act like he was suffering—for a few hours and I suppose I owed this to him. I wouldn’t be missing out on the movie much. It was like I was experiencing what they were doing, but they weren’t in an empty cinema, it was a bit more romantic on their end. However, I didn’t mind much.

Our kiss deepened as his tongue brushed over my bottom lip before it entered my mouth, exploring every corner. His hand lightly cupped my cheek.

I felt Sirius’s fingertips lightly brush over the slightly thin material of my trousers that separated the pads of his fingers from my inner thigh. In a swift manoeuvre, his fingertips slid under the waistband of my trousers and pulled them down, then danced along my skin, igniting sparks as they made their way to my heat. His middle finger slipped past the side of my panties and made firm circles over my clit.

I’d quickly decided not to make this about me. I’d wanted to show Sirius just how much I appreciated him being there, even if I’d practically forced him to.

I palmed his hardening member through his pants and dropped to my knees in front of him. As soon as I unbuttoned and unzipped his skin-tight black jeans, pulling his boxers down slightly, his erection sprung upright, slapping against his stomach. I bit my lip and looked up at him through my lashes lustfully. He shut his eyes, bracing himself for the warmth of my mouth wrapped around him.

I let the tip of my tongue flick over his slit, tasting the saltiness of his pre-cum.

“Fuck, don’t tease,” he groaned, loud enough for only me to hear over the booming cinema surround sound. The flat of my tongue glided over his head as I took the shaft into my hand and began stroking, feeling the veins on his thickness. With each bob of my head, I allowed him to venture deeper and deeper into my throat, hollowing my cheeks until I felt the need to gag. His fingers became entangled in my hair, but he let me go at my own pace. I altered my speed and pressure often which made it difficult for him to stifle his moans.

His hand gripped my hair tightly and he threw his head back onto the head rest, his mouth hanging open. I could taste the familiar flavor of his cum spread across my tongue and slide down my throat.

I stood up from the floor and lifted the armrest on Sirius’s left, allowing us more room. I straddled his lap backwards, his chest pressing against my back. The only thing separating us was the thin lace material of my panties. His right hand travelled up my torso, grazing my rib cage and kneading my breast gently. His left hand snaked around my thigh and pulled my panties to the side. He traced shapes roughly around my centre as I let my head fall back to rest on his shoulder.

He nipped at the sweet spot on my neck and I let out a light moan. As good as his fingers felt against me, I need more. I lifted myself up a bit and reached between us to position his hard cock at my entrance. Slowly lowering all the way back down, I gave myself time to adjust to his large size as he filled me to the brim. He continued massaging my throbbing nerves and I rested my hand over his, getting him to apply more pressure. Arching my back against his chest, I could already feel myself tightening around him and he felt it too. I could feel every muscle throughout his body contract. Every time I had sex with Sirius, it always felt like the first time.

Slightly angling myself to find my g-spot, I let out a muffled whimper and shut my eyes tight when I felt his head brush my

G-spot . I slowly began going up and down on his throbbing dick, grinding against him every time my ass met his crotch. With every motion, I felt my knees weaken a little more each time.

Sirius’s breath became harsh and uneven on my neck and I could tell that he couldn’t hold it much longer. Every individual muscle in my lower body starting in my toes began to tighten in a wave, one after another. The pleasure crept up into the pit of my stomach and I reached my high, becoming a shaking mess in Sirius’s lap. His warm load coated my walls and his fingers dug into my thighs, leaving light scratches.

Once I recovered from my orgasm, I noticed the credits of the film beginning to roll and the lights were returning to their original brightness. I collapsed back into my seat and Sirius struggled to reposition himself back into his jeans. I laughed at the sight of him.

“What?” he questioned continuing to fumble with his jeans.

“Maybe if your pants weren’t so tight Mr Black, you wouldn’t be having such a tough time right now,” I mocked him.

“Whatever, I just hope I don’t have as tough of time trying to get them off when we get home,” he grinned, “you did say afterwards, didn’t you?”

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p-artsypants · 3 years

Text

A Gift from Mr. Blanc

Marinette's worst nightmares were of Chat Blanc. But that's all they were: nightmares. Until one day where in the stone cold light of day, Chat Blanc walked into the classroom, with a gift in hand. "This will make you love me again, My Lady."

Ao3 | FF.net

Everyone is on this Chat Blanc train, so I bought a ticket and got a window seat.

“Yes, Timestreamer, find me the best Akuma ever created!” Shadowmoth raised a manic fist as the images appeared before him.

The woman who was once Nathalie Sancoeur stood next to him, now transformed into an Akuma with thick glasses, which almost looked like VR goggles.

In a fit of artist’s block, Gabriel Agreste had vented that he had run out of ideas for Akuma. He had to keep going, and the villains couldn’t slack less Ladybug and Chat Noir get the upper hand.

To which Nathalie had said, “well, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel.”

She had meant it to be cheeky, but he took inspiration from it in a whole new way. Why invent a new villain when one from a different time is sure to work? Timetagger, an Akuma from the future, had seemed to almost win. Perhaps there were more like him out there.

He only needed someone to see the timelines so he could pick his champion.

So here they were, scanning through endless time streams, looking at massive successes, and massive failures. There really was no telling which one would do the job, but unless Timestreamer’s Akuma was taken or, heaven forbid, the Butterfly was taken, they could send villain after villain after villain.

Yes, this was a good plan!

“That one!” Shadowmoth pointed, the stark white catching his gaze.

“That one?” Timestreamer asked, feeling unease looking into his soulless blue eyes.

“That has to be Chat Noir’s akumatized form. He’s perfect.”

Following orders, Timestreamer summoned the Akuma forward.

From the static images appeared a grainy figure, slowly solidifying into a solid white boy. His expression was one of confusion and disorientation.

“Chat Blanc, I am Shadowmoth,” he began.

Immediately, Chat Blanc snarled. “You! You monster!” And he leapt.

Suffice to say, neither Timestreamer or Shadowmoth were prepared for a full on fight this early in the conversation.

Shadowmoth did have training in fighting, and successfully blocked the incoming swipe at his throat with his arm. However, the claws cut right through his suit and into his flesh, making him cry out in pain.

The next swipe hit true, and knocked the butterfly Miraculous from its place on his collar.

Chat Blanc then plucked the Peacock from his lapel while Gabriel Agreste tried to put pressure on his grievous wounds.

“Why?” Asked Gabriel, “don’t you know I made you? Don’t you know I can give you everything you want?”

Chat Blanc didn’t respond, only snapped the goggles off of a shell shocked Timestreamer. He then touched the black butterfly with his claw, and it crumbled into dust.

Nathalie ran to Gabriel and looked at his wounds. “You need to go to a hospital.”

“No!” He protested, pushing her away. “Answer me, boy! You’re easily the most powerful Akuma ever made. Once you get the Miraculous of Ladybug and this timeline’s Chat Noir, we can make the ultimate wish! Whatever your heart’s desire, it’s yours!” He reached a hand out to the boy.

Chat Blanc, who Gabriel knew as the exuberant and emotional Chat Noir, just looked at him with a sharp, emotionless stare.

“You already took everything from me, Father. This is my one chance to get things back to where they are supposed to be.”

“Adrien?”

The gaze didn’t change, but he did raise an eyebrow. “In my timeline you knew. You knew, and you still hurt me. You hurt her. You turned me, and you forced me to kill. You left me alone in that world for months. Left me to mourn. Cursed me to this form—“ he snarled. “That can’t starve, that can’t sleep, that can’t thirst or drown—“ a tear fell down his cheek. “You left me in a prison where I couldn’t die, and would continue to suffer because of your mistakes.” He gave a hint of a bitter smile. “Does that answer your question, old man?”

Maybe it was just the blood loss, but Gabriel felt some remorse. “I’m sorry, son. Give me back the Butterfly, and I’ll set you free.”

“Not a chance. Ladybug will fix me. And when I give her these, she’ll love me again. And I’ll have all the family I ever need.” With that, he summoned his baton to break through the window, and launched out into Paris.

Gabriel laid still on the ground, holding his chest with one hand while Nathalie gripped his wrist with the other.

“I…what am I going to do?”

“Well, you know Adrien has the ring—“

“No doubt Chat Blanc will tell him everything before we can get to him. I don’t think that’s an option anymore.”

“Then…what would you like to do?”

He spent a long time just breathing and thinking.

Choosing.

“I guess, apologize. And then hope that I haven’t done enough damage to lose the only family I have left.”

“Maybe, if he is Chat Noir, and you explain the truth to him…he’ll tell Ladybug. Maybe she’d help.”

“I doubt she’d do anything to help me, after all I’ve done.” He leaned back and stared at the ceiling. “I could just bleed out here. Save him the pain.”

“I won’t let you do that, Sir. As upset Adrien will be, he still loves you.”

“But for how long?”

“I think you should live and find out.”

—

Chat Blanc had never been so happy. He should be upset, angry, sobbing even, but he wasn’t.

He was getting his second chance. Paris was full, alive, teeming with traffic and swearing and smoking and everything foul that wasn’t there in his wastelands.

Hawkmoth was gone, and he was on his way to Marinette. With these, she had to love him, she just had to.

Francois DuPont never looked so pretty. The windows showed bored expressions of dozens of students.

Students that were alive and not submerged under water.

He dropped down in the courtyard, letting muscle memory take him up the stairs to his old classroom. The door was closed, but not locked.

Did he knock? Or did he just walk in? It had been so long…did he introduce himself? Did he apologize for interrupting?

He decided to forgo knocking, and pushed the door open on his own.

All eyes turned to look at him, but his attention was only on her.

Though he did get a glimpse of his own horrified face.

“Chat Noir?” The teacher asked.

“No.” He shook his head. “Not anymore.” He never stopped looking right at Marinette.

“I must be dreaming,” the girl in question said aloud. “I must have fallen asleep, and now I’m having a nightmare.” Tears were filling her eyes as her voice crumbled. “Please tell me you’re a nightmare, Chat.”

“No, My Lady. I’m real.” Did she know him from somewhere? Or was she just assuming he was an akumatized Chat Noir? “But this shouldn’t be a nightmare, Marinette.” His steps were slow and soft, trying not to spook her. “I’m your dream come true. Because it’s over now, and we can be together.”

She stood abruptly, smacking her knees on the desk and almost tumbling. “What are you talking about?”

He placed the Miraculous on the desk. “It’s over now. I won. Hawkmoth is no more, and there’s nothing that can hurt us. This will make you love me again!”

“Holy shit…” Said Alya.

Marinette just stared at them, and then at Chat. “How—?”

“He brought me here. Somehow, an Akuma I guess. He plucked me out of my time, and brought me here. This is my chance to start again, you know.” He grabbed her wrist. “Now our love won’t ruin the world! We can be happy again, My Lady! We can be happy and nothing will tear us apart!”

Adrien, who had up until very recently, by reveal of a certain nickname, thought that Marinette was only just Marinette, grabbed Chat Blanc and yanked him back, forcing him to let go of Marinette.

“Don’t touch her!” He snapped.

“And you—“ Chat Blanc grabbed him by the throat and lifted him into the air. “A little liar with too much self preservation! Why didn’t you act sooner?! Why couldn’t you save her?!”

Adrien clawed at the hand on his throat. “I don’t—know what the hell—you’re talking about!”

“Don’t play stupid, Adrien! It’s not going to work on me, and you know that!”

His voice was just a whisper now, as he attempted to meet Chat Blanc’s gaze. “Whatever, man. But you think outing her is smart? You think that’ll make her like you?”

Chat Blanc crushed harder, suffocating him. “It doesn’t matter with Hawkmoth out of the way! And once I kill you, there will be no competition! She’ll love me for sure!”

Marinette had stashed the Miraculous in her purse once Chat Blanc had turned his back. She was going to attempt to talk him down, but at his threat on Adrien’s life, she realized he was beyond talking.

“Tikki, Spots on!”

Chat Blanc whirled back around, only to get a fist to the face.

Adrien fell on the floor, gasping.

“Are you alright?” She asked, helping him up.

He rubbed his neck sheepishly as he nodded. He knew she was Marinette, but the mask still turned his legs to jelly.

“Why do you protect him, Ladybug? Don’t you know you can just be happy with me?”

Marinette pushed Adrien behind her. “I might be able to be happy with my Chat Noir, but never with you. I love Adrien, and I’ll fight to protect him, even if he doesn’t love me back.” Though it was a brave declaration, she still blushed.

“Ugh, don’t you get it? I am him!”

“What?”

“I’m Adrien! Adrien is Chat Noir! We’re supposed to be together! And we were! We were happy, Marinette! And then—and then you told me you didn’t love me anymore. You almost got akumatized over that…but I saved you.” He snarled. “But he kept us apart. My father knew who I was, and he turned me into this…”

“Wait,” Adrien rasped. “Father turned you into…an akuma?”

“Because he’s Hawkmoth, Adrien. He always has been. Mother is alive, in a coma, in the basement. And he never let you see her, because he doesn’t trust you.”

“Shut up!” Ladybug shouted.

“Even after he knew who I was, he still hit me. He beat me, Adrien, because he doesn’t love us!”

Adrien held a hand over his face, willing his sobs to stay silent.

“We’re just a pawn for him. But…I can make it better. Let me destroy you, and everything will stop hurting. I’ll take care of Marinette, I promise!”

“That’s enough!” Ladybug lashed out and snagged his bell, ripped it from his throat, and smashed it on the floor.

Then she caught the butterfly as it emerged, purified it, and let it go. But she didn’t call for a cure, not yet.

Chat Noir, sans bell, glanced around the room in confusion. “Ladybug? What’s going on? Why are we here? Where’s Hawkmoth?”

She met him with tear streaked cheeks. “You’re in the wrong timeline, Chat Noir.”

His eyes flicked to Adrien, who was clearly shell shocked. “That would make…some sense.”

“You were akumatized, and our Hawkmoth brought you here…probably to recruit you.”

“Did I hurt anyone?”

“You beat him. You beat Hawkmoth.”

“And you tried to take my place,” Adrien hissed, showing his bruised throat.

Chat Noir gripped his hair fiercely. “Oh crap! Oh crap crap crap! I’m so sorry! He’ll be all better once you do the cure, right Bug?”

“Yeah. Physically, at least…but you did say some things that will hurt for a long time.”

“I didn’t mean any of it! I was an Akuma, they lie and say all sorts of things—“

“You told me about Father. And mother.”

“Oh…” he sighed. “Unfortunately, that’s too fresh in my mind to be a lie. I saw mom. He wanted to use the Miraculous to bring her back, but he was so unwilling to listen to me, to even think about working with us—that’s how it happened. He got me.”

“I’m so sorry, Kitty.” Ladybug lamented. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

He shook his head. “It’s over now. If I defeated him, then you don’t have to be subjected to it,” he told Adrien. “I don’t mind taking one for the team.”

“Did you kill him?” Adrien asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Even if he did, casting cure would fix it.” Said Ladybug. “There might be hope for a happy ending.”

Chat Noir took her hand and kissed her knuckles. “My Lady, will you send me back? I have to see her again. My Marinette. I have to see her and make up with her.”

Ladybug patted his cheek fondly. “Knowing me, she probably still loves you. But something happened to make her put distance between you.”

“You’ll be happy together, right?” He asked, pouting.

Adrien slipped an arm around her waist and held her. “I think we’ll manage.”

Ladybug hugged Chat briefly. “Thank you. For all your trauma and suffering, you helped us.”

“You also revealed both of our identities to the class, but that’s the kind of mistake I would make as an Akuma…” Adrien winced.

Chat Noir looked at all the shocked and concerned faces around him. “Wow, look at all these comforting, understanding, and loyal friends you have. Where’s Lila?”

“Out sick today,” provided Sabrina.

“Perfect! Don’t ever ever tell her what happened here. She’s a liar and would tell our identities in a heartbeat for a chance for fame.”

“Not a problem, Kitty Cat,” said Alya, with a wink. “Some of us are pretty good secret keepers.”

“You knew!?” Adrien cried, with betrayal in his voice.

Alya winced. “Ah, yeah…”

“Adrien.” Ladybug took his face and held it with trembling hands. “My kitty, my partner, my best friend, what I’m about to tell you is going to suck and you’re going to hate it, and that’s why I haven’t told you.”

“I’ve already had a lot of bad news dropped on me today, lay it on me.”

She glanced at the rest of the class and then Chat Noir. “Let me send him home, and then we’ll talk in privacy.”

He nodded, not really fond of how much the class had already learned about him today.

Ladybug threw her yo-yo up in the air. “Miraculous Ladybug!”

In a wave of fluttering red, Chat Noir was gone, and so were the bruises on Adrien’s neck.

“Spots off.”

Now, the class started whispering. Up until that moment, shock held them in silence. After all, it's not everyday you find out your classmates are superheroes.

“Miss Bustier, are you okay if we leave for a while?”

The teacher stammered a second, unfreezing from her complete and total shock. “I think it would be a crime to make you stay here today.”

Marinette smiled gratefully, before taking Adrien’s hand and leading him out into the hall. He was silent, rightfully so, and Marinette could only be happy there was no chance of him getting akumatized.

Finally, they took a seat on a bench, and waited for the other to speak.

“I…didn’t think this was how our identities would be revealed,” he breathed.

“I always wanted to tell you.” Marinette insisted, “even though I said otherwise. Tikki and Master Fu were so adamant that I not tell a soul.”

“So why does Alya know?”

She rested a hand on his. “I’ll get to that. But first…Chat Blanc.”

