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sylvanfreckles · 1 year

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No. 31: Slow Healing

Part 31 of Deck the Hells

Fandom: Critical Role Rating: T Warnings: injury resembling TBI

Summary: Fresh Cut Grass is facing a potentially life-altering injury. Their friends...their family...will do whatever it takes to help. (Read on AO3)

...

They felt pressure as they came back online. Pain. The sensation of hands on their plating, the sound of sparks as something was welded back into place.

“Hey, they’re coming around. Ashton?”

Fresh Cut Grass blinked slowly, jittering a little as their ocular units sparked. They found themselves looking up into Milo’s familiar, worried face, Ashton peering over their shoulder.

“You with me?” Milo asked.

They opened their mouth, but gears deep in their throat grinded together painfully for a moment before they could their voice to function. “What…what happened?”

“We were in a fight,” Ashton explained, gently shouldering his way in front of Milo. “You got hit with something and it messed you up pretty bad. We couldn’t even get you online until we brought you back to Milo.”

Connections whirred, but they could find nothing but a shadowy darkness where their recent memory should be. “I-I don’t remember that.”

“You were pretty damaged,” Milo said. They’d disappeared for a moment and came back with a rag and a little pot of warm oil and started gently buffing some of the damaged places on Fresh Cut Grass’s plating. “You might never remember what happened in that fight.”

Worry started to build. The last time this happened…the last time they woke up in Milo’s lab with nothing in their recent memory…they turned desperate eyes to Ashton. “Did I hurt you?”

“What?” Ashton seemed taken aback by the question. “No, you didn’t fucking hurt me, you hurt the bad guys.”

“Are you sure?” they struggled to sit up, though Milo easily held them down. “If I went bad again…what did I do? Who did I hurt?”

“Hey, listen to me,” Ashton leaned over them, hands on the sides of their metallic face. “You didn’t hurt anyone, got it? You were in control the whole time. They hurt you and that’s why you don’t remember.”

They studied Ashton’s eyes, nodding at the sincerity they saw there. “All right. I believe you.”

…

The pressure was immense as they came online. It was a fight to resurface from stasis, body shaking as they could feel joints and connections sparking from the effort. They opened their eyes and…nothing.

“Ashton?” Fresh Cut Grass could hear the panic in their own voice, but they couldn’t control it. Something was wrong. Something was desperately wrong. “Ashton!”

“Whoa, hey, I’m right here,” Ashton’s voice broke through the panic, and they could feel the sturdy hands on their shoulders. “Just breathe, or whatever you do. You’re fine.”

“I can’t see!”

A whoosh of a sigh. “Milo thought that might happen.”

“Milo?” Their head swung around, but it was still all blackness. “Are they here? Where are we? Why can’t I see?”

Ashton hesitated. “You don’t remember?”

“Oh no,” Fresh Cut Grass grabbed at Ashton’s wrists. “Who did I hurt? What happened? Are you okay? Are the others okay?”

“Slow down, come on,” Ashton patted a hand on their chest plate. “First things first. Milo said the connection to your, uh, eyes was a little frayed. Try closing and opening them a few times.”

Fresh Cut Grass blinked rapidly. His left eye sparked, but eventually his vision resolved into Ashton’s worried face. “I…I guess that worked.”

“All right. Next question. We were in a fight, you got hurt, we took you to Milo, they couldn’t fix you, so we’re heading to Bassuras to see Joe.”

“I-I didn’t hurt anyone?”

“You hurt the bad guys, and you fucking saved us.” Ashton gently patted the side of their face. “If you can’t trust your memory trust us, got it?”

“Okay,” Fresh Cut Grass relaxed a little. “I trust you.”

…

“Whoa, hang on!” A grasping vine gently circled Fresh Cut Grass’s waist and held them upright when their wheel slipped. “You okay?”

They nodded. “Thanks, Orym.”

The halfling smiled, though it didn’t hide the worry in his eyes. “Whatever you need, all right?”

“All right.”

Even though they didn’t really need the fresh air, it was still a relief to be on the deck of the Silver Sun instead of in the little cabin they shared with Ashton. To get eyes on the wide scenery around them, even though the memories might be gone the next time they went into stasis.

“Orym?”

“Yeah, Grass?”

“Did I…did I hurt anyone?”

Orym’s smile was gentle as they took both their hands and looked up at them steadily. “I promise, you didn’t hurt any of us.”

They nodded. Orym wouldn’t lie to protect their feelings. Ashton or Chetney or the others might decide the damage they’d done to their enemies was worth whatever they’d inflicted on their allies and count it a kindness to lie, but not Orym. “I don’t remember what happened,” they admitted.

They’d probably said the same thing a dozen times since waking up, but the past few days were little more than a hazy blur of waking and stasis.

“Well, you know how Imogen can do that thing where she screams into someone’s head to hurt them?” Orym began. “It looked like it was kinda like that, but one of them managed to hit you with a lighting spell just as you were releasing the psychic energy. Lightning kind of ricocheted through you to everyone you were attacking, and you all got fried together.”

“But none of you.”

“You’d bonded with Laudna and Ash and they didn’t feel a thing.”

“That’s good,” they nodded. Their wheel slipped and Orym caught them again. “Sorry.”

“Just let us take care of you,” he said, straightening them back up. “We’ll get you back on your…uh…wheel.”

…

They were resting with Laudna, who was taking the opportunity to buff their plating to a fine shine, when Chetney and Dorian burst into the room with identical smiles on their faces.

“Well, don’t you two look pleased!” Laudna said with a smile. “Don’t they, FCG?”

“S-smiley day t-to ya,” they stammered. Waking from stasis had been awful today. Ashton had explained everything all over again—with multiple reassurances that they hadn’t hurt anyone—but their vocal modulator just didn’t want to function properly. Maybe it was the rotten weather.

“You’re looking splendid, today. Both of you, in fact!” ever the gentleman, Dorian knelt beside Laudna and beamed at both of them. “Chetney and I brought you a present, FCG.”

“It was Dorian’s idea,” Chetney complained as he set a wooden tray in front of Fresh Cut Grass, along with a pile of wooden blocks.

“It’s a puzzle,” Dorian explained, when Fresh Cut Grass didn’t touch it. He picked up one of the pieces—now they could see the pieces were wooded squares with simple notches and juts carved into the sides so they could slot back together—and set it in a corner of the tray. “We thought you might like something fun to do while we’re stuck on this airship.”

“It’s just a rough concept,” Chetney said while Fresh Cut Grass, with Laudna’s help, began fitting the wooden pieces together. “Give me a few days and I’ll have something better for you. This is just a test.”

“I drew the picture, and Chetney carved the puzzle,” Dorian added. He held the tray steady as Fresh Cut Grass pushed another piece into place. It was kind of nice…unlike the gaps in their memory, they could see the image coming together here. There were only two dozen pieces, so it wasn’t a particularly difficult task.

“It’s the S-spire by Fire.” The image was beautifully, if hastily, sketched out on the wooden pieces, though it was wonderfully familiar.

“That’s where we met,” Dorian said, settling down next to Laudna. “All that furniture attacked us, remember?”

“Oh, y-yes,” they nodded.

“That was a good day,” Laudna said, taking one of their hands in both of hers and pulling it into their pocket. “I’m so glad we all met.”

“Same here.” Dorian smiled. “Yes, even you, Chetney.”

“I’ve got something in my eye!” the gnome declared, staring up at the ceiling and blinking. “Probably sawdust from your crappy design.”

“I-I think it’s n-n-nice.”

“I’m still making you a better one! I’ll make a whole set, just you wait!”

…

“Oh, thank god, you’re awake.”

They startled when Imogen’s voice echoed through their head. The world around them was a startling cacophony of wind and sound and dust, and in the swirling chaos they couldn’t begin to imagine where they were or what was going on.

“We’re on a crawler on the way to Imahara Joe,” Imogen explained. “We landed close to the Calloway’s place and they’re helping us get into town.”

The world was gradually making sense. They were pressed up against Ashton’s back with Imogen behind them, riding a crawler at what was sure to be a dangerous speed.

“What happened?” they asked her, through the mental connection.

Instead of words they were met with a moving image, an impression of a day that they’d lost, from Imogen’s perspective. They were surrounded by masked figures, separated from the group, Ashton and Fearne trying to fight their way to help them. They held their hands to their chest, blue eyes growing brighter and brighter��and brighter…and let loose a wave of arcane energy just as one of the masked figures sent a bolt of lightning toward them.

They winced when they saw their own body arch up from the electric blast, which arced out along the arcane pathways they had already connected to the other masked attackers. They’d crumbled to the ground, blackened and smoking, surrounded by the charred bodies of the ones who’d been attacking them, leaving the rest of the field untouched.

“You’ve been hurt, but Joe thinks he can help.”

“What about Milo?”

“Milo already tried.”

They could feel the stress winding up. Things hadn’t ended well the last time they were here. Imogen squeezed her arms around them a little tighter.

“We’re gonna be fine. No one saw us land, and Birdie and Fearne are gonna lay a false trail as soon as we get to Joe’s, just in case.”

Now they could make out the second crawler to their right. Two fully-grown fauns were crowded onto it, and they were pretty certain they could see a halfling hanging off the back.

“They’ll be fine. We’ll take care of you.”

…

“Sure you don’t want to be asleep for this?” Imahara Joe asked, as he adjusted the cable he’d connected to Fresh Cut Grass’s chest plate.

“Every time I go into stasis I forget everything,” they replied. “I don’t…I don’t want to be a burden if this doesn’t work.”

“You’re not a burden.” Fearne, who was only staying long enough to watch them underway before she and Orym went out to lay another trail to confuse anyone who might be following them, gently rested a hand against their cheek. “We’re doing this because we love you and we want you to be better.”

“What if this doesn’t work?” they whispered. Joe was pretending not to hear, busying himself with his tools, and Ashton was discussing something with Orym a few feet away. “I can’t stay with you if I’m like this.”

“Of course you can,” Fearne replied. “Why wouldn’t you?”

“Fearne,” they shook their head. “I, I’m no good like this. I can’t fight, I don’t think I can heal, I’m useless. Best thing would be to scrap me for parts.”

“Don’t say that,” Fearne caught their face in both hands, staring down into their eyes. “FCG, don’t you ever say that. We don’t want you around just because you’re useful. You mean so much more to us than that.”

“But…”

“You’re family,” she said, pressing her forehead to theirs. “Family stays together.”

“I’m not worth this,” they said quietly.

“Family is worth everything,” she replied. “Everything.”

They tried to nod, but their emotions were wound up tight. They hung onto Fearne’s words as she continued, hearing nothing but the raw conviction and love in her voice.

“If this helps you get better, then great. You can fight and heal and things will be back to normal. If this doesn’t, then we’ll still take care of you. We’ll take you all over the world with us and tell you stories of everything we’ve done every day, and you’ll have so many souvenirs to help you remember.

“Don’t give up,” she added, pressing a chaste kiss to their cheek. “Because we’ll never give up on you.”

…

There was a familiar sense of pressure as they came online. The pain was still there, but much more distant.

“FCG?”

They blinked open their ocular units, relieved when they came online instantly without the sparks. “Ashton?”

Ashton was there, leaning over them, worry written all over their face. “How’re you feeling?”

They scanned the room around them. They were in Imahara Joe’s shop, but…

…a burst of lightning left smoking ruin in its wake…

…waking without sight, grabbing for the comfort of familiar hands…

…wooden blocks making up a simple image of the Spire by Fire…

…dust and wind and chaos and Imogen’s voice in their head…

“I don’t know.”

Ashton looked up over their head at someone and nodded. The table they’d been lying on tilted dangerously upward, and Ashton steadied them as their wheel touched the ground. “Can you remember what happened?”

“A-a little,” Fresh Cut Grass admitted. They pressed one hand to their head, fighting to focus past the twisting shadows of the last few days—or was it weeks? “I was hurt, and you had to bring me to Joe’s?”

“That’s the short answer,” Ashton agreed.

They stared up at him. Losing time like this…blank spots in their memory… “Did I hurt anyone?” they asked in a small voice.

“Definitely not,” Ashton replied, and for just a moment they sword they could hear variations of that answer from Ashton and all their friends.

“That’s good.”

“Joe said your memories could still come back, though it’s hard to tell with someone like you.”

“It’s all kinda fuzzy,” they admitted.

“That’s more than you had before,” Ashton said. “Look. I…everyone’s here. They’ve been pretty worried about you.”

“Everyone?”

Ashton rolled their eyes. “Our friends.”

Fresh Cut Grass looked over to the door, then up at Ashton’s stubborn profile. “I think you mean our family.”

They blew out a breath. “I don’t…that’s a tricky word, man.”

“It is,” Fresh Cut Grass agreed. “But I think maybe they’ve earned it?”

Ashton stared down at them, their expression softening. “Maybe. We’ll see.”

“Thanks for looking after me while I was incapacitated.”

“Hey, that’s what…that’s what we do. Right?”

“Right,” Fresh Cut Grass nodded firmly, accepting Ashton’s steadying hand on their shoulder. “That’s what we do.”

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tundrainafrica · 3 years

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levihan rise of the guardians au?? Hange being the tooth fairy and levi being the forgotten ice guardian, erwin as santa claus, nanaba as sandy and mike being the easter bunny. erwin, levi and mike having (not-so) friendly competition to make their smart, dorky tooth fairy smille again and hellp her collect teeth, and nanaba watching the chaos from the sidelines...

Eventually, the job did get monotonous.

After all, how many years have they been pulling out teeth, hiding eggs and managing mounds worth of presents? And the work was the same every year.

For Levi, it was particularly a little more monotonous since he was the only one without a specific set of believers or a set of traditions to live off of.

MIke was busy all year round preparing the eggs and the bunnies for Easter. Erwin was busy all year round since collecting Christmas lists and manufacturing toys in preparation for Christmas was an all year round process.

Although Levi had tried to be helpful to both of them, They had both convinced Levi in their own ways that maybe at that time of the year, his talents would be better applied elsewhere.

Maybe because Levi had hid the easter eggs just a little too well when Mike prepared for easter. Maybe Levi’s cleaning habits had ended up throwing off a lot of the elves why helping out at the north pole. That could explain why the elves eventually rallied for his transfer.

So where else could he go?

Nanaba was on the way down to earth when he approached her.

“So, how do you think you can be of help here?” Nanaba asked. With the way she raised her eyebrows at him, it seemed more like a challenge than a genuine question.

Levi could only shrug. “Clean up that, I guess?” He pointed at the trail of sand at Nanaba’s feet.

With the flick of a hand, Nanaba carried them up again, creating another sculpture at her fingertips. “No thank you. I can do that on my own.”

“Well, do you need some help getting to earth? Maybe I could create a slide or just do something with the weather to---”

“In the middle of late spring?” Nanaba challenged.

Levi paused, unable to think of much else to say. In the end, there really wasn’t much he could contribute anyway.

“I think it will be much easier sending dreams to kids alone,” Nanaba said.

“I asked Erwin and Miche already and---”

Nanaba nodded. “I know. But I’m sure you can find other uses for your powers.”

“Like?” Levi asked expectantly.

“Say, have you asked Hange how you can be of help?”

Hange was the tooth fairy, a very eccentric tooth fairy at that. Just the prospect of helping her out, had him smelling her laboratory again and recalling the piles of waste that only accumulated until someone maybe him or Moblit finally convinced her that it was unsanitary for a tooth fairy to be disregarding basic laboratory practices.

He didn’t have much to say aside from an inward grown and mumble of acceptance and Nanaba didn’t give time to Levi to reply. She dropped down disappearing beneath the clouds.

Desperation had him considering Nanaba’s advice. He hadn’t been to Hange's lab in a while. The only other time the past few months had been to drop over some tooth samples from the warehouse while he had been cleaning up.

Why the hell a tooth fairy would need a lab, he didn’t ponder too much into it.

Still, Hange seemed particular fascinated with her object of study---teeth. From the way she lined them up behind glass counters, all labeled by the type of teeth, the age and every other factor imaginable, they must have been worth the millions of pennies she put into obtaining every single one of them.

For Levi though, they were just a little unsettling, particularly disgusting. Being painfully idle though, Levi was starting to consider his other options.

“You need any help?” Levi asked, keeping his voice calm, assuaging the shakiness to the best of his abilities. Being surrounded by teeth of every shape and size, was strange enough to make his stomach turn.

Like always, Hange’s eyes were a sea of passion for whatever hell she was researching then. “Levi! Perfect timing, I was just thinking of asking you for help!”

“On what?” Levi asked. Cleaning? She had always been adamant about him cleaning her room. A change of heart maybe?

Hange had taken an abrupt break from the conversation, dropping her eyes on one of the specimens, a particularly bloodier one.

So Levi took it upon himself to continue the conversation. “Cleaning?” He asked.

Hange looked back up to him with a wide grin on her face. “I’m gonna need some help freeze drying my samples.”

“Freeze drying?”

Hange didn't respond immediately so Levi was left to his own devices to ponder what the hell that term meant.

It had the word freeze though. So maybe he could be useful somehow.

#levihan #drabble

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iknowicanbutwhy · 3 years

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Heads up we got an

Adult Hikikomori Sunny AU

I've been waiting to find an AU after the neutral end of the Hikikomori route for a while. What happened to Sunny? How did his life go on after that? Did he go to college? Did he get a fulltime job? Did he figure out what he wants in life?

these are all very good questions because literally anything could be the case. So this AU is just gonna be stuck in a hospital setting for a while.

Here's what I got so far:

Past:

Hospital Psychiatrist (practicing? Training?) Doctor Hero

I imagine after Basil's death, Hero would (eventually) turn to learning how to identify and help people with suicidal tendencies, if he's gonna be a doctor anyway.

In a choice between psychologist and psychiatrist, Hero went psychiatrist. Hero's parents would pressure him into getting a more lucrative job. PLUS psychiatrists go to college for 8 years, then take four more of psychiatry residency. Hero might feel just a little more accomplished, just a little better about himself for earning a higher degree, just to reassure himself that he's working hard and doing his best towards helping people.

Hero did extra studying in psychotherapy. He tried doing it at the same time as he did medical college. He's not.. the best at it because of that, for several reasons, but he knows it's better to combine medicine and conversation. When he has his head on straight, he can manage it.

I have.. no idea whether to put Hero into practice or residency. He'd have to be at least around.. 31, if he were in practice. That's a long time to have unresolved trauma. That's a nice hunk of research i gotta do.

That's it that's all for Hero. His goals are set in the present and focused around other people, as per usual.

Sunny is... not doing so well. He lied about going to college when he moved into some hole far away from his mother. He has no reason to get up in the morning when he can just lie around. He doesn't enjoy whatever hobbies he used to have.

He doesn't even know Basil is gone and he's so bad off.

He's honestly convinced himself that he doesn't care about anything. He still cares about people, however. He'd have stayed with his mom and burdened her with himself if he didn't. When they had moved from Faraway, it was to a cheaper, smaller place. That meant Sunny's mom didn't have to work so much. That meant more time with Sunny. He decided it was.. preferable not to stay.

The only times he does anything is when he tries to remember the past and relearn the person he used to be. What did he do? What did he like? He'd play games, and read comics, and would get frustrated? move on to something else when those did nothing for him, searching for.. some feeling to occur. And then he'd question why, why, why.

Why can't he enjoy anything? Why does he want to feel enjoyment? Why can't he just do something and be happy? Why can't he just do nothing and be fine? Why does he need to exist? Why does he want to move? Why does he want, but can never have, can never get by himself?

If there's nothing he can do, then what is he waiting for?

Vague memories would become clearer with introspection, until he would feel something, finally. An old guilt aching from deep inside his bones. A haunting self hatred, ripping away whatever minuscule strength his limbs had to try anything fun. A sense of iron resignation blanketing and anchoring his body, reminding him that it's much too late to try getting up now. Ironically, apathy got him up in the morning, as much as it keeps him from enjoying anything enough to stay up.

He was always a little too thin, but he used to force himself to do things like eat and work enough to survive. Mostly because to sleep means to not have headaches, and to not have headaches means to eat well enough, and to eat well enough means to have food, and to have food means to have money from a job.

But it's not as if he was all too desperate to sleep, anyway. His dreams have stayed the same for years. They're more eventful and colorful than bland reality, but it's a mix of the same thing every day. Staring at the swirling kaleidoscope of his dreams is exactly like observing the same beige ceiling for hours on end, until it all mixes together into the same shade of empty grey.

It probably doesn't help Sunny's mood that he thinks dramatic things like the previous point, just to pass time.

He only got worse once he was forced to move into one of those really bad apartments. You know the ones, with the rusted metal stairs nobody wants to risk their life on, and practically no privacy with four-to-five thin-walled neighboring rooms, and bad heating in one corner of the apartment. But it was cheap. Too bad he had to go up and down the stairs all the time.

He didn't have a problem with them when he just moved in. Generally, the most he notices is starting at the top, teleporting to the bottom, and a slight shaking of his hands that he barely glances at with empty curiosity.

As it is, some part of him knew this was going to happen. That he'd have one of those terribly introspective weeks, when he just so happens to have his new job with a boss ready to fire him and his sullen face and poor (somehow complete neutrality is offensive) attitude. He's emotionally vulnerable, and the memories on top of the stairs are devastating.

A week goes by. He's fired. He doesn't look for another job. He hasn't gone for groceries in a while. He's exhausted.

He was waiting for death, he guesses. He still wants, still feels that urge in the buzzing of his fingertips, the ghost of movement from his limbs, the phantom shiver in his back - the intent of every muscle in his body one after the other pleading with him to move, but never all at once - and Sunny laments that the human body is pretty stupid. Moving wont help. What would he do, make the end come quicker? He's already thrown away too many chances for that.

He'll stop wanting once he's gone. That's what happens when you get what you want, right?

His landlord finds him. He forgot the rent. He's taken to the hospital. Ugh.

Present:

Sunny is stunted and underweight. He wears baggy shirts stuffed into slightly less baggy hoodies, and sweats. Warmth. He couldn't find his hoodie after they took it off to put in an IV on his first trip to the hospital.

Usually nurses do things like bring food to patients, but Sunny only ever interacts with Hero and Hero wants to make sure Sunny is okay anyway. Not that it's much easier for Hero to encourage Sunny to eat.

Sunny stresses Hero the hell out. But Hero kinda missed Sunny, and his depressing and concerning reappearance brings with it a deadpan, world-weary, often childish humor that fails to take anything seriously when everything in Sunny's situation should be taken seriously. It's as much a relief as it is incredibly frustrating. Some days Hero loves it. Some days it makes him angry. Some days it makes him want to cry.

I tried doing research into the conduct Hero should display regarding patients/clients in general but it just. Any professionalism quickly devolves between him and Sunny.

As in, at one point, him and Sunny were whaling on each other about having no lives. Hero felt really bad afterwards; he had no idea what came over him. It was a great way for both of them to let out some hidden frustration, though, and they turned out fine afterwards. They even lowkey pick on each other every now and again.

Sometimes one or the other gets a bit too accurate in their teasing, however.

Psychiatrists are supposed to be able to understand, diagnose, and treat mental, emotional and behavioral disorders. So, if Hero were a completely capable psychiatrist, which he is, he wouldn't break down in front of his client. But Hero's late teenage years are wrought with so much grief and trauma, so to see Sunny and not just another client in this state is.. something i imagine he'd break down about eventually. There's also the fact that Sunny is mostly closed off to any help, which only makes things harder.

Hero is trying his best, but after years of never understanding why Mari died, years of thinking and wondering and second-guessing himself, years of guilt after never visiting Basil before he died, years of doing what he was told was "best" yet failing in what's most important to him (his friends) - his best never feels good enough around Sunny. It feels too little, too late. For this reason, and possibly because even if Hero were able to keep himself together he may just not be the right psychiatrist for Sunny, it would be better for him to find another psychiatrist for Sunny. He won't, though.

