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cassiopeiassky · 4 years

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Black Velvet

Alright everyone, it’s finally here. I’ve been sort of salty about the lack of tall!reader fics for awhile now or maybe it’s just the ubiquitous short, petite, drowning in his sweatshirt descriptions that get under my skin but just couldn’t get a decent amount of inspiration to write one. I have been known to throw in a mention of height randomly in my fics, but my usual workaround to avoid physical descriptions of the reader is to just write Bucky as like six and a half feet tall. Hes a damn super soldier, he should be taller anyway he did not start out as short as Steve. So one day I stumbled across this post by @invisibleanonymousmonsters and for some reason I can’t explain, an idea was finally unlocked in my brain later that same day. (Inspired by a song? Me? No. Never.)

It’s kind of all over the place, so buckle in. It does take a sharp right into smutsville but also ends up flipping a u and landing in flufftown. I don’t know. I just write what the muse tells me to write.

I would like to thank the incomparable @scottish-pepper for her amazing help and support while I wrote the thing - I couldn’t have done it without you, darlin.

Bucky x Tall!Reader

Modern day AU - think of a 40s prewar Bucky if he got a chance to grow up and lived in a small town

Plot: You have a terrible day of epic proportions but a beautiful stranger in a small town helps to make it better.

Warnings: Swearing (as per usual), smut, mentions of alcohol/drinking/bars, a brief mention of potentially disordered eating, mentions of a thunderstorm, and a very specific shitty family member.

Word count: 12K Yep. Knda got away from me

One last author’s note: This fic includes some ASL dialogue; it is expressed in italics without quotation marks. ASL is an incredibly beautiful and expressive language, and it’s in 3D!! It also has its own grammar structure, rules, nuances, and regional differences, just like any other language, and it can be a challenge to fit it into a two-dimensional space. Taking this into consideration, I’ve decided to write the dialogue with spoken English grammar because my ASL is really rusty and I don’t want to mess it up.

It’s hot. Like 100 degrees in the shade with 95% humidity hot. The trees are wilted, flowers are drooping, and there isn’t so much as a glimmer of hope for a cloud in the sky to interrupt the sun’s torture of earth’s inhabitants. The air is thick and still – there’s no movement at all – yet dangerously unsettled. It’s the kind of weather that if you sneeze, you might cause a tornado in the next county over. Of course your cousin would choose today of all days to get married. And of course her mom pressured her into going black tie, increasing everyone’s suffering tenfold.

“I can’t believe I rented a room for this. I can’t believe I spent $200 on a dress. Why am I even here? What did I expect?” There’s no answer, but of course there wouldn’t be. You’re alone in your car, driving back to a motel that you might not even stay the night in. You’d rented a room because you figured you’d have a few drinks at the reception – you wanted to celebrate the bride, she’s one of your best friends – but at this point you might as well just make the hour drive back home.

About a block from the motel you notice a bar tucked behind a gas station. According to the clock on the dash, it’s only 5:25.

Fuck it. You deserve a goddamn drink after today.

You pull into the parking lot and are surprised by the number of cars, farm trucks, and motorcycles already parked. There’s only one redneck limo, thank God – a pickup truck with a 10 inch lift kit and truck nuts hanging off the hitch, and in your experience driven only by incredibly insecure men – so that’s a good sign, right? It must be a decent place with decent drinks if it’s this busy so early in the evening. Maybe some of your day can be salvaged after all.

The hot, sticky air rushes in as soon as the car door is opened. “Gross,” you mutter; the heat hits even harder after the air conditioning in your car. Glancing over to the passenger seat, you see the hideous shoes your aunt Lydia pressed into your hands upon arriving at the wedding. “You know what, Lydia? Fuck you and fuck your ugly shoes.” You put your heels back on just to spite her.

It’s a small-town watering hole, so of course all eyes are drawn to you when you enter. And they stay on you as you find a seat at the bar – perhaps it’s because you’re a stranger, perhaps it’s because you’re overdressed.

But probably not.

The bartender approaches while drying his hands. He’s got dirty blonde hair in a sloppy undercut, a wide, flat nose, and is wearing a concert tee shirt with the arms cut off to show off his full sleeve of tattoos.

“Do you have blended drinks?” He nods. “Strawberry daiquiri, please.”

“Sure thing.”

You pull out some cash, tipping generously because your drink is a pain in the ass to make, then look around while you wait.

The bar is cool but not cold, not brightly lit but also not uncomfortably dim, is bigger than it looks, and is even busier than the amount of vehicles in the parking lot would lead you to believe. On one side there’s a jukebox next to a small stage with an empty but decently sized dance floor. There are a few high tops, then a gaming area featuring pool tables, dart boards, and a few pinball machines. On the other side of the bar you see a window with someone selling pull tabs, a station set up for calling bingo, a door to what’s probably the kitchen, and a popcorn machine filled with freshly popped popcorn. Behind you and scattered generously throughout the building are tables, some with 4 seats and some with 6, and over half of them are occupied.

“Here you go, miss.” The bartender places your drink in front of you with a polite smile. “Would you like a menu? The full kitchen is open tonight.”

The thought is nauseating. “Mmmm…maybe later.”

“Too hot to eat?” At your despondent nod, he grimaces and places a tall glass of ice water next to the daiquiri. “Thought as much. I’ll check back in a bit.” You didn’t notice his name tag until now – his name is Clint, and according to the hand illustrations under his name, he’s fluent in ASL.

Unsure if he’s Deaf and fluent in lipreading or if he’s hearing, you both sign and murmur, “Thank you,” before bringing the drink to your lips. It’s on the edge of being burned – just the way you like it. Sipping on the sweet slush is pure bliss, cooling you down from the inside out as it tempers the heat of the rum.

You sign? He doesn’t speak this time. It’s not an uncommon reaction.

Yes. I’m an interpreter.

His eyebrows rise in interest. What made you go into that?

My high school offered it, and I ended up becoming really good friends with the teacher’s daughter, who is Deaf. I made a lot of friends, got involved with the community and immersed in the culture, and I just loved it, so I figured, why not do this for a living? My dreams of being a Triple Crown winning jockey went out the window by the end of 5th grade so…

He laughs, but not unkindly. Yeah, I suppose you are a bit too tall for that. But 5th grade? Damn. His face lights up, Hey, have you heard of PATH, International? They’ve got a campus about half hour north of here. If you like horses, it might be right up your alley.

PATH International, or Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship, is an organization very close to your heart. Yes! I volunteer there every Tuesday night.

The look of surprise on Clint’s face is priceless. No shit? I’m there on Thursday nights! You must be the other interpreter the kids are always talking about - they LOVE you! And so do the horses. You know, I was Ace’s favorite till you came along. Now he won’t even look at me unless I bribe him with a treat.

You look again at his name tag, and the name clicks. Wait, you’re Hawkeye! The one that does the archery demos on horseback for the kids’ birthday parties.

He takes a theatrical bow. The one and only.

Clint “Hawkeye” Barton is nothing short of a legend at PATH. Profoundly Deaf yet impossibly accurate with speechreading, he manages to blend both worlds perfectly. He’s also a master archer both off and on horseback, which basically makes him a superhero in the kids’ eyes. There are whispers that he travelled with a circus as a teenager, that he raises horses, and that he moonlights as a vigilante, but nothing has been verified and from what you’ve been told, he will neither confirm nor deny. It’s very likely that there’s at least some truth to the horse raising rumor – Ace is technically his horse, he just loans the chestnut gelding to the program. You’d been dying to meet Clint for a few years now but hadn’t been able to make it work.

It’s so good to finally meet you!

Likewise! I’ve been meaning to swing by on a Tuesday to see who it is that stole my favorite horse’s heart, but I’m usually here. His face lights up, Hey, I’ve got some ideas for a field trip for the older kids and adults but I need to team up with an ASL interpreter since I can’t technically work as a Deaf interpreter on my own off PATH’s campus. You know, rules and shit. You interested?

Absolutely! Just let me know. You dig a pen out of your purse and write your number and email address on a napkin. You know, I’m sorry, but I’m really not sorry about Ace. He stole my heart, what can I say.

He’s a shameless flirt, but I never thought he’d actually prefer someone else over me. But now that I’ve met you, I guess I can’t be too sore about it. He seems to have good taste. He takes the napkin with a grin and folds it up before putting it in his pocket, then looks to his left when a waitress waves for his attention and nods. Duty calls. Let me know if you need anything.

Well, that improved your day considerably.

For a few minutes, anyway.

“That’s an awfully girly drink for a woman like you.” A cloud of stale cigarette smoke with an obnoxious sounding man in the middle of it takes the seat next to yours.

You don’t turn to face him; you don’t even acknowledge him. If that’s his opening line, then you really, really don’t have the patience to interact with him today. This is the guy that owns the jacked-up truck. You can feel it in your bones.

Clint makes a face from behind the drink he’s making, notices your annoyance, and shakes his head. “Dude, she’s got more alcohol in her glass than you and your four buddies combined, so don’t knock her drink of choice. She’s also clearly not interested, and way, way out of your league. Go back to your pull tabs and leave the lady alone.”

You can feel the guy’s eyes on you, but Clint keeps glaring daggers at him and he eventually leaves. You can overhear him tell his buddies, “Thought she’d be an easy lay, but you know what? Even I have standards. How do you fuck someone that tall anyway? I’d need scaffolding!” They laugh, but you continue to hold your head up high. It’s nothing you haven’t heard some version of before. He’s not clever.

Ignore them. They’re lonely, small little men.

I know. Thank you. His protective gesture is touching and completely unexpected. This kind of thing doesn’t happen very often because most people assume you can handle yourself. You can – but it’s nice to not always have to be on the defensive, and today you’re at your limit.

No worries. You look like you had a rough day, I figured you didn’t need Chad making it worse. Clint winks and turns back to his drinks.

Well, he’s not wrong, but the day can only get better from here, right? Right. You nod to yourself then sit back and enjoy your drink. Clint stops by periodically to chat, but otherwise you’re left alone.

Eventually it’s time for a trip to the ladies’ room, and you do your best to ignore the stares and chuckles that inevitably follow you. In your semi-formal black dress you certainly stand out in a bar filled with cut off shorts and tee shirts, but that’s not why they’re staring.

In your black satin and lace, modestly platformed stiletto heels – affectionately known as your ‘fuck me shoes’ – you’re well over six feet tall. Are they uncomfortable? God yes, but they’re also beautiful and totally worth it.

The bathrooms are at the back of the bar, past the dart boards and pool tables. You’re almost there when you hear something ping off one of the pool table lamps and see it ricochet across the aisle and onto the top of the glass and wood cabinets housing the pool cues.

“How – how the hell did you manage that, Rogers?” A man with dark hair and a jawline that could cut glass heads in your direction. “You were supposed to throw the chalk to me, not your imaginary friend standing thirteen feet behind me.”

“Sorry, Buck,” a blonde joins him, looking appropriately apologetic. “My aim was a little off.”

“Ya think?”

You slow your pace to watch them. The guy with the dark hair is gorgeous – well, they both are, to be fair – but the one…damn. His maroon tee shirt is fitted enough to show off his beefy physique, and his jeans hug his thighs and ass like they were made for him. He throws off an air of cocky confidence with just a hint of danger, lending a genuine feel to his bad boy image. Should you…maybe? No. No, you absolutely should not. You’re not in the right mindset to try to soothe a man’s threatened masculinity just for a bit of company.

He and the blonde reach for the wayward chalk, but it’s just out of their reach. It’s amusing to watch them try to grab for it, but you take pity on them eventually.

Time for your good deed of the week.

“Excuse me, gentlemen.” Stepping between the two, you reach up and effortlessly pluck the blue cube from its spot before dropping it into the dark-haired man’s hand with a smile. “Here you go.”

Wide blue eyes look up into yours, but he doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t even smile. He just stares. Figures.

The blonde looks between you and his companion before clearing his throat. “Thank you, ma’am.”

The unspoken rejection from the brunette stings. Normally it wouldn’t get to you, but after today? It does. It really does. So you swallow against the burning thickness in your throat and force back the tears with a fake smile. “You’re welcome.” A few more steps and you’re in the ladies’ room, which only serves to make matters worse when you step into an open stall. As you turn around to lock the door, you can see your entire head in the mirror, poking out above the top. A pair of women walk in and they giggle, so you quickly sit down. There’s no point in taking it personally – it actually happens quite a bit in older buildings and you can fully admit that the sight is pretty funny – so you compose yourself and do what you came in to do. You slouch when you stand in order to avoid accidentally looking into one of the neighboring stalls and go to the vanity to wash up.

Even the sink mocks you by making you bend almost in half to reach the water.

A woman with dark hair and bright red lips exits the far-right stall and joins you at the mirror. “Oh wow, your shoes and dress are so pretty!”

“Thank you.”

“Did you come from the wedding at the ballroom?”

“Mmm hmm.” You glance at her shorts and flowery sleeveless top and swallow your sigh – you feel like a fucking behemoth next to her. “I think maybe I should have stopped by my motel room to change.”

“No, you look really nice!” She smiles up at you, “It’s really not unusual to have people dressed up in here on the weekends, you’re just earlier than we usually see it. I’ll give you a tip, though, in case your feet start to hurt. I know the place looks kinda crusty, but the owners take a lot of pride in it. The floors are clean if you choose to go barefoot.”

Her unexpected kindness surprises you; you’re usually shunned by other women when you’re at a bar because all they see is your height, which they erroneously perceive to be an advantage in attracting men. “Thank you. That’s really good to know.” She turns to leave but you stop her when you notice something wrong with her shirt. “Hey, hon, you’re missing a button.” The poor girl is busty, and she’s likely been flashing an unintentionally generous amount of cleavage for who knows how long.

She looks down and immediately sees the gap in her shirt. “Well, shit. I just bought this shirt. No wonder some of the guys couldn’t look me in the eye. Stupid boobs, always trying to pop out. Why can’t they just make clothes that fit real people?”

“I feel ya,” you mutter as you start digging through your purse. “Hold on, I’ve got something…here, try some of this.”

“Scotch tape?” She looks confused as she takes it.

“Double sided tape.”

Her eyes get wide as she gazes up at you. “You’re a genius. And an angel. An angelic genius!” She takes some and fixes her shirt, smiling brightly. Thank you so much!!”

Despite your incredibly shittastic day, you find yourself warming to her. She’s nice. “You’re welcome! I didn’t want a bunch of creeps leering at you. In a world of Chads, we women really need to stick together.”

“Oh, God, you met Chad?” She grimaces and shakes her head, “I’d like to apologize on behalf of the entire town. He and his friends are not a good representation of the rest of us, I promise. They don’t even live here, they were just permanently banned from the bar in the next town over and now they’re our problem, apparently. But I promise, the rest of the people here are alright.” She sticks out her hand, “I’m Peggy, by the way.”

You shake her calloused hand and give her your name. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“It’s nice to meet you, too. If you feel like some company, just come find me. My friends and I will probably be here for a while, and you’re more than welcome to join us.”

“Thank you, I might just do that.” You flash a smile, genuine this time, and go back to your seat at the bar. What the hell, maybe you’ll take her up on her offer after you finish your drink.

A minute passes, maybe two, before someone takes the barstool next to you.

It’s him. The gorgeous brunette.

“Hey.”

“Hey yourself.” You want to roll your eyes at your reply. Smooth. Real smooth.

“My uh, my friends pointed out that I was rude earlier, so I wanted to apologize.”

You turn to him quizzically, giving him your full attention. Is this really the same guy that was playing pool? The sexy one that projected ‘bad ass’? “For what?”

His cheeks grow pink and it throws you off guard. “It’s not nice to stare. My ma taught me better than that – she’d slap me into next week if she saw how I acted. I ain’t usually like that, I’ve just never seen, uh…”

Here it comes. The ‘I’ve never seen such a tall woman’ comment that leaves you feeling like a roadside circus freak show.

“Well, you just got an amazing smile.”

Wait, what? “Huh?”

“I’ve never seen such a pretty smile.” He shrugs and studies the bar top. “Your eyes looked sad, though. I dunno. I guess I was tryin’ to figure you out.” He turns back to you with an almost obnoxiously handsome grin, “My name’s Bucky Barnes. Can I make it up to you? Buy you a drink?”

You narrow your eyes at him, trying to gauge his intent. He seems genuine enough – he’s either a brilliant actor or you seriously misjudged him, which, in your current cynical mindset, is entirely possible.

You look up to see Clint watching as he dries some glasses. Maybe he has some insight. Is this guy decent? He’s gorgeous but does he have a personality?

Clint snorts, glancing at Bucky then back to you. Yeah. He’s a pretty good guy. He’ll treat you right.

Bucky looks like he’s swallowing a smile when you turn back to him. “Yeah, I guess you can make it up to me.”

“Really?” He seems genuinely happy at the prospect.

“Sure.”

“Great!” Apparently that’s all the invitation he needs to turn on the charm. “So what’s a gorgeous girl like you doin’ in a dump like this?

“It’s not that bad,” you laugh.

“No,” he shakes his head sheepishly, “It’s not. Guess I’m really off my game today. I can usually flirt, I promise.”

A beer and another daiquiri appear on the counter. “Thanks, man,” Bucky nods to Clint. “Hey, you wanna grab a table?” He nods his head to the side of the bar by the jukebox. “It’s quieter there. We can chat and I can show you that I ain’t, in fact, the dumbass I’ve made myself out to be.”

“Yeah, okay.” Why not? Even if you don’t know Clint enough to trust him, the kids that you work with do, and you trust their judgement. So if Clint says that Bucky is decent, you’ll believe him.

***

It ends up being a good choice. Bucky turns out to be more than decent – he’s really nice, funny, respectful, keeps his eyes where they belong, and doesn’t ask if you play basketball.

He asks the basic questions and learns that you live about an hour north of here, that you’re an interpreter, you love to read, write, and draw, and yes, you were at a wedding. Tired of talking about yourself, you take advantage of him pausing to drink his beer and flip the topic.

“So what do you do?”

Bucky takes a deep breath and sighs. “I’m a mission systems engineer with NASA.”

You blink at him. “I’m sorry, you’re what?”

“A mission systems engineer with NASA. I know, I –“

“Do you have top secret clearance?”

He looks thoroughly confused. “That’s your first question?”

“Do you? Or would you have to kill me if you told me? Have you been to space? Does the government have a plan for if an asteroid comes our way, or would we have to do like the movie Armageddon and wing it with a bunch of oil rig operators?”

Bucky appears to be absolutely delighted at your string of questions. “Well, yes, no, unfortunately no, and I can’t tell you that because has to do with national security.”

“Fascinating.” You sit back, thoroughly intrigued by the man sitting across from you. “What the hell are you doing in a podunk town like this? Shouldn’t you be in Houston? Or D.C.?”

“I live here.” He chuckles at your unimpressed stare. “Yeah, I know it’s a small town – we got a bar, three churches, a motel, a gas station, and a diner that closes by 7 pm every day. Our biggest draw is the ballroom on the lake shore and the hunting grounds in the fall. It ain’t exactly the heart of modern technology. But I grew up here, my family and friends are here, and I stick around to help out on their farm. I fly into Headquarters a few times a year, but otherwise I work remotely.”

“So what do you do?”

“The general gist of it is that I lead a team that designs, develops, and deploys missions.”

“To space?”

“Well, I mean, I work for NASA…”

“What are you working on now?” You can’t help peppering him with questions – this is so fucking cool.

His eyes sparkle. “You got top secret clearance?”

“No.”

“Sorry. Can’t tell you anything,” he shrugs with a smirk.

“I…yeah, I guess I kind of walked right into that. Wow. So you’re really freaking smart.”

“I hope so!”

“Do you like it?”

“Being smart?”

“Your job, dipshit.”

He laughs, freely and openly, and it’s an amazing sound. “I love it.”

You can’t help but stare at him. “Wow. That’s…that’s just really, really fucking incredible.”

Bucky gets quiet. “It is really incredible. Thank you for thinking so.” He looks up, then back down as he starts peeling the label off his empty bottle of beer. “You know, you’re the first person I’ve told about my job that didn’t either tell me I don’t look smart enough to be a mission systems engineer or ask me how much money I make.” He meets your eyes again. “Or both. I get that a lot, too.”

You certainly know how shitty it feels to get those kinds of unsolicited comments based solely on appearance. It’s one thing to have an impression, but to just say those things out loud? “Well, they suck. And they’re truly shallow if they think intelligence has anything to do with how you look. But hey, at least they show their true colors right away so you can save yourself some time.” You lean forward, chin in hand, “Okay, so I know you can’t tell me about your actual projects, but can you tell me about your job? What are your responsibilities? What does a mission systems engineer do?”

Bucky lights up like New York City and spends the next 40 minutes going into detail about what he does, and you hang on every word; it’s impossible not to, really. His enthusiasm for what he does is so evident that even if the topic weren’t interesting, you’d still be entranced. And you thought he was gorgeous before? His animated passion makes him absolutely breathtaking.

You’ve both finished your drinks and, perhaps not so surprisingly, he switches to soda when you do. When unordered appetizers arrive with your new drinks, you both look over to Clint, who just winks and shrugs.

“Well I ain’t gonna complain. Didn’t realize how hungry I was.” Bucky shoves an entire ham and cheese ball into his mouth, but then has to hasashafahasa because it must have just come out of the fryer. “Ish hot! Rearry hot!”

Bursting into laugher, you slide your ice water to him before cautiously taking a bite of your buffalo wing. Considering how much fun you’ve had in the last hour, it isn’t all that surprising that your appetite has returned. “Me neither.”

The hours fly by as the conversation eventually turns to other topics, and you find yourself talking about things you wouldn’t expect considering you’ve just met. Bucky seems so open and honest that it’s difficult not to reciprocate, and if one doesn’t go into detail about what the other asks, it’s only because there’s so much to cover.

Bucky dips the last bit of pretzel into the beer cheese sauce and pops it into his mouth. “So if you don’t mind me asking, what made those pretty eyes of yours so sad?”

You take a long sip of your Coke Zero as you debate your next move. Deflect or come clean? You surprise yourself when you blurt out, “My aunt, Lydia.”

“Your aunt?”

You squirm a bit at the uncomfortable feeling of vulnerability, but you keep going. “Yeah. It was her daughter that got married today. Marie and I grew up together – Lydia is my mom’s only sister, so she was the one that took care of me when my mom had to work double shifts, which was a lot. She did the best she could, and she means well, she really does, but she’s just so caught up with appearances. My height is a, uh, a definite sore spot with her.”

“Really? Why? What does it matter?”

“I think it comes down to the appearance thing. Tall women are generally seen as less feminine, even straight up masculine. Lydia is tall, too – not quite as tall as me, but close. She claims that she got her husband through making herself appear daintier. She only wears flats and follows all the newest fad diets to make herself as small as she can because she feels that being a tall woman puts her at a distinct disadvantage.” You shrug, “She was one of the primary examples I grew up with. And to be fair, it’s not like she’s completely wrong. In my experience, guys tend to feel emasculated by me. And it’s not just men that seem to see me through a distorted lens. Even from a young age – I’m talking 4th grade – I’d hear teachers tell my mom that I seemed so much more mature than my peers, that I didn’t need as much support, emotional or academic, as everyone else. I got additional responsibilities and higher expectations. The thing is, I wasn’t more mature. I was just tall, so I looked more mature. Eventually it kind of came true, though. Other than my mom, who was single and working 2 jobs to keep me housed and fed, I didn’t really have anyone that would protect me or support me. I guess no one thought I needed it, so I just got used to doing it myself.”

Bucky shakes his head, and you can’t tell if his expression is one of pity, sadness, anger, or something else.

“But Lydia made everything a hundred times worse than it needed to be. I already knew I was outside the norm, I didn’t need the reminders. But every time I’d hit a growth spurt she would share some nasty comment on it, as if telling me that boys didn’t like tall girls would somehow stop my bones from stretching.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Mmm hmm. Despite my mom’s efforts – and the fact that being tall is actually pretty awesome – Lydia’s words really got under my skin, and even now they undermine my confidence sometimes.” You gesture to yourself and the bar, “Obviously. I should be at my cousin’s wedding right now. I don’t go to many family functions anymore, because of her. It just…it puts my head in a bad place. You know, they say it takes five to seven positive comments to balance out one negative comment? The negative is in everything she says. Everything. I love my family to pieces, but I just can’t handle her.”

“What did she say to you today?” If you didn’t know any better, you’d say that Bucky is getting pissed.

“She met me at the door of the chapel with a pair of her ugly black penny loafers. Said that she told the photographer that I wasn’t allowed in any family pictures unless I was wearing them, because she didn’t want my Amazonian ass towering over everyone else and ruining the aesthetic.”

“Your…your ‘Amazonian ass’?”

“Eh,” you shrug and wave your hand dismissively. “It’s not the first time I’ve been called an Amazon and far from the worst thing people have said. I mean, people say it to be cruel, but Amazons were fearless warriors. I just think of it as being put in the same class as Wonder Woman. The part that hurt was that she was prepared to make sure I wasn’t in the pictures, that she thought she could just erase my existence, simply because I’m too tall for her liking.”

Bucky’s mouth drops open. “I might be overstepping here, but what a heartless bitch. No one should ever try to erase you, what a fucking idiot.”

“She browbeat Marie into dyeing her hair blonde for the wedding. Marie hates it, but did it for her mom’s approval.” You release a deep sigh, “But that’s Lydia, and that’s why I took my Amazonian ass out of there the second the ceremony was over.”

“Hmmmm.” He gazes at you. “You know she’s a princess, right?

“Huh?”

“Wonder Woman. She’s a princess. You know…Amazon Princess…it actually kinda suits you.”

“Seriously?”

“Damn right I’m serious. You’re tall? So what. You’re fuckin’ royalty. Own it, Princess. Correct ‘em. Make ‘em say it. Amazon Princess.”

“What?”

“Yep. Say it with me. Amazon Princess.”

You can’t help rolling your eyes, but there’s something undeniably sweet about the way he’s pressing the issue. It’s not good enough for him that it doesn’t bother you – he wants it to be seen as a term of empowerment and to let people know that’s how you see it.

The moment is interrupted when a booming voice comes through the sound system. “Alright everybody, it’s ten o’clock!” Someone stands on the stage, holding a mike and looking more than a little tipsy. “You know what that means!”

The bar cheers, “Free jukebox!”

A line forms immediately, and the music starts.

“Wanna dance, Princess?”

“Really? You’re going to call me ‘Princess’ now?”

He shrugs with darkening eyes and a suggestive smirk. “If it’s okay with you.”

If he keeps looking at you the way he’s looking at you right now, he can call you whatever he damn well pleases. But he doesn’t need to know that. “Yeah,” you murmur. His gaze is so intense that you have to look around the bar to break it and gather your thoughts. You happen to see Peggy; she’s standing next to the blonde that had been playing pool with Bucky, so she must know him. She catches your eye, sees who you’re with, and gives a thumbs up with a huge grin. Well, alright then. You grin back and remember what she said. “Let’s dance.”

Bucky stands, stopping when he sees you toeing off your heels. “Woah, what’re you doing?”

“Taking off my shoes?”

He shakes his head, “Princess, you don’t need to do that. I ain’t too fragile to dance with a woman taller than me.”

“I know,” and you do, “But I can’t dance in these. And my feet hurt.”

When you stand, you’re almost eye to eye with Bucky; if he were barefoot as well, you would be.

People are still lined up at the jukebox, selecting their favorites. It’s exactly the mix you would expect from a place like this – classic songs like Brown Eyed Girl, Summer of ’69, and Footloose with more modern tunes sprinkled in – the kind of music that gets everyone up and dancing.

Bucky is a great dance partner, and you’re having an absolute blast. You don’t think about your aunt, the wedding that you’re supposed to be at, or how you are, without a doubt, the tallest woman in the bar. He laughs, showing off the crinkles at the corners of his eyes, obviously enjoying himself, too.

The jukebox switches songs again, and on comes the relentless, even rhythm of Black Velvet. For the first few measures, you just stare at each other. It’s the first song to play that isn’t upbeat, and you don’t know what to do until he makes the first move and pulls you close – close enough to breathe each other in. He stares as Alannah Myles’ smokey voice drifts over the steady bass, then spins you so your back is to him.

If Bucky’s a good dance partner for upbeat music, he’s even better when it’s slow like this, when every move counts. He’s enough to handle you, and more than confident enough to do so.

Bucky stays behind you, mirroring you with his hands resting gently at your waist. Your back is against his chest, but his hips keep their distance. Just to experiment, you press yours back and hear a guttural “fuck” before he intentionally shifts.

Bucky is absolutely nothing that you expected. “You’re a gentleman.”

You can feel the dark chuckle rumbles through him. “I wouldn’t say that, Princess.” He spins you around, pulling you close but not too close, and runs his thumb along your neck. “I just ain’t in the habit of taking what ain’t mine.”

His voice sends a shiver down your spine. Fuck. You like him. One night stands aren’t usually your thing…but that’s not what this feels like. He feels familiar. Safe. You like him, and he sure seems to like you. Your mind is already made up – you’ll take the chance and see what happens. You hardly recognize your own voice when you ask, “Do you want me to be?”

“Thought I was makin’ it obvious. Yes.” He doesn’t hesitate and his eyes don’t leave yours. “Are you offering?”

You move your hand to the back of his neck and lightly scratch, watching with satisfaction as his pupils dilate even more than they were. His lips part when you pull him closer, but he waits for you to close the kiss.

The second you do, his hands slide down to your lower hips before he tightens his grip. He’s not timid; he kisses you as though you’re a well-known lover, deeply and intensely, without bothering with introductions.

Bucky suddenly breaks the kiss, spinning you around again to pull your back against his chest. This time, though, he allows his hips to rock into yours with the rhythm of the music, slow and steady and insatiable. The way he moves makes it impossible not to think about fucking him; hell, you’re practically halfway there already. His hands alternate holding you tightly to his body, maximizing contact, and running up and down your sides. Your head falls back when his mouth finds your neck, and your legs go weak when his teeth nibble that spot beneath your ear.

You’ve never been so turned on in your life.

His voice is thick when his lips find your ear, “Wanna get out of here?”

You nod, taking his hand to lead him back to the table to collect your things. “I’ve got a room at the motel a block away.”

“Good.”

When you take one last look around, you see Clint, still behind the bar, grinning at you like an absolute idiot. Have fun!

“Oh my God,” you mutter under your breath, but you can’t completely hide the smile.

You step outside to find that the unbearable heat of the day has eased somewhat now that the sun has set. It’s still warm as the humid air kisses your skin, but with the breeze it’s sultry rather than oppressive.

You and Bucky look up at the same time – the stars are barely visible through the haze of clouds. There’s a thunderstorm rolling in on the western horizon.

Bucky walks you to your car, making sure you’re in safely before getting in his own truck and following you to the motel. He jumps out of his vehicle and pushes you against the car the second you’re out of it, kissing you like it’s been days and not 2 minutes since his lips were last on yours.

He doesn’t stop until the first few raindrops hit your skin. Bucky looks up while you grab your purse and your aunt’s shoes out of the car, gathering them clumsily before locking the door. It takes a minute for you to get your room key out of your purse, but you finally manage.

“Looks like the storm is already here. Gonna be a good one if it got here that fast.” He takes your hand, “Which room are you in?”

“Up the steps, furthest door on the left.”

Bucky leads you to the stairs as you both laugh while trying unsuccessfully to dodge the increasingly fat drops of rain. He doesn’t let go of your hand until you need to unlock the door, and the second you hear the click of the lock, his lips are on yours again. He pushes the door open and guides you through, closing the door behind him with a well-placed kick. You drop your purse and the loafers, then step out of your heels as he toes his shoes off. Still connected at the lips, he doesn’t see the things on the floor and trips over one of your stilettos.

“Oh shit!” His eyes are huge, staring up into yours when he realizes he isn’t going to hit the floor because you’ve caught him by the arm. “Good catch, Princess.” Both of you start laughing as he stands up straight, but the laughter dies out when his mouth find yours again. Hungry hands roam your body while you reach beneath his shirt so your fingers can explore the taut muscles you just know are hiding beneath it. Bucky grabs the collar behind his neck and pulls the shirt off altogether, and you are not disappointed. “You like what you see, huh?”

“Damn right I do.” You’re breathless, pressing your lips against the salty skin of his collarbone.

“You sure know how to use that mouth of yours, don’t ya?” He groans, then reaches down to grab the hem of your dress to lift it over your head before tossing it to the side. “Goddamn, darlin.” Bucky eyeballs you like a starving man at a feast before his mouth is back on yours, then moves his lips to the top of your breasts while he reaches around to unclasp your bra. It joins your discarded dress as he pulls you close, groaning at the feel of your naked breasts pressed against his chest. “I don’t know what the fuck I did to deserve you walkin’ into that bar tonight,” he bites your neck and you can’t stop the light whimper, “but I ain’t gonna complain. I’m gonna make you feel so good, Princess, I promise.”

You believe him. And you cannot wait.

The two of you somehow manage to take a couple of steps toward the bed. “I’ve wanted to do this since you smiled at me after givin’ me that chalk. Those eyes, that smile, that dress, those fuckin’ sexy shoes.” His hands find your hips, hooking your panties with his thumbs to push them down so you can step out of them. “When we started dancin’ all I could think about was what it would feel like havin’ your legs wrapped around me, I want you so damn bad.”

You unbutton his jeans and fumble with the zipper, then pull his jeans and boxer briefs down at the same time, freeing a fully hard cock that is nothing short of glorious. “Then either figure out how to multitask or stop talking and fuck me already.”

Bucky Barnes does not need to be told twice.

He kicks off his remaining garments before pushing you against the nearest vertical surface – which happens to be the middle of the window, where there’s a strip of metal supporting the two panes of glass. You aren’t sitting on the ledge, just leaning against it to keep your balance. It occurs to you that maybe you should close the curtains, but you’re too far gone to care enough to do anything about it.

“Don’t you worry, Princess. I can do both.” His arm is looped around your waist to hold you steady while your upper back presses against the cold strip of metal. You’ve got one arm hooked around his neck and the other steadying yourself on the edge of the windowsill. Bucky reaches down, takes hold of your thigh and lifts it to his hip. He lets go of your waist just long enough to guide his cock to your entrance – and he can slide right in because you’re so damn wet – and fuck, the way he stretches you is delicious.

“Christ, you’re so damn fuckable,” he moans in your ear, sending shivers throughout your entire body. “So fucking perfect…don’t need a bed or a chair, I can fuck you anywhere I want. I could just bend you over, wouldn’t even need a wall.” Between his thrusts, which are as maddeningly steady and slow as his dancing, the cool metal of the windowpane at your upper back, the flickers of lightening, and the crashes of thunder, it’s almost sensory overload. He’s holding you so tightly that you can’t move your hips much, so you’re completely at his mercy. And he knows it.

Each move he makes is a sin; the angle you’re at all but guarantees he’s stroking your clit with every move. Delirious with the sensations flooding your brain, you can only babble nonsense.

“What’s that, Princess? Use your words, darlin,” Bucky

“So…so good…I, huh…”

He chuckles darkly, “What was that?”

He’s not playing fair but you really don’t mind – his confidence with you is a rarity and is such a fucking turn on. “More.”

“More? You want me to fuck you harder? Is that right?” He waits for your nod before flashing a wicked grin lit by lightning, then adjusts his grip on your thigh. “Anything you want, Princess, you get.”

His thrusts come harder and faster, multiplying your pleasure tenfold. Then he shifts his hand on your thigh, changing the support from holding it up to pushing it back, opening you further and allowing him to go even deeper.

Oh, oh fuck…

Your entire body clenches with your orgasm, so tightly you can’t even breathe, and your mouth opens in a silent scream.

Bucky follows you just seconds later with a growl of your name against your neck and a few last ragged movements.

He releases your thigh as he gently pulls out, but he doesn’t take his arm from around your waist. You lift yourself onto the windowsill, pulling him between your legs as you hold each other close and catch your breath while the storm rages outside. He keeps his face buried in your neck as you run your fingers up and down his back, calming you both. The thunder rumbles violently while lightning dances in the sky, but it doesn’t worry you. You’ve always found comfort in the chaos of a storm.

Eventually your legs start to fall asleep, so you begin to move. Bucky notices and hikes both of your thighs up to his hips before guiding your arms up around his neck. “Hold on, Princess.” He reaches down and lifts you, carrying you the 5 feet to the bed. After laying you down, he begins kissing you again, then starts exploring your body. “I love being cradled in your thighs like this, but there’s something else I wanna try,” he whispers as he starts crawling down. “Now I can take my time with you.”

