#I am begging you to click through to the first clip to really understand this | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

peachycheol · 3 years

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| lost in translation |

➸ summary: jeonghan asks you to translate some of his fans’ comments, but you hadn’t expected them to be so... dirty. ➸ genre: pwp ➸ pairing: idol!jeonghan x english-speaking friend!reader ➸ warning: dirty talk, oral sex (m. and fem. receiving), face fucking, deep throating, cum swallowing <333, **the italicized comments are in english** ➸ w.c: 2.6k

➸ author’s note: hi i’m alive!! i’m so sorry to have kept you all waiting for so long, but i kinda just lost my mojo for a little bit 😔 but worry not- i have experienced a reawakening and i am now more of a whore than ever so hopefully i can get back to posting more. i have a lot i have planned out, but i wanted to get a quick fic out to y’all as a BIG THANK YOU bc i reached so many milestones while i was gone 🥺 🥰 💕 i love you guys and i’m really glad ppl are reading my fics haha

this fic is based on the infamous jeonghan gym video, y’all know the one (thank you to @haechanblr for reminding me of it and helping me with this fic i love u so much!!). i was actually in the middle of writing this when hoshi decided to post his own gym video and PHEW. JEEZ. I’M STILL RECOVERING. anyway, i hope you guys enjoy this one bc i really enjoyed writing it 💖 🍑

[ foreversvt ] commented: I AM ON MY KNEES [ yoon1004 ] commented: is it jeonghan’s birthday or is it mine [ happy bday angel! ] commented: YOON JEONGHAN ???? [ twinkluvr69 ] commented: grrr wanna slurp those noodle arms like spaghetti

You continue scrolling through the comments left underneath the video, trying to keep your face composed as you come across more and more explicit reactions from fans all over the world. Seokmin had uploaded the video to Weverse as an innocent birthday prank for Jeonghan, but he probably had not anticipated just how horny their fans could get over a seemingly harmless video of Jeonghan doing some leg presses. To be fair to the fans though, you yourself had watched the clip several times and you would be lying if you didn’t say you were… affected.

“Well? What are they saying?” Jeonghan leans over to watch you scroll, and you are acutely aware of the warmth of his arm pressing against yours. The two of you are sitting on the floor of your living room with your backs resting against your couch, hanging out after a small birthday dinner with some of his other friends. As one of Jeonghan’s english-speaking friends, he had asked you to help him translate some of his birthday wishes before his day ended, though you’re not sure how to tell him that his fans are not exactly sending in wholesome professions of love.

Instead, you decide to try giving him some tamer versions in the hopes of satisfying him before you get to anything too blunt. “This user says you have noodle arms, but I think they like it so it’s okay.”

“Hey! I’ve been trying my best to get thicker, but not all of us can be born beefed up like Seungcheol.”

“You asked me what they said!” you laugh. “Most of these are just birthday messages anyway-- I’m sure you don’t need me to translate ‘Happy birthday, I love you!’ a thousand times.”

“Yeah, obviously I understand the more common phrases, but there’s so many that I don’t understand today for some reason!” Jeonghan huffs, then points to a comment that you had purposefully hid under your thumb. “Like okay, what’s that one say?”

[ seungcheolswife ] commented: wow the way this video made my pussy clench,,,,

“Uh,” you start, already feeling your ears go warm. Should you just lie? It’s not like he would be able to tell, right? You and Jeonghan are close, but not so close that you can just say these things to him. Especially when this comment may be hitting a little too close to home for you. Even now, you remember the bolt of arousal that shot to your pussy the moment you heard Jeonghan’s first grunt of effort. You bite your lip. No, Jeonghan really didn’t need to know about that. “I-it says something like ‘you made their heart flutter’.”

“Wait.” Jeonghan takes a moment to scan your face before his eyes narrow at you suspiciously. You give him your best innocent smile, but you already know he’s caught you. You had always been a shitty liar. “What does it really say? Is it bad?”

You sigh. Of course he hadn’t bought it. “No, it’s not bad. I just don’t know if you want to hear stuff like this…”

“Well now I have to know. Tell me exactly what it says.”

“E-exactly?” You meet Jeonghan’s stern gaze and you know that there’s no convincing him otherwise. What Jeonghan wants, Jeonghan gets. “I-it says that the video made their p-pussy clench.”

After several beats of silence, you look over to Jeonghan to see he is completely unaffected by the comment. Or maybe he is. His eyes glint mischievously in the light when he responds. “I said exactly, baby. Try again.”

Your whole body feels hot under his smug, expectant gaze; you should be surprised by the sudden pet name, but it only makes your mind fuzzy with the beginnings of arousal. You swallow thickly, unable to disobey him. “T-this video made m-my pussy clench.”

“So naughty… Just this short clip has your cute little pussy all needy,” Jeonghan clicks his tongue, but a knowing grin spreads on his lips. His words have you shifting in your seat in an attempt to relieve the dull ache setting in between your legs, though you don’t dare let it on. It’s clear Jeonghan is playing a game with you, and although you know you’re going to lose, you’ll be damned if you let him win so easily. “Let’s read some more, hm? Translate this one for me.”

[ daddy_hannie ] commented: omg i bet jeonghan makes the hottest sounds when he’s fucking

The comment he scrolls to nearly makes you whimper. It’s embarrassing how clearly you can recall the sound of each of his low groans coming through the screen, how sexy he sounded. Images of Jeonghan on top of you, his eyebrows furrowed as he grits out desperate groans of pleasure, leave you in a daze while your panties quickly dampen with your arousal.

“Go on.” Jeonghan’s firm tone only makes you squirm more, and this time he takes note of the way your breathing has gone shallow and how your eyes are already hazy.

“I bet Jeonghan makes the hottest sounds when he’s fucking,” you say softly.

Jeonghan chuckles, his breath tickling against your neck. “Now you’re just making me blush, sweetheart. I bet you’d make some pretty noises when I’m fucking into you too,” he muses casually. You finally let out a soft whine, tired of holding your breath as he moves to tuck a strand of your hair behind your ear.

“J-jeonghan…”

“Hm, I think we should read a couple more,” the boy says, ignoring you and scrolling through more of the comments. You pout - your wetness has already soaked through your panties, your cunt just aching for his attention, but of course Jeonghan isn’t done teasing you.

You’re wondering how long it will take for him to finally push your back to the floor and fuck you senseless when you spot a comment that might help you get you what you want quicker. ”I want to read this one,” you tell him, already rubbing your thighs together in anticipation.

[ ~hanniehae!~ ] commented: god i KNOW your dick is big like PLEASE I WANNA SUCK UR DICK SO BAD

He raises an amused eyebrow at you, and you wait for him to stop you, biting back a smile when he doesn’t. You make sure to look him in the eyes when you say it, his own dark eyes telling you that he’s impatient for you too, and you nearly let it out in a whine from how much you mean it. “Please Jeonghan… I want to suck your dick so bad.”

For a sliver of a moment, Jeonghan goes rigid. Then, his smug smile returns as he brings up a thumb to tug on your bottom lip. “Mmm, such a pretty mouth saying such filthy words,” he sighs, shaking his head. “If you wanted to put it to good use, all you had to do was ask, baby.”

Jeonghan chuckles at how eagerly you follow him as he moves to sit on the couch behind you, keeping his hold on your chin so that you keep your eyes on his. He has you kneel between his legs and you don’t waste any time in reaching for the button and zipper on his jeans.

The man helps you tug his pants and boxers down to his ankles, and your mouth waters at the sight of his hard cock springing back against his stomach. Of course it’s pretty just like the rest of him. “You’ve been teasing me all this time, but you’re already this hard?” you whisper tauntingly as you lean forward to ghost your lips over the base of his shaft.

Jeonghan’s shaky exhale does not go unnoticed by you, but his response comes out smooth as ever. “Could you blame me? You just looked so cute getting all worked up from saying all those dirty things about me. I bet your little panties are soaked through by now-- guh!” He lets out a surprised groan when you suddenly flatten your tongue against him, letting it drag slowly up to his tip.

“You talk too much.” You look up at him with a smile before you wrap your lips around his leaking tip, savoring the taste of him on your tongue. Teasingly, you swirl your tongue against his slit until you feel his hand thread through your hair, as though he’s begging you for more. You decide to be nice, lowering your mouth further down his cock, letting him feel the slide of your wet tongue on his sensitive skin.

A soft sigh leaves his lips at the sensation, pleasantly carding his fingers through your hair as you take as much of him as you can. “That’s it. Good girl.”

His praise has you clenching around nothing, and you whine as you steadily begin to bob your head along his hard cock, reveling in how he would let out small whimpers whenever you would lightly suckle on it.

Just as he gets used to the feeling of your mouth on him, you suddenly take him as deep as you can into your mouth, hollowing your cheeks tightly around his cock. “Oh, f-fuck!” Jeonghan lets out a strangled moan, his hips lifting from the couch to fuck further into your mouth.

You feel the tip of his cock hit the back of your throat, but it only spurs you on even more as you swallow around him, causing him to throw his head back in ecstasy. At this point, a dull ache starts setting in your jaw and drool begins to messily slip from the corners of your mouth as you return to sucking him at a more steady pace, and you feel your pussy throb from how dirty it all felt. Though you and Jeonghan did flirt occasionally, he had always felt off-limits to you-- he’s an idol and you’re just one of his normal-person friends. But here you are with his cock in your mouth, all thanks to the horny thoughts of his fans no less.

To their credit, they were right. Jeonghan does make the hottest sounds while fucking. He lets out another throaty groan from above you and, unexpectedly, he pulls you off his cock. His pupils are blown wide with desire, his chest heaving slightly as he looks at the state you’re in with your swollen lips and the drool on your chin. “Can I fuck your mouth?” he asks breathlessly.

“Yes please,” you reply, voice already a little hoarse from your efforts. You shift back on your knees to make room for Jeonghan when he stands, opening your mouth obediently when he moves to slide his cock back onto your tongue. Jeonghan tightens his grip on your hair, keeping you still as he starts to fuck into your mouth with quick, shallow thrusts. “Mmh!”

“Fuck, your mouth feels so fucking good, baby,” Jeonghan sighs appreciatively. You bring your hands up to grip at the backs of his thighs to keep yourself steady when his thrusts become a little more erratic, causing you to gag around him as his cock continues to hit the back of your throat. Still, all your focus remains on hearing more of Jeonghan’s pleasured groans, on seeing his face scrunch up in absolute bliss, so you keep your mouth open wide despite the tears that prick at your eyes. When Jeonghan looks down at you taking his cock, eyes glazed over and fucked out, he curses loudly. “Shit-- can I come in your mouth?”

Unable to speak with your mouth stuffed full, you cutely give him a thumbs up. Jeonghan would have laughed if he wasn’t so close to cumming. With several more thrusts, he cries out a strained warning before his hot release fills your mouth. He rides out his orgasm, twitching in your hold as his pleasure bleeds into oversensitivity. Once he’s pulled out, you make sure to stick your tongue out so he can see how his cum coats your tongue right before you swallow it all down; all he can do is smile thinking about how he really should have fucked you sooner.

“So good for me,” Jeonghan says to you softly, helping you up to your feet so that he can pull you into a heated kiss full of tongue and whimpers. You desperately grip onto Jeoghan’s shirt, pressing your body against him in search for some sort of relief for the arousal that is pumping through you and straight to your neglected pussy. He can’t help but smile against your lips. “Don’t worry, baby, I’ll take care of you now.”

You let him lead you to sit on the couch-- this time you are the one sitting on the edge of the cushions with Jeonghan’s head between your legs. He slides a hand over your clothed core, humming when he finds that you really have soaked straight through your panties. Just as you begin to squirm underneath his teasing fingers, he strips you of both your leggings and underwear in one swift movement, leaving you bare before him.

The sight of him pushing your legs apart is enough to leave you in a daze. Your breath catches when you feel cool air brushing against your inner thighs, slick with your wetness, then it all comes out in a whine when you feel Jeonghan’s velvet tongue swipes at the spot for a taste. “O-oh!” a cry slips from your lips once his tongue finally slides through your folds. “Mmh!”

“Does it feel good?” Jeonghan whispers, not bothering to wait for a proper answer because your broken moans tell him to keep going. He spreads your lips open with his fingers, eating you out slowly and deliberately as though he is savoring his favorite meal.

The room is filled with your soft whimpers and the lewd sounds of Jeonghan’s mouth working against your pussy and it only tightens the pressure in your stomach, causing your toes to curl. “P-please-- please let me cum,” you rasp out, and your eyes roll to the back, your hand clutching tightly at the back of Jeonghan’s head, at the feeling of his tongue flattening against your clit. “Ngh! Y-yes!”

He skillfully flicks his tongue on your bud, shaking his head back and forth until his chin is absolutely covered in your juices. When your hips begin to move of their own accord, he lets you ride his face as you please, his cock twitching at how desperate you are for him. “S-so good,” you sob, only able to mutter unintelligible nonsense in your delirium. Then, he wraps his mouth around your clit, and you’re left squealing as your legs begin to shake from how obscenely good it feels. “Shit, I-- I’m--!”

You come undone with a loud cry of Jeonghan’s name, your body going rigid from how hard your orgasm hits you. Jeonghan takes it all, his eyes closed as he works you through your release, only letting up when you slump away from him.

The both of you finally look at each other properly in the aftermath, chests heaving and hair wild. Suddenly you’re both erupting in giggles at the realization of what you two had just done. “What are you looking at?” Jeonghan asks, eyes bright as he smiles handsomely up at you.

You reach down to swipe your thumb against his chin, which is still shining with your cum, barely able to contain your giggles. “Who’s got the dirty mouth now?”

#svtredroom #seventeen smut #jeonghan smut #yoon jeonghan smut #jeonghan scenarios #jeonghan fanfic #svt smut #m:yjh #g:pwp #l:os #hehehehe surprise #kiss for good luck mwah

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kumaradosha · 3 years

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I’m seeing a whole lot of bad takes and ignorance of past/present content and lack of critical thinking or ability to understand character motives regarding this most recent Dream SMP lore. So please, allow me to lay down some facts, some sense, and also some speculation of my own. This’ll be really rambly, because I’m tired, and I want to say a lot. Rewatching ALL the streaming perspectives now, my thoughts start here:

Considering Sam doesn’t want to enter the cell to dirty his hands himself, he clearly has some aversion or moral qualms about torturing prisoners, but Quackity has convinced him to go along with it. Quackity spends a lot of time before he goes into the cell repeatedly making sure Sam won’t have a change of heart and intervene, which indicates Sam probably has some misgivings. Quackity feels he has to remind Sam that this is for the greater good and to stand back and let him do his thing and that this will probably be the last time. These are all reassurances and instructions that would not be necessary if Sam were known to be totally cool with it all already.

Sam believes the stringent measures Dream put in place for the prison are just desserts for him to suffer, but Techno doesn’t deserve the same cruelty, because Techno didn’t enact those rules. And that’s why Techno gets baked potatoes from Sam, and Dream doesn’t. Sam clearly believes this harsh treatment is justified, because Dream was going to do it to someone else. He thinks he’s being just. Of course, allowing the torture, though not his idea and not really comfortable to him, was still crossing a line, considering physical torture was not something Dream did to his victims (and besides, there’s the argument that not everything a criminal has done is morally correct to be done to the prisoner regardless). That, he was convinced, was for the greater good, to get the revive book. Quackity manipulated him; he thinks he’s doing what’s best, but no, of course that doesn’t make him right or his hands clean.

Sam wanted the dog dead because it’s a security risk, especially with Quackity entering the cell with two other people. He killed it later for the exact same reason. Y’all act like nobody else has ever killed an animal in Minecraft RP; get it together. Is Sapnap also evil? Tommy? He killed his own cat. Random animals are not treated with the gravity you guys are giving them; it makes no sense to call out this one time.

When Techno raised the point that he would be fine if Quackity killed him, because Dream could just bring him back, Dream countered with his warning that Techno doesn’t want to experience death, judging by how messed up it made Tommy. What motive would he have to argue that, aside from actually caring about Techno’s well-being? If Dream was only thinking of himself, he would benefit from Techno being willing to die and be brought back to life by him, giving him an easy reason not to give the resurrection knowledge to Quackity. I honestly can’t think of a reason he would argue other than the fact that he doesn’t want Techno to die even temporarily or experience death--that he cares. Interesting...

Dream hiding in the escape tunnel to make it look like he disappeared too was 5,000 IQ, but he didn’t do it just to be silly or smart. Quackity literally threatened to kill Dream when he came back. Dream HAD to pretend to disappear, because he was legitimately in fear for his life. You saw how terrified he was when Sam found him, how he just immediately begged him not to tell Quackity. He was afraid Quackity would come back and kill him before Techno managed to come back and break him out. He believed that would be his fate and had to make a last ditch attempt to avoid that outcome.

Phil confirmed on stream that the blueprints Techno was led to via coordinates are for the prison. Not Tubbo’s missing nuke, like I’ve seen speculated.

“Steve is your polar bear” was written on stream during the “Prison Podcast” Technoblade lore. This is not a mystery. Dream said he wrote it down when Techno started talking about Steve rescuing them.

If Sam doesn’t approve of Quackity killing Dream, why doesn’t he just tell Quackity Dream is still in the prison but not allow Quackity in anymore? Quackity needs Sam to lead him inside, to let him in. Since when did he have any power against Sam to force him to let him in? I don’t understand why Sam has to keep it a secret just to keep Dream alive. Just don’t let Quackity into the prison anymore. Clearly it was a bad idea, since all these security risks happened while Quackity was getting a free pass to not follow the rules of the prison.

Dream casually walking in the way of Sam’s pickaxe to disrupt his swing once Sam almost had the bell broken gets me every time.

The rapport between c!Dream and c!Sam in prison fascinates me. Clearly Dream is much bolder with Sam than Quackity and still seems to trust his sense of duty to a degree. Sam is also more malleable, convinceable, his fatal flaw being actually listening and talking to Dream, even after it clearly messes with him psychologically. He let Quackity manipulate him, too, and he compromises too much. That might seem weird to say, considering the harsh conditions he has Dream in, but. He does give in to a few things.

I’m wondering if Dream wanted to go to the courtyard hoping it was less secure and easier for Techno to break him out of.

Sam has no reason to lie and gaslight about Dream being the one to suggest raw potatoes and sealing up the courtyard. That’s not in his character to do. So clearly Dream suggested these things. In fact, we have proof. Search for the clip of Dream revealing a teaser for future lore, with him telling Sam the hole in the courtyard ceiling for the light is a security flaw. He straight up says that. Update yourselves. Furthermore, are the recordings we have of Dream suggesting nicer features for the prison even lore? Are they in-character, or was it cc!Dream and Sam making plans? I’m genuinely asking, because I don’t remember/am not sure. In any case, clearly the plans changed at some point, and they were Dream’s idea.

Dream said he didn’t realize how bad it was until after he experienced it. This could very well be a lie. However, it could also be a wake-up call. We just don’t know. Dream clearly possesses low empathy, and every person at some point doesn’t fully realize how poorly another being can feel in a bad situation. Sometimes it actually does take experiencing it yourself to realize how it feels. People can do cruel things to others before the empathy fully clicks. It is possible that Dream really does only now understand how harsh his plans were. Unfortunately, it’s just as likely he doesn’t care and is pretending to, because he has a history of acting, lying, and manipulating. We just do not know, and I think that’s part of the fun, the speculation. Note that none of this is excusing what he’s done; that bores me. I just like understanding characters and their psychology and motives.

Sam is ASKING if Dream had this prison built for Tommy. He is suspicious that that is the case. Dream did not TELL him this, because OBVIOUSLY Sam would have absolutely nothing to do with building a prison he knew Dream meant for Tommy. So no, Sam thought it was for something else. And guess what? It was. Back during the disc war finale stream, Dream told Tommy and Tubbo that the prison was originally intended for someone else (maybe multiple people, the number was not specified), but that he changed his mind and would now put Tommy in it (ha ha punny). Tubbo asked who it was originally intended for, and Dream wouldn’t tell him, preferred to keep it a mystery. Dream had zero reason to say this if it weren’t true. In fact, it would have been more impactful to pretend (or admit) he intended it for Tommy all along. Think of the horror, or even the betrayal finding out Sam, his friend, helped make it. So yes, there is every indication that it is the truth--Dream meant the prison for someone else at first.

And Dream didn’t argue with Sam’s accusations, because why WOULD he? If he didn’t tell Tubbo who it was for, he wouldn’t tell Sam now. Plus, he wouldn’t want to argue with Sam, make him more heated and less sympathetic, and risk him deciding to tell Quackity Dream was there after all. Dream has no reason to speak up. Let Sam think what he wants. Dream’s silence does not mean confirmation. This is not a new thing with him. He keeps things mysterious, and there is a lot about his planning and mindset he does not disclose.

Now, whether Dream made the prison harsher before or after he decided he wanted Tommy in it is up for speculation. We don’t know that timeline.

Anyway, Sam’s speech about Dream getting what he deserves is really delicious. All these people out here mocking Dream fans for Dream still being in prison (like Techno’s not imminently coming to break him out, hello?) and being told off by Sam, yet plenty of us are enjoying it, too, like?? Bruh, what kind of Mary-Sue-touting asshole likes characters who are flawless who never go through strife? Can’t be me. I love watching my favs through triumph AND despair, so this is all just a win for me, thanks.

It is possible to sympathize with a bastard who is highly flawed and wrong AND to understand his motivations without justifying his actions AND to realize he deserves punishment (though to what degree I don’t care to argue). All the black and white morality and taking one extreme stance of “this character is perfect!” OR “this character is wholly evil and only ever does things to be sadistic!” and polarizing the community is cringe, yo. You need to calm down. Enjoy the ride or like...get off?

Anyway, Dream is my favorite, Techno is my second favorite, I adore Sam, I really enjoy Quackity, and the SMP wouldn’t be the same without Tommy. So much love for all of this creative work and its creators. I’m having a blast.

#Dream SMP #DSMP #Dream #DreamWasTaken #Technoblade #Awesamdude #Quackity #TommyInnit #Tommy Innit #fandom discourse #Dream SMP lore #Dream SMP theories

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marvel-movies-bucky-barnes · 3 years

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Moving Forward

Summary: You are Tony’s sister and in love with Bucky, but Tony still doesn’t trust Bucky post-Winter Soldier

Pairing: Bucky x Laela (reader)

Characters: Bucky Barnes, Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, Clint Barton, Bruce Banner, Sam Wilson, Thor Odinson, Wanda Maximoff,

Warnings: Fluff, some kissing, light spoilers up until Captain America: Civil War, angst, self-doubts, mentions of brainwashing, comforting

Word count: 3,346

Author’s note: This is really my first fic I’ve ever written and posted. Please be kind and enjoy! I am in the process of going through the Marvel movies chronologically for the first time, so I HAVE NOT FINISHED THE MOVIES YET! Please don’t comment spoilers past Spiderman: Homecoming in Marvel’s chronology! I appreciate reposts and comments!

Requests: OPEN

*NOT MY GIF, CREDIT TO OWNER*

You would think that a man who had nothing left to lose would be ready to throw himself to the fire. You would think that a simple retrieval mission would be as routine as putting on your shoes before you walk out the door. You would think that spending ten years living under the protection of a hotheaded brother with an egocentric mind would warrant the basic privilege of a release from the iron-fisted grip on your whereabouts.

According to Natasha, all this thinking is what gets me into trouble with Tony in the first place.

“I don’t understand.” Grabbing Tony’s arm, halfway lifted to the coffee mug balancing precariously on the edge of the counter, I spun him toward me. I knew full well that he could have dug his feet in his tracks if he had wanted to, yet he yielded. “Why will you take me and not him?”

“You know why. And if you weren’t so naïve, maybe you would wake up from this daydream you’re living in and realize that I’m right.” A shadow must have crossed my face—one all too familiar to the team who was lounging against pristine furniture a room over, feigning ignorance to our conversation. As I glanced over my shoulder, a dozen pairs of eyes darted around, immediately finding innate fascination in the stitching of the carpet and the chandelier gently swinging above the banister.

“Laela—,” Avoiding eye contact, he slid his fingers into the iron hand of his suit, hissing when the cold metal bit into his skin. As if he hadn’t worn it enough times to have the basic instinct of turning on the heater first. Cool granite hit my skin as I hoisted myself up onto the counter. The silence was deafening, or maybe it was the blood roaring through my ears—hot-headed, the only way the Stark family knows—until he finally dropped his head in defeat. “One.”

One pin drop could be heard; one collective breath was held by the rest of the team; one last nerve of his that I was getting on? The possibilities were endless. Biting my tongue, I waited as patiently as could be expected as his eyes rolled to the back of his head and he pinched the bridge of his nose.

“One mission,” he relented, swearing lightly as if he were battling against conscious. “You have one hour to get him ready. Starting now.”

I saw those dozen pairs of eyes burning holes in the back of Tony’s head, mouths hung open like fish out of water. When I glanced past Tony and made eye contact with Steve, his eyebrows shot to his hairline and he motioned me quickly toward the door before Tony could change his mind.

“One hour!” Tony hollered after me as I backpedaled out of the room, tripping over the leg of Thor’s chair on the way.

My feet had a mind of their own as they carried me up two flights of stairs and three different hallways before I knocked gently on the heavy oak door next to my own. I had originally picked my room at the far end of the mansion for the view of the coast, the endless stretch of ocean providing a comforting hum of white noise while I slept.

I like to think Bucky had picked his for the sounds of the ocean as well, though I imagine the rush of the waves works to calm more than his insomnia.

When he didn’t answer, I let myself in. I was shocked, in the beginning, at the stark contrast between his room and the other bedrooms in the house. The walls—completely bare save for the navy paint coating—were shockingly distinct from my own, which were covered in photos and haphazardly hung posters. Walking into his room now, I see how calming the blankness of the walls can be for Bucky, especially if it mirrors what he’d like to feel inside his own mind. A clean slate in his room; peaceful, blank walls. Stillness. The hope that these can be replicated onto himself.

I can’t help but think back to one of the first nights we shared in this room.

I had woken up in the middle of the night to a cold bed. Frantically grabbing at the sheets for the familiar touch of a warm hand or even the cold bite of the metal on his arm was futile, and I shot up ramrod straight in our bed to see him leaning against the railing of the balcony, fingers digging into the wood and unclenching, repeatedly.

It was a sight I had come to be familiar with.

As it was happening in this moment, I had done nothing more than walk over to him and lean my elbows against the railing and watch the waves, knowing that this was something that I couldn’t fix—something that he hadn’t wanted me to fix. I had made it clear that there was nothing in him that needed to be fixed, but I gave him the space to work through the storm clouds surrounding his head.

That was all the other needed at times, I believe; someone there to ground us as we battled against our own demons clawing at our heads.

Tonight, Bucky’s elbows leaned into the railing, the metal biting into the splintering wood. He didn’t seem to notice. His shoulders eased a fraction of an inch as he heard me approach, something that had taken him months to be able to do around anyone.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“HYDRA. Winter Soldier Operative.” A short, clipped response. Unspoken words hung heavy in the balance; thoughts I knew he wouldn’t breach right now. It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence—it never was with me and him. Though a hundred questions came bubbling to the surface, I held back. Sparing him a sidelong glance, he shook his head lightly.