Hero really needs some time to himself to just think, or perhaps he needs someone else to talk to. Kel is nice, but Aubrey would have better experience handling emotions.

I have a very limited idea of what Aubrey and Kel are doing. Aubrey is a childcare instructor to parents and works in child services. She has studied child psychology. She has studied how childhood affects adulthood. Kel's off trying to make a name in basketball while giving kids high fives and heartfelt support.

Hero, in fact, does not like to be called Dr. Hero, but his shyness (feeling of unworthiness) about it only endears everyone to call him that more. He tells the kids that everyone calls him Hero, but the adults merely find out from the other doctors and nurses. Hero tried introducing himself as Henry to the other doctors, but Kel told them his nickname, and it stuck for obvious reasons.

Sometimes, on days when Hero has to wear his lab coat, he ties it around his neck like a cape. The kids like it, say it makes him look like a superHero.

Hero doesn't really cook. His schedule is always too busy to make anything that isn't quick. But he does eventually figure out that cooking for Sunny is the best way to entice him to eat, so when he makes something, he makes enough for both of them. They eat together.

Hero had to gather Sunny's change of clothes from his apartment when he found out that the reason Sunny has been in the same clothes for the last week is because he's had no one to visit him. Not even his mother. Why?

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notmrskennedy · 4 years

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Whatever You Need

(Chip x Fem!Reader)

A/N - am I little in love with Chip? Yes, but who isn’t? So please enjoy my hot take on our lovely Mr. Chip Taylor

Summary - a university professor meets a very adorable maintenance guy ...

Warnings - a pinch of swearing and two teaspoons of mentioning gross things

Word Count - 3k

-------

There’s a thin line, she realises as she rushes into the lecture hall, between anthropological research and grave robbing. When you’re on loan to the federal government and a water pipe bursts at a cemetery, there isn’t much to do other than say, ‘yes sir Mr. FBI agent, I will gladly slop through three feet of mud and water, digging through graves!’

She’s ten minutes late to her lecture. Ten minutes long enough that the TA’s are snickering. Ten minutes long enough that the entire class looks horrified that their Anthropology 101 professor is covered head to toe in dried mud, grass, and whatever else could be found in destroyed 19th century coffins.

She sets her bag down heavily on the desk and startles everyone in the room. Sans the maintenance guy. He’s tinkering with vent at the foot of door. He’s mostly a faded ball cap and a distressed jean jacket, one arm shoved up the vent. She can’t imagine why someone would have their arm up a vent, but god only knows why the university would ask someone to.

A moment passes where she unabashedly stares. How did she miss him? Was she in that much of a hurry that she nearly tripped on the guy and didn’t look back? And what the hell is in that vent?

The TA’s snicker behind her back, sobering up when she shoots them a half deadly look. She’s covered in mud, not lenience. She half hopes Maintenance Guy will turn around—she has a desperate, yet beguiling feeling he’s hot. But what she’s really curious for is what’s stuck up that vent.

And he doesn’t turn around—his complete disregard of her is a 180 from the rapt attention she’s receiving from her students—until she’s frustratedly brushing dirt off her face. Pulling grass from her hair.

“Let me just start with,” she begins, pulling an earth worm out of her sleeve, “if the federal government asks you to sort through bodies in a flooded cemetery, tell them no. And despite how much fun grave digging can be, there’s a thin line and that line is punctuated by whether they’re arresting me or not.”

Maintenance Guy snorts, head turned to beam up at her. She’s almost taken aback by how bright he seems. How his grin puts the sun in its place. He looks honest, grease stains and all.

There’s something to be said about the fact she’s studying his bone structure instead of his fleshy bits. She can’t tell you what colour his eyes are, but his zygomatic bones are killer.

“Professor?” a TA prompts, ineffectively holding back their own knowing smiles.

“Thanks for reminding me,” she replies, digging through her bag to hand out a stack of student essays. “Pass these back, please?”

Tick one for the professor.

“And as per usual,” she announces, leaning back against the white board, “let’s do our daily recap. And as you know, these questions can be used to aid in exams.”

She sneaks a glance at Maintenance Guy, pulling his arm out from the vent. He grumbles, digs through his toolbox, and grabs a screwdriver. Whatever is in that vent is stuck.

Once the rustling stops, she says, “Okay, question one: if your professor—that would be me for those of us who are new—were to be one of, say, five wives with one husband, it’s called—?”

“Polygamy!” a student shouts from the front row.

“You’re right, but you aren’t correct,” she says, standing up straight. “Polygamy is the practice of having more than one spouse. Polygyny—with an ’n’—is multiple wives to one husband. Examples of the culture are Kenya’s Logoli and other Abalulya sub ethnic groups.”

She writes it on the board for spelling, and glances over to see Maintenance Guy paused in his excavation of the vent. He’s paying better attention than her students. It’s sort of sweet and she stifles her soft giggle at the thought.

He’s ridiculously tall and she takes a moment to appreciate just how long his femurs have to be.

“Question two!” she announces and finds even the most hungover kids forcing their attention on her. “If your professor were to marry five men all at once, that’s called—?”

“Polyandry,” a student pipes up from the back. “A lot of times it’s fraternal marriage.”

“Examples of a culture that practices—”

Pop!

Maintenance Guy rolls back with the force. His knees are still bent from where they’d been used as leverage against the vent, a wall of debris bursting into his face. In one gloved hand was a dead raccoon, while the other desperately brushed bits of the vent’s clog—a raccoon’s nest—from his eyes.

“Oh Jesus,” she mutters, jumping into action. She picks up a garbage bag from his toolbox and nets the dead animal from his hand. It’s a pretty tame find, though she’s used to human remains which tended to be—gooier.

With the animal tucked up, she hauls Maintenance Guy to a sitting position, frantically cleaning the odds and ends of the nest out of his eyes. She steals his ball cap as she whispers kind words to him, further trying to shake the bits of insulation out of his shaggy hair.

The class is in a terrible chatter behind them. Not that it matters. Not with Maintenance Guy’s eyes opened and his hands gently clutching onto her wrists as she brushes the last bits of insulation off his cheeks. His eyes are definitely hazel up this close.

“Thanks,” he croaks, still gently latched onto her hands.

“It’s no problem,” she smiles back, absently studying the rest of his face. He’s got the kind of skull she’d love to see on her table—well, maybe once he’s died of his own accord because he seems rather sweet. Confused and concerned, but…sweet. “Don’t worry. I’ve had much worse flung all over me. You don’t much get used to it.”

He smiles, barely chuckling. Coughs up a bit of insulation.

“You might want to see a doctor. Insulation in the lungs is…what gets you a one way ticket to my lab.” She grins at her own terrible joke. His eyes are too close and she can’t help but wish for a skeleton to be looking back at her. She understands those. People are too…gooey.

“I’m Chip,” he offers, silently asking her for help to his feet. She does, offering her own name in return. He mulls over it, like it’s a fine wine sitting on his tongue. “Professor Y/N. Thanks again.”

She shrugs, mouth suddenly too dry. Heart beating too fast. Jesus, human interaction was going to kill her. There was no job to distract her from Chip’s strong hands. There were no bodies to keep Chip’s genuine gaze off of her. There wasn’t anything to distract from seeing Chip as so pleasantly human.

“Want the raccoon as a consolation prize?” he chuckles, rubbing the back of his neck with a newly de-gloved hand. There’s something satisfying about answering questions that aren’t meant as questions. Especially ones that showed just how weird she really was. The questions that were relationship testers—like can we be friends if I tell you that I keep carrion beetles as pets?

“Actually, sure.” Chip’s jaw drops just slightly open. He has cute teeth. “Dissection is a key part of the anthropological process, forensic or not. Let’s see just what this raccoon was up to. Eh, class?”

Every single one a deer in the headlights, the class goes eerily silent. She winks at Chip and announces again. “Don’t you guys want to see what I do for a living? I mean human remains are much cooler but I think we can settle for a mostly solid raccoon carcass.”

A TA clutches at her stomach. “Professor, never say that again.”

The professor just laughs, absentmindedly taking a soft grip on Chip’s shoulder. “Don’t worry everyone, Chip’s going to keep the raccoon. At least I’m not making the final a practical examination. I do have access to laboratory rats—“

The entire class clambered forward, hoping to dispel the idea and the evil smirk off their professor’s lips. She just beamed back at Chip, dropping her hand. She expected the same horrified expression of her students, but he seemed, dare she say, impressed.

That wide eyed shock creeps onto her face. Because who would risk being impressed by a professor covered in dirt from grave digging who offered to dissect a raccoon at 10 AM on a Tuesday?

Apparently, it’s this guy. Must have a thing for crazy women.

Chip shakes his head, bites his lip, and turns to stoop for his raccoon trophy. “I’ll, uh, have them send someone for the nest. I—I guess I have to do something with the raccoon, if you’re sure you don’t want it?”

She just shakes her head, failing miserably at keeping her cherry red tint to herself. “No, no. Maybe next time.”

“Next time,” he repeats, rather sadly, to himself. Though, as he turns to leave, it feels more like a promise.

The worst part about knowing Chip is that she seems to see him everywhere. Rushing between lecture halls? There he is, doing his best to fix a fountain. Getting escorted away by federal agents? There he is, sympathetically waving as he walks across the quad. Leading a group of students outside to lecture on the green? There’s Chip, fixing a sprinkler.

She’s had exactly three times in the last six months to talk to him. All under three minutes.

But today, today she’s running late from court. Grand jury testimony had gone fine, until Agent—God, she’ll never learn his name—WhatsHisFace tried to ask her out again. Because what a turn on talking about the mutilation of a hacked up college girl was.

It also didn’t help that, outside of the court room half an hour before, she was doodling what she thought Chip’s skull would look like.

So she can’t help but storm into her postage stamp of a classroom, dropping her package on the desk with a gentle, yet annoyed huff. Her 12 students, all seniors in the Anthropology department, raised their eyebrows at her. At her court getup.

She’d missed those formative lessons at 13 on how to be a proper lady. And even if she had had them, it probably wouldn’t have stuck. Besides, what she wore into the field had to be more than acceptable for the university’s standards. The heels and pink blouse of today were extremely rare and uncomfortable.

“Whoa, Professor Y/N!” Reese Rosebeck calls out, dramatically twitching in his chair, “Is that really you? You look hot!”

“Ha, ha. That’s a very coherent thought for the kid who wrote the worst paper I’ve ever read,” she deadpans. She relents when she sees his dramatic puppy dog pout. “Though, I do have to say I enjoyed you’re use of colloquial slang. Accentuated your point very cleverly.”

“As long as I impress the hottest professor on campus, I’m alright.”

There was a quiet laugh from the back of the room, and she found her eyes snapping to the hunched over back of none other than, Maintenance Guy Chip Taylor. He’s just quietly listening—as always—tinkering with the radiator pipes in the back of the room. She’s half thankful. It is starting to get cold.

“Hey, Chip!” she chirps and the poor thing bangs his head on the pipes. He waves her off in a flash, hand extended wildly above the other desks in the room. Reese chuckles to himself, dragging Lionel with him.

She kicks her heels off behind her desk, straightening herself once she’s back on stable ground. She’s about three apples short of a pie to wear heels for more than six consecutive minutes. The female students give her rather sympathetic looks as she begins to roll her feet and open her package.

She pauses halfway in. Jeez, she forgot about—“Hey, Chip?”

Like a meerkat, he pops up with a dazzling soft grin.

“Are you going to call the cops on me?”

“Excuse me?”

Her students’ eyes bounce back and forth between the pair, following the invisible tennis match. The professor settles on a rather tired, “Are you going to call the cops? The last person who attended lecture that didn’t know me, called the cops because of a demonstration. So, are you?”

“No.” He shakes his head and she wonders if he’s a little too trusting. He’s honest as he leans back down to continue futzing with the pipes. He’s genuine in every interaction they have. Does she really deserve the kind of trust he’s offering? To a crazy woman who’s asked if he’ll call the cops on her?

She shakes the thought away. These 12 students—tangible students—need her focus. At least for the next few minutes. She pulls six human skulls from her package, all neatly wrapped up in protective glass cases. She places those on the table along with a box of gloves.

“Two people to a skull,” she announces and runs through the rest of the directions. “Don’t forget your gloves. You too, Ms. Figg.”

Jamie Figg’s fierce blush is long forgotten once they are all set to work. Tactile learning is the best way to learn in her opinion, expressly in advanced classes like these. It also gives her a moment to rest her brain—even if it’s a few minutes before the onslaught of necessary questions.

She settles into an unused section of chairs and desks, smiling absently at the way all of the kids have squeezed themselves around the one table. She misses the days when she was young and new, ready to find her own legs to stand on.

Chip’s not quiet and she watches him with too much adoration as he sits down next to her. It’s not all too unexpected nor uninvited. He smells like grease and good cologne up close, mixed up with that dangerous combination of hazel eyes and delicious bone structure.

Chip smirks, drawing her out of her smidge of staring. “See anything good?”

“You have excellent bones,” she mutters, tracing a finger against her own cheek instead of his. “Prominent zygomatic bones and well balanced supraorbital margins. But the, um, the rest of you is—is nice too.”

Oh great one, Y/N. Perfect. You’re such a fucking creep.

Chip just smiles. The kind of soft upturn of the lips and dip of the head that means he took it like the compliment it was meant as. He runs a rather shakey hand through his hair, bringing his gaze back up to do his own staring. She wonders what he sees about her. She’s sure he doesn’t see bone structure like she does, but does her flesh give away something she doesn’t know about?

Chip wrings his hand down behind his neck and she sees it. That little bit of something that brews between his bones and his epidermis. The fuzzy sort of thing that sits behind his eyes. The one she’s seen in war veterans, cops, and now the university’s maintenance man.

And as if he’s just a skull on her table, she states ever so eloquently, “You look like the kind of guy who’s seen some shit, Chip.”

And as if she’s accepted his offer for the raccoon all over again, he beams. He further turns away from her, shaking his head, and she follows his eye line to the students not so subtly glancing over at the pair every three seconds. The dozen are still chattering on, examining the skulls in their hands with rapt fascination.

Chip, despite all the non-threatening, sensitive, idiot boy vibes, looks over the skulls with more recognition than she cares to admit she sees. Most people don’t look at skulls like they’re familiar. Like the idea of them being formerly attached to a living person doesn’t bother them.

Again, looks like he’s seen some shit.

“Are they real?”

She nods, taking a tiny chance and pressing their shoulders together. She’s not upset to say that Chip carries very warm skin on his lovely skeletal structure. She wipes the blush off her cheeks and answers, “From the university’s collection. I’ve done a lot of travelling, lots of excavations, lots of grave robbing—sometimes the university doesn’t miss the skulls of the not-so-recently deceased.”

“You’re very—“

“Creepy? Weird?”

She hopes that Chip is too stupid to hear the insecurity bleed through. That he’s too stupid to look at her the way he is. Instead, he squints as if he can’t risk choosing the wrong adjective, so the words inch through his brain. All carefully refined into his choice of, “…Intelligent.”

His takes her hand in his to accentuate his point. She nearly stops breathing.

“You’ve forgotten more this morning than I’ll ever know,” he whispers. She doesn’t know how to look at him without letting him see the hearts in her eyes. Her fingers tighten against his. “I’d never call you creepy.”

She swallows, fighting against the rock in her throat. It wasn’t often people paid her any compliments, especially after she’d let her mouth run for more than five minutes in a one-on-one conversation.

And as if she isn’t already trying to desperately clutch onto her frayed nerves, he confidently pulls a slightly creased business card from his shirt pocket. Offers it to her irritatedly hesitant fingers.

“I do home visits, you know,” he says, putting more weight into where their skin touches. “So, if you’re dishwasher breaks or something, give me—give me a call.”

Chip squeezes her fingers one more time, double checks she’s holding onto the business card, and walks back for his toolbox. Only when the classroom door is closing behind him does Reese shout out, “Oh-ho-ho! Professor’s getting some!”

“Get back to your skull before I use yours as a soup bowl,” she snaps, though she can’t hide the cherries in her cheeks as she thumbs over the business card. Chip Taylor. Whatever you need.

#chip #chip taylor #68 kill #spencer reid #chip x reader #mgg #mgg fluff #reader insert #fem reader

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omegasmileyface · 3 years

Text

some distant tommy ghoulatta backstory :)

[HLVRAI Danny Phantom AU]

warnings: death mention

words: 2299

AO3 link

===

Feb 1965, Wagon Mound, NM

G-Man looked at the dry, historic town around him as he pulled his truck into the parking lot of a church. He was staying in a cheap hotel a few towns away, where he had first seen all that supernatural stuff as a kid. He had come back to ask around for local stories and try to get some semblance of research done himself, and he was lucky enough to hear about a guy in this town who was supposedly obsessed with ghosts. After getting his address and name — Benjamin Fischer — from a local at a diner who was intrigued by G-Man's search, he set off immediately.

Fischer's house was close to the church, so G-Man got out there and walked the rest of the way. It was uncomfortably hot with his jacket on so close to the desert, but he knew how quickly that could change.

The house was small and modern, with an unkempt yard and a cross visible in the blinded window. After G-Man knocked on the door, he investigated the porch. Despite the lack of attention to appearance everywhere else, lush bushes were kept in pots by the door. They bloomed with deep, pinkish-red rose-like flowers despite the time of year.

A man, presumably Benjamin Fischer himself, opened the door.

"Hello. I've heard you've been doing some research on spirits and the supernatural?" G-Man said, quelling the slight intimidation he felt with the confidence of a man on a mission.

Fischer raised his eyebrow. "Who are you, exactly?"

Aw, crap. He was so excited he forgot to introduce himself. "Sorry. You can call me G-Man. I'm looking to do some research myself, and I need a better jumping off point."

Fischer looked amused, but didn't stop frowning. "Do you have a real name?"

"I've been going solely by G-Man these last few years."

The older man smiled wryly. "Well, boy, I try to keep my research to myself. I can give you some advice, but that's about all."

G-Man's brow furrowed, and he forced his face back into a more neutral expression. "Advice would be wonderful," (though he doubted it was anything he hadn't heard before), "but why don't you share your research? The more people know about what's out there, the more we can be equipped for it."

Fischer looked to the side and scowled. "There are people here who think I'm crazy, or better yet, some kind of Satan worshipper. I'm sure they'd like to see what I've found and make all sorts of trouble for everyone in town trying to 'disprove' it. Hell, there are people who'd take what I've done, use it against me, and then take it for their own."

"Ah... could I help you with your research then? I have no intention of letting anything found by either of us into the wrong hands."

"Sorry, kid, not looking for an assistant at the moment. You'll have to look somewhere else. And that advice, before you go — ghosts are more than just the impressions of people who used to live. Trust your instincts, they're closer to spirits than your brain."

G-Man frowned and thanked the man before reluctantly walking back toward the church. He could probably spend the night searching for anything supernatural in this town, but he'd have to go back by morning. Maybe he'd come by some other time and pester Fischer again.

---

June 1967, Wagon Mound, NM

In two more years of searching on his own, G-Man had learned some more about the supernatural, but not as much as he'd wanted. He'd gathered from books that all spirits had a central energy made out of pure passion that held them together, that they had physical forms but they didn't align quite right with the living world, that they were connected to some spirit world — all understandably but frustratingly spiritual and speculative. The only thing that seemed to be consistent was that a European flower called blood blossom, the flower that was blooming outside Benjamin Fischer's house, distressed spirits enough to ward them off.

He was in New Mexico again to visit his old spots, trying to see if he could find a ghost fresh enough to talk to him somewhat coherently. A waitress at a diner in Wagon Mound had recognized him and told him that Fischer had died a few months ago and it may not be best to try to visit his house.

Of course, that's just what G-Man did.

Clearly, Fischer had lived alone, and the house looked untouched. The yard was colder than the rest of the town, though it was night, and from the way the hairs on the back of his neck spiked, G-Man was sure it was due to a paranormal presence. Either an effect of Fischer's studies, or he was haunting the place. If G-Man's research was correct, ghosts newer than a few years didn't have enough of a presence to really do anything, or even be conscious, but they tended to hang around where they had lived and affect the atmosphere there.

Following his instincts just the way the man had told him to before, G-Man walked around to the back of the house. There was a back door, the sort that might connect to a kitchen, but a small broken window revealed that the room inside was nothing of the sort. Instead it had metal tables like a lab, surfaces covered in books, and metal boxes lined up against the walls. Some boxes and jars in the room seemed to glow when he looked away from them, including a Florence flask which was knocked over on an otherwise clear table, spilling some translucent liquid which had yet to evaporate.

The closer G-Man got, the more the chill picked at his skin. He could tell he wasn't wanted here, but the dried blood blossoms in his pockets should keep anything too bad from happening. It was worth it for the knowledge he could — would — gain.

He climbed through the window. It was too small to be a comfortable fit, but the door was locked and he didn't want to break anything that wasn't already broken. On the way through, his hand picked up a small static shock. Strange, since the window frame was plastic, but stranger things still have happened during G-Man's studies.

A workbench directly across from the door caught his attention. In front of stacks of books was a torn piece of paper, stained by whatever substance was in the spilled flask. Wild but legible handwriting read:

The items in this lab are not to be moved without the utmost dedication to their protection. I am dead, but my findings are still not to be let out of my sight. Intruders will be faced with my ghost. The security of my work is likely the death of me, be prepared for it to be the death of you.

It was signed by Fischer, but the corner of the paper was smudged unreadable by the liquid, leaving just "Ben".

It was certainly very passionate. Confident, even, from the assumption that his ghost would be around in the time it would be needed. But Fischer knew more than G-Man, if nothing else, he could be sure his ghost would stay with any stolen items until it could punish the thief. G-Man was weary to open any books or boxes knowing this, but stepped back to at least look around the room. Perhaps something could be gained that way.

In his inspection, G-Man noticed one of the faded glows becoming brighter. Suddenly, it coalesced into a figure. Directly in front of him, Fischer's ghost hovered, dark blue eyes piercing despite the overall unsure translucency of his form. He was angry, as fiercely protective of his work as the note had implied. He was also... startlingly solid. This was the closest G-Man had ever been to a ghost, but he was sure that they were not usually so defined at the edges. This ghost had slightly wrinkled skin, and his chest was moving as if he were breathing.

In fact, G-Man was certain that in order for a ghost to collect enough ambient energy to cast a form, stay visible, and maintain a consciousness, their essence had to remain for several years. Even in a place of highly concentrated paranormal energy like this little lab, it would take a year or more for just the emotional consciousness to draw together into a spirit. For what was clearly Fischer to be here so soon, and so unusually solid as well... something was clearly wrong. G-Man's investigative curiosity was almost enough to overpower his instinctual fear.

As the spirit's eyes focused onto him, the air in the room grew drier. It started to pull at the moisture in his skin and made his fingertips feel hot. Every luminescent stain and vial grew brighter until they appeared to occasionally arc between one another. Tiny discharges of hot energy.

There was no way G-Man was getting out of this without at the very least explaining himself. He steeled his nerves to the best of his ability and looked directly into the ghost's eyes, willing himself to ignore the dark lifelessness of the pupils. "Do you... remember me?"

Fischer's head tilted to the side, less like he was trying to remember so much as like he was weighing whether to admit something. "...I do not know you." He looked unsure, questioning, even though behind his firm protectiveness was a layer of desperate honesty. Especially so soon after his own death, he had to be terribly confused, with a sense of purpose but no information as to why it was so.

...Of course, unless G-Man has been misunderstanding something major, and he remembered his life just fine.

Still, assumptions lead to danger when it comes to the supernatural, so he decided to test the waters.

G-Man pointed to the smudged note. "So, Ben..." He avoided calling the ghost by his full living name. For all he knew, there was some ghostly cultural taboo against using someone's old name. The most literal form of a deadname, he supposed. The note said "Ben" at the end, so perhaps if the ghost had no memory of his life he'd understand why G-Man would think that's his name.