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out where he’s going. “Really? Um, maybe I should shower first?” You’re sweaty from the heat of the day and just had some really incredible sex, so there’s no doubt in your mind that things are less than fresh down there.

“If you want to.” He keeps on his slow descent, kissing everything in his path, “But I’m happy with you just like this. I want you, right now, as you are.”

“But don’t you –“

“No. I don’t.” There’s a challenge in his eyes when he looks up from his destination. “I don’t care.” And then Bucky dives in, devouring your pussy like he’d devoured your mouth. He’s got you writhing in moments, all worries gone. But he’s a goddamn tease now that the initial urgency has been satisfied, bringing you to the edge and then backing off again and again in a beautiful torture.

You can’t do dirty talk to save your life, but you’re about to start begging when he finally looks up, chin glistening before he wipes it away with the back of his hand. “Fucking delicious.” Between the sight of him, his voice, and the sensations you’re feeling, your brain just about short circuits. Then his fingers start to circle your entrance, teasing you, making you want more before he slowly pushes two in and curls them to press against that spot, and fuck it can’t feel any better, but then somehow it does. You pull a pillow over your face but he shifts, reaching up to yank it back off and throw it across the room. “No way, Princess, I wanna hear what I do to you,” he rasps, watching you with hungry eyes and a feral grin. You’re almost there…almost…and then he puts his mouth back on your clit and your universe implodes.

One orgasm blends into another and you allow him to push your limits until you can’t handle it anymore. “Stop,” you gasp, and he does immediately. “I’m – it’s too much. I…wow.” You’re so oversensitive at this point that if he breathes too hard, you might jump out of your skin.

Bucky crawls his way back up to you, dropping kisses on your hot skin as he goes. “You’re incredible, you know that? I love how your body responds to me, I fucking love it.”

He kisses you again, and despite your sensitivity, your hunger for him grows. Sitting up, you pull him with you then push him down to the mattress. “Fuck yes,” he whispers hoarsely when you straddle him and slide down, pausing to glide your pussy along his hardened cock, but then you slide down a little farther before spreading his legs so you can kneel between them.

It’s impossible not to groan aloud when your hands find his thighs; thick, tight, and incredibly well formed, they look like they were sculpted by a generous god. “I might have to ride one of these later.”

“Please –“ Bucky swallows hard and licks his lips as he watches you in the dim, sporadically flickering light, “Please do.”

One hand moves to palm his balls while you part your lips to take him in as far as you can, reveling in his heaviness on your tongue while using your hand to stroke the base of his cock. You give it a bit, waiting until he’s writhing beneath you before you pull off and redirect your attention. His eyes grow wide when your fingers start moving down beneath his balls to his taint, pressing gently to find the very root of his cock which will then lead you to the spot you’re looking for. Pressing firmly when you find it, you begin rubbing tight circles.

“What are you – oh. Oh. Oh, fuck, Princess, oh fuck!”

It’s ridiculously satisfying to see him reduced to the same whimpering, quivering puddle you were not so long ago. You make him come once, twice, three times without ejaculating, just because you can.

Bucky’s got his forearm resting over his eyes as he shakes his head, and you take advantage of his distraction to shift your body into position. “Holy shit.” He’s breathless, shaking, “I did not know I had a spot that could do that. Fuck. I – oh Christ…“

You slide onto his cock, smiling when his hands automatically reach to grip your hips – the biology and technique can be explained later. Leaning over, you kiss him deeply then stretch your arms above him to grip the headboard. Rocking your hips slowly, so slowly, you watch him watch you.

Bucky’s lips form words but nothing comes out except for sighs and soft moans as you become more and more intoxicated by his need for you. His hands wander up and down, touching your breasts, hips, ass, and everything in between until he pulls you down for another kiss. “Do you have any idea how fucking perfect you are? You feel so good. So fucking good. Wanna make you feel good. As good as you make me feel.” Bucky kisses you again, sloppily, then wraps an arm tightly around you before flipping you both.

Now that you’re on the bottom and he’s back in control, he picks up the pace considerably.

You certainly aren’t about to complain.

His hands are grasping yours, holding them over your head, and your legs are locked around his hips as his thrusts eventually begin to lose their impeccable rhythm.

Now neither of you are in control.

The pleasure has been steadily building, an inevitable tidal wave on the horizon. Maybe it’s his confidence, maybe he’s naturally gifted, maybe it’s that his body seems to fit with yours just right. Whatever it is, this is by far the best sex you’ve ever had, and despite already having multiple orgasms, your appetite for him seems to be insatiable because you’re greedy for the next one.

“Fuck, Princess, it feels so good having those legs wrapped around me,” he pants, “Goddamn, I can – I can feel you’re right there. I ain’t gonna last much longer, come for me, darlin, give it to me now. Oh Christ yes, that’s right, just – just like that.”

Your body obeys, giving him exactly what he wants. The velvet sound of his voice, his incessant dirty talk, the way he smells and tastes – everything about him adds to your pleasure induced stupor. The orgasm is so powerful that everything but Bucky goes black, and the only thing keeping you tethered to this world is the way he chants your name as he comes.

His body continues to cover yours as you wait for your racing pulse to slow. He presses kisses to your neck, cheeks, lips, and eyelids, and finally your forehead before he gently lifts himself off to lay next to you. “C’mere,” he pulls you to him, and when you rest your head on his chest you can hear how fast his heart is still beating.

Thoroughly sated and soothed by the feel of his fingertips on your skin, it’s tempting to give in and fall asleep. But not yet. Not if you want to sleep through the night.

Reluctantly, you rise. Maybe, if you’re really fast, maybe he’ll still be here when you get back. It’s probably not the sane thing to do, but you really, really want him to stay the night.

“Where you going?” Is that trepidation you hear in his voice?

You smile as you take in the sight of him lying in the bed, disheveled and clearly satisfied. “I need to shower. And wash my face – I need to get my makeup off. My eyes are getting itchy.”

“Can I join you?” He laughs at your raised eyebrow, “No, Princess, not like that. I’m gonna need some time to recover.”

“That’s good to know,” you smirk, “I was starting to wonder if you were a god wearing a mortal’s skin.”

Bucky blushes. It’s adorable. “Nah, no god here. Just a man that’s never wanted a woman so bad before. Still do,” he shrugs, “Just too worn out at the moment to do anything about it. You’re somethin’ special, I hope you know that.”

It’s your turn to feel the heat rise in your cheeks, but you hold out your hand to help him up.

The shower is tender and sweet, full of soft kisses and softer touches. This man just keeps surprising you.

He’s toweling off his hair when his eyes meet yours in the vanity mirror. “Is it okay if I stay?”

A slow smile spreads across your face – you couldn’t stop it if you tried. “I’d like that.” You slip into fresh panties and a tank top, turning to face him fully to admit, “I’d like that a lot.” Bucky beams at you before pressing a soft kiss to your lips and heads to the bed. You finish up a few minutes later and crawl in, suddenly feeling very self-conscious. There’s nothing to hide behind – no makeup, no cocktail dress, no drink. It’s just you, and this is a state that very few people see you in; no one you’ve ever dated has seen you this vulnerable until months have gone by. Some didn’t see you this way at all. “Don’t look too close. I’m very unglamorous and monochrome without makeup.”

Bucky’s blue eyes stare in yours. “We’ll have to agree to disagree.” His fingers trace your freshly moisturized skin. “I think you’re beautiful.”

Outside, the thunderstorm has exhausted itself. He pulls you close and breathes you in, and you both fall asleep to the sound of gentle rain.

***

When the sun peeks through the gap in the curtains at 6 am, you’re not even mad that you’re awake. The sight of Bucky lying peacefully next to you is something you’re thoroughly enjoying.

“You’re staring.” His voice, deep and gravelly, rumbles lightly into the silence as he opens his eyes. “It’s because I’m decent and gorgeous with a personality, right?”

“What?”

Bucky smirks as he stretches and sits up. “I should probably come clean. The bartender from last night? My parents took him and his sister in after their parents were killed in an accident. Clint and Carrie were lucky to survive – he lost his hearing and six months of memories and she was in the ICU for 3 weeks. He and I have practically been brothers since grade school.”

It takes a minute, but you finally put the pieces together. Oh. Well, shit.

“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop; I was just really surprised to see you sign so I didn’t look away fast enough. I’m sorry.”

You sit up and slap him lightly on the shoulder. “So, you knew what I asked him?

His smile broadens as he gives you puppy dog eyes. Yes. Please don’t be mad.

You try not to smile back as you think about it but lose the battle and shrug. “I’m not mad. Maybe a little embarrassed, but we’ve known each other for what, 12 hours? It’s not like you can tell me everything about you in that short amount of time.” You give him some serious side eye, “Although you could have mentioned that when I told you what I do for a living.”

He studies your eyes like he’s trying to see into your soul. “I told you a lot, though.”

“You did. We both did.” It surprises you, more than a little, that you aren’t horrified at how open and honest you’ve been with him.

Bucky reaches his hand up to cup your cheek and he pulls you in for a kiss. “Good morning, beautiful.” It seems like he doesn’t want to part, because he rests his forehead against yours.

Somehow your hand finds his neck, and you gently rub your thumb along his jawline. “Good morning, Bucky.”

His stomach grumbles. Loudly. “Wanna grab some breakfast, Princess?”

It makes you a stupid amount of happy that he’s not ready to leave you just yet. “Yeah. I just need a little bit to get ready.”

A half hour later, Bucky opens the passenger side door of his pickup. “Your chariot, Princess.”

“Thank you,” you murmur, taking his offered hand and climbing in. It’s an older truck, one with a bench seat, and it smells of hay, Bucky’s cologne, and sweat. It’s not what you’d expected, but it suits him.

In this tiny little town nothing is open at this hour on a Sunday morning, so Bucky pulls his pickup onto the interstate to head to a fast food restaurant a few miles away. You take the time to look around – the area is really pretty and reminds you of the drive to your grandparents’ house, all farmland and pastures. Of course, you can’t help but stare at the horses whenever you pass them. “Whoa. They must breed Appaloosas.”

Bucky takes a quick glance out your window. “Yeah, that’s the Carter farm. They raise Appaloosas and alpacas.” He’s quiet for a moment. “You like horses? Not everyone can randomly pick out that breed.”

“I love horses,” you murmur, smiling broadly when you spot a few foals among the herd. You’re too busy looking at them to notice how he looks at you.

***

Breakfast is simple, just something picked up at a drive thru window, but that’s perfectly fine with you. Bucky doesn’t pull back onto the interstate though, he instead starts driving the winding country roads. You don’t mind in the least; you simply sip your coffee, content to be exactly where you are. Considering the hour, you aren’t even grumpy. Stealing glance at the reason why, you hide your smile and take another sip.

Bucky’s fingers drum almost nervously against the wheel, then he seems to make a decision as he brakes sharply. “Sorry, Princess,” he smiles sheepishly, “You up for a picnic? I know a spot.”

His smile is infectious. “Yeah.”

He takes the left he stopped so quickly for, and then another left onto a dirt road, and a mile later he turns onto what looks like a seldom used service trail leading up to a fenced in pasture. “Just a sec,” he pulls the truck to a stop, then gets out to open a gate. Bucky quickly climbs back in, drives the truck through about 20 feet before turning in a tight circle to face the road, and closes the gate behind him before stepping up to your door. “I got some blankets, do you want to sit in the truck bed with me?”

“Of course.”

He gets the blankets and spreads them out while you grab the food and coffees, handing them to him before you climb in after him.

“I would’ve helped you in, Princess.”

“Bucky. I’m not five feet tall. I can get into the back of a truck.”

He rolls his eyes. “I’m fully aware of that. But unlike the other shmucks you seem to have come across in your life, I ain’t gonna make you do something by yourself just because you can. You deserve consideration and chivalry, too.”

What do you even say to that? He’s the exact opposite of pretty much everything you’ve ever known. It’s nice.

He sits down against a box that is attached to the back of the cab. “C’mere. You look cold.”

It was hot when you’d packed your overnight bag so you’ve only got a tee shirt and shorts on, and luckily a hoodie that just happened to be in the backseat of your car. “I am, a little,” you admit as you curl into his side, allowing him to cover your legs with another blanket that he’s pulled out.

He eats one handed, keeping an arm around you to keep you close and warm.

Everything smells clean and fresh now that the storm went through, and the morning air is chilly but fresh with the light breeze. The radio plays softly, drifting through the open windows as you and Bucky eat and watch the fluffy white clouds drift by. It’s the best picnic you’ve ever had, hands down.

“So where are we? It’s beautiful here.”

“My parents’ farm.”

You turn to stare at him. “This is where you grew up?”

“Yep.”

“Lucky.”

“I am. Hey, I wanna introduce you to someone.” He stands suddenly, not waiting for a reply. You’re in the middle of a pasture, who the hell is there for you to meet? Bucky brings his fingers to his lips and lets out the sort of piercing whistle that you’ve never managed to master.

And then…and then…

“Are you fucking serious.” Eyes wide, you bring yourself to a kneeling position as a steel grey Percheron comes galloping full speed towards the truck. “Bucky!”

He turns toward you, face almost split in two by his grin. The horse slows down, circling the truck and whickering before coming to a full stop right at the tailgate.

“I’d like you to meet Sergeant.”

“Oh my God, Bucky, he’s stunning,” you breathe, unable to help yourself as you slowly move forward to sit at the edge of the open tailgate. Intelligent eyes take you in before a velvet muzzle finds your hand. “Sorry buddy, I don’t have any treats for you. But I do have ear scratches,” you murmur, firmly stroking the planes of his face before scratching behind his ears. You giggle when he sighs, and again when he mouths gently at your hair.

Bucky beams with pride as he pulls an apple out of the box you’d been leaning against, feeding it to Sergeant before sitting on the tailgate next to you. “I’ve had him for 20 years. I got him when he was just a colt. Trained him myself. He’s one of the reasons why I choose to work remotely – I just can’t imagine not getting to see him.”

“I don’t blame you at all, I don’t think I could’ve left this sweetheart either.” Sergeant blows gently in your face, then nuzzles you hard enough to push you backwards. “Oh my goodness, you are just a big baby, aren’t you, Sarge? Oh, you like that? That spot right there?” You laugh lightly as the giant horse stretches his neck toward you, seeming to thoroughly enjoy how you scratch just beneath where his mane grows.

“He likes you.” Sergeant looks over when Bucky speaks, but then turns back to you.

“Well, I like him.” Feeling eyes on you, you turn to Bucky. “What, are you jealous?” you tease.

“Yes.” Bucky cradles your face in both his hands and begins kissing you. Before you know it, you’re lying in the truck bed with him, making out like a couple of teenagers out past curfew. Time slows even as it moves, and you’d swear the minutes stretched into a blissful forever as you lay in his embrace. But the real world likes to force its way in, and the distant sound of a car’s horn brings you both back to your senses.

Sergeant is about 50 feet away, grazing peacefully as Bucky pulls out his phone to check the time. “We, uh, we should get going. I don’t know how much longer I can keep my hands to myself, and my folks will be drivin’ by on their way to church in about 15 minutes.”

“Don’t feel like scarring them forever with the view of your naked ass?” You sit up and start pulling up the blankets to fold them.

“Honestly?” He shakes his head, “They’d probably cheer and then invite you over for dinner.”

Pausing your movements, you let that one sink in. “…Oh. Well that would be just as awkward as the alternative.”

He shrugs. “They’ve been dropping some not so subtle hints that they think I should settle down. They’d be thrilled just to know I spent the night with you.”

You tilt your head a bit as you watch him. “Don’t you date?”

“Nah, not really.”

“Really? Why not?”

He shrugs again as you hand him the blankets, then he turns his back to you as he puts them in the box. “I dunno. I guess I just hadn’t found anyone I wanted to actually spend time with.”

“Huh.”

“What?” There’s a challenge in his eyes when he turns back around. “That so weird?”

“No, I get it. You definitely shouldn’t settle. I guess…” he’s staring at you now, waiting for you to finish, “I guess I’m just a little surprised that someone hasn’t snatched you up yet. Where I come from, you’re quite a catch.”

“You think so? How’s that?”

Is he baiting you? Teasing you? Genuinely curious? It’s impossible to tell. “I know so. You’re smart, kind, funny, and a stupid amount of gorgeous,” you pause to level a look at him, “but I suppose you already knew I thought the last part.”

Bucky barks out a laugh but at least has the good grace to look sheepish.

“You have an absolutely beautiful horse, which wins points with pretty much every person I know. Your parents took in a couple of kids when they needed a family, and you learned a new language so you could keep communicating with your friend. You have every opportunity to move to another city, but you stay here to be close to those you care about. And,” it’s dumb, really, how you’re suddenly too shy to meet his eyes, “You’re really good in bed. Like, really really good. You’re the whole damn package.” When you finally look up, he’s staring at you again. “There’s a perfectly real possibility that you’re a total asshole and that you’ve been acting this whole time – I’ve only known you for a day – but I haven’t seen any cracks. I get the definite impression that I met the real Bucky, and he is one hell of a catch.”

“Huh.” He hops down and turns, holding out his hand to help you down. Do you need to take it? No, but you love that he offers anyway. He doesn’t let go after he helps you out, instead choosing to hold your hand as he walks you to the passenger side. Bucky only lets go because he has to, and once the gate is secured behind the truck, he takes your hand and holds it for the entire drive back to the motel.

***

Ever the gentleman, Bucky walks you back to your motel door.

“Do you have to go?” The words are out before you can think too long on them.

He’s shaking his head before your entire sentence is out, “No. Not if you don’t want me to.”

You don’t even care if you sound needy or clingy. “Please stay.”

Just like you learned last night, Bucky Barnes does not need to be told twice.

At least the drapes are closed this time.

***

A sharp rap at the door and an equally sharp call of your name interrupts your post-lovemaking bliss. It’s your aunt.

“I don’t wanna,” you whine.

Bucky bristles, sensing your distress. “That her?”

You nod before pulling a pillow over your head. “I’m just going to pretend I’m still asleep. Maybe she’ll go away.”

“Don’t worry Princess, I got you.”

You feel the bed shift and move the pillow. “Bucky!”

He turns back to you, eyebrows raised, as another insistent knock echoes through the room.

“You’re naked!” It comes out as a stage whisper, making you both snicker.

He flashes a shit eating grin. “So?”

Is he really gonna…

With a dramatic huff, he stops to find his boxer briefs and quickly tugs them on. Kind of. They’re sitting awfully low.

First there’s the sound of the door swinging open, then Bucky’s voice, bored and borderline intimidating. “Yeah?”

The following silence is deafening and you almost wish the room was set up so you could see your aunt’s face, but all you can see is the back half of Bucky’s sensational body leaning in the doorframe.

“Uh, hi? I’m looking for my niece? I thought this was her room?”

“You mean the tall, gorgeous drink of water? About my height? Killer smile? Was wearing, uh, let’s see, what was she wearing? It’s been awhile and she ain’t wearin’ much of anything now.”

The blood rushes to your face, but you can’t even imagine how embarrassed Lydia is right now. The thought is nothing short of glorious.

“Uh,” he snaps his fingers a few times, feigning concentration, “Oh! A black dress with the sexiest heels imaginable? Sound about right?”

“Well, yes, but –“

“Yeah, she’s here.” His tone is still bored, but you think you can pick up on an edge of amusement. Your aunt must be squirming by now, and it’s all you can do to not start cackling.

“I thought…well…the gift opening is in an hour. I thought she was going to meet us for breakfast before –“

“She won’t be goin’ to the gift opening. Or breakfast, but don’t you worry, ma’am. I made sure she ate something.”

The not so subtle innuendo almost makes you choke on your own spit.

“You can’t – are you holding my niece hostage or something?”

He laughs darkly but yells out, “Princess, am I holding you hostage?”

Your own laugher, unable to be contained any longer, bursts out. “Nope!” you call out, absolutely feeling as gleeful as you sound.

Lydia is practically apoplectic by now. “But what about the gift opening?”

“She doesn’t. Want. To go,” he growls, stooping down. “And here, she doesn’t want your fucking ugly shoes, either. Stop projecting your insecurities onto her – she’s perfect the way she is.” Bucky closes the door – perhaps a little harder than strictly necessary – and you hear the sound of the lock sliding into place before he saunters back to the bed.

“Thank you for doing that, Buck. I – holy shit, I cannot believe you answered the door like that.” Your eyes are glued to how low his boxers are sitting – he’s showing more than just his happy trail.

“What? Everything’s technically covered.”

“Bucky.”

“Yes, Princess?”

“I – I’m not even sure how you managed it, but you basically turned your boxers into the dick version of a pasty.”

He grins, “Like I said. Everything’s technically covered.” Bucky moves closer, crawling into the bed until he hovers above you. “But not for long,” he murmurs, pressing kisses to your neck. “Now, the way I figure it, we got another two hours till checkout.”

“Mmmmm…” you’d rather not think of the time. It’s necessary if you don’t want someone from housekeeping to accidentally walk in, but you don’t want this to end.

He kisses you deeply before pulling back, looking just a little hesitant. “And then, if you want, we could continue this back at my place? If you’re not in a hurry to get home?”

He’s kept his lips to himself for a few seconds, so your head manages to clear enough to process what he just said. “What? Really?”

“Yeah. I mean, I get it if you have to get back. But,” he shrugs awkwardly, his current vulnerability at stark odds with his usual confidence, “I like you. I’d like to spend the day with you if you’re free.” He kisses your neck again and nibbles your ear. “We can do more of this. I like this, too. A lot.” He pulls back to look you in the eye. “But we could also do some talkin’. Maybe you’d let me take you out to a nice dinner before you head home?”

A smile, broad and genuine, stretches across your face. “I’d like that. I’d really like that.” Even if you never see Bucky again after today, you’re hungry for whatever time you can get with him. He’s addictive and you’ve never in your life felt more satisfied and safe than you do right now.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

His borderline cocky confidence returns as his hands resume roaming the landscape of your body. “Good,” he mouths against your throat, and resumes his worship of you. “It’s gonna be a good day, Princess. A good fuckin’ day.”

Tags: @hellomissmabel @howdoesoneadult @nykitass @danimuhle @iwillbeinmynest @shifutheshihtzu @passiononfire @learisa @widowvinter @kaaatniss @ladylizzieofdarbyshire @denialanderror @k-nighttt @givemethatgold @manders2487 @afangirlrambles @polkadottedpillowcase @bluebrrn @saysay125 @aikibriarrose @saharzek @mmauricee @imhereforbvcky @whenallsaidanddone @supernatural508 @scarlettsoldier @natalie-nightcourt @im-beautifully-sewn @lovemarvelousfics @feistytravel @tbetz0341 @nearly-whitches @jamie-leah @shliic @dessinemoiunehistoire @lucywinchester2000 @solarbarnes @a-proper-chicken @movingonto-betterthings @seekingkairos @jamesbarnesappreciationclub @part-time-patronus @natashasnight @fairislesheets @new-romanticz1989

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x tall!reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes imagine #my work #black velvet #5.6.20

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snowdice · 4 years

Text

Gaps in His Files (Part 9) [Relabeled; Refiled Series]

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Relationships: Logan/Patton

Characters:

Main: Logan, Patton

Appear: Remy, Virgil (but only in the epilogue)

Summary:

Logan Berry has learned many things the last 10 years: a lot of math and physics, a bit of humility, and how to be a hero being just a few. Through his education, his experience teaching, and his exploits as the superhero Bluebird, he’s changed in a lot of small and large ways. He has recorded these changes in well-organized documents and files. He’s even had to create two new file designations: a red one for files about his moonlighting at Bluebird, and a light blue one dedicated to his boyfriend, Patton.

When Bluebird is targeted by a memory device and all of those 10 years of progress suddenly disappear, Patton Sanders and Logan’s extensive files are left as his only resource to get those memories back. But what is Patton supposed to do when there are clear gaps in his files? And what does he do when he is one of them?

This is set 25 years before Sometimes Labels Fail though it’s story is completely independent of it and it is not necessary to read that one first.

Notes: Superhero AU, memory loss, past child abuse, past child neglect, unhealthy ideas about ones place in relationships, emotional suppression, self-deprecating thoughts, medical procedures mentioned, very brief unhealthy views of sex

In which Logan was being a petulant little shit and so I slapped him in the face.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

Logan’s future-self had made this ridiculously easy. He and Patton had fallen asleep on the floor of the office and woken up at about 6am. Logan had complained of boredom over breakfast and asked if they could take a break from the files and go to the library to get him a book to read whenever they were not trying to jog his memory. Patton had, predictably, told him that he wasn’t comfortable taking Logan out especially to the library since he frequented the location and people who know him might try to talk to him. Instead, he suggested Logan stay at the apartment and he would go alone to get a book for him himself. The man was surprisingly easy to manipulate for someone his future-self deemed a worthy romantic partner.

Said future-self had written his weekly schedule out in the front of his planner along with the buildings and classroom numbers each event took place in. So, he knew where he needed to be and when. He also had written the sections he was supposed to cover in the calculus textbook that day in the daily part of the planner. Logan could not find said textbook in his apartment, so he imagined it was in his on-campus office. Luckily, his future-self had the foresight to write his office number on the inside front cover of the planner in case it was lost and needed to be returned.

Now he just had to find these places. Getting to the campus was easy. When he exited the apartment building, he could see large buildings that were likely dorms only a few blocks away and, upon walking in that direction, easily found himself on a college campus. Then, it was simply the task of finding a map of the campus to locate the buildings he needed and going through the needlessly complicated process of figuring out his office building’s strange numbering system. Honestly why were rooms 7-9 and 13-15 in a separate hallway than all of the other numbers? It took him under half an hour all together to find the little room in the basement with a door who’s lock perfectly fit one of the keys on his keychain.

Perfect. Now, he just had to find the textbook in his desk, glance through the sections the planner had indicated, and make it to the classroom in less than 25 minutes.

He was honestly quite pleased with his own cleverness when he opened the door to the office.

…

Patton was there.

He was sitting on one of the three desks in the room, arms folded over his chest. They stared at each other for a long moment.

“Hey Logan,” a woman seated at a different desk said looking between the two of them. “Everything okay?”

“Oh, everything’s fine Lia,” Patton said cheerfully, but there was a bite to his smile. “Logan is just being stubborn even though he’s in no state to teach today.”

“I’m perfectly fine,” Logan said, teeth clenched.

“Is this another Logan gets pneumonia incident?” Lia asked.

“Yep,” Patton replied without hesitation.

Logan frowned at him. “I am fine.”

“You are not,” Patton hissed.

“I have no physical ailments,” he insisted. Lia and Patton exchanged a look Logan did not understand, but which still made him bristle.

“Look Logan,” she said. “I owe you a couple for last semester; I can teach your classes for you today and next week too if need be. Like, we really don’t want a repeat of fourth year, do we?”

He had no idea what she was talking about. “That won’t ha…”

“Thank you, Lia!” Patton interrupted. “I’m going to go and take him home. We’ll have to get together once Logan’s all sorted out.” He hopped off the desk and grabbed Logan’s arm in a firm grip before yanking him out of the room. He was clearly irate, but Logan was too; he ground his teeth together.

“How did you even get here before me?” Logan grumbled.

“Because I know where your office is,” he spat back. “Unlike you who knows nothing about anything.”

Logan gave an irritated huff.

“Don’t,” Patton warned. “Listen to me. You cannot teach this class. I would do a better job at teaching that class than you right now and I don’t even have a bachelor’s degree in mathematics. Lia is a great teacher with as much experience as you’re supposed to have. She will handle it. You need to focus on trying to get better. Not on ruining your own life for whenever things get back to normal.”

This felt infuriatingly like a scolding. “I don’t appreciate being coddled,” Logan said coldly.

Patton took a breath. “I will endeavor to stop doing so as soon as you’re mentally in your 20s again.”

“We don’t even know if I even can get my memories back.”

“Maybe you will or maybe you won’t, but I am not letting you risk what you spent the last 10 years building because you have a pathological need to not take a day off.”

“Maybe I don’t want what I built,” he said stubbornly. Patton went stiff and Logan realized his error. He honestly hadn’t meant it in that way, not even in anger, but he didn’t know how to explain that when he saw Patton’s face smooth out.

“The parking lot is this way,” Patton told him, turning from him. Logan opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

They didn’t speak again until they were inside Patton’s car. “Here,” Patton said, shoving a book at him.

“What’s this?” he asked, snapping out of the mix of panic and anger still pounding in his ears.

“You said you wanted a book,” he replied and clearly nothing had snapped him out of his own anger yet. “You like that one and you said you always wanted to forget it and read it again, so I guess you get your wish.”

Logan stared at it as Patton started the car. He’d known Logan was lying when he’d asked for the book, but he’d still gone to the library and gotten him one anyway. What type of person would do that? What kind of person would still go through the effort to get Logan a book he liked even though his anger was clearly boiling under his skin?

No one was like that. At least, no one Logan had ever met was like that. Not even his parents, no matter how kind they were, would ever do something like that, for fear that it would be like rewarding bad behavior. This didn’t feel like it was a reward for bad behavior though. In fact, Logan felt bad even though he still thought he was in the right. It was an odd sensation.

He looked down at the library book. It was a symbol of something Logan couldn’t quite put his finger on. A lesson he had a feeling he��d probably learned already.

Affection coexisting with ire.

His parents had always been good people and loved him, but he’d spent most of his life living up to expectations. Teachers liked him because he was smart and rarely misbehaved. His peers tolerated him because he was able to help them with their schoolwork. His parents loved him for loves sake, but he was pretty sure they liked him because he obeyed their rules and he was good at things.

So, who was this man who got him a book he liked and gave it to him even when they stood opposed to each other? Even when Logan had lied to him and tried to manipulate him? Even when anger hung in the air between them in this car? Who was this man? Why did his kindness and affection not require Logan’s compliance?

He had the sudden though that while he didn’t know if he’d ever remember anything else about this life he’d found himself in, he could probably remember how to love this man.

Want to read more? Click below!

Part 10

#sanders sides #logan sanders #patton sanders #logicality #tsss #superhero au #memory loss #past child abuse #past child neglect #emotional suppression #self deprecation #gaps in his files #labeled universe #relabeled; refiled #adriana writes

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two-wheeled-therapy · 3 years

Photo

FINAL RIDE of 2020

As 2020 is finally coming to an end, I took today off as it looked like it was supposed to be the warmest, dry day left of the year. Tomorrow, Christmas Eve is supposed to be warmer, but raining most of the day here in Virginia. With a high of 48 predicted, I got ready to take my likely final ride of 2020.

It was 36 degrees when I pulled the bike out of the shed. I thought that was going to be lowest temp of the day, but it was few degrees colder in the mountains where I was headed. I threw my heated gear in the saddle bags in case I needed it, but I was dressed for the cold in my Under Armor Heat Gear, Duluth Trading Co, lined Fire Hose pants, and my cold weather boots and socks. I put on my glove liners and my mid weight gloves as I wanted to test out both my new liners, and the hand guards I mounted on the bike. Throughout the 218 miles I got in, my hands did get a little chilled along the way, but I think the combo did the trick as they never got really cold. I never did put on any of my heated gear, even at 3,600 ft along Skyline Drive . . . Ahhh yes, Skyline Drive, let me tell you about my route.

I knew two things when I left the shed; 1) I wanted to ride on Skyline Drive, and 2) I wanted to put in around 200 miles for my final ride. I made my route up as I went, and I think I did pretty darn good. I headed out Pageland Drive and wiggled through the Manassas Battle Fields and up to Braddock Road before heading west towards US 15. I was on 15 for a short time, like 200 yards, before I turned off for more back roads of Carolina Dr and out towards Mountain Rd to Waterfall Drive.

Taking Waterfall, I saw the first signs of the recent snowfall, which had passed through late last week, but had melted by my house. Riding through the shadows of the shaded road, I eased through all the curves selecting what looked like the driest line through the curves. I did feel the bike slip a little on some icy patches, but avoided any sudden input on the controls and kept chugging along.

I got on 55 in The Plains and followed that through Marshall, before turning off to take Crest Hill Road out into Flint Hill before I picked up Fodderstack Road and rode through Little Washington and on into Sperryville. I was debating between stopping at the Griffin in Flint Hill and the Headmaster's Pub in Sperryville for lunch. Ultimately, I chose Sperryville as it put me about 15 miles closer to Skyline Drive and I would be freshly “warmed” up before hitting the mountains. I got into Sperryville just after noon, but the Pub was closed until 4:00 PM. I knew of another place in town that was pretty good, so decided to check that out, but it just had carryout - F U Covid! I figured I would find something down the road, and if not I can afford to miss a meal every now and then. I geared up and got ready to hit Skyline Drive.

Just before starting up the mountain, I saw a new restaurant that was open with indoor seating. God bless businesses like this that opened in spite of Covid. I parked the bike and headed inside to this new establishment that was quickly filling up. I ordered a BLT, Creamy Tomato soup, and a coffee. All of the above were Delicious, and just what I needed to warm me, and fill me for the rest of my journey. Sufficiently warmed and filled, I headed back out to my bike and rode 211 up the mountain to Skyline Drive.

Thank you U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary David Bernhardt! In November of this year he issued a directive that gave all veterans free access to the Department’s properties. Today that saved me the $25 motorcycle fee for Skyline Drive. Basically Mr. Secretary, you bought me lunch today, so thank you, Sir!

I knew as I headed up 211 that I made the right choice to come up and ride the Drive. It was absolutely beautiful. The mountains were still covered with snow, and the roads were lined by mostly undisturbed snow. I saw a few deer along the way and also a couple of snowmen that people had made in some of the pull offs. The air was crisp (in the lower 30′s) and clear and the views were spectacular. Yes I made the right choice. If this truly is the last ride of the year, it is a good one.

I stayed on the Drive to Route 33 and rode into Standardsville, then Madison before heading up US 29 towards home. Once down from the mountains, it warmed up to the mid to upper 40′s as promised and I rode in comfort thanks to my gear and my new hand guards.

Putting the bike away, I logged 218 miles for the day, bringing my yearly total to 8,018 miles. After a very slow start, I was able to catch up and pass my goal of 7,500 miles. This total brings me and my 2011 Kawasaki Voyager 1700 ABS to a grand total of 91,226 miles. She will turn 10 next year. Next July will mark 10 years that we have been together. My goal has always been to ride 100,000 miles on her in 10 years. That means I have my work cut out for myself next year . . . Fortunately, I also have a plan . .. .

See you in the 2021 wind!

#kawasaki #Kawasaki Vulcan #kawasaki voyager #Vulcan #vulcan 1700 #vulcan motorcycles #kawasaki vulcan 1700 #Voyager #Voyager 1700 #Kawasaki Voyager 1700 #final ride #skyline drive #Department of the Interior #Secretary Bernhardt

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axwalker · 4 years

Text

Tears in heaven 5: Move on

Synopsis: Alexis O’Brien is about to get married but memories of her old life are coming back to haunt her.

MASTERLIST

Pairings: Liam x MC Drake x MC (TRR)

Warnings: NO ONE UNDER 18 should read this story. This is an 18+ blog. This story will deal with very dark subjects such as death, severe depression and suicide attempt (among others) if you’re triggered by any of those issues, PLEASE DO NOT READ THIS STORY

To catch up: Masterlist

A/N: The story will go back and forth between three different periods of time (2010 / 2015 / 2019)

A/N: This is a filler chapter... I hope you enjoy it :-)

Disclaimer: All characters belong to Pixelberry.

Word count: 4,795

Songs inspiration: Tears in heaven by Eric Clapton

THANKS TO: @burnsoslow for beta reading and correcting so many mistakes. I love you!

And to @pedudley your feedback gives me live!! I LOVE YOU BOTH! ❤️❤️❤️

May 2015

After spending one and a half months on Bastien’s couch, Drake had decided to get a job working on the docks. He knew that getting exhausted by the manual labor was the only way to get a few hours of sleep at night. He also became a regular customer at the local pub. Every day after work, he went and drank himself into oblivion. Many times during that month, Drake had thought of coming back to Cordonia, but every morning he decided to stay, paralyzed by the fear of her hatred. He was empty, a living corpse. His family was still present in his mind every single day with the same painful intensity, especially Tom, his little boy. His grief vacillated between a deep sorrow to a burning rage that consumed him more and more every day. He felt angry with anyone and everyone. More than once, he had picked fights in the bar trying to punish himself.

