#because i was complaining about wearing a wrist brace and not being able to and jaemin was like ‘ohh making big moves already renjun

[gerrystamour]

here i have found some peace of mind [chapter six]

Rated E | Steddie

[ FIRST ] [ PREVIOUS ]

Finally, the boys meet... AKA, the Fuckening I'M SORRY THAT WAS TERRIBLE Once again, Steve is a transmasc character, I am a transmasc writer, I base his transness off of my own and so I refer to his anatomy the same way I refer to my own. Steve, like me, does not have bottom dysphoria and enjoys vaginal penetration. Also, Steve can't get pregnant and though it's not mentioned explicitly in the fic, it's because his tubes have been tied. CW: There is just a lot of smut in this chapter.

[ READ ON AO3 ]

for once in my life i feel alive

The crowd around Steve and Will was absolutely buzzing with excitement, already sweaty and ramped up from the openers. Despite getting to the arena a bit later than much of the crowd, Steve and Will managed to make it to the barrier, largely thanks to Will’s bony elbows.

Even though Steve had no experience with metal outside of Corroded Coffin’s music, he could respect the energy the opening bands brought with them. It was all just a bit noisy for Steve, and the yelling made it hard to understand the words, but overall, he could enjoy it.

“The words aren’t the point, Steve,” Will said with a snort when Steve complained aloud to him about it.

“Then why even bother having lyrics?” Steve snapped back, rolling his eyes as he watched the curtains that had been dropped around the stage from a rig above them while it was set for Corroded Coffin.

“You read the lyrics later after you feel the emotion first,” Will explained and Steve let out a huff.

“Yeah, well the feeling I get listening to unintelligible screaming is annoyance,” he said with a teasing grin, nudging Will with his elbow as the lights dimmed.

With the lights lowering, the low din around them increased to a roar. If Steve thought the energy of the crowd was insane before, he didn’t have words to describe it now. Steve had been to concerts before, but he couldn’t say any of them had this level of engagement from the crowd before the music even started.

The arena grew so dark that only the emergency exit lights and the screens of phones were visible in the darkness, and if Steve hadn’t been so close, he wouldn’t have been able to see the curtain being raised. When a low, sustained guitar tone began to play, the noise from the crowd immediately dropped easily by half, just as a red spotlight lit up the center of the stage where there now sat an ornate altar.

And Eddie was on top of the altar, standing with his head thrown back, letting the tension build, his guitar hanging from its strap around his neck, slung low on his hips. Tilting his head forward to flash a toothy, almost maniacal grin at the crowd, he began to sing, soft and almost mournful.

Steve felt his breath leave him in one swift gust.

The thing was that Steve knew Eddie was talented. He knew the man could sing and he knew he could do it well. To hear it live, however, and in what was clearly Eddie’s element? That was something else entirely.

Suddenly, another spotlight shone on the stage, illuminating Grant as a quick bass line started up, slowly building in volume until the whole stage was lit up and the rest of the band joined in. It was loud, but amazing, just Jeff and Eddie practically dueling with their guitars while Gareth went crazy on the drums atop the platform behind Eddie’s altar.

The guitar battle bled so seamlessly into the next song that Steve almost missed the transition, and in the end only truly realized that the song changed because the lighting itself did.

The whole band was wearing outfits like the costumes they wore in the music video Steve watched, with dark, skin-tight leather pants and elaborate horns. A big notable change, however, was the brace that Eddie wore on his leg so he could stand for a bit without using his cane for longer. There was a sturdy mic stand on the altar that was built with a hook where Eddie’s cane hung from its wrist strap.

Once Eddie started singing again, however, Steve was swept up in the performance and energy of the crowd. He’d done quite a bit of listening to the newest album, making sure he knew the lyrics of the newest stuff well enough to not stand out too much in the crowd.

A lot of the guitar work was carried by Jeff as well as another person that Steve knew was not actually in the band. Steve remembered a few Tour Diaries that explained that while Eddie did all of the rhythm guitar lines on the studio version of the album, that was only because the recording timeline allowed for him to play guitar and recover. While touring, Eddie had to be careful so he didn’t trigger his nerve pain, so he only played guitar during certain songs, and even then only for specific parts.

Throughout the next several songs, Eddie was standing atop the altar, holding onto the mic stand with his guitar hanging around his neck as he swung his hips with the beat. The move was slow, sensual, even during the heavier moments and had Steve flushed and breathless. Luckily with how hot and sweaty he was just from being surrounded by hundreds of shouting and singing people, his reaction to Eddie’s hips practically grinding against a guitar wouldn’t be obvious.

Behind the band were two huge screens that seemed to alternate between live shots of the band and scenes from the music videos, and every time the cameras were on a specific member, they always knew exactly what camera to be looking at. Once again, the comments the boys made about ‘complicated choreography’ came back to Steve and he found himself feeling more and more impressed with them.

Naturally, Eddie’s relationship with the camera work was electric, the way he was so tuned into how good he looked, what his best angle was, how to stare down the camera, his little hand motions to the camera. The best one (while simultaneously being the worst) was a sultry come-hither motion with one finger during a song that Steve was fairly certain was about having sex in a cemetery.

The band played through the first five full songs before the lighting changed and the band took a break. It wasn’t obvious as a break, the band just stopping their actual playing while a quiet, ominous backing track continued. Gareth was chugging a bottle of water while Jeff wandered across the stage to stand closer to the other guitarist.

Turning his attention back to Eddie, Steve actually met the man’s gaze and gasped. Eddie was leaning on his cane, his guitar swung around to his back, giving the crowd an uninterrupted view of the long, perfect line of his body. With the way their eyes were locked, though, it was as if this whole performance was for Steve alone.

Chuckling into the mic, Eddie tore his gaze away and looked around the arena. “Good evening, Chicago!” he called, his grin nothing but teeth and dimples when the crowd roared back. “How’s everyone feeling tonight?”

The crowd exploded with excitement, somehow even louder than the first response.

“See, I’m feeling great tonight. This show’s a little bit different,” Eddie continued, shifting his weight carefully between his feet as Jeff wandered back to his spot on the stage. The crowd screamed back excitedly, and Eddie met Steve’s eyes briefly before he added with a smirk, “Got someone special in the crowd.”

To Steve’s utter disbelief, what sounded like half of the arena began wailing ‘Steve,’ making the entirety of the band laugh loudly. Steve’s entire face felt impossibly hot as Eddie looked back at him with a tiny wink.

“Jesus Christ,” Steve laughed, covering his mouth when Will looked over at him with a look that was somehow both sympathetic and jealous.

All of the people surrounding Will and him were joining in with the inside-joke with the band, and also looking around desperately as if they could actually find the elusive “Steve” from the Tour Diaries.

Gareth was squinting around at the crowd before he leaned over to his mic. “The hell are y’all looking around for?” he asked flatly, and the crowd just shouted back Steve’s name. “You don’t even know what he looks like!”

“Leave ‘em alone, they’re just excited,” Eddie said to Gareth as Jeff smirked and started playing his guitar, the backing track quieting as the lighting dimmed again. “It’s your fault they’re like this anyway.”

There was a bit more banter, but Steve had all but tuned it out as he watched Eddie goof off with his friends. They seamlessly shifted into another intricate guitar moment, one that Eddie took part in, even taking the lead at one point. He and Jeff had effortless chemistry on the stage, easily switching back and forth, never fumbling as far as Steve’s untrained ear could tell.

As Jeff took over the guitar solo, Eddie swung his guitar around to his back and held onto the mic with both hands. “This next song is Dark Altar,” he said in a low, sultry voice, and Steve cheered along with the crowd. Eddie was looking at him again, smirking as he added, “This one’s for you, Stevie.”

Then Eddie winked, and Steve was pretty sure he would’ve crawled up there to kiss that smug look off Eddie’s face if it wasn’t for the security guard standing just ahead of him.

Eddie was intense throughout the song, holding onto the mic stand and grinding his hips against the pole of it, throwing his head back and even groaning out some of the lyrics. Behind him, scenes from the music video played on the huge screens, including the scene of all of them with the priest. However, the shot was held longer, letting Steve see it in all its glory without squinting at the fuzzy frame on his phone. It was impossibly sexy, and once again Steve had the very vivid fantasy of being in the priest’s place.

The rest of the concert was a blur, Steve’s thoughts completely occupied with how good Eddie looked, how good he sounded, and how much Steve wanted him. He was vibrating with his excitement as every song brought him closer to the moment he met Eddie, face-to-face and in-person. It seemed like Eddie was just as excited, his eyes finding Steve’s every few moments. A few of those times, Eddie would reach down and grab himself, as if he was adjusting his erection in his pants, which drove the crowd insane almost as much as it did to Steve.

As Jeff and Grant chatted one final time with the audience ahead of the last two songs on the setlist, Eddie was carefully assisted down from the altar by a stage tech. Eddie stopped them before they could walk away and gestured vaguely in Steve’s direction while saying something close to their ear. The stage tech glanced over, squinting against the lights and frowning at him until Steve did a little wave. The stage tech smirked, turned back to Eddie and said something back that earned them a small shove and a laugh before the tech walked off.

Honestly, the moment was so short and quick that Steve was certain that he only really noticed it because he was completely focused on Eddie.

Now that Eddie was set up on the stage rather than the altar, he was closer almost as if he was in reach. With a jolt as the music started again in full swing, Steve realized that this was the closest they had been to each other. The second to last song started slow, Eddie singing almost sweetly for the first verse. Steve gazed up at Eddie, watching him sing and rock to the music, his eyes shut.

It was captivating, watching him feel the music like that, and Steve imagined a moment this sweet and intimate somewhere else. He imagined sleepy mornings with Eddie singing softly while making a pot of coffee, and Steve felt faint with the strength of his want.

When the song picked up, it didn’t lessen Steve’s want at all, especially as Eddie actually took lead guitar through the solo, his look of concentration intense. Steve couldn’t help but imagine Eddie sitting on his couch, guitar in his lap while he figured out a melody. Something soft and quiet, domestic even, that had Steve’s heart aching.

By the time the last song began to play, Steve was spiraling with his feelings for Eddie that he knew were too much for what was probably possible for them. It didn’t help that Eddie seemed determined to stare down directly at Steve, holding Steve’s gaze through the entire song, only breaking eye contact when he took the lead through the guitar solo once again.

Taking a deep breath, Steve shouted along with the crowd as the song came to a close and the curtain lowered around the stage again.

Before Steve could properly shake himself out of his thoughts to figure out with Will where they were supposed to go now, the security guard in front of them stepped up to the barrier.

“Come with me, please,” he said to them both, motioning down toward the end of the barrier where there was a space to slip behind it.

Glancing at each other with raised eyebrows, Steve and Will followed as quickly as they could with the crowd still milling about and reluctant to leave just yet.

❖

Steve and Will sat in one of the fancy lounges overlooking the arena below, each of them too excited to actually sit down on the couches. If Steve was honest, he kept looking at the couches and remembering the filth Eddie moaned and he needed to stop getting so flustered about it.

With the security guard escorting them, they were the first ones to the room, even ahead of the band, which was likely Eddie’s plan. They would have a few minutes of semi-privacy before the other fans with the VIP tickets were allowed in to actually meet face to face.

“Steve, you’re pacing,” Will said stiffly and Steve immediately stopped moving, looking back at him. To his surprise, Will looked like he was about to freak out, picking at his thumbnail and bouncing. “You’re making me nervous.”

“Wh-why? I’m sorry, I’ll try to stop, just what’s up man?” Steve asked, immediately crossing the lounge to stand with Will.

“I dunno, just got all tense with the adrenaline dropping, I guess. Freaking out because this is literally my favourite band, like, what if they suck as people?” Will said in a rush, then immediately added, “Like, what if they think I’m weird and annoying especially if I can’t even say anything to them?”

“Will, dude, no one is gonna think you’re annoying, okay? Everyone loves you and so will the guys,” Steve said, grabbing Will’s shoulder firmly. Then, with a cheeky grin Steve added, “And hey, I have some connections with the band, so I can tell you with absolute certainty that they do not suck as people.”

Will laughed at that, shoving Steve gently, especially when he reached up to ruffle his hair. “Dude, fuck off,” Will laughed, swatting Steve’s hand away.

“Yeugh, you’re so sweaty,” Steve complained, wiping his hand off on Will’s chest.

Just as they stepped apart, the door of the lounge opened and Eddie practically clambered through it, grinning and breathless as he crossed the lounge to Steve. Will immediately took a huge step back with a loud, almost disbelieving laugh as Eddie stumbled into Steve’s space.

The air seemed to leave the room as Eddie fisted his hands in the front of Steve’s shirt, pulling him in so close they were almost pressed flush against each other.

Steve stared at him, wide-eyed and smiling, taking in the details of Eddie’s face that he didn’t get to see in the video calls. Like the beginnings of crow’s feet at the corners of Eddie’s deep brown eyes, and just how rich those brown eyes were, or the silver strands of hair shot sparsely through the brown. Eddie still had some of his make-up on his face, clearly only washing up enough to get the bulk off but leaving patches of foundation and dark body paint near his hairline and on his throat.

Eddie was so beautiful and real that Steve felt like he might start to cry about it. They were finally together, in the same room and in the same space, breathing the same air and so close to kissing it was driving Steve insane. With a soft, pleading sound just for Eddie, Steve tilted his mouth up and Eddie let out a gusty breath.

“We shouldn’t,” Eddie said quietly, his hands tightening in Steve’s shirt as he went to pull back. “You know we couldn’t handle it.”

Steve laughed, tilting his head back to groan at the ceiling. “Christ, you think we’re that bad?” he asked. When he lowered his eyes to look back at Eddie through his lashes, the man was staring at the column of his throat with something that could only be described as hunger.

“I for sure am,” Eddie admitted after a moment, licking his lips and turning his attention to Steve’s face. “Wanna wait ‘til we won’t be interrupted, okay, sweetheart?”

“Y-yeah, sounds perfect,” Steve managed to stumble out, finally putting his hands on Eddie’s waist and hooking his fingers into the belt loops there. “Can’t believe this is actually happening.”

“Jesus H Christ, me neither,” Eddie laughed breathlessly, and Steve felt himself swoon over his dimples all over again. “When I saw you at the barrier, thought I was fucking dreaming, like genuinely thought I fell off the stage and was in a fucking coma.”

“Alright boys, put some space between you two before security comes in with the other fans,” Chrissy said as she stepped up beside them.

With a sad sound, Eddie let go of Steve’s shirt and stepped out of his space. “I’m gonna sit down, care to join me?” he asked, waggling his eyebrows at Steve as he carefully lowered himself onto the couch. With a content groan, Eddie slipped his cane off of his wrist to lay it across his lap, then stretched his leg out in front of him.

Steve quickly sat down with Eddie, even if his mind was immediately in the gutter about it. Eddie smirked at him, as if he could hear Steve’s thoughts, and stretched an arm across the back of the couch behind Steve, letting his fingertips rest gently on Steve’s shoulder.

Looking up at Will, Eddie beamed at him. “Hey, man, you must be Will! I’ve heard you’re a big fan, yeah?” he greeted, and Steve could have sworn the whole room heated up with the force of Will’s blush.

But of course, Will immediately fell into a natural rhythm chatting with Eddie, and soon they were passionately discussing Dungeons & Dragons.

That was when the couch on the other side of Steve dipped with the weight of someone else. Looking over, he was faced with Jeff while Gareth and Grant stayed standing, all of them eying Steve thoughtfully.

“It’s great to finally meet you, Steve,” Jeff said warmly, holding a hand up to offer a handshake. “I’m Jeff, by the way.”

Steve laughed and accepted the handshake. “I know,” he admitted with a shrug. “Eddie talked a lot about you guys, and I watched the videos.”

Gareth laughed. “Oh, I know you have,” he said smugly, and Jeff rolled his eyes.

“Gareth keeps saying he got you and Eddie back together,” Grant explained at Steve’s questioning look. “Because of the Steve Spotting montages.”

Snorting, Steve rolled his eyes. Before he could respond though, the door opened and a handful of fans entered the lounge, all of them bubbling with excitement. Without hesitation, Gareth and Grant crossed the room to start engaging with them, and a few brave fans approached the couch to talk with Jeff. Eventually a fan interjected with Eddie and Will’s conversation (which sounded more like an argument about the validity of experience points versus milestones with leveling up a party), and Eddie changed gears instantly.

It was actually alarming for Steve, and even Will looked a bit taken aback. Eddie was, of course, absolutely pleasant with the person and on the whole, he was engaged with their questions and giving polite answers. But his smile didn’t quite have his dimples, and his entire demeanour shifted to that sultry, almost seductive stage persona. What was wild to Steve is that the fan didn’t even seem phased that Eddie seemed to become a completely different person.

Steve was startled out of his thoughts when someone tapped on his shoulder. Craning his head back, he frowned at the security guard looking down at him sternly.

“You can’t be sitting on the couch with the band members,” the man said quietly, and Steve made a face but decided not to make a scene about it. He would have plenty of time with Eddie later, so it was fine.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Steve said with a pleasant smile, and he started to get up but Eddie’s hand slid down to properly hold his shoulder firmly.

“He’s allowed to be here,” Eddie said, looking back at the security guard with a good-natured smile.

The security guard almost seemed to puff up at that. “Fans can’t be on the couch with you, Mr. Munson, even if you say so,” he said even more sternly, almost condescendingly.

“Eddie, it’s okay—” Steve started, but Eddie just squeezed his shoulder once.

“He’s not a fan,” he said, his eyes flicking to the guard’s badge, before meeting his eyes again. The expression on Eddie’s face was dark, challenging even. “He’s my boyfriend. Leave him alone.”

The security guard jolted back at the same moment Steve turned to look at Eddie with wide eyes. The security guard was apologizing, fumbling through it and Eddie was shooing him away, but all Steve was able to hear was Eddie calling him his boyfriend. Heat filled Steve, and not even just in the sense of lust. He felt warmed all the way to his toes, that maybe this wasn’t just going to be casual and fun, that even for Eddie it was serious.

“Gotta go, love, see you later.”

Remembering that term of endearment from just a few hours before had Steve blushing even more, and maybe grinning like an idiot.

When the security guard walked away, Eddie leaned close to Steve’s ear and said lowly, “I hope that was okay. Sometimes these rent-a-pigs get full of themselves and try to boss us around.”

Steve laughed and nodded. “Yeah, Eds, that was fine,” he replied, and when Eddie pulled back, his expression was so fond and affectionate that Steve wanted to hide from it. Instead, he just smiled and said, “We’ll talk about it more at our date, yeah?”

Eddie just laughed and nodded. “Fuck yeah, we will,” he laughed.

“Is this Steve?” one of the fans nearby asked, and suddenly all the strangers in the lounge whipped around to look directly at Steve. Will snorted, covering his mouth to hide his laughter.

“Hi,” he said weakly the attention, waving jerkily. He blanched when someone lifted their phone as if to take a picture of him, but then his sight was obstructed by Jeff’s head when the man sat carefully in his lap, effectively blocking any pictures anyone tried to take.

“No pics of Stevie, please!” Eddie announced to the room, patting Jeff’s shoulder in thanks. “He’s shy.”

“’M not shy, just not really ready for thirty random people to have pictures of me on their phones,” Steve said quietly, grinning when Eddie and Jeff both laughed.

The group of people all decided to back off when it was clear that Jeff wasn’t going to get out of the way. Soon enough, they were all distracted surrounding Grant and Gareth while they demonstrated some elaborate secret handshake they were making up on the spot.

Eddie patted Jeff on the back. “Alright, man, your work here is done,” he said, making a frustrated noise when Jeff just snuggled in tighter against Steve’s chest. “Dude, thanks but get off my boyfriend’s lap.”

“Nah, I don’t think I will. It’s a comfy lap,” Jeff sighed, tipping his head back to rest on Steve’s shoulder to grin sidelong at him. “You got a problem with me sitting here, Steve?”

With a smirk, Steve wound his arms around Jeff’s waist and said, “Nope, all good, man.”

“Steve,” Eddie whined loudly, which drew the attention of some of the fans again, and they all broke out into a chorus of wailing “Steeeeve”s that had Gareth nearly collapsing to his knees with laughter.

The rest of the meet-and-greet went by relatively uneventfully. Will ended up sitting on the couch across from Eddie and restarted their earlier argument about various DM things, which got a bit rowdy when one of the other fans wandered over and joined the discussion. Eventually, Chrissy returned to the lounge and announced that it was time for anyone to get the autographs they wanted as the boys had to head out shortly.

At that point, Steve got off the couch to make room for the boys, watching them all quickly sign the items that fans handed them. As the fans had their things signed and were ushered out, Steve eyed the security guard from earlier a bit warily as the guard beckoned for Will to leave immediately after getting his stuff signed.

“Just give us a minute, I’m his ride,” Steve called a bit smugly, and the security guard dropped his hand huffily.

Soon enough, it was just Will and him with the band, and Chrissy was gathering them all up to return to the bus. When Eddie stood up, Steve stepped into his space with a little smirk, hooking a finger into his belt loop again.

“Mr. Munson, I was hoping for an autograph,” Steve said quietly, just loud enough for Eddie to hear, batting his eyelashes up at him.

Eddie blinked down at him, his cheeks turning pink before his expression turned hungry. “Did you, now? What’d you want signed, gorgeous?” he asked.

Steve made a show of looking around shyly. “Can’t show you in front of everyone,” he said softly, sweetly even. He couldn’t help the smirk when Eddie’s nostrils flared with his next slow breath in.

“How about you meet me back at my hotel, baby, I’ll give you something better than my autograph,” Eddie suggested, his tone downright guttural he was speaking so low.

Steve pouted. “You know I can’t go back to your hotel,” he whined, and Eddie cursed.

“Then the bus. I’ll wait for you on the bus where we’re parking it. I’ll give you your autograph there,” Eddie corrected, reaching up to cup Steve’s cheek softly.

“I’ll be there, promise,” Steve said as he tilted his face up as if to ask for a kiss. This time, it looked like Eddie was going to give in to the impulse, so Steve grinned and stepped back. Eddie’s gaze was heated and locked on his as Steve walked backward to the door. “See you, Eds.”

Without waiting for his response, Steve turned around and practically dragged Will out of the lounge, giggling almost deliriously.

“So, what were you saying about it not being serious, Steve?” Will asked knowingly, his arms crossed.

“Oh, shut up, Byers. Not a word to Robin,” Steve said breathlessly.

“Already texted her. Literally the moment he called you his boyfriend,” Will said.

“Ugh, traitor,” Steve groused, knowing he would hear so much shit about that the moment he got home.

❖

When Steve arrived at the tour bus, he was nearly shaking with his need to finally touch Eddie. He had parked his own car in the staff parking at the airport and walked to the oversized lot, excitement overcoming a lot of his nerves.

Opening the door, Steve climbed up the steps and found Eddie waiting, leaning against the kitchenette. He was in comfier clothes, a tank top and sweatpants, and Steve’s mouth watered at the sight of Eddie’s cock tenting the front of those pants.

Without a word, Steve crowded into Eddie’s space, pressing his lips and nose under Eddie’s jaw, mouthing at the skin there and tasting the salt of his sweat. Eddie let out a happy groan, wrapping his arms around Steve and grabbing his ass, hauling him in closer as Steve bit and sucked marks into Eddie’s skin.

“You’re so pushy,” Eddie groaned thickly into the air and Steve chuckled, licking a stripe up Eddie’s throat and nibbling on his earlobe.

“You’ve no idea,” Steve whispered before dropping heavily to his knees at Eddie’s feet and pulling at the drawstring of his sweatpants.

Eddie laughed almost incredulously as Steve yanked his clothes out of the way, a hand burying itself in Steve’s hair. “Shit, baby, did you come here with a plan?” he asked, and the sound he made when Steve mouthed at his cock through his boxers would live in Steve’s mind forever.

“Kind of. Just been thinking about getting my mouth on this since this morning,” Steve admitted as he found the head of Eddie’s cock through the fabric and sucked, moaning when the hand in his hair tightened roughly.

“Get to it then, sweetheart,” Eddie managed as he pulled Steve away by his hair, shoving his boxers down off his hips. “Don’t have all night.”

Steve shivered at the bossy tone, spreading his legs as he felt a gush of slick coat his boxers. He was looking up at Eddie’s face, pointedly ignoring the hard cock in front of him, as he asked, “What’s the rush?”

“The band’s operating on a tight schedule, sweet thing,” Eddie replied, smirking down at Steve as he brought back their little game from the lounge.

Steve moaned as a flash of heat lanced through his core and he finally looked down at his prize. The sound that was punched out of Steve was the furthest thing from dignified, but he refused to be embarrassed by it. The video Steve had been treated to that morning did nothing to prepare him for the real thing.

Eddie’s cock wasn’t huge, definitely a very easy length to take into his mouth and throat, but it was still big. More, it was thick in a way that made Steve’s jaw ache just thinking about wrapping his lips around it. Just like the rest of Eddie, his cock was solid and broad, perhaps in a way that most people wouldn’t expect. Lifting a hand up to wrap around it, Steve whined as his middle finger could barely reach his thumb.

“Not even fucking you with it yet, and you’re already singing for me?” Eddie teased, his voice thick with want, and Steve felt dizzy with the mention of being fucked. His cunt and dick throbbed, and he swore he could feel the beginnings of an orgasm already building in his gut.

Instead of answering, Steve took Eddie into his mouth, testing just how deep he could take him in one go. The weight of Eddie on his tongue, the spread of his jaw to accommodate his girth, had Steve groaning around him and pressing forward until he felt close to his gag reflex. Steve’s mouth was so full, and yet he hadn’t taken all of it in. Furrowing his brow, Steve was determined to swallow this perfect, fat cock by the end of the night.

Sliding back slowly, Steve swirled his tongue along the bottom vein and sucked noisily, the sound of it obscenely wet with how much spit was pooling under his tongue. Steve moaned and focused on the head, sucking gently while tonguing the slit to lap up the stream of precum leaking from it. Eddie’s other hand joined the first in Steve’s hair as he let out a low sound, and Steve looked up through his lashes to meet his gaze as he slowly took his cock back into his mouth.

Eddie’s eyes were wide, his mouth hanging open as he panted, soft sounds accompanying each hard exhale. When Steve paused as the head nudged at his soft palate and hummed, Eddie dropped his head back against the cabinet with a hard thud and a proper whimper.

“Fuck, baby, feels so good,” Eddie gasped, and Steve whined at the praise.

Pulling back a bit, Steve took a deep breath and pushed forward, opening his throat and pushing until his nose and lips were buried in the coarse hair at the base of Eddie’s cock. The weight of Eddie in his mouth and throat, the ache in his jaw and the way his throat was constricting, trying to push Eddie out or take him deeper, was intoxicating. Steve didn’t want to pull back off, even as he felt the gag coming, felt his whole body tensing, tears streaming down his cheeks. Choking, Steve finally pulled back, swallowing hard against the dry-heave and gasping for breath as his lips rested against the head of Eddie’s cock.

Looking back up at Eddie, Steve felt pinned by the heated stare he was under, Eddie’s nostrils flared and his mouth wet and red and hanging open with his sounds.

With a desperate sound, Steve went to work, fucking his face on Eddie’s thick cock with an enthusiasm he couldn’t remember ever having about sucking dick. Every few plunges, Steve would gag and choke, but he refused to let it stop him. Steve felt wet everywhere, with tears on his cheeks, spit coating his chin and throat, and his slick soaking through his boxers. It was filthy and perfect, and Steve wanted to add Eddie’s cum to the mess so desperately he buried his nose into the hair at the base again, swallowing around the fat head and not even pulling back when he gagged at first.

“Whoa, whoa, hold on, baby,” Eddie gasped through the litany of sobbing moans, pulling on Steve’s hair until he finally pulled back, his mouth slipping off Eddie’s cock with a wet pop.

“Why are you stopping me?” Steve complained, his voice hoarse in a way that made his own dick twitch.

“Gonna come if you keep that up, baby,” Eddie gasped, reaching up to wipe beads of sweat off his forehead and push his hair back out of his face.

“I want you to come in my throat,” Steve said firmly, his pout relaxing when Eddie groaned.

“Jesus H Christ, you’re really wanting me to come only five minutes in?” Eddie laughed, his face red with his blush.

“Yeah, if it’s in my throat,” Steve repeated, but when he tried to get his mouth on Eddie’s cock again, the hands in his hair stopped him. With a sob, Steve whined, “Eddie, please.”

“Babe, I adore your enthusiasm, holy shit, I’m just—” Eddie paused to take a deep breath, settling down a bit and Steve took that time to try and cool off as well.

“I know I said we didn’t have all night, but that was part of the roleplay, yeah? We absolutely do not need to rush any of this,” Eddie finally said, staring wide-eyed at Steve at his feet.

“Can you get hard again if you come right now?” Steve asked, swallowing and wiping his chin off, trying not to feel too smug when Eddie had to close his eyes and take another calming breath.

“Yeah, I can—it might take a bit, but I can definitely get hard again,” Eddie finally answered, sliding a hand down to hold Steve’s cheek, smearing his thumb through the tears and spit on his skin. “Feel like I’ve been hard for a week.”

“Same,” Steve moaned, fluttering his lashes up at Eddie. “Please, Eds, fuck my mouth on your cock. Want you at the back of my throat when you come, even if I choke on it.”

Eddie took a sharp breath, his hands tightening in Steve’s hair. “You sure, baby?” he asked, and the check-in touched Steve.

Instead of answering with words, Steve opened his mouth and stuck his tongue out a bit, whining softly as he nodded.

This time Eddie dragged Steve forward, feeding him his cock and guiding his head with rough tugs of his hair. Steve was in heaven, his eyes rolling back as he relaxed his throat as much as possible, timing his breaths, and gagging every time he messed up the rhythm. It was perfect, amazing even, and he wrapped an arm around Eddie’s thighs as he lifted the other hand to squeeze and tug gently at Eddie’s balls.

When Eddie sobbed prettily, Steve slid his hand further back to play with his taint, and his hand froze as he felt small metal balls just behind his sac. With a groan, Steve investigated what felt like a short ladder of curved barbells, three of them, down Eddie’s taint. Steve was overwhelmed with the fantasy of feeling them under his tongue, even as he gagged and choked on Eddie’s cock. Curling his finger, Steve rested the length of it along Eddie’s perineum, his knuckle resting just before his hole, and pressed.

The reaction was beautiful.

Eddie practically shouted, his moan a punched-out sob as he threw his head back and dragged Steve’s mouth onto his cock to the hilt. Steve had taken a deep breath, so he worked to keep his throat open around the head of Eddie’s cock while he massaged his taint, pulling all manner of whimpering pleas from the man above him.

With another shattered moan, Eddie shuddered and pulsed against Steve’s tongue, and Steve choked as the first shot hit the back of his throat. Tightening his grip around Eddie’s thighs, Steve didn’t let him pull him back, taking each pump of cum straight down his throat, tears streaming down his face as he gagged again. Needing to breathe, Steve pulled back, and his mouth filled with the rest of Eddie’s hot, salty load.

Eddie let out a whine and dragged Steve back to the hilt before he could swallow, and Steve felt a mouthful of cum and spit spill over his chin and down his throat. He hadn’t been ready for the way Eddie would bottom out again so quickly, so he choked and more of the mess of spit and cum in his mouth splattered in the coarse hair his mouth and nose were pressed into. Eddie didn’t relent, holding Steve there while he whimpered through the aftershocks of his orgasm, his cock slowly softening against Steve’s tongue.

When Steve gagged again, that seemed to snap Eddie out of it and he pulled Steve off of his cock.

Steve gasped desperately, his whole body shaking as he swallowed down a cough. “Holy shit,” he said, or at least tried to but his voice was gone it seemed. Swallowing again, he moaned at the salty aftertaste that coated his tongue, his cunt throbbing with need.

“Jesus Christ, Steve, how is it you never mentioned you give head like you’re fucking made for it?” Eddie panted, his voice high as he swallowed hard, trying to catch his breath.

“Flatterer,” Steve managed to choke out, blushing.

“Steve, you just sucked my soul out of my cock, don’t be fucking modest,” Eddie laughed, lifting his hands to dig the heels of his palms into his eyes. “We didn’t even make it to my bunk, Steve. I had everything set up, then you came in here and got on your knees like the perfect wet dream you are, and you’re gonna act like you don’t know exactly how good you are?”