Adrien sat attentive and quiet, holding his accusations for later.

“It started about three months ago, when I gave you that Beret.”

“Beret? The one from the Brazilian fan club?”

“Yeah…except it wasn’t. It was from me. Originally, I left it in your room, with my name on it. My real name. A little while after I left, Bunnix came to me, and explained that she needed my help. She took me into her burrow, and led me to the future…the future where you were akumatized.”

“As Chat Blanc.”

“Yes.”

“That same akuma, that same Chat Noir?”

“I assume so. The moon was destroyed, the city flooded. You were all alone, everyone was gone.”

“Where…where was that Ladybug?”

She hesitated to say it, but admitted, “I found her underwater…cataclysmed.”

“No…I wouldn’t have—“

“I know, Adrien. Chat Blanc was upset about it too. He cried. He wanted my Miraculous to make the wish and fix it.”

“Sounds like an Akuma alright,” he said bitterly.

“At the time, all I knew was that you knew my identity, and you said that our love destroyed the world. So…I assumed that you became akumatized by finding out who I was…and that the beret had something to do with it. So I erased my name.”

“Oh…but Chat Blanc said he was akumatized because of my parents.”

“I didn’t know that back then. I wish I had. As it stood, I was certain an identity reveal would end up with an Akuma.”

“I understand your reasoning…but what about Alya?”

She sighed, the guilt toiling around inside her. “That wasn’t…it was a spur of the moment thing. I was back into a corner and people were getting really worried about me. Worried and nosey…and so I told Alya. Rena Rouge.”

“Ah. I see.”

“I should have told you. I should have told you so you could have told someone. It’s not fair to think I was the only one that needed a confident.”

“If I had to pick someone that wasn’t you, it would have been Nino. So I get it. Really, I do.”

Tears welled up in her eyes regardless. He was hurting so badly, but what could she even do to help?

“I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize.”

“Yes! Yes I do! Adrien, you’re my partner. Yes, keeping secrets can keep us safe for a while, but eventually we’ll run out of trust and then we’ll be in danger again. I don’t want to lose you!”

He gave her a little smile. “I might be upset, but you aren’t going to lose me. I promise.”

She squeezed his hand. “No more secrets. We train as guardians together. I’ll tell you all the auxiliary heroes, and all the formulas and—“ she stopped, blushing.

“What?”

“Ugh…I have to tell you something, since I said no more secrets.”

“Is it bad?”

“…no?”

He turned his hand to squeeze her back. “Okay. Well then, let’s hear it.”

She looked away, too nervous to look at his face. “Gah! This is just as hard as it’s always been!”

“I’m not going to judge you.”

“I know! I know!”

Pretend this is just Chat. She goaded herself.

“I…I’m in…love with you?” She squeaked out. There. The deed was done. She shyly turned to look at him.

Wide, sparkling eyes full of tears, but a big smile on his face. “You mean it? You said as much to Chat Blanc, but I didn’t know for sure…”

“Ugh, right. That.” She nodded. “You were the boy I kept turning…well, you down for. I’m sorry…”

“I’m not!” He chirped. “Marinette, if anyone was going to have a crush on me as Adrien, I’m so glad it’s you. You really know me! You’re special to me, and I always considered you as a friend.”

She sighed, hearing the magic words. “As I’ve heard.”

He frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

She blushed again. “It’s just…whenever we had a moment, or I tried to do something special for you, you always remind me that you feel…nothing for me.”

“Wait, what? That’s what you got out of that?”

“That you want me as a friend and just a friend?”

He actually laughed at her and pulled her into a hug. “Marinette, I thought you were nervous around me because you were uncomfortable. I said that stuff to let you know I treasured our friendship. I love you so so much, My Lady. I was deeply in love with Ladybug, and completely in denial with Marinette.”

“Can confirm!” Shouted Plagg from inside his jacket.

“So having you be the same? I’m…I’m so happy!” He hugged her tightly. “Today has thrown a lot of bad things at me, and I’m so worried about what comes next. But with you, I’m sure I’ll be okay.” He pulled away slightly. “You…will stay with me for whatever happens, right? I know Hawkmoth being my dad is kind of a deal breaker…”

Marinette wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned up into him, kissing him right on the mouth.

He stiffened briefly, before melting against her and pulling her tighter into the hug.

The kiss was perfect, not in execution or performance, but because of the love they felt. Adrien nipped at her lip, and Marinette hummed as she twined her fingers into his hair.

They pulled away begrudgingly.

“You and me against the world, right Kitty?”

“You know exactly what to say to make my heart swoon, my lady love.”

“I’m sorry I hurt you.”

“Kiss me and I’ll get over it.”

“I’m serious, Kitty.” She touched his cheek. “I knew it was going to hurt, and I foolishly and cowardly put it off, hoping it would go away.”

“Marinette, from what you said…it wasn’t just painful for me. It scared you, didn’t it? You said…when Chat Blanc appeared, that you thought you were having a nightmare. Do you dream of him?”

“Sometimes.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, Adrien.”

He considered his next move, and decided to scoop her up into his lap. “So, here’s my idea. If you have another nightmare about him, you call me, and I’ll be there in a jiffy.”

“And do what?”

“Hold you. Kiss you. Reassure you. Cuddle with you until you fall asleep. Whatever you need.”

She snuggled closer to him, resting her head on his shoulder. “I love you.”

“I love you too, bugaboo.”

Silence lapsed between for a while, as they just sat together, enjoying the warmth of their bodies, and the open air between them.

Marinette sighed. “We should probably go confront your father.”

“Yeah. We should…”

“Could…I offer you a reward if we go through with it?”

“What could possibly motivate me?”

“Once we’re done, and everything is put away…we can find a random, secluded rooftop and…make out for a while.”

Adrien stood, with Marinette still in his arms. “You know how to motivate a man.”

“I’ll be with you every step of the way. Just think about later.”

“One peck for the road?”

“One.”

Adrien held her tightly before dipping her and pressing a sinful, toe-curling kiss to her lips. When he finished a few minutes later, she breathlessly huffed, “that was not a peck.”

“No, but I need the strength.”

“Somehow, it’s a lot harder to stay mad at you. You can put me down now.”

“Nah. Plagg, Claws out!”

“Tikki, Spots on!”

The closer they got to the mansion, the faster Chat’s mood tanked. All the surface level happy feelings had bubbled away, and now he was filled with dread and apprehension.

“I…I don’t want to send my dad to jail,” he said, as they landed inside the walls.

“I know Kitty. I can do the talking.”

“You’re so good at it, Princess.”

She knocked twice, but didn’t wait for an answer before entering.

It didn’t matter. Gabriel and Nathalie were sitting in the lobby, waiting, as it appeared.

“Hello son,” said Gabriel, with not a trace of malice in his voice.

Chat halted, paling considerably. “You know?”

“Chat Blanc revealed as much. What did he tell you?”

“He said that…mom was still alive. You wanted the Miraculous to wake her up.”

“That’s right. But…” he sighed. “Can I humble myself and ask for your help, Ladybug? Can you look at her? Can you see if there’s any hope?”

“I would love to.”

#miraculous #ml #miraculous ladybug #fanfiction #marinette dupain cheng #adrienette #adrien agreste #chat blanc #ladynoir #identity reveal

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thran-duils · 3 years

Text

Doll Me Up (P.2)

Title: Doll Me Up (Part Two) Summary: Fem!Reader x Dark Mob!Tony Stark. On good days, you and Tony were a power couple. You, a perfect trophy wife with your hands in local charities to promote a wholesome image. Tony, business man but sullied with organized crime. He indulged in his illegal gambling, extortion, and political corruption. And he indulged in his escort business. Hell, that is where he had found you. You were a brat, and he loved a challenge. Words: 4,175 Warnings: Unhealthy relationships, smut, daddy kink, dom/sub, manipulation, death, violence, possessive behavior

Author’s Note: For this chapter specifically, there’s mention of the possibility of being kidnapped/assaulted. Just a TW.

Part One || Part Three || Masterpost (mobile) || Fanfic masterpost

A little more than a year and a half ago…

You giggled, running your finger down the nose of some guy who had grabbed you on your way back to your booth. Tony had taken you to a strip club, dressing you almost as bare as the girls there. You had gotten up to go grab a shot and had been on your way back to the table when a man had turned around in his seat, mistaking you for a dancer. He was not bad looking and he held out three twenties to you, just to touch you and hold you close. You did not see the harm in that.

Until you were yanked to the side and you stumbled in your high heels.

“Hey!” you called out as the guy shouted in protest when you were torn from his grasp.

You looked up seeing Happy as he pulled you along.

He tossed you into the booth and you glared at him, “That hurt!”

“You passing out free shit tonight?” Tony growled in your ear, catching your attention. Happy moved away from the booth again, keeping an eye out around the club.

You turned to Tony and stuck out your bottom lip. “He gave me money.”

“Who are you here with?” Tony asked, his tone tight.

Giving him an innocent look, you played with the collar on his shirt. “You, daddy.”

“That’s goddamn right. The next time that happens you better fucking remember that!”

You held up the money to him and said, “Do you want it?”

“Oh, princess… you shouldn’t go teasing me like that… waving another man’s money in my face when I already paid for your attention. I don’t respond well to that. It only makes me jealous.”

“Then I guess we can just give it back to some of the bitches here,” you said rolling your eyes, slamming the bills on the table. You huffed indignantly and adjusted your skirt, facing away from him now.

Tony had your arm in a tight grip when he yanked you back to him, causing you to yelp. He pointed in your face, his other hand coming down to grip you under the chin.

“You listen and you listen good,” Tony growled, his hand tight around your throat. Your noses were practically touching. “I don’t care how many people are in here. You keep acting like a brat, I’m gonna bend you right over my knee and leave your ass stinging. You understand me?” Your lips parted, staring into his eyes. His fingers flexed and you choked. “Understand me, kitten?”

You nodded quickly and his fingers relented.

His fingers caressed your cheeks and he said, “Princess, I know you’re used to a lot of attention. But when I have you with me, you’re with me and me only. You don’t have to want for anything with me. Isn’t that right?”

You said, “Right.” Shimmying closer to him again, trying to look as apologetic as possible to further calm him down. “I’m sorry, daddy. Old habits die hard. I can’t help it.”

Tony ground his teeth, contemplating what you said. You gave a flirtish smile as his eyes searched your face. He suddenly grabbed at the bills from the table. You watched him wrap one of the bills around his forefinger before he forced your legs apart. You began to protest but he told you to shut your mouth. His finger slipped past your underwear and was at your wet folds. You clenched against the paper and he laughed darkly, “With how wet you are, kitten, you won’t be uncomfortable long.”

“Don’t!” you said putting your hand on his shoulder attached to the hand inside you, trying to push him away, thinking of him ruining the bill and wasting the money.

His free hand wound up in your hair, yanking it back. “You’re worried about a twenty?” He nipped at your ear as his finger delved deeper in your pussy. “This is pennies to me. Honestly, even less. When I have you – and I’m going to from now on – you won’t even turn your head for this. And not only just because you don’t find value in the bill, but because it’s not me asking for your attention. You got that?” You whimpered, trying to buck away from his finger. “You got that? You’re going to make sure you help it?”

“Yeah,” you confirmed, giving him pleading eyes.

He chuckled, removing his hand and when it came back, it was empty of the bill. His fingers fluttered across your folds. As wary as his temper made you, he was right about one thing: you were wet. His dominance set you alight every time and he seemed to want to play now.

“P---please,” you stammered, pressing back on him now, wanting more contact.

“Begging for me already? You’re pathetic,” he hissed the word against your ear, and you bit your lip, nodding. He chuckled at your response, loving the degradation you thrived on. His fingers moved deeper, flicking against your clit. “Needy, wanton…”

“I want to forget everything but your name, sir.”

That sent Tony over the edge. Just like you planned. You had become a weakness of his by submitting to him as you had. His fingers were gone, and he ordered you to follow him because he was taking you to a private room.

<><><>

Xavier stood by as you pulled the money out of the ATM, blocking you from view. You were pulling out a grand and he did not want anyone passing by on the sidewalk to see. You put it safely in your purse and took your card back from the machine. There. If Tony was going to cut off your fun early, you would at least have a backup. In the boutique down the street though, you used your card to buy yourself some sandals and pair of jeans and shirt.

The two of you spent the better part of the late morning and early afternoon walking around the shops nearby the hotel and treating yourselves to small things. Xavier was hesitant to let you buy him something, but you insisted. It felt good being able to buy him something that made him happy. The smile on your friend’s face made it worth it to see him checking himself out in the mirror.

It was getting late in the afternoon, so you told him you were craving pizza. You guys chose on a place nearby that sold by the slice, it was just going to be a little bit of a walk. Xavier told you it would make him feel better after he ate three slices anyway because he had three in mind he wanted to have.

You handed over your card to pay for the slice of pizza and pop you had bought, only to have the cashier tell you it was declined.

You did not think Tony was actually going to do it and you asked them to try again. It was declined for a second time and you snatched it back, apologizing to them for it not working and handing over the twenty you thankfully had in your wallet rather than a hundred for such a small order.

Xavier had rushed back to grab a booth so he was not there to witness the exchange. When you sat at the table though, he immediately knew something was wrong. “What’s wrong?” he asked with his mouth full.

“He did it. He cut my fucking card off!” you snapped, tossing your purse and bags to the side on the inside of the seat to the wall. Xavier’s eyes widened and he slowed his chewing. You let out a frustrated noise, digging your phone out of your bag. He had not texted or anything. Such a power move on his point, making you have to call him. And beg like he said he was going to make you.

You made eye contact with Xavier across the table and sneered, “I don’t want to have to call him.”

“Want me to do it?” Xavier tried to joke. You glared at him and he shrugged, trying to not laugh. “Sorry. Bad timing.”

Throwing your phone down, you picked up your pizza. “I’m at least going to enjoy this and not go into it completely hangry.”

“Probably a wise decision.”

After your food had settled, you took a deep exhale, picking up your phone.

He sounded so goddamn smug when he answered. “Yes?”

“Wh—I don’t know what you want me to say!” you blurted.

“’Sorry’ would be a good place to start,” Tony suggested. You gritted your teeth, anger swelling at the mention of it. Before you could answer, he pressed on. “But we can wait for that later. Your flight is at 7:30pm. You better hurry and get to the airport. Your name is on the ticket and they’ll have it ready for you.”

“How do you expect me to get to the airport if my card is frozen?” you demanded.

“Same way you got to the hotel. Ask that dick you were riding—”

“What? I wasn’t riding any—” People were walking by, trying not to stare at you having a heated conversation on your phone at the table.

“Don’t lie to me!” Tony barked. “Plus, I saw you pulled out a grand this morning. I’m assuming you haven’t found a way to spend it all in this short amount of time.”

“You were the one who started all this—”

“No! You threw a fit because I told you that you couldn’t go to the Maldives!”

“Exactly! You don’t let me do anything without you—”

“Oh, you little—” Tony started to say and then inhaled sharply. “I’m getting sick of this backtalk. Y/N, that card is a privilege and you’ve gone far beyond fucking losing that privilege. So, get your ass to the airport and get on that goddamn plane. This game is over. And you’re flying coach.”

You let out a disgusted scoff and clenched your free hand. “No, you can’t—”

“I already did,” Tony snapped, and his voice dropped, dangerous. “And don’t you fucking tell me what I can’t and can’t do. You got that?”

Huffing, you grated, “Yes.”

“Good. I don’t know where this attitude is coming from, Y/N but it’s going to fucking stop right now,” Tony spat. “I’ll see you later tonight.”

He hung up the phone and your shoulders slumped, defeated. You stared down at your phone, on the edge of tears. What you said was true, or at least what you tried to say again. You never got to do things on your own. He always had to be there, and you had just wanted to go on a trip with one of your girlfriends.

“That went… terribly,” Xavier commented finally, breaking the silence.

“I don’t want to be in coach,” you sniffled.

“You really are spoiled.”

“Shut up, Xavier!” You let out a groan and threw your arms out. “I guess I gotta go to the airport. What even time is it? Also, thanks by the way for talking to him earlier! He for sure thinks I had sex with you!”

“Ew,” Xavier said, making a face, only serving to make you even more upset. “Oh, sweetpea. You are attractive. Just not to me.”

You muttered darkly, “Try telling him that.”

<><><>

As soon as you got to the airport, you marched up to the airline counter. When you were called forward, you gave your information and then asked, “Can I change the time of my flight? Earlier if possible. That’s actually preferable.”

Tony could possibly just wait around for the next flights coming in from Seattle to see if you were on them if it was later.

The attendant scrolled through, “Hmm. It looks like there’s a flight leaving in 25 minutes. And there’s an available seat because of a late cancellation.”

“I’ll take it. What terminal?”

“D gate, same one. But it’s a $75 fee to change it.”

“That’s fine,” you waved him off, pulling out your wallet.

You took a pic of the airport, ready to send it to Tony. At least he would think you were following his stupid directions. Tearfully, you said goodbye to Xavier, forcing a hundred into his hand. He protested and you told him it was for the gas like you promised and for him to get himself dinner or whatever since he was yet again being robbed of time with you. You hated leaving him behind and waved at him right before disappearing down the hall to board the plane. You just wanted to stay for a little bit and were being denied that.

Before you turned your phone off, you texted with yours and Tony’s friend Liam telling him you needed a ride. Thankfully he responded quickly, and you briefly mentioned you would need to stay the night. Liam knew immediately what was going on – he had seen it before and was hesitant but agreed to.