But that day it wasn’t supposed to happen. That day was supposed to be his last day in Andalucía. Olivia had called the night before and told him that Alexis needed him desperately, that she was destroying herself. He hung up to buy the plane tickets. In spite of what had happened between them that last day, everything that had been said and done, he needed to be with her. His judgment had been clouded by their last fight, but he understood now that he had reacted too fast, that she hadn’t been in her right mind. That they were meant to survive the pain together.

Drake barely remembered how all hell had broken loose. He knew he had drunk more than usual, anxious about seeing her again. He remembered that he had put his phone next to him, the phone with all the pictures of his son on it. He recalled that the man next to him had taken it and made offensive comments about Alexis, whose picture was the screensaver. He remembered the sound of his phone smashing when he had tried to get it back. Everything was blank after that. He had woken up in a cell with a black eye and a broken nose. Thanks to Alexis, he spoke Spanish quite well, so he understood the guards when they told him that the other guy was in the hospital due to a minor concussion. The lawyer that Bastien had gotten him, Alvaro Díaz, informed him that the other man was the son of a reputed local congressman. Mr. Díaz did everything he could, but the judge was a personal friend of the politician, so Drake had been sentenced to one year in prison. He had called Olivia and told her that he couldn’t come back without giving her more explanations. It was useless to tell them where he was and worry Alexis when she couldn’t do anything about it. He hadn’t been able to protect her from the pain back then, but he would protect her from that now.

September 2010

Drake was making coffee for both of them. He was working the morning shift at the clinic, and Alexis had an early class. He could hear the noise coming from their room all the way in the kitchen. He smiled to himself. Alexis was always late and made a racket when she got ready. He took both their coffees to their bedroom. She was cursing in front of the mirror trying to apply mascara as she brushed her teeth.

He smirked at her, nodding his head towards her toothbrush, “The coffee will taste like crap now, Lexie.”

She tapped her forehead with her palm. “Shit! You’re right!”

He watched her look for her shoes all over the room until she found one under the bed and the other in the closet.

“What’s going on, baby? You seem more agitated than usual.” She was putting her tennis on quietly. He sat next to her on the bed.

“Hey, talk to me, Lex.” He placed his hand on her thigh. “What’s going on?”

She was going to wait until that night to talk to him, but he was her husband, her best friend. And he could read her like a book. It was better to get it off her chest now.

She bit her bottom lip. “I’m late.”

He laughed, taking her in his arms. “You’re always late, but your teachers always seem to forgive you, Lexie. Don’t worry about it.”

She shook her head no. “No, Drake. I’m late.” She gave him a knowing look.

Drake took a second, but he finally understood. He took a deep breath before he spoke. “Have you taken a test?”

“No. Not yet.”

“Do you have one?” he asked as he placed a strand of hair behind her ear.

“Yes - I was going to take it later, but I guess I’ll do it now.” She stood up and went to the bathroom after she took the test out of her backpack.

She came back to the room with the test in her hand and placed it on the table next to her bed. Drake took her arm, pulling her into his lap. For three minutes neither of them said anything, too nervous to talk. When the phone went off announcing the end of their wait, Alexis stood up and looked at the test.

“Well?” Drake couldn’t contain his curiosity any longer.

She barely nodded, still too overwhelmed to talk. He jumped off the bed and swept her off her feet. She looped her arms around his neck, roaring with laughter.

“You have no idea how happy you just made me, Lexie.” He steadied her with his arms and kissed her passionately. His heart was about to burst with happiness.

He cupped her face to kiss her again and noticed the shadow in her eyes. “And you? Are you happy about this?”

She honestly didn’t know how to answer. “I’m feeling so many things that I might explode, Drake. I don’t even know how this happened.”

“You do, Lexie. I told you it broke.” One passionate night after too many whiskeys, their condom had broken, but they had been too caught up in the moment to care.

She sat on the bed. “I don’t want you to think I’m not happy, Drake, because I’m ecstatic, but I’m also worried. I really wanted to finish school first, get my degree, get a job in a publishing house, write. We wanted to travel together and enjoy our married life. We’ve only been married for two months … And …” she sighed, “so many things.”

He felt guilty. She looked extremely young in her tennis shoes and a ponytail. Of course it was easier for him. He was 25, not 21. His seven-year degree was almost finished, and thanks to Liam, he had traveled all over the world. She had done none of that. He was dying to have a kid with her, but he’d wait if she wasn’t ready.

He sat next to her in the bed before affirming, “We’ll do whatever you need to do, baby. It’s your decision.”

She shook her head no. “I want to keep it, Drake. I’m sure of that. I’m just nervous … I guess.”

“Come here, baby.” He leaned his back against the headboard, and she climbed on top of him. He stroked her hair and her cheeks soothingly. “I get where you’re coming from, Lexie. Completely.” She nodded against his chest, and he held her tighter. He wanted to show her that he understood her fears and that they were going to face them together as a team.

He wasn’t a man of grand romantic gestures, but he loved her like crazy and knew her better than anyone. She needed to be reassured, she needed to know that she would still be able to fulfill her dreams.

“What if I call in sick and you skip school? We can spend the day together and talk about options.” He took her chin with his fingers, turning her face towards him. “But I want you to know that even if you have to stop for a semester, you’ll go back to school. I swear, Lexie. We’ll manage.”

She grinned at him. “I’m so lucky to have you.”

“I’m the lucky one, baby. I love you so much.” He kissed her, then he placed his hand on her lower belly and added, visibly touched, “I love you, too.”

Her eyes watered; her heart was so full it could explode. She was still a bit stressed about the future but not worried anymore. “We love you so much already - you have no idea, my little peanut,” she said, placing her hand on her belly as well. She yawned.

He looked at her, concerned. “Are you tired?”

“Remember when you told me last week that I seemed tired lately?” She looked down at her belly. “I guess now we know why.”

All his instincts screamed to protect her. He undid the covers and put the blankets over them; she snuggled against him. He wrapped her in his arms and leaned to kiss her forehead. “Sleep a bit, baby. I’ll be here next to you.” As he stroked her face while she fell asleep, he thought about how happy he felt. He knew he had many joyful moments to come, but he had never felt so happy as he did right then with the woman he adored in his arms and their baby on his way.

April 2019

Alexis was deeply nervous about the party. She looked at herself in the mirror again, trying to ignore the knot in the pit of her stomach. It was going to be the first time in more than four years that the three of them were going to be together in the same place. She hated herself. Drake and Liam had been good friends all their lives, and now, thanks to her, they didn’t even speak to each other. If she hadn’t been so weak after his death, if Drake had come back for her, if Liam hadn’t helped her so much, maybe everything would be different now. She tried to put her lipstick on, but her hand was shaking; she was extremely anxious. She took a deep breath to calm herself. His return had opened too many old wounds. Too many memories that would have been better to leave buried. Especially at this time of the year when that dreadful date was approaching. She took another sharp breath and stopped her tears; if she thought about her son, she wouldn’t be able to leave the bed. With a steadier hand, she applied the rest of her makeup and went downstairs to meet Liam.

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Liam put on his cufflinks and his tuxedo jacket; the Beaumonts had decided to throw the most elegant anniversary party of the year. He poured himself a scotch while he waited for Alexis. As he sipped his scotch, he pondered his upcoming encounter with Drake; he was apprehensive about seeing him again. It was undeniable that he missed his best friend deeply. However, he was aware that there was nothing he could do about it anymore. As much as he hated the idea of Drake despising him, it was the price that he had had to pay for Alexis and he didn’t regret his life with her. After all, he had been in love with her for almost 10 years.

If Drake loved her as much as he claimed, he’d have to recognize that she was alive and well thanks to Liam. It had been Liam’s love and strength that had helped her to rebuild herself after Tom had died and Drake had left. Drake and Alexis weren’t good for each other anymore. That’s why he had given Drake her letter that day. He still felt guilty about it, but he couldn’t admit the truth - not if that meant he would lose her.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Drake sat in his jeep waiting for Kiara; he knew she would be right there in exactly 10 minutes. She was always punctual, unlike Alexis, who was eternally late. That flaw had been the source of countless fights during their marriage. Conflicts that inevitably ended the same way: with both of them in bed being even later to wherever they were going. He wasn’t even that irritated by it, but he loved to tease her and see the fire in her eyes when they fought.

He sighed, wondering when he would stop comparing Alexis to any other woman he dated. It wasn’t as if he was still in love with her. It was just that Cordonia had brought back a lot of memories that he thought were forgotten. His thoughts inevitably drifted to Liam. He didn’t know how he would react when he’d see him again. One side of him wanted to demolish his ex-best friend. The other side was painfully aware that without Liam she would be dead. That side couldn’t help but to be grateful to Liam; he didn’t dare to imagine a world without Lexie in it. He saw Kiara leaving her house and got out of the car to open her door; he smiled to himself, thinking about how much Alexis hated that gesture.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alexis sighed, slightly irritated; she hated to wait until someone else opened the car door for her. It was a waste of time, but Liam was a genuine gentleman; he couldn’t conceive of not doing it, and she didn’t want to fight for something so futile. Besides, she was going to be the Duchess of Valtoria soon;, the earlier she got used to all the etiquette rules, the better.

When they entered the ballroom, the herald announced them. She hated the spotlight, but she wore her best smile and took her fiancé’s arm. No one could have guessed how uneasy she felt inside.

“Liam Fabien Rhys, Duke of Valtoria, and his fiancée, Lady Alexis O’Brien.” Liam took her hand, and they went down the stairs together.

Drake was nursing a whiskey at his table when he heard the announcement. His stomach did a flip at the herald’s words, but it was nothing compared to the moment when he saw them together. They looked perfect for each other. He was regal in a perfectly-tailored tuxedo. She looked … gorgeous. She was wearing a white dress that highlighted her tanned, soft skin. Her shiny hair was cascading down on one side of her elegant neck, as her full lips were tempting him with a deep shade of red.

“I wish I could get some Bordeaux.” Kiara’s voice broke the spell.

“I’ll go to the bar and ask for a glass,” he offered, standing up, anxious to go anywhere far away from them.

Bertrand greeted them by himself; apparently, Savannah was occupied with other guests. Since Alexis had gotten engaged to Liam, Savannah had been polite but cold and had avoided the couple as much as she could. Alexis didn’t blame her; she probably would have done the same in her shoes. Francesco soon joined them, and their conversation turned to their negotiations with Italy and the Commerce treaty the country was signing with Valtoria. Alexis knew they could talk business all night long. She turned her head, a little bored, and there he was, next to the bar, sipping a glass of whiskey distractedly. Her heart skipped a beat. She blushed and turned her head back, immediately grabbing Liam’s hand; his strength was the only thing that could help her get through that hellish party.

Drake came back with a glass of Bordeaux for Kiara and a tumbler of whiskey for himself. Kiara looked around the ballroom, admiring the decoration.

She suddenly squealed, “Mon Dieu, Drake! C’est ma collègue ! Ça alors!” (God, Drake, that’s my colleague. I can’t believe it!)

Drake liked Kiara. She was smart, warm and beautiful but that habit of changing languages every five seconds really unnerved him. He was going to ask what the hell she had said when she took his hand and dragged him to the center of a ballroom. Drake understood who she was talking about when it was too late. Before he could prevent it, Kiara tapped Alexis’ shoulder. She turned her head and went pale.

“Coucou, ma belle! (Hi, darling) I knew it was you!” Kiara hugged Alexis affectionately.

Alexis was unable to speak or move; Drake’s gaze was fixated on her, and Liam completely paralyzed her.

She barely heard Max scream, “Drake!” He hugged an unresponsive Drake, who was as numbed as Alexis. “Fuck, man! You look great! I missed our midnight talks, buddy!” Seeing that his three friends were still in shock, he extended his hand to Kiara, trying to dissipate the awkwardness. “Hi! I’m Max Beaumont and this is-”

“The Duke of Valtoria, I know. We translate a lot of documents for the duchy at the agency we both freelance for, n’est-ce pas, Alexis?” (isn’t it true?) Without letting her answer, she proceeded, “I’m Kiara Theron.”

“I’m charmed to make your acquaintance, Kiara.” Liam gave her a charming smile. Then he turned to Drake. “Hello, Drake. It’s been a long time.”

Drake looked at both of them contemptuously, his fists balling. “And a lot of things have changed since then,” he growled.

“Oh! You know each other!” Kiara exclaimed, excited that her date knew one of the most important men in the country.

Drake scowled, “We used to. A very long time ago.” Alexis lowered her eyes, blushing.

Maxwell was desperate to break the tension, so he decided to change the subject. “I don’t know if Sav told you, Drake, but thanks to Liam’s support, the Parliament passed a new law legalizing gay marriage. Rash and I are engaged!”

Drake grinned; if anyone deserved to be happy, it was Maxwell Beaumont. “Congratulations, Max. I’m actually very happy for you both.”

Kiara was curious; they had been working together for a year, but Alexis was extremely discreet about her personal life. “I didn’t know you were a noble, Alexis,” she inquired.

Drake snapped, “She’s not; she’s just marrying one.” No one missed the bitter tone in his voice.

Alexis squinted at him angrily before answering, “He’s right. I’m not. I’m as common as they come.”

Kiara understood that something extremely odd was going on, and she wanted to know what it was. “So, you know my boyfriend, too?”

Alexis felt a pang in her chest. Someone else was being possessive of him. Someone else was calling him her boyfriend. She swallowed before she could speak. “As he said, we did a long time ago.”

“Ki knows everything about my past. We don’t keep secrets. She knows I’m getting a divorce.” Drake was well aware that he was being an asshole, but it was driving him mad the way Liam had possessively circled her waist with his arm. “Alexis was,” he smirked at Liam, “well, she is still my wife.”

Kiara was a lot of things, but she wasn’t stupid. He had never called her ‘Ki’ before; it was obvious that he was trying to make his ex-wife jealous. They would have to talk; as much as she liked Drake, she didn’t want to get in the middle of something so complicated.

Maxwell tried to lighten the atmosphere again. “What kind of documents did you translate for Liam?”

Kiara and Liam engaged in the conversation, but Alexis and Drake didn’t exchange a word. She feigned interest in their discussion while Drake excused himself and left the group to talk to his sister. He couldn’t bear to be next to them another second. Liam gave Alexis a reassuring look. He hated to see her so anxious.

Soon everyone was dancing. Alexis felt safe in Liam’s arms. He was sweet and gentle and treated her like a princess. She needed his love, his protection, and she loved him back; she was sure of it. That’s why she didn’t understand why seeing Drake troubled her so much.

Drake sat at the bar alone while Kiara danced with Maxwell. When he was married to Alexis, he enjoyed dancing with her because she loved it passionately. Back then, just seeing her move and making her happy was incentive enough for him. But those days were gone. He didn’t dance anymore.

He leaned on the counter and took a swig of his whiskey. He was trying very hard to avoid looking at the dance floor, but it was stronger than him. He felt a mix of rage and sadness seeing them together, seeing the woman he had sworn to love forever in the arms of the closest friend he had had. Drake saw Liam glide her across the dance floor assuredly, and then lean his lips towards her ear telling her something that made her smile.

His heart broke a little when he saw her face. She tried very hard to hide it behind a beautiful smile, but it was obvious that she was suffering. All the makeup and fake grins in the world wouldn’t be enough to deceive him. He knew Alexis inside and out. She was still in deep pain about their son, but instead of accepting it, she was trying to bury her real feelings as deep as possible. He was aware that when something was too difficult for her, she chose to ignore it in the hope that it would disappear. In the past, Drake would force her to face it, to deal with it, but Liam had the same tendency to ignore what he didn’t want to see. It couldn’t be healthy for either of them.

Suddenly she raised her eyes and looked at him, too. They stared at each other intently, both of them feeling their hearts racing and their stomachs fluttering for a few seconds. Alexis shook her head, breaking the spell. She said something to Liam, and they went back to sit at their table. She sighed, exasperated at herself. She desperately needed to sign those divorce papers and never see Drake again. Liam was rubbing her arm absentmindedly while he talked to Francesco. That’s what she needed: Liam and a new life. Her marriage and her responsibilities as a duchess would keep her too busy to think. Drake should stay where he belonged, buried in the past.

She saw Olivia on the other side of the ballroom and decided to go and apologize for her outburst at Maxwell’s loft. She was about to reach her friend when the band started to play a song, their song. She hadn’t heard Crazy Love in five years, and she wasn’t ready to hear it now. So she turned around, trying to locate the nearest exit until she finally saw one. Once outside, she leaned against one of the walls of the gardens and sighed, relieved. In that moment, she saw Drake sitting on the stairs. She hesitated for a second, finally deciding to sit next to him.

“The song?” he asked. When she nodded quietly, he added, “It hit me too. I hadn’t heard it in five years.”

“Me neither; I can’t seem to be able to erase it from my playlist, but I never listen to it.” She sighed before adding in a low voice, “There’s a lot of things I can’t do anymore.”

He looked at her, and for the first time since he had come back, he saw a glimpse of the old Lexie.

“Same for me.” He gave her a sad smile. “I can’t stand watching Seinfeld anymore.” He sighed, thinking of all the Saturday mornings they had spent in bed making love and watching endless Seinfeld marathons.

“Indiana Jones.” She bit her bottom lip. “Even a commercial for it makes me anxious.”

“Stargazing.” The last time he had gone was with Tom and Alexis for her birthday, only a few months before his death. “And I haven’t read Mark Twain again,” he said carefully, aware that he was approaching dangerous territory.

Her breathing accelerated, but she forced herself to say, “I can’t say his name. I haven’t said it once since the accident.” Her eyes teared up.

His heart broke for her; he wanted to hold her and make the pain go away, but he knew he couldn’t. He had tried very hard in the past, in those few months they were together after his death, and it had been impossible.

He wiped her tears with his thumb instead. “You have to try and talk about him, Alexis. I know it’s horribly painful, but ignoring it won’t make it better.”

“Because living among his things like you do makes it better?” she snapped. “No, Drake. Nothing will ever make it better.” She couldn’t avoid crying any longer.

He circled his arms around her shoulders. “I know, Alexis. Believe me, I know.” His embrace had something extremely reassuring. He smelled as he had always smelled, of sandalwood and cut grass. His strong arms around her made her feel safe and nostalgic. She let herself go in his arms, crying for Tom as she hadn’t allowed herself to do for a very long time.

“I just miss him so much; it’s terrifying.” He kissed the top of her head but didn’t interrupt her; she needed to talk. “Sometimes I’m having a good day and then a small detail, like a firefighter’s truck in a movie, brings it all back. I feel like that first day when I got the news. The pain makes it impossible to breathe, to function.” She turned her head towards him; he was watching her with so much tenderness in his eyes that she felt compelled to continue, “That’s why I avoid saying his name or anything that could trigger a memory of him, of us.”

Drake frowned. “You can’t live avoiding everything, Alexis.” He paused; even if he wanted to know the least possible about her relationship with Liam, he needed to be sure she had someone to talk to. “Don’t you talk about him with … Liam?”

“No, I get too sad, and he worries too much about me.” She stopped, thinking about the other reason. “Besides, I feel disloyal-”

Drake stood up; he was fuming. “This isn’t about him, Alexis. It’s about you! And if he thinks that it’s disloyal talking about your own son, then he’s a bigger asshole than I thought he was.”

She stood up as well. Her eyes had tears of sadness mixed with tears of fury. “Who the hell do you think you are? You come here after five years to tell me and Liam how to manage our grief? I was going to say that I felt disloyal towards you, talking about our son with Liam. And I don’t even know why. I have all the right. He was the one watching me cry myself to sleep. He was the one comforting me night after night. Fuck! He was the one who saved my life. The worst part is that I wanted so badly to have you instead. To have your arms, your words consoling me. But YOU WEREN’T THERE. You promised you would always be there for me, and then YOU FUCKING LEFT!” She was so angry she barely realized she was shoving him.

He held her wrists to stop her, and the momentum pulled her close to him. The electricity between them was almost touchable; they were trembling with fury. Their hearts raced as their eyes sparkled with fire.

“You know damn well why I left! Did you forget what happened? Because I sure as hell haven’t!” As he spoke, his face got closer to hers. He could smell her perfume, see her lips only a few inches from his. He let her wrists go and cupped her face, but she turned around.

“I know why you left, but I never understood why you didn’t come back.” She looked sad, broken.

He tried to approach her again, but she took a step back. “I know it took me long, Alexis, but I did come back.”

She shook her head; five years was too long, wherever the reasons he had had.

“Am I interrupting something?” Liam had stepped out to the gardens, looking for her.

“No, we were just talking, but there’s nothing else left to say. I was about to go back to the ball.” She walked towards the door, but Liam stood in the middle of the garden looking at Drake.

“Actually, Alexis, I would like to speak a moment with Drake. If he doesn’t mind.”

Drake smirked, “Of course I don’t, Li. Why wouldn’t I want to catch up with such an old and loyal friend?”

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slippinmickeys · 4 years

Text

Seeing as how the world is basically ending, I figured I may as well post the whole thing now. If Tumblr lets me. Tagging @storybycorey

You can also read the whole thing on AO3 here.

Dana Scully was running late. Flustered and out of breath from running the few blocks from the Metro stop, she pushed through the doors of the coffee shop, startling a young mom who was pushing a stroller out the door.

“Sorry,” she said, apologizing, and then held the door open while the woman slowly navigated the stroller through the narrow doorway. When she was out, Dana finally stepped in and scanned the store, looking for familiar auburn curls.

Her sister Melissa held up a hand and stood as Dana approached.

“Missy!” Dana said, relieved to see her.

Melissa gave her a long, tight hug before reclaiming her seat. Melissa’s hugs were the kind you always wanted to get. Like she’d cultivated them in a field, each one grown in a tidy row, just for you.

“Everything all right?” Melissa said, as Dana, huffing and out of breath, shrugged off her jacket and swung her purse over the back of a chair.

“No,” she said, laughing at herself and Melissa’s eyebrows came together in

sympathy, “but tell me about you first. How was your flight? God, it’s been so long!” She reached across and squeezed her older sister’s hand.

Melissa had flown back to the States only the day before, having spent the last two years living in England.

“I’m great!” Missy said, “living abroad has been incredible. I almost hated to come back.”

“Oh, I’m so glad,” Dana said.

In truth, she was glad. She’d missed her sister terribly, but Missy had needed a big change. She’d dropped out of college several years before, much to their parent’s horror, and Melissa had been too spirited to live long under their father’s roof. Her sister looked wonderful. Clearly the time abroad had been good to her.

“But, what’s happening with you? What’s going on?” Melissa said.

Dana blew a raspberry.

“I’m in a tight spot,” she finally said, “We just found out this morning that Ellen got the internship in Seattle for the summer. It’s the one she wanted, and I’m really excited for her, but it’s not paid, so she won’t be able to cover her half of the rent -- she leaves in two days and rent for next month is due in five. We’ve got three more months on the lease. I’ve got to find someone to sublease her room, like yesterday.” She felt panic bubbling up in her gut. “I don’t suppose you have any interest in staying in DC for the summer?” she asked Melissa hopefully.

“Oh, I wish I could,” Missy said, “but I’m registered for massage therapy classes at the National Holistic Institute in Baltimore for the summer. Mom and Dad have calmed down and I’m going to stay with them while I get certified.”

“Missy, that’s wonderful!” She tried to smile at her, but she knew it didn’t reach her eyes. Dana was excited for her sister, but had been holding out a hope that maybe Missy coming back Stateside would be an answer to her prayers.

“What about Ethan?” Melissa asked, lowering her voice unconsciously, “Couldn’t he move in with you for the summer? It’s only three months, Mom and Dad don’t need to know.”

Dana bit her lip.

“We broke up,” she said. Melissa’s eyes widened.

“June and Ward Cleaver broke up?” Melissa said, in shock. “When? I thought….”

She didn’t need to finish the sentence. Dana knew what Melissa thought. What everyone had thought. She and Ethan, together since their sophomore year of high school and enrolled in the same post-grad program at Georgetown, were the all-American couple. They, and everyone else, had assumed they would be engaged after they got their PhDs, and married not long after.

“Last month,” Dana said, looking down at her hands.

Melissa reached across the table and put her hand on Dana’s arm.

“What happened?”

“We grew up,” Dana said simply, “we’re different people, now. At least, I am. I’ve been thinking about making some changes at school and Ethan… was not supportive.”

Melissa squeezed her arm.

“What kind of changes?” she asked.

Dana looked up at her sister, “I’ve been seriously considering med school for some time.”

“But you’re so close to your degree!” Missy said.

“That’s what Ethan said,” said Dana, “but he was just so… dismissive. Like he had this plan for me. Like what I wanted didn’t matter. It was bad, Missy.”

“God,” Missy said.

“Yeah,” Dana went on, “he found out I took the MCAT and lost it. I broke up with him then and there. I haven’t seen him since. Not even on campus.”

Melissa gave her a shrewd look.

“Can I say something that you may not want to hear?”

Dana nodded morosely.

“I’m so glad,” Dana shot her sister a look, surprised. Melissa went on, “I never liked him, Dana. I know Mom and Dad loved him, but he’s had a stick up his ass since high school and he always thought he was better than everyone else. I used to sneak out and sprinkle catnip under his bedroom window in the summers.”

Dana’s jaw dropped.

“He used to complain all the time about-”

“-Tom cats in the neighborhood gathering outside his house and howling all night? Yeah, that was me.”

“Missy!”

“He deserved it,” Melissa said, sitting up with an air of moral superiority, “I’m glad you broke it off with him.”

“To be honest, I am too,” Dana said, “but I’m in a real lurch with this roommate situation. I don’t want to take out another student loan and I don’t think I can ask Dad for more money. Especially when he finds out I’m abandoning the program.”

“So you’re quitting for sure?” Melissa asked.

Dana nodded. “I just got the MCAT results and I did really well,” she couldn’t hold in a smile, “I told my advisor last week. I’m finishing out the summer. I’m going to start applying to med schools.”

“Well,” Missy said, “I’m glad you’re following your heart. And I wouldn’t worry much about Dad. He’ll be thrilled to have a doctor in the family. But maybe not so thrilled about bankrolling a degree you don’t intend to finish.”

Dana squirmed in her chair.

Melissa leaned back, thinking.

“What about…” she stopped, assessing Dana for a moment. “I have this friend. Someone I met in England last year. Moving to DC to be closer to family.”

Dana sat up straight.

“Do you know if she needs housing? Oh my God, Missy, you’d be saving my life.”

“The thing is,” Missy said, “it’s not a she.”

Dana made a face.

“He’s a great guy, Dane,” Melissa went on, “PhD in Psychology from Oxford. I met him when he was dating my friend Emma. His parents passed away recently and he’s putting his sister through school. She was a freshman at American this year. I can call him if you want.”

“I don’t know…” Dana said.

“Dana Scully, you are a 25 year old woman and it’s almost 1990 for God’s sake. Surely you’re not so old fashioned that you wouldn’t consider a male roommate. Particularly one that I can personally vouch for.”

“I don’t suppose he’s… gay?”

“You heard me mention my friend Emma, right?” Missy said, “No, he’s most certainly not gay, and no one is going to care that he isn’t. This isn’t Three’s Company, Chrissy. You need a roommate, and he--last I heard--needs a place to live. It’s perfect.”

It was only three months. Surely in this day and age having a male roommate wouldn’t give her some kind of reputation. And she was desperate--she would at least meet the guy. She leaned back in her seat.

“He isn’t cute, is he?” Dana asked.

Melissa narrowed her eyes.

“Cute?”

“Attractive. Hot. Someone with pleasing facial symmetry who other people like to look at.”

“Like you?” Melissa said. Dana gave her an exaggerated eye roll, and her sister asked, “Why?”

“Because it’s the last thing I need right now,” Dana said.

Melissa took a demure sip of coffee.

“No,” she said, not making eye contact, “he’s not cute.”

Dana considered her sister a long minute.

“Okay,” she finally said, “call him.”

XxXxXxXxXxX

At precisely 3:00pm, there was a knock on her door. Shave and a haircut.

He was punctual -- more than she could say for herself that day -- and that usually boded well.

Instead of sticking around to introduce them, Missy had said she had other friends she was supposed to see while she was in town and had taken off after setting up this meeting, though she promised Dana she would still come over for dinner.

Dana opened the door. He was tall. At least a foot taller than she was, and he stood in the doorway with a smile on his face. He was wearing a black leather biker jacket, jeans and black boots and was carrying a motorcycle helmet under one arm. Dana was momentarily taken aback by his good looks. She would kill Melissa.

“Dana?” he said, expectantly, reaching out for a handshake, “I’m Melissa’s friend. Fox Mulder.”

“I thought you’d be British,” she said, the words fumbling out of her mouth before she could stop them.

He smiled.

Dana shook herself, embarrassed, and extended a hand.

“Dana Scully,” she said, “sorry. Come in?”

“I met your brother when he came out to visit Melissa,” he said as he shook her hand, “one more Scully and I win a set of steak knives.”

“You’re in luck,” she said, smiling, “we Scullys come in sets of four.”

He laughed and wiped his feet on the welcome mat before stepping past her and into the apartment. He stood a few feet in and looked around.

“Wow,” he said, “this is a really nice place.”

Dana nodded and closed the door. It was a nice place. Much nicer than two broke grad students had any business living in. It had cathedral ceilings, hardwood floors and a large, spacious living room framed on one side with immense sliding glass doors that opened to a long balcony that ran the length of the room. On the other end of the living room sat a modern kitchen with a large island countertop that sat three people on the living room side, and had a 4 burner cooktop on the other. The appliances were pretty new. There was a hallway leading from the other end of the living room that led to one bathroom and a bedroom (Ellen’s), with a small in-unit washer/dryer at the end of the hall. Stairs led up from the left of the doorway to the master bedroom (Dana’s) and en-suite bathroom that had a separate tub and shower. The place was filled with hand-me-down furniture from various parents and siblings, but was decorated well and was quite comfortable.

“Rent controlled,” she said, by way of explanation, “my roommate’s brother had lived here for years. We got really lucky.” He nodded, still taking in the space. “You want a tour?” she asked.

“Sure,” he said, smiling.

She showed him the living room and the trick to opening the sliding glass door, then ran him through the kitchen and on down the hallway to Ellen’s room, which was a disaster area filled with half-packed boxes.

“This would be your room,” she said, “I promise to clean it before you move in.”

“Nah,” he said, peeking his head in the closet, “I’d be happy to do it. When would move-in be?”

“You could be in in two days,” she answered, “Ellen flies to Seattle tomorrow night, though you wouldn’t know it to look at her room.”

He smiled.

“I don’t know if Melissa told you about my situation,” he said, “everything has been happening kind of quickly. You’d really be saving my bacon, here.”

“She told me a little,” Dana said, “I’m really sorry about your parents, Fox.”

“Thank you,” he said softly. He cleared his throat. “Though, I uh, prefer to go by Mulder.”

“Fair enough,” Dana said. “Though there’s no way you ever got Melissa to call you anything other than Fox. I bet she was delighted.”

He laughed, a melodious, warm sound. Upon hearing it, she decided she liked him.

“And then some,” he said. “So what do I need to know?”

“Well, it would be a sublease for three months, until Ellen gets back. I may or may not be moving out in the fall, and our lease goes month-to-month after that.” He nodded. “Otherwise,” she said, “I mainly do a lot of studying. I have office hours and classes three days a week. I’m not big on house parties, and I like things quiet.” She looked at him, and he didn’t seem thrown by anything she’d said so far. “Do you…” she was sure how to put it, “have a girlfriend or anyone who would be coming over a lot?”

He smiled.

“No girlfriend at present,” he said, “though my sister is at AU and she may come over every now and then if she’ll deign to visit her stuffy older brother.”

His eyes crinkled with affection when he talked about his sister, and Dana found herself involuntarily charmed.

“And what do you do for a living?” she asked.

He winced.

“I’m currently looking for work,” he held his hand up when she raised her eyebrows, “I have enough in savings to more than cover three months of rent,” he said, “so you don’t have to worry about that. But I only got into town a few days ago. I’m still trying to figure everything out.”

“Melissa vouches for you,” she said, “that’s good enough for me.”

He fiddled with the helmet, which he was still carrying, and took a long, slow turn, looking around the apartment, as if making a decision. He finally turned back to her.

“Well, Scully Number Three?” he said, holding out his hand once again. “You’ve got a new roommate if you’ll have me.”

“No need to remind me of my place in the pecking order,” she said, “if you’re Mulder, I think just Scully will suffice.” Scully. She let it roll down her spine and liked the way it felt. She reached out and gripped his hand firmly. It was warm, dry, and completely enveloped hers. “Welcome home, Mulder,” she said.

XxXxXxXxXxX

Melissa breezed past her in the doorway without a word, arms laden with plastic bags.

“I brought take-out!” she said over her shoulder, kicking off her shoes and making her way to the kitchen to unburden herself of the bags. “Is Fox still here?” she asked, looking around, a little out of breath.

“He left about an hour ago,” Dana said, coming to stand in the doorway of the kitchen. “Melissa,” she went on, and Missy wouldn’t look at her. “You said he wasn’t cute.”

Melissa opened the fridge and helped herself to a beer.

“He’s not cute,” Missy said, finally turning to her, “he’s gorgeous. You’re welcome.” She twisted off the top and then shoved herself up to sit on the counter, taking a long pull.

“Make yourself at home,” Dana said sarcastically.

“Thanks,” Missy said, brushing her off. “How’d it go?”

“You’re right, he was really nice. He’s going to take it,” Dana said, and then decided she could go for a beer as well. She opened up the fridge as Missy punched the air in a yes! gesture.

“What did I tell you?” Melissa said, “kismet.”

“Yeah,” Dana said, tamping down her own enthusiasm, “I hope it works out.”

“It’s going to be great!” Missy said, “He really is the best guy.”

“Did you guys ever…?” Dana asked, wondering if she really wanted to know.

“Me and Fox? No,” she answered, “not that I wouldn’t have liked to,” she went on, “but I think the whole ‘thou shalt not date your best friend’s ex’ rule is pretty universal. Even across the pond.”

Dana was surprised to find herself relieved.

“I am privy to some information, though,” Missy said, arching an eyebrow.

“Do I even want to know?” Dana asked.

Missy ran her tongue along the corner of her mouth.

“He’s very well endowed,” she finally said with a grin.

Dana felt herself blushing and took a deep swig of beer to cover for it.

“Unless it’ll help him pay the rent,” she said, swallowing, “I don’t see how that’s any of my business.”

Melissa shrugged, looking coy. “I’ve also heard he loves to eat out,” she said.

“What does that have to do with-“ Dana finally looked at her sister, caught her eyebrows in the air, suggestively. “...Jesus, Missy.”

Melissa smiled, took a sip of beer.

“I’m just saying,” Melissa said, “a generous lover is a generous man.” Dana looked to the sky as if for help. Her sister was clearly enjoying Dana’s discomfort. She finally jumped down off the counter and turned her attention to the bags of food. “You could do a lot worse than Fox Mulder.”

“I’m not going to do Fox Mulder, Missy,” she said, and Missy let out a bark of laughter. “I need a roommate, not a boyfriend. And anyway, I’m going to be in med school soon. I won’t have that kind of time.”

“Make time,” Melissa winked, and then dug around in the bags, pulling out carton after carton of Chinese food. “You hungry?”

Dana set down her beer and hugged her from behind.

“I’m famished, you snot,” she said into her sister’s hair.

XxXxXxXxXxX

On move-in day, Mulder showed up at her (their) door at 9:00am sharp, wearing a ratty Oxford University sweatshirt and an anxious expression.

“Hey,” he said, when she opened the door, “I got a buddy downstairs with a truck. Where should he park it?”

“Follow me,” Scully said, and grabbed her keys off the hook by the door. She led him down the stairs and around to the back of the building.

“We’ve got two parking spots,” she said, “though I don’t have a car. You can have him pull in here. The one next to it is yours. You ride a motorcycle, right?”

He nodded and then jogged to the corner and called out to the friend he had waiting, who pulled into the alley and then leaned out of the open window.

“Frohike, Scully, Dana Scully, my buddy Melvin Frohike,” Mulder introduced them.

“Last name basis with everyone, huh?” Scully said to Mulder in a low voice. He smiled.

“She’s hot,” was all Frohike said, and Mulder flipped him off and then directed him into the narrow space.

Scully looked down at her jean cut-offs and baggy, laundry-day tee shirt. She wasn’t exactly dressed for Prime Time.

Frohike cut the engine, jumped out and they all gathered around the back of the truck. There were about a dozen medium sized boxes and no furniture.

“Is this it?” Scully asked.

“I am but a humble nomad,” Mulder said, “taking only what I can carry.”