Steve was beside himself at the praise, his dick so hard against his soaked boxers he could hardly stand it.

When Eddie finally looked back down at him, he let out a soft moan and Steve could see his cock give a valiant twitch. Steve preened under the implied praise, sliding his fingers up through the mess cooling on his throat and chin and sucking them into his mouth. It was filthy, and if it wasn’t for the hunger that darkened Eddie’s expression, Steve would’ve been embarrassed for doing it at all.

“We need to get horizontal if we wanna keep going, Stevie,” Eddie gasped, and Steve noticed for the first time how much Eddie’s leg was shaking.

“Oh, shit, sorry—” Steve started, his face growing hot.

“Do not apologize for giving me literally the best orgasm in my entire life,” Eddie interrupted, and Steve grabbed his leg and slung it over his shoulder. “Fuck, baby, see there you are being sweet and shit—why are you still down there anyway, big boy?”

“Honestly, I’m so fucking wet right now, I’m afraid to move,” Steve admitted, but it was only partially true. He mostly just liked looking up at Eddie when he was like that, soft with post-orgasm bliss and blushing.

“Jesus, you can’t just say that shit to me—I need you to get into my bunk while I sort my brain out. Through the curtain there, bottom one on the left,” Eddie said in a rush, covering his eyes again while he took a deep breath.

Smirking, Steve carefully slipped away and disappeared behind the curtain. He could hear Eddie muttering to himself back near the kitchenette—“He has to be a demon, an incubus or something, he can’t actually be real.”—and Steve couldn’t help his self-satisfied grin. Eddie hadn’t said anything about how he wanted Steve, so he quickly stripped out of his clothes, using his shirt to wipe off his chin a bit, before crawling into Eddie’s bunk. As a final touch, Steve closed the privacy curtains on the bunk and lounged back, spreading his legs lewdly.

As he heard Eddie shuffle through the curtain to the bunks and start removing his own clothes, Steve laced his fingers behind his head and arched his back, spreading his legs even wider and tipping his head back to look at the ceiling of the bunk.

“Why’d you close the curtain, Ste-eeve oh my God.”

Steve looked down his nose at Eddie who had just opened the curtains and was halfway in the bunk. His eyes were tracking the line of Steve’s body, his cheeks turning pink as they landed and froze on his cunt.

“See something you like, Eds?” Steve asked sweetly, lowering his hand to run two fingers along the slit of his hole, separating the lips and shaking as he felt more slick trickle out. Framing his dick with his fingers, he gently squeezed and tugged, shuddering with a soft moan.

Eddie clambered into the bunk, barely reacting when he very obviously hit his own head on the top of the opening. Before Steve could react fully, Eddie was on his stomach between his legs, using his face to push Steve’s hand out of the way. As Steve pulled his hand back, Eddie strained upward and caught his fingers in his mouth, sucking them deep and groaning.

Breathlessly, Steve pushed them as deep as he could without gagging Eddie, pressing down on his tongue when Eddie’s eyes rolled back with a moan. That was very interesting, and Steve would be happy to investigate that another time. Gently, he pulled his fingers out of Eddie’s mouth and buried them in his hair, firmly guiding Eddie’s face between his legs.

Without hesitation, Eddie took Steve’s dick into his mouth with a filthy moan, sucking on it gently, sweetly even. Steve arched his back again as pleasure shot through his gut, his thighs squeezing around Eddie’s head a bit. Sighing, Steve crossed his ankles on Eddie’s back, both hands in his hair to keep him in place.

From the blissed-out expression on Eddie’s face, Steve didn’t think he actually had to work that hard to keep him right there, sucking and licking messily at his dick. 

Steve knew he was staring, but he couldn’t help it, sighing at the heavy-lidded and dazed look that overcame Eddie’s blushing face. Eddie’s brow furrowed and he whined as he ran his tongue around his dick, then focused his efforts on the hood.

Steve arched sharply with a cry when Eddie worked the hood back and teased Steve’s frenulum with his tongue. At his cry, Eddie whimpered and doubled his efforts, opening his eyes lazily to meet Steve’s gaze, his expression hazy.

“Fuck, Eds, feels so good,” Steve sighed, breathless as his release gently built. Sighing happily, Eddie dropped his chin a bit to lap into Steve’s cunt before returning to his dick.

Grunting, Eddie shifted his weight on his elbows and lifted his mouth a bit. “S’okay if I finger you?” he asked and Steve nodded almost frantically.

“You can absolutely finger me, Eds,” he groaned, biting his lip as Eddie pressed two fingers inside.

Eddie’s fingers were thicker than Steve’s, so two of them caused a bit of a stretch that had him whining and spreading his legs. Something seemed to snap between them, and Eddie turned his face to bite and suck several marks into the soft skin of Steve’s inner thigh. Steve groaned as he did, rocking his hips to fuck himself on Eddie’s fingers, shuddering when the man pressed a third finger inside him.

Moaning breathlessly, Steve blinked hazily down at Eddie, startling when their gazes locked while Eddie mouthed his way down Steve’s thigh. He scraped his teeth along the way, teasing with soft bites before marking him up with a dark hickey. Steve was beside himself, tears springing to his eyes as he rocked desperately down onto the fingers fucking into him.

Then Eddie crooked his fingers perfectly into Steve’s g-spot and he cried out sharply, arching off the bed with babbled nonsense, mostly praise and pleas for more and “right there, Eds, don’t stop, God, please don’t stop.”

With a chuckle, Eddie went to pull his fingers out and Steve reached down to grab his wrist, so quickly that he seemed to actually startle the man.

“Why’re you stopping?” Steve asked, breathless with his want, desperately on the edge and shaking with his need to come. “I didn’t tease you,” he added with a pout, and Eddie laughed.

“Stevie, I’m just—I’m so fucking hard again, I was just gonna adjust myself,” Eddie explained, and Steve groaned, tipping his head back and letting go of Eddie’s wrist.

“Sorry, just—fuck, I’m so close,” Steve complained, throwing his arm over his eyes while he waited for Eddie’s fingers to return.

“All good, gorgeous,” Eddie hummed, turning his face to mark Steve’s other thigh up as he slid his fingers back into Steve’s cunt. “Good to know you’re a brat when you’re being edged,” he murmured against Steve’s skin.

“Not a brat,” Steve argued, but his petulance was short-lived when Eddie found his g-spot and worked it relentlessly with his fingertips.

Steve couldn’t help the loud, sharp cries that exploded from his throat as Eddie fucked his fingers in and out of him, finding his sweet spot on every slide in, his accuracy terrible and perfect. With both hands in Eddie’s hair, Steve dragged him back onto his dick, grinding it up into Eddie’s mouth when the man immediately began to suck it perfectly.

Eddie’s wicked tongue flicked at the head before slipping under the hood and caressing his frenulum again at the same time he massaged Steve’s g-spot, earning himself noises that could only be described as screams. Steve’s orgasm was barreling forward, his stomach tense and cunt squeezing around Eddie’s fingers, and Eddie wasn’t slowing down. The sounds Eddie’s mouth was making on Steve’s dick, his fingers inside Steve’s cunt, were obscene in how wet it all was.

Then Eddie nipped at Steve’s dick and the flash of almost-pain made him gasp, his cunt pulsing out another gush of slick. With a growly chuckle, Eddie did it again and Steve threw his head back, sobbing through his orgasm as his thighs clamped down hard around Eddie’s head.

Even though he came, Eddie didn’t stop, almost didn’t even seem to register that Steve came with the way he kept going against his g-spot, nipping and sucking his dick with even more determination. Steve shook under the attention, another release building quickly on the aftershocks of the first, his moans coming out in shattered whimpers. He knew his hands in Eddie’s hair must be painful, but Eddie didn’t complain, just sucked and bit at his dick happily, rutting against the bed with a moan of his own.

When Steve came again, he arched so sharply he nearly sat up, practically wailing into the heated air of the bunk. Tears were streaming down his face as he convulsed with each wave of his release, sobbing when Eddie still didn’t stop, his eyes gazing up the length of his body. It was too much—the mouth, the fingers, Eddie’s big brown eyes looking up at him, watching him shake and cry and beg—but Steve couldn’t bring himself to stop it either.

Steve babbled for mercy, pleading with Eddie while holding his pretty mouth against his dick, fingers tangled viciously in his long curls.

Eddie chuckled against him and shifted his weight on his elbows. The fingers in Steve’s cunt withdrew, and he whined shakily as his cunt grasped desperately around nothing. Then Steve felt pressure against his ass, just enough to get his attention.

When Steve looked down at Eddie, eyes wild and entire body shaking, Eddie swiveled his finger around Steve’s hole questioningly. “S’okay?” he mumbled against Steve’s dick, and despite his earlier pleas, Steve was nodding desperately.

Eddie wasted no time pressing one thick, long finger inside, the slide smooth with the slick from his cunt, but just barely wet enough. Fucking the finger in and out, Eddie bullied a second one in, winding Steve with the slightly painful stretch. With two thick fingers in Steve’s ass, Eddie pulled away from his dick to shove three fingers of his other hand into Steve’s empty cunt.

With a sob, Steve rocked his hips down onto Eddie’s fingers, shuddering at the smoothness of the fingers in his cunt and the rough drag of the fingers in his ass.

“Let’s get you nice and stretched out,” Eddie murmured, mostly to himself, and pushed the third wet finger into his hole.

It hurt, deliciously so, and Steve threw his head back with a pitiful sob. He was so close to coming, even with the aching stretch in his ass, almost especially because of the stretch, and he could barely breathe with it.

With that, Eddie lowered his mouth to rest around Steve’s dick, doing nothing for a moment. Then he spread his fingers slightly at the same moment the digits in his cunt crooked up, and his teeth scraped across the head of his dick.

Steve came nearly silently that time, his eyes rolling back as his breath got caught between a hiss and a groan. When he came back to himself, he was letting out little gasping sobs with each wave of his orgasm, both hands shoving at Eddie’s head as the pleasure became jagged momentarily. Eddie smugly pulled away, grinning up at him as Steve rocked his hips down onto the fingers still inside him, whimpering and crying as he came down.

“Eddie, please, need a break—” Steve gasped, and he whined at how empty he was when Eddie pulled his fingers out of both holes. “Holy fuck.”

“You can say that again,” Eddie laughed, his hair a wild mess from Steve’s hands and his chin shiny with his slick.

Steve was struck with the need to lick that mess up and kiss the man that made him feel so good he might as well have been floating. With a jolt, Steve realized they hadn’t kissed yet this whole time, and he whined softly. He had to fix that immediately.

“C’mup here,” he practically sobbed, and Eddie acquiesced instantly.

The moment Eddie’s face was level with his, Steve began laying open-mouthed kisses along Eddie's chin and cheeks, lapping up his mess and dodging Eddie’s lips. Finally, Steve couldn’t tease any longer and, holding Eddie’s face with both hands, pulled Eddie into a hungry, gasping kiss.

It was perfect, literally everything Steve had dreamed their first kiss would be and more. With Eddie on top of him, nestled between Steve’s shivering thighs and melting into him, Steve couldn’t think of a better way for that moment to be happening.

Steve sobbed against Eddie’s mouth as the man licked past his lips, meeting his questing tongue as he wrapped his legs around Eddie’s waist. With a groan, Eddie rocked his thick cock against Steve’s hip, dragging another wanton sound from Steve. He wanted that length inside him, he wanted to feel the stretch of that cock against the walls of his cunt, wanted to feel hollowed out by it. Steve needed to feel the heat of Eddie’s release inside him.

“Fuck me,” Steve whined against Eddie’s mouth, moving his hips to try and position Eddie’s cock, but he couldn’t get the angle right. “Please, Eds, want it—”

Groaning, Eddie pulled back. “Okay, slow down, let’s just take a deep breath for a second,” he suggested, and Steve froze underneath him, afraid he misinterpreted something at some point. Picking up on Steve’s budding anxiety, Eddie said, “I just need a drink really quick, maybe wash my hands. I will gladly fuck you into this mattress, baby. Been dreaming of doing just that since, like mid-May.”

Steve laughed sheepishly, unwinding his legs from around Eddie’s waist and letting him get up. “Okay, that’s—yeah, maybe cooling down for a second makes sense,” he admitted, his thighs still shaking from his own earth-shattering orgasms just a few minutes before.

Eddie was quick with washing up, and he brought two plastic bottles of water back to the bunk, handing one to Steve who drank his gratefully. When Eddie reached into a drawer underneath his bed and pulled out a strip of condoms, Steve frowned but quickly looked away to school his expression into something less selfish. If Eddie preferred to use a condom, that was fine. Steve wasn’t about to pitch a fit over a guy valuing safe sex.

“Hey, wait, what was that?”

Steve jumped when Eddie turned his face back toward him, frowning teasingly.

“What?” Steve asked, closing his water bottle and fiddling with it in his lap.

“You looked all disappointed. What’s up?” Eddie asked, cupping Steve’s face gently in his hands. “What’s going on in that beautiful head of yours?”

“It’s nothing, it’s just—I was—fuck this is so hard to say out loud when I’m not too horny to fucking think,” Steve complained, screwing his eyes shut as he blurted out, “I got really excited thinking about you coming inside me, so when I saw the condoms I just—the condoms are fine, we can absolutely use one, I was just briefly a little sad, and—”

“Holy shit, Stevie, I only grabbed the condoms because I didn’t want to assume you’d be cool with that, or there weren’t any, y’know, risks,” Eddie said, and Steve dropped his hand to smirk at him.

“Risks?” Steve asked, enjoying the way Eddie blushed.

“The last guy with a pussy that I fucked could still get knocked up if we weren’t careful, so yeah, y’know, risks,” Eddie said in a rush, scrubbing the back of his neck.

Steve smiled and reached forward to bury his hand in Eddie’s hair, pulling him in for a slow, sweet kiss. With a sigh, Steve slowly laid back in the bunk, coaxing Eddie on top of him and back between his legs. Groaning softly, Steve pulled away to meet Eddie’s eyes heatedly.

“No risk of that with me, promise,” Steve said quietly as he reached down between them to position the head of Eddie’s cock against the wet seam of his cunt. With a mischievous smirk, Steve added, “Happy to let you fuck me raw as often as you want, though. Try and make it stick?”

Eddie groaned and dropped his head onto Steve’s shoulder. “Fuck, baby, you can’t just say shit like that,” he practically whimpered before kissing and nipping Steve’s collarbone.

Sighing, Steve stroked Eddie’s cock, the head of it pressed against his entrance and driving him insane. With a shuddering sigh, Eddie’s hips rocked forward and the tip of his cock slid inside.

Steve wasn’t tight by any means, but it had been a while since Steve had taken an actual cock, and he didn’t use thick toys when he took care of himself. That all said, even though Steve wasn’t tight, Eddie was still thick, so the stretch wasn’t possible to ignore.

Breathing through it, Steve clutched at Eddie’s back and whimpered as Eddie rocked his hips forward, sliding inside inch by inch.

After a few moments of that, Eddie lifted his head to kiss Steve deeply, licking into his mouth and swallowing his soft sounds at each short slide inside him. Humming, Eddie tipped his head to sing directly into his ear, “Let the Devil in…”

Steve jolted at the singing, feeling his cunt grow slicker at hearing Eddie’s singing so close to his ear. Not only that but he recognized the lyrics as being from one of Eddie’s songs.

“Fuck, Eds, I’m trying,” Steve whined, dropping his head back on the pillow.

Grunting, Eddie asked, “Does it hurt?”

Steve considered the question and shook his head, gasping as Eddie rocked a little deeper. “N-no, it’s not.”

“Alright, let me know if this is too much,” Eddie said thickly, and with a soft whine, Eddie snapped his hips forward, hilting hard and fast against the lips of Steve’s cunt.

Steve arched up against Eddie with a punched-out cry, going cross-eyed at how full he suddenly felt. Eddie didn’t give him much of a chance to recover his full brain capacity before he set a brutal pace.

It was intense, the way Eddie moved against him, grunting with each slap of his hips against Steve’s core, his cock fucking Steve deep and perfect. The sounds of Eddie’s cock sliding in and out of his cunt had Steve blushing all the way to his chest. Again, everything sounded so wet and messy, and if Steve had the ability to care he would be embarrassed about it.

As it was, Steve was too busy trying to catch his breath, his moans coming out in short little cries with every plunging thrust into his core while Eddie sucked marks into the skin of his throat.

“Eds,” Steve sobbed, clutching at Eddie’s back as the man hissed and fucked him harder, faster. “Eddie, please.”

“Please, what, gorgeous?” Eddie asked breathlessly, lifting his head to kiss Steve deeply, pressing their tongues together before Steve could answer.

They gasped into each other’s mouths for what felt like hours while Eddie’s hips pounded against him, his thick cock spearing his cunt in an almost punishing pace. Steve whimpered as the coil of his release pulled taut in his gut, his toes curling with the impending force of it.

“Eddie, so close,” he managed to sob, the words muddled around Eddie’s tongue, his breath hitching with each hard push inside him. “Eddie, please, please, please.”

“What do you need, baby?” Eddie grunted, whimpering as he shuddered above Steve, his body shaking with his own approaching orgasm.

“Your hand—my dick, please, Eds, please,” Steve gasped desperately, his eyes rolling back as Eddie pushed all the way in and stopped moving.

With a low groan, Eddie propped himself on one hand above Steve, keeping himself hilted inside his cunt as he got a hand between them to work Steve’s dick between two fingers.

Steve stared up at Eddie, watching him as he loomed above him and focused on getting him off, his eyes closed and kiss-reddened mouth hanging open and panting. Eddie’s curls hung around his face in damp, sweaty ringlets, swinging with the frantic motions of his arm while he dragged Steve closer and closer to his release. Slowly Eddie’s eyes opened to meet his, his gaze hooded and heavy. Eddie refused to look away, as if he wanted to watch the moment Steve came undone, wanted to see him fall apart at the seams.

And who was Steve to deny him that?

With a broken sob, Steve arched off the bed, nails dragging across Eddie’s back as his cunt clenched almost painfully around the cock sitting deep inside him. The sound Eddie let loose was guttural, something Steve almost felt more than he heard, and soon Eddie was moving.

Eddie fucked him, harder and faster than before, driving into Steve’s spasming, wet hole with brutal thrusts that punched little, gasping screams out of him. It dragged his orgasm out, making Steve feel like it would never end, like Eddie was about to keep him there in that blissful, sensitive, painful place until he died.

Then Eddie’s rhythm stuttered, the thrusts growing erratic against him and Steve forced his eyes open. Eddie had hung his head, in a way that hid his face behind his curtain of hair, and Steve couldn’t have that.

Whining, Steve grabbed Eddie’s face, tilting it back up and pushing his hair out of the way. Eddie’s expression was soft, so needy and beautiful that Steve felt close to tears. Steve stroked his cheek with a thumb, and Eddie sighed, turning his head to kiss Steve’s palm softly.

The way Steve’s heart stuttered in his chest at that sweet gesture had tears springing to Steve’s eyes.

“Come for me, Eds, please, wanna feel it,” Steve murmured, breathless as Eddie’s eyes rolled back and his cock settled deep inside him one last time.

Steve moaned thickly as he felt the warm bloom of Eddie’s release inside him, Eddie letting out those perfect whimpers with each hot pulse into Steve’s cunt.

With a shaky breath, Eddie pulled out and flopped onto the mattress beside Steve, gasping for breath. Steve swallowed thickly around his own heavy breathing and looked over at him, smiling shyly when he found Eddie staring at him.

“How are you real?” Eddie asked, his voice awed and impossibly soft, as if they hadn’t been fucking like animals for what felt like hours.

“Could ask you the same thing, Eds,” Steve replied, rolling onto his side and shivering as he felt some of Eddie’s load trickle out of him. “I don’t think I’ve ever been fucked that good.”

Eddie laughed out loud at that, wiggling close to kiss Steve sweetly. “Same,” he agreed in a little whisper before a yawn overtook him. “Fuck, I’m sorry, the night’s catching up to me.”

Steve laughed and pulled away, reaching over the side of the bed to grab his boxers and slip them back on. “Let’s get you to bed then,” Steve said with a bright smile, even as exhaustion tugged at him too.

The two of them got dressed again, Eddie letting Steve borrow a shirt since his own had been thoroughly wrecked earlier. They got distracted a couple times when they would kiss each other and make-out a bit, but overall they managed to get dressed without any incidents. Even when Steve shivered at the sensation of Eddie’s cum trickling out of him and answered honestly when Eddie asked him what was up.

“Fuck, if I was able to get it up again tonight…” Eddie trailed off before kissing Steve soundly and pulling away.

Steve walked Eddie most of the way back to the hotel, holding his hand with their fingers tangled together. It felt perfect, natural even, walking with Eddie and holding hands, and it broke Steve’s heart to stop short of reaching the lobby.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” Eddie asked quietly, almost shyly as he wrapped an arm around Steve’s waist and pulled him close.

“Yeah, of course,” Steve replied with a grin, winding his arms around Eddie’s neck and pulling him in for a soft, chaste kiss. “Wouldn’t miss our actual date,” he teased, and Eddie laughed loudly.

“Holy fuck, we actually did everything backwards, huh?” he said, laughing again when Steve nodded.

“Yeah, we kinda did. But I don’t mind, if you don’t,” Steve replied, and Eddie beamed at him.

“Not at all,” Eddie agreed before leaning in for a searching kiss, stealing the breath from Steve’s lungs.

[ NEXT ]

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Thank you so much for reading! Please consider reblogging! Taglist! @patchworkgargoyle, @kazalohiku, @ent-is-indecisive, @steddierthings, @xenon-demon, @mylilplanet, @hellion-child, @scarcrossdlvrs, @steddieas-shegoes, @plskillmemrghostface, @theheadlessphilosopher, @scoops-stevie, @bangarangdarling, @inairbinad, @stobinesque, @2btheanswertothequestion, @starryeyedjanai, @spookednsaucy, @honeysucklesinger, @indigohightide, @afewproblems, @mightbeasleep, @thegingerrapunzel, @pluckedstrings, @xxfiction-is-my-realityxx, @steddie-there Join the taglist by reblogging and expressing interest in keeping up in the tags or reblog comments!!!

#steddie #steve x eddie #steve/eddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #steddie fic #peace of mind #gerry writes

[itadorisgf]

— a taste of heaven

aka soft headcanons

note: it’s difficult being so s*ft all the time so here’s a part two

ft. inumaki toge, miwa kasumi, okkotsu yūta, tōdō aoi, zenin maki.

warning: gn!reader, insecurities, fluff

part one

⤷ main page

— inumaki toge.

inumaki’s eyes widen in surprise when you trot over to him one day and clumsily sign in jsl “good morning, toge! how are you?” his eyes water when you shyly admit that you’ve been learning for him since you don’t want him to worry about not being able to speak all of the time. you then eagerly ask if you signed it correctly. even if you didn’t sign it perfectly, the fact that you’re actively learning for inumaki is more than enough.

inumaki can sometimes get self-conscious of the seals etched onto his cheeks. it’s a part of him, something that indicates his connection to his clan, but he’ll never forget the looks he used to get from others as a child. whispers of poor child and how ugly when he would pass by them. so when you cradle his face with your hands, staring at him like he’s personally hung every star in the sky and murmuring that he’s so beautiful, inumaki’s heart melts.

while you’re happily chatting away with maki and panda, inumaki will come up from behind and wrap his arms around your middle while nuzzling his face in the crook of your neck. it’s an occurrence that happens often enough that your shared friends don’t bat an eye. maki does scoff and comment that the two of you are so disgustingly in love it makes her sick, however.

— miwa kasumi.

miwa babbles. it’s a habit that she’s never managed to kick no matter how hard she’s tried to. so when she’s telling you about something that happened during her day, it hits her all of a sudden of how annoying she must be. she quiets down and abruptly ends her story. however, you notice and softly encourage her to continue. her heart skips a beat when you say “i like listening to what you have to say, kasumi.”

her little brothers are menaces. miwa loves them, but they know exactly how to get on her nerves. she’s apprehensive about introducing you to them, even though it’s only through facetime, and warns you ahead of time about how they can be. she’s shocked when they take to you so easily. soon enough, you’re the one carrying the conversation as miwa sits in the frame of the camera and watches you interact with them. she’s embarrassed when at the end of the call, her little brothers loudly proclaim that they like you before hanging up.

miwa will shyly gift you random little things she’s made: baked goods she’s experimented with, neatly completed friendship bracelets, a knitted hat when you complained about how your ears are always cold. she’s always worried about whether or not you’ll like them, but the smile that crosses your face and the glimmer in your eyes informs her that you do. and if that wasn’t enough to convince her, the happy kiss that you press to miwa’s cheek is.

— okkotsu yūta.

some nights, scratch that, most nights, yūta has difficulty falling, and staying, asleep. his mind is plagued with too many thoughts flooding his brain and he just can’t seem to turn it off. he feels like a bother, but he’ll softly creep out of his bed and slip into your dorm. in the safety of your arms, listening to the steady rhythm of your heartbeat, yūta manages to get a good night’s rest.

yūta worries about your relationship when he decides to travel overseas to study. although he’s incredibly busy most days, he always sends you a good morning and a good night text despite the time difference. sometimes he even manages to send you a box of trinkets he’s amassed for you. when you open up the box, there’s a quick messily scrawled note on top of everything that reads “i love you and miss you so much. love, yūta <3”

he flusters when you seat yourself on top of his lap and place your hands on either side of his face. yūta squirms underneath your intent gaze as you examine every inch of his face. his hands are loosely looped around your wrists and he’s bracing himself for what you’re going to say. it wouldn’t be like you, but yūta can’t help the fear that you’ll call him unattractive or ugly like the girls he used to attend school with. his face heats up when instead you murmur “you’re so pretty, yūta,” and lean in to press a kiss to his nose.

— tōdō aoi.

tōdō does not shut up about you, much to everyone’s dismay. they have no issue with you in particular, it’s just that tōdō will go on and on about you forever even if they express their lack of interest in the conversation topic. he’s just so proud to have you as his s/o that he can’t help but talk about how amazing you are all of the time!

he has a photo album on his phone that’s entirely dedicated to you. it’s filled with images that tōdō’s taken of you: pictures of you striking silly poses for him, images that you have no clue exist because he somehow managed to snap them without you noticing, and much, much more. when he talks about you, he always whips out his phone to show whoever he’s talking to how pretty you are.

he’s a huge fan of piggy back rides! you say your feet hurt from walking around? instantly, you’ll find yourself swept up by tōdō. you’re either on his back or he’s carrying you bridal style everywhere despite your protests and complaints of how embarrassing it is. he can’t have his lovely s/o walking around in pain.

— zenin maki.

if you happen to fall asleep on the train and your head drops onto maki’s shoulder, she’s incredibly careful to not jostle you awake. her entire frame is tensed, afraid that the slightest movement may wake you. if panda speaks too loudly, she glares at him and tells him to quiet down. when you wake up and lift your head up, maki gives you a grin and informs you that you drool in your sleep.

maki is fiercely protective over you. yes, you’re an idiot (affectionate), but you’re her idiot. therefore, she’s the only one who can seriously make fun of you. she doesn’t mind if others poke fun at you or tease you, as long as it’s light-hearted. the moment someone actually attempts to degrade you and make you feel lesser, maki is beating their ass.

she has to wear glasses for prolonged periods of time because of her inability to see curses without them. this often leads to maki’s temples hurting. she’ll try to ignore it because she’s not going to let a little headache bother her, but you’re having none of that. she’ll try and protest, but she can’t deny how nice it feels to have her head resting in your lap as you gently massage her aching head.

#jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen headcanons #jjk x reader #inumaki x reader #yuuta x reader #okkotsu yuuta x reader #yuta x reader #todo x reader #todo aoi x reader #maki x reader #maki zenin x reader #miwa x reader #miwa kasumi x reader #celeste.scribs #celeste.adores #adoring.inumaki #adoring.yuuta #adoring.maki #adoring.todo #adoring.miwa

[shemarmooresfedora]

Collision Course

Summary: You and Spencer were just bound to collide. Only fate could plan a first meeting that unique.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader

Content/Warnings: fluff, minor car crash (no serious injuries), swearing, sexual harassment (specifically cat-calling from a stranger), mentions of eating a lot of food, implied allusion to sex (not specifically stated)

Word Count: 2.3k

A/N: this is my one-shot entry for @ellesgreenaway ‘s 1k follower celebration! congratulations! <3 i’ve had this fic in my drive for a while but i never got around to finishing it until now

Masterlist

The metro was down for scheduled repairs today. JJ offered to bring Spencer in but he politely declined. He figured he should drive his car at least every once and a while so it doesn’t just collect rust in his parking spot.

Leaving his apartment 15 minutes earlier than he normally would to account for his rather slow driving, Spencer cautiously reversed out of his space.

He sighed in relief that he had not hit the neighboring cars. Spencer began to pull out of the parking garage. Unfortunately, he was so relieved from his little victory that he forgot to check both ways when he drove out of the parking garage.

Spencer slammed on the brakes but it was too late. He hit a young woman jogging and knocked her to the ground. Luckily, his average speed was that of a snail so he hoped her injuries were not too bad.

Spencer put the car in park and got out, “Oh god, oh god, oh god. Are you okay, miss?”

“I think so,” you were on the ground, assessing your body for any damage.

“Can you stand?” Spencer extended his hand to help you up.

You carefully stood, wincing a little when you put pressure on your left ankle.

“Is there anyone I can call? Do you want me to drive you to the ER?” Spencer frantically asked.

Your eyes widened, “No!” you stated a little too loudly, “Um I mean no thank you. I should finish my run anyways. I have a 5k for Alzheimer’s research coming up and I need to run or else I don’t raise any money,” you politely waved and took off again, much slower this time.

Spencer cringed as he watched you limp slightly every time you stepped on your left ankle, knowing it was his fault you were in pain. He sighed and pulled out his phone.

“Hey JJ, have you left yet? I need a ride, I’ll explain in the car.”

-

“Pretty Boy, how was your drive in?” Derek asked as soon as Spencer stepped off the elevator with JJ.

“I got about 20 feet and then hit someone with my car and had to call JJ so not great,” he admitted.

“Boy Wonder, you did WHAT? Are they okay?” Penelope gasped.

“She insisted she was fine but then she was limping away. I offered her a ride but she didn’t seem too keen on getting in a car with me,” Spencer explained.

“I wonder why,” Emily chuckled.

-

So there Spencer was. In the park in his only pair of short athletic shorts and a hoodie.

He had asked Penelope to sign him up for the 5k as a way to sort of make it up to the woman he hit. Plus, obviously it was for a good cause that was near and dear to his heart because of his mother.

Spencer had to take a lot of water breaks, periodically stopping to walk for a bit.

In the distance, he saw you on a bench and he suddenly felt the energy again to continue running to you. As he approached, he saw you tightening an ankle brace around your left foot and to make matters worse, you had a wrist brace as well.

Spencer considered just leaving you alone but he felt the need to apologize.

“H-Hello,” he awkwardly sputtered.

“Oh, hi,” you replied.

“I am so so sorry. Please let me pay your medical bills and any other expenses that I caused,” Spencer apologized.

“Unless you meant to hit me then it’s fine,” you stood from the bench.

“I definitely didn’t and I wasn’t on my phone or anything like that. I just barely ever drive but the metro was down today,” Spencer explained.

“You don’t have to pay my medical bills. I’m friends with a nurse so she did this for free. However, I would allow you to sponsor me for the 5k,” you answered.

“Absolutely,” Spencer nodded, “And funny story, you inspired me to register as well. I got everyone in my office to sponsor me.”

“That’s so great! The money is certainly going to a good cause.”

Spencer saw you smile for the first time since he met you.

“I’ve never been much of an athlete though. I barely passed my fitness test for work,” Spencer admitted.

“What kind of job has a fitness test?” you asked.

“I work for the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI,” Spencer stated.

“Oh shit, you’re a federal agent? Maybe I will sue you and make bank,” you grinned.

Spencer’s face reddened.

“It was just a joke. You can laugh, then that means the incident is in the past and no hard feelings,” you smiled, “I’m Y/N.”