This was just digging yourself a deeper hole but goddamnit, you were going to get a second night away even if it killed you.

<><><>

Tony paced outside the terminal exit as people began filing out. It was going to take longer than normal because of the fact he had purposely put her in coach. Starting her punishment right from the beginning.

The trail of people trickled down until there was no one. She still had not emerged. Happy was watching Tony carefully, sensing the anger beginning to ebb and flow again. The tell tale signs of the vein on his temple with his clenched jaw, his fingers rubbing together as he paced.

Tony approached the flight crew coming out, “Excuse me. Is the plane empty?”

“Yeah,” the stewardness nodded.

“You’re sure? My wife was supposed to be on this flight.”

“Yes, sir,” she told him.

Tony exhaled sharply before turning on his heel and storming back toward where Happy was waiting.

“I’m gonna belt that little bitch,” he growled.

<><><>

“I really shouldn’t be doing this,” Liam muttered taking a left, onto his road shaking his head.

“Yes, you’ve said that plenty of times,” you told him, fixing your lipstick in the mirror now that he was on a smoother road. “It’s just for the night. I’ll leave super early… like 6am.”

“Aren’t you already in trouble? That’s how you got into this mess in the first place.”

“It’s not a mess.”

“It’s always a mess when you two are ‘fighting’. Do you think I’ve forgotten the last time you decided to hole away for the night with you friend? Cassandra? Wasn’t that her name? Anyway, with her after you ran off on him?” Liam asked, shooting you a scathing look.

There was no doubt in your mind he had not forgotten that scene. Tony had shown up at Cassandra’s later that night high as hell after some lines and practically dragged you out of the small get together by your hair. And no one had really done anything because they were afraid to. You had lost your car for a week as punishment.

“He’s got a temper,” you said, trying to sound nonchalant.

“Yeah, I fucking know. I’m his friend too, Y/N. I’ve seen it firsthand. Aren’t you afraid he’s going to divorce you?”

“Doubtful.”

“You’re right,” Liam muttered, shaking his head. “Not with how obsessed he is with you. Maybe he’d rather lock you inside for the rest of your life.”

“That’s more of a possibility. But I would just bat my eyes at him, and he will eventually relent. Plus, I’m a little over a month along,” you admitted, patting your stomach.

Liam looked gob smacked as he pulled into his house, turning the car off. You practically hopped out of the car, ready to just lie down.

“Excuse you. You don’t get to just drop that bit of information and then act like we aren’t going to talk about it!” Liam called after you, following quickly. “Have you thought about this?”

He was unrelenting in his questioning as he led you inside. This conversation was going to take a while.

<><><>

Your phone was ringing, catching both yours and Liam’s attention. He rose his brows expectantly, standing up and walking off to give you some space. He stopped in the kitchen where he could still see and hear you but he was not too close. You sighed, answering it. “Yes, daddy?”

“Where the fuck are you?” Tony practically shouted.

“Lying down on a couch.”

“Y/N, I am not in the goddamn mood for this. I specifically asked you to get on the plane and come home. Why can’t you fucking listen and do what you’re told?”

“I’m in LA,” you said, examining your nails. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

Tony’s laugh was wry and short. “You’re just asking for trouble.”

“No, I’m looking to be left alone and you won’t let me even have a couple fucking days to myself!” you retorted. “If you loved me, you would do that.” Liam sucked his teeth at that one and you shot him a look. “I’m home. Back in LA—”

“Where. Are. You?” Every word was enunciated, his tone cutting like a knife.

“On the couch at a friend’s,” you repeated. “I’ll be back home in the morning.”

Tony hung up the phone and you pulled your phone away, staring at it. That was new.

<><><>

“I’m sick of this shit,” Tony snarled, tossing his phone on the seat next to him. Happy eyed him through the rearview mirror warily. He pulled his computer out, to access find my phone on his plan. He had given her all the chances to just come back on her own, but it seemed he was going to have to do it himself, as per usual. His little brat was pushing boundaries she should not be pushing, and she was going to learn that. Once and for all. And so was whoever was helping her.

It was going to have to get physical. It would not be the first time. Just for different reasons this time.

<><><>

Less than a year and a half ago…

“O-oh,” you stammered as a man stepped in your path, blocking you from moving forward.

“Didn’t you hear me calling out to you, darling?” he asked, peering down his nose at you.

Of course you had heard his cat calling but you were doing your best to ignore him. You had simply just been taking a walk around the boardwalk and grabbed a candied apple on your way back to the patio where Tony was enjoying drinks with some of his business partners. Their talk had become boring, and you asked if he would mind if you took a walk. At first he had insisted you take his other guard besides Happy with you but you waved it off, saying you were not going far.

You shrugged, “Could’ve been talking to anyone. There’s a lot of beautiful women here.”

“There is, but I was talking to you,” the man said, and you felt movement behind you. You snuck a look over your shoulder, seeing another man had appeared there looking as sinister as the other. People were walking by like nothing was happening out of the ordinary, going about their late evening business. The man in front of you stepped closer, “What’s your name?”

“Cindy,” you lied with ease.

“You don’t look like a Cindy,” he chuckled.

“Well, that’s my name.”

“You’ve got a nice dress on there, Cindy.”

<><><>

Across the way, Tony happened to look over and he sat up slightly seeing that a man was standing in front of Y/N, another standing behind her. Even from here, he could tell by her body language she was uncomfortable. The men were pretty close and looked like they were up to no good.

“I’m sorry,” Tony said cutting his friend off, holding out his hand. “Hap.” He gestured over to where Y/N was standing. Happy followed his gesture and saw what bug was up Tony’s ass all of a sudden. Tony was already out of the chair before Happy or his other guards could react. “I’ll be right back. Excuse me.”

<><><>

“It’s not a dress. It’s a jumpsuit.”

The guy laughed again and said, “My apologies. I’m not a fashion guru. Regardless, it looks really nice on you. The floral pattern is a nice touch.”

“Is that all?” you asked, keeping your voice even. You were thinking of if you had to slam your candy apple stick into his eye to get away if this got bad.

The guy behind you let out a low whistle and the man in front of you cocked his head to the side. “Not even a thank you? That’s rude.”

“I didn’t need you to tell me, I already knew.”

The man looked amused, “Stuck up, aren’t you?” He stepped closer this time and you took a step back before hesitating, remembering the other guy was right there. Leaning in closer, he told you, “You know, I have a solution for stuck up women.”

“Leaving them alone and finding someone more agreeable?” you asked, your voice warbling only slightly.

His hand came up and he traced along your hip up to your waist. You slapped his hand away and he took the opportunity to grasp your wrist, forcing it down by your side.

“Hey!” you exclaimed. “Let go of me!”

That caught a couple people’s attention, but you hardly had time to take notice of them with how quickly the man was to closing the space between you. His nose was inches from yours as he warned you, “If I were you, I would keep quiet.”

“My fiancé—” you started to say just as you heard his voice.

“Something wrong?”

Tony was standing there, Happy with the other few guards not far behind. You felt a wave of relief wash over you at the sight of them, but Tony only had eyes for the man holding you. He looked calm and collected to the outside eye, but you could see the twitch in his jaw at the man’s hand on your wrist, holding you so close. You tried to yank your hand away, but the guy held tighter.

Tony’s smile did not reach his eyes. “I would suggest letting my fiancé go.”

“What are you going to do about it, old man?”

What an idiot, you thought to yourself seeing Tony’s cruel smile only grow.

Behind you, you heard the other man stammer before saying, “Um… Ian… I would…do as the man asks.” Tony’s eyes shifted to the other guy, his brow furrowed in confusion at the guy’s inability to speak. You heard the guy take a couple steps forward. “I’m sorry. We didn’t know. That she was with you! Mr. Stark, can I say…I’m such a fan.”

He must have noticed the faint glow peeking from the top unbuttoned part of Tony’s shirt and put two and two together.

In the two men’s hesitation in their realization, you successfully yanked your wrist away and looked down at the marks where his fingers had dug in. The other guards had come closer causing the man behind you to take some steps back, raising his hands up in surrender.

Tony noticed and said, “Hmm, no. You’re not going anywhere.”

“I swear. We didn’t know—”

“I don’t care,” Tony cut him off.

The guy shot his friend in front of you a look before turning and taking off. It only took the other guy a few seconds to follow suit, breezing past you and shoving you out of the way in the process. You fell down on the ground, your apple bouncing away from your grasp.

“Shit,” you heard Tony snap, and his hands were on you, pulling you to your feet. You hissed feeling pain on your hands where you had caught yourself from your face hitting the cement. They were scraped up, small droplets of blood on your palms. “Fuck. I’m sorry, doll.” You looked to where the guys had run off, seeing the guards were tailing them. “They won’t be walking when they get their hands on them. Trust me. Especially not after that last fuck up.” His men were doing the dirty work of making sure to beat the two guys into a bloody pulp. Tony never dirtied his own hands like that. It was not smart. He brushed at your hands and you winced. “Are you okay?”

“My apple,” you complained, spotting it.

“Are you alright?” Tony repeated with more force.

You gave a half-hearted shrug. “I guess. I’m glad you were here because that wasn’t going great.”

“I could see that,” Tony responded darkly. “Let’s go get you cleaned up. And, Y/N, the next time I suggest taking one of the guys with you, you listen, yeah?”