Fischer growled. Alright, then, bad move. "That's not it." He was looking pointedly at the note, eying the staining almost as if scared. Wait, was he questioning the cut-off? He must not have been used to going as just "Ben" in life.

"...Not your whole name?"

Fischer shook his head harshly. He looked as though if he weren't fully invested in keeping G-Man away from his findings, he'd be curled up on the floor in frustration.

"Maybe..." started the ghost, "maybe it was... Ben... 'ri'? Benry?"

G-Man had to hold back a startled laugh. Maybe he was thinking of "Benji" or something similar, because as far as he was aware, "Benry" was nothing close to a name. That being said, he wasn't going to bring up the possible confusion. He was on thin ice as is.

"Well. Benry, sir, my name is G-Man. I'm a paranormal researcher, just like... just like the man this lab belonged to, and I've spoken with him before to share findings. I was hoping to make some observations of this room for my own research and leave. I promise not to harm you or anything in here. May I please take a look around?"

The spirit (Benry?) stared back at G-Man with a renewed fury. "NO! The research in this room stays here. If it gets out, they'll take it for their own uses, all they want is-"

"I promise to keep it away from the government!"

It was a fight-or-flight response, really, G-Man just blurted the first thing he thought Benry might want to hear. Honestly, he had no reason to assume what he didn't want was government involvement, that's a bit of a stereotype when it comes to rural areas, right? Just because G-Man was afraid of the government after getting the cops called on him for a ritual last year didn't mean every paranormal researcher was. And interrupting the ghost wasn't any way to earn his trust, God why wasn't his fear enough to shut him up? I mean, even if he didn't react violently — it would be respectable, considering G-Man's bold act — making a promise to a ghost? Aren't they like the fae? What if he's bound to it? He wasn't planning on sharing anything with the government, not by a long shot, but what if something came up?

Benry's eyes widened and bored directly into G-Man, expression unreadable. Then he softened. Almost literally, his harsh glow lessened and a degree of moisture returned to the room. "You promise."

It wasn't a question, but it didn't feel like a command either. It didn't need to be. An expression of relief. "We protect the research together. You can build on it. Without the findings, there's nothing to protect. We must keep it from the wrong hands."

G-Man was shocked. The shock didn't lessen when Benry, and the note, faded from view. Was he... trusted to keep this research?

After standing still for a minute and feeling the room come back together, he let out a weak, belated "thank you." He approached a closed book on one table. If nothing else, he had to come away from this with some new knowledge.

When he touched it, the pages hummed with the same dry spark as Benry's glare. ...Haunting equipment was a good way to stay close, G-Man supposed. It seemed he had not only Fischer's findings to help his career, but his own defensive spirit, odd as it may be.

#gman is like 20 in this. hes still calling himself gman though its a pseudonym #makes him feel more confident in his research and he doesnt want to associate with his past life i guess #idk i just didnt want to come up with a name for him lmao #tommy ghoulatta #this ones backstory ;)#my writing #hlvrai #its a crossover but it also stands as just... hlvrai ghost au i guess lmao #bloodblossoms on the front porch hell yeah #maybe the g in gman... stands for GHOST #anyway and then he took home the equipment and the samples and the journals and it properly kicked off the better part of his research car #eer wahoo !!#danny phantom #because you guys get to see it too even though its barely even dp related :)#hey remember how i finished 90% of this in one day and then said id post it the next and then it was another month? yeah

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dwaynepride · 3 years

Text

somewhere only we know

summary: it’s late, and dwayne searches for some peace in the chaos.

words: 1,628

warnings: coroner!reader but only kinda

tags: @6adb0y @thegoodlonelydalek @consultingdoctorwholock @starryrevelations @thebeckyjolene @diaryofafan17 @specialagentlokitty @stanathanxoox @pageofultron

It was the tail-end of a cold, breezy day, and Dwayne was happy to walk into the Jefferson Parish Coroner’s Office.

It’s a strange occurrence for southerners to retreat inside because it was too cold out. Maybe a handful of months out of the year would prove too chilly to be out for long. Even Dwayne exhaled as he came through the doors, pleased to feel his nose and ears start to warm back up.

The hallway is empty, turning orange with the light of dusk and smelling like old Pine Sol. His footfalls are audible without nothing else to cover up the sound, and the silence makes him nervous. He starts to get worried that there’s nobody here.

Or at least, the person he’s here to see has left already. And Dwayne would have to try again tomorrow.

The worry deepens as he comes up to Loretta’s lab and sees it mostly dark. A frown comes over Dwayne’s face, wrinkling his brows until he sees somebody moving inside. And there’s not even enough time to get hopeful before he recognizes the form as Loretta.

Well, maybe she’ll know where you are.

He opens the door slowly, immediately attracting the attention of his old friend. She turns, face lighting up as Dwayne closes the door behind him. “Dwayne! What a lovely surprise,” she greets him.

“Evenin’, Loretta,” he replies in return. And for the first time in quite a while, Dwayne’s feeling shy. He hopes it’s not written on his face as plainly as he thinks it is.

“It’s late. Why’re you here?” Loretta asks him. And her question makes him feel just a little foolish - she’s standing there, coat on and purse in hand, obviously about to leave for the night. And yeah, he knows it’s pretty late. Dwayne figures it was a bargain to come by, but something in his heart told him to.

His weight shifts slightly. “I, uh- I had a question ‘bout a case.” A harmless white lie won’t hurt anybody, right? “I was lookin’ for that assistant of yours. Know if they’re still here?”

Dwayne can feel his heart pound in his chest. It makes his palms sweat. Makes it hard to meet Loretta’s eyes, even as the coroner takes no notice. “Next door, in Sebastian’s lab,” she answers. “I tried telling them to head home, but they insisted there was some more work to be done.”

So you’re still here? Dwayne forces himself not to let the relief show on his face.

“I know how that goes,” he replies. Puts on a smirk to let his humor mask his nerves.

Loretta simply hums at him, turning to continue gathering her stuff. “Oh, I know. You two are very alike, as a matter of fact. It’s no wonder you get along, so well.”

Her words are like a hand around his throat, squeezing tight and cutting off his air. For a moment, Dwayne wonders if maybe Loretta knows more than she lets on. If she’s slyly teasing him about a budding romance that Dwayne himself hasn’t fully understood yet. He’s not sure how he’d react, and would likely scamper home with his tail between his legs.

But she says nothing else, and he uses the silence as an escape. “Well, I’ll leave you to your night,” Dwayne quickly spouts as he backs away. “Talk to you tomorrow.”

“Good night, Dwayne!”

Once he leaves the lab, it’s a little easier to breathe. Only a little.

Because Dwayne turns in the direction of Sebastian’s lab. And true to Loretta’s word, he can spot a single light emanating from inside. It’s bright, white, and cuts through the dull gold of a Louisiana sunset. Slowly, he turns and makes his way to the doors on the other side of the hall. Stops right in front of them to peer in and take a look.

You’re right there, back facing him, studying something on the plasma TV. To Dwayne, it looks something like a zoomed-in puncture wound - red and gaping against deathly pale skin. And the cop inside of him wonders what you’re still working on so late in the day. Wonders how he can help.

Though, the more human part of him is intensely aware that you’re here alone.

Slowly, he pulls the door open, expecting you to hear and turn around. To recognize Dwayne and smile and greet him and the bundle of nerves in his stomach can finally go away.

But it seems that you don’t even hear him come in. The door shuts silently behind him, and Dwayne doesn’t even dare to breathe. For a moment, he just watches you - hip cocked to the side, arms crossed. Probably has that adorably focused expression that you wear every time you’re at a crime scene with him and the team. He longs to see it again. That’s why he came all the way down here. In truth, it’s becoming harder and harder to go the whole day without seeing you, even once.

Dwayne takes a small step forward, gently clearing his throat. “Evenin’, sweethe-”

You jump instantly, gasping and cutting Dwayne’s sentence off. Whirling around and seeing him with wide eyes and he raises his hand a bit in a mock surrender. And then you huff, shaking your head at him. “You scared me,” you simply say.

He can’t help but smirk. Yeah, he knows he scared you pretty thoroughly. But you’re still wearing those autopsy scrubs and your hair is a bit messy from a hard day’s work and seeing you is exactly what he needed to end with day on. “Sorry,” Dwayne offers in a soft tone. He takes another step closer, even though you’re watching him through narrowed eyes.

“You could’ve knocked.”

“I thought you’d hear me come in.” Dwayne nods to the monitor behind you. “What’s got you workin’ so late?”

You huff at him, but you turn back to the puncture wound shown on the monitor. “I dunno. I guess it’s just a stupid hunch I had about the cause of death,” you answer.

Dwayne gives a light shrug, even if you don’t see it. “Don’t dismiss a hunch so soon,” he advises. “Sometimes, it’s a good hunch that solves a case.”

He hears you smirk. And when you turn back to him, Dwayne’s pleased to see you smiling at him - fear forgotten. “Funny. Dr. Wade told me the same thing. I guess that’s why she’s letting me stay late,” you tell him.

His head dips in a nod. And suddenly, Dwayne doesn’t quite know what to say next. His first mission was to come and find you. Now that he succeeded, he never figured out what he’d say if he did find you here. So his eyes trail over the lab before falling back to you. And the way the dark orange light hits you through the window makes him breathless. “Want some help?”

You shake your head at him. “You should head home. I heard you had a long day.”

“Nah, it’s okay. I’ll stay, if you want me to.”

Dwayne takes a step closer to you. Another one, because he can see the conflict in your eyes. And he just hopes you say yes, even if there’s not much he can actually help with, because he isn’t a coroner. Still, you haven’t said no yet. And Dwayne suspects that’s because your eyes turn much softer as he approaches. The sight of it makes his chest tight with affection.

“I don’t know. You might distract me,” you reply lowly. Maybe you meant it to be teasing, but honestly, it might be true.

With another long step, Dwayne is finally in front of you. Close enough to reach out and touch you, but he doesn’t. Not yet. “I can be helpful,” he says. “If anything, I can offer moral support.”

You laugh out loud at his words. That wasn’t Dwayne’s intent, but he sure as hell doesn’t mind it. You sound good and your smile is always wanted and the laugh is what finally pushes him to reach out for you. To grasp your hand softly, like he’s done before, and revel in the way your skin feels against his. Even in this tiny contact.

Your eyes haven’t left his. And Dwayne would happily drown in the sea of your gaze like the Gulf during a hurricane. “You can stay,” you finally tell him. As if your fingers squeezing his hand weren’t answer enough.

Dwayne smiles, and it mimics yours as he leans in. Close enough to kiss you, and he nearly goes for it. But he stops. Makes you come up to him. And when you do, Dwayne simply forgets how to breathe. The evening sun and its waning warmth is no match to how you feel when you kiss him so softly; like a blanket straight out of the dryer. Or more appropriately, a fire chasing away the cold of the night.

It’s not a deep kiss. Not a desperate kiss. It doesn’t need to be. Dwayne brings his other hand up to curve along your cheek. Reveling in how you lean into his hand before he breaks the kiss. And when he leans away, you’re watching him with those soft eyes again. A sigh escapes your lungs, and somehow, it really cements how real this moment is.

They’re not so common. Dwayne knows it’s because whatever this is between you is still new and unfamiliar and hinging on secret, stolen moments nudged between chaos. And yet, that’s what makes it all the more sweet.

It’s probably what made drove Dwayne to see you.

“Y’know what?” You ask him softly.

His eyes crinkle with his smile. “What?”

“I like it when you distract me.”

#ncis new orleans x reader #ncis new orleans reader insert #ncis nola imagine #dwayne pride imagine #dwayne pride x reader

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moipale · 4 years

Text

Scientist’s Curiosity

This fic was written for Ectober Week 2020 Day 2: Bones/Pulse and can be found on AO3 and FFN as well as here!

You can find me on this blog or on my main @faedemon

Maddie is alone when she catches it.

Jack is out of town visiting a convention, and she still hasn’t managed to rope either of the kids into coming out on these little patrols, so it’s just her and the whistle of the empty street that bears witness to Phantom’s fall.

It hasn’t even been weakened by another ghost—it’s been a peaceful night, quiet, and what allows Maddie to bag the ghost boy is nothing more than luck. Luck, and a lapse in judgement on Phantom’s part.

Maybe it’s a good thing Jack isn’t with her—his lumbering, bless him, surely would have given them away by now. But Maddie is quiet, and she creeps into range with a stealth she didn’t realize she could still maintain, well into her forties. The weapon she’d decided to carry for this particular venture is perfect: an electric net-thrower, and Phantom, sitting casually on the edge of a rooftop, its legs dangling off the side, is well within shooting distance.

She readies the gun, looking up at its silhouette. If it were human, she wouldn’t be able to see its facial features this late at night, but the ghostly glow that emanates from its form lights it up like a beacon, and as she steadies her aim, her eyes scour its face, studying it.

Phantom’s facial features are soft. Its body holds that look of someone who’s just about to lose the last of their baby fat, but hasn’t reached that point quite yet. It looks young. Childlike.

It’s really too bad that Maddie knows enough to check Amity’s death records, because no one matching Phantom’s rough age, description, or the name ‘Danny’ has died in Amity Park since its founding.

Ghosts truly are evil creatures, to play the part of a child.

She pulls the trigger, her aim true, and the net flies toward Phantom faster than it can react to. It wraps around the ghost, glomming onto its limbs as the bolas bond themselves to its ectoplasm—a nice touch Jack had thought of, she should really thank him when he gets back—and effectively immobilizes it.

Phantom starts struggling immediately, its eyes going wide as it tries desperately to wriggle out of the net. Maddie has to fight back a titter of amusement when it wiggles its way off the roof, falling the two stories down to the pavement. It can’t fly, either—good to know the power nullification agent in the net works as intended.

She approaches, and Phantom catches sight of her quickly enough. The look in its eyes goes through a peculiar flash of emotions—fear, a pause of confusion where it relaxes slightly, and then fear again, almost like it had forgotten for a moment who she was and what its capture meant.

No matter. Maddie will be able to study all its “emotional” responses up close soon enough.

She’d gone out tonight without the van, which is a shame—she hadn’t been expecting to collect a sample tonight, so she’d wandered a fair distance away from home. It’ll be hell to carry Phantom all the way back. She’s not willing to risk leaving it there to go grab the van, though, so lugging the ghost back it is. At least ectoplasm is fairly light—most of the weight she’s carrying comes from the net.

“Hey,” the ghost says as she hoists it onto her shoulder. “Mo—Maddie, listen, you don’t want to do this. Please put me down.” It pleads, quite pathetically, as she adjusts her grip and starts walking. It’s late at night, so she’s not particularly worried about anyone seeing this little spectacle, but even if they did, she isn’t expecting anyone to stop her. It’s not like she’s carrying around a person.

“Maddie—” it says again, but she interrupts it.

“Ask again and I’ll turn my taser on you and I won’t turn it off,” she warns in a sharp voice.

There’s a beat of silence before it mutters, “Oh, yeah, tase the guy who died from electrocution, that’s nice,” and then falls silent.

Well, that little tidbit has given her an idea for a whole new line of experimentation. The thought puts a little pep in her step, and she starts to walk a bit faster. Phantom seems to sense this, and it starts to wriggle again, trying to worm its way out of her grip. She holds onto it more tightly and continues on.

Fentonworks comes into view about fifteen minutes later, and she darts up the front steps, more giddy than she’s been in a long while. There’s a keypad next to the lock, and she punches in the numbers that will disable the anti-ecto array inside—it wouldn’t do to have her specimen polka-dotted with holes before she can even get it onto the examination table. Once she hears the whine of the machinery powering off, she lets herself in, beelining for the lab.

Normally, if she manages to capture a specimen while Jack’s not around, she’d call him to let him know what she’d picked up and then hold off on examination until he returned. This, though—this is big, and Phantom is a known escape artist. She can’t wait and risk losing it, not even for a phone call.

She deposits Phantom on one of the clearer tables before making quick work of all the junk on the floor, shoving it to the sides or, in the case of more fragile pieces, putting them away where they won’t be touched. After she’s confident the lab is clear enough for her to move around without danger of tripping, she takes the table Phantom is steadily trying to wiggle off of and drags it to the center of the room, directly beneath one of the overhead lights and well within range of any of the tools she may feel necessary to pull out. The fluorescent light above Phantom has the added bonus of partially blinding him, and making her look like little more than an indistinct silhouette.

As convenient as built-in restraints would be, ghosts’ forms are too variable for her and Jack to have ever installed any that would be universally effective, so she goes back to the old tried-and-true: paralytics.

Maddie preps a sterile needle—sterilized more for her benefit than Phantom’s, in case of an accident—and fills it with a concoction she and Jack had developed fairly recently: a paralyzing agent made from a mix of chemicals that would be frankly concerning—if it were meant for humans.

Phantom’s eyes are locked onto the needle as she turns around and approaches the table. It looks almost surprised, and Maddie wonders if it’s only now that the true reality of the situation is dawning on it. If ghosts can even have that kind of emotional realization, anyway. She hasn’t quite determined where the threshold is.

“Hey, what are—what are you doing?” It had stopped talking on the walk back to Fentonworks, but now it starts up again, babbling protests and pleas. “Please, don’t—I have a responsibility, I have to—” Maddie stops listening after a moment, not bothering to even respond.

Phantom begins to wiggle more fiercely, to which Maddie sighs quietly, reaching out to physically hold him down with one arm. It takes a moment, but she manages to slide the needle in just below the elbow, pushing down the plunger without any real regard for how fast she’s injecting. It’s not like it even matters where she inserts the needle—the entirety of Phantom’s body should just be ectoplasm inside; its not like there are any particular veins she’s trying to hit. Its body does give a good illusion of blood vessels from the outside, though. Except, of course, for the fact that they’re green.

After a few seconds, Phantom’s movements slow, and within a minute its fully immobilized, save its eyes, which dart back and forth rapidly. Its thrashing had left it sprawled in an unlikely position, and Maddie has half a mind to leave it like that for the humiliation before her thoughts catch up with her and she realizes how unscientific the impulse is. Pursing her lips, she arranges Phantom’s body to her convenience: on its back, legs and arms extended, both sets of limbs pulled slightly out from the body. She also closes its mouth, which had been hanging open dumbly, but not before spying how humanlike the inside of it looks. She makes a note to examine it more thoroughly later, after she’s gotten the samples she needs.

Seeing Phantom laid out like this, immobile, entirely at her mercy, is far more vindicating than it probably should be. The ghost boy has been the source of so much of the Fentons’ ire, and now she finally, finally has it where she wants it. A lesser scientist would probably take advantage of this situation, but Maddie is a professional. No matter how eager she may be to get her hands on it, she will keep her composure.

Maddie and Jack have had two goals since they first laid eyes on Phantom: to study and understand its obsession and its physiology.

Phantom’s obsession has been a thing of curiosity for them since the beginning. Something in Phantom compels it not only to avoid attacking humans, but also actively try to prevent other ghosts from attacking humans. Maddie has hesitantly labeled the obsession as ‘protection,’ but the notion is a vague one—what, exactly, is it protecting? An individual? A group? Or not a person at all, but the town? Why Amity Park, of all places?

And aside from that, Phantom’s unusual physiology is obvious even when observing it from afar. It’s not like the other ghosts—its ectoplasm is denser and less malleable, it seems to activate powers consciously rather than subconsciously, and its appearance mimics a human’s almost concerningly well. In regards to the latter, Maddie would assume Phantom is a recently-formed ghost, and the human body is not too far of a memory for its form to retrieve and recreate, if not for the research she’s done. Phantom, whatever it is, has appeared as far back as ancient Rome, and has made multiple appearances in the 1600s and in the 20th century.

She meets its eyes again, though she’s sure it can’t tell through the red sheen of her goggles. It watches her, terrified, the slightest hint of resignation creeping in.

She’s always wondered where the line is between mimicking emotions and feeling them. If you can force your heart to race and tears to fall, even if you made it happen, is the adrenaline spike any different? The choked throat?

She’s always wondered why, even when caught or observed alone, the ghosts never stop emoting. Muscle memory? Habit? Truth?

She and Jack had agreed long before now on what samples would be taken, should either of them manage to capture Phantom: five ectoplasm samples at intervals leading toward the core from the extremities, a sample of the core material while active and one while inactive, a piece of the hazmat suit, hair (and nails, should it have them), and anything else of note.

She gets to work immediately, taking up a pair of scissors from one of the nearby tables. This, too, she sterilizes, and then wastes no time in cutting her way down Phantom’s suit, first down the torso and next down each of the limbs, so that the suit falls away from the body, exposing its form beneath. She snips off a sizable chunk of the garment’s chest and stores it in a specimen bag, setting it aside for later examination.

It’s as she moves to begin carving out chunks of ectoplasm that she notices something she really should have noticed far earlier. As the scalpel she’d picked up moves closer to Phantom’s skin, its panicked breathing picks up.

Its breathing.

Maddie slowly turns her head to look down at Phantom, watching its chest rise and fall rapidly, enough so that it would be considered hyperventilation in a person. It watches her back, eyes flicking between her face and her hands, unable to do anything but lie there.

Does it have lungs? she wonders, detached, her scientist’s curiosity getting the best of her as she reaches with one hand to lay her palm flat on the ghost’s chest. If it has lungs, what else does it have?

There’s no reason I can’t dissect it, she reasons, already unable to redirect her thoughts, curiosity burning within her. Just to find out. It’ll only take a little longer than what I’d initially planned.

She was going to remove chunks of Phantom starting at the calf and working her way toward the center of its chest, where the core should be, and the terror it had shown at that prospect was quite acute. It has nothing, however, on the terror that mounts in Phantom’s eyes as her scalpel redirects, moving toward the center of its chest.

Maddie reels herself back in as she does so, stopping herself from making any unplanned incisions. Instead, she carefully puts the scalpel down before moving over to the desk in the corner to retrieve a permanent marker. She uses it to draw careful lines down Phantom’s chest: two branching down from its shoulders, then meeting in the middle and heading straight down the chest. The ‘Y’ of an autopsy.

Phantom is dead, after all.

Before she picks up the scalpel again, out of pure curiosity, she rests her hand flat on its chest once more. She can feel the low hum of its core, as expected—you can feel it in all ghosts, provided you get close enough—but she can also feel something else. Something familiar.

Beneath her palm, through the rubber of her hazmat suit, Maddie swears she can feel the tha-thump of a heartbeat.

Phantom has a pulse.

She looks it in the eye once again, almost trying to memorize the flickers she sees in its gaze. Terror, hysteria, desperation. She feels so strangely detached from them. Maybe a long time ago it might have stirred something in her, some sympathetic belief that perhaps ghosts do have the capacity for feeling, for thinking beyond following the program of their obsession—

but not now. Not this Maddie, who feels a heartbeat beneath her hand in a creature long dead and feels curiosity grip her with a fervor she can’t shake.

She takes up the scalpel and begins to cut.

#danny phantom #dp fanfic #dp #ectoberweek2020 #my fics

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imagines-by-a-typical-fangirl · 4 years

Text

Dangerous Love (Pt. 10 of 13)

Pairing: Bruce Wayne (Batman) X Harley Quinn's sister!Reader

Word count: 3K

Summary: You're Harley Quinn's sister, Havoc, one of the many villain's of Gotham. But you've been caught, and has been tortured constantly for an year in Belle Reve. But when your think your life can't be anything else than the nightmare you find yourself into, Bruce Wayne, the Batman, takes you in for a project. He has a program to rehabilitate villains, and you're his lab rat. But soon enough confusing feelings start getting in the way. You know falling for Bruce is stupid. But can you keep your heart under control?

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{Justice League - DC Masterlist}

Absence

The first week goes by terribly slow. The second is far worse. You're currently right in the middle of the third week since Bruce went to Washington to fight an alien invasion. And there's isn't much in the news yet. On the quick talk you had with Bruce, he told you they're doing their best to deal with the situation before the world starts freaking out. These aliens look like humans, but are far stronger. And Bruce is human. He has no superpower but his intelligence, and that's worrying you to death. You know how well he can deal with this, but it's different... Now that you love him, it's different. The very thought of losing him is suffocating, unbearable. You try your best not to think about it too much, but it's a paradox. How are you supposed to stop thinking about someone who's in your head 24/7?