“Spencer.”

“Well, Spencer, if you ever need a running buddy, I’m more than happy to come along seeing as we both are training for the same thing. But I do have to warn you, this brace is kind of a bitch so I’m a little slower than normal.”

“I can assure you that you will probably still be faster than me with the brace on so maybe it was a good thing for me that I hit you with my car so you won’t be miles ahead,” Spencer grinned.

You laughed wholeheartedly, “See, Spencer! I’m laughing about it so no hard feelings, all is forgiven.”

“I’m just finishing up for the day but I was planning on being here again on Wednesday at the same time if you want to meet at this bench,” you offered.

“Yeah, I can do that,” Spencer nodded.

“See you around, Spencer. Hopefully not in your car though,” you winked and waved.

-

“Oh god, you’ve fallen in love with the chick you almost killed,” Derek groaned.

“Not love...well, yet anyways. She’s so pretty and easy to talk to and isn’t mean to me after everything that has happened and her laugh is like honey,” Spencer smiled softly, recalling the sound in his mind.

“Okay, lover boy,” Penelope giggled, “Did you get her number?”

“No but we’re meeting for a run tomorrow. We actually met at the park when I was training,” Spencer said.

“So she’s seen you in those short shorts and agreed to another meeting? Maybe you do have a chance, kid, cause you really put it all out there,” Derek smirked.

“Speaking of, I actually need to get more of them,” Spencer sipped his coffee.

“Just go all the way and get spandex. Leave nothing to the imagination,” Derek chuckled as Spencer rolled his eyes.

-

“Jesus, I’m going to have to hit your right leg this time if I’m going to have any chance of keeping up with you,” Spencer huffed as he bent over his knees to catch his breath.

“Well good news is that was four miles so you definitely will be able to run a 5k because it’s only 3.1 miles,” you encouraged him.

“Technically, it’s 3.10686 miles but I see your point,” Spencer heaved.

“I know a really good smoothie place nearby. Come on, it’s on me,” you grabbed his hand.

Luckily, Spencer’s face was already red from exercising so you weren’t able to see the blush that formed on his cheeks.

“No, it’s definitely on me. I know you said we’re fine but I am forever going to be indebted to you because of the incident.”

“Spencer, really just forget about it,” you assured him.

“I can’t, I have an eidetic memory,” he grinned.

“Ah, I see. Fine, you buy me one smoothie but then we’re even,” you conceded.

You were walking down the street to the cafe when you heard a whistle come from one of the cars driving by.

“Damn, your ass is looking sexy in those leggings,” a man hollered from his passing truck.

You flipped him off and tried to pull your shirt down as much as possible, crossing your arms tightly around your front.

Spencer unzipped his hoodie and extended it towards you, “Sorry, it’s a little sweaty but if you want to wear it, you can.”

You smiled softly and accepted the sweatshirt, feeling more comfortable now.

“I’ve got his license plate number memorized and I intend to file a police report. Unfortunately, reports like these usually don’t go very far but I’ll keep pushing it through. I’ll also call the company that was printed on the side of the truck and ask to speak to his supervisor,” Spencer spoke softly after a few minutes.

“Thanks, Spencer,” you leaned your head on his shoulder and sighed.

“You don’t have to thank me for that. I’m just doing what’s right. He had no right to make comments about your body,” Spencer said, wrapping a gentle arm around your upper waist.

-

“Welcome to Y/N’s carbo-loading extravaganza!” you opened the door of your apartment to let Spencer in.

“I brought dessert as requested,” Spencer held up a chocolate cake.

“I like how you think, Spencer. Dinner’s all ready,” you smiled.

“Spaghetti, meatballs, and crispy buttery garlic bread,” you pulled the bread out of the oven.

“Looks absolutely delicious,” he complimented.

“Eating carbohydrates before a race boosts the glycogen storage in your muscles allowing you to work out longer,” Spencer informed you.

“Interesting, I never knew the science behind it but I’m never going to complain about eating tons of pasta and bread,” you twirled some pasta on to your fork.

Halfway through the meal, Spencer accidentally got a sauce stain on his pale pink shirt.

“Oh no,” you said as he tried to dab it away.

“That needs to soak right away. I don’t want any casualties at the carbo-loading extravaganza. Give it to me to scrub and I’ll get you another shirt.”

Spencer unbuttoned his shirt and peeled it off. You gulped at the sight of him shirtless, grabbing the shirt and heading to your bathroom sink to scrub it with laundry detergent.

“You can just grab any t-shirt from my room that you think will fit,” you called out to him.

Spencer settled on a light gray shirt with a golden retriever on the front.

“Okay, the stain is out! It’s just soaking now-“ you immediately stopped talking as soon as you saw the shirt Spencer was wearing.

He noticed your eyes were beginning to glisten with tears, “I’m so sorry. I can pick a different shirt,” Spencer was already beginning to pull it over the top of his head.

“No it’s fine, Spencer. That’s just my grandma’s t-shirt. I forgot I even had it.”

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you,” he spoke guiltily.

“You didn’t know, besides it looks good on you anyways,” you smiled, “My grandma is the whole reason I’m running the 5k.”

“My mom has Alzheimer’s too so I understand that it’s extremely hard to watch a loved one go through that,” Spencer pulled you in for a hug.

You cried into his chest as he rubbed soothing circles on your back.

After Spencer hadn’t heard any sniffles in a while, he whispered, “Do you have any tea I can make you?”

You nodded and Spencer guided you to the couch, wrapping you in a blanket before turning the kettle on.

-

Spencer answered the cheerful knocking at his front door early in the morning.

“Race day! Are you ready?” you exclaimed.

“Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess,” Spencer smiled.

“I promise we are sticking together the whole time because it doesn’t matter how long it takes us as long as we finish,” you held up your pinky.

“Together,” Spencer affirmed, locking his pinky with yours.

The starting line in the park was only a short distance away from Spencer’s apartment so you and Spencer decided to walk there as a little warm-up.

You and Spencer were doing quad stretches when you saw his eyes wander to something behind you and then widen. His face immediately reddening.

“What?” you asked, turning around to see a group of people with a sign that read ‘Go Spencer and his girlfriend!’

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t expect them to do that,” Spencer stammered.

The poor boy was so flustered so you decided to take it easy on him.

“I don’t mind,” you shrugged with a slight smile.

“You don’t?” Spencer clarified, “I’m not very good with words or flirting in general but I would like to see you again after the race is over. Maybe I could take you out to dinner?”

“Yes but my only condition is...I’m driving,” you smirked.

“Oh, you’ll pay for that,” Spencer grinned.

An air horn sounded, signaling the start of the race.

“I think you’re going to have to catch me first, Dr. Reid,” you giggled as you sprinted ahead.

-

“It’s in sight, Spencer! We can do this!” you pointed to the finish line in the distance.

“Y/N, you’re going to have to carry me. I can’t,” Spencer heaved.

“If you finish this race, I will…” you cupped your hand to his ear and whispered something.

Spencer immediately perked up and started running again.

“Hey, wait up!” you laughed.

You and Spencer crossed the finish line at the same time. Spencer’s legs immediately gave out which caused you to fall too, collapsing on top of him.

“I know I’m really sweaty and gross right now but can I please kiss you?” Spencer whispered.

Your lips were pressed on his as soon as he finished his sentence. You honestly didn’t know how long you had been kissing for but you didn’t look up until you heard one of the race officials shout, “Hey lovebirds! That’s very sweet but other people are trying to cross the finish line.”

“Sorry!” you and Spencer apologized, scrambling to your feet.

“Not really,” Spencer whispered to you and you jabbed him in the side with your elbow playfully, stifling a laugh.

what slightly inspired this fic is one time @samuel-de-champagne-problems commented on one of my posts “i could never stay mad at spencer” and then i thought to myself “same. i couldn’t stay mad at him even if he hit me with his car” and now here we are... 🚙

taglist: (just ask to be added or removed!): @samuel-de-champagne-problems @g0lden-cth @spencerreid9 @averyhotchner @coldlilheart @k-k0129 @ickleronniekinsemotionalrange @harrystylesandthegoobs @cmily @jswessie187 @rem-ariiana @hoodpankow @mochionly

#spencer reid fluff #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid #cm fanfic #spencer x reader #reid x reader #dr spencer reid #spencer reid fic #spencer reid one shot #spencer reid x fem!reader #ellesgreenawaybookclub

[phantomwarrior12]

Dire Need (Ch. 2)

Chapter 1 (Desperation)

When she opens her eyes, the sun is just beginning to creep through the shattered window. For a moment, she forgets where she is, but the firm chest against her cheek swiftly reminds her who she's with.

He's so much more comfortable than sleeping on the ground.

His arms are wound around her, cradling her close as his head is propped against hers. She doesn't dare move for fear of waking him, but some part of her longs to look up. He still has his helmet on, but it's...a comfort, of sorts, to see it above her. He's sleeping so soundly and she rues the moment she'll have to wake him - or perhaps her Ghost will do that for her.

He rams against her shoulder, pointed edge jabbing between her pauldron and chest plate.

"Rise and shine, Guardian! We need to go!"

"What's going on?" Lord Shaxx mumbles softly, slowly lifting his head from hers and she tries to hide her disappointment as she sits a little more upright, cuddling up against his chest, head tucked under his chin as his arms tighten around her and hold her close.

"We need to get going before the Cabal figure out we're hiding out here." Ghost advises.

She wishes he were wrong and she could stay curled up in her Titan's arms. He's so warm and for a moment, she forgets they're on the ground in an abandoned building without their Light - wait. He's still injured, isn't he?

He's still injured!

She jerks back quickly, startling Lord Shaxx as her eyes search his torso for any blood.

"Guardian, what's wrong?"

She gestures to his ribs in a panic, remembering his Ghost had mentioned there being something about cracked ribs. Why hadn't she remembered that last night? Surely that would be the first thing she'd recall before she slept on him. Oh Traveler, no. She might have made things worse.

"Settle down, my little Hunter." His hands firmly rest on either one of her shoulders to hold her in place, forcing her gaze to his features. "I'm alright. You didn't hurt me, Guardian. I promise."

She nods shakily, gaze darting back to his torso before leaning forward, wrapping her arms around his neck and hugging him as tightly as she dares. He locks a firm arm around her lower back, his other hand rubbing back and forth between her shoulder blades to soothe her.

She can't lose him.

It's as of he can hear what she's thinking because he gives her a squeeze, adjusting his head so his chin rests atop her shoulder, leaning his head against hers, "It will take more than a building to extinguish my Light, my little Hunter. I'm not going anywhere."

Her fingers ball into fists around the fur along the back of his neck, pressing just a bit closer to his frame as if to affirm that he better not.

"Well...we should probably go somewhere that isn't here." Ghost interjects awkwardly and his Guardian can't help her smile.

"He is right. Do you think you'll let me stand this time?" Shaxx teases the Young Wolf gently as she sits back on her heels.

If she weren't wearing her helmet, she'd give him a chiding look. But she settles for the lightest of punches - more so just pressing her fist against his shoulder with a fraction of a push - in response. She gets to her feet, picking her cloak up off of his lap and securing it in place before she offers him her hand.

"I am not made of glass. Next time, punch like you mean it." He chuckles, taking her hand and allows her to try and help him to his feet - the attempt is in vain. It is no small task to get a Titan up off the ground when they've been severely injured. She grips his hand tightly, trying to pull him up but when it has no effect and it's clear that Lord Shaxx lacks the physical capacity to get to his feet on his own. She moves to his side and kneels down, slinging his arm over her shoulders and grips his wrist tightly as her other arm locks around his waist.

"Perhaps you should just go get some help?" Shaxx suggests, concern building in his voice.

"There isn't any time," her Ghost argues. "Are you ready, Guardian?"

She nods solemnly as she glares straight ahead and braces herself.

"On three," Ghost supplies, more than aware that his Guardian would never leave Shaxx behind, even with the intent of returning. "One...two..three!"

The Young Wolf strains, her quads and calves burning and screaming in protest beneath the weight. She recalls a similar struggle to lift his unconscious frame inside this building the night before. Though, it's not as though she's doing it without any assistance this time. Shaxx is pushing up with his other arm, trying to engage  any of his stiffened muscles until, at last, he's upright, leaning on her as he clutches at his ribcage with a soft cry of pain.

Her legs are trembling but she sets her jaw as she looks up at him.

"I'm alright. Just--"

"Take a moment," his Ghost orders firmly.

"We need to leave," Shaxx protests until the Young Wolf leans her head against his shoulder. "Are you alright?"

She nods, catching her breath from the exertion, fingers flexing and easing their hold on his frame for a fraction of a second. In truth, she's ready to collapse. She's so tired, everything feels wrong, so very wrong without her Light.

But she won't tell him that. He has enough to concern himself with - primarily staying alive and not succumbing to any injuries they've missed. Instead, she straightens up, tucking closer to his side to offer more support and guides him toward the door.

He falls silent, only the occasional grunt and huff coming from the towering Titan - the very same sounds she'd been begging for the night before. It's comforting, in a way. He's alive. He's right here. She listened to his heartbeat all night, clung to him as though he were life itself.

They'll be alright, so long as he stays alive.

The trek through the city ruins is long and feels as though it lasts an eternity. Lord Shaxx is in no condition to travel, but they don't have a choice. With the Young Wolf bracing his every step, the two Guardians' Ghosts are relegated to scouting duty. There are still Cabal patrols in the region and there is nothing stealthy about the way they're moving through the streets.

He needs to take a break, she knows that. He hasn't complained but his breathing has become increasingly labored. In all honesty, she could use a break herself, her own injuries aggravated from supporting the Titan. But they can't rest - not until they're outside the city, they'll be safe there...at least, it's what she tells herself.

So when they cross that final border, stepping through the gate of the crumbling walls, she almost smiles. They're in the clear, at least for a little while. Now, now they find somewhere to rest and she'll search for something for them to eat. She's a Hunter, after all. Scavenging for food comes with the territory.

She's jolted from her thoughts when Shaxx stumbles, lurching forward with enough force that he takes both of them down to their knees. He barely braces himself with a hand pressed firmly into earth as the other curls tightly around her pauldron.

Her knees scream in protest from the abrupt collision but she ignores it as she readjusts,  looking over to him immediately. He'd tripped over a rock in his exhaustion, she doesn't blame him in the slightest but what does concern her is the fact he hasn't spoken since they fell. She readjusts her footing, one leg poised in a tucked position against her chest to give her some semblance of stability as she gingerly removes his hand from around her shoulders.

She shifts to sit in front of him, hands cupping the sides of his helmet as she carefully tilts his head up. His chest is heaving, his arms trembling as they struggle to keep him upright.

"I'm alright, Guardian," he manages after a moment, pulling away from her touch to sit back on his heels.

He's not alright. She can see the fabric along his side slowly staining a deep shade of crimson. She needs to get him to cover so she can dress his wounds or he won't last out here. Forcing down the unsettled burn in her chest, her gaze scans the area, finally settling on a cave further into the forest and she gestures toward it.

His eyes follow the movement and clearly, he catches on. "Just a bit further?" He sounds like he's trying to make a joke, though the strain in his voice eliminates any semblance of comedy. He sounds exhausted and in agony all at once. She's never heard his voice waver and crack like it does on that last word.

Oh, Shaxx...

She offers what she can for reassurance: a solitary nod and a subtle tilt to her head. He takes a deep, wavering breath before lifting his arm and she settles at his side once more.

There's an unspoken countdown before they're struggling to their feet. She can't keep doing this. She'll let him rest in the cave for tonight.

Night.

Her eyes lift to the sky and sure enough, the sun is setting. Moving through the city must have taken longer than she thought. They made good time once they were beyond the walls but it's still later than she'd like. More miles between them and the city would be ideal but there's no chance they'll make it much further than this cave in their current state.

Shaxx needs to rest. She needs to tend to his injuries. Hell, she needs to rest, but something tells her she'll be up most the night again. Either keeping watch or ensuring her Warlord doesn't stop breathing in the middle of the night.

It's better than the alternative.

Ghaul's words still echo through her mind, taunting and shattering her dreams. She can't linger on them and yet, it's all she can do. She should have been able to stop him. Zavala's champion. Cayde's favorite Guardian. Shaxx's...well, she won't get into what she is to him. For all the good it's done her, she couldn't protect the Traveler and she couldn't protect her Titan.

As she helps him settle against the wall of the cave, she can't quite help the pang of guilt that tears through her when he growls in pain. He has an uncanny capacity for sensing her emotions as she's cone to find out. Yet, it still startles her when his hand snaps upward, bunching up the material of her cloak along her shoulder within his fist as he lifts his head.

There are no words that slip off his tongue, just a steady, even gaze through visors. She almost feels as though she's being reprimanded before she gathers her wits and gently shifts from her crouched position to kneeling beside him.

She pats his hand on her shoulder and his grip eases, frame going slack against the wall behind him. She begins to remove his chest plate, laying it aside before detaching his pauldrons. If she's going to get to his injuries, she'll have to remove the entire upper portion of his armor and he's in no condition to assist her.

"I always imagined this would occur in a far different scenario," Shaxx mumbles, "You, removing my armor." A soft, raspy laugh slips past his lips and she smiles.

She nods her agreement, gently lifting his right hand, bracing the back of the appendage against her chest plate as she works at the straps holding the gauntlet in place. It all feels...intimate, almost. The way her fingers deftly work over the leather straps, the slow removal of the gauntlet with one hand as the other brushes tenderly along his sleeve, fingertips ghosting over fabric. She can feel his eyes on her as she sets it aside, her fingers entwine with his. Her eyes fixate on the point of contact, hands locked tightly around one another and she squeezes.

"It's alright," he reassures her, squeezing her hand back. It's not nearly as tightly as he usually does, his strength waning in the late hour. It's almost enough to make her forget about the reality of this situation, but the moment is fleeting and vanishing as she realizes she needs to dress his wound sooner than later.

She releases his hand, removing the other gauntlet before helping him work his shirt up over of his head. It's slow going, gingerly working fabric over aching muscles and lacerations - the horn on his helmet is the most difficult to maneuver. It'd be easier if he just took the damned thing off. She should check to see if he has a concussion at the very least but something tells her she won't be prying that metal bucket off his head anytime soon - not out here. He used to remove it, in the Tower. When the sun had set and she's curled up in his bed, he'd press in behind her. His forehead pressed against her shoulder as he held her close against him.

It occurs to her that she hasn't seen his face beyond moonlight. The most she'd make out were the ridges of scars along his torso.

She used to spend hours tracing along the scars. It was the quickest way to fall asleep in his embrace. Sometimes she'd wonder who was more tired - at the speed Shaxx fell asleep, she often assumed it was him.

Her eyes flit along the scars littering his chest and abdomen briefly - the stories he tells her flaring in the back of her mind. Battles alongside Iron Lords, Twilight’s Gap and victories that span lifetimes. He's told her some of them, enthralled her for hours as she'd sit and stare up at him with an awestruck grin behind her helmet in the Tower. He's a good storyteller - animated and loud...she wishes she could hear that same energy now. Instead, he's struggling to remain awake.

She can't think about that right now.

Her eyes dart to the injury along his side, taking in the extent of the damage. It doesn’t appear to be infected, thankfully. She leans back on her heels before tearing off a portion of her cloak, wadding it up and pressing it against the deep laceration. Lord Shaxx jerks with a violent inhalation and she flinches. His hand grips her wrist, harsher than before as he regains his ability to breathe.

She leans her helmet against his, waiting patiently for him to settle so she can continue.  His grip on her wrist is desperate and pleading all at once. Some part of her longs to kiss him, if only to distract the Warlord from the agony singing along his nerves, through his veins. Instead, she pulls her free hand away from the makeshift bandage, resting it firmly on top of Shaxx’s curled around her wrist. His head lifts, shifting from her hand atop his to her visor. He understands all at once and his fingers ease their vice grip, allowing her to adjust the cloth against his side. She gingerly lifts his hand from  her wrist and presses it against the bandage encouragingly.

He needs to hold it in place for this to work.

“I wonder, Guardian, when you’ll just tell me what you want me to do,” he snorts softly, holding the cloth in place.

She tilts her head in an almost playful manner before tearing off another few strips of her cloak.

“I’ll be sure to get you a new one when we regain the Tower,” Shaxx manages, staring at the material in her lap.

She waves him off in an almost dismissive manner before lifting herself up onto his lap. She presses one end of the makeshift bandages to his hand and he grips it, holding it in place so she can begin to wind it around his torso. The Young Wolf has never been one to shy away from close proximity, especially not when it comes to him, but this all feels odd. It’s never this unbalanced - him, half-dressed and her, fully armored. She supposes she can add this to the list of things that feel incredibly wrong after losing her Light.

That’s the other piece she misses in this dynamic. With the Light, she can sense him, feel him through it. Without it, there’s a void that’s disquieting, gnawing and aching all at once in her chest. She can feel him - physically, but not in the same way.

Ghaul will pay for this.

By the time she’s finished patching him up,  Lord Shaxx has drifted off. She watches as his chest rises and falls, a welcome sight after last night’s...well, nightmare.  She can see the physical rise and fall of his chest and that, more than anything, soothes her nerves.

He’s alive.

They’ll be alright.

As she moves to get to her feet, his hand snaps upward, catching hold of her forearm - he was asleep, wasn’t he?

“I need you, not to fight, Guardian - I need you to stay.”

She looks from his grip on her arm to his helmet. He sounds half-coherent, barely conscious. She needs to find supplies...but she cannot refuse him - not now, not ever. So, she sinks back down onto his lap, removing her cloak and draping it over his chest, tucking the frayed edge under his chin. And then she lays her head on his shoulder, cool metal resting cautiously against marred skin. It’s only then that his grip falters and his arms wrap around her feebly.

“Get some sleep,” he coaxes softly, gloved fingers digging into the fabric around her back plates and she presses closer. He must be cold or delirious by this point, but she’ll stay, ensure he rests easily and there are no complications. Ghost will keep watch, he always keeps watch.

So as Lord Shaxx's breathing evens out and his heartbeat thrums beneath her head, the Young Wolf closes her eyes. They’ve always slept the most in one another’s embrace, she only wishes he didn’t always insist on being her bed. It’s not good for his injuries, he should - his grip tightens, his helmet lulling to lean against hers and any reprimanding fades from her mind.

I suppose it’s alright...

She’ll find what they need in the morning, he can rest. It’ll be fine. So long as he’s alive, they’ll be fine.

Sleep well, my Titan.

—————————————

Chapter 3 (Evade)

Taglists are open! Send an ask/leave a comment to be added!

Forevers: @halo-2 @reaped-winnower @genken64 @sugarcoated44 @cayde-6 Shaxx's Guardians: @ataraxia101 @squirrel-stars @rain-wolf

#lord shaxx #shaxx x guardian #destiny shaxx #shaxx #the young wolf #destiny 2 #destiny #destiny hunter #destiny 2 hunter #destiny fanfiction #destiny fic #phantom writes

[hannah-schooler]

hi hannah!! “night swimming” for the summer vibes prompts please? perhaps with some sneaky anakin and ahsoka and a very, very d o n e rex who got dragged along on one of their outrageously dumb adventures *again*??

only if you want to, of course <33

Hey Ash! Thanks so much for this prompt! I'm not saying writing this might've broken me out of my writers block, but i'm not...not saying that either.

from these prompts

Pacing the rocks, staring out at the midnight sea

Dark stretches of shadow painted the floor of the Naboo lake house as Ahsoka made her way out of the kitchen. She cradled a mug of jasmine tea gingerly in her hands as she shouldered open the large glass doors leading to the balcony.

The war might be over but the nightmares never stopped. Even here, with the steady sound of waves lapping against the lakeshore filling the air—possibly the most at peace she’d ever been—they still haunted her.

She sighed, bracing her forearms against the cool stone railing. Padme’s lake house—though Ahsoka thought it looked more like a castle than anything—was far enough away from the city that no light pollution marred her view of the stars. Years of astronav classes and the flashcards she’d memorized had her reciting the visible planets and star systems. Almost rotely, she picked them out: Geonosis, Ryloth, Eriadu, Corellia; Naboo’s three moons; the other planets of the Chommell Sector.

They were just pinpoints of light to other people, worlds that maybe their favorite food came from, or that they heard about on the holonews. But Ahsoka had a history with each one. And each memory was steeped in blood.

“You told me the nightmares had gotten better.”

Ahsoka didn’t turn at Anakin’s approach, simply continuing to stare at the spot on the horizon where dark water turned into the amorphous black of nighttime.

“You told me the same thing.” With the twins consuming nearly his every waking moment, he was usually passing out the moment they were asleep. There were few other reasons that he’d be awake too.

He came to stand by her side, glancing down at her out of the corner of his eye. “Guess we’re both liars, then.”

She huffed a laugh, putting aside her now-cold tea.

Anakin nudged her shoulder with his own, drawing her attention back to him. His long hair—now long enough to braid, much to her own enjoyment—was sticking up in random places, and she was pretty sure he’d been wearing the same shirt for three days. But there was a lightness to his eyes and a soft set to his shoulders that she had not seen in far too long. If she’d ever seen it. She liked to think that there were moments during the war when she had been able to remove the weight for just a little while with dumb jokes and pranks, but it always came back in the end.

He was carrying his trauma a lot better than she was these days.

“You wanna talk about it?”

She shook her head.

His gaze softened and he settled his arm around her shoulders, tucking her into his side. “You’re home now, Snips. Don’t forget that.”

They stood in silence for a little while, the fear and weariness leftover from her nightmare steadily leaking out of her in the face of Anakin’s all consuming warmth.

“I stayed here with Padme for a couple weeks right before the war started,” he said. When she looked up at him, he was watching the waves lap against the sandy shore. “She tried so hard to get me to go swim with her but I didn’t want to cross the sand.” He chuckled. “First and last time I ever thought I could win an argument with her. I was in the water within the hour.”

Ahsoka shook her head. “I can’t believe you used to be a bigger idiot than you are now.”

“Hey!”

The combination of his affronted expression and his bedhead had her doubling over in laughter. He looked like a startled bantha.

Suddenly an impish grin overtook his face. Then he was grabbing her wrist and dragging her behind him with what she was sure was Force-assisted effort, and heading toward the elegant stairs that led down to the water.

“Oh no, no, no, no. Skyguy, it's too cold!”

“Never thought I’d see the day when you were the one saying that instead of me.”

“That’s because we could go sunbathing on Jakku and you’d bring a blanket.”

Anakin just glared at her over his shoulder.

Well, if he was going to be like that… “Race you!”

Anakin spluttered as Ahsoka leapt down the stairs, rolling into a crouch at the bottom.

He tore after her, gaining on her with every step. Their laughter floated across the lake, and before Ahsoka could dive in, a massive wave crested, drenching her from head to toe.

She gasped at the icy shock, then turned around to see Anakin a few yards behind her with his arms still raised.

Ahsoka bared her fangs in a playful growl, and then Anakin was landing in the water with a splash. She waded in, up to her waist, waiting for him to surface. A few moments passed and he hadn’t come up. She scanned the water, but it had gone still once more, and even with her superior night vision, there was no sign of him.

“Skyguy?” she called. “Anakin?!”

Ahsoka sucked in a breath as something grabbed her around the waist, dragging her under the water.

She broke the surface, gasping for air, only to be met with Anakin’s unapologetic grin.

“You nerfherder!”

“Language, Snips.” But the reprimand was broken up by laughter. Ahsoka rolled her eyes as her own grin broke out across her face, soon turning into a full blown smile at their combined ridiculousness. She hadn’t felt this young in a long time, just playing in the water with her older brother.

Anakin had gone quiet, and when she looked over, he was treading water with a gentle expression on his face. It was the same one she saw when he was holding Leia; watching her babble incoherently up at him like he would move mountains to make her smile. Like he would for you, a voice in her head whispered. “There she is,” he murmured.

He maneuvered to float on his back, and after a moment Ahsoka joined him. She was looking at the stars again. But instead of her bloody history and the deaths that hung heavily on her heart, she just saw pinpricks of light forming a tapestry of kyber across the sky. Worlds full of people who were hurting just like she was, and healing all the same.

“It still hurts,” she mumbled.

“I know,” Anakin replied. Soft ripples bumped against her from the steady movement of his arms. “I think it maybe always will. But I promise you Ahsoka, I’m always going to be here for you when it gets hard.”

She smiled back at him, pushing her gratitude across their bond. “Same here, Master.”

“Do I even want to know what you two are doing?”

Pushing herself upright, Ahsoka saw Rex standing at the edge of the lake. He was shirtless, with a towel thrown over his shoulder and a bottle of water in his hand. Probably ready for a morning run. There was no telling what time it was, but the sky was beginning to lighten. They had yet to break Rex of the soldier’s habit of waking before dawn.

Ahsoka slid her eyes to Anakin at her side, her sly, mischievous gaze mirrored in his own blue eyes.

In sync, they raised their hands. Their poor Captain had no time to react before he was being flung high through the air and landing in the lake.

They dissolved into giggling fits even before Rex came up, face red. “How many times do I have to tell you to stop throwing me?!”

A couple hours later they had dragged themselves up onto the beach, the Force glowing in contentment around them. Even Anakin didn’t complain about the grains of sand sticking to their wet skin.

Ahsoka leaned against Anakin’s shoulder, prompting him to rest his head on top of hers. She wrapped an arm around Rex, giving him a squeeze.

The three of them, relics of an unjust war and carriers of history, sat on that beach and watched the sun rise on a new day. So many laid out in front of them, offering hope. Offering peace. Ahsoka let the feeling fill her and carry the nightmares away.

#writing prompts #summer fluff #snips and skyguy #captain rex #anakin skywalker #ahsoka tano #night swimming #fanfic asks #fanfic #my writing

[forasecondtherewedwon]

Never a Gull Moment

Fandom: The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Pairing: Sam Wilson/Bucky Barnes Rating: T Word Count: 3523

For @yavannie, who wanted Sam to either gain new powers or carry Bucky through the air. Spoiler, I went with both. Hope you enjoy!

Summary: Sam’s had an intense first week as Captain America. The perfect opportunity for a break arises when Joaquín contacts him, offering new programming for his suit. All he needs to test the tech are the beach, birds, and one uncooperative bonehead Sam didn’t manage to leave behind in New York.

If there’s one skill Sam’s hoping to adopt from his predecessor—Steve, not Walker (sweet Jesus, not Walker)—it’s the ability to end a conversation with a humble handwave before it can even begin. Steve always had that in the bag. Leading with the wrist in a flick of the hand that came across as both sheepish and respectful. Like he’d love to stop and talk with that fan or this journalist but he was just too busy. And not rude busy, busy with a quiet nobility. Anyway, it all came across in the wave.

Sam hasn’t nailed the wave.

Four days after the GRC vote-that-wasn’t, he’s still in New York, bouncing between TV appearances; everybody wants a piece of the new Cap. Sam wishes they asked a little more about his opinions on compassion for the displaced, as well as those who survived the Snap to form new, functional communities, and less about the look of his new suit, but isn’t it always a battle between style and substance? At least people are listening. To everything except the look Sam knows he has in his eyes, the one that says this debut has been a lot and he’s longing for home.

He knows he has to nail this aspect of being Captain America too. Unfortunately, chuckling amiably with morning show hosts isn’t doing a hell of a lot to distract him from what it took to get him here. There are seconds where his attention wavers—he’ll be nodding along to whatever someone’s saying, or letting his gaze follow a bike courier down the street instead of staying trained on the camera the roving reporter has set up on the sidewalk—and that’s when Karli hurtles into his mind. He feels her desperate blows vibrating the shield, the weight of her body in his arms, in her death.

He can’t keep sitting behind desks or posing impressively and trying to answer the hard questions (on the rare occasion they’re asked) after he’s told people he’s not the expert. When Torres calls up, it’s the close-enough-to-official reason Sam’s been waiting for to step back and do something that actually feels useful.

Bucky, who’s been skulking behind the scenes, somehow never pulled into interviews (if he knows the deferring wave and he’s been doing it just outside Sam’s sightline all week, Sam’s gonna kill him), sticks with him. They head south to meet Torres, and at least that feels like the right direction. Homeward bound. Of course, they stop a handful of states before Louisiana and hug the east coast, but it’s an improvement. They meet Torres at… the beach.