You nodded subserviently, letting him lead you back to the safety of the patio.

~~~

Forever tags: @coconutqueen21, @kvzctam

#tony stark x reader #dark!tony stark #dark marvel #dark marvel fic #dark tony stark #my shit

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moldisgoodforyou · 3 years

Text

spring formal

gif from @toesure

warnings: cursing and mentions of sex

wordcount: 2k

Of course, Rafe won out in the end.

The two had decided he would only pay for his half of the ticket for her sorority’s spring formal, upon his insistence. He wasn’t able to win the argument to pay for the whole thing, but with some sneaking around, he got her the dress she wanted too. Rafe caught Sophie looking at the same dress at least five times over one week, adding it to her cart and then exiting the tab, so he bought it when they were studying at the architecture studio while she got up once to grab more materials.

He presented the dress to her the day before the formal, when he dropped her off at her sorority house. “Hey, wait, I found you a little something.”

She paused, backpack in hand, and narrowed her eyes. “It’s never a little something with you.”

“Not true!” He protested. “I got you pizza last week when you were there late grading projects.”

Sophie laughed. “You got me a pizza, and you also got pizza for the four other TAs stuck there too. Who all love you now, by the way.”

“Good, as they should.” He grinned and reached into the backseat, pulling out a big cardboard envelope and handed it to her. She recognized the logo of the brand immediately and took a step back, shaking her head. “No. You didn’t.”

He shrugged, though he smiled. “Open it.”

She traced the tip of her finger over the brand’s logo stamped on the package carefully before ripping the cardboard open and sliding out the dress. It was a silk slip dress in a pretty light blue, the exact one she’d been eyeing. “How did you know?”

“You’ve been practically drooling over it online.” He teased. “I can’t wait to see it on you.”

“You really didn’t have to, I was gonna rewear one of my old dresses -”

“Nope, don’t start.” He cut her off abruptly, leaning over to meet her in a sweet kiss. “I wanted to do this for you, this is our last big thing before you - well, anyways.”

Her face fell a little like it did every time she was reminded that she was leaving him, and they both tried their hardest not to talk about it or think about it too often. “I appreciate it.”

“You’re gonna look killer, I’ll come pick you and the girls up at five tomorrow?” His car was the biggest of the group and he was the designated driver to get her, her roommates and their dates to the formal at the botanical gardens.

Sophie nodded with a grin. “Thank you, Rafe, I love it. It’s perfect.”

“You’re welcome. Night, Soph. Love you.”

“Love you too.” She gave him another quick kiss before leaving. The next day, Rafe came to pick her up right on time, walking to the door in his suit to pick her up. The whole house was practically buzzing with excitement, girls dressed to the nines with their dates in tow. He grilled Allie and Julia’s dates the whole drive there, much to the girls’ amusement, but eased up when Sophie reached over and pinched his leg as a warning sign.

He hardly let go of her all night, continually whispering sweet nothings in her ear about how damn good she looked. The more drinks they shared and the longer the night went on, the sweet nothings turned dirtier and dirtier, to the point that she couldn’t tell if the blush she wore was from his words or the alcohol. Once the bar was shut down and everyone started making their way out, Sophie grabbed his hand, leading him out to the connected hotel without hesitation.

He grinned and offered his arm instead so she could keep a better grip on him, a little wobbly in her heels. “Someone’s eager.”

“You’ve been instigating all night.” She scowled, flicking through her purse for the hotel keycard. Rafe withdrew it from his pocket, scanning them into the elevator. “I can’t help it, look at you. You’re beautiful.”

She tightened her grip on his arm, leaning into him and growing quiet as the elevator ticked up on the floors. “Shh.”

“Hey.” He nudged her gently after a moment. “What’s up? You’re quiet all of a sudden. Normally you’re running your mouth when you’re drunk.” He teased.

“Not drunk.” She protested, reaching up on her toes to kiss his cheek.

He just nodded, a little concerned but chalked it up to her being tired. It was around 1am, anyways, and he knew she had a long week. The two walked down the hall to their hotel room quietly, hand in hand, and he followed her in.

Sophie turned to him once they were inside, slipping her arms around his waist and stepping close. “I love you.”

“Love you too, angel. Are you okay?” He hugged her back securely, cupping one hand to the back of her head to keep her even closer.

“Don’t wanna leave you,” she mumbled, keeping her face buried in his chest while she hugged him tight.

“Hey.” Rafe frowned, rubbing a soothing hand over her back. “Thought we agreed to not talk about that.”

“There’s a chance I’m not sober so I can talk about whatever I want.” She argued, resting her head against his chest to hear his heartbeat, a constant measure of reassurement for her.

He laughed and pressed a kiss to the crown of her head. “I could hardly tell.”

“You’re not allowed to make fun of me.” She murmured, not wanting to let him go.

“Am too.” He scratched gentle circles on her lower back, enjoying her small hum of contentment. “You’ve been looking forward to this for forever, Soph, I don’t want you to be upset about it just because we’ll be apart for a little.”

“It’s more than just a little.” She pulled back to look up at him, biting her lower lip. “I’m still excited, just. You’ve always been there, you know? Even when we weren’t dating.”

He swept the pad of his thumb over her lip, trying to get her to relax. “You were so pissed when you found out I went here too, freshman year. Remember that? You came to a Delt party, into my home, and then had the nerve to ask what I was doing there.”

“I remember. I went home and called Carter and he told me to stay away from your house and to move on from high school.” She laughed, shaking her head. “If only he knew.”

“If only.” Rafe nodded in agreement, then walked over to his duffel bag for the night. “C’mere.” He pulled out a small, poorly-wrapped box, the tape haphazardly placed (which, in her eyes, was incredibly endearing).

Sophie followed him to the bed, taking a seat next to him and accepted the box. She fixed him with a pointed look, though her eyes betrayed her smile. “You need to stop getting me gifts.”

“I won’t stop doing that until the day I die. And even then I’ll send you gifts from the grave.” He teased, kissing her quickly. “C’mon, open it.”

She rolled her eyes but unwrapped it, setting the paper to the side. Once she recognized the Cartier logo on the box, she immediately pushed it back into his hands, eyes wide. “Rafe, I can’t -“

“Open it, Soph.” He grinned, having anticipated her reaction.

He wore at least two or three rings at all times and she had a habit of stealing them when they were together, or playing with his fingers and twisting the rings. When she wore rings on her own - if ever - they weren’t showy in the slightest, one a slim tarnished gold band that she had found in a thrift store and fell in love with the engraved initials on the inside. She liked to think it was a gift from someone to their lover, a quiet marker that they were theirs.

She sighed and flicked the box open, her throat feeling tight when she saw the ring - a Cartier love ring, no less - nestled in the box. “Rafe.”

“Sophie.” He mimicked.

“This had better be a fucking knockoff from Amazon.”

He laughed loud at that, shaking his head. “I’m offended you think I’d buy you a knockoff of anything.”

“I can’t accept this. You need to take it back, seriously.”

“Can’t take back something that’s been engraved.” He raised his eyebrows, prompting her to pull the ring out and see “my favorite” engraved on the inside of the ring - making her choke up even more, tearing up a little.

“Rafe, you didn’t.” She murmured, looking up at him with adoration. He nodded and took it from her, then took her hand. “I did. Don’t cry, I hate it when you cry.” He slid the ring on her finger with care, fitting it snugly around her second finger on the right hand.

She giggled, wiping away a tear. “This feels oddly ceremonial.”

He smirked. “Yeah, well, I’m pretty sure your real ring would go on this finger instead.” He tapped her ring finger on her left hand. And then, because maybe a comment like that felt all too soon - even though he knew he would go out and marry her tomorrow if she asked - he added quickly, “But this’ll be flashier when you flip people off.”

She immediately blushed as his comment, ducking her head down. “That’s if you think you can put up with me for that long.”

“Hey.” He nudged her chin up with one finger, making her look at him. “I’ll be around as long as you’ll have me.”

Sophie was bright red now, though she was beaming. She shoved his shoulder playfully as she shook her head. “Stop, you’re embarrassing.”

“Nah, you love me.” He nudged her back and she swatted at his hands until he tried grabbing at her wrists. “Say it.”

“No.” She giggled, trying to grab at his arms. It ended up turning into a full on wrestling match, both of them trying to land on top. She finally won out after a moment, a little breathless as she laid on top of him, pinning both arms to the mattress. “I’m stronger than you.”

“In your dreams.” He grinned at her and leaned up to capture her lips with his. She kissed him back, dragging it out until she had to stop to breathe. “Rafe?”

“Yeah, angel?”

“Thank you, I mean it. I love you.”

He laughed and nudged his nose against hers. “I know.”

Her jaw dropped in mock offense. “Love you too would suffice.”

“Already did.”

“Well I want to hear it again. We don’t say it enough.” She insisted, releasing his arms so she could comb her fingers through his hair.

He laughed, pressing into her touch. “Is that so?”

“It is so.” She scowled and tugged a little on his hair. “And we’re gonna be on the phone a hell of a lot more once I leave, so I think we should start a habit of saying it more.”

Rafe nodded and swiftly flipped them over, sliding his hands up her body. “I can do that. I love you,” he kissed her once, “I love you,” a kiss along her jaw, “I love you,” a kiss along her neck.

She grinned, her scowl immediately gone. “Keep going.”

“Say it back.”

“Hm....no.”

“Do you want me to eat you out or not?” He asked point-blank, knowing it’d make her squirm.

She groaned, just as he expected, and blushed red. “Why are you always so crude?”

“Because you love it. And me.” He trailed his fingers down her stomach, tracing along the silk material of her dress. She tensed under his touch, her breath catching in her throat. “I do. I love you. Even if you drive me crazy.”

“In more ways than one, yeah?” Rafe smirked, reaching up to tug the straps of her dress down her shoulders. She tugged at his hair to stop him in his tracks. “Hey.”

“Hey.” He responded, pressing a kiss to her collarbone.

“This is one of our last nights guaranteed alone before I have to go, so make it count.”

He laughed and leaned closer, kissing her soundly. “Is that a threat?”

She grinned, nipping at his lower lip. “It’s a demand.”

taglist: @whoeveniskendall @kkmaybank @karsinner @outerbanksbro @outerbankspreferences @randomficsandshit @sunshineitsfine44 @jailcalledlife @tovvaa @moniamaybank @illbesafeforyou @dontjinx-it @freddymaybank @jjmaybankzz @g4bster @oopsiedoopsie23

#FUCK he's so hot in that gif #I'M SORRY i couldn't follow thru with the smut idk why #letting u guys down #rafe cameron #rafe cameron fanfic #rafe cameron obx #obx fanfic #outer banks #obx #college rafe #frat rafe #mine #rafe x sophie

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terrm9 · 3 years

Text

after all that i’ve done (Tatum x Lina)

This is officially part 2 of you give it to me anyway; however it’s perfectly readable as a one-shot, too.

WC: 4.4k, Rating: M (mature)

Warnings: swearing, mentions of army injury, alcohol & drug consumption, sex - only talking about these things, nothing graphic.

Author’s note: As expected, this doesn’t meet my writing goals at all. I got tired of looking at it, though, so here it is. Thank you so so much for reading and leaving a feedback, it means the whole world to me <3

Five weeks.

Five weeks of separation, five weeks filled with texts and phone calls and face-times and there was also a letter waiting on Lina’s bed one day – for old times‘ sake, Tatum joked.

And Lina has never been a patient woman, no. She hated those five weeks, in all her honesty.

(We managed five years, I can handle five weeks, she has been telling herself on repeat.)

The five weeks have passes. Lina’s year at Vancross was over. Election has been won.

She is home, at last. Home in Rutherland. Home in Mendozas‘ living room, Tatum’s arm wrapped around her shoulders and her own around his waist.

Leaning into his side and blushing under the attention she is getting from Mr. Mendoza, she is home.

(At last.)

„Lina!“ Tatum’s dad beams at her, a smile so wide she is sure his cheeks hurt. Where is all that Tatum’s stoicism coming from, she wonders (and then she remembers, those damn five years. Tatum used to be a perfect picture of his father – huge smiles and carefree laughters; there is nothing inherited in who he is now. He has become who he is in those five years.)

„It’s so amazing to see you again,“ Mr. Mendoza – Jerome, he insists – breaks her out of own mind. „Tatum couldn’t stop talking about you these past few weeks. It’s been Lina here and Lina there and ‚I wonder what Lina is doing‘ and-„

„Okay, dad, I am sure she gets it,“ Tatum interrupts, his voice carrying tracks of annoyance, but Lina knows it’s not really there. She has never seen a relationship more beautiful, more pure than the one between Tatum and his dad.

When Lina looks up at him, expression amused and an eyebrow raised, Tatum simply shrugs – he will not deny that he missed her. He will not support his dad’s teasing, either.

„Thank you, Jerome,“ she smiles back, probably just as widely. „I am more than happy to be back home.“

Tatum picked her up at the airport and Lina didn’t even consider going to her mother’s house. Without any conversation, they both knew she would be staying at Mendozas for some time.

She would be staying home.

„Well, I will leave you kids to it,“ Jerome winks at them and this time, Tatum does look slightly uncomfortable. „I promised Victoria I would help Josh with the nursery for the little one. Don’t wait for me with the dinner!“ He winks again and the suggestion behind his words is more than clear. Tatum’s hand twitches at Lina’s shoulder as he mutters under his breath.

„For the love of God, just go, dad.“

Lina is trying very hard not to think about what is happening. About how she is taking the stairs to walk into Tatum’s room – the room she hasn’t been to in six years. About how Tatum’s shoulders are tense under his tight black t-shirt, even though he is smiling softly at her as he opens the door.

About how this is all so well-known to her and yet so fucking different.

About the conversation they are inevitably having today. She is trying very, very hard not to think about that.

It takes several seconds for Lina to take the room in – to compare her memories to the present moment, to remember if the walls have always been this shade of gray and that there was definitely not a king-sized bed in teenage Tatum’s room.

"Ah," she can't help but grin as she spots the blank space above the bed.

"Where has the Emma Watson poster gone?"

Even though Tatum's face remains stoic, Lina catches a glimpse of amusement in his eyes.

"Dad turned this room into the one for visitors while I was gone," he replies shrugging. "I didn't think it would be, uh, appropriate to have the poster here."

Nodding, Lina takes the room further in and her breath hitches in her throat as she notices things that haven't changed, haven't been removed. The photo of the two of them from Tatum's eighteenth birthday party on a bedside table. The Valentine's Day card Lina made for him in the kindergarten pinned above his writing desk. The elegant black box sitting on the desk and she knows it's filled with the cinema tickets and concert tickets and the little notes Lina left from him in the books he has borrowed her. The ugliest mug ever made proudly displayed on a windowsill - Lina promised to bring him the ugliest souvenire from her trip to Prague and she came back with the mug. Photo of Lina in a long summer dress taken only a few days before Tatum left Rutherland, on a dresser (although it looks slightly rumpled and with a swell of her heart Lina wonders if maybe he had had this photo in his wallet while he was away, close to him at all times?)

"And these," she gestures around the room, "are not inappropriate?"

"Never," he doesn't miss a beat.

In two long strides, he closes the gap between them and taker her face into his hands, eyes full of that tenderness that scares her, full of affection and also, she notices, full of need.

„Lina,“ he whispers as he scans her face and Lina is not sure what he is trying to say – his eyes, God, those eyes, so beautiful, so breathtaking, screaming many things at once and Lina can only guess.

I missed you. I am so happy you are finally with me. I am, at last, at peace. I love you with my whole being and then some more.

All the things she feels within herself. All the things she is, just like him, not capable of saying. Neither of them has ever been a master of words. Of course, it has always been easy to talk to Tatum about others, about life, about nothing in particular.

But to talk to Tatum about Tatum?

(To talk to Lina about Lina?)

That’s... hard. Difficult. So easy to fuck up.

So she kisses him. Pulls him closer and covers his mouth with hers, pouring all that is unspoken into that kiss, hoping it could be enough.

(It is. It always is.)

Five weeks is a long time for everyone. It’s been fucking long time for Lina and Tatum.

The kisses are hungry, desperate, full of need and catching up, making up for the lost time – it would be so easy, so damn easy to just take his clothes off, to let him take hers off and then just have him take her.

So damn easy.

Lina knows he would do it, his higher principles be damned because the heat radiating from his body, the low rumble coming from the back of his throat, his hands caressing her torso – all a proof that he is just a man, that he wants her.

Tatum would do everything – anything – for Lina. He once told her he would die for her – and what a cliché, used by many, sung by rockstars and written down by poets, I would die for you, a confession or perhaps a promise, whispered freely by millions but meant scarcely by dozens.

Lina knows he means it. He would give up all his breaths for her.

(As she would for him. She decided to live for him, after all, and maybe that’s even more severe.)

And it’s so tempting she almost takes it, takes him-

It's the first time with you. (Spoken five weeks ago and still echoing in her head, those gentle words of his, for fuck’s sake)

- she can’t.

God, how she wants to forget what has been and what will be and just let them enjoy the moment of all that is physical and beautiful and easy - nothing that is their reality, has been for years, hard and ugly.

“We need to talk,” she whispers and she hates how her voice trembles already, trembles with all those wrong, dreadful emotions.

A long exhale leaves Tatum and he closes his eyes before nodding – and if he was tense before, he is statue-like now, the only movement are his hands, hugging Lina more tightly.

“Yes,” he says quietly and leads her to his bed, a habit older than Lina can remember – serious talks need to be taken to bed, they used to joke. Sitting next to each other, backs leaned against the wall behind them (knee to knee, shoulder to shoulder), Lina looks into his eyes briefly and murmurs: “Could you go first, please?”

There is no need to particularize what is this talk going to be about – two people that shared everything, two people who have been through most of that everything together, being separated for five years, well, that’s a lot of catching up to do.

And while they have gotten to the talks about Lina’s school and Tatum’s time in army already, while she already knows about the injury that made him leave and he already knows about all the fights she has had with her mother and how it all led to her year at Vancross, they have successfully avoided talking about the people they met in those years apart, until now.

There has been no talk about the relationships and as curious as Lina has been, she never dared to ask about Tatum’s sex life. He is her best friend, though. First and foremost, he is her best friend and she knows about the first girl he kissed and the first girl he has bought flowers for and the first one he invited for a date.

“It was not long after I joined army that I met Cara,” Tatum speaks, taking Lina’s hand into his own, fingers intertwined. “She was a cousin of a fellow soldier and lived in a town nearest to our base. She came to visit him fairly often and she was impossible not to notice,” he chuckles quietly. “So loud and cheery and full of joy. Everyone was excited to see her after some time. She brought life to the people that mostly talked about death. She never hesitated to show me that she likes me. And you know, at army, dating is anything but easy – but Cara was understanding. So we started dating after five months.”

His voice is soft when he tells her all of it (so freely, so naturally, and Lina wishes her story – her stories – could be that easy to tell, too), as is his smile. No matter what has gone down between Tatum and Cara, there is no grudge he is holding, not a sign of hatred. And maybe Lina should feel jealous, maybe there should be a pang of something inside her ribs, something uncomfortable. There’s nothing.

If anything, she is grateful that Tatum had someone he could rely on for all those years. Grateful that Cara had been there to look after him at times Lina couldn’t.

„She was always so,“ he hums for a moment. „So happy. It didn’t take long for me to understand that the happy face, the loud laughter, that those things were her cover up for something terrible, something that was making her miserable. But she never wanted to talk about it and so I didn’t ask. As she didn’t ask in return.“

Tatum’s head bumps into the wall softly, too and his gaze is on a ceiling when he speaks again.

„She was a good girl. And the relationship was... nice. Easy. We made sure it would stay easy. And in that easiness, it lacked depth. I have never gotten to know her better and she has never gotten to know me.“