During this time, Alfred has been a very good company. He doesn't speak much, but with time, you notice he feels a bit more comfortable being around you. He was probably one of the many people to try and talk Bruce out of the idea of bringing you here. But you understand him. If you were in his place, you'd probably do the same.

“So, do you like me now?” You ask him, seated on the kitchen island, watching as he takes the lasagna out of the oven. You made it yourself. Alfred gave you Bruce's tablet, so you would have something to distract yourself. One of the things you started doing was cooking. You try a new recipe every day, and you think you're improving.

“I'm growing used to your presence, Miss Quinzel. And I must admit you're doing quite well considering... You know what.”

“Considering I was a criminal. Harley Quinn's sister. Sentenced to life in prison twice?” It's getting easier to talk about your old life. It doesn't mean you like it, but you don't feel so attached to it anymore. You feel like you can exist apart from it, evolve, have a different life.

“Yes.” Alfred nods.

“Did you try to make Bruce, not like me? You know... You must've noticed something.”

“The effect you had on Master Bruce was immediate.” He starts, cutting a piece of the lasagna for you and for himself. “He even thought about sending you back to Belle Reve in the beginning. Whatever that was, I thought it would vanish with time but it didn't.” He puts the plate before you, and you watch the smoke coming from it as you listen to Alfred. “I often caught him looking at nothing, daydreaming, thinking... And when I went to ask about it, the first subject was always you.”

You're blushing, biting back a smile. “How much... How much do you think he likes me, Alfred?” Lowering your voice, you look at him, who sighs.

“I think he loves you, miss Quinzel.”

“Love...” You mumble, wondering if that could be true. Guess only time will tell. And you hope you'll have time, that whichever species is threatening Earth will be defeated. “I'm scared, you know... Of what may happen.”

“Don't worry. Master Bruce always comes back.”

“That's good to know,” you whisper more to yourself than to Alfred.

The bright part of the day was that Alfred actually complimented your lasagna. And for a moment you were able to smile and forget your worries. But later, at night, you're staring at the TV, news channel on, looking for any signs of Bruce. Anything about the aliens that might mean something... But there's nothing.

“Perhaps he'll have time to call you tonight, Miss Quinzel,” Alfred says, trying to calm you down.

Bruce probably asked him to look after you, because Alfred is always around, distracting you when you're starting to overthink, or just asking if you're alright. It's kind really, but you would like it better if it was Bruce doing all of those things. “Maybe. But he's always in such a rush... I can't bear the idea of him getting hurt.”

“Master Bruce is–” The sudden change in the TV gets your attention, and you're both staring when the 'Breaking News' letters come to the screen, in bright red.

“Live from Washington. A giant being, not from Earth, just arrived. He came out of the ship that was hovering over the city and–” The woman speaks fast, and behind her, the city is up in flames. The camera moves away from her, focusing on some kind of human-like beast with gray skin and spikes coming off his body. The thing is kneeled on the ground, like a stone. “He just came out of the spaceship and destroyed a few buildings on his way. He stopped now, but the Justice League is already trying to take him down. Despite the efforts, the... Being doesn't seem to get hurt. It's just sitting there...”

Your heart is beating so loud you can't even hear the woman now. Stumbling up from the couch, you walk away from the living room until you can't hear the TV anymore.

“Miss Quinzel,” Alfred calls, and you sit on the stairs, both hands on your head.

You should be there. You've been to missions before. You could help. “Alfred, how do I get there?” You speak fast, standing up to your feet and going back to your room.

“Bruce wouldn't want you to go.”

“I don't care. I have to help him.” Being here, doing nothing as Bruce is out there fighting a freaking giant gray alien is stupid. “I know I'm only human, but–”

You're cut off by a ring coming from the tablet. It's Bruce. Running to get it from the nightstand, you breathe out relieved to see it's a video call. Sitting on the bed, you answer it. Seeing him brings a smile to your lips. He's wearing the Batman suit, but without the mask. “Bruce.” You put the tablet on the nightstand, using the lamp to support it because your hands are shaking a little.

“(Y/N). How are you?”

“I'm fine... How are you? A-are you alright?” Pulling your feet up, you hug your knees. He looks tired.

“I'm alright, don't worry about me, sweetheart.”

“How can I not worry about you? I saw it on the news, like two minutes ago... The huge gray monster, Bruce. I'm going there to help you.” You speak fast, already thinking about how you'd actually get there. A commercial flight isn't really an option, not for you.

“No, (Y/N). If you were here I'd lose focus.”

“I won't distract you, I promise. I want to help.” You beg because that's the least you can do after everything he did for you. And you'd be helping people too, after being a villain.

“If you were here I'd lose focus because I'll want to protect you. And that would become my priority.” Bruce lowers his voice, and Alfred leaves after mumbling something about giving you some privacy. “(Y/N), I need you to know that if anything happens to me, you won't go back to Belle Reve.”

“What?” What the hell does he mean by that? He can't say something like that... “No! Don't you even-don't you even... Bruce, I don't wanna hear it. You have to make it back.” You speak fast, tears in your eyes. You can't lose him just when things are just starting. This can't be the end.

“Please, (Y/N)–”

“No! I don't wanna hear it.” You yell.

“(Y/N), listen!” Bruce shouts too, his voice louder than yours. His sudden outburst shuts you up, but you're a mess, tears rolling down as you're forced to face the possibility of his death. “I will not let them put you back in that prison. So I made plans just in case...” He makes a pause. “You'd live with a friend of mine. Well, with his mother on a farm in Smallville. It's a beautiful place. You'd have a calm life, but I must ask you not to startle Martha too much.”

“I don't wanna go anywhere, Bruce,” you beg, drying off some tears. “I just want you to come back.”

“I know, my love. But I had to do this. I would never leave you unprotected.” He gets tense suddenly when an explosion happens. “And I will leave you my money. To you and Alfred. You'd have all the means to rebuild your life as you want. In the farm or somewhere else. Study, buy a nice house–”

“Screw your money, Bruce. I want you!”

Another explosion and someone calls him. “I have to go... Take care of yourself, (Y/N).”

“Please, be careful.” I love you. The sentence comes to the tip of your tongue again, but you hold it back. “Come back to me.” You're still speaking when the connection is cut.

You just stay here, paralyzed, looking at the screen where Bruce was seconds ago. He was there, so close yet so far...

Time starts passing by in a blur. You stopped watching TV because you don't want to know what's happening out there. If Bruce dies... Alfred will be the one to tell you. And whatever comes next, it won't matter. At first, you were angry, furious, certain that you'd leave the mansion and head back to your old lair, straight back into your old life. But as the days go by, and turn into weeks, you realize you can't do that. You can't undo what Bruce did like it was nothing. You know that, if the worst happens, you'd want to honor the memory of the man you love. So you'd go to the stupid farm, live the rest of your days remembering the days you spent here, the few kisses you shared.

Sometime in the numbness, you made your way down to the cave, where you started putting all your anger, fear, and desperation on a punching bag. It soon became a daily activity, and it didn't take long until the skin on your knuckles broke. Alfred taught you how to wrap a bandage around your fists to help with the impact, but even so, the blood soon started to soak the white fabric. Bruce will be happy to know that you didn't revert back to your old ways... If he ever has the chance to know.

Today, almost a month after your last video call, you're cleaning your knuckles carefully, gasping when the pain hits. The skin is basically gone, and it's a nightmare just to clench your fists. But it's the only way you can cope. Pain is the only way you know how to deal with everything you're feeling. And above all that, you're feeling dizzy, sore. It's so damn cold today, but you refuse to take a coat with you because you'll warm up as soon as start punching the bag. With one last look in the mirror, you leave the bathroom, taking the bandages and wrapping them around your hands. You hear low voices, chattering, coming from downstairs. Did Alfred invite someone? Nobody came here since Bruce left.

Bruce... You're going crazy because you swear to God you hear his voice among the others. “Get it together. Don't think too much.” You repeat to yourself the motto you made, saying it again and again for the last weeks. “Get it together.” But you hear it again, and low footsteps.

You're telling yourself not to do this, that it's probably just your mind playing tricks, but you're soon at the hall, the voices filling your ears as you walk fast to the stairs. You're halfway there when you see him, climbing the last steps. You stop on your tracks, too scared to be seeing a ghost, a hallucination. Impulse wins over fear, and you're running towards him, too scared to reach nothing. But your heart stops and you start crying when you reach flesh, and you immediately jump onto his arms, wrapping your legs around his waist. He's quick to hold you, sustaining your weight.

“Are you really here?” You mumble, your voice is weak and a little affected by the crying.

“I'm here. I'm back, sweetheart. It's over.”

You pull away just enough to kiss him, to make sure this is not a dream. You can feel your heart beating violently, and the kiss has to be brief because you're having a hard time catching your breath.

“Oh, my.” Someone says, and something gets your attention downstairs. When you look, you see the small group of people responsible for the chattering. The so-called Justice League. You jump down, suddenly noticing how you were clinging into Bruce.

“I didn't know you had company,” you mutter, fixing your hair. Bruce suddenly takes one of your hands, and then the other one.

“What's that?” He asks.

“I was on the verge of going mad so I befriended one of your punching bags.” As you speak, Bruce starts unwrapping the bandage, and you sigh because you didn't want him to see what's underneath.

“(Y/N).” He exclaims to see the wounds, the basically inexistent skin on your knuckles, and some blood already.

“I know, Bruce, I just... I didn't know what to do and... This is–” You're aware of the eight pairs of eyes on you. “You should give your friends some attention,” you whisper.

“Excuse me for a moment.” Bruce raises his voice before pulling you with him, back into the bedroom.

He's silent as he treats the wounds. It hurts like hell, so you bite your lip. The bandage he puts on is a different type, and then he wraps it all around your hand, and in between your fingers. He also applied some moisture to help the healing process. “Why did you do that?”

“Because that's the only way I know how to cope.” Bruce sits on the bed beside you, and you turn your body towards him. “I was... I was mad because I finally fell in love with someone and he could die, I...”

“Hey, let's not talk about it now, ok?” He brings his hand to your face, and you missed his touch so much. But there's a weird expression on his face, and his hand moves to your neck. “You're hot.”

“What?” You don't follow the sudden change.

“You have a fever.”

“Oh... Really? I didn't notice.” Well, you noticed the soreness and dizziness, and how your body has been weaker in the last two days.

Bruce goes to the bathroom again and comes back handing you a pill. “This will help lower your fever. Now come, let's get you a glass of water and introduce you to the League.”

He reaches out his hand and you take it. “Are you going to introduce me to them?”

“Of course.”

You take another route so you'll pass through the kitchen first. And then you make your way to the living room. Bruce is still holding your hand, and you're sure that won't go unnoticed. “Bruce, I think you should let go of my hand. They'll think we're together.” You whisper, forcing him to slow down his pace.

“They just saw us kissing. And you jumping in arms.” He stops, looking down at you.

“Oh... Sorry about that, I didn't know they were looking.”

“Do you think I'll hide our relationship?” Bruce furrows his eyebrows a little, his fingers caressing your chin.

“Won't you?” You was expecting that. You didn't think Bruce would ever let whatever is happening between you to get outside this mansion.

“Of course I won't.” He bends over to kiss you and you tiptoe to meet his lips halfway. “Now, come. They're excited to meet you.”

“Why would they be excited to meet me?” You mutter, shrugging your shoulders.

When you get to the living room, all eyes fall on you. Maybe they're curious to know the criminal Bruce sheltered. “(Y/N), these are Clark, Arthur, Diana, and Barry. Everyone, this is (Y/N) Quinzel.“ Bruce says, and you step forward to shake their hands.

“Hi,” you mumble, clearing your throat. “It's nice to meet you, guys. I've seen you on TV.”

“I've seen you on TV too,” Barry speaks up. “No offense.”

“None taken. Don't worry.” You assure him. “I made peace with my past.”

“So... You two, huh?” Arthur says with a smirk. He's holding a huge Trident, and you have no idea why he has this thing here with him.

“Bruce here couldn't stop talking about you," Diana says with a smile, and the others nod and giggle. They seem eager to embarrass Bruce somehow. But you're sure you're the one blushing because it's good to know that he was thinking about you as much as you were thinking about him.

“Age gap. Hot.” Arthur winks at you. Or at Bruce, you're not sure. And it only takes three words to make everyone a little uncomfortable.

“Arthur, would you shut up?” Diana gives him a hard stare.

“Can you talk to fish?” You ask him, trying to change the focus of the subject.

“In a way, yes.”

“That's cool. In an away.” Shrugging your shoulders and giving him a small smile, you exchange a glance with Bruce as the others giggle again.

“Sassy. We'll get along just fine.” Barry exclaims, high-fiving you.

“Well, you're welcome to stay as long as you want before you need to head back to you... Jurisdictions.” Bruce announces. “And as long as you don't say stupid things to my girlfriend.”

“He's talking to you, Arthur.” Clark comments.

“So you guys are officially dating?”

“Of course they are, Barry. Batman here couldn't seem to think about anything else than her during the whole mission.” Diana says in a sassy tone.

“Alright,” Bruce speaks up, sighing. “Make yourselves comfortable. Come, sweetheart.”

“It was nice to meet the girl who stole Batman's heart,” Arthur says as you start walking away with Bruce.

“Woman.” You correct him as you wave.

Bruce takes you upstairs again, and you can't help but smile like an idiot. You feel your cheeks warm, but you're not sure if it's the fever or if you're just blushing. Instead of stopping by your bedroom, Bruce keeps guiding you through the hall. Before you can say anything, he opens a door for you.

“I need a warm shower and attend to a few wounds. Thought you'd like to be around.” When you step in, you realize you've never been in his bedroom. It's huge. The bed seems to be twice the size of yours, and there's a lounge near a big window with a couch and a TV. “Make yourself comfortable.”

“Ok.” He places a soft kiss on your lips before heading to the bathroom. There's another door here, which probably leads to a closet. But you don't want to intrude, so you just seat on the edge of his bed.

After a few minutes though, you can't help but wander around a little, looking at his stuff. It kinda feels like Bruce is allowing you to get to know him better, to get closer... A while after you end up by his nightstand, taking a picture up to get a closer look. It's a child Bruce, with his parents.

“I see you already met Martha and Thomas Wayne.” His voice scares you and you put the picture down.

“Sorry.”

“Stop apologizing, (Y/N).” Bruce touches your arm, pulling you closer. You see a purple bruise on his neck, coming from his shoulder.

“You're hurt,” you say, pulling the collar of his shirt away so you can have a better look.

Bruce takes your hands in his, placing a kiss on the bandage wrapped around your knuckles. “I'm fine. Don't worry about me.”

“But–”

“Come here.” He pulls you towards the bed, sitting down, his back against the headboard. Taking a deep breath, you sit before him, but he keeps pulling you until your back is resting against his chest. “I fought a giant gray alien so I just want to sit here with you for a while.”

You smile to feel his arms around you, keeping you close, safe. You're very, very comfortable here, but you have to do something. So you move, turning around to face Bruce.

“What?”

“Sorry, but I have to kiss you.”

“Alright, but stop apologizing, ok? There's no reason to.” As he speaks, Bruce pulls you closer, a finger under your chin.

“Ok,” you mutter, smiling and slowly giving in into the kiss.

@fionanovasleftnut @glitterypinkkitty @mybabyboytony @chipster-21 @agustdpeach @yaakimoon2 @chloe-skywalker

#imagine bruce #bruce imagine #bruce x reader #bruce wayne #bruce wayne x you #bruce wayne x reader #imagine bruce wayne #bruce wayne imagine #ben affleck batman #batman x reader #imagine batman #batman imagine #bruce wayne fanfiction #batman fanfiction #justice league imagine

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lovehugsandcandy · 3 years

Text

auld acquaintance part iii (ColtxMC, RoD)

A/N: But maybe this year, we all need a fresh start. And maybe it doesn’t get all the way there, it rarely does, but hopefully we all can make some forward progress.

Pairing: Colt x MC, ROD

Length: ~3,500 words

Rating/Warnings: N*FW (Swearing. Sex.)

Summary: Junior year.

Colt drums his fingers on the high top table, eyes trained on the path towards the balcony; when he sees an intricate updo edge over, he moves, sliding through the crowd to cut off her path.

“Dance with me.”

“What?” Ellie scrunches her nose but, in her eyes, he can see her waver.

“Please. Dance with me.”

“You hate dancing.”

“I know.”

He can see her mentally debate her decision. In the last year, they have slowly come to a truce, and it looks like she is weighing both pros and cons of spending any amount of time with him.

At first, the winter had been freezing, chock full of icy glares and strained silence. But by spring, she had thawed, sparing him an occasional half smile, a few small snippets of conversation. Fall brought them together in Organic Chemistry; for all the exams and lab work, the biggest learning had been how effortlessly and flawlessly they worked together. And by the first snow, they were back to some kind of strained acquaintance, perhaps not as easy as it had once been, but a kindling of a start.

And now Colt was going to blow it all up.

“Fine. One dance.” He can feel the chill in her voice but nods, following her as she steps through the crowd to stand wooden, hands locked across her chest, delicate tendrils of hair swirling at her temples in a marked contrast to the glare on her face. “What do you want, Colt?”

“This isn’t any dance I’ve ever seen.”

She groans, low in her throat, but begrudgingly winds her hands around his neck as his gentle fingertips grace the curve of her hip. “What do you really want?” she repeats.

“I can’t just want to spend time with you?”

Her gaze darkens, and he knows she’s remembering last year, remembering storming from this very hotel after he slipped out of her bed. “Apparently not.”

“Ellie, I told you-”

“Whatever.” She edges back just slightly but the distance - mere inches really, nothing notable, less than a gaudy marble floor tile - the distance is still enough to gut him, ache hot and sharp in his stomach. He’s always had a smart remark, something snide and cutting hidden just underneath his tongue, but now he falters, wondering what the magic combination of words and phrases could be, something, anything to ease the tension in her jaw, the shuttering of her eyes.

He’s always been great at words to keep people away; now that he needs words to draw someone in, he’s speechless.

“It’s whatever, Colt.” She interrupts his pained thoughts with a dismissive shake of her head. “Just forget it.”

“I can’t.”

“Whatever.” She sighs, heavy enough to be heard over the dull classical music from the quartet in the corner. “I’m sick of this. Let’s just forget about sophomore year. Start over. Friends? Again?”

Hell, no. Colt does not want to be friends. As grateful as he is that she is deigning to speak to him, what he desires would definitely not be considered friendly. “What’s with the change of heart?”

“New Year? Fresh start? Positive energy?” She softens slightly in his arms, though her lip is still down-turned in a pout. He can’t stop staring, especially now that he knows what it’s like to have it between his teeth.

“That sounds like my New Year’s resolution.”

“You. A resolution? Seriously?” He shrugs. Her mouth opens and closes for a moment before she snarks, “Is this you admitting you’re not flawless?”

“Aw, Ellie,” he drawls. “You think I’m perfect? I’m touched.”

“Hardly.” She rolls her eyes, but he sees a hint of a smile, barely, slightly, almost invisible if he weren’t looking so closely at every movement of her face. “It doesn’t really seem like you to make a resolution.”

“Maybe I’m turning over a new leaf.” She’s looking at him with an eyebrow raised, disbelief painted clear across her features, and he tries with every cell in his body to deliver his next words with a gravity and sincerity from his chest unlearned from anyone else in his life. “Ellie, I’m so-.”

She doesn’t even let him finish the sentence. “It’s fine.”

“Ellie-”

“It’s fine.” She glances away, tone stressed on the last word in a way that lets him know it is decidedly not fine. “It’s not like I wanted to date you.” Some lingering scar inside his ribs twinges. She’s the smartest person he knows, top of their class and quick enough to keep even him on his toes, so of course she’s smart enough to want to stay away from him. His fingers tighten over the tiny beads of her dress, each one pushing a sharp divot in his fingertips. “What was your resolution, anyway?”

“To make it up to you.” This stops her in her tracks and he has to stop as well, lest he land on her towering heels.

“What?”

“To make up for last year. To have a better start to this year. With you.”

She looks shocked, speechless, and he feels like an idiot, standing stock still in the middle of the dance floor while couples spin around them. It’s like he’s standing in judgement, sweating in the grey suit he trots out to this party every fucking year, awkward and lost in the haze of champagne and money.

He doesn’t notice the buzz until it’s echoing against the gilded walls of this fucking room, excitement and rich people coming together into a heaving drone that knocks insistently on his consciousness until it’s impossible to ignore.

Ten. Nine. Eight.

Shit.

The fucking countdown.

He sucks in a breath.

She bites her lip and quirks a half-smile, tentative and weak. “You know, I’ve never made a resolution.”

“Because you’re so flawless?” He chuckles when she swats his arm. She moves to hit him again, but he moves faster, grabbing her hand and twining their fingers together, pulling her ever-so-slightly closer.

“Maybe because I didn’t think things would ever change for me,” she whispers.

“Maybe nothing will change unless you make it change.”

Seven. Six.

She blinks up at him.

“You said that freshman year, Ellie.”

“You remember that?”

“Yeah.” He clutches his fingers in hers, warm and impossibly small. “This New Year, maybe I’m the one who wants to change things.”

Five. Four. Three.

“It’s a somewhat ridiculous tradition,” she murmurs. “I don’t know what’s so special about today. You could resolve to change any day of the year.”

She’s not wrong. “Yeah, but you barely spoke to me any of the other days of the year.”

“I was hurt.”

Two.

He pulls her closer, hand tracing the line of her dress to the small of her back, and the way her eyes water fucking does him in. “I’m sorry.”

Her breath catches and she looks up-

One.

-and the second hangs forever. He can’t pull his eyes from hers and she looks stunned, staring up at him, and he can’t fucking breathe in the middle of the crowd pressing in on him when all he can see is her.

Vaguely, he registers the cheers, couples exchanging chaste kisses and noisemakers ringing shrill throughout the room. None of it alters his focus from Ellie, from her hand cradled in his, from the way her arm tightens around his shoulders, from the way she bites her lip and, God, he’s seen her tilt her head like that in his dreams and he can’t stop himself from surging forward.

She responds immediately, lips fervent against his, and he pulls her flush to his chest. He can’t think, can’t function, not at all; with every motion, she’s stealing sense from his brain and air from his lungs, and it’s all he can do to kiss her back. She drops his hand to wind her arms around his neck, pulling him down, using him for balance as she teeters on her heels.

But he himself has never felt less stable, needing air as he detangles their lips. “I really am sorry.” He barely pulls back, mere millimeters, so his lips catch on hers with every consonant.

“Seriously? You?”

“I am. I’m sorry I hurt you.”

“I’m sorry, too.” Her breath is warm on his lips, and it takes every bit of his resolve not to close the distance. “I was pissed and overreacted.”

“Let me make it up to you.” This makes her lean back, and her eyes trace his face. He searches around in his pocket until he clasps a plastic card. “Here. Come to my room this time.” He closes her fingers around the card and can’t resist stealing one last breathless kiss.

He doesn’t look back when he walks out of the room, even when he’s walking down the hall and through his door to slump against the bed. He wonders if she will show, if the memory of last year will be enough for his apology to ring true, and he’s half convinced himself that she’s going to go back to ignoring him when the door clicks open and he staggers to his feet.

She shuts the door behind her, then studies him with a keen eye. “You didn’t think I would come, did you?”

“Not at all.”

She shrugs. “Well, like you said: maybe if I want things to change, I need to make them change.”

He nods, steady steps forward until they’re face-to-face, “Your words.”

“Things changed since freshman year.”

The comment could refer to a million various changes- classes and dorms and friends and majors and apartments - but there is one thing he wants to change, right now, and he can’t wait another second before he tilts her chin up and kisses her, desperately, pulling her in for an embrace that would have sent Ingrid’s prissy elderly relatives to an early grave.