He didn’t want to talk about it. And that was all right.

“I was thinking,” I mused, reaching over to take Bucky’s arm in my hand and tracing the grooves of the metal. “Wouldn’t it be nice to get away? Somewhere the Winter Soldier won’t follow?”

It was naïve thinking, I realized almost immediately. Just as Tony had said (not that I would ever admit to this truth). Naïve to believe that we could escape the mission, if only for a few moments; naïve to believe that Bucky could take himself out of world he had formed through escapism.

“I can’t change the past, doll.” He focused on one point across the ocean while I centered on the dips and divots of the vibranium.

“No one’s asking you to. But you don’t need to let it define you.” Reaching up, I tucked a loose strand of hair behind his ear. It had been blowing in his face for God knows how long; I knew he wouldn’t have bothered to fix it himself any time soon.

“The Winter Soldier is in the past. HYDRA can’t get to you anymore. This Bucky,” tapping my finger against his heart, I looked up at him, “this James—he’s the man I fell in love with.”

His withering stare finally softened as his shoulders relaxed all the way. Something clicked in him when he heard James—something he only hears from me.

“You’re here because Tony finally released his grip on you, is that it?” he quipped, softening his words by pressing his lips to the top of my head. “I could hear Tony yelling from downstairs, so I had asked JARVIS for the mission update before you came up.”

“You don’t have to go. You know that; no one would hold it against you.” As he opened his mouth to protest (most likely about how Tony would hold it against him if he had so much as buttered his toast wrong), I gently cut him off with a squeeze of his hand. “I do think it might help get things back on track with Tony, though, Buck.”

“He still doesn’t trust me.” Bucky’s eyes hardened, turning back toward the ocean.

“Prove him wrong.”

His silence held more than he knew, and he seemed to realize this as he gave a brisk nod and pressed a chaste kiss to my cheek before turning to change into his gear.

_______________________________________________________________________

On the plane, as luck would have it, I had scored the seat between Bucky and Tony, Bucky being across the aisle from Steve, Bruce and Sam as well. He kept up quiet, polite conversation with Bruce and Sam on the way, his hand resting on my knee and his voice soft. While he was distracted, I took the opportunity to nudge Tony in the right direction.

“Talk to him,” I encouraged, pressing on when Tony narrowed his eyes. “You don’t know the first thing about him.”

At his bark of indignation, I cut him a look sharp as glass.

“You have misjudged him since the moment you met him,” I snapped, fingers curling into a fist. “We are a team. You want me, you get him, too. That’s how this works.”

Though I had pitched my voice low to avoid the others overhearing, Tony stiffened, and I could sense Wanda attempting to shift the energy of the plane as the rest of the team began stumbling over their words to affect cluelessness about the situation. Five metal fingers tightened lightly over my knee and I laid my hand atop his without breaking eye contact with Tony.

“Bucky didn’t kill our parents.” A sharp intake—whether from Bucky or from Wanda, I couldn’t be sure—sounded throughout the aircraft. “The Winter Soldier did. HYDRA did. Since coming back, Bucky’s done nothing but try to beg for your forgiveness, your understanding, and you’ve been a brick wall—to him, to Steve, to me. And deep down, I think you’re just scared to admit that you could have been wrong about something.”

My breathing rattled in my lungs.

The metal of Bucky’s fingers clicked together as they pressed into my knee.

A quiet rustle of Thor’s cloak and Natasha spinning a dagger between gloved fingers.

The soft tap of Steve’s shield against the seat of the plane.

One

Two

Three beats of

A b s o l u t e l y n o t h i n g.

As I turned back toward Bucky, his metal fingers tapping lightly into the fabric of my jeans, one-two-three, one-two—a grounding tactic he told me he once used at HYDRA’s base—I shook my head, willing to accept that there was nothing I could do for Tony to put his ego aside and take in what I was saying when—

“You’re right.” Tony let out a breath I knew he had probably been holding around Bucky since the Winter Soldier operative. Low enough for only me and Bucky to hear—though he directed his words at me—two words I never thought Bucky would hear from him (whether indirectly or not) fell past his lips. “I’m sorry.”

“James is—Bucky’s —not the Winter Soldier. He’s not the man you’ve painted him out to be. I love him for who he is, not what he has or hasn’t done. He’s done more for this team and for me than you care to notice. Maybe if you’d put your enormous ego aside and have a conversation with him, you would see that.”

Tony’s eyes darted between mine for five—six—seven beats, his lips pressed into a fine line. Five metal fingers continued tapping a pattern onto my thigh. One breath.

“I know you love him.”

A dozen pairs of eyes bore through Tony with a steel gaze, unabashedly pinning him in place with a single look.

“Let’s see what he’s got.”

_______________________________________________________________________

I’d normally call a successful mission any time our team made it out alive, though I knew Tony didn’t see it the same way. Today was different—while half the team victory was winning the battle against a terrorist organization set to infiltrate the city, I would say that Bucky and I found our own victory in our small interaction with Tony on the plane.

“I’ve been thinking, Laela,” Bucky murmured from where we lazed across the chair on the veranda. I waited for him to continue and looked up at him, but his gaze wasn’t on me—it was trained on the ocean once more. I knew he was sifting through his thoughts, tangled in a knot from the last twenty-four hours—likely from before then, even. “I’ve been thinking about 1942.”

“The war?” I twisted a strand of his hair that had fallen into his eyes, not wanting to press too much on a sensitive subject. Tucking the strand behind his ear, I met his eyes. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Laying my head back down on his chest, I counted five heartbeats before he finally let out a breath.

“Yes. But not now.” His plated fingers brushed against my knee. His fingers tapped a rhythm against my knee—one-two-three, one-two. Grounding himself in reality. “I remember everything detail. About the war, about the HYDRA operative. Going under. Every moment.”

I knew as much, though he rarely talked about it openly like this.

“Tony stopped me when we came home from the mission.” The tension in his arms wrapped around me vanished on that word—home. “After you had gone up to bed, and I told you I would meet you up there. We started talking—one of the first real conversations I think we’ve ever had. He asked me—”

I waited for him to finish, knowing that whatever he had to say must have been as difficult then as it was now.

“He asked me about HYDRA. About the Winter Soldier.” As my body tried to jerk toward his, he gently pushed my shoulders back to lay against his chest. “It’s fine. I told him I didn’t want to talk about it, and he didn’t press—shocking as that is.”

“Did he ask about anything else?”

“He asked about you,” he admitted. At my baffled expression, he snorted and added, “Relax. He didn’t threaten to murder me and hide my body, if that’s what you’re wondering. He asked about what you said on the plane.”

Racking my brain, I remembered how heated I was toward Tony in the moment.

“You hadn’t told him that before, had you? That you loved me.”

It wasn’t an accusation, just a question. A statement, really. Still, I felt a flush creep up my neck as I tried to find a point on the horizon to focus on. Bucky knew that I loved him but didn’t always understand why. I hadn’t heard the same from him, and it was fine—honestly.

I would break off pieces of my own soul to give him, bit by bit, if it would give him some peace, just to let him know how loved he is.

“Have I ever told you the first memory I have of you? At the HYDRA base, when you and Steve had come to break me out?” Without waiting for an answer, a shaky laugh fell past his lips as he lifted his hand from my shoulder to comb his hair back.

“You had barreled through the door, right on Steve’s heels. HYDRA had been poking around in my brain, and I didn’t have control of what I was doing. But I was aware of what was going on around me.” His eyes met mine then, and my breath caught in my throat. “Tony was screaming from the sidelines for you to get the hell out of there when those HYDRA agents were about to storm the base. But you grabbed my hand and insisted that you wouldn’t leave me behind.”

His eyes glazed over, shifting his reality to that moment. My fingers tightened against his hands, both flesh and vibranium, letting him know that I wouldn’t leave him behind in this moment, either. Showing what I couldn’t put into words.

“I hadn’t done anything to prove to you that I could be trusted, and you were willing to lay your life on the line for me. You were the first one to speak to me after returning to the house. Other than Steve, you were the first one to make any effort to get to know me—the real me. James, not Bucky or The Winter Soldier.” His lips curved up in a genuine smile, one that crinkled the corners of his eyes and scrunched his nose and brought a pinch of color to his cheeks. Something that he didn’t show a lot. “You were the first one to call me out on my shit. Everyone else was too scared to even approach me.”

The room was silent now, but a comforting silence, one that wrapped itself around us as we gazed out toward the ocean.

“I know I have a lot to make up for. Not just to Tony and the team, but to you.” I opened my mouth to argue, but he silenced me by pressing his lips to the corner of my mouth. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt this kind of love before I met you. The team—I've noticed most of them coming around, too. The other week, Clint was going on a supply run, and he asked me to come with him. I don’t think he had spoken to me more than a handful of times before that.”

“That was all you, Buck. The others are finally starting to see who you are in here,” I brought his vibranium hand in mine to tap against his heart. “Something they should have begun to do a long time ago.”

He settled into the chair on the veranda and pulled me tighter against his chest, his hair brushing against my cheek. I didn’t push it away. We sat like that, wound together in a comfortable silence, until the ocean breeze started to send a chill up my arm.

“It’s nice,” he finally said, breaking the silence. “Feeling like I’m starting to belong somewhere. Like I have something to live for. Everyone from my past live, back in 1942—they're gone. Aside from Steve. I felt lost, for such a long time. Now it feels like the pieces are starting to fit together again—like I have people who love me in this life. Like I have a family.”

“You do have a family. We will always be there for you, whether you see it or not. And, though they may not say it, they love you. Almost as much as I do.” Laying my hand against his cheek, I gently turned his face to look at me, to recognize my words. I tapped against his heart—one-two-three, one-two. Grounding ourselves. “I love you, James. For what’s in here. I always will.”

I take it he hadn’t heard those words enough; his eyes lit up, brighter than I had ever seen, and a soft smile slowly spread across his lips.

“I love you, Laela.”

I’m not sure how long we laid in that chair, watching the tide crash against the rocks, my fingers tracing the grooves of his hand. All I remember is two arms, one flesh, one metal, hook under my legs and back and walk us back to the bed. I remember those same arms encircling me just moments later. I remember Bucky’s breathing slowing to a gentle brush against my neck as his snores softly echoed throughout the room.

I remember waking up before him the next morning and studying every line of his face, every divot of his vibranium arm, taking in every snore that escaped past his lips. I remember feeling love—his for me, and mine for him—all-encompassing in the quiet moments we had shared together.

Looking at him, finally comfortable in his own skin, relaxed in a way I knew he had never felt before, I knew I wouldn’t trade this for the world.

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ayellowcurtain · 3 years

Text

I can be your lover

chapter 3

Robbe doesn’t think too much about grabbing his phone anymore, clicking on the name, scrolling through the page, clicking on some old pictures just to see him again, watching the new stories, Sander partying with his friends until the early hours of this morning. It’s part of Robbe’s routine to check Sander’s social media like it’s brushing his teeth or skating back home hearing his music.

He brought it to himself so he has to suck it up. Sander is more than well adjusted to his new life, his new friends.

The conversations that used to happen constantly throughout every day changed a few months back and are now just a quick exchange of texts every few days, nothing longer than ten minutes, and nothing too deep inside each other’s lives too. Robbe still misses Sander like he did when Sander first moved away but he doesn’t have the space to say it anymore.

It was obvious that distance would push them apart. They were too naive to think they could beat it.

He missed his opportunities time and time again. The ticket he had to go visit expired a few weeks ago and he knows it was the last straw for Sander to give up on them completely, no matter how much Robbe tried to explain and how many times he apologized for not finding the time or courage to go visit.

Robbe is terrible with words but he managed to say them when he felt it but he’s a disaster with actions and he didn’t take one with someone that’s all about actions speaking louder than words.

“Baby, are you busy today?” He hears his mom’s words like they’re on the other side of a tunnel. He looks up and she’s smiling, repeating her words now that she has his attention.

“No...No, I’m not really busy, why?”

“I was thinking about going to the mall and shopping.” He can feel her excitement in her voice. They don’t do this often: outings that don’t involve their doctors or grocery shopping. And his mom has been doing really, really good and Robbe thinks if he lost one for his lack of attitude, he shouldn’t do the same with his mom.

“Okay. Let me just change.” He smiles back and she claps her hands, leaving his room to go grab her things. The last thing Robbe wants to do is go out but he’ll force a smile on his face and hold however many bags she needs him to hold.

to Jens: Do you want to do something tonight?

I need some beers

He puts his phone inside his jacket to give his mom his full attention for the afternoon, hoping Jens has planned something for them to do by the time he’s back home tonight.

Robbe doesn’t need anything but he lets his mom buy him lunch and when she shows him this perfect black leather jacket that looks a lot like one Robbe used to steal from Sander, he lets her buy it for him too. He checks his phone but there’s no message from Jens yet so he texts Zoe, inviting her for some coffee with his mom before they head home. It’s nice to see her again and his mom loves Zoe so much but Robbe can tell something is up. Zoe keeps looking at him in the way she does when she’s worried. He doesn’t ask because his mom is there and he doesn’t need his mom in the middle of whatever drama Zoe is hiding from him.

On their way back home it’s colder than expected after walking for so many hours inside the mall, the sun is completely gone so the temperature dropped drastically and Robbe finds any excuse to open the bigger bag he’s carrying, putting his new leather jacket on, searching for his phone to put inside the outer pocket. He holds it tighter and the screen lights up, showing the notification of a few new messages from Jens.

to Robbe: No plans but you can come by if you want, play some video game

talked to Jana yesterday

She told me Sander is hooking up with a girl…

Robbe stops walking, carefully reading every message again to make sure he didn’t misinterpret what Jens was saying. He knows he should read this with the biggest grain of salt because Jana has moved back a few weeks ago and she barely knows Sander but in the back of his mind, for a reason Robbe can’t understand, he thinks she might be telling Jens the truth.

to Jens: How does she know that?

He can guess the answer - Britt and her big mouth - but he doesn’t know what to say.

to Robbe: Britt told her that he’s been sleeping with someone for a while now but it’s nothing serious

probably just a fuck buddy

he did repost stories with a blonde girl tho

Robbe leaves to answer Jens later when he’s home, and he opens Instagram instead, Sander’s profile picture being the first one available for him to watch - his favorite hobby - and he clicks on it without thinking and there it is. Robbe keeps his thumb on the screen to freeze the frame.

It’s a stories of someone else that Sander shared. It’s too fast for Robbe to understand what’s going on but he stops when he sees Sander laughing, with sparkly eyes that are the sign that maybe he’s a little tipsy, always in a better mood after a few beers, his hair messy from what Robbe assumes to be strange fingers running through his locks and the girl finally turns back to look at whoever caught them making out, blushing with the brightest red lips and Robbe takes his finger off the screen and it’s over in the next second.

“Robbe…” Zoe is standing next to him, his mom a few steps forward waiting for them.

“Am I like the last one to know?”

Zoe presses her lips together, trying to justify not telling him about it but Robbe doesn’t really care. It’s his fault anyway. Sander has every right to move on and post it all over social media.

He shoves his phone back in his pocket and Zoe wraps her hands around his arm and forces him to start walking again, acting as nothing happened to his mom while they walk Zoe home and then go home themselves.

He tries to engage in whatever conversation his mom starts about picking which pizza they’ll eat tonight but his brain keeps replaying that quick clip over and over again even though he shouldn’t care.

Sander knows that he saw and he doesn’t text anything to Robbe, as he shouldn’t but Robbe expected him to.

He completely forgets about answering Jens and goes to bed right after eating half a pizza without noticing, turning his phone off, hoping he’ll wake up to some missed calls or texts from Sander, knowing it won’t happen.

The story is still there when Robbe wakes up the next morning. He clicks on Jens’ texts to finally answer him.

to Jens: sorry for disappearing last night, ate some pizza and passed out before I could tell you.

Thankfully, Jens is not online so Robbe won’t have to keep a conversation going when he’s still half asleep and in the worst possible mood.

He pushes himself to lie on his side, staring at the space next to him where Sander would usually sleep.

There were long months of miscommunication, frustration, and excuses because Robbe was too afraid of any change. He finally had the life he dreamed of, and two months after, Sander was moving to another country with no intention of coming back to visit every weekend. That change was big enough to paralyze him, unable to decide for himself what he wanted in their relationship. He thought they could maintain some degree of their relationship online while Robbe worked on himself but it wasn’t enough for Sander, clearly.

And Robbe couldn’t whine and beg for his attention so he kept his neediness to himself while their conversation got smaller and meaningless with time. The few things keeping them close are over now and Robbe can try to hide it all he wants but he knows it won’t be easy.

He clicks on another app that he opens frequently but this one just to look.

The airplane tickets aren’t too pricey, he just has to find one, buy and just fucking go there already! He can’t have another long semester letting the unknown eat his brain out. If he asks Sander he’ll give a too honest answer, cold without thinking about feelings because he’s hurt and he doesn’t care if Robbe gets hurt too because he brought this to them. Sander will be practical and Robbe needs him to be more considerate.

He stops scrolling when he finds a flight to Sander’s new town. His dad sent him his birthday gift in money and Robbe didn’t use much of it yet. Added with all the money his dad sends him every few weeks, it’s barely enough but it’ll work.

He buys the ticket before he can change his mind again and drops his phone on his mattress, looking forward. He has one hour to pack a bag and go to the airport. If he works fast enough he won’t have time to change his mind.

Robbe sits on his bed and grabs his school bag from the floor, unzipping it and turning it upside down on his bed to empty it, leaving the mess for him to deal with when he’s back. He doesn’t know for how long he’ll stay but it can’t be that long that he can’t fit in one bag.

If he tells anyone, as they did to him, they’ll end up telling Sander about his plans. Even Zoe would end up accidentally spilling the news to Jana and she would tell Britt. So Robbe tells Senne that he’ll need him to lie for Robbe for a few days. He needs to pretend he’s sleeping somewhere else so nobody will try to change his mind about jumping on a plane suddenly to go talk to Sander because of a social media post.

He’s the only one that won’t call him crazy or ask any questions.

When everything is planned with Senne, Robbe is finally done packing too, not giving himself even a second to look around and diggest the crazy plan he’s about to do, he’s almost late and the taxi is already downstairs, waiting for him.

He kisses his mom goodbye and quickly tells her he’s going to spend the week at Senne’s because he needs some help with Zoe. He’s out the door before giving a proper explanation or he would get caught in his lie, everything written all over his face because Robbe is that terrible of a liar.

The realization of how fucked his whole plan is only hits him when he’s already in his seat inside the airplane, high up in the sky, being offered some snacks that he declines.

He looks so desperate, jealous, and thinking sex will fix everything that he ruined. He looks and sounds hot and cold and confusing and Robbe hates the realization while he’s sitting inside an airplane, with no way out to go back home.

If he gets there and Sander is living a married life already with his blonde dream girl, Robbe will have to find a way to dig a hole and hide forever.

He sits forward, finally able to see groups of houses again down on the ground. The pilot tells them they’ll be landing soon and Robbe rushes to the bathroom before he won’t be able to. He washes his face and looks at himself in the mirror. He’s not doing a good job at hiding his nervousness.

He won’t even have time to hesitate while waiting for his bag. Everything he brought is in the compartment over his head. He only needs to get inside a cab and go to Sander’s place. In two hours or so he’ll have to deal with whatever he planned so quickly in his head.

Maybe if he asks what’s going on, it won’t feel so desperate. It’s not unfair to want to know where they stand. Even if it’s a closure that Robbe is not ready to have. He settles for asking, as calmly as he can, what’s going on between them now that there’s someone else again.

The airport is tiny and Robbe is a little bit lost, wandering without knowing where he’s supposed to go to find the taxis. Sander's address is still saved in a print Robbe took of their conversation before they started drifting apart.

Sander had moved to a better apartment that he could only afford because he was sharing with a few of his friends. Robbe remembers typing, asking why was Sander sending him that if they were barely talking to each other those days. He wanted Sander to tell him they were still okay enough but Robbe didn’t send the message, just said the place looked nice, and took a screenshot to save the address.

He asks the taxi driver if it’s a long drive and he shakes his head, looking at Robbe through the rearview, “Five minutes, not much more than that.”

Robbe sighs, trying to make some breathing exercises to prepare himself. Five minutes is not a lot of time, not enough either.

He tries to keep himself from overthinking as he jumps out of the car, putting his bag over his shoulder. The building seems very new, modern even and Robbe wonders how expensive it is to live there.

There’s a guy behind the desk when he walks in and he leads Robbe to the elevator, pressing the button for him, letting him go upstairs by himself. Robbe found a way to mumble, after giving the old man all his information, that it was a surprise so he wouldn’t call Sander. He seemed to get it, smiling and Robbe was giving the directions: on the third floor, the door on his right was Sander’s.

He fixes his hair, adjusts his bag on his shoulder, and stares at the door before knocking, hoping Sander is the one to open it, not one of his friends or the girl. He should have told him he was coming, at least Sander would have time to hide anything he might want to hide but Sander doesn’t seem unhappy to see him at his door. Robbe doesn’t remember what he had planned to say and Sander is quiet too, doesn’t look like he had much sleep time or any sleep for that matter.

He can barely open his eyes, wearing his underwear and a black shirt and Robbe doesn’t wait for another second, putting his hands on Sander’s neck, pulling him down for a heated kiss. He licks Sander’s mouth open, pushing him inside his apartment and Sander slams the door closed behind Robbe, gently taking his bag off his shoulder, finally awake enough to lead the way to a bed.

Robbe snuggles closer and carefully lies on Sander’s shoulder. He obviously changed the order of things but there’s no escaping a conversation now while they’re both wide awake, lying in bed together. Robbe wonders if Sander at least changed his sheets. He has to know what Sander is feeling but he’s so afraid of the answer.

He looks up and finds Sander already staring at him, with a hint of a smile at the corner of his lips.

“You know why I came?”

Sander lifts his eyebrows, looking elsewhere now and he sighs annoyingly.

“I’ll be surprised if I don’t.”

Robbe looks down again, at Sander’s hand casually just on his chest, like he’s waiting for Robbe to hold it like he would any other time. He doesn’t because it feels wrong yet but he walks with his fingertips over Sander’s knuckles, wanting to hold his hand, kiss him, tell Sander that there’s no way anyone else is better than them and that’s why he’s here.

“So…is this like Britt all over again?”

He knows it’s not the best way to ask if Sander still wants to be with him and just him but he can’t find another way to do it.

“No. I broke up with Britt right after our first kiss. And I’m not dating anyone right now. So it’s different.”

Robbe looks up knowing he’ll find an upset Sander, he doesn’t ask anything else to not risk his luck. He pushes himself up and looks at Sander face to face, staring at his still reddish lips, and kisses him again, leaving the rest of this painful conversation for later

#wtfock #robbe ijzermans #sander driesen #sobbe #robbe x sander #I deleted the first post accidentally ):#please don't let this flop too bad

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alpacaparkaseok · 3 years

Text

7 Secrets Drabbles

The one where Jungkook finds out

This is a Drabble/oneshot based off of my soulmate series “7 Secrets” from the point of view of Jungkook. Namjoon says that Jungkook is the one who originally found out about the soulmates, so I thought it’d be fun to show what happened exactly. Enjoy!

Genre: BTS Soulmate au

Warnings: None as far as I know

Word count: 1.7k

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youtube

Song recommendation: “Invisible String” by Taylor Swift

Tapping on the door I wait for a few seconds before peeking my head into the room. Clutching my laptop close to my chest it takes a moment before my eyes adjust to the dimly lit room.

“Oh, hey Jungkook. How’s it going?” One of the staff on the editing team greets me, shuffling around as he clicks around on his computer.

“Hey Ji-hoon. Can I borrow your computer again? My editing program crashed, and I really want to get this done.” I hold up my laptop for emphasis.

Ji-hoon’s eyes trail over to his screen, nodding absentmindedly while he no doubt gets the program up and running. “Uh, yeah. That’s fine...let me just…” He snaps his fingers when he finishes. “There you go! Just don’t go in and mess up my stuff, alright?” He teases me.

I’m quick to promise him I won’t do anything of the sort. “Are you going somewhere?” I ask as Ji-hoon grabs his jacket. He nods, edging his way toward the door.

“Yeah, meeting up with some friends for dinner. I just stayed a little later so I could get ahead on some stuff. When you’re finished just save everything and shut it down, alright?” With that, Ji-hoon disappears from sight.

I sigh, settling down into his chair. My eyes grow wide, getting into the zone as I try my best to get back to the point I was in the editing process before my program decided to kick me out.

The hours tick by, and I jump up with a shock as I glimpse the time.

“Oh no,” I groan. “Jin is going to kill me.” I was supposed to help him with our unit song tonight. He’s probably been waiting for over an hour.

Quickly, I save and am in the process of trying to send myself the edited video when something catches my eye. On the bottom right-hand corner of the computer is a sticky note. Clearly in Ji-hoon’s writing, which says, “fix opening credits for ep. 64”.

I furrow my brow. “What episode is he talking about?” It’s been a while since the 64th episode of Run! BTS. I quickly send off my edited video, leaning back in the chair and rubbing my eyes.

Editing is a kind of twisted hobby of mine. It’s exhausting, but it’s also the most calming thing in the world to me. Once I manage to sit up again I go to power of the computer. A thought pops up into my head.

“Ji-hoon seemed like he was in a rush earlier...I should probably help him fix the opening credits for episode 64 so he doesn’t have to worry about it later. That can be my thanks to him for letting me use his stuff all the time.”

Mumbling to myself has long become a habit, and it’s in moments like these that I completely forget I don’t have an audience to narrate every little thing for.

Rolling my neck and sending Jin a text apologizing for showing up late, I get to work. Jin will understand, he’d do the same.

It doesn’t take me long to bring the files back up, quickly finding the video again. I double click on it, turning the volume down low and double checking that Ji-hoon isn’t about to barge in here demanding to know what I’m doing.

The screen is black for a moment, just the words, “Insert opening credits” showing up before big bold letters spill across the screen.

Episode 64 - “Back to school” I hum in acknowledgement, we’ve certainly had plenty of school-related episodes in Run! BTS. However, when the scene that first appears is inside a kitchen that I’m sure I’ve never seen before, I’m wracking my brain, trying to place the episode.

Quickly pausing it, I pull up the calendar on my phone. If this was episode 64 of Run it would have been in… February?

“We didn’t film anything in February…” I mumble. “Was this already recorded?” I shrug, pressing play. Maybe I’ll remember it once I watch it through. Shaking off the strange feeling in my stomach that forces me to the edge of my seat, I watch with wide eyes.

“Soon-ah?” A whisper comes from the audio, although the owner of the feminine voice is nowhere to be found. “Soon-ah? I’m so sorry, did I wake you up?” Indecipherable mumbles respond. “Oh, ok. I was just wondering, could you maybe help me with the map one more time before I leave? I’m scared that I’ve got it all backwards, and I don’t want to be late for my first class because I’m lost.”

Some more grumbling and loud thumping happen before a girl appears in view. She’s chewing on her lip, clearly nervous about something. Heading toward the kitchen she reaches up for a bowl, map tucked under her arm. Looking directly into the camera she gives a cheery wave despite her obvious nerves. I’m pretty sure I’ve lost the ability to breathe. Or formulate sentences.