A long silence follows and Lina wonders if she should ask more, if she should interrupt his thread of thoughts. Before she can say anything, Tatum speaks again and this time, his voice is filled with regret.

„She had your hair.“

She reminded me of you, is what he is not saying.

„How long did the relationship last?“ Lina asks when the silence gets too thick, too uncomfortable.

„Three years and something.“

„You broke up when you had to leave army?“ she prompts softly, curiosity getting the best of her.

Tatum shakes his head before looking down at Lina and responding.

„No, we ended it before the injury happened. She found the photo of you in my wallet one day, after the discussion about my driving license – she needed to see the thing herself and as she opened the wallet, the first thing she saw was, well... you. She asked me ‚So this is the girl you are trying to forget?‘. After my initial surprise, I only said that you are my best friend.“

Breaking the eye contact, he looks ahead before finishing the story.

„‘The best friend you are in love with?‘, she asked again and it was the first time someone said that aloud. I couldn’t lie to her, not when she asked so directly. She said she understood and you know what Lina? I think she really did. I never found out who was she trying to forget, but she did understand me.“

„And after Cara?“ Lina asks, even though she is afraid she knows her answer.

„After Cara, there was nobody.“

„Are you-,“ she takes a deep breath to calm down her rapidly beating heart. „Do you really mean that you only slept with Cara? Ever?“

Tatum laughs at that, squeezing Lina’s hand. „Life in army – or healing after the injury you have gotten there – do not exactly give you opportunities to get laid, galyetas.“

„Oh,“ is all Lina manages to breathe out. „Oh.“

Oh, shit. Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

This is her worst nightmare. This is worse than anything she feared.

Lina feels Tatum’s gaze on her, an unspoken ‚It’s your turn‘ hanging between them but she cannot, she cannot.

She feels like throwing up and crying at the same time and she cannot do this, she must run and run and run until she cannot catch her breath and never return because Tatum, her Tatum, deserves everything and she can give him nothing.

Not daring to look at Tatum, Lina tries to take a deep breath – to take any breath (and it feels like she has done the running already, she ran away and yet here she is, next to the man she loves, next to the man she is going to destroy.)

"You know you don't have to tell me anything, Lina," Tatum whispers, his knuckles caressing Lina's colarbone softly - a touch featherlight, almost too tender to bear.

And she needs to take another deep breath, the fire inside her blazing sedulously (painfully. It hurts to burn for Tatum, it pains as much as it pleases).

It all feels too much – his touch, his presence too good, too terrific; it feels like a dream.

(One she will soon turn into a nightmare)

„No, I do,“ she chokes out at last and finally looks into his eyes, forcing her memory to capture them fully – the chocolate brown of his irises with the specks of deep green in them, the dilated pupils and that damn warmth seeping from them, all those emotions. His eyes are smiling at her, eyes loving and caring and once she tells him everything, all of that love and care and smile will be gone and she begs her memory to remember Tatum’s eyes.

She begs her memory to forget everything but Tatum’s eyes (beautiful and breathtaking)

„I missed you,“ she begins. „I missed you like hell, Tatum, From the moment you were gone, it hurt. And I needed to find some kind of distraction, something to fill my mind with. The letters were not enough sometimes.“

Her voice is so apologetic, cracking after every other word and she hates it, hates how it sounds, hates how it is certainly telling Tatum where this is going, already.

“It was…” she stops and shrugs, trying so desperately to find the right words - which is ironic, really, as there are hardly any right words for this. “Manageable, that first year. I got drunk or high - sometimes both - went home, reread your latest letter and cried myself to sleep.”

Determined to look straight ahead of herself, Lina doesn’t see Tatum’s intense gaze on her. She feels it, however. (She always feels him, no matter her senses.)

She also hears his faint scoff.

Manageable has probably not been the most right choice of a word, then.

Then again, she has never done this before. Has never spoken about those years without Tatum to anyone.

Years of loneliness she decided to fill.

(Needed to fill, so desperately.)

Years of self-hatred that still lingers.

„The letters stopped coming, then,“ she whispers and even though she knows now why, she knows about her mother contacting Tatum only to ask him to stop sending them because it’s ‚too hurtful‘ for Lina; even though she knows all of it, she cannot keep the hurt from her voice.

„It was maybe three or four months after the last letter that it began to dawn on me, that another one is not coming. I was at this party and the first time, it was not planned, not intentional. It just... happened. I was getting drunk and ready to go home to reread the letter when it hit me, you know?“ she gulps and blinks several times to keep the tears from falling. „It hit me that I do not have anything to reread. And the guy was there, buying me drinks the whole night and he told me about his hotel room. So I went.“

Now, she needs to squeeze her eyes shut and the tears do fall and she hates them, hates herself, hates the past. But the dam has been broken and words are flowing out of her and she needs to tell Tatum everything, even if it is the last thing she will ever tell him.

„I do not remember his name and I do not remember what he looked like. I only remember that I hated every second of the sex, but the feeling of hating something else than the emptiness in me was strong enough for me to keep doing this. The second time, I planned it. And the third and every single one after that. I do not know who those people were, Tatum,“ she whispers and it scares her how still Tatum is, his hand still in hers but unmoving. There’s no reassuring squeezing.

(It’s what she deserves.)

„I never asked about their names and I never gave away mine. It happened every other week – I went to the city, got drunk, got fucked, went home. One time, paparazzi caught me kissing a woman in a bar and of course, the next day the picture was all over the magazines. My mother took a flight back home, then and I thought that maybe she would ask me what was going on, that maybe she would care. She tossed a bag my way, filled with wigs and contact lenses and told me that if I want to ruin my life, I need to make sure it doesn’t ruin her career, too. Then she left.“

Annie – Lina’s only female friend before Dionne – always used to say that what Lina is doing is a perfect example of post-breakup behavior. It never made sense to Lina. There was never a relationship. There was no breakup. She was just lonely and wanted some company.

It makes sense to her, now. She knows now that she loves Tatum in a way that is far from friendly and she knows now that she felt that way all those years ago, too. Back then, she would never admit that.

But Lina knows now. Her best friend, the closest person she has ever had, the person she’s been in love with left and Christ, that hurt more than a breakup.

„I do not know how many men I slept with, how many women. I never counted. The only thing I know that I never enjoyed the sex, not once,“ Lina scoffs and then muses, more to herself than Tatum. „Sometimes I wonder if I am even capable of that. Enjoying sex. Not that it matters,“ she adds in a rushed voice, because truly, her selfish wonder about her selfish sex life is not something that matters at the moment.

„I hate that it was that way, Tatum, I hate everything about those years you were gone. Most of all, I hate myself. But I cannot take that back. Those things are part of me now, no matter how hideous that part is.“

Silence. Long, terrible silence.

„What was the last time?“ Tatum asks suddenly and his voice is hollow, emotionless, so awfully neutral.

„Three weeks before Vancross? Maybe a month?“

This time when Tatum speaks, the emotions are clear in his voice – surprise, most of them all.

„And nobody after that? Nobody at Vancross?“

„Of course not!“ Lina exclaims, more loudly than intended – she still doesn’t look at him, though. „I was... There was no need-„ she bites her lower lip, trying to find the right words. She decides on the truth, in the end. „You were there with me. I was not lonely anymore. Not empty.“

There is a long silence, thick and suffocating and Lina feels like choking, drowning, this is the end, she thinks. She cannot meet Tatum's eyes, the fear of what she might find in them too tremendous - hate, disgust or perhaps resentment?

(All the things she would find in her own eyes, did she look in the mirror now)

And she deserves that look - the look that will crush her and destroy everything that is (was) between them; she deserves so much worse, she knows, but it doesn't make it any easier to open her damn eyes and look at him.

Taking a deep breath through her nose, Lina braces herself to face the reality, squeezing her eyes shut even more tightly, as if the counter movement of the one that is her goal could miraculously encourage her to do it and-

"I am sorry I was not there," she hears Tatum's whisper, the sound full of pain and regret and her eyes snap open without any forcible impulse sent by her brain.

What the fuck is the first reaction she manages to get out of herself.

„I should’ve fought harder for us,“ he adds and tugs her hand, forcing her to – fucking finally – look at him. „I should have been there, one way or another.“

„For fuck‘s sake, Tatum,“ Lina snaps and stands up, not able to sit calmly. „Stop this. Just...just stop this, okay? You cannot be sorry. You need to hate me, resent me. I screwed everything up. Be angry or something.“

„Lina,“ he whispers softly for what must be the eighth time that day and stands up too, cupping her cheek softly, gently enough for her to break free if that’s what she wants. „As if I could ever hate you.“

Lina’s heart breaks at those words. She is sure it does, she can feel the sharp pain in her chest and it must be that, right? Tears are threatening to fall once again and her hands are trembling and Tatum just stands there, thumb tracing her cheekbone tenderly, looking at her, waiting.

Patiently, calmly. Waiting. As he always is.

„You should,“ she whispers at the very same moment the first tear fall down, at the very moment a sob leaves her mouth. „You need to. I am not the Lina I used to be, Tatum. I am not a good person. I am all those terrible things that you are not and I can only cause you hurt. Please, Tatum, for your own sake just... please, just hate me.“

Tatum bows his head down, his lips – warm, soft, gentle – touching her cheek, kissing the tears away.

Lina’s heart keeps breaking.

„I know who you are, Lina girl. I see you as you are.“

Another kiss on the other cheek.

„It’s the past. Past that has not been easy for either of us. But it’s gone. We have each other now and I will have you for as long as you will have me.“

„But-„ she protests, only for Tatum’s thumb on her lips to stop her.

„You are not what you have done. You are not what happened to you. You are my best friend. My Lina. My galyetas. You are still the very same Lina that created the Valentine’s Day card for me at the age of five because you were worried I wouldn’t get a card from anyone else.“

They both chuckle at the memory – the bastard got eight – eight! – Valentine’s Day cards that year.

„You are still the Lina that alarmed her mother and all the assistants on the President tour because you needed to get back to Rutherland immediately – because it was the first Mother’s Day without my mom and you knew I would be miserable.“

Well, yeah, her mother was not overly happy when she had to pay for the private jet that took Lina back home. Immediately.

Tatum’s hand traces her jawline, falling down on her neck, her shoulder, her exposed collarbone until it lands on her chest, until Lina’s heart beats under it.

„You are the Lina I grew up with. You are my best friend. You are the most important person in my life and that cannot be changed. I know who you are. I see you as you are, I see you as the beautiful, loving, compassionate Lina you are and it hurts me to know that you cannot see yourself that way.“

Another sobs escapes Lina and she feels dizzy, heart beating rapidly, head underwater.

(How is she supposed to deal with this? With him and with herself?)

„I will make sure to remind you,“ Tatum whispers into her ear, kissing her earlobe there and again, Lina has no idea what to say. Again, she acts instead.

She kisses him, a deep, slow kiss and here it is again, that hope that it’s enough.

(It is. It always is.)

*** ***

Thank you so much for reading, again! I am already working on the third part in which these two finally get to the banging so I hope you won't get tired of them just yet

#l & t #foreign affairs #tatum mendoza #tatum x mc #tatum x lina #lina monroe

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schrijverr · 3 years

Text

And finally see what it means to be living

Eliot’s life, from his teen years to the disillusionment of the military through the soulless wetwork all the way to his team, seen through his connection to the song Fast Carby Tracy Chapman.

On AO3.

Ships: none

Warnings: none, but tell me if I missed any

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Eliot remembered being a teen, lying on the grass in the middle of the night, having snuck out with a radio with as excuse to his father that he was with a lady friend. That was if he even cared to ask, which was never the case, but just to be safe.

He remembered one night in particular, the one that made him come back out there with the radio each night, hoping they would play the song he wished to hear most as he lay under the galaxy, wishing he was far away, among the stars.

It had been a bright night with clear skies, a full moon and a million stars in the sky. He was lying on his blanket, some radio station played that he tuned out most of the time. Then the radio announcer had said: “Next up is Fast Carby Tracy Chapman, gotta warn y’all it’s one for the heart.” And somehow it had gotten his attention and he’d listened.

He’d listened, yet somehow he’d felt heard.

Right there on the radio had been someone, who was stuck in a town as well, with a shit father, who wanted nothing more than to live and get out.

While he had nobody but himself to get him out of there, the song gave him hope. He hadn’t heard the full lyrics, but enough to hit home. The radio announcer had been right when he’d said it was one for the heart.

You got a fast car And I got a plan to get us out of here I been working at the convenience store Managed to save just a little bit of money We won't have to drive too far Just 'cross the border and into the city You and I can both get jobs And finally see what it means to be living

He found himself humming the song, singing the second verse under his breath the next day, letting the feeling of the song build up in his chest and carry him through the day as plans of getting away swirled in his mind.

Even now he knew that his best out was either a sports scholarship or the military and he wasn’t a college man. He also knew that his father would never let him join, so he’d have to wait until he was eighteen before flying away.

While he might not have a fast car, he and a few of his buddies had boosted one often enough that he could find one when the time came, he just had to get there first. Just until he was eighteen, then he was out of there and far away, for now he would just work at the hardware store and save the money to get out of here.

Anxiously, he had waited until he could sneak out again after that night, tuning into the same radio station, hoping it would be played again.

They didn’t play the song the first night, nor the one after that, but the third night they did. He was sitting next to the radio, armed with a tape recorder that he smashed on the moment the announcer introduced the song.

Afterwards, he played the song so often on his Walkman that the tape wore down until he had to record it onto a new one.

The late nights under the stars, alone with his dreams, stayed. He still played the radio on the same station that had first played Fast Car, but he often found himself listening to the tape, repeating it until he had enough peace to rest.

His mind got stuck on the first part of the song after a while:

You got a fast car I want a ticket to anywhere Maybe we make a deal Maybe together we can get somewhere Any place is better Starting from zero got nothing to lose Maybe we'll make something But me myself I got nothing to prove

He repeated the words to himself, alone in his room or in the safety in his mind whenever the world got too much. Well, his dad got too much.

Then he would just grit his teeth and tell himself that he had nothing to prove and that any place would be better, he just had to go somewhere. Didn’t matter that he started at zero, just like her, he would live.

Just a year more then he’d be eighteen.

Eliot had never belonged in that small stuffy town, no matter how well he played his part. He was never that into football or the girls at the school. He went through the motions, but wasn’t built for settling down, for taking over the store and staying there forever.

For a while he thought that Aimee got that, that she got him and that they would achieve the dream together and get away from the town where everyone knew everyone and the only good thing were the horses.

She was also done with some of the people at school, though she went to church and she loved the horses and maybe he should have thought more about it when he mentioned leaving and she stayed quiet, but he wanted to get out so bad that he couldn't imagine anyone wanting to stay.

So, slowly he started to picture them, in a car – maybe even one he’d bought – driving on the highway, the town disappearing the rear view mirror as they went off to see what it meant to be living.

It was a dream that got crushed.

Aimee wanted him to stay, tried to talk of the horses and what they could built and he’d just listened dumbly and nodded.

Faintly he heard himself making her a promise about coming back then and giving her the ring he’d bought for her birthday, hoping to make it real in a church that was not run by the same Father he’d been forced to confess his sins to since he was a boy.

And he wondered how he had ended up there when he had always told her about his dream of being far away.

But then again, maybe he hadn’t told her. Maybe to her, he was complaining about the town just like she did, like everyone did. Maybe in her mind she had built a future like he had, just on a different set, cast in different rolls. Maybe neither had said enough.

He snuck out again that night and laid in the field, his field. He lay on the wet grass and stared at the constellations he knew so well, wondering why the endless sky suddenly seemed less a place of escape and just another facet of his stupid town where everyone but him seemed to want to stay.

His mind was just not comprehending how anyone couldn't see there was so much more than what was around them. That there was more than church on Sunday, the footballs games, the potlucks or the gossip that had been recycled a thousand times.

On the tape Tracy Chapman sang:

You got a fast car But is it fast enough so we can fly away We gotta make a decision We leave tonight or live and die this way

He’d heard the lyrics a million times, but that night it was those lyrics that hit him in the heart, more than it usually did.

Aimee was a fool. He had a fast car, he could get out, fly away, just a few more days and he’d be gone. If she didn’t want to come that was her decision and that was fine, but it didn’t have to be Eliot’s. He wouldn’t remain here.

He would not.

‘Weleave tonight or live and die this way’ that’s what Tracy sung and he’d already known on that night when he’d first heard the song that he would be driving off alone. He had tricked himself into thinking Aimee would come, but there had never been a we. Not for Eliot.

So on the night of his eighteenth birthday, he told his dad he was enlisting and fought with him, trying not to think of the lyrics ‘somebody’s got to take care of him,’ because even Tracy had seen she’d deserved better.

Still, even after he packed the last of his stuff, he swung by Aimee, asking her again, more urgent, more permanent, before promising he’d back for her. In case she needed him or if she’d changed her mind.

Then he was gone, off into the sunset. And as he tore down the highway, a tune blasted out of the radio.

I remember we were driving driving in your car The speed so fast I felt like I was drunk City lights lay out before us And your arm felt nice wrapped 'round my shoulder And I had a feeling that I belonged And I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone

And his foot on the gas peddle was intoxicating. He was going so fast that it was dangerous, but he didn’t care. He was riding to his future, to far off places and adventures. He was going to be someone.

That idea lasted approximately the ten weeks it took to train them, before shipping them out to an active war zone.

Though it had been chipped at relentlessly before already. Quite hard to be a someone in a cohesive unit. Not that it mattered to Eliot, he had a place to belong now, while his dream hadn’t matched Tracy’s, he was glad she had gotten him to this, with his brother’s in arms, even through all the horrors.

Yet, despite all she’d done for him, he forgot her and Fast Car.

There was not much room to listen to your own music and he was already a country hick, so he didn’t really need to amplify that more with a country music station.

He was fine fitting in the way he did. He wrote to Aimee, even if it was less and less, letters filled with empty promises made out of a sense of obligation to her and home. He didn’t speak to his father, nor his siblings. He stayed far away from everyone as his hands colored a dark red on foreign soil.

His bright and promising military career soon turned into a promotion to black ops where he didn’t exist to the government unless he came back.

The color of his hands didn’t change, it just got more pigmented as it dripped until wetwork was just a step to a better future. He had already killed so many people, getting paid almost nothing for a government that didn’t care. Why not do it for more money?

So, he had emptied his soul, filled it with money he didn’t truly need and more enemies around him, hoping it would be enough.