He’s got his foot propped in the open doorframe of a Humvee, giving Sam and Bucky a big, eager, whole-arm wave as they pull up. Not like they’re gonna miss him; Torres is in the only vehicle parked halfway down an unpaved road. Sand dunes climb steep and high just feet from his front bumper, an informal path cutting between the dunes and leading to the water, though Sam can’t see that from this vantage.

Torres’s hand is somehow already grasping Sam’s in a pumping, congratulatory shake before he’s fully out of the car. Sam hears Bucky’s soft snort of suppressed laughter and shoots him a look across the seats. Bucky raises his palms, but Sam spots his smirk before they’re both slamming their doors and stretching their legs after the drive.

“Traffic?” Torres asks brightly.

“Nah,” Bucky answers, coming around the back of their ride. “Sam just drives slower than my grandmother and she—”

“Died on the Titanic?” Sam guesses dryly.

Bucky’s flat stare could be saying a lot of things, or nothing. Sam feels as if he’s been a student of the language of Bucky’s stare for a while now, but his comprehension is still rudimentary. Pop that asshole in a sanctuary for rehabilitated brain-washees, have somebody study his behaviour like Jane Goodall studies chimpanzees, and they might get some answers. The idea starts as something funny Sam almost shares, but then he imagines handfeeding Bucky a banana and it gets weird. He keeps his mouth shut.

“Or she got the cryo treatment too and she’s kickin’ around someplace, speakin’ Russian and makin’ headshots.”

“Come on, man, Hydra jokes about your own grandmother?” Sam scoffs. “That’s not even a little bit funny.”

Torres’s expression is like a kid watching a wrestling match on TV—awed, alarmed, reluctant to question what’s real because he’s just enjoying the show.

Bucky cracks a slow smile and Sam rolls his eyes, slapping Torres’s shoulder to get him to head towards the Humvee and the reason they’re here.

“Nana woulda thought it was funny,” Bucky assures them.

“Nana?”

“Lemme guess… You called your aunt ‘TT,’ so your grandmother’s probably… ‘GG,’ am I right?”

Sam glares at him (because his guess is correct and he’s a pain in the ass) and turns fully to Torres as he opens the back, revealing a large case.

“You were vague on the phone,” Sam recalls, watching Torres tug the case close before undoing the clasps. Bucky leans against the vehicle as he observes, dark pants picking up a swipe of road dust from the dirty taillight. “Something about an update for the suit?”

“Right,” Torres agrees.

He throws the case open to reveal the wings Sam gifted him. They’ve been repaired and Sam automatically strokes a hand over the gleaming, extended metal. If Torres did this himself, he sure worked fast.

“That duffle bag wasn’t good enough for you?” Sam asks jokingly, remembering his gear broken and jumbled, fit to be dragged out with the trash.

“They’re kind my prized possession,” Torres admits. “I thought they deserved to be kept nice.”

“You might even wanna put ’em on sometime.”

“I’m working up to that.” Torres laughs. “I wanted to make sure they were in working order before I jumped off a building.”

“Or out of the back of a plane without a parachute, right, Buck?” Sam asks, smacking the back of his hand into Bucky’s chest.

“I was fine,” Bucky insists.

“Sure you were. We can watch the footage again. I’m up for that.”

“Just let the man finish.”

Torres grants Bucky a wide smile in thanks.

“Yeah,” he picks up, “so I was fixing them, working on the wiring, and when I got the electronics running smoothly again, I started thinking about Redwing—”

“May he rest in pieces,” Bucky contributes.

“Uncalled for,” Sam complains.

“I replaced it, didn’t I?”

“The Wakandans replaced it.”

“As a favour to me.”

Torres’s gaze dances between them until Sam motions for him to continue.

“About Redwing,” Torres goes on enthusiastically. “The sophistication of the relationship between you, how intuitive the tech was. How Redwing understood not just simply-stated commands, but a more conversational approach, interpreting your intentions.”

“Finally, a little Redwing appreciation,” Sam says. He crosses his arms and gives Bucky a meaningful look.

“But what if it was a real bird?” Torres blurts.

Most of a minute passes as Sam stares at Torres’s excited expression.

“I think I might get where Torres is going with this,” Bucky says.

Sam holds up a hand to pause him. He could make a guess at it too, but there’s no need for that. They have the source of whatever alterations have been made right here.

“In your own words, Joaquín,” Sam encourages.

“Well,” he begins, one palm braced in the bed of the Humvee as he leans over the case with unconscious protectiveness, “you know I’ve kinda been itching to get my hands on the wings for a long time.”

“Yeah.” Sam laughs, remembering having to practically slap Torres’s hands away from the jetpack in Tunisia.

“Since you gave them to me a couple weeks ago, I’ve been tinkering, like I said, and I had this idea. Now,” he warns, raising both hands in caution, “this might be either really obvious or really disrespectful to the whole concept of the Falcon, but I started wondering if it’d be possible for the person wearing the wings to talk to nearby birds. Use them like a resource, like with Redwing.”

“Black Panther dresses like a cat with Vibranium claws.”

“Spider-Man has webs,” Bucky adds.

“Right,” Sam agrees, nodding to him before looking back to Torres. “I don’t think it’s disrespectful to lean into the gimmick if it’s amplifying your abilities.”

“Awesome,” Torres pronounces.

“I assume you went further than just wondering about it?”

Torres gives them a modest shrug.

“I know a guy who knows an ornithologist.”

“Bird scientist,” Bucky translates.

Turning his head, Sam glances at Bucky with a no shit look.

“Thanks,” he says insincerely.

“You’re welcome.”

“Long story short,” Torres pipes up, “she got me access to a catalogue of bird calls and the scientific consensus on what they all mean. I patched that info into the suit and, hopefully, it’s something that could be used, uh, on the fly. Sorry, I was trying to think of another way to say that.”

“So my suit would be able to communicate with birds?” Sam checks. “Automatically?”

“Yeah, it would assess your surroundings the same way Redwing does already, but scanning for birds, identifying what kind they are, and having the interpretation of their calls at the ready if needed.”

“What sort of information would I be gaining with this tech?”

“Stuff like… are they feeling threatened or disturbed? Does something feel off about their environment that has something to do with somebody you’re maybe chasing?”

“Mating rituals,” Bucky says.

“How is being able to recognize mating rituals going to help me?” Sam demands.

“You never know.”

“You brought your suit, right?” Torres wants to know. Apparently, he’s not going to bother engaging with Bucky’s nonsense. “It won’t take long for me to install the new software.”

“It’s in the back,” Sam assures him, jerking a thumb towards the other vehicle.

“Great!”

“But just the bird calls. This suit is brand new. No tinkering.”

“No tinkering,” Torres swears.

He sets up his impromptu workshop in the back seat, next to the suit. Sam has to admit to himself that Torres’s reverential expression as he handles the Captain America suit is pretty flattering. He watches the progress until Torres sits back, stating it’ll just be a few minutes for the new programming to be assimilated.

“Why the beach?” Sam asks while they wait.

“I was inspired by some shaky, far-away footage of you in New York. You did, uh, kind of a nosedive into the river there, so I thought maybe you’d be interested in testing your suit’s maneuverability in water at the same time as we did a trial with the bird calls.”

“Are we running a drill or something?” Bucky wonders.

“That’s a good idea,” Torres says immediately. “A scenario to use both the calls and the water.”

“You got something in mind?”

Sam isn’t the one who asks because he can see from Torres’s face that he does. Fortunately, he is the one who gets to laugh when the Lieutenant squints consideringly at Bucky and asks, “How long can you hold your breath?”

—

The last Sam sees of Bucky, he’s taking off his shirt.

“Oh, entire jacket this time?” Torres asked when Bucky took that off first.

After that, it was his shoes and socks, then his t-shirt, and this whole Bucky stripping thing isn’t so much a last look as something that Sam has to stand there witnessing for a while. He’s already in the Cap suit and, seriously, Bucky could’ve changed at the same time. Then, he would’ve been ready to go without making Sam and Torres wait around. But Sam wouldn’t have gotten to see him undress.

“Hurry it up, man.” His voice is a little off because, at the same time, he’s thinking, Please don’t take your pants off.

“If you’re making me play a drowning victim, I can at least not be getting weighed down,” Bucky argues. “This is to help you, right? Quit complaining.”

Finally, he stalks away, mounting the dune in black jeans and a half-assed scowl and disappearing over the top. The plan is for him to swim out, then duck under the water when Torres tells him to (the guy’s brought along waterproof earpieces for the purpose). Next, Sam will fly up and search for the ‘victim,’ relying solely on input from the seagulls wheeling lazily overhead. It’s a good exercise Torres has cooked up.

Sam hands the shield off to Torres for safekeeping before the Lieutenant heads to the beach. The shield won’t be necessary for this and there’s no way in hell Sam’s leaving it in the car. Besides, it’s kinda funny how wide Torres’s eyes go when Sam offers it up. Even bigger reaction than leaving him the wings, though this he doesn’t get to keep.

“On my signal,” Torres restates.

Sam gives him a sharp nod.

Once he’s alone, he paces between the vehicles, eager to kick off the ground. He hasn’t had an opportunity to just enjoy himself in the new suit yet. Leading up to the confrontation with the Flag-Smashers (and Georges Batroc, that fists-of-steel bastard), he was in training mode, focused and determined. In the media-heavy days that followed, he conceded to a few stunts for the camera. Those hadn’t been purely fun though; they were actually something Sam had to think quick and hard about, ultimately deciding that it wasn’t just performing on command but rather giving the public a lighthearted look at their new Captain America. Testing new tech with Bucky, Torres, and a bunch of seagulls? That seems like it’ll actually be a good time.

The instant Torres’s voice in Sam’s ear says, “Bucky’s under,” he unfurls the wings and sails up over the crest of the dune.

It’s not the warmest day and the greenish-blue water’s choppy near the shore, but there is a surprising smattering of people along a quarter mile of beach. Must be locals, Sam guesses, trekking down to the water from nearby houses. That would explain the lack of other cars where he parked. The people aren’t that close or that bothered by his sudden appearance overhead. Startled, sure, but after they’ve identified him (he sees a few hands lifted to foreheads to block out the sun so they can get a good look), he gets to return a couple big waves. Besides that, nobody’s getting to their feet to pound sand and swarm Torres, who’s conspicuously there with Sam—he is holding the shield, after all. Pretty typical. The bigger the crowd, the greater the chance of people scrambling for his attention and/or whipping out their phones to film him. This group seems satisfied with watching Captain America hanging out at their beach on his downtime and Sam appreciates them for that.

“No scanning the water,” Torres says in his ear. Sam laughs.

“I’m not, just assessing our audience here.”

“Is this a bad spot? I didn’t think anybody’d be around when I sent you my location, but—”

“It’s fine. Don’t worry. Did anybody ask you what was up when Bucky waded out into the water?”

“Nah. If they were wondering, they probably aren’t anymore.”

“Glad I won’t have to compete with a lifeguard to rescue him,” Sam jokes.

He hears Torres’s short laugh of agreement before focusing. Not on the water at all, but the birds. Those down on the sand are squawking for food, comfortable enough with these people to complain loudly in the hopes of being fed.

Sam’s sudden swoops scatter the gulls in the air, so he tries easier circles, mimicking their movements to hover high above the beach. Soon enough—these guys either have bad short-term memories or no patience—they start communicating with each other. The new programming Torres has uploaded to his suit signals to Sam that the birds are aware of a disturbance in the water. He gets a target on his goggles’ imaging and dives.

Sucking in a deep breath, Sam crashes into the murky water no more than a hundred yards out. The drop-off is dramatic enough for him to not complete a faceplant into a shallow bottom. Bucky’s treading water a couple body-lengths down, but he wrecks his form to offer Sam a raised middle finger in greeting. Sam’s wings retract as he grabs Bucky’s wrist to haul him to the surface.

They breathe, bobbing in place.

“Thought you’d be faster,” Bucky says.

“You didn’t drown, did you?” Sam points out. “Come on.”

He catches hold of Bucky’s hand and shoots out of the water, wings opening in the air to carry him once the thruster’s done its work. But Bucky squirms below him, their wet grip twisting precariously. Water runs from his sopping jeans.

“What the hell are you doing?” Sam asks.

“I don’t want to be carried to shore!”

“Why?”

“Because dangling this high above the ground feels a little weird to me! Not all of us do this every day!”

“I guess we could run the exercise again.”

“Fine. Let’s do that. Just drop me.”

Sam rewards Bucky’s melodrama by abruptly releasing his grip. Hey, that’s what the idiot asked for, and if he can fall out of a plane to the forest floor, he can plunge into water. It’s not like Sam’s up at aircraft cruising altitude, just high enough to make Torres look like a little action figure army man, standing on the sand in his fatigues.

“Running it again?” Torres wants to know.

“Yep,” Sam tells him, accelerating away from the shore. “Just giving that dumbass time to swim to a new spot.”

“Even though he can’t reply while he’s underwater… you know he can hear you in the comms, right?”

“Oh yeah.”

When Torres lets him know that Bucky’s gone under a second time, they start the drill again. Once more, Sam does a gliding approach to the seagulls. Once more, they go quiet before filling the air with their screaming, overlapping calls. Once more, Sam finds Bucky. He knows he’s quicker this time, so he’s expecting an acknowledgement of that when he contracts the wings, straightens his body, and plummets into the water feetfirst next to where Bucky’s floating below the surface.

Instead of an appreciative nod, an outstretched hand, or even a thumbs up, Bucky darts away from him. Is he trying not to get rescued? Now he’s just fucking up the exercise. Only, Sam can’t even berate him, because he’s still under too, holding his breath as he swims after Bucky. He uses the jetpack for assistance, but Bucky’s a fast swimmer, legs kicking just ahead of Sam. Goddamn human shark.

Because he is not an idiot, Sam surfaces to catch his breath, leaving Bucky somewhere below.

“There a problem?” Torres asks.

“Only with Bucky’s idea of teamwork.”

“Get him like a bird would!”

“Is that a real suggestion?” Sam asks, rising and falling as a small wave swells under him, rolling towards the shore.

“Really, Sam! You know, like how birds hunt fish.” Back on the beach, he makes a sharp, downward gesture with his arm that has Sam chuckling. He gets what Torres means though.

“Alright.”

Sam goes from water to air, then, alerted by a trio of seagulls taking annoyed flight from the surface of the water, goes into a steep dive. Nabbing the swimmer from above is the trick, he learns, when the swimmer is being intentionally uncooperative with the rescue attempt. Bucky might be quick when he knows Sam’s behind him, but when he drops down on him, there’s nowhere Bucky can go. Sam wraps his arms around Bucky’s bare chest from behind and lugs him up for air.

The first thing Bucky says is, “You took even longer that time.”

Frustrated, Sam splashes the back of his head, but when Bucky strokes his arms out, rotating to face him, he’s smiling.

“You messed it up,” Sam accuses. He rubs a hand across his goggles to smear the water droplets off.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t have fun.”

Sam narrows his eyes before a laugh bursts out of him. He can’t help it; it’s the pressure he’s been under, so much internal conflict, suddenly drawn out with the current. Yeah, Bucky was slightly uncooperative, but that’s nothing unusual. Swimming ahead like he was going for a gold medal or forcing Sam to plunge deep after him, the two of them suspended like the goddamn Shape of Water before Sam towed him to the surface—either way, Bucky definitely gave him distinct scenarios to work with. Sam can’t say he doesn’t feel more comfortable now that he’s had some practice. More comfortable with his wings in the water, with working with his feathered allies. With Bucky.

“Still don’t want a lift?” Sam checks.

Bucky’s expression hardens and Sam backs off with a laugh.

“See you on the shore,” Bucky states firmly.

“Alright. Get doggy-paddlin’, White Wolf.”

Sam feels Bucky’s hand shoot out to seize his ankle in retaliation as he launches out of the water, but he’s too slow. Sam’s wings fan wide as he flies up, up, up with the birds.

#my writing #tfatws #The Falcon and the Winter Soldier #CAPTAIN AMERICA AND THE WINTER SOLDIER #Sam Wilson #Bucky Barnes #Joaquin Torres #sambucky #Sam Wilson x Bucky Barnes

[zigtheeortega]

if we meet again

[part one of the again series]

pairing | bryce x mc

word count | 10k

warnings | mentions of sex, innuendos, drinking.

tags | @raleighcarrera, @pixeljazzy, @dakotawinchester, @writinghereandthere, @pixelsandkink, @masquerade-reimagined, @choicesarehard, @nerdferatum, @bobbymckenzie, @agentdumortain, @bryceslahela, @lahellacute, @violinet, @zigsnose, @adamdusmortain, @drsobemoji, @choeries, @houserosario, @plasticdodecagon, @noimarocketman (tagged sideblogs instead of main blogs!)

author’s note | so i recently finished the before trilogy of films, and i really wanted to write something based off of it but in a way that would better encapsulate bryce and my mc spencer! part one consists of years 1 - 4, taking place through their undergrad years at university. this is gonna be a bit of a journey so buckle up! 

read on ao3! [disclaimer: ao3 version has smut included, not separate.]

•─────────────────•

year one

The ride from the airport to her parents’ home was long and grueling, the slushy ice pelting the windshield barely passing for snow.

It was practically sub-zero outside, a stark difference between the mid seventies weather she’d just left.

Boarding a plane wearing a tank top and layering as she stepped off was a weird experience to say the least. It was like stepping into another world.

The cookie cutter suburbs were nauseatingly bland. Was this really what her parents wanted?

Sure, they were the typical awestruck immigrant family who were obsessed with the American experience, but to be wholly consumed by it? God she never wanted a roundtrip date to come so fast in her life.

They’d closed on the house faster than she could complain about it, but she couldn’t have done much anyways. They’d packed the house up right before she left for her freshman year of college, so the decision didn’t affect her too much.

The slush came down harder, sounding nearly like hail on the roof of her taxi.

She glanced down at her dirty tennis shoes and grimaced – she dreaded having to lug her suitcase from the taxi to her front door.

When it screeched to a stop, she handed the driver a couple bills (leaving a hefty tip, because hey, it was the holidays) and retrieved her things from the trunk.

Backpack slung over one shoulder, suitcase gripped in her right hand, she braced the freezing wet rain.

The walk from the mailbox to the front door was way longer than she remembered. About halfway up the short stairs, she made a crucial mistake. The ball of her foot caught a patch of ice and she tumbled to the ground.

“Ah, fuck,” she grumbled, twisting her body so she was sitting on the stairs. The rain seeped through her jeans, freezing her ass and thighs.

“Hey, miss, you okay?” A voice called from across the lawn.

Her loose hoodie obstructed her vision, so she couldn’t see the man, but she heard his shoes squelch across the grass as he jogged towards her.

“Here, lemme take that,” he said, grabbing her backpack and suitcase before helping her up with his free hand.

She tossed her hood back to catch a glimpse of the kind stranger, and her breath hitched in her throat at the sight of the handsome boy in front of her.

A single dimple appeared on one of his flushed cheeks as he flashed a grin at her, his hair damp from the falling rain. “You good?” He asked again, brown eyes searching hers.

“Uh, yeah, I’m alright. Thanks for coming to help me up,” she said, a smile tugging at her lips.

“I’ll help you to the front door. This is your house, right? I’m not aiding and abetting a burglar?” He teased, turning to walk towards her door.

“No, no. My parents live here,” she said, pointing at the house.

“And you don’t?”

“Technically yeah, in between semesters,” she said, shrugging. “Just took my last final this morning.”

“Oh, cool, me too. I made it in a couple hours ago,” he said, gesturing to the house to the left of theirs.

“So, our parents are neighbors?”

He grinned. “You sound disappointed.”

She shook her head, shoving her hands in her pockets. “No, it’s nice to know someone my age around here. They moved into this house right as I was moving into my dorm, so I didn’t get a chance to get to know anyone.”

“I guarantee my parents were the one to sell you this house,” he said, handing her the backpack and rolling her the suitcase.

“Your parents are realtors? That’s cool,” she said, nodding. “They must be great at their jobs if they convinced them to buy the house so fast.”

He laughed, eyes crinkling at the edges, his irresistible dimple popping up again. “I don’t know shit about the housing market, stranger.”

She couldn’t hold her giggle back. His laugh was infectious. “I’m the stranger? You ran up to me first.”

“Yeah, but I landed first, so I deem you the stranger,” he said, gently poking her arm. “So, stranger, do you have a name?”

“Spencer Matsuzaki,” she said, holding a hand out, half of her palm covered with the damp wrist of her hoodie.

“Bryce Lahela. Nice to meet you, stranger.”

––––

The first night home wasn’t terrible. She was practically interrogated, though.

She zoned out, slipping into the same routine she always did when she was bombarded with questions about school.

She had to stay neutral and cordial while explaining aspects of her life in grave detail on top of leaving out tons of information for her parents' health. Her parents would go into cardiac arrest if they knew how much she’d drank that semester.

After dinner, she retreated into her room for the night, grimacing at the catalogue-esque decor. Her parents really leaned into the middle class american aesthetic, and she wasn’t fond of it.

She missed living in the city. Their apartment overlooked her favorite movie theater, favorite coffee shop, and the playground of her old elementary school a couple streets over.

She missed being within walking distance of places that harbored her favorite memories. And from her new window, her view was nothing more than the house across the street and a few scattered bare trees.

The only thing she enjoyed about her new house was the balcony in front of her window, just large enough for her to sit comfortably with another person. Not like that was happening anytime soon, though.

She tugged the blanket around her shoulders, trying to fight off the biting cold. She tightened the drawstrings of her hoodie, shielding her headphones from the wind so she could hear her music clearly.

Her thoughts wandered to the boy next door.

Bryce Lahela. Beautiful face, beautiful name.

She couldn’t really put a finger on it, but something about him was so familiar. Like she’d known him for lifetimes already.

God, she admired people with that quality – being able to make someone so comfortable the minute you meet them that they just slip into whatever void you’d needed filling.

Potentially a dangerous quality, but Spencer didn’t let herself think about that possibility.

The snow had let up, the freezing temperature preserving what’d already fallen. She allowed herself a glance over at the Lahela residence, half hoping she’d find him outside.

Thankfully enough, he was exiting the front door with a wide shovel in hand, bundled up properly, unlike when they’d met a couple hours before.

She watched him as he easily shoveled the muddy sludge off of the walkways. It was just quiet enough that she could hear his soft grunts with effort at the initial plunge of the shovel into the snow.

She didn’t mean to stare. But what else was there to watch? The road was quiet, bare, like a car passing by too loudly would break the suburbian immersion.

After he’d shoveled the first pathway leading up to the house, he moved to the driveway – not before he ripped the beanie off of his head, shaking out his golden strands.

She watched unabashedly, trying to figure out how the hell a gorgeous surfer bro straight out of a Hollister ad was living next door.

He squinted in her general direction, throwing up a gloved hand to cover his eyes. A grin spread quickly, and he tossed the shovel to the ground with the other hand, using it to wave.

“Hey, stranger!” He called.

She ducked down, trying to hide her blushing cheeks as his laugh rang out, disrupting the silence.

–––

Ten pages from the end of her crime novel, right before they revealed the killer, a heavy handed knock caused Spencer to jolt nearly a foot into the air from her sitting position on the couch.

She picked up the book that morning, trying to do something productive that’d double as an excuse to get out of conversing with her parents. Eight hours later, give or take, and they’d barely bugged her for meals, let alone awkward small talk.

Shuffling to the door in her pajama pants, she yawned as she yanked the door open, expecting to see a mailman or something of that nature.

Bryce stood there instead, flirty smile and all, dimple pronounced like the cherry on top of his overwhelming attractiveness.

“Am I boring you already? Sheesh,” he teased, shoving his hands in his pockets.

She cut her yawn off, squeezing her eyes shut. “Sorry, I –” She cut herself off with yet another yawn, shaking her head. “Uh, sorry. I know that was probably super ugly.”

He shrugged. “I thought it was cute.”

She tugged her arms around herself, the tank top doing virtually nothing to shield her from the cold. “So… What’s up?”

He grinned, digging in his pocket. “I’m glad you asked.”

He whipped out two tickets, handing them to her. “Light show. You and me. Now.”

“Now?” She asked, eyebrows shooting up to her hairline.

“Yeah, now. What about it?”

She gestured to her outfit. “I’m not dressed.”

“So? Get dressed,” he shrugged again.

She rolled her eyes. “You really think my parents will let me out this late? I came back to a curfew, you know.”

“Oh. We can work around that.”

“How?” She was genuinely baffled by this guy’s confidence.

“Sneak out.”

“Did you… Did you just skip over the part where I hinted at how strict my parents are?”

He shrugged, again. “Worst case scenario, they ground you for the rest of the break. Then you go back to college in a couple weeks, and they can’t boss you around there, so what are you really risking?”

She chewed her lip, contemplating. “I mean, I can’t argue with you on that one.”

“So you’ll come?”

“Yeah. You’re lucky my parents aren’t home right now,” she said, jabbing an accusatory finger at him.

“Like they could resist this face.”

––––

Downtown – or what she presumed was downtown – was overtaken by lights, the edges of the area blocked off, vendors lined up in parking spaces, nets of overhead lights illuminating the huge displays below.

They’d been walking in silence for a while, just soaking it in and basking in the holiday spirit.

Despite her disdain for the town, Spencer loved the way they celebrated the holidays.

“Hey, I’ll be right back,” Bryce said a bit suddenly, running off before she had a chance to respond.

“Oh… kay,” Spencer murmured, watching him disappear into the crowd. She tugged at her beanie, raking shaky fingers through her hair.

Bryce was… unwavering. He had such a strong personality and a knack for flirting without meaning to.

To put it in its simplest terms, he made her nervous. Really nervous.

It was like the minute he left her immersion was broken and she realized just how hot he was and that she should be nervous.

Her eyes wandered, trying to alleviate some of her apprehension. She hadn’t been to a community-unifying event like that one before, so watching the families and children prance through the snow was enough to fulfill the soft spot in her heart only classic Christmas movies could fill.

“Here,” Bryce huffed from behind her, breaking her concentration.

She turned at the sound of his voice, flinching when she realized how close he was to her, disposable coffee cup in hand, steam slithering out of the small hole in the lid.

“What’s that?”

“Hot chocolate. I figured you’d want something to warm you up,” he smiled, lifting one shoulder in a lazy shrug.

“Oh, this is perfect,” she said graciously, taking the cup from his hands, warming both by the way their fingers brushed each others’ and the heat from the drink. “Thank you.”

“Ah, no need to thank me. It’s the least I could do after dragging you out here,” he said a bit sheepishly, kicking the toe of his boot into the snow.

“You didn’t drag me out anywhere. You were convincing,” she laughed, taking a small sip of the hot chocolate, revelling in the way it warmed her from the inside out. “Maybe a bit too convincing.”

“I don’t need to know how powerful I am or I’ll let it go to my head,” he winked. “How is it?”

“Delicious.”

He nodded. “Perfect.”

She sipped on her drink in silence for a while, racking her brain to come up with conversation topics.

They’d really only spoken in passing, so what the fuck were they supposed to talk about?

“So… you want to ride the train?” He asked, pointing at the train riding through the town square.

Within minutes they were seated on the train in the caboose – the very last seat. Families were spread out through the first couple cars, then onto couples.

They probably didn’t want toddlers watching high school aged kids swapping spit, so they sent them to the back.

That notion made Spencer nervous. Was she on a date? He hadn’t really specified – hell, he was barely giving her details about where they were going before dragging her out of her house.

The train began to move, slowly riding through the square, the families in the front chatting and the children giggling and waving at the passing patrons.

She chatted with Bryce about nothing in particular, just kind of getting to know each other. She found out he loved baseball, hated night classes, and was a huge fan of pineapple – he could smell it in her shampoo.

She’d just begun to relax before noticing the young couple in front of her lean in for a kiss that turned a bit heated. Her hands were clasped in her lap to keep them from trembling, her breath just as shaky.

A warm arm grazed her shoulders, his arm resting on the top of the seat. There wasn’t any pressure for her to do anything with him. But she kind of wanted to.

She mustered up the courage to flick her gaze in his direction, settling on his soft, pleasant smile, seemingly permanent on Bryce’s features.

“Is this a date?” She blurted, cursing herself immediately.

He didn’t seem phased.

“If you want it to be.”

She definitely did.

––––

The walk to her front door was long, even longer than when she was on her own lugging her belongings through the icy slush.

“I had a really nice time, Bryce,” she said, ambling up the last couple steps.

“Me, too. I’m glad I bought an extra ticket yesterday,” he grinned.

She raised a brow at him, prompting him to continue.

“After I helped you inside I immediately left to go get tickets,” he said bashfully. His cheeks were flushed – from the cold or the admission, she had no idea.

“So you’d had this date planned for a whole day?” She asked, a bit taken aback. He’d definitely painted it out to be a spur of the moment thing, no premeditation in sight.

“So it was a date,” he teased, dimple even more prominent as he spoke.

She scrunched her lips to the side to hide her own smile. “Yeah, I think it was.”

“Can I kiss you?”

She made the grave mistake of breaking eye contact, her gaze darting from his mouth back to his eyes. He closed the gap between them in one step.

“I can’t kiss you in front of my house. My parents could see,” she whispered as his gloved hand flicked her messy strands away from her cheeks.

“You wanna save this for another time?” Her heart couldn’t help but race at his playful tone.

She nodded.

“How long are you gonna be here for break?” He asked. “I wanna see you again.”

“I’ll be here through the week.”

“Good. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He pulled her into a hug, warm and enveloping despite the cold. “Goodnight, Spencer. Sweet dreams.”

She was so comfortable, so safe in his grip that when she felt him loosen it, she squeezed him tighter without really meaning to.

It was scary how quickly she’d grown attached to a complete stranger.

“‘Night,” she waved, eyes still trained on him as she closed the door.

––––

It took her way too long to fall asleep that night.

His last question and her agreeance to the terms ran through her head on loop.

She was anticipating what he was going to do next. Excited to see how the rest of her break would look like.

After a restless night, she awoke pretty early, lounging around in bed for way too long, aimlessly scrolling through social media.

A day ago, she’d have been jealous of her friends vacationing at the beach, but… she wasn’t as upset at the idea of being home for break.

She stood up, stretching and popping her limbs, grabbing a hoodie from her luggage to throw on.

As she did, something caught her attention, just at the edge of her peripheral – a folded slip of paper in her window sill.

She grabbed it, unravelling the damp paper, trying to decipher the bleeding ink.

“Had to leave earlier than I thought. Sorry. Not sure when I’ll see you again, so here’s my number.”

The paper had been covered in water for a long while, so long that the number at the bottom was smudged, the hardest to read out of the whole message. She could barely make out the area code, let alone the rest of it.

She crumpled it up and threw it in the trash, deciding she could just head over and ask his parents for his number instead if he’d left for school.

After trudging across the lawn through the snow, she noticed something was a bit off, but decided to push the feeling down and ring the doorbell.

She peered through the glass of their front door, realizing that the lights were off, clothes and boxes and bags strewn across the foyer.

No one was home.

––––

year two

The moment the taxi pulled to a stop in front of her house, her eyes searched the front lawn of the house next door.

The familiar sensation of disappointment lingered, despite her constant chastising to not get her hopes up.

She sat on her balcony for a couple hours a day, the space heater on full blast at her feet, trying not to look desperate as her eyes flickered to and from Bryce’s house.

But no one entered or exited the house all break.

––––

year three

He stared down the bottom of the glass, eyes trained on the milky film the eggnog left behind, the spiced rum shots he’d taken warming his limbs.

The trial had been grueling.

No one could’ve prepared him for the way the legal system chewed him up and spat him out each time he entered the courtroom and sat on the opposite side of the room, avoiding his parents’ cold glares.

He shouldn’t have had to testify against them in the first place, but who else were they going to call to the stand? Keiki? She could barely write her own name, let alone understand her rights.

And she shouldn’t have to see her parents – hell, her whole family – being scrutinized and ripped apart, televised for anyone within a thousand mile radius.

He didn’t know that this town was their escape.

If someone would’ve told him two years ago that his first Christmas in college would’ve left him in shambles, his entire world upturned, he wouldn’t have believed them.

Thank god it was one of the only properties they owned that was untouched by their blood money.