“You...you…” The words fall from my lips without my consent. “This is…what is this? Where - who…”

I know who that is. Even though she remains nameless to me for the moment, I know exactly who that is. The girl in the screen continues on, completely clueless to my current predicament. She’s humming to herself, pouring a bowl of cereal. I find myself leaning closer, nearly falling off my chair in the process.

“Wha- what’s the map for? Where are you going? Is there a map I can use that will lead me to you?” The questions dive off my tongue even though I know the chances of the girl before me turning back to the camera and answering them are slim to none.

“Do you want me to bring you food, Soon-ah?” The angel asks, eyes looking down the hallway. I’m pinching myself, fighting the urge to cry out and beg her to turn around again. Look at the camera. Look at me.

The girl shrugs when she receives an answer that the audio doesn’t pick up. That’s when I notice the microphone clipped to the girl’s clothes. Somehow, these girls are aware and participating in some sort of show… Why didn’t I know about this?

Wait, why am I upset about this?

It’s almost as if she hears my thoughts, because the girl is quick to turn around and remind me of exactly why I should be upset about not knowing about her existence earlier. She returns the box of cereal to where it must be resting beside the camera. Looking into the camera again as though it’s an everyday occurrence, she winks.

“I’m starting my first day at the university, so if you’re watching this Jungkook, wish me luck. I’ll do my best not to get lost,” she holds up the map to emphasize just how hard she’s trying to not get lost.

“You...this is for me? I- good luck!” Too many thoughts are rolling around my head now to really get anything straight, but there is one thought that sticks around. I breathe it out.

“I never got my results back.”

Hand running through my hair at lightning speed I gulp down as much as my lungs will allow. Suddenly the floor has disappeared from beneath me as I remember with a start going in for soulmate testing. The procedures lasted about a week, and we were told that we would be given our results within a couple of months. Counting in my head I strain to remember when that was. Definitely more than two months.

More like three years.

While we were told beforehand that most results come back as inconclusive, we were actually never told that’s what happened with our tests. I guess I just assumed as much when we never heard back about it.

But there’s this girl in a kitchen hunched over eating cereal and studying a map out with such precious concentration that I can’t help but curse myself for being so young and naive and stupid. I should have demanded an answer.

A moment passes before another girl hops into the kitchen, the two of them smiling. “Are you excited? I see you’re back to studying that map.” The new girl asks, stuffing her hands in her hoodie as she begins studying out the contents of the fridge.

It’s a BTS hoodie, that much I can see. However, when she finally turns her back to the camera I chuckle. More specifically, it’s a Suga hoodie.

“Yeah, I think so. It feels nice to take this next step instead of just…” the girl with the map; my girl, sneaks a look at the camera. My heart stutters at the indirect eye contact. “You know. Waiting.”

I jump as my phone suddenly sounds, hardly able to tear my attention away from the scene in front of me. Quickly pausing it I see Jin’s contact photo taking up the screen of my phone, and I answer it.

“Where are you?”

I don’t bother to answer his question as a sob I didn’t realize I was containing rips through me. “Hyung! H-hyung you won’t believe this.”

“Kook where are you? Is everything al-”

“Soulmates, hyung! We have soulmates! And they never told us, they’ve kept them from us, but they’re real and...and mine is going to the university and she’s so nervous and-”

“Jungkook,” Jin breathes out in wonder. “What happened? Where are you?”

I’m already a step ahead of him, quickly exporting the video and sending it to my personal email. There’s no way I’m losing this, not now that I finally know.

“I’m still at work, I’m on the bottom floor.” My voice still wavers, but it’s growing steadily harder as the fire within me threatens to set everything it touches alfame. Starting with Bang PD. “Just, wait for me, ok? Meet me in the conference room on the second floor. I have something to show you.”

I don’t even wait to hear a response before I’m up, reluctantly closing out of the computer before bolting out the door and up to the second floor. Holding my laptop close to my chest I dial another number, the tears already flowing as I hear his voice.

“Hey Kook, what’s-”

“Joon,” I croak out, the tears making my throat close up. “I need you to listen to me, this is important.”

Taglist: @taylorroe3 @mae-musicbitch @agustneeds @eusticenatalie @heartblackerthancoffee

#jungkook #jungkookdrabbles #soulmateau #jungkooksoulmateau #jin #kimseokjin #jinsoulmate #bts soulmate au #bts fanfic #btsfluff #bts imagines #bts #kook #namjoonsoulmate #rmsoulmate #drabble #btsdrabble

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concussed-to-pieces · 3 years

Text

The Mettle Of A Man; Part Four

Fandom: Fallout (4)

Pairing: Eventual Paladin Danse/Female Sole Survivor

Rating: Holy shit M.

AN: Hey there my broskis! I figured I would start backing this up over here as well, cross-posting from my AO3. The chapters got somewhat restructured, so there may be some retreaded ground. Hopefully this will also give me a bit of incentive to actually finish this tale ;-;

Enjoy!

Part One: ArcJet

Part Two: The Prydwen

Part Three: Orders

Paladin Danse, pride of the Brotherhood of Steel, found himself incredibly nervous as he watched Backhand suit up for the first time. She gave him no real reason to be, of course, climbing into her power armor with veteran grace. She had forgone their jumpsuit in favor of her Vault suit so she was short a few of the securing clips, but it was her call. She did put on a hood though, stating that she wasn’t a fan of getting chunks of her hair ripped out by the helmet.

Danse barely hid his grin at the way she shook herself all over once she was in the suit, metal clanking loudly as pieces fell into place. “What do you think, Knight Vega?” He asked cautiously.

“I think I’m gonna’ have a lot of fun with this.” Backhand sounded like she was smiling.

Proctor Ingram sighed. “Yeah yeah, just try not to fuck up your actuators. Damn kids and your Prydwen jumps.”

Danse flipped his helmet and smoothly clicked it into place in his suit’s gorget, then blinked in confusion at the HUD. “Proctor, did you change the-”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry Danse. The yellow HUD makes me queasy.” Ingram apologized. Danse sighed, bringing up the internal options screen and readjusting the HUD color back to the warm amber he preferred. “Don’t be that way, Paladin, I have to look at a million of these helmets every day.”

“What? How do you change the…oh, I got it.” Backhand paused, obviously fiddling with the HUD in her own suit. “ Purple .” She said firmly.

Danse tried to mask his chuckle by clearing his throat, but the look Ingram shot him told him the attempt was unsuccessful. “Well, uh, I think it’s about time we begin our maneuvers.” He said hurriedly.

“You two take as long as you need. Bring Brandis back safe. Backhand, remember what I told you.” Ingram said sternly, saluting the two of them.

Backhand nodded solemnly, returning the salute. “Ad Victoriam, Proctor Ingram.” Danse saluted as well, curious about Ingram's mysterious statement.

Maxson hadn’t cleared them for vertibird transport to a general location. Danse could see why to an extent, the elder probably needed all the aerial support he could get while they sent out scouts to find more clues about the Institute. The reason Maxson had given was...still logical, but a little different.

“ With you on foot, there will be less warning for Brandis. ” Arthur had said in his briefing, arms behind his back as always. “ If he is alive, we don’t know what shape he’ll be in mentally. Use extreme caution. If you fear for your lives, do not hesitate to kill him .” He glared at Danse when he said that and Danse had swallowed hard.

Do not hesitate. Do not hesitate like you did with Cutler, Paladin.

Danse let Backhand set a pace she was comfortable with once they were on the ground and he followed her lead, the paladin silent as they marched. His thoughts churned and roiled, scratching to escape his head in a frenzy of uncertainty. He almost didn’t notice Backhand skipping , aside from how ridiculously loud her sabatons were on the remains of the road. “Knight Vega, what on earth .”

“ Finally! I’ve been trying to ask you something for five minutes. Figured I would opt for a different approach.” She laughed, knuckling his shoulder with her gauntlet. “After we find Paladin Brandis, I have-”

“ If we find Paladin Brandis.” Danse corrected her grimly.

Backhand paused, tilting her head to the side. “Sir?”

“I said, if we find Brandis. There’s no guarantee that he’s alive after all this time. It’s entirely possible that we’re simply on a remains retrieval detail.” Danse warned her.

Backhand shook her head after a moment. “Paladin, you really think I don’t know that? Damn.” She grumbled. “You’d rather find him alive, right? That’s the hope?” Danse nodded reluctantly. Brandis was an incredibly skilled survivalist, a respected squadron leader and free thinker of the highest caliber. He would be a phenomenal asset to the Brotherhood if…

If he was still alive.

“I apologize for my pessimistic outlook.” Danse said after a moment. “I have not had…exceptional luck when it comes to search and rescue details.”

“Hey, first time for everything.” He was almost positive that she was grinning at him under her helmet. “You’ve got me here. You can't say the homeland doesn't take care of their own; I’m practically the embodiment of a four-leaf clover.”

“We can hope.” Danse murmured, half to himself. “You certainly came through previously.”

“Maybe I’m your good luck charm.”

The notion that he had outlived his men because of luck left a bitter taste in Danse’s mouth and he fell silent once more. She at least seemed to understand not to poke him and simply carried on down the road at an easily-managed pace.

Danse couldn’t decide whether he personally wanted to find Brandis or not. On the one hand, of course he was a valuable asset. But on the other, Brandis had a penchant for… noticing things. Arthur had butted heads with the older man numerous times, usually over what Maxson labeled ‘ trivial issues ’.

And Danse still hadn’t forgotten the nasty rumors he’d heard about the real reason for Recon Squadron Artemis being sent to scout the Commonwealth…

“ Brandis overreaches, connects well with young recruits. The elder fears his influence. ”

“ Brandis was sent to die and you know it! ”

The atmosphere in the barracks had turned ugly fast when Arthur had dropped the tidbit that the Brotherhood lost contact with Squadron Artemis almost immediately upon their arrival in the Commonwealth.

Aspirants got into shouting matches; several scuffles broke out. Danse ended up wading through the midst of a pitched fistfight, throwing one knight over his shoulder and pinning the other beneath his arm momentarily.

“ This is behavior unbecoming of a soldier, knights! ” He had shouted over the ruckus. “ Stop the childish antics, use your brains and think! ” His voice carried in the cramped bunk room, and due to his massive height he was easily visible through the swirling hurricane of young men and women. “ Paladin Brandis would be ashamed of every one of you for losing sight of what is truly important in the Brotherhood! Your brothers and sisters are all you have in the world, you cannot set into them at the first sign of trouble! ”

“ Elder Maxson wanted Paladin Brandis to die! ” One brave scribe cried. “ That’s why he sent him! ”

“ He is the elder and you will show him the respect he deserves! ” Danse admonished the young man. “ I will not tolerate this insubordination! ”

“ You’re only on his side because you’re fucking him! ” The knight over his shoulder yelled furiously, beating his fists against Danse’s shoulder blade.

The entirety of the barracks went dead quiet and Danse was certain his face must have been an ungodly shade of purple from his insinuation. “ What did you just say, Knight? ”

The young man slowed to a stop, and then suddenly burst into tears. Danse set him down on his feet and the knight stood in front of him, his shoulders hunched. “ I ap-pologize, Palad-d-din Danse sir. ” He had hiccupped, saluting him without looking up.

“ Knight, you cannot lash out with harsh words or actions just because something isn’t going your way. ” Danse had known he was letting him off too easy, but the young knight was still weeping. “ You will go to Knight-Captain Cade in the morning. He is…far better at managing situations like these than I am. I fear I will do nothing but cause more damage. ”

“ Paladin Danse, have they told you anything about Paladin Brandis? Anything at all? ” A tiny squire had piped up from the door, her hair already braided for sleep.

Danse shook his head regretfully. “ All I know is what you’ve already been told. I have no other information at this time .”

“ Will…will you tell us if you learn anything new? ” She had continued hesitantly, glancing up at the aspirant holding her hand for confirmation. Murmuring rippled through the crowd, all eyes on Danse as he stood there silent, stoic. The knight's words echoed in his mind over and over, on his side, on his side...

“ You have my word as a Brotherhood paladin, Squire .”

It had been a simple thing to promise then. Almost negligibly simple. Danse shook his head, trying to disperse the memories. This rumination would get him nowhere. Thank goodness he had Knight Vega with him, at least she could keep an eye out for threats while he wandered down his proverbial Memory Lane.

Speaking of Knight Vega…

Danse swung his head around, perplexed. She had just been here, it wasn’t exactly like she could sneak in all that plating. He spotted her finally as he came over the next rise in the road. She appeared to be speaking to a civilian, the ragged-looking man gesturing wildly off to the side.

“…idea how many of them there are in the facility?” Backhand was asking.

“Usually we only see three to five, b-but sometimes there’s loads more! Hounds too! Please, General, if you can spare the men, we really need your help.” The man begged.

General? Danse thought with confusion. Why is he calling her General?

“Currently, we’re focusing our efforts on rebuilding Fort Independence…er, I mean, the Castle. We have mobile cells but they are few and far between. I will send word that-” Backhand was cut off by the man shaking his head rapidly.

“I knew it, I knew you would refuse! That’s how it always is! Say anything about super mutants and everyone pusses out!” The man shook his fist in Backhand’s impassive face. “I had hoped that you of all people would be able to help us, but I guess I was wrong.” He spat, “should have known better than to trust things would be alright with your group back on the playing field.”

Danse had heard enough, practically stomping down the road towards the man yelling at his charge. “Civilian, I suggest you watch your tone.” He uttered the words curtly, his eyes narrowed behind his visor.

The man huffed out a breath at him, obviously unimpressed. “So you have a bodyguard now, General?”

“Hardly.” Backhand replied dryly.

Danse got the feeling he had just been insulted, but he brushed it off. “Where is the nest of vermin?” He queried instead, making a considerable effort to try and keep his tone neutral. “You mentioned super mutants.”

“They’re in Weston. The pre-war water treatment plant. Are… you’re going to help?” The man asked uncertainly.

“There are other, more important matters that currently take priority, civilian. When we have the time, we will investigate. Now I would advise you to be on your way before I have to assist you in making the choice of departure.” Danse ordered, his laser rifle not quite at the ready, but high enough that to the untrained eye it would look like he was poised to strike.

The man grumbled something under his breath and then announced, “I'd better see you later, General. Oberland would be a good spot to spiff up, y'know, but it's so close to Weston no one will touch it.”

“Thank you, Rob. Hey, tell your wife I said hello. I hope your little one is doing well.” Backhand's face had gone strangely soft.

For some reason, the man's shoulders relaxed. “She is, she's doing really good. Her mom is teachin' her everything that she knows. She's wicked smart for her age.” He bragged.

“No doubt there. Take care of yourself, and tell people to steer clear until we can get to Weston.” Backhand gave the man a nod in reply to the tip of his hat. “Thanks for helping.” She said out of the corner of her mouth to Danse, who straightened up.

“I don’t recall doing anything helpful, Knight Vega.” He was startled when she knocked her pauldron against his own in a playful gesture.

“Rob loves to puff himself up and talk about how no one’s ever done anything for him ever. It’s harmless, but he’ll drag on for ages unless you nip it in the bud.” She grinned at him. “Thanks for going on the offensive and heading him off at the pass. Lots of people are like him out here. When the Minutemen disbanded, it meant that the simple people had to take the full load of raider assaults and super mutant attacks. Still plenty of distrust for me and my crew.”

“Your ‘crew’?” Danse echoed, thoroughly confused. Why did he call her General? What is she talking about?

Backhand just nodded, putting her helmet back on. “You want to take point? You were kind of spacing out back there, Paladin. Might help you get centered. Run down the list of objectives?” She suggested.

“I must be worse than I thought if you noticed my thousand-yard stare.” Danse realized it was a sarcastic quip the second after the words left his mouth, and he felt horribly awkward.

That is, until there was an undignified guffaw from the knight. She clunked her whole forearm against his own in a makeshift nudge, still snickering. “How incredibly rude of you, Paladin! I’ve got bad eyesight, but it’s still there. Kinda’. Didn’t need twenty-twenty to see that you were deep in thought.”

“Knight Vega, I appreciate your attention to detail. And…” Danse hesitated, biting his lip. “And thank you for… humoring my wandering mind.”

“I’m not humoring anything. You’ve been through a lot recently and you’ve had no breathing room at all. You’re allowed to have time to process.” When she put it like that ...

Danse made a noise of acknowledgement. Backhand cleared her throat, stepping aside and letting him go ahead of her.

…

Do me a favor and try to limit his time on board this rustbucket, okay? I don't know what's going on and it's not my place to ask. But Danse is a good man and he shouldn't be getting jerked around, Elder or no.

Ingram's words spurred Backhand to speak up. “Paladin Danse, sir?” When he turned to face her, she wished that he wasn’t wearing his helmet. “Sir, I meant what I said before.”

“What?”

“When I said I was available if you needed someone to talk to. I’m serious. It’ll all be off the record, just between us. The only person I report to is you.” Backhand said firmly.

“And the elder.” Danse reminded her, his voice soft.

“Nope.” Backhand grinned, trying to lighten his obviously bleak mood. “Just you. You might answer to the elder, but I don’t.”

“That’s tantamount to treason, Knight.”

“He’s not a sovereign , for--”

“Elder Maxson’s orders are law in this chapter of the Brotherhood, Knight Vega.” Danse sounded like he was repeating the words from memory, clearly used to defending the young elder. “I suggest you cease your needlessly-flippant flouting of Brotherhood practices.”

Backhand knew she was on thin ice. “Of course, sir. I apologize. Forgive me my misstep.” She saluted loosely. “My previous military experiences were a little more lax. When out on patrol we spoke to each other and our superiors as equals. It was common to poke fun at the higher-ups, as well.”

“I wouldn’t begrudge you a joke or two, but not at the expense of the elder.” Danse replied tersely. “He works exceptionally hard to keep everything in line and running smoothly. I will not tolerate any disrespect towards him.”

“Understood, Paladin.” Her suspicion only thickened at Danse’s rebuke. What is Maxson doing to him? Normally, soldiers gleefully took the opportunity to joke about their superiors. But Danse was acting like it was a cardinal sin to so much as tease about the young elder. No wonder Ingram had told her to take her time. Danse was obviously kept on an incredibly short leash. The longer he was away from Maxson, the better.

They continued down the road in silence for nearly an hour before Danse finally sighed heavily. “Knight Vega, I must apologize again. You were not raised in the Brotherhood, it’s not as if you would know any better. My shortness of temper is unrelated to you.”

“It’s okay. You’re worried about Brandis, right?” Backhand asked. “A little scared, a little hopeful?”

“For being a relic of a bygone age, you are remarkably perceptive.” Backhand sputtered a little at being called a relic but Danse carried on gravely, “I am concerned about the state Brandis may be in when we reach him. If he is mentally compromised…dealing with a man who was Brotherhood but has lost his senses is not a task I take lightly.” He turned to her. “The younger recruits love Brandis. He was a father figure to a multitude of them.”

“You promised them you would bring him back.” She realized. Danse didn’t reply immediately, instead focusing his attention to the road in front of them.

“I could not feasibly promise anything.” He muttered, quiet enough that she was unsure if she was supposed to hear him. “It was not within my power to promise.”

“But you did anyway. On that slim hope that Brandis was alive and in one piece.” Backhand’s heart ached as she thought of the paladin trying to decide what to tell a group of young recruits, a group of kids .

“…Yes, Knight. I did.” Danse admitted after a long pause. “My motivations are irrelevant. I lied to children, because I…I cannot see the little ones as soldiers. They begged for news of Brandis and I had nothing to offer them except my word as a paladin.”

“That’s okay.” Backhand said simply. “We’re going to find him.”

“I suppose we are.” Danse sounded a little surprised. His shoulders straightened up. “One way or another.”

The asphalt had dissolved into nothing a mile back, leaving the two of them to continue trekking through the wilderness on the remains of the flattened earth that was once a road. Backhand was used to the booby-trapped state of everything at this point, so she didn’t even bat an eyelash when she heard the warning beep of a landmine.

Danse on the other hand stopped dead, helmet swinging rapidly back and forth as he tried to locate the mine before it went off. “Wait, Knight Vega-!” He began as she knelt, trailing off when he realized that she had deactivated the landmine. “Oh.”

“Impromptu bomb squad.” Backhand replied by way of explanation, tucking the salvaged mine into her satchel. “I got pretty good at working in gauntlets.”

His worry was touching all the same, the paladin letting out an awkward chuckle. “Hell, maybe you are lucky.” He shifted his weight nervously, pauldrons clattering in the relative stillness. “I should have known better than to think Brandis would make it easy. There’s a reason that old codger lived through everything.”

“You can either think I'm lucky, or you can just attribute it to the Sarge's bandanna like I usually do.” Backhand grinned, flexing her fingers experimentally. “Keep your eyes open for more and point them out if you see ‘em. These gauntlets are way better than the ones in my old suit. The mines won’t know what hit them.”

“Affirmative, Knight Vega.”

With both of them on guard, their progress was slowed somewhat. But they found three more mines thanks to their diligence, and Backhand carefully deactivated every one before the timer ran out. She was so focused on scanning the ground that she almost walked into Danse’s back when the paladin stopped in the middle of the path. “Danse?” Inwardly, she cursed herself for not addressing him properly.

Danse didn’t even seem to notice though, his attention fixed on a bunker built into the side of the shallow valley they were in. “Recon bunker Theta…of course .” He hissed like he was talking to himself. “How could I have forgotten?”

“Is this the place?” Backhand asked, peering over his shoulder warily. The armored man nodded, already striding towards the door of the bunker.

“It must be.”

…

There was a terminal affixed to the outer concrete of the building and the paladin wasted little time painstakingly manipulating his huge gauntlets to press the correct keys on the keyboard. There was a loud clunk! when the lock on the door disengaged, but the door itself remained shut tight. Danse swore under his breath, firmly rapping his knuckles on the metal door. “Paladin Brandis!” He called. “Can you hear me, sir?”

“Paladin Danse? Are you sure you should-” Backhand started to ask, sounding nervous.

“ Quiet , Vega.” Danse ordered brusquely. To her credit, she immediately fell silent. He could still hear her shifting back and forth behind him though, and he wondered what on earth could have her so antsy. Surely it couldn’t be that she was worried about what Brandis might do? “ Paladin Brandis! If you’re in there-”

“Uh, D-Danse, I don’t think you should be so loud.”

“Vega, he will not hear me otherwise.” Danse, losing his limited patience, hammered his fist on the door. “ Brandis! ”

He heard a flurry of motion behind the door. “Who’s out there? How did you get that keycode? Never mind, never mind, just go away! I’m not letting you in here!”

Danse’s throat tightened at the elderly officer’s voice. “Paladin Brandis, sir! It’s me, Pal--"

In his distress over finding Brandis, Danse had forgotten to be wary of his surroundings. Heavy footsteps shook the ground and Backhand’s cry of surprise was the only warning he had, the paladin halfway through turning around when he was thrown against the door of the bunker by a thunderous blow from a behemoth’s improvised club. His shoulder protested violently at the rough treatment but Danse shrugged off the pain. He was so used to getting pummeled by the inside of his armor, he practically anticipated the bruises. He raised his head and got a good eyeful of the ugly brute inches from his face.

Suddenly he couldn’t breathe. There was a dull roaring in his ears, static pounding at his temples like a hammer while he stared at the creature and it stared right through him. Bloody spittle foamed around its mouth, eyes wide and pupils nothing but pinpricks. Nostrils flared to take in his scent.

This thing was once human . Danse felt sick to his stomach.

“ Paladin! ” Backhand yelled, firing a glancing shot off the beast’s shoulder that made it rear back. She was giving him time again, Danse realized dimly, his body refusing to cooperate as he remembered Dawes’ horrific death at the hands of a super mutant, remembered Cutler, Cutler like a punch to the face. And this mutant was a behemoth .

His laser rifle, unnamed as of yet, shook in one slack, trembling hand.

Backhand flanked the massive creature to end up back at his side, her pauldron clanking into his own. “Paladin!” She barked and Danse instantly straightened up, his grip snapping tight on his gun.

“Ma’am!”

“Attack the enemy, soldier!” She sounded almost like Krieg, all righteous authority and fury inches from detonation.

An order, an order. Danse felt his body refocus on the here and now, banishing the horrific images of Dawes’ demise for later contemplation. “Yes ma’am!” He replied automatically, pulling the trigger and spraying laser shots into the behemoth’s massive chest. Backhand slung Righteous Authority back out of the way to dangle from its strap, her shotgun in her hands now. Danse was so used to the comparatively quiet report of laser weaponry that he actually flinched when she fired the shotgun. The drum-fed gun bolted to life at her touch, heavy slugs making the behemoth pause.

“ Eat hot lead, freak! ” Backhand shouted over the weapon, her words punctuating her shots. Danse got the feeling that pairing her with a Fat Man would make her nigh unstoppable.

Behind him, he heard something swing open. The door to the bunker! Brandis! “Knight Vega, maintain this position!” He demanded, not bothering to look back.

“A paladin…?” Brandis’ voice had an unfamiliar tremor in it.

“ Now , Vega!” Danse snapped.

“Sir, yes sir!” Backhand replied quickly, sliding into place where he had been a second ago. Her power armor frame filled the doorway as well as his had, and Danse brandished his rifle. The behemoth brayed deafeningly loud, seeming perturbed that its prey refused to cooperate.

“Not today, you giant freak!” Danse announced firmly.

…

Backhand had barely caught a glimpse of a worn face with an unkempt beard peering around the side of the doorway before she moved herself in front of the opening. She braced her shotgun against her plating and continued to hammer away at the behemoth, shell after shell ripping the creature’s thick hide.

Danse kept up his own attack, a seemingly endless stream of mutant-related verbal abuse pouring from him in time with his laser shots. Backhand almost wished she could hear him clearer, certain that he was swearing a blue streak that could put Sergeant Cathan to shame.

That club swept low, knocked Danse’s legs out from beneath him. The paladin landed on his back with a grunt of pain and the behemoth (in a surprising show of intelligence) picked up one of the nearby boulders and dropped it onto Danse’s chest. Danse gritted out an infuriated curse and started struggling to lift the boulder, actuators in his armor shrieking under the strain when the behemoth started pushing down on the rock. Clearly it was either trying to crack Danse’s armor or crush the paladin inside it.

“Shut the door.” Backhand said calmly. There was the sound of fidgeting behind her. “It’s going to be alright. Just shut the door.”

At the loud clunk! of the door closing, the behemoth looked up from Danse. Backhand barely had a moment to inhale before she was snatched up by a massive hand, the creature roaring triumphantly.

“Knight Vega!” Danse shouted, the paladin still trying to shift the massive rock enough to get free.

Backhand squirmed desperately in the beast’s grip, arms pinned to her sides and her shotgun pointed towards the ground. Well kid, you gave it a good try . She pumped her trigger out of desperation, not sure if she even had any shells left, and blew a hole through the behemoth’s foot. The gargantuan mutant howled in pain, flinging her through the air when it toppled over. She hit the ground hard enough to lose consciousness briefly, her head slamming against the inside of the helmet.

When she blinked her eyes open again, all she could see was a power armor sabaton inches from her face. There was a muffled report to her right and super mutant skull fragments and brain tissue abruptly sprayed across her helmet visor. “ Tango down .” Danse snarled.

“Jesus.” Backhand muttered, her gauntlet clanking loudly against her helmet. “What a hit.”