He had disappeared completely.

Eliot Spencer was no more, not really.

The man might still walk the earth, but anyone who met him didn’t live to tell the tale, so friendship was hard to come by. Maybe that’s why Moreau was such a welcome change in his life. There was a man, who might be powerful, but who would never have enough security against Eliot, smiling at him and offering him friendship – with money and a bit of violence thrown in – like Eliot was just another being he could own.

And by god did Eliot want to be owned. He once more longed to belong like he had done in the army, but he no longer was innocent enough for the army, which was an ironic sentiment that was true enough to hurt.

He had walked through pools of blood he had made, hoping no one would follow the bloody footsteps he left behind, but here there were others, who had walked through the same red sea as he had and who found each other under Moreau.

It was brutal work, soulless too. It was nothing more than destruction in exchange for power that was a fire with no ash left behind, just bare rock where nothing grew.

And Eliot was home.

Later, in a future he didn’t know he could have, when feeling returned to his limbs and he saw how his pools of blood had turned into seas had turned into floods and it was too late to turn back. Only then would he look back and hate himself, but not now.

Now Eliot was on top of the world. Sitting at the side of the most feared and most powerful of the underbelly of the underbelly, while remaining in an bright spotlight was the best place to be. He was untouchable and unfeeling.

He had always been weak for belonging, for seeing the world and making someone of himself and Moreau was the best salesman there was. He sold Eliot a unfulfilled dream with labor for Moreau as payment without the hitter every realizing.

So he went through the motions. He got more skills, he learned new things. He stopped enjoying life, though he would only later come to know that.

Eliot Spencer had disappeared under Moreau and not just from the records. He was no longer the boythat had driven out of a small town in Oklahoma to sign up for the army in the hope of being more than his neighbor.

Though, he supposed he had his dream. In a way. Here he was, more traveled than he could have ever hoped for with experiences so far from the norm that no one from his class could have ever matched his tales.

He had become what he had always dreamed to be, so why did he feel so hollow?

The answer came to him in the most horrific way he could imagine. He’d just pulled the trigger, he kept on doing it like he was supposed to but oh god- he’d done that. He killed them and he hadn’t even given them the time to beg, to spark humanity in his heart, because his heart had died long ago.

He needed to get out.

He needed to get far away from there.

From Moreau.

Why it had to be so extreme before he could finally see, he didn’t know. But it had. It had to get terrible, unforgivable. He had to see that the man he had been and wanted to be, was dead and that he was a devil with no chance at salvation.

As a hollow shell he’d ran. For a long time he had wondered if it was worth it to keep running, but slowly the people who chased him dwindled as less and less returned, until he knew he had been given a second chance. A chance to make it right.

It was Toby, who hammered in that lesson. The man might not have knownEliot’s complete tale, but he was familiar with the haunted look in his eyes, so he took Eliot under his wing and showed him how his hands were made for more than violence.

Eliot laid his guns down there and took up a knife, vowing to only fight where he could get hit in return, level the playing field. He’d never liked the power that came with a gun and now he wouldn't pick one up again to be tempted by that voice.

He wouldn't be that man anymore. He refused. He would stay in Toby’s kitchen for now, figure out a plan that would carry him forwards as a better person. Not good, just better.

So it came to be that, one night, when he was alone in the kitchen, slicing up some onions for the prep for the next day, while tune played on the radio.

At first he hadn’t even recognized it, but still he listenedclosely, now scoffing at some of the lyrics, until one of the last verses played.

You got a fast car And I got a job that pays all our bills You stay out drinking late at the bar See more of your friends than you do of your kids I'd always hoped for better Thought maybe together you and me would find it I got no plans I ain't going nowhere So take your fast car and keep on driving

How ironic, he thought. He had always been so focused on the start of the song, on the getting out and leaving everything behind that he had never fully listened to the ending. To the fact that Tracy never got the ending she’d wanted.

He’d been stupid to think he’d ever get a happy ending. He’d been far less deserving off it and fate was never kind. He always prided himself on knowing better, but he’d been more foolish than anyone in his class.

‘I’d always hoped for better.’

And by god, he had. He had wanted so much, dreamed so big and set goals so unobtainable that he would always have keep on climbing.

So maybe he had never been Tracy, maybe he’d been the dick that had promised her the world and then never delivered. He thought of Aimee and how he had never been a settler, but someone that kept on disappointing and leaving.

The far car had not always been a car in his life, but he had always been on the road, always had been going somewhere, or maybe he’d just been running away.

Maybe now he had stopped running? Though, if he hadn’t been running, he’d been hiding. Here in Toby’s kitchen he had made a little haven away from everyone that had hurt him and that he had hurt. And he didn’t deserve that. Not after what he did.

Eliot made a vow to himself that night, listening to Fast Carin the back of a restaurant, both reminiscent and nothing like when he had first heard it. He would leave there and face the world, never kill again, just survive and try to do better.

He could at least try to do better.

So, he said goodbye to Toby and went off into the world. Toby wouldn’t go anywhere, but Eliot had to. He would remember Toby, however, carry him with him whenever he ate a new dish or went on a grift as a cook. It was a good time, one of the best he’d had since the army, maybe even since Aimee.

Still, he didn’t look back, not to her or Toby. He had things to do, people to help, as well as himself a bit. All of his funds from working from Moreau had disappeared and he needed to survive if he wanted to repent.

Somehow that road led him to a prick named Nate Ford and a job to get the plans of a plane back. It led him to Hardison, a nerd he liked more than he wanted to admit, and Parker, who made him smile with her antics as well as give him heart problems. It led him to Sophie, who had so many masks that he could relate to her and feel safe in his nobody-ness.

It led him to a team, more than a team really. After a while it reminded him of the army with all his brothers, family was closer, but he had no reference for family, except them.

Even Aimee told him they were, because he’d come back to help her when she needed him and part of him felt lighter on that promise fulfilled. It felt like a start. Not a new start, because it would never be fair to everyone he’d hurt to erase those sins like that, but it felt like he had a bucket and soap and the color of his hands might fade to a light pink one day.

And Eliot worked.

He pushed himself into more grifting, learned a bit of hacking, scaled building hanging from a tiny rope and learned to think of more than just strategic exits and weaknesses in physique. He completed the jobs they were hired to do and he helped people.

What he had dreamed off when he had first joined the army, he found at Leverage. He found family, a home, a sense of duty and belonging. He was changing the world for the better.

It was amazing and more than he had ever hoped for himself, even on those nights alone with the radio, he couldn't have hoped it would end like this. He was someone. He practically had his own brewpub and a recent memory he could be proud off.

And he was proud as he reminisced alone in the kitchen of their office/apartment, where he was preparing some stuff for dinner for the next day. It was late and once this was done and in the fridge, he was done for today, but it would take a few more minutes.

Impulsively he put on the song on the speakers like Hardison had showed him. He hadn’t listen again since Toby, when he blamed himself and found himself on the other end of the song, but maybe now it would be different.

You got a fast car And we go cruising to entertain ourselves You still ain't got a job And I work in a market as a checkout girl I know things will get better You'll find work and I'll get promoted We'll move out of the shelter Buy a big house and live in the suburbs

Before he had never related to her dreams, just her drive to get away and make something of herself, but he could understand now. If he ever got too old for his job, then he wouldn't mind living the way he was now, with Hardison and Parker in the brewpub, making his own menu’s, serving people food.

He knew that for Tracy, she had to tell someone to leave, before she could make a move to get there. Still, he liked the verse now more than before. It spoke of a hope, of a view of the future and a certainty about the destination.

The lyrics he had scoffed at when he had just left Moreau, were dear to him now. ‘I know things will get better,’ it was stupid, but maybe- maybe Eliot could believe in that too now.

Without thinking, he put the song on repeat, before gathering the supplies for his marinade as he danced a bit around in the kitchen. It wasn’t as if there was anyone to catch him.

So, he remembered the stupid boy he had been, the heartless man who had forgotten and guy he was becoming now. Until the end of the song:

You got a fast car But is it fast enough so you can fly away You gotta make a decision You leave tonight or live and die this way

And it wasn’t the way the lyric was intended to land and Eliot’s life had went down a way different road than Tracy’s, but those lyrics where him.

He had a thousand ways to leave and had left a thousand more. He could fly away if he wanted, but it was in the fact that he had run that he had found strength. He was no longer a faceless soldier in the army or Moreau’s attack dog. He was Eliot Spencer and he was alive.

There had been a million moments when he could have made a different decision, but he hadn’t and even when it seemed he had been running away all his life, maybe he’d just been running towards this instead.

‘Leave tonight or live and die this way.’

Huh, he wouldn't mind dying for these people, he wouldn't mind living for these people. He was content to be and never leave. All those times he’d snuck out and dreamed, he had never dreamed here, but he was someone and he had found a place to belong.

So he made the decision and stayed. Till his dying day and all that.

A/N:

I love Christian Kane’s cover of Fast Car so much and I played in on repeat while writing this. The original version of the song also still has a soft place in my heart though.

((the song is not in order and some parts are missing, but you know, you don’t always learn a song in the right order and other parts speak to you at different times))

#RR writing #Eliot Spencer #Fast Car #Leverage #Fast Car by Tracy Chapman #leverage tv

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airis-paris14 · 3 years

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Starlight Chapter 13

Summary: Amani is an orphaned heiress who's spent most of her life raising her younger sister. T'Challa is a widowed King and Father. Neither of them is expecting much from their night at the Lotus. But the coming months have many milestones in store for these young adults. Will becoming a family be one of them?

Warnings: N/A

Masterlist

2 months later

“Amani, I’m about to head out,” Amare called, grabbing her house keys off of the hook. “Okay, hold on, I'll be right back Baby.” T’Challa nodded into the phone and muted himself to speak to someone off screen. Amani hurried down the stairs and smiled at her little sister. “Okay, passport, keys, tickets, wallet, and medicine in carryon?”

“Yes mother,” Amare smirked.

“I’m just trying to keep you safe kid,” the older Okeke smiled and pulled her in for a hug. “You’re 18, not 21, so please, no sneaking off without telling Shuri’s guards where you all are going. Limit your alcohol intake, I know it’s legal over there but the last thing I need is a call from a German hospital saying you have alcohol poisoning.”

“I promise I will limit the drinking, and the sneaking out.”

“Good. Have fun, be safe. I love you.” Amani smiled and pulled her sister in for another hug. “Love you too sis. I’ll only be gone for a week.”

“I know, but you know I hate saying goodbye. You’re all I have left kid. But I want to let you live, so go before you miss your flight. Hug Shuri for me.

“I’ll call you when I land.” Amare bounded down the front steps and into her already packed car. Amani sighed watching her wave one last time before pulling off down the street. She waved at the patrol car as it drove by on its hourly surveillance drive by, before locking her door and heading up the stairs into her office. “And I’m back,” she plopped into her seat, reopening her MacBook.

“Personally I don’t think it’s fair that our sisters see each other more than we do,” the king teased. Amani rolled her eyes, “This is their first time seeing each other since we came home, it’s only been two months,” Amani laughed. “Yes, and after having you here for three months, I’ve decided that 61 days is too long to be out of your presence.”

“Well you know I’m working to get the venue started up, I just can’t travel as much as usual. You know I would be there if I could,” Her voice began to tremble.

“I know my love,” T’Challa reassured, “I am just teasing,” he frowned, noticing her eyes tearing up. “I know but lately I’ve just been feeling like such a bad girlfriend,” she began to sob and the king panicked. “Hey no, you’re perfect. Nothing's wrong. It’s on both of us and I was gonna tell you that I was planning to surprise you with a visit.”

“Really?” Amani sniffled.

“Yes so please stop crying entle.” The heiress grabbed a tissue from the box she had begun to keep on her desk after noticing that even the little things made her tear up. “I’m sorry. I ruined the surprise again,” she chuckled, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “It is fine, now you have something to look forward to. You hate them anyway,” the king teased.

“Are you sure you’re alright though my love? You have been extra-sensitive lately.”

“In more ways than one,” the heiress murmured. “Have you been to the new doctor, did she run the tests the doctor here ordered?” The king grabbed a stack of papers and began signing them. “Yep,” Amani read over and responded to an email her contractor sent before turning her attention back to T’Challa. “I have an appointment with her tomorrow. She and Dr. Zabulie both sounded very excited so I’m hoping it's a positive result.”

The king smiled at the news, “Well then I’ll be expecting a full report as soon as you know.”

“Of course. I’ll call your mother as well, I wouldn’t even be in this position if you all hadn’t encouraged me to go see another doctor.”

“We both just want what is best for you,” the king smiled, “but unfortunately I have a meeting to attend to my love. I will call you later tonight, okay?”

“Of course, I’ll see you later.” She blew a kiss through the phone before the king had to hang up. After responding to more emails, she scheduled some property manager interviews for later in the week and a building walk through. Her phone caught her attention as it began to ring, “Hello?” She answered. “Hey, Kura and I finished those designs for different set ups and interiors, are you free to go over them?”

“Yeah,” Amani smiled. While in Wakanda she and her friends decided to go into the event business together. They’d bought an old hotel downtown in Atlanta and decided to turn it into a sleepover venue. With suites and rooms designed for different party sizes and moveable features to make the room age appropriate. A spa, boutique, and restaurant, would be located on the grounds as well. There was also a separate grand ballroom and garden that allowed them to market the place as an all in one wedding venue. They’d started work while in Wakanda and now two months later they were weeks away from opening the ballroom, gardens, and other non overnight amenities for event bookings. They would use the money from the rentals to help recover the costs of renovating the hotel rooms.

“Bet. We’ll be over in 30. Sakura has to pick up the pizza first.”

“Cool, don’t forget extra garlic butter sauce. Imma hop in the shower. Y’all can just use your keys to let yourselves in.”

After hanging up the phone Amani hopped in the shower and let the water soothe her muscles. She’d been working so hard to make sure everything came together and it finally was. She was more in love with T’Challa each day, she was starting a business with her friends, and Darius had been spotted in New York living with some family he had there. She still had nightly surveillance, but knowing that he’d move out of the state definitely calmed her nerves.

“Madiyson?” The heiress called as the sound of the front door caught her attention. When she didn’t receive a response she shrugged and figured she had her beats on. She quickly motioned with her coconut oil,slipped into some sweatpants, and pulled a sports bra over her head before a voice sent a chill down her spine. “You’ve been holding out on me Amani.”

Darius got up from his seat behind her on the bed and revealed the kitchen knife he was holding. “If I had known you could look like that, I would’ve made you work out more.”

“How the hell did you get in my house?”

“No Thank you? Darius frowned.

“What do I have to thank you for?”

“Giving you a second chance,” Darius smirked before lunging at the Okeke heiress. Amani, dodged his lunge as he ran into the dresser she was standing in front of. “ A second chance for what you bastard!” The heiress resisted the urge to search for her phone, she knew Darius, he watched her eyes always to anticipate her next move. “You ruined my life. You were supposed to be my wife, look pretty, give me kids. Instead your ass got me locked up for damn near life. Now my dad is all on my ass because he had to call in a favor with the DA and the governor in one sitting-”

“Well maybe your ass should’ve just stayed in jail then!” Amani ducked, expecting the lamp on the nightstand to fly towards her head. She took the moment she dodged the light fixture to locate her phone. It was too far and she knew that she’d never be able to reach it before Darius finished his spiel. She’d have to leave her friends a clue that something had gone wrong.

“Now,” Darius eyed Amani as she backed up against the wall, “as I was saying. Everyone is counting on me to not fuck up! Which means I need to get my old life back, starting with you Ms. Okeke, now heiress of the Okeke Industries Tech Conglomerate.”

“No one will ever believe that we are a happy couple once again Darius, they found me, clinging to life, hypothermic, and bleeding because you literally beat our child out of me. It was on the five o'clock news for weeks straight.” Amani risked eyeing her keys once more, hoping that the plan she was hatching would work.

“What better way to show them that I am a changed man, than by having you forgive me. A redeemed love, a true love,” Darius stepped up to Amani and caressed her cheeks and lips. The woman felt like crawling out of her skin but she held it together. “Why don’t you just find another woman?” Not that Amani wished Darius on any other woman, she’d prefer he’d be locked up in a cell, but she needed to get him to back up. “Does it really matter? I want you, and I’ve already invested a lot in you Amani. You got a little break to have fun and spend time with other men, but you are mine. You always were and you always will be, it’s time I got a return on my investment. “ Darius took a seat on Amani’s bed and she silently rejoiced.

“Okay, then what’s your plan?”

“You don’t need to know all of that. Just know that I’m not leaving you behind Amani.” Darius pointed the knife and Amani nodded, “I’m just gonna grab my keys,” she gestured. “If I go missing, the police will look at all of your father’s and friend’s properties, no one will think I was stupid enought to take you to one of our vacation homes.” At least the waitress hoped this wasn’t the stupidest idea she’d ever had.

“Nah, cause I’m sure your friends and man know all about those places. Not to mention your little sister.”

“Amare is out of the country at a science conference, won’t be home for two weeks, you’ll have time to move me before she can get back. As for the others, they don’t even know we own vacation properties.” Amani scoured through her keys and grabbed the one she knew her sister would recognize as missing first. “Here, we can go to the chateau in the mountains in North Carolina. It’s secluded. No one for miles around.”

Darius stood up, “Nah, there’s a reason you’re helping me. What is it?”

“You’re never gonna leave me alone otherwise. I don’t wanna die, and this is most likely the last time I’ll ever get a decision about something that happens to me. Think of it as my final words.” As soon as the excuse left her mouth Amani felt her mouth go dry and heavy, for some reason, it did feel like she’d sealed her own fate.

“Amani!” Madiyson called as she entered the apartment. Sakura followed in hot on her heels to place the heavy pizzas in the kitchen. “I still don’t know why you ordered four pizzas for 3 people,” Madiyson laughed, dropping all of her interior design sketches and renderings on the table. “As much of a perfectionist each of us is… We're gonna be here all night and y’all are gonna be glad I bought enough pizza.”

“Well if AMANI would BRING. HER. ASS. DOWN. THE. STAIRS we could get started and be done at a godly hour.” Madison yelled up the stairs into the continued silence. “You told her we were coming, right?”Sakura joined her friend at the base of Amani’s stairs and frowned. “Yeah, she said just let ourselves in.”

“Maybe she’s taking a nap, she’s been doing that more often than usual.”

“Oh god, if she’s taking a nap then she’ll be dead to the world right now. You wanna wake her up while I set up?” Madiyson shook her head and walked back over to the couch in the living room. “Sure, just throw me into the lion’s den. You know she hates being woken up by anyone but Amare and Ada.” Sakura whined. “You’ll be fine, she would never hate you. Just make it seem like she woke herself up. Throw a pillow or something.” Madiyson shrugged and opened her laptop.