Word had spread to his university students, causing him to have to go into hiding. Did all his work from home, got special permission from the chancellor to move his courses online.

He was forced to stay in Hawaii, juggling court and school on top of the press and the general stress of life – he’d been on autopilot since his parents woke him up in the middle of the night to fly back home.

The moment he finished his finals that semester, he boarded the plane without a second thought.

He needed an escape. 

Despite the whirlwind, she was on the back of his mind through it all.

Anytime his life got a little too difficult, his mind roamed to the last time he felt normal – the last 48 hours before everything went to shit.

When he’d touched down he’d entered the empty, dusty house, throwing his things down and trudging next door.

The heavy raps of his knuckles against the wooden door were the only display of confidence he could muster.

Is Spencer here? He asked.

She’s in Europe for break.

Europe.

Of all the places she had to be during the holidays, it had to be across the world.

So he found himself at the bar, a newly 21 year old downing holiday drinks as fast as the bartender could make them.

She’d probably forgotten about him. It’s best he moved on anyways.

––––

year four

Graduation was so close she could taste it.

Yeah, she was drowning in med school applications and coming down from her post MCAT high, but her degree was peeking over the horizon, just within her reach.

She could only afford to visit home for a couple days before she had to roadtrip to a couple med schools to tour and interview.

She’d grown into herself the past three years, gaining confidence she didn’t know she had in her. Countless haircuts, style changes, shifts in interest – anytime she was uncomfortable she reinvented herself. It was freeing as hell.

So… going home was weird. Like she was regressing. She knew she wasn’t, but it didn’t stop the itching feeling that she didn’t belong there.

Her parents convinced her to visit for the holidays since it was her last year before she was truly on her own. The car ride was anxiety inducing – she tried to shove the thoughts to the back of her brain.

It’d been three years. She couldn’t dwell on it anymore. It was just a fun weekend, a spontaneous date, a gorgeous guy. Nothing more than that.

She’d moved on for sure – lots of dates, sloppy bar makeouts, and one night stands – but she couldn’t completely forget about the stranger.

It wasn’t like anything super memorable happened – it was a classic crush because of how confident he was.

Now that she’d started to emulate that same confidence herself, the allure was mostly gone, but she just couldn’t let him go no matter how hard she tried.

This time her eyes flickered to the house next door, gaze lingering a bit longer than she wanted to allow herself to look.

At least on paper she was growing.

–––––

Her first dinner at home was the same as always. She spent most of the time dodging intrusive questions and diplomatically answering as well as she could.

Maybe she should’ve thanked her parents for pressuring her to come home – it was perfect interview preparation and she didn’t have to lift a finger.

Her room was untouched as usual, the decor nauseatingly basic – if she hated it before, she hated it more now.

The suburban life was even farther away from what she’d wanted three years ago. Fast paced city life and a job in a world renowned hospital were her only two goals as far as she was concerned. Anything else could wait.

As she unpacked her toiletries, she found herself glancing at the door to her balcony.

She shook it off, choosing to settle in bed with a warm blanket with her laptop and planner, trying to focus on her diploma application.

––––

She jolted awake, scrubbing the sleeve of her jacket across her cheek, grimacing when she saw streaks of drool on the fabric.

She shuddered a bit, realizing she fell asleep on top of the covers, the room’s temperature absolutely freezing.

The space heater was close by, luckily, so she didn’t have to shuffle far to plug it in, crouching down next to it to rub her hands in front of it.

The window to her balcony was cracked just slightly  – it’d probably blown open bc of the wind or something. She pushed herself to her feet again, closing and locking the door, but not before catching a glimpse of a light. It wasn’t a streetlight. It was a porch light.

She flung the door open and stepped onto the balcony, ignoring the snow seeping through her fuzzy socks, numbing her toes.

Bryce’s lights were on, and fresh tire tracks trailed up the driveway to the garage.

––––

She tossed and turned that night, a little glad that she’d gotten at least some sleep in the form of a nap.

She gave up after a while, brewing coffee and sitting in the kitchen with her laptop for a couple of hours before her parents awoke.

When they finally woke up, she practically jumped at the chance to ask them about him.

“No one’s lived next door for years. Someone comes and checks up on it once or twice a year, but other than that, it’s vacant,” her mother said, elbows deep in a sink full of dirty plates.

She was thankful her mom was preoccupied so she wouldn’t see her deflate.

––––

Spencer allowed herself approximately thirty minutes of sulking before she made a to-do list of everything she needed to get done before noon.

She’d been home for less than a day and she was already itching to get out.

The drive from her parents’ house to the tiny coffee shop was short, the handful of tables inside bare. She guessed it was because most people were at home enjoying spending time with family – she was the odd one out for having her planner and laptop splayed across the table.

She was neck deep in a chem textbook when she saw him.

He was more chiseled. Taller, too.

The beanie was tugged tight around his head, cheeks flushed. The quarter zip up fit him like a glove, hugging every single muscle.

He slipped his gloves off, tucking them into his pocket, squinting – probably trying to decipher the inane pun names for each drink.

“Can I get a, uh, latte with a couple espresso shots?” She heard him ask, peeking over the top of her textbook, trying to get a good look at him.

He chuckled pretty suddenly, pointing at the clear display of pastries. “Add one of those little things onto it.”

“You mean the ‘Rudolph Red Velvet’ cake pop or the ‘Dasher & Dancer Dark Chocolate’, sir?” The teen said.

His grin stretched even wider, hunching over to read the labels. “Can you tell me the rest of the flavors?”

“Well, we’ve got the full setup of reindeers. It gets pretty confusing at times – ’Dasher & Dancer Dark Chocolate’, ‘Prancer & Vixen Vanilla’, ‘Comet & Cupid Cheesecake’, ‘Donner & Blitzen Berry’, and ‘Rudolph Red Velvet’,” the teen listed off, pointing at the nearly identical cake pops.

He laughed, booming throughout the small room, ringing out even over the blenders.

Yeah, that was Bryce. No doubt about it.

“Give me one of each,” he said, handing the teen a couple bills. While they counted the change, Bryce tossed a $20 bill onto the counter. “This is compensation for having to read those god awful names.”

They mirrored his expression, pocketing the bill.

Spencer was nearly frozen with fear – she didn’t think she was going to run into him. She looked frumpy and felt exhausted, and was a little frustrated at how little she understood from the passages she’d tried deciphering.

She stood up, then sat down immediately. She stood up again, conflicted.

But before she could decide what to do, he turned, coffee in hand, bag of cake pops in the other – one cake pop tucked deep into his cheek. 

She saw him.

He saw her.

Time slowed. 

She was grateful that he was the first to move towards her, eyes bright, gaze soft like he’d seen an old friend – God, that reaction alone was enough to make Spencer float above the clouds.

He chewed his cake pop on the way over, setting down his bag and coffee near the edge of the table out of the way of her mess.

“Hey,” he mumbled through a mouthful of food, chewing vigorously.

“Bryce, oh my god, I – I thought I’d never see you again – you just disappeared and –”

He held up a hand, swallowing. “What’d you say?”

“Oh, I said that I thought I’d never see you again –”

“Wait, wait,” he flipped the side of his beanie up, revealing wireless headphones, which he tugged out and immediately pocketed.

Christ. Embarrassing. Her cheeks burned, inwardly cringing. This is going so swimmingly, Spencer.

He shook his head incredulously, mouth moving like he wanted to say something, but no words came.

“I… didn’t think I’d see you again,” he said, eyes slowly raking over her features.

“Oh my god, I didn’t think I’d see you, Bryce,” she said, nervously adjusting her glasses. Good thing he didn’t notice her recycling sentiments.

“So… how have you been?” He smiled, taking a sip of his latte.

He was playing this way cooler than she was. How was he not freaking the fuck out?

“I’ve been good. Uh, good and kinda busy I guess. I’m waiting to hear back from a couple of med schools and I’m graduating this spring, so I’m excited about that,” she said, trying and failing to figure out how to condense three years worth of personal growth into a couple sentences without boring him to tears. “What about you?”

He nodded, tipping back the steaming latte again. “I’ve been pretty good. Got into my dream med school and it’s, like, across the country from where I am now, so that’ll be good for me. Fresh start, you know?”

She gave him a slight smile, closing her textbook and stacking her planner on top of it.

“Oh, I was just picking this stuff up, so I can let you get back to studying,” he said, unsure, jabbing his thumb towards the door.

“No, no, I was closing it so I can give you my full attention,” she explained, shaking her head. “Just getting some random stuff done. I’m fine.”

He relaxed a bit more at that, settling into his seat like he was at home. “So… what are you working on?”

“I’m getting some last stuff done before I leave this weekend. Just some basic housekeeping. Ironing out details, you know,” she nodded, fiddling with the frayed hole on the hem of her hoodie.

He was trying to jump back in like everything was… normal. This wasn’t normal.

“Oh you’re leaving?” He seemed disappointed, a wrinkle forming between his brows where he pushed them together.

“Yeah, I’m using part of my break to fit in some last minute tours and interviews.”

“Oh… Well if you’re leaving soon, do you wanna do dinner at my place tonight?” He asked. “I feel like we’d be more comfortable catching up there.”

A… date? After all these years? And he still knows literally nothing about me?

––––

She chewed her lip, trying to hold back a smile.

His pulse raced, wondering if she’d reject him. He should’ve thought it through before blurting out a question like that. He’d spoken to her for all of five minutes and he was already asking her to go back to his place.

“So… is this a date?”

The mischievous look on her face was contagious – just a hint of flirtatious teasing like the first time they met.

“Yeah, but only if you want it to be,” he answered, tossing the drink back again, the liquid warming his insides (his morning run was long, and the wind was biting).

“And if I don’t?” She adjusted her glasses again, the only sign of tension amidst her otherwise calm demeanor.

And if he hadn’t ran through the memories of that night over and over, fixating on every little detail he managed to retain, he might’ve not caught it.

Her nervousness was a comfort – It meant she still liked him enough to be on edge around him.

“Then we’re just two neighbors catching up while eating food,” he shrugged, popping another cake pop in his mouth.

He held the bag out to her. “Want one?”

She peered over into the bag, lashes gently brushing her under eyes. “Will you get mad if I take Rudolph?”

God, she was so fucking pretty. He couldn’t get over it. All these years and she only managed to get hotter.

“Why would that bother me?” He mumbled through his mouth full of cake.

“He’s supposed to be special, right? I just thought you’d want him,” she said, crossing her arms on the table and leaning in more.

He sat up, leaning an elbow on the table, tipping forward to close the gap between them – he plucked the cake pop from the bag by its stick, waving it in front of her face.

She didn’t retreat. The only reaction was the color rising to her cheeks, a hint of rouge beneath the spatter of light freckles on her face – the ones that no one could see unless they were this close.

“You’re special, too, y’know,” he said, pushing the limits even more, bringing it to her lips. “Take it.”

He was egging her on, testing whatever change she’d clearly been through – underneath the confidence lurked something sultry that he desperately wanted to bring out of her.

She leaned forward and lowered her mouth around the pop, sinking her teeth into the stick, her lips grazing the tips of Bryce’s fingers.

She pulled back, chewing through a smile. “Yum.”

His stomach flipped, but he kept his poker face even.

It was odd, having this girl in front of him that he’d thought about for years when he’d convinced himself it was a fluke or a dream or a little bit of both.

They both chewed in silence, eyes still firmly locked on each other.

There was so much he needed to say but it just wasn’t the right time.

“What time should I come over?” She asked after swallowing.

“When do you usually eat dinner?”

She rolled her eyes at him, still trying to hold back a smile even though she clearly found him mildly entertaining if not infuriating as hell (which was an attitude he thrived off of).

“I don’t care, Spence. Whenever you want.”

––––

Bryce tapped his foot, adjusting the napkins and cutlery for the hundredth time before pacing towards the monitor that showed him the front door’s security cam.

He should not have told her to come over whenever. The delivery guy was stuck in traffic, so his whole plan of pretending like he cooked was thwarted by the icy roads.

He checked the delivery app for the millionth time, the time remaining still stuck on “14 minutes”.

Was a button up with slacks too much for dinner? Christ, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually been nervous before a date.

He wasn’t sure if it ever had happened before, because it didn’t happen.

He wasn’t afraid of shooting his shot with anyone. That cute guy at the gym? No hesitation. His bio lab partner sophomore year? Of course. The ex-girlfriend of the one fraternity brother he didn’t like? Yup. That one fraternity brother he really liked? Hell yeah.

There wasn’t a time that he he actually had to try to get someone to like him – his conquests weren’t really conquests. They’d always just kind of… fallen into his lap, for lack of a better phrase.

But he also couldn’t name a single person he’d “pined” for, whatever that meant. Spencer was the first girl that had slipped through his fingers – maybe this date would be closure. If she was down to fuck, maybe they’d get the weird three-year-long outstanding “what if?” question answered.

He filled the bucket with ice, neatly digging the champagne bottle’s base into it, even grabbing a rag to wipe the perspiration off the metal to buy some time.

A few more minutes passed. When he checked the app again, it’d changed to “13 minutes”, and Spencer was walking down his driveway.

Even on the grainy screen he could tell that whatever she had on was gonna drive him wild.

He strode towards the door, flinging it open to greet her.

“Hey, Spencer,” he grinned, opening his arms wide for a hug.

She matched his expression with a sweet smile of her own, slipping into his grip and molding herself against his body like she belonged there.

Fuck, she smelled delicious. Her hair, her lip gloss, her perfume – everything about her was delectable and made holding back all the more harder.

“Hey, Bryce,” she murmured, squeezing him. “It’s cold. Can we move inside?”

“Oh, yeah. Sure. Sorry about that,” he apologized, pulling back but keeping his palm on her lower back, shutting and locking the door behind him.

She walked into the main corridor, just kind of… observing. Taking everything in.

“Huh.”

“What do you mean, ‘huh’?” He asked, glancing down at her discreetly. 

“It’s… nice. I can tell it’s your parents’ house.”

He chuckled, surprised. “Yeah, but what is that supposed to mean?”

“None of your personality is in this house. I figured it’d be brighter. Less marble, too,” she said, gesturing towards the decorations straight from a catalogue sprinkled throughout the house.

He couldn’t help that his parents insisted on flying out their personal interior designer to every house they owned. But it didn’t make it any less cringe worthy.

“No, you’re right,” he nodded, shrugging. “Can’t argue with that.”

He gently steered them towards the kitchen, his eyes flitting towards her as she scanned the house, a pleasant enough look on her face.

“What would you change about this house?” She asked, sliding onto one of the never-been-used barstools.

“Well, for one, I wouldn’t even have it in the first place,” he said, opening the cabinet next to the fridge, retrieving the champagne glasses.

“Really?”

“Really. If I had it my way, we would’ve never left Maui.”

She nodded, teeth sinking into her bottom lip.

Setting the glasses down in front of her, he stood on the other side of the counter, grabbing the bottle by its neck, unravelling the wrapping on the outside. “Hope this is alright. I just picked a bottle that looked expensive.”

“Expensive doesn’t mean better,” she said, eyes trained on the bottle, probably trying to read the label.

“You’re right, again. Two for two,” he joked, sliding the cork from the opening with a loud “pop”, the sound ricocheting off the walls and flooring.

After pouring it, he cocked his head her way, encouraging her to take the first sip.

She tipped the glass back, her nose scrunching after taking a deep swallow. “Mmmm. I would’ve settled for the shitty boxed wine I drank in college over this.”

He took a sip and shook his head, sticking his tongue out with a grimace. “Yeah, this tastes like ass.”

She snorted, covering her mouth as she laughed, making a breathy choking sound that he found oddly endearing.

“To answer your question, I’d probably paint the walls yellow. Hang up my grandpa’s old surfboard my dad passed down to me, if I can even find it. Maybe some movie posters,” he continued, gesturing towards the deadspace on the walls in the kitchen.

“Yeah, that’s kinda what I pictured, too,” she hummed, shivering after downing the rest of the glass.

“You don’t have to drink anymore. We agreed it tastes like shit,” he walked over to the cabinet, browsing the bottles, nearly empty. “I only have… a little bit of tequila and some rum.”

“I’ll take a rum and coke then,” she smiled gratefully, pushing the empty glass to the side.

While making the drinks, he checked his phone, hoping that the driver was close by. No luck – the time hadn’t shifted.

“So… when’s the delivery guy getting here?”

He could sense her behind him. When he turned to offer her a glass, he realized just how close she was.

She accepted the glass, craning her neck around him to look at his phone’s screen. “I knew it.”

“What? What’d you know?” He asked, unable to look anywhere but her plush lips, curved upwards into a grin.

She was life-ruiningly pretty. It was like God himself scanned Bryce’s brain and 3D copied his fantasies into the form of Spencer Matsuzaki, who was quite literally the girl of his dreams.

“I knew you weren’t a cooking type. I figured you were gonna get takeout, and I was right,” she pointed at his screen, the delivery app still open.

“Yeah, I was gonna try to impress you and pretend that I’d cooked everything but clearly that didn’t pan out,” he chuckled, peering down at her.

“That’s the oldest trick in the book, Bryce. I would’ve easily clocked that,” she shook her head, taking a quick sip of her drink, still standing close enough to him that he could feel her breath on him each time she laughed.

Before he dropped everything and propositioned her right there to take it to the living room, she turned on her heel and walked back towards her stool.

They sipped their drinks in silence, an air of awkwardness settling into the atmosphere – for the first time in, well, years they were completely and utterly alone.

She chewed her lip, swiping her thumb across the perspiration on the cup. “So…” 

“So?”

“I feel like we have a lot of ground to cover.”

He nodded. “I guess the question now is ‘where do we start?’”

“We could just ask each other stuff and see how that goes.”

“I’ll go first – are you still single?”

A laugh ripped from her chest, bounding off the walls and floor, filling up the space with sound (one that was quickly becoming his favorite).

“That’s the first thing you ask me? After all these years?” She asked incredulously, shaking her head in awe.

He grinned. “Sounds like you’re avoiding the question.”

“Yes, I am.”

“Avoiding the question? Or you’re single?” He teased.

“I’m not seeing anyone at the moment, no.”

“Oh, at the moment. Seems like I’ve got some competition.”

Laughing, she tipped her head back to take a deep gulp. He watched as she did, a bit envious of the glass wrapped between her fingers and the rim caught between her lips.

She was a bit more timid when she drank the hot chocolate he offered her years before, cupping it with both hands and taking soft sips, smiling shyly, like being offered a drink on a date was something she should be grateful for.

The way she held herself was different. Before, it was like she was apologetic for taking up too much space, but this version of Spencer took the world by storm – like when she walked into the room, she claimed the space as her own before anyone else could tell her differently.

Whatever miniscule reservations he had about sleeping with her were out the window before she set her glass back down.

“I’m assuming you don’t have anyone at home waiting for you if you asked me that first,” she said, bluntly, chewing on a piece of ice.

“What makes you say that?” “Well you’re obviously gauging whether or not you want to fuck me tonight so I might as well be as upfront as you,” she shrugged, a teasing smile tugging at her lips.

“Is that so?” He quirked a brow at her. “Would you count frequent hookups?”

“Nope. I’ve got those, too, but I don’t count ‘em.”

“So you turned out to be pretty wild, huh?”

She laughed. “I hope you realize how weird you sound. I’m not who I was at 18. Shit, and you barely even knew me then!”

He held his hands up in protest. “My bad.”

She tapped her nails on the counter, looking a bit conflicted. “No, it’s okay. Just a bit of a sensitive topic, I guess.”

“Parents, huh?”

“Yep. Don’t quite approve of who I am, even though I’m literally going to be studying to be a doctor,” she rolled her eyes. “I did get pretty wild, though. I mean, I had to get it out of my system before med school, you know?”

He shrugged. “Totally understandable.”

“Speaking of, why aren’t yours here? I figured I was going to accidentally run into them or something,” she mused, crunching on another ice cube.

He tried hiding his reaction, but he couldn’t help the way he tensed up at the mere mention of them. The thought of her bringing them up crossed his mind before, so thankfully he was able to keep it moving.

“Oh, they moved back to Hawaii a while ago. Been waiting to put this house on the market but it just didn’t seem like the right time.”

“So why aren’t you with them for the holidays?”

He stiffened, racking his brain for a believable lie. There was no fucking way he was baring his soul to the girl that just stepped back into his life.

She was the last good memory he had before everything went to shit, so he couldn’t break the illusion. Spencer was too good for this – maybe too good for him.

Court baggage was a heavy load to bear. Criminal baggage was even heavier. Lying to save face was the only way he could protect them both.

“Oh, it was just cheaper for me to stay here than fly back to Hawaii.”

She nodded, seemingly in agreeance, swirling the last bit of ice around her glass before tipping it back again. “S’good you get a little peace and quiet between semesters.”

“You have no idea,” he breathed, practically sighing in relief, thankful the crisis was averted.

“I do have a question, though,” she said, setting the glass down and pushing it away from her. “Why did you leave your number on my window sill?”

He leaned over the counter, bracing his arms against it. “So you did see it.”

“You’re lucky I found it! You could not have chosen a worse place to put it.”

“Well, you used to always walk out on your balcony so I thought it’d be safe.”

She pursed her lips, seemingly holding back a smile. “You remember that?”

“Yeah, of course. Why didn’t you, you know, use the number, though?” He asked, teasing.

Her mouth popped open, looking almost offended by his words. “Oh my god, you think if I had your number we still wouldn’t have talked for three years?”

“When you put it that way, I guess it doesn’t make sense,” he laughed, taking a swig of his drink.

“No, but I can’t get over that – you thought this entire time that I just didn’t try to contact you? Bryce, you offered to kiss me before literally disappearing into the night – you thought I wouldn’t have at least, you know, tried following up on that?” Spencer was giggling in between her words, barely able to get it out of her system.

“Yeah, well, you think I didn’t want to follow up on the kiss either? I’m the one who offered!”

They were cutting up, both leaning over the counter, folded over in laughter. They’d shifted closer as they got more comfortable with each other, their arms nearly grazing each others’ over the cold granite. 

God, she was so beautiful. Everything he felt when he met her three years ago was pretty much amplified. He had it bad for her.

When she noticed how close they were, her eyes flitted to his lips, tongue darting out to wet her own.

“You wanna cash in on that now? I heard that ‘Bryce Lahela Kiss Coupons’ never expire,” he said, voice low, reaching out to swipe the pad of his thumb over her chin.

“Bryce…” she said, closing her eyes, before leaning back to put some distance between them. “We have to lay some ground rules first.”

He sighed, standing up at his full height. “Okay, shoot.”

“I’m not trying to go all analytical on you, but we have to get this out of the way first. Tell me where your top three med schools are.”

A snort escaped him before he could stop himself. “What, do you only fuck guys that go to –”

“– And girls –”

“And girls – that go to John Hopkins?” He asked, teasing. “Me, too, by the way.”

She shook her head, ignoring his joke. “Nope. Just tell me.”

“Well, I’m looking at California, New York, and Chicago. What about you?”

“Ohio, Virginia, and Washington.”

The pieces fell into place for him. “Damn, you were playing chess and I was playing checkers, huh?”

She laughed. “No, no, I was just curious. I didn’t think we’d get as far as relationship talk, but I figured after everything we’d been through, we might as well discuss it, you know?”

“So that means this is a one-and-done type deal.”

“I guess so,” she said, scratching at her neck. “I’ve made out with plenty of people before and forgotten it, so if you want to just see how we feel, I’m down.”

“Oh, I think you’ll remember this for a while,” he said, stretching across the counter to gently cup her face in both hands, pressing a deep kiss to her lips.

Their first kiss was unlike no other. What’d started out as an offhanded joke to relieve three years worth of tension quickly morphed into desperate grabbing of clothes, heavy pants, and even heavier tension crackling like a fire between them.

She fisted his collar, dragging him to her over the counter, kneeling on her bar stool and pushing herself closer and closer to him. 

Bryce had his share of sloppy bar makeouts, passionate kisses amidst sex – even sweet domestic kisses during mundane tasks. But this kiss? Somehow it was a bit of everything rolled into one.

They parted pretty abruptly when he elbowed her empty champagne glass and it clattered against the counter.

“Shit,” he cursed, pulling back just a hair to check the damage.

When he turned back, she was still holding him, staring at him, a look on her face that he hadn’t seen before.

“That was…” her lids fluttered, tongue darting out to lick her lips – like she was savoring his taste.

“Really good.”

She nodded. “Insanely good.”

“So?”

“So what?”

“Is it what you were dreaming of?” He teased, but there was a hint of sincerity to it. 

She nodded again, her grip tightening on his collar. “I’m a little scared at how much I enjoyed it.”

“Scared? Why?” He murmured, stroking his thumb against her cheek in comfort.

“Well… this can’t happen,” she gestured between them.

“It doesn’t have to happen. We can pretend like the kiss never did, just like you said. I don’t mind,” he shrugged.

“But… what if I want it to?”

He couldn’t conceal the smirk tugging at his lips. “You wanna take this upstairs?”

She tried holding back a smile. “Maybe.”

“Well, you can think about it over dinner, whenever that gets here.”

The driver took about twenty minutes, and eating took them twenty more. Small talk was managed, jokes were cracked, but there was an unmistakable feeling in the air that both of them could sense.

Bryce was no stranger to sexual tension. Hell, he thrived on it.

Making a cute girl blush? Exhilarating. Getting a guy at the bar fund his hangover? Incredible. Those few minutes between knowing you’re going to fuck someone and actually fucking them? Couldn’t get enough.

The minute their plates were cleared, she took his hand and led him upstairs, throwing glances back at him like if she let go for a second he’d disappear.

As much as he just wanted to fool around, he couldn’t help but pocket the small details for later, just in case he decided it was alright to get emotionally invested. Despite feeling like he had a hold on the situation, he definitely didn’t.

He was a bit delusional in thinking he wasn’t already falling for her the way she was for him.

––––

[part 1.5 coming soon]

____

They’d been curled up in bed for nearly an hour and a half, just talking, every once in a while pulling the other in for another kiss that led to roaming hands. 

In another life, if they’d both lived in that town and grew up there, there was no doubt they’d be best friends. High school sweethearts, even.

But she knew that whatever daydreams she’d conjured up could never be reality.

This was a one-time thing. They both knew that.

After a lull in conversation she slipped out of bed, gathering her clothes and tossing them onto the bed.

“You leaving?” He asked, sitting up.

“Uh, yeah. I think I need to get going. I’ve still got a curfew,” she shrugged, making a hand motion like she was pulling the trigger.

“Still have one? Damn, that sucks. Am I gonna get to see you tomorrow?” He rubbed the back of his neck.

He remembered her curfew?

She snapped her bra back in place, avoiding his eye as she slid on her straps. “I, um, have to leave.”

“I thought you were staying through the weekend?” He sounded taken aback, like he thought he had more time.

She slipped her underwear and pants on fast. “I have a long drive ahead of me and I kinda wanted a night to breathe before I tour and interview, you know?”

He was silent. She threw her sweater on before daring a glance at him. His eyes were trained on the mattress, refusing to look at her.

“Bryce,” she called, but he shook his head.

She sat on the mattress, tipping his chin up with her finger. “What’s wrong?”

He lifted one shoulder in a shrug, sighing. “It’s stupid.”

“C’mon, it’s not stupid. Tell me.”

“I’m kinda regretting this being a one-time thing.”

She raked his hair back, leaning in to press a kiss to his cheek. “I am, too.”

He met her eyes again, brows furrowed. “You are?”

She nodded. “I like you. A lot.”

“So what’s stopping us? We can make it work if we try –”

She sank her teeth into her bottom lip, looking at the ground. “I don’t know if we can.”

“Why not?”

“The distance, first of all. And we’re going to be in different programs in different states, so there’s no way we can fully commit to school and our future if we’re trying to start a relationship and maintain it –”

“Spencer, you think I’m gonna give up that easily after all this time? I just got you back,” he said, lifting a hand to cup her cheek.

“This isn’t giving up, Bryce… this is… practical. Rational,” she added, leaning into his touch. “The right thing to do.”

“It doesn’t feel right.”

“I know, but… I think it’s easier to move on now rather than later when we’re in too deep,” she gulped, trying to soothe the lump forming in her throat.

She knew this wasn’t gonna be easy, but she figured it’d be easier than falling for him over phone calls and video chats and sweet good morning texts and the inevitable breakup that came after.

“You sure we’re not already in it?” He asked, underneath his breath, gaze flitting to her lips.

She rolled her lips, shaking her head, trying to mask her wobbling chin.

“If you don’t want to get hurt, I get it, but I need you to know that I haven’t stopped thinking about you since I met you,” he said, cupping her cheeks with both hands. “And – and I never thought I’d see you again, so I don’t want to let you go without at least, you know, trying to fight for you.”

He brought her in for a deep kiss, seemingly trying to plead his case with his touch.

“Maybe we should just go our separate ways and pretend tonight didn’t happen. It might be less difficult,” she murmured after he pulled away.

“None of this will be easy for us, Spence,” he pressed their foreheads together, both of them closing their eyes.

“Honestly, I want nothing more than to be with you. I want you so badly, but I’ve got so many commitments and my career and I can’t just throw my responsibilities out the window, because I know I would – that’s what scares me,” she whispered, voice cracking.

“You’re right. I hate that you’re right.”

––––

When she slipped back into her room after saying a quick goodnight to her parents, she curled up in her bed and cried.

She didn’t want to cry – it was like her body wouldn’t let her hold it in any longer. The sobs wracked her body as if personified guilt had grabbed her by the shoulders, dug its fingers into her skin, and shook her the tears from her.

Hours later, she woke up in the middle of the night, face still puffy and irritated. As she stood up to go throw cool water on her face, she noticed something taped to her window.

His number and socials were listed in a neat bulleted list, and below it, he’d scrawled a simple note:

“If we meet again.”

––––

#playchoices #bryce lahela #bryce lahela x mc #bryce x mc #my fic #jade writes choices fics

[vintage-squid]

Vulture Culture

Summary: Remus loves living in his little cabin in the woods with his two gorgeous, snarky partners. Coming home from another scavenging adventure to Virgil and Janus being their wonderful selves, Remus has a very important question to ask them.

Pairing: Virgil/Janus/Remus Rating: G Warnings: Animal bones, use of scavenged bones for art, a whole truck load of fluff

Huge thank you to @rosesisupposes for beta’ing for me! 

-----

“Ohh honey-bunny-bums! I’m home!”

The front door slammed against the wall, echoing through the house as Remus stomped inside, a wide grin spread on his face and his backpack heavy over one shoulder. Bracing the toes of one foot against the heel of the other, he aggressively yanked his feet out of his boots, laces still tied. He haphazardly tossed his jacket and toque over the back of the nearby armchair - on top of other outdoor outfits that had already received a similar treatment. With much more care, he set his bag on the floor.

“We’re in the kitchen, Re!”

“And I swear to the gods, your boots better not be on your feet when you get in here, because I am not mopping up after you again!”

“Yeah, yeah, no need to get your knickers in a twist,” Remus snorted, grabbing his backpack by one strap and slinging it over one shoulder. He made his way further into the house, following the sound of his loved ones' voices. “I’m still wearing socks, though, so no peeping at my toes for you! You’ll have to wait ‘til later for that treat.” Coming around the corner into the kitchen, Remus gave an exaggerated wink to his partner standing on the step-stool by the window.

Virgil rolled their eyes, shaking their head and setting aside the small scissors they had been using to tend to their plants. “I offer to give you a massage one time for your sore feet, and suddenly I’m the one with the foot fetish, I see how it is.”

Smirking, Virgil turned to face Remus, but before they could hop off their stool, a pair of burly arms cinched around their middle and swept them into the air.

“Remus!” They shrieked, dissolving into laughter as their boyfriend held them close and spun them around the room.

“I’ve got a Virgil!” Remus hollered, bouncing them both as he giggled. Even in play, Remus was cautious not to spin too fast and actually upset Virgil’s nerves; it was a delicate balance, one he had perfected over the years. Both of them were snickering breathlessly when Remus finally came to a stop and set Virgil’s feet back on the floor, though his arms remained snug around their chest. The pair faced Janus, who was smirking at them with a raised brow.