“Are you injured, Knight?” Danse sounded like his teeth were clenched.

“Blacked out for a second is all. You alright?”

“That’s irrelevant. We need to see to Paladin Brandis.” Danse said sharply.

“It’s been so long since I’ve heard my name.” Said a quivering voice. “I imagine I’m hallucinating at this point. Going mad from seclusion.”

“It’s Danse, sir, Paladin Danse. Don’t you recognize me?” Danse asked, and Backhand was sure she wasn’t supposed to hear the uncertainty in his tone.

Danse pulled her to her feet and she took in the sight of the elderly man in badly-worn combat armor across from them. He was studying Danse hard, his eyes widening when Danse unfastened his helmet and took it off. “ Danse? You…is it really you?” Brandis asked, his voice still shaking. “Oh my God, is it true?”

“It’s me, sir.” Danse replied stiffly. “Knight Vega and I were tasked with reacquiring you. Elder Maxson-”

“Maxson? It’s his fault that I’m even…my squadron…” Brandis’ words grew disjointed, choked with emotion.

“ The elder believes that you are still a valuable asset to the war effort, Paladin Brandis.” If Danse had been stiff before, he was outright stony now.

Brandis, entertainingly, waved off Danse’s chastising attitude. “Yes yes, praise be to the elder. I suppose it’s you two that I ought to be thanking, though. After all, you’re the ones who risked life and limb to come find me.”

“It was Knight Vega’s first assignment as a member of the Brotherhood. She was honored beyond measure.”

“I don’t suppose she can talk , can she?” Brandis asked dryly. Backhand decided that she liked Brandis. “Why all this trouble for me, though? And so suddenly? I’ve been sending distress signals for years , Danse.”

“It was only through sheer luck and our acquisition of Knight Vega’s skillset that we even managed to signal the Brotherhood for support.” Danse replied curtly. “Over half of Recon Squad Gladius is dead, their lives claimed in the line of duty. Much like your own squadron.”

“Oh, Danse.” Brandis said helplessly. “It’s such a heavy burden to carry. Their lives…and Astlin , I know you were so fond of her.”

“She was a good soldier. Best marksman I ever knew.” Danse gritted out.

“I’ll bet she was an even better friend.” Backhand said tentatively.

“She died with honor.”

“I don’t doubt it.” What the hell was going on? Danse sounded livid , the set of his shoulders visibly tense even through the power armor. A muscle ticked in his jaw.

“Danse, what does the Brotherhood even expect to get out of me? I’m too old, I’ve…I’ve been away for too long.” Brandis floundered.

“Elder Max-”

“ Fuck Arthur, Danse!” Brandis exploded. “I’m asking you . What do you believe that the Brotherhood can get out of me?”

“Intimate knowledge of the Commonwealth.” Danse snapped. “You’re a survivor, Brandis, and your skills could be indispensable to our troops.”

“There’s nothing I could teach that the locals couldn’t Danse, you and Maxson know that.”

“Yes, and you’re not a filthy local. You’re Brotherhood.”

“Am I?” Brandis mused, glancing towards Backhand. “And I’ll assume that Knight Vega is one of the so-called ‘ filthy locals ’?”

Danse paused, his hand still up in the air in the beginning of an irritated gesture. Backhand barely kept her snort in check. “Knight Vega is a…special case.” He said finally.

“Typical Brotherhood. You’re filthy, you’re garbage, you’re nothing . And then, you’re a special case if you’re useful. Sound familiar, Danse?” Brandis grumbled. “Sleep with one eye open, Vega. Maxson is a little boy in a much larger man’s battle coat.”

“Paladin!” Danse barked. “There is no need for this insubordinate behavior in front of my ward!”

Brandis drew himself up to his full height (which, next to Danse in full armor, wasn’t exactly intimidating ) and jabbed his index finger into the larger paladin’s breastplate. “Don’t you dare speak to me about insubordination, Danse.” He hissed, his green eyes snapping with fury. “My squadron is dead because of Arthur and you still want to play Lancelot?”

“The Brotherhood will honor their memory.” Danse intoned dully.

“I’ll honor your memory if you keep this up, you damn fool.” Brandis growled. “No, no , I won’t go back to that madman. Better that I stay in isolation.”

“I’m relatively certain that you staying here isn’t an option.” Backhand interjected. “Look, if the elder is as tricky as you say, he’s not going to let you live out your days in peace. You’re Brotherhood, or you were once, and you know too much. It was the same with the army.” Danse looked horrified and Backhand hurried to finish, sure that her opening wouldn’t last. “You should be as close to him as possible, if anything. Make it more difficult for him to do something shady by keeping an eye on him.”

“Knight Vega! ” Danse sputtered indignantly.

But Brandis was nodding his head, looking intently at her. “Take that helmet off, Vega. I make it a point to know my allies.”

“Yes sir.” Backhand undid the helm and pulled it over her head, tucking it under her arm as an afterthought. “It’s an honor to meet you, sir.”

“You’re bleeding, Knight Vega.” Brandis pointed out after she saluted him and Danse fairly pounced on her, a huge finger looped through the pauldron on her shoulder jerking her around to face him. His gauntlet grazed her temple and she winced, grimacing when the metal returned brick-red.

“Just a scrape. I’ll be fine.” She insisted.

“I’m certain you will, Knight. How long have you been in Danse’s care?” Brandis asked genteelly.

“Ah, about t…two, three days?” Backhand answered cautiously.

“But Danse said that-”

“Knight Vega did not immediately accept the offer. I imagine that our ranks did not strike her as particularly impressive.” Danse cut Brandis off, his tone incredibly bitter.

“It wasn’t that. I had other obligations to deal with.” Backhand corrected him, trying to be gentle. “You guys were in a worse situation than most, but my responsibilities took me elsewhere.”

“True, I did not…I apologize, Knight Vega. That was unnecessarily harsh of me.” Danse admitted after a second.

“Be still my heart. You got him to apologize! Never thought I’d see the day.” Brandis said with a hint of faked bewilderment. Backhand decided to keep the fact that Danse had apologized to her three times in the same day to herself. “Alright Danse, I’ll return to that rustbucket . But only because Knight Vega makes an excellent point.”

“Shall I signal us a vertibird?” Danse asked, his hands clenched tightly at his sides.

“ Ha! And let Maxson get the drop on me? No, no, it’ll be better for me to show up on foot, alone. Provided you two have been discreet, this place will still serve its purpose as a fallback point. I’ll meander for a few days and then make my way…hmm.” Brandis’ eyes rested on Backhand.

“Can I loan you my suit for your journey if you won’t accept an escort?” Backhand offered, following his train of thought. “My combat armor is functional and on standby. May I loan him my power armor, Paladin Danse sir?” She knew she was spreading it on thick, but Danse was obviously a stickler for protocol. “He is a senior ranking officer, and I…I mean if I’m with you, I’m sure it’ll be fine.” It couldn’t hurt to flatter him a bit.

Danse’s face pinked up endearingly and he cleared his throat. “I don’t see why not. If you hope to arrive safely Brandis, this is the least we can do. I would prefer, of course, to accompany you sir. But it’s your decision.”

“How gracious of you to permit an old man his preferences.” Brandis replied dryly. Backhand couldn’t stifle her hiccup of laughter and Danse ‘ harrumph ’ed, obviously embarrassed by her behavior.

“Knight Vega and I will busy ourselves with other tasks in the Commonwealth until you make your return to the Brotherhood, Paladin.” Danse said sternly. “You realize that my knight cannot return without her armor and empty-handed.”

“Understood, Danse.”

Backhand fought the excited leap in her chest at the way Danse referred to her as ‘his’ knight, choosing instead to extract herself from her power armor and start strapping on her heavy combat gear. It’s only because he’s sponsoring you. Don’t be ridiculous , she scolded herself while she donned her breastplate and greaves.

“My thanks, Knight Vega. When you return, I’ll see that your armor is waiting in the bay for you.” Paladin Brandis promised, a heavy hand landing on her shoulder. “As well as a frazzled Maxson, if I play my cards right.” The old man grinned, his eyes still sad. “You two can help yourselves to anything in the bunker. I’ve collected some odds and ends over the years, so if you see something you need it’s yours.”

“Much obliged, sir.” Backhand said gratefully, struggling to recall what Preston had asked her to pick up in her travels. Well, we can always use more aluminum ...

Part Five

#fallout 4 #fallout four #paladin danse #paladin danse x sole survivor #paladin danse/sole survivor #paladin danse x f!sole #fallout #bethesda #video games #BOS #brotherhood of steel #enjoy!

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tellerford13 · 3 years

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MO ASTOR- CHAPTER 36

We don’t own the bikes, brothers, or any “related” Sons of Anarchy, trust us, if we did we wouldn’t have the time to write. No money is being made from our stories. So, please don’t sue. It’d be a fruitless endeavor indeed. That being said, Harley, Journee, and any other newbies are ours, and we don’t share. :Whispers in creepy voice: “My precious.” The universe This reality is a mix of cannon, and our own ideas. We strive to keep the boys cannon, but since we will be shifting around some of the events, that will reflect in our writing and their personalities as well. It’s our goal to provide you with quality fiction, and solid, fleshed out OFC. We appreciate constructive criticism and love LOVE reviews, they are a writers life blood and definitely help encourage us and inspire us. A/N: Oh My God We’re Back Again. It’s been a long time, but we never lost our love for Mo Astor. We’ve been plotting, and writing, and editing behind the scenes. We’re back to posting once a week. Thank you to all the readers who’ve left comments, favorited, and waited patiently. Grab a drink, sit back, and get ready to become lost in the world we’ve created.

Mo Astor Chapter 36

Jax

It’s been a long time since it was just me and my baby sister. I’m looking forward to the one-on-one, though I’d never admit it out loud. She’s been my rock through some hard times.

I imagine she’d say the same for me. When life around you is constantly shifting, you look to each other to remain stable. That’s something most don’t understand. That bond you have with someone who holds you down through all the bullshit is lifelong. It doesn’t break when you do jail time, have a difference of opinions, or get busy with life. So yeah, I guess civilians right, we ain’t like them.

“Morning,” I call as I walk into the house and disarm and reset the alarm.

“You’re making me regret giving you a key.” I follow her voice into the kitchen.

“You love it when I visit,” I retort.

“Did you tell the incubator I’m coming with you?” She asks cutting straight to the point.

I snicker. “Believe it or not, she prefers you.”

Journee scowls.

“Proves how fucking stupid she is,” she mutters.

“Jesus, Baby J. hold a grudge much?”

“Pot meet kettle. Mr. Let’s measure our dicks with Kick.” She finishes rinsing off her dishes, and piles them into the dishwasher.

“That was setting boundaries.”

“Riiight. Whatever you need to help you sleep at night. At least I own my crazy ass tendencies.” She pouts.

“’Cause that’s better?” I lean against the counter beside her.

“Oh, yeah bro. Always best to know yourself.” She winks

“You’re full of shit.”

“Guess that’s why my eyes are brown, huh? Wait that can’t be true. Cause your eyes are sky blue, J.”

“You’re supposed to be coming along for moral support,” I reminder her wryly.

“I am.” She pats my cheek as we head out of her house towards my bike. “I’m breaking you down to build you up stronger.”

“That’s some fucked up Gemma logic.” I mutter.

“She did raise us to be like her.”

“You say that with a straight face and it becomes a scary story.” She laughs.

“I know.”

“Such a little shit.” I’m smiling as I say it. Like a true little sister, no one can get away with more bullshit than her, and she knows it. It reminds me of the year she and Tommy were as thick as thieves. He was a lot like her in many ways—more soft spoken and thoughtful. As an only kid she had a crazy patience for him, reading him books, and letting him trail along beside her.

Part of me wondered if they’d have ended up together if things were different and she’d be a Teller for another reason. Especially with how things ended up for me and Lee.

I push the thought out of my mind. What if’s did nothing but drive you crazy.

“So, what exactly did I agree to go to anyway?” she asks.

“Don’t you think you should’ve asked that beforehand?” I tease.

She shakes her head. “You know I’m your ride or die.”

“I do. Basic check-up, and then lunch. I get the feeling she’s got some new man.”

She whistles. “Damn that fast?”

“Hey. If it keeps her from dicking with me and Lee, and doesn’t affect my boy, let her be happy.”

“All kidding aside.” She shuts the door to the dishwasher and turns to me. “ I’m proud of you, big brother. You’ve come a long way.”

My neck grows hot. “We both know Lee had a lot to do with that.”

“Your, opening your eyes and seeing what was in front of you did that. You and Lee were always just a matter of when not if.” She starts the wash cycle.

“So sure.” I roll my eyes.

“I could see it. Over the years you got so close, but something always kept you from clicking.” “Deep down I knew in order to keep her I’d have to get my shit together, and I wasn’t ready to do that. So I stayed back ‘cause fucking things up between us wasn’t an option, you know?”

“Things came out the way they were meant to.”

“You really think that?” I glance into her soft brown eyes, and she gives me that Madonna smile that makes me feel like everything is going to be alright. I can always be real with my sister because I know she’s going to give me the truth. Wither I want it or not.

“I do.” She reaches over and places her hand on mine. “You both had some work to do before you could commit to forever.”

“You think I have it in me? Forever and kids and all that?” I ask cautiously. So far, I’m screwing up the baby thing with my first born. It’s scary thinking of another person depending on me, let alone a child. It changes everything, and our life is unpredictable.

“You are your father’s son. Is there even a doubt?”

“Naw.” I lie, trying to fake it till I make it like I always do.

“Didn’t think so. You’re paying for lunch right? ‘Cause I’m starving.”

I laugh.

“You about to try to put a hurting on my wallet?” I hand her my spare helmet before climbing on my bike.

“Better than putting a hurting on your ex.” She says with a shrug, clipping the helmet on.

I chuckle, pulling my helmet on.

“You have a valid point. Damn you are our mothers’ child.”

She blows a raspberry, before mounting my bike. Little sis knows since she’s doing me a favor, she has the upper hand—and she’s going to milk that shit for all it’s worth. It’s the Teller way.

~~~~~~~ I’m pleasantly surprised and slightly bewildered by the manicured lawn and uncluttered space by the garage. The large black garbage cans are lined up neatly by the curb on the street.

Pulling into the driveway, I remove my helmet and pause to take in the freakish cleanliness it’s lacked in prior visits. This is above and beyond the duties we assigned the prospect keeping tabs on Wendy’s house.

“Well. This is different,” Journee whispers.

“Yeah.” I frown and turn to look over my shoulder.

“Maybe Ma sent over multiple prospects to tidy up.”

“Nu-uh.” Journee shakes her head.

“She said this was your mess to handle.” I purse my lips. “Which means it’s up to me to help you out with the pile of shit you’ve landed in.” Journee sighs.

“I feel the love.”

Journee shrugs. “I’m only speaking the truth big bro. You choose poorly for your first baby Mama. I told you how I felt about her long before you decided to give her your crow.”

I scowl. “No need to rub it in.”

“I’m just reminding you to listen to me. Sometimes I know things.” She flicks my ear and climbs off the back of my bike gracefully.

“Let’s get this torture session over, please.”

“You think it’s bad for you? I got eighteen years of this bare minimum.”

Storing our helmets in my saddlebags, I wrap an arm around her shoulders. “Come on, be my buffer.”

“I should let you go up in flames,” She mutters.

“That’s not sisterly,” I say with a grin.

“Jaxass.” She mutters.

We climb the steps, and the door swings open to reveal Wendy before we can even knock. My jaw drops at her appearance. I glance over to find Journee equally shocked.

She looks like a fucking Stepford wife in a pale-yellow sundress complete with a flared skirt and heels. Last time she dressed like this a waffle iron came flying at my head.

“Jackson. Cat got your tongue?” Wendy smirks.

Journee growls. “Aaaah, the little cocoa sidekick.”

“You know it only takes nine months to bake a baby, and you’ve got what...” Journee taps a finger against her cheek. “Less than three months left?”

“Nice to know you can count,” Wendy sneers.

This is a new woman in front of me. I’m glad that she’s gotten the idea of us getting back together to be a family out of her head, but this one-eighty makes me uneasy.

I scan her body, and notice the thick strips of white medical tape over her entire right forearm.

They stand out against her nineteen-fifties get up.

“The fuck.” I grab her arm. “What are you hiding?”

“Your mark. Which meant nothing.” She spits, tugging her arm away.

“Let me see.”

“Fuck you, Jackson.”

Journee moves forward, blocking the doorframe with her body to keep me from dragging the smart-mouthed bitch out.

“I swear to God. If you’re using again.” My breath quickens, and my visions tints red as rage builds up inside me like an inferno about to blaze out of control.

“You can take it off on your own. Or I can make you,” Journee says softly.

“One of these days, someone is going to put you in your fucking place. You don’t even belong here,” Wendy growls.

Journee climbs up another step, getting in her face.

“I know exactly who I am, where I belong, and where I’m wanted. You could never say the same, could you? Poor little lost girl, with loose legs begging to belong.”

Wendy blinks and turns away. Her hands tremble as she unwraps the tape and thrusts her arm toward me. “Look your fill. You dick.”

I peer down at the unmarred skin, and my knees nearly go weak with relief. “It better stay this way.”

“I have someone to take care of me now, Jackson. I don’t need your bullshit concerns.”

“The minute you give birth to my baby you can do whatever the hell you want. Until that time, your business is mine.”

“It’s my baby too.” Her tone makes me stand up straight.

“What was that Wendy?” My voice drops an octave. “Is the junkie with no job trying to tell me she thinks she’s the better parent?”

“Inside.” Journee whispers.

Of course, We always have to keep up appearances here in town.” My mother’s voice plays in my head.

The fresh scent of cleanser and scented candles greets me. The house has never looked this good.

Who turned her into June Cleaver? I search the place for clues. The laundry basket resting on the couch has t-shirts that are far too big for Wendy, and the black boxers are a dead giveaway.

I don’t feel anything for her. I haven’t for far longer than I care to admit. But I do worry about the company she’s keeping with my boy still in her belly.

He’s not a junkie. Shit’s too put together for that.

“Going somewhere?” Journee asks, nodding toward the kitchen.

I spot the half-packed boxes and bare spaces on the counter.

“I don’t want to stay in this house of lies.” Her dark eyes burn into mine.

“And where do you plan on going?” I ask. She looks away.

“Do you really want us to have to find you?” Journee asks.

Wendy crosses her arms under her breasts, pulling the material tight around her waist.I take in the bulge that’s grown over the past month.

“I’m just preparing.”

“You’re not supposed to be lifting heavy things right now.”

“I have help,” She snaps.

“You aren’t the only person who’d ever want me.” Her hands ball into fists. “If you can move on, so can I.”

“No one is saying you can’t, you crazy bitch. Calm the fuck down before you distress my godson. There’s no reason for everyone to get all worked up. We get it. Wendy bagged herself a new man. Good for you. We’re here to get our report on the baby, and we’ll be gone. The quicker you update us, the sooner we’ll be out of your hair.” Journee holds her hands out like she’s wrangling two high school kids about to fight.

Huffing, she stalks over to the large chair and sits down crossing her ankles, like some kind of proper lady. I’m in the fucking twilight zone. I lean forward with my arms on my knees, drinking up her reports. My boy is growing properly and healthy. It’s more than I could’ve hoped for, considering how fast and hardcore we were living when she got knocked up.

We were both empty shells looking to fill up spaces neither of us could ever fit into.

It’d been fun for a while, but it had never been built to last. She wasn’t even a consolation prize post-Tara tear down— Wendy was a pretty thing to warm my bed and play by the club rules without question. Now I’m paying for my poor choices.

“You satisfied?” Wendy asks. Journee looks at me, and I nod.

“For now.” Journee nods her head, and we both rise.

“Same time next month, Case.” Journee drawls. Such a little shit. Makes a brother proud.

She scowls as we leave.

“What. the fuck, Jax?” Journee whispers.

I shake my head. “Not sure, but if he keeps her shit together for the next 2 and half months, I don’t much care.”

~~~~~~

Sitting down at the table in Hannah’s, I wait for J to finish most of her meal before bringing up the main reason I wanted to go out to lunch after.

“All right Baby J, so…I gotta admit there's another reason I brought you along today.” I begin, wiping my hands off with my napkin. She rolls her eyes playfully at me. “Of course there is. So, which of my skill sets will you need for this favor? I've got a few spots saved in the woods for disposal and Hap gave me an amazing cleaner kit for my birthday.” She says with an excited grin and a bloodlust in her eyes. She is so her father’s daughter. I can't help but chuckle, shaking my head in Disbelief. By looking at her you'd never guess what she was capable of. But with her dad the Sergeant at Arms of Grim Bastards, and her mentor Happy Lowman…there’s a side to her that I never want to get on the bad side of. “Well I do need your skills, just not those ones.” I say, taking a sip of my water. She raises a curious eyebrow at me before smirking.

“Sorry bro, my other skills are only allowed to be enjoyed by my husband and my wifey. As kinky as my old man is, I don't think we're ready to swing just yet.”

She teases with a wink and I damn near spit my sip out. “Jesus J, not that either! Shit little sister, I’ve only just begun playing in Lee's pussy myself. No other dick is going to be poking around in her till it’s been claimed to completion.” Her eyebrows shoot up.“Already planning on making her your second baby mama?” "Second and final. But not just yet. I just got her to say I love you to me. If I plant the seed too soon, I'm worried she'd rip out the roots.”

She rolls her eyes. “Naw Bro, Lee'd never terminate.”

“Oh I know, I wasn't talking about the baby. I was more concerned with her going Loreena Bobbitt on me.” I say honestly, shifting in my seat at the imaginary pain. She bursts out laughing, nodding her head in agreement. “Yea, that uh, that might be more likely.” She says between adorable little snorts.

I nod my head in agreement. “Exactly and seeing is how I ain't planning on changing my singing voice anytime soon, I'm real careful how I'm navigating this one.” Feels like the story of my life right now. It’s been a unique experience having the girl be hesitant with me.With Tara and Wendy, we went full steam ahead, and the crows afterwards all but jumped on my dick the minute I looked at them.

Lee is different. And being with her like this has shown me just how special she is.

She’s worth the time and the energy to make this work for both of us.

J offers me a soft, approving smile. “That's good to hear.” I nod. It’s a relief knowing how much baby sister supports us. None of this would’ve happened without her, and I know she’s got my back to help me navigate these new relationship waters. “Besides she's got that IED thing in her arm.” I add.

She bursts out laughing again and this time I'm a little confused.

“It's an IUD dumbass. Lee doesn't have a fucking bomb implanted in her arm.” She teases and I can't help but chuckle.

There's a joy in her eyes I haven't seen since before the whole Kyle debacle. I'm not the least bit surprised her old man helped put it there. I've known about his crush on her for years, but I knew better than to say shit. I figure if Chibs was taking his time there had to be a reason. Brother was one of the most strategic mother fuckers I knew. I was fifteen when he patched in, and after losing my old man, I saw him like the big brother I never had. There was no one I listened to and trusted more than Filip Telford.

I loved Ope and, there would always be a lifelong bond between us, but when he met Donna, we both felt something sever between us. He became a family man almost overnight, and I wasn’t done sewing my wild oats. Plus, the way the whole thing went down with him hurting J, it never sat right with me. Those two had been headed in a direction that would’ve been something real special. But then Mary got involved, dragged him away and he came back with Donna.

I can still feel my anger at the look of heartbreak he’d put on Journee’s face.

He’s been out a few months now and I rarely see him. The separation has been painful, but he’s trying to go the way of the straight and narrow for his family. Donna’s laid out the rules damn clearly. If he gets into trouble again, she’s out. Should’ve had brown babies Ope. This was the real danger of marrying and procreating with a Civi. They never fully understood our world, and few respected the price that sometimes must be paid to be apart of it. I don’t resent Ope for finding love, but I do resent his love for taking him away from his family.

“All right, Well then I'm lost Jay boy. If it ain’t cleaning and it ain’t playtime…what could you need from me?” She asks, taking a sip from her drink. My stomach flutters excitedly. I reach into the pocket of my cut. Producing the crinkled, early stages of a sketch I’ve been working on, I slide it over to her.

“Need the artiste in you little sister.” She glances at me and then opens the paper. My excitement turns to nerves as I watch her eyes studying the picture presented to her. "What am I looking at here J?" She asks and I scowl slightly. "I mean I know I'm not a great artist like you, but you can tell it's a crow.”

She chuckles. “I mean I know that, but I’m wondering why I'm looking at crow?”

"Right so, I need your help J. I want to design a new crow for Lee. After the shit with Kick, I need her inked. I want everyone to know she's claimed.” Her eyebrows shoot up again. “Wait what? A new crow, but your dad designed the first one. Why do you want to do new?” “I know dad designed the first one, but he designed it for my mom. And then ya know other old ladies got it and it just sort of became trademark.” I pause. “But there's nothing trademark about my old lady. I want her to have one just for her, cause she's damn special to me and she deserves something that represents not just me but us. Like you and Chibs did. Seeing the crow designed specifically for the two of you made me realize, I don't want her wearing the same generic shit that both Tara and Wendy got. Lee is never gonna be an ex, I know she's my forever and I want this crow to be more than just the generic SAMCRO trademark.”

I explain my thought process to her watching the smile tugging at the edge of her lips.

“So, that's what I need your help with. No one loves Lee as much as me and no one knows her better. I've got an idea and I can explain what I want, but I need your help executing my vision and making it something that represents us both and that she'd be proud to wear.”

I wait for her reaction. She studies the sketch and runs her fingers over the lines. “Where are you thinking she wears her brand?” I can’t help but remember before we were together, standing in my dorm room at Journee's engagement party. Journee running her slender fingers over Lee's chest saying how sexy a chest piece would look. I lick my lips and shift in my seat before clearing my throat. “Depends what we come up with. I know I’m definitely going to want her to get a chest piece so anyone who looks knows exactly who she belongs to, but I also know she's gotta be careful with size given her business dealings in the upper crust. So maybe just property off Jax across her chest so she can cover it up if need be. But this crow, HER crow...I don't want to worry about size. Maybe her shoulder or tricep for when she's in tank tops. After we design it and I give it to her, I'll let her decide where.”

Journee nods thoughtfully. “All right so explain to me what you're thinking.” She reaches into her oversized satchel she almost always has with her, and pulls out a small sketch book and pencil. I chuckle at her. She shrugs sheepishly. “Hey I'm an artist, never know when inspiration might strike.” She says flipping the book open to an empty page. “So I like what you have going here with the crow but what if you go with a two headed crow. Sort of like you and her becoming one.” She explains, masterfully sketching out what I'd already drawn and adding on to it. “Now, tell me what else you're thinking.”

By the time we’re finished, the idea is a fully formed tattoo. The two crows each have a wing.

A bleeding heart in the middle of the crows speaks to our passion and dedication for each other. One crow clutches an A.K. 47 for the club, and the other crow clutches an olive branch to represent the peace she brings me. With her, I’m completely balanced. Journee’s thrown in a few other hidden easter eggs to symbolize Lee. My name sits above the entire thing to let everyone know who my old lady belongs to. I love that in a way Journee is woven in there. There would be no me and Lee without her wonderfully “subtle” match making ways. We stand to leave, and I toss 20 extra bucks down on a 24-dollar bill. SamCro always makes sure to tip extra well in town. Keeps our business running and our business owners happy to have us. As we're walking out my phone rings and I can't help but grin when I see Lee's name on the caller ID.