“Always the sacrifice, never the beneficiary,” Sakura mumbled as she jogged up the stairs into Amani’s room. “Mani,” the afro-asian woman sang as she burst into the room, only to be greeted by a perfectly made bed. “Amani?'' She tried to calm her heartbeat as she checked her friend’s closet and bathroom. “Okay focus, details details,” Sakura chanted to herself. “7:47, no phone in the room, nothing messed up, somebody sat on the bed,” the waitress took note of the room as she backed her way out, down the stairs, and towards the garage. “Hey, did you- what’s wrong,” Madiyson frowned as her best friend opened the garage door and looked out. “Did she say she was gonna leave?” Sakura ignored Madiyson’s original question, feeling her stomach drop at the presence of Amani’s car, and the empty house. “No, she said she was gonna take a shower-”

“Madiyson, She’s not here.”

“Look, I already told you what happened. Madiyson called Amani at 6:30, she picked me up, we picked up the pizzas, let ourselves in, but she wasn’t here when i went to check on her. I went into the room at 7:47. The shower had been turned on and the room was steamy, and someone had sat on her bed but Amani hates that unless she’s about to go to sleep. Except she isn’t in her room sleeping!”

“Why are you all not taking this seriously! Her abusive ex is a known kidnapping threat. For God’s sake she’s had a 24/7 patrol for months because there was fear he would try to retaliate! Now that she’s missing, y’all aren’t doing a damn thing.” Madiyson butted in frustrated at the officers staring at them like they were aliens from outer space.

“Ma’am, we are just trying to get all the facts first-”

I’ve given them to you three times, if you can’t comprehend then we’ve got a bigger problem!” Sakura fumed and the officers stood. “We’ll call headquarters and see what we can do. Technically it has to be 48 hours before we can report and adult as missing-”

“Just get out please,” Madiyson sighed. She held open the door for the officers who hesitated, their feathers obviously ruffled.

“I’ll try calling Amare again.” Sakura stood and walked out after the officers left. Madiyson locked the door and stared up at the clock, realizing she should probably call T’Challa.

“Hello?” Madiyson breathed deeply as the call finally connected to the king, “T, she’s gone,” the woman’s voice warbled but her words shook the king all the same. “What do you mean she is gone?” He stood, immediately stumbling to slip on some shoes and race through the halls to his mother’s room. “Sakura and I came for a meeting, and she wasn’t here. Her car is here but she isn't and she assured us she’d be here taking a shower. Someone else was here because someone was sitting on her bed, at the bottom. You know she hates people ruffling her sheets.”

“Have you talked to Amare? Are you sure she didn’t take her to the airport?”

“We’ve been trying to reach her but she's still on the plane. She would have been back by now if she just went to the airport. She knew we were coming.” Madiyson broke, sobbing into the phone.

T’Challa’s heart dropped, his mind racing back to how he’d begged his lover not to go back until the rumors that her abuser had officially moved were confirmed. Now she was gone and the king felt he had failed to protect her. “Madiyson, Madiyson, I need you to breathe and keep breathing. Did you call the police?”

“Yes, but-“ Madiyson stumbled trying to regain her composure, “they said since it hasn’t been 48 hours it’s not technically a missing persons case.”

The king felt anger rush through his veins, “So they aren’t doing anything?”

“Not really,” Madiyson moved to grab tissue from Amani’s bathroom. “Have her call the detectives over these two imbeciles. She was on 24 hour surveillance due to risk of revenge from her abuser. Them sitting around doesn’t make any sense.”

“I know, I know, I’m heading downstairs right now-” Madison paused as she noticed Amani’s keys on her vanity. “Wait, one of her keys-” Madison trailed off flipping through the keys. “One of her keys is what?” T’Challa knocked on his mother’s door. “It’s missing. When her parents died, she kept keys to all of their properties. With them all labeled with numbers but I don’t know which one is which. Just number three is missing,” Madison ran a hand over her braids and huffed. T’Challa banged on his mother’s door again before taking a step back and pacing the hall. “Okay, You and Sakura just stay there, keep trying to reach Amare. I’m on my way and I’ll try to reach Shuri. See if you can figure out what key is missing.”

“Okay, call us when you land.”

T’Challa hung up the phone, “Umama!” He banged on the door before Ramonda yanked it open. “T’Challa, what in Bast’s name-”

“It’s Amani, she’s missing. We have to go now, can you try to reach Shuri? Her friends think they have a lead but we need to reach Amare.”

“How long has she been missing?” The queen mother rushed back in her room and started to get dressed and pack a bag. “We don’t know, I just got off the phone with Madiyson. They went to the house and she was missing.”

“Did they call the police?”

“They say they can’t report her absence until 48 hours has passed,” T’Challa opened his beads and messaged Okoye. I need you, Ayo, a plane, and five of your best warriors. Meet me on the tarmac in 30.”

“When do we leave?”

“In 30 minutes, I have to pack a bag. Ayo and Okoye will meet us at the tarmac with some back up, can you please try to reach Shuri while I get ready?”

“Yes, I will try calling her.”

The king nodded and turned to rush back to his room. “T’Challa,” Ramonda called out,”We will find her. She will be alright.” He offered his mother a sad smile before continuing down the hall.

“It’s the North Carolina key?”

“Yes. Number 3 it's her favorite number for her favorite house.” Amare insisted as Sakura flipped through the keys again.

“Do you know the address?” Madison interrupted.upiui

“Uh, number 3 Lodge Street Asheville, North Carolina.”

“And you’re sure that is the key that is missing?” T’Challa interrupted Madiyson and Amare. The teen looked at the king through the camera, the lights of the quinjet humming behind her as Shuri watched on. “Yes, I’m positive. Amani is heading to the North Carolina house.”

The king hit the table and turned to his guard, “We are heading to North Carolina. Now.”

“We’ll meet you there-”

“No,” T’Challa and his mother answered at the same time.``You two stay exactly where you are,'' Ramonda demanded. “All due respect, I am not staying over here in Germany when my sister has been kidnapped by her abuser!” Amare rebutted. “Yes, but for all we know he has men looking for you too. As well as Madiyson and Sakura. So until then, at least we know where you are. We are sending Dora Milaje to your hotel.” T’Challa finalized.

“No, I am not standing back when my sister is in danger. I wasn’t there the first time she was saved and opened her eyes, I want to be there this time.” Amare demanded while she teared up and T’Challa sighed. He walked around the desk to look at Okoye and his mother. “You all can head back to Wakanda, once the extra Dora arrive. Once we have her, we’ll bring her back to Shuri’s lab, there you guys can see her.” The king looked at everyone in the room, “Besides, I don’t think it is safe for any of you to be in the US alone right now.”

“So what are you saying?” Sakura sat up from her place on the couch. T’Challa nodded at the general of the Dora Milaje. Okoye tapped her staff and escorted the rest of the warriors out of the home. Once the door had shut the room turned to face T’Challa again. “I have been thinking, especially in light of what has happened to Amani, that you all should move to Wakanda. Stay in the palace of course. I know you two would have to travel for business and Amare we’d have to figure out your schooling, but it is obvious that this government has no vestment in keeping you all safe. I can do something about it and I will, if you all will let me.”

“I don’t know T-” Madiyson started.

“I had been thinking about transferring to study with Shuri, but I don’t know how Amani would take it.” Amare added. “She’s not just gonna give up her independence. She just got it back from Darius,” Sakura added. “I know but it is not safe here, at least for now. As well connected as that fugitive is, who knows what will happen to you all if he goes back to jail. I let Amani convince me she would be safe, and now two months later we are searching for her praying to Bast that she isn’t dead.”

“T’Challa this is not your fault,” Sakura interjected. “I know, but if I can keep you all safe, I have a responsibility to do so. You will have free will and autonomy, but at least inside Wakanda’s borders, I can guarantee your safety.

“I think this is a lovely conversation, but might I remind you all that this is a time sensitive case. Let’s table this discussion until we all make it back to Wakanda” Shuri interrupted the discussion that seemed to be heading towards an endless round table. “Shuri is right, time is of the essence.” Ramonda spoke standing, “everyone comes back to wakanda for the time being. Once we rescue Amani, we send our war dogs to clear any suspicions and make sure it is safe for you all to return. Then we make a decision. Until then-“

“We focus on the task at hand.” Madiyson finished and Ramonda agreed. “Shuri and Amare head back home once the Dora arrive. When we have Amani we’ll let you know.”

“Keep my sister safe T’Challa,” Amare asserted before hanging up. “She’s just nervous,” Sakura reassured. “We are all glad we have someone here to help us this time. But we should get on the road. Darius works fast.” The Afro-Asian waitress added solemnly. The king nodded, “Phambile,” he called and the guards opened the doors escorting everyone to the cars waiting to race to the airport.”

Fourteen Hours Ago

“Amani.” The heiress fumbled to wrap the stick back it s package and hide it on the sink before running out of her bathroom. “Hey,” she offered her younger sister a smile but only received a confused face in return. “Hey, you’re up early, I thought you’d be sleep,” Amare took a seat in one of the overstuffed arm chairs in her sisters bedroom. “I wasn’t feeling well. I got up to take some medicine no biggie,”Amani shrugged. “You go to the doctor again soon right? You should have her check it out.”

“She’s an OBGYN, but I’ll see what she might be able to recommend.”

“Cool, well I’d been thinking-“

“Oh that’s never good,” the heiress laughed as her sister shot daggers her way. “As I was saying. I’ve been thinking about transferring to study in Wakanda with Shuri. It’d make it easier for you to come see Tchalla and I could get accustomed to the culture before we move there-“

“Hey hey, who said we we’re moving to Wakanda?”

“Amani. I’m not dumb or a little girl anymore. I know how marriages and relationships work. I know you live tchalla. I know he loves you. And I know how monarchies work. I also know that T’Challa has asked you to move in or visit more often and that I’m probably the reason you’re hesitant about doing either.”

“You’re right, but I didn’t say anything cause I don’t want you thinking you have to move because of me and T’Challa. I want you to follow your dreams, and dtudying at MIT was one of those dreams.”

“And dreams change, Amare reminded. I used to any to be a ballerina, astronaut, actress, and hear I am studying at MIT. And now, I know that the university of Wakanda can offer me so much more. Plus I’ll get to spend more time with my best friend and take advantage of her lab. It’s a win win!” The young genius insisted. Amani sighed and settled on the chair next to her.

“How about we finish out this fall semester and pick up the conversation over Christmas break. I just don’t want you to regret anything.” The older sister explained.

“That’s fair.” Amare nodded and stood. “Back to you though, are you sure you’re feeling well enough for me to leave?”

“Now you sound like the older sister. I’ll be fine kid, you go have fun at your conference thing in Germany. Have you finished packing?”

“Nope, I wanted to get and early start at the stores so I can pack before my flight.”

“Okay, I’m headed back to sleep. But don’t crash the car and fill up the tank before you come back please.”

“I always do,” Amare smiled before kissing her sister's cheek and slipping out of the room. Once Amani heard the front door shut. She locked herself in the bathroom and unwrapped the third and final test. She sat them all in a row before flopping down on the toilet.

“Shit.”

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mischiefapprentice · 3 years

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Lockdown Relationships

A/N: This short story is my entry for my school's first annual Valentine's Creative Writing contest. It got featured, and I am more than honored to share this one with you all!

March 12, 2020

“Love?” “Yes, darling?” “I can’t travel back to Los Angeles. Lockdown’s to begin on the day of my flight.”

I was supposed to go back to Los Angeles, California on March 13 after two months of my vacation here in Manila. My boyfriend has been constantly calling me, excitement lacing his voice as he waits for me to get home in his arms after two months of being oceans away from each other. He is an actor, and I am his personal assistant up until now. Our relationship may have flakked with his fans, but it didn’t matter to him. All he knew was: he loves me to the moon and back. I’m Reine Gwendolyn Simmons, and you can call me Reine.

As I was saying, I was supposed to be on my flight back to Los Angeles the next day. All my bags were packed, my passport and plane tickets are already secure in my small Louis Vuitton bag, and my heart cannot wait to see my lifeline again. However, hearing the president planning to implement travel bans on the day made my hopes of getting back as soon as I can impossible.

“Can’t it be moved tonight? I’ll ask Matty to arrange a plane ticket for you, or I can ask for my private plane to be sent there to fetch you.” “It can’t be moved; all plane flights for tonight are full.” “Are you really sure?” “Dane, just got straight to the point.”

“Well, I might just have cancelled your flight tomorrow and the plane is on the way to the airport now…”

That’s my boyfriend. He’d always find a way through things, especially if it’s about me. He has done that many times before; he’ll always see to it that I’d be safe and home on time, and most of all, he’d make sure to call me despite the time differences here. Daniel loves me so much that he would give everything just to see that I’m happy. Seeing that there is no way out of this fiasco he did, I decided to go and get on the plane before midnight.

📷

April 2020

I tested positive for COVID-19.

Aside from being my boyfriend’s personal assistant, I also worked as a nurse in one of the quarantine centers in Los Angeles. Daniel and I had a little misunderstanding with this matter, since it means I have to be far from him and he won’t get to see me everyday. He also knows of my respiratory problems, making me vulnerable to the virus too. Luckily, Daniel didn’t get the virus, and he’s safe at home.

“Babe, are you getting any better?” “Little by little, but I need to recover more.” “They could have provided more PPEs for nurses like you, love. Especially you.”

Yes. They don’t have enough Personal Protective Equipment for us. That is also the reason why he wouldn’t want me to go apply as a nurse during this time. My head nurse also warned me about my high risks of getting the virus, but I still said yes. It was a sworn duty that I must complete until I resign or retire. I always put others first before myself, that’s why I became a nurse.

His eyes showed sadness as we talked through FaceTime. He always feared that one day, I’d be gone from him forever. He’d always tell me that it’s fine that I’d be with another guy if we break up, but he’ll never get over my death. It would be the most tragic day for him. Knowing that low chances of survival await me, I’m now reflecting whether to end our relationship of two years or still let him love me until my last breath. I want to spare him of the pains of heartbreak from my death, knowing that my passing will be his end too.

Weeks have passed, and I feel my body slowly deteriorating. It’s as if death’s stark shadow looms over my weakening body as the virus slowly defeats my immunity. I tried to keep up my hopes of surviving this high, knowing that Daniel also keeps his hopes up that I will get through this. Wondering if I told him about me wanting to end our relationship? Yes, I did tell him about it, and he is not really happy with it. Persuading him that I am doing this for him, he never bought it. He insisted that he’d love me until my last day albeit the pains of losing me will swallow him alive.

“Darling, please. I’m not giving up on us just because of this.” He tells me as tears fall on his face. “I want to spare you from the pain when I die, Daniel.” I retort, tears also streaming down as I feel my heart tear into pieces. “I don’t want you staying single because of me. You need to live your life, at least for me.” “I don’t care if I’d suffer heartbreak because you are gone. Just let me love you until your last breath, please.”

📷

November 28, 2020

Having recovered from the virus after 3 months, I was discharged from the hospital I am confined in. July 2020 was the highlight of our relationship; Daniel assured me every single day that he loves me, and he is never giving up on us despite my low chances of surviving this disease. During those three months, he’d always give me a call, despite time differences. He’d be in Seoul, Korea; or in Prague, Czech Republic. He’d also be in Michigan with his family and his Golden Retriever, Marry. There was even a time he tried to visit me before he flew to Korea.

“Oops, remember: two meters away from me, darling.” I reminded him as he was about to hug me. Him being a whiny guy, he’d show me that pout that made me fall for his plans. “I missed hugging you!” He reasons out, his arms crossed on his chest. “Well, I missed those teddy bear hugs of yours, but we have to follow protocols.” I shrug my shoulders.

This very day, I am now finally free from the dangers and tribulations of the quarantine center. My head nurse decided it’s time for me to rest, since it was contractual work for me. I have agreed to work for them from March 2020 up until November 2020. Today is also the day my beloved man was born, and his manager has been planning my return as a surprise. But turns out, I am the one to be surprised.

As soon as I got home from the center and had completed the quarantine on the hotel for nurses like me, Matthew brought me to the golf course park where Daniel and his friend Martin would go to and play golf. Roscoe greeted me with the cutest smile he could muster, leading me to my boyfriend with a quick run. My eyes water up as Daniel looks at me with a smile, waiting for me to come close. Bent down on one knee, he asked me the most crucial question I never thought he’d ask me.

📷

February 15, 2021

Today’s the day. After two months of preparing for the biggest day of our lives, I now change my surname to his. I say we’d marry as soon as the vaccines come, he says we marry on the day after Valentine’s day. Reasoning that vaccines would take long, and he can’t wait that long to marry me, we agreed to marry on this day. Now wearing the white dress that every girl would dream to wear on the day of their wedding, I now patiently wait for the wedding bells to ring, signalling that I enter the church and walk on the aisle that led to the man who never gave up on me. White flowers filling my very own bridal bouquet which shows the purity of my intentions and of my entire being, I am more than ready and happy to open the new chapter of my life alongside him. Tears of happiness stream down on both of our faces as I march alongside my parents to the altar where he waits.

If there is one thing that our love taught and reminded us, it is our patience, trust and determination that led us to this. There might have been points in our life that challenged how strong our love is for each other, we still stepped through those and let the love we have beat everything that comes our way.

#daniel henney #matt simmons #matt simmons x reader #daniel henney x reader #love in the time of COVID

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purple-phantoms · 3 years

Text

Happiest Place on Earth

Modern!Reggie Peters x Gender-Neutral!Reader, Luke Patterson x Alex Mercer

Based off of: #95 from my bucket list, Spend the whole day at Magic Kingdom

A/N: This was requested by @i-should-be-writing-my-own-fic ! This is mostly going to be based off of research and memory. I’ve been to Magic Kingdom before, but only when I was 7 so I barely remember anything. In school a couple years ago I used to plan out which hotel I was going to stay in and which rides I wanted to go on lol. It’s such a shame that the pandemic had to hit. Also I’m basing this off of Disney World in Florida because I’m more familiar with that one. This is super long and not great, but hope you like it!

Summary: Y/n, Alex, Luke, and Reggie spend the day at Disney’s Magic Kingdom. Y/n and Reggie stay together while Luke and Alex pair up. Both groups try to hide their relationships from the other, until everything magically unfolds.

Masterlist

For reference, if you’ve never been to Disney World and have no idea what the rides are, I’m including links to pictures I used to write this.

For “Peter Pan’s Flight”: Youtube video, Google Images link

For “Be Our Guest”: Disney World website, Pinterest image

For “Pirates of the Caribbean”: Youtube video

For “Splash Mountain”: TikTok from Pinterest, Youtube video

The warm sun rose on the concrete. Thousands of people lined up outside the gates to purchase their tickets for the giant themepark. Them and the boys waited anxiously. They were just about to get to buy their tickets but there was a giant family of 7 in front of them. It felt like years before they called the next people. It felt like centuries before they were allowed to enter the paradise. The four of them split up into pairs; Alex and Luke, and Y/n and Reggie. They wanted to go their separate ways and go on all the rides possible and occasionally meet up to get food and relax.

The first stop for y/n and Reggie was to Cinderella’s castle for pictures. Reggie dragged them by the hand to get as close to the castle, pushing past a lot of people in the process. In their bag was a polaroid camera. It probably wasn’t the best idea to bring something like that to a theme park where it could easily be misplaced or stolen, but memories, right? Y/n took pictures of Reggie first. He did some poses both facing away from the castle and facing the castle. Next was y/n’s turn. Now, y/n was smart. They bought some Disney related things way before the trip. They bought Mickey Mouse earrings and ears for their outfit. Y/n did the same as Reggie and took pictures facing away and towards the castle.