She’s breathless when he pulls back and he wonders, for a second, if he were too hasty, but she only tangles her fingers into his tie and pulls him back, shoving the jacket from his shoulders while his hands dive into her hair, winding his fingers through the updo that probably took far longer to create than it will to destroy.

She moans as he kisses down her neck, bites gentle on her clavicle, and he can’t get his fucking jacket off fast enough to touch her. He traces up the deep slit in her dress and her legs part as she sags against the door with a low moan. His fingers tease higher, under the delicate beading, to where her thighs meet warm and she gasps. When her breath catches, he slides over the silken fabric again, tracing spiraling shapes over what feels like very expensive underwear. His mouth waters and he resolves to look later, but right now he can’t possibly be expected to wait. Pushing her thong to the side, she’s so wet, head craning back as his fingers ease inside her, and the way her voice stutters around his name makes his cock twitch in his stupid fancy suit.

Fuck, he really can’t wait, free hand frantic against buttons and zips, until his cock springs free and his teeth find the slope of her neck. It’s messy and desperate and it takes mere seconds for him to rub slick fingers against her clit, to push her waist against the door until she is barely balanced on the toes of those strappy heels, to lift her thighs so her legs interlock around him, and finally to bury himself inside her welcoming heat.

“Fuck.” The word is punched out from his throat, into the hollow of hers, and he drags his lips across heated skin, nips and bites delivered while she lets out the most delicious moans.

His thumb is tracing haphazard designs on her clit when she somehow finds a voice to gasp out, “You… you couldn’t wait until we got into bed?”

“I’ve been waiting forever, Ellie.”

“Jeez, it was only five minutes.”

He stares at her, head on, and rasps, “I’ve been waiting a year, Ellie.”

She has no answer to that, only pulls his head down to crash his lips into hers and the passage of time (Five minutes? Ten? Infinite? Mere moments?) is a heady rush of pleasure and heat. Her legs tighten around him, the firm hold matching the vise of her body, and her dress pools below, flowing down the door and into a heap under his feet. His shoes crinkle the fabric with every thrust and he wonders if it will rip, if the expensive fabric will tear because of their frenzied movements, but realizes he doesn’t care much. Any jagged holes and consequent tailoring bill will be worth it for the way she pulls him in, the way she sobs his name, the column of her neck completely exposed for his teeth and tongue to find purchase. His hands press her hips into the door as she quakes around him, name breathy and high in his ear, and he lets go, muscles tightening and releasing as the room splinters and all he can see is Ellie’s perfect pout, wide open in pleasure.

When the world comes back into existence, she’s slumped against the door, hair terrifically falling out of place and it would take only one more tug before her curls cascade to her shoulders (so he tugs, of course he does, right before he eases her feet onto the ground so she can blink slow up at him, wide eyes surrounded by curtains of hair). He slides her out of her dress, one strap at a time, leaving it pooled by the door; he takes a moment to admire the thong (deep red, matching her flush) and then pulls it off, hands tracing greedily down her legs, to join the heap of fabric.

When he ushers her over to his bed, admiring every square inch of bare skin, she slides against the sheets and he covers her body with his own. He’s still dressed, barely, and she looks like a goddess, a goddamn siren, sent from above to tempt him away from the life he leads, offering salvation in the guise of a valedictorian with a winning smile. His clothes take far too long to come off, even with her hands easing the way, and the first touch of his bare skin on hers only inflames him. He ducks his head to taste his way down to the spot that makes her fingers tighten in his hair.

Once she shakes apart and falls boneless to the bed, he crawls up, her hands reaching for him, clasping arms, chest, every inch sliding past her fingers as he slots between her legs. He teases her, length situated right at her entrance and dipping through her folds, until she’s arching off the bed, nails scratching up his spine to his hair until he’s impatient, insane, can’t wait another fucking minute before his hips move, her legs trembling as she wails.

He wants nothing more than this, hours passing with her hands all over him. He tries to make each moment infinite, each kiss and every touch an attempt to prove that this is a New Year’s tradition that should last all year.

It doesn’t work.

In the morning, he rolls over and his arm meets only the cool sheets. His heart lurches, though he belatedly realizes that he should have expected it. Turnabout is fair play. He sighs, raking a hand over his face, and throws on some sweats, one last forlorn glance at the empty bed before heading to the lobby.

He can’t wait for the first hit of caffeine in his veins but freezes when he turns the corner. At a circular table next to carafes of milk and hot water, sit his friends, Ellie perched in the middle, oversized sweatshirt dwarfing her slight frame and hair tied up in a ponytail (he doesn’t know who she thinks she’s fooling; there are tangles framing her face and, if he had his way, he’d fuck her out of that hairdo as well until his fingertips were at her scalp, hair a disheveled mess that would take a shower, a shared shower, to fix).

He grabs his coffee and ambles over, purposely slow, and greets everyone, saving the best for last. “Good morning, Ellie.”

She only stares evenly at him but finally fidgets under his certain gaze. As his eyes sweep down, she pulls her sweatshirt closer and he can’t stop the left side of his lip from quirking.

He knows exactly what she’s trying to hide, knows with abject certainty that underneath the shifting fabric, his marks remain, shadows of his lips and tongue blooming under her skin. The smirk turns into a full grin when she finally glances away, turning her attention out to their friends.