“Hey beautiful, I was just thinking about you.” I say answering the phone. “How'd your meeting go?” I ask as we walk towards my bike. "Hey baby, went good. I think your mom and I were able to nail down the last of the details for the taste of Charming festival coming up.” I can hear the relief in her tone.

“Glad to hear it Darlin. J and I just finished up lunch. Headed back now.” I pause.“I mean, headed home.” I correct, winking at the smirk J gives me. “Glad to hear it darlin.” She mocks on the other end. J and I get to the bike and she grabs her helmet. “How’d your meeting go with Wendy?”

“Went good. I’ll tell you more about when I get there.”

“Okay baby.” I can hear her hesitation for a moment.

“Something wrong?”

“No, not at all. But umm Sack came by this morning with a few boxes of your stuff. And I hope you don't mind that I started unpacking some things. You know I hate boxes.” My heart damn near soars at her words. “Of course I don't mind Lee. You know how I hate unpacking, so unpack away. I can't wait to see it. My shit mixed in with yours. Bet it's gonna look amazing.” I say honestly. After our bathtub wall breaking session we both wanted as much of my stuff into her house as soon as possible.

Mostly cause I didn't want her changing her mind on me. “I think you'll like it. I’m headed back to the house now. You done for the day or you got Club stuff you gotta do?”

“I got some free time babe. I'll head over after I drop J off.”

I mount my bike so J can get on while I finish up my phone call. “Okay sounds good Jax.” She grows quiet for a second before a sweet "I love you Jackson," comes through the earpiece. I can't help the smile hearing her initiate the L word that been circling my head for months.

“I love you too Harley.” I say sincerely, picturing her bashful, smile on the other end.

“I'll see you soon babe.”

“Okay, bye baby.” She says before disconnecting the call. Journee is settled in her seat behind me and I can practically feel her smile. “How'd that feel?” She asks learning forward to wrap her arms around my waist. “Pretty Amazing, I’ll never get tired of hearing that from her.” I answer honestly, pulling my helmet on. I can always be honest and real around J. “I know the feeling.” She says giving me a squeeze. She leans forward to place an affectionate kiss on my check.“I'm so happy for you Jackson. For both of you.” She says.

I thread my fingers in her course curls and cup the back of her head. After Pressing a firm kiss to her cheek, I rest my head on top of hers for a moment. “Thank you, Journee. For everything.” I sincerely say.

There is no doubt in my mind if it hadn’t been for my baby sister I wouldn’t be in this amazing stage with Lee.

Knowing me I would’ve fucked us up by now. She gives me a squeeze before situating in her seat. “All right, enough with the chick flick moment. Take me home chauffer, time for me to go see my old man.” She says like a little kid getting ready to open presents as soon as she gets home. “Yes ma'am.” I tease starting my bike and heading out. ~~~~~ A/N: In case ya’ll were wondering this was what Tellerford was thinking Lee’s Crow Looks like. It’s based off a Design the show produced and was tweaked to fit our image lol. So we thought you might like a little glimpse into what’s in our head.

#sons of anarchy #sons of anarchy fanfiction #Jax Teller #chibs telford #Mo Astor

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theatrediva1975 · 4 years

Text

Take It or Leave It (Chapter 1 - Leave It)

The sunlight streamed through the window overlooking the small, round kitchen table that served as Olivia Bennett’s dining room table/office desk/craft table and truthfully any flat service she needed. The apartment was tiny but efficient and just enough for what Oliva needed. The job offer to teach at a brand new charter school had come out of the blue and she had all of two weeks between the offer and her first day. Coming off a bad break up, the death of her mother and the elimination of her job in Florida, the offer couldn’t have come at a better time. Olivia grabbed this apartment off an online ad, sight unseen, and prayed for the best. She packed up whatever would fit in her SUV and the small trailer she rented and she didn’t look back. She bought some furniture and decorated her new little home. School started, she made a few friends and a year and a half later, she didn’t think she could have been more content.

Then she met Lieutenant Commander Eric Blackburn. Olivia smiled as she stared out the window at the flowering dogwood tree that grew on the side of her building. Recalling their “meet cute”, she smiled into her tea cup. He was the complete opposite of any man she had ever dated. Usually attracted to alpha male assholes who acted like they were the end all be all, Olivia was completely smitten by the slightly older, steadier, more mature military man. He was quieter, more introspective, softer than the others. He was incredibly intelligent, thoughtful and he had a wicked sense of humor he seemed to save just for her. No doubt, she was falling hard for her sweet sailor.

Olivia jumped at the loud rap of knuckles against the front door, splashing hot tea all over her t-shirt and the essay papers on the American Revolution she was grading at her kitchen table. Quickly grabbing a towel from the breakfast bar, she attempted to pat the papers dry.

“Keep your shorts on!” she called out as she jogged to the front door, stubbing her baby toe on a box sticking out from under the coffee table as she passed. “Dammit all to hell,” she muttered as she ripped the door open to reveal Eric Blackburn on the other side. Speak of the devil, she thought to herself with a smile.

“Hey there,” she said as she stepped back, tripping over….something, to let Eric in the apartment. “This is a surprise.” Olivia noticed the stony look on Eric’s face as he moved past her. No kiss on the cheek, no smile, nothing. And it was the middle of the day. It unnerved her.

As he stepped further into the apartment, Eric surveyed the landscape of her living room. The boxes sticking out from under the coffee table, the empty shelves that had held her DVD collection, the pile of laundry on the far side of the couch. “Yeah, kind of a last minute thing,” Eric responded with a grimace, looking around at the mess. “What the hell’s going on here?”

Olivia winced at his tone. “I got some bad news the other day,” she explained slowly as Eric turned to her. “My lease has been a month to month for a while now and the landlord decided to call it so he can move his wife’s kid brother in or some such thing.” Olivia hadn’t wanted to bring it up until she had something else in place. It had only been a few days since Mr. Leonard dropped his little bombshell on her and she had been scrambling non stop trying to find a new place to move into. She hadn’t mentioned it in their few conversations because Olivia didn’t want Eric to feel any kind of pressure to invite her to stay with him. They weren’t there yet, having only been dating for a few months. They were just enjoying getting to know each other.

“I’m leaving in sixteen hours,” Blackburn stated.

Stunned, Olivia just stared at him. It wasn’t just what he said, but also how he said it that set Olivia’s teeth on edge. It was the tone, she guessed, that he used with his team. Short, clipped, authoritative.

“Oookay,” Olivia responded, hating the slight shake in her voice. She didn’t like his tone and didn’t know where this was heading but she was starting to feel a pit in her stomach. “You’re being spun up?”

“No. I am being deployed. Two weeks early,” he said, emotionless.

Looking around the room, and the small disaster it was, Eric was getting more and more agitated. He was a military man, after all. Neat and orderly was the way he lived his life and this was the opposite of it. And with his frame of mind at the moment…the loss of Echo team, the deployment being moved up, the way Bravo was already itching for a fight. Eric just sighed and shook his head, shifting his focus from what he was going to be facing to attacking the situation in front of him.

“Deployed? Doesn’t that mean for months at a time?” Olivia was desperately trying to learn all the military lingo. Google only helped just so much and she hadn’t met anyone else in Eric’s circle, so it’s not like she could lean on any of the other wives and girlfriends.

Eric sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes,” he responded testily. “I wanted to tell you in person.”

“For how long?”

“Three months, at least,” Blackburn responded.

“Three months,” Olivia repeated. As she began pacing in the small spot in front of her coffee table, her brain kicked into gear as she put two and two together. Her brow furrowed, her Irish temper beginning to flare. He was leaving. She knew this was part of the deal with dating a military man, especially someone like Eric who commanded a specialized unit. Still, she felt there should have been some warning. Especially when that one particular word clicked: early.

“Ok, just so I’m understanding correctly, you’re saying that while you are leaving in the morning, you were already scheduled to leave in two weeks for several months and you’re just now telling me? Is there anything wrong with that assessment...Lieutenant?” she added saucily at the end. Eric took a deep breath to stop himself from snapping at her. He knew he was wrong to have kept that from her but it had been so long since he had been in a relationship and things had been so good between them, he hadn’t wanted to ruin it by bringing up the deployment. But with the loss of Echo team weighing on him, the sailor in him who was looking at months of combat and handling a Tier One team was pushing the boyfriend who just wanted to curl up on the couch and help his girl find a new apartment out of the way. “Look, I just wanted to stop by and tell you in person that the timeline had changed and I’m leaving in the morning” he repeated, almost coldly. “This is my life. Take it or leave it.” The words had barely left his mouth and he wanted to take them back. This was not what he had in mind when he came over here.

Olivia felt her heart stop. “I’m sorry. What did you just say to me?”

The two stared at each other. How had things gone from zero to a hundred in less than three minutes, Olivia wondered. “You heard me,” Eric said quietly.

Tears began to form in Olivia’s eyes. “Wow.” She turned around to take a second to pull the tears back, leaning on the little dining room table. A range of emotions were rolling over her as she stood there. Anger, betrayal, fear, disappointment. Why hadn’t he told her he was being deployed? Did he plan on breaking up with her before he left? Was this the easy way for him to end it? Had she completely misread the situation? Whatever the answers were to the myriad of questions popping in her brain, she knew one thing for sure - she promised she would never let a man break her like her ex did. So Olivia squared her shoulders and stood tall as she turned around to make the decision for him.

Olivia spoke as she walked towards the door. “Well, thank you for stopping by and informing me,” she said, figuring if he was going to use his ‘lieutenant’ voice, she was going to use her ‘teacher’ voice. Olivia swept her arm in front of her in the universal sign of ‘here’s the door’. “Please, do not let me keep you away from your duties.” She knew she was being passive aggressive but she also knew she had to be or she’d do or say something stupid.

Eric sighed and moved towards her. Olivia opened the door and moved back, attempting to stay out of his reach. “Look,” Eric began. Before he could get another word out, Olivia lifted her hand to stop him.

“It’s fine,” she said quietly, opening her front door. Olivia bit her tongue to stop herself from asking him to be careful and come home safe in one piece. With her decision to just let go a moment ago waving its flag in her face, she chose to remain silent.

“Liv…”

“Goodbye, Eric,” Olivia said sadly. With one last look, Olivia quickly closed and locked the door, leaving a stunned Eric Blackburn on the other side.

Not wanting him to hear her, Olivia quickly moved through the apartment to her bedroom in the back and sat down on the edge of her bed and started crying. Shit, she thought. What had she just done?

****************************************************************

The following morning, Eric sat at his desk, staring off into space. He replayed the prior afternoon over and over, seeing everywhere he went wrong. He should have told Olivia about the deployment sooner, he should have had his head on straight before he stepped foot in her apartment, but above all else, he never - never - should have given her the ultimatum of “take it or leave it”. And he really should have just sucked it up and went back to her place last night and begged for forgiveness.

Eric dropped his head into his hands. He had never felt so torn. He desperately wanted to go to Olivia. But there wasn’t time. They were set to take off within the hour.

A light knock on the door jamb caught Eric’s attention. Adam Seaver stood leaning on the door frame with his arms crossed over his chest. “Hey man. Ready to go?”

Eric shook his head. “No, not really.”

Adam chuckled. “I find that hard to believe,” he replied, sitting in the chair across from Blackburn’s desk. “What’s going on?”

Eric looked at the Green Team instructor as a thought took hold. “Can I ask you to do me a favor while I’m gone?”

Adam shrugged. “Of course, man, anything. You know that.”

***********************************************************************

After Eric left the apartment, Olivia threw herself a pity party, complete with mint chocolate chip ice cream. She went to bed without checking her emails, texts or social media. She had zero desire to do anything except berate herself for her own childish behavior and recognize that her long standing insecurities and low self esteem issues had reared their ugly heads and cost her perhaps the best thing that had ever happened to her. It wasn’t until the next morning that she learned about what had happened, finally logging on and seeing the news about the SEAL team that had been killed in Afghanistan.

By that point, she knew she would be too late to reach Eric to try and apologize. He had much more important matters to attend to than her, she thought.

Olivia worked through the rest of the week in a fog. She had made no attempt to find a new apartment and she was down to just over a week to get her place packed up and find somewhere to live. Another teacher on staff had offered to let her use her guest room for a few weeks until she found something. It was a sweet offer but she also knew that said teacher was the resident cat lady and the idea of sharing the space with her and her six cats held little appeal. She’d rather go into debt by getting a hotel room until she found something.

After an excruciatingly long Friday, filled with exams, quizzes and a less than attentive group of teenagers, Olivia trudged into her apartment, knocking into boxes along the way to her bedroom where she changed out of her heels and work clothes, stuck her hair up in a messy bun that never looked as sexy as it did in the magazines, and put on her favorite, practically threadbare, Bon Jovi “New Jersey” tour t-shirt and a pair of yoga pants. After reheating some leftovers in the microwave, she grabbed a bottle of wine and curled up on her couch with the mission of not getting up until she found an apartment. Not five minutes in, there was a knock on the door.

Olivia looked through the peephole in the door to find a petite blonde woman on the other side. Not recognizing her, Olivia unbolted the door but left the chain on so she could crack it open. “Yes?”

“Hi, Olivia? I’m Victoria Seaver,” the woman explained. “My husband, Adam, works with Eric on base.”

Olivia’s eyes widened slightly, a shiver soared up her spine. Was she here with bad news? “How can I help you?”

“Do you mind if I come in?” she asked politely.

“Oh, yeah, sorry,” Olivia responded, shaking her head at herself as she closed the door and took the chain off. She tried to run her hands down her shirt in a terrible effort to look presentable in front of “one of the wives”. The thought of meeting a Navy wife had intimidated her for some reason. Maybe because they always seemed way more put together than she was.

As she reopened the door, Victoria smiled at her. “Oh, this place is so cute!” she exclaimed. “It’s so sad you have to move.”

Olivia’s brow furrowed. How did she know that? “Um, I’m sorry it's such a mess,” Olivia stated apologetically. “I’ve been trying to pack as best I can between school and grading and everything.” Olivia scrambled to pick things up off the other side of the sofa and the chairs on either side of the coffee table to give Victoria a place to sit. “Please,” she gestured.

Still smiling, Victoria thanked her. “I hated moving so much when Adam was working his way up through the ranks,” Victoria lamented. “I mean, I finally have a system, but it took me years to develop it.”

“How did you know about…” Olivia began.

Victoria raised her hand up, again with a smile. “Eric told Adam how sorry he was to be leaving in the middle of all of this. So, we’re here to help.” The statement was said so matter-of-factly, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Olivia stared at the woman, searching for what to say next. “I-I don’t...um, help? Help with what?”

Victoria felt bad for the girl in front of her. Brand new relationship with a military man and it’s someone like Eric Blackburn. A brilliant man, no doubt. But a serious dummy in the relationship department. Victoria reached out and took Olivia’s hand. “Eric told Adam you lost the lease on your apartment. And with having to deploy sooner than anticipated, Eric asked Adam if we would take care of you so you weren’t stuck doing this all by yourself.”

Take care of her? Olivia was shocked into silence. She didn’t think Eric even talked about her to anyone at work. She couldn’t help but stare at the patient woman sitting in front of her with her jaw dropped open, then dropping her head to hide the tears threatening to stream down her cheeks. She couldn’t, however, stop the sob that fell from her, causing Victoria to drop her hands, scoot closer to Olivia and wrap her arm around her shoulder.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Victoria cooed in Olivia’s hair as the tears fell.

The comfort and support prompted Olivia to, out of nowhere, retrace the steps that led to the outpouring of emotion, telling Victoria about the afternoon Eric last visited and then began telling her all about how they met and some of the dates they had been on before finally admitting out loud what she knew she should have been telling Eric, not the sweet stranger sitting beside her. “I’ve fallen in love with him and now it’s too late,” Olivia choked out.

Victoria once again grabbed Olivia’s hand. “Olivia, I have known that man for a very, very long time and as much as I adore and admire him, Eric’s an idiot.”

Olivia’s head snapped up at the statement and saw the glint in Victoria’s eye as she chuckled at her. Victoria continued. “He is a brilliant strategist, a cool headed straight shooter in a sea of politically motivated egos and he is, rumor has it, quite a deadly shot. But when it comes to interpersonal - or should I say, personal relationships - Eric Blackburn is about as astute and communicative as a 15 year old boy.”

Both women paused for a moment before dissolving into a fit of giggles. “Well, I guess that could be said for most men, couldn’t it?” Olivia queried, earning her a rueful nod from Victoria.

“My Adam can be just as bad,” she confessed. “But enough about the boys,” Victoria continued, eyeballing the bottle of wine on the table. “Got an extra glass?”

Olivia smiled and nodded, heading to the kitchen to grab a glass, a plate, fork and a few little snack items to offer her guest. “Sorry for all this. I am sure you have way more important things to be handling right now than some overwrought, hysterical chick you’ve never even laid eyes on.”

Victoria shook her head. “Stop it. I am happy to help. That’s what we do - we help each other,” she explained. “Being a Navy wife or girlfriend or partner, we all experience similar things. It’s never the exact same thing but trust me, we are all here for each other.” As Olivia returned to the living room, she watched Victoria pull a tablet out of her bag. “So, with that said, I took some liberty.”

As Olivia settled in, Victoria proceeded to open up the app for a local real estate site she had bookmarked, showing Olivia several places she hoped would pique her interest. “I did some research on this place and found some places that are in the area and comparable.”

For the next few hours, the two women researched the local real estate market and made phone and email inquiries on several properties Olivia liked and could afford. They finished off the bottle of wine and then finished off the remaining mint chocolate chip ice cream. By the end of the evening, Olivia had several places to see the following day, but more importantly, she found a friend.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Victoria said as she stepped over the threshold to head home. “Tonight was kind of a daddy/daughter night but Adam has several things to do this weekend before Echo…” she trailed off.

It was the first time that night that the subject of Echo team had come up that night and Olivia wasn’t sure what to do or what to say. So she just went on instinct and pulled Victoria in for a hug. “I am so sorry,” she whispered. “I can’t imagine what this is like for you all to be going through.”

Victoria squeezed her back and when she pulled away, Olivia saw the tears in her eyes. “Thank you,” she began. “It affects us all, whether it’s one life or a whole team. We truly are a community, Olivia. We have each other’s backs, 100%. You’re a part of that now, too. Whether you like it or not,” she finished with a wry smile which Olivia returned. Victoria continued. “Well, Hannah, my daughter, needs a distraction right now, like we all do, so I was hoping you wouldn’t mind if she tagged along with us.”

Olivia shook her head. “No, absolutely not. I’d love to meet her.”

Victoria smiled and leaned in, hugging the young teacher once more. “Welcome to the family, Liv,” she said in her ear. She pulled back, catching Olivia’s face in her hands and gave her a wicked grin. “You’re stuck with us now!”

The two women laughed and waved good night once more before Victoria descended down the stairs to the small lobby below. Olivia watched her leave before going back inside.

Curling up on the couch after cleaning up the dishes left behind, Olivia grabbed her laptop. She stared at the screen, knowing what she had to do but also hated it had to be done this way - impersonally, digitally. Calling was out of the question, so this was her only option.

Opening up her email program, Olivia chewed on her bottom lip, wondering what to say, where to start. Talking to Victoria had helped Olivia achieve some clarity and understanding but more importantly, a certain amount of hope that all had not been lost. So she typed just seven words:

Come home safe, sailor. I’ll be waiting.

Olivia never imagined she would get an almost immediate response so when her email alert chimed, she froze when she saw the response.

I promise.

One tear trailed down her cheek as she closed her eyes in a silent prayer of thanks that all was not lost after all.

#seal team #seal team cbs #eric blackburn #oc

19 notes · View notes

madpanda75 · 5 years

Text

“The Romantics” Part Three

We fast forward to the present and catch up on what Rafael and the reader were up to after graduation. Will Rafael and reader reunite? Who knows...ok actually I do cause I wrote the darn thing. 😂 Thanks to everyone who is liking and reading this fic. It means a lot ❤️

Present Day

You gazed out of your office window, watching the sun rise above the Manhattan skyline. The dark purples and blues of the night transforming into brilliant hues of orange and yellow. You sighed and sat down at your desk which was currently covered in manuscripts. Each one represented someone who put their heart and soul into a story, leaving their destiny in your hands.

Life certainly didn’t turn out the way you expected. You went to Cambridge to focus on your writing but instead discovered you rather enjoyed reading the works of others. You left the program and started working at a publishing firm in London. It wasn’t long before you ran the place, attracting attention from the firm’s sister office in New York. They were quick to offer you a lucrative position as Senior Editor and although you adored your job, it was time for a change of pace. It was time to go back home.

You were glued to your desk the whole day, reading a few pages of a manuscript before tossing it into one of two piles: yes or no. Unfortunately, the majority of the pieces you were reading ended up in the “no” pile.

You closed your eyes and massaged your temples, needing a break from reading yet another memoir about a wannabe Jack Kerouac who “found himself” while traveling across the country. You once traveled cross country to the Grand Canyon all you got was food poisoning and sleepless nights in fleabag motels.

Letting out a deep calming breath, you went back to work, grabbing a package wrapped in brown kraft paper. It was too heavy and hard for a manuscript, as if it was already bound. But who were you to question the eccentric world of writers.

You ripped open the paper, knitting your eyebrows in confusion when you saw an old Harvard Yearbook from 1993. As if someone sending you a yearbook wasn’t odd enough, it was flagged with various post-its. You opened the book to one of the pages that was marked. There was your face staring up at you in a grainy black and white photo. You were younger but it was undeniably you, smiling with a group of other tutors from the Harvard Writing Center. That’s when it hit you. Realization slowly spread across your face as you reached for your cell.

“Hello,” Rebecca answered, stepping outside of the banquet hall decked out in crimson.

“No, no, no, no, no. Oh and did I mention, no!” You replied. “I’m not going to the reunion.”

“Please, Y/N. You have to come. You’ve officially run out of excuses not to go. I’ve heard them all. I’m out of the country. I’m at a yoga retreat. I’m getting divorced.”

You winced at that last part and looked down at your hand, the tan line on your ring finger still visible. You had gotten married for all the wrong reasons. At the time you were lonely and marriage seemed like the responsible thing to do. The next step into adulthood. “Becks, I don’t know if I can get away from work right now.”

“Yes, you can. You run the place and it’s only a weekend. I’m sure they can spare you for two days. And who knows, maybe someone else will be there. Someone who happens to be named…..Rafael.” There was a lilt in Rebecca’s voice when she mentioned your former best friend’s name.

You flipped through the yearbook, stopping at a picture of you and Rafael. You were sitting under a tree on the quad, your head resting on his shoulder while he read. You loved his voice. It was soothing and smooth, like swallowing a spoonful of honey. Listening to him read always brought you comfort. You lovingly touched the photo. If you closed your eyes, you could still see his brilliant green eyes that made you weak in the knees, feel the soft silkiness of his thick dark hair under your fingers.

The first few months at Cambridge were hard. You missed your family and friends, especially Rafael. The two of you had kept in touch, exchanging letters and the occasional long distance phone call. But as time went by, the letters and phone calls became more infrequent. You discovered the reason why during Christmas that year. You had dropped by New York to surprise Rafael only to learn from Eddie that he was with Yelina. You swore Eddie to secrecy, making him promise that he would never tell Rafael that you were there. When you got back to Cambridge you stopped responding to his letters and eventually Rafael stopped writing. It was obvious that he had moved on and you needed to as well.

“He’s in New York, you know. I’m surprised you haven’t looked him up,” Rebecca said, interrupting your reverie.

You slammed the yearbook shut. “I know he’s in New York. But I’ve been busy and besides he’s probably a sleazy lawyer with a receding hairline and a big gut who’s married to Yelina and has three gorgeous but spoiled rotten children. And while she’s off getting the latest plastic surgery or high off her kid’s Ritalin, he’s probably getting a happy ending at an illegal massage parlor. Where eventually he’ll be discovered, get arrested, and then it’ll be all over the tabloids. I can picture the headline now: “Where’s the Rub? Crooked Lawyer Caught at Massage Parlor.”

“Wow!” Rebecca said after a long pause. “That doesn’t sound bitter at all. And anyways you’re wrong. He’s not with Yelina.”

“How do you know?”

“Do me a favor and google “Alex Muñoz.” Also you are going. If I have to hunt you down and drag you to Boston. You’re going. No excuses.”

You whined and rested your head on the table. “Fine,” you mumbled. “I’ll see you there.” After you got off the phone with your old roommate, you immediately went to your laptop and looked up, Alex Muñoz. During your search, an article popped up about the mayoral candidate who was caught up in a sexting scandal. The events took place several months earlier and by the time you moved here it was old news, the press already in hot pursuit of the next big story.

“Why am I not surprised,” you said out loud, clicking through several photos. What you were surprised to find was that Alex had married Yelina. A picture popped up showing the tall, gorgeous woman, playing the role of the dutiful wife and standing by her man. In the far corner of the photo, you noticed a handsome man in a sharp tailored suit, standing with a group of people. It was Rafael.

Your heart skipped a beat. It was amazing how he could still have that effect on you. Your theory about your college friend was squashed the minute you googled “Rafael Barba.” You fell down a rabbit hole, learning about the ADA and his work with Special Victims Unit, clicking through pictures and interviews. The man had aged like a fine wine. You felt your face flush, watching a clip of him at a press conference, his powerful voice demanding justice for the victim.

It was worse than you had imagined. Rafael Barba was a good guy. He was Superman, fighting the scum of the Earth, and to top it all off, he looked sexy doing it. You closed your laptop and stood up from your desk, in desperate need of fresh air and more coffee.

As you walked outside, you tried to quiet your brain and stop thinking about Rafael, but it was too late. In reality, he never really went away. Rafael was your first love, he had always lived in your heart. Even on your wedding day, the man you wanted to be waiting for you at the end of the aisle was Rafael. In some ways, no man could ever compare to him. Now faced with the possibility of seeing him again, you weren’t sure what to do. All you could do was hope he wouldn’t show.

*****

Rafael couldn’t believe he was back in Boston. In fact he never would have gone to this reunion at all if it wasn’t for your old roommate, Rebecca. She had called his office one day, practically begging him to attend. When she mentioned that you would be there, he caved and said yes.

Rafael was desolate after you left for Cambridge. He threw himself into school, but Harvard just wasn’t the same without you. He wasn’t the same without you. It felt like a piece of him was missing.

At his lowest point, he went back to New York for a weekend visit to take his mind off of you. Rafael sat in an empty bar, getting drunk on cheap scotch, reading your letter again. The condensation dripping off his glass and falling onto the sheet of paper in his hand causing your words to bleed together until they were just incoherent ink smudges.

Rafael was so caught up in drowning his own sorrows that he failed to notice Yelina come in. The woman immediately set her eyes on him, sauntering over like a cougar about to pounce on its prey. “Guapo, is this seat taken?” She purred, running her hand up his arm.

Rafael took Yelina home that night in the hopes that her soft supple body would help soothe his broken heart. They became a couple not long after that. As the relationship continued, Rafael found he had less time to write. Either he was too wrapped up in Yelina or he didn’t want to upset her by mentioning your name. The few times she had caught him writing to you had led to some heated fights.