“If the children are done playing in the kitchen where I am currently working over a hot stove?” Despite her tone, Janus’ smile softened fondly as she flicked her wrist to cut the heat. The fire witch stepped forward and planted a smooch on Remus’ nose, her hand following quickly to cup his face and smooth her thumb over the boisterously grinning chub of his cheek. “Welcome home, possum. I’m glad to see you’ve returned safe and sound, and not covered in pond scum.”

Remus only grinned wider and hugged Virgil a little closer, much to their grumbling delight. “The grime feels so good, though! Oozing between your fingers and squelching when you bend your knees! Come on, you have to admit that my skin was so soft for, like, a week after I fell in last time!”

“I will admit to nothing, other than that you smelled like a rotted fish for that week too,” Janus retorted. “I still think you did that on purpose; there’s no way a water witch wouldn’t be able to bathe himself properly to get rid of that odor.” Pushing up onto her toes, she pressed a tender, lingering kiss to his lips. “I, however, much prefer your natural musk.”

Leaning in to Remus again, Janus yelped as Virgil suddenly grabbed her by the front of her shirt and tugged her into a searing kiss that made bursts of colour flash behind her eyelids. Melting against their mouth, she gripped Remus’ forearm with one hand while the other ran through Virgil’s long hair over and over, dragging them back for more when they tried to pull away. When the pair finally parted, panting heavily, Janus couldn’t help the lazy satisfaction that settled over her when she was greeted with Virgil’s smile.

“What?” They asked innocently. “You gave Remus kisses, and I wanted some attention too.”

Janus rolled her eyes, thumb tenderly rubbing the back of their neck. “So needy, I swear.”

Remus snorted, gently depositing Virgil into a dining chair and scooping his bag off the floor where he had left it in favour of his favourite tiny plant witch. “You’re one to talk, mixter-”

“Ah, she/her now, darling, changed about an hour after you left this morning. I just haven’t had the mind to swap out my necklaces while Virgil and I have been working in here. Sorry, possum,” she murmured, fiddling with the sparrow’s skull resting at the hollow of her throat from a braided rope.

“Well, princess,” Remus adjusted smoothly, kissing the top of Janus’ head and petting over the buzzed side of her hair. “First off, you have no grounds to complain about me being needy, Miss clings-with-all-four-limbs-every-night. And secondly,” his voice softened, “you never have to apologize for expressing whatever gender feels best for you, ever. Okay? Do you want me to grab Trip for you?”

Laying her hand - slimmer than his, but still larger than Virgil’s - atop Remus’, Janus nuzzled into the calloused warmth of his palm. “I would appreciate that, possum. I think I left her on the smaller bookshelf in the bedroom.”

“Anything for you, dandelion. Lemme take Kee, too.”

Obligingly, Dee lifted her hair, long only on the right side of her head and curlier than a pig’s tail, to allow Remus room to remove her current necklace. She glanced up, feeling a tingle down her neck that had nothing to do with her boyfriend’s wandering fingers. Virgil was seated at the table across the kitchen, their cheek propped on one fist, a dreamy haze over their normally snarky features.

“See something you like?” Janus asked with a snort.

“Only the loves of my life,” Virgil replied, grinning wider when Dee scoffed to hide her fluster. “Ohh, you thought I meant you two? No, no, the coffee machine and a bag of chips are on the counter behind you, babe.” They cackled as both their partners squawked in indignation, hiding their wide smile behind their sleeve.

Janus rolled her eyes, stepping away from Remus and lightly kicking the leg of Virgil’s chair before sitting across from them. “Ha ha, you’re so funny, V.”

“I knew it was only a matter of time before you recognized my true genius.”

“Alright you gaggle of gossiping gophers,” Remus cut in, dropping his bag on the table between them. “Why don’t you have a look through what I found today while I get Janus’ necklace and change into something a little more cozy.” He exaggerated a wink at his partners, taking their snorting laughter with him as he swaggered off in the direction of the bedroom.

Virgil and Janus shared a look before diving for the ties on the bag. Janus worked the flap open, allowing Virgil to reach their hand in for the first discovery. Their eyes lit up, with a sparkle that had nothing to do with the green magic flowing through their veins, as they pulled out a neatly tied bundle of watercress, the pale roots intact and cleaned of any potentially parasite carrying soil.

“Ah! Where did he manage to find this!? I’ve been needing more since that doe and her fawns have started coming by,” they murmured, bringing the bundle up to their face and inhaling deeply. “Mother Earth, there is no better smell in this world.”

“And of course you’re selflessly going to plant it all outside in the pond for our little ungulate neighbours without keeping some as a snack for yourself,” Janus drawled while reaching into the bag herself.

Virgil finally looked away from the watercress to smirk at their girlfriend, plucking a plant free from the bundle and nibbling on it like a rabbit. “I never said anything of the sort.”

Heart throbbing fondly, Janus snickered and pulled out the next of Remus’ finds. Her fingers wrapped around a small burlap bag and she squealed. Pulling it out, she eagerly opened the drawstrings and carefully dumped the contents onto the tabletop: a grey, spherical rock, seven small vertebrae of assorted shape, and three colourful, river-polished stones. Janus cooed, smoothing the tips of her fingers over her new treasures, eyes wide with wonder and ideas for her latest art project.

When she looked up to share her excitement with Virgil, they were already rifling through the next of Remus’ gifts, a collection of plucked flowers spread out across their side of the table. Their wide smile softened as they glanced up and made eye contact.

“Reme really went all out today, I can’t believe some of these blooms he managed to find at this time of the year!”

“I wonder what we did to deserve such a spoiling?”

“You two were absolutely perfect, that’s what.”

Virgil and Janus perked up, turning to look at their returned third. Both seated witches felt their stomachs lurch with affection as Remus stood in the doorway dressed, for once, in a clean shirt the same colour as his intelligent blue eyes. It was buttoned up only halfway, his burly chest exposed to the warm air of the kitchen and his partners’ hungry gazes. Both hands were held suspiciously behind his back.

Virgil recovered first, trying to appear nonchalant by tousseling their fingers through their shaggy bangs. The effect was betrayed by the glowing vines that had begun to creep up their forearms like living tattoos, pulsing in time with the rapid fluttering of their heart. “Whatcha got there, possum?”

Biting his lip, Remus couldn’t stop himself from breaking out into a wide grin as he shrugged one shoulder in a not-answer. “We all know that Janus is usually the sappy one among us-

“Hey!”

“So, I’m sorry sunshine, but I’m about to borrow your role for a second.”

Virgil and Janus exchanged a glance as Remus paused again to exhale slow and deep, almost as if he were running through one of Virgil’s breathing exercises. What could have made their fearlessly boisterous possum so uncharacteristically nervous? Their attention snapped back to their third as Remus stepped forward, stopping at the head of the table between the seated pair.

“Most of the people I meet in my life haven’t been overly enthusiastic to meet me in turn. Lotsa people don’t want to put up with my magic or my brain, or really anything about me, and even among those who do, most of them just don’t really get me, y’know? But... but you two...”

Remus looked from Virgil to Janus, love welling in his eyes like the rising tide he so adored. His hands tightened on the objects still hidden behind his back.

“You two not only understand me, but you encourage me to be myself and are actually fucking comfortable being around me? Like, holy shit. I don’t even have the words to explain to you what that means to me - and I usually have no problem describing anything! Like how some sharks are so gluttonous they will gorge themselves and then throw up everything they just ate so that they can keep eating! Isn’t that so cool!?” As he got more and more excited, his shoulders began to hunch and roll in a mimicry of his usual out of control gesturing. Somehow, he managed to hold onto enough sense of mind to keep hidden his hands, and the precious cargo they held.

Janus leaned forward, tapping one manicured nail on the table to draw Remus’ attention back. “C’mon, possum, you can tell us all about vomiting sharks after you finish our surprise speech.”

Shockingly, a faint blush coloured Remus cheeks. He cleared his throat and glanced to the side with a sheepish grin. “Ah, right.” Looking back to the loves of his life, Remus set his shoulders square and dropped down to one knee, delighting in his partners’ gasps and widening eyes.

“What I was trying to say, is that I love you two so fucking much, and I wanna spend the rest of our lives together. So…” Remus brought his hands out from behind his back and held them up.

In front of Janus he presented a gaboon viper’s skull, meticulously cleaned with the top few vertebrae still attached at the jaw hinge so the mouth could remain propped open to show off the elongated upper fangs. The larger bones were intricately carved with runes for love, protection, and strength all twined together. Looking closer, the grain of the pattern wasn’t rough, as it would be if the markings had been made with a knife, but smooth and even like a stone polished by the endless waters of a river.

Cradled in his left hand for Virgil was a delicate crested gecko skeleton. Every minute bone was present, complete down to the tiny claw tips on each foot. With the tail slightly raised, and the front right foot lifted in step, the tiny skeleton looked like it was moments away from coming to life and skittering up their arm. Only the skull was large enough for the carved depictions of hyacinths to be visible - Virgil’s favourite flower. They had always favoured constancy, after all.

“Will you marry me?”

Though Virgil covered their mouth with both hands, it couldn’t hide the smile crinkling the corners of their watery eyes. Sniffling, they nodded rapidly. “Y-Yes! A million times yes!” Reaching out to cup the fragile skeleton in their hands, they brought it up to their face to briefly admire the little bones. By the time they had carefully set it aside on the table, Janus had already slid out of her chair and into Remus’ arms on the floor. She was pressing kisses all over his face, and the snake skull was resting on the countertop above them.

Quickly dropping to their knees and squirming their way up under Remus’ free arm, Virgil joined Janus in covering their third in smooches. The flurry of joyous affection softened as lips finally met in languidly. They traded off, kissing what they could of the other two when their lips were free.

Both smaller witches suddenly squealed with laughter - though they would aggressively deny it later - as Remus cinched his arms around their waists and rolled to his feet, easily hoisting them up and spinning them around.

When he finally slowed to a stop, Remus was speechless at the sight of their flushed cheeks and wide smiles.

“I love you both so much,” he whispered.

Janus smiled and leaned up to kiss his cheek once more with a loud smack of her lips. Virgil was quick to mirror her on the other side, tucking their face into the crook of Remus’ shoulder and neck afterwards with a content hum.

“We love you too, possum.”

“Always and forever, Reme.”

----

Janus' pronoun charms are three necklaces, each a different skull on a rope chain that Virgil braided. Sparrow skull - Kee - they/them Salamander skull - Trip - she/her Squirrel skull - Riz - he/him

#virgil sanders #janus sanders #remus sanders #anxceitmus #nonbinary virgil sanders #genderfluid janus sanders #witch au #squid scribbles

[orangeoctopi7]

The Temporal Tipping Point

Chapter 1 : Chapter 2 : Chapter 3 : Chapter 4 : Chapter 5 : Chapter 6 : Chapter 7 : Chapter 8

Stan and Ford were able to drive home and make their way up to the bathroom to clean themselves up without incident. Crampelter and his thugs had scratched Stan up with their cleats, but luckily he wasn’t bleeding. The only blood came from Ford’s knuckles. His inexperienced baby hands weren’t used to this kind of punishment, and his already winter-dried skin had cracked.

“How do they feel?” Stan asked worriedly as he gently washed the cuts. Rookie boxers had been known to break bones in their hands if they punched too hard before they’d built up a resistance to that kind of wear and tear.

“It just stings.” Ford assured his brother, although his grimace hinted it hurt more than he let on. "What about you? You're the one who just got beaten into the ground."

Stan gave an offended snort. "Don't give that bozo too much credit. He just got lucky when a fall knocked the wind outta me, and then he never gave me the chance to recover."

"Yes, and then he proceeded to recreate one of the most traumatic moments of your life."

"What, gettin' shoved in a car trunk?" Stan chuckled. "Please. Between gettin' kicked out, losing you to the portal, Weirdmageddon, and gettin' my memory erased, that doesn't even crack the top ten anymore."

"If you're trying to be reassuring, it's not working." Ford tried to joke, but tears rolled down his face. He wiped away at them and hissed as the salt made his cracked knuckles sting even more. "Gah, why can't I stop crying?"

"I dunno, I don't remember you being this much of a baby before." Stan teased him good-naturedly. "Now quit rubbing your eyes and let me bandage those knuckles properly."

Stan rubbed in a bit of disinfectant cream as carefully as he could. Ford still flinched and hissed; his teenaged body obviously had a lower pain tolerance. They were both concentrating so hard on applying the bandages that they didn’t notice Filbrick approaching.

“What did you do?” Their father loomed disapprovingly in the bathroom doorway.

The twins exchanged a quick glance. They hadn’t done anything wrong. Well, they had stolen from the school, but Filbrick had no way of knowing that just from walking in on them bandaging Ford’s hands. So why was he frowning down on them like he’d just caught a couple of kids with their hands in the cookie jar?

“...Ford fought off Crampelter.” Stan finally said with a cautious smile. Their dad was always telling Ford he needed to man up and fight back. Surely, he’d be proud to learn his eldest son had finally done just that.

But no. Filbrick remained as cold and unimpressed as ever. He shook his head scornfully and scowled at Stan. “You’re only good for one thing around here, and you can’t even do that right.”

Stan recoiled like he’d just been slapped in the face with a wet fish. He felt Ford start to stand up beside him, and he wanted to pull his brother back, to tell him to let it go, to just save it for the right time. But like every other encounter with Filbrick’s ire, Stan froze, paralyzed with fear of what their father might do to him.

Ford, on the other hand, felt none of that fear. He’d been struggling to keep his temper in check around his father for the past few days, and here was where his patience finally snapped.

“Only good for one thing!?” the young genius fumed. “You don’t even have an inkling of what Stanley is capable of! You can’t even begin to conceptualize the lengths he’ll go to, the things he’ll sacrifice for this family! Meanwhile, all you’ve ever done was try to measure us against each other, when all either of us wanted to do was please you! But it’s a fool’s errand! Even when I’m winning national awards and earning multiple PhD’s, all you’ll do is criticize and complain that I’m not bringing in enough money, because you will never be satisfied.” His voice dropped to a venomous whisper. “Stanley is ten times the man you’ll ever be.”

A tense silence filled the air as Ford’s rant sunk in. Filbrick was visibly shaken by his son’s sudden outburst. The longer the silence stretched, the higher Stan’s heart-rate climbed. How was their father going to react?

“Get out.” Filbrick finally hissed, barely holding together his stoic facade over the indignation. “You don’t like the way I parent? You don’t gotta stick around to see it, then! Get outta my house, you ungrateful brat!”

Stan’s paralysing fear morphed into activating panic. “Dad, you can’t!”

“Since when do you get a say in what I can and can’t do?” Filbrick growled.

“I won’t let you do this to Ford!” Stan stepped between his brother and his father.

Their father looked down on him incredulously. “I promised myself I’d never lay a hand on either of you. Never let myself do to you like my pop did to me. You’re makin’ it really hard to keep that promise right now.”

“Dad, listen to me!” Stan pleaded. “If you do this, if you kick either of us out, you’ll live to regret it. You’re gonna spend every day wishing you’d done differently, even if you never admit it to anyone until you’re on your deathbed.”

“Shut up!” Filbrick yelled, finally snapping. 

Stan closed his eyes and braced himself for his father’s next string of insults… but it never came. He peeked an eye open, only to see his father’s face frozen mid-shout.

Stan looked over his shoulder at his brother. Ford looked just as stunned, and he pointed wordlessly to the bathroom faucet. A drop of water had stopped just short of hitting the basin below.

“What the H--?” Stan wondered.

“This is the Time Paradox Anomaly Avoidance Squad!” A deep voice commanded from just down the hall. “Come out with any muskets or pet rocks where we can see them!”

The brothers shared a bewildered glance. 

“Now they show up?” Ford said with surprise.

“I guess we just found out what kind of enormous act it takes to change the timeline.” Stan concluded.

They carefully stepped around their father’s paused form, hands in the air placatingly. Two big, buff time agents were standing at either end of the hall, blocking any hope of making a run for it. They each wore name tags that read Lolph and Dundgren. 

“We didn’t purposefully come back here to alter the time steam.” Ford explained calmly. “I was simply attempting to fix a malfunctioning time tape. It misfired, sending us back to this time and place. I’ve been trying to repair it so we could return to our own time.”

“Where is the malfunctioning time tape?” Dundgren asked.

“In my desk, upstairs.” Ford answered. “Second drawer from the top, underneath my methods paper.

Dundgren gestured to Lolph, who pounded up the stairs to find it.

“And why did the two of you start telling your father about his future?” Dundgren interrogated.

The twins exchanged a grimace. They had started doing that, hadn’t they? It all sort of just slipped out.

“...was trying to make a point…” Ford muttered lamely.

Dundgren’s glare made it clear that wasn’t an acceptable excuse.

“Hey, we’ve had to put up with that jerk all week!” Stan defended. “He finally pushed Ford too far, and we snapped! You would too, if you had to deal with him!”

“Hmmm, maybe so.” The time traveler admitted as he examined Filbrick’s frozen form. “He looks like a real piece of work.”

“I found the device.” Lolph declared as he returned from upstairs.

“Great, can we go home now?” Stan asked.

Dundgren ignored him and took the broken device. After looking it over carefully for a moment, he pulled out his blaster and disintegrated it.

“Hey!” Stan cried.

“Relax, Stan.” Ford reassured him. “I’m sure they have their own functioning models.”

“Correct.” Lolph said as he and Dundgren took out their own time tapes, grabbed each brother by the shoulder, and warped them away in a flash of brilliant blue light. 

The four of them now stood in their attic bedroom. Stan briefly wondered why they had to time warp just to go upstairs, when he glanced at the calendar above Ford’s desk. January 15th, 1969. The day they’d arrived.

Lolph looked down at a watch-like device on his wrist. “Aaaaand… reset!”

Dundgren nodded. “Good. Now that we’ve undone all the damage you did, you’re under arrest for violation of the Time Traveler's Code of Conduct!”

“What!?” Stan protested, “But it wasn’t our fault!”

“But, since you’re the ones who defeated Bill Cipher, and you were at least trying to avoid changing the timeline, we won’t just throw you into the infinitentiary.” The time traveler continued.

“Oh, phew.”

“You’ll have the chance to battle for your freedom in Globnar instead!”

“What!?” Ford cried incredulously.

“Eh, the kids did it.” Stan shrugged confidently. “How hard can it be?”

#Gravity Falls #Fanfiction #Stanford Pines #Stanley Pines #Filbrick Pines #My Writing

[mitsuki-murakami]

excuse you [Kuroo Tetsurou x Reader]

Hello! Could I request something with Kuroo? Really fluffy where reader is jealous of someone? 💜💜💜

Requested by: anon

Hi!! Of course! I’m having a ton of fun with this idea ololol

***

Jealousy was never your weakness. It didn’t kill you to see girls or sometimes even boys approach him, and you often stood at the sidelines watching him get praised for his skills as a volleyball player (you were pretty sure it was mostly because he was good looking, but not a lot of people had the guts to say that).

Kuroo was smart, it was one of his most attractive qualities to you. But sometimes he could be a little bit... dense. 

He hadn’t the slightest idea that you were crushing on him really hard before the two of you entered a relationship. He even thought that you were just being a good friend and supporter when you had given him cupcakes upon his latest victory back then, and you almost dumped your head into said cupcakes. Yamamoto was kind enough to tell him that he was being an idiot.

It didn’t surprise you that he hadn’t notice how oddly.. flirtatious this one student was being to him just now, but you felt that it was your duty to respectfully interrupt once you had seen her get a little too close to your boyfriend.

“I’m sorry, I’m just badly confused,” your eyebrow raised immensely once she had placed an arm on Kuroo’s elbow, positioning herself beside him and asking him to repeat the clear directions to the faculty that he had given her.

“Do you need help?” You asked, a little too innocent. The girl immediately flushed a light shade of red once she saw you wearing a painfully familiar jersey that was too big for it to be yours. 

“Ah, I-I was only wondering where the faculty was--”

“Straight ahead, turn at the next corner, and you’ll find yourself there. I’m sorry, we really have to get to his practice. You understand, right? See ya!” You tugged Kuroo out of her grasp before she could say anything, but you had already pulled the both of you out of range.

“Oi, what was that?” Kuroo asked, slightly marveling at the sight of you wearing his jersey with your arms wrapped around his. He didn’t protest as he was always one for public displays of affection. You were too, but he mostly initiated things like these, so he relished this moment.

“She was flirting with you and you were entertaining her.” You grumbled, refusing to look up at him due to your embarrassment.

“Hey, I was only being nice.” He replied, and you didn’t answer. Instead, you pulled him closer and only let go until you reached the gym.

***

Jealousy certainly didn’t look good on Kuroo. It may not be your weakness, but you were about to find out that it was his. Unfamiliar with the idea of your boyfriend actually being jealous, you opted to make a few side comments just to see how he’d react. (And maybe just to tease him to make up for earlier). He was always the tease between the two of you, so you figured that you would completely turn the tables just for today.

And no one ever really said that you weren’t smart, too.

“Hey, Yaku-san is doing great today! His receives are on point.” You pretended to be unbothered with how casual you were upon saying that to Kuroo as you handed him his water bottle.

“Yeah, he is..” He shot you a questioning look. Usually, you’d praise him with whatever you could come up with, but this time you didn’t. Which was odd, considering he had just shot down one of Bokuto’s powerful spikes. He didn’t drop his stare at you, almost expecting that you were going to add something else, but he dropped it as soon as you said “What?” as if to say that he was acting weird.

Happy that your plan was working, you skipped back to your seat and waited for your next opportunity.

Perfect timing, really. Your friend came and sat beside you just as Kuroo was bracing for another block. This time, though, he was going to be blocking with Lev. Acquiring your target, you prepared yourself, making sure that a lot of people would be able to hear it.

“Woah, Lev! That was a solid block!” You practically squealed, clapping your hands in excitement. “Right, Minori-chan?” She reluctantly nodded in agreement, slightly put off with your off-handed comment.

Out of the corner of your eye, you could see Kuroo spare you a glance, a small wrinkle beginning to form between his eyebrows, indicating that he was probably confused. You didn’t look at him, though, seeing as you had already begun looking for your next excuse to compliment everybody else but your boyfriend. 

Compliments weren’t the only way to vex him. As you said earlier, the man was really big on PDA, and ever since you’d wrapped your arms around him earlier, you hadn’t touched him or shown any other forms of affection at all. It was bothering Kuroo to no end, and he didn’t realize it. It was so bad that it even affected his ability to read block, which Kenma noticed. The moment the two of you stepped into that gym, he sensed that something was going on between the two of you, but he left it alone, not wanting to get caught up in this mess.

So on you went with annoying him, feeling slightly threatened with the side glances that Kenma had been giving you, but you trudged on either way. The following instance, however, would be the last straw for Kuroo.

The practice match between your school and Fukurodani’s had ended, and you pressed Kuroo’s towel onto his chest when he had been going for a hug. “Bokuto-san, that was a really great spike!” 

His eyes comically twitched, and he was dumbfounded for a few moments before he snatched your hand away before you were able to give Bokuto his towel.

“What the hell, Tetsurou?” He didn’t reply and proceeded to wipe off his sweat with his other hand while he firmly kept you by his side. Bokuto looked at the both of you weirdly, and Kuroo glared at him until Akaashi took the hint and pulled him away. You gave him a knowing, apologetic look as the second year practically dragged him to the locker room.

He kept you there and waited until almost all of the other players left before he even looked at you. You didn’t complain, leaning against the wall and waited for him to explain himself. You hadn’t thought this far into your plan, thinking he would be whiny, but he actually looked pissed.

“What was that?” He grunted, throwing his towel over his shoulder before he crossed his arms. He shot you an accusing look, while you returned it with your signature innocent expression. “I haven’t the faintest idea of what you’re talking about.”

Kuroo raised his eyebrow, and even you cringed at your reply. “One, you’re talking fancy. Which definitely means you know what I’m talking about. You looked away, locking your fingers together behind your back.

“And two, Lev and Yaku I understand, but that dumbass Bokuto? What’s gotten into to you?” He questioned. 

“I’m only complimenting your friends!”

“Excuse me? That was not complimenting! You were giving him his towel too! I thought you only did that for me!” He whined, a pout evident on his face. You tried to bite back your smile, but you failed as soon as you uttered your next words.

“Excuse you, I was only being nice.” Realization struck his features, and immediately his pout changed into his ever-familiar teasing smirk as he leaned back on one foot.

“So that what all this is about?” You sheepishly nodded, red spreading across your face, and he threw his head back in a sigh, falling onto the nearest chair. He pulled you by your wrist, making you sit on his lap. You yelped and covered your face in embarrassment as he snaked his arms around your middle.

“Hey, what if someone else sees us?” He paid no attention to your protests, his hands grabbing yours to pull it away from your flushed face.

“You should’ve said so,” he teased, intertwining your hands with his and tugged you closer, engulfing you with a hug. His chin rested on your shoulder and he sneakily planted a kiss on your cheek, causing you to turn around and bury your face on the crook of his neck, too shy to even look up.

“I wanted to see you jealous for once.” Mumbling against his neck almost caused him to shiver, but he kept his cool. “And why is that?” And there was his teasing again.

“I don’t know, I didn’t know how it felt to be the one causing it, I guess.” He chuckled and pinched your cheek.

“Darling, you have no idea what it feels like to be jealous when I see other people fawning over you.” You shot up from your position and narrowed your eyes at him, unsure of what he was talking about.

“Yeah, did you know how much I wanted to pick you up and drag you away from those guys? I guess not.” You giggled and wrapped your arms around his neck, looking directly into his eyes. “And you question why I was acting weirdly with that girl earlier.” He grinned in agreement.

“Oh yeah,” he mumbled, remembering that he had something to tell you. “Jealousy looks cute on you.” A glint of mischief sparkled in his eyes, and you rolled yours and responded with kissing him on his cheek.

“See? So is this an invitation to make you jealous more often?” He slightly dipped you backward, supporting the small of your back with his hand. His face was in dangerous proximity to yours, and you swore there was smoke coming out of your ears. He was leaning in for another kiss before you pushed him away.

“Tetsurou! Not here!” 

“Put me down right this instant!”

Kenma rolled his eyes and took his ear off the locker room’s door. “Disgusting.” He complained to himself. He turned to his remaining teammates who were anticipating his eavesdropping.

“They’re fine, let’s go home.”

***

Hellooo uwu thank you for requesting this!! I love our homeboy Kuroo so much but sometimes I hate him because he’s such a tease LOLOL

Special thanks to: @capt-spangles and @sashimeh!!

Thank you so much for reading!

Taglist:

@from-sejiou-to-the-stars

#kuroo #kuroo tetsurou #Kuroo Tetsurō #kuroo tetsuro x reader #kuroo fluff #haikyuu kuroo #haikyuu!! #haikyuu spoilers #haikyuu oneshot #one shot #hq #fluff #hq x reader

[burnedbyshoto]

My Way

Kinktober Day 19 ~ kink: deepthroating

pairing: monoma neito x fem!reader

warning: smut, cursing

word count: 2,115

a/n: yeah.... sorry about yesterday LMAOOOOO but two uploads today so fun??? right????? I think so!!!!! also I need to say I really really just want to write something thats not smut, but I have no idea what to write. also I had issues with making this rough smut because on one hand it can happen but also like monoma is actually a super sweet boy???????? so idk... you’ll see the power struggle

✩✶✩❇✩✶✩

Sometimes, you really needed to learn how to shut up.

All you had done was get caught up in a conversation with Midoriya and Bakugou. Midoriya had been holding your bag because you had to carry something back to your dorm. The two of them had been your friends since the first year. Bakugou had been making sure to have all the doors open for you, pretending like he wasn’t apart of your little group.

Of course, this made you laugh. The conversation between the three of you flowing without much of a problem until you got into your dorm. With Bakugou complaining as loudly as he was, there was no questioning if you had walked in with anyone. Midoriya’s occasion shouts back about how Bakugou was being too loud. Overall it was their typical banter with your interruptions of the conversation.

Monoma was your boyfriend, someone you found endearing and loving when he wasn’t around people from other hero class. Today was the day he would stay behind and tutor Pony with more Japanese. She was fluent now but still struggled in grammar while writing. So while you would normally wait with Monoma during the tutoring sessions, helping out Pony yourself, you decided to leave when you saw Midoriya and Bakugou.

Instead of leaving when you entered your room, however, they made themselves comfortable choosing to hang out instead. It wasn’t too big of a deal, you sat down on your bed as they got comfortable as well.

So that’s how Monoma found you two hours later. Your legs are thrown over Midoriya’s lap, and Bakugou’s head on your leg as the three of you played Mario Kart. Laughter and raging occurring at every possible moment. Monoma’s smile was tight, his eyes trying not to show that he was still hooked on the rivalry thing from your first year. Something that was still very much a thing, but not to the extent of your first year.

You graced him with a smile, scooting over to make more room for your boyfriend who walked over. Placing himself behind you, you smile as your back falls onto his chest. Midoriya and Bakugou moving while they shouted at each other about who threw the blue shell at him, resulting in Bakugou moving from first place to eighth. You, however, were frozen as Monoma’s lips ghosted over your warm neck, his fingers digging into your hips as your words died on your lips.

“Baka,” Baugou snaps his eyes snapping over to yours, “don’t make us fucking lose!”

It was a team battle you guys were doing after all.

Monoma’s teeth pressed into your neck, your fingers trembling as you stand up, “S-Sorry! You guys have to go.” You say grabbing your friends by the wrists and dragging them out of your room. Their confusion and protests landing on deaf ears as you slam the door behind them.

Your eyes fluttered as Monoma pressed against you, his lips by your ear. “Was I interrupting a date with your boyfriends?” He growled, his hands gripping your waist.

“Neito…” You mumble, your eyes fluttering closed as he nibbles on your earlobe. “I don’t l-like them.”

“It didn’t look that way, sweetheart.” Monoma runs his hands up to your breasts, his hands squeezing them roughly. A lewd moan escapes your mouth as your ass grinds against his crotch.

“Oh, yeah?” You tease, “Sorry, I just didn’t want to tell you about the orgy I was planning for us.”

Those words were teasing. Monoma knew it, too. But it didn’t stop him from snarling, repeating the statement from the very beginning, and you knew then you went too far.

“You really think they could fuck you better than me?” Monoma growls, his teeth sinking into your skin. “You think they have the skills I do?” He asks, his tongue lashing out to smooth against your throbbing skin.

You whimper as your body confirms to his. “Maybe? I wouldn’t know.”

His body stiffens against yours, his hands leaving bruising prints onto your hips.

“I was going to fuck you so well, y/n.” He tuts, his hands trailing down your ass. “But I guess, I’ll just have my way with you.”

Monoma shoves you away, your eyes wide as you come to see his face. He sinks you to your knees in front of him. He sighs your name and is shaking his head, his hands keeping you down, and he’s already fumbling with his trousers, trying to broadcast his intentions in any way possible.

“You’re going to suck my cock like the good slut you are, do you understand?” Monoma snaps, his blue eyes are almost black with anger and lust.

You know that he seems very affected by your words, most likely feeling insecure, but it sends a chill down your spine. It’s hot to feel how badly he wants to fuck your mouth, to prove to you that he’s the one, and you don’t try to hide how much you want him in the same regard. You love Monoma Neito, and you were going to let him have his way with you.

When Monoma does finally free his cock, you have to take a moment to ask yourself how ready you are for this. You’ve sucked Monoma’s cock before, obviously. But each time, for the most part, had been gentle. The poor boy is nervous about hurting you as you went down on him. But it seemed that at least this time, he wasn’t going to be as gentle.

He lets out a curse as you pump him a couple of times, the precum beading on the end of his cock aiding your efforts. It would probably be fun to keep watching him thrust into her hand until he comes, but this is not enough for Monoma. He wants more, and he’s not going to stop until he does. Your gaze flicks upwards to see him biting his lip in an attempt to stay quiet while he stares down at her with an expression that’s a mixture of want, anger, hurt, and love. 

The very different emotions tug at your heart as you contemplate what to do.

You have no illusions about your worth; you figure that anyone would be wearing that expression if they were about to go from insecurity to having their cock down someone’s throat at the speed with which your and Monoma’s attentions have shifted. Still, it’s tough to tap down on that thought before it makes its way through his confused, lust-addled haze. One of his hands is braced on the pyramid above them, but the other is tangled in your hair, pulling it out of the bun you had thrown it into earlier. He’s pulling hard enough to hurt, but you know that he knows you like a little bit of pain.