“What he means is that he sold almost all his shit when he left England,” Frohike said, “I hope you have pots and pans.”

Scully laughed.

“I do, and you’re welcome to use them,” she said, “Five bucks a pop for utensils, though.”

“I like her,” said Frohike, hooking a thumb at Scully as he pulled down the tailgate.

They had everything up and into Mulder’s bedroom in less than ten minutes.

“I’m off,” said Frohike, the second he set the last box down on Mulder’s floor. “It was nice meeting you, Scully.”

“Likewise,” said Scully, who was leaning against the frame of Mulder’s door.

On his way out, Frohike paused by Scully and leaned into her confidentially.

“If he tries to seduce you, let him down easy. The man’s got no game,” he said.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Scully said and then cut a look to Mulder who looked more than a little glad to see the back of Frohike.

“Where’d you pick him up?” Scully said, once the front door had closed behind him.

“I collect strays,” Mulder said simply, peeling the tape off of one of the boxes.

Scully took a step back into the hallway.

“I’ll leave you to it,” she said. Then, “Oh! Here’s your key,” she stepped back into his room, and handed over the single key. “It works on the building doors and the apartment deadbolt. Sometimes you have to wiggle it a bit on the lock by the garage.”

Mulder nodded his thanks and she backed out.

“Let me know if you need help or anything,” she called out over her shoulder.

XxXxXxXxXxX

A few hours later, she knocked on his door.

“I come bearing gifts,” she said, holding up a pizza box and a six pack of Shiner Bock.

“Marry me,” he said, and she smiled, looking around the room. He’d hung clothes in the closet, and had all his other meager possessions in various small stacks around the room. He’d broken down the boxes and had them sitting neatly by the door. He looked exhausted.

“There’s Spartan furnishings, and then there’s this,” she said, and he shrugged, chagrined.

“I’ll need to do some shopping in the immediate future, I’ll grant you,” he said.

“The good news is, I have a real table with real chairs not eight yards from your bedroom door.” She held up the pizza and six pack once again, “Come on,” she said, “your piles aren’t going anywhere.”

He followed her to the kitchen and she gave him a quick rundown of what cabinets held what, pulling down plates and glasses. She pulled out two beers and slid the rest of the six pack back in the fridge.

She opened them both and handed him one. He clinked the bottles together.

“Happy housewarming,” she said.

“Slainte,” he said, and they both took a slug.

A semi-comfortable silence descended on them, and Scully filled it by sliding a couple slices of pizza on her plate. Mulder sat back and pushed the sleeves of his sweatshirt up his forearms. They looked tanned even in the washed out light of the kitchen and were roped with muscle and sprinkled with dark hair.

“Ever wonder why they call it a housewarming?” Mulder asked.

“I never really thought about it,” she said, and then leaned forward. “But now I want to know.”

She looked at him and he smiled back.

“Fire is a classic symbol of strength and purity, which is why many European traditions involve lighting a candle or a fire on your first night in a new home. Doing so is said to ward off evil spirits by casting away darkness. It’s fallen out of practice with modern conveniences like electricity, but the name stuck.”

“Well,” said Scully, “aren’t you a wellspring of random and arcane facts.”

Mulder held up his beer.

“You have no idea,” he said, and she laughed.

She peeled off a piece of pepperoni from one of her slices of pizza, and popped it into her mouth.

“Be right back,” she said, and came back a moment later with a large white pillar candle and a box of matches. She struck a match and lit the candle, then held out her beer. He clinked the neck of his to the neck of hers.

“To warding off evil spirits,” she said.

“And casting out darkness,” he replied.

They smiled at each other, the silence turning easy.

XxXxXxXxXxX

A few days had passed. Enough for them each to get to know the other’s routines and for the excessive politeness of two strangers sharing a space to fade a bit.

Scully was sitting on the couch going over classwork when Mulder emerged from his room in running shorts and a ratty tee shirt with the sleeves cut off. The skin on his upper arms was paler than that of his lower arms, but had a delineated curve where deltoid met bicep. It took a minute to look away.

“Going for a run?” she asked a little too brightly.

“I was hoping to,” he said, sitting down in front of the front door to put on his running shoes. “Are there any good places around here?”

She set down the paper she was holding, thinking.

“There’s a park a few blocks away, over by the… you know what, it’ll be easier if I show you. Mind some company?”

“I’d love some,” he said, smiling.

“Be right back,” she said, and ran upstairs to change.

When she got back to the living room, he was stretching, one leg held up in a quad stretch, standing with the graceful ease of perfect balance.

“Ready?” she asked, pulling an old baseball cap over her messy ponytail.

He lowered his leg to the floor and swept his eyes over her once.

“As I’ll ever be,” he said.

They walked the first few blocks, with Scully taking the opportunity to point out various neighborhood hot spots -- the local gas station, the corner market.

When they got to the park nearby, she ducked under a low hanging tree to find the running path that ran near the outskirts.

“This way,” she said, and they started to jog.

After a few minutes, she threw him a look.

“I’m slowing you down,” she said, guiltily.

He was taking short strides next to her, keeping pace with her.

“Nonsense,” he said, staring straight ahead.

“Muder, your legs are about a foot longer than mine, you could run circles around me,” she said.

“Sounds like a good idea,” he said with a glimmer in his eye, and then pulled the hat off her head and started running in literal circles around her, hooting at her while she grabbed at the hat -- every time she got close, he’d pull it away, holding it behind his back or far above his head where she could never reach it. After a minute of keep away, they were both laughing and she pulled up, out of breath but with a smile on her face.

“I knew I was slowing you down,” she laughed, and bent to put her hands on her knees.

“Aw,” he said, putting the cap back on her head and pulling it low, “you’d have caught up eventually.”

He gave one last tug on the brim of the cap and they stood looking at each other, a moment passing between them. Scully felt something low in her belly, and there was a sharp look in Mulder’s eye.

“Why don’t you go ahead and get your miles in,” Scully said, taking a step back and breaking the moment. “You know how to get back?”

Mulder nodded at her.

“Sure you don’t want to come along?” he asked.

“Pass,” she said, “I’ll see you at home.”

He took a few steps backward, holding her eye and then turned and loped off back down the path, eating up the distance in long, even strides.

XxXxXxXxXxX

The days turned into a week and then two. Their schedules were pretty compatible, and they usually woke up and ate breakfast at about the same time, and then Scully would leave to head onto campus.

She came back on a Thursday afternoon, holding a folder full of medical school applications, her gut churning in nervous anticipation. Her MCAT scores were good. Hopefully good enough to secure at least one full ride scholarship. She closed the door to the apartment with her head in the clouds, and it took her a moment to notice Mulder, who was standing in the middle of the living room, holding the telephone. He was just lowering it from his ear and he had a queer look on his face.

“Mulder?” Scully said, “Everything okay?”

“I just accepted a job,” he said, looking a little surprised.

“What? That’s fantastic!” Scully said, swinging her backpack down to the floor and plopping the folder of applications on top of it.

“Yeah,” he said, and then moved to the wall to hang up the phone.

“You seem surprised,” Scully said, walking toward him.

“I am,” he said, turning toward her from the wall. “It’s the one I was hoping for. I did not expect to get it.”

“What’s the position?” Scully asked, moving to stand in front of him.

“I’ll be starting at one of the best Psychology practices in the Metro area. Low on the totem pole, but they’ve offered to train me until I get licensed.”

The surprise on his face melted slowly into happiness as the news started to sink in.

On a whim, Scully wrapped her arms around him in a hug. He returned it, warmly.

“Congratulations,” she said into his shirt, then looked up into his face. “This calls for a celebration.”

“Yeah?” he said, looking down at her with a smile. She felt color spreading up her cheeks. After a second they let their hands fall away from each other. “What’d you have in mind?” he asked, taking a step back.

“Drinks,” she said, taking a step back, herself. “There’s a great dive bar right down the street.”

“When can we leave?” he asked.

XxXxXxXxXxX

They were at least four drinks in, not counting the two tequila shots she’d insisted on when they first arrived. They’d both agreed their third drink should be water, and Scully had lost count after that. She had ordered a glass of the house Chardonnay (“It’s terrible, but also four dollars,”), and Mulder appeared to be pacing himself through a large gin and tonic, while Scully told a story.

“And then we said ‘follow that car!’” Scully said.

“You didn’t,” Mulder said.

“We did,” said Scully on a laugh, “but to our surprise the cabbie didn’t share in our excitement and instead slammed on the breaks half a block down the street and told us to get out.”

Mulder threw his head back and laughed.

They had started at the bar, but moved to a dark booth in the back when the place started filling up with the after-work crowd. Rush was playing too loud on the jukebox nearby. The drinks were cheap, the tables were sticky and the lighting was bad.

“I love this place,” Mulder said, looking around.

“Me too,” said Scully, watching the way his adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed his drink. “It’s the perfect dive bar.”

Mulder leaned back in the booth and leveled a look at her.

“Tell me about Dana Scully,” he said.

“There’s not much to tell,” she said, humbly.

“Nonsense,” he said, “a smart, beautiful woman like you? I bet you’ve got a lot going on.”

She ducked her head at the compliment. She’d noticed that he peered rather than looked. There was a ribald quality to his gaze, though she found herself more intrigued than intimidated. Mulder looked at her as if she were a question to be answered and she found herself hoping to be worthy of his inquiry.

“Boyfriend?” he prodded, taking a big drink. She rolled her eyes just thinking about Ethan. “Ha!” he went on, “there’s a story there. Tell it.”

He crunched ice from his glass, the dull sound brushing across her skin like a memory. He held the dewy tumbler in long, elegant fingers and for a moment she felt like a real, live grown-up.

She told him about Ethan. She probably shared more than she should have. How they’d started dating in high school when her father retired from the Navy and they moved to Maryland. She told him about her dreams of becoming a doctor and how she’d broken up with Ethan over it. When she finished, he held up his glass.

“Fuck that guy,” Mulder said, and clinked her glass with his.

“I did,” Scully said, and Mulder choked on his drink, laughing. While he recovered, Scully handed him a napkin and leaned back. “I tell you,” she went on, “I’m thrilled to be single right now.”

Mulder cut his eyes to her.

“Tell me about Fox Mulder,” she said, diverting the conversation, “smart, handsome guy like you? I bet you’ve got a lot going on.”

He smirked at her as he brushed the front of his shirt with the napkin.

“You said no girlfriend, right?” she asked, feeling brave.

“I’m thrilled to be single right now,” he said, giving her a look she couldn’t read. The silence stretched for a moment.

“Missy said you moved back for your sister?”

“That, and it was time to come back,” he said, sighing. He started shredding bits of the napkin onto the tabletop. “Sam is doing well in school, but that’s about it. She’s at the age where you leave home and strike out on your own but always have that parental support, that thing to fall back on, that place to go home to. Mom and Dad died just after she left for college, and… I think she feels like she was just expelled into the world before she was ready. She’s sad and angry, and I don’t quite know what to do for her. PhD in Psychology and here I am flapping in the breeze, not even able to help my own sister.”

Scully reached across the table and squeezed his arm.

He smiled self-consciously and stood. He looked brooding and slapdash in the half-light of the bar, stippled with 5 o’clock shadow and flecked with chips of light from a distant, dusty disco ball. She found herself wanting to run her hands through his sable hair and brush her lips over his cheek. She threw back the rest of her wine instead.

“We need another round,” he said.

“We really don’t,” Scully said, reaching up and feeling the end of her nose. When she had too much to drink, it went numb. She couldn’t feel it.

“Are we out celebrating me or not?” he said.

“We are.”

“Then I say we need another round,” and with that he walked to the bar, though when he came back, he was carrying two waters.

“Bartender insisted,” he said.

“He’s a good guy,” Scully said, waving in the direction of the bar. A nod from the bartender.

They sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes, drinking water and watching the bar fill up. Then Spirit of the Radio came on the jukebox and Mulder leaned back his head as if in ecstasy.

“I love this song,” he said.

“I had you pegged as an INXS guy,” Scully said.

“You wouldn’t be wrong,” he replied. He looked at her steadily. “Let’s dance.”

Scully looked skeptically towards what passed for a dance floor.

“Mulder, no one has danced here in at least a decade,” she said, thinking of a fifty-something barfly swaying by herself to Jolene.

“All the more reason,” he said, sliding out of the booth and holding out his hand. There was a rakish glint in his eye and his renegade jaw clenched once.

“I’m not drunk enough for this,” she said, though she put her hand in his and let him pull her up.

“Yes, you are,” he laughed and led her to the middle of the floor.

She was definitely drunk enough because it took nothing at all for her to start dancing. The bartender, who knew her from more than a few nights out with Ellen, smiled at her and bent down under the bar. A second or two later the volume of the music went up and he stood, giving her a thumbs up. She laughed and let herself go.

When the guitar solo started in the middle of the song, Mulder leaned back and started playing an air guitar, throwing his head into it with enthusiasm.

“You’re such a dork!” Scully yelled to him over the music.

“You love it!” he yelled back.

She had to admit, she kind of did. She liked that he seemed to live his life not caring what other people thought of him. It was a lesson she should probably learn herself.

When the song ended and Tom Sawyer came on, she took a step back, and looked up at him. She was sweaty and suddenly self-conscious, feeling like a goldfish in a bowl.

“We should go home,” she said, feeling a lot drunker than she thought she’d been, “get some food.”

He stood up straight, as if gauging how he felt and swayed just a bit.

“You’re right,” he said, “we should.”

They strolled to the bar to settle their tab, and he wouldn’t hear of letting her pay.

They walked out of the bar and were surprised to find that night had fallen. The sudden silence settled over them like a heavy blanket. The air was so fresh it almost hurt to breathe it.

“You should have let me pay,” Scully said, speaking too loudly, her ears ringing with a brief tinnitus from the music. She lowered her voice, “we’re celebrating your accomplishment.”

“Well, my accomplishment is going to pay a lot better than your post-grad stipend, I guarantee you.”

“Still…” she said, and then tripped over the curb.

Mulder reached out and grabbed her arm, saving her from a face plant.

“All hands on deck!” he said, and she smiled and looked up at him gratefully. He slid his hand down her arm and took her hand. “Two blocks to go,” he said, “we got this.”

His hand was warm in hers, dry. She squeezed it. Inhibitions lowered, she could feel herself falling for him a little, against her will.

When they got to their building, there was a young woman sitting on the steps out front with her arms crossed, looking like she was on the verge of tears. When the woman heard them, she turned to look and her face registered surprise and, when her gaze dropped to their linked hands, unhappy confusion.

Scully suddenly wondered if Mulder actually did have a girlfriend and she felt her stomach reel.

“Sam!” Mulder said, dropping her hand. He lurched forward and grabbed the woman in a bear hug.

“Get off, Fox,” she said, pushing him back, “you smell like a frat party.”

Mulder’s face fell.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“What’s wrong?” the woman’s voice went up an entire octave, “you told me to come here at 7:30. I’ve been sitting out here for an hour and a half!”

“Shit,” Mulder swore. “I’m so sorry.” His apology did nothing to improve her demeanor.

Mulder then seemed to remember Scully’s presence.

“Oh,” he said, “Sam, this is my new roommate Dana Scully. Scully, this is Samantha, my sister.”

“Scully?” Samantha said, and made no move to shake hands. “You’re still doing that last name thing?” Her eye roll was implied.

“Let’s go inside,” Scully said, for something to do, and pulled out her keys to unlock the building’s door. When she got the key close to the lock, she dropped the whole ring. She could hear Samantha sighing in annoyance behind her.

“So, you went out partying instead of meeting me,” Samantha said, her voice flat. “Awesome.”

Scully recovered, got the door open and they all trooped up the stairs to the apartment in silence.

Once inside, Scully knelt to pick up the backpack and envelope of applications she’d dropped by the door earlier and made her way to the stairs.

“I’ll let you two catch up,” she said, excusing herself.

Mulder threw her an apologetic look. She flopped on the bed when she got to her room, applications forgotten until tomorrow.

XxXxXxXxXxX

The next morning, Mulder met Scully in the kitchen and wordlessly handed over two Tylenol and a glass of water. She threw back the dusty pills, and assessed him over the rim of the glass.

“Thank you,” she said, and he nodded. “Did your sister forgive you?”

“I’ve been granted a temporary reprieve,” he said, and Scully walked around him to pour herself a bowl of cereal. “She’s interning with the local police department this summer, she asked me to come down to the station in a few days so she can show me around. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be scared straight or if she’s letting me off the hook, but either way I promised to be on my best behavior.”

“What kind of internship?” Scully asked, spoon halfway to her mouth.

“I’m not exactly sure. Some kind of Women in Law Enforcement thing. She’ll mostly be getting coffee for dispatch, I think, but occasionally she’ll get to shadow a female detective, so she’s pretty stoked.”

“Sounds cool,” Scully said. Then, “...I don’t think she likes me.”

“She was just upset last night. Totally my fault. She’ll come around.”

Mulder plopped down next to her and poured a bowl of cereal for himself.

“What’s on the docket for today?” he asked her. He poured milk into his bowl slowly until it submerged the flakes like a rising tide.

“Med school applications,” she said, her mouth half full.

“And who are the lucky schools?” he asked.

“Stanford, UCLA, Michigan State and Columbia,” she said, “they’re amongst the few still accepting applications for this fall.”

“Not Georgetown?” he said, casually.

“Georgetown, too,” she said, “I love it here. I would love to stay. I do plan to apply, but…”

“But?”

“But when I inquired, they said their spots were filled and that they rarely make exceptions.”

“Too bad,” he said.

“Too bad,” she agreed.

They ate the rest of the meal in silence.

XxXxXxXxXxX

It had taken days to fill them out, but Scully had left the post office after mailing her applications and felt as if a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She was finally going after what she herself wanted and felt jubilant at the prospect. For too long she’d let other people’s expectations for her guide her life. She walked down the sidewalk feeling lighter than air.

The dull roar of an engine on the street pulled her attention and she turned to see Mulder sitting on his motorcycle next to her, pulling off his helmet.

“I thought that was you,” he said with a smile, which she returned. “You get all your applications out?”

She nodded, grinning.

“You make it out of the local police station without having to post bail?” she asked with a smirk.

“Just barely,” he said, then reached back and unsecured a second helmet, holding it up to her. “Want to go for a ride?” he asked.

She looked at the bike skeptically. Motorcycles had always freaked her out a bit.

“Come on, Scully, it’s a Saturday, live a little.”

She narrowed her eyes at him.

“Why not?” she said.

“Atta girl,” he said, grinning. He helped her fit the helmet over her head, securing it under her chin. He lifted her visor before putting his own helmet on, and said “Hold on tight, okay?”

He mounted the bike and she climbed up after him, wrapping her arms tightly around his waist. The leather jacket he wore was warm from being in the sun.

He kick-started the bike and it roared to life beneath her. She felt a thrill as he pulled away from the curb and picked up speed, the wind teasing the hairs on her bare arms. She wondered if Mulder could feel her heartbeat as it pounded against her chest and into his back.

They crossed the river and he merged onto the parkway, the bike surging forward like a tracer round. She rested her helmeted head onto his back and watched the city give way to forest, neither knowing nor caring about their destination. After about ten minutes, he pulled off into a the small parking lot of a scenic overlook, the brown water of the Potomac rushing past them at the base of the hill they were perched on. He cut the engine and she slid off the side of the bike, reaching up to take her helmet off.

Mulder followed, his gaze piercing as she shook out her hair. She set the helmet on the seat, and he did the same. She turned to look around.

“This is pretty,” she said, “I’ve never been out here.”

“Me neither,” he laughed, and shook the jacket off his shoulders.

The June day was approaching full heat and the breeze that came up off the river was muggy and rich. They walked a little way past the lot and into the shade of several large maple trees. There was a neat rock retaining wall that ran the length of the lookout, and they each hopped over and sat down on it. Far below them the river purled off toward the Chesapeake, dotted occasionally with a kayak or sailboat. The air held the decadent smell of petrichor from rain the day before.

She looked over at Mulder, at his strong profile, the chiseled set of his jaw. He turned to her and caught her looking. Smiled.

The heather grey tee shirt he wore looked overwashed and soft. She had to stop herself from reaching out and rubbing it between her fingers.

“How’s Samantha doing today?” she asked.

“Better,” he said, relieved. “She’s thrilled with this internship. It sounds like she’s really taken to it.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Scully said.

They sat in silence for a few minutes

“Hey, when do you start your new job?” she asked.

“Monday,” he said, his eyes wide. “They already have patients on the schedule.”

She put her hand on his shoulder.

“You’re about to be a real live grown-up, Mulder,” she said, “you ready?”

“Do I look ready?” he asked, pushing his shoulders back. If he’d been wearing a tie, he would have straightened it.

She turned to face him. Took the opportunity to look her fill.

“Mm… yes,” she finally said.

“There was a hesitation there, Scully,” he said playfully.

“There was no hesitation,” she played back.

“There was a decidedly skeptical hesitation.”

She pursed her lips.

“Listen, far be it from me to undermine your confidence…” she started.

“But?” he led.

“But don’t most grown men own furniture?” she teased, bumping her shoulder into his companionably.

He tilted his head back, busted.

“If that’s how you feel about it, how about you come shopping with me tomorrow?” he said.

“For furniture?” she laughed.

“That doesn’t sound like a good time?” he deadpanned.

“Let’s just go now,” she laughed again, “we’ll stack it on the handlebars and taunt the traffic cops.”

“You joke, but I’m serious. Come furniture shopping with me tomorrow.”

She narrowed her eyes at him.

“I guess it depends,” she finally said, “will we need Frohike’s truck?”

He laughed.

“How about if I borrow the truck, but not the Frohike?”

“Deal,” she said, “And all joking aside, is there any reason in particular we can’t go this evening? I mean, I’m free, and I’d hate for a newly minted grown-up like you to develop back problems from another night on the floor.”

She bumped into him again, enjoying their repartee. His face got an odd look to it.

“Actually, I have plans tonight,” he said.

“Oh?” she said, “hot date?”

“I don’t know about hot,” he said, “but I do have a date.”

She felt her stomach drop, then remembered telling him I’m thrilled to be single right now. She felt a small moment of grief.

“Oh, do tell,” she said, sounding entirely too cheerful.

“The uh, detective that Sam is shadowing, asked me out today. I felt kind of cornered, couldn’t say no.”

Mild relief.

“Aggressive, huh?” she said.

“Something like that,” he answered. “Anyway, are we on for tomorrow? I’ll buy you lunch.”

“Now that’s an offer I can’t refuse,” she said.

The warm breeze sloughed through the trees and settled between them.

XxXxXxXxXxX

True to his word, after breakfast, Mulder went out and rolled back an hour later with Frohike’s truck, but not Frohike.

“He wanted me to pass along his love,” Mulder said when Scully hopped into the cab.

“Is that all?” she asked, pulling the seatbelt across her lap.

“Definitely not,” Mulder said, “but I value my life.”

The truck was a late ’70s Chevy Silverado in metallic brown. It had a manual transmission and only got AM radio. A corner of the floor was rusted out and she could see the road flying beneath them.

“What’s our first stop?” she asked, fiddling with the radio to try to get a signal.

“I’m thinking bed,” he said, “in deference to my old man body.”

She smiled and the truck rumbled on, the transmission tacky. He had to kick the clutch at every stop light.

“Know where you’re going?”

He tapped the side of his head.

“Got it all mapped out.”

The only radio station that would come in was transmitting a baseball game, so they listened to it in silence for a few minutes. Finally her curiosity got the better of her.

“So,” she said, “how was the date?”

“Not bad, actually,” he replied, stealing a look at her as if to gauge her reaction.

She made sure to keep her expression neutral, pressed the vee of her toes hard into her flip-flops.

“Oh?”

“She’s intense, but funny,” he said. “Not sure if I see it going anywhere, but she asked if I wanted to go out again.”

She could feel his eyes on her and kept staring straight ahead.

“You should go,” she said. Stop talking, Dana.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” No.

“Oh, we’re coming up on the mattress store,” he said, “see if you can see a parking lot.”

They walked into the mattress store, eyes practically bugging out of their heads. It looked like close to an acre of nothing but bare white mattresses as far as the eye could see. There were SALE! Posters hanging above almost every section and cardboard cutouts of showcase models leaning against every third mattress.

Mulder took a step back.

“I’ll keep sleeping on the floor,” he said, “nothing is worth this.”

Scully grabbed his arm.

“Mulder,” she said, “you need, what? A bed, dresser and desk?”

He nodded.

“Then we’re practically a third of the way there. Come on.”

She pulled him along like a recalcitrant toddler.

It took about 10.2 seconds before they were met with a smiling salesman. By that point, Mulder seemed to have recovered.

The man was short, balding and entirely too chipper for his own good.

“You and the missus looking for a new mattress?” the man asked, “You know mattresses expire after eight years.”

She opened her mouth to correct him, but Mulder grabbed her arm.

“Yes,” he said, “the missus and I are looking for a new mattress. You have any newlywed discounts?”

The salesman waggled his eyebrows.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

He marched off ahead of them and Scully hissed “what are you doing?”

“Trying to save a little money,” he whispered back, “go with it.”

The salesman stopped in front of a row.

“Now, this here line is your best bet for what we like to call active sleepers,” at that he gave an exaggerated wink, “you folks looking for soft or firm?”

“Oh, my wife likes it firm,” Mulder said. Scully rolled her eyes.

The salesman moved to the end of the row.

“These are going to be the firmest on this end, getting softer as you move to the left. Why don’t you two lay down on a few and see if any of these speak to you.”

A new customer walked into the store then, and the salesman excused himself and ambled over to greet them.

“I’m not going to speak to you if you keep that up, Mulder,” she said.

“Keep what up?”

“My wife likes it firm,” she repeated in a low voice.

“What?” he said, all innocence,

“I’m leaving,” she said and he grabbed her wrist as she turned.

“Wait,” he said, laughing, “I’m sorry. He’s just lobbing these softballs out there, and I gotta take a swing. I’ll stop.”

She gave him a look.

“I will,” he said, putting on a straight face, still holding onto her arm, “just help me pick out a bed and we can get out of here. Scout’s honor.”

She relented and they cautiously sat on a few mattresses before getting comfortable. Eventually they were sprawled out next to each other, debating the merits of quilt-top vs foam.

The salesman finally came back over.

“Y’all have any questions?” he asked.

“Just one,” Mulder said, propping himself up onto his elbows. The salesman looked at him expectantly, “is that newlywed discount still on the table?”

XxXxXxXxXxX

They pulled into the parking space behind the building a few hours later hauling several large boxes containing the unassembled pieces of a matching set of a dresser, desk and nightstand. The bed would be delivered later that afternoon.

They were able to haul them up the two flights of stairs with a minimal amount of arguing which both pleased and surprised Scully.

They dumped them on the floor of the living room before plopping wearily onto the sofa.

“Oh God,” Mulder said, eyeing the mess of cardboard before them, “We have to assemble them.”

“What do you mean ‘we?’”

Mulder looked at her, his lips almost pouting and she laughed.

“Oh come on, it’s not like you have to build them from scratch, they give you directions,” she said, “If you’re lucky, they’re even in English.”

“You’re making this worse.”

“And enjoying myself immensely,” she said, “Do you have any tools?”

“Do you?” he asked.

“Of course, I do,” she said.

“Please grant a moment of silence for the death of my masculinity,” he said, dropping his head.

She swatted his shoulder.

“Stop being patriarchal,” she said, “I’ll help. Let me grab my tools.”

Three hours later they were drinking iced tea on the small loveseat on their balcony while the sun sunk slowly below the horizon, the cotton candy clouds a riot of color above them.

“I’m never moving again,” Mulder said, “tell Ellen she can sleep on the couch when she gets back. Or she can sleep with you. I’m done.”

Scully chuckled and wiggled down lower into the cushions. The temperature had dropped with the sun and she was still wearing a tank top and shorts, her feet bare.

“You cold?” Mulder asked her.

She shrugged.

“A little,” she said.

“Here,” he said, and pulled off the sweatshirt he was wearing, handing it over to her.

“Thanks,” she said, pulling it over her head. It was still warm from his body and smelled like sandalwood and a little like sweat. She wanted to pull it up to her nose and give it a big whiff, but she resisted. When he put his arms back down, he rested one on the back of the loveseat behind her. He wasn’t touching her, but she could maybe tell he wanted to.

“You nervous about tomorrow?” she asked.

“A little,” he said, smiling.

He had a tee shirt on under his sweatshirt, and it was riding up a tiny bit, the skin of his hip showing. He took a sip of tea, and she wondered for a moment what he might taste like.

“You’re going to do great,” she said.

He turned to look at her, serious.

“Thanks, Scully.”

“Don’t mention it,” she said dismissively.

“I mean, for everything.”

The moment felt weighty. She could practically feel the heat from the skin on his arm above her, and knew if she touched it it would be warm and exquisitely soft.

“Tell me another random and arcane fact,” she said, settling further into the loveseat, the collar from his sweatshirt brushing her jaw.

“In New York City,” he said, turning his face to hers, “on Broadway medians between 63rd and 76th streets, biologists discovered a new species of ant.”

She raised her eyebrows at that.

“They call it the ManhattAnt,” he smiled.

“Naturally,” she smiled back.

If she let herself, she could fall in love with him; absolutely, irreversibly. It’d be as easy as taking a breath.

He drained the rest of his tea and stood. She sat up.

“You want your sweatshirt back?” she said, her hand on the hem.

He waved her back down.

“Keep it,” he said, “I know where you live.” He then jerked a thumb in the direction of his bedroom. “Gonna try out that new bed,” he said, and opened his mouth like he was about to say something else. He shook the ice left over in the glass and looked down at it. “I… I had a good day today, Scully. Thank you.”

She gave him a close lipped smile.

“Night,” he said, drifting slowly off toward his bedroom.

“Night,” she said back.

She waited until his bedroom door closed before going inside. She slept in his sweatshirt.

XxXxXxXxXxX

Mulder had been on four more dates with Detective What’s-Her-Name (she didn’t ask) in the last five weeks (not that she was counting). He was always home by 11:00 pm, alone (not that she was paying close attention).

She’d usually be sitting on the couch studying when he walked in the door.

“How was your date?” she’d ask.

“Good,” he’d say, and wouldn’t elaborate.

Twice he sat on the couch with her after he took off his shoes, and they’d talked until they were both yawning and wondering aloud where the time went. Once, he just went to bed. Once she’d been asleep and woke up hours later to find an Aztec print blanket draped over her on the couch.

Tonight was date number five. Earlier in the day she’d gotten her second response from med schools (Michigan State had accepted her, but had been unable to offer any financial support) -- this one from Columbia, which regretted to inform her that they had already filled up all their remaining spots, but asked her to please apply again next year. That disheartening rejection on her mind, she had a nervous, anxious feeling in her gut about Mulder’s date, and was planning to go to bed early--if he came home and he wasn’t alone--or didn’t come home at all--she didn’t want to know.

At 9:03 pm, she was getting a glass of water from the kitchen in just a thin worn-out tee shirt and an old pair of running shorts from high school when she heard the key in the lock.

Mulder slid in through the door and closed it behind him. He was alone.

“Hey,” she said, surprised. “How… was your date?”

“Meh,” he said, bending over to get at his shoes. “She got a call about a case halfway through dinner and had to leave. To be honest, I was relieved.”

A lightness bubbled up from inside her, and she had trouble containing a smile.

“Oh yeah?” she said lightly.

He moved to plop heavily onto the couch, giving his lone remaining shoe a perplexed look.

“Damn lace is knotted,” he mumbled, “I can’t get it.”

She sat on the couch next to him.

“You probably need a decent fingernail,” she said, flicking hers together with the satisfying click of keratin. “Gimme your foot.”

He turned and swung his foot into her lap. She started picking at the knot, which he’d managed to pull even tighter with his efforts.

“Relieved, you said?” she tried not to sound too interested. She kept her eyes on his laces.

“Yeah,” he sighed, “She’s nice enough--pretty--but I think it’s run its course.”

“Aw,” she said, and patted his leg, “your somebody is out there, Mulder. I just know it.”

“Yeah,” he said, softly, “I’m sure of it.”

She had just gotten her thumbnail into the knot and started to get it loose when there was a knock on the door. They looked at each other, expectantly. Neither were expecting anyone.

She set his foot on the floor.

“I think I loosened it enough,” she said, “you get it from here, I’ll get the door.”

“Success!” he said, when she was a few feet from the door. He pulled off the shoe triumphantly just as she threw back the lock. She turned to smile at him, and pulled the door wide, turning toward it with a big grin still on her face.

Her face fell as soon as she registered who was standing in front of her.

“Ethan,” she said, “what are you doing here?”

“Dana,” he said, and held out a small posy of flowers toward her. She didn’t reach out to take them. “I came to apologize.”

She stood there, debating.

“Can I come in?” he asked.

She looked at him, sighed. “I don’t need an apology, and it’s late, and… Ethan, I don’t want to do this.”

He brushed past her and came in anyway. When she turned toward him, Mulder stood from the couch, his eyes narrowed. Ethan stopped in his tracks.

“What is this?” Ethan asked.

Scully sighed, annoyed.

“You tell me, Ethan. What is this?” she asked, pointing to the flowers, “What do you want?”

“I was coming to…” he looked back and forth between her and Mulder. He looked her up and down and she suddenly felt vulnerable and small. She wasn’t even wearing a bra. She crossed her arms in front of her.

“This wasn’t about school, was it,” Ethan said, his tone turning quarrelsome. “You were cheating on me.”

“Ethan, Jesus Christ,” she said, taking a step toward him.

“Fucking ‘med school,’” he said, his face melting into a sneer, “right. It was a fucking excuse. You wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for me-” at that, she went from annoyed to irate.

“Are you kidding?” she said, “I wrote half your papers in undergrad-”

“You barely proofread them,” he interrupted snidely, and turned to Mulder. “What’s she got you doing for her?”

“Hey, man,” Mulder said, taking a step forward, “Don’t.

“Oh,” Ethan said, slapping the posy of flowers against the side of his leg. A few petals fell to the floor, “maybe I should ask you what she’s got you doing to her.”

Mulder took another step forward.

“Scully,” he said, connecting eyes with her.

“Ethan, you need to leave,” she said.

He ignored her.

“Scully?” Ethan said, then reached out a hand and grabbed her arm. “What the fuck? You fucking slut-”

Before he could finish whatever he was about to say, Mulder’s fist came flying over Scully’s shoulder and connected solidly with Ethan’s nose. The force of the punch sent him spinning a few paces away from Scully almost into the open doorway, and when he turned and straightened blood was running down his face.

“Whad da fuck?” he said, his words garbled and nasally. He brought a hand to his face and looked to Mulder. “Good luck wid her. Frigid bitch.”

Scully was so furious she was shaking.

“First I’m a slut, now I’m frigid? Make up your fucking mind, Ethan. And get. Out.”

With that she gave him a shove and slammed the door in his face.

She leaned against it and took one bracing breath. Then she looked to Mulder, who was holding his right hand awkwardly.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Are you?” he volleyed back, concerned.

She shook her hands out, trying to release some nervous energy. Anger and horror and embarrassment all fought to get out, coming together in a clod in her throat that choked her. Tears sprung out instead.

“I mean your hand,” she finally said, moving to his side. She wiped the tears away hastily, gingerly lifting up his hand. He winced, sucked in a breath.The skin over two knuckles was split, blood dripping lazily down three fingers. It was starting to swell.

“I think I hit a couple teeth,” he said.

“I hope you knocked them out,” she said. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up,” she went on gently, glad she had something to do, and pulled him lightly toward her bathroom up the stairs.

He stood at the threshold while she rummaged around for her first aid kit and looked around.

“I’ve never been in here,” he said quietly. “You have a nicer shower than me.”

She finally felt her mouth tug up into a small smile. She gingerly grabbed his injured hand and pulled him to the sink.

He let her wash and rinse his hand without words. She could feel his eyes on her, he never looked away. Finally, she sat on the edge of her tub with the first aid kit, and pulled him down next to her. She rested his hand gently in her lap as she worked butterfly bandages over his knuckles. She then wrapped it gently with gauze, securing it with a quick tuck.

“You’re going to make a great doctor,” he said earnestly, and she tucked her chin to her chest.

“This needs ice,” she said, finally raising her eyes to his. Tending to him had given her mind something to do, and now looking at him made her feel vulnerable all over again—he’d heard every accusation made in her fight with Ethan—the words were coming back to her. She looked back down, willing back the tears that threatened to spill.