When he stopped receiving your letters, Rafael was devastated. He didn’t understand why. Sure he may not have called or written as often as he used to but that was no reason to stop communicating all together.

Yelina scoffed while Rafael moped around his apartment. “I don’t know why you’re so upset. She probably met someone, spread her legs, and moved on.” She rolled her eyes and began to file her nails. “Good riddance, I say. That little crush she had on you was so annoying. I honestly don’t know what you saw on her.”

“She’s not like that. You don’t even know her!” He snapped back.

“I saw the way she looked at you at your graduation. If you’re so upset then go after. I don’t care, you’re not even worth it.” She grabbed her purse and left, slamming the door behind her.

Rafael jumped at the abrupt sound, letting his head fall back against the couch. He pinched the bridge of his nose, not even bothering to go after her. The relationship didn’t last much longer. By the time summer arrived, Yelina had left him for Alex. He had caught the pair in bed together one day.

Rafael was upset but not surprised. There was a time he thought he loved Yelina, but after meeting you he realized that wasn’t love. Yelina was selfish and vain, never giving of herself. She wasn’t capable of love. She wasn’t you.

He had thought of going to England to find you but Yelina’s words haunted him. What if you had moved on? Instead Rafael chose to give up on love and focus on his career but it was becoming a losing battle. Not a day went by that Rafael didn’t think of you so when the opportunity arose to see you again, he couldn’t say no.

Now Rafael sat alone at a table, nursing a scotch while his classmates were socializing around the big banquet hall. His eyes scanned the room, hoping to spot you among the crowd, but you were nowhere to be found. He was just about to give up and head back to his hotel when you suddenly appeared in his line of vision.

You were across the room, walking towards the bar. Rafael couldn’t help but stare. For years he had imagined what it would be like to see you again. In his naivety, he had pictured you to be the young girl he had known in college and not the beautiful woman you had become. You were dressed in an off-the-shoulder blush colored cocktail dress that hit right below your knees. Your hair had been swept up in a chic chignon, several loose tendrils framing your face. Your makeup was minimal, just enough to enhance your natural beauty. It was still you, but a more sophisticated version.

Rafael got up and slowly made his way over to where you were standing, his pulse quickening with every step he took until he stood directly behind you. Your back was to him and for a split second his eyes raked over your body, drinking in your curves while you ordered your drink. “Glenlivet on the rocks, please.”

Letting out a nervous breath, he finally said your name. “Y/N?”

@glimmerglittergirl @southern-magnolia @delia26 @obfuscateyummy @sass-and-suspenders @eclecticminded @sweetcannolicarisi @thatesqcrush @katmstanton @amirightcounsellor @beltzboys2015-blog @letty-o @sonnysdoll @lyssa1385 @sweetsummertime99 @burningsorr0ws @gibbs274 @izzythefanfreak @riodallas @babypink224221 @livxrafa @esparza-army @ottosuricato @obsessionprofessional @raulmonamour @tropes-and-tales

#rafael barba #rafael barba fic #rafael barba fanfic #rafael barba x reader #rafael barba imagine #barba #barba imagine #barba x reader #barba fic #law and order svu fic #law and order svu imagine #the romantics #baby Rafi

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whorefordean · 5 years

Text

just tell them × g.d

warnings: a few bad words, little bit of angst but it gets fluffy

word count: 1.6k

pairing: Grayson Dolan x reader

prompt: Hello! Can I get a grayson dolan imagine? Where they are secretly dating both of them are famous youtubers and she’s also a part of the sister squad and before filming a vid they got into a fight and throughout the whole vid grayson is salty to her and she had enough and almost walk out of the vid? Ends with a fluff? Thank youuuu! 💗 from @teamquacksonholland

IM SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG!! IT’S NOT EVEN GOOD :(

“What the fuck do you want me to do?” Grayson bellowed at the top of his lungs. He threw his hands up in the air, and his face was flushed bright red.

“Grayson, why can’t you understand that I don’t want the fans to know about us? We’re doing fine without the whole world knowing about us dating!” I screamed back just as loud. I ran a hand through my hair and turned around to walk into our shared bedroom.

“Because I love you, and I want the world to know,” he scoffed like it was the most obvious thing in the world. I groaned loudly. He knew what he was doing.

“Grayson, please just wait. I don’t want to tell the fans yet, so drop it,” I begged him while walking down the hallway. I passed by a wide-eyed James in the hallway. He offered me a soft smile, and I very quickly returned one.

“You guys okay?” James quizzed gently. I nodded and wrapped my arms around him. He rubbed my back comfortingly, then went to find Emma to discuss the video. I walked down the rest of the hallway and quickly changed into a “Sisters” hoodie. I quickly walked out of our bedroom and made my way into the living room where everyone was waiting.

“Are we recording in here or on the purple couch?” I asked everyone, silently praying it was in here due to the lack of room on the purple couch.

“Purple couch, duh!” Ethan exclaimed. I sighed quietly, not wanting to be cramped between everyone considering this was my video. I nodded and grabbed my phone from the table sitting in the middle of the room. Everyone followed after me and settled on the couch while I set up my camera. I clicked record and squeezed myself between James and Emma. I glanced over at Grayson saw the slight scowl on his face causing me to grimace. I sighed and pulled a smile on my own face.

“Welcome back guys! As you can tell by the title, I’m back with my only friends filming another basic video,” I spoke energetically causing most of the group to laugh. Grayson smiled slightly but stayed silent.

“As the title says, today we are doing a Q and A, and before you come at me in the comments, I know this is a very generic video. However, we have been getting very many questions that you guys want answers to,” I said quickly.

“Grab your teacups, kids. The tea is about to be sister spilled,” Ethan jokes, causing me to cringe slightly at how awkward he sounded. James and I shared eye contact and burst into laughter. Grayson spoke aggressively under his breath. I huffed and turned to face him, leaning in front of James to see him.

After answering about 10 questions, Grayson was getting snarky.

“Do you have something to say, Grayson?” I asked him bitterly with a sarcastic smile. He lifted his head up, not realizing I heard him.

“Actually, yeah, could you please just get on with the video?” he replied back with the same sarcastic smile. I huffed and turned back to face the camera.

“Okay, next question,” Emma announced breaking the awkward silence. “Why does James always look fed up when filming with the Sister Squad?” Emma laughed as she read the tweet from her phone. James laughed and leaned forward getting ready to answer the question.

“Listen if you guys were to hang out with these people you’d get it. They can be a handful, and it literally takes hours to film one video. It can get exhausting. I love them though, I guess,” James spoke truthfully. I smiled and leaned into James.

“Aw! We love you too, James!” I giggled. Grayson opened his mouth to say something but decided against it. I was very quickly becoming agitated at his childish behavior.

“Grayson, if you want to say something, just say it,” I spoke up. He looked at me and contemplated his next remark.

“Why can you tell the fans you love everyone else except for me?” he asked hatefully. I groaned, angry that he was bringing this up again. We were almost done filming this video, and all I wanted to do was end it and start editing.

I sighed, “Grayson we only have a few more questions, then we can argue all you want, but I am begging you. Please shut up.” He folded his arms over his chest and flipped his hair back. If I weren’t so annoyed with him right now, my heart probably would’ve stopped at how adorable he looked.

“No, I wanna know why you won’t tell the fans about us,” he demanded. I scoffed and stood up.

“Grayson, if you keep asking I swear to you I will walk out of this video,” annoyance leaking through my words.

“It’s your video, babe. I’m not gonna stop asking until you stop avoiding it. We’ve been dating for almost a year, and you still won’t say anything. Are you ashamed of our relationship or something?” he asked with a sudden sadness lacing his voice. Grayson was now standing right in front of me, and James, Emma, and Ethan all quietly exited the room.

I sat down on the couch and pulled Gray down to sit beside me. I grabbed Grayson’s hands and intertwined our fingers.

“Baby, I swear you have my whole heart. I love you so much more than I could ever put into words. You are the greatest thing that has ever happened to me, and I could never be ashamed. I want to tell everyone that you’re mine. I really do, but Gray, I like that we have this one thing for ourselves. The fans know basically everything about our lives except for this. Don’t you like having a little bit of privacy?” I asked with tears welling up in my eyes.

Grayson sighed and pulled me into his lap. He wiped the few tears that fell from my face and pushed a few stray strands of hair out of my face. I buried my head into his shoulder, wetting his shirt in the process.

“Please don’t cry, love. I hate seeing you cry,” Grayson begged while wrapping his muscular arms around me comfortingly.

“I don’t want you to think that I don’t love you or that I’m ashamed of being with you because I’m not. I wanna be with you for the rest of my life,” I mumbled into his shoulder.

Grayson’s body shook and a smirk formed on his face, “Are you proposing to me, Y/N?” I shot up with fear in my eyes.

“No, no, no! That’s not what I meant! I mean yeah, of course, I wanna marry you. I mean have you met yourself. You’d be the perfect husband, but I just meant that maybe one day in the future, maybe we’d get married but we don’t need to talk about that. Unless you don’t wanna marry me. Oh my god, you don’t wanna marry me,” I rambled on. I swiftly stood up from Grayson’s lap.

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” my hand found its way to my hair and tugged at it, “Ugh, why am I so stupid.” I paced back and forth, switching between biting my nails and running my hands through my hair. Grayson grabbed on to my hips and pulled me back down to sit on his lap.

Grayson put his hand on my cheek and turned my head to face him. Before I could register what was happening, Grayson’s lips landed on mine. I quickly kissed back, placing one hand on his cheek while the other fell to rest on his shoulder.

Grayson was the first to pull away, keeping his hand on my cheek. He stared at me intensely causing blood to rush up to my face. He smiled cheekily and pecked my lips.

“I’m gonna marry you one day. You’ve been my best friend since we were kids. I’m not letting you go,” he said sweetly. I grinned widely and grabbed his hands in mine once again. He rubbed his fingers across mine. I smiled when his fingers grazed across my empty ring finger.

“Gonna put a ring there one day,” Grayson mumbled. I smiled and ran my free hand through his fluffy hair. I pressed a kiss to his forehead as Grayson kissed my knuckles.

“I’m sorry, Grayson. We can tell them. I actually have an idea for an announcement,” I told him, grinning wildly as I thought about all the clips I saved from previous videos I made with the twins. Sometimes we’d forget about the camera and show each other more affection than usual.

“We don’t have to, love. I’ll wait as long as you need me to,” Gray said softly. I shook my head softly, smiling at him.

“I wanna tell them. I want everyone to know that I’m dating an angel sent from God himself,” I said smirking, causing a blush to make its way up to Gray’s beautiful face.

I giggled and pushed my lips against his. He lips moved slowly against mine. Grayson’s hands traveled lower down my back. I quickly jumped up. He whined loudly with a pout on his lips. I laughed at how cute he looked. I took a few steps forward and clicked off the camera.

“I have to go edit, but I would absolutely love if you came and cuddled with me,” I told Grayson, who was very quickly making his way to our shared room, completely ready to cuddle. I laughed softly and made my way into our bedroom.

#grayson dolan imagine #grayson dolan #dolan twins #grayson dolan one shot #grayson dolan x reader #grayson bailey dolan #ethan dolan #dolan twins imagine #graysondolan

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marvel-movies-bucky-barnes · 3 years

Text

Moving Forward

Summary: You are Tony’s sister and in love with Bucky, but Tony still doesn’t trust Bucky post-Winter Soldier

Pairing: Bucky x Laela (reader)

Characters: Bucky Barnes, Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, Clint Barton, Bruce Banner, Sam Wilson, Thor Odinson, Wanda Maximoff,

Warnings: Fluff, some kissing, light spoilers up until Captain America: Civil War, angst, self-doubts, mentions of brainwashing, comforting

Word count: 3,346

Requests: OPEN

*NOT MY GIF, CREDIT TO OWNER*

According to Natasha, all this thinking is what gets me into trouble with Tony in the first place.

“One mission,” he relented, swearing lightly as if he were battling against conscious. “You have one hour to get him ready. Starting now.”

“One hour!” Tony hollered after me as I backpedaled out of the room, tripping over the leg of Thor’s chair on the way.

I like to think Bucky had picked his for the sounds of the ocean as well, though I imagine the rush of the waves works to calm more than his insomnia.

I can’t help but think back to one of the first nights we shared in this room.

It was a sight I had come to be familiar with.

That was all the other needed at times, I believe; someone there to ground us as we battled against our own demons clawing at our heads.

“Where are you?” I asked.

He didn’t want to talk about it. And that was all right.

“I can’t change the past, doll.” He focused on one point across the ocean while I centered on the dips and divots of the vibranium.

“The Winter Soldier is in the past. HYDRA can’t get to you anymore. This Bucky,” tapping my finger against his heart, I looked up at him, “this James—he’s the man I fell in love with.”

His withering stare finally softened as his shoulders relaxed all the way. Something clicked in him when he heard James—something he only hears from me.

“He still doesn’t trust me.” Bucky’s eyes hardened, turning back toward the ocean.

“Prove him wrong.”

His silence held more than he knew, and he seemed to realize this as he gave a brisk nod and pressed a chaste kiss to my cheek before turning to change into his gear.

_______________________________________________________________________

“Talk to him,” I encouraged, pressing on when Tony narrowed his eyes. “You don’t know the first thing about him.”

At his bark of indignation, I cut him a look sharp as glass.

“You have misjudged him since the moment you met him,” I snapped, fingers curling into a fist. “We are a team. You want me, you get him, too. That’s how this works.”

My breathing rattled in my lungs.

The metal of Bucky’s fingers clicked together as they pressed into my knee.

A quiet rustle of Thor’s cloak and Natasha spinning a dagger between gloved fingers.

The soft tap of Steve’s shield against the seat of the plane.

One

Two

Three beats of

A b s o l u t e l y n o t h i n g.

Tony’s eyes darted between mine for five—six—seven beats, his lips pressed into a fine line. Five metal fingers continued tapping a pattern onto my thigh. One breath.

“I know you love him.”

A dozen pairs of eyes bore through Tony with a steel gaze, unabashedly pinning him in place with a single look.

“Let’s see what he’s got.”

_______________________________________________________________________

Laying my head back down on his chest, I counted five heartbeats before he finally let out a breath.

I knew as much, though he rarely talked about it openly like this.

I waited for him to finish, knowing that whatever he had to say must have been as difficult then as it was now.

“Did he ask about anything else?”

Racking my brain, I remembered how heated I was toward Tony in the moment.

“You hadn’t told him that before, had you? That you loved me.”

I would break off pieces of my own soul to give him, bit by bit, if it would give him some peace, just to let him know how loved he is.

The room was silent now, but a comforting silence, one that wrapped itself around us as we gazed out toward the ocean.

I take it he hadn’t heard those words enough; his eyes lit up, brighter than I had ever seen, and a soft smile slowly spread across his lips.

“I love you, Laela.”

Looking at him, finally comfortable in his own skin, relaxed in a way I knew he had never felt before, I knew I wouldn’t trade this for the world.

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theheartofpenelope · 5 years

Text

SIMPLE THINGS - Chapter five

Chapter five - excerpt : Granted, the subsequent sexual encounter might have been quite imaginary, it dìd prove to Charlotte she was still alive inside. It reminded her of her youth, her possibilities and – let’s be honest - her needs. And upon returning home Charlotte had deemed herself finally ready to gently ease herself back into the dating game, much to her best friend Elisabeth’s joy. The ‘Lizzie’ to her ‘Charlie’. Ever understanding, ever supportive, but ever impatient as well.

Tag list: @winterisakiller, @devikafernando, @scorpionchild81, @messy-insomniac-bookgirl, @smutsausage, @hiddlesbitch1 @noplacelikehome77 @wolfsmom1 @meh1217 @dina-bln @lilaeye39 @tinchentitri @fairlightswiftly @nonsensicalobsessions @wolfsmom1

Author’s Notes/Warnings: tags will follow later on -also : the lay-out of the text-conversation is so much cleaner on AO3. But here on Tumblr it’s a bit of a mess as those specific html-outlining- inserts don’t work *perfectionistic groan* So it’s not looking ‘perfect’ here on Tumblr, I had to manually try to outline it - but I did the best I could... Anyway thank you in advance for feedback - would love to know what you think…

Also on AO3 through this link Bonus: click here for the pinterest moodboard (always updated)

Chapter five Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Amsterdam did not hold many secrets for Charlotte anymore. She had visited the scenic city many times before and so the site had somehow become a familiarity to her. She would never have realised that if Tom hadn’t requested her to send him some pictures of the Netherlands’ capital.

Yes. Tom.

His first message came as quite a surprise, but not an unwelcome one. And Charlotte gladly obliged to the kind wish of this man who had kept his word and sent her some not-so-touristy addresses she ought to visit while in Hamburg and Berlin - her next destinations.

Charlotte’s phone shots mostly consisted of her favourite sights such as the bridges over the breath-taking canals, boats, strings of light bulbs lighting up pop-up summer bars in the park and the beautiful restored architecture that took her breath away as if it were the first time she’d laid eyes upon it. Thank you Tom for reminding me of this.

The Convention didn’t take up much of her time for a change. Charlotte gladly took the opportunity to stop by the floating flower market for some fresh flowers, and browse through one of her favourite flea markets where she picked up a few books before boarding the intercity train home later that afternoon.

With her new acquisitions all packed up, Charlotte strolled down to the Central Station. Upon entering the building, that felt more like the ‘arrivals and departures’- scene at any given airport, she walked passed some colourful shops. She hopped in one to get herself a refreshing drink for the ride home and upon queueing at the cash register, her eyes scanned over the headlines of the international press that was presented there. One specific title in big bold letters called out to her. A tabloid read out in bold red print : ‘Tom Hiddleston spotted with mystery woman’.

Charlotte laughed a little louder than planned as she detected the picture showcased in fact his publicist’s intern. She shook her head in amusement; was this the man she was currently sending touristy pictures to? Felt a bit silly really…

Charlotte couldn’t deny that over the start of the summer her life had somehow taken an unexpected and bizarre turn. While her professional life had continued to overshadow her private life, she did seem to have found a somewhat manageable and unique balance between the two.

In the sense that she would combine her professional obligations at conferences abroad with some extra me-time. She would try to extend her stay as far as time or reason allowed, so she could go and explore the cities and come to herself before starting all over again somewhere else.

In her head her plan seemed picture perfect, in reality she came to realise she really ought to prepare these kinds of visits just a little bit more. Tom’s tips came in more than handy here… She caught her lips curving into a smile.

Stop it! Silly girl...

Up until now Charlotte had managed to keep her head on straight, regardless of her hectic schedule. She was tired but ambitious, worn-out at times but always remained curious and anxious for what came next. And then came London... the visit that shook her up a bit. It felt as if the carpet had suddenly been pulled out from under her feet. Metaphorically she’d stumbled at first, taken quite the fall nevertheless but then got up again, feeling quite unsure and apprehensive. It had been a dizzying 72 hours, but equally exhilarating nonetheless.

Granted, the subsequent sexual encounter might have been quite imaginary, it dìd prove to Charlotte she was still alive inside. It reminded her of her youth, her possibilities and – let’s be honest - her needs. And upon returning home Charlotte had deemed herself finally ready to gently ease herself back into the dating game, much to her best friend Elisabeth’s joy. The ‘Lizzie’ to her ‘Charlie’. Ever understanding, ever supportive, but ever impatient as well. So before Charlotte was good and well aware ‘Lizzie’ had her all set up for a blind date later that night.

Charlotte did her best not to take any offence in Lizzie’s sudden matchmaking extravaganza - lord knows how long she’d been pushing the matter - but decided to ‘just go with it’.

Charlotte switched her phone into flight mode as she boarded the train. She had a thing with flight mode. The thrill of being able to cut out all outside intrusions was one she often indulged in. And right now she had opted to treat herself to some lounge music while reading. With two hours to kill, it seems the perfect getaway from reality.

She settled in her seat, earphones plugged in, loungy music on and one of her new acquirements resting in her hands. She admired the mysterious cover for a while. It was a book Tom had highly recommended to her. Intrigued, she curiously delved in.

WIthin no less than a dozen pages, to her greatest surprise, the words struck home to both Charlotte and her wounded heart.

“Even though I complain sometimes it (his heart) said, it’s because I am the heart of a person, and people’s hearts are that way. People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams because they feel they don’t deserve them, or that they won’t be able to achieve them.

Many years ago Charlotte had lost her heart to a man. Well, a boy still when they’d first met. And she’d treasured him just as much as he had treasured her. They had gone through so much together; they left the university-benches together and dived headfirst into their professional lives. And while they took their time to search where their respective professional futures lay, they wasted no time on their personal future and got married. She’d truly followed her heart.

Fairly soon he was on his road to success, while Charlotte struggled. They bought a flat with a breath-taking view over the park but by then the marriage was already in heavy weather...

Charlotte’s stomach turned into a knot as the narrative in the book went on.

"We, their hearts, become fearful just thinking of loved ones who go away, or of moments that could have been good, but weren’t, or treasures that might have been found but were forever hidden in the sands. Because when these things happen we suffer terribly.”

You see; back then, in her professional life Charlotte had only faced glass ceilings and struggled with the balance between professional and private life. A struggle her husband had failed to see or recognize.

Evidently work demanded they would started moving in different circles, networking, meeting new people, investing. He had to put in crazy hours, there was no energy left for other struggles. And Charlotte definitely felt like a struggle he wanted to do without. Or one he could do without.

It astounded her really. After all, they had overcome so much together; she always thought their relationship had a solid foundation that could resist any type of storm. But somehow, in this phase of their lives, she felt as if their marriage was built on nothing more than a children’s floaty. Whimsical, terrifyingly unpredictable. To make matters worse, in his opinion there was only room for one career in a marriage. Charlotte begged to differ but for the sake of her marriage she gave up trying to pursue more , thinking it would make her happier and by result him as well. Only it didn’t.

She wasn’t suffering though, not anymore , Charlotte thought. With pain in her heart, she had to accept the crumbling of their relationship, their understanding and ultimately their love. She had fought and sacrificed, alas it takes two to tango and their paths lay so far apart now. Closing the door on her marriage, she closed off the door to love in general. Although the divorce was ultimately somehow a mutual decision; that didn’t mean it hurt any less. He had been a part of her past and present, but sadly no longer held her future and that insight hurt. Those who say infidelity hurts the most, meet ‘indifference’; the very close runner up!

"My heart is afraid it will have to suffer,” said the boy.

“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams because every second of the search is an encounter with God….”

Charlotte had turned her focus now solely on her professional life where all of a sudden – to her a delight - a glass ceiling started showing subtle cracks. She grasped the opportunity with both hands, diving into work and research at full speed, ignoring all else.

Her wings had been clipped in the past, she felt she owed it to herself to open them up now and fly. Far, far away. And she dreaded the day (or the person) who would even try to confine her again.

It caused her an occasional lecture from her best friend Lizzie, but was it clear to outsiders as well that she had closed herself off like this? Or was Tom’s recommendation of this particular book just a happy – albeit freakishly strange - coincidence?

Cracking open the door to my heart wasn’t enough; must you take down the entire façade as well?

Realising the answer to this question was irrelevant she immediately engrossed herself further in the book. Charlotte felt tears stinging as the chapter went on. Before she knew it, she was halfway along the book when the train halted at her destination. She left the train with a heavy heart, an emotional wound but a regained insight. She shook her head and tucked her new favourite book in her purse.

2. It had to be said : Charlotte was pleasantly surprised that she was greeted with a very charming man that evening.

Well done Lizzie!

He was tall and dressed to the nines, with dark hair, piercing green eyes and a handsome smile to match. She had an inkling he knèw he had charm, but she was not yet sure if he played that card.

He turned out to be both charismatic and intelligent. Charlotte had to fight her inner cynic who immediately wanted to find out what was ‘wrong’ with him in order for him to be single, temporarily forgetting he might as well have the same reservations towards her.

They shared appetizers while talking about the current heat wave, the local news, bits and bobs. It was mildly entertaining, at least as far as anxious blind dates can go. It would seem a lovely dinner would ensue.

The man was athletic, which made him easy on the eye however not on the mind. It started when dinner was ordered and gluten was off limits. “Not allergic,” he elaborated, “but bad for my physique.” Charlotte however gladly indulged in a homemade Sicilian pasta stew. It wasn’t meant as a rebellious act, she was simply a not-so-secret foodie.

We’re on the fence here, ladies and gentlemen, but let us not jump to conclusions…

When the topic of interest came up, it was clear they could not have been more divers and while in her mind that thrilled her, she found he held no remote interest in her hobbies. In fact; he was quite opinionated. She may have been as well, but isn’t there some sort of grey zone? Or the illusion of politeness for starters?

Strike 1.

He considered art as overrated and too pricey. While Charlotte could agree on the financial matter, but ‘overrated’? Seriously? He considered literature old and stuffy, and commented along the lines of “honestly who reads these days.”

Strike 2.

Also, he left his smartphone on the table during the entire dinner and wasn’t too shy to check it at times. Hel-lo?

Strike 3.

Charlotte had learned long ago to be honest about her desires and so by the end of dinner, after the coffee and the dessert, when he suggested drinks at a wine & lounge bar, she politely refused. She was knackered and the foresight of spending more time going through pointless conversation frustrated her.

She kindly bid her farewell and at his attempt to a ‘let’s do this again maybe’ Charlotte carefully added she did not see any point in that. Kind as he might have been. She was met with a surprised reaction. Apparently he did not expect an answer as honest as this, even though he did feel the same.

Was it not ok to just step forward and say things like this, then?

Clearly he wasn’t a feminist either. Or was she just high maintenance?

You’re out!

On her walk home, Charlotte unmuted her smartphone. At least shé had the common sense to zone out outside distractions during her date. As expected Lizzie had already dropped several lines to her. And Charlotte was about to – and very gingerly so – elaborate on the horror-date, “ 3 hours down the drain, did I rush home for this ?” when she made another, more pleasant, discovery.

Tom had replied to her Amsterdam snapshots. It instantly lifted her mood to read her pictures had brought ‘joy to his heart’ before going on to share an equally amusing as eloquent anecdote on his day. Clearly a man who reads , the devil on her shoulder fired back to her long-gone date.

After London, Charlotte had adjusted his name on her contact list to the more fitting ‘Instigator Tom’. She grinned as they exchanged some messages back and forth. As it appeared Charlotte wasn’t the only one who had suffered a lousy end to a promising evening; Tom had gone through a crappy day as well. In an attempt to lighten the mood, she carefully informed him :

I started reading ‘The Alchemist’<<

>>And? Your thoughts so far?

There was this quote that I cannot shake…<< ”You will never be able to escape from your heart.<< So it's better to listen to what it has to say”<< So tonight, I listened to it.<<

Tom’s lips curved into a smile while he tapped on his phone that that was undoubtedly a very wise decision on her behalf. Although he did sympathise for her date gone wrong. He chuckled out loud when Charlotte swiftly countered with a “you should be, it’s all your fault really - recommending that book and all…” And he gladly and sincerely apologized to her.

To his surprise her date turned out to be a blind date, and before he was well aware he had sent out :

>> So, it was a ‘blind’ date? Forgive me for saying, but you don’t strike me as the type who would need a set-up?