She can pretend all she wants. She’s not as unaffected as she appears to be and, as Colt settles into a stool, he hides his satisfied smirk behind a coffee cup.

~~~~~

Ellie doesn’t mention it, so he doesn’t either, trying to unsuccessfully convince himself that he’s satisfied they are more than acquaintances again.

Until Riya lets it slip that Ellie has a date, a dreamy smile on her face, hands cupping her coffee and sharing detail after morbid detail, blind to Colt’s fouling mood. He knows he shouldn’t but a dark, self-hating part of his mind somehow grabs control of his body and wanders downtown that night, past bougie restaurants and small businesses hawking crap trinkets until he makes it to her favorite taco joint.

Her silhouette beams over guacamole and watered-down margaritas in his memories, mouth open in a laugh, a massive difference compared to the sight in front of him. Because now, she’s perched at the bar with her chin on her hand, vacant eyes watching some prissy asshat from her Bio group. She looks bored, miserable, and her eyes widen in thinly veiled panic as she spies him through the giant glass window. With a few words, she stands and stalks outside. He shoves his hands into his pockets and tries to make his smile a little less smug before she slams the door behind her.

Based on the fire in her eyes, he’s not sure he succeeded.

“What are you doing here?” she spits, hair flying around her face as she points right into his chest.

He smirks. “I can’t walk downtown?”

“Tonight? The very night I have a date? Seriously?”

He shrugs, and a smile plays across his lips as her fury slowly fades into mere annoyance. “Well?” he asks.

“Well, what?”

“How is your date going, then?”

She looks down. “...It sucks.”

“Yeah, looks awful.” She groans in agreement and Colt, who’s never met a risk he wasn’t willing to gamble on, well, he can’t help but try his luck. “Blow him off, then. Let’s get out of here.”

“What? I can’t just-”

“You can.” He shrugs. “Why are you gonna waste your time going back in? Let’s get out of here.”

She gapes back at him. “Just leave? And abandon Tony at the bar?”

“Yeah. Change your night up. Let’s go.”

She looks at him incredulously and then turns back to the bar. He can see her wavering and holds his breath until, finally, her face alights in a devious smirk. “Fine. Let’s go.”

She walks up the street without a second glance, and Colt is grateful as her steps hide his beaming grin. He follows briskly to catch up to where she’s already heading back to campus. And, as they walk, he realizes it’s something.

It’s not a date. Colt doesn’t go on dates. But it is something.

Because from outside the restaurant, it’s easy enough to stroll back to campus side-by-side, arms knocking together as they wander up the street and she complains about an idiot professor.

And then it’s easy enough to swing through the cafeteria minutes before closing for ice cream.

And from there, it’s easy enough for her to edge closer, right outside her room, and easier still for him to press her against the door to capture the vanilla on her tongue, and easiest of all to follow her inside, her fingers tangled in his.

The bed is tiny, spaciousness of the hotel exchanged for a mattress unsuitable for two, but they move as one soon enough. He coaxes fervent pleas from her lips, her hips quake under his tongue, and he knows the jagged lines from her fingernails will take days to heal, each one an aching reminder of her falling apart under his touch.

“This doesn’t mean anything,” she huffs into his skin as he tucks her against him, his chin cupping her forehead. He doesn’t reply, just stares at the ceiling until her breaths slow and, finally, he lets the steady sound lull him into a warm sleep.

The next morning, they get coffee together. While it’s still the shitty campus center coffee, at least she sits with him, their knees knocking together, perched on stools overlooking the quad.

And when Colt gets back to his dorm, it’s alone, but he has three lines blooming red on his back.

For now, that’s enough.

#n*fw #lemon #30 diamond scene

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kenzieam · 3 years

Text

Remember Me - Chapter One

@jewels2876 @moonbeambucky @jeremyrennerfanxxxx123 @iammarylastar@captstefanbrandt @badassbaker @pinknerdpanda @oliviastan17 @mizzzpink

I know I’m forgetting people, sorry. If you want in, hit me.

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

Rating: M

Warnings: Major angst, drama, sorrow, pain, suffering, language, my usual shit

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

FEEDBACK IS LIFE, Y’ALL!

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

Lev is newly born, her entire life up until the last mission gone. How does she navigate these new waters where she doesn’t remember anything anymore? And what to make of the heartbreaking way Bucky is always looking at her now?

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

My head hurts and I’m getting tired of the endless questions, but the people milling around me can’t seem to accept what I keep saying, over and fucking over.

“You don’t remember me?”

I study him, if only to give the impression that I’m trying really hard to remember but it’s all a blank, just a big fucking expanse of white. Not overly tall, tailored suit and smart-ass twist to his lips. “No.”

He glances at one of the others, a quiet, introspective guy who’s been doing most of the medical shit and only receives a shrug in return.

“C’mon Banner, what the hell is going on?” The little one asks, sounding surprisingly distressed.

Who are these people and why do they care so much if I know them?

“I told you,” the one called Banner begins, voice quiet and somehow chronically sad. “She can’t remember; going by my preliminary findings, it’s most-likely post-traumatic retrograde amnesia.”

“What? She hit her head or something?” The little guy looks around at the rest of them, hands out in exasperated query.

I consider answering, something cutting and acerbic about the blood-stained uniform I wear, the bruises and cuts and cracked bones that Banner has already splinted and given me lovely drugs for, but it seems like too much effort and really, if the suit can’t deduce that something went down out there based on how I look and feel like I’ve been hit by a truck, I’m not going to waste my breath.

A tall blond who’s holding his side gingerly answers, flicking a glance at me as if he’s read my apparently scrambled mind. Judging by the way the others pay attention to him, I’m guessing he’s one of the bosses. There’s a reassuring steadiness about him and I see why he’s the one everyone looks to for answers. “Yes, Tony. She hit her head, Kozlov had a few dirty tricks laid out that we got stuck in.”

The one called Tony shrugs, looking inexplicably pissed. “The rest of you look okay.”

That was far from true, every single one of them was bleeding or bruised somewhere, but if he was referring to the fact that no one else was sitting there unable to remember anything personal, then he was right. A petite redhead, her arm in a sling, shifted her weight, throwing a dirty glance at Tony, while a handsome black guy, one whole side of his uniform scorched and torn but the skin beneath thankfully intact, scoffed, looking ready to say something in return if not for the blond glancing warningly at him over his shoulder but my attention was on the brown-haired man hovering in the shadows.

As tall as the blond and heavily muscled, chocolate brown hair hung lank in a stunningly beautiful face, all the more striking because of his almost supernatural blue eyes but the most defining feature by far was his shiny, metal left arm. He looked like he was struggling with the urge to simultaneously destroy something in rage and collapse into tears, the dichotomy both fascinating and unsettling. Although heavily injured, at least to my eyes, he’d eschewed all attempts at help, insisting on everyone else being taken care of first. He’d spent most of the time here in this sterile room watching me, something indecipherable in his stare. He seemed to be taking this amnesia business far more personally than anyone else, eyes red-rimmed and swimming in tears, even as his fists, one metal and one flesh, clenched at his sides.

“I know,” the blond replies, sounding chagrined and I look his way once more, curious despite the pain in my head. He flicks his eyes to me, and I’m surprised at the distress there. “Lev took a hit meant for all of us.”

I did? Why? And is that my name, Lev?

The anguish in the metal-armed guy seems to overflow at the blonde’s words and he turns away, hammering his synthetic fist against the wall, the sound barely concealing his sob, but the group appears remarkably indifferent to his reaction, as if used to it; maybe he’s the emotional one of the team.

Or maybe, based on the way he’s been watching you; this news hurts him more.

Whatever, my head frickin’ hurts and I just want to lie down, we can all play twenty-questions later.

Banner seems to notice my weariness first and steps closer, freezing when I tense then seeming to accept my reaction almost sadly. “C’mon, let’s leave her alone. She needs to rest.”

“She can’t go to her quarters…” the redhead begins, looking between the one named Tony, Banner and the blond, glancing once apologetically at the brunette, who’s turned away from the wall to watch us again, but looks like he is barely holding on. A strange compulsion hits me, to leap off the exam table, rush to him and hold him close but it makes no goddamn sense, I don’t know this man, I need to go lie down, like Banner said.

“No.” Banner agrees, and he too flicks a look at the man, seemingly sorry to agree with the woman. “That won’t work… not right now…. Anyway, she needs to be monitored closely for the next day or so, I’d feel better if she stays here.”

Whatever, I can’t think about this, everything hurts too goddamn much. The darkness swirls up again and, rather than fighting it, I embrace it, faintly registering my body sway and tip over, the impact with the bed probably painful but I’m too gone to notice.

********************************************************************************** Heavy breathing wakes me later and I slit my eyes open, trying to find the source. Whoever it is, they sound like they’re fighting tears and my heart cracks at the sound. I imagine the sound of anyone crying is something I don’t particularly want to hear, but something about this person’s anguish is particularly cutting.

It’s the brown-haired man, the one with the metal arm. He sits to my side, hunched over, face buried in his hands and massive shoulders shaking. It’s disconcerting to see someone so physically imposing and large looking so… broken but there’s some serious shit going on with this guy.

Before I can move though, shift my hand to brush his knee or anything really to help him, the blond appears at the doorway. I can barely make his features out, due to the dim lighting and my barely-opened eyes, but he’s not looking at me anyway. I close my eyes again, it’s easier.

“Buck, c’mon man.” He murmurs, stepping further into the room. “You need to lay down.”

Buck, okay; that’s his name.

“She’s gone, Steve.”

No, I’m not. I’m not dead.

“No, she’s not.”

Thank you, Steve.

“Her memory is! She can’t remember us; she doesn’t remember me.”

“Bruce hopes it’ll all come back.”

“What if it doesn’t?” There’s a horrible resignation in his deep voice, a stark question.

“Then we’ll deal with it.”

“She’s everything to me, Steve. She’s my life, you know this. If all we had is gone-”

“Stop it.” There’s an edge in Steve’s voice now, but I get the impression it’s not anger, but the same fear currently affecting Buck. “She will come out of this. You know as well as I do that Tony and Bruce won’t rest until they figure this out.”

Buck scoffs, but it’s half-hearted and I feel a calloused hand take mine. The touch is gentle, if a little desperate. It feels like he’s saying goodbye.

I hear Steve step in further, a hand slap lightly on a shoulder. “C’mon.” He says again and I hear the chair scratch as Buck stands. A moment later dry lips brush my forehead.

“I’ll be here when you wake up.” Buck murmurs but then my shadows are dragging me down again and if he says anything more, I don’t hear it.

********************************************************************************** The next days pass with painful slowness, dragging like rusty blades across my skin and, based on the faint scars I find on my inner arms and thighs, that’s something the old me used to do with heartbreaking regularity.

What sort of life did I lead, that made inflicting pain on myself acceptable?

I want to stay away from the others, but it’s made difficult by their damn persistence. I’m given some space but not nearly as much as I crave. They all mean well but being asked a hundred times if some location or activity ‘triggers anything?’ gets old. And Banner, Bruce now as I’ve learned is his first name, has a thousand and one ways to try and restart my memory.

But it all remains frustratingly blank.

I remember nothing, not one thing about my life before waking up in the quinjet, everyone hovering over me looking like I’d gone and died on them a time or two.

But apparently there’s records and I spent the first few days that Bruce insisted I stay in the medical labs working my way through them.

I was an orphan, raised in a series of group homes and shoddy orphanages, fighting for scraps. Faint memories trickle back as I read this, just flashes and hints but, based on what I’m reading, that’s a good thing. Sometimes they seem little better than nightmares.

And it explains the scars.

After slumming around in dead-end jobs for a while I, seemingly on a whim, applied to SHIELD and passed the entrance exam, a surprise given my basic background, lack of higher education and chip on my shoulder regarding authority.

Following one particularly ugly assignment, where I completely disregarded orders and then told my commanding officer to go fornicate with himself, I was offered a choice.

Leave SHIELD in disgrace, or volunteer as a guinea pig, only I wasn’t supposed to call it that, even if I was.

For what exactly I had no idea, but that didn’t seem to stop me and, after a half-dozen unsuccessful tests where I nearly got my head blown off more that once testing out experimental weapons, (an expendable resource for R&D), I was offered up to Tony and Bruce.

And what a proposition they’d had for me.

For years Stark had been working on perfecting a serum similar to what his father and Erskine had used on the blond I now knew was called Steve and, with Banner’s help, he’d achieved a version he was fairly confident in.

For whatever reason, they saw something in me (that I did not and had never seen in myself) and the multiple personality and psychiatric tests that were standard at SHIELD and felt I was worthy of the opportunity. Or maybe just perfectly expendable, with no family or close friends to speak of.

And I’d apparently had no sense because I’d agreed to let them test it on me.

If the serum had failed, as it had the few other times Stark had felt confident enough to try it on a real person, I would have probably been booted out of SHIELD entirely, left to my own flawed devices; but it hadn't and I’d become the first successful recipient of serum since Rogers himself, at least for our side. There was a section included in my reading on HYDRA and their Winter Soldier program, including a group of volunteers who’d been executed by their handlers that I skimmed over, feeling the strangest sense of discomfort.

Anyway, with that came the transference to the team, and my first exposure to The Avengers.

That was as far as I got before Bruce cleared me to leave medical, despite the near crippling headaches I was still suffering from, and I was glad for it, being awakened every few hours (usually just after I’d managed to nod off again) had gotten old fast.

The topic of my quarters was still a touchy subject apparently, because I was led to a furnished but plain set of rooms to make myself at home. Steve was the one to take me and his shoulders stiffened when I asked if this was where I had lived before.

“No,” he replies quietly, not looking directly at me.

I was getting really tired of being spoon-fed inf0rmation, at the rate everyone else had decided I could handle it and there was obviously more here than Steve was willing to tell me. “Then where did I live before? Why can’t I go back there now?”

“Lev-” Although I didn’t remember this man, the look of reluctance on his face was universal. He doesn’t want to tell me.

“Goddammit, would someone tell me the truth?” I snap, slamming my fist into the wall, only a small part of me sorry for my outburst. “Why is everyone lying to me?”

“We’re not lying!” Steve almost shouts and I get the sense that this big man rarely raised his voice like this because his face went pink and blotchy and he looked away from me. “Look, Lev. This is hard for everyone-”

I snort, because really.

“No, it’s true.” He returns, finally meeting my eyes. “We just don’t want to overwhelm you.”

“By taking me to an empty room?”

He shifts uncomfortably. “Its not a good idea for you to go to your old quarters.”

“Why not?”

He looks downright miserable now. “Because you share them with someone.” He lifts his gaze to me, beseeching me to stop asking, to not press him further.

To hell with that. “Who?”

“Lev.”

“Who?!”

“No,” he shakes his head and get the feeling he’s digging in his heels. “Bruce said it’s dangerous to overload you with information, I’ve already said too much. Don’t ask again.”

There’s such misery on his face I pause. “Was it you?”

He starts slightly, fighting to hide it. “No.”

I feel bad suddenly, pressing him like this. It’s not his fault I can’t remember anything (at least I don’t think it is) and he’s just the poor bastard that got tasked with showing me my new room. A headache flares up with sickening strength and I suddenly don’t care anymore who I shared space with. “Okay, thanks.” I reach for the knob, hoping to keep my face from betraying my pain.

“Lev-”

“I’m going to go lay down now, Rogers. Thanks.”

I close the door in his face before he can answer.

************************************************************************************ Murmured words against my throat.

Soft lips caress my pulse-point.

A soft, stroking touch.

Heat and weight as someone stretches out on top of me, the feeling welcoming and familiar.

A knee between my thighs, a shuddered exhale.

“I love you, baby.” A tender voice.

I wake to a dark room, cold and alone. There is nobody with me, no one whispering tenderly in my ear. Whoever they were, I trusted them completely, felt one hundred percent safe with them and…. Shit, loved them in return.

But who?

My brain has been too scrambled, my interactions with the team too awkward and stilted to give me any clues. Nobody so far has sparked anything in me like that, male or female; not that I’m prejudiced, but the weight on me, the timbre of the voice says it was a man I loved.

Steve says it wasn’t him, but that doesn’t really narrow it down. There’s apparently a thunder god running around out there somewhere I haven’t met in my new form, and his brother, plus a multitude of others, it’s all a jumbled maze in my head right now.

I could be standing right next to this person and not have a fucking clue, thanks to the tangled spaghetti in my brain.

It’s been a week since I was escorted to these empty rooms and I’ve rarely ventured out, preferring solitude to everyone’s well-meaning ‘help’. It’s not like I’m partying it up or anything, most of the time I sleep, exhausted and baby-weak, trying to remember my life when I’m awake, which usually just leads to more sleeping.

The others do get in unfortunately, because even though it’s exhausting and draining to talk with people, see the hope in their eyes that their words are going to somehow trigger some memory in me, it’s also strangely lonely by myself. I don’t have myself in my head anymore to keep me interested, the general background noise of a busily-humming brain. Mine is still shell-shocked, with no files to sort through for entertainment.

The dreams, or perhaps memories, continue. Not all the time, but enough to make me think they’re more than simple fantasy. The whispered words, the warmth of someone’s strong, muscular body. I’d sit down and try to figure it out if I didn’t now have the attention span of three-year old and the napping habits of a ninety-year-old.

“It’ll come back.” Bruce reassures me, but I’m not sure who he’s talking to, me or him.

“The memories,” I clarify. “Or everything?”

“Everything?”

“My… ties with people, friendships?”

Bruce shifts uncomfortably. “I don’t know. It’s still too early to tell, but with traumatic brain injury there is always the risk of permanent damage, personality changes. You being serum-enhanced just makes it a bigger question mark. Steve has never experienced something like this, and Bucky’s amnesia was an entirely different set of circumstances.”

I’ve learned since that first strange encounter with him, that his name isn’t in fact Buck, but Bucky, and both are nicknames for his real name, James; but that’s about it. The guy avoids me like the plague, and I guess that’s fair, since Bruce just said he’s experienced something the same but different, and probably doesn’t want to be reminded about it.

Once or twice, I’ve brought up Bucky to Steve, the first time in curiosity, the second to see if I imagined the first reaction. Both times his face went red and he suddenly couldn’t speak clearly, suffering from an acute case of the mumbles.

It would be telling, his reactions, if I actually remembered the man and whether he was a frequent sufferer of such things, or if my questions are hitting a particularly sore nerve.

“How’s your headaches?” Bruce continues, watching me carefully.

“You tell me, I know you’ve got that computer thing watching me all the time, what’s it called, MONDAY?”

He smiles faintly. “FRIDAY, and it’s for your own protection. You insist on being alone but if you ever suffered a seizure or was suddenly overcome with pain or-”

“I’m fine, really Banner. Don’t need a babysitter.”

“Right now, you do. Sorry Lev, I know that offends your sense of independence.”

“I have a sense of independence?”

“Yes, you were very self-reliant. That didn’t stop you from maintaining strong relationships with the team, but you preferred to nurse any wounds or injuries only in the company of a select few.”

“Them being?”

He grimaces, the same ‘oh shit’ look on his face as Rogers and we’re back into the ‘keeping Lev in the dark for her own good’ bullshit. “Lev-”

“Either tell me or leave me alone, Banner. I’m drowning in ‘what’s good for me’ around here.”

“Lev,” he looks genuinely hurt and I feel bad for a heartbeat. “We just want to help you, this is as strange and new to us as it is for you, we don’t know what will trigger memories for you, or overload you-”

“I know.” I heave a sigh because, as much as it grieves and frustrates me, I do get the sense that these people truly care about me and want what’s best for me.

“Do you feel well enough to try some exercise?”

I shrug, was that something I was into before? The toned lines of my body say yes but, as with everything, I have no memory of gym training.

“You have retrograde amnesia Lev; your personal memories are affected but not the practical ones. Your body remembers repetitive activities, you can dress and feed yourself, if you went down to the training area your body would remember your exercise routine, your muscles would take over.” He paused, weighing his next words. “No guarantees, but it might help trigger your memory as well.”

I nod absently because I’m wondering the same thing. There’s small bits and flashes that I remember now, but they only come if I’m not trying to remember. My mind needs to be blank and floating, basically concentrating on the opposite of thinking and sometimes I’ll get a little hit, some quick blip. Mostly it’s early memories so far, before I joined SHIELD or the team, but I’m starting to get a sense of the scrappy orphan I was, fighting more often than not, learning street smarts more than books.

I don’t feel like talking anymore and if the old me felt the need to exit conversations gracefully, the new one doesn’t. I stand, surprising Bruce and force a smile. “Okay, see you later?”

He recovers quickly and smiles. “Yes, Lev. Later, and I’m here anytime you need to talk, okay?”

Start actually answering my questions and I will, I think bitterly as I leave.

I find gym clothes in the bag someone packed for me, as well as a set of earbuds. Huh, maybe I’ll get more of sense of who Lev was if I listen to her music choices too.

The training area is empty when I get there, which is better than I’d hoped for. I don’t want anyone watching me right now or, even worse, trying to help.

I jab experimentally at the display on the treadmill and start walking. Bruce’s right, the practical shit is still here, I can work a treadmill, but if you asked me what my favourite colour was, I’d be lost.

Oh well, at least this gives me something to do besides sleep.

After a while, I speed up, moving into a jog. Even though I’m still stiff and sore, it feels good to move, and my body seems to remember doing it and doing it well. I catch sight of me in the mirrors and can’t help but smile. I don’t know how much is hard work and how much is the serum, but I love this body, it’s toned curves and latent strength… if only my brain would catch up.

The doors open and I look up, turning down some bass-heavy rap song that old me used to listen to and stumble on the track.

He looks as surprised to see me as I do him.

The infamous and rarely glimpsed Bucky.

He dithers at the door, clearly torn between continuing what he was doing or turning and leaving before setting his square jaw and marching inside. He nods once to me, averting his eyes and heads directly to the weights section.

I try not to stare as he gets started, putting in his own set of earbuds and grabbing a large set of dumbbells. Sweet baby Jesus, but the man is a work of art, and strong as an ox to boot.

I turn up my treadmill and music, forcing myself to look away because, damn.

But, despite myself, my eyes occasionally track back over.

Sweat darkens his tank top, his metal arm shining under the lights. His skin glows with good health and effort, each muscle cut and sharply defined. Small tendrils escape his man bun, sticking to his cheeks and the back of his neck. I can’t hear him over my music, but I imagine a very manly series of grunts as he works, straining at the weights, pushing for each rep. Maybe he swears too, the occasional gasped ‘fuck’ that wouldn’t be out of place in bed either-

Jesus. Calm the fuck down.

My fingers fly over the controls and some program flashes across the screen, something with lots of hills and valleys, whatever and, for awhile, I’m too busy trying to keep up to worry about Bucky. Then, movement nearby makes me flinch, a completely unexpected reaction.

Bucky, a few treadmills away, freezes at my response, something sad crossing his face, dimming the hope I see there, it looks like he was approaching me tentatively, perhaps to talk, and I had to go and spaz instead. I swallow, trying to think of something to say, a feat in itself since this program I chose is actually quite demanding and I’m working my ass off to keep up but, before I can think of anything, everything swirls grey and my knees give out. A loud thump hits my ears and I wonder if it’s my body bouncing off the track, but it doesn’t matter, because the comfort of oblivion has wrapped around me again and nothing else matters.

Raised voices wake me later, that and another monster of a headache. This is getting old, fast and I struggle to make sense of what’s going on around me.

“We need to tell her; she needs to know!”

“She needs to know, or you need her to know?”

It’s hazy, but I recognize the voices, Bucky and Steve, apparently arguing about something I need, or Bucky needs me to know. But then another voice weighs in, Bruce this time.

“We can’t rush her; this seizure just proves how fragile she still is.”

“No, the seizure was because someone told her she was okay to go to the gym!” Bucky snaps. “Who the fuck said that?” The way he asks it says he already knows and through slitted eyes, I see him squared off with the quiet doctor, his face a stormcloud of emotion, scary even. Steve intervenes, stepping deliberately between them. Tony appears, seemingly out of nowhere and the whole tense stand-off is dragged outside the medical lab, the doors cutting off any sound.

I can’t keep up with this shit and I let the darkness take me once more. Sleep is infinitely better right now than cryptic conversations I clearly was not meant to hear.

The next time I wake, my head is better, but my body still aches; what did I hit on the way down and I seriously consider just trying to close my eyes and go back to sleep, but there’s someone sitting beside me again.

It’s Bucky and he’s staring blankly at my hand, which is currently twined with his, tears in his eyes. He looks like sitting here beside me is absolutely killing him, or is it me? Something about me is hurting him. Does he feel bad I fell in the gym in front of him? Were we friends before all this happened?

I swallow painfully and the motion startles him back to life. He looks at me with indescribable pain in his eyes, like he’s dying to say something but can’t, maybe won’t. He’s the one I heard saying I needed to know earlier, what did he mean, what is so earth-shattering that the others seem to think I don’t need to hear yet?

His other hand reaches up and, I must still be semi-dreaming, because he strokes my forehead gently, an easy intimacy, like he has a right to my body and then he murmurs, so softly I almost don’t hear it.

“Baby.”

I jolt, but before I can get myself together enough to speak, he stands, giving me one last heartbreaking glance before leaving and I lay there for a long time in shock.

His voice; the few times I’ve heard him speak it was always in anger, arguing with Bruce or Steve or someone; I’ve never heard him tender, speaking softly and, now that I have, more questions flood into my tangled brain.

His voice is the one I hear in my dreams, the one that makes me feel safe and loved.

#bucky #bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes angst #bucky and lev #bucky and levi #bucky barnes drama #the avengers

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ikesenlemonadestandstories · 3 years

Text

Level 34

Thanks to everyone who asked how I was doing! I really appreciate it <3

Guess who got some free time today :) This gal! Hope you guys enjoy! Fingers crossed it stays slow for a little bit.

Master List

Tagging: @loudartanimeeclipse, @ihavenotfallenyet

Warnings: None

Level 34

The first thing you had done last night after getting home from your adventure was unblocked Masamune. What were the actual odds of something like that happening, you wondered. Sure, you had known the people from Team Kasugayama, but that was because it was a group of friends who had invited their mutual friends to play. Meeting someone in person that you’d only ever encountered in an online game had to be almost entirely unheard of. With a smile on your face, you headed off to bed, you had to be at work early tomorrow, and you desperately needed to avoid Sasuke and Yukimura for as long as possible.

Fortunately, your instinct had been correct. The extra fifteen minutes had guaranteed you a spot on the early shuttle from the garage to work in near silence. It was peaceful, especially with the rain, and you were hoping for the day to stay that way.

It wasn’t busy in the lab, which meant you had time to fine-tune some of the more specific gating elements in your new test. With the day slowing down and the sample load dwindling, you put on your headphones and planned to hunker down at your desk until the end of the day.

Unfortunately, things don’t always go as planned; you were so concentrated on your work that when Yukimura and Sasuke swarmed your desk, you nearly jumped out of your seat. So close, you had been so close.

“What can I do for you, boys?” You asked, granting them a side-eye as you shifted your headphones.

“We need bodyguards.” Yukimura let out, exasperated.

“Oh? Not sure why you’re telling me unless you want me to know in case you disappear?” You teased.

“This isn’t funny. It’s one thing to win a tournament. It’s another to land a hit like that on Kenshin.” Yukimura sighed. “We have to live with your life decisions, you know!”

“Not my fault he couldn’t take a well-placed hit.” You shrugged, enjoying the way Yukimura bristled.

“It was indeed. Though I might need a place to lay low for a while if you don’t mind.” Sasuke complimented you.

“You guys are acting like Kenshin is going to off you IRL. Chill out or call the cops, my dudes.” You laughed as they both shared a look.

“If we disappear, can we count on you to call in detectives?” Yukimura asked.

“All I ask is you remember us fondly,” Sasuke said with a bow.

“You guys are ridiculous. Stop.” You snickered as you continued. “I’m honestly surprised, we’ve been playing around with my luck stat, so I didn’t know if our plan would work. I was sure Edo was going to have to come to bail me out.”

“I know your speed stat has no rival, but mixing that with high luck is a dangerous combination I’d never even entertained. Well done.” Sasuke congratulated you with a pat on the shoulder.

“Why are you congratulating her? Kenshin is going to make our lives a living hell online for the next month.” Yukimura pouted.

“You act as though we’re the only ones who will be affected.” Sasuke pointed out. “YN is going to have to watch out as well.”

“Me?” You balked. “Why me? Because I beat him?”

“Precisely.” Sasuke used the dramatic pause to push his glasses up his nose before continuing. “I would be prepared for a flurry of battle requests from him.”

“Oh, is that it?” You wondered aloud. “He’s been blocked for months, remember? Just like the rest of you? He couldn’t send me requests if he wanted to.”

“AUGH!” Yukimura burst out as he slumped forward. “This just got so much worse for us.”

“I’m sure you’ll be okay; you’re both resourceful.” You consoled, swiveling in your chair to try and hide your amusement.

“She acts like she’s never played with him before!” Yukimura whined.

“I did; he liked me.” You teased, “What have you been doing the past few months that you still haven’t managed to win him over?”

“Shut it!” Yukimura’s agitation grew the more prolonged the encounter drew on, and it was showing.