Monoma’s grip on your hair tightens and he realizes that you’re unsure. His dance between aggression and passion too much for you to decide things on your own. You don’t have time to ask him a question as he grips his cock. Steering it towards your mouth. You don’t bother to hide how satisfied you are by his action as you open your mouth and wraps your lips around the tip of his cock.

“Fuck,” he hisses, his hips bucking forwards like he can’t stop himself from demanding more. You don’t mind; you open wider to take more of him in, and his cock thrusts further down your throat. He’s already panting, in his desperation, judging from the strangled sound he makes as you take him even deeper.

It’s the power you have over him when you got him like this. No matter what, it seemed that he couldn’t face fuck you hard, no matter how angry he was. The thought makes you hum, and you take him deep enough now that he must be able to feel the vibrations from your throat because that makes him hiss out another explicative. He’s shaking with the effort of not just slamming his cock down your throat. It’s surprisingly respectful, given that he hasn’t held back any of his other blows.

He’s underestimating you, however; you could take him in all power and length he could muster. You know that as you begin bobbing your head.

“Y/n,” he manages to get out through gritted teeth. “Fuck. y/n. You—” He cuts himself off with another groan as the tip of his cock hits the back of her throat.

There’s a brief moment of panic as you struggle to breathe. The force a but more than you expected, but you relax, getting yourself to calm back down. But then you inhale through your nose and force your throat to relax until you can take him all in, and not long after that, Monoma lets out a long, loud groan.

Your eyes flash upwards to look at his thrown back head. Your head moving at a gentle pace as his hands tug at your hair. He pulls you from his dick, his cock twitching as he does so.

“Neito.” You say as Monoma heaves softly. He wasn’t one for rough sex. “I want you so badly, my love. I want you to take my mouth and fuck me however you want. However you need.”

It’s then that your words seem to snap into place. Your wants coming to him. Monoma growls, his head nodding in newfound vigor.

Monoma shoves his cock past your lips, groaning as your expectant cheeks hollow out. Your tongue stroking against his head. You began to bob your head along his length, tongue swirling around the underside of his cock, feeling the prominent veins brushing against your teeth.

“You can do better than that,” Monoma’s voice was soft but confident he dragged his hands down to your face. Monoma pushed his cock forward again, pushing inside you deeper this time so his length hit the back of your throat. The motion causing your gag reflex to kick in as you spluttered against him. Monoma’s locked back into your hair, pulling and pushing while you were gagging as he continued to push his cock inside you. Each thrust had him hitting the back of your throat, saliva slipping out of your mouth as you tried to breathe through your nose, groaning against his length. It sent vibrations along with Monoma’s cock, causing the blond to grunt, his pace increasing. Your eyes began to water at the slightly painful sensation and tears slipped down your cheeks, his hips thrusting into you forcefully. Moving your hands to his upper thighs you try to relax against his forceful thrusts, desperate for time to adjust to his movements. Instead, Monoma pulled his fingers from your mouth, opting to weave them between your locks of hair, tilting your head up so he could have a better look at your clouded eyes.

“You look so pretty,” Monoma’s hands clutched your hair, fingers digging into your scalp as he used it as leverage to move you against his length. “Is this what you wanted all along? Is this why they were in your room? So that I could fake fuck you like this? You love me face fucking you don’t you? Such a fucking whore for my dick.”

The words shoot waves of pleasure down your back, your panties feeling like they’re soaked now. Your hands gripping his legs as you nod in agreement. Your moans vibrated around his length as you let your boyfriend pound into your heated mouth. Your attempts to swirl your tongue along his length are futile as the speed in which he was thrusting into your mouth made it hard for you to do anything except let Monoma continue his deep thrusts.

You felt Monoma’s thrusts stagger as he came closer to his release. His hips stuttering, your gags almost chokes as he gave a final hard thrust into your mouth. His tip hitting the back of your throat as he releases inside you with a groan. His hands held your head down on his length as you gasp, trying to take in all his release; his seed dribbling down your chin. When Monoma pulled his length from your mouth you immediately closed your jaw, trying to ease the tension that had built up over Monoma’s harsh thrusts. His own larger hands stroking your jawline comfortingly as his eyes softened.

You smile at him, his head dropping to press a gentle kiss against your forehead. “I’m not done with you just yet.” He whispers. “If you’re not naked and on the bed, in less than ten seconds you don’t get to come for the rest of the night.”

#monoma neito #monoma x reader #monoma neito x reader #monoma smut #bnha writing blog #bnha #bnha x reader #bnha monoma #mha #mha x reader #mha imagines #mha monoma #burnedbyshoto does kinktober #bnha kinktober #mha kinktober

[senjuushi]

Hey, can you give me a introduction on the characters personalities? I really want to ask some stuff, but don't know the characters enouth. It doens't need to be long, just a small introduction! (:

OwO Absolutely!!! I’ve explained the characters in my writing Discord before, so I’ll just copypaste what I wrote there. The explanations are pretty long, but they’re detailed, so I like ‘em~

Long post below!

This is F. He's a flamboyant, eccentric sadomasochist, and deviant with a princess-type personality, who kind of never quits saying horrible, horrible things. He's very girly and over-the-top, and expresses a distinct crush on one of the other guns, who he refers to as "Onii-sama". 

He has MAJOR masochistic tendencies, like licking the barrel of his gun while it's still hot, but he shows sadistic tendencies too, such as treating his lowest-ranking soldiers horribly. It's very likely that these behaviors have been learned from others, though. One thing that I think is of note is that, despite his extremely sexual behavior and tendencies, he's not showing any more skin than his upper neck and a little bit of his wrists. 

He's an attention-seeker who struggles to stand out in the shadow of a remarkable older brother, and it's implied that he's pretty desperate to be loved. He values his appearance a lot, going out of his way to look good and be presentable, such as through doing his nails and wearing perfume. 

I think he's a very needy person who just wants people to look at him and care about him in any way, so he goes out of his way to stand out. There are a lot of implications that he's been through some pretty awful stuff, considering that his sadism and masochism are most likely learned.

. . . 

This is Belga. He's a loudmouthed idiot with a violent streak and a love of shooting everything in sight. Based on his face and calculated height, he's probably only like 13-15 physically, 16 at max. 

He's very childish and immature, is either ridiculously ignorant or pretty darn stupid, and has a horrifically foul mouth on him. He was described to me as a "laughing maniac". That said, he's got a major soft side, and cries easily at things like sad stories and his pet fish dying. The fish themselves are most likely a measure to control him by, with letting him gain an attachment just to threaten him with them. 

He's very manipulable and gullible, and gets called "birdbrain" by 89, a gun who shares the same superior as him. Overall, he's a childish moron who can probably only barely take care of himself.

. . . 

This is Mikhael. He's... kind of a mess. Outwardly, he seems like a calm, collected character who lives only for his music and his passions. When looked at closer, however, there are some very bad signs. 

First of all, he's blind. His eyes are bandaged over, which... does not imply good things. He also has what's almost definitely a brace on his leg, suggesting that he's kind of broken. Also worth noting is that in the art above, his gun is pointing at his head. 

Mikhael has a fixation on "beauty in destruction" which to me implies that he's trying very hard to cover for how broken he is. He does nothing but play his piano when taken to battle, basically leaving himself open to getting shot. I see him as an older, broken-down gun who's acutely aware of how horrible his situation is, as well as being passively suicidal. He won't do anything to kill himself, but if something happened, he certainly wouldn't complain. 

I think he's very sad, finding joy only in his music, and taking every chance to drown himself in it. Because of his physical flaws, I doubt the WE treats him very well. He's broken enough that he could be gotten rid of at any time, so he's struggling to make himself seem useful and good through his obsession with beauty in ruined things.

. . . 

This is Ninety. He's the "holy shit this is fucked up" one. Ninety is literally referred to as the WE's dog... and he acts like it. 

He's the youngest of the guns in terms of summoning order and has a mindset somewhere between a child and an animal. He can't speak, most likely trauma mute and connected to something like conversion disorder, is only barely literate, and communicates with a signboard. Do note that this boy is not wearing pants. 

He's sort of feral, going so far as to bite the soldiers under him when he doesn't get fed enough (they're probably starving him). He's known to be a "panic shooter", implying a nervous personality. Also worrying is that he has another mask under his gas mask. A lot of fans theorize that he has a slit mouth. 

All of that said, though, Ninety is surprisingly mature and probably a lot more intelligent than he acts. He comforts Belga when his fish die, and honestly, I think he's just acting the part of a stupid dog because it's been drilled into him enough. There's intelligence in there, he's just not allowed to show it. Also, he's tiny. My height calculations put him at somewhere in the 4' range.

. . . 

This is Ghost. His gun is an experimental weapon that was never actually released, and he's got issues because of that. He's a person with no presence who always goes ignored by those around him. His bullets are ridiculously expensive to produce, and thus, the only person who's ever given him a chance is Ashley, to whom he's ridiculous levels of grateful and loyal. 

He's got major abandonment issues and considers himself to be a difficult to deal with reject. He's very passive, cynical, and pessimistic. He has a very childish side, "cursing" people who upset or ignore him, and "blessing" the rare few who give him the time of day. He latches onto anyone who treats him kindly with an unrivaled sense of desperation. It's implied that he might be rather sickly, and he seems to have a poor physical presence. 

He feels like he's a failure who no one should waste their time on, and struggles a lot with believing that anyone could ever find him worth the effort to use or keep. He's always teetering on the fear of being abandoned and forgotten.

. . . 

This is 89. He's a dead-inside gamer otaku who's catchphrase is "Are you serious?" He's something of the straight man (in the sense of the comedy term) of the lot of them and is definitely the most "normal". 

On that subject, he wants to be normal very, very badly but doesn’t have a shadow of a chance thanks to his status as nothing but a gun and a weapon of the WE, so he forces himself to look down on everyone who does get a normal life. He’s so depressed and done with life that all he does is lock himself up in his room and play whatever violent fighting games he’s allowed as an escape from the misery that is his life. He's got a ridiculously obvious crush on Mikhael, and also very obviously just wants someone to love him. Belga calls him "virgin", and in return gets referred to as "birdbrain". 

89 is just tired and done and exhausted with life, and honestly, he probably doesn't get much attention. He slacks off from missions when he can (which he definitely gets in trouble for), and even his favorite foods are cheap things that sound like they've been shoved onto him out of sheer neglect. He's a little bit tsundere and a total softie inside. He's also my favorite of all of them.

. . . 

This is Eins. He's the powerhouse of the modern guns, and definitely the strongest person there. He's the highest-ranking of all of them, and his battle style/gun type is a sniper. 

He's a serious person who takes his job equally seriously and always produces exceptional results. He acts rather normal, and could probably pass for human if he tried. That said, he's also got major empathy issues, showing very little remorse for hurting people. He takes orders way too far to make sure he's gone far enough, in the sense that he'd kill 100 people if ordered to kill 1. He has his soft side, though, down to gardening, impressive cooking skills when it comes to the others, and considering many of the other moderns to be his "family". F has a crush on him, which he's totally oblivious to. 

Fal is his loyal right-hand man, and Ghost is ridiculously fond of him. He's merciless when it comes down to it, but probably just sees what he does as doing his job and not getting hurt. He definitely sees himself as nothing but a weapon and a tool.

. . . 

This is Fal. He's F's older brother, and most likely the reason why F is Like That. Fal is an insanely capable, efficient, skilled person– one who comes off as perfect in every way. His gun, the FN FAL, is known as "the right arm of the free world" and has been one of the most used firearms in history. 

Fal himself is a calm, collected sort who always seems poised. He's Eins's assistant and has a lot of responsibility, which he handles extremely well. He's polite, subservient, and soft-spoken, despite being very close to Eins in power and skill. He's well-spoken, eloquent, loyal, and basically embodies the perfect assistant. He's also very intelligent, and expresses a particular fondness for torture. He has a unique power in that he's able to manifest prehensile, thorned vines, which sets him apart from the others in strength and skill. 

He's basically the ideal modern gun, which gives F and everyone else a LOT to live up to. He does seem like a very stressed, worn-down person, though, and likely is almost crushed under the pressure of the expectations placed on him.

. . . 

This is Kirsch. He's a sadistic spoiled brat who's almost definitely been sexually abused. He's downright desperate for attention from Ashley, resenting Mauser (Ashley's personal weapon) viciously for taking that attention away. Creepily enough, he refers to Ashley as "Papa". 

He's sort of obsessed with being cute and attractive, emphasizing his charm and trying to play up how lovable he is. That said, he behaves like a spoiled child, down to throwing tantrums when he's angry. Kirsch is also a major sadist (a behavior which is definitely learned), and loves torturing people for the sheer fun of it. He's described as "sick in the head" by one of his superiors. Even so, he tries to paint himself as a harmless victim who can do no wrong, kissing up to and demanding attention from anyone he looks fondly upon. 

He's ridiculously immature, insanely clingy, and probably also has major abandonment issues. He acts like a love-starved child who acts out in order to get attention. There are also a few implications that he's been sexually abused, including his aggressively "touchy" behavior, personal-space invading sadism, attitude towards his superiors, and revealing outfit (short shorts and garter on his leg).

. . . 

This is Hokusai. He's an animated, wild-natured person with a major childish streak. He uses the pronoun "Boku-chan", which sounds straight out of the mouth of a kindergartener. 

He's something of a mad scientist who's associated with the science sector of the WE, and has honestly probably been the brunt of more than a few experiments. He has a massive fixation on the color blue that goes all the way to an obsession, and he's so dedicated to this that he keeps trying to dye his human self blue... which also keeps killing him. He's killed himself like this a bunch of times, but fortunately, Ashley can keep bringing him back somehow. He has a massive aversion to the color red too, straight to the point where he loses it if he sees his own blood. 

He has a number of visible scars (rare for anime art), including one across his throat and one on his wrist, implying that he's been through some shit. His behavior also says to me that he might have some form of brain damage, probably of the nature that impacts his decision making and sense of consequences. He's very reckless and has little regard for his own life. Despite this, he's also a cheerful, sunny person who never really seems to be down.

. . . 

This is Love1. He's... a mess. His gun is majorly defective, and known irl as one of the worst and most useless firearms in history. Reflecting this, L1's body is kind of a mess. His gun jams constantly, which gives him nosebleeds, he's implied to be physically fucked up in general, and in the game, his bigger attacks did damage to him too. 

Personality-wise, he acts like an utter idiot. He's loud and goofy, with a lot of presence and seemingly no dignity. He's cheerful, explosive, and trigger-happy, acting like he doesn't have a care in the world. However, his real personality is very different. L1 is a massively intelligent and strategic individual. While Fal specializes in physical torture, L1 is the psychological torture master. He knows how to absolutely break people. He has a little brother, Like2, and the two of them are both in the "defective" boat. L1 loves L2 dearly, no matter how rude the other is to him, and gushes over his "cute baby brother" constantly. 

On the dark note, L1's life is kind of hanging by a thread. He's worthless enough that he could be gotten rid of at any time, and with the whole world seeing him as a failure, he's definitely got some major issues. He could be replaced at any time, and he's definitely living in fear of when that day will come. Since his physical body is shot, it's also likely that he's constantly in a lot of pain. No one is really very nice to him either.

. . . 

This is Like2. He's an effeminate, bratty tsundere who wants to be spoiled and loved. He's in the same boat as L1 in that his gun is sort of useless, but he's still quite a bit better off. He definitely shares the same worries about being replaced, but instead of covering it up with a smile, he fixates on making himself pretty and strong. 

He's a bodybuilder who focuses a lot on strength training, and is surprisingly tough for his looks. He loves fine things and getting attention and spoiling, and is pretty much desperate for people to like him. Because of his status as a rejected, mocked weapon, he's frantic to make himself useful and avoid being disposed of. He values his personal security massively, can't stand any form of discomfort, and is willing to turn traitor as soon as his safety is on the line. He's an aggressive, abrasive tsundere who constantly berates his brother, calling him "worthless" and "soon to be replaced". 

That said, he loves L1 dearly underneath it all, and winds up as something of his brother's caretaker. He's a fragile person who's desperate to be cared for an accepted, no matter what he has to do to get it.

. . .

Last is Mauser. He's Ashley's personal assistant and weapon, and is honestly a thousand levels of worrying. Mauser is the first gun Ashley summoned, and despite his size and young appearance, his gun is the oldest model as well, being made in 1896. He teeters right on the verge of modern and antique. 

He's an obedient doll to Ashley who seems to lack any form of personality or will of his own. He's empty and emotionless, only capable of expressing his loyalty to his Master. This lack of personality could be attributed to being a faulty summon, but more likely, Ashley has broken him of anything that made him a person. He's blindly devoted, endlessly loyal, and doesn't really have anything to live for beyond Ashley. His character is worrying because something must have left him so broken, and the implications with what Ashley could have done to mess him up so badly aren't pretty. 

His personality is rather flat, but his interesting side comes in what made him the way he is. He'd have nothing to live for without Ashley.

#F #Belga #Mikhael #Ninety #Ghost #89 #Eins #Fal #Hokusai #Kirsch #Love1 #Like2 #Mauser #Info #Meta

[queenmylovely]

A Not-So-Gentle Reminder

Summary: Brian may x fem!reader. Bri gets on your nerves and needs a reminder. 

Word Count: 1.8k

Warnings: fluff at the end, cussing, and smut (18+!! it’s all smut)

A/N: Okay, so... this was not requested but I felt the need to write it. Basically just buckle up for some sub!Bri and dom!reader I hope you all enjoy, and any feedback in the form of likes, replies, reblogs, and asks about it are greatly appreciated! Requests are open! (more info at the end)

Masterlist 

(he looks bratty here)

☆☆☆

It had all started when Brian had been a little mouthy at dinner. Nothing too bad, but the little complaints he made throughout the night had started to get on your nerves. First, it was about the restaurant you chose, even though he had said he didn’t care. Then, it was whining about the traffic and not-so-subtly trying to backseat drive when he had insisted you drive because he wanted to jot down some notes on a song on the way over. Finally, it was arguing with you between getting either a chocolate mousse or an apple tart for dessert when you suggested getting both and sharing.

Not to mention that he was wearing that damned white shirt of his that he never buttoned up more than half-way, and it was kinda hot in the restaurant, and you could see the barest amount of sweat collecting on his chest all evening. That had been what made you unequivocally decide that you needed to remind him who was in charge tonight.  

That’s what had gotten you where you were now. Brian was laying down on the bed beneath you as you kneeled at his side. You had been edging him for over 45 minutes. Switching off between sucking on him with your mouth and jerking him off with your hands, it only took a couple of movements of either to get him right to the edge. As soon as you could feel him start to tense up, you removed your mouth or hand, leaving him to whine and plead with you for mercy.

You didn’t mind his begging though, as long as he kept his hands to himself like you told him to and didn’t come until you said so.

By now, Brian was an absolute mess. His hair was frizzy and all over the place because of the way he was tossing and turning his head, trying to retain control. His cheeks, neck, and chest were deliciously pink and you couldn’t help but leave soft kisses there whenever you stopped working him. A now not so thin layer of sweat was covering his entire body and it had started pooling in the dip between his collarbone and dripping down his chest.

There were tears filling up his eyes, and they were matched by the steady stream of precum coming out of his tip.

You smoothed his hair out of his face as he tried to control his breathing.

“You’re doing very good, Bri,” you told him soothingly.

“Please-please, Y/N. Please let me come,” he said achingly, staring into your eyes hopefully.

“Hmmm, I don’t know, baby. You’re just so pretty like this, and I know that if we keep going just a couple more times, you’ll get even more desperate. And you know I like it when you get all fucked out,” you cooed at him, kissing the corner of his mouth and making him whine.

You took his cock back into your hands and Brian hissed at the contact. It was red and swollen, twitching with every other movement of your hands. He got close almost as soon as you began and started whimpering and moaning.

“I-fuck- I need to come. Please, Y/N, please let me,” he pleaded with you.

You shook your head slightly, “No, baby, hold it just a little longer.”

Continuing your strokes, you added more pressure, and when you swiped your thumb over the slit, Brian couldn’t take it anymore.

He let out a sob and bucked his hips into your hands. You retracted them, but it was too late, and Brian was already coming undone. He moaned and panted out your name as cum spurted out over his stomach, covering the precum that was already there. His legs shook as his back arched, eyes squeezing shut as tears made tracks down his face.

But as hot as the sights and sounds were, nothing could stop you from being absolutely livid. You grabbed his face, bringing him down from his high as quickly as possible.

“Uh-uh. That was not okay,” you said in a harsh tone.

Brian immediately knew what he had done. He started to apologize frantically, sitting up a little and quickly wiping the tears from his face that had fallen with his intense orgasm, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. I tried to stop it, but I just needed to come so bad. You made me feel so good.”

“That’s not true, you didn’t need to come. I’ve pushed you further before and you didn’t disappoint me then. You know what comes next,” you replied, jerking your head towards your lap and waiting for him to move.

He hesitated and said, “But I’m all messy. I need to clean up…”

“I don’t care. Get over here,” you said without an ounce of sympathy in your voice.

His shoulders slumped as he moved over to you. It wasn’t that he didn’t love the punishment that was to come, but that he hated not being your good boy. He laid down across your wide spread legs and you could feel his sticky cum pressed between his stomach and your thigh. Supporting his groin, you could feel his already half-hard cock pressing into your right leg. The same leg that presented his ass to you on a silver platter.

“Okay. If you can take this punishment like a good boy should be able to and count the whole time, I’ll think about forgiving you. If not, I don’t know when the next time you’ll come is, ‘cause you definitely won’t deserve it,” you said matter-of-factly. He whimpered at your strict words and waited for you to start.

Bracing your left hand against the very top of the swell of his ass, your right hand slowly rubbed over his cheeks, deciding where the best place to begin would be. You decided on the right cheek and raised your hand, bringing it down quickly and spanking him.

He counted out, “One,” loud enough for you to easily hear, not wanting to give you any reason to correct him.

“Good,” you replied, and without pause give him another brisk smack, smirking when you heard his “two,” along with a moan.

Soothing his skin for a second, you looked towards his head and saw that he was laying his forehead on his folded arms, lifted enough so his voice wasn’t muffled. Your heart swelled at this, realizing how hard he was truly trying. Your anger had ebbed away, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to get the rest of his punishment.

With swift succession, you delivered the next five spanks, bringing you up to seven. Brian matched your speed with his counting, earning him a short respite.

“You’re doing very well. Surprising me, baby,” you praised, causing Brian to smile. Despite the redness and pain his behind was feeling, all of it was worth it just to hear you say those words.

“Thank you, Y/N,” he replied, knowing that good boys have good manners.

You decided then that a nice, even 20 would be the number today and continued on. Together, you and he developed a rhythm, with you giving him just enough time to say the number before hitting him again. This continued for eight more, landing at 15; you had switched sides at the halfway point.

By the time he croaked out, “15,” you knew Brian was feeling it.

“Just five more, sweet boy,” you coaxed. Brian nodded and wiped his eyes yet again, letting out a small sniffle that would have broken your heart had it not sent heat straight down to your core.

With the last five, you were merciless. You hit him harder than any of the others, putting all of your might into them, as he panted below you. His counting turned breathy and he whimpered; his body shifted forward with each one and he was just starting to shake.

After he said his final, quiet, “20,” you stopped and soothed his backside with your hand, blowing cool air on it that caused him to shiver. You trailed your left hand across the goosebumps on his back, continuing the sensation.

“You did such a great job, baby. You took all of them so well, didn’t complain once!” you told him cheerfully. “What do you say?” you asked, reminding him, but giving him some slack.

“Thank you, Y/N,” he said, sincerely.

“That’s my good boy, you’re welcome, sweetie. Come here,” you said, making him beam at your praise. You helped him rise to his knees on your right side. Once he got off from your lap, he could see most of him cum had rubbed off onto you, making him blush for making such a mess.

“Should I get you a towel?” Brian offered, ready to fill the role of your helpful and obedient boy.

“No need, I have a better idea,” you replied, and when you saw his confused face, continued, “Clean me up with your mouth, but don’t swallow,” the stern tone coming back into your voice.

He nodded quickly with wide eyes and started his work. He would jump at the chance to lick anything off you, and the fact that it was his own cum didn’t change that. In fact, he found himself starting to get fully hard all over again. He cleaned up, doing as you said, and when he finished, he held his mouth open for you to see.

“Mmm, good job, darling boy. Now wait just a second,” you said as you moved your hand to his thigh. Taking two fingers, you collected the remaining cum from there and his stomach and presented it to him. “This too, baby.”

He grabbed your wrist eagerly, licking and swirling his tongue to get it all off, still not swallowing without further instruction. His movements sent heat to your core as you imagined his mouth elsewhere.

Instead of telling him what to do, you kissed him, feeling a moan let loose from his throat to match your own at the taste of him. You swiped your tongue through his mouth and grabbed some of his cum yourself before pulling away and nodding to him to swallow at the same time as you. Maintaining eye contact, you felt yourself getting inexplicably wet as he opened his empty mouth and breathed heavily.

Grabbing his hands, you pulled him down so that you were both laying on your sides facing each other. You smoothed his hair from his face, playing with one of his intact curls.

“You really redeemed yourself there, baby. I wasn’t sure if you would be able to, but you definitely earned back your permission to come.”

“Really, when’s that?” he asked eagerly and you laughed at your needy boy.

“I was thinking… right now,” you replied, pulling him on top of you and kissing him with all of the love you felt in your heart.

★★★

Taglist: @somekindof-cheese @gwilyoubemine @deacytits @supersonicfreddie @siriuslovesmarlene @bowiequeen @acdeaky @deakysgirl @sunflower-borhap-boys @deakyfordays @queensilveryrog @happy-at-home @ceruleanrainblues @briarrose26 @disasterdeacy @instantezra @laedymoon

I just kinda created this taglist and added some people I thought might appreciate some sub!bri, so if you would like to be taken off or added, just send me a message or ask!

Reminder that my requests are open! If you would like something in a sort of one shot format/length or blurb, etc. send it in! I’ll write for any of the Borhap or Queen boys (Freddie only platonically), Lucy, Patrick Murray, Gardner Langway and adult!Tim Murphy or possibly any of the other characters these people have played if I know enough about them!

#im in my bri feels right now #the last line makes me so soft im telling you #queen #brian may #bri #smut #oneshot #fic #brian may x reader #queen x reader #brian may smut #queen smut #sub!bri #sub!brian #dom!reader #brian #may #fluff

[kikyozoldyck]

drabbles,,,,, ukai,,, killing me,,, w his dick ngl

“Keishin?”

Your voice is all high and breathy, but your expression is catlike. Smug. Needling. He’s already stretching so he doesn’t pull a muscle and end the night early. What more can you possibly be demanding of him?

“What?”

“What’s your favorite thing about me?”

Keishin drops into a long and low lunge. His hamstrings pull pleasantly. He looks at you and watches you splay your legs on the bed. Your short skirt dips between your thighs just enough to obstruct his view of between your legs, but Keishin knows full and well that you aren’t wearing anything underneath. He trains his eyes on your face, he knows how much it bothers you not to be slobbered over, and God are you hot when you’re bothered.

“The way your face gets all cute when you aren’t talking.”

“Because I’m evolved, and refuse stoop to your level,” You say, crossing your legs, letting your skirt ride up an inch, but Keishin just switches legs. He frowns as he finds a spot in his ankle that feels tight when stretched. He must’ve done something funny to it when running with the boys earlier. “I’m going to pretend you said my eyes.”

“Your loose grip on reality is worrying,” Keishin replies, stretching his arms up over his head as he stands, then: “lift up your skirt.” “Bossy, today,” you smile, teasingly. More tauntingly, really. “Why don’t you come here and lift it yourself? Maybe there’s a surprise underneath.” “No,” Keishin rolls his eyes. He can’t imagine what constitutes a ‘surprise’ when lifting up your skirt, especially when he’s seen your pussy about a million times since he’s known you. “You come here.” You lounge back against the pillows, letting your legs fall even further apart. Your skirt shifts further up in the process, and Keishin trains his gaze on your defiant expression. Make me, the furrow of your brow says. Fine then, he’ll make you. He takes you by the ankles and drags you down the length of the bed. You gasp and giggle, but he pays you no heed. You think it’s cute until he’s pulling you right to the edge, and then, you realize that he has every intention to drag you right off, you instinctively try to set your feet down. He lets you, and before you’re able to complain, he grabs you by your hair and kisses you hard. You give a muffled protest against his lips, and then you lean into him, your arms falling around his neck. He loops an arm around your ribs and hefts you to your feet. You make no effort to bear your own weight — which is so fucking typical — until he puts his other hand under your skirt and cups your pussy. “So wet. Almost like you couldn’t help fingering yourself.” He groans into your mouth when he finds you to be wet already. For someone who takes such immense pleasure in being a pain in his ass, you sure do a fantastic job of anticipating his arrival for your…“dates.” “Keishin,” you hum, breaking off from his lips just to breathe in his face. He presses the tip of his middle finger to your entrance, the heel of his palm firm against you. You gasp. You kiss him again, harder than he kisses you, and when he doesn’t push into you or tease you, or stroke you, you grind yourself against him. “I take back what I said before,” he mutters, “my favorite thing about you is how eager you are for my dick.” “You know,” you say, still trying to rub yourself against his hand. You smile even as your breath picks up. “You’re very rude to me.” He withdraws his hand and takes your wrist instead, and turns you roughly.

“Nothing rude about the truth.” He replies, pressing his hips into your ass and pinning your wrist up against your spine, earning a delicious little yelp turned laugh.

You don’t give him the pleasure of a response. Still, you press back against him anyway — no doubt partly from desperation, partly because of the gentle twist he puts on your arm.

Your skirt is caught between the two of you, and he bites back a little noise as his cock ends up under its lacy hem. Control is important. Not that you understand that in the slightest — you’re always like this, chasing after him, trying to catch him on a free evening, not a single ounce of discipline in your entire body.

He gives you a little shove — he doesn’t let go of your arm, naturally, but it’s the easiest way to communicate please brace yourself. You set your free hand on the bed to do just that and look back at him.

“That’s it?” you ask, a lock of hair catching on your moist lips. “No, foreplay?” Your eyes are hard now, annoyed, but your mouth curves into a smile. It feels challenging. It feels like a dare.

“You’re wet enough,” Keishin replies, keeping your wrist right where it is, and with his free hand, he flips your skirt right up. He allows himself a glance at your bare ass against his hard cock.

He guides himself into you. You’re wet, but oh so tight, and you squeal as he pushes past that initial resistance and sinks into you, inch by inch, until he’s fully seated in you. For a moment, he relishes your little tremble — the tense of your thighs, the pushback against him.

Then he pulls back, slowly but surely. You keen, and Keishin exhales gradually, steadily. When maybe you think he’ll ease back in, he snaps his hips forward. You go down from your hand to your elbow, gasping his name. He starts up a pace: snappy and rude, just the way he knows you like. Thrusting in harder every time you gasp his name.

There’s something about watching you give up on holding up your own weight that does something for him. You go face down on the duvet, your spine arched, and your ass up in the air. He eases up on your arm until he’s merely holding it, and he feels you go weak-kneed under him.

He keeps pounding into you a moment longer, refusing to let you go, not when the angle of your hips allows him to hit deeper, hit in just the right spot. You wail and toss your head to the side, and through the mess of your hair, you look at him, and Keishin looks away, feeling his face grow hotter than it already is.

And you, being the brat you are, only get louder. You’re playing it up, and Keishin only survives two of those wanton moans before he wrestles you further up the bed and off your feet so he can just pound into you with his full body weight. You can’t do anything but relish in it. He lets go of your hand and instead snakes it between you and the bed, and down between you legs until he finds you clit.

“Oh, Keishin,” You whine under him. “Ooh—“

You cum, shuddering under him, and he keeps fucking you until he does too: much quieter, but with no less twitching and shaking of limbs. Keishin gasps, and he stills atop you. His calves burning from the effort of staying balanced. He feels a bead of sweat run between his shoulder blades and down his spine. Tiredness settles on him, but it’s the pleasant sort of tired.