I’ll take the compliment ;-) <<

So Charlotte had went on a date, a blind one at that. While Tom wanted to think 'good for her', his mind fixated on 'single'. Truly, he wanted nothing more than to bond with her on the difficulties of dating but found himself lacking for any decent answer in that department because he simply did not date. Not anymore.

Long gone were the days were he would (or could) just go out and strike up a conversation with a woman and see where it went. He wasn’t around long enough to let anything flourish, let alone bloom. Not at all. When he wasn’t working, his days or evenings were filled with press tours, interviews, premiers, gala's. Maybe an occasional party. But the essence of it all was always exactly the same. Someone would pull on his sleeve, demanding him to ' come and meet someone' . Someone in his line of work, someone up and coming, someone he should definitely rub shoulders with. Meet so and so. Talk, discuss, network. At times it really wàs lovely and interesting. But the horrible truth of the matter remained that Tom was living by his work schedule and not by his heart. A very conscious decision he’d made many years ago, that had somehow turned into a grueling reality these days.

So he replied to Charlotte in the only way he could, by truthfully confiding in her and sharing the loneliness of the ‘picture perfect actors’ behind the spotlights.

Thank you for saying that. However, I find this very doubtful… <<

>> It is the truth though, I’m afraid.

He hesitated for a moment, before daring to question her :

>> You’ve not been dating long?

No. Just easing into it again. (Peer pressure)<< It’s been a while…<<

Tom unknowingly bit his lower lip, subsequently running his tongue over it while he wondered how he could diplomatically find out more without seeming crass or rude. Did she suffer from a bad break-up? To his surprise she very easily and clearly admitted that the only thing she ‘suffered from’ was a lonely divorce.

A divorce?

Charlotte chuckled and shook her head when Tom apologized via text - as if he had anything to do with her marital status… A short text of his followed asking her what had happened and then a third one; another apology because he reasoned his asking was ‘probably rather indiscrete’.

She was unaware that a heavy sigh escaped her lips as she delved deep into her thoughts before typing out:

That’s all right. I guess ‘life’ happened?<< Feels like failure though.<<

Or the death slot on the goose board. Back to square one.<<

(can’t believe I just said that)<<

Goes to show, I’m damaged goods. Steer clear ;-)<<

Her answer came out in a series of separate texts. The obvious proof her mind was still processing somewhat. Tom’s benevolent reply that she shouldn’t be too hard on herself, warmed her heard. After all, he reasoned “Sometimes it’s nice to start over? Or heal.”

So they say… <<

Dot. End of the line.

Charlotte kept silent after this. Nothing more was to be said on the matter, was there? In London, Tom thought long and hard about a decent reply… In his heart he felt he could not end this conversation on those last words of her.

>> If memory serves me well, the book also says : “Don't give in to your fears. If you do, you won't be able to talk to your heart.”

Charlotte smiled to herself as a text followed in which he reasoned “we’re not meant nor made to be alone” and that her peer pressuring friends are right in pushing her forward after nearly a year on the bench. “Someone to talk to late at night, Someone to cuddle, … not to be underestimated!”

He shook his head to himself when he caught himself typing that the end of a marriage isn’t the be all - end all. And while he fervently dreamed he would never have to experience a divorce first-hand, sometimes it was simply the right thing to do. If only you handled it well. In which case he referred to his parents and the toll it could possibly take on the young children involved. But Charlotte had no children, she was young enough to start over. And there is no harm in that.

Now this is some very cheap therapy , a mirthless grin at his own expense.

>> Not all storms come to disrupt your life, Charlotte, some come to clear your path.

A pause.

>> Besides, there’s always the prison-slot. Just a time-out until someone sets you free.

… isn’t that a Sting song?<<

>> Avoiding the point Charlotte..

:-) << Thank you for recommending the book to me though.. <<

>> I hold it close to my heart. I had a feeling you might appreciate it as well.

Charlotte heaved a content sigh and confessed that, indeed, all she wanted to to was to get home and finish the book. To her surprise he correctly guessed she would and should just do that in her garden. Good memory, young man. Bonus points for you.

She agreed with him and shared her intent of making a fresh mint tea first. Because when you read in the garden at night, this was the only way to do it right. He chuckled to himself and confessed how much he could relate to that.

Their conversation ended with wishing the other a good night and the promise of more book recommendations.

Placing his smart phone away, Tom reminisced on the sneak-peak he’d gotten of her heart and it was not what he had imagined it to be. In his eyes she was intelligent, beautiful and carefree. He never considered her broken hearted. Goes to show everybody hides behind a façade, he realised. It made him like her just a little bit more.

#tom hiddleston #tom hiddleston x ofc #simple-things

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krimto-basi-hahm · 5 years

Text

how I became friends with brandon rogers: not clickbait

i’ve been making some more brandon friends on here, and I realized that a lot of y’all don’t know my story. I would love to tell it here! for those of you that don’t know him or care, feel free to scroll past lol

(and this whole story updated to the end of 2018 is available here)

2015/2016

I actually found his channel through his first youtubers react episode in december of 2015, but I clicked away because his videos looked stupid to me, lol. after watching the teens react to try me bench, I clicked on a video for the first time (grandpa hates valentimes) in late june of 2016. I grew obsessed QUICKLY. like, I was a full-blown stan in the matter of a few days. I made my fan account on july 7, 2016. unfortunately, the account was taken down by instagram this year. anyway, I also started a youtube channel and made a video for him for his 28th birthday. he saw it and commented:

“Thank you for making this! I was a theater kid too for many, many years!!! I’m glad you’ve been able to find inspiration, never give up on your dreams!! I worked many shirt jobs for 10 years before any success, and would’ve done so for the rest of my life until I did!”

a few months later, I got some friends together and made another video for his 2 million subscriber milestone. he also saw this one and commented:

“Wow, I can’t believe I have such amazing fans who would’ve taken the time to make this for me!! Thank you SO much!!! I’m so happy to hear that people are finding friends through my videos, that’s amazing!!!! ❤️❤️❤️thanks for making this, to all of you!! Much love from the bottom of my heart!!! Thankyouthankyouthankyou!!!”

the rest of 2016 was pretty boring, so we’ll skip to 2017!!

2017

for those of you that don’t know, playlist live is a 3-day youtube convention in orlando, florida. I begged my mom to go every year since 2014, and she finally let me go this year. this also was the first year brandon attended!! I decided to make him a jar filled with reasons why his fans loved him, and I gave it to him at the event. I met him for the very first time on may 6, 2017 in the lobby at playlist.

our meet-and-great was scheduled for may 7, so we also met then.

the next day coming home, I just assumed he would forget about me and move on. I was wrong! I received this dm from him over facebook messenger:

I was SHOOK!! I felt so happy that I was able to help him that much when he was going through a hard time. anyway, the next thing I did was make the 3 million subscriber special video and 29th birthday video. he only saw the first one and commented:

“Wow, how have I not seen this yet?!? Thank you so much to each of you for making this video for me!!! This really touched me ☺️ thank you!!!!!!!”

in august, he finally accepted my friend request on facebook!! this was insanely cool because he obviously has a much smaller audience there, and I was able to get his attention easier and work towards really becoming his friend. with our facebook friendship, brandon was able to start to get into my personal life, which was really cool. he commented the nicest well-wishes when I came out of surgery and even wished me a happy birthday!! this year was also when I started working on my next present for him: the book of brandon. this book incorporated fan art, letters, and more. I was able to give it to him at playlist live 2018, so you’ll see me mention this later. onto 2018!!

2018

the beginning of the year started off quite strong, with my debate teacher giving us the assignment to write a speech about our hero. I did not hesitate to write a LONG speech about brandon and post it here. he saw it and commented:

“Thank you for this, it touched my heart and I’m embarrassed to say I haven’t seen this video until now!! Feeling the love!!”

a few months later, playlist live 2018 rolled around!! before our meetup on april 28, 2018, I jokingly said to my mom, “what if he was just like, ‘oh hey sophie!’?” sure enough, that is EXACTLY what he said as soon as he saw me! the full video of this meetup can be found here, but I’ll summarize if you’re too lazy to watch it. he immediately thanked me for my speech, obsessed over the book I made for him, and basically talked to me like we were good friends. it was MAGICAL.

I didn’t think I would be seeing brandon again in 2018. well, I was wrong. his tour came around, and he announced a performance in tampa, florida on july 15. I was ECSTATIC. unfortunately, I was out of good sentimental ideas for gifts. I made him a wall calendar full of bad pictures of him, as well as a friendship necklace and a letter. at the show, he was looking for audience participation to come up onstage and act out a “fake date.” when he saw me, he said, “omg, this is one of my biggest fans! miss sophie, I recognize you! please come up here.” I was able to watch his entire show from the stage, and even drank from a glass he took a huge sip out of. at the meet-and-greet, we talked just like good friends once again and he gushed about my gifts and videos. he even bragged about me to my parents!

with august rolling around, I made another video for his 30th birthday. of course, he saw and commented. I think this one was his favorite!

“Awww thank you all SO MUCH for making this!!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ I'm incredibly blessed to have friends like each of you. Love you all to the moon and back, thank you for making my birthday that much sweeter! :D And thank you Sophie for taking the time to compile this! Take care!!! EDIT: I just made it to the end of the video. fork. I am feelin more touched than a child in prison. I look at many of you and see a younger me, especially you Sophie. I've always felt like an outcast for most of my life; never thought I'd find so many like-minded people. Thank you all so much for taking the time to do this!!!“

a month later, when I was sick in bed, I got the greatest news. brandon was coming to florida AGAIN! this time on november 25 in ft. lauderdale. I couldn’t believe he would schedule two tour stops in florida! this was also his very last stop, so it was a very special show. still out of big gift ideas, I made him a basket filled with lots of small gifts. at every tour stop, he would do a q&a for 10-15 minutes. as soon as he saw me in the audience while starting the q&a, he said “oh my gosh. this is sophie everyone...” I wish I could remember everything he said, but he mentioned how much I’ve done for him as a fan. even though he wasn’t planning on bringing anyone up onstage, he asked me to come onstage with him and help him with the q&a. brandon gave me the power of picking who he would come to in the audience, as well as asking me to answer some of his questions and really including me through the whole process. he even told me he would love to have me in a video!!! pure magic. I have clips of video from this show, so dm me if you would like to see them!!

the last thing that happened in this year was him wishing me a happy birthday again. onto 2019!!

2019

the main thing I’ll be talking about in 2019 is playlist live because that’s the main interesting event of this year so far. a few days before the event, rachel williams (his manager) gave me her phone number to coordinate with them to hang out there!! I made him a big gift bag because I was STILL out of ideas for bigger gifts. on march 2, we had our meetup. he asked the meetup attendant if he could have some extra time with me because I’m “one of his biggest fans”. he then proceeds to tell me...

“I got something for you!”

WHAT? he gives me the gift, and I give him his. we talk briefly before the attendant ushers me along. the two other people there were jon cozart and mac kahey, who both said to me “oh YOU’RE sophie! brandon was telling us all about you!” WHAT? it was a lot to process.

I open the gift and see that he has given me THE shirt BOOK from stuff & sam, THE HEART from blame the hero, a stuff & sam shirt, and a card!!! WHAT? again, a lot to process.

unfortunately, I never got to hang out with brandon and rachel because I got really sick the next day. however, they were both so understanding and carved out a few minutes to see me before I left!!

overall, this year, we have become a lot more comfortable with each other both in person and online, really talking just like friends. I am so incredibly grateful for him and everything he has done over the years.

omg thank you for reading all of this!! dm me to talk or gush about brandon or be friends whatever man love y’all!!

#my post #long post #brandon rogers #youtubers #hotbananastud #fan #fan story #stuff and sam #blame the hero

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ivadeshin · 6 years

Text

Five Soda Maximum (High School AU) pt 15

(need to start from the beginning?)

“What do they do in Germany for dates?”

Caleb laughs and opens a bag of chips. “I would not know.”

“C’mon.” Molly’s tail flicks behind him, amused. Caleb shrugs and tries to think.

“Same thing as Americans, I guess. Kids go to movies. Adults go to restaurants with the lights at... hmm. Medium lights?”

“With the lights dimmed?”

Caleb nods. “With the lights dimmed.”

“And a single tea light in the middle of the table,” Molly adds in a serious hush, pretending to cup his hands around a tiny candle between them. “To roast... your tiny fancy restaurant marshmallows on.”

Caleb snorts. “On toothpicks?”

“Yeah,” Molly agrees. “You could use the ones that come in hot chocolate mix.”

“Nein, those are... too hard, they are like sugary American cereal pieces. What is that brand Jester tried to - oh, Lucky Charms. Those are not marshmallows!”

“They’re... marshmallow... inspired?” Molly pulls out something wrapped in foil, and it turns out to be half a meatball sub. Caleb makes an interested sound, tugging the bag toward him and rummaging for the other half. “Is your stomach thing getting better?”

Caleb feels a mild rush of embarrassment, but it’s more minor than it would have been several weeks ago. The entire group seems to have settled on offering to share what food they’ve got, happy when he eats full portions and not pressuring him when he can’t. It’s a lot less confrontational than what he gets at home, and he feels a little silly for expecting outsiders to treat him the same as his parents. “Yes,” he says honestly. “I think um, just unpacking... knowing my school schedule... understanding more English...”

“Being settled,” Molly finishes for him. Caleb nods.

“Yes, good word. Settled.”

“Is it that new things, um, stress you out, or was it specifically moving from Germany to here?”

“Much more the second thing.” Caleb tucks some hair behind his ear, taking a deep breath and looking around a little. He can smell faint tobacco smoke from the alley they went in - it seems like the employees take their breaks there instead of up here, and so it’s unsurprising that they haven’t seen anyone else come up. That’s probably why Molly picked it.

“Did you move for work?”

Caleb blinks, a little too lost in thought to make sense of the question.

Molly shrugs. “I mean, your dad, or your mom, did they have to move here for a job.”

“No.” Caleb laughs softly. “Their jobs here are... are not better, I think they are, they, they are much worse, actually.” He unwraps his sub and takes a few bites.

“I’m not making the best conversation to get you hungry, am I.” Molly rubs his horn and looks away.

Caleb wants little more in life than to keep Molly from being sad. “S’ok,” he says around a mouthful of meatball. “Did... you... mag...dese?”

Molly laughs. “Yeah, my own secret recipe. I wanted us to have some hot food but I can’t make much.”

Caleb shakes his head and makes a thumbs up sign, glowering at his thumb when he sees that it’s already got a streak of red sauce on it.

“Oh! Here, hold on.” Molly sorts through the bag, pulling out a large plastic chip clip that’s holding on to a small stack of paper napkins. He pulls a couple out and then sets the clip on the table between them. Caleb’s just finished cleaning himself up when his phone chirps.

Nott (green fist emoji): sup

Caleb grins at his phone. “I am going to take a picture and send it to Nott,” he says, and stands up to take a top-down photo of the items spread out on the table. Molly starts to lean back, getting his folded arms out of the shot. “No, it is okay, you are part of the...” Caleb blushes and Molly laughs, leaning in further and crossing his eyes at the camera lens. Caleb takes the picture.

“We should take a selfie later,” Molly is saying, as Caleb clicks through the options to send the attachment to Nott. “My Facebook profile picture is super old.” He stops when Caleb freezes. “Friends take selfies together here, guy friends, it’s-”

“I cannot go on Facebook,” Caleb says too quickly. “I mean, I can. I can look at it but I cannot, no pictures.”

Molly blinks. “Even if I don’t tag you?”

Caleb shakes his head quickly. “I’m sorry, it’s, it’s complicated.”

“How would your parents even know? I’m not trying to be an asshole, I just...” Molly gestures with the remains of his sandwich. “You filled out that form to not be in the yearbook, and it’s like, there are parts of it I don’t get, I guess.”

“Those two things are not about my parents, exactly.” Caleb looks down at his sub, sitting up a little straighter and making himself finish it before he says anything else that’s going to send him into stomach cramps. He’s almost done when he realizes Molly hasn’t said anything, is waiting on him, aware that there’s more. “I cannot have my face show up on the internet. Neither can my parents. We came to America because we could not hide well in Germany.”

Molly’s voice gets quiet. “Are you serious?”

“Yes.” Caleb crumples up his tinfoil very carefully, turning the corners inward and then the corners made by that, over and over. “It is not, we are not terrorists or something. The German government is not mad at us.”

Molly doesn’t say anything.

“It is hard to explain and I have not told anyone yet. I do not want people to know. I had to... there is a queue you must wait in, they decide if you can m-move to the U.S. and we had to go quickly so, so I made up, I.” Caleb takes in a shuddering breath and realizes he’s trembling a little. He tries to complete the sentence, but his mouth opens and nothing comes out. The table shifts a little as Molly gets up, and Caleb looks up and sees Molly rushing around the side to scoot in next to him, grabbing his hand on the table and squeezing it.

“Are you having a panic attack?”

“I do not know,” Caleb says, and laughs a little desperately. “I am sorry... this... it is all very...”

Molly shakes his head several times, then tilts his head so his left horn is resting gently against Caleb’s right temple. “Um. I can’t remember anything from before I was fourteen.”

Caleb inhales slowly. “A... again, please?”

“I can’t remember anything from my life from before I was fourteen. I only remember things from age fourteen to now.” Molly’s face isn’t visible to Caleb right now, but he sounds like he’s smiling and also like he’s kind of hurt. “Does that help? I’m not trying to one-up you, I’m just. Trying to make sure you don’t feel weird.”

That certainly wasn’t what Caleb was expecting to hear. “You... hit your head? Something hit your head?”

“No.” Molly’s thumb strokes over his fingers in slow, gentle sweeps. “They did a bunch of scans because that’s what everyone figured, but there was no, you know, internal swelling, or skull damage, or any brain damage...”

“Are you sick?” Caleb sounds about as scared as he feels.

“No, there’s no reason to think so.” Molly pulls back and frowns at Caleb’s expression “I think I scared you worse. Shit.” He laughs and shakes his head. “I’m sorry. I kind of panicked.”

“But that is real, what you said.”

“Yeah, it’s really real. I don’t remember anything. They think it might be psychological but that’s, like, impossible to rule out, so it’s always on the table? If that makes sense?”

Caleb tries to reach into his mind, searching for what he knows about memories and brains and... “Trauma, sometimes it gets locked up and you cannot ... think of it?”

“Yeah.” Molly shrugs. “Like, to be fair, I was in a city famous for runaways and gay homeless kids who got one-way tickets from their families, so if something awful happened to me, I was in good company.”

“I’m sorry, one-way tickets, I do not understand.”

“Like, if your shitty family finds out you’re gay, they give you a one-way ticket to a big city and tell you to never come back...” Molly nods at Caleb’s disgusted expression. “Yeah.”

“That is awful.” Caleb tries to imagine this. “My parents would never...”

“Yeah, mine maybe did.” Molly shrugs. “Or maybe they were great and died! Or, I don’t know.”

“What,” Caleb tries to digest this. “What is your first memory?”

“Like, a haze of a few days where I was lost and trying to find a familiar street, and then I gave up on that and begged, but that wasn’t getting me much money...” Molly peeks up, maybe gauging Caleb’s reaction so far. “Some, um, some working girls found me... wandering around lost, so they sort of adopted me.”

“--what?”

“They were like, ‘You’re a kid! It’s not safe out here!’ They yelled at me and told me I was a fucking idiot and I could get hurt and... and they took me to a Waffle House and bought me like all the food I could eat.” Molly sniffs. Caleb watches his face, the sad sort of calmness of it. “I stayed on one of their couches for a few weeks. I hung out with them a lot and one day they got busted and, um, and the cops thought I was, you know...”

“...also working?”

“Yeah.” Molly laughs. “I busked, sure. Other than that I was in their apartment. One of them had been making me watch educational tv to make up for the fact that I wasn’t going to school. Like... yeah.”

“Did you get arrested?”

“At first? Sort of? They couldn’t process me because I didn’t have any ID or anything, and the cops, um, were mostly human, it was one of the tiefling girls that finally convinced them I was a young kid, and they did some blood test and were like, ‘oh, shit, you’re a minor’, and then my case changed departments like seven times... finally most of the girls got out by giving up dealers’ names and I went into the foster system.”

Caleb frowns. “So your name is...”

“Made up.” Molly shrugs. “The girls called me ‘Empty Stomach’, and then just ‘Empty’, and that sort of sounded like ‘M.T.’, and so by the time the sting happened I was M.T. It’s sort of dumb.”

“It is not dumb.” Caleb turns his hand awkwardly under Molly’s, wrapping his fingers around Molly’s hand and squeezing it. “I like it a lot.”

Molly snorts and ducks his head a little further. Caleb doubles down, switching his left hand to hold Molly’s so he can reach out with his right hand, initiating a hug across the other boy’s shoulders.

“Do you ever remember more pieces? Or is it just... not there?”

“Just not there.” Molly pulls his hand free, standing up - but it’s only to pull his food to this side of the table, so he can resume eating without moving away. Caleb smiles. “My memory of things now is pretty normal. There’s just, you know, nothing before a certain time.”

Caleb ruminates over this for a while, taking a drink from his water bottle. “Do other people know?”

“Gustav knows. Yasha knows. Tova knows. Bosun and the twins don’t.”

Caleb nods. “I will not say.”

“It’s not bad, I’m not embarrassed, it’s just... weird.” Molly shrugs. “Like yours, I guess.” When Caleb laughs hollowly, Molly hesitates. “Yours... is bad?”

“Remember the ‘huge mistake?’”

Molly frowns. “That you texted about? It’s that? You did - what the hell could you have done to make your family have to move?” He pales a little and goes quiet. “Did you kill somebody by accident?”

“What!? No.” Caleb slouches on the bench. “I... my friends, we liked computers, and... we thought we were, you know, big shots.” They were so stupid, Caleb thinks. They were kids. “We had, you know, a computer club at school, we would use proxies and do whatever we wanted... we got dark web browsers and decided we would take down one of the little empires on there. They sold, um, very awful videos. And we tricked them and got some information on some of ... of the people who made the videos, and leaked it to the police. They were busted. Nobody...”

“You were like internet super heroes?”

“No!” Caleb hits the table, making it reverberate. “We were idiots. We could have died. They were criminals and they did not care, and, and, and they, they did not all, they were not all there, they were all in different countries. So some were arrested, the rest were very mad... they traced us, they started calling our houses, watching us on security cameras, they wanted us to pay.”

“Holy shit.”

“We had to tell our parents what we did. Local police could not do anything, these men were in other countries, using spoof phone numbers, hiring...” Caleb buries his face in his arms and shakes.

“Caleb.” Molly’s hand is light between his shoulder blades. Caleb tries to take full breaths, but he can’t, so he just gasps for air as quietly as possible, over and over, until he feels an insistent swatting feeling on his thigh. When he moves his arms to see, it’s Molly’s tail, giving him the gentle little friendly smacks like during their lunches. In spite of himself, Caleb chokes out a brief laugh, and Molly tilts into him and covers his body with his.

“I do, I do not think I make much sense,” Caleb mumbles into Molly’s shirt.

“You tried to stop some shitty people and they tried to get back at you?”

“Yes.”

“And they wouldn’t stop and the cops wouldn’t help?”

“Yes.” Caleb hiccups. “They said they would poison my friend’s family. And burn my house down. They had plans for all three of us.”

Molly holds him tighter.

“I am sorry I am a big mess.” Caleb can feel the perspiration covering his skin getting Molly’s shirt damp. “I think maybe I am not good for dating.”

Molly is still for a moment, then tucks his head in carefully, pressing his lips to a spot on Caleb’s neck. “We’ll just have to keep trying until we’ve both run out of crazy fucking stories.”

#critical role #critical fic #widomauk #caleb widogast #mollymauk tealeaf

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prophetandprincess · 5 years

Text

X X X X X X X

Hello All! I am still coming to terms that Endgame is out, I saw it, and I survived to tell the tale with only minimal tears! I think it was a satisfying ending to the journey that we started way back in the day. Now, let’s head back in time to see what Alex is up to before even Age of Ultron happened

“Where’s the fire, Parker?” Alex called as Peter all but ran out of their lab section on Friday. She had to dodge other students, calling out apologies as Peter seemed to have no problem moving through the crowd. He was pretty thin, but it seemed a little odd that he was so good at bobbing and weaving.

Peter pretended that he hadn’t heard Alex, even though she knew that he had from how he hunched his shoulders even lower. He got to the stairwell first, but with a burst of speed, Alex was able to grab onto his arm. Peter successfully wiggled out of her grasp, but his backpack was not so lucky. Papers, pens, a calculator, and gadgets that Alex had no idea what their use was went skittering all over the stairwell. There was a collective groan from the other students, and some jeers, as people moved around the carnage.

“You’re like a one woman wrecking ball, aren’t you?” Peter sighed as he started to gather up the gadgets before they were trodden on by the caffeine filled zombies of the student body.

“Well, if you would have stopped to talk to me, this wouldn’t have happened,” Alex hissed as she gathered up the papers while attempting not to drop any of her own things. “I said we were going to have a conversation and now you’re acting like I’m a leaper.”

“I’m busy,” Peter grabbed everything, leaving some pens to their fate, and shoved everything into his bag.

“Make time,” Alex snapped as she shoved the papers into his chest. She was about to continue her rant, but the top piece of paper caught her eye. It was an application that held the crest of Imperial College of London for a foreign exchange program.

“Harper, I get it, we need to talk, but there is something happening right now that I need to get to. Do you get me?” Peter gave her a meaningful look as he shoved the papers into his bag.

“Are you going to England?” Alex countered, not really paying attention to the look or what he was trying to tell her.

“Alex, please…” Peter gave a huff as he ran his fingers through his hair. “How about this, come to dinner at my house tomorrow. You’ll get free food, we can work on the project, and you can ask your questions, okay? I’ve gotta go.”

“Alright, alright, fine,” Alex was a little confused by everything. “Text me the address later.”

Peter gave her a small smile before dashing down the rest of the steps and disappearing outside. Alex moved at a much slower pace, wondering why Peter would be looking to go to London, especially knowing what he did at night. She also didn’t understand why she felt so upset about it, only a week ago, she thought he was a stalker. It kept nagging at her, even during her time at Stark Tower, and it was creative enough to work its way into her nightmares.

Saturday was a grey morning as Alex got up to start getting ready for her first day working on the extra credit assignment. Professor Warren had stated that a driver would pick her up promptly at eight and Alex had hit snooze three times, but she still took time to check twitter. After the normal memes and conversations about celebrities that Alex really didn’t care about, there was a news story about a scientist’s apartment that was completely ransacked the previous afternoon. Spiderman had been seen around the building, but it was unclear if he had been the one who when into the place.

“Well, that is something to ask him about,” Alex sighed as she continued her preparations. Hadn’t Jake mentioned something about a scientist being attacked when she talked to him at some point? It could be a coincidence, but it seemed rather…concerning.

Alex’s phone started to ring, making her jump. The fear turned to confusion when she saw it was the front desk number.

“Johnathan, is there a problem?” Alex asked as she finished dressing.

“There is a…man sitting out front in an SUV that said he was waiting for you. Should I call the cops?” Johnathan, who was new on the weekends, asked.

“No, someone was supposed to send a driver for me, I’m guessing that’s him.” Alex said slowly, wondering what this guy looked like to make the doorman so concerned.