Finally, she felt the fingers of Mulder's other hand lightly on her chin and she looked up. The second their eyes connected, her tears started to fall.

“You’re not frigid, Dana,” he said, his voice rumbling and soft, “you might be the warmest-hearted person I’ve ever met.”

His eyes were mossy in the bright light of her bathroom, and she felt herself tipping forward until her forehead was resting against his.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

They were still for a moment, breathing each other in. She felt a pull to him like the tide chasing the moon.

His fingers were still resting tenderly under her chin, and all it took was the slightest, smallest pressure from them and they crashed into each other, their lips tangling in a sudden, passionate kiss.

They were still sitting side by side on the edge of her bathtub, and Mulder brought his arm around her and pulled her up until they were standing, bodies pressed together in a line, their mouths all tongue and teeth.

She reached up and weaved her fingers into his hair, pulling him down to her like he was a source of water and she’d been thirsty for days.

She felt him harden against her belly, and she reached down and grabbed him over his jeans, rubbing. He moaned into her mouth and thrust against her once, twice. His injured hand was wrapped around her backside, pulling her closer, while his good hand crept up under her tee shirt and cupped roughly over her bare breast, squeezing her nipple between his thumb and the vee of his hand.

He dragged his mouth away from hers and started biting and licking at her neck.

“I want you, Scully,” he said into her skin, “God, I’ve wanted you since I first saw you.”

She was so het up in a fervor of desire and sheer wanting that she could barely form words.

“Ye-” she said, struggling to get the whole word out, “yesss.”

He leaned back for a moment and used his good hand to grab his shirt behind his head and whipped it up and off. She took the opportunity to do the same, and when they came back together, the heat from his bare chest on her nipples sent a frisson of energy down the length of her spine. Her skin broke out in gooseflesh.

“You’re cold,” he said into her mouth, and she was too interested in kissing him to answer.

Their tongues tangled together and he reached down and started pushing off his jeans and boxers, kicking them away without breaking contact with her. She was short enough that when she reached down to do the same, she had to bend down away from him, and when she stood back up, he was standing in her open shower door, turning the water on.

He turned back toward her, his cock pointing at her like a divining rod.

“I’m going to warm you up,” he said, looking at her like a cat stalking prey.

She rove her eyes over him once before he got to her, and her mouth went dry at the sight of him. He was all lean muscle and smooth skin; he looked like he’d been cut from marble.

He got to her and pulled her tightly to him, his skin like fever along the length of her. He pulled her with him slowly backwards, and when they got to the shower, it was steaming. He maneuvered her inside the stall and positioned her under the hot spray; she felt her nipples pucker in the air.

He leaned down and licked water off her shoulder and then lowered himself slowly to the floor, pausing at her breasts to suck one nipple into his mouth, and then the other, water sluicing down his face like rain. When his knees finally reached the floor, he ran his hand gently down her thigh until his hand was around the back of her knee, which he lifted slowly, his eyes going to hers for permission.

She could only look back and lick her lips as he pulled her leg up and over his shoulder. His mouth was an inch from the throbbing, aching skin at her center, water running down over her breasts and into his hair.

Ethan had gone down on her only a few times in all their years together, regarding the act distastefully as something of a chore. But here was Mulder, kneeling before her, who looked at her reverently, as though he were about to unwrap a gift.

Scully reached behind herself to brace a hand against the shower wall, feeling dizzy. When his tongue darted out to part the folds of her labia, she gasped. Her other hand went to his head, threading her fingers through his dark coiffure, which was as thick and smooth as a martin’s.

He reached his hands up and under her, pulling her by the ass tightly to his face, a long train of gauze unraveling from his injured hand and hanging limply in the wet spray.

In high school, Melissa had loaned her a romance novel where a pirate referred to his conquest’s genitals as a “cunny,” and that word was all she could think of as Mulder lapped at her, making her feel as flushed and ripe as a rum wench.

Mulder licked and licked, making small, satisfied noises, the shower pushing needles of heat into her hair and back. Cunny, she thought.

He removed his hands from her ass only long enough to yank the rest of the gauze off his hand, and before she could utter a protest, he had stuck one long finger slowly up inside of her and began rubbing at her G spot in time with his tongue. She let out an involuntary moan, and could feel Mulder’s answering smile on her tender flesh.

“Let go,” he said gently into her, and then proceeded to suck her clit against his tongue. She came so suddenly and unexpectedly that she felt her knees go limp under her, and Mulder grabbed her and held her steady while she rode out the waves of pleasure, his name a prayer on her lips.

When she came back to herself, he was standing, one arm wrapped around her middle and the other in the wet tangle of her hair, looking at her with satisfied affection.

She reached down and grabbed him boldly, his cock hot and thick in her hand. His eyes fluttered closed and he rocked into her.

“Bed,” she said, and reached around him to shut off the water. That seemed to rouse him and he reached down and grabbed her under the ass, lifting her easily up so she could wrap her legs around him. His mouth descended on hers as he walked her out of the shower, the air hitting the water on their skin. She suddenly felt cool everywhere but where their bodies were touching: their mouths, her legs around his waist, his cock bobbing up into the cleft between her legs.

He lowered her gently onto her bed, perched in between her legs, her hair fanned about her head in thick, wet ropes. He leaned back.

“Condoms?” he asked.

“Drawer,” she said, and nodded her chin toward her bedside table. She propped herself up on her elbow and pulled a hair off of her tongue.

He rolled away from her and pulled a condom from the drawer, tearing it open as he settled himself back between her legs. He had started to roll it down over himself when he paused.

“This, uh,” he said, somewhat sheepishly, “might not fit.”

She looked down at him in alarm.

“Do you have any?” she asked him, and he nodded at her, a smile coming back to his face.

“Be right back,” he said, and leaned down to give her a quick kiss before he tumbled out of her bedroom door.

Scully looked around her room and expected to see it changed. Everything looked exactly the way it had, she realized, and found that the only thing that had changed was her. Her breathing started to even out and she flitted her eyes to her bedroom door, doubt suddenly creeping into her subconscious. Should she be doing this?

Before she could plumb the depths of that feeling too closely, Mulder filled the doorway suddenly, an adonis in all his naked glory, and he smiled at her triumphantly. She smiled tremulously back and had a thought to say something when he grabbed her foot in his hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. His touch calmed her nerves and she felt suddenly re-centered.

She pushed herself up onto her elbows while he rolled the new condom down and then he was back on the bed, crawling up her body like a panther, and his mouth found hers once again.

As soon as his body pressed itself toward hers, she lifted a leg and wrapped it around his waist, her psyche entirely back in the moment.

“You ready?” he asked her, his honey-over-sandpaper voice rolling over her skin like a cat’s tongue.

She nodded and he reached down and guided himself into her slowly. As wet as she was, she still felt tight, too tight, and when she winced, he stilled instantly.

“Am I hurting you?” he asked in concern.

“No,” she said quickly, “it’s--just go slow.”

She willed her muscles to relax, one set at a time, starting at her toes and working her way up her body and after a moment she felt him slide in more and they both hissed with pleasure.

The more he moved, the better it felt, and after a while she wondered how she’d ever managed to live without this. Without him.

She bit her lip and suppressed a moan, and his pace increased, just a fraction, the look on his face one of either pleasure or pain. He hooked his thumb into her mouth and she sucked it, licked it clean. It tasted of salt, a little bit like her, the dry tang of latex. He pulled it out of her mouth and reached it between them, sweeping it urgently over her clit.

“Come with me,” he whispered into her ear, then pulled back to look into her eyes.

She concentrated on the sensations, trying not to lose herself in his gaze, and soon enough she felt another orgasm coming on, bit her lip and nodded at him. He surged up into her hard and they were both gone, eyes clamped closed, blood roaring in their ears.

He slumped down next to her, shifting his weight to his side, his penis still inside of her.

“Jesus,” he said, his tone reverential, “Jesus.”

She remained silent, feeling the bed under her, her duvet cover damp from shower water. She felt tears prick her eyes, overcome with emotion and release. She was afraid of what had happened, of what would happen, of the feelings he evoked inside of her.

He kissed her temple and then stood to dispose of the condom in the bathroom, coming back to the bed with water in her cup from the sink. He handed it to her.

“Here,” he said, and she smiled gratefully at him and drank the whole thing.

He reached for the empty cup and set it down on her bedside table, then sat on the edge of the bed.

“So,” he said, smiling at her, half amused, half anxious.

“So,” she said, and had trouble meeting his eyes.

“I think your ex-boyfriend is a bit of a douche,” he said.

At that she laughed and looked at him.

“Yeah,” she said.

He held her gaze a moment.

“You okay?” he asked, “I get that tonight,” he waved his hand around as if encompassing everything, “was a lot.”

“Yeah,” she lied, “how’s your hand?”

He looked down.

“Bleeding again,” he said.

She winced.

“Worth it,” he said.

“Ethan was lying,” she said suddenly, turning her face away, “I’m the one who carried him through school. God, that-”

“-Hey” he stopped her. Put a hand on her knee over the covers. She pulled the sheet up over her breasts, sniffling, feeling exposed. “It’s okay,” he said, “don’t give him another thought. He doesn’t deserve it.”

She took a deep breath, nodded.

“Did the band-aids at least stay on?” she asked him nodding toward his hand.

He looked down and held up his hand.

“Yes,” he said, smugly.

“Let me rewrap it,” she said, and grabbed the nearest thing to the bed to throw on. It was his Oxford sweatshirt. She put it on, realized what it was and looked to him guiltily.

“It looks better on you,” he said, “I meant it when I said ‘keep it.’”

It fell halfway to her knees, so she didn’t bother with anything else and padded softly to the bathroom. She peed quickly, washed her hands and brought fresh gauze to the bed. She found Mulder under the covers, sitting against the headboard, smiling at her shyly.

“This okay?” he said.

She paused a moment and then nodded to him. It only took a minute to rewrap his hand.

“This really needs some ice, Mulder,” she said, getting into the other side of the bed. The second she was settled, he reached for her.

“But that would mean leaving this bed,” he said, “and that is the last-” he paused to kiss her behind her ear, which sent a shiver down her spine, “thing I want to do.”

She turned in his arms so that she was the little spoon, and settled in, feeling his large hands on her stomach and his breath in her hair.

“Good night, Mulder,” she said.

He squeezed her.

“‘Night.”

He was asleep long before she was, her thoughts swirling and echoing in her mind. Eventually, his long, even breaths calmed and centered her, and she drifted into a dreamless sleep.

XxXxXxXxXxX

When she woke the next morning, it was to a soft kiss on her neck. It was the Saturday morning of the long Labor Day weekend, she remembered. She inhaled and rolled over. Mulder was kneeling onto the bed over her, wearing his boxers and holding onto the clothes he’d shed the night before.

“Morning,” he said, smiling. “I gotta go take a shower. Sam’s coming over this morning.”

“Okay,” she said, and he leaned down and kissed her on the lips.

He pulled back and gave her a long, fond look.

“Maybe we can all eat breakfast together,” he said, then shot her a toothy grin, “I’m starving.”

She hadn’t seen Samantha since that first night when they’d initially met, when she and Mulder were tipsy and Samantha was irritated with them and upset. She felt a low throb of embarrassment and anxiety in her gut. She got up to take a shower as well.

When she got downstairs, she was hit with the smell of coffee and toast and found Mulder already banging around in the kitchen.

“Hey,” he said, “I just buzzed Samantha up. She said she has a surprise. I hope it’s donuts… You want some eggs?”

She shook her head and went for the pot of coffee, fresh anxiety coursing through her. Mulder came up behind her and put his hands on her hips, kissing her neck, and she shied away sideways like a nervous filly.

“Scully?” he asked, concern etched on his face.

The doorbell rang. He backed away from her, looking confused, and Scully couldn't bring herself to make eye contact. She busied herself by pouring a cup of coffee.

She heard the door open and excited female chatter, then Samantha’s voice said “Surprise!”

“Debbie,” Mulder said, his voice filled with dismay.

Scully moved to the doorway of the kitchen and watched Samantha and another woman come into the apartment. Sam had a small stack of paper in her hand and the other woman was holding a bottle of champagne. The women were laughing and she watched as the older woman leaned in and pressed a kiss to Mulder’s surprised lips.

“Hi!” she said, sweetly, “Sam told me she was coming over here this morning, and I thought I’d tag along and apologize for last night.” She held up the bottle, “Mimosas, anyone?” She looked over at Scully expectantly.

Scully finally got a good look at her and her jaw almost dropped. Mulder had said she was pretty, but the woman was downright stunning. She was at least 5’9”, with long, thin legs that reached up into verdant hips. She had an almost pinched waist, a full, high bust, and a long elegant neck. High cheekbones, lush lips, gorgeous, big, brown eyes and a cascade of wavy brown hair completed her look. It occurred to Scully that she herself was wearing an oversized tee shirt and a ratty pair of sweatpants, her hair hanging wet and limp over her shoulders.

Mulder seemed to snap out of his surprise.

“Ah,” he said, shaking his head, “welcome. Um. Deb, this is my roommate, Dana Scully, Scully, this is Detective Debbie Winther, Sam’s mentor at the police department.”

And your girlfriend, Scully couldn’t help but finish for him in her head.

“Nice to meet you,” she said instead, feeling rooted in place.

“Oh my gosh, you too!” Debbie said enthusiastically, moving over to give Scully a buss on the cheek and a tight hug.

She even smelled like heaven, Scully thought, an expensive perfume like Chanel or Hermés.

“Can I throw this in the fridge?” Debbie went on, holding up the bottle of champagne, and then moved past Scully without waiting for an answer.

Mulder caught Scully’s eye and threw her an apologetic, horrified look. When Scully cut her eyes to Samantha, the young woman was watching them closely, a shrewd look on her face.

“Here,” Samantha said to Mulder, her tone a little frosty, and pushed the stack of papers into his hands, “your mail was falling out of your box. I grabbed it.”

Sam shot a look at Scully and then moved to the couch. Mulder shuffled absently through the stack, moving slowly into the room.

Scully felt like she’d been caught cheating and could feel her cheeks burn red.

“Oh!” Mulder said suddenly, his eyes still on the mail in his hands. “Scully.” He looked at her, held up an envelope. “Stanford,” he said.

He walked over and handed the envelope to Scully, then said in a low voice, “Do you want some privacy to open it?”

She looked at him in thankful relief when Debbie walked back in from the kitchen.

“What’s this?” she said brightly.

“A letter from Stanford, apparently,” Samantha said, her eyes boring into both Scully and her brother.

“Something exciting?” Debbie asked.

“Uh, Scully applied to med school there, she’s been waiting to hear back,” Mulder said.

“Oh my gosh, you have to open it!” Debbie said. Mulder looked pained. “What?” Debbie went on, “bad news, we drink; good news, we toast!”

Scully held the envelope in front of her.

“Yeah,” she said, unable to take her eyes off of it.

She took a breath and tore it open. She held the letter, reading it, the paper in her hands shaking. She suddenly felt weak, and sat down heavily in the chair next to her.

“Scully?” Mulder said softly.

“I got in,” she finally said shakily, “full ride scholarship.”

XxXxXxXxXxX

Mulder bent down to get a better look at her face, his eyes shining.

“You did it…” he said.

She felt a tremulous smile rise up her cheeks.

“Amazing!” Debbie said enthusiastically, then ducked back into the kitchen. She emerged a moment later with the bottle of champagne and ripped the foil off, then expertly twisted off the cork. A little bit of bubbly ran out the top of the bottle and foamed down her fingers. “To Doctor Dana Scully!” she said, and then handed Scully the bottle.

Scully took one look at Mulder and then brought the bottle to her lips, knocking back a slug. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and handed him the bottle.

“I’ll get glasses,” he said, and disappeared into the kitchen.

Scully looked back down at the letter, and continued reading.

“Congratulations, Dana,” Samantha said flatly, “will you be moving to Stanford soon?”

“Uh,” Scully said, her eyes rising to Mulder’s sister, “yes. In just a couple of weeks, it looks like.”

Samantha nodded at her and then cut her eyes to her brother, who was emerging from the kitchen with three juice glasses.

“I couldn’t find champagne flutes,” he said apologetically.

He poured Scully a glass, and then one for Debbie. He then looked at Samantha. “You’re not 21,” he said.

Samantha rolled her eyes.

“Oh, come on,” Debbie said, “we’re celebrating. Anyway, you could legally drink when you were younger than she is now. She should be grandfathered in. Pour her one. It’s not like I’m going to arrest you.”

“You can have mine,” Scully said, and held it out to her.

“No thanks,” Samantha said.

The tension in the room got thick quickly. Debbie was having none of it.

“She’s having mine,” she said, and walked her glass over to Samantha. She then took the glass that Mulder was holding and leaned into him. “We need to toast the accomplishments of your incredible roommate, Fox, I’d hop to and get yourself a glass.”

Scully couldn’t help it, she liked the woman.

When Mulder came back in, he raised his glass and gave Scully a significant look.

“To Dr. Scully,” he said.

“To Dr. Scully,” the others repeated after him.

Scully brought the champagne to her lips. It felt like fire all the way down.

XxXxXxXxXxX

When Mulder closed the door on Samantha and Debbie, he immediately turned to Scully.

“God, I am so sorry. I had no idea she was coming and-”

“It’s fine, Mulder,” she said, though it was not fine. She was not fine.

“I’ll call her later, break it off with her,” Mulder said, moving over to her, and Scully cut him off again.

“Don’t,” she said. Mulder peered at her.

The whole morning would have been incredibly awkward had Debbie Winther not been engaging, enthusiastic, and an altogether fun person to be around. Whenever she stood next to Mulder, Scully couldn’t help but think what a handsome couple they made. Samantha eventually warmed up a little under Debbie’s gentle prodding.

The only really awful moment was when Debbie excitedly told Mulder that she had managed to get a cabin out on the Chesapeake for the long weekend and hoped she could take him out there this afternoon for a romantic getaway for a couple of days.

Mulder politely told her he would probably have to move a few things around and would call her.

“Scully?” Mulder said, breaking into her thoughts.

“She’s really nice, Mulder,” Scully said, “in fact, she’s great.”

Mulder looked at her in confusion.

“Mulder, I’m going to be leaving in a few weeks and-”

“I don’t care,” said, interrupting her, “Scully last night was… I don’t care if you’re leaving, I want to be with you.”

Scully’s heart felt like it was going to beat itself out of her chest.

“It was a mistake,” she whispered. It hurt just thinking it. Saying it made her sick. “Last night was a mistake.”

He stumbled back, as if stung by a jasper.

“What?” he said.

“It was a mistake. I’m leaving for Stanford. How could this even work?”

He saw an opening. Moved back toward her and grabbed her hand.

“We’ll make it work,” he said, “we’ll figure it out. Maybe I move out there.”

“Mulder, your life is here, your job, your sister-” Scully thought of the way Samantha had looked at her that first night. How easy she’d been with Detective Winther this morning. It was almost as if he was reading her thoughts.

“Don’t worry about my sister. She’ll come around. She’s incredibly loyal— she thought I was still dating Debbie, knew something had happened between you and me-”

“How?” she cut in.

“She can read me like a book, Scully. Listen, don’t worry about her, I’ll talk to her-“ he said.

She pulled away from him.

“Your sister aside, medical school is going to be all engrossing, I won’t have time. I -- It’s the first thing I’ve ever done for myself.”

“And I would never get in the way of that, Scully. Med school can come first. Should come first. I’ll take whatever you have left, even if it’s just scraps.”

She didn’t want that for him. He deserved so much more.

“No,” she said.

“But I thought-” he said.

“No,” she whispered and took a step back.

His jaw clenched and rippled under the surface of his skin, like the groundswell before a volcano blew its top.

He put his hand on his chest. “I know you feel this, too,” he said, his voice somewhere between anger and a caress.

She said nothing, but turned and walked up the stairs, tears spilling down her cheeks. She was doing this for him. Wasn’t she?

She looked over the railing and he was still standing there watching her.

‘

“I don’t,” she said, and ran the rest of the way to her room

XxXxXxXxXxX

A few minutes later, she heard the front door slam and then the sound of his motorcycle tearing up the street. Her world felt foggy and unreal. Not knowing what else to do, she picked up the phone.

When Melissa answered her call, Scully could barely talk through her tears.

“Dana?” Melissa said, her voice tinny through the earpiece, “Dana, slow down. What’s going on?”

She told her sister everything. Melissa listened patiently, asked pointed questions.

“Missy, I feel like I made the right choice and the wrong one, all at the same time,” she said when she was done.

“Sometimes there’s no one right answer, Dana. I haven’t learned much in my short time on this earth, but I have learned that.”

Scully sighed into the phone.

“Tell me, then,” Missy said, “What have you made the right choice about?”

“Med school,” Scully answered definitively. “Everything inside myself tells me that’s the right choice.”

“Then what’s the wrong one?”

“Mulder,” she said, with equal determination. “What I just said to him. Driving him away. Everything about it feels wrong, but I can’t consolidate the two. His life is here. And mine is about to be eaten up on the other side of the country.”

“Relationships have survived worse,” Missy said.

“Are you saying I made a mistake?”

“I think you said it, Dana,” her sister said gently. “I think you owe it to yourselves to at least give it a chance.”

“I need to talk to him,” Scully said, almost to herself. “I hope it’s not too late.”

XxXxXxXxXxX

She waited hours for him to come home. She mostly sat on the couch chewing her nails to the quick, imagining every scenario under the sun. Dark clouds moved in just before sunset, and the sky took on an ominous color and mood.

She was standing to switch on a lamp when she heard a soft knocking at their door. She rushed to it, swung it open, hoping it was him.

It was a different Mulder. Samantha stood there, her hand still raised from knocking.

“Dana!” she said in surprise, and then got a good look at what Scully assumed were her red-rimmed eyes and pallorous skin. “Are you okay?”

Scully sniffed and wiped her nose, didn’t answer. Sam stood there a beat and pushed on.

“I came to apologize,” she said, her words in a rush, “I was being a shit, and what you and my brother do with your lives isn’t any of my business. I know you’re leaving town soon, and I wanted to just… clear the air.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Scully said, looking down and away, embarrassed.

“I do. So… I’m sorry.”

Scully gave her a weak smile.

“Do you... know where your brother is?” she asked.

Samantha looked chagrined.

“I haven’t talked to him, but… Debbie said he had called and said he’d go up to the Bay with her this weekend. She left a couple of hours ago, I… I think Fox went with her.”

Scully nodded dumbly. She felt like the floor had opened under her.

“My shift at the station starts in a few minutes,” Sam went on, “I’ve got to get going.” She reached out and squeezed Scully’s arm briefly, then turned away and left.

When Scully closed the door and turned back into the apartment, she felt like the air had gone out of the room. Everywhere she looked, she saw a memory of the two of them. She needed out, she needed air.

She grabbed her running shoes and slid them on, not even tying them very well. She took her keys from the hook and fled out onto the street.

The sky was still lit, but barely, a yellowish ozone tinge to the air. She walked with her head down, not really having a destination in mind. She found herself at the mouth of the local park.

Moths were barnstorming the streetlamps that were scattered throughout it, and there was a steady crowd of people streaming toward the street; a soccer league had just finished for the night.

There were kids sucking on orange wedges, cleats with laces tied together draped over shoulders and around necks. A boy chased his sister, trying to get her to smell his shin guards. Somewhere off in the distance a coach or referee blew one sharp bleat on a whistle.

Scully shouldered her way past them all, feeling numb. There was a low rumble in the distance--either a truck or thunder, Scully could not tell which, and did not care. Once she was away from the thinning crowd, she walked deeper into the park and eventually sat on a bench under a large maple tree, the bottom of the leaves lighter than the tops, like the belly of a fish.

Time passed as did people, and both seemed to get fewer and farther between, the minutes slowing like dull drawn out heartbeats. A teenager gave her a disinterested glance and pulled his hood up over his head and walked on. A woman walking a pomeranian passed the other way, the dog pausing to sniff at Scully’s shoes.

One more low rumble, and Scully finally came back to herself; thunder. The wind had picked up and cooled off, the sounds of the trees above her gradually turning from a salubrious psithurism to an ominous rattle. She wasn’t wearing a coat and was starting to get cold.

She stood and looked around, trying to get her bearings. It wasn’t a large park, but it was long, and she was fairly far from the exit to the street. After a minute of walking, she thought she heard the shuffle of footsteps behind her and turned to look--there was no one there. When she turned back there was a person standing directly in front of her, appearing as if out of thin air. It was the teenager who had walked by her before--he looked older than she originally thought and his hood, which she realized now was more of a cloak, was pulled low over his face. He was holding a knife, and his gaze was intense. She felt the dump of adrenaline in her bloodstream.

He didn’t say anything, just stood in front of her, staring at her darkly.

“What do you want?” she finally asked him, sounding braver than she felt.

He mumbled something she couldn’t make out, shifting on his feet.

She had taken a self-defense course her sophomore year of undergrad, and her mind reeled trying to remember all that she had learned.

She felt the cold bite of her keys in her hand and tried to shift them as subtly as she could to get them between her fingers. He noticed and raised the knife.

“Don’t,” he said in a heavy accent, and she froze.

Scream, scream, scream the voice of her instructor came back to her, and she took a deep breath, just as the man in front of her started to twitch. She got the first “H-” of a blood curdling HELP! out before he made a move, and everything after that seemed to happen in both slow-motion and fast-forward.

He swung out with a fist which glanced off her stomach, rendering her scream mute and then slashed at her with the knife. She managed to get her arm up and out of the way and took a swing back at him with the fist holding her keys. Her punch glanced off his elbow and he moved forward towards her. Instinct took over and she brought her knee up for a groin shot. Her aim was off and she kneed him in the thigh instead, grazing it off the inside of his leg as he moved to defend himself.

Momentum carried her forward and him back, and she felt a dull blow to her left arm that didn’t hurt much. His free hand reached out with the speed of a snake and grabbed her wrist, yanking it back. Her keys went flying.

“Bitch!” he shouted at her and twisted her hand back until it was behind her and he was holding her from behind, his chest to her back. Adrenaline thrummed through her and her ears roared. She could feel the point of the knife just pressing into her side.

In one last ditch push of effort, she lifted her right foot up and slammed it down into the arch of his foot, connecting with a sickening crunch, just as her left elbow smashed into the arm holding the knife, which he dropped. It tinked onto the pavement of the path below them just as he gave a hollow grunt, his grip on her loosening.

She twisted away and ran, another dump of adrenaline boosting her forward. After a quick burst of speed, she risked a look behind her.

Nothing. Her attacker seemed to have dissolved as quickly as he had appeared, and she tripped in surprise, landing hard on her knees and hands.

It was then she noticed the blood on her arm. It was bright red and running thickly from a gash just below her elbow. The realization brought her back to herself, and the cramp that had been forming in her side from what she had assumed was running turned into a burn. She reached around herself with her uninjured hand and it came away dark with blood.

She felt another wave of panic and bile rose in her throat. She looked around. Her attacker was still gone, but so was everyone else. The park was empty and she was nowhere near the exit.

She rose to her feet and stumbled a few paces before catching sight of a small outbuilding, backlit by a dim light. The building was most likely used to store lawn mowers and the other horticultural implements needed to maintain a park. She made her way toward it, feeling a little weaker with each step.

Another low rumble of thunder cut through the air and she felt the first few stinging drops of rain start to fall. She finally got to the building and lurched around the corner toward the light.

The first good fortune of the day: a phone booth stood sentry beside the building, the blue plastic binder that should have housed a phone book hung down empty, limp as a dead bird. She threw up a silent prayer that the phone itself worked.

She floundered forward and picked the receiver up off of the hook. Dial tone. A relieved sob fell from her lips.

She dialed the operator and asked for emergency services just as the rain came down in a deluge. She slumped to the ground under the booth, giving halting, hissed information to a dispatcher, blood seeping into the ground beneath her knees.

XxXxXxXxXxX

She was separated from the rest of the patients in the ER by only a thin curtain that was occasionally thrown back with a curt shhtt! by any number of hospital personnel, quickly and at random. She flinched every time.

She was wearing an ill-fitting grey sweatsuit provided to her by the police officers who came to take her statement and her clothes, as evidence. She was allowed to keep her shoes, for which she was grateful. They were almost dry, though marked by a Pollack-like splatter of blood, mud and rain water. She had eight stitches in her arm, nineteen in her side, and a prescription for an antibiotic which she clutched tightly in her hand.

Shhtt! The curtain pulled back once again, this time admitting a nurse named Carmen--the woman was in her 50s and overweight, her hair pulled back in a dark bun with wiry strands of silver running throughout. She smiled at Scully, revealing a mouth full of crooked teeth. She’d had a tendency to call Scully “honey,” which Scully wanted to attribute to her sweet, maternal-like nature, but probably had to do with the fact that she couldn’t remember her name.

“You’re almost out of here, darlin’,” she said, mixing it up a bit as she dipped her head to look Scully in the eye. “The doctor is filling out your discharge papers, now. These,” she handed Scully a few pieces of paper that were printed in faded dot-matrix ink, “are your after-care instructions. Ibuprofen for the pain. You can take up to 600 ml safely, every six hours.”

Scully nodded mutely and folded the papers around the smaller prescription. Nurse Carmen patted her leg gently.

“Do you have someone you can call to come get you? It’s late.”

Scully glanced up at the clock on the wall -- it was nearly 3:30 am. She flipped through her mental rolodex and came up empty.

“I… I don’t have my keys,” she told the woman in a halting voice, “he knocked away my keys.”

“Do you have a Super or a roommate that can let you in?”

At the word “roommate” Scully felt tears burn in her eyes unbidden, but nodded at the nurse. Gary, their building manager, would be cranky as hell about it, but would let her in. She tried not to think about Mulder, and of course could only picture him on the porch of some oceanside cottage, sitting in a bench swing with Debbie while they fed each other crabcakes and drank red wine.

Shhtt! This time the curtain produced her doctor, who had been kind enough, but always seemed too busy or distracted to meet her eye. His head was always buried in a chart or steeped in concentration six inches from her skin, sewing her back together.

“All right Miss Scully, you’re free to go,” he said, snapping a folder closed. “Have you been assigned a detective yet for your case?”

“No, they said they’d call me,” she answered, and thought but with my luck…

He nodded and walked away, and Carmen touched her elbow and told her which way to go to get to the hospital exit. She passed by a pay phone near the door to the outside, but realized she didn’t have any change and gave the nurse at the nearest station her sob story before the woman, looking bored, handed her the station phone’s receiver and let her call a cab.

She headed outside to wait.

There was an ambulance idling just outside the emergency bay, the EMTs leaning against the side of the rig, drinking coffee and joking with each other. She couldn’t remember if they were the ones who had helped bring her to the hospital, so turned the other way and walked forty feet down the sidewalk, embarrassed.

She hadn’t asked how long it would be until the cab showed up and wondered how many were even on duty this time of night.

The pavement was damp, as if it had only just stopped raining, and it was still cold. She rubbed her hands together and stamped her feet to keep warm, the movement jarring the wound in her side. She felt close to tears.

She heard the roar of a motor coming up the empty road, but a quick glance proved that it wasn’t her cab, just a motorcycle tearing up the drive, going too fast for conditions. She wondered if maybe the driver was hurt when he skidded to a stop under the overhang directly in front of the ER doors.

The rider swung off his bike just as the two EMTs pushed off the ambulance, chiding him and telling him he couldn’t park there. The rider ignored them and whipped off his helmet, about to trot into the doors of the hospital when Scully recognized him and shouted his name.

“Mulder?!”

His head whipped toward her voice and then he came running, his face a mask of worry.

“Scully!” he shouted as he approached. He slowed only when he was nearly on top of her and reached out two hands, only to whip them back, as if afraid he might hurt her. “Scully,” he said again, “God! Are you okay?”

“How-” she said, not quite believing it was him, “what are you doing here?”

“I just found out,” he said, stopping short then stumbling into speech again. “That you were attacked. Jesus, I thought the worst.” He reached a hand out again, but didn’t touch her. “Are you okay?”

He must have driven in the rain. His jeans were soaked through and his hands looked red and chapped.

“Scully,” he said, again, “are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she said, slowly. She wanted to be dismissive, but she was in too much pain. “I’m -- I’m cut,” she said, raising up her arm to show him the stitches. “And here,” she said, pointing to her side.

“Jesus,” he said, “Will you be able to ride the bike? I need to get you home. Shit.” He looked around, “you can’t ride like this, we need to get you in a car.”

“No!” she said, and his head whipped back to her. “I can ride. Just… Please just take me home.”

He looked at her a long moment and then nodded, shrugging off his leather jacket to put around her shoulders. He helped her gingerly get it on, and then reached down to zip it for her. The inside of the jacket felt like silk, and was dry and warm. He put his arm around her and led her to the bike, the EMTs looking on silently, sipping their coffee and staring unabashedly.

He got her on the bike first, unzipped her jacket a bit to put her care instructions and prescription in the inside pocket, and then delicately lowered the helmet over her head, securing it before putting on his own. He got on, careful not to jostle her.

She was able to wrap her arms around him--luckily even the injured one--without much pain, and his body felt wonderfully warm and solid in front of her. He kicked the bike on, and he drove as carefully back to their apartment as he had driven pell-mell to get to her.

XxXxXxXxXxX

When they got back to the apartment, she was stiff, bone tired, and she wanted to tell him she’d made a terrible mistake, but she couldn’t find the words.

He escorted her to her bedroom door and hovered there, an energy radiating off of him that fairly trembled. She turned to him, one hand on the doorknob, and looked at him expectantly.

“Did he… hurt you?” Mulder asked. “Other than…” he gestured vaguely to her arm.

“Hurt me?” she asked, confused, and the look on his face broke her heart. Oh. Oh. “No,” she rushed out, and put a hand on his arm. “This is the extent of it. I got mugged, Mulder. That’s it.”

He must have rushed to the hospital without any information. She could only imagine all the dark scenarios running through his head.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

“Okay,” he said, “Okay…”

“Goodnight, Mulder,” she said, and he nodded.

“Call out if you need anything. At all.”

She took her hand off the door handle.

“I’ll leave the door open, just in case,” she said.

He nodded and backed away slowly, throwing her several concerned looks as he descended the stairs.

She fell into bed and slept for 12 hours.

XxXxXxXxXxX

At 4:00pm, she hovered at the top of the stairs, her tongue thick with sleep in her mouth, her side and arm hurting. Her hair was a mess and she was afraid of what lay at the bottom of the stairs. Of facing the day, facing Mulder, facing her future. She thought of the dolly zoom in Hitchcock’s Vertigo, and placed her foot on the first step.

Mulder was waiting on the couch and leapt to his feet when he saw her.

“I was getting worried,” he said.

“Post-shock sleep,” Scully shrugged.

“How are you feeling?”

In truth, she was feeling so many things they seemed to bottleneck in her throat and render her speechless.

Finally, she just said, “Fine.”

He nodded at her, letting the silence settle around them, and it occurred to her that he was using a psychologist’s trick--waiting for her to fill the silence. She smiled to herself and let him have the round.

“How did you know?” she asked, wanting to know since he’d shown up at the hospital on his motorcycle like Steve McQueen. “That I’d been attacked? Where to find me?”

He sat down on the couch and she gingerly lowered herself next to him.

“Sam called,” he said, “ she was working at dispatch when your call came in. When I walked in the door, the phone had been ringing off the hook. She called and called. I’m so sorry I didn’t get there sooner.”

“You drove all the way down from the Chesapeake? In the rain?”

He looked at her, confused.

“I never went to the Bay,” he said, cocking his head to the side.

“You- what?” Scully said, sure she hadn’t heard right.

“I never went to the Bay with Debbie,” he said, “I went over to talk to her and break things off, like I said I would.”

Scully felt like the top of her head had lifted off and floated away.

“But Samantha said-” Scully started.

“Sam only knew what Debbie had told her the last time she saw her. We never went to the Chesapeake. I told Deb I wanted to see her before the trip, but only so I could break it all off. I ended up telling her everything. We sat and talked for hours… She helped me figure out what to do.”

“What to do?” Scully said, feeling like pages had been torn out of an instruction book she’d been trying to follow.

Mulder looked down at the floor and then raised his eyes to her.

“I’m not the kind of guy who can date a woman… when I’m in love with someone else.”

Scully felt a surge of hope and happiness so overwhelming she wasn’t sure what the look on her face was. Mulder read it as something else all together.

“Look, I’m sorry. I know you don’t feel the same way. And I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable, and I swear going forward I will keep it to myself, but for weeks I’ve felt like this and I thought there might be a chance you felt it, too. But you don’t, and I respect that. I just… I needed to say it. I needed to say it out loud. Once.”