Next stop was to It’s a Small World in Fantasyland. Y/n and Reggie sat in the boat together and swayed to the music as they started moving in the ride. The animatronics were cool but really creepy at the same time. “What if one of those just exploded like in a sci-fi movie,” y/n laughed. Most times y/n was capable of correctly anticipating what would come next in a ride. They could tell that this was just a chill ride, but it’s always fun to imagine the unlikely.

“If that happens, you should just snatch one of them up, and then we just have to run,” Reggie smiled as they laughed. Y/n and Reggie were always the ones in the group who thought that way. Obviously, they wouldn’t actually do that, but that doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t be cool if they did.

Next they went to Peter Pan’s flight. Peter Pan had always been one of Reggie’s favorite characters because of his youth. Obviously before getting in line y/n had to take a picture of Reggie. God, he was gorgeous.

The wait was longer than what they had expected but it was worth it. The scenery was a beautiful sight. When they finally got to the end of the line, they gingerly entered their cart. The ride was chill like the one they had been on before. Reggie kissed y/n on the cheek before laying his head on y/n’s shoulder as they travelled through Neverland. All the animatronics looked so life-like and accurate to the movie. It would be crazy not to take just a few pictures.

The pair got off the ride and went on to the next one, then the next one, until they got hungry. Reggie texted Luke and Alex to find a place to meet up. They decided on the Be Our Guest restaurant. Once they all arrived, they felt underdressed. The restaurant looked exactly how you’d expect it to if you were living in the castle. The walls and tiles were yellow and blue, and the ceiling was painted with a renaissance-like picture.

“You guys seriously couldn’t have picked a more low-key place to eat?” Luke grumbled. This kind of thing had never been his style. He “hated” talking about the Disney princesses, he said they were too “feminine” for him.

“We came for the vibe, not the reality, loser,” Alex said. Reggie and y/n shook their heads. Sitting down for a little bit was quite refreshing. All 4 of them ate all the food they ordered, and it was a lot. But hey, they need their energy!

They sat in a little silence as they waited for their bill to arrive. They were all ready to go on more rides, but also ready for a nap. It’s too bad they were only spending the day there. A kick to the foot knocked y/n out of their daydream. “Ow,” they shouted.

“Oh sorry,” Alex said. “Me and Luke are going to be right back.” Y/n and Reggie looked at each other and laughed.

“Reggie, get your friends,” y/n laughed. Alex and Luke had been like this for a while now, and it was a little weird.

“I think they just went to take pictures,” Reggie shrugged. Y/n laughed.

“Yeah, of each other’s lips,” y/n said. Alex and Luke being a couple was always a theory that y/n and Reggie would talk about. After all, most times movie nights are with a group of people, not just with one person. Well it’s not like y/n and Reggie could speak on that either. They didn’t want Alex and Reggie to know about their relationship because they just wanted to keep it to themselves.

Then the couple pair came back. Alex looked completely normal while Luke’s shirt was super wrinkled.... like as if someone was grabbing at it.

“So where did you two go,” y/n asked with a smirk. Bothering Alex when he’s flustered was always a funny sight. He would never be able to say a single thing without chuckling or running his fingers through his hair.

“We uh-” Luke had to pause to think. “We went to go find a map.” Then he pulled one out of his back pocket, which he totally had way before. Le-let’s go on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride,” He stuttered.

“Thought you don’t like that stuff,” Reggie smiled.

“Well now I do,” Luke said as he grabbed his stuff.

The walk to Adventureland was long, but funny. Reggie couldn’t stop talking about that one time he dressed up as Jack Sparrow for y/n’s costume party last year. The same costume party where y/n and Reggie expressed their feelings for each other. The same costume party where they purposely hid in the closet so that nobody would know that they were officially together. The same costume party that nobody knew the full story about. “Guys, it literally was like 7 minutes in heaven,” Reggie beamed. “I felt like I could’ve gotten married right there.”

“Hey Reggie, do you remember how we agreed to not talk about that party,” y/n lied. They never had an actual agreement. Y/n just thought that neither of them would get close to exposing the truth.

“No, y/n,” Alex put his hand up. “I want to hear this one.” Y/n gave Reggie the look, hoping he’d understand and stop talking. He didn’t.

“Are you and this person still together,” Luke asked. Stop egging him on!!

“Obviously,” Reggie smirked as he put his arm around them.

“WHAT!” Alex and Luke yelled at the same time.

“I knew it, I knew it!” Alex cheered.

“Can you guys shut up?” Y/n grumbled.

“Yeah, are you guys going to get on the ride,” the operator asked. Woops.

“My bad, y/n,” Reggie whispered.

“It’s fine,” y/n said.

“It’s not fine,” Luke yelled. “This is huge, why didn’t you tell us?”

“You know what, Luke,” y/n turned around to face him. “In this ride there are probably real skeletons being used as props. If you don’t leave me alone I will donate yours to this ride when you die.” Luke sat back in his seat and fell silent. Saying things like that always worked with the guys.

When they got to the battle part, Reggie reached to hold y/n’s hand in his. Y/n squeezed his. They weren’t mad at him, they already knew Reggie was an airhead. This would have happened one way or another.

The four of them decided to go on Splash Mountain next. Y/n did this on purpose. They knew none of the boys knew that they’d get splashed on the ride. Perfect payback.

“Luke and Alex, I think you guys should sit in the front for this one,” y/n smiled.

“Why,” Alex asked.

“What, you don’t want to be the first ones to see everything,” y/n said sarcastically. The two boys shrugged in response.

They got into the raft with Luke and Alex sitting in the front and Reggie and y/n sitting right behind them. “So why are they sitting in the front,” Reggie whispered to them.

“It’s so that they’ll get splashed the most,” y/n laughed. And they did. On the first drop, they were moving their soaking wet hair out of the way of their eyes and screaming profanities. It didn’t help that there were little kids on the raft with parents yelling back at them to stop cursing. Y/n and Reggie sat back and laughed as their friends got soaked.

Luke and Alex were mad when they got off the ride and saw that y/n and Reggie were completely dry. “Y/n you did this on purpose,” Alex shouted.

“Yeah, I did,” y/n laughed. “So when were you guys going to tell us that you were dating?”

Alex and Luke’s jaws looked like they were going to hit the floor. “How did you know?” Alex asked

“You guys literally left us to go make out,” Reggie pointed out.

“Riiiiight,” Luke blushed.

“Yeah, so Reggie and I are going to go do ‘official couple’ things like go find Mickey and Minnie,” y/n smiled. “Let’s go, Reg.”

Taglist:

@flashoe @carnationcreation @camihoran00 @joyjoyner @prongsy-parker

Add yourself to my taglist!

#reggie jatp x reader #reggie imagine #reggie x reader #reggie nolastname #reggie peters x reader #luke patterson x alex #luke x alex #luke patterson x alex mercer #reggie julie and the phantoms #reggie peters #luke patterson #alex nolastname #alex jatp #alex mercer #gender neutral insert #julie and the phantoms #disney world #purple-phantoms

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trillian-anders · 4 years

Text

true love

pairing: bucky barnes x reader

warnings: fluff && smut, bucky being a cheeky little shit and soft boy

word count: 2.7k

description: stripper au; bucky is a tease and honestly just such a gooey romantic. just a little snapshot.

A strip club before hours. Inside you’d find the dancers stretching, practicing new routines and a loop of the same song over and over again until they were satisfied or being forced to move onto something else. The servers are wiping down tables, setting up for bachelorette parties and straightening the chairs around the main stage. The host was cleaning the mirrors and the front door with Windex, knowing that they would just be covered with prints from hands and fingers an hour into the night.

The bar was being stocked, backup bottles. Fruit was being cut and sangria being prepped. Gallons of it. The clientele loved sangria. The cocktail of the night, special for the bride to be prepped for the bachelorette party, paid for in advance by the bottle. A sugar bomb of midori sour and vodka, cherries and club soda. Neon green and toxic, it made you gag just mixing it together.

It was the same thing every night. Another bachelorette party, another batch mixed drink, another stack of ones ready to be switched out for bigger bills the clients needed to break in order to stuff those dollar bills in the g-string of one of the many handsome performers that would take the stage tonight.

A destination strip club under the same corporation that owned Magic Mike, just on the east coast. It would be busy. But you and the other three bartenders were ready, the money was good here. Too good for you to ever consider leaving. And since the clientele was made in its entirety women and gay men, you felt safe working there. No sleazy guy on his sixth bud lite wanting to grab your ass as you cleaned up after his spilled beer. Granted some of the clients were still hellish, but you’d take not getting groped over being sexually harassed by bar patrons any day.

The lights would drop low soon, music pumping through the speakers as the DJ finishes setting up his booth. The endless grind from 8pm to 3am that would leave you ready for some diner food and bed.

“Boys!” You call, “What do you want?” Allowed a start of work drink, you called to the men standing on the stage.

“Anything you wanna give me sugar.” You glare at the first man to respond, his cheeky grin knowing how much you hated it when he called you sugar, how patronizing.

“Okay, everyone but Bucky,” You laugh, “What do you want?” The man in question slipping off the stage to walk over and help distribute shots.

“Why are you always so mean to me?” Pouting and arms crossed on the bar. You roll your eyes pouring the requests of green tea shots across the board. And an extra-large one for you and your favorite performer.

“Why are you always so annoying?” A rebuttal. But he loved it. He always does. Your shot glass clinking against his, tapping on the bar top and shot back in two.

“I love you.” He hums, stealing a kiss. The tip of his tongue brushing your bottom lip softly before pulling away and setting his shot glass in yours.

“I love you too.” A shared grin. “Have fun tonight.”

“Oh I will.” He’s cheeky, but it’s a part of him that you found so endearing.

A story you’re sure you’d tell the grandkids, how you met him in the first place. Back when you first started working here. He’d already been performing for a while. Back when you were waiting tables and having to deal with the sloppy drunk clients without a buffer of service bar in between.

Truly romantic how he’d been grinding himself against a woman in a bridal sash and giving you the same cheeky grin that he gives you now. You watched him grip himself through the silk thong and tripped and spilled your tray over a table and all the clients sitting there. An order to go get some air and you cried in the alley behind the building thinking that you were going to get fired and when his set was finished he came looking for you.

“They’re not going to fire you,” He soothed, pulling you into his arms, “You’re gonna be just fine.” You choked out nasty sobs into his chest, the thin zip hoodie he was wearing doing nothing to disguise the firm bare flesh underneath, you maybe pretended to have the need to be held a little longer than you actually did.

That incident was something he carefully held over your head to this day, a funny jab, especially after a night of seeing stars and loud moans. The paint chipped and wall worn where the headboard slammed into it. He wouldn’t paint over it as a matter of pride. A story of his sexual prowess and ability to bend you in half and make you cum so hard that you blackout or cry split on his dick.

He’d convinced you to go back into the club after you calmed down, he bought you a drink after the shift had ended, and then ate you out on his couch after you’d had pancakes at the diner below his apartment. And you’d been in love ever since.

That sick, ooey-gooey, no you hang up kind of love.

“You guys are so gross.” Nat bumped her hip against yours, grabbing the remaining shot glasses and sitting them in the dishwasher. You laugh.

The night began with body paint and blacklights. A steady pump of bass as each performer took the stage, they made their rounds around the room. Back curtains closing for private dances. The bar was full and service bar was popping, the tickets endless. The tip jar stuffed full. A good night. As bachelorette parties often were. They would take up a nice little section, the rest of the walk-ins and birthday parties, etc. taking up the rest of the space.

You could feel his eyes on you, the little games he liked to play at work. He knew you would look at him. The way he danced on stage, sinking down to let someone stick a dollar on his hip. The way he grabbed himself to the squeals of women.

The fucking tease, tugging his lip and meeting your eye. A playful smirk. Watching you shake a drink.

The first time he played this game was the day after he made you cum on his tongue, then his fingers, then his cock. Twice. As you wait tables, he would give you that little smirk, the grind of his hips, a brush against you as you walked around him with your tray. A playful tug on your skirt.

It would end with his back on the wood floor of his apartment, hands gripping your hips hard enough to bruise while you rode yourself to orgasm. Knees red and sore. And continue after eating a snack on his kitchen floor, your back now on the linoleum and your knees pressed to your chest while you dug your fingernails into his biceps and down his back. Something hastily fixed with concealer for his next performance.

Your friends outside of work didn’t quite understand how you could deal. “How could you be okay with him grinding himself over other people all night?” But you knew one thing more than anything else,

Bucky Barnes was such a simp.

He fucking loved you. And you knew it. He would never let you forget it. Bucky Barnes was the most affectionate, needy, clingy, I would die for you and all you have to do is ask kind of guy. He was the kind of guy to tell you that he missed you when you just went to the store. The kind of guy that would hop in the shower with you just because he wanted to wash your hair.

“I’m not worried.” You would laugh, “Not in the slightest.” And you knew you didn’t have to be. If the way he would hop up on your bar and tug on your hair mid dance was anything to say, him stuffing bills into your bra while you let a girl do a body shot out of his belly button. You didn’t care as much as those dollars and groping hands on his thick thighs you loved to ride would be paying your rent later.

These clients may be groping him now, but later on it’s your thighs that his head will be between.

It’s their money that will be sitting on your living room floor while both of you unwrinkled the freshly washed money. Their money you would use to buy groceries and pay for your portion of the family vacation you were going on in a few months with the Barnes clan.

The shift ends and you’re left cleaning up. With three other pairs of hands it’s quick work, but burning the ice takes a minute, long enough for Bucky to already be sitting down in front of the bar and sorting your tips out for you, sipping on an after shift drink the two of you were sharing.

“We going to Norma’s?” As the other men sunk down behind the bar, a few waving their goodbyes on their way out the door.

“Sam.” Bucky looked at his friend, “We go to Norma’s every night and every night you ask if we are going.”

“It’s because he likes that waitress.” Nat grinned, flipping the dishwasher on to run the bar mats. A glare from Sam,

“I love that waitress.” The bumbling idiot fawned over her and always tipped her $50 on his $8 patty melt. A shared laugh,

“You’ve asked her out, how many times now?” Steve, thankful for the leftover sangria in front of him, took a sip.

“Just like four, five maybe.” Bucky lifted the pint glass, salt lining the rim and a few granules left on his bottom lip. “This margarita is good sweetheart.” A recipe you found online, something new you’d wanted to try. You hum, taking a sip and nodding. “She doesn’t like you.” Directed at Sam. “You need to stop making her job so difficult, you’re a creep.”

“Am I a creep?” Sam looks between you and Nat. The two of you sharing a look and nodding.

“No one wants to get hit on while they’re working.” You laugh, “That’s all.” He huffs, leaning against the back of the bar stool.

“You guys got any of that neon shit left?” The last little bit of the bachelorette slosh at the bottom of the Cambro. Poured in a glass for him with an apologetic smile.

“I already burned the ice.” He muscled it down.

Bucky’s hand in your back pocket with you tucked into his side you entered the familiar diner and slipped into your usual booth, a playful squeeze to your ass before you sunk down next to each other. Sam, Nat, and Steve across.

His hand settles on your thigh as the waitress Sam was in love with brought over two pitchers of water and glasses, more to make her job easier because these boys were thirsty at the end of the night after performing for hours on end.

A minute later she’d return with a couple sodas and take the order. Sam looking dutifully down at his phone and trying to avoid her eyes.

“You can act like a normal person.” You laugh, our leg going across Bucky’s thigh. “You’re acting like even more of a weirdo.”

“Just relax.” Nat’s hand smoothed over Sam’s arm and he lets out a deep breath. “Don’t be weird.” Easier said than done, he took the fact that you told him not to flirt with her as erasing his whole personality.

“You’ve ruined him.” Steve sipped his water, “The both of you.” A pout to stern Dad-Steve, and he rolled his eyes with a smirk, leaning against the booth and throwing an arm over the back. “He’ll never be able to perform again.”

“Fuck all of you.” Sam glared as peals of laughter broke out at the table. A shift as you felt Bucky’s fingers play with the hem of your shorts. Dipping under a little bit. Your hand slips down and grabs his, pulling his hand away with a playful glare.

“Stop.” Whispered between you as Sam pretended to cry and Nat seemed about done with it.

“I wanna play.” A kiss on your lips. You shake your head and roll your eyes, directing your attention back to your friends.

“Later.”

Later would find him on his back lips red bitten and swollen from kissing as you yank his jeans down his legs, leaving him in just his briefs, the hard outline of his cock pressing against them. Your shorts and panties tugged down your legs, crawling over him to hover over his face. His arms wrapping around your thighs and bringing you down to his mouth.

The grind of your hips on his tongue and the rough stubble burning your thighs. Those moans vibrating against your clit, panting moans coming from your mouth as you grip the headboard and find the friction your need to cum. Working out your aftershocks on his tongue.

A shift of position would find your back against the mattress, your legs over his arms and hooked into his elbows, the blunt head of his cock circling your entrance with the teasing roll of his hips. His mouth against yours, sucking on your tongue and tugging your bottom lip between his teeth.

He starts off slow. A gasp into his mouth as he bottoms out, the tip of him brushing your cervix before he pulls almost all the way out, playing with short and fast thrusts against your g-spot. This was his major source of pride, having you drooling and stupid with lust under him, eyes rolling and nails digging into his back, clawing at his biceps, twisted in the sheets by your head while he rolls one of your nipples on his tongue.

The headboard slamming as you gush around his cock, the signal he needs to start thrusting in deeper to chase his own pleasure. Leaning back onto his heels and pressing your legs together, wrapping his arm around them and laying a kiss to your ankle. His red mouth panting as his hips slapped against yours. Your fingers dipping between your bodies to slap against your clit a couple times, the pleasure being too much. He pushes your hand out of the way, hand laying over your mons and thumb pressing against your clit, moving in tight circles.

“So fucking good for me baby.” A pant against your calf. “One more.” A groan, “Just one more.” You sob from the over-sensitivity as he brought you to one more orgasm, the towel laid out on the bed being put to good use as you squirt on his cock. His hips not relenting until you feel him cum, your legs shaking on his shoulders.

A kiss to your ankles. His hands massaging your legs as you come down. He lays himself on top of you, shifting your legs to wrap around his waist as he meets your lips once, twice, soft, “I love you.” And then with his head on your chest. You reason in that moment, and in every moment, that he was the best thing that ever happened to you.

Finding the club was the best thing that ever happened to you.

“You’re just so handsome.” Your hand on your fist, resting your elbow on the table, looking at him in admiration.

He grins around the lip of his coffee cup and softly massages your foot that was in his lap. The morning found you in the same diner as the night previous, enjoying what would be lunch for other people, but breakfast for the two of you.

“You’re just so beautiful.” His hand meeting yours on the table, a soft squeeze. “I love you.” Bringing his hand to your lips,

“I love you too.”

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes #sebastian stan #steve rogers #captain america #sam wilson #natasha romanov #tfatws #the falcon and the winter soldier

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