Alex saw exactly why Jonathan was concerned when she got down to the lobby. The man standing outside the SUV was large, stone faced, and looked as if his nose had been broken at least three times. He just nodded his head as he opened the door for her, never speaking a word, and then he started to drive her toward the Ravencroft Institute. Alex wondered what the hell she had gotten herself into as a couple rain drops splashed onto the windshield.

“Oh this can’t be right,” Alex looked through the windshield between the wiper blades at the large stone structure that loomed up in front of the car. It reminded her of a medieval castle that had been turned into a prison at some point. She wasn’t exactly sure what she had been expecting, but this was far more foreboding.

“Ravencroft Institute, state your business,” the guard at the outer fence asked, hand on the gun at his hip, when the driver rolled down the window.

“Alexandra Jade Harper, student assistant to Dr. Miles Warren.” The driver’s voice was deep and gravelly, which Alex realized she should have expected. Of course the man who looked as if he used to work for the mob had a six pack a day voice. Maybe he was a mobster at night and this was just his day job. Who was she to judge?

“She’s on the list. Drive through, she can pick up her badge and sign the papers at the front desk.” The guard didn’t even look into the back seat before taking a step back and tapping his ear. “Open the outer gates for a visitor.”

Soon the car stopped in front of a large stone arch, the doors obscured by the gloom of the surrounding stone and the dark clouds that were releasing a light drizzle onto the asphalt. Alex’s mind suddenly went to the line from Dante “Abandon hope all ye who enter here”, not exactly what you wanted to think about when entering a psychiatric facility, especially one that housed criminals.

“I will wait out here for you.” The driver unlocked the doors before slipping on his sunglasses, even though it was raining, and folded his arms over his chest.

Alex waited for a second, attempting to collect herself, but staring at the darkened doorway wasn’t making her feel any more excited about her decision about taking this extra credit assignment. Finally, Alex sent out a quick text to Peter, stating that if he didn’t hear from her by the time for dinner, to send out the National Guard, and got out of the SUV. As she approached the door, Alex realized that sending a vague text like that to a vigilante might not be the best idea, but she was hoping that he was so busy or sleeping and he wouldn’t see it until she was done with the interview and sample collection.

There was a little comfort in the satisfying click of her heels as she approached the front desk, smoothing out her skirt in the hopes of calming her nerves. She had no idea what the dress code was for interviewing someone who was deemed criminally insane, so she went with professional. Red sweater, black pencil skirt, panty hose even, and black pumps. Her hair was down to hide her earrings, but she still didn’t feel all that confident or professional.

The interior of Ravencroft Institute wasn’t any more inviting than the outside. The floors were concrete, the walls were gray, and the ceilings were just a latticework of exposed pipes. Alex had been in prison before, and this had the same feel with industrial touches. The front desk was located behind bullet proof glass, and neither of the guards even attempted to give a smile as Alex approached the opening.

“Hello, I’m Alex – Alexandra Harper,” Alex’s voice shook a little. “Professor Warren sent me to collect samples and interview one of your…patients?”

“Sign in and take the clipboard to fill out the forms.” Neither guard looked up at Alex or corrected her use of the word patient instead of prisoner.

For imposing at the building seemed from the outside, the lack of basic curiosity from the guards was even more disconcerting. In one of the cracked plastic chairs that were just begging to snag her panty hose, Alex stifled a yawn as she skimmed over the paperwork. The forms were the run of the mill stuff, if you get murdered or maimed, you can’t sue us. They were forms she had signed a number of times, but they seemed more menacing when she realized that the likelihood of being maimed, murdered, or other horrible things were much more likely here.

“Finished,” Alex attempted to sound chipper as she slid the clipboard to the guards.

“All personal belongings will go into a locker,” one guard said as he got to his feet, heaving a huge sigh. “You will be pat down as well to make sure you’re not smuggling anything in. Doctor Warren has had equipment approved and it will be given to you when you get to the subject in question.”

“The extra credit better be freaking worth it,” Alex muttered as she picked locker nineteen, her lucky number, and punched in the code to lock it. Not having anything to defend herself with, especially after the alley attack, made her even more uncomfortable.

“Alright, come through,” the guard waved here to walk through the metal detector, which thankfully didn’t beep because of her earrings, before a thorough pat down. “Here’s your visitor’s badge, which you will need to show a guard at every door. There is also a panic button on the clip in case anything happens. You’re going to cell G-9.”

That was it, not even any explanation how the panic button worked, before the guard disappeared back into his little control room. There was the loud click of the doors locking behind her. The sound of her heels clicking was no longer comforting as she walked down the hallway. Alex showed her badge to the guard standing at the elevator and she hoped he was armed more than necessary. He punched in a code to a pad that had no markings on it and waited without saying a word. It was like a Buckingham Palace guard that was armed for the zombie apocalypse.

The door slid open, showing another guard waiting in the small silver box the badge. Alex thanked the guard outside, though he didn’t even look at her, before stepping inside. There were no buttons in the elevator, but it started to descend soundlessly. Alex was pretty sure she had a nightmare like this before, the doors were going to open and there was going to be a boogeyman there. Though if it was a more recent nightmare, it would be The Winter Soldier, or just a tidal wave of blood. You know, super cheery things.

“It’s seems scarier than it is, Miss,” the guard said, making Alex jump. “We have only had one security breach, about a year ago, and since then they have gone a bit overboard. Even that situation, it wasn’t anything major.”

“Better safe than sorry, right?” Alex gave him a nervous smile. The fact that there had been a security breach, even if it was a year ago, was not exactly comforting.

“Especially with the people we have here, but there is no reason for you to look so jittery, you’ll be safe.” The guard gave her a reassuring smile underneath the visor of his riot gear. “You don’t want to let them smell fear. It’ll just make them rowdy.”

“Just like every other man I’ve ever met,” Alex muttered, not completely reassured by that information.

“You need anything, just push that panic button. Take no prisoners.” The guard gave that one last piece of advice as the elevator stopped.

Alex wasn’t sure if that was guard humor or not, but she couldn’t bring herself to laugh. Instead, she took a deep breath, a nod of acknowledgment and stepped out of the elevator. Alex put a little steel in her spine as the doors slid closed, and started forward. If there was one thing she was good at, it was bullshitting confidence.

It was surprisingly quiet, no screaming, laughing, or whimpering. After seeing so many movies set in insane asylums, she had expected pandemonium, but everything seemed controlled and contained. Each cell had a glass door with a safe like lock and a guard positioned alongside each in the shadows, as the light was pretty atrocious. None of the guards looked at her as she passed. The sound of her heels on the concrete floor mixed with the sound of water dripping somewhere, unnerving Alex more than screaming or manic laughing would have.

Cell G-9 was easy enough to find as there was a metal cart with supplies and a plastic chair outside the glass door. Alex said hello to the guard, who didn’t move a muscle, before taking a deep breath and looking into the cell. The lighting was no better, but there didn’t seem to be anyone in there.

“Don’t mind Jason,” a voice in the back corner of the cell called, making Alex jump. “He’s not supposed to talk to the dangerous criminals and must think that it also applies to pretty girls.”

The voice was rather gentle, and cultured, which was surprising given the less than gentle and cultured surroundings. Alex’s eyes finally adjusted to the low lighting and could make out a pair of legs in orange cloth and white prison shoes against the back wall, though the rest of the body was still impossible to see.

“My name is Alexandra Harper and I’m Professor Warren’s assistant on the research project that you’re a participant in,” Alex took a seat on the edge of the chair, crossing her legs in an attempt to appear calm and professional. Don’t let them smell fear and take no prisoners. She had a job to do and she was going to do it, end of story.

“Well, you sound smarter than the last psychologist they sent to analyze me,” the voice continued, white shoes shaking a little. “The poor thing could barely get a word out, his teeth were chattering so badly. That begs the question, how did the good professor headhunt you for this particular assignment?”

“I’m not a psychologist, I’m a biochemist,” Alex wished she could see his face, it would make her feel a little less nervous. “And I wasn’t headhunted, I’m one of his students and this is an extra credit assignment. I just have to collect some skin and blood samples and then conduct a short interview. I hope that isn’t an issue, Mr…”

“Your honesty, as well as your company, are refreshing,” the legs disappearing into the shadows before the speaker walked into the light provided by the one recessed bulb in the ceiling. “Mr. Osborn, Harry Osborn to be precise, but you can just call me Harry. No need to be formal if we are going to be seeing each other every week.”

Alex had pictured what the person on the other side of the glass would look like since she had said yes meeting them, but the former head of one of the most powerful companies in the world had never even popped into her mind. It was all over the news that Harry Osborn had a nervous breakdown and that was why he was removed as the company CEO, but she had no idea it had landed him in a criminal asylum. What had he done to wind up here?

“Miles, Professor Warren, didn’t tell you who you were coming to see, did he?” Harry’s smile was soft as he sat down on the edge of his cot. His hair was a mess, but other than a jagged patch of scaly looking skin on the side of his face, he didn’t look all that mutated. What had caused the mutation? Something at Oscorp?

“He did fail to mention that the person I was coming to interview was worth probably over a million dollars, but what else is new?” This whole assignment was bizarre.

“I know that feeling, never getting the whole truth to ensure that you do what someone wants. Since I was a child, everyone has always been after something from me, but no one was ever honest about it.” Harry tilted his head as he studied her for a moment, before giving the ghost of a smile. “Also, I want to point out, I am worth a lot more than a million, even locked up in here.”

“I will keep that in mind,” Alex gave him a smile as she looked down at the clipboard on the metal cart. “Now, it sounds like the psychologist when through these questions with you before, so I’m guessing you’re primed with the right answers. Is that right?”

“If it was anyone else who asked, I would say no,” Harry laughed, but it wasn’t dark or twisted. It was light and soft, and sounded very out of place in this setting. “However, I like you, Alexandra. Everyone else tried to adopt the persona they thought would best get me to talk, nice and cordial or stern and cruel. You are just talking to me like a person.”

“Last I checked, you are still a person, so I don’t see any reason to treat you otherwise.” The conversation was alarmingly comfortable and Alex found herself even liking Harry a little bit. “Also, please, call me Alex or A.J. Alexandra is just so…

“You don’t like Alexandra? I think it fits you, regal and gentle.” Harry tilted his head as he studied her. “You expected me to be less sane than I am right now, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t really have expectations,” Alex looked down at the clipboard again, reminding herself that she had a job to do. “So, are you going to answer these questions or not?”

“How about this?” Harry crossed legs and shimmied to the end of the bed, blue eyes sparkling. “For every question you ask me, I get to ask you one.”

“You can ask, but that doesn’t mean that I’ll answer,” Alex conceded. “You’re also not getting any blood or skin samples from me.”

“Fair enough, you start,” Harry gave her a smile, showing slightly pointy teeth.

Alex asked the first question and Harry was answering before she finished asking it. However, he was patient and repeated himself slowly, pausing so that she could easily transcribe it accurately.

“Where are you from? It’s obvious that you aren’t native to New York,” Harry propped his head up on his folded hands.

“A tiny Midwest town on a not so tiny farm,” Alex relaxed in the chair a little. Harry had to be close to her age, something she would have to google later, but in the slip on shoes and jumpsuit, he seemed younger.

The rest of the hour continued in the same vein, Harry asking innocent questions and Alex providing vague answers. While she felt relaxed, telling a mentally unstable criminal detailed facts about herself did not seem wise, but she saw no problem with her favorite color or what her zodiac sign was.

“I have a question that’s not part of the assignment, if you don’t mind,” Alex said as she motioned for the guard to open the little area in the door that would allow Harry to stick out his arm for her to collect the samples.

“I get to ask another question then,” Harry said as he rolled up his sleeve and slid his arm out without any protest.

Alex snapped on a pair of gloves and opened the container with medical supplies. It was rather simple, a couple vials of blood and a small skin sample. Relatively noninvasive and painless, if you weren’t scared of needles. Professor Warren had given her a lesson about how to properly collect samples when she agreed to the assignment, but her hand still shook a little as she placed her hand on his arm to make sure he didn’t flinch.

“Calm down, Alex,” Harry said softly, looking up through his lashes and giving her a smile. “I promise one little needle stick isn’t going to bother me. What’s your question?”

“Earlier, you said ‘less sane than I am right now’” Alex slid the needle into Harry’s arm, he didn’t even flinch. “Does that mean that, because of whatever happened, you have a fluctuating mental state?”

Alex knew that the likelihood that whatever happened to Harry had nothing to do with Hydra, but a fluctuating mental state made her think of James. If she could get a brain scan on how his brain functioned during one of these episodes, maybe that data could be used in her research on a way to help James once he was found.

“Whatever happened, well, I did it to myself,” Harry said as Alex gently cut out the skin sample. “I had a rare genetic condition and there’s no cure. Slowly, I would have become an invalid, dying before my time, a husk of a human being. The only thing my father ever gave me.”

Alex looked up at Harry and was surprised to see that he was watching her intently. There was something about the way his blue eyes focused on her, the strange light behind them, that sent a small shiver down her spine. She could feel his pulse hammering as she pressed gauze to the small incision. There was an itch in her wrist, but she ignored it as she secured the samples, disposed of everything, and stripped off her gloves.

“At Oscorp,” Harry continued, voice even softer that he was basically whispering, “we had a cure of sorts, but it hadn’t been tested on humans. Well, it had accidentally been tested on one. It was my only hope, so…I took it.”

“It didn’t go well,” Alex realized that they were almost nose to nose through the glass, feeling as if she moved away she would break something. This was not an answer to the question she asked, but it was still fascinating and she didn’t want Harry to stop talking.

“Well, my condition has slowed if not been stopped completely due to the mutations that the serum caused,” Harry gave her a ghost of a smile. “However, at times, I’m not myself. There are physical transformations as well and they’re not pretty.”

“Well, that will remind me to never skip the proper scientific procedures in my research,” Alex tried to joke, but it was an awful attempt. “I’m sorry, about the illness and…what came after.”

“You shouldn’t be,” Harry pulled his arm back, rubbing the back of his hand as the opening was secured once again. “The transformation, it taps right into my rage and I don’t care what’s right or wrong, just what I want. Sometimes I remember what I do, sometimes it is something I’ve wanted to do all along, other times…”

They were standing there, looking through the glass at one another, deep blue eyes looking into light blue. There were equally deep purple bags under both sets of eyes. Alex realized that she was barely breathing, completely entranced with what he might say next. It felt weird, to be staring at someone she had just met and hanging on his every word. Was she really so tired that he was having such an effect on her or did it have to due to the setting that the conversation was taking place in?

“Other times I do something I regret, like kill an innocent woman, one about your age, just to hurt someone who had wronged me.” Harry was studying her face, to see how she took the news. “They didn’t put me in here because I look good in orange.”

Alex finally blinked and took a step back, processing the information she had just been given. It wasn’t like she didn’t know more than her fair share of people who had blood on their hands. Steve during the war, Sam as well, James had killed people right in front of her, and that didn’t even count the people at Stark Industries. Harry seemed genuinely upset by what he had done, but did that change the gravity of the act?

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Osborn,” Alex said as she got ready to leave, turing to the guard. “Yours as well, Jason.”

“Harry, please, and I meant what I said about your honesty being refreshing. That’s why I told you the truth, I’m hoping that you come back next week for the next interview. I do like you better than anyone else that Miles, the professor, has sent me.”

“Take care of yourself, Harry,” Alex said with a small smile. “I’ll see you next week.”

Alex walked down the hall, feeling a little braver, letting her eyes drift over to the cell doors. There was nothing to see in most of them with the small glimpse that she got, but in a couple she would see the back of a head. There was only one that had a man standing at the door, looking out at her. He was older with wispy blond hair and round glasses. The expression on his face as she passed could only have been described as concerned. Then she was passed the window and stepping into the elevator.

There must have been a changing of the guard while Alex was interviewing Harry because it was a silent elevator ride up to the main floor. While the whole experience was far more than she had expected, there was a glimmer of hope that this extra credit might do some actual good for more than just her GPA. Alex was going to have to ask Professor Warren about what his research was actually focused on to understand the scope of what they were doing.

Alex was patted down again before the doors were unlocked and Alex was able to collect her things. The slight drizzle had advanced to a full-blown thunderstorm when Alex dashed to the waiting SUV. It wasn’t until they had pulled away from Ravencroft that she looked at her phone. Six missed calls and two voicemails. A heart in her throat, Alex listened to the first one.

“Harper, it’s me, Peter Parker. I’m not sure what you meant by your text, but you not answering your phone is not doing a lot for my anxiety. Now, I know you don’t like me following you around, I get it, you’re an independent woman and everything, but when you send me that text and I then can’t trace your cell phone signal, that goes way past anxiety. I know that I have been ignoring you and avoiding you, and I’m sorry, but like this is just cruel and unusual punishment. I invited you to dinner! I promise we’ll talk! As soon as you get this, I mean the immediate moment, call me.” Peter spoke so quickly that it took Alex two listens to the message before she caught all of it.

Alex sent Peter a quick text, saying that she was alright and would call him once she was back at her apartment. While she doubted that would placate her lab partner, she didn’t really want to have the conversation with the possible mob member by night driver able to eavesdrop. Instead she hit the other voicemail to listen to, hoping that Peter hadn’t done something stupid like call in a missing person’s report.

The first couple seconds of the message was just silence, and Alex was about to hang up, before there was a deep inhale on the other line.

“Alexandra,” James’s voice was shaky and heavily accented. He started talking then, but it was in fluent Russian. Alex picked up a word here and there, but it was mostly nonsense to her. There was no pain or anxiety in the tone of his voice, but Alex could have thrown her phone out of frustration. Apparently, he had slipped back into his programming a bit, but at least he didn’t sound in danger.

The voicemail ended, but Alex couldn’t pull the phone away from her ear. Each phone call was a little glimmer of hope attached to a blade inserted straight into her heart. To hear his voice, to know he was alive, made butterflies awaken in her stomach. It also made her remember that when he was free of the programming, he wanted nothing to do with her. God, how did this become her life?

“Miss Harper, thank goodness, I was worried about you,” Jonathan said as he opened the door to let her out of the SUV. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine Jonathan, thank you.” Alex gave him a smile as they headed into the apartment building. “It was part of a job, I’m sorry to not warn you.”

“I don’t like the look of that man, Miss.” Jonathan shook his head as he went behind the front desk. “Please be careful.”

“Always.” Alex was starting to get tired of all the males in her life believing that she needed a bodyguard. Yes, she got into trouble more than your normal citizen, but she was self-sufficient. However, Jonathan was just trying to be nice, so there was no reason to take his head off.

“There was also a rather persistent young gentleman here to see you earlier. However, since you weren’t home, I told him I’d tell you he stopped by and sent him away. He even tried to sneak past me.” Jonathan sniffed in disdain.

“He’s fine, Jonathan, he’s just a friend from school.” There was a very small list of young gentlemen that Alex knew and only one who would attempt to sneak by the doorman. Peter really must have been worried about her, but how did he know where she lived? He had said something about tracking her cell phone too, which was a conversation they were going to have to have.

By the time got to her apartment, she was bubbling with rage. She stabbed Peter’s contact picture with more force than necessary and put her phone to her ear. The call was answered almost immediately, though Peter was apparently out of breath because he didn’t say anything right away. There was also the sound of water somewhere in the background, maybe he had been in the shower?

“Alexandra, where have you been? You dropped off the face of the earth after sending me a cryptic text. I stopped by your apartment and you weren’t there, the doorman wouldn’t tell me where you had gone. I almost called the cops!” Peter rambled.

“Funny, Peter, I don’t remember you being my keeper,” Alex’s voice was a cold as ice as she kicked off her heels. She noticed that her window was open, letting some cooler air into the apartment. She could have sworn it that she had closed it before she left.

“You texted me!” Peter’s voice climbed a couple octaves.

“Just as a precaution, it’s a girl thing. I should have just texted Monica,” Alex grumbled as she walked over to the window.

It was still storming pretty heavily now and she didn’t want anything in the apartment getting wet. There was a little fumbling as she pinned the phone between her shoulder and cheek as she reached between the curtains to push the window closed. There, on the other side of the glass was Peter Park, wet and looking rather sheepish.

“Jesus Christ!” Alex stumbled backward, the phone falling onto the floor. He was very lucky that she didn’t carry a gun or he would have had to attempt to dodge a bullet on her tiny fire escape.

“Most people just go with Peter,” he gave her a smile as he hung up the call. “Can you let me in? I’m starting to grow mildew out here.”

“What the hell are you doing out there?” Alex’s voice was a little shaky, though now probably because of anger.

“Okay, maybe this wasn’t my best thought out plan,” Peter admitted, pushing wet hair out of his face, “but I panicked when you wouldn’t answer your phone and I couldn’t get its GPS location. You really should get someone to give that doorman a raise, by the way, he was rather forceful, but still polite with me.”

Alex huffed, but he looked so pathetic out there bent at the waist to look in the window and dripping wet hair, that she had to let him in. It took her a little time to get the screen up, but finally Peter slithered into the apartment. Alex directed him to the bathroom, so he didn’t drip all over the place, before lowering the screen and closing the window. Luckily, there was a clean towel in the closet, even though she hadn’t done laundry in weeks, and she tossed it at Peter before she started to change out of her interview clothing.

“So, where exactly were you today that blocked cell phone signals and made you worried enough to text me?” Peter called from the bathroom. Alex heard wet clothes hitting the tiles and prayed that he wouldn’t walk out in just the towel.

“It’s for this extra credit assignment I’m doing for Warren. I wasn’t exactly sure what I was getting into. I never intended you to track my cell phone. How can you even do that?” Alex called as she tugged on a hoodie and a pair of yoga pants.

“I’m Spider-man,” Peter said, waiting out of the bathroom towel drying his hair. As if to make his point, he was wearing his suit, well the bottom half of it. He was really only using it as a pair of pants, the rest scrunched up around his waist to show a lot of ab muscles.

“There’s a drier down in the basement, if you want me to take your stuff down,” Alex offered. “However, you’re going to have to supply the dollar.”

“I don’t think I have a dollar on me,” Peter shrugged. “You’re doing extra credit for Warren? Since when? I wasn’t offered extra credit.”

“I would have told you all about it, if you would have talked to me the past couple days instead of acting like I had the plague.” Alex pointed out. “And since when are you planning on going to London? You didn’t think that you might need to mention that to your lab partner?”

“I thought we weren’t friends?” Peter countered as he perched on the edge of the battered trunk that was her coffee table, a small smile on his face. “It’s just an application and even if I do get selected, I wouldn’t leave until next semester. We wouldn’t be lab partners anymore. How do you know the head of the anti-vigilante division of the NYPD?”

“Michael had the misfortune of being the officer on duty when I had some issues last year and he just can’t seem to get away from me,” Alex shrugged, jumping up onto the kitchen counter. “Are we still having dinner with your Aunt tonight?”

“She has a shift at the hospital today, so I figured we could get pizza or something so she doesn’t have to cook and we can get some work done on that project. Though apparently you have extra credit…” Peter trailed off, dropping the towel and picking up the notebook on the table. “What’s all this?”

“None of your business,” Alex jumped down and snatched the notebook out of his hand. “And for some reason Professor Warren really doesn’t like you, so that’s probably why you weren’t offered an extra credit assignment.”

“He really didn’t like you either, until recently,” Peter pointed out.

He had a point, but Alex wasn’t going to tell him that. Whatever the reason for Warren’s sudden interest and like of her was, it was helpful. There is that whole saying about not looking a gift horse in the mouth. Still, maybe on Monday she would stop by office hours and see if he would give her any more details about what they were working on, exactly. While she was fascinated by Harry, there were a thousand different biochemical avenues that his case could do down, and she should probably figure out which one.

“There was another reason I stopped by your place,” Peter said as he looked up at her, hair drying at erratic angles on his head.

“You don’t say,” Alex rolled her eyes as she sat down on the couch.

“Have you heard about the attacks on scientists? Their apartment’s being trashed, as if a wild animal was in there?” Peter leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees while Alex nodded. “When I couldn’t get a hold of you, I was worried whatever it was got to you, so I came by to check out your place. While it was dirty enough that someone may have ransacked it, there were no scratch marks. Then you called and here we are.”

“Since you’re investigating, I’m guessing it isn’t really a wild animal being set loose by like PETA to protest animal testing?” Alex was a little touched that Peter was so worried he had come to check up on her, even though it was ridiculous.

“No, no, I’ve caught glimpses of him and if I didn’t know better, I’d say it was a werewolf,” Peter sighed. “However, it wasn’t a completely selfless reason I stopped by, I wanted to make sure that you haven’t told anyone at Stark Tower about me.”

“Why doesn’t anyone at Stark Tower know about you? I mean, you guys are in the same line of work.” Alex really hadn’t given any thought to the idea, but shouldn’t the Avengers be recruiting Peter?

“Because I draw the line at aliens,” Peter laughed before turning serious. “I was in New York for the battle, with those things pouring from the sky. There was nothing I could do and honestly I want no part of that. Besides, someone had to take care of the smaller threats while the Avengers are off saving the world.”

“I’d be even more worried about your mental state if you hadn’t been scared by that,” Alex smiled. “I mean, you’re just a scientist in spandex. Aliens are a bit above your pay grade.”

“I’m not just an inventor, I have a few more tricks up my sleeve, but I would have been totally out of my depth.” Peter laughed as he got up and stretched.

“Is that so?” Alex raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to continue.

Before Peter answered, a ringing phone can be heard from the bathroom. Alex hopped up and grabbed it out of the soaking wet jeans Peter had thrown over the tub. Peter was right behind her and his face fell when he looked at the readout.

“Another scientist apartment was just called into 9-1-1.” Peter was moving toward the window before the words were out of his mouth. “If I get there first, maybe I can find out what this guy is after.”

“Peter wait a-” Alex didn’t even get to finish the statement before he was out of the window and perched on the railing of her fire escape.

“I’ll call you later about dinner,” Peter called before he vaulted over the railing and fell out of sight.

“Parker,” Alex screamed as she scrambled out of the window. Gripping onto the railing, Alex looked over, rain be damned. There was not a splattered lab partner on the ground, in fact, there was nothing in the alley. She heard his laughter and turned her head in time to see a streak of full suited up Spider-Man swing around the building. Alex remembered the white substance that he used when fighting, was it webbing? Damn it, she was curious now.

Slamming the window shut, Alex stripped off again as she was once again soaked and collapsed on the couch, closing her eyes. It had been one hell of a day and it wasn’t even noon. She was tired. Her phone buzzed, a text from Jake asking her about what dates would be good for his trip to the Big Apple. It was just a jumble of letters and Alex couldn’t even figure out a good reply. So she just closed out of the message.

All Alex wanted was a nice long rest. No college to worry about, no vigilantes or superheroes, just for everything to stop. For a second her finger hovered over Sam’s contact picture, for him to tell her everything was alright, to come over and talk with her. However, she couldn’t bring herself to make the call. She scrolled down and got to Steve’s number, the one she should have called the moment that she got James’s voicemail. Once again, she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

Instead, she turned on her side and listened to James’s voicemail again and again.

#A Spider Sat Down Beside Her #Marvel #My writing #fanfic #peter parker #the amazing spider-man #Bucky Barnes #james bucky barnes #bucky x oc #Update 11

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