She felt light and heavy all at once, elemental. Lit from the inside, like she’d swallowed a mouthful of ginger.

He stood suddenly and ran his hands through his hair until it stood on end.

“This is all my fault,” he said, pushing the heels of his hands into his eyes.

Scully was taken aback.

“Your fault? Mulder-” she said.

“I shouldn’t have pushed myself on you,” he said, “after Ethan was here. You were hurt and vulnerable and- you said it was a mistake. It was. The mistake was mine.”

He looked to the ceiling, shoved his hands into his pockets.

“You didn’t push yourself on me, Mulder,” Scully said, refusing to let him take on responsibility for anything that had happened in the last 24 hours. She took a bracing breath. “And the only mistake was mine. When I told you that that night didn’t mean to me what it did. When I let you think for one second that I don’t feel the same way you do.”

His eyes snapped to hers.

She stood and walked to him, his mossy eyes searching and perspicuous. He was miles deep and a fathom tall. She realised in that moment--and she would be able to look back and remember it clearly--that to love him had an inevitable feeling. Inevitable as gravity. As death and taxes. She grabbed his hand.

“My life right now is as tumultuous and up in the air as it has ever been and might ever be. I’ve been figuring out who I am on my own. I’m giving up what I thought I wanted out of my career and life for what I know I want. I’m about to move 3,000 miles away. And somewhere in the middle of all of that, I fell in love with my roommate.”

As he looked at her, a smile blossomed on his face and reached his eyes. He squeezed the hand she was holding.

“I’m sorry I pushed you away. Frankly, this,” she put her other hand on his chest, “scares me. But I also know I would regret not at least trying to be with you. I’d regret it until the day I died. I didn’t realize that until I thought I was about to.”

He leaned down and rested his forehead against hers, took a deep breath. She felt everything inside her click into place.

He leaned down and pressed the gentlest kiss to her lips.

XxXxXxXxXxX

They slept together that night--only slept. Mulder had gone out and picked up her prescription earlier in the day while she slept and the pills made her queasy.

Mulder tucked her into his own bed downstairs, brought her Saltines and ginger ale. When she awoke the next morning, he was curled around her. He helped her change her bandages and tie her shoes--she still couldn’t quite bend over.

At noon that day -- Labor Day -- the phone rang, it was Ellen calling from Seattle.

“Dana?” she said. “God, how are you?”

Scully didn’t have the first idea how to respond to that particular question, so she deflected.

“Ellen!” she said, “how are you? How goes the internship? You ready to come home yet?”

“It’s fabulous! And that’s actually why I’m calling. Dana, they offered to hire me on full-time. They want me to work out here while I finish my degree.”

“Oh Ellen, congratulations!” she said, feeling genuine joy for her friend.

“Thanks,” Ellen said, “I know you were counting on me to take the lease back over, and I can still probably help out for a few months now that I’m getting paid, but I thought I’d see how the new roommate is working out? Any chance he might want to stay for a bit longer?”

The roommate in question was currently tidying up in the kitchen, and came to the room’s doorway to eavesdrop on her conversation.

“The new roommate?” she repeated for his benefit, and then gave him a tart look, “He’s working out okay, I guess.”

At that, Mulder feigned insult and promptly whipped off his shirt and started doing push-ups.

“I take that back,” Scully said, maintaining eye contact with him while he exercised, by which she couldn’t help but get a little turned on. “He’s definitely working out.” Mulder stopped doing push-ups, sat up, and kissed his bare bicep. Scully let out a guffaw. “I’ll ask him.”

Ellen laughed too, without knowing why, and said “I’m so glad. And thank you. Oh, I’m going to miss you! Listen, I’ve got to get going, but we’ve got so much to catch up on. Talk soon?”

She watched Mulder as he disappeared back into the kitchen, still shirtless. “Sometime next week?”

“Done. I’ll call you. Bye Dane!”

“Bye!”

Scully rose to hang the phone back up on the wall and drifted into the kitchen, leaning against the doorframe to watch Mulder as he put dishes away.

“You do that a lot?” she asked him.

“Do what?” he asked, without looking away from his task, “Housework like a helpful roommate, or exercise hard to maintain my girlish figure?”

She came up behind him and kissed his bare back.

“Your figure is decidedly non-girlish, Mulder,” she said, ignoring his question, “for which I am increasingly thankful.”

He turned suddenly in her arms and she found herself staring at his bare chest. He rubbed his hands up down the tops of her arms, careful not to get too close to her cut.

“Oh yeah?” he asked, leaning his face down into hers.

She nodded into his kiss, “Yeah,” she said, right before his lips met hers. She deepened the kiss immediately, remembering the way the big muscles on his upper back had moved beneath his skin as he did push-ups, the way he’d looked at her with intent the entire time he was doing them.

He let her lead, doing nothing more than returning her enthusiastic kisses and dropping his hands to rest lightly on her hips.

She reached down and tipped her forefingers into the tops of his jeans, pulling him closer and then running her fingers to his fly. He pulled back, just as she popped the button.

“Hey,” he said, nudging her face with his nose, brushing his lips lightly against hers. “What are you up for, here?”

She looked down at him with intent, at where his erection was pressing against the fly of his jeans. “Whatever you’re up for, flyboy,” she said, and nipped at him.

“I just,” he leaned back a little bit more, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

She unzipped his fly slowly.

“You’re not going to hurt me,” she said.

“You pop a few of those stitches, your doctor might say otherwise,” he said, putting his hands on hers to still her movements.

“But I want you,” she said, licking her lips, reveling in the concupiscent lustiness he brought about in her.

He smiled at her slowly.

“We can figure this out,” he said, “we just need to be creative.”

“I have, so far, been both pleased and impressed with your creativity,” she said.

“Then allow me,” he said, and turned their positions so that she was standing with her back to the counter, then bent down to shimmy her sweatpants and underwear off, while she stood, patiently, wondering what his plan was.

When he straightened back up, he leaned forward, bracing his arms on the counter on either side of her.

“What,” he said, leaning forward to kiss her, “can you do that doesn’t hurt?”

She grabbed his head and brought his mouth back to hers for a deep, thorough kiss, then she released him.

“That,” she said, “didn’t hurt.”

He smiled at her.

“Noted.”

She reached forward and grabbed his fly again, and then started to lower his jeans down around his hips when she suddenly hissed in pain. Mulder grabbed her and straightened her.

“So no bending over,” he said. She nodded, a little disappointed. “Can you sit?”

“As evidenced by sitting on my ass nearly all of yesterday evening and again this morning, all information points to sitting being a medically approved position for Patient Scully,” she said in her best med student voice.

Mulder chuckled.

“Okay,” he said, and then surprised her by reaching down and easily lifting her up and onto the surface of the counter, which was cold against her aforementioned ass. She let out a startled yelp.

“Mulder!” she said.

“Was that pain, or the temperature of the counter?” he asked.

“The temperature of the counter,” she said through gritted teeth.

He smiled wickedly.

“The longer you sit on it, the more it’ll warm up,” he said.

She shook her head.

“Mulder, counters are for glasses, not for a-”

“Shh,” Mulder cut her off with a finger to her lips. “I promise I’ll clean up,” he said.

She tilted an eyebrow at him, but complained no more.

He put his hands on her thighs, spreading her legs apart so he could step in between them, their faces now perfectly level for kissing. He ran his hands lightly up her legs until his thumbs were just brushing at the crease where her legs met her pubis, sending a shiver down her spine.

He had pulled his jeans back up, but hadn’t zipped them, so she reached down and slipped her hand inside, grasping the silken steel of him, and he hissed into her mouth.

“You first,” he whispered, and then lowered himself to the floor, now at the perfect level to lean forward and press his face into her sex, giving her an open-mouthed kiss and inhaling deeply through his nose. “I love the way you smell,” he said, and then darted his tongue out to press into her labia. “I love the way you taste.”

She reached out and ran her hands through his hair, digging her nails into his scalp when he gently parted her labia with his fingers and started running his tongue softly over her clit, gradually with more speed and pressure.

She concentrated on keeping her torso immobile, which was difficult when all she wanted to do was gyrate her hips into his sumptuous mouth, chasing the orgasm she could feel building even now.

Just as he’d done before, he pressed one long finger and then another up and into her, and moments after he started rubbing the rough pad of her G spot, an orgasm surged up within her. She let go of his head and braced her hands on the countertop, holding herself as steady as she could as the waves crashed within her, and he gently lapped at her, slowing as she came down.

He stood when she exhaled, and she rolled her head from one shoulder to the other, letting the ringing in her ears lessen with each breath.

“How are you so good at that?” she asked, her tongue all lassitude in her mouth.

“I was a double major,” he said smugly, his cocksure grin charming as a flop-eared terrier.

She shoved him in the shoulder and he fell back a step, then moved forward to carefully help her down from the counter. She stood in front of him, still in a shirt with no pants, and he pressed a finger under her chin and tilted her head back until she was looking up at him.

“I like this look,” he said, “it’s very Donald Duck.”

She laughed and shoved his shoulder again.

“You know, I was going to push for reciprocity, but I think I just changed my mind,” she said.

“Nah,” he said, and leaned down to nip at her nose, “plenty of time for that.” He then leaned over sideways to look at her aftercare instructions, which had been stuck to the fridge. “When do you get your stitches out?”

“Friday,” she said.

“Gonna be a good weekend,” he mumbled into her lips.

She felt herself deflate.

“I leave for California the Friday after that.”

She hadn’t even begun starting to pack.

He leaned his head forward until it once again rested on hers.

“We’ll figure it out,” he whispered.

XxXxXxXxXxX

That night, they sat on the loveseat on their balcony, watching the stars wink on in the sky, Venus emerging brightly from the ecliptic. They drank iced tea (Mulder may have had a beer or two) and talked about how they’d handle being long distance, Scully tucked into Mulder’s side.

They had yet to come up with a plan that excited them both. The pull of sunny California started to wane.

“Have you ever found a place you felt like you belonged? Somewhere you just felt at home? Where you knew it was where you were supposed to be?” she asked him after a few minutes of silence.

He squinted his eyes, thinking. Then,

“It’s not down on any map,” he recited to the stars. “True places never are.”

Melville. She gave him a look, thought of her father.

“Yeah,” she said, “I’ve been searching for it my whole life. And I think… that place might be you.”

“You gotta go, Scully,” he said, looking down at her, knowing what she was getting at. “Med school is your dream, so it’s my dream, too. I won’t let you not go.”

She took a breath, knowing he was right.

“Besides,” he said, “I don’t want to be the only doctor in this house,” he said, then shrunk away from her, knowing what was coming. She swatted at him, then let him settle back against her.

They sat in silence for long minutes, until Mulder finally shifted.

“Be right back,” he said, and stood, her side going cold from where he’d been.

He came back a minute later, carrying the large white pillar candle that Scully had lit for him his first night in the apartment. He produced a lighter from his pocket, flicked it on and touched it to the wick, then set the candle on the small table in front of them.

“I’ll make you a deal,” he said, settling back onto the loveseat and gently tucking her back into his side. “Take this with you to California. I’m going to get one just like it. And when either one of us is doubting, or when things get too lonely or dark, we’ll each light the candle.”

She glanced up to look at his profile, her heart constricting in her chest with love for this man.

“To cast out the darkness?” she asked, her voice quiet.

He nodded, then rolled his head to look at her.

“I mean, we should have a go at the evil spirits, too,” he said, chuckling.

She smiled at him, and leaned her head against his shoulder, watching the flame dance in the light breeze of the DC night.

XxXxXxXxXxX

When Mulder got home from work the next day, Scully was on the couch trying to study, her stitches itching madly.

“Hey,” he said, swinging the door closed. He hung his keys absently on the hook by the door, and kicked off his shoes. He had something in his hand. He was radiating a nervous energy. “Something came for you in the mail.” He looked at her significantly. “From Georgetown.”

“Probably paperwork for the end of term,” she said, barely looking up. “I’ve got a lot of crap I’ve got to fill out. You can put it in the kitchen.”

He sat down next to her.

“I don’t think that’s what it is,” he said, and held out a standard white envelope.

She looked at the return address. Georgetown Medical School.

She felt her eyes go wide and looked at him.

“Go on,” he said, and she wasted no time tearing into it.

She read the letter twice before leaning back into the couch and finally looking at him.

“Don’t make me guess,” he said quietly.

“Accepted,” she said, the smile blooming on her face mirrored back at her. “Full ride scholarship.”

“You get to stay,” he said, mirabile dictu.

“I get to stay.”

The sunlight coming through the sliding glass door behind him glinted off his hair, turning it into a filmy halo of gold. He reached out and hooked her thumb through his pinkie, pulling her hand up until it was against his chest, pressing against his beating heart.

She felt the thump and swish of it, its heat and birr, and she knew what it felt like to be home.

THE END

#the x-files #fanfiction #MSR #AU #a companion unobtrustive #prompt #my fic #roommates

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desdemonafictional · 3 years

Text

2020 Fanfic Year End Summary

Hey ho let’s go

Nev does these every year and I think they’re interesting, so for the first time I’m gonna give it a go too. I feel like this has been the longest fucking year--the Zine feels like it was two years ago and last January feels like it was ten years ago.

I’m gonna answer some questions and do a little reflection on the year

This year I technically finished Icarus with 2k words of a 36k story, and after that I went on to produce 197k words not even COUNTING the stuff from GPAU which I do not know how to divide up for 2020.

That’s 23 fics in one year, 8 of which were cowriting projects. This year has been, objectively, insane. By comparison, in 2019 I produced 17 fics and at the time I thought THAT was doing pretty impressive work. Now it’s not my best year by sheer number of titles--2018 was an oil boom while I was into JTHM and I actually put out 25 fics that year, some of which were short oneshots and some of which were two- or three-shots. But in terms of words? 2020 knocked them all out of the park. Which is absolutely something I owe to my amazing friends who let me ride around in their brains like the parasite I am.

In 2018 I started cowriting with Chokopopo, in 2019 I started cowriting with Neveralarch, and in 2020 I just did a fucking ton more of that with no looking back. It’s so incredibly motivating to have someone to show your progress to! And to have someone to hand the project over to when you’re stuck. If I hadn’t had Nev to bounce off of, most of this fic wouldn’t have been thought up at all, let alone finished. And don’t even get me started on GPAU! Choko and Zephyr and me have done such amazing things with “Welcome! Everything is fine”, and I can’t wait to be able to wrap that up and leave it for posterity.

I switched job positions around July of this year, and it’s changed the way I produce fic. Not sure if it’s good yet or not. I was never actually under a stay at home order this year because I work for a state agency, so to a degree I’ve missed out on the ways that quarantine affected other writers. I think I was fortunate?

Best Title

Ahhh this is tough, I put a lot of effort into my titles this year--I promised myself in 2019 I was going to stop using song lyrics for fic titles because they make songs loop in my brain and it’s self inflicted torment, which is a promise I... mostly kept. “Dress Your Idol in Gold and Ashes” is the one I put most effort into probably, because I kept toying around with it trying to find something that was evocative of the right pagan imagery, and also the idea that got me started on the fic was a passage in a text book about the daily dressing of an idol statue in ancient Egypt.

“Broke My Last Glass Jaw” gets special mention because I named it after an essay that I wrote in undergrad for my African American Lit course, in which I broke down themes of the spoiled american dream via the lens of 90′s rap.

Worst Title

“Take one for the Team” is definitely my laziest title. It’s just super self indulgent kink fic, no character arc or anything, so I couldn’t find a good image or phrase to bring in for the title. Also I remember I really wanted to post it quickly, since it was a response to some art I was looking at, and I wanted the artist to see. I’m sure I could have done better with the title.

I did end up titling “Fear and Delight” after a song but I forgive myself because I literally only wrote the fic because the song existed first.

Best Summary

Some of these summaries I wrote and a some I did not, but of the ones that I wrote I think.... “ I'm All Full Up on Yesterdays, Don't Sing Me No More Blues” is the best one. It launches you directly into the action, while preserving the surprise reveal at the end of chapter 1. I actually wrote chapter one with this summary in mind, so it was baked in there from the start.

Jazz turned in his seat, cube at his lips, just in time to spot the white pursuit vehicle steaming and panting in the doorway. “Jazz of Staniz,” the enforcer shouted, “surrender the matrix and come quietly!”

Jazz knocked back his drink. “Well!” he said to the open-mouthed bartender, “time to split!”

Worst Summary

I mean, summaries are hard for everyone, right? That’s the thing we all universally struggle with, I think? I usually end up liking mine, and this year I was less afraid to just let a section of the story speak for itself. Anyway the worst one is “ Broke My Last Glass Jaw” by virtue of the fact that I had to come back months later and add another line because I wasn’t satisfied with how it was reaching audiences.

After the war, Impactor is at loose ends.

(They were friends once, weren't they? After all this time, Impactor wonders if Megatron hasn't managed to forget.)

I really wanted that one line to say it all, but honestly it requires a lot of trust in me as the author and most of the people who pass by the fic in the archive aren’t gonna know me from adam. The second line clarifies what kind of story it’s going to be in terms of tone and theme.

Best First Line

I’m pretty ambivalent about most of my first lines. Since Nev already pointed out the first line in “ Apotheosis”, I have to admit, it is pretty good. It gets off to a real jaunty start.

“Excuse me,” Starscream said, striding down the steps of the senate chambers with his cape flaring out behind him, “get your cowcatcher out of his face, you tin-plated amateur despot, he’s with me.”

I also like the audacity of a run on sentence that is the opening to “ Desecrate You”

Ratchet clicks the video because it was auto-recommended, and because First Aid is always dropping hopeful hints that he wants her to watch his show when he’s supposed to be grading papers, and because something about the title (“This is Definitely a Hoax! None of this is Real! Short Cut Footage Episode”) makes her wonder why the hell someone who runs a Ghost Hunting youtube channel would bill their own hard work as a hoax right out of the bag.

Worst First Line

Definitely the least interesting is from “Tantric Sex, and Other Mysteries of the Divine”. I guess it’s another fic where I was really eager to get to the meat of the fic, and so I just went back after I was done with the fic and wrote a paragraph of bare bones setting context so we could move on already.

It’s game night at Swerve’s, and Nightbeat is out in the thick of the crew for once, getting the lay of the land.

I have the same problem in a few fics, which probably arises from the fact that when I read a fic, I often skim the first paragraph or so to see if I really want to commit to the read. So I sometimes write like I’m expecting the audience to do that too. I probably need to work on that. Man, I even did it in Sexy Staycation.

Best Last Line

I like endings! I usually have a good gut instinct for where stories should end, and how to pace that, and what image I want to close the fic on. Often times I’ll be writing a story and feeling really lukewarm about it, and then the ending will come to me, and I’ll feel totally won over by it. That happened with my Suicide Squad fic years ago. So this is for the most part me picking the best of the things I already like. “Broke My Last Glass Jaw” has a good pithy one; I like how it isolates this moment as a moment of choice, and how it’s also ambiguous whether he will change because of this or whether he’s doomed to go back to his predetermined pattern.

And despite the unguarded door and the empty inviting streets beyond, where no one wants or expects anything of him but his feterless bitter trog onward into the next waiting prison cell, Impactor lays down, and Impactor does.

Special mention goes to “ The Sky Dark in its Eclipse : Orange Light Remix”, because the ending section is one of the big changes I brought to the remix, and I’m really happy with how it alters the shape of the narrative and also how it changes the focus of Rung’s arc. Most of the actual words in this fic were written by Choko in 2018, so this is like a collab in slow motion--I changed loadstone moments mostly, some of the framing, all of the backstory, and updated the setting for Cybertron. But the ending is all me.

On the morning of Intro to Psych finals, while Hot Rod hums and taps and scrolls back and forth through his test on the front row of the testing hall, Rung will sit behind his desk and brush the dust from the rotors of his fateful archetype, and start the long process of putting the pieces together once and for all.

Worst Last Line

Again, I like my endings, so this is really the worst of the best. The original ending line I wrote for “ All Our Urgent Restless Sighing” was:

Deadlock’s finials twitched. “...I am a reasonable amount of interested,” he said, “in this topic.”

And in the beta process, Nev came back in and added the line about Ratchet and cuddling, which was a big hit with the readers it seems like. So clearly I benefitted from some help there haha!

Looking back, did you write more or less than you thought you would this year?

you know what, I definitely wrote more than I thought I would. I didn’t see “Don’t Sing Me No More Blues” coming at all, and that was once a month for most of the year. I was hoping that I would be able to write a few things outside of Transformers, because I always worry that my long spans of hyperfixation are driving away my longtime readers... and I did manage to get one hxh thing written that was good, and one hxh thing started that is mediocre so far. So I guess I’ll call that good enough.

What’s your favorite story this year? Not the most popular, just your favorite.

hmm I’m really proud of the Pharma chapter me and Choko put together for GPAU--the body horror, the tragedy, the lotus eater machine plot. But even though that felt like a whole ass story of its own, I guess it’s only a chapter at the end of the day. So my favorite story would be “Apotheosis”. It’s just SO much, and we had SO many things we wanted to do, and somehow we managed to do them ALL. Corpses! Children! God! It’s got everything! The only thing it doesn’t have is the idea that literally started us plotting out the fic. And that was “ritual public sex with Starscream and Rung”. Oh well. Maybe someday. Probably not.

Okay, Now your most popular story

Ha! I tend to view the success of a fic more based on its bookmark ratio than its hit count, but by the numbers, unsurprisingly, “ Don't Sing Me No More Blues” is my most popular fic of the year at a whopping 3k hits and 113 bookmarks. Well, it is jazz/prowl which means it has a built in audience of considerable size, and it also updated seven times this year which increases its net range, so no surprise. But I think people also just really vibed with it--it’s very much a product of the times we are living in, and I don’t think it could have been written in any year except for 2020.

“Dress Your Idol” has 58 bookmarks, by the way. I’m extremely proud of that fic for having such a high bookmark to view ratio. I guess the people who did read it liked it a lot.

Story most underappreciated in its Time.

Okay nothing is as under-exposed as the stuff I produced in JTHM, so I’m definitely not complaining. It’s hard to think about leaving TF because TF is such an enthusiastic community. That said, “ Neggnog Cozy” did not get eyeballs. I’m not surprised, it’s short and it’s gen, and Thundercracker doesn’t have the built in audience of say Starscream. Still, I thought it was really funny and cute and I would have liked it if more people would have given it a chance.

Story that could have been better

Oh, “ Melusine Among the Tombs” for sure. I went into that with only the first chapter planned and immediately after realized that I had no idea where the fic was going and also I had lost my grip on canon characterization after a couple years going rusty in other fandoms. I plan to finish it eventually, but I need a better plan than “wing it???” first.

Sexiest Story

I wrote SO much weird kink this year. Like. Shout out to past me for writing some pretty spicy JTHM fic, but this year I really leaned into how weird you can plausibly get with an all robot all alien cast.

“ The Sensual Machine” is the most unabashedly horny because it was written specifically for a weird kink themed zine that I was an editor on. “Desecrate You” is also quite horny but I almost exclusively wrote the frame device for that, so I don’t get sexy credit lmao. “Fear and Delight” was a big hit with all the hxh readers and I think it has an element of sexiness more so than pure horniness--its has a kind of glamour and style to it.

Most fun story

“Starscream's Sexy Staycation” is by far the most unabashedly comic and sexy and silly and low stakes. It has one of my favorite kinks, a beautiful stupid moment of Ratchet suffering, and Rung calling safeword which is something new and fresh and I want a lot more of it in the world.

Did any stories shift your perceptions of the characters?

“ Lacunae” was given to me as a yule gift prompt with the express intention of explaining who the fuck Carmilla’s mother was, and what the deal is with Carmilla as well. This would have forced me to reevaluate my understanding of the novel except for the TEENSY insignificant fact that I realized I had never finished reading Carmilla, somehow, and ended up reading it for the first time in December in preparation for yule. So uh. Hmm.

I think “ Don't Sing Me No More Blues” made me think about Prowl in a different way. I wasn’t really expecting him to be this hard-edged idealist when I started out on the fic. He was originally going to be much more like the autistic coded Prowl of “The Cop and the Cryptid,” one of my favorite fics ever. Also, I started writing the fic about a month before the riots and police protest kicked off in America this year, and it really caused me to zero in on how Prowl being part of a system like that affects his relationship to the world and other characters.

Hardest Story to Write

“ Elegy for Actaeon of the Hounds” took me a total of six months to write from start to finish. I don’t know why. Well, It’s partly because there are three involved sex scenes and sex scenes are actually very difficult and time consuming for me to write. It’s also partly because I kept wanting it to have a character arc, and I kept getting stumped on how to handle that. Beauty and the Beast plot lift? Have Rodimus be a rabbit? Eventually I settled on the version that kept the cast tightly cinched down around Megatron and Rung, and I’m happy with the result.

Easiest Story to Write

When we were writing “Apotheosis” it felt like we were on FIRE, we were so productive and we started three other projects between us while it was in motion. But “Take One For the Team” was absolutely the most fun to write, it basically wrote itself

Most Overdue Story

“Champagne in the Final Days of Rome” was based off a conversation I had with Nev pretty early on in our friendship--Discord says it was June 2019, so that’s uhhh ten months between discussion to actual writing? And it still didn’t turn out to be the fic we were originally outlining, haha.

Oh god you know what was really the most overdue? The last chapter of “Icarus; or, Look Who's Digging His Own Grave”. It was literally a year, January to January, between chapter 12 and 13. For a while I thought maybe I was just going to have to leave it there, without resolving the time loop problem at all.

Did you take writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?

Writing for the zine was a big risk. I remember Nev had to reassure me at least twice that what I was writing wasn’t too weird or off-topic or embarrassing to be part of the project. Now, of course, I’m very happy with it. But my god I was nervous to post something that was like.... straight up actually bimboification applied to one of the most popular toy characters of all time.

What I learned from this is that people love horny shit, are READY to take a chance on a weird fic when its in the right wrapping paper, and when in doubt you CAN sell people on a kink they’re not really into by making the kink actually a reflection of a character arc. Are you writing this down?

Do you have any goals for writing in the new year?

Finish GPAU!!!!!!

I’d like to FINALLY sit down and do some hard work on my original fiction. I’ve been kind of waiting for the tf hyperfixation to wane so I could move forward, and I think that process is in motion now. But who knows. If Rung shows up in the new comics I might get nerfed again.

Other than that I’d like to write at least one fanfic that isn’t TF, and I would like to get this really crunchy Rung/Pharma fic off the ground so I can make some people CRY

#2020 retrospective #fanfic

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let-it-raines · 5 years

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Betting on the Bullseye (30/30)

Emma Swan loses a drunken bet that means she has to ask her celebrity crush - if you can call him that - to be her date to her office's annual fundraising gala for Boston's Children Shelter. Killian Jones is that celebrity. She expects all kinds of humiliation and for her dignity to be completely lost all because of the ridiculousness of the situation. What she doesn't expect is for him to say yes.

What she truly doesn't expect is to actually like the man.

Rating: Mature

A/N: I get all gooey when I finish a story, and this is no exception. In fact, this might be all the worse. Back in November @wellhellotragic sent me a prompt for a silly little one shot (so you should all go thank her for her ideas), and while it was supposed to stay that way, I’m so glad that it didn’t! Thanks for being the best readers and betting on the bullseye ❤️

Also, happy belated birthday to @lifeinahole27 ! This epilogue goes out to you!

PS: look out for a bonus chapter coming soon!

Found on AO3: Beginning | Current

Tag list: @ultraluckycatnd @nikkiemms @resident-of-storybrooke @wellhellotragic @onceuponaprincessworld @jennjenn615 @mayquita @captainsjedi @teamhook @skyewardolicitycloisdelena91 @artistic-writer @branlovesouat @dreadpirateemma @kmomof4 @ekr032-blog-blog @andiirivera @hollyethecurious @superchocovian @cs-forlife @qualitycoffeethings @notoriouscs @mariakov81 @jonirobinson64 @bmbbcs4evr @thejollyroger-writer @lifeinahole27 @ultimiflos @galaxyzxstark @idristardis

-/-

She settles down on the couch in front of the TV in the living room, all of the shutters closed so that she can’t see outside to look at the ocean under the dull glow of the cloud-covered moonlight. She can still hear it a little bit, the subtle crashing of water against sand, but it’s mostly drowned by the sound of rain that beats down on the roof of the house. Obviously it rains in Santa Monica, but it’s rare enough for it to be an odd occurrence. She’s used to the sunshine and pleasant weather, even when it gets a bit chilly.

Her Boston roots would be ashamed of her for thinking that sixty degrees is chilly.

It’s what happens when she’s been living in Santa Monica for a little under two years now, all of her internal temperatures getting messed up with the total change in climate.

Making that decision had been difficult, as are all of their decisions to move or not to move and whether to visit for a weekend or a week (or for months if she’s honest with herself, even if that isn’t a real possibility) when Killian is away filming, but Killian knew that he’d mostly be working in LA for his next few projects as he wrapped up his stint with DC and Superman. He says that he’s outgrown that role, that he’s happy to get to move on to other roles that he enjoys more, but she can tell that he’s upset about having all of it be over. He’s really bonded with his costars, and she knows that he’s not too happy to not be working with Arthur and Ariel again after they’ve been working together for nearly a decade.

So he’s a little sad about it all ending, even if he won’t show it, but she can see the tenseness and emotion in his eyes as he promotes the last movie. He’s on Fallon tonight, and she hopes that he gets to have a good time instead of worrying about saying the wrong thing or giving out spoilers.

Her husband has the ability to give her spoilers to all kinds of movies, but she has to tell him no since she most definitely will not be able to hold her tongue.

There was an incident with the last Justice League movie that may or may not have been her fault.

(It was definitely her fault.)

It’s all much easier when Killian’s doing things where spoilers aren’t as big of a deal, but at the end of the day, all she wants is for him to be happy and to be doing something that makes him proud. That’s kind of been their thing lately. They want each other to be proud of what they do for their work, to be proud of how they spend their days. She had to quit her job when they moved here, and it took awhile for her to find one that she loved. It took awhile for her to find one where they wanted her because of her abilities and not because of who her husband is. But she did eventually find work at the Children’s Lifesaving Foundation, and as much as she loved her last job, she loves this one so much more. She actually gets to interact with kids and families, and she can legitimately feel the difference she’s making as she sets up fun events and field trips for kids who would never get that kind of privilege elsewhere.

It helps that she has good hours too, especially now.

Really, the only downside is that Ruby doesn’t work with her, so she doesn’t have her best friend barging in on her office ten times a day stealing candy off of her desk and begging her to the leave the office to get Tasty Burger a few blocks away even when they really should be working. She misses Ruby just like she misses David and Mary Margaret. It’s hard being away from them, and even though they don’t manage to talk every day, they do still talk most days. She looks forward to her video chats with Leo and Brody. They’re growing up so dang fast, and every time she gets an opportunity to go visit them, she’s on a plane.

Her frequent flyer miles are still constantly adding up, and it’s something she’s learned to accept as a part of her life, even if it’s something that she struggled with for a long time.

Actively choosing to leave people she loves was one of the hardest decisions she’s ever made, and no amount of words will ever be able to express how thankful she is that Killian did that for her when they were dating. That changed absolutely everything for them. He always told her that he wasn’t giving up any more than he was gaining, and he’d do it all again in a second.

She would too.

Besides, sometimes she misses that apartment in Boston, so she and Killian will stay there on occasion. There’s a lot of good memories there. She almost traveled with him to New York so that they could stay in Boston for a weekend, but it didn’t work out this time. Maybe sometime soon.

She’s obviously got to go to a Sox game. Of course, they do play in LA sometimes, but it’s just not the same as being in Fenway with her feet propped up on the chair in front of her and with a hot dog in her hand when she and Killian inevitably get singled out to be on the kiss cam.

(There’s a video on the internet of them making out because they got a little too carried away one day, and she tries not to think about that as much as possible. Her husband is hot, okay? Sometimes she likes to stick her tongue down his throat in public like the classy woman that she is.)

She listens as Jimmy Fallon does his opening monologue, the minutes stretching out as she waits for Killian to walk out on stage. It’s most definitely not live and she could just talk to him on the phone, but Killian is currently asleep in a hotel in Manhattan. He’s been so exhausted, the dark bags under his eyes increasing every day, and she can’t wait to have him home tomorrow so that she can kiss that handsome face and sleep next to him in their bed for the first time in two weeks, wrapping her arms around his waist and not letting go.

She misses him. Like crazy.

Even if she’s been stretching out on the bed and taking up most of it by herself. Though, it is a ridiculously large bed, and she can appreciate that the house allows them to have furniture that is far too big for two adults.

But she still misses him.

It’s weird how it somehow never gets easier and then yet it also does. She misses him when he’s gone, and sometimes the ache is overwhelming to the point of tears, but then there are times when it doesn’t have as big of an impact on her and she only misses him a little as she goes to work or spends time with Elsa and Liam. She can never quite explain it. She doesn’t really need to.

It’s her life, their life, and she wouldn’t change it for anything.

Eventually Killian comes out on stage, Jimmy introducing him and the two of them chatting about the movie for a bit, and then they get to the conversation she knew was going to happen. It’s been happening in all of the interviews that she’s watched, and she hasn’t even watched that many. She loves the man, but she doesn’t need to listen to every word that he says.

That doesn’t even happen at home.

Killian talks a lot.

“You and your wife welcomed a little girl a few months ago, right?” “Well, that was supposed to be a secret,” Killian starts, bouncing a little in his seat and curling his lips into the beaming smile that forms on his face every time he talks about McKenzie, “but then a cheeky photographer managed to get a picture of us shopping for a crib with Emma’s rounded belly. But yeah, my wife gave birth five months ago, and I am so in love with my girl. Well, with my little girl and my big girl.”

She scoffs at that, but mostly she laughs at the way that Killian’s ears go red as he drops his face into his hands while Jimmy roars with laugher. “Emma, darling,” he sighs, speaking right to the camera, “you know what I mean if you’re watching. You likely haven’t watched any of my interviews, but this is going to be the one you watch.”

“You might want to bring flowers when you go home,” Jimmy chuckles, trying to contain himself as the audience calms down.

“That might be a good idea.” “What’s it like being a dad?” Jimmy asks as he tries to change the subject. It’s a good subject change. This is one of her favorite things for Killian to talk about. Much more than Killian calling her his ‘big girl.’ “Terrifying,” Killian laughs, and she does the same, moving her legs up underneath her. She needs a blanket, but she doesn’t want to go get one. “I mean, it’s - “ Killian shakes his head back and forth, the disbelief evident on his face. “I’m a pretty private guy, especially over the past few years now that I have a family, but I love my wife and my daughter more than anything in the world. Of course I remember what life was like before them, but it’s been so long since Emma wasn’t the center of my entire world that I honestly don’t want to remember. And she gave me this kid that’s - she’s the greatest kid in the world, no competition even if I know that she is likely up right now grabbing on Emma’s ears.” She chuckles at that too all while her stomach does actual summersaults that are disagreeing with the butterflies that are taking flight inside with her. The man is so damn romantic, and she cannot believe he’s making her swoon thousands of miles away while he’s in New York for work. Dammit it. He’s not supposed to be able to do that, but he can.

It’s not something she’s going to complain about. She might tease him a little though.

“You realize that’s likely going to be all over the internet tomorrow? Right after your other affectionate comments.” Jimmy laughs, leaning forward at his desk.

“Aye, I know, but I’ve found far too many weird things about me online to go looking around. I usually only see most things because Emma’s best friend sends them to me.”

She doesn’t get to hear the rest of the conversation because, almost like clockwork when she has a quiet moment, McKenzie starts crying, her little voice coming through the baby monitor that’s practically attached to her hip at all times. Usually she’ll cry for just a little while and fall back asleep, a lot of the awful late nights with constant wailing having ended a few weeks ago, but she is missing Killian a lot tonight and kind of wants to hold her kid. It’s selfish in a way, but McKenzie isn’t going to complain.

Mostly because she can’t talk and a little bit because Emma holding her will soothe her cries.

“Hi, baby,” she sighs as she walks in the room, leaning over the crib and looking at McKenzie clench her fists, her little pale face all red and bunched up and her green eyes slammed shut. “You’re being overdramatic, kid,” she laughs, picking her up out of the crib so that the cries stop while her iron grip gets a hold on some loose strands that have fallen out of Emma’s braid. That always seems to happen, and it hurts like hell. How she isn’t bald, she has no idea. “There’s no need to cry when I know for a fact that you’re not hungry and that you don’t need to be changed.”