You brush your hair from your eyes, face impossibly flushed, and though he’s still seated deep in you, you twist best you can to see his face.

“I know my favorite thing about you,” you say, breathily and nudge him like you might want to kiss him again, but Keishin just buries his face in the nape of your neck.

“Yeah?” He asks, “what’s that?”

“The way you order me take out after we fuck.”

#sorry this took so long #i hurt my finger and my dad was vibing outside my window until like 20 minutes ago #anyway this sucks !!!

[wolf-555-writer]

Outbreak

Kind of got the idea from S2E4 of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow (I know, I know, it’s an old episode). Hope you like it! 

Sara Lance x Reader

Summary: In the future an anachronism is created by the Legion of Doom (Eobard Thawne) to distract the Legends from finding the Spear of Destiny. The team needs to fix this, hopefully in time before someone gets hurt.

Word Count: 4,930

I feel a bit… light-headed, dizzy, nauseous. A violent pain radiates from my forearm through my upper arm and promptly I feel it in my whole body. I see the warm blood seeping out of the fresh wound on my left arm, but I can’t concentrate on it. I’m cold. Strange images flash through my mind and my vision gets blurry. I’m losing control. I can’t… it’s... I fall to the ground on my knees and use my hands to cover my face completely. I start to hyperventilate and don't even notice that painful spot on my knee anymore. Suddenly my body is packed with adrenaline, I sense it from head to toe. I don’t feel like myself. It’s spreading like poison. Poison inside my veins. I can see Sara. She looks worried and doesn’t know what to do. That’s a first. Mick is standing next to her with his usual grumpy expression. I speed towards them. Why? I don’t want to. Not like this. I’m losing control. All I crave is blood. Human blood.

///

“I’m seriously not built for this…”, you pant, exhaling your breath in a strong blow with drops of sweat coating your forehead. “Don't be such a whiner and keep running!”, Sara exclaims while looking over her shoulder with a troubled expression. Both on foot inside a dark, abandoned building with Sara taking the lead. Industrial lights flicker along the route, yet barely providing any guidance for your getaway. “Didn’t they train you for this? In the army?”, Sara mocks, glancing at you but swiftly averting her gaze to something shady in the distance. Her face shows a subtle grin. However, you can sense that she’s scared as hell, just like you are. “The army?! Yes they did, miss Lance. But you damn well know that I was Special Forces”, you scoff. “You make it too easy for me (Y/N)”. Sara laughs, but quickly stops. She doesn’t want to waste any oxygen desperately needed to fuel her even more fatiguing muscles. “I was just making small talk you know”, you mutter, lying, considering your legs are burning as if they’re on fire. “Sure you did”, Sara teases, occupied with figuring out how to open the rusty emergency exit that leads to your great escape. “It's stuck. I can't…. Can't. Get. It. To. Open”, she argues whilst battering the metal structure with her shoulder repeatedly. “A little help please?! (Y/N)?!”. “Um… Sara…”, you whisper with a higher pitch than usual, back turned towards her. “I'm asking for your help (Y/N)!? I can’t get it open. It’s just, stuck”. “Yeah, about that…”. You’re tapping on her shoulder like crazy, similar to an annoying toddler begging for candy from their mom, which causes Sara to jolt her head away from the exit to face you. “What!? We don’t have time for th-”. She immediately mirrors you, locking her eyes on the same spot.

“What the h- You couldn't have warned me earlier?!”, she criticizes, staring with her eyes wide open at the sight of a disturbing image approaching fast. “Well, I-I thought you had it perfectly under control. You know, like always”, you counter while raising your shoulders. “Okay (Y/N), that’s enough ass kissing for today”, Sara declares, lifting an eyebrow. “What- no, I wasn’t- That’s not-”. “Come on! We need to move. Now!”. Sara grabbed you by the wrist, and pulled you with her. She drags you by your arm towards the staircase nearby, being the only way out of this desperate situation. “Faster (Y/N)!”. “Yes, yes. I’m right behind you!”. What should’ve been a simple scouting mission, turned out to be something rather... different. Though, you would never refuse an assignment if teamed up with Sara. Like a well-oiled machine you guys work good together. Flying up the stairs, you take two steps at a time to reach the top even faster, trying to get away from the nearing danger. In between the heavy breathing, faint low growling sounds can be heard as they become louder and louder. It’s not the sound of hungry animals, it’s ...something else. 

“Guys, can you hear me?”, Sara asks over the comms, reaching out to the rest of the team who are all back on the Waverider. “Yes miss Lance, what can we do for you?”, a peaceful, silvery voice answers. “Where are you? Where’s the Waverider? We need you guys to come pick us up. ASAP.”. “Calm down miss Lance, we-”. “Calm down?! You try to calm down while being chased by bloodthirsty-”. In the middle of your outbreak to Professor Stein you trip with your concentration shifted to the ongoing discussion. Irritated, but also jealous at the stay-home-squad, who are probably relaxing or partying right now without their Captain present. Only thinking about it makes you wish you were there too. A nagging pain originates from your knee that just hit the blunt concrete and you reach for it with both hands. Get up and ignore the pain, you repeat inside your head, pushing yourself off the cold ground and quickly gripping the rigid stair railing with your left hand. Wanting to move your leg to take the next step, but you can’t. Someone is holding you back. A frigid hand grabbed your ankle real tight. You try to shake it off in an instant, instead the person is pulling you down. “We’re being chased by-”. “Don’t you dare say it Sara! Stop!”, Stein intervenes, but to no avail, as Sara shouts: “by zombies!”. Hearing Sara’s voice fade away slowly considering you’re stuck. Staring down, rattled, because all you can look at are the bloody, sharp teeth and pale skin of the one hanging on to you. You have never seen anything like this before, only in the movies. Charging up, and with all the strength you got, you shoot your leg down. A powerful kick on the head caused the hand to disappear, and you sprint towards Sara who didn’t even notice you’d fallen behind. “Zombies are not real Sara. I don’t like that word. There must be a scientific expla-”. A static noise replaced Stein’s lecture while the loud beep continues to ring in your ear. “Stein? Professor?! Can you hear me?”, Sara repeats, finally able to catch her breath because she stopped running. 

“Can't get this to door open too!?”, you shout in anger, “Too bad I don't have the power to turn into steel”. “Or wear an exosuit that can blast through these doors…”, Sara adds. “That suit is totally overrated”, you claim, even though it would be of much use right now. “Jealous much? Good thing Ray can't hear you”, Sara jokes while punching your shoulder in a playful way which makes you laugh. Her short touch caused the tension to flow away as you immediately relax. The light from the fluorescent tube attached to the ceiling makes her blue eyes sparkle and her long, blond hair is a little messy due to all the chaos of today. Her skin is glowing mildly as she’s heated up from the amount of stairs you and her just covered. You keep staring at her lovely features for a second. However, it feels like time’s standing still. Sunken away a bit too long, because Sara detected a pair of eyes fixed on her. 

“(Y/N)? What are you doing?”. Sara’s voice snapped you out of your magical gaze and you start blushing a little, cheeks turning light red. A wide grin appeared on her face. “Were you checking me-”. She abruptly turned her head to the left and doesn’t finish her sentence. Interrupted, again, by a bunch of insane, bloodthirsty people. “You try the door, I’ll fight them off”, you command and draw Sara behind you. Close to the exit and away from the approaching wild.

Fighting off the Z’s by pushing them down the stairs, or punching them in the face and then kicking them down the stairs. Whatever works in the moment. Without getting bitten of course, we all know what happens then... 

“Makes it a bit more difficult considering I can't shoot them”, you complain to Sara who’s busy with the door while on occasion looking at you. Without hesitation or an answer, Sara grabs the gun that was tucked in the back of your jeans, which catches you off guard for a second. She takes a step back, towards the danger so to speak, and fires by pulling the trigger without blinking. A loud bang fills the small space and causes everyone to freeze for a moment, even your psycho attackers. Sara kicks the door open and calls your name. Rapidly you follow and close the door in one movement. While catching your breath, you brace the door with your whole body. Tracking Sara with your eyes, seeing her pace around on the rooftop. “What the hell are you doing? I could use a little help here?! Sara!”, you yell, annoyed but also scared while feeling people bang on the door that has no lock anymore since a few minutes ago. “Move! I found something”, Sara demands as she came rushing back with a large wooden beam clutched in her arms. With the door barricaded you both walk away cautiously, eyes fixed on the improvised lock. “Will it hold?”, you ask, voice laced with doubt. “Seems like it”. “Okay… and now what?”. No way out, trapped on a roof in the future. “Guess we’ll have to wait for the team to come pick us up”, Sara concludes, hands on her hips and scanning her surroundings. “Hope it’s not gonna take them long, cause I could use a drin-”. 

A loud noise made you stop mid-sentence and turn around while holding your breath. The wooden beam snapped in half and the rooftop starts to fill with the walking dead. The situation is getting more and more desperate now that you’re boxed in. Both slowly backing up till there’s no roof left. Pressed against each other and the brick wall that prevents a nasty fall on the concrete road way down below. Perfect time to confess those hidden feelings. “Any ideas left (Y/N)?”. “So, Sara… I gotta say something”. “We could use a brilliant escape plan of yours right now”. “Well, uhm, there’s actually something else I need to say”, you stammer with a tight voice, sight fixed on the predators and their hungry eyes, nearing their prey. “What could be more important than, well, not dying?”, Sara asks, focused on you with her eyebrows raised, waiting for an answer. “Well, Sara, I-”. “Yes?”. “I am, um, I’m in love with y-”. The timing couldn’t be worse. Or better, not sure which one yet. Balls of fire hit the roof and keep the psychos at bay as a large spaceship, aka the Waverider, appears above the crowded building. “Somebody need a ride?”, Firestorm proposes from up in the air. The team arrived, just in time. Well, a few seconds later would have been fine too, but can’t complain, right...

///

“Where the hell were you guys? (Y/N) and I were almost eaten by those zombies”, Sara shouts as she enters the bridge, stamping her feet in discontent. “Seems like a normal working day to me”, Mick adds while taking a sip of the beer he’s holding. “Don’t call them zombies!”, Stein repeats again, still in denial about their existence and flailing his arms around to make the point more clear. “The comms went dark, but luckily Gideon was able to track your location”, Nate explains, giving a high five to Ray. “Thank you Gideon”, Sara addresses while leaning against the central console located in the middle of the bridge. “My pleasure, Captain”, the AI returns. Sara sways her head back, eyes closed, and takes a deep breath. “So, the anachronism is zombies. We need a plan”. At the sound of that awful word again, Stein’s expression changed into a fierce scowl followed by a deep sigh. It’s of no use anymore, Martin realizes. He can’t change the team’s mind, so let’s just call them ‘zombies’. “It seems like these people are infected with some kind of virus. A virus I’ve never seen before”, Ray points out as he pulls up some scientific articles. “This virus will cause a massive outbreak worldwide and eradicate the human race within a year, according to this newspaper”, Amaya mentions while reading the information provided by Gideon. “Meaning there is, and never will be, a treatment for this virus, not even in the future”, Nate continues. “So, we need to fix this. Find and develop a cure to fix this anachronism in time so we can continue our search for the remaining pieces of the Spear”. “Sounds like a plan, Captain”, Jax agrees. “What do you need to make a cure for this ‘virus’, Ray? Stein?”, Sara asks as she shifts to the scientists, but focuses her eyes on someone else instead. “(Y/N), everything okay? You’ve been quiet since we got back”.  Sara’s words caused everybody to jolt their heads towards you while you keep looking at the ground with a mindless stare. The silence made you look up and mutter quietly: “Huh, something wrong? Was there a question?”. “Everything okay, (Y/N)?”, Sara restates with concerned eyes. Normally you wouldn’t hesitate to assist Sara in coming up with a plan, which she appreciates more than she’d like to admit. However, not now as she clearly noticed. “Yeah I’m okay. All fine”, you quickly lie, faking a small smile, ‘cause now is not the time. It’s never the right time. There hasn't been a single moment to act on these affectionate feelings you have for the Captain of this ship. Busy 24/7, to save the timeline, to come up with a plan to defeat the Legion of Doom and also trying to stay one step ahead of them in retrieving pieces of the Spear of Destiny. So yeah, how ironic it must sound, considering you’re on a timeship, travelling through time, that there is never, not even the tiniest moment where you can be alone with Sara. Before you can say anything, craving a proper conversation with her about what happened on the rooftop earlier, the team already headed out for the next mission on Sara’s customary one-liners as she announced:

“Let's cure some zombies”.

///

Gideon provided the team with the location of a closed down hospital where the ‘zombie’ virus had to be created. Ground Zero. It wasn’t possible to pinpoint which lab inside the building, so the team had to split up. Amaya, Nate and Jax were tasked to cover the main floor first while Sara, Mick and you started the search in the basement laboratory. Martin and Ray stayed on the Waverider on comms to help guide both teams in recovering the correct substance to assemble a cure. Namely the original virus in its pure form. That was all you remembered anyways, that you had to search for a glass vial. The scientists talked about complicated chemistry and biological words impossible to pronounce. It became boring, so you stopped listening to them after a few minutes. Which probably the others did too. 

“Looks like nobody has been here for a while”, Sara concludes, judging by the trashed lab equipment, broken glass from tubes, vials and beakers that cover the entire floor and the lights that don't seem to work anymore. “This doesn't look like the right spot Ray, I hope the others have more luck”. “Copy that Captain. I'll go and ask them, immediately. Atom out”, Ray replied, confident about the awesomeness of his closing statement. “Why is Ray like this…”, Sara sighs while strolling to the doorway. The penetrating chemical smell that's hanging around makes her want to leave, pronto. “It’s so quiet out here. Guess not a lot of people were infected after all”, you say relieved, shining with a flashlight across the dark, vacated room. A sudden cold breeze sends a shiver down your spine. Maybe it’s too quiet… The sound of glass shattering makes you turn around. “Rory?”. You shine the beam of light on him as if he’s standing in the spotlights. As a reaction he grumbles angry and covers his eyes since the bright light blinds him. “Get that out of my face, Special Forces!”. “See Sara? It ain't that hard”, you tease, standing next to her and ready to leave this scary place behind. She gives you a light punch on the shoulder accompanied by a soft chuckle. “I shall not joke about it ever again”, Sara mocks with the use of a plummy voice and her chin lifted up high. And again you hear a sound and shine on a closed freezer door while stepping closer. “(Y/N), let’s go. This place is giving me the creeps”. 

“Oh- um… that thing I said about not a lot infected and all… yeah, scratch that.”, you mention while slowly backing away from the not so closed freezer door anymore. “Why did you have to say that...”, Sara groans at the sight of people who are clearly infected with the virus. “Karma is a bitch right?”, you ease with an innocent smile while accelerating. “It's not like we haven't run enough today… Come on Mick, let’s go!”. On the run again in a hallway that leads to another hallway, which probably leads to another one. It’s a real maze inside this large basement. The walking dead, who actually walk rather fast, seem to be appearing out of nowhere. Out of every trashed, abandoned room like they were trapped there, patiently waiting for the Legends to arrive. 

“I think we've lost them”, you carefully state after a while, being out of breath, and looking over your shoulder real quick. You want to continue running, but a force drags you to the side. Too soon, you lowered your guard. With an ugly fall you land on the cold, wet ground. Pain fills your body, something stings, but you ignore it. When you open your eyes again you stare into a pair of bloodshot red ones, pupils severely dilated and burst veins. The adrenaline level in your body is rising which makes you act fast, now pushing the creature off of you against an old storage rack which topples and lands on your attacker. Struggling to get up, apparently you were pulled into a storage room and got separated from Sara and Mick. “I need to get back…”, you worry, because being all alone out here is not going to make it easier. Leaning against the doorpost as you’d lost balance. You feel light-headed, probably hit your head on the concrete. Hearing Sara and Mick shout your name, well okay, actually only Sara, as they came back looking for you. Taking a few small steps forward, standing in the hallway again and you stop at the sight of Sara and Mick. “What’s wrong? Why are you guys staring at me?”. “Um… (Y/N)...”, Sara falters while pointing at your left arm. “Oh… Fuck”. 

With every heartbeat it’s spreading more and more. Through your entire body like poison. Sara freezes, she doesn’t know what to do. That never happens. Why now? Usually she doesn’t need to pay attention to you in a way that you’re able to take care of yourself and know what to do without her telling you. Not like Rory, who needs supervision all the time to be kept in check. Or like Nate and Ray who play around too much. Or Martin, who’s way too stubborn, probably because he’s older and wiser, so he thinks. Being the Captain of this team is hard, but you always seem to make it easier for her. You have each other's back no matter what and are on the same wavelength when it comes to strategy or just messing around. But now you are the one in trouble. You've been bitten. She’s too late. All Sara can do is stare at the bite mark on your arm, resembling a vague dental imprint covered in blood. She failed. You collapse to the floor, landing on your knees and place your hands on your face. What is happening? Breathing frequency rising. Something went off in your brain. You lose control. With a burst of adrenaline you jump up and sprint towards your new prey. Towards Sara, who’s completely paralyzed. She can’t move. Rory steps in front of her to hold you off, but you’re faster than him. You want to hurt them, your team members. Want to bite them, tear them apart. Can’t fight it anymore. With every second counting you lose a piece of yourself, until there's nothing left. Maybe for the better, 'cause you won't be able to look at yourself after this.

Like a loose cannon with a bad temper you grasp Sara by the waist, wrapping your arms around her real painful and knock her to the ground. She’s struggling to get herself free and it hurts. It’s as if your strength has doubled. Your hands move to her neck and you start squeezing hard. With blood red eyes you stare at her. No remorse. No respect. No love. Just pure rage. Your eyes are not the same anymore is what Sara realizes. Not the same eyes that were checking her out earlier at the rooftop exit. Or the same eyes that laugh about her jokes, or the ones that have her back in the most difficult situations, like now. She can’t breath and is hitting your body with her arms over and over again, completely helpless. Rory had gripped onto your shoulders to yank you loose. But it’s of no use since you’re still choking her, not moving a single muscle. Her arms move slower and slower… until a brutal kick from Rory made you let go and launched you against the wall. Coughing while rubbing her throat that was closed off seconds ago, Sara gradually stands up. 

“Don't”, is the first word she manages to produce with a sore, aching throat. Intended to stop Rory because he aimed his Heat gun on you, finger on the trigger. He hesitates, wanting to fire, but grunts and eventually lowers the weapon. Though he needs to act fast, as you already bolted towards him, ready to attack. You take hit after hit, but Rory’s punches don’t seem to stop you. Sara needs to flip a switch, get herself together and end this. “Sara! Do something. Now!”, Mick forces as his low voice echoes on the brick walls, desperately trying to hold you back. 

“I'm sorry (Y/N)...”. Are the last words you process before it turns dark.

///

“Brains… BRAINS!!”. “No- no, don’t!”, you scream while defensively lifting your arms up to protect your head. The sound of Sara’s voice, and not the most convenient word choice startled you awake, feeling your heartbeat racing in your chest. “Too soon? I was just joking (Y/N)”. “Where- where am I? Am I still alive? And what happened? I don’t remember…”, you stammer. Shaking and carefully turning your head to see where you are as you’re about to panic. Sara reacts fast and grabs your hands to put your restless arms down. “Calm down. Breathe. We’re in the medical bay, back on the Waverider, okay?”, she eases. A soft, caring tone in her voice, trying to reach you by staring into your eyes as she’d moved closer. “My head is pounding like hell. Worst. Hangover. Ever”, you groan while slowly repositioning your legs to sit on the edge of the reclined chair. “Yeah… that might have been my fault…”, Sara admits as she rubs the back of her neck in shame. A heavy blow to the head with a flashlight was needed to knock you out. She had to, there was no other choice. A hopeless sigh leaves your mouth as you bury your face in your hands. You're cured, the anachronism fixed and the world is saved, for now at least. Everything is back to normal again. But it doesn't feel normal. Avoiding eye contact with Sara at all cost, sight trained on the floor. There is no way you’ll be able to look her in the eyes again. Not after what you’ve done. You can still remember pieces. Flashes of you attacking Sara. 

“(Y/N)? It’s okay”. Sara lifts your chin up, now seated on a stool in front of you. “Hey, you're okay”. “No it's not. I-”. Your eyes start to get watery. “I hurt you, didn't I? Cause I remember…”, you whisper, examining her broken body. With a trembling hand you near her neck, but can’t bring yourself to touch the red, discolored skin. “Nothing I can't handle”. She blows it off as if it’s a small scratch. “Come on Sara. It's not. I-”. A tear rolls down your cheek while trying your best to fight off the other tears heaping up in the corners of your eyes. Sara gently wipes the teardrop away with her thumb, cupping your face with her right hand. She lifts your head up again and gazes in your sad eyes. “That is my fault. I did that. I went insane, like some crazy animal”, you continue, still refusing to look at her as you shift in a direction other than right in front of you. Not able to forgive yourself, feeling guilty as hell. “No, (Y/N)”. She moves your head back with a bit more force this time, not accepting your pity party, and her blue eyes lock onto yours. “It's okay. You're still here. I'm still here”, she expresses genuinely, “and I heard you.”. 

“Huh? You heard me?”, you question with a lost expression. “Yes, on the roof earlier today. Just before the team arrived to pick us up.”. In the process to comprehend what those words mean, still puzzling it all together when you feel a pair of soft lips touching yours. Overwhelmed, but that swiftly changes as you relax and close your eyes. She gets up from the chair and moves her hands away from your cheeks, wrapping both arms around you smoothly. You melt away even more and place your hands around her hips. A soft kiss turns into a more passionate one, as if both were longing for it for some time now. It being highly likely that Sara had these kind of feelings for a while now too. Her warm body is pressed against yours, and you slide your hands up to her waist to hold her even closer. Sara instantly pulled back and makes a soft hissing sound. You moan at the loss of contact before realizing what you just did. “Sorry…”, you apologize, voice laced with guilt, knowing you’re the reason of her bruised ribs. She chuckles lightly, paying no attention to the soreness of her body. 

“You know… there might be a remedy, to ease the pain. Didn’t they teach you that in the army, ‘Special Forces’?”, Sara says with a sarcastic tone. A smile tugged at the corner of your mouth as you like the nickname more when Sara says it instead of Mick. “Remedy, huh? You mean this?”. Carefully lifting Sara’s shirt up and you press your lips on the bruised skin. Then softly on the other side. You slowly stand up from the chair and move up to her neck to give an even more gentle kiss. “And where does it hurt the most, Captain?”. Sara looks pleased, and without an answers back, she kisses you on the lips again with a wide smile. At the exact same time Jax walked in. “Woah... just wanted to check on you, (Y/N)”. He awkwardly turns his head away, not knowing where to look. “All good.”, you return with a grin, because in the corner of your eyes you see Sara. Who’s busy straightening her shirt to appear a bit more decent, considering her important role as leader on this ship. “Yeah, I can see that”, he responds while giving you a hug and continues: “The team is waiting in the Captain’s office. To celebrate”. “We'll be right behind you”, you assure Jax, who’s already marching back to the bridge with interesting gossip to deliver. 

A muffled groan manages to escape as you take a step, feeling the soreness of all the muscles in your bruised up body. “Gotta let the kids know the old one here is alright”, Sara jokes. Beaten up by Mick and Sara in your zombie-state, which you understand to the fullest. If you were in their shoes, you would’ve done the same thing. Then her smile fades and turns into a more serious expression. “You know… I really thought I lost you there in that basement”, Sara confesses, leaving the medical bay beside you. “Guess we’ll have to wait and see what the next apocalypse brings”, you tease, but Sara is not laughing. “I’m serious, (Y/N)”, she presses. “Yeah I know, sorry”. It’s always easier to make jokes then to think about everything that could’ve gone wrong. You were scared as hell. Scared to die. But even more scared of being the cause of the death of one of your teammates. “I can't lose you”, Sara whispers, squeezing your hand lightly. You lock eyes with Sara and stare into hers deeply. “Never”, you promise, as Sara sends you a loving smile in return. Both continue walking and a wide grin appears on your face. Turning to the left, you punch Sara’s shoulder playfully and say:

“You ain't getting rid of me that easily”.

#sara lance #sara lance x reader #sara lance imagine #sara x reader #sara lance x you #white canary #white canary x reader #dc legends of tomorrow #dc legends #legends of tomorrow #lot #wlw imagine #wlw fiction #fanfiction #mick rory #ray palmer #amaya jiwe #martin stein #jeffrey jackson #nate heywood

[hellishlybeautiful]

The Plague (i)

So, here’s my first proper sci-fi story! Hope you like it!

Genre: Science fiction

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Blood, some violence and lots of swearing

Times are changing, and possibly they are not the most appropriates for the job, but all hopes are placed upon them. Brace ourselves.

The slight light beam was too weak, it was getting dark outside. He frowned and rubbed his temples, closing his eyes. Darkness meant only one thing, and it was suffering. Every single night since he had regained consciousness had relived the ambush, the blood and the pain. It seemed so real that it hurt him every single night, and that was the real torture for him.

Without noticing it, he laid on the floor, in the centre of his cell and curled, making himself look like a ball. His head was aching again and nobody was willing to do anything to cease the pain. As soon as he closed his eyes he could hear muffled steps on the concrete floor that stopped next to where he was. He just did not care about them, for the simply reason that there were always guards and monks controlling everything there. 

He took a deep breath trying to remember their faces. It really hurt, but it was something he was willing to do just for the sake of them. The worst part of all was to not know what exactly had happened to his siblings in arms. If they had survived, he was sure that at least some of them would be in a place like the one he was: a gloomy cube made of something like concrete, with a really small window on the top of one of the walls, the one opposite to what it was supposed to be the door, all covered with lasers instead of iron bars, what made even more difficult to think of an escape.

Somebody made a sound, trying to get his attention. That forced him to come back to the real world. He placed a hand on the back of his head and pressed it against his own skull because of the pain. He heard the same sound again, and he frowned, upset.

“You look ravishing in that thing, cutie pie.”

He raised an eyebrow. It couldn’t be. He suddenly sat up and saw two people behind the laser beams: one of them was really tall, dark as the deepest pit, and a sort of helmet on it; when he wasn’t able to distinguish if he was armoured or not he realized that he was starving, and the famine wasn’t letting him think properly. When the smallest one lowered a bit the hood he could see a pair of leathered fingerless gloves covering a small part of a tattoo and a characteristic scar on a plump lower lip. His hearts skipped a beat when he made out who was talking to them.

“You were dead!” he mumbled, standing up and approaching three paces to the lasers “I saw the explosion and you two bastards were under the debris!” The tallest one smirked, and he could see a row of the whitest teeth ever. He rubbed the back of his head and huffed.

“Stasis, dude. It’s miraculous when it’s properly combined with reconstruction surgery” the woman changed her place with the tall being “Are you hurt? Can you walk properly?”

While they were talking, the Vrarkran took out from one of his pockets a bunch of picklocks and was trying to force the doorlock. The fact of having that freak of nature trying to free him was almost touching.

“My head hurts a bit sometimes. Well, a lot. A huge fucking lot, Bubbles.” Bubbles was her war name, and Kendra Whitehill her given one. It had been years since they first met, in the terminal of Aegis, one of the first human colonies ever founded before the Earth's destruction. She was a child. Idealistic, naïve, curious. Less than a decade after she got herself involved in the battle of Emera, fighting along the Empress' forces, trying to get some sort of revenge on her fallen partner. Once he spotted her running with her plasm shooter, both became inseparable.

"Wait a sec. As soon as you are safe we'll take care of you" she looked at her partner next to her and his eyes went to him too "If Rekkr opens your door before we die of boredom"

That made him smile. He really missed them. Both flinched when the lock cracked.

"Ten minutes to leave this shit of a place" his voice was too deep for his liking, but that was nothing compared to the opportunity to feel fresh air caressing his face.

Rekkr and Kendra came into the cell and she took off the tunic she was wearing. That reminded him that they were almost the smallest in the whole group and it was kind of embarrassing for him since his childhood.

"How are we gonna get outta here?"

"Demerine waits outside, keeping your ship's engine on"

"What? He can't even reach the floor when he's sat!"

As soon as he put on Kendra’s tunic, he could see bandages on her left leg, her right arm and both wrists. Nobody said anything about that, but both of their gazes met, and Antares’ big dark eyes surely were showing some concern, but Kendra’s grey ones were not precisely thinking about the wounds.

“Shut up and let’s go. You’ll have time to complain outside.”

“If Keenthorn doesn’t appear first...” both looked at him, with a glimpse of surprise “Don’t tell me you didn’t think about him, you morons”

With Rekkr behind them, they started to walk quickly, trying to not catch the guards’ attention. It was obvious that they would have been careful to reach his cell, but he knew both well enough and something inside him started to hope the worst.

In that enormous prison that was Cheshan Asylum, the cells’ own doors were almost enough to enlighten the corridors in each floor. Hundreds and hundreds of prisoners were surviving there trying to fight crimes they sometimes hadn’t committed. The only ones they were able to see were the guards, who used to be rude with the prisoners as if it was a sort of rule among them and the priests, silent figures covered by a dark tunic and a baggy hood who did not say a word. The trio was moving as fast as they could without catching anybody’s attention. With every step they took, he felt a bit lighter. He really missed his old life. “Keenthorn must be with the Empress, dumbass” Kendra’s words were the only thing to keep him focused in that moment.

“I saw him. A few times. I’m sure it was him, his is not a face to forget easily... He was yapping all the time about Canary Wharf, like if he wanted to tease me or something.”

Canary Wharf had been the bloodiest battle ever known. It took place in the base of Canary Wharf, in Cesrin, a moon destroyed by the empire forces. Almost half a dozen of different races had met their final days there and Clover Keenthorn had been the mastermind behind all the destruction.

“Shut up with Canary Wharf” she stopped and looked at the Vrarkran while she was scratching her head, making her braids shake “Time?”

“Four minutes left.”

“Cool” she loaded her fusion rifle "Both, duck now."

If he wouldn't have known her as he did, he would have thought that she was going to execute them there in a moment of insanity, and despite that, for a second he fret for his own existence because, they all knew, that the only ones more important for him than himself were his precious ship, the Gift of Echoes, and the colonist pointing at them in that moment. Without even looking at his back where Rekkr was, he just simply stooped and heard how the darkhaired woman shoot three times.

"Run!"

And so they did. Despite having four minutes to get out of the Asylum before the imperial forces crush onto them, they already had been spotted by guards, and after the shootings they started to run as fast as they could with the prisoners cheering as if it was some sort of show to fight their boredom. He found it as thrilling as it was absurd and realized that he did not remember when was the last time he had that much fun.

When Rekkr shouted they had two minutes, the trio was crossing the main doors and there the vision of Gift of Echoes enlightened Antares’ eyes. As soon as they were outside, the access ramp lowered and Tsiuri and Naylor Thrane popped out and started to fire against the guards that were trying to catch them. Unarmed as he was, he was the first to jump in the ship, with the help of the Colonist’s strenght.

As soon as the gunfire stopped, an unpleasantly familiar voice caught everybody’s attention.

“I wonder when you started to care that much about your partners, lieutenant Whitehill.”

The massive height of Clover Keenthorn was as disgusting as the rest of him.

“Are you jealous? Don’t fuck me, dude!”

It was known to the whole Gift of Echoes crew that Naylor and Kendra had been fighting in the same side as Clover, and the lack of respect she had to the Commander was too fun for Antares to miss it. 

“I’m gonna crush you all. I give you my word.”

Rekkr had already joined them inside the ship, and Kendra was the last one left. She was walking backwards, slowly, with her rifle loaded aiming at Keenthorn’s chest. For a moment they all went silent, and it felt like the whole group was praying to the Arcane Hunter to avoid the Colonist to let Kendra flee safe and sound. Antares knew that she was important enough to the Empress to not let her get killed, but his concern was quite heavy to ignore.

“What a pity I don’t fancy Colonist penises, sweetie” once she had stepped onto the ship, he hurried to the controls of his ship and after a quick grapple with Demerine, he caressed his controls for a second, like if he wanted to greet it, and turned on the engine as soon as he could, with a sudden shooting noise freaked him out and forced him to close the access to the ship and flee from there “Sayonara, you bastard!”

#the plague #thetormentita #sci-fi