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b-afterhours · 7 months

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Avenue of Sins: Epilogue

SUMMARY: a story of two misfit kids from mid-west america making it big in the big apple. and in the true sense of the american dream they find themselves in a life of sex, money, drugs, and a little rock n roll too.

WARNINGS: adult content, mature readers only.

if you’re seeing this for the first time you can read part one here and if you need to catch up on previous chapters go here.

series playlist

Authors Note: Buckle in this one is a long one, 14k words. Thank you if you ever made it this far ♡

Three Years Later…

September 1992

It felt like it was happening all over again. Except Bill was on a plane ready to land in Seattle, Washington. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes as the plane descended, his least favorite part about flying. He hadn’t traveled in what seemed like years from New York City. He was too busy with managing Trigger Finger to travel and too paranoid to leave it. He felt like if he ever did the place would burn down or even worse, raided by the DEA. That was until recently after a year's worth of paperwork and back door deals he was able to relax some.

He needed a partner who cared about Trigger Finger XXX as much as he did but some who also cared about Myrna. Someone who knew her. He proposed half of the ownership to his confidant and oldest friend at the club, Cooch the Coach who he now called Bianca, his business partner. A lot of things shifted at the club. Once Bianca became a partner she passed down her title of house mother to Kansas. She took it only if she never had to perform again and just took care of the girls. Bill was fine with that even though he would miss her earnings. Most notable was when Queenie became head bartender, replacing Alma when she decided to leave.

Alma left. It wasn’t a surprise. He could feel her slowly pulling away ever since that night. That night. He didn’t want her to go. He didn’t get to make up all the times he meant to say ‘I love you’ yet. He still had all the ones he thought.

When she decided to go she told him only that she wanted to take a trip back home to the middle of nowhere, Strathburg, Missouri. She missed her mom, she said. It was time she saw her again just for a week she told him. In his heart, he knew. She wasn’t coming back. She was letting him down easy. To get used to the feeling of her not being there. A week turned into two. And on the third week, she called. Her mom was sick. She will be staying until she gets better. Bill didn’t question her even though he wondered if she was being truthful.

Two months later Alma’s mother passed away. Her leaving must have been divine timing Bill thought to make Alma’s defection less about him. He couldn't imagine what kind of heartbreak she would have gone through knowing she never got to say goodbye after years of not seeing her mother. One of Bill’s older brothers went to Mrs. Lucio’s funeral. To pay his respects to a matriarch of their community on behalf of his extended family. Bill wired his brother money to help Alma with funeral costs, even though she probably didn't need it but he wanted his brother to get close enough to her so that he could report back all about her. How she looked. If she asked about him.

“Arrived. Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. The time is 9:45 AM and it’ll be a brisk 70 degrees out with a light drizzle.” The pilot announced as soon as they began to taxi to the gate.

Bill finally exhaled the breath he had held in, anxiously awaiting to stretch his long legs that had been cramped during the four-hour one-way flight despite booking first class. He had traveled out of Kansas City. Making a quick stop to visit his two older brothers. The oldest of whom he had expected to ask him for money but not until he had settled in. He asked him an hour into being back home in Strathburg. The other second oldest who loved him but disapproved of his life, he was most happy to see. Because at least he lived honestly and told Bill what he needed to hear from time to time. It felt bleak being back home but at least he felt justified for leaving it behind seeing the state of the town in shambles. He knew he’d hang himself from the white oak tree he’d liked to climb in his childhood he had not.

He joined his second oldest brother to the grocery store for barbecue meats to celebrate his last night in town when he unexpectedly ran into Alma’s father, Mr. Lucio. He almost hadn’t recognized the old man. Alma’s parents were much older when they had her and the man now walked with a hunch and a cane. He wore a trucker cap and a clean mechanics work shirt.

“Billy Skarsgard?” Mr. Lucio said after having stared at Bill nearly unable to recall him.

“Yes, sir. How have you been?”

The old man grumbled disapprovingly. “Okay…” he said looking behind him and towards another woman near his age getting into the passenger seat of his Chevy pickup. “I’ve gotten remarried a few years ago… long before Mrs. Lucio passed, mind you.”

“Yes, I’m sorry to hear that.” Bill slid his hands into his pockets feeling uncomfortable.

“Alma… she wasn’t so happy hearing that we separated while she was gone. But she hardly ever called, you see.” Mr. Lucio gave him a pointed look. “Well, I wish I could say it was good to see you…”

“I understand, Mr. Lucio.” Bill frowned a bit.

He rolled his eyes and exhaled harshly out his flared nostrils once he was able to leave the old man's presence and join his brother inside the run-down store. Mr. Lucio never liked him but for some reason, a part of him hoped he’d regard him as the grown man he was now rather than the teenage boy he knew before.

…

Bill had rented a Honda Civic from the airport and took the short drive to his hotel. His nerves were beginning to get to him even worse than they had been before he started his journey. Alma had some knowledge of his arrival. During a phone call last week, he had told her he’d be traveling to visit her within the month. He was scared to give her an exact date of his arrival, irrationally worried that she may suddenly skip town and evade him. On their occasional phone calls, he would always have a notepad by his side. Taking note of the places she visited, or the friends she had, but one in particular was the note he made that she worked at a record shop. She probably would have told him the name of the place had he asked but he was oddly too scared to. Instead, he made things more difficult and acquired a Seattle/Tacoma phonebook and had Queenie call every record shop in the area asking for her.

“Sheisty Sound Records, how can I help you?”

“Hello, uh, yes I was wanting to speak to Alma. Does she happen to be in today? I have a question about a uh, return?” Queenie said her mind was tired of repeating the same script over and over by this point.

“Alma is busy with a customer right now but I can-”

Queenie slammed down the phone on the receiver and screamed in elation and relief. She ran up the stairs to the loft office and barged in without knocking. Startling Bill and his bodyguard Theo as they were speaking.

“Sheisty Sound Records! I found her, Bill!”

“No way!” He said perking up in his seat and taking the piece of paper Queenie had written down the much-needed information he was seeking. “Shit! Thank you so much.”

Queenie stood there proudly before asking, “I really hope you go see her now. I miss her. Bring her back Bill. Last time she visited she didn’t stay very long and we hardly saw her.”

Bill smiled sheepishly but thanked her again for her trouble and promised her a personal tip that night.

In his hotel room, Bill immediately entered the hot shower after he made a phone call to the record store asking for Alma and hung up before an employee could pass the line over to her. The steam from the shower felt glorious to him. He didn’t like how the recycled plane air stuck to his skin and made his face and lips dry. As he stood there letting the water cascade over his body he reminisced about the last time he had seen Alma almost two years ago. For some reason, it didn’t feel as nerve-racking to see her then as it did now. He thought that maybe after dealing with her mother's affairs after her death was done her trip back to New York City was her coming back home to him. Unfortunately, she had only come all that way to gather some of her main belongings and give away a few other things to whichever girl at the club wanted them.

He was rather sad that she wasn’t staying but he decided that he wouldn’t hold her back. He felt that he had done so long enough. He remembered one night they were together they spoke only once and briefly about Craig before mutually changing the subject. It still felt too raw, too real then. Alma admitted to him that she still had night terrors about it. He admitted the same but didn’t tell her that Craig succeeded in killing her in his dreams instead. Bill watched her speak and noticed how her skin looked so plump and less sunken. Her eyes had a spark to them again and it made his heart flutter. She had stopped doing drugs cold turkey just by being in Strathburgh for the last year. She looked healthy and it seemed like she had a slightly better disposition on life despite her mother’s passing. He knew her mother was the only thing tying her to their home town and in some way, her passing freed her from that place.

Bill ran a bar of Ivory soap across his body remembering how Alma touched him the last time they made love. Real love. The type of lovemaking that still could shudder his breath thinking about. When she was back he told her loved her constantly but that night he couldn’t keep the words out of his mouth. They kissed every inch of each other. Their bodies had connected thousands of times before but that night they were never more aware of how perfect they fit until that moment. Like it was meant to be.

Bill quickly rinsed off, trying to keep himself from being too distracted by those thoughts. Drying off, he lit a cigarette before using the hotel hair dryer. He wanted to get ready quickly and hoped that maybe he could catch Alma on a lunch break or if not he could scope the place out and try again tomorrow. Once the steam from the mirror in front of him dissipated he looked at his face in the mirror and contemplated trimming his facial hair or shaving it all off. He swiped his hand across his upper lip stubble one last time and decided he wouldn’t mind a clean shave.

After a quick stop at a flower shop, where he ordered a fresh bouquet of white and light pink peonies. It felt weird to show up to Sheisty Sound Records empty-handed. He sat in the car for a moment observing the Seattleites walking around with hot cups of coffee, wearing what seemed to be tattered hand-me-downs and, a lot of flannel. His gaze fell back on the shop when a logging truck revved by. The youths skating in front of the place and loitering by the shop didn’t help with his uneasiness. He could see his old self in them but they seemed more ruthless than he had ever been. He figured maybe it was because he was getting old and losing his edge.

He stepped out of the small Civic, placing the bouquet on the roof so that he could bend down to retie his Doc Marten bootlace and pat down his crease-ironed trousers clean from lint along with his black Louis Vuitton polo shirt. He lightly jogged across the street with the bouquet in hand and as he got closer to the record shop he tightened his long black pea coat to his body as he passed the teenagers cracking jokes and making a slight ruckus after a young boy fell off his skateboard trying to do a simple kickflip. Just as quickly as he spotted them, they spotted his tall imposing figure in all black approaching them. The three teen girls who were looking up at him jaws dropped and their hands came up to their mouths as they tried to stifle their blushing giggles. The teen boys just stared at him unsure of how to react to him but they quickly rolled their eyes when noticing the girl's reaction.

“Holy fuck he’s tall as hell!”

He heard one of the boys say as he walked inside the establishment. He stood there a moment until a woman with a baby on her hip and a diaper bag in hand passed him and politely asked if he’d help her open the door. He nodded and did so taking a look at the bundled baby in a white puffer onesie and a matching beanie as the child waved at him. He caught himself smiling.

Bill took a gaze at the record shop, the same as many others only that it was much bigger inside than he anticipated. From the outside, it looked more like a small hole-in-the-wall establishment but inside it spanned much longer. Something he hadn’t seen in most record shops was that they had a back area with a stage reminding him of when he used to manage local NYC punk bands. This looked like the type of venue he would have booked back then. It was a nice place he had to admit and it was just the kind of place he would find Alma.

There was a folksy rock song playing on the store's stereo system as he approached the cash wrap which sat in the middle of the place similar to a circulation desk you would see in a public library. He cleared his throat to gain the attention of a girl with a bleached buzz cut and a septum piercing she fashioned with a diary lock. She was rifling through a stack of tapes with chipped red painted fingernails and idly conversing with another employee, a guy with long hair in a low ponytail who was wearing a thrifted brown tweed suit jacket over a white band tee riddled with cigarette-burned holes.

“Excuse me, I’m a friend of Alma? I was hoping she’d be here?” He said, lifting a brow nervous that he may not even be at the right record shop after all.

“Alma? Umm…” the girl looked around the store for a moment. “I think she’s still on her lunch break?”

“No.” The guy said with a bored sigh, never looking up from his task of pricing records. “She took an early lunch break today. She might be in the back.” He shrugged.

Another employee stopped near them in passing, overhearing them. She was tall, with afro twists adorned with gold string embellishments on the two front twists.

“I last saw her by the bathrooms,” she said leaning on the cashier counter handing the girl with the buzzcut a few more tapes. “Here you go, Ulyssa.”

“Those kids outside I swear they misplaced the tapes on purpose,” the girl with the buzzcut, Ulyssa grumbled.

Bill stood there impatiently, they spoke almost as if he weren’t even there. They hardly ever looked at him beyond their tasks at hand. Unconsciously, he rubbed his temple. Was Alma there or were they fucking with him, he thought.

“Okay… but she's here, right?” He asked.

“Yes, I’m here.” A familiar voice announced before laughing.

He looked a little behind him to his right and saw Alma there leaning against the threshold of a small office room. She looked different but in a good way. He noticed she had adapted her style to where she was now. Wearing high-waisted mom jeans, a plain white shirt tucked in under an oversized brown cardigan, and black Converse. The biggest difference was her long teased hair was cropped to her shoulders in a long bob and she was wearing her glasses again. A pair without a chip in it.

“You gonna just stand there or do you wanna come into my office?” She smiled at him.

Bill smiled too as he finally approached. She took his hand and closed the door behind him before she hugged him tightly. She couldn’t help herself and snuggled her face into his chest taking in the scent of him. She missed him that was for sure. He felt her hands snake around to his back feeling around to the front of his chest again. She bent all the way down sliding her hands on the outer side of his legs. Bill looked at her curiously, his mind going in a direction he didn’t expect their first encounter to go, at least, not yet. Until, on her way back up she swiped her hands on the inner side of his legs stopping just before she touched his crotch. There was a devious grin on her face.

“Really? You’re seriously checking me for a fucking wire?” Bill said with a smirk of disbelief on his face.

Alma laughed. “You never know.”

“You never, what? Do you not know me anymore?” While it was a rhetorical question in nature he couldn’t help but wonder.

“Oh my god, Bill.” Alma groaned, rolling her eyes. She took a seat, not in her office chair, but instead one of the two that sat in front of it. “I’m just fucking with you.”

“I had pictured this going so differently.” He said taking a seat next to her.

“Disappointed?

“No, I was just so nervous and here we are again back to how we’ve always kinda been.” He shrugged. “I got these for you,” he said, passing her the bouquet of peonies.

She smiled nearly burying her face in to smell them. “Aww, thank you. You’re so sweet when you let yourself be, you know?” She said, hugging his hand briefly. “I’ll put these in a vase after lunch.”

“Your coworkers out there said you took an early lunch?” He lifted a brow.

“But you’re here now, aren’t you hungry? Wait, how long have you been in town?”

Bill looked at his silver Rolex watch. “Hmm, since mid-morning. Almost 4 hours?”

“Okay, so let's get something to eat. I have a weird shift today. It’s a half day and then I’ve gotta come back later this evening because we have a show tonight.”

“A show?”

“Let’s go! I’ll explain once we’re out of here.” She said standing up and grabbing both of his hands so that he would also.

They walked hand in hand to a little family-owned pizzeria a few blocks away. Bill couldn’t help but notice how he looked like her tall looming shadow with the outfit he chose to wear.

“You’re very sneaky but not really.”

He heard her say suddenly wondering what she meant until she explained.

“So which girl in the club did you have play as your private investigator?”

Bill stopped in his tracks. “What?”

Alma turned around to look at him. “Oh, don’t play coy. You know you just could have asked me where I work. I wasn’t keeping it a secret.”

“You knew I was coming?”

“In a way…” she said, retaking his hand so they could continue walking just a little bit further to enter the pizzeria. “Let's just get our pizza slices to go. We can talk in the plaza. Away from people.”

They sat on a bench affixed with a large metal rain awning as they ate. Bill again watched the people in the strange cloudy city he was in. Miles away from New York eating subpar pizza. Though he wasn’t a born and raised New Yorker living there for over 10 years had made him a bit of a snob, though he rather not admit that.

“New York pizza is better, huh?” Alma noticed Bill’s expression as she threw her pizza crust to a squirrel nearby. “It’s just what's close by,” Alma shrugged.

“It’s fine enough, I guess. So… how’d you know I was coming? Do you have one of my girls working as a mole in my club for you?”

Alma lightly laughed. “No. Well… not really. Cooch tells me stuff here and there but she’s not telling me the details of your day or anything like that.”

“Hmm,” he said to himself. Of course, it would be his business partner, of all people. Bianca liked them both and in the same way, Myrna did, she encouraged him to be with Alma. She was the reason he finally flew to town.

“Don’t be mad at her. If I want to know something I always call you first. It’s just sometimes a little verification doesn’t hurt. I really do want to know if you’re okay beyond what you share with me. Besides, it wasn’t her that blew your cover, it was you.”

“How? I didn’t say when I was coming.”

“It was almost like a month ago? Someone called the store and Ulyssa told me a girl had called asking for me but they hung up on her face. Usually, when people ask for me they stay on the line to bitch about something. But I shrugged it off, until you told me almost a week after that, that you were going to dirty ol’ Strathburg but not when and you didn’t give me a date of when you were coming here either. But I knew Strathburg was a pit stop, at the very least.”

“Okay, okay so you knew.”

“Well yes and no. I figured out you were coming but not until today. When you called asking for me and hung up in Ulyssa’s face again! And she said it was some guy this time. But yeah, I figured it was you.” She lightly laughed.

“So are you happy that I’m here or do you feel put out that I came?” He leaned forward and clasped his hands turning his head towards her.

“What? Never. Of course, I’m happy that you’re here.” She scooted closer to him, hooking her arm under his, and hugging it. “You can stay as long as you want. You can stay forever even.”

He turned his head again towards her and kissed her. Doing so seemed to settle his worrisome mind. “I missed you. I love you.”

“I know…”

“I know we talk as much as we can but there’s so much stuff we can’t say,” Bill said and Alma nodded in agreement.

While apart they would speak regularly but Bill could be paranoid and they both agreed that they would speak moderately vague. Afraid that in an unfortunate series of events, his phone lines have been taped or maybe someone could overhear something they weren’t supposed to. It’s the reason why he never asked Alma where she worked and the same reason Alma would call Cooch to verify things.

“How long are you in town for?"

"I have a flight back on Sunday so 4 days? Three and a half now. But I mean I can really go back whenever I want. I don’t work as much when it comes to pushing cocaine. I’m nearly out. I just do some middleman sales with Alvin’s creepy ass.”

“At least you finally admit he’s a creep! He’s an asshole too.”

“I mean… I knew but he’s nobody.” He shrugged a bit but laughed. “I don’t touch the stuff anymore it became a bit tired. Boring even. It’s not as fun without you.”

Alma rolled her eyes but smiled. “Oh please. But you do look really good, Bill.” She said, squeezing his bicep. He flexed a little to amuse her. “You look like some of those daddies that come to your club now.”

“Oh yeah?” He smiled, kissing her on the cheek. Alma liked the feeling, she was so used to his stubbly kisses that his bare-faced ones felt so much sweeter.

“Let’s not start…” she said suggestively.

“Okay, so as I was saying. I don’t sell grams to the patrons. But, there’s two guys – two dealers – who know Alvin that sell in the club. Same shit that we sold but they do the grunt work and all I do is take a fee from their sales inside my club. So I’m not making as much money as I was but… I don’t really need to.”

“Smart. When people get greedy that’s when they lose it all.”

Bill nodded. “True. Plus I just don’t want to deal with it anymore, honestly. Things are getting really ugly in NYC because everyone is cooking it down to rock. It’s just everywhere.”

“I heard.” Alma shook her head. “Here, people are mostly fucked off of dope. Gives me the heebie-jeebies. It’s not very glamorous either.”

“Not at all. And you? How’s work and all that?” He leaned back on the bench placing a long arm over her shoulders.

“It’s busy like I said before on the phone. But it’s nice, the employees are great. If they ask, you’re a businessman, by the way, that's what I’ve told them,” she winked at Bill’s amused face. “But the music scene is so different here but I like it. The people here are a little bit nicer than people in the city for sure. I applied to night school. I start next spring semester, so that’s something new at least.” She shrugged.

“Really? So you’re really going back?” Bill had recalled a late-night phone call after having phone sex with her that they spoke a bit about it but she was still indecisive about the prospect then.

“Yes. I’m going to try at least.” She shrugged. “I- um it’s just the time management of it all, you know.” She sighed. She looked more stressed about the thought than she was letting on. Though, Bill figured it was just nerves because she hadn’t been in an academic setting in so long.

“Well I’m glad,” he said, rubbing her shoulder. “I’m sure you can do it. It’s just that means…”

“I’ll be staying here.” She nodded with a slight frown on her lips. “I… want to go back. I do but there are just some – things – here that I have to take care of first.” Her gaze fell away from him as she explained which he found odd. It was avoidant and that unsettled him. As he was just about to ask what those things were, she stood up. “Um, we should go back to the shop the band roadies are supposed to be there around now. I need to be a boss and oversee that shit. You know how it goes,” she winked.

…

Bill found himself moseying the record aisle while Alma helped direct the roadies where the music equipment needed to be on stage. He leafed through a table of records, seeing how many albums he could recognize when a copy of Dark Entries by Bauhaus jumped out at him. He smiled to himself, remembering the copy he used to personally own. He plucked it off the table and turned his head towards Alma. She was still preoccupied, letting in another group of bulky bearded men holding cases of beer, a cooler, and several bags of ice from the back door. At the counter sat the tall girl with long twists checking a customer out and placing their items in a brown bag, hand stamped in blue ink with the store's name on it.

“Hey, um, I’m sorry. I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Bill, Alma’s uh friend, yeah.” He said awkwardly because all things considered saying he was just a friend just didn’t feel right. Though, it was useless to get into the complicated specifics with a stranger.

“Right. I’m Ash.” She said playfully pulling the skirt of her long maxi dress and giving him a curtsy. “You thinking of buying that?” She asked, pointing at the record in his hand.

“Uh, actually I was hoping you could play it on the sound system?” He said handing it to her.

“Oh, sure, no problem.” She looked at the cover and smiled. “Bauhaus, old school nice!”

Bill smirked but he thanked her. Instead of standing around, he decided to duck off into Alma’s office leaving the door open to listen to the track he requested. He took off his coat draping it across the back of her office chair and looked around at the decor. It was mostly band posters and stickers stuck everywhere on the walls. Even on the windows, he could see out of which wrapped around the top half of the office. On the desk were only some payroll paperwork along with a few checked-out library books. Mostly a few nonfiction music bios, but there were two about feminism and two Dr. Seuss books.

He was trying to get a sense of where Alma was at mentally but a part of him wanted to be naive. Not everything had to have a deeper meaning, he thought to himself but it didn’t satisfy him like he wished it would. He didn’t like the thought that she’d be living in Seattle longer than he anticipated. It had already been three years, wasn't that enough? Wasn’t he enough to go back by now? Something about how she deliberately avoided his gaze earlier bothered him too and he loathed that he felt that way. There was something she wasn’t telling him.

…

Bill was buying beer from the impromptu bar those three bearded men were running, collecting bills in meaty clenched fists. He knew they were operating without licenses but he thought it was funny that even if Alma was working in a legit business she still found a way to be shady by outsourcing bikers for bartenders. The band, Fringe Fangs, was on stage shortly after Ulyssa and the guy with the ponytail from earlier who he learned was named Gregory did a jumbled and long-winded slam poetry duet as an opening act.