It’s weird talking to someone who can’t talk back, but she’s kind of gotten used to it. She kind of enjoys it. A lot of her problems can be solved at three in the morning when feeding McKenzie and rocking back and forth in the glider. Sure, talking to Killian is great, but he talks back. Sometimes she just doesn’t want that.

That’s life.

The next three hours are spent walking McKenzie back and forth in the house while she tries to straighten up a little bit. It’s not totally a mess, but she and Killian are always going to have different opinions on what constitutes a mess. She’s not tired, though, her sleep schedule all out of whack since giving birth, so she has the energy to clean until she does eventually put McKenzie back to bed, hoping that she sleeps through the night.

She really has no idea, though, because when she wakes up the next morning the sunlight is already filtering through the bedroom window, the rain long gone, and instead of waking to a loud monitor, she wakes to Killian very creepily sitting next to her in bed staring down at her, his hand trailing up and down her arm.

“KJ, what the hell?” she gasps, her heart beating so quickly that her breathing stutters the slightest bit.

“I come home after being away for weeks, and my own darling wife isn’t even happy to see me. Shameful.”

“Oh my God,” she groans, rolling her eyes at the way that he’s got his hand clasped over his chest. “You’re ridiculous. You just scared the shit out of me.”

“Language, darling.”

“She’s not in the room.”

With a bit of an ache she sits up in bed and cups Killian’s cheek, running her thumb under his eyes to look at just how tired he is in person. It’s Saturday, so they’re definitely spending all day in bed. Sleeping or sleeping together. It doesn’t matter. Probably both.

Definitely both.

“Oh but she is,” he promises, his eyes scanning her face likes he’s trying to see if one of her freckles has moved. They haven’t, but he can feel free to check. “I’ve been home for about an hour. You were asleep, she was awake, so I went ahead and had some time with one of my best girls while I waited for you to wake up.”

“Your little girl instead of your big girl?”

“Bloody hell,” he groans, his lashes landing against his cheeks. All of his freckles are still in the same place too. Good. “You watched that?”

“I did, babe. Are there flowers downstairs?”

“There can be.”

She laughs at that, at the way he kind of looks like he might actually go buy her flowers, but she simply smiles and shakes her head. “So she’s on her playmat?”

“Aye.” He leans forward to slide is lips over hers while his hands cup her cheeks, the warm roughness steadying her while she finally feels them be connected again. It’s slow, languid, and just like always, she could get lost in it. “I have missed you, my love.”

“Me too. You’re not allowed to leave for a solid three weeks.”

“Why three?”

“Because that’s when I’ll get sick of you again.”

Killian chuckles, the warmth of his breath tickling her skin, and it doesn’t take him long before he’s peppering kisses against her cheek and jaw, working his way down until he’s moving against the tattoo on her wrist. It’s an actual tattoo now, not just a little dot.

MJ.

Mckenzie Jones.

Or as she’s usually known, Kenzie Jones.

She’s got two KJ’s who she loves more than anything in the world, and it was that alone that made her finally decided to expand her little dot tattoo into something more, into something better than her small rebellion at finally being free when she turned eighteen. That dot always meant something to her, but it means so much more now. When they got married at a courthouse in Los Angeles, just the two of them and Will of all people as their witness, she thought about going and getting the letters of Killian’s initials inked on her skin. But they did have a bit of a party to go to with their friends and their families, so it didn’t happen on that day. It had been a bit of a struggle to get everyone in one place for them to just get married at a courthouse, but it had all been worth it for them to get married only with the people that matter most to them around them.

And she eventually did get that tattoo. It’s just a little different than the originally planned KJ.

Killian’s got a matching MJ inked on his wrist. Now she can kiss his wrist tattoo as well. What’s fair is fair after all.

“And after I spent all day yesterday talking about how I wanted to get back to my wife.”

“That sounds like a personal problem.”

“It was but I – ”

McKenzie lets out what can only be considered as a squawk, and she can practically feel Killian’s groan, the dirty words on the tip of his tongue being swallowed back in exchange for him rolling off of the bed and picking their daughter up, gently plopping her down on the bed in between them.

“Little love, Daddy wants to romance Mummy right now, and here you are making very loud noises that don’t agree with all of this romance.”

“She’s obviously an evil little mastermind trying to keep us from giving her a sibling.”

“Darling, we managed to make her in between me being away for filming and us living next to Liam again. I think we can find some time to do some enjoyable activities with you on your back.”

“Or you.”

“Amen to that,” he laughs, falling back against the bed and picking up Kenzie, walking her across his stomach with her little chubby legs. “Alright, Kenzie girl, Daddy has been gone for two weeks, and I need you to tell me all about the junk food that Mummy is hiding in the kitchen.”

“She came out of my body. She’s not snitching on me.”

“She doesn’t have to. You left a tub of icing in the bathroom.”

Her shoulders shrug. She’s not at all ashamed of the fact that maybe she let herself indulge in a little icing. She doesn’t remember taking it into the bathroom, but weird things happen at night.

“It happens.”

He twists his head to the side, half of his face pressed into the pillow while he flashes her that crooked, boyish, altogether charming smile. She loves him a ridiculous amount. Has she told him that today? She’ll make sure to tell him later.

“It does,” he admits, his eyes crinkling. “Tell you what, later, once we’ve got this one down for her nap, you and I can go to town on that tub of icing.”

A laugh passes through her lips before she leans over and brushes those lips over Killian’s forehead. “It sounds like a plan, Stan.”

#betting on the bullseye #cs ff #cs fic #captain swan fic #captain swan #no I can't believe it's over either guys #How are all of my stories ending?#thanks for literally being the best readers

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myfearless-love · 5 years

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Can't decide between 73, 75 and 99! 😂😂😂 Although ik whatever you choose to write, I'm sure it will be awesome!

I tried to smash all three together, I really did, but sadly, inspiration didn’t find me. So I chose 75. Hope it’s okay :)

75. “I’m not going to stop poking you until you give me some attention.”

It was an unusually slow day at the precinct on a sunny Tuesday. The July Heat struck L.A. like a furnace, probably anyone with an ounce of self-preservation is hunting for air-conditioned places, or just simply stays at home to avoid getting heatstroke. Today, so far, had only a few hit and run, but it’s nothing that patrol can’t handle, and it’s practically the only time Chloe feels lucky that she doesn’t have another case. She’s quite frankly more than happy to stay behind her desk and sip her cold brew, than be a detective outside and likely obtain third-degree burns.

Which means she can catch up on the giant stack of paperwork on her desk.

Which means,Lucifer is bored out of his mind, because God forbid that he actually do something productive and be a valuable member of society.

But on the other hand, she probably wouldn’t trust him to correctly fill out the reports - under cause of death he would no doubt list something along the lines of‘fatal humiliation by lack of fashion sense’.

She doesn’t really know why he stays still, he’s always more than eager to slip out of her sight and out of the precinct when the forensic part of the investigation begins. And it’s not like he doesn’t have the latest and probably most expensive AC system at his penthouse.

But when the fifth paperclip flies by her right shoulder and lands right next to her currently empty pen holder, she’s about ready to flip over her desk in frustration. Because it’s not enough that he is the Master of Evasion when it comes to paperwork, he has to be a big ass distraction too. It’s kind of his childish way of telling her “I’m not going to stop poking you until you give me some attention”.

Her partner is a child. A child-Devil. Satan has a mental capacity of a five-year-old.

Sometimes she really wonders why she puts up with him.

And how the hell did she fall in love with him?

Those are the big questions of the universe, philosophers like Aristotle or Plato can kiss her ass with their ‘meaning of life’ crap.

But it’s probably because of his big heart and his unmatched ability to make her ridiculously happy (when he’s not acting like a child).

“We don’t have a case, you know. And probably won’t have one for the rest of the day. You can really just go home if you like,” she tries to inform him as calmly as she can over her shoulder, hiding her annoyance behind a smile she’s sure he can tell is fake. Her acting days are way behind her, so sue her.

“And why would I do that, Detective?” he raises one dark eyebrow in question, his forehead crinkles into that familiar frown that means he thinks she’s speaking nonsense.

“Because you are obviously bored?” she gestures to him and then to her desk, where his impromptu fun-fair is taking place.

“Well, I’m here to help you. That’s what partners do, are they not?” he asks innocently, as he raises his arm to aim another paperclip towards her desk.

“You don’t actually help, Lucifer,” she replies, her voice takes on a biting tone. “You are just distracting me.”

“Umm, I care to disagree, Detective,“ he shoots her a mildly offended look. “Was that iced latte I bought you earlier not helpful? I know how sulky you get without your shot of caffeine in the morning.”

“I meant actual work, Lucifer,” she rolls her eyes. But that cold drink really helped her, though.

“I also tidied up your desk. After all, you can’t work in chaos properly,” he gives her a smug expression she would really like to wipe from his stupid, handsome face.

And by “tidied up” he really means he removed all the office tools from her desk, so he could play with them later.

“You have an explanation for everything, haven’t you?” she shakes her head with a fond smile she tries very hard to suppress because she’s supposed to be annoyed with him.

“I’m the Devil, darling, of course, I have.”

He rises from his seat and walks in front of her desk, placing the paperclip in the pen holder and gives her a contemplative look.

“Detective?”

“Hmm?” she replies as she glances back down at her unfinished report, and starts filling out the details about a victim in a robbery gone wrong. Only 25, poor guy.

“Have you seen the new vending machine in the break room?”

Frowning and slightly taken aback, she lifts her eyes at him again. She really did not expect that question. “Yeah, I just bought a turkey sandwich from it yesterday, remember?”

“Yes, but have you really seen it? It has the newest flavors of Pringles and they added your favorite jalapeño chips as well. And the design is just..phew,” he makes a small whistling noise and Chloe thinks her frown is becoming a permanent feature on her forehead. “I think you should check it out again, Detective,” he suggests as he gestures behind his back to the break room.

Now, it’s hardly the first time Lucifer is being odd and babbling nonsense - and even after learning that his metaphors aren’t actually metaphors, he can still surprise her from time to time with his weirdness.

“I have to work, Lucifer,” she states matter-of-factly, and returns to her still unfinished police report.

“But, Detective, I really think you should look over the selection again. Maybe you find something that would really...excite you,” he insists, and she looks up at the tone of his voice.

He has that expression on his face, the one that tells her he’s up to no good, a playful smile at the corner of his lips that makes the crow’s feet she adores around his eyes appear.

She sighs, exasperated. “Ok, fine,” she gives in as she stands from her chair.

Will there be a time when she’s able to tell him no? Probably not, and she’s learned a long time ago to just roll with it and humor him. Besides, she really needs to stretch her limbs a bit; she’s been sitting in that chair for hours.

“Excellent!” he exclaims and turns his back to her, an eagerness in his steps as he strolls to the aforementioned room, not waiting if she follows him or not.

Of course, she does.

And when she steps into the dimly lit room to ask him what the hell she’s doing here, her back is suddenly pressed against to the closed door, soft and greedy lips finding hers as she lets out a surprised yelp.

“Lucifer, wha-”

“As I’ve said before,” he interrupts her, placing a kiss on her neck before whispering close to her ear, leaving goosebumps all over her body. “...partners help each other, and now I’m helping you relieve some stress.”

Stress that he’s half responsible for, but she’s not about to complain when his mouth is doing these glorious things to her body and he proves his point with a gentle nip at her earlobe that turns her legs into goo and her brain into mush.

But still, she supposed to be professional and not have sex at her workplace with her ridiculously hot boyfriend and Devil, and is about to open her mouth to tell him that, but when his lips find that sensitive spot on the side of her neck and his other hand finds its way into her jeans to cup her through her already soaked panties, all thoughts of professionalism flies out the window.

She lets out a moan, and he gives her a proud grin, shedding his suit jacket in the process. Her fingers start playing with the hem of his white shirt before ripping it to the sides, exposing his muscular chest as the buttons scatter away on the floor.

She’s not afraid to ruin his expensive clothing ever since he told her he doesn’t mind replacing them as long as she’s the one responsible for their untimely deaths.

He lifts her up by her waist, allowing her to wrap her legs around his waist, and carries her to the other end of the room as she gets rid of her shirt. His mouth explores her collarbone while she’s busy making a mess of his always perfectly coiffed hair. He gently places her on the only available surface; the blue couch.

And even though the ancient thing is lumpy as hell and probably the most uncomfortable couch she’s ever had the chance to sit on, he makes her forget all that with his expert fingers and other body parts as he takes her to the edge and back, lighting up stars behind her eyelids as they ride out their orgasms.

He’s good. Too good. The best, really.

“Now, isn’t that better, than all those boring paperwork?” he asks when he tucks her gloriously naked and satisfied body on top of his, placing a kiss on her hair.

She lets out a snort, that kind of laugh he once called a “demented witch on crack” but secretly loves and answers “Yes, it is.”

They dress is comfortable silence, and as he buttons up his suit jacket over his buttonless shirt to cover the damage she’d done, she places a quick kiss on his lips before slipping out the door.

She returns to her desk with a smile.

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19206229/chapters/47565649

#my fics #lucifer #lucifer fanfic #deckerstar #deckerstar fanfic #prompts #deckerstar drabble #lucifer drabble #lucifer ff #deckerstar ff

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gaiahypothesims · 5 years

Text

50 Questions for your Sim

I was tagged by TWO people but I can’t scroll back far enough to see who the second was!!! I’m so sorry! @ultroslovesyou Thanks for the tag that I CAN find.

Ash would LOVE to answer these himself. And its LONG because .... Ashley. (Its like... so long I’m embarrassed)

01. How old is your sim? Isn’t age subjective? I’m as wise as an elder, but youthful in looks as a young man in his absolute prime.

02. When is your sim’s birthday? On the most perfect day. My Mother said the sun was shining and all the birds were singing. My newborn cries were met with tears of joy and happiness.

03. What is your sim’s zodiac sign? This is a complicated question, as the Zodiac horoscopes you see popularly don’t take into account so many details. For one-... No I can’t answer this without explaining everything-

04. What is your sim’s ethnicity? I’m a child of the world. Fine, my parents are originally from India. Though I’ll have you know this kind of question is very narrow-minded.

05. Does your sim have any nicknames? Ash. That’s it. NO you may not ask my brother if I have any others.... or Evelyn... or Rosie. Just take my word for it.

06. Do they have a job? Travel Writer and a professional student in the teachings of the world. In fact, I do believe that being an avid learner in all things-

07. Where does your sim live? Its rude to interrupt someone every time they try to answer a question. AS I was saying, being an avid learner has taught me that there is no such thing as having a ‘job’. We have a responsibility to cultivate our PASSIONS. In that way you will never once be trapped by a ‘job’ or by one ‘place’, a box really, to call a home.

08. Who does your sim live with? I’ve lived with so many different, unique, and beautiful individuals. I’ve been really helping my amazing friend Evelyn out. She’s very dependent on my mental fortitude. I don’t find it trying at all, though there are some days I do feel an imbalance in my Chi due to her constant bitching about my hair shedding. I tell her that just because she can SEE my hair better because its black doesn’t mean that she isn’t shedding as well. The OTHER day I found a long, thin, sad, brown hair in my soup, and I know for a fact that I have only the most luxurious raven black hair.

09. What environment did your sim grow up in? (strict, loving, cold etc.) I have the most loving of parents. My brother on the other hand... well let’s just say he’s embraced Capitalistic conspiracy.

10. What are your sim’s favourite food? I’ve found that the most healing and ethereal foods are what my body craves. Something like Lotus blossom water, I feel could sustain me for years. .. hmm?.. Oh no, I’d never TRY to live off of it. It is just water...

11. What is your sim’s favourite drink? I adore a good Oolong tea, I have an interesting story about how I was introduced to this-

12. If they have one what is your sim’s favourite color? Well that was rude, I wanted to explain the Oolong. Very well... moving on. How can one choose a favourite colour? The spectrum is SO vast. Can you believe that human eye can perceive approximately 10,000,000 colours? How can I choose a favourite?

13. Does your sim believe in any clichés? (love at first sight) Of course! There has to be a basis of truth if so many can relate to cliches.

14. What is your sim’s sexuality? I would say that I do mostly enjoy the company of women sexually, but that’s not to say that I think men are unattractive. Sexuality isn’t a be all- end all. We are constantly learning new things about ourselves. I’ve recently discovered that I don’t mind a bit of anal play. I’ll tell you exactly how I discovered this, and it might surprise you-

15. What is your sim’s gender identity? How can you NOT want to learn more about my experience? It might change your life. I’m going to be writing about it for my next article. It has something to do with... a bath house.. and that’s ALL you’re going to get from me since you so rudely interrupted. Again.

16. Is your sim type a or type b? I don’t believe in types. Like asking me if I’m a square or a circle. I’m an entire sphere, unable to be bound to your strict typist ideals.

17. Is your sim introverted or extroverted? I would have to say that I am thoughtfully introverted.

18. What is your sim’s favourite woohoo position? Oh so NOW you want to hear about my sexual exploits? Well its too late. I’ve been through the entire Kama Sutra, and NO that is not because I have Indian heritage, and it would have shocked you.

19. Is your sim a pet person? If so what is their favourite animal? Not so much. I like Jonah’s dog actually. In fact he is likely more loyal to me now than he ever was to Jonah. An animal can sense things.

20. Does your sim have a best friend? Rosie and Evelyn.

21. What is/was your sim’s favourite school subject? I quite enjoyed creative writing, which I think is why I turned to Travel Writing. The absolute best of both worlds.

22. Is/was your sim a high, mid or low achiever in school? Every child has their own strengths and I find it unfair to measure one against the other when everyone is a unique learner.

23. Are they planning to go or have they already been to college? If so, what would be or what was their major? I did go for a few years, but I never graduated with a degree. The classes that I took were all for my own interest, not to pander to organized academia for a worthless piece of paper.

24. What are your sim’s political beliefs? (if they have them) Politics are a construct to keep the individual from reaching their full potential.

25. What is one thing your sim wants to do before they die? I’d like to share my travels with someone that I love, and that loves me back.

26. Does your sim have a favourite TV show (cable) and/or movie? Watching television stunts a persons cultural and creative growth.

27. Is your sim a Netflix viewer? If so what are their top 3 shows. No.

28. Does your sim like books? Absolutely. I try to pick up a new book at every new location that I get to. I then leave my old book. Its a wonderful way to associate a certain story with a specific location. The feel and smell and tastes seem to stick better, for me, that way.

29. Does your sim enjoy video games, if so what is their favourite one and do they play on PC or console? Well, I don’t love video games. But Evelyn owns one of those game systems, and sometimes we play together. Its purely for her therapeutic benefit that I join in.

30. What is your sim’s personal style? I wouldn’t dream of limiting myself to only one style.

31. Does your sim have a lucky charm? I make my own luck.

32. Is your sim religious? I’m an acolyte of all religions, including no religion.

33. What kind of music does your sim listen to and who is their favourite artist? There was a beggar woman in Romania that played the most beautiful violin. I gifted her talent with a hand-written poem. She didn’t seem to appreciate it, but I still remember her music.

34. Is your sim a festive person? If so what’s their favourite holiday? I love celebrating all the holidays, and festivals, as long as they aren’t attached to the shilling of Corporate greed.

35. What is your sim’s favourite type of weather? All weather is beautiful and should be appreciated.

36. Does your sim prefer to start fights or finish them? I don’t prefer either.

37. Does your sim have a dream job? I am living my dream, doing something I love strictly for the passion of doing it.

38. Does your sim have any siblings? .... ugh.. one brother. Raj.

39. Does your sim get along with their family? I love my parents very much. My mother is the most beautiful and loving woman, and my Father is generous and giving.

40. What is your sim’s favourite hobby? Nothing, I don’t believe in hobbies. I believe in passion and doing. If you’re doing it and you love it, it isn’t a ‘hobby’ its a passionate endeavor.

41. What does your sim look for in a romantic partner? I’m not very good at making things work with women. I’m not entirely sure why. It could be because I move so frequently. I have no schedule, no concept of time and plans. I suppose I’d love someone that also could be as flexible.

42. What is a secret about your sim? I have no secrets, I’m an open book. <He’s extremely vain. His nonchalance is extremely cultivated>

43. What is a wish your sim has? To share my adventures with someone that loves me.

44. What is a flaw your sim has? Is there really such a thing as flaws? Are we not like the kintsugi in Japanese pottery, “flaws” make us beautifully unique.

45. How do others generally perceive your sim? I would say that some are threatened by my complete oneness with the universe. They might see it as something else, arrogance... perhaps. Though if I could have a moment to explain it to them, they would understand and appreciate it.

46. Does your sim have a greatest achievement? Every achievement is a great one. For a person to get up in the morning, is an achievement. The will to say “yes! another.” and to make it through the day happily, unhappily, to have an adventure, to stay home and self-care, its what life is about. There is NO greatest achievement. Every action is great in itself, no matter how small.

47. If they have one, what is your sim’s greatest regret? That I tried to follow in Rajan’s footsteps for too long. Instead of embracing who I really was.

48. Does your sim have a favourite emoji? Emoji’s can’t properly convey all the feelings that I have. I feel that a wordy text, or a phone call is so much better. A long text is something the person can treasure over and over, but a phone call can contain so much more warmth and genuine conversation.

49. Does your sim use simstagram? <under his breath> Yes.

50. What is the last text your sim sent (and who did they text)? Oh do I have to share? This isn’t exactly... fine.. its to Evelyn and it says: You’re a dirty tramp. <cough> ... I’m sure she’s treasuring the words right now, yes thank you.

#the sims 3 #character bio #ashley #convergence #sims 3 #ts3 #simblr #sims story #this is an actual novel I'm sorry for that #maybe I should spend my time more wisely #but i love him so much

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justaflipfloppingpotato · 5 years

Photo

The references for the new comic are done! :DDDDD

holy shit this took longer than anticipated, but whatever! it’s done now and i’m happy :]

it’s called “The M3th-H34d and essentially this story takes place in a dystopian world after ww3 where a dictator government called the MOTH controls everything. the comic will follow tweek and his adventure making his way to destroy the MOTH for good and finally bring freedom and peace to the world again. he will eventually meet Craig in the comic too, and there’s eventual creek. (also tyde, bunny and jyle on the side)

I already have the story completely lined out, i should have the first part up in the next few weeks. i hope you guys enjoy it :D!!

more detailed refs and backstories under the cut!

trigger warning for: body horror, gore, mentions of torture, suicide attempts, implied self harm, and lot’s of other stuff too (this au is really dark, and while there are some lighthearted moments, it’s has really morbid bits in it. please please please tell me if i need to tag triggers for this au)

Tw33k-34k:

Gender: Cis Male

age: 27

Race: white

Height: 5,1 (154.94)

Birth date: 8/17/2121

Occupation: none

Tw33k was a boy when The MOTH took him in. after being branded by the government facility and experimented on with methamphetamine he finally had enough. With the help of a fellow test subject and a book his therapist let him borrow: he managed to escape from The MOTH, leaving a mess behind him.

Now he lives his life as a runaway who swears to whatever god is out there that he will free everyone in this fucked up world and face the leader of The MOTH: Dr Meyers herself.

Craig Tucker

Gender: Cis Male

age: 24

Race: latino/white mixed

Height: 6,0 (182.88)

Birth date: 1/25/2124

Occupation: former MOTH associate in training

Craig tucker was born into The Moth association and was fated to be a future surgeon. However, when test subject TW33K-34K escaped containment, the distraction and craziness of it all allowed Craig to see something he wasn’t supposed to. He truly realized what this facility was used for. Since he had high clearance he was able escape the facility for good.

Life as a runaway was hard, especially when you’ve never had to run before. Craig managed though, and taught himself how to survive on his own, even if that meant stealing from a gang or two.

Clyde Donovan

Gender: cis male

age: 23

Race: white

Height: 5,5 (165.1)

Birth date: 4/10/2125

Occupation: former Moth government assistant.

Clyde donovan was an assistant of a government higher-up. Even though the man he worked for was weird, the money he made to help his refugee father was worth it. One day though, he saw something he wasn’t supposed to, and in order to keep him quiet his mouth was sewn shut and he was tortured before being left to die. He was later found and taken in by a runway.

He now lives his sad life hooked up to an IV to keep himself from dying. At least he has his partner to keep him company

Token Black

Gender: agender

age: 26

Race: black

Height: 5,10 (177.8)

Birth date: 6/20/2122

Occupation: former athlete in training

Token was born within a rich family who had ties to the moth. They were in training to become a professional athlete before they lost their leg and left eye to a group of MOTH officials after getting too close to private business. Before they died however, a former surgeon runaway found them and took them in. the runaway cleaned up their wound and gifted them a prosthetic leg and a new eye.

Token’s eyes were opened after the incident and they swore their life to help the man who saved them. They ended up being trained to become a medic for runaways. Helping people escape The Moth is their life goal.

K3nny McCormick

Gender: Cis Male

age: 23

Race: white

Height: 5,3 (160.02)

Birth date: 3/22/2125

Occupation: none

K3nny sacrificed himself to The Moth to save his family from being taken. After being taken in he was experimented on with a pill that would allow the human body to survive without food, water, and air. The pill worked, but it turned k3nny’s insides to a dark and squidgy mush. He made a pact with subject tw33k. Tw33k was to escape and come back to rescue k3nny when he had the chance. K3nny ended up getting impatient though and escaped on his own.

He ended up finding a group of runaways who gladly took him in. even if he was still suffering on the inside, he was at least (sorta) free now.

Mari “Butters” Stotch

Gender: trans female

age: 25

Race: white

Height: 5,0 (152.4)

Birth date: 9/11/2123

Occupation: none

Mari grew up troubled. Her parents didn’t accept her as she was, and she was forced to identify with her dead name. She was beaten by her father almost daily and it didn’t help that her mom was fucking insane. When the pain became to much, she attempted to jump off of a building. Before she could jump though, she was stopped by a group of runways who gladly took her in and accepted her as she was.

she lives a happier life than she once did now that she is more comfortable in her own skin. This group of runaways is her family, and she will help protect them with her life.

Kyle Broflovski

Gender: cis male

age: 38

Race: white

Height: 6,2 (187.96)

Birth date: 5/26/2110

Occupation: former therapist,

Kyle broflovski, or Dr. B, was an ambitious young man who strived to help people. He worked hard to get a doctoral degree in psychology, surgery, and engineering. When he was finally accepted to be a therapist at the Moth care facility, he met a woman who changed his life and taught him the basics of orb engineering. After the escape of subject Tw33k though, he realized his mistake of coming to the moth. His morality couldn’t allow him to stay, so he gave up his dream job. His lover despised him for the decision,

Dr. B, ended up living life as the protector of the runaways. Hoping to free them from the moth.

Jimmy Valmer

Gender: cis male

age: 28

Race: white

Height: 5,9 (177.8)

Birth date: 5/13/2120

Occupation: comedian

Jimmy valmer grew up with comedy as a hobby. Always going into cafes and bars to give the poor people of what was laugh. However, his life changed on his 21th birthday when he met an older man at a bar. The two chatted and jimmy found out that the man was a protector of the runaways.

Eventually, jimmy joined the man in helping protect the runaways, The man made jimmy high quality leg braces and crutches with orb technology. It reminded him of his ex, but he didn’t mind. Even if he was now no longer legally allowed on the streets, being a runaway was worth it for the man that changed his life.

Dr. Meyers

Gender: cis female

age: unknown

Race: white(?)

Height: unknown (thought to be 6,4/193.04)

Birth date: x/x/2xx4

Occupation: current leader of The MOTH

The heart of the project.

The one they all strive to take down

The dictator who keeps everyone in check

The government itself

She is the heart and soul of the moth, and she will not go down without a fight

Betty

Gender: female

age: 12

breed: american staffordshire terrier (pitbull)

Height: 19 inches (48.26)

Birth date: x/xx/2136

Occupation: protector

Betty is the sweetest dog you will ever meet.

After being left tied to a tree in an abandoned campsite by her previous owner, she found a human who was finally nice to her.

From that day forward, she stood by the humans side through thick and thin.

helping, comforting, and protecting her twitchy blonde haired human every step of the way

----------

bonus relationship chart for your troubles :]

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ruthandliamgoplaces · 5 years

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Last two weeks in Nepal!

Our last two weeks have flown by, and I am writing this in the air on flight number one to Oman. The next blog entry shall tell tales of our time in Pokhara, a yoga retreat, and then, similar to my fate in Portugal last year - the Great Malaise- I got ill for the last 5 days of our trip!

Back in Civilisation- Pokhara.

After the Annapurna Circuit we spent two nights in Pokhara, a large city located on a picturesque lake with a beautiful bustling and colourful tourist area. Pokhara, busier with tourists than Kathmandu, is the hub for most of the trekking industry and the majority of people stay here before and after their treks. It therefore has lots of amenities to please the tourists, and is awash with hostels, swanky (by Nepal standards) hotels and spa resorts. There are loads of eateries and coffee shops, some restaurants even do pretty spot on Western food and there is a KFC and a Baskin and Robbins! There are also quite a few bars. In this Westernised bubble, many tourists don’t bother to respect the local Nepali cultural customs of modest clothes, and lots of bum cheeks are falling out of short shorts, or biceps peeping out of vests.

After 40 days of the same menus (fried bread, fried rice, fried potato or fried omelette, with fried cabbage, fried onion or fried carrot), we got stuck in immediately to eating different food! Well, not immediately. As usual in Nepal, nothing quite goes to plan. The hotel we had booked had been overbooked... so we had to be moved to a different hotel... as usual in Nepal, no apology is really made for these mishaps, the proprietor just smiles your questioning face into oblivion with his magical spell of “no problem!”. It was a problem, as the hotel we were moved to was not as good as the one we booked, but we still had to pay the price of the original hotel.... ah well. We were so tired, it mattered little. On the plus, we were reunited with our bag (yay!) and spoiled ourselves by wearing some different clothes! Also, we were moved to the hotel we had actually booked the following day, and got to enjoy the luxury! The manager had at least given us the best room to compensate for the night before, and we had a beautiful balcony and amazing views.

We passed two happy days in Pokhara, drinking wine and cocktails, and browsing the many shops selling souvenirs and clothes, and replaced some of our tatty clothes. We also bought some clothes for yoga, as we had decided to go to a retreat for a week!

On the third day we moved to Begnas Tal Yoga retreat, and I took with me about 40 mosquito bites on my feet, acquired from the carefree cocktail devouring session wearing flip flops by the lake. Thank god I didn’t have to wear my walking boots again, as I am slightly allergic and the bites were hot, red, itchy and angry, and kept me unwanted company, right up until we left Begnas!

Begnas Yoga Retreat

We arrived in Begnas after a 25 minute taxi journey from Pokhara, and were greeted by a glorious lake and jungle. Begnas is a very small town, also very popular with tourists but far less developed than Pokhara. It is rural and peaceful, well... peace from traffic. On our first night I had one of the worst nights sleep I’ve had in Nepal due to a very very loud bird, whose song will forever be burned into my mind. The bird was defending its nest in a tree outside our window for the whole week we were there, by singing the same alarming song on repeat with no gaps. It was particularly loud at night, and we were glad we had ear plugs! The song always begins innocently enough, but quickly builds, increasing in volume, pitch and frequency until it sounds like a high pitched squealing menace. I honestly think the bird could be used as an instrument of torture. Everyone at the retreat joked about the bird, as we all suffered it’s pitched perils. We even prayed to it to try and ask it to move trees! Our prayers were mostly unanswered.

The retreat schedule was roughly 6.30 walking meditation, 7.00 Nasal Irrigation (!) 7.30-9.00 Yoga, 9.30 Breakfast, 11.00 Treatment, 13.00 Lunch, 15.00 Yoga Theory, 17.00 Yoga, 19.30 Dinner and 21.00 Mantra and bed. Liam and I avoided the Mantra session and opted for bed and a western media meditation such as going on our phones!

The Nasal Irrigation requires some further explanation... apparently this is commonplace in Nepal... I remain unconvinced.

First, you pour about a decent sized mug full of warm salt water through one nostril, then the other. You tilt your head so the water pours out your other nostril... or if you have a blocked nose, your mouth. Then, you use a variety of techniques to evacuate the contents of your nose, blowing snot and water noisily all over the flowers and hillsides. So much snot comes out that it’s unbelievable that you could have so much. On my first day, water kept pouring from my nose for a good hour or so afterwards! Newcomers feel embarrassed by evacuating the contents of their nose in public... but quickly this process is normalised and you begin to become excited by the contents of your nose, and share tips for removing it, admiring each other’s snot loads. Yep.

The technique is said to clear your nose.. but my nose is never blocked anyway. I embraced it whilst I was there, but secretly mourned my delicate nose mucus which I’m sure does an excellent job and I suspect that my body harbours it for a reason. I also pushed to the back of my mind thoughts of the transmission of hepatitis, as we all merrily shared nasal baths together.

The yoga was really good, and we practiced twice a day in a glorious room with 360 degree panoramic views of mountains jungle and lake. We often stopped to watch birdlife and sunsets, or views of mountains, or laugh about The Bird. The only plague was mosquitos! Oh, and the Gurus mobile phone, his 3 year old daughter, and the ladies who came to take our food orders, who often also interrupted us!

The guru at the retreat was quite the character. As with everything in Nepal, the retreat was not quite like a retreat in the UK. The guru was quite often distracted during yoga or yoga philosophy, by his daughter, or tending some business, or by wanting to tell us some tale, or speak on the phone, or manage his staff. It was a new business, and sometimes it could be slightly chaotic! Things did not really run to schedules, and you never knew what you were going to get. It really didn’t matter though, we thought it was all part of the experience. Liam and I actually quite liked the lack of structure and discipline, we were tired and happy to lay around.

Not everyone agreed though, whilst we were there, one woman left three days early, and another left on the first night, creeping away under the cover of darkness, without telling anyone! We could understand why I suppose. If you were expecting a quiet nights sleep at a retreat, then you actually got a very loud bird, and a 3 year old who screamed periodically in the night! There was also the problem of the monsoon rains which flooded all the rooms several times (we learnt to stem the tides with towels), the lack of hot water (which we didn’t mind), and one guest’s bathroom smelt very badly (ours luckily was fine!). Or maybe it could have been eating your dinner sat on the kitchen floor with the ants and gigantic spiders (again, we didn’t mind).

All that being said, we had a wonderful time. The staff were all lovely and cooked us amazing fresh food every day. Much of the food was grown in the garden or collected from local markets. We saw gangs of wild monkeys cheekily stealing the food during the day! We were treated like gods, and fed constantly!

We also had some pretty amazing treatments. I had a mud bath, which included having my boobs massaged, which was, erm, an experience. In fact, by the end of the retreat, every female member of staff had managed some close encounter with my bare boobs. And I thought Nepal was a country shy about nudity. Not when it comes to doing beauty therapies it seems! The treatments were great though, we had massages, reiki healing, a steam bath, pedicure, oil bath... and were taken out on a boat and had a lovely picnic.

After the week was up, we were given a Buddhist blessing, and I felt close to tears feeling grateful for the experience of the retreat. It wasn’t quite the retreat I expected, but I got so much more. I got to share a week with a Nepali family and some lovely staff, and live in the jungle doing yoga twice a day. We learnt so much about local culture, from arranged marriages, road financing, education, the caste system, the Nepali wars and... unfortunately I also got to learn about illness...

The Great Plague

Having managed to avoid any illness for two months, Liam and I both contracted a sickness in the last week. We were both too grateful it hadn’t happened at any point before, such as at 5000m, to be too upset. Well, emotionally upset- our tummies were very upset! Liam got ill first, and his bug lasted 24 hours. I had to go and beat him.

The day before the end of the yoga retreat, I woke up and evacuated the contents of my stomach... and did so about 60 times that day, out of both ends. It was just litres of water coming out. Of course I googled cholera and thought it sounded the same, but Liam told me I was being a bit dramatic. Which it turns out, I probably was. Probably!

The illness was with me for four days, getting slowly better. But, it caused a great deal of concern as we had a plane to catch, and I wasn’t going anywhere considering I couldn’t even make the en-suite bathroom sometimes never mind go roaming in the wilds away from a room.

Never have I been more humiliated than to poo myself whilst we had an en-suite bathroom. And not just once. Four times.

Luckily, we had travel insurance and they had a telephone GP service. I sought some advice and the GP was hopeful my symptoms suggested a virus which would clear up in time for the plane (not cholera, after all, then). And she was right. Didn’t stop me spending the last 4 days of my holiday in bed though. I moved from the bed at the yoga retreat to a very nice hotel in Pokhara, and that was all I moved.