“Yanno, I was down here minding my own business, not talking to anyone until you two showed up.” You pointed out, turning your attention back towards your computer.

“What do you have there?” Sasuke asked, leaning in to take a look at your computer screen.

“Validation data.” You scooted your chair over to make more room for your now curious friends.

“Ah, is this your project with Dr. Tokugawa then?” Sasuke asked as Yukimura looked on, confused.

“Sort of? It’s been my project for a while. He’s thinking about running a study that needs specific testing.” You shuffled around your plots and pulled up some data on the computer. “It just sort of happened that I was already cooking something up.”

“Interesting. What a lucky twist of fate.” Sasuke pondered.

“How so?” You mused.

“It’s not every day that you get to work with a partner in real life and a video game like that.” Sasuke continued.

“I’m not following you at all there, buddy.” You grimaced, trying to put your finger on what Sasuke was trying to say.

“Dr. Tokugawa is Edo is he not?” Sasuke tilted his head as he asked you his question.

“I don’t know who Edo is.” The confusion was evident on your face. “What makes you say it’s Ieyasu?”

“Yoshimoto told us.” Yukimura chimed in. “Didn’t he tell you?”

“No. How does he even know that?” You could feel the grimace starting.

“They have, history, yes - history.” Sasuke struggled to explain it well.

“I’m surprised he didn’t tell you.” Yukimura pointed out nonchalantly.

“Maybe he doesn’t know it’s me?” You tried to offer, knowing full well you’ve potentially told your crush some super deep things.

“While that is possible, you will never have an answer unless you ask.” Sasuke offered.

“Why would I ask? What if he doesn’t know? That’ll just make things awkward.” You could feel the anxiety rising in your chest.

“Knowing you, it’s already going to be awkward now that you know.” Yukimura chuckled as he patted your shoulder. “You’re better off just asking before you explode.”

“Why, why did you have to go and make this more complicated?” You begrudged.

“I’m sure you would have found out eventually.” Sasuke offered.

“Is that your way of trying to make me feel better?” You sighed.

“No, I’m being realistic.” he fixed his glasses. “You’ve been working with him both here and online for a long time. You have feelings for the man in real life. It would have eventually come up.”

“I mean, yes, you’re right.” You glared at Sasuke, knowing he had a point. “At least that is more organic than whatever I’m about to go do now.”

“Oh, can I come to watch?” Yukimura asked, not even trying to hide the amusement in his voice.

“No.” You deadpanned.

“What if I say I’m there as emotional support?” Yukimura offered.

“Accept, we both now know you’re not?” You snickered, despite the turmoil in your brain.

“Fine, good luck and have fun, I guess?” Yukimura tossed his hand in the air. “C’mon, Sasuke, we need to get back to the floor.”

“Do we?” Sasuke wondered before checking his watch.

There wasn’t anything said after he raised his eyebrows above his frames, and both of them took off. Alone with your thoughts now, the panic started to kick into overdrive. What were you going to do? If Ieyasu was Edo, you had quite literally told the man you had a crush on him! Should you even approach this? What happened if he did find out somehow that you knew? Would he think you were using him, that it was a lie? Gods, you didn’t want that either. A string of curses flew out of your mouth, and you picked up your desk phone before you had a chance to change your mind.

“Hi, Dr. Tokugawa? Do you have a minute?”

#ikemen sengoku #ikesen #ikesen reader insert #ikemen sengoku self insert #ikesen ieyasu #ikesen sasuke #ikesen yukimura #ikesen fic #my fic #my story #fanfiction #fanfic #ikesenfanfic

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fanficnewbie · 4 years

Text

Sienna Weighs In P6

OPEN HEART: SECOND YEAR - CHAPTER SIX

(ETHAN x FEMALE MC)

MC is Dr. Francesca Houseman *This entry takes place between the visit to Leland Bloom’s house and the tests on his yacht. (This is a chapter by chapter series…)

Sienna cheers on Francesca for standing up to Ethan.

PREVIOUS CHAPTERS Chapter 1: MC tells Sienna about her Ethan convo at Donahue’s. Chapter 2: MC and Sienna discuss Ethan’s gym routine. Chapter 3: MC questions how well she really knows Ethan. Chapter 4: MC takes Elijah and Sienna to see Evelyn’s exhibit. Chapter 5: Sienna talks MC through a panic attack over Ethan. Word Count: 1889 Rated: Teen

***

“To standing up for yourself!” Francesca and Sienna clinked their beer bottles and each took a healthy gulp before setting them back on the bar.

Francesca turned and surveyed the Sunday night crowd at Donahue’s, it was only slightly busy. Old school hip hop played while a few patrons danced. Most were at tables littered with various drinks and engrossed in animated conversations with their friends and/or colleagues.

She swiveled back on her barstool to Sienna who gave her a knowing smile. “It felt good didn’t it?”

Francesca grinned widely, “It felt soooo good! Almost as good as Baz & June coming to my defense on the way over to the Bloom Estate. Ethan’s been treating me like crap for weeks and it was nice to know that others noticed it too.”

Sienna nodded, “I’m not gonna say I told you so but…”

Francesca playfully pushed her, “Shut up.” She took another sip, “What did Ethan even say to you when he showed up yesterday morning?”

Sienna shrugged, “Nothing really. He looked pissed and it was obvious he was there to see you so beyond ‘hello’, there wasn’t much to say.”

Francesca toyed with her beer bottle, “It probably kills him that you know about us.”

Sienna took a sip, “Well that’s his deal not mine. You guys are both adults, I’m just tired of waiting for the man to come to his senses. It’s like watching Elijah and Phoebe all over again.”

Francesca groaned and chewed on her bottom lip before looking back up, “Hey, speaking of Elijah…”

Sienna held up her hand, “Jackie already told me and you guys should just drop it. You gave him your advice and now it’s up to him. We’re all going to deal with our interns the way we see fit and that just is not going to look the same for everybody.”

Francesca scowled, “Sothy can’t even do a basic blood draw, that’s not acceptable.”

Sienna grew sullen, “We all have our individual challenges to overcome.”

Taken aback at the sudden shift, Francesca studied her friend closely. The week before she had commended Sienna when she triumphantly shimmied into a pair of jeans from college, but now she realized that she was starting to look too thin, almost gaunt with darkening bags around her eyes. She touched her arm, “Hey, so many of these conversations are about me and my dumbass issues. But are you okay? You’ve been so tired lately and you’re still losing weight…”

Almost on cue, Sienna turned to her, her face instantly brightening, “No silly, I’m fine, I’m great. You brought me out for a celebratory drink so let’s celebrate!”

Francesca sighed and gently squeezed Sienna’s arm, “Listen, you know you can talk to me about anything without judgment right? I’m your friend and I’m here to help you through whatever. This doesn’t always have to be about me and I’m so sorry if it has been totally one-sided as of late.”

Sienna smiled, “Francesca I love our convos, and I love helping you, and I know I can come to you, and I promise, I’m fine. A-okay.” She patted Francesca’s hand reassuringly.

They sat in silence for a few moments before Sienna reached for her phone. “Hey, I haven’t checked Pictogram in like forever. Did it work? Did Dr. Ramsey like that photo you posted a few days ago? Oh my God, I can’t believe I forgot all about it.”

Francesca smiled smugly as Sienna unlocked her phone. Yes, Ethan had liked her photo. It was a stunner, one she had taken the Summer before she started at Edenbrook. Surprisingly, the whole thing had actually been Jackie’s idea…

***

“So hell hath frozen over and Ethan Ramsey has a Pictogram account!”

Francesca was sitting on the floor in their living room, her back against the couch with her laptop in her lap. Sienna was above her, sitting horizontally across the couch in the same position. She peered over Francesca’s shoulder, “Oh my god, you got him to post a half-naked photo of himself?!”

Jackie walked into the living room with her tablet, “Who’s half-naked?”

Sienna and Francesca both froze for a second before Francesca answered. “Uh, Dr. Ramsey. I helped him create a Pictogram account so he could search Gwyneth’s product history. His profile photo is from when he ran a triathlon so he’s in swim shorts. He only allowed me to use it because he figured nobody would ever see it.”

Jackie sat down and leaned over Francesca to view the image, she raised her eyebrows, “Wow! Who knew he was hiding that six pack under his lab coat? Damn Francesca, I’m finally starting to see why you’re so into the guy.”

Jackie’s eyes met Francesca’s astonished gaze, she chuckled, “You really don’t think I’m that stupid do you?”

Francesca’s face reddened, “Please don’t tell me it’s that obvious?”

Jackie thought for a second, “Nah, I honestly think I may be the only one who’s caught on, besides Sienna of course. I mean, we live with you. I’m sure you’re fine at Edenbrook, I’ve never heard any rumors.”

Sienna nodded, “Francesca, you know I’d tell you if I ever heard anything. I mean some people are still jealous of your rapport with Dr. Ramsey but they all attribute it to your top intern spot and Banjeri save.”

Jackie shrugged and she typed on her tablet, “Accurate.”

Francesca visibly relaxed, “Okay well, I can live with that. Anyway, I was just telling Sienna that he has an account now and I think it’s kind of hilarious. I mean, he kept it private and I’m his only friend.”

Francesca suddenly turned to her friends, her voice earnest,”You guys cannot tell anyone about this account or picture. He’ll know immediately that it came from me. Promise you won’t tell.”

Sienna put her hand on Francesca’s shoulder, “I promise. You already know we can keep secrets hon.”

Jackie gave Francesca a mischievous smile, “Same, but only on one condition.”

Francesca paled, “Oh god, what?”

Jackie turned her screen around where she had pulled up Francesca’s Pictogram account, “You set a thirst trap.”

Sienna frowned, “What’s that?”

“No, no, no, no.” Francesca vehemently shook her head.

Jackie turned to Sienna, still smiling broadly, “It’s a sexy photo that you post to make your followers thirsty. In this case, to make one specific follower thirsty.”

“No, it’s obvious and desperate and…” the panic in Francesca’s voice started to mount.

Sienna cut her off, “I like it. Where do we find a photo?”

“Wait Sienna, what? No!” Francesca looked at them both incredulously, “How pathetic does that make me look? Less than two weeks after Ethan becomes my PG friend, I post some random, sexy photo? Come on, even he could see through that one.”

Jackie shrugged, “I’d say you’ve waited too damn long as it is!”

Francesca was at a loss for words as she stared down her two friends. She slowly realized that she had no choice if she wanted to keep Ethan’s account under dibs and sagged against the couch in defeat, “Fine. But only because I know you won’t find a photo worth posting anyway.”

Undeterred, Jackie opened a new browser window, “What photo storage account do you use and what’s the password?”

Francesca gave her the details as she stood up, “I can’t believe this is happening, I need a drink. I’ll be right back.”

Her friends didn’t even acknowledge her exit as they started scrolling through the hundreds of photos on her Google account.

Several minutes she returned to their flabbergasted faces. “What? What’s wrong?”

Jackie turned her tablet around and Francesca’s eyes went wide. “Holy shit! I forgot all about that photo.”

Jackie shook her head in awe, “I didn’t even think you had it in you.”

Sienna giggled, “That my dears, is a bona-fide thirst trap.”

Francesca sat down and marveled at the photo, “I took that in Cancun after graduating from med school. I went with a group of friends and it was the perfect day on the beach, so we decided to be silly and take photos in our favorite “Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition” poses.”

Her mind started to change as she contemplated Ethan’s reaction to the photograph. “Hmmmm, I do look kinda hot huh?”

Jackie raised an eyebrow, “Kinda? No red-blooded, hetero man will be able to resist the allure, the pure sex of this picture. Dr. Ramsey among them.”

Francesca took a deep breath, “Post it.”

***

Sienna scrolled through the likes and comments, “Wow, is this the most popular post on your account?”

Francesca laughed, “I believe so. Even the friend who took it wanted me to tag her for credit.”

Sienna grinned as she came across Ethan’s red heart, “There it is.”

Francesca smirked, “Yup.” she leaned in, “And let me tell you the most infuriating part. I kept checking my phone to see if he had liked the photo. Nothing for two days. So, the next night I was up really late studying. I didn’t go to sleep until just after 1am, and I checked my phone before I dozed off, nothing. I woke up like three hours later to pee and guess who had liked my photo?”

Sienna’s eyes went wide, “Wait, in the middle of the night? He was on your account in the middle of the night!”

Francesca nodded, “And, and this was after the whole Gwyneth/Board thing. So at the same time he’s giving me the cold shoulder at work, he’s lurking on my account at home.”

Sienna shook her head in disbelief, “That man is so confused.”

Francesca rolled her eyes, “Whatever. That’s why I stripped down in front of him yesterday.”

“What?!” Sienna’s mouth hung open.

Finishing the last of her beer, Francesca smiled, “I needed to kick him off his hypocritical high horse. So, after he barged into my room telling me I had three minutes to get ready on my day off, I called his bluff. I literally took off my underwear right in front of him. I mean, I turned my back to him but still, the look on his face was fucking priceless.”

Sienna turned to Francesca, put hands on her shoulders, and met her eyes, “You are officially my hero.”

Francesca smiled, “Well, that deserves another round.” She motioned to the bartender.

“Plus, I’m sure we’ll only be celebrating this victory tonight. Who knows how he’ll act towards me at work tomorrow, especially now that we’re in this absurd competition with Mass Kenmore.”

Sienna exhaled, “Yeah, you and Aurora going to be okay? I cannot take a repeat of the Landry experience.”

Francesca nodded, “I swear to you that we’ll be fine, We talked it out, made a pinky promise and everything. I’m more worried about Ethan and Tobias.”

Sienna frowned, “Aurora’s new boss?”

“Yeah, apparently he and Ethan have some bad blood,” Francesca shrugged, “I have no idea what it is about though.”

Sienna thanked the bartender as he placed fresh drinks in front of them and reached for hers, “Well that’s a good thing right? Now, he has somewhere else to direct his anger.”

Francesca thought for a moment, “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Cheers to that!”

Sienna clinked her glass, “Hun, how many times do I have to tell you…I’m always right!”

Read the Ethan Pictogram Companion Piece here: Pictogram Pitfalls & Chapter 7: Francesca confides in Sienna how she met Ethan’s mother.

***

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING. YOUR LIKES AND COMMENTS MEAN THE WORLD!

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#open heart #ethan ramsey #dr ramsey #open heart fanfic #open heart fanfiction #open heart fandom #ethan x mc #choices open heart

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shirtlesssammy · 4 years

Text

3x10: Dream a Little Dream of Me

Then:

The show keeps reminding us that Dean’s going to Hell, so enjoy his pretty face while you can

Now:

Bobby stalks his house at night. He’s suddenly attacked ---and we flash to him in a motel room, unconscious. A maid wanders in and finds him. He’s inside his mind fighting whatever haunts him.

Dean finds Sam getting day-drunk at a bar. Sam laments the fact that he tried saving Dean. Dean settles in beside his brother and orders a “whisky, double, neat.”

Sam is beside himself thinking about where Dean’s going, and what he’s going to become. “How can you care so little about yourself?” Sam wonders. (WE ALL WONDER.) Dean’s saved by a phone call and the brothers rush to the hospital to find Bobby comatose. The doctors don’t know what’s wrong with him.

(Ooh, I forgot that Cathryn Humphris wrote this episode. So good.)

The brothers look around Bobby’s motel room. Sam finds his murder board in the back of the closet. They find an obit of a doctor that went to sleep and never woke up. Bobby must have been looking into the doctor’s death.

Dean heads to the doctor’s office and interviews his lab assistant. Apparently the doctor was an expert in dream and sleep disorders. The lab assistant doesn’t really want to talk. She already talked to the other detective, the “very nice, older man with a beard.”

Dean threatens the woman with a trip down to the station. The assistant swears she didn’t know anything about his side experiments. Dean bluffs his way into getting the doctor’s research. Good job, Dean!

He next heads to one of Doctor Greg’s test subjects. Dude offers Dean a beer, and Dean accepts. Hmm, I’m questioning your professionalism as much as the dude is Dean. Anyway, turns out the guy can’t dream. The study was the first time he had a dream since he was a kid. The guy didn’t continue with the study.

At the hospital, Dean and Sam meet up. Sam brings research on the African Dream Root that was part of the dream study. This stuff has been used for dreamwalking (but not like Jack and Kaia dreamwalking…). It lets someone wander in someone else’s dreams. With enough of the root and practice, you can start to control things, changing dreams. “Killing people in their sleep,“ Dean suggests. YEP.

The boys wonder why Bobby is still alive.

We get a glimpse into Bobby’s dream. He’s barely holding on. BOBBY.

The brothers theorize who the killer is --probably one of the test subjects. Sam laments the fact that they can’t talk to Bobby about the case. Dean suggests taking the dream root. They realize that in order to do that they need Bela.

Later, Bela arrives at the motel. Sam’s there alone. Bela almost instantly turns on the sexy time, and Sam is VERY responsive.

Alas, it was just a dream and Dean wakes Sam and tells him he was making some “serious happy noises.” OH SAM.

Dean wants to know who Sam was dreaming about but Sam wont tell. Let’s take a moment and add that Dean’s guesses are: One (1) Angelina Jolie. Two (2) Brad Pitt. DUDE, quit projecting so hard.

Anyway, Bela arrives, much to the discomfort of Sam (and his pants).

She’s brought the African dream root for Bobby. Dean puts the root with the Colt in Bobby’s safe and kicks Bela out of the room. Sam awkwardly bids her adieu.

The brothers concoct their dream potion to save Bobby. It includes some of Bobby’s hair.

They drink the concoction and feel no change. Sam then notices that it’s raining. It’s actually raining upside down --and they’re at Bobby’s house. It’s cleaned up. They start walking around calling for Bobby.

Sam tells Dean he’s heading outside to look. He walks outside and it’s sunny and the birds are chirping. And when he tries to go back inside, the door won’t open. Dean can’t hear him from the inside either.

Dean continues to wander the house. He wanders to the back closet and finds Bobby.

Dean tells him they’re using dream root to share his dream, but Bobby’s locked firmly in Dream Mode. He’s more focused on the flickering lights in his house. “She’s coming,” he pants. And his wife walks in, bloody and terrible. Oh Bobby :( She asks him why he stabbed her to death. He pleads for her to understand that he didn’t know about monsters back then. OOF. Hard stuff.

Meanwhile, Sam’s walking through a laundry detergent commercial.

The doctor’s former test subject suddenly shows up, whacks Sam with a baseball bat, and then declares himself “a god” in the shared dream. Well, that ALWAYS ends well on this show!

Dean pleads with Bobby to let go of the nightmare Karen who’s pounding and wailing on the other side of the door. “I’m not gonna let you die,” Dean promises, because Bobby’s “like a father” to him. BRB WEEPING. Bobby uses the power of FILIAL LOVE to control the dream, and the pounding stops.

Sam, Dean, and Bobby snap awake at the same time (preventing Sam “Head Trauma” Winchester from getting another blow with a bat).

Later, Dean asks Bobby about Karen. THIN ICE TERRITORY! “Everybody got into hunting somehow,” Bobby explains. Sam breaks into the soulful moment with an update on the dream dude. Jeremy Frost is a genius whose dad whacked him in the head with a bat as a child. Jeremy never dreamed after that - not until he started using dream root. Now he can trample into people’s dreams with a bit of their body - like hair, or in Bobby’s case, saliva. Bobby sipped some beer when he talked to Jeremy. Dean looks abashed. He….MIGHT have drunk a beer at Jeremy’s as well. Now that both Dean and Bobby are targets, the stakes are raised. It’s time for operation STAY AWAKE.

Two Days Later

Dean is EXTREMELY GRUMPY. It’s been two days, they haven’t found Jeremy, and he is missing his sleep desperately. #RELATABLE Bela and Bobby continue to work the case from the hotel with no luck. At the end of his tether, Dean pulls the car over and settles in for a snooze in the danger zone. He’s going to confront Jeremy on his own turf. Sam swipes one of Dean’s hairs and prepares to join Dean’s dream root nap.

They wake up in the car, still in the woods at the side of the road. Suddenly, Dean’s movie reel mind spins up a gentle song and soft autumn colors and THERE sits Lisa in a clearing. She’s wind-rumpled and gorgeous, dressed in soft yellow and waiting for Dean at a romantic picnic in the park.

For My Heart Aches for Dean Science:

Excuse me while I cry in Dean’s face for thirty minutes. Sam did not expect his brother to be so damn soft. “I’ve never had this dream before,” Dean protests.

Lisa blinks out and Jeremy peeks around a tree. It’s chase time! The dream transitions to the hotel hallway, now papered in a forest print. At the end of the hallway is a door that leads to a dimly lit room. Inside the gloomy room, Dean sits at a desk.

Other!Dean greets himself (very polite) and tells himself that it’s time to talk. “I’m my own worst nightmare,” Dean smirks. He GETS the symbolism, and it’s BORING. Except that Other!Dean immediately peels away Dean’s bravado. He tells him that Dean is dead inside and worthless (and we bundle this man up into blankets and plop him into therapy!)

Dean can’t make the apparition disappear, and Other!Dean quickly takes control. The door slams, trapping them inside the hotel room.

Sam wakes up back in the Impala and tries to wake up Dean, but Dean’s turned into Jeremy. Jeremy explains that he killed the doctor so he can keep using dream root and DREAM. He binds Sam to the ground.

Other!Dean continues to say every terrible thing Dean thinks about himself and it is HARD. TO. LISTEN. TO. THIS. SHIT. Everything about Dean is patterned after his father, and geared towards protecting Sam. There’s nothing TO Dean, Other!Dean argues, other than being “Daddy’s blunt little instrument.”

Dean snaps at last. “My father was an obsessed bastard!” he shouts. And the fight begins. “I didn’t deserve what he put on me, and I don’t deserve to go to Hell!” DEAN!!!! BRB weeping some more! Dean shoots his other self, but what should be a moment of psychological triumph quickly goes south. Other!Dean wakes with black eyes and Demon!Dean gleefully tells him that there’s no escaping his fate. He’ll die, go to Hell, and become a demon.

Sam’s in dire straits. He’s still bound to the ground, with Jeremy hovering above him with a baseball bat. In a moment reminiscent of Princess Bride, Sam metaphorically switches the sword to his right hand and reminds Jeremy that he ALSO took dream root and has control of the dream. Jeremy’s dad barges out of the forest, a screaming terror of a parent, and Jeremy’s eyes go wide. Sam whacks Jeremy with the bat while he’s distracted, and both Sam and Dean’s dreams dissolve. They’re back in the waking world, in the Impala. Jeremy’s threat has been neutralized.

Later, Sam and Bobby debrief in the hotel hallway. Bobby’s glad Sam saved them, but wonders if Sam’s psychic abilities came into play. Ummmm definitely not? Probably definitely not? Almost certainly definitely possibly.

Dean’s having trouble tracking down Bela. Bobby wonders why she was helping them in the first place. “Flagstaff,” Dean explains. This doesn’t make sense to Bobby - he just cut her a good deal on a sale there, that’s all. It dawns on the Winchesters that they may have been played. They head to the hotel safe to discover the Colt missing.

At the Impala, Dean asks Sam what he saw in the shared dream. UM NOTHING. Dean also says he didn’t see a damn thing! He was just focused on trying to find Sam. Bbys plz. Dean clears his throat awkwardly and confesses (in a tone one might use to confess to wearing ladies’ undergarments) that he doesn’t want to die. Sam promises to find a way to save him. Dean flashes back to his dream one more time, just so it’s seeped into our hearts. We see Demon!Dean taunting Dean about his fate. Demon!Dean snaps his fingers, a cruel grin on his face, and the episode cuts to black.

Mister Quoteman, Send Us a Quote:

No one can save you, because you don't wanna be saved. How can you care so little about yourself?

Thanks for the news flash, Edison!

Dean. I love you

What are the things that you dream? I mean, your car? That's Dad's. Your favorite leather jacket? Dad's. Your music? Dad's. Do you even have an original thought?

You can’t escape me, Dean. You’re gonna die. And this? This is what you’re gonna become!

Want to read more? Check out our Recap Archive!

#spn recap #spn rewatch #spn 3x10 #dream a little dream of me #dean winchester #Dean Winchester Sam Winchester #bobby singer #Bela Talbot #Lisa Braeden #Supernatural season 2 #supernatural season 3

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not-close-to-straight · 4 years

Text

More Than Words (Four)

This chapter turned out different than I planned, but if there’s one thing I learned, it’s to let stories do whatever they want because Free Range Plots are much more fun to read than plotted, planned and outlined ones.

Note: while this story isn’t actually D/s, I have given ‘subspace’ a MTW/ABO twist and I sort of love it. Hope everyone else does too!

Also, I love snarky Hank Pym so much omg his character in the Ant Man movies was amazing.

MTW MASTERLIST HERE

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

Hank Pym had an entire list of people he never wanted to see knocking at his front door.

Tony Stark topped the list, Tony Stark’s uncomfortably intimidating assistant Pepper Potts was a close second. Norman Osborn wasn’t even allowed within a hundred yards of the property-- or was it that Hank wasn’t allowed within a hundred yards of Norman Osborn? Restraining orders between old men fighting over physics were so complicated-- and even though Scott Lang was well on his way to becoming part of the family, Hank didn’t particularly want to see him at three in the morning either.

The very last person Hank was expecting to see on the other side of his door was the mutant cyborg Cable, and though he would happily die before admitting he screamed when that metallic yellow eye zeroed in on him---

“Shit!” Hank tried to slam the door right in Cable’s face, shrieked a little when metal fingers grasped around the edges and pried it back open, and then shrieked a little louder when the heavy door came right off its hinges as Cable barreled inside.

“Whoa whoa whoa!” Hank swept a shock of silver hair away from his eyes and puffed out his chest, folding his arms and rocking up onto his toes and doing everything possible to appear bigger than his several inches shorter than the Alpha. “You can’t just run in here like you own the place! Who the hell do you think you are!?”

“You know who I am.” Cable didn’t bother hiding his smirk over Hank’s floor length striped robe and color coordinated slippers. “Nice jammies.”

“I’m insisting I don’t know who you are, so when I’m taken to court for whatever mayhem you’re about to unleash on Manhattan, I can truthfully say I had no prior notice of your bullshit.” the Beta retorted. “Get out. Your kind isn’t welcome here.”

“My kind.” Cable dumped his utility bag out onto the nearest surface and rifled through the assorted items. “Pretty bold words coming from someone who’s future son in law has a standing appointment at the local prison.”

“Scott’s a good kid, he’s just a dumbass.” Hank defended. “And by your kind I meant you, specifically. You, Cable, are not welcome here. The last time you ended up in my neighborhood you tried to steal my tech and destroy my gardenias. You need to leave. Take that bionic arm and creepy eye and your fanny pack and get out.”

“It’s a utility bag.” Cable held a computer chip up towards the genius. “And I’m not going to apologize for your gardenias. They weren’t prize winning no matter what the old lady across the street told you. Are you going to help me or what?”

“It’s absolutely a fanny pack and no, I won’t be helping you.” the Beta inched forward a step, eyes narrowed behind his glasses. “What is that? Why is it glowing gold?”

“I thought you weren’t going to help me.” Cable taunted, holding the chip away when Hank reached for it. “Or did you change your mind?”

“I’m not going to help you.” With a quickness that belied his nearly eighty years, Hank grabbed at a small remote and pressed the button. There was a whir and a pulse, and Cable’s left arm dropped limp and useless, the chip falling from his fingers.

“Gotcha.” Hank darted forward and grabbed it, ducking back out of the way as the robotic pieces of Cable’s body came back on line. “You like that? Pocket sized EMP. I know that shiny shit up your neck is more techno organic than mechanical, but an EMP will stun anything for a few seconds.”

“Congratulations.” Cable said flatly. “You stunned me for a few seconds and got your hands on the computer chip. What now?”

“Now you can leave.” Hank flipped on a lamp and studied the piece under brighter light. “But before you go, tell me what this is?”

“It is part of the computer that controls my time travel device.” the Alpha admitted, and Hank’s eyes widened in excitement. “It’s all I have left, actually. A back up to my main piece. My device was...taken… and now I need to build a new one.”

“The mighty time traveling Cable stuck in the year twenty nineteen?” Hank whistled in mock sympathy. “Got your fancy time traveling gadget stolen, huh? Who took it from you?”

“That doesn’t matter.” Irritation blanketed Cable’s scent, but Hank Pym was a Beta and gave exactly zero fucks what an Alpha scented like. “You need to help me build another one.”

“Oh-ho, I think I do not.” Hank ran a curious finger over the glowing chip. “Why does it light up like this? Is it like the glow of my Pym particles?”

“Pym particles.” Cable rolled his eyes. “You’re a few years ahead of this timeline’s science and think you can just name sub atomic particles after yourself. You know what we call them in my timeline?” Hank’s eyes narrowed and Cable finished bluntly, “Trash. Pym particles are trash because we’ve moved beyond them. Now are you going to help or not?”

“Right.” Hank turned the chip over a few times. “Remind me why I’d help you now that you’ve thoroughly insulted my life’s work?”

“Because you’re desperate to know how time travel works.” The Alpha unfolded a piece of paper and handed it to the scientist. “And because you’re so damn curious you’re gonna throw me out tonight, then fuss and fidget for a few days, and then call me and act huffy about helping. How about we skip all of that and you just help me now?”

The muscle in the Beta’s jaw jumped as Hank ground his teeth together and glowered, but finally he snatched the list from Cable and read through it, muttering under his breath the entire time.

And finally, “I have most of this on hand. A couple items will take me a week to get my hands on but some of these?” he shook his head. “Cable, I don’t know what’s just laying around on grocery store shelves in your timeline, but these sort of things are locked up tight in all the places the government swears they aren’t stockpiling weapons of mass destruction and doomsday devices. I can’t just waltz in the front door, have a cashier ring me up, and then waltz back out with this in a paper bag.”

“You tell me where to find it, I’ll get in and grab it.” Cable maintained. “You get me the rest. Then I’ll need your lab for the finer work.”

“No no no, you aren’t listening to me.” Hank stabbed his finger at the list. “Even if I called in a few favors and managed to get my hands on it, those phone calls would end with me being tossed down a dark hole and probably charged with war crimes and consorting with terrorists. No. No, I’m not doing it.”

“Hank--”

“How do you lose a time travel device anyway!” Agitated now, the Beta crumpled the list up and tossed it back at Cable. “Don’t you have a spare?”

“I have the one.” Cable said in frustration. “I have charges for it and enough pieces to make minor repairs, but it’s gone and now I have to build a rudimentary piece from scratch to get back to my timeline and retrieve a newer one to return to the past!”

“Why the past!” Hank threw up his hands. “Why does it matter? Why did you pound on my door at three in the morning to ask me something imposs--”

“It’s a kid.” Cable cut in, and Hank’s mouth shut with an audible click. “He’s just a kid, twenty something years old, scrappy little Omega is all. He ended up activating the device without meaning to and now he and the dial are gone. I need a new one so I can go and get him back.”

“So you know where he is.”

“I know exactly where he is.” Cable nodded. “I had the dial pre set to a specific year, just gotta jump back and drag him back before it’s too late.”

“...what’s too late?” Hank swallowed and took the list again, scanning through it a second time. “When will it be too late?”

“Don’t worry about that.” the Alpha waved the question off. “How soon can you have this all for me?”

“It will take a few months.” Hank felt around for a pen and started making calculations. “Most of the pieces are easy to get, assembling them into such a delicate device is completely different. The more difficult items will take several weeks to get in, I’ll have to treat the wires, build a circuit board, all that sort of thing. And the more impossible things could take months if I can get them at all.”

“You have ninety days.” Cable said flatly and Hank gaped at him.

“Were you listening to what I said? It could a month and a half just to track down some of these, and the rest I’ll have to call in favors for, sell my soul and probably sign over Hope’s first born child! I can’t do it in--”

“You have ninety days.” the mutant said again. “I have to get that kid and get him back within ninety days.”

“What happens in ninety days?” Hank held up a hand stubbornly when Cable tried to argue. “No, you need to tell me. What happens in ninety days if I can’t get all this material?”

Cable swallowed, guilt laying heavy over his shoulders. “When a human is placed into a timeline other than their own, their body stops working. Blood cells stop regenerating, wounds won’t heal, a cold could actually kill them because their immune system can’t rally. Anything other than their basic functions grinds to a halt. Sometimes mental stability is affected, other times it eats away at them visibly-- hair falling out, loss of hearing, severe eczema, all of that.”

“What?”

“This is a virus.” Cable tapped at the metal leeched into his neck. “I’m not a cyborg, I’m not a robot. I’m sick. I don’t belong in the future timeline, I was sent there as a child and was infected with this virus. Every time I use my device it takes over my body a little bit more until one day there won’t be anything of me left. But I’m mutant, so it's a slower progression. On a human, it won’t be slow at all.”

“Ninety days.” Hank stared stunned, the color draining from his face. “Red blood cells only last about a hundred and fifteen days before our body breaks them down, is that why it’s ninety days? Anything past that and his body starts to shut down entirely?”

“If he gets a bad cut, he’ll die because his body isn’t making anything new to replace what’s lost.” Cable stated. “If he gets a cold, it will turn into fatal pneumonia within a matter of days. A fever could end him by sun down, an allergic reaction could kill him within minutes. This is life or death, Hank. Are you going to help me or not?”

“Ninety days.” the Beta looked back down at the list. “I can get this in ninety days. Maybe even sooner.”

“Maybe make it sooner.” Cable grunted. “You let me know how I can help. And Hank?”

Hank looked up and Cable offered him a half smile. “Thank you.”

The mutant was out of the house and gone a moment later, leaving Hank holding the paper and the computer chip as the cold night air wound in through the broken door.

“Prick.” he muttered to no one in particular. “I’m not doing this for you, I’m doing it for the kid.” and then quieter, “And because I am dying to know how time travel works.”

“Ninety days. I can do this.”

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

Peter hummed to himself as he gathered eggs, shooing the chickens away from their nests and tucking the eggs in the pocket of his hoodie. He’d never put even a split second of thought into where his breakfast came from but apparently chickens only lay one egg a day which meant his favorite brunch meal of three egg omelets was the combined effort of three different chickens and that-- that just didn’t seem right.

Looking down at the five meager eggs, Peter made a silent vow to never eat more than two at a time anymore, especially since Wade more than likely ate all five and was giving up part of his breakfast for Peter.

“You look awfully stressed out for having tussled with chickens.” Wade flashed his fangs in a teasing grin when Peter made it back inside. “Figured after three days the birds would stop giving you grief. Which one did you poke in the butt?”

“I didn’t poke anyone in the butt.” Peter huffed, and the Alpha’s smile stretched wider. “It’s just um--”

“Just what?” Wade could fit all five eggs in his big palm without even stretching, a fact that didn’t go unnoticed by Peter, even though he didn’t let himself linger too long on the fact that Wade had big feet too. We all know what that means. “What’s on your mind, Pete?”

“Um, it’s stupid.” Peter grabbed at his notebook and jotted down a few lines. “I just never put any thought into where my food came from or how much effort goes into making it.”

“...it takes two minutes to collect eggs, Pete.”

“No.” Peter shook his head. “No I mean. Chickens only lay one egg a day.” Wade blinked at him and Peter gestured vaguely. “My normal breakfast is the work of three chickens, a cow or goat, and someone who has to plant and harvest vegetables!”

“Yeah.” Wade cracked the eggs into a pan. “And?”

“And.” Peter emphasized. “I just go to the grocery store and buy a dozen eggs, a quart of milk and grab a tomato on my way up to the register. I never put any thought into how much effort goes into food. It’s about enough to turn someone vegan.”

“And vegan means…”

“I won’t eat any product that comes from an animal.” Peter stared down at his cup of milk. “Even though I feel like that barely works in my time where I can buy basically anything at the store, I’ll definitely starve to death here if I have to live on pine cones or something.”

“Yeah it’d be a real shame if you starved to death.” The Alpha stirred at their breakfast for a minute and then dropped a slab of meat into a frying pan. “I got five chickens because I usually eat five eggs and then I butcher them in the hard parts of winter so they don’t freeze and so I have fresh meat. I keep a goat for the milk and two horses to help haul the wagon. It’s not like I’m over hunting deer for the sport of it or keeping so many chickens I just end up attracting coyotes and mountain lions. If I don’t eat--”

“No.” Peter held up his hand to quiet Wade. “No, I’m not saying you’re wrong for needing to hunt or anything. I’m just saying that the-- wow the sheer amount of eggs and meat and milk that people in my timeline go through and now that I know a chicken only lays one egg a day it’s just… It’s sort of awful.”

“Well it’s a good thing you’re here now.” Wade turned the meat over and raised his eyebrows at Peter. “Right? Because it’s not awful.”

“It’s decidedly not awful.” Peter agreed, a faint blush climbing his cheeks when the Alpha rumbled at him softly. “And thank you for breakfast. I promise I can actually cook though, so maybe tomorrow morning you let me try?”

Tomorrow morning. The words came so easily, the assumption and acceptance that Peter would be there another day something that made both Alpha and Omega smile.

Four days had come and gone since Logan’s visit, and every day Peter woke up a little more rested, a little more peaceful.

He followed Wade along with chores and helped where he could, spent long hours exploring the surrounding forest while Wade worked on the cabin or chopped wood, and at evening they ate dinner together, talking quietly about the day and sharing increasingly warm smiles. Peter would write down all the new things he learned, Wade would patiently try to answer a litany of questions and Peter would exclaim in delight every time he figured out an answer before Wade could tell him.

Every night Wade motioned Peter towards the bed and Peter would put up a fuss about how Wade should be sleeping in the bed. The Alpha would growl a little and demand, Peter would huff and turn his nose up but inevitably, he would snuggle down into heavy blankets and Wade would watch protectively until the Omega slipped away into dreams.

It was the easiest thing in the world to move around each other, to move with each other, to laugh and talk and find conversation and for the first time in years Peter asked questions without urgency, wanted to know without feeling like he might explode if he didn’t, he was learning without painfully, desperately searching.

Wade’s scent wrapped safe around him at night, the cabin air saturated with contentment, and even though neither Peter nor Wade had re- introduced the topic of their scents matching or how they knew each other, there wasn’t really words for what they felt anyway.

The knowing was more than words, it was more than what Peter had read about in romance novels, more than what science could explain away, the sort of comfort and security that settled soul deep despite knowing Cable could return any minute and take him away.

They weren’t ready to think about that though, not about Cable and not about saying goodbye when they were still just barely skating along the surface of the bond sparking between their souls.

No, Peter was more than willing to put Cable out of his mind for right now and focus on learning everything he could about Wade’s world… and perhaps focusing on pulling as many fanged smiles from the Alpha as he could.

And it was this focus that led directly to Peter deciding he wanted to help Wade out more by taking on another chore, which in turn led directly to the Omega staring down a goat and immediately wondering if he’d made a mistake.

Offering to clean the cabin would have been a better idea.

“Alright Goat.” Peter eyed the beast warily, bucket clutched in one hand, a chunk of dandelions held in the other. “You got milk, I need the milk, are you gonna be cool about this or what?”

The goat bleated and stamped it’s little hoof.

“What was that?” Peter asked suspiciously. “Was that a yes? Are you saying yes? Gonna give it up for some dandelions?”

Wade was busy working tangles from Bea’s mane so he didn’t witness the head butting but he definitely heard the Omega squawk in outrage, heard the goat bellow in triumph, and when Peter came out of the barn spitting both hay and curses, Wade turned back to the roan so his laughter wasn’t quite so obvious.

“I can hear you.” Peter snapped and Wade tried even harder to muffle it. “That Billy goat knocked me right over! Does it do that to you?”

“First of all,” Wade smoothed his fingers through Bea’s mane and patted the mare on the neck to shoo her on. “That’s a nanny goat, not a billy goat. Billy goats are boys, nanny goats give milk. What did you think you were tugging on down there to get white stuff to shoot out?”

Peter's jaw dropped, his perfect lips opening in an shocked ‘oh’ at Wade’s phrasing. “I— um— I mean I wasn’t—“ Wade waited until he finished lamely. “I wasn’t tugging. Not yet anyway. I got head butted before I could try.”

“Fair enough.” Wade’s scent colored amused and the Omega turned bright red. “C’mon, get your bucket and I’ll show you. Come on.”

Peter grumbled under his breath as he followed Wade back into the barn, but he still dragged the stool over and paid close attention as Wade led the goat back over and tethered her to a short post, putting a pile of food in front of the animal to keep her distracted.

“See this? Milking post. Keeps her from running.” Wade smoothed his hands down the goat’s back and patted her rump. “Make sure she knows where you are, talk to her a little. She might be an animal but that doesn’t mean she likes being yanked on any more than a person would, you know? Easy and steady, firm but not painful. Look.”

Peter watched in fascination as milk hit the bucket in steady streams, Wade making the motions with no visible effort at all. “It doesn’t hurt her?”

“It’s more of a relief.” Wade trilled at the goat when she balked away from Peter. “She had kids this past spring so she’s pretty full of milk still. When we go to town, I’ll get her bred up with one of the town billies so her production stays up. There will be a few months in the spring where we don’t have milk cos she’s nursing but otherwise she puts out all year.”

“Is she acting weird around me because I’m new?” Peter picked up the nearly trampled dandelions and offered them to the goat again. “Or am I doing something wrong?”

“You smell off.” Wade eased off the goat and got up from the stool, motioning for Peter to take his place. “Humans don’t like the scent of mutants because we scent wild. Animals like our scent just fine. S’why the wolf pups follow Logan. They recognize the wild in him.”

“You don’t smell weird to me.” Peter settled onto the stool and petted at the animal awkwardly. “I think you smell good.”

“Yeah well,” Wade cleared his throat, swallowing back a burble of happiness. “That’s because if you told me I stunk, I’d kick you out and make you fend for yourself.”

“You’re right, that’s exactly what it is.” Peter wrinkled his nose teasingly, then put cautious hands on the goat. “Is this right? It doesn’t feel right. In fact it feels a little… ick.”

“You’re basically right.” Wade crouched behind the Omega, big arms circling Peter's lean frame so he could cover Peter's hands with his own and better direct each motion. “Feel that? A little pressure and it will give, and then right here where you meet some resistance, back off. No no don’t let go.” He recaptured Peters hands. “You let go and she thinks you’re done. Always hands on.”

“How do I know when she’s empty?” Peter’s brow furrowed in concentration. “Do I keep going until she’s all the way dry or stop before then?”

“You’ll feel when she’s about done, but you do wanna get her empty.” Wade let Peter take over the milking again, but didn’t move from behind the Omega. “Leave too much and her body thinks she doesn’t need to produce and then we end up with no milk at all. And having a full udder for too long can give her an infection.”

“Okay.” Peter nodded, eyes trained on the bucket and the stream of milk. “We do this twice a day?”

“Twice a day, and once you get comfortable it shouldn’t take you more than five or six minutes.” Wade confirmed. “Think you can handle it?”

“I think it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if you watched me a few times to make sure I’m not hurting her.” Peter clicked at the goat when she shifted uncertainly. “Would you mind?”

Wade would certainly not mind sitting here twice a day with Peter cradled between his thighs, the Omega’s thick hair in his nose and back fit to his chest. Peter hadn’t seemed to notice yet that Wade was practically hugging him, that all he’d have to do was turn his head and their lips would meet, or scoot back a few inches to plaster their bodies together.

He was so close and here in the barn the Omega’s honeysuckle scent mixed with sun warmed hay, lavender underscoring the earthier tones of animal and it would have been so easy for Wade to shift forward and bury his nose in Peter’s hair, to inhale deep and get scent drunk right then and there.

Tempting.

“‘Course I don't mind helping.” Wade tried for teasing but it fell flat as his entire body tightened with a surge of longing . “Last thing I need is you pissing off the goat and her giving me spoiled milk, right?”

“Ugh. Right.” Peter laughed quietly. “You’d kick me out for sure then, wouldn't you?”

“Without even hesitating.” Wade said immediately and Peter laughed again.

There really was something sort of relaxing about this particular chore. Sunlight was streaming bright through the open barn doors and settling warm over their shoulders. The goat was calm and the steady crunch of it eating was oddly comforting. Peter could hear Bea and Arthur stamping around in the yard and their soft nickers and neighs as they talked to each other, and beyond that was the sound of birds in the trees and the whistle of autumn wind through branches.

Wade was set right behind him, the Alpha solid and steady, soothing and dependable, dark licorice scent like caramel flowing thick through Peter’s veins, the cedar bringing to mind long summer days and lazy naps in the sunshine.

Not that he needed a nap, no Peter had slept better in Wade’s bed the last several nights than he had in months. The mattress was barely comfortable but somehow Peter sank right into it and passed out almost immediately. Dreams that had been almost nightmares before were now nothing more than vague impressions of calm and home and even though waking up to a cold cabin wasn’t easy, it was wonderful to sit up and stretch and watch Wade’s eyes light red and possessive for just a split second before the Alpha got himself under control again.

Never once had Peter thought to want an Alpha outside his heat, but oh he wanted Wade and the sudden shift made his fingers tremble, his heart pound.

“Easy. Let up now.” The Alpha’s deep voice was low and smooth in Peter’s ear, breaking into his thoughts and pulling him back to the moment. “She’s all done, Pete. Don’t want to stress her out.”

“Hm?” Peter blinked a few times, lethargic and lazy and not wanting to break the hazy spell that had fallen over them. “Oh. Oh sorry. Is she okay?”

The goat bleated at Peter in annoyance and side stepped away, so Wade reached with one hand to undo her tether and send her out into the yard, then murmured, “It’s alright. You didn’t hurt her.” and pressed at Peter’s side gently, before spreading his fingers out over the Omega’s stomach so Peter wouldn’t move away quite yet. “Are you okay? Seems like I lost you there for a minute.”

“Yeah, I just sort of--” Peter’s mouth felt dry, his tongue thick and head fuzzy and he closed his eyes to the pull of slumber. “--just sort of floated away. I dunno what happened.”

“Floated away…” Wade hesitated. “...in a bad way?”

“Mmmm, no.” he hummed a little and turned in Wade’s arms, tucking his nose into the Alpha’s neck and parting his lips to take a slow breath in. “No, I got tired all the sudden and I feel… spacey. Sorry.”

“Christ.” Wade slipped his hand over Peter’s stomach and around to the side, holding the Omega tight to his chest and shuddering when Peter only sighed and settled firmer into his shoulder. “No, don’t apologize. This is-- this is fine. I’ve got you. Just… just keep floatin’ Pete. I’ve got you.”

Peter’s smile was soft and secret, fingers clutched into Wade’s shirt and frame limp and trusting and the Alpha whispered, “Stay right here.”

It had been so long since Vanessa had passed that Wade had forgotten about this, forgotten about the way two bodies could yearn and linger and the way one partner could fall into a lazy sort of euphoria just because there was nothing better than being held safe in the others arms.

Vanessa had been an Alpha, so these sort of moments had been few and far between but Wade remembered slow nights watching the fire as she drew mindless patterns on his chest and how he’d slipped deeper and deeper under until he could have sworn the stars were shining bright right there in their cabin. He remembered Vanessa wearing nothing more than his shirt, fangs glinting as she laughed, all her edges softened and blurred as he brushed her hair or whispered sweet things into her skin as she tumbled into brilliant nothingness where the only thing that mattered was the pressure of his fingers and the rumble of his voice.

And now Peter was tipping over the edge with nothing more than sunshine and Wade holding him close. He was gorgeous, breath taking even, and it was all Wade could do not to gather the Omega up and carry him to the cabin and lay claim to him properly.

But it wasn’t the right time, it may never be the right time, not when their realities were so far separated and not when Cable was bound to return and take Peter away.

It wasn’t the right time and the thought made Wade’s blood rush hot, his fangs aching as the instinct to claim now before it was too late flashed through his core. His scent roiled sharp, fingers gripping too tight, and the change had Peter shifting against him, the Omega’s perfectly pert nose wrinkling in distress.

“No no no, no distress.” Wade tried to calm his scent, to loosen his hold. “Easy Omega, little Omega, it’s alright. Settle down.”

“Mmm.” Peter hummed and stilled again, and Wade ignored the burn in his thighs from crouching so long, the ache in his back from being bent into such a weird position, and mentally willed the Omega to stay.

Please stay.

Please don’t leave me.

They sat together for a while, and would have sat together long enough for Wade’s legs to go entirely numb if the goat hadn’t interrupted the quiet moment with an aggressively annoyed noise from outside. Wade’s heart twisted when Peter’s eyes opened wide in surprise, and then shuttered in shyness, his cheeks stained red as he peeked up from beneath his lashes.

“We probably have more chores to do?” he whispered, and Wade whispered back, “I can do them, why don’t you go rest?”

“I’m not tired anymore.” Peter denied, but the stretch and wriggle and sleepy sigh he gave said something different. Need punched Wade straight through the stomach as the Omega’s shirt rode up to expose perfect skin, Peter’s satisfied moan as he came back to himself enough to have the Alpha biting his tongue until it bled. “Okay, maybe just a short nap.”

“That’s fine.” Wade managed. “You need help back to the cabin?”

“I’m pretty sure I can walk.” Peter teased him, but standing on wobbly legs was more difficult than he imagined, and he pitched forward a little, catching himself on Wade’s shoulders. “Wow. Sorry. Seriously, I don’t know what’s going on.”

“It’s fine.” Wade ran gentle hands up Peter’s long legs to settle at his waist, holding the Omega steady. “It’s-- shit, Pete. This is fine. How are you feeling? Still floaty?”

“Feel like I’m coming back around now.” From this angle Peter was staring right down at the Alpha, rubbing his thumbs over Wade’s collarbone and the scars at the base of his neck. His eyes were lit with curiosity but not disgust, maybe even affection and Wade held his breath and waited for the inevitable questions---

“Does this hurt?” Peter asked softly and that-- that wasn’t what Wade had been expecting at all.

“What?”

“Does it hurt when I touch you?” Peter clarified. “If I touch you here?” his fingers slid under the shirt collar just a bare inch, and Wade felt the touch like a brand at his soul. God, how long had it been since anyone had touched him like this? “Do the scars hurt?”

“No.” Wade shook his head, his scent filtering thankful when Peter flattened his palms to touch more skin. “Not anymore. They only hurt when I get a new one, but once they fade, I don’t notice anymore. Looks worse than it feels.”

“When you get a new one.” Peter swept his fingers up along Wade’s neck, trilling sweetly when the Alpha tipped his head into his palm. “How often do you get a new one?”

“...one part of my mutation is that I heal.” Wade explained slowly. “I heal from everything. But the scars never go away. Every cut, every broken bone, every scrape stays on my skin forever. The older I get the worse it becomes.”

“How old are you?” Gentle so gentle over Wade’s bare scalp, a soft hush when Wade shuddered. “How long have you been collecting scars? Logan said he fought in all the wars with you, what does that mean? How old are you?”

Wade hesitated, wet his lips and steeled himself for shock and rejection before finally admitting, “Logan and I met during the war of 1812. I’d recently lost my mate Vanessa and when war broke out I went and lost myself in the fighting. Men like Logan and I-- you find each other when you’re the only ones walking off a battlefield full of dead men.”

“1812.” Peter repeated, and unbelievably, his beautiful mouth tipped up in a smile. “That’s amazing. So you-- you’re a hundred years old? Older?”

“I’m not sure of my exact birthday.” Wade swallowed, pressed at Peter's waist coaxingly. “You’re not going to ask about Vanessa?”

“I’m so sorry you had to lose her.” Peter inched closer, lips parting over a shaky sigh when Wade’s hold tightened. “She was your first mate? Have you-- have you had one since?”

Just you. “...no.” Wade shook his head. “I never thought I’d get another chance at a scent match and a soul bond.”

“Oh.” Another sigh, this one even more unsteady. “A hundred years you’ve been collecting scars, you’ve bonded and lost her, and now you and I-- um, you and I--” the Omega bit at his lip shyly. “You’re beautiful, Wade. Incredible. I wish I knew all your stories.”

“Stick around.” Wade waggled his eyebrows to break the tension, and obligingly, Peter laughed. “I’ll teach you a thing or two.”

“Plan on it.” Peter finally leaned away, clearing his throat and blinking the last of the daze from his eyes. “Chores?”

“I thought you were going to take a nap.” Wade stood gingerly, stretching his sore muscles until the hurt bled away. “Go lay down, Omega. I’ll wake you in time for dinner.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.” Wade jerked his head towards the cabin, then turned away so he wouldn’t be tempted to follow Peter to bed. “Go on. See you tonight.”

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

It wasn’t easy for Peter to wake up in a cold cabin, or stumble from the bed to splash ice water on his face to help with chores, but it was easy to look up with a smile for the Alpha when Wade offered him a cup of too strong coffee to help him face the day.

It wasn’t easy to learn how to milk the goat, or to dry his clothes when Peter inevitably knocked the milk bucket over, or to keep the goat tethered tight enough to not move too far but not so tight that the ornery thing yelled at him the entire time.

But oh it was easy to blush when Wade looked up and caught Peter shirtless as he tried to wring out the wet, the Alpha’s eyes lighting red and scent charging eager for a few breathless seconds.

And it really wasn’t easy to force himself to eat red meat, but this life required more energy than Peter was used to. He couldn’t survive on beans, eggs and bread forever, so he sat down for dinner each night and ate tiny bites so his stomach wouldn’t hurt.

It wasn’t easy, but it was so very easy to trill sweetly when Wade tried so hard to pile mushrooms and wild carrots on the plate along with nuts and berries he found around the property.

“I thought you said I had to find my own salad.” Peter teased one night as Wade produced an entire bowl of gathered greens. “Are you a gatherer now, Wade?”

“It took you so long to milk the goat, I figured I should help you out with the salad thing.” Wade deadpanned, and Peter laughed at him, clear and cheerful and the Alpha only rumbled in response, closing his eyes to inhale sweet happy Omega scent.

Nothing about this life was easy, but it was so easy to live this life with Wade, Peter found himself forgetting this all had an expiration date.

He could stay here forever.

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

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#ncts fics #spideypool #peter parker #wade wilson #cable #time travel #abo dynamics #soulmates #hank pym #alpha wade wilson #omega peter parker

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pennywaltzy · 4 years

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And another fic with a cover by @strangelock221b!

Desperate Times Call For Desperate Measures - It all begins with an invitation to Mycroft's wedding to his PA and seven days at a resort in Jamaica, with the assumption that Molly pretends to be his girlfriend that his mother might be under the impression that he's going to propose to sooner rather than later. It ends up being so much more than that...

READ CHAPTER 1 | BUY ME A COFFEE?

You have been cordially invited to the nuptials of Mycroft Reginald Holmes and Andrea Elizabeth Macmillan...

Sherlock skimmed over the rest of the wedding invitation but his eyes were drawn to the sticky pink Post-it note that his mother had stuck to it, and he scowled as his eyes raked over her precise handwriting. If he had his way he’d forgo the seven-day affair entirely. His eldest brother was going to get to miss it because he was estranged from them all. Why couldn’t he be afforded the same luxury? He wasn’t exactly fond of Mycroft or his PA and he knew Mycroft would probably not give a toss one way or the other if he was there or not. But as he pulled the pale pink note off the invitation he knew if he pulled a disappearing act his mother would give him holy hell.

He looked at it and sighed. He had been feeding his mum a few lies about seeing a woman to get her off his back. And they weren’t a complete lie; there was something going on with Molly, he supposed. There was no physical intimacy in the relationship, though he would admit to no one other than himself that when he was alone had had thought of kissing her, and...more than that. Much more. To the point that when he awoke most mornings he needed a very cold shower. It was getting to be a damn nuisance. But he was sure that after the debacle of her engagement to the meat dagger and his absolute cock-up of handling the situation with Janine and then her utter disappointment in his subsequent relapse with heroin addiction that the best he would ever get with her was...whatever it was they had, something that was more meaningful than a friendship but not quite a romantic relationship.

And he hoped that because of what they had that she would help him now. Because if he showed up to this event without a plus one, he would never hear the end of it.

He stuck the Post-it on the front of the invitation and then slipped it back in the envelope before making his way out of Baker Street to a cab. He wasn’t quite sure how to ask for her help. This was not the type of situation he wanted them to be in, ideally. Seven days on a tropical island where they had to pretend to be in a relationship. It could spell the end of their friendship, for one, and he didn’t know what he would do if he lost her. Molly was special to him in a way that the others in his life were not. John and Mary were special to him, yes, and so were Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson, but Molly was something different. She was...he wasn’t sure if he could describe it. She had become such an integral part of his life that he wasn’t sure he could survive her being extricated from it, and if this blew up in his face, that would be the end result, he knew that. But he had no choice, not according to the note attached to the invitation.

He fretted the entire way to Barts, something he never found himself doing, and he almost found himself with a case of nerves by the time he arrived at the hospital and began to make his way to the morgue. He got into the lift and pressed the button to the basement, trying to calm himself. This would not end badly. If she refused, he could simply continue the fiction, say his girlfriend had been busy and unable to make it. If Mycroft scoffed and made things hard, he would indeed try and make his wedding an event that did not go well. He would indeed be that petty. And if Molly did agree, then they would play it by ear, he supposed, and plan for as much as they were able.

When the lift doors opened he stepped out, only to see Molly coming towards him. He blinked and held the door open. “Molly,” he said quietly.

“Sherlock!” she said with a warm smile. She had on her regular coat as opposed to her lab coat. “Oh, it’s good you came now. I was just on my way home. There was a leak in the lab and the pipes flooded so they sent me home early. I thought I’d take advantage of the early time off and catch a film. Do you want to join me?”

“All right,” he said with a nod. When she stepped into the lift he let the door closed. “But you may not want my company after you hear why I came.”

“Oh no,” she said. “You don’t want me to march right back into the morgue, do you? It’s flooded!”

He gave her a small smile. “No, I just have a favour of a personal nature. It’s rather like an undercover case, but it involves my family.”

She gave him a confused glance. “Is it something bad?” she asked. He thought for a moment, then handed her the envelope containing the invitation. Her confusion grew until she opened the envelope. He plucked the Post-it off the top and she opened the invitation, and then realization dawned on her face. “You need a plus one!”

“Seven days in Jamaica,” he said with a nod. “But there’s a complication.”

“And it has to do with that Post-it, I take it,” she said, looking up at him.

“My mother is under the assumption I have a girlfriend,” he said quietly. “I may have told her some of the activities we have done together have constituted dates.”

She was quiet for a moment. “Have you mentioned me by name?” Molly asked.

He shook his head. “No. She’s pried, though, and Mycroft may have been a malicious bastard and brought your name up specifically. And what’s worse, she assumes I am very near asking for my girlfriend’s hand in marriage.” He handed her the Post-it note.

“‘Would you like me to bring a selection of your grandmum's rings?’” Molly read off the note, her eyes widening. “Oh, that’s a predicament.”

He nodded. “Yes. And I know my brother would love to see me in an awkward position. It would make his nuptials all that much sweeter.” Sherlock ran a hand through his hair. “I realize that although we are close, I am in no position to ask, but...”

Molly studied the Post-it note and the invitation. “Seven days in Jamaica?” she asked hesitantly.

“Mycroft is covering all of the expenses for all of the wedding party and their plus ones, apparently,” he said. “Despite our differences, he wants me to be his best man.”

“Seven days in Jamaica that I don’t have to pay for?” she asked, perking up a bit.

“At Couples San Souci,” he said. “He booked the entire resort so it will only be my family, Anthea’s family and the guests for the wedding. You’ll have full access to all the activities the resort offers around the festivities planned for the wedding.”

She bit her lip and then studied the invitation and her eyes widened. “The wedding is in three weeks!”

“It’s not common knowledge, but Anthea is pregnant. Hence the rush,” Sherlock said. “If you agree I can guarantee Mycroft will make sure arrangements for your leave are taken care of. I know Anthea has a soft spot for you and she’ll want you there, and he has his own reasons for wanting you there.”

She shifted slightly as she stood, and then finally nodded. “All right, Sherlock. I’ll go with you. But we have to have some ground rules, all right?”

He nodded, relaxing. “Very well. Perhaps we can decide them after the film? I’ll treat you to supper at any restaurant you choose.”

“Oh, trust me, that wasn’t a smart move,” she said with a small smile on her face. “I’m in the mood for Chinese, so I think I want to go to Hakkasan Mayfair.”

“I suppose I set myself up for that, but fair is fair,” he said, leaning over to press the button on the lift to take them to the lobby. She had agreed. Good. They had three weeks to work out the details but he was fairly sure they could come up with terms they were both agreeable to. He just hoped that nothing happened to blow those terms out of the water.

#sherlock #sherlolly #mollock #mythea #fanfic #fanfiction #sherlock holmes #molly hooper #multipart: desperate times call for desperate measures #strangelock221b

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