“I just let them express themselves,” Alma said in a hushed whisper during their set when she noticed Bill side-eying her. “They’re very passionate, I guess.” She clamped her hand on her mouth to keep from laughing.

Bill finally had two Rainier beers in hand, trying to circumnavigate the crowd who were moshing in the middle pushing the people near the edges where he was at. Like a sixth sense, he was able to spot someone barreling towards him and he quickly stepped back and turned his body to the side before being taken down with the unlucky few in front of him. He couldn’t remember the last time he was in a mosh pit but the way his joints ached these days he couldn’t even if he wanted to.

Alma had noticed the commotion that had happened in front of him and laughed but was glad he had made it back unscathed and two beer cans still full. They enjoyed the show by the sound mixing table at a safe distance from the chaos of thrashing bodies. He enjoyed the music and while the band wasn’t as great as some of the grunge tracks he’d listened to in his free time back home, they weren’t as bad for what it was worth. He noticed Ulyssa tap Alma on the shoulder from behind and she leaned her ear toward her mouth as she spoke. Alma’s brows furrowed before nodding her head in understanding. She turned around and downed the last bit of her beer and set it down on the floor.

She put her hand up half-fisted with her thumb and pinky out to the side of her face and mouthed, “I have a call.” And then she put her pointer finger up letting him know she’ll only be a minute.

He positioned his body in a way so that he could see a bit behind him to watch Alma followed by Ulyssa to the circulation cash wrap counter. He saw Alma put the phone to one ear and the other she covered with her hand to be able to hear whoever was on the other line. Her face looked somewhat apologetic as she spoke and then a strained frown appeared as she looked at Ulyssa who stood by also seeming to want to know the details of the call. Alma leaned her elbows on the desk, rubbing her forehead before hanging up. Ulyssa placed a hand on her shoulder as Alma seemed to have told her the particulars of the mysterious call she received. He noticed that she pointed at him and then Ulyssa walked around the cashier wrap, grabbing her tote bag and retrieving car keys out of them before slinging it over her shoulder.

He turned back towards the stage again, took a sip of his beer, and swallowed hard. But not before catching a glimpse of Ulyssa holding Alma’s face in her hands as to reassure her before hugging her tightly.

…

They were able to leave the record shop show at a decent time for them. While it was late, it wasn’t as late as when they would leave Trigger Finger. A few other employees who came in for the evening shift stayed behind to clean in understanding that their boss was hosting a friend from out of town as it seemed to him. However, she wasn’t hosting him at her apartment and instead, she asked if they could stay at his hotel. Especially, after having learned that he was staying in a king suite at the Fairmont Olympic. It was a fancy institution in Seattle close to Elliot Bay.

“You set all this up?” She said taking her black Converse off as she entered the suite. She shrugged her tote bag off her shoulder glad that she always had an extra outfit in her office, something she learned to do while working at the club.

“Well, there’s a patron at the club who’s a travel agent. I just told him what accommodations I wanted and he did all the work.” He said scratching the back of his ear before taking her tote bag and setting it on the couch.

He watched her walk towards the bedroom, swiping her hand across the neatly laid down comforter before going towards the window and opening the canvas blinds. Light rain was running down the glass as she gazed at the lit city below. He felt pulled towards her and as he approached and wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her neck. She leaned back, relaxing into his embrace and reaching a hand up to thread it into the hair on the back of his neck.

“I love you,” he said between kisses.

“I love you too,” she said, turning around to meet her lips with his. When she could feel him slowly inching them towards the bed she reluctantly pulled away and lightly laughed. “Could I, maybe, take a shower first? I had a long day and the show made me sweaty.” She said as she took her glasses off, shrugged her cardigan off, and tossed them on the single upholstered chair in the room.

“Oh yeah sure,” Bill said, catching his breath.

“You can come too,” she winked, walking past him towards the bathroom as he followed with a smile on his face.

He took off his shirt on the way in and fiddled with the shower taps to find a comfortable temperature for Alma. When he turned around she was already standing bare before him. His heart skipped. When she saw his eyes widen for a brief moment, she giggled. He took her hand, leading her into the shower, and made quick work of removing his pants and underwear in one fell swoop to join her under the warm shower of water. The sexual tension between them was palpable but he let her have a moment to wash her hair in which he helped scrub her scalp and while she conditioned it he wet his hair to make do with his. When he finished Alma was facing him for a moment, handing him a soapy washcloth and turning around again prompting him to run it along her body. He ran it along her back gingerly but as he ran it against her hips he couldn’t help but become enamored by how womanly her body had become. Soft in all the right places. He couldn’t take it anymore and pressed his body against her back. She gasped when she felt how hard he was pushing on her ass cheek. He continued running the washcloth delicately multiple times across her breasts which caused her eyes to flutter closed appreciating the sensations. She felt his lips on her neck again kissing tenderly as he dragged the washcloth towards her belly and squeezed the soap from it. The way the suds trickled down to her core tickled her for only a moment when they were replaced with his bare hand touching her there. His other hand was around a tit pinching her nipple. She opened her eyes to look down at the familiar but dearly missed sight, making her moan which echoed in the acoustics of the bathroom. Her hips bucked back as he made purposeful circles around her sensitive nub so that she could feel more of him hard-pressed against her.

Bill stopped when she was near climaxing putting his hands on her hips to turn her around and got down on one knee. She leaned as comfortably as she could against the white tiled shower wall while hooking her leg around his shoulder before he delved in with his mouth. He wanted to taste her first climax of the night on his eager tongue.

Cutting the shower off, Alma wrung her hair out quickly and took Bill’s hand as he led their way to bed. She wanted him so bad and he did as well but the shower wasn’t the best place when you need to be agile. He spun her to the front himself so that she could settle into the bed before himself but she sat at the edge for a moment. Taking him into her hands to stroke him considerately, missing the feeling and appreciating the heft of his erection. He watched her kiss his dripping tip before fully taking him in her mouth relishing the feeling of the warm pressure. Her hands assisted her by lightly massaging his balls. He looked at her affectionately while he gathered her wet hair in one hand and the other caressing her hollowed cheek prompting her to gaze up at him. He took the hand lightly tugging his balls and held it before he pulled his hips back to slightly thrust into her mouth. It was a courtesy thrust to alert her that he was going to do it again but less gently. She looked up again and nodded once, ready for him. She took him all the way to the back of her throat and she heard Bill deeply groan while her eyes were shut tight as they watered.

“You’re always such a good girl for me,” he said.

While he was enjoying himself he wanted to be inside her for real. So he gently pulled away and let her catch her breath. He crawled into bed following her as she scooted backward and finally reached her lips. He took the back of her head again to hold her there as he swiped his tongue along her bottom lip begging to be let in. As they made out, he positioned himself and perfectly aligned with her, muscle memory taking over. She followed the hand cradling her head down to the pillow, ready for him. He pushed inside her ever so gently which she loved because she liked to feel all of him slowly filling her wanting to feel every ridge and vein. Once he could push in no longer they both moaned from the feeling. The connection, the fullness, the tightness. He gave her several long strokes, all the way out and all the in, before pumping in and out of her in an even rhythm.

They were filling the room with moans and obscene noises as they kissed and nipped at each other's skin. Like him being inside her wasn’t enough, they wished to be closer than humanly possible. Alma looked down between them to see him thrusting inside her and the erotic sight made her body hot. Her stomach muscles began to tighten and Bill closed the gap between them when felt that tension around him. He was ready but he kept up his pace so that she could come with him and he could tell she was so close. He ran his right hand down her leg and hooked it around her knee to prop it up creating more room for him to push deeper. Alma’s breath hitched at the feeling, she took his face into her hands so that he would look at her. The eye contact and the friction of their bodies linked together sent them over the edge. They came hard together. Barely able to catch a breath between their thumping hearts and residual moans. Their bodies felt amazing from what they could do to each other.

….

It was early dawn when Bill awoke to Alma ending a hushed phone call and walking about the suite. He rubbed his tired eyes and stretched his long naked body still under the sheets. He reached towards the nightstand next to him to take a cigarette out of his pack. When he snapped his gold zippo lighter shut Alma appeared at the bedroom threshold half-dressed only wearing a cropped black Sonic Youth tee over red strappy bikini panties and long white socks.

“You’re awake?” Alma said, surprised.

Bill lifted a brow as he puffed on his cigarette. Before they went to bed after another bout of a more tender kind of lovemaking he imagined that when he woke up she’d still be next to him naked for a slow-to-rise kind of morning sex.

“Yeah? I heard you hang up the phone.” When he said that he noticed her eyes gazed away from him. “You wanna smoke?” He said, trying to pull her eyes towards him again so that he could read them. There was something there when she did but he still didn’t know what exactly and he felt himself beginning to become frustrated.

“I’m okay. I quit, it’s been a while now,” she said sitting at the edge of bed next to him.

Somehow that annoyed him even more. So he took one last puff and stubbed it out on the hotel ashtray. He sat up, leaning against the headboard and placing his hand idly by his crotch.

“Alma-” He bit his lip, stopping himself before his tone could take on too much of an edge. “Who were you talking to on the phone? And yesterday-”

“I was talking to the owner of the record store just now,” she said quickly. Yet still, she couldn’t look at him. There was something wrong. “You know I have work in a little bit but I can just go and then take the rest of the day off after? I have to make sure things are okay first.”

Things, he thought to himself again. He knew with the money they made at Trigger Finger she technically didn’t have to work, she was choosing to. If she hadn’t taken up night school in Seattle she could come back to New York and never had to work again. He knew she had more than a few reasons for not wanting to come back to New York but the city was so big she could find an area that felt like somewhere else easily. Alma peered at him through her hair and noticed he was watching the way she picked at her cuticles nervously.

He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry Alma… I just don’t think that’s true?”

“What?” She looked at him shocked, nearly offended he would even voice his distrust. Though maybe he had reason to, she thought to herself.

“Something’s been off since I got here, frankly. The phone call during the show? You woke me up because you were on the phone at 5 a.m.? You even checked me for a fucking wire as soon as I was alone with you!”

Alma sneered, shaking her head. “Oh for fucks sake!” She said getting up and leaving the room.

“Alma!” He shouted, swiftly jumping up out of bed, frantically digging in his suitcase for a pair of boxer briefs and a black shirt. “Don’t you leave!” He said stepping into his underwear and quickly walking out of the bedroom as he pulled the shirt on. He nearly bumped into her when he met her in the living area.

“Who were you on the phone with, Alma?” He said grabbing her arm so that she would look at him but instead, she pushed him off.

“You’re fucking crazy!”

“Is it the police? The feds? The fucking DEA?” He shouted, his eyes still trying to meet hers as she looked everywhere but him.

“I can’t fucking believe you right now!? After everything we’ve been through you think I’ve turned into a narc! You’re paranoid!” She said tapping her head with her pointer finger.

“Then what are you not telling me, hmm? You’ve been acting pretty damn shifty, what the hell am I supposed to think?!”

Alma recoiled a bit but she brushed it off by running her hands tensely through her hair. Bill watched her take a seat on the couch, blinking several times as if to keep tears at bay. Suddenly he felt awful for being selfish and accusing her of being an informer.

“Shit,” Alma said through a deep shaky sigh. Her whole demeanor had changed, she looked on edge and petrified. “Fuck it. Could I have a cigarette?”

Bill returned from the bedroom with his pack of smokes. He lit her cigarette and sat on the coffee table in front of her. They were silent for a moment while she took a couple of puffs and rubbed her tired eyes.

“I don’t know how to say this?” Alma said gazing at the ember at the end of her cig. “I um,” she sighed trying to find the right words. “So the last time I saw you, right?” She said finally looking at him which was a mistake because meeting his green eyes made her eyes water again.

“Just tell me, Alma? Whatever it is. I won’t be mad.” He said putting a reassuring hand on her bare knee.

Her anxiety-riddled heart was beating so hard against her chest. “See, I think you will?”

“What?” Bill said, pulling back confused.

“B-but you have to understand I did this for a good reason, okay? I couldn’t bring… And you’re still into stuff in New York City i-it’s just not safe.” She said jumbled and stubbed out her cigarette. “You know what we did, Bill. It’s just not safe!”

“I understand why you wouldn’t want to come back, especially after something like that. Okay, but that was on me. Joey Russo and I have been on good terms since he’s taken over. Everyone’s turned over a leaf and we’ve forgotten about Cr- him. Nothing will happen to you there.”

Alma shook her head. “I’m not worried about myself…” she said, putting a hand to the middle of her chest. “Bill…” her voice cracked. Before he could wipe the tears that had rolled down her cheeks she put her hands up stopping him. “Wait. The last time I was with you I-” she closed her eyes. “I got pregnant.”

Suddenly Bill couldn’t breathe and the walls felt like they were closing in. There was a loud ringing in his ears and he was certain his heart went into arrest. Alma grabbed his hand when she noticed he looked a bit faint. Her touch brought him back but his heart was beating erratically.

He took his hand away from hers. “Are you saying?” He stood up and paced in front of her trying to collect the thoughts of his racing mind with his hands clasped behind his head. “That you? What the fuck?!”

“Bill, I'm so sorry. I should have told you. I was just so scared… and my head was still so fucked up then. I just did what I knew how and ran. I understand if you’re angry with me but don’t be mad at the baby.” She said wiping tears that wouldn’t stop running down her cheeks.

“The baby!?” He said still unable to believe what he was hearing. “Alma why? Why would you keep this from me?!” He cried sitting defeatedly on the other end of the couch and buried his face into his hands.

“Bill… I know you probably hate me now. And you don’t have to say anything and you don’t have to see me ever again after this but could you just let me explain? So even if you don’t want to see the baby you at least know? Could I at least give you that?”

~~~

May 1991

Ulyssa came over to Alma’s apartment bringing her soup after she had called in sick believing she had a stomach bug. She had felt awful these past few weeks but this day and the night before she had been throwing up anything she ate. Even on an empty stomach, she would heave, making her stomach muscles sore and her throat burn from the stomach acid. Ulyssa had become a good friend during her time in Seattle. She could seem quite serious because of the way she dressed and had a buzzcut and a bullring in her nose but she had a sweet pure soul. She was artistic and she always saw the good in people which Alma had seen people take advantage of but even when she realized she would still wish those people well.

Alma opened the door wrapped in a duvet hardly having the strength to greet her. Ulyssa pushed her along back to the couch so that she could continue to relax and fight whatever ailed her.

“I brought wedding soup and plain chicken and rice from the pizzeria,” she announced from the kitchen as she set the takeout on the counter. “Ash gave me some of her custom tea blends and insisted I make you some.” She walked back to the living room pulling two VHS tapes from her tote bag and holding them out in front of Alma who looked like a miserable lump on the couch. “I stopped at the video store on the way. Mermaids or Uncle Buck?”

“You pick,” Alma said groggily.

“Okay… Mermaids it is. Maybe Cher will cheer you up,” she said, taking the VHS and putting it into the VCR player. “I’m going back to the kitchen to fix you up!”

Ulyssa doted on her while she lay there hardly following the movie. She finally sat up to drink the tea Ash had sent with her. It tasted like peppermint and camomile and that helped settle her empty stomach and warmed her up. The reprieve was short-lived when Ulyssa set a bowl of soup and a plate of shredded chicken breast atop white rice. She ate a few bites of the chicken and rice and a few spoons of soup when suddenly something smelled off and it made her stomach churn. Ulyssa watched Alma pick up the bowl of soup to sniff it and set it down and then the plate and noticed that she recoiled and suddenly looked green. She nearly tossed the plate down on the coffee table as she got up and ran to her bathroom to throw up the only food she had eaten all day. Ulyssa quickly followed her and held her long dark hair back until she finished. She helped her back up and closed the toilet lid so that Alma could sit down and collect herself and gargle some mouthwash.

“Sorry,” Alma apologized. “I appreciate you coming here to help me. Just something didn’t smell right.”

“You don't have to apologize. You’re only human. But the food was fresh? I saw Von make the chicken to order?” She then placed the back of her hand against Alma’s forehead checking her temperature. “Hmm. You’re not warm? And you don’t exactly look clammy?”

“I just can’t keep anything down,” Alma shrugged.

“And the smell of the perfectly fresh food made you sick? When was the last time you had a period?”

“Ulyssa, what are you getting at?”

“Well, didn’t you go see your boy… friend in NYC like two, three-ish months ago?”

“Stop… it’s not that I’m on birth control.”

“Right. But when you had that wicked cold before you went on your trip you went to the doctor? Did he give you antibiotics?”

“Yeah, I was really sick that time. I had the whole fever and runny nose and everything then but this feels worse.”

“Alma,” Ulyssa gasped. “You’re not supposed to do that!”

“What do you mean?!”

“You can’t take the pill and antibiotics! They like cancel each other out or whatever! You’re supposed to tell your doctor what other stuff you’re taking so they can prescribe you appropriately.”

“What the hell!? I didn’t know. But I can’t be… pregnant,” she exclaimed with disgust. “Like that literally just can NOT happen!”

“Well… I don’t know Alma. You might be? Unless you have some other medical issue-”

“No. Nothing like that! Like this just can’t happen… ethically!” Alma said, exasperated at the whole situation.

“There’s only one way to know,” Ulyssa took her hand and together they rushed to the drug store and back.

Alma felt like she was going to be sick again as she waited in the living room as Ulyssa stayed in the bathroom monitoring the results of the test. She heard the bathroom door open and she anxiously turned around. Her stomach dropped immediately when she saw Ulyssa smiling, wiping away tears of joy for her friend's new blessing.

It was Ulyssa who supported her every step of her pregnancy. She would have respected any decision she had made in regard to keeping the baby but she was so happy to learn that she’d be able to take her to appointments and remind her to take her prenatals. She didn’t judge her when Alma explained that she didn’t want Bill involved. Her simple explanation that things were just complicated between them sufficed. It was nice to have her but sometimes her sunny disposition annoyed her. She wanted someone to tell her she was a dumbass. So one night after working on her feet and feeling miserable she called Cooch. Bianca always had a weird sixth sense about things and when she answered, it was as if she already knew before Alma could even explain.

“Well, I knew it! I had a dream about you! It was a good one and I was gonna tell Bill thinking he’d get a kick out of it but you know I looked at him that day and… the pieces of the dream fell together and I just had this feeling. Oh my god, Alma! You have to tell him! It’s his baby too, honey.”

“Bianca, I can’t. Please, please don’t tell him! Like on my whole life, please! You understand why I can’t.”

“Okay,” Bianca sighed. “I get the jist of why. But honey, you’re just gonna do it alone? That’s not very fair to the baby, now is it? Bill would probably shit bricks knowing you’re pregnant but he would love that child.”

Alma began to cry hysterically on the phone while Bianca tried to settle her down. She was right but she was so afraid to go back to New York City and she knew Bill would want her there if he knew about her condition. Sure, she had visited just fine but the baby would add to her permanence there.

“Alma, I won’t tell. Okay? Sadness isn’t good on the baby so take care of yourself, you know best.” Bianca assured. “But Alma, I’m going to push him to visit you. I don’t know when we’ll finish all this ownership paperwork but for him and you, that’s what I’ll do. I love you both. I want this to all work out for the both of you.”

Alma had wished that their conversation went differently but it’s what she needed to hear, she supposed. She continued on, growing bigger and bigger. One night she was on a phone call laughing along with Bill when she first felt the baby kick. She gasped, bringing a hand to her belly in awe. She hung up on him, feeling tears welling up in her eyes as she held onto her belly and it all hit her that she was really carrying a child within her. During the first half of her pregnancy, she just felt like a walking science experiment even if she had seen the amorphous being in her first black and white ultrasound feeling the baby move finally made it real.

Her employees created a small baby shower at the record shop for her. They all chipped in for cake and ice cream for her which Alma felt bad about because she was more well-off than they were but they didn’t know that. They gifted her diapers and various essentials meanwhile Ulyssa had made her hand raw and sore by all the baby beanies she crocheted. They were all gender-neutral tones, Alma had decided that she didn’t want to know the sex. In some ways, she still felt detached. Later she would know it was because she didn’t want to enjoy certain milestones too much if Bill wasn’t there to experience it with her. A way of punishing herself because no one seemed to want to berate a pregnant woman for her decisions. Nevertheless, she was grateful to her work family and tried to stay happy enough for the baby.

The feelings of detachment she felt washed away when she delivered her child. A long, hard 26-hour labor. Her nurses pleaded with her to at least take the pain medication in place of the epidural she denied, as they watched her arduously breathe and sweat through contractions. She denied those too. She thought she deserved the pain for the things she had done. For the greatest sin, a person could commit. She almost succumbed to a violent near death herself but that was merciful compared to how it felt pushing her baby out of herself. Ulyssa was by her side even though Alma told her that she wanted to be alone at first. Her mom was gone and Bill didn’t know he was about to be father, they were the only two people she would have wanted in the room. She gave in around 13 hours just to have someone hold her hand.

Having the child in her arms pushed some of those loathsome and lonesome feelings aside. She couldn’t believe she could love something so much in a matter of seconds, it was overwhelming. She didn’t feel like she deserved to have such a precious innocent life in her arms but she knew she would keep them safe and love them. She couldn’t help but notice all the features the baby inherited from Bill. The light brown hair, the perfect plump lips, and the little but big ears he has.

While raising a newborn was hard, some things were just instinctually easy. She took time off work for 5 months but she would sometimes visit the shop when she would go out so that the baby could get some fresh air. It was also because she was starting to feel cooped up in the apartment most days. Ulyssa or Ash would visit when they could to give her a break for a shower or take her and the baby's clothes to get laundered. A few weeks after she gave birth Bianca called about the child. She had told her, her due date during an earlier phone call and knew she should have had the baby by now. They spoke a bit and Alma had asked for some baby advice from her, she knew she was a good mom to grown respectful boys.

“And don’t worry Alma,” Bianca said before the call concluded. “He doesn’t know, I haven’t said a word. But remember what I told you?”

“I know… and I do want him to visit me eventually. I don’t know how long I can keep this to myself? I talk to him on the phone but when the baby cries I have to hang up on him and yeah…” she frowned.

It was exhausting taking care of a baby while also keeping up a lie. A very big lie from someone she loved. From someone she shared a child with. Although, if he did come to Seattle she couldn’t just bombard him with the news by handing him a child he’s never seen before in his life. Expecting him to immediately step into the role of a father of a child he may ultimately not want anything to do with. It didn’t matter how much he loved her, that he even killed for her. She couldn’t even share this part of her, this part of them with him.

And then the day finally came. Bill had flown into Seattle to finally visit. Bianca had called her job now that she was back to working in the record shop. The baby was crawling around in a playpen situated next to her behind the office desk. The babysitter was Ulyssa’s more studious and nerdy twin sister Yolani, She picked up the child until around 10 AM most days so the baby would come to work with her for an hour as she opened the store. But because she had a half day she arranged to keep her until the evening because of the show that night. That was until Bianca informed her that Bill wasn’t far away. Alma’s heart jumped in a panic; she suspected that she would have more of a heads up but Bill hadn’t told her when he left Missouri, instead, he called her from the airport payphone when he arrived.

Immediately, Alma made a phone call to Yolani apologizing for asking her to make changes to their agreed schedule today. Yolani informed her that since she was on a later schedule she had taken herself to a cafe for breakfast to study for an exam but that she could be there in close to 30 minutes. It would do, she had no idea where Bill was at the moment so she hoped that it was more than enough time.

In the meantime, she checked the baby's diaper bag even though it was always packed with what was needed but her nerves were starting to get the better of her.

“Ulyssa?” Alma called out of her office when she saw her pass by the office door. She reversed her tracks and walked in. “Your sister is coming to get the baby early today. Um, my boy- um Bill,” she took off her glasses and tensely rubbed the bridge of her nose and put them back on. “He’s here.”

“What?! On his way or…”

“No, here in Seattle.”

“You know what? Someone called and hung up in my face again. It was a man’s voice asking for you like about 40 minutes ago…”

“Oh my god,” Alma sighed. “Your sister said she could be here in like 30 minutes,” she reached into the playpen picking up her child and kissing them on the cheek.

“Don’t worry, I’ll call her and tell her it’s urgent. I’ll explain enough to her. But tonight? She’ll have to keep the baby overnight then, right?”

“I’ll pay her extra. Or whatever she wants. Thank you Ulyssa. I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me,” her vision blurred as tears prickled her eyes.

“Of course, lovely! I’ll have Gregory put the playpen in the stage storage. And if he comes while baby is still here we’ll slow him down.”

Alma waited with the baby in her arms by the front of the record shop. Watching cars pull up by the curb and checking for familiar faces but the teens bullshitting outside blocked half her view. By luck, Yolani arrived quickly thanks to her sister's call. Alma apologized and thanked her in the same breath. She watched Yolani and the baby leave her office after she had grabbed the baby bag. Staying behind she took baby pictures off her desk and put them into a lockable desk drawer then her breath hitched when she saw the familiar tall man walk in as they left. She couldn’t breathe for what felt like forever when she had seen him acknowledge the baby as they reached out and waved their little hand. As if they both knew.

~~~

September 1992

Bill sat silently, shell-shocked with what he had heard. His feelings were all over the place despondent and angry and just confused over everything Alma revealed to him. She sat on the opposite side of the couch sunken into herself wiping away tears. She wondered if he would speak now after he had sat mute the whole time she spoke but he just sighed and put his face into his hands again. The air felt thick and the cold blasting AC was deafening in the room.

“I’ll leave,” she said silently. “I know… this is a lot. I was very wrong, I know.”

Bill muttered something into the palms of his hands that was unintelligible.

“I couldn’t hear you,” Alma said, leaning towards him.

“And where is the baby now?”

“With the babysitter, well the call I had during the show was from Yolani. Something came up and so Ulyssa, her twin, left and took over for her. This morning I called my apartment where Ulyssa stayed overnight.”

Bill scratched his jaw, “What did we have?”

“A girl,” Alma bit her lip to keep it from quivering. “A little girl. She’s healthy, perfect.” Alma could have gone on and on about how she was a sweet, friendly, and happy baby but she didn’t want to pile on so much because she had restricted him from ever knowing that. “Do you want to know her name,” she asked cautiously.

Bill swallowed the lump in his throat. “No. I-I don’t think I’m there yet.”

“Okay,” Alma nodded understandingly. She took a notepad and pen from the coffee table and scribbled her address on it. “I have to go home. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to or if you’re not ready but, um,” she paused to keep her voice from breaking. “If you leave, could you at least call and tell me? So that I can know that this is done?” She wiped the stray tears that fell away.

She got up and quickly put on her pants and Converse sniffling as she did it. Bill just sat there on the couch staring a hole into the wooden coffee table and unmoving. Alma along with her tote bag was just about to walk out of the hotel room and paused when he called her name.

“Alma,” he said, still staring at the coffee table. “I love you.” He announced to the living room as if he were only saying it to remind himself that he really did.

She smiled sadly and before she left she said, “I know…”

…

Bill sat silently for an hour, his mind was vacant for at least half that until he started to review everything Alma had explained over and over again in his head. He just couldn’t believe she would have kept something so major, something so important, something so life-changing from him. All the mixed feelings of betrayal and sadness and anger and disgust made him sick but something else was there he didn’t expect. It was happiness, he felt a new brand of pride knowing that he was a father. He never imagined being one, he hadn’t ever put much thought into it before. The thoughts he did have weren’t fond takes of fatherhood either. He was afraid he wouldn’t make a very good one. Plus, it didn’t help that he didn’t really like his own very much. His father used to beat him and his brothers especially him because he dressed like a freak as his father would say. That or a sissy boy which he was called since he was a little himself. He ran a hand through his hair trying to wish those awful memories away.

Soon he found himself in the scalding hot shower standing with his back towards the stream with his head down sulking. He had no idea what to do with himself, he stood there for almost an hour just thinking and remembering things he’d rather not. In a way, he understood Alma’s motivations. She was deeply depressed and guarded when the incident with Craig happened. He could imagine it was difficult that the only person she could even talk to about it was him but their distance made it impossible. Even when she had last visited him in New York City she hardly wanted to unpack it. He could tell it was still bothering her deeply. He didn’t like what he had done either but knowing that Craig had almost killed her he didn’t really care as much as she did. When she did open up a little, she said the part that mostly bothered her was that in a small way, she was ready to die. And he blamed that on himself for what he had put her through. Giving her the runaround and not properly loving her like he should have. He wanted to but was too much of a coward wanting all the benefits of her company without commitment. They still hardly ever called each other boyfriend or girlfriend. He was selfish. But so was Alma. She kept a piece of him he couldn’t take away from her.

He found himself at the hotel restaurant dressed simply in a white shirt and dark jeans and keeping to himself. When the waitress asked if he’d like the mimosa drink special he shook his head and asked for a glass of William Larue Weller whiskey neat instead. He ordered a veggie omelet that he only took 2 bites of and asked for the rest to be sent to his room. He didn’t have an appetite. Instead, he went to the large bar in the main hall which was barely opening for service so early in the morning. On his third whiskey, he began making a mental con list in his head of why he couldn’t be a father to a little girl. He owned a strip club for starters, he was a former drug dealer, he was a womanizer to some degree, oh and he’s killed someone and was indirectly involved in another. He shouldn’t be a father, he should be in prison, he had thought to himself.

Bill stretched his back against the high chair he was sitting in and ordered another whiskey. He stood up with the glass in hand to take back to his room waving off the protests of the bartender for doing so. He set the glass aside on the nightstand while sitting on the edge of the bed that housekeeping had fixed for him while he was gone. Putting a cigarette to his lips, he leaned against the headboard and lit it. He sighed out a plume of smoke in thought. Thinking how Alma had mentioned that she did what she did to keep the baby safe. Though he knew what she meant he couldn’t help but think that she meant safe from him. He shook his head, the liquor was muddling his thoughts and misconstruing things for him.

He took his thoughts off himself then. He leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling and pictured Alma as a mother. Such an odd image because much like him she never expressed feelings of wanting children either. Although he had to admit to himself that the image warmed his heart. A quick thought of her pregnant body came to mind but he pushed that away because they became filthy and he wasn’t in the mood to think of her that way. Though she never expressed wanting kids he never heard her say anything bad about them either. Had she stayed in New York, would she have kept the baby, he wondered. If they were the traditional type maybe things wouldn't have been so convoluted as it was right now.

The only certain thing was that Alma was pregnant and never told him and now he had a daughter. One that didn’t know he existed her whole short life. One that he didn’t know existed until about three hours ago. He stubbed his cigarette out and downed the rest of his whiskey before settling into the bed. He was tired of thinking and the whisky was making him tired. Luckily, before his eyes grew heavy he came to a conclusion.

…

Alma was in the bath with her daughter laying on her bent knees above the water washing her hair. She had no clue if Bill would come or if she’d ever see him again but in case she thought they ought to look presentable. Especially if they would meet for the first time. However, time passed and it was near evening around 4 p.m. It was drizzling outside, the overcast making it much darker than it should have been. Alma’s heart started to break a little, not for herself but for their daughter.

But she couldn’t blame him either. She was tired of crying though, she had done what she had done and said what she needed to say. He knew now and she could stop lying. The lying was the worst part for her. That part was done whether Bill and her were done she still didn’t know but she hoped he would call like she asked. While the baby was sitting in her chair swing she left a moment to the hallway closet to grab the box of baby mementos just in case.

…

Bill awoke suddenly from his slumber. He hadn’t intended to fall asleep but he was kind of glad he did because he woke up with a clearer mind than before that was for sure. He checked the time on his watch, noticing how long he had slept. He stood up quickly, he knew Alma must be sitting in her home waiting for his call, more likely considering he slept half the day. After brushing his teeth and fixing his hair he walked to the living room and tore the piece of paper which Alma had written her address from the notepad.

He pulled up to the small apartment complex which looked more like a large house divided into 4 apartments, two on the top and two on the bottom. He checked the paper with her address once more and saw that she lived in apartment 1B. His heart started racing, he knew once he stepped through that door his life was going to change and he wasn’t sure if he was ready for that. But he couldn’t live with not knowing either.

He pulled his black unzipped hoodie closer to his body and knocked on the door quite hard at first by accident and quickly corrected himself remembering there was a baby inside. Alma opened the door alone standing there in a white Adidas sweatshirt commemorating the 1984 Winter Olympics and black leggings. Her glasses weren't on and her hair was half up. Alma looked a bit shocked to see him standing there but quickly let him in.

“Thanks for coming by,” she said sheepishly, fiddling with the sleeves of her sweater. “Um, the baby is taking a nap right now, that's why she’s not out crawling around or trying to walk,” she lightly smiled.

“Mhm,” Bill nodded. “I thought about it some and I think I do want to meet her. I mean when she wakes up.”

“Yeah, sure,” Alma nodded.

She pointed at the couch inviting him to sit with her. It was a bit awkward between them but not anything they couldn’t work out of. Before she could sit down, she thought to maybe give him something to drink so she grabbed two bottles of water from her fridge. He sat there looking around her apartment, there was obvious evidence that there was a baby living in the home with the chair swing and little toys inside a chest. He also noticed that while everything was nice and neat she didn’t seem to live beyond the means she certainly had. It was a humble dwelling. A place to lay your head at night comfortably.

She came back to join him, handing him a water. She could feel the tension in the room and it unsettled her having that feeling in her own home but she pushed those nerves aside.

“So I can imagine you might have a lot of questions,” she began. “But I want to make sure how much I can say because I don't want to make you uncomfortable. I don’t expect you to jump into this full speed and I’ve accepted that you might not want to at all.”

“Alma, I want to be around,” he swallowed the lump in his throat. “I don’t know how often that may be because of the distance but I-I want to know her.” When he said it out loud he truly felt it. Though he had doubts about himself being a father, he wanted to at least try. “I’ll figure everything else out later but right now this is what I want to do.”

A wash of relief and happiness fell over Alma. She felt like she could finally breathe. Though things between them would probably be prickly for a while she was glad they could put it aside for their daughter.

“I have this box full of baby things,” she said, reaching for it on the coffee table in front of them and lifting the lid off. “Would you like to go through this while she sleeps?”

She pulled a few things out which looked like photo albums and newborn clothing and then grabbed a manilla folder and opened it, inside were her ultrasound pictures. She handed one to him and he carefully took it in his hands. He wasn’t sure what he was looking at. Until Alma pointed at a white speck near the center of the photo.

“That’s what she looked like in the beginning,” she lightly laughed. “And then she eventually grew into her looks,” she said, passing him another ultrasound photo with a clear profile of the baby that grew inside her.

He traced his finger along it now wondering what she looked like now. She told him that she was a fairly big baby at birth and really long which made him smile but kind of made him feel for Alma giving birth naturally. She handed him the newborn clothes that the baby wore in the hospital and he could help but notice how big his own hands were compared to the small garments.

“Alma, can I ask you something,” he said, laying the little onesie on his thigh.

“Of course.”

“Yesterday, when I first showed up to the record shop. I saw her, didn't I?”

“Yeah, that was her with her babysitter Yolani walking past you.”

Bill rubbed his hand across his mouth blinking back tears. He remembered the baby’s outstretched hand in his direction and some part of him felt something but he hadn’t paid attention to it then.

“We can take a break if you want,” she asked.

“No, it’s fine,” he cleared his throat. “I’m fine. What did you name her?”

And that’s when Alma started blinking back tears of her own. She took a deep breath to collect herself. “Her name is Echo.”

“Oh,” Bill choked up.

“Yeah, um it’s Echo Myrna. I figured I should give her a middle name for someone that you’ve loved in your life, too. And well, you kinda named me Echo too.”

Bill put his arm around her and hugged her tightly. He knew better than to think that while she never told him about their daughter she always still had him in mind. They were in an embrace for a long while when he told her that he loved her and she said it back. Because they did even if they were both fucked up, they were all they had.

They could hear cheery baby babble from the next room. Echo was finally awake.

“Do you want to meet her?”

“Yeah, should I follow you or?” He said beginning to feel nervous.

“Yeah come on. She is a good sleeper, a lot better than us for sure. And she never wakes up grumpy, only sometimes when she’s hungry,” Alma lightly laughed.

Baby Echo was standing in her crib, smiling happily when she saw her mother walk in. Alma felt Bill let go of her hand a few paces behind her but she didn’t think anything wrong by it. She could feel his hand trembling in hers going to the bedroom so she knew it was because of nerves. She reached into the crib and lifted Echo out, smoothing her bed hair down. Echo reached for him the same way she had done at the record shop and smiled brightly at him this time.

“Would you want to hold her?”

“Hmm, I’m not sure,” he said, wringing his sweaty hands together and putting them into the pockets of his hoodie.

Alma nodded understandingly. She knew she had to be mindful and go at his own pace but she wished he had said yes. “Let's go back to the living room. I need to make her a bottle.”

Bill sat on the couch and watched Alma hold their daughter in one arm while the other scooped powdered formula and put it into a water-filled baby bottle. He noticed how Echo rested her head in the crook of her mother's neck, content while sucking her little thumb. His heart strained noticing how much she really did look like him especially now that he finally decided to look through a small photo album. Her newborn pictures showed lighter brown hair than she did now but even if her roots had darkened some he could see the golden wavey locks on the ends when they had joined him on the couch again. He saw the pictures of the baby's first Christmas, she was still so tiny and fresh sitting on Alma's crossed legs under a Christmas tree as she opened a present.

“How old is she?” He said looking at the little girl who was kicking her little feet towards him. She was gnawing on the tip of the bottle smiling at him with a curious expression on her face.

“Nine months almost ten,” Alma smiled. “She was born on November 30th.

“She looks so small in these pictures,” he said, flipping to the next page of his daughter enjoying a day in the park.

“I have a few rolls of film I still need to develop from this summer. She’s a very photogenic kid, kinda like you that way.”

Echo giggled a bit as if she were actually following their conversation. Without even thinking about it, his hand reached for her little wriggling foot. He smiled at her when she giggled again because his touch seemed to have tickled her little foot.

“Hi.” He said to her and then looked at Alma, “What should she call me?”

“Whatever you’re comfortable with. We don’t have to decide that today?”

Bill nodded. “Could I try? Could I hold her, I mean.”

Alma took the baby bottle from Echo before she gladly handed her to Bill who was quite obviously nervous, it was all over his face. But when she was in his arms and she placed her little hand on his chin his nervousness seemed to lessen. Echo looked up at him with big round green hazel eyes with so much familiarity it nearly frightened him. As if she knew exactly who he was. His heart warmed in a way he had never felt before, it was scary. He could only imagine how Alma felt when she had first met her. The feeling was overwhelming.

Suddenly, Echo’s quick hand took a grasp of his nose and squeezed it making him wince.

Alma reached over and pulled her hand away. “Echo, be nice. Sorry, she can be a little feisty but she’s friendly at least.”

Bill laughed. “It’s okay,” he said, touching her cheek until her little hand took hold of his pointer finger. “I like her. Kinda reminds me of her mom.”

That evening he just held her in her arms as they spoke about their daughter. When she needed tending too he stood back but watched trying to take mental notes on how she liked to be cared for. She seemed like a fairly easy baby and a very happy one. Bill decided to stay the night at her place and in the morning offered his hotel for them all to stay at and spend some time together as a family. So that he could acclimate to the reality and be with his daughter.

When they entered the hotel, Bill brought in the bags Alma had packed along with the playpen as she walked through the place to show the baby around. She sat Echo in the center of the large king-sized bed and took the camera from inside her jacket to take a picture.

“Look at you, big fancy girl!” She said as the little girl clapped happily.

They enjoyed the weekend and it was as if they had done this all before. A second nature came out of Bill and took over. Alma watched him place their sleeping daughter into the playpen next to their bed on the last night he was in town. When he joined Alma in bed, he kissed her deeply and pulled her on top of himself. Eventually, they lay in bed naked, discussing how to make it all work. Making solid plans to travel to each other until they could all settle somewhere. He wanted to be a better father than his dad was and while it scared him like hell he would do his best for Echo. And while he was still upset to some degree with Alma he tried to be understanding. She was just trying to protect their daughter.

“She kinda saved me, you know. I know I shouldn’t put that on a kid but yeah she changed me.” She snuggled to the side of him. Though he only knew his daughter in only a few days he could sense what she meant by that.

“I love you, Alma,” Bill said sleepily. “I think I’m okay with her calling me Papa. That feels right. Right?”

The baby suddenly cried out in the middle of the night just as her parents were going to drift to sleep. Though promptly Alma got up, on her way to her daughter she picked up one of Bill’s shirts and threw it on before picking her up from the playpen. With Echo in her arms, she walked towards his side of the bed and picked up the premade bottle that sat on his nightstand.

“It’s your turn papa,” she said, passing the baby along to him as they both laughed.

Bill happily obliged, he had a lot of catching up to do.

FIN

#my bill writings #avenue of sins #bill skarsgard

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darkmasterofcupcakes · 1 year

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Call me predictable but: Toffee?

I'm going to assume this is for the same character meme as Rhombulus?

First impression: (For some added context, I didn’t watch most of Season 1 when it first aired, so my first time seeing Toffee was “Storm the Castle”) “Why’s that one lizard monster look like he belongs on Law and Order? Whatever his deal is, he’s pretty cool...And I guess he’s blown up now. That sucks, I wanted to see what he was all about.”

Impression now: “What was the last thing we saw of Toffee in the series was him with a horrible haircut and getting his butt kicked by a literal baby to give him a reason to hate magic that he really didn’t need?”

Favorite moment: If it has to be Toffee in his own body, definitely when he actually got Star to destroy the Wand, especially when you realize that he likely knew that getting caught in the explosion would basically give him a perfect opportunity to corrupt and, if things had gone as he planned, destroy magic. But, I also loved him taking out the MHC, since at that point, they were obviously supposed to be seen as a force to be reckoned with, so him taking them all out showed how big of a threat Toffee was.

Idea for a story: Besides just an alternative version of events where he’s more of an active player for longer, maybe something that explores his past a bit more, just because it really is such a mystery and is all but completely open to interpretation? Especially with the Magic Book of Spells whole thing with Seth, and there seeming to be some kind of noteworthy connection between him and Glossaryck.

Unpopular opinion: While I do love him and do kind of wish we’d gotten to see more of him, I personally was never really able to imagine Toffee as the final villain of the series. At most I saw him as a major antagonist but ultimately a red herring for what the final threat would actually be.

Favorite relationship: This is tricky to answer because, honestly, Toffee barely interacts with anyone in a significant enough manner that I can count it as a relationship. So this is going to be less my favorite relationship and more a dynamic I wish we’d seen more of: Toffee and Moon. I mean, we learn they apparently have history and barely anything comes from it...and I think it would have been interesting to explore more.

Favorite headcanon: I actually don’t think “Toffee” is his real name, but rather some kind of nickname that was originally supposed to be mocking, but he chose to basically take ownership of it and turn it into something that he was determined to make people, especially magic-users, dread to hear.

Send Me a Character

#Star vs the Forces of Evil #SVTFOE #SVTFOE Toffee #Toffee of Septarsis #Asked and Answered #Character Meme

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cloudifyaps · 8 months

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The Future of Accounting System Integrations: Trends to Watch

When considering the field of accounting, one often imagines a frantic individual overwhelmed by mountains of documents. This image likely stems from the traditionally manual and paperwork-heavy nature of accounting over the years.

However, contemporary accounting firms are adopting the latest technological breakthroughs to enhance productivity, simplifying tasks for both their staff and clients. Experts project that the worldwide market for accounting software could swell to $38.08 billion by 2030, advancing at an impressive CAGR of 8.14%. Let's delve into the prospective trends shaping the accounting world in the upcoming year.

Supercharge Your Financial Performance: Transforming Your Marketing-Accounting Workflow with Custom Automation

Accounting software trends

Here are the leaders in accounting automation in 2023 and beyond.

Cloud-based accounting solutions

Cloud computing has been around for some time, but the pandemic and the sudden need for remote working have sped up its use in many industries, including accounting.

Unlike traditional on-site systems that need pricey tech equipment and regular upkeep, online accounting programs cost less at the start and can update themselves. Plus, being able to get to data from anywhere makes these tools a smart pick for businesses with workers in different places, making it easy for teams to work together, no matter where they are.

The rising significance of artificial intelligence

When we talk about automation and data analysis, we have to discuss the increasing role of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in the accounting field. With the power to process loads of data and spot patterns, AI-driven accounting tools can make bookkeeping tasks faster, increase work output, and offer real-time insights.

AI helps finance professionals in several other ways, including:

Finding and highlighting fraudulent activities;

Putting together financial statements;

Checking all sales and purchases in a ledger to spot anything unusual;

Sorting out transactions related to taxes and finding possible tax fraud cases;

Analysing money coming in and going out to spot trends or chances to make more money.

Accountants understand these benefits. A recent study showed that 20% of them are already using AI and another 20% plan to start using it within the next year.

Blockchain is up next

Blockchain has been catching the attention of those in the accounting field, like accountants, CPAs, and auditors. They believe this technology could completely change the way accounting is done. In easy terms, blockchain is a digital system where people can securely and openly transfer who owns what. If used right, blockchain can quickly handle transactions, make ownership and responsibilities very clear, and make matching up records easier.

This system will help auditors check transactions and make confirming balances from outside easier. While the accounting world might still be a while away from fully using blockchain, more and more people are starting to use this technology.

Analytics and forecasting based on data

One of the big trends experts are expecting to see more of in the accounting world is the use of advanced ways to analyze and picture data. This can help make decisions based on facts and numbers.

Accounting firms have a lot of useful data that can give them new ideas and chances to change from just reacting and dealing with transactions to actively analyzing and planning. In particular, advanced ways to analyze data can help accountants understand more about a company's financial workings, check how well the business is doing, identify possible risk areas, and plan how to deal with these risks.

So, it's not shocking that almost 40% of people working in finance are using or plan to use technologies that help them understand their business better.

More connections between systems

One method to make things run smoother is to automate manual work. But you can also improve how data is shared in your company. That's why software makers are adding more ways for your accounting software to link with other business systems. For instance, if you link your customer and money data to your CRM system, your sales team can improve their sales approach and make more money. An accounting system that's part of a bigger platform that naturally supports other apps and systems always makes it simpler to make these links. This also helps businesses work their best.

Real use cases for you: Arne Aksel | Viperflex

Popular accounting apps that you can integrate into your business processes:

Visma e-conomic: Streamline your accounting processes by integrating e-conomic with Cloudify. Our solution offers seamless integration with a variety of platforms, such as CRM apps, webshops, inventory and production management systems, marketing applications, and payment gateways. This comprehensive integration automates various tasks including invoicing, bookkeeping, dispatching invoices and emails, recording payments, and much more. By unifying these tasks, we aim to make your financial management more efficient and less time-consuming.

Fortnox: Integrate Fortnox with Cloudify to make your invoicing process easy and productive. You not only save time but also the operational cost in manually doing the finance tasks created for small and medium scale businesses to be on top of their finance and accounting processes.

Microsoft Business Central: By integrating Microsoft Business Central with Cloudify, you can streamline and automate your accounting processes. This integration allows you to interface with various applications, reducing the possibility of errors and inefficiencies in your data management while ensuring enterprise-grade security. As a result, you can expedite the financial closure process and gain real-time insights into performance and sales metrics. Additionally, this synergy between Microsoft Business Central and Cloudify offers you comprehensive visibility into key business areas, including purchasing, manufacturing, inventory management, and warehouse operations.

Zoho Invoice: Cloudify's integration with Zoho Invoice revolutionises your accounting procedures by automating essential, yet labor-intensive tasks. We offer add-ons, tailored integrations, and APIs specifically for Zoho Invoice that enhance your invoice management capabilities, synchronise contacts, and provide a host of other functionalities.

Read more: Unlocking Efficiency: Exploring Seamless Integrations with MSBC, Economic, Fortnox, and Zoho Invoice in Accounting Systems

If you use any accounting software currently, you can also make use of newer custom integrations.

Still wondering how to pick the best tech tools for your unique needs? Is cloud computing sufficient or should you dive into AI? Do you need to adopt all available solutions?

Selecting the optimal technology requires a detailed process, which includes evaluating your current situation, possible hurdles with adoption, and budget constraints.

But there's a simpler route - let the Cloudify team shoulder the burden.

With extensive experience in incorporating digital solutions into the day-to-day operations of accounting firms, our specialists can assist you in crafting and carrying out a potent transformation plan. From updating your accounting software and fine-tuning processes to enhancing agility with the cloud or offering advanced blockchain data management, Cloudify is ready to support your firm.

#saas #cloudify #accounting software integration #integrations #accounting integrations #erp implementation

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gr0vndz3ro · 4 years

Text

Sweet Somethings

(Sweet Nothings Pt.2)NSFW

Warnings: NSFW, 18+, cursing, sugar daddy, daddy kink, size kink (if you squint), slight oral, finger fucking, loss of virginity, praise kink

Word count:6,906

Tag List (permanent): @keigod @dragonhrte @mrs-takami-keigo @fanfic-me-up @gallickingun @royal-after-dark @hawks-senseis @bnhabookclub

Crossed off: Virgin x Veteran

A/N: I’m so surprised with the amount of love I’ve been getting with Sweet Nothings, it’s almost at 1k when I’m posting this and I can’t put into words how shocked I am. I honestly didn’t think anyone would care for it. I love y’all so much so I hope I did you guys proud with this.

Pt.1 Here

One would expect nice things out of a sugar daddy, but that did not mean you were prepared for them. And you were certainly not ready for the luxurious sports car that stood in front of you. Pitch black with orange accents, a monstrous growl emanating from underneath the hood. The nicest car you had ever seen, yet the only thing your brain could focus on was the warmth pressed against you back. The way you could feel Katsuki’s hard pecs through the fabric of both his shirt and your dress was enough to make your thighs press together. What surprised you the most was the way that this man, who was almost a complete stranger to you, was able to control your body with such little effort.

You felt yourself almost let out a whine when he removed himself from behind you, making his way to the passenger side door and opening it for you to make your way inside. Stepping forward, you try to regain what little composure you had, and make your way to the seat, promptly reaching for the buckle when your wrist is stopped by his calloused grip. In confusion, you move your head up to meet eyes with the man attached to the hand now holding onto you.

“Please, what kind of a gentleman would I be if I didn’t buckle the lady’s seat for her. You do take me for a gentleman, don’t you?” The kind smile upon his lips telling a different story from the devious look he was giving you. You nod your head in agreement, not truly trusting your words as you move your hand away to allow him to do what he was wanting. His fingers wrap around the metal clasp and drag it across your body, bringing it closer to the fastener. Yet as he did so, he allowed his hand to graze against your semi exposed thigh. A tingle rushing throughout you at the simple touch. How are such small things affecting you so drastically?

While the drive was fairly quiet, it oddly wasn’t uncomfortable, yet the hand gently placed just above your knee was quickly going to become your undoing. You had given up on trying to figure out where it was the two of you were going soon after you 4th time asking him, only getting excuses in response along the lines of, ‘What’s the fun in you knowing’, ‘That will ruin the surprise’, and many others. So instead, you have resorted to taking in the passing scenery. The tall buildings that passed you by slowly started to thin out until eventually the only buildings you could see were little convenience stores and well kept historical homes. But it got to the point that they too soon left your view and the only thing that laid outside of the glass were the colossal trees that blocked out the sky.

After some time, the vehicle slowed down as it approached a gated fence. Saying it was a gated fence felt like an understatement as it was equal to what you would see guarding the homes of Hollywood celebrities. While nearing the entrance, Katsuki rolls down his window while tilting his head to the camera that was positioned on top of a speaker. Words were exchanged between him and whoever was on the other side of the speaker, and while you couldn’t make out everything the man was saying one phrase caught your attention, “Welcome home sir.” Your brow dips in turmoil as you try to convince yourself that the thoughts that were racing through your mind, were not the reason he was bringing you here. Surely he didn’t think that all the money he had donated meant that he had ownership over you and your body. Because if that was what he was thinking he had another thing coming. Almost sensing your inner dilemma, he let out a chuckle before lightly brushing his thumbs against your knee.

“You have nothing to worry about. I told you I was a gentleman, didn’t I?” The smile that pulled at his lips was enough to calm your anxieties. Your head travels to the window to watch as you pass by more trees. How big was this property? When you realize that the tires beneath you had come to a halt, you turn back to him only to watch as he steps out of the car. After unbuckling your seatbelt, you didn’t even have enough time to reach out for the handle before he was opening your door for you, extending his hand out for you to hold onto as you step out of the vehicle. Your mouth opens to ask him what you're doing here but feel yourself quickly get silenced by the warm presence of his hand on your back and his mouth close to your ear. “It’s a surprise, remember? Trust me, you won't be treated like anything less of the princess you are tonight.” A blush dancing across your face as he interlocks his hand with your own, gently guiding you away from where you were parked.

He led you down a stone path that trailed right along the edge of the small forest, lanterns lighting the way. Smaller trees draped over the path way, shielding you from the slowly setting sun. It wasn’t dark out yet, but the shade that the leaves provided created a cozy aura to the whimsical path. The whole walkway was almost something out of a fairytale. But it almost was fitting with the knight in shining armor on your side. Looking up you watch as his hair just slightly moves with every step he takes. You could tell it had been styled out of his face, but it was almost as if the unruly hair was attempting to fight back the products holding it down. But while you were entranced by the man on your side, you had almost missed the new breeze that swept past you. As the trees start to clear, you turn your head to find yourself shocked. Not because of the chill that was now running down your spine due to the cold wind, or even the gorgeous colors of the setting sun reflecting off of the water. No, instead it was because of the massive yacht that was docked at the pier of this beautiful lake.

Your jaw drops as he takes you toward the pier and closer to this magnificent boat. As you walk along the side you read the S.S. Lady Explosion Murder. It was kept in pristine condition, almost making you wonder if it had ever even been sailed. When he brings the two of you to a halt, you finally manage to bring your eyes away from the boat and look to see that he stopped in front of the stairs that lead onto it. You look up at him to see if you were supposed to go on, to which he responds by extending his free arm and doing a slight bow as if to say ‘after you’. He releases his hold on your hand to allow you to stabilize yourself on the handrail. As you make your way onto the ship, you see a table romantically decorated for two in the middle of the deck. Roses lay in a vase on the center of the table and candles placed strategically around the area to allow for just the right amount of light. Your jaw slightly drops at the lovely table that he had set up, turning back to him, catching his eye in the process.

“Did you do all of this for me?” In genuine shock, since no person had ever gone this all out for you before. He takes a step toward you closing off the distance before lightly grazing your cheek with his hand, tucking the loose stand behind your ear.

“Of course, you deserve nothing less than the best. I would have done more but I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable, so I just thought a nice dinner on the lake would be good for our first date.”

“You sound so confident that there is going to be more, quite the confident one aren’t you?” A slight smirk making its way to your face as you question him. But he quickly steals the smirk away from you as it travels over to him as he speaks again, his voice now a low purr.

“I have plenty of reasons to be confident. If you’re lucky you may find out why.” Your face turning a dark hue at what his words could imply. A chuckle emits from him as he watches you turn red. “You’re so easy to mess with princess, here let’s go and enjoy our nice night.” he once again places his hand on your lower back, guiding you to your chair before promptly pulling out your seat for you. You say a quick thank you to him as he pushes you forward, before making his way to the other side of the table to sit across from you. As you both got seated, you felt the boat start to move as it departed from the dock and started making its way further out on the lake. You couldn’t help but watch the water as it hits the side of the boat, mesmerized in the way the colors of the sky reflected off of it. You turn back away from the view to look at the stunning man in front of you.

“So I’m guessing that this must be your yacht?” You assumed that it was but you were curious to see if you were in fact on his property or not.

“It is, this is just the boat I keep here up here at the lake. It’s not often I’m actually able to come up here and enjoy it as I tend to be a workaholic you could say.”

“I do have to ask then, is there any meaning behind the ‘Lady Explosion Murder’?” A smile on your face as you ask him about the bizarre name. You understood men naming them after women they love for good luck, but you couldn’t imagine anyone being named that. He started to laugh at the memories of how he came across the name.

“Do you know what it is I do for a living?” He asked and it caused you to pause, seeing as you hadn’t actually even thought of it. You shook your head no and waited for him to continue explaining. “So, I’m the CEO for a large weapons and ammunition company. We mostly work with the military and deal with trading in foreign affairs. But when I was in school for my business degree we had to come up with a name for a mock company we worked on for a school project. I wanted to name the company King Explosion Murder then Lord Explosion Murder but the teacher said that both of those were too violent so I eventually ended up picked Ground Zero. When I open my own company I choose the same name I had used back then. But as a little homage to the ‘good ole days’ I decided to name the ship in favor of the rejected names.”

The two of you ended up laughing as he started talking more about his times in high school and you found yourself intrigued at all his stories about him and his childhood friends. He casually was able to switch the conversation over so that it was now on you and as the dinner for the night made its way to the table, you were telling all about your embarrassing memories and the horrible dates you had gone on.

“So you're telling me he tried to kiss you after that?” Bakugou had never laughed so hard in his life, yet it came so easy when he was with you.

“Yes he did! He spilled his entire glass of soda on me, attempted to ‘wipe it off’ and then proceeded to go in tongue first for a kiss at the end of the night. Needless to say I went home alone once again. I was convinced I was doomed and never going to be able to get past a first date with a decent guy let alone get a boyfriend.” A slight chuckle leaving your lips as you reminisce on all the horrible first dates you had been on. He paused in his laughter as your words processed in his brain.

“Wait, wait, wait. You’re telling me you’ve never had a boyfriend? You’ve got to be shitting me. There’s no way.” A light blush covering your cheeks as he stares at you in disbelief. You shrug your shoulders to say that it was true and he shakes his head. “Please tell me that this hasn’t been at least half as bad as any of your last dates with those wanna be’s” You smile as you watch him stand up from his seat and make his way over to where you were, extending his hand so that you could take it once again.

“It has already been a thousand times better, might even let you kiss me at the end,” Bakugou pulled you up from your chair, but since you weren’t expecting the force, you ended up tripping on your feet and landing dead center of his chest. You glance up making eye contact with him, your cheeks heating up once again as a familiar, devilish smirk spreads across his face. He tilts his head down and lowers it just above your ear, allowing his hot breath to fan across your neck as he speaks again.

“It looks like I already have you falling for me love, are you sure I’ll have to wait for the end of the date for that kiss?” As he goes to pull away from your ear, you move your hand to the back of his neck, keeping him there as you speak.

“Good things come to those who wait Mr. Bakugou.” You release his neck and are relieved to see that for once you weren’t the one with a tint of red across your face. Looking over his shoulder you could see that the sun was starting to set and you got excited at the opportunity to watch the sun set on this beautiful boat. “Oooo, let’s go watch the sun set,” A innocent smile on your face, ignoring what you had previously said to him, instead taking his hand and leading him to the railing on the side of the ship, wanting the best possible view of the setting sun. As you stood with your arms resting against the rail, Bakugou’s arms wrap around your frame, securely holding you against it and his warm torso. Resting his chin on the top of your head, you both stay silent as you enjoy the view together.

As you look off into the distance, just enjoying the peaceful quiet out on the lake, it is disturbed by a man walking up to you. He had cleared his throat, startling, only further pushing you against Bakugou’s chest. You could feel his hard pecs through the thin material separating you. As you go to move away from his chest, the grasp of his hand on your waist holds you tightly against him. For the hundredth time that night, your face goes red but with a new reason. Not because of any lewd words, or any innuendoes. Instead it was because of the pressure that was now on your butt. You were almost positive he wasn’t hard and the size of it in this state was enough to make your thighs clench. Just how fucking big is he? Your hips unintentionally rock backwards at the thought. The grip that was on your hip tightens as a light groan emits from his throat at the contact. If you weren’t turned on before, that sinful noise definitely had you soaked. As your thoughts continue going south, the man that had startled you in the first place spoke up.

“Sorry to disturb you sir, but there seems to be a malfunction with the engine. It’s nothing major but we aren’t going to be able to get anyone out here until the morning. I can call for another boat to bring you to shore, but I don’t know how long that will take to get here.” He stood by, awaiting an answer from Katsuki. He slightly steps away from you giving you just enough room to turn around to face him. Once facing him, he asks you,

“Would you like me to call for a boat so you can get back to your hotel? It should only take a few hours hopefully. But if you are tired, you can always stay in one of the bedrooms on board the yacht. It isn’t a problem, there’s multiple bedrooms if that would be an issue.” Looking into his eyes it didn’t seem like he had an ulterior agenda, but instead genuinely seemed to want to make sure you were comfortable, and was willing to make whatever you wanted happen. That thought made a smile cross your lips, as he made you feel safe and comfortable, even only knowing him for a small amount of time.

“I’m alright with just staying on the ship. Don’t stress yourself with ordering a charter boat.” Katsuki returned your smile as he slowly turned away from you to inform the crew member that the two of you would be spending the night on the ship but he was free to call for a charter boat if he wanted to go back home. After the man gave a polite bow to the two of you, he turned around and left to go back to the wheel. Now that the two of you were alone, he turned back to you taking your hand in his once again.

“Did you want to head to bed now? Or would you like for me to show you where your room for the night will be?” You nod your head saying yes, after which he guides you to the undercarriage of the boat. There was what seemed to be a living room and jetting off from the room was a hallway which had 3 doors. His other hand that wasn’t connected with you reached out toward the handle of one of the doors. He twists it open and a large bedroom presents itself. Stepping to the side, he makes enough room to allow you to pass by him to enter the room and explore for yourself. You make your way toward the dresser that was next to the wall before turning around when you hear him speak up again. “I’ll be right back, I’m just going to grab you some clothes for you to sleep in.”

As he exits the room you take the time to examine the room. Your hand runs up the bed, the soft sheets almost calling your name to plop down onto them. But you hold yourself back and instead just sit on the edge of it, almost sinking in as the bed welcomes you in cozy arms. Just as you were about to get lost in the relaxation this mattress was tempting you with, Katsuki walked back into the room, a few clothes in his hand. He placed them on the side table before sitting next to you on the bed.

“I only had some of my clothes in the other room, so I hope you don’t mind but I just grabbed you some of my stuff.” He moved his head to look over at you and paused at how close your faces were. His eye brow slightly raises as his eyes travel down your face before landing on your lips, lingering before returning to meet you stare. His hand ghosted over the side of your body before traveling behind your neck, entangling in your hair at the base of your head. “Did you need help with anything else before I go?” You felt frozen under his lustful stare, unable to get the words out of your mouth as there was a lump in the back of your throat and an intense burn in your core. Swallowing the lump you speak up.

“I think I can think of a thing or two you could help me with.” Slightly leaning your head forward, feeling yourself getting drawn closer to him. But he must have felt the same because you could feel his word fan across your lips as he replied.

“And what would that be, princess?” His voice so smooth it came out almost as a purr. Yet instead of responding you push yourself forward, closing the small distance between the two of you. Your lips meet in a passionate kiss, perfectly molding together as if they had been created to only meet one another's lips. Your hand runs up his arm to tangle in his hair, gripping it as you try to drown yourself as the kiss makes you almost lightheaded. His spare hand moves down to your hip, squeezing it before relaxing it. The hand that was buried in your hair grips down, tugging at the strands, making a soft gasp leave your mouth at the pulling sensation. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Bakugou dives his tongue into your mouth, exploring the new area. Your tongues battle before his hold on your hair and hip tightens causing you to submit. Your hands travel down from his hair to his chest before you break away from the kiss by pushing his torso flush against the mattress. As you both attempt to catch your breath your hands make quick work to unbutton his pants, his hand grabbing your wrist before you could continue.

“Hey, I don’t want you to think we have to do anything alright? You pause to look up at him taking in deep breath taking in his appearance. His hair messier now from your hands messing it up. His face coating in a thin tint of red from the heat of the situation. Your eyes start to travel down, looking at how the top few buttons of his shirt had come undone, allowing his collarbone to poke out and letting you catch a glimpse of the chiseled pecs that had yet to leave your mind from the first time you had video called each other. Continuing your exploration, your eyes stop when you reach his pants. the tent in his pants prominent under your devouring stare. Reaching your hand out, you let your hand lightly grasp his member, earning a throaty groan from the man under you. Pulling your bottom lip into your mouth as you slowly palm him through his dress pants. Even semi hard you could feel just how thick he was. Moving your hand, your eyes shoot back up to meet with his, his hooded eyes watching your every move.

“Oh I know. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to do something,” a smile on your face as you separate yourself from him, reaching for the zipper to your dress allowing it to slip past your shoulders and fall to the floor with a soft thud. Strutting your way back to where he was, you connect your hands with his waistband, tugging both his pants and his underwear along with it as you pull them down his muscular thighs. His dick slapping against his abdomen as it is released from its tight confines. Your eyes widen as you feel your jaw slightly drop at the view. Sure you had felt how large it was, but it was nothing in comparison to seeing it in person, right in front of your very eyes. Lowing yourself in front of him, the temptation to lick it was overwhelming as you felt your mouth watering at the sight of it. Taking his length in your hand, you give it a gentle squeeze as you open your mouth, running a long stripe up his length, tracing the pronounced vein that ran underneath of him. You hear him suck in a breath as your tongue flickers over his swollen tip, his hair immediately flying to your hair, needing something to hold onto at the sudden feeling.

“Shit baby girl, don’t mess with me like that.” You would have smirked at the comment but you were preoccupied at the moment. Opening your mouth further you take his head into your mouth, flicking your tongue against him again as you suck on his tip before releasing it while an audible pop. Bringing your head back down you take him into your mouth, relaxing your jaw as you attempt to take him fully into your mouth, almost being successful, but with how big he was it was nearly impossible for you to get him all in. You hold yourself near the base of his dick, tears swelling in your eyes as you try to relax so as to not choke around him. You feel yourself start to gag around him but the low groan that left his mouth made it completely worth it, the sinful sound sending a surge straight to your dripping core. Pulling yourself off of him, you gasp for air as he brushes your hair out of your face.

“Fuck princess, get over here.” He pulls you up to him and connects his lips to you, the kiss much messier than it was before, heated, but amazing to say the least. You break away from him still trying to catch your breath from before.

“Why’d you stop me, I could do a lot more you know.” You walk your fingers across his torso as you give him a playful wink.

“Oh I bet you could, but I’ll be damned if I don’t make you into a sobbing mess before I cum.” You couldn’t hold back the whimper that manages to escape at the thought of him ruining you. “But I bet you’d love that huh princess, want me to make you feel so fucking good.” his lips travel down to your jaw, kissing his way down your neck making it to the dip in your collarbone before licking a strip all the way back to the sweet spot just under your ear. He started moving back down kissing and nibbling as he explored your neck, searching for which spots made you the loudest. That was until he felt himself physically have to pause at your next response, just barely louder than a whisper.

“Yes please daddy...” He groans deeply into, the low pitch sending an electric feeling down your spine and resonating in your core. His hand makes its way to your throat as his finger lightly wraps around it, gently squeezing the sides.

“Say it again. Louder this time.” His fingers pressing into you as you feel a rush going to your head.

“Please daddy, I need you.” He released his grip on your neck and you feel the blood rush to your head. You go to take a deep breath but as you inhale Bakugou grabs you by the waist, flipping you so that he was now inches above you as you're practically pinned to the bed. The very breath you took caught in your throat as he lowered himself to your ear as his deep voice makes chills travel throughout your body.

“What exactly do you need, princess? Come on, I want to hear you use your big girl words.” A whimper involuntarily escaping you.

“I want you to make me feel good. To-- to stuff me with your fingers an- and prep me for your big dick.” Your face a bright shade of red as every drop of confidence you had earlier left with the lewd words he demanded to hear from you. But when you made eye contact with him you could see in the way his eyes darkened and by the smirk on his face that he was satisfied with what you had said. His hands roamed across your body, his rough fingertips slightly scratching you as he looped his fingers in the waistband of your underwear, tugging them down your legs before discarding them across the room. As his hand moves back up to your legs, you press them together at the cold feeling against the newly exposed area. He raised an eyebrow at the action and placed both of his hands on each of your knees.

“Spread them.” Was all he needed to say for you to slowly open your legs, putting yourself completely on display for him. Embarrassed at how exposed you were, you went to cover your face, but that didn’t last for long when you heard him groan as he took the sight of you in. Peeking out from under your arm you watch as he licks his lips as he stares at you, looking as if he was ready to devour you then and there.

“Fuck baby girl, you’re so good, doing exactly what I tell you to do -shit.” He started to talk more to himself as he ran his finger over your entrance, sucking in a breath at just how wet you were. A string of profanities leave his mouth as he dips a finger in after completely coating it in your slick. A whimper leaves your lips at the slight stretch. Slowly pushing himself further in, he curls his finger upwards and brushes it against your spongy wall. Your hips jolt up to try to meet his hand but he is quick to place his hand on your stomach, pressing you to the table making you stop your movements. “I’m going to need you to behave princess or you aren’t going to be getting anything from me, do I make myself clear?”

“Yes daddy..” you take in your lip, hoping that the response you gave him was what he had wanted to hear so that he would continue doing whatever it was that sent that electric surge throughout your body. But when you heard the deep groan come from his throat you knew that was exactly what he had wanted to hear. Slowly he pulls his finger out of you only to push it back into you, enjoying the way you clenched around his digit. After sliding out of you a few more times, you are forced to bite down on your lip as he slips another finger inside of you in a swift movement. Each thrust of his fingers slightly curling up to make sure to press lightly against your g-spot, making a tingle shoot to the tips of your toes. A moan rips from your mouth as he curls his fingers inside of you, pressing against your wall with more force. His pace picks up as the noises coming from you do as well. Just as you start to feel a warm feeling build up, your head shoots up at the sensation of another finger being added into you. You shake your head at him trying to tell him that it was too much but you're silenced as his head dips into the crook of your neck. He leaves a trail of hot kisses all the way from your collar bone to just below your ear before he speaks again.

“You’re doing so good princess, taking my fingers like this- fuck- I know you can take it. I can feel just how close you are. Cum for me baby girl, cum all over Daddy’s fingers.” That was enough to make your body take over in a flood of white bliss as your orgasm soars through you. Your hand gripping his back, nails leaving a trail as you hold onto him. You moan out his name as he speaks in your ear. “Yess fuck baby just like that.” As you come down from your high he pulls away just far enough from you to watch as he pulls his fingers out of you. His fingers dripping as you watch him pull them to his face, his mouth wrapping around them, cleaning them and you feel yourself clench around nothing at the sight alone. His hand travels down from his mouth to your thighs, gently squeezing them before spreading them so that he could be between them. His length pressing against you as he puts each of your legs around his hips. You can feel yourself already getting wet again as his tip rubs against your swollen clit. A smirk on his lips as he watches you squirm against the sheets at the feeling of his length pressed against you. “Do you think you're ready for me? Think you’ll be able to handle it, baby?” He teases you, moving forward so that his head rubs against you again. He continues doing this, loving the way you keep moving your hips in any attempt to earn something more from him. He grabs the sides of your hips, halting your movements, causing you to whine. You try to move again just to get any kind of friction and you hear him suck in through his teeth. “Nuh uh princess, I want to hear you beg for it.”

“Please Katsuki-- god please I need you so bad. I just want you to fill me up. Please daddy, fuck me until I can’t walk.” A chuckle is all you can hear before you feel his hand ghost over your thigh, goosebumps covering you as he travels over your inner thigh to where his length was resting against you.

“Your wish is my command, your highness.” was all you heard before the room was filled with the sounds of your moans as he pushed into you. As he slowly bottoms out inside of you, your hands shoot up his back and bury themselves in his hair, pulling him close to you. The slight pain of him stretching you out causes you to furrow your brow and bite down on your lip. Noticing your pain, Bakugou dips down, connecting his lips with your own, distracting you from the pain you were feeling. His hands lightly massaging your thighs and hips as he finally is able to press against you fully. He stills himself giving you the much needed time to adjust to his size. Even with the preparation he was so much bigger than you had expected. After some time you pull away from the kiss, your eyes meeting his as you take in a shaky breath.

“Please- move.” He gives you a smile before pulling out of you, immediately leaving you feel empty before he pushes himself back into you. He leans forward while keeping a slow pace and kisses away the tear that, unknown to you, managed to escape your eye. Pressing his forehead to yours you watch him close his eyes, his eyebrows furrowing as he sucks in a breath.

“Shit baby, you’re so fucking tight.” You didn’t know if the statement had even been for you as he was so focused on not railing himself into you. You could see on his face the struggle he was going through at the antagonizing slow pace he was holding. Taking a hold of his face you bring his attention back to you.

“You can go faster. I can handle it, just give me all you’ve got.” You watch as a sinister look takes over him as one of his hands removes itself from your hips and is planted down beside your head, his other hand’s grip on your hip tightening.

“You might want to hold on then princess.” You were just barely able to comprehend his words before you feel him pull out of you and quickly slam back into you. Not being able to hold back the moans he was pulling out of you as he repeats this action, burying his dick deep inside of you, each thrust causing his head to crash into your soft, spongy wall. While you had told him to give it his all this isn’t what you had been expecting. The pure pleasure coursing through you as his unforgiving speed and power only seems to increase. You drag your fingers down his back, sure that your nails were breaking through his skin, but at the moment, that was the least of your concerns. You threw your head back against the pillow as you feel him attach himself to your neck, his mouth leaving hot open kisses against you. As one of your hands pulls against his hair, a deep groan rumbles through his throat sending the vibration straight into you as he connects himself to you again, his kisses turning into harsh sucking and nibbles. As he moves down your neck he stops at where it connects with your collar bone when he hears the broken moan that leaves from you. As he licks a stripe up the length of your throat back to his new favorite spot, a chill runs through you and you clench around him.

“Fuuuck baby girl, You keep that up and I’ll have no choice but to fuck you all night long.” You whimper at the thought alone. He continues his brutal pace as your grip in his hair tightens, holding on for dear life as you try to keep up. The way he was slamming into you was unforgiving but you loved it. Each thrust making you stretch around him, barely able to handle his size. You could feel your high coming again, and coming fast. But Bakugou must have noticed as well as the hand that was grasping your hip was now rubbing circles into your clit. The pressure was overwhelming as he also somehow picked up the force as he rams harder into you.

“You’re close, aren’t you, baby? Go ahead, cum for me. I want to hear you scream out who is making you feel this good. Let them all know who’s princess you are.” His hip tilted upwards and mixed with what he said was enough to force you to come undone. You scream out his name as your body is taken over in euphoria. “That’s it, baby girl- fuck,” was the only thing you were able to make out as you feel his paint your walls white. His thrust starts to slow as he helps the two of you ride out your highs.

His head presses against your own as you both attempt to catch your breath, the sounds of your breathless pants were now the only thing filling the room as you feel him soften in you. You feel your body go limp as he pulls himself out of you, feeling incredibly empty. You feel the bed dip as he gets off, heading into the bathroom before returning with a wet cloth. Gently, he cleans away any mess, making sure to be careful when he gets to any sensitive areas. Afterwards he places the towel on the nightstand before sitting back on the bed. Your hands gently run over the raised skin of his back, trying to calm the now irritated skin.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scratch you so bad,” You felt bad for the marks you left on him. But when he encases your face in between his hands and makes you look into his eyes, you feel a wave of relief take over as he speaks.

“Don’t feel bad princess, you are perfectly fine. If anyone should be apologizing it should be me, I may have been a little rougher than I had originally meant. I didn’t hurt you did I?” A look of worry on his face as he realizes he had sort of lost control. But when you smiled at him he felt a little bit of his stress go away.

“It was perfect. It was better than I ever could have imagined. So thank you.” He slightly smiled while his eyebrow cocked at your statement.

“You say that as if you’ve never been fucked properly before.” He chuckled as he pulled you to lay against his torso. Suddenly a wave of nervousness washed over you as you fiddled with your fingers. He looked down at you. “What is it?”

“Well that would require me to have been fucked before...” You felt him freeze under you.

“You’re kidding right?” You avoided his gaze, but his hand gently grabs your chin pulling you to look up at him. “I wish I would have known.”

“Why, would you have been gentler?” You ask him, worried that he regretted it.

“Of course I would have. It’s your first time. I wouldn’t have gone that all out, I would have held back a bit.”

“Well then I’m glad I didn’t say anything because that...” you pause taking a moment to plant a kiss against his lips. “...was amazing.” He smiled against your lips before pulling you into another kiss, this one much slower and filled with emotion than the ones you had shared before.

“I’m glad that you enjoyed it, next time I’m just going to have to make it up to you.” He brushes your hair out of your face.

“Next time?” You question him and a soft smile spreads across his face as he looks into your eyes.

“Of course, I meant it when I said you never have to worry again. You're my princess, and I’m going to make sure to take good care of you, okay?”

Bold could not be tagged: @terrifying-testicles @loxbbg @mycrennycalromance @skylan666 @wifunozomi @urmomsshousee @kellyyween @niko-su993 @cookednoodlez @guzmagirl @bleakerspath @explicitbun @qunibunisartblog @succulent-momma @anjadolly @bakugou-is-my-daddy @wessoninc @lovinthesiz3 @katsuki-bakubae @hot-pocket01 @sir-knight-slytherdor @katsukiswhore @death-to-the-patriarcy @plusultrabitches @awkward-d3rs3-dr3amer @angxlicwanda @ninjafirewitch @hellyeahbakubby @green-beanie-chan @ktsuukki @morenabambinii @kagomefan27 @anxietys-a-bitch @azgucci @theofficialhufflepuff @seungcheolieeesblog @artgirlwithglasses @sleepysuneater @justanormallyabnormalbitch @hsixen @sincerelyyrosemary @liviitehe @arsenic0tine @maddoxrabbit

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ivushk · 3 years

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HELLO. MAY I PLEASE HEAR MORE OF YOUR VAMPIRE AU…. 👉👈

OH MY GOD I'M SO GLAD YOU ASKED THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

Okay, SO. BUCKLE THE FUCKLE UP 'CUZ here's what I've got so far:

Nishiki and Kiryu are still orphans at Sunflower. They come from a tiny village just a few kilometres west from the orphanage. It's a very close and closed-off community. The boys' parents died in a fire when they were very little (which is a common theme for the kids at Sunflower and isn't that a crazy coincidence? *smiles mysteriously*), however the Nishikiyama family house wasn't as badly damaged as Kiryu's so it's just sitting there, waiting for its former residents to reclaim ownership as soon as they're able to (I imagine Kazama would help them with that).

In the next years it becomes a home for Nishiki, Yuko and Kiryu (and Yumi, too, though she feels like a visitor for the most part) in everything but name. It's their hangout spot, their "base of operations", their not-so-secret meeting place. When Yuko's health deteriorates so much that she can't stay at Sunflower anymore, the siblings actually properly move in to make arranging the doctor's visits easier.

It's Nishiki's 17th birthday and all three of them are celebrating and playing games and eating cake and having a good time at the edge of the woods not far from the Nishikiyama residence. They're young and loud and stupid (and ignoring the fact that several people went missing over the course of the last few months) and if Nishiki's heart beats a little too hard in his chest when Kiryu gives him his gift - a beautiful, heavy silver pendant on a slightly-worn leather cord - he doesn't think about it too much (and if he notices that Kiryu stares at him just a bit longer than usual without saying a single word but his gaze is so, so, SO fond-- he doesn't think about it either). (he leaves these kinds of thoughts for restless nights because thinking about his best friend in that way during the day... it hurts. the hurt is good sometimes but it's overwhelming).

They're drunk on the cheap beer they've smuggled from Gen-san's fridge and high on happiness. Unaware that the very same night it would all go crashing down.

At some point they all quiet down and go a little further into the woods than they normally would but no one pays any mind to that. And when suddenly their trio turns into a duo with the sudden absence of the birthday boy himself no one immediately starts panicking. He's been gone for ten minutes, twenty, half an hour. Kiryu tells Yuko to go back to the village, to gather everyone, make them start a search party or something while he keeps looking for her brother (the only things he'll find are the pendant he's gifted to Nishiki with the leather cord torn and the broken shards of his own hope). They never find him.

A year goes by and they hold a funeral for Nishikiyama Akira. Even though there's no body for them to bury. Yuko doesn't cry (she doesn't believe he's really dead). Neither does Kiryu (he used all of his tears up that night, the guilt choking him, and the night after that, and the night after that, and the night-). Yumi does, however. And the nice old lady who gave both Nishiki and Kiryu money for helping her do chores around the house. And the man who gave Nishikiyama a part-time job at his shop (to put at least something towards the cost of his sister's treatment, he felt so indebted to Kazama, and that debt weighed down on him). And a few of the girls and boys from Sunflower too.

Another two years pass. Kiryu moves away to the big city at the behest of Kazama. "It's important for you to continue your education," he says. ("It's important for you to move on," he keeps these words to himself). Kiryu really tries his best. Even makes a few friends (although he's still on the fence about whether he can actually call Oda his friend). It goes as well as it could have considering his circumstances. They say that time heals but Kazuma Kiryu never finds out if there's any truth to those words because he recieves a very short letter - an invitation, actually. To another funeral. But this time it's Yuko they're burying. This time they actually have a body to bury.

Tachibana offers his condolences. Oda offers him a ride to the village and back. Kiryu accepts both.

He can't help but compare this funeral to the last one he's been to. There are fewer people. Fewer tears, too. More flowers. It's quieter and feels something like closure (in truth, it's anything but). Yuko also left behind a will (more like a bunch of wishes since it wasn't an official document but the community decided to honour them anyway). Almost all of her possessions went to the kids from Sunflower, except for the Nishikiyama family house (which on paper actually belonged to Shintaro Kazama) which she left to Kiryu. He can't quite believe it when he hears it and feels his heart break under the onslaught of childhood memories. Still, he goes there later that evening. He finds that little has changed in the time he spent away from the house, from the village, from... all of this, really. There are the same pictures on the walls collecting only slightly less dust. The same books on the shelves and under the broken legs of the old pieces of furniture. The same medicine bottles and equipment in the bedroom, though doubled in quantity. Kiryu's not as devastated as he thought he'd be when he walks around what he used to call his home.

He goes through all the rooms, taking notes of every single thing he finds and every single thing he doesn't. He probably misses a bunch of things (he's not as good at that sort of thing, Nishiki's always had a much better eye for details). Once back outside, he looks for the secret stash they made back when they were teenagers. It's like going through a time capsule. There's a pack of cigarettes he and Nishiki once stole from the teacher's bag, copybooks filled with ugly doodles, dreams for the future and dried flowers and leaves, caps from soda bottles, rocks they thought looked cool, photos and birthday cards damaged by time and weather... the pendant Kiryu gave to Nishiki the last time they saw each other. And a small notebook Kiryu's never seen before. A diary of sorts, a recounting of their days together and their days apart. The handwriting is unmistakingly Yuko's.

It fills him with nostalgia, tears welling up in his eyes, unshed. His heart sinks when he finally reaches the pages where Yuko recounts the last few weeks before she-

She writes about her brother, which is understandable. What's less understandable is the fact that she speaks of him as though he was there, with her. Physically present. Kiryu could chalk it up to the girl being delusional in her dying moments but it doesn't feel right to do so. It's stupid, it's absolutely impossible, he's confused, he's hopeful, why would Yuko hide her notebook there?

The last page. A message. For Kiryu. "Please, Kazuma-kun, help my brother".

Against his better judgement, Kiryu decides to spend the night in the house. Sleep doesn't come to him but that's fine. He sits in the living room, trying to make sense of everything. He sits there until it's way past midnight, until the distant barking of the dogs quiets down, until the rustling of leaves stops, until the very air around him grows still and silent and somehow charged with strange energy. And then he hears it. Three uncertain taps against the window. Kiryu turns his head. It's him.

"Kiryu... Let me in. Please."

He does, without thinking. (He could never very well say no to Nishiki. Even if it got them both in trouble. Even if he's not real.)

The quiet is deafening. It really is him. His best friend (whom he thought dead). His kyoudai. Before Nishiki could say anything, Kiryu wraps him in a tight hug. The only heartbeat between them is Kiryu's own, thundering against his ribs. Nishikiyama doesn't let the hug last, putting some distance between them. He looks guilty, tired; looks at Kiryu with sadness, with longing and something else that he can't quite decipher yet (and it makes him scared but why?). Nishiki also looks older than Kiryu remembers. Not a 17-year-old boy anymore, no. About the same age that Kiryu is now.

Has his gaze always been so sharp? Have his fangs always been this pronounced?

They talk until their throats are hoarse. Until Nishiki pulls out a bottle with some liquid that smells strongly of iron and drinks from it and in that moment Kiryu believes everything his friend has told him. It's crazy, but he does.

Nishiki was abducted that night. Taken from them. By vampires. They hurt him. Forced him to fight other humans (just like him then) for his survival. They fed on him.

It went on and on and on... Days turned into weeks, turned into months, turned into years. Only thoughts of Yuko, and Kiryu, and Yumi kept him going. He wanted to see them again. He hoped he would. That hope was crushed when Nishikiyama met his match in the arena. No, not his match. Someone far stronger. He lost and was tossed out to die. But another vampire saved him. It was a woman, whose face he saw often among the spectators of his fights. She stood out from the crowd, since she never cheered for any of the humans. Never put any bets. Only looked at all that madness with quiet horror. "Reina" she said her name was.

She gave Nishiki blood. Her own blood, and the blood of the vampires that were much stronger and more powerful than her (but not wiser), and human blood.

He turned and it was even worse than the years of anguish he had experienced. The pain and constant thirst almost drove him mad until he was taught to deal with them.

Nishiki was given a second chance. He escaped. And ever since that moment he's been trying his damndest to help other victims of those monsters. Both, the poor imprisoned souls and the villagers who might have shared his fate otherwise.

THAT CONCLUDES MY MAD RAMBLINGS BECAUSE I HAVEN'T THOUGHT OUT WHAT HAPPENS NEXT THAT WELL

also i don't remember the last time i wrote this much in one sitting and i'm tireeeeeed. i'm not cut out to be a writer and it shows nghghghhhhhh

but! but! but! i have a couple thoughts on where the story goes:

kiryu decides to stay in the village and help nishiki

they uncover the vampires evil plans and recruit a few other characters to fight on the side of JUSTICE (i.e. kazama, who up to that point has been kind of in cahoots with the vamps - hence trying to atone by means of creating the Sunflower orphanage; kashiwagi; yumi; reina; tachibana and oda; majima, and yeah he was actually the one that defeatead nishiki and unknowingly caused him to become a vampire, also majima himself turns into a vampire later in the story thanks to a certain mad simp nishitani)

yuko comes back as a vampire

at some point the scene from my fanart happens; something along the lines of kiryu and nishiki being found by the evil vamps and being attacked. then of course nishiki saves kiryu (who's still baffled that this shit is happening to them and vampires are REAL) and tells him to run which he doesn't but it works out fine in the end

the scene of nishiki drinking kiryu's blood is a MUST because i. love. that. shit. (it's also extremely horny dfjvhsdkfhiasdfhisd)

nishiki's personality is somewhere in between his ykz0 and ykz k*wami self (like, he's much colder now but he still cares about others and does things not just for the sake of his own ambition)

idk about the end but immortal boyfriends? sounds nice?

#i'm so sorry anon this took so long #i went to bed and slept for like 12 hours and then my neck and back were really bothering me ghjklkjljfkjg #i had to take a few smoke breaks along the way #writing shit is hard #OKAY I'M DONE WITH EXCUSES SORRYYYYY #nishikiryu #yakuza #vampire!au #ask

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urmomsstuntdouble · 3 years

Text

some skater au yao + hk ramblings bc @mysticalmusicwhispers wanted to know more about them in the au

- he's 56 years old and has owned his casino for 30 years. He first got into the business of casino ownership because he thought it'd be a good source of passive income, but he didn't realize how much a job owning a casino would actually be and took over as the head executive manager person after about a year of struggling to manage another job plus the casino. He actually likes it more than he thought he would, because while it's a super stressful job and requires him to coordinate a lot of moving parts basically all the time, it does allow him to be in complete control of something, which he likes.

-yao is 56 because i think 5 and 6 look good next to each other

-hong kong is a skateboarder and local insufferable goose, and has a weird not quite father-daughter relationship with yao. she was born in hong kong and adopted by arthur, who’s doing the single dad thing. they lived in london until she was seven, and moved around a bit before settling in las vegas when leona was ten. she has come to realize that this was kind of stupid, but she can’t really do anything about it now.

-yao and arthur aren’t really friends, but they do know each other from youth and sometimes hang out still

-that’s not actually how yao and leona met though. she and some friends (the gen z squad, which includes taiwan, seychelles, iceland, and macau) were being rascally middle schoolers and trying to see if they could trick anyone into letting them into a club. this was entirely based on macau having been asked one time by one of those people who stands on the street corner registering people to vote if he’d been registered yet. he had not, seeing as he was probably like 12 at the time, but it gave them the foolish confidence they needed to try to sneak into an adult establishment

-yao happened to be there that day when the kids were trying to get in, and he was like okay kids, what are you trying to do rn and they were like wym we’re clearly adults and he was like i know for a fact that you’re not, please leave or i’ll call the cops and that scared them right off

-they were also introduced later by arthur, and leona did get into a bit of trouble for trying to sneak into the casino. it was a whole thing

-leona is one of the youngest skaters in the au. she and seychelles are the only minors that hang about the skate park, and the adults there aren’t fully aware of their ages, so it’s assumed that they’re of a similar age range to everybody else. most of the other skaters are within like. 25-35 age range, and most of them assume that sey and hk are college kids or something, and they don’t correct that misunderstanding. they do tag along on some adult expeditions at times, although that’s mostly just going out into the desert to smoke. occasional gambling though

-leona and yao have run into each other a fair few times since they first met. she likes to hang out in the strip because it makes her feel like she’s an adult and independent, but she can’t hang out by the super famous casinos or hotels, because it’s easier to get into more trouble there, so she mostly hangs out in the moderately-well-to-do area, which is where yao’s casino is located. they also see each other decently often as a result of yao’s not quite friendship with arthur, as they do like to hang out from time to time but are both shut ins. yao owning the casino is actually a great way for them to hang out, because it’s sort of like his second home and it feels casual to him while also being the sort of place where you can go to casually get shitfaced, which is right up arthur’s alley.

-due to yao and arthur’s whatever they have going on, leona has been able to talk to him a few times. she mostly thinks he’s just another old fart who talks too much about the economy (cursed idea but imagine if yao was one of those bitcoin people) but also has a casino, so that’s mildly cool. she does find herself slightly interested in the fact that he is chinese, because she feels a bit disconnected from that part of herself as a result of having been raised and grown up in the west.

-leona’s casino hanging-out-at really gets started when she’s about 14. she gets upset because she’s been outed at school (she’s bi). though it’s not really a big deal if arthur finds out, seeing as he’s also bi, it felt like a really big deal for her and something she wasn’t ready for. she decides to run away, but doesn’t really know where to go, cause she doesn’t want to see anyone from school and doesn’t know where any of the adult skaters live, so she winds up at the casino. yao is ready to tell her to fuck off until he sees that she’s upset and his passive aggression towards her gets more passive and less aggressive

-he winds up taking her out to eat, and he tries to get her to talk about what happened but she refuses to engage. yao tries to give her a bunch of life advice instead, and she also refuses to engage (but still pays attention because he has a way of talking that makes him seem like everything he’s saying is some sort of law of the universe).

-there exists a bit of a rift between arthur and leona, because he’s really not that great of a dad. he has some other kids, but she’s the only one currently living with him. some are in college, some are adults who’ve moved away, but they rarely ever come home for the holidays or anything like that, and most of them have a strained relationship with him. leona is no exception, and she’s sort of like. god i can’t wait to move out. it makes her feel like she has a bit more say in her own life to hang out at the casino, which yao starts letting her do after he gets more analytical of her relationship with arthur. he feels like she needs a space to be herself, and also that he can provide that for her.

-speaking of, yao really likes to analyze people. that’s not specific to this au, i just think that he can sometimes get really analytical and treat other people like they’re characters in a book? like they’re a puzzle for him to figure out, and he sort of treats leona like that. she isn’t pleased with this at all, but that’s the price of being a minor who wants to hang out in casinos, so.

-yao is pretty passive regarding leona and arthur’s relationship. he has put himself in the position that if they’re mad at each other, he might have to hear about it from both of them. or, worst case scenario- mediate. and he doesn’t really want to do that (he doesn’t really want to be invested in any of this, but damn it hong kong, you were so entertaining to examine) so he just sort of stands on the sidelines sipping a smoothie while they argue.

-yao does however come to consider himself a better father figure towards hong kong than arthur. he never tells anyone about this, but he feels like, with all his unsolicited life advice, that he’s doing a good job. leona doesn’t really care, and thinks she could do without it, but he will not stop, so. he also helped her study for the sat, which was nice.

-the idea of fatherhood is a bit tricky with these three though, because leona doesn’t really feel like she has a dad. she knows she has her biological father, and she has her adopted father, but she doesn’t know who her biological father is and we all know that arthur is bad at being a dad. she doesn’t know if she even wants a dad anymore tbh. one time she gets in an argument with yao and she tells him he’s not her real dad, and he just says, totally calm. you don’t have a dad. and that’s pretty shattering to her

-even so, leona comes to abuse her casino-going privileges. yao doesn’t like this At All, and has threatened to call the police on her multiple times, but leona also threatens to tell arthur what he’s letting her do, so they keep it to this mutual agreement to not do anything about it. because of that, she sometimes brings in more kids, specifically the gen z squad and the ily trio. this makes her quite popular at school, which gets to her head sometimes

#that's all for this post i think #this mightve gotten too angsty #hk isnt a ball of angst she's actually quite charismatic and would probably be a bard in dnd #but ye #hetalia #hws #hws hong kong #hws china #nyo hong kong #skater girls au #ceros posting

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oldsoulnewperspective · 3 years

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It involves taking a huge risk of treating yourself as if your worth were not open to debate,

Just read this and thought you might relate: It can be argued that many forms of OCD come down to a fear that lack of vigilance could lead to a loss of identity.

Moral scrupulosity is, thus, obsessive concern with whether or not one is being good or bad.

More to the point, this perfection must be constantly proven beyond the shadow of all doubt.

Compulsions, that is, behaviors that OCD sufferers engage in to feel more certain that their fears are untrue

They could be simply measuring their moral integrity against the certainty that they are being “healthy” in romantic relationships

Mentally reviewing/checking for acts to determine moral integrity

Self-punishment to prove moral concern

You could assign a list of moral guidelines to follow that are consistent with your cultural context, and you can even convince yourself that confidence in this list (as opposed to some other list) is warranted. But at some point, you are still going to have to decide whether or not you trust your own judgment, your own memory, and your own self-talk. Though everyone is entitled to a reality check now and then (as in, “come on, it’s not that big a deal), repeatedly reassuring oneself to get certainty always ends up colliding with the wall of reality, that something may be getting missed.

OCD is a battle of uncertainty tolerance

proving that im being “healthy” isn’t the goal.

Improve uncertainty tolerance

Violate the expectation that uncertainty about morality is intolerable

Improve ability to commit to value-based behaviors despite unwanted thoughts/feelings

For now, consider this – OCD is driven by compulsions, behaviors you engage in to make yourself feel certain that you, in this case, are moral.

Learning to live joyfully with uncertainty, even about your inherent “goodness” as a human being is the best strategy for beating OCD and feeling good about yourself. OCD uses the fraudulent concept of “bad person” to con you into trying to prove you are otherwise.

“That was bad. I am bad. I shouldn’t be bad. I’m a failure. I am wrong. I hurt people. I am a deviant. I am dysfunctional. I must prove otherwise. I must be good.”

o “mind less” that these thoughts and feelings arise is to take a huge risk that you haven’t tried hard enough to be moral, that you could be wrong. Maybe this thought is the one you were supposed to wrestle to the ground and pummel! Being mindful is viewing OCD as simply a storyteller that weaves thoughts together to trick you into forgetting that they’re just thoughts, and viewing it this way is the ultimate exposure.

Putting it more simply, moral scrupulosity is a form of OCD that emphasizes a fear of being immoral or morally contaminated.

If you have moral scrupulosity, making a big deal out of every real or imagined moral misstep doesn’t seem like magnifying. It seems like compensating for bad behavior. People with moral scrupulosity tend to purposely blow up their real and imagined transgressions as a form of compulsive reassurance that they are taking ownership of wrongdoing (and therefore must be supremely moral).

Since moral scrupulosity is, by definition, an obsession with self-worth or “goodness”, it should come as no surprise that OCD promotes these painful feelings as bait to start doing compulsions. Guilt proves nothing. Recognizing that feelings are not reliable evidence of facts can take some of the power away from OCD’s claim.

If our efforts to be perfectly certain about morality cause us to be compulsive, and ERP asks us to scale back that behavior, then we are going to feel, well, less moral in a way. We may try to compensate for this by engaging in self-punishment, being extra unkind to ourselves to make sure we aren’t getting away with anything. If I can at least prove that I feel bad (i.e. guilty, disgusted, self-hating) about real and imagined moral failings, then I am at least somewhat liberated from worrying about being immoral. Put simply, self-criticism is a compulsion. It often gets overlooked because we tend to think of compulsions as feeling good. In reality, compulsions simply feel better than what we imagine the alternative to be and beating yourself up sounds better than taking the risk of finding out you’re a bad person later. If only it worked.

If treating yourself badly proved you were good and proving you’re good freed you from your OCD, I’d be all for it.

You have a thought about something you did or thought about doing, or felt an urge to do, and so forth, and because this experience doesn’t line up with your presumed identity as a moral person, you feel bad. Because you feel bad, you try to get the feeling to stop. You may seek reassurance, try to make sure you’re not doing bad things, check to see if you have, and engage in other compulsions. You set up a series of rigid rules that apply only to you to guarantee you’ll never do a bad thing, but since these rules are impossible to follow perfectly, they also make you feel bad.

What’s worse, ceasing to feel bad makes you feel like you’re getting away with something, like you stopped caring about your moral compass. Bad feelings at least reminded you that you care and reassure you that you would never intentionally be immoral. So, you find yourself trying to get away from the pain of bad feelings while at the same time clinging to those bad feelings for proof of inherent goodness. Ultimately, this compulsive relationship to moral doubt sends the message to your brain that thoughts about morality are codes to be cracked, problems to be solved. So, the brain faithfully performs its duty to help you by sending more intrusive thoughts and feelings your way.

But for ERP to be at its most effective, you have to expose both to the fear that you may be morally imperfect and also to the fear that you have inadequately addressed it. ERP for contamination fears involves exposing to triggering experiences (E) to generate the feeling of being dirty, but then intentionally behaving like someone who is clean (not washing hands and also cross-contaminating to other objects and environments). So, you get the dirty feeling, but you pair it with the behavior of a person who feels clean.

Catch and abandon any mental review of the event, especially any rationalizing over why the event occurred or why it won’t be repeated

Seek no reassurance about the meaning of the event or your characterFully engage in the present by actually allowing yourself to enjoy something (mindfulness is a major asset here). Remember, OCD wants you clinging to guilt, so embracing a joyful moment is an act of rebellion.Find activities to do that you imagine people do when they believe themselves to be good, innocent, or having served their time.

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not-close-to-straight · 4 years

Text

Falling (Chapter Two)

Welcome back to the story! Lots of questions answered here and probably a few brought up, but I had the most fun recreating our faves for this verse and I am literally foaming at the mouth wanting to expand on their stories!

FALLING MASTERLIST HERE

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

“My arc reactor is gone, but I have the scars from Afghanistan.” Tony said the words slowly, clearly into the quiet of his guest bedroom as the sun came up the next morning. “I still look the same age, I still have the gray hair, I still have the bruises from trying to deal with Cap and Thor in the woods the other day. I have all my memories, including the ones I’d rather not, I still know all the words to Back in Black and Shoot to Thrill. I don’t have an arc reactor but that doesn’t mean I’m not me, I’m still me.”

“It’s been at least thirty six hours since the wormhole.” he said next, running through the numbers in his head again, counting out the hours on his fingers just to have something solid to make note of. “Thirty six hours because Bucky and Steve who definitely aren't Captain America and a resurrected Sergeant Barnes found me in the later afternoon, then I slept through the night and most of yesterday, then spaced out again and slept all night.”

‘Spaced out’ wasn’t the right word though, the right word was dropped and that sounded like sub-drop and that sounded like what used to happen the few times Tony had gone to that club downtown and had the sheer misfortune of ending up with a shitty Dom that left him vulnerable after a scene.

The right word was dropped, and Steve and Bucky had helped Tony through it, Steve had actually gone down on his knees in front of Tony and held him and well, pigs must be flying, because Tony hadn’t ever thought he’d see Captain America on his knees.

He’d never thought he’d see Steven Grant Rogers attempting to meet him on equal ground and similar footing much less kneeling at his side and offering comfort but then again, this Steve wasn’t really Captain America, was he?

“Ever since Thor arrived on Earth and his bratty fucking brother followed him, it's generally accepted that worm holes are passages, doors between realms or universes or whatever we want to call them.” Tony kept reciting facts, knowledge, filling the silence with things he knew to be true so he wouldn’t linger too long on all the what if’s.

Everything was absolutely crazy right now but he was still Tony Stark, still a genius, he’d built computers as a damn toddler and took MIT by storm before he was even legal to drink. He could handle the science behind going into a wormhole above the Stark tower and coming out the other side into--

-- into this.

“Even the ancient Greeks thought there were parallel or at least alternate universes.” Tony breathed in and then out, in and then out. “And then Schrodinger said hey, maybe it’s not parallel, maybe they are simultaneous and that makes sense in a quantum sort of way. Simultaneous universes. I went through the door out of my universe and into a door to a different one and this is all happening at the same time everything is happening back home.”

“That makes sense.” He told himself again, and it made sense to Tony’s rational brain but it sure didn’t make sense to his emotions or his heart or his instincts that kept telling him to settle down and enjoy the change and to stop asking questions.

Now was not the time for his slightly hedonistic tendencies to make an appearance. Just cos he might be in an alternate, simultaneous reality with two figments right out of his unrealized wet dreams didn’t mean Tony should just lay back and accept it, right?

Right?

“Good morning, beauty.”

A part of Tony felt like he should be annoyed that neither Steve nor Bucky gave anything other than a warning rap at the door before they walked in. It was very Dom behavior, very ‘we do what we want in our house’ behavior and sure, that was valid but he still felt like he should be annoyed.

But the thing was, he wasn’t annoyed. Even with the questions swirling round in his mind and the facts that didn’t add up enough to ease the incredulity of the situation, Tony wasn’t annoyed when Bucky came in holding a cup of coffee and a donut in one big hand, and he definitely wasn’t annoyed by the pleased smile on the brunettes face when he saw Tony sitting up already.

Nope, not annoyed. Instead Tony was thrilled and exhilaration ran hot through his body when the Dominant set everything down and reached over to brush at his cheek, to tangle in his hair for a few seconds before letting go.

“How are you, baby doll?”

“Better than yesterday.” Tony’s breath hitched when Bucky pulled away, and the Dom nodded in understanding before sitting down next to him on the bed, budging up close until they were thigh to thigh and shoulder to shoulder. “Shit. Thanks. That’s um-- that’s good.”

“Sure thing, sweet thing.” Bucky answered easily. “Anytime you need me, you just let me know okay? M’more than happy to sit here with you like this. Need me closer?”

“No I think--” the Dom let his hand rest heavy and warm on Tony’s thigh and a ball of tension released in his chest, leaving him loose as he sagged into Bucky’s shoulder. “God, that’s good. Thank you.”

“I’ve got you.” Bucky was quiet a moment, then cleared his throat. “Listen, Tony. You don’t have to tell us much of anything about your past if you don’t want, not right now and not even really anytime soon. But for our own safety and out of respect for anyone who holds your contract, I gotta ask. Are you not wearing a collar by choice, or because of something else?”

“A collar.” Tony was a quick thinker, fast on picking up cues, faster with formulating bullshit and once he glanced at the thick ring on Bucky’s finger that matched what Steve wore, it took all of three seconds for him to realize that here Dominants wore rings and submissives… well submissives must wear collars.

Ownership, right? Submission and control, collars and rings.

And if Tony wearing a collar was a normal, expected thing then that meant most people identified as either sub or Dom which meant society was more than likely built on constructs along the same lines which meant Tony had either hit his head really hard or the world was suddenly tilted or alternate or--

--or oh fuck, parallel. Wormholes and parallel places and new realities oh my.

“I am not wearing a collar by choice.” he finally said, slowly and carefully as he thought about the easiest way to answer the unexpected question. “Not really my style. I don’t uh-- don’t have any other reason to not be wearing one. Nothing--” a quick glance at the Dom to read his expression and Tony finished, “-- traumatic. Just by choice.”

“Okay. Good job, thank you telling me.” Bucky picked up Tony’s hand and kissed his knuckles and a nearly embarrassing shiver rippled through Tony’s body at the open approval. “I’m sure you know why it’s dangerous for us to have you here if another Dom has your contract. Don’t think you aren’t welcome to stay if you’re in some sorta trouble, but I needed to check before Stevie gets any ideas about keeping you--”

“--keeping me?!”

“Don’t interrupt me.” Bucky ordered mildly and just like that, Tony closed his mouth. “Thank you. You’re very sweet. Stevie already wants you to stay, but he always acts on his heart before his brain kicks in so someone’s gotta make sure everything’s alright first. That someone’s always me. You know one time I had to grab him by the damn belt to keep him from leaping out a window after some guy who stole a friends purse?”

“I um-- I fully believe that.” Tony smiled a little. “Yeah, I find that perfectly believable.”

“Stevie’s heart is good but his impulse control isn’t great.” Bucky smiled too, but it was fond and affectionate and halfway to smitten. “So. You don’t have a Dom then. No contract out there we’ll be prosecuted for breaking or tryna interfere with?”

“No uh-- no contract.” Tony shook his head adamantly. “No Dominant. No.”

“Okay then.” Bucky pressed at Tony’s hand one more time before straightening up off the bed. “Get dressed and come out to the living room and see what Steve is painting. You need to drink some juice, have some breakfast and then we’ll figure out what to do the rest of the day.”

“Yes sir.” Tony said automatically and before he could think to take it back or even wonder where the hell it had come from, the Dom’s eyes flickered and a slow smile spread over Bucky’s face.

“You got no idea how much I love hearing that, sugar.” he whispered and dropped a careful kiss on Tony’s forehead. “Fifteen minutes in the living room.”

“...yes sir.” it came a little slower this time, but felt no less natural, no less right. “Fifteen minutes.”

Steve was painting when Tony came out of the bedroom exactly fifteen minutes later, eyes narrowed in concentration as he worked a shade of purple into a canvas covered in blue and grays, brilliant orange in the middle and rolling clouds all around a column and--

“What is that?” Tony blurted before he could manage to stop himself, before the reminder to not interrupt his Dom-- a Dom-- this Dom-- came to mind. “What are you painting?”

“Good morning, beauty.” Steve put the paintbrush down and swiveled in his chair to grin broadly at Tony, all focused intent and the sort of happiness Tony had never imagined seeing on Captain America’s face. “How did you sleep?”

“Really good.” Tony felt the open welcome like sunshine against his skin, and he returned Steve’s smile as big as he could before asking again, “What are you painting?”

“Don’t you remember a couple of months ago, that freak storm off the coast?” Steve went back to painting, picking up a small brush to dot silver through the lightning bolts. “Right here over Manhattan the weirdest clouds formed and everyone thought it was going to be a tornado and then it did this--”

He gestured to the painting, to the wormhole that looked an awful lot like the one that had opened above the Stark Tower and unleashed hell on Tony’s version of New York. “-- and the conspiracy theorists shrieked about wormholes and portals to different worlds, religious nuts screamed about Armageddon and the Anti Christ.”

“Scientists decided it just an unusual event caused by rapid storm building and of a funnel cloud trying to form but there not being enough pressure to stabilize it or something like that.” Bucky interjected, pushing a cup of orange juice into Tony’s palm and not backing away until Tony took an obedient sip. “But Stevie thinks it's a path to a parallel world. A door in the sky.”

“Really.”

“Just think about it.” Steve insisted and the other Dom laughed at him, tipped his chin up for a quick kiss and then went to get his coat. “No Tony really! Think about it! Parallel or alternate universes. Simultaneous time lines or like.. mirrored existences. What ever you want to call them, there’s gotta be places out there where everything is the same except for one tiny detail, right? Multiple copies of existence where one thing is changed and that changes the whole world?”

“Details like what?” Science Steve wasn’t a version Tony had thought to meet but the spark of excitement in the blue eyes sure was adorable. “What sort of things would be different?”

“Me with a beard, maybe.” Steve said immediately. “Or Bucky as a pirate. Or one where it’s still some medieval time period and we’re knights. Mermaids. Something in space with aliens. One with--”

“Stevie wants a universe for every one of his Halloween costumes!” Bucky called from the bedroom and Tony hid a laugh behind his hand when the blond Dom finished with a huff, “Or just anything different. That’s my point.”

“Maybe world where people aren’t designated Dom and sub?” Tony suggested and Steve nodded quickly. “Because that-- that would be weird, right? An entire existence where you guys didn’t wear those rings and I didn’t feel like kneeling every time you so much as smile at me?”

Bucky came back with his coat just in time to hear the comment, and the Doms exchanged a look Tony couldn’t quite read before Bucky asked, “You feel like kneelin’ for us, baby doll?”

“I uh--” Tony’s hand went to his neck like he was missing something, maybe even something like a collar and Steve’s eyes lit in anticipation. “I um--” he coughed. “Well I think--”

“Settle, sweetheart.” Bucky murmured after a moment of Tony stammering, and Steve agreed, “No rush, Tony.”

“Right.” shit. “Thanks.” Tony sat with his juice in the chair Steve indicated, then glanced between them and asked, “Can I know about you two? I feel like you are both… familiar… but I can’t seem to place the names.”

“You know us from the history books.” Steve began cleaning his brushes and missed the half panicked expression on Tony’s face. “Well not us but our Grandpas are pretty famous in military circles. We’ve got their names and Ma always said we were damn near doppelgangers for Gramps at enlistment age. You remember the old comic books about Captain America and the Howling Commandos?”

“I’m vaguely familiar with them.” Tony nodded like his mind wasn’t trying to explode. “Yeah.”

“Remember the stories about plucky sidekick Bucky Barnes?” Bucky added with a rueful smile. “All those comics were based on a super secret unit that kicked some serious Nazi ass back in the day. Captain Steve Rogers and Sergeant James Barnes, fuckin’ rabble rousers where they grew up in Brooklyn, crack shots and All American Heroes once they suited up and shipped out. Those comics were basically propaganda, but hey, whatever helps the war effort, right?”

“So you are both named after… Grandpa?” Tony guessed. “Carried on the family name and hopefully the honor. But you aren’t soldiers.”

“Grandpa Steve met and married Grandma Peggy.” Steve nodded and Tony sort of felt like he might pass out. Steve and Peggy got married? “Bucky’s Grandpa married Bonnie and they settled into the same neighborhood. Raised their kids together, and when the kids grew up and moved with their own family, me and Buck were always sent back for the summers.”

“You know how mowing giant yards with ancient push mowers and painting fences builds character, right?” Bucky rolled his eyes.“All it taught us to was get better at sneaking off to go swimming. That’s when we fell in love too, summer we were fifteen years old. Stevie’s scrawny ass was gorgeous even back then, so I sure I didn’t mind him stripping down to just skivvies to seduce me at the docks.”

“I wasn’t seducing you at the docks, it was ninety four degrees outside and I didn’t have a bathing suit!” Steve made an offended noise and Bucky only grinned. “Wasn’t like you objected anyway. Weren’t gonna let a thing like ‘Dom’s don’t contract with out a submissive’ stop you from putting a ring on my finger, huh?”

“Nah, babydoll, I sure didn’t.” Their kiss was packed full of sheer adoration, and maybe Tony should have looked away but somehow he knew it was okay that he was watching. His Doms-- er, the Doms wouldn’t be talking about this sort of thing in front of him if they didn’t want him to see how good their love was.

“I teach art at the college and before Bucky’s accident he worked as the conditioning coach for the football team.” Steve said next, easing back from Bucky’s next kiss slowly. “Now he’s mostly benched but they pay him a hell of a lot to write up strategies and plays and run the try outs.”

“You’re an art teacher.” Tony repeated, and in some distant part of his mind he wondered why all the things he’d read about his Steve Rogers, nothing ever mentioned that he’d been an artist. Had anybody actually known the guy, or had he gotten lost behind the shield? “And Bucky-- how did you get hurt?”

“Train accident.” Bucky rolled his shoulder and Tony’s eyes dropped to the few inches that were what remained of the Dom’s left arm. “We went upstate for a ten year anniversary celebration, figured we could just cuddle up in the sleeping car and watch the fall foliage roll by, but there was an engine issue and the train derailed. Not too bad of an accident all things considered. Stevie managed to get out with a few bumps and bruises, I ended up losing my arm.”

“Oh.”

“I’ve just got a bad track record with trains.” Bucky's smile was easy enough but Steve's eyes darkened in remembered pain. “I’m either getting food poisoning on school field trips, or getting stuck in the worst seat possible that time we took one through the Great Lakes.”

He shrugged. “I’ve got a prosthesis but it’s heavy and makes a weird noise when I try to move my fingers so it’s better off left at home. And since Stevie doesn’t care about the one arm--” Bucky raised his eyebrows and Tony automatically shook his head, he didn’t care about the arm, he couldn’t imagine ever caring about something like that.

“No harm no foul then.” The Dom shrugged again. “I’ve gotten used to it.”

“I could help you with a new prostheses if you wanted.” Tony blurted out. “I’m pretty mechanical and I could design something really nice for you. Not a problem.”

“Maybe another time, sugar.” Bucky winked and Tony blushed a little bit but his mind was already racing, already thinking up schematics and how hard would it be to convert the design of his suits arm pieces into a fully robotic prostheses and whether or not he could get the parts in whatever this version of the universe was…

“Tell us a little about you, Tony.” Steve finally covered up the wormhole painting and set it away. “Last name? Where you’re from?”

“Oh I’m from Manhattan.” Tony said automatically, then corrected, “But I’ve spent the last few years in Malibu, found myself in the uh-- Middle East. For a bit. Went to Monaco for a while too. I like to travel and my work in… IT… lets me do that.”

Both Doms made agreeable noises and Tony took in a quick breath before adding, “Last name is Stark. Tony Stark.”

His heart stuttered uncertainly when Bucky and Steve exchanged confused looks, and Bucky asked, “Stark. Why do we know that name?”

“Oh! Maria!” Steve snapped his fingers. “Pepper’s boss! Wasn't her husband’s last name Stark?”

“Right, Howard Stark.” Bucky nodded and then looked back at Tony. “Small word huh? You having the same name as Pepper’s old boss? You know who Maria Carbonell is?”

“Well uh—“

“No, he wouldn’t, not unless he’s involved in the art community or that scholarship they just set up in Howard’s memory.” Steve decided. “The only reason we know is her through Pepper, I don’t think the Dame Carbonell hangs out with regular IT guys very much.”

“Who—?” Tony wet his lips, feeling wholly unsteady over hearing several names he hadn’t expected to all in a few sentences. “Who is Pepper?”

“Pepper Potts.” Bucky supplied absentmindedly, as if the words didn’t make Tony’s heart clench in his chest. “You’ll meet her tonight at the gala. She runs Mrs Carbonell’s art charity auctions and since we’re friends, we all have to show up and pretend to bid on horribly overpriced art we could never afford.”

“And Pep--” God, Tony could hardly say it. “Pepper works for Mrs. Carbonell? What did you say about Mrs. Carbonell’s husband?”

“Howard Stark.” Steve confirmed. “Passed away a few years ago, there was big states funeral cos he’d built a bunch of children’s hospitals and came up with a new treatment for leukemia. Pretty big deal. He was a good guy and all of Maria’s money sure made it easy for him to change the world.”

“Oh yeah?” Tony’s throat closed up and he makes a mental note to look up more about his parents— about the Carbonell-Starks— later when he could do it without wanting to cry. “That’s good, that’s-- yeah. That’s good. So this gala thing you’re going to...”

“Yeah, sorry about that, honey. Pepper books us all a table every year and it makes her look bad if we don’t go.” Steve spread his hands apologetically. “Otherwise we’d skip and stay home with you, I promise.”

“Oh I’ll be fine by myself.“ Despite his reassurance, it made Tony feel warm, safe and maybe even a little cherished to know the Doms would rather stay home with him. It was nice to think he mattered beyond what he could provide a team, beyond what he paid for. He hadn’t contributed a damn thing to Steve and Bucky’s existence so far except drama and they still wanted to stay home with him.

“I’ll be fine.” he said again, and tried not to sound like he hated the idea. “I’ll probably just sleep.”

“You’ll come with us.” It wasn’t so much a suggestion as it was an order and even Steve looked briefly surprised at Bucky's tone. “We always have an extra seat in case Clint manages a date, but this year you’ll have it.”

“...Clint.” No way. “And who is Clint?”

“You’ll meet everyone tonight.” Bucky shoved his keys into his coat pocket “But Clint’s the only other sub in our group of friends, so you two will get along fine. Stevie, take Tony shopping for new clothes, I think Pep said the theme was red and gold? Make sure you get the right colors.”

“Yeah, Buck.”

“I love you.” Bucky pressed a long kiss to the other Dom’s mouth then squeezed at Tony’s hand. “I’ll see you both soon, I want you home before four thirty so we have time to get ready together.”

“Yes sir.” Tony said, and then, “Oh wait, I have money. I can buy my own things.” ...so long as the presidents are the same...?

“We’ll buy your clothes.” Steve waved him off. “Don’t worry about it.”

“No seriously, I’m pretty sure I have enough to—“ Steve’s eyebrows about met his hairline when Tony started to argue and he nearly choked on the words as his throat closed up.

Note to self, it’s basically biologically impossible to argue with my a Dominant.

Further note to self, I don’t want to argue with my Dom.

“I mean, you don’t have to do that.” Tony tried again. “I have money and I don’t need a chaperone to shop. I don’t want to cause any trouble.”

There, there’s a sentence he’d literally never said in his life.

“You’re no trouble ever, Tony. And we can afford to take care of you, so we will.” Damn Steve was Dominant and a thrill of pleasure raced down Tony’s spine. “And you don’t want to be alone, so I won’t leave your side.”

“Is it... obvious I don’t want to be alone?” By habit, Tony’s hand went to his hair to make sure it was in place, to his clothes to smooth them down. What had happened to his armor, to his persona, to his Tony Starkness?

“Sugar, it’s all right there in your eyes for anyone who cares to look.” Bucky said quietly. “You need to be held, you don’t want to be alone, and you’re just about desperate for someone to take care of you. And anyone who misses out on what a pretty sub like you needs is a damn fool.”

Oh.

“We don’t plan on being a fool bout you, Tony.”

Oh there was his armor, crumbled in pieces on the floor along with the rest of his misgivings about this world.

“... yes sir.” Tony whispered faintly. “I-- yeah. You could take me shopping.”

And Bucky only smiled over at Steve, then leaned in to kiss the beautiful sub gently gently.

“Good boy.”

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

Tony had made a point of not really walking next to Steve back in New York--er, back in his New York. It wasn’t that the super soldier had made him feel small, which was sort of true, or that that particular Steve had a way of talking that made you feel looked down on, which was also true, or even that Tony had some small man complex he couldn’t seem to overcome and Steve made it obvious.

No, Tony had made a point of not getting too close to that Steve because even though Captain America had long been his hero, there’d been a part of him that always resented the bastard for swooping in and stealing all of Howard’s interest years before Tony had the chance to try for himself.

He’d never measured up to Steve in Howard’s eyes, never was the man Captain America had been, hadn’t shown the courage tiny Steve Rogers had showed by being willing to do everything for his country.

Tony hadn’t ever measured up, and he’d been born already losing at a competition he’d never wanted and walking next to the Captain on the heli-carrier with his disapproving sighs and blatant irritation had brought all those feelings roaring back to the surface.

Forty something years old and Howard still managed to make him feel like shit.

But walking next to this Steve felt good. The big blond was so Dom-- and okay, the word was a little weird on Tony’s tongue but the more he thought it, the better it felt. Steve was so Dom that people parted when they walked down the sidewalk, the other submissives batted their eyes lashes and touched neutral white collars at their neck in an open flirt.

In some cases, the bolder submissives touched royal blue collars which Tony quickly figured out meant they were contracted. And judging by the jealous and almost angry looks the ring wearing Dominants cast their way, the flirting submissives were carrying on right in front of their partner and... well yikes.

But not all looks their way were angry, more than once a passing Dominant’s eyes slid to Tony’s neck and eyebrows raised over the lack his collar before an encouraging smirk tilted their lips. The third or fourth time it happened Steve simply cleared his throat and slipped an arm around Tony’s waist, met the next Dom’s eyes head on and tipped his head back in a clear challenge.

The Dom put a hand over his heart in what Tony could only figure was a show of respect, and moved right on.

“I don’t mind them staring.” Tony said softly once it was just them again. “It’s weird that I don’t wear a collar, of course they would look. It’s fine.”

“Dominants know better than to leer at another Dom’s sub.” Steve answered lightly, but his grip at Tony’s side tightened. “Doesn’t matter if you’re wearing a collar or not. You’re at my side, they need to respect that.”

And then after a moment, “Can’t say I blame ‘em though, I’d stare if a sub like you was walking around uncollared. Can’t help but hope.”

Can’t help but hope. It was clear approval from the Dom, a compliment on Tony’s looks and apparently how good of a sub he was and Tony had to swallow the urge to practically purr, so he coughed and changed the subject.

“So you and Bucky. Both Doms but contracted together.”

“Why do you ask?” Steve steered Tony into a store that looked and felt and was designed like Macy’s but just wasn’t quite Macy’s. Parallel universes, amiright?

“Just cos sometimes you seem a little--” Tony searched for the right word so he wouldn’t offend the Dom unintentionally. “--I mean it seems like Bucky is a little more--” don’t say subby. “-- Are you a switch?”

There, that was a word Tony remembered from his brief and less than satisfying foray into the Dom/sub scene back home. Switch.

“Are you a switch?” he asked again. “Because the way you are with Bucky sometimes…”

“In the most technical sense you could say I was a switch.” A firm hand at the small of Tony’s back had him turning towards the dress clothes. “But I’m all Dom, Tony. Even when I was tiny and scrappy, I was a Dom. Even years after contracting with Bucky. What I do with Bucky has nothing to do with my biology and everything to do with the ways we need each other sometimes.”

“So…” Tony stopped when Steve did, and tapped at a shirt in his size so the Dominant could pick out an appropriate color. This wasn’t really new, Pepper had always picked out all his clothes so it wasn’t even a submissive thing to let Steve do the shopping, more of a fully bored with clothes thing. “So you are both Doms but you sub for him occasionally?”

“When one of us needs it.”

“Does Bucky ever need to sub?”

“No.” Steve held up two shades of red and then tossed the lighter one aside. “He needs submission, some times I need to submit. Two different needs that we can fill for each other because we love each other. We complete each other.”

“Huh.” Tony’s heart sank a little and he tried not to think about why. “So um--”

“You’re asking because you don’t see how you would fit into our lives.” Steve stated rather than guessed and Tony blinked at him in surprise. “You don’t see how a full submissive like you could compete with the bond Bucky and I already have, and if I’m willing to be submissive every once in a while, you don’t see why you’d be needed.”

“Well I mean…” Tony let the words trail off into a helpless gesture. He had thought about how he would fit in with these two Dominants, how he’d fit into all the dynamics of this world, but Steve made it sound like he and Bucky had already decided Tony fit just fine.

And that was-- that was nice but it was also a matter for maybe later cos right now all Tony could think about was his version of Steve and how tortured the Captain had seemed, how withdrawn and tense like he couldn’t even breathe.

If his universe’s Steve and Bucky had been more like this Steve and Bucky and not Cap and Sarge like all the propaganda said, maybe that’s why Steve had seemed like he was grieving, why he was cold and distant.

Bucky balanced him, saved him, gave him the freedom to just be Steve and then the Captain woke up and didn’t have anyone.

Steve hadn’t had anyone and Tony had Rhodey and Pepper but he’d began pulling away from them too, losing himself in Iron Man and the spiraling reality he’d flung himself into and maybe that’s why Steve had picked up the shield again, maybe it was the same reason Tony had flown up and up into the wormhole and thought dying would be easy because after losing everything and feeling like your grasp on reality was slipping, maybe dying was the easiest thing to do.

Maybe Captain Rogers had picked up the shield hoping this time would be the last time.

“Easy easy.” Tony didn’t realize he’d gone sad and quiet until Steve was cupping his jaw and leaning in to press their foreheads together. “Settle down, sweetheart. Come back to me.”

“I’m-- I’m here.” Tony grabbed on to Steve’s wrist and squeezed and the Dom breathed out a pleased sigh. “Sorry, I just--”

“You don’t have to be sorry.” Steve shook his head. “Just come back to me. Tell me what you were thinking.”

“I was thinking--” about you. About Bucky. About my other life. About Pepper and Rhodey and how I’d been so willing to die because I knew everything would be fine without me. “I was thinking about how hindsight is twenty twenty and wishing I’d seen a few more things before it was too late and--”

“Grandma Pegs always said that just cos hindsight is clear doesn’t mean we have to feel guilty about the things we didn’t see.” The Dom was so solid, and Tony leaned in further, let the blond take his weight. “Don’t tell me you’re feeling bad bout something? Not now baby, not when we’re havin’ fun together.”

“No, no it’s just--”

“Never mind, then.” There was a layer of steel in Steve’s voice that settled the issue, no room for argument, no need to explain and for once in his life Tony didn’t take the chance to argue, to insist on finishing his point.

Written right in your eyes for anyone who cares to look, Bucky had said and maybe it meant that instead of seeing hesitancy as weakness like Howard had, like the press had, like Obadiah had, maybe Steve saw Tony’s hesitancy as uncertainty and a little bit of fear and a whole lot of regret.

Never mind sounded like a brush off from someone that didn’t care but from Steve it sounded like a solution, like a relief, like forgiveness and like a rescue.

Never mind.

“Thank you.” Tony whispered and the Dominant smiled and dotted a kiss on his nose before pulling away again.

“So you’ll meet Pepper and Clint tonight, and you’ll most likely get to meet Thor.” Steve changed the subject and Tony was grateful for it but then his mind skipped to uhhhh what demigod now?

“Thor?” he asked and incredibly, Steve motioned to a poster hanging in the men’s underwear section and yep, there was Thor. Big as life and damn near naked, hair in intricate braids to his waist and arms tattooed up in Nordic designs, an axe slung over his shoulders and a hammer sized bulge in his barely there briefs and...and… honestly what in the hell?

“Yeah, we met him at our gym and became friends.” Steve went back to picking out shirts for Tony. “But then someone took a picture of him working out and next thing we know he’s getting modeling contracts offered from a bunch of different companies and now I can’t even buy socks without having an almost naked Thor grinning at me.”

“What-- how-- I--I--” Tony didn’t want to be gaping at the God of Thunder’s thighs but he also didn’t really want to stop. “You’re friends with him?”

“You know, Bucky gives me hell when I look at Thor’s posters too long, wait till he hears you prefer your Dom’s lumberjack-y too.” Steve cracked a grin and for the first time in a very long time, Tony blushed scarlet clear to his ears. “I think you’ll have to settle for clean cut and All America with us, sweetheart. We don’t channel Viking God Wood Cutter quite as convincingly.”

“It’s the hammer.” Tony said faux seriously. “It really emphasizes his um-- his personality.”

“That’s what I tell Bucky!” Steve crowed and Tony laughed out loud and Steve laughed out loud and it was the first time Tony had laughed in so long he’d almost forgotten how good it felt.

But then the Dom hooked an arm around his shoulders and pulled him in with a murmured, “Pretty sub, your laugh is gorgeous.” and oh suddenly that was much better than just laughing.

“I like your laugh too.” Tony admitted, realizing first that he’d never heard Captain America laugh, and second that Thor’s hammer was making him feel ridiculously subby for entirely un-Dom related reasons. “But we should move on before I consider going to dinner with Thor and not you and Buck.”

“The hell you will.” Steve was still grinning but his eyes sparked possessively, and his hand slid down to clasp the back of Tony’s neck. “We aren’t letting you go, sweetheart. Not any time soon.”

“Yes sir.” Tony breathed and the Dom left the softest possible kiss on his lips.

“Good boy.”

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

“This shirt looks great on you.” Bucky finished buttoning up his own dress shirt and then moved to finish doing up Tony’s too. It seemed so natural for the Dom to help that Tony didn’t even blink when Bucky pushed his hand away and threaded the buttons himself one handed. “I like the gold stripes baby doll, makes your eyes sparkle real pretty.”

“Yeah, Steve said it was the best one.” Too focused on breathing in the Dom’s cologne and studying the fine lines in Bucky’s brow, Tony forgot to cover his chest and when Bucky’s breath caught sharp and stunned, he realized his mistake.

“Oh wait--” he made a belated movement to cover the thin material of his undershirt and the scars showing beneath, but Bucky shook his head and raised his voice, “Steve? Stevie!”

“Hey, what’s the matter?” Tony had only a moment to internally laugh about how even this Steve preferred to wear red white and blue before the other Dom was in his space too as Bucky pulled Tony’s undershirt aside to show him the scars. “Sweetheart, what happened?”

“I got hurt.” Tony waited for the old defensiveness to rise up bitter in his throat, the shame and embarrassment that followed anytime anyone got an inadvertent look at his chest.

Sure without the arc reactor he didn’t look quite so alien but there was no denying he’d been torn apart and sloppily stitched back together. The scars were thick and still raised after a few years, scattering out across his sternum like shrapnel, centered ugly over his heart where the damage had been the worst.

It was ugly and he waited to get defensive or want to curl up and hide but it-- it didn’t happen. Tony didn’t feel the need to run, or cover up or even explain because Steve wasn’t staring at the scars he was staring at Tony, searching his eyes for-- for something and apparently finding it because the big blond murmured hoarsely, “Oh no, honey. Oh, I’m so sorry.”

“Damn sugar.” Bucky swallowed hard and held onto Tony’s shirt tight while Steve spread a careful hand over the scars. “Looks like someone broke your heart real bad, huh?”

“...you could say that.”

“Don’t worry.” the Dom finished softly,. “We’re never going to let that happen again. You’re safe with us. Promise.”

“Okay.” Tony closed his eyes and leaned into the warmth of Steve’s palm, stuttered through an uncertain breath when Bucky kissed his temple.“...okay.”

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

“Bucky! Steve!”

Somehow, Pepper was even more gorgeous in this universe, every inch as perfectly put together as always, hair like sunset and eyes like emeralds and a smile Tony hadn’t realized how much he missed until it was fully focused on him as Pepper gave him a quick once over.

“My oh my, Clint will be thoroughly jealous you two managed to bring the prettiest date in the city!” Pepper touched the ring on her finger that marked her as Dominant-- honestly, no surprises there-- and then raised her eyebrows pointedly at Bucky and Steve. “Introduce me and allow me to say hello?”

Tony had never heard Pepper ask for permission a day in her life, in fact lately it had seemed like he was the one asking permission for things and being told lovingly, exasperatedly, “No, Tony.”

He’d never heard her ask for permission and he expected it to sting like a bolt to the chest to see the woman he loved up close and in person in this place, to see her in a world where he didn’t exist and she was apparently thriving, stunning and smiling and Tony expected it to hurt.

But it didn’t, because nothing about the last few days had hurt in the least, so when Bucky and Steve both wrapped an arm around his waist and tugged him in, Tony only smiled and waited for the introduction of, “This is Tony and he is with us. Sweetheart, this is Pepper Potts.”

“Tony.” Pepper didn’t reach to shake his hand or move to kiss his cheek like his Pepper had done so many times before. Instead she put her hand over her heart and dipped her head in acknowledgment, and since Tony had seen a collared submissive do the same as they’d walked through the doors, he inclined his head as well.

Steve turned into kiss his temple and murmured, “Good boy. Thank you.” while Bucky just smiled in approval and Tony tried not to flush from the praise.

“Lovely.” the pretty Dom decided, talking to Steve and Bucky again, though she sent a thoroughly smitten look Tony’s way. “Absolutely stunning in fact. What a darling submissive. Tony, if your Doms allow it, I’d very much like to sit near you at dinner, I think the two of us could be great friends.”

“I think the two of us could be great friends too.” Tony echoed and Pepper’s smile stretched wide and gorgeous before she saw someone else she knew and with a quick wave, hurried away on those sky high heels.

“She’s nice.” the sub whispered thickly. “Have you known her long?”

“We used to be neighbors in the same apartment building.” Bucky explained as he pointed out their table. “Worked the same schedule so half the time we got home all together. She works with the art foundation so she spent some time at the university and since we were neighbors she made sure Steve’s department got extra money.”

“She’s not usually this stiff either.” Steve pointed out. “Real rich folks tend to hold onto all the Old World dynamics like not talking to subs and being formal with Doms and even though we attend this stuff every year, it still weirds me out.”

“Once she gets to the table with everyone, she’ll settle down though.” Bucky pulled out Tony’s chair and motioned for the sub to sit, then pulled out a chair for Steve too. “The menu is set for tonight but I’ll get you both drinks. Tony, water to start and then you can have whatever you’d like.”

“Yes sir.”

Water was a good choice, because Tony would have actually died inhaling straight whiskey when Thor showed up at their table complete with booming voice and eyes that still flashed like lightning and a suit that cost at least three thousand dollars stretched across impossibly wide shoulders.

And then there was Natasha, as wicked and mysterious as always in a dress more leather than cloth, the ring on her finger carved into a black widow’s hour glass. In this place she ran both a club for Dom’s looking for a night of anonymous release, and a safe haven for submissives who needed a place to stay and judging by the looks she got from both Doms and subs alike as she crossed the room, the redhead was well known for it too.

“We’re pretty sure she’s killed bad Dom’s before.” Steve muttered under his breath while Tony tried hard not to stare as the intimidating Dominant burst out laughing at whatever Thor said. “They come to her club, next thing we know a submissive is at a safe house and a Dominant with a history of abuse has gone missing.”

“No one does anything about it?” Tony whispered and the Dom whispered back, “Would you?”

Tony shook his head and Bucky picked up his hand to kiss his knuckles, and the conversation moved on.

Clint was a submissive, hilarious and sweet, blond and gorgeous and came running around the table and dodged Steve and Bucky to shove a kiss right onto Tony’s lips, bending down from a shocking height of nearly six foot four and then laughing when Tony tapped curiously at the polka dot band-aid at his nose.

“Yeah, I’m not one of those pretty, graceful submissives like you are.” Clint shook his hand animatedly. “I walked into a door at Tasha’s the other day, she needs to stop making things to her height, damn Dom is practically an elf.”

Natasha laughed and then snapped her fingers and Clint dropped into the seat right next to her, clearly happy with the woman he’d chosen as his, and Tony couldn’t help cataloging all the behaviors, all the same patterns and jokes and the way this Natasha and Clint acted like his Natasha and Clint and hindsight--were his two in love too?

Bruce Banner looked all the same, but he had to stop and sign autographs as he crossed the ball room and once again Tony was grateful for water when Bucky casually mentioned, “Doc has got something crazy like seven Ph.D’s but on the weekends he does that theatrical wrestling, you know? You ever heard of Doctor Hulk? That’s him when he’s not in the ring.”

“Doctor Bruce Banner wears tights and unitards and does scripted TV Wrestling on the weekends.” the sub said doubtfully. “Really?”

“Doctor Hulk!” someone called and Bruce turned and flexed, growled “Hulk Smash!” and that corner of the room erupted into laughter.

“Oh my god.”

But then there was Rhodey, and real tears came to Tony’s eyes when Steve introduced him as “Colonel James Rhodes, formerly of the United States Air Force, currently one of the top stunt pilots in the world and clearly the snappiest dresser among us.”

“Yeah yeah, shut the hell up.” The Colonel set down a flamboyantly decorate helmet, then raised his arms to show off his obnoxiously patriotic uniform. “I had to fly here from Vegas after a show and since Pep’s already gonna have my head for not wearing the color theme, maybe you don’t test my patience, Stevie.”

{Rhodey’s outfit, Courtesy of Oceans 13 ‘Basher’ because I just couldn’t help myself}

“Aw c’mon Rhodes.” Bucky leaned back in his chair and grinned. “I think those leather pants look right nice on you.”

“Better on my ass than yours, Bronco.” James shot back, and then with a look towards Tony, “Well well. This one looks like trouble.”

“You don’t even know me!” Tony protested past the lump in his throat and the Dom retorted teasingly, “Yeah but you’re sitting between these two! Trouble!”

Everyone jeered and hollered and joined in on the ribbing and Tony sat back and let it all wash over him.

He’d never had this, never had so much fun with the group of people called the Avengers. He had never hurt himself laughing over Clint’s jokes or seen Pepper blush the way she did when Natasha accused James of stealing the pants from Pepper’s closet, and when Tony slipped up and called the Colonel Rhodey, Thor slammed his whiskey glass downed and boomed, “He shall be called Rhodey!”

The evening was noisy and the evening was fun and Tony’s mouth hurt from grinning, his eyes hurt from blinking back tears every time Rhodey got snarky and Pepper sighed in exasperation, and every time Steve or Bucky leaned in to whisper in his ear Tony let himself slip a little closer to their sides until he was surrounded by warmth.

“Are you alright, sweet thing?” Bucky asked when the final course was cleared and dessert showed up at their table. “I know this group can be a lot, and it’s been a tough few days for you.”

“No.” Tony whispered. “No, this is fine, this is fine, I’m okay.”

And it was okay, because everything about this evening was amazing.

This was Tony’s entire world right here at the table. Things were a little different sure, but all the best parts were here and more importantly, all the best parts of his entire world were smiling and talking and teasing each other and teasing him. The world wasn’t ending via wormhole and aliens and Pepper wasn’t crying because of Tony again, Rhodey was trading stunt pilot stories with Clint who was apparently circus-y in this world and Thor was tossing back shots with Natasha and Bucky and Steve...

...well Steve’s hand never left Tony’s thigh, rubbing warm and solid circles just firm enough to let him know he was there. And Bucky wove his fingers into Tony’s hair then let his palm rest heavy at the base of Tony’s neck and the sub didn’t even have to think for a second about dropping his head back and closing his eyes.

Tony missed the knowing looks around the table when Steve pressed a kiss to his pulse point, he missed the way Pepper smiled in approval when Bucky bent close to whisper how good Tony was being in a hushed sort of tone meant for lovers, meant for partners, meant for Doms and subs.

”You wanna go home, sweet thing?” Bucky murmured and Tony shook his head.

“Not yet.” he covered Steve’s hand with his own where it rested on his leg. “No this is fun, I don’t want to leave yet.”

“We’ll stay as long as you want.” the other Dom decided. “So long as you’re happy, honey.”

“I’m happy.” Tony looked around the table again, lingering on Clint’s blond hair and Bruce’s sort of hilariously high pitched laugh now that he was four drinks in. “Yeah. This is good. I don’t want to leave.”

Bucky kissed his cheek and went back to talking with Thor, Steve signaled for another round of drinks and moved to wind his arm around Tony’s waist and Tony sat there and drank it all in...

...and kept thinking if he could design heaven, maybe it would look an awful lot like this right here.

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

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dystopian-penguin · 4 years

Text

Is this a real life story? Is this a fic concept? Who knows 🤷

But here’s a very long account of... something.

This isn't a gay disaster story. It's a gay sad ending story. It's a gay "self-homophobia is very real and realistic” story, and not in the "gay panic is kinda cute" way.

It all started 14 years ago (yes that long), when I was still deeply in the HP fandom and even more deep into reading James/Lilly fics in ff.net all day long. For the first time in my entire life I decided to sort by “all works” and not just “completed”. I know it might sound super silly, and even a bit cliche considering this is tumblr and we live and breath fics, but that single decision literally changed the course of my life. And unlike what I usually do, I am not exaggerating. I found this one fic that must have had, like, 20 chapters and almost 100k words and dived into it without looking for rocks in the bottom. Long story short: the last posted chapter ended on a huuuuuge cliffhanger, like the very next moment after the kiss, and it left me completely destroyed.

So I did what I always do, what I am known on tumblr and my small social circle in here to do: I went to scream at the author.

But I wasn’t content to just scream in the comment section, oh no. For all I knew the bitch wouldn’t even see it, the last update had been from like 8 months previously. So I stalked her ff.net profile and found her MSN email. Yes, the story is THAT old.

My literal first words to her must have been something akin to “OH MY GOD I HATE YOU SO MUCH”, which yay for the beautiful poetic irony that the universe crafts at times. She took it in stride because, let’s face it, a shitton of people had already greeted her like that by then. And we started talking, and it was easy and fun. We had a lot in common, more or less the same type of interests, the usual you’d expect if I had met her on tumblr even. We must have talked like 3 hours straight on that first day, and I left feeling pretty good cause I had made a new friend. Not only that, but right off the bat I admired her so much. Not only because she was talented as fuck (imagine writing a 100k unfinished fic at only 15 y/o), but also because the more I talked to her the more I could see just how fucking cultured she was and how intelligent and ect. She came from a wealthy family and such a different reality from me. She had been abroad, in fact she usually travelled abroad with her family like twice a year, she was fluent in english even then (at that point I was I intermediate at best), not to mention german because her family was german. She was 15 (a year older than me back then) and trilingual and could write wonderfully and I was fascinated by her instantly.

Something else worth of note was that her profile pic on the day we met had been set to a close-up of a blue eye. I must have asked on that very same day whose eye was that because damn if it hasn’t been the prettiest blue I’ve ever seen. I mean, I hadn’t told her that, but I was curious enough to ask. And as everyone and their grandmother might have guessed by now, it was hers.

Somehow (and I truly don’t know HOW), we got into the habit of talking every day, or at least very close to it. I got to know about her daily life, just one state south from where I live and sooooo much colder than what I had ever experienced. She went to a swiss school, fully bilingual, was the first in her year in the IB program which for the love of crap I didn’t even know it existed back then. Might not ever have known if I never met her. Eventually we exchanged phone numbers, and back then SMS messages were like 1,50 bucks for inter-state ones. Our mothers were not happy.

Around a year and a half went by this way. She became my best friend, my rock. We both had a shitton of problems in your high school lives and in our family lives, and we were so relieved to know there was someone out there we could share those with. In the meantime she ended up breaking up with her boyfriend, ironically just a few months before I had my very first kiss. When she broke up with her boyfriend she was absolutely devastated (they had been together almost a year or so), and relied on me a lot back then. Which I was more than happy to support because for the first time in my life I felt like I belonged somewhere. I felt like I was actually part of someone’s life. I didn’t feel like I ever bothered her, like I was ever intruding in her life. I felt like I was truly part of her world, like she actually remembered my existence when I was not around, and at now-16 years of age that had literally been the first time I had felt that. I never had a true friend before her. Not sure I ever did after her either.

On easter 2008 we finally convinced our moms to let us meet. Her family had a whole goddamn country house with a huge plot of land, so it was decided I was gonna visit her first. So I got semi-sedated and got into my first plane ride EVER, and for those of you that are reading this and know me (although I doubt anyone is reading at all), you know how terrified of planes I am. You know how BIG of a gesture it is for me to get into a fucking plane for the first time in my life for a person.

I already knew she was pretty. I mean, we had talked on the webcam a couple of times before (just a few times because the internet back then was really terrible). The blue eyes I mentioned, and the most fucking beautiful silky blonde hair you’ve ever seen. But when I saw her the first time on that airport it still took my breath away. Even more, what truly surprised me, was the huge smile she gave as soon as she saw me out of the gate and she rushed to hug me. I was paralyzed. I mean yes I was happy and hugged her back, which was a huge deal because back then I was not touchy feely at all (and she was VERY). But I was paralyzed. Because I had never in my entire 16 years of age seen anyone smile that big or that brightly at seeing me. Hell, I suppose I had never seen anyone smile that brightly at all. As the day progressed she was so legit happy that I was there, and I could never fully wrap my head around it. We drove to her house and her mom took the long way just so they could show me all the interesting spots in her city, and she shared tidbits of her daily life that I still didn’t know, despite us being so close, because those are the things you only learn by actually being next to the person irl. Later on she introduced me to her two best friends in school, and we all decided to watch a horror movie.

Yes, it’s THAT cliche.

Now, you see, I’m absolutely fucking impervious to horror movies. Yes I get jumpscared just as much as anyone else, but I don’t get scared. So I was sitting there a bit lowkey bored, narrating the entire plot of the movie and what would happen a few scenes before it did because the movie was just that easy to guess. And she had taken complete ownership of my left arm the entire time, being half super scared and half impressed I could guess every single thing on the plot. Later on she apologized for not letting go of my arm because she knew I wasn’t as touchy feely as she was, and I was once again taken aback because I come from a ridiculously touchy-feely country and NO ONE ever apologizes for it or respects my boundaries on it.

The next day we wake up bright and early to go to her ranch-thingy. She slept on top of me on the car almost all the way there. I must have woken up like a whole hour before her but didn’t move at all.

I’m a city slick. I’m a huge city slick, through and through. Which means I am both fascinated and absolutely terrified on any plot of grass bigger than a garden. And her country house was fucking amazing. I had only experienced the true freedom of being in nature a few times in my life, and she made sure to show me every nook and crane of the forest surrounding it. Because yes it was a forest and not a jungle like where I lived, and that made it all the more magical.

But the truly one magical thing in the entire 4-days weekend was the stars. You see, I am absolutely in love with the stars. It’s stupid to say something like this when I was retelling the greatest love story of my life, but the stars are my one true love. I got my first telescope when I was five years old. My mother cannot for the life of her explain where I got this obsession from. She always said I was already born that way. So I find myself for the first time in my life with the least amount of light pollution I’ve ever been subject to in my entire life (even nowadays). For the first time in my life I has actually been able to see the Milky Way with my own two eyes. And what made everything even more impressive was that it was a full moon, and the night sky still looked as incredible as it’s supposed to look. Honestly it might have been a great contender to the beauty of her blue eyes.

The moment I remember the most is us laying down on some beach towels (no idea why they had those in the countryside), stargazing for hours at end. By then we were two full states to the south of mine, so I believe the technical definition of what I was feeling is fucking freezing my inexistent balls off. I had gotten dressed in just some jeans and a tshirt way before the sun set, and I was dammed if I was gonna interrupt our stargazing to go put on some decent clothes. I remember her asking a few times if I was cold, and I also remember myself lying through my teeth saying I had gotten used to it by then. Blatant lies, my nipples could cut through fucking glass at the moment. But I wasn’t gonna interrupt it because it was just the two of us on a grassy clearing, her family was at least 200m away and we couldn't even hear them anymore and it was just us and the stars and her hands were so close to mine that I could feel the heat (the only source of it for my beach-town ass I suppose). It was the perfect fucking moment. The moment most people dream of having their entire lives. I have no idea how long we stayed there, but it was a few hours for sure. Her mom had to call us back inside, and nothing broke my heart more. We talked about anything and everything. I told her what I knew of astronomy and I could see for the first time I was fascinating her with knowledge. Because I had always felt and will always feel like a peasant in the presence of a princess when it comes to her. With how cultured and educated and just fucking smart she always had been. But as I told her of the constellations (sometimes grabbing her hand to point to the stars and make her spot them better), and proclaimed my love for the night sky, she listened. She listened and I had never felt heard before in my life. She listened and I felt I had managed to make her fall in love with the stars a little bit by just talking about them.

She listened and I felt I had managed to make myself fall in love in her a little bit by just seeing the way she looked at me as I talked.

All good things come to an end and time had come for me to go back home. I will never forget how she hugged me goodbye on that same airport. Where I had seen the brightest smile on my life and now I could see she was holding back tears for me. Because I was leaving. I was important enough in someone’s life that they were about to cry because I wasn’t going to be around anymore. She way she whispered “I’m gonna miss you so much” on my ear, on such a low note I am sure it was just so her mother wouldn’t hear her, and her voice will haunt me for the rest of my life. She told me a few days later that she did cry on her way to school that morning.

After this it was near impossible to not be with her at all times. We texted constantly, and used to talk like 2 whole hours on the phone before bed. Once again I must remind you this was 2008 so it was no cheap business. Her mother started to try to separate us a bit, insisting she didn’t contact me as much, even tho I was sure the one who could not afford those phone bills, not her. It all culminated on what was ironically (or perhaps planned by her mother?) brazilian Valentine’s day (we are the only country in the world that celebrates in on St. Anthony’s day, which is June 12th). It was the first day in almost two years we didn’t talk at all, because of how much her mother had nagged her about it. The next day we talked as if we had been separated by a war for a decade.

I’m gonna take a break here to let everyone know that no, I did not think I was in love with her back then. I don’t think she knew either, but it’s hard to tell.

Her mother planned her entire july winter break to the minute just so she could spend the least amount of time in my house as possible. We got 5 days instead of the previous 4. But her mother came up with a ridiculous amount of trips for the family. She visit 3 different countries (and a whole different state inside her own country) within 30 fucking days. That’s how bad it had gotten then. Our SMSs had to be cut down to just two or three a day because of it.

But it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter because when she arrived at my house (her family had insisted in meeting mine before letting her stay) I was able to see from three floors up how brightly she had smiled at seeing me again.

I’ll make this part short: we stayed cooped inside blankets the entire time, playing on my PS2. It was so ridiculous that my mom, maaaany years later, told me she usually left the house for hours at time just to give us an opportunity of finally doing something about our very obvious feelings. Unlike the trip we took to her ranch, this one was filled with 3am deep existencial talks. And unlike the other trip, we spent the whole time sleeping on the same bed. Not a whole lot happened other than us dancing around the obvious feelings and how to deal with being so close to each other.

Nothing beside the very last morning together. I remember always waking up after her, because that’s just how we were. I remember she was already up, reading this book in fucking german of all things. It had been the first day of the entire week we had a meager ray of sunshine. And the way my window and ourselves were positioned, the sun was shinning directly on her. I woke up to the vision of an angel. I had never seen hair in such a warm bright color. I had never seen eyes that were the living embodiment of a spring afternoon sky. I woke up and her propped up on a couple of pillows, reading under the weak morning sun was the first thing I saw. It was the first thing I saw and I could swear I was still dreaming.

Because for the first time in all this, I could not contain and muffle the voice inside my head that was screaming: I want to wake up next to this every single day for the rest of my life.

It was the last time I woke up next to her for the rest of my life.

To my credit I did shake off my daze from the sight quite fast. I had gotten so good to drowning out these feelings that I was great at putting my poker face back up. We talked, we had breakfast, we let ourselves feel a bit sad about her leaving.

Then, just about half an hour before we actually had to go shower to take her to the station, it happened. The one moment that made me feel confident this all wasn’t just in my head. It all wasn’t just wishful thinking of a lonely pathetic girl who got way too bullied in high school.

We were having an impromptu pillow fight cause why not. That’s how girls who are secretly in love handle their feelings after all. It’s universal I think. And, well, on the overall 9 days we spent together irl I never actually beat her once because I’m just that much of a noddle. But this one fight we were both in bed, with weak footing and etc. You can see where this is going.

So on a scene to rival any anime, or that one gif of girls playing handball that fall on top of each other, she fell on top of me. Well, did she fall? I don’t know. For all I know, she planned.

And we had the moment. The gaze. Those few indescribable seconds of your life that you’re always gonna remember like yesterday, no matter how old you get. She had each of my hands pinned to the side of my head, and at first I thought we were still fighting so I just struggled and laughed and was saying stuff like “get off me ya psycho!”. But then I looked up. I looked up and.

And then I felt it. I felt everything her eyes were telling me. She wasn’t playing with me anymore. She was staring at me as if she already knew it was going to be the last time. She was staring at me as if it was a love story because it was. She was staring at me as if her entire existence, as if the whole oxygen on the earth itself depending on my presence.

She was staring at me like I has never been looked at before, or since. Even with a 3-years long relationship I had muuuch later on. No one had never, or will ever, look at me the way she looked at me.

And I froze. I froze because I had no idea what else to do. I froze because inside my head back then this was still wrong. Girls should not kiss. Girls should never kiss.

It was wrong.

It was so wrong, but nothing, not a single piece of bigot ramble ever uttered in history would make me feel more scared than losing my best friend. Nothing in the world scared me more than losing her.

Could I cross this boundary? Did she want to? Or was it just a spur on the moment thing?

But then she stared at my lips and I could not help but lick my own. Out of instinct, out of craving, out of love.

To the risk of getting an angry mob to my house right now, no, we did not kiss.

In fact, I dont quite remember the next few seconds at all. It had been single the most intense moment in my life at this point. It is still one of the most intense moments I’ve ever experienced. I completely blanked out of how I actually got pulled out of it and back into the land of living. Next thing I know we are sitting on opposite sides of the bed, trying to move away from the awkwardness. We did manage, in a couple of minutes. and things went back to normal between us.

But things would never be back to normal within me.

I’m gonna take a pause here to point out I’m bisexual. So like every bisexual, I am a very confused person. Cause you see, the moment you figure out you're bisexual it’s so much more confusing than figuring out you're fully homosexual. Because in the moment, things don’t just click. Things dont just start to magically make sense. I was 16 and I had absolutely liked guys before. Was it with this intensity? No because I was fucking 16. She was the first person I was been truly in love with. But I know it in my soul that if she was a dude I would love her with the exact same intensity. This particular discourse took me another three years to solve, but I digress.

And then she left.

She left and, like I said, her mother had programed her entire july milimetrically so we could be as far apart as possible. She left my house straight back to her ranch, not even her own house, And they have no internet there, so no MSN. Just a single 30-minutes phone call a day, for the 4 days after we had spent the entire week cooped up in bed inside blankets and playing lame-ass RPGs. And then right after that she left for germany for two full weeks. But before that particular trip, she did manage to get home. She got home to a letter of her grandma that read...

Well to be honest I cannot tell you what it read exactly. Because she was extremely vague about it when telling me. But it was enough to destroy her. It was enough to make her think that her grandma would not want anything to do with her anymore and it was based off somewhat new events. It doesn’t take a fucking genius to figure out the full contents of the letter. Her family is from the brazilian Bible Belt. But back then, at 16, confused as fuck, and already preemptively heartbroken, I legit had no idea what it said. She was vague and I didn’t want to pry. I just wanted to make her stop crying. I just wanted to put that beautiful smile back in her face but on that day I could feel her slipping away for the first time.

The rest of the story takes place in just a bit under two months. Maybe 6 weeks at most.

She goes to germany and finds a boyfriend, as one does. She leeches on this boy like a lifeline, but never stops texting me our 3 international texts we were allowed daily. In fact, the first thing she did after kissing him was pulling off her phone as texting me.

You can imagine how well this guy takes it.

Now, she goes back to brasil and this guy actually lives somewhat close to her. It’s a doable relationship. Once they both have access to internet and MSN again, and she is fast to introduce us, so happy that both of the most important people in her life are meeting. Even tho they had been together for like 3 weeks at this point.

I’m ok with it because, well, I still hadn’t figured myself out. I know no one will believe this, but I honestly did not feel jealousy. In fact, it was almost relief. Relief that I would not need to look into my feelings any further than I had back in july. I was happy for her. She seemed genuinely happy with this guy, and so was I.

And then Independence Day weekend comes and hell starts to... well, not break loose, but certainly get weaker on the seams. In here Independence Day is on September 7th, but both on my city and hers there's a city holiday on the 8th. On that year it ended up getting us a 4-day weekend again, and obviously I thought I was the one who was gonna be invited