We didn’t mind too much. We had air conditioning, room service, a very comfy bed, and a TV! Liam even got to watch the football.

The end of Nepal

So, I recovered enough and now I’m in Oman airport. Our last day was spent on a bus to Kathmandu, a bus which we paid double for to have a bus with a toilet (just in case). A bus which broke down, and then we were promptly transferred to cheap bus, with no toilet (thankfully I didn’t need it) and no refund. Futhermore, the bus dropped us off on a different part of Kathmandu, so we had to pay extra on top for a taxi. But it’s ok though, the driver said “no problem”, so there was no problem. Paying double and some more to go on a bad bus. But hey, we made it!

Next stop... driving to France in a week!

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shipmistress9 · 5 years

Text

FTLOAP: Chapter 25: It Will Not Be Long, Love

Title: For The Love Of A Princess

Fandom: HTTYD

Theme: Hiccstrid - Medieval-style AU - Romance - Angst/Hurt/Comfort

Summary: Reduced to little more than a stable boy, Hiccup, despite his noble birth, has few prospects for more in life. But when he meets a girl who came to look at the horses, being a stable boy might not be enough anymore. Together, they have tough choices to make and great risks to navigate if they want to survive and be together.

Rating: Explicit

FF-net - AO3

Prologue; Chapter 1; Chapter 2; Chapter 3; Chapter 4; Chapter 5; Chapter 6; Chapter 7; Chapter 8; Chapter 9; Chapter 10; Chapter 11; Chapter 12; Chapter 13; Chapter 14; Interlude 1; Chapter 15; Chapter 16; Chapter 17; Chapter 18; Chapter 19; Chapter 20; Chapter 21; Chapter 22; Chapter 23; Chapter 24

Alpha/Co-author: @athingofvikings

. – * – _ . o O o . _ – * – .

AN: Remember how I said this would be the last chapter before the hiatus? Yeah, well... it's not. Once again, it turned into a ridiculous mammoth and i had to split it. But to fully concentrate on NaNoWriMo, I plan to post the second part of this last chapter on Tuesday or Wednesday... we'll see.

This week's title comes from the song 'She Moves Through The Fair' by Loreena McKennitt

. o O o .

The next two days were… awkward, to say the least.

Hiccup was acting strangely, but Astrid couldn’t tell why. All she knew was that something had gone completely wrong and that she had no idea what it was. To her, everything had been perfect. Her questions had been answered; she had no doubts anymore about their feelings being real, and her fears about whether she’d be able to enjoy Hiccup touching her had been thoroughly crushed as well.

If anything, she only wanted more. The way he’d made her feel, so light as if she was floating, as if her mind and body weren’t connected anymore, and as if nothing existed anymore but the sensations he elicited in her – she wanted more of that!

But it didn’t seem like she would get more anytime soon.

. o O o .

The day after Dagur’s accolade didn’t start that bad. Astrid woke to her stomach feeling like it was twisting in knots – for reasons other than her soulmate for once – but she hadn’t expected anything else. And in addition, she was once again looking forward to that day’s events.

This day was devoted to basic battle training and assessment of the new recruits, including a little demonstration that was Daniel’s favourite – shield walls against archers. It always was entertaining to watch how the young men, who usually assumed they’d be lone warriors on the battlefield, would try to charge an archery tower – sword raised, shield in hand, and a battle cry on their lips – only for them all to “die” when a padded arrow hit them.

Usually, Astrid would stand to the side with Eret and Dagur, making comments and bets on who would get the furthest. Watching men fight, for them to prepare for real battles, wasn’t her favourite freetime activity, but since Fishlegs would be busy treating head- and stomach-aches after last night’s feast, she had few other options. The fact that they would spend the day at the archery range instead of the garrison helped too. She still didn’t feel like catching up on her performance with bow and arrow, but she also didn’t want to hide anymore. She had her brothers who would protect her if needed, and she had Hiccup who, just by existing, made her life so much better – and that was all she really needed.

But the main reason for accompanying Daniel today was… well… Hiccup. His behaviour last night had been so odd, and she just needed to see him, his warm smile, had to know that nothing had changed.

When he showed up, however, it was as if everything had changed. He behaved… weird. There really was no other word for it, even though, to everyone else, he had to appear entirely as he was supposed to.

But he didn’t look at her.

Not once.

He greeted Eret and the others with an appropriate mixture of familiarity and formality, that absolutely suited them. When it was her turn to be greeted, though, he changed.

“Good morning, Princess Astrid,” he mumbled, bowing deeply. Astrid couldn’t even so much as catch a glimpse at his eyes as they were firmly cast to the ground at her feet.

“Good morning, Hiccup,” she replied, puzzled, but managed not to show it.

And then he left without giving her so much as a glance, no covert smile, no nod, nothing. It left Astrid confused as she followed him with her eyes. Sure, they’d agreed on being more careful when interacting in public, but this behaviour was still weird.

Practically all day, she had her eyes on him; first as he stood amidst a group of young men, fruitlessly trying to convince them to organise their charge at the tower, and later as he joined Daniel, Dagur, Eret, and a group of castle guards to demonstrate how effective an orderly turtle formation could be. But he didn’t look at her, not once, not even as they were whooping and cheering at their success.

Astrid thought it might be because of the official setting, that he was playing his role as nothing but Eret’s squire. But given how everyone else regularly looked in her direction under some pretence or other, his behaviour seemed weird. And it stayed that way. During lunch, he sat with a group of lads in a far-off corner of the archery ground, declining politely when Daniel invited him over, and even during the less organised archery training in the afternoon, he didn’t even glance once in her direction. Maybe it was because he was so focused on his bow and the target – he wasn’t the worst archer among the lads, but also by far not the best – but somehow Astrid felt more like he was avoiding her on purpose. Especially when, once the training came to an end in the late afternoon, he bid his farewell in an equally sober manner as his greeting, and practically fled her presence.

It confused Astrid. Sure, they had to keep up appearances when in public… but this went way beyond anything they’d done on earlier occasions. She’d at least expected a covert look, a short flash of a smile, just something.

She wanted to talk to him, wanted to sneak away once again and ask him directly, but didn’t get the chance. For some reason, Timothy’s chicken was going crazy and it took ages before they all settled for sleep – or at least the twins did. Astrid’s night was fitful, with her tossing and turning, unable to find a comfortable position in her feather bed, her lower body aching and her mind reeling.

And the following day was even worse. When Rachel came to wake her, she was still incredibly tired and feeling generally miserable; the thought of spending a couple of hours in bed with tea and a book felt like that might be the best thing to do. But when Daniel came to pick her up for one of their last days at the stables, she didn’t turn him down. She couldn’t! The previous day had been so weird, and despite her determination to not risk letting Daniel and the others notice anything, she still hoped to somehow get the chance to talk to Hiccup. Or to at least silently communicate through looks, exchange a reassuring smile maybe. Surely, he wouldn't be equally distanced as the day before when they were at the stables… right?

Her assumptions were true... to a degree at least. Hiccup wasn't quite as reserved, joked and laughed. It was almost like it always was. Except that it didn’t feel the same. Maybe he was just playing his role, kept his distance as they’d agreed upon. But it felt like more, like there was something concerning him, something that, again, kept him from even looking at her, much less talk to her. It was jarring, irritating, and so… so confusing!

At some point, the men decided to give their horses some exercise in the paddock outside. There had been no time to go for a ride during the previous days, after all, and after these first few days of training, none of them felt like riding out now. Astrid, however, decided to stay inside; the worst part of her moon blood might be over, but as always, it left her dizzy and tired. And in addition… in addition, she hoped for either Hiccup staying behind to keep her company, or to at least get a break without having to act as if everything was okay.

But neither of those hopes came true.

“I’ll stay with her,” Eret offered when Daniel threw her a concerned look, Trample tugging at his rope to finally get outside. “Hiccup, can you take Crusher as well? He and Markor should get along well enough.”

“Of course, Milord,” Hiccup replied, giving his usual exaggerated bow.

Astrid watched as they left the stable, slumping slightly back against the straw bale in her back.

“You okay?” came Eret’s inquisitive voice from the side.

She plastered a smile on her face, but for once not one that was meant to fool anyone – least of all her oldest friend. “Yeah, it’s nothing. Just the usual,” she explained, wrapping one arm around her midst in a telling gesture, and shrugged. It wasn’t even a lie, she told herself. It probably was nothing; she was just overreacting – again. Surely, once she got the chance to talk to Hiccup again, everything would be fine. Tonight, she thought to herself. She would find a way to talk to him tonight, no matter what.

Understanding dawned in Eret’s eyes. “Oh, I see. Want me to rub your back?” he asked.

With a smile, she nodded. As so often, the cramps in her stomach had shifted into her back by now, and this surely wasn’t the first time Eret gave her a light massage to ease them. He settled behind her, the movement of his broad hands and their warmth soon easing her discomfort, and she closed her eyes, focusing on the moment and forcing herself not to think. Absentmindedly, she reached for her chest, for the reassurance.

‘We are good, always.’

She would hold on to that.

“Interesting charm you have there,” Eret suddenly commented. When she turned to give him a questioning look, he nodded at her hand. Confused, she followed his gaze and noticed that she was absently fiddling with her key, the delicate chain wrapped around her fingers. Right… Today’s dress had more of a neckline than usual, pulling out the key had been no effort at all.

For a short instant, she worried about what to tell him, but then decided that, for once, the simple truth would be a good choice. “It’s the key to that small coffer Uncle Oswald gave me once,” she explained light-heartedly.

“I remember it,” Eret said cheerfully. “So why do you have the key with you?”

“Well, it contains all my secrets, so I prefer to carry the key with me at all times.” She winked, making Eret snort good-humouredly.

“Those all fit into that little box?” he asked a little disbelievingly, with a waggle of his eyebrows to show that he wasn’t serious. “I’m disappointed. I could have sworn you had enough secrets to fill at least half of Lake Vola.”

They both chuckled, and once more Astrid was grateful for having such a good friend. A friend who made her feel better for the simple purpose of her feeling better. A friend who accepted that she had her secrets and didn’t pry for them. A friend who, surely, wouldn’t betray her trust if she told him.

But no, she couldn’t do that. Not just because telling anyone would only put Hiccup in unnecessary danger, but also because telling Eret would put him into a compromising situation. She didn’t want to force him to lie too.

“Feeling better?” Daniel asked a while later as he and the others returned to find her enjoying Eret’s massage a bit more.

“Yes, a little,” Astrid replied, her eyes fluttering open. As if drawn by an invisible force, they landed directly on Hiccup, but she immediately looked away and at Daniel instead. It was enough, though; enough to see him finally look at her, enough to see the look of guilt and concern, covered by a soft smile – enough to confuse her even more.

“And we’re done just in time, I’d say,” Dagur chirped cheerfully. “We should go back, freshen up a little. We’re having a date tonight, after all.”

“A date?” Hiccup asked, one eyebrow raised.

“Right,” Eret grinned. “You’re coming too, Hiccup. No discussion, that’s an order.”

“Ahm… okay?” Hiccup made, clearly puzzled. He looked around from one to the other until Daniel took pity on him.

“We received an invitation the other day,” he explained. “Not exactly the usual procedure, but still one we hardly could turn down. What was her name again, Eret? Kayley?”

“It’s Cami,” Eret corrected with a wink.

Astrid’s shoulders slumped a little. Right… The men would be at Freya’s Temple tonight; she’d completely forgotten about that. Almost against her will, her eyes flickered to Hiccup for a split second. The urge to secretly return here again tonight, to talk to him and solve this weird tension between them, was overwhelming. But if he wouldn’t even be here… Well, she’d have to wait another day then.

The thought made her anxious.

“Okay, let’s go then,” Daniel announced once the horses were all back in their stalls. The way back to the castle was a strange experience. Never before had she made this way in Hiccup’s company, much less in such a weird atmosphere. Daniel, Eret, and Dagur were as cheerful as ever, making insinuating jokes that, under proper circumstances, surely wouldn’t be for her ears. Hiccup was eerily quiet though, walking next to them but not reacting to their jibes nor making any comments himself, and only threw her a couple of covert glances every now and then.

It wasn’t hard for Astrid to guess what was on his mind. But as much as she wished otherwise – as much as she felt otherwise – they weren’t married yet. Wouldn’t be for a long time, in fact. It would be ridiculous to assume or even demand for him not to visit an Ástir for all that time. And she wanted him to know that.

“Well, I’ll leave you to it then,” she announced once they reached the wing with their private chambers. The smile, with which she looked at each of them, was genuine. “Enjoy yourselves!”

In turning, she caught the pained and torn look on Hiccup’s face, but quickly looked away. She wanted to give him a nod, some form of reassurance that she didn’t mind. But with all their eyes on her, that wasn’t feasible. So she just raised her hand to wave over her shoulder at them all as she walked down the corridor, mentally preparing herself for another lonely night of tossing and turning.

It would be a long night.

. o O o .

As Astrid vanished back towards her chambers, Hiccup had to fight not to stare after her. Although, truth be told, it was an easy fight – fueled by his guilt. Gods, he’d been so stupid...

“Come on, if we’re visiting the Temple, we need to be presentable.” Daniel said, grinning and clapping him on the shoulder.

Hiccup nodded, glad over this distraction as the lessons on decorum that had been drilled into him for the last... Gods, was it almost six years now?, came back with a vengeance. The Ástir might not charge a fee, but you did not disrespect the Goddess they served by showing up slovenly. There usually were basic cleaning accommodations to be found at the Temple, but it was considered a sign of respect to show up presentable already when possible.

The four of them made their way to the castle bathhouse, which was near the residential quarters, and entered the men’s changing rooms. Once inside, Hiccup made his way to the back of the rooms, pulled off his soiled clothing, stinking of the stables, folded them, and left them on the lower shelf of the small cubbyhole that he’d been assigned when he’d arrived some weeks ago; the upper shelf had another of his tunics and trousers from his last visit to the baths, cleaned, laundered and waiting for him.

After getting a robe from the rack, he joined up with the other three, likewise berobed, and they made their way into the bathhouse proper.

It was a nice enough bathhouse, Hiccup had to admit, finely appointed, with warm stones underfoot, artistic mosaics on the walls, and with candles in scones providing a sufficient and soothing amount of light. But the pools here were heated by wood-fires, and part of him couldn’t help but compare them to... to his family’s baths, heated by a hot-spring, and find these baths wanting in comparison.

Daniel, Eret and Dagur were bantering as they entered the half-full hot pool, hanging their robes on the nearby hooks set there for that purpose; the other bathers waved hello, mostly to Daniel and the two ducal heirs, but continued on with their conversations.

As the hot water hit his leg, Hiccup sighed in relief.

“Good to take a load off?” Eret asked with concern.

Hiccup nodded numbly; it had been acting up a lot more over the last couple of days – and he knew exactly why. Sure, the unusual activities of the last days played a part too, but he knew that wasn't the only reason. Guilt pooled in his stomach, but he put on his best calm face and laid back in the pool’s seat, letting the warmth of the water soak into him, and claiming the soap-on-a-rope as it was passed around. Hiccup had to admit that much – the King’s bathhouse had some of the finest soaps he’d ever used.

Mostly, though, he kept quiet as the other three men bantered, feeling miserable.

Guilty and ashamed, but mostly miserable.

Gods, what had he been thinking?

Not now, he chided himself. He didn’t want to drown in his thoughts again, not now. Not when he was around people who could not – under any circumstances – know what he was thinking about.

About how soft their sister’s breasts were, how perfectly they fitted into his palm. About the moans she made when he licked her behind her ear. About how incredible it felt when her fingers dug into his back.

Thankfully, at least in the baths... that sort of reaction wouldn’t be commented on. Just the relaxing effects of the baths – or the thoughts of their upcoming visit to the Temple. At worst, he’d get teased.

But he couldn’t think of her like that! Maybe paying Cami a visit was a good idea after all. Not that he had any choice on the matter anyway, but still. He’d been reluctant, had wanted to find some way, any way out of it. But between Eret’s order and Astrid’s reassuring smile… Yeah, it probably wasn’t such a bad idea. It would at least take the edge off his desire, so that he hopefully could interact normally with Astrid again on their next meeting. Oh, how he longed to be alone with her again, to simply look at her, talk to her, to just be with her.

Daniel reached over and snagged the soap bar, which Hiccup hadn’t realized he’d been holding for this entire time, right out of Hiccup’s hands, the bar swaying from the soft linen rope that was embedded in it.

He gave the prince a sheepish smile, and opened his mouth to apologize, but Daniel rolled his eyes and waved him down. “Don’t worry about it, Hiccup. You have one of the finest minds that I’ve had the pleasure of meeting, and I understand if your thoughts were somewhere else.” He scoffed and nodded his head towards Dagur and Eret, who were cheerfully sculpting the soap-foam on their heads into outlandish shapes. “At least I know your thoughts are more productive than these two thickheads!”

Hiccup chuckled weakly as Dagur and Eret protested playfully. Oh, if he only knew...

Daniel lathered up and sniffed. “Hmm... lavender. Nice. And that reminds me, I wanted to drop by the bakery before we head over to the Temple. I promised Kaden to get her some of those lavender-and-lemon cookies.”

“Oho?” Eret commented, wagging his eyebrow. “You sure there’s nothing more to tell?”

Hiccup cocked his head, listening in with interest. Everything was good so long as it kept him from thinking too much.

“Yes, I am sure,” Daniel sighed. “It’s probably like with you and this Cami. I know her, and I like her. I’m more comfortable with her than with anyone else I don’t know at all. But that’s it. She’s a friend, and I know she likes these cookies. So, I’m going to treat her to some of them. End of story.”

Hiccup had his doubts on the ‘like you and this Cami’ part, but quickly dropped that thought again.

“It’d better stay that way,” Dagur sighed, unusually sober for once. “Believe me, it would only make your life complicated otherwise.”

Hiccup gave Dagur a confused look as Daniel placed a clearly comforting hand on his shoulder. He looked like he also wanted to say something, but before he could do so, one of the castle pages came up, panting slightly and red-faced – and fully dressed. That was odd in the baths.

“Your Highness,” the page said, coming to a halt at the edge of the pool and painting a hasty but deep bow, apparently aware of the depth of the breach of manners he was committing by coming into the baths like this. “My apologies for the interruption, but I was sent to come get you immediately.”

Daniel blinked. “Whatever for?”

“I was bid to give you this, Your Highness,” he said, still breathing hard, and handed over a small scrap of paper, “by the warden.”

Daniel’s brow had been wrinkled in irritation, but he took the note and read it.

Hiccup watched as Daniel’s expression went from curiously annoyed to angry to calm composure, and shared a look with Dagur and Eret. They returned it, just as confused as he was.

Daniel looked up after a moment, and then hauled himself out of his pool seat, and, dripping slightly, pulled his robe on. When he finally looked up again to meet their puzzled gazes, there was grim satisfaction on his face. “It’s… Sorry, but I need to go and meet my father.” He paused, biting his lip, then slightly shook his head. “Can you relay my greetings to Kaden? And maybe get those cookies for her as my apology? But this is important and can’t wait until tomorrow.”

“Of course,” Eret nodded. They all knew better than to ask for details when the Crown Prince wasn’t sharing them by himself, after all. Daniel nodded gratefully, and before either of them could say any more, he headed off towards the exit.

“Okay? That was weird,” Dagur stated, forehead wrinkled in confusion.

“Indeed…” Eret agreed. “But I’m sure we’ll learn what it was about eventually.”

They finished up in the pool without further delay, the banter from before having left with Daniel. With their fresh but too casual clothes on, they stopped by at their rooms in the residual wing of the castle to get something more appropriate for the occasion. Hiccup changed quickly and checked himself to make sure his outfit looked decent; casual in boots, trousers, and a fine tunic and vest, but still far more elegant than his usual stable boy attire.

He stepped out to where Eret was waiting, and was greeted with a nod and a broad grin. “Great. Dagur is already ready too, he’s waiting outside. Come on.”

“One could think you're a bit eager to meet… Cami.” Hiccup remarked dryly, inspecting his fingertips to ineffectively hide his smirk – and also cover up his own nervousness.

“Well, I am looking forward to seeing her,” Eret emphasised. “Everything else…” he trailed off, shrugging.

Hiccup chuckled, but didn’t comment further. Who was he to tease his cousin about being eager to spend the night with his lover, after all? Freya, if he could, he’d turn on the spot and look for Astrid’s rooms without a second’s hesitation. But he couldn’t. Aside from the tremendous inappropriateness of such an action, he had his duties to follow in accompanying his master, and also had to... let off some steam.

. o O o .

“Wow, these cookies really are delicious!” Eret said; he received a couple of weird glances from passersby, but otherwise went without a reprimand for his behaviour. Hiccup would at least have expected a few giggles at the side of him trying to talk past his mouth full of cookies.

They had gotten the lemon-and-lavender-flavoured cookies Daniel had requested for his friend, but also a parcel of cinnamon-flavoured pastries for Cami. ‘I clearly remember her saying she’d like to try those,’ Dagur had said upon seeing them in the bakery, and Hiccup had to agree. He, too, remembered that conversation they’d once had, back in Eastervale. Back when his biggest problem had been to decide between becoming a squire or a stable master…

“Hey, they’re not for you,” Dagur chided, taking the parcel away from Eret to prevent it from being empty once they reached the Temple. Although, after glancing down at the delicious treats and swallowing, he handed them over to Hiccup. “Here, you take care of these. I don’t trust myself either.”

Hiccup bit back a sarcastic remark while Eret pouted, “Spoilsport,” and stuck out his tongue at Dagur when he was sure he wasn’t looking anymore.There was a playfulness in his tone though, a lightness Hiccup hadn’t heard during the last couple of weeks.

“I saw that!” Dagur commented nonetheless, making all three of them laugh.

It was a relaxed stroll through the streets of the capitol toward the Temple. Not many recognised them, not like when they were accompanied by Daniel or Astrid. They were just three young men, looking both important enough and intimidating enough to not be bothered.

“Oh, hey. That’s just what I’ve been looking for,” Eret suddenly exclaimed, and ran ahead without a warning. “Just wait here for a moment, I won’t be long.”

“Jewelry?” Dagur called after him, disbelievingly staring at the sign atop the shop Eret headed to. “I knew you were into some weird stuff, but that’s new.”

Eret, however, just snorted. “That’s not for me, idiot. I just wanted to get Cami a ‘Welcome to the capitol’ gift. I’m sure it’ll come in handy when she’s dealing with some of those stuck-up nobleman around here. Just give me a minute.” And with that, he was gone inside the shop.

Hiccup and Dagur shared a baffled look and a shrug. A minute of waiting turned into a couple more though, and when Eret finally returned, a small box tied shut with a bow in his hand, he found that Dagur had helped himself to an additional parcel of cookies of his own, from another nearby bakery, and Hiccup was carrying another additional parcel, if smaller than the ones filled with pastries. He smirked at Dagur, snatched one of the cookies for himself, and then nodded at Hiccup’s purchase.

“What’s that?” he asked, wiping away crumbs from the corner of his mouth.

Hiccup shrugged, a little self-conscious. “Well, since you both were about to bring Cami a small gift, I thought showing up empty-handed would be weird. So I got her a small something from that shop over there.” He nodded at a large window at the other side of the alley where small wooden statuettes of varying sizes and forms were at display. That was one of the amazing things about the capitol to Hiccup; with all of the glass they made here, glass windows were commonplace, such that even shops in the market had them.

“Heh, a good idea,” Eret announced cheerfully. “A bit of a personal touch to her new home. What did you get her?”

Hiccup placed the delegated parcels of cookies onto a rock nearby, certain they’d be safe from poaching now that Dagur had his own, and opened his purchase. Inside was a small but detailed carving of a running horse, made of smooth reddish-brown wood.

“Oh, she’ll like that,” Eret grinned. “She said the horses all around Eastervale would surely be what she missed the most.”

Hiccup nodded. “I know, I was there too.”

“Right…” Eret rubbed his back, a little sheepish, then suddenly paused. He leaned in to closer inspect the horse, and laughed. “It looks like Markor.”

Frowning, Hiccup glanced at the horse too – and had to agree. And while he often had arguments with himself in the quiet of the night, this was definitely an escalation from the back of his mind.

“True,” he said with a slight laugh, trying to cover up his sudden nervousness. “I didn’t notice; there were several horses of all kind, but this one somehow caught my eye, and…” he trailed off, shrugging. Anxious not to say something he shouldn’t. The truth was that, despite his sincere wish to get a gift for Cami to treat her, it had also bugged him that he couldn’t get Astrid any gifts. Just something small would do, something solid, as a reminder. Or as an apology for his utter stupidity... But that would be too noticeable, too dangerous. So he’d settled on just getting something for Cami, but hadn’t been able to keep his mind from whirling around Astrid anyway.

And apparently, that had even influenced his choice of gifts…

Shit.

. o O o .

As the three of them entered the Grand Aesir Plaza, Hiccup swallowed as carefully as he could manage, but Eret spotted his reaction. “Right, this is your first time here, isn’t it, Hiccup?”

Hiccup nodded, looking around at the glorious architecture on display.

At the centre of the vast open square was a sacred grove of at least a dozen enormous trees and numerous smaller saplings, their leaves shed, but standing proud and tall. Statues of the Aesir, Vanir and some of the greater Jotunn ringed the grove.

But the outer periphery of the square was what really drew Hiccup’s attention. They’d entered through a covered tunnel, its walls and ceiling carved and painted with images from the sagas of the gods, and emerged into the square, giving him his first look at the place – an effect no doubt intended by the architect, and Hiccup had to give the him or her a mental salute for the effect.

The paving stones underneath their feet had the cobbles arranged in patterns of white, green and brown that suggested branches reaching out from the sacred grove and to the periphery. More trees grew in regular gaps in the pavement, and Hiccup noted that many of them were fruit trees, although the biggest and mightiest tree in the grove was a yew, still green and hardy despite the encroaching dark and cold. He remembered that this particular tree was supposedly almost a thousand years old, planted when the city was founded.

But the buildings... oh...

Where Hiccup had grown up, the temples were of wooden stave-and-post construction – built on vertical logs with one end sunk into a stone foundation and then a horizontal log across the top to connect them and form the structure. They could grow impressively complex, but they were still made of wood, of a tried and true – and boring and conservative – design.

Here, though... they had ventured into stone and glass.

Now that the initial shock had passed, Hiccup saw parallels with the newer wings of the castle, especially the residential wing, and he’d have to check later to see if the same architect had designed both structures – or maybe ask Daniel about it.

A doubled columnade, connected by arches, ringed the vast space, creating a covered space that connected the various temples; the columns were carved to look like trees, and the arches to look like mingled branches. And the buildings themselves...

They were massive confections of intricately carved stone, with stained-glass windows filling massive portions of the open walls. Much like at the residential wing, Hiccup saw flying buttresses, but these were long and elegant compared to the much more muted structures at the castle. But their reinforcement allowed the piers to hold up most of the weight of the roofs, which enabled the architect to allocate all of that the wallspace to the massive glass windows, which glowed in the late autumn gloom from the lights inside.

Undoubtedly, when the grand blots were held, this entire open space would be packed full of worshipers, many of them pilgrims from all over the kingdom, with the Fyrirs holding the sacrifices and prayers in the sacred grove itself.

Suddenly a hand waved in front of his face. “Hic?”

Hiccup blinked, and turned to look at Dagur, who wasn’t even bothering to hide his smirk. “What?”

Eret and Dagur shared a grin, and Eret said cheerfully, “You’d think that you just saw a pretty Ástir do a striptease in front of you from the way that you reacted.” He reached over and gently poked Hiccup in the forehead. “And I don’t think it’s the... bust of Freya over there that caught your attention.”

Hiccup stuck his tongue out at the pair of them and they both laughed.

They made their way in the plaza proper, and Eret and Dagur took turns playing tour guide; they’d been coming here since they were boys, so all of the wonder was long since worn off for them. In a bizarre way, Hiccup had found a second reason to be grateful that he hadn’t come to the capitol until he was an adult. The first was not growing up as Astrid’s brother, of course... but being able to appreciate such magnificence on their own merits for the first time as an adult, with all of the training and learning that had come with it, ranked on a good second place.

Much like the smaller temples elsewhere, the Temple complex functioned more as lodging, organization and work-spaces for the various Orders than as worship spaces, with the sacred grove fulfilling that function. So over there was the building that functioned as Frigga’s courthouse... there was the building where Freyr’s Order minted coins, blessed farming implements, and checked the weights and measures used by the merchants across the kingdom... there was Freya’s hospital for the sick – Hiccup saw a young mother carrying in a coughing child as they walked past – and right next to it was the home of the Ástir.

The door, carved and painted to resemble Fólkvangr, with Sessrúmnir visible in the distance, stood under a fifteen-foot-tall stained glass window of the goddess, riding her cat-pulled chariot, with Hildisvíni running at her side and wearing her cloak of falcon feathers – and nothing else – but before Hiccup could take a moment to appreciate either piece of art, Dagur and Eret each took one of his arms and practically hustled him through the door.

“Come back during the day,” Dagur said.

“It’ll look better, trust us,” Eret added.

Hiccup didn’t comment on their actual and rather transparent motivations, since they were right... and instead took in the foyer and the atrium beyond as they took off their boots and cloaks and handed them to an attendant waiting in the foyer, who took them and handed them small wooden chits with numbers on them.

Lush carpets were underfoot, insulating them from the cold stone, and, once past the foyer doors, Hiccup saw a cheery fire that burned in a large hearth which was surrounded by upholstered chairs and benches laden with cushions, most of them occupied. Tasteful sculptures of the goddess filled various niches in the walls, and Hiccup heard what sounded like running water. Turning towards the sound, his eyes went wide as he found the source – an honest-to-the-goddess waterfall inside the temple; water cascaded in a gentle flow down the stones of a five-foot-wide section of the wall between two windows and ended in a small pond on the floor.

“How...?” he asked, stepping towards it, but Eret’s hand clamped down gently – if firmly – around his upper arm, and he was pulled deeper into the atrium.

Around the atrium, there were numerous groups of people, socializing, eating, or engaged in what looked like intense discussion. Some, going by their dress, were noblemen, while others were members of the Temple of various ranks, and others were more humble city folk.

“Good evening, Milords,” a silky voice sounded from behind him, and Hiccup turned with a start. In front of them stood a woman he dimly recognised from Eret’s accolade, but hadn’t cared to remember so far. The short blond hair didn’t make Freya’s Fyrir any less beautiful, and her robe of black satin and golden silk gave her an air of unquestionable dignity.

“Good evening, fair lady,” Eret greeted her, bowing deeply. Hiccup and Dagur followed his example.

The Fyrir nodded, then cocked her head with an unreadable look. “I see His Highness did not accompany you after all,” she stated. There was no question in her voice.

“Indeed,” Eret confirmed. “Sadly, urgent matters kept him busy. He asked us to deliver these–” he held out the box off cookies Daniel had asked them to obtain– ”to Ástir Kaden in his name.”

The Fyrir nodded once more, then lifted her hand to beckon toward a woman sitting in a nearby niche and chatting to a handful of younger women. She nodded, excused herself from the group, and came over, a friendly and curious look in her big brown eyes.

“Yes, Fyrir?” she asked in a melodic voice, light brown curls bobbing around her face with every movement.

“Kaden, my dear, these lords brought a gift for you.”

The woman, Kaden, turned, her puzzled eyes brightening when she spotted the box Eret held out for her. “The Prince sends his regards and his apology,” he announced formally. “He is tied up in his duties and won’t be able to make it here tonight. He wanted to make good on his promise, though.” He handed over the cookies, and Kaden’s smile grew a few shades warmer.

“Oh, that is very kind of him,” she announced, beaming. “Please, convey my honest gratitude toward him. My pupils and I will enjoy these greatly.” She was about to bob a curtsey and retreat when the Fyrir made her wait.

“I know that you are eager to return to your class,” Mala said, her tone somehow soft and firm at the same time. “But since you have more than enough time for them tonight, would you be so kind as to inform Cami that her visitors arrived?”

“Visitors?” Kaden’s eyebrows rose in surprise as she eyed Hiccup and the others, but quickly caught herself again. “Of course, Fyrir Mala. I’ll let her know immediately.” They watched her retreat and disappear up a flight of stairs.

While they waited, Hiccup went over and examined the waterfall, unable to help his curious nature. A few moments of examination revealed a pipe cunningly hidden among the stone that apparently led upwards.

“There’s a rainwater cistern on the roof that feeds it and several fonts in the building, if you were wondering,” the Fyrir’s voice came from behind him, sounding amused.

Hiccup turned, feeling a bit sheepish, but the Fyrir looked pleased. “Go, rejoin your friends. Kaden won’t be long.”

As Eret rolled his eyes at him, Hiccup returned to the pair of them where they’d snagged small bowls of light broth from a pot by the hearthfire. The Fyrir’s words proved to be accurate as Ástir Kaden returned down the staircase a few moments later, politely smiled at them as she walked past, and returned to her class, who cheered as they were offered the cookies.

“I’d say this is proof then that Daniel was telling the truth,” Dagur snickered as the young women passed the box around. “I mean, she wasn’t even mildly disturbed by him not showing up. And let’s be honest, a box of cookies is not that fancy a gift, but she obviously was happy enough. How does the saying go again?” He smirked. “Ah, yes. ‘A man is smitten with the Goddess’ chosen when the purse at his belt swells like the purse of his loins, and–

“–and the chosen feels the same when she finds room in her heart and her coffer for his boons,’” Eret finished. “Yes, yes, okay. So they’re not in love. Better that way anyway, I guess.”

There was an odd tone in his voice at that, and Hiccup gave him a curious glance; he was missing something. All the saying meant was that you knew a man had fallen for one of the Ástir when his gifts grew extravagant... and she reciprocated when she kept them exclusively for herself, rather than sharing with the rest of the Temple. Like how the now-empty cookie box had been shared.

“Indeed,” Dagur agreed, then gestured toward an empty set of chairs. “But let’s sit down there. Walking here was exhausting.”

At that, Eret smirked. “What, you’re tired already? We didn’t even get started,” he teased. “How exactly do you plan to survive the next couple of hours?”

Dagur just cackled, and Hiccup couldn’t suppress some quiet laughter either as he followed them to sit down as well. Once seated comfortably, waiting for Cami to lead them to her rooms, he couldn’t keep his thoughts from running wild anymore though. He felt… torn. The prospect of spending a couple of… relaxing hours with Cami made him nervous in a way. Sure, this wouldn’t be their first time together, not by far. And being with an Ástir wasn’t meant to be romantic in any way either, not meant to replace the loving intimacy of a married couple. He should be looking forward to it, to get the brunt off the maddening desire raging within him. But he couldn’t shake off the thought that it was… not quite right. He couldn't stop thinking about Astrid, about how much he would prefer to be with her tonight instead. But that was a thought that had no place at all in Freya's Temple, and he hastily fought to banish it into the depth of his chaotic mind, hoping for Cami to hurry to distract him.

He didn’t have to wait long, only a couple of minutes. By then, the three of them were engaged in a conversation about the benefits of short swords, when Dagur suddenly went rigid.

“Oh shit!” he cursed under his breath, making Eret and Hiccup look up at him in confusion. “And suddenly, I’m incredibly grateful for whatever prevented Daniel from coming with us,” he muttered, staring past them with wide eyes.

Hiccup turned in his seat – and froze as he spotted the young woman descending the stairs.

Her wild blond mane, usually only loosely bound if at all, was braided in a complicated pattern halfway around her head until it hung in a long plait down her back, ornate with colourful sparkling stones around a light coronet. She wore an elegant dress in varying shades of blue that highlighted her bright blue eyes, the wide skirts, embroidered with a pattern of swans, waving around her lower half like a waterfall. In addition, she wore elegant gloves that reached all the way to her upper arms, and she moved with an air of dignity he hadn’t seen on her before.

A part of Hiccup knew it was Cami, recognised her face between the costume. But for a moment, all he could see was Astrid, dressed as she’d been under that borrowed cloak, back at that first day at the stables.

. o O o .

This is a wonderful place to let this chapter end... don't you agree? O:)But again, this is not the last chapter before the hiatus after all. Keep your eyes open, there'll be another one, probably on Tuesday or Wednesday.

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#for the love of a princess #ftloap #hiccstrid #hiccstrid fanfiction #httyd #httyd fanfiction #httyd fandom #royalty au #hiccstrid royal au #medieval au #Hiccstrid Medieval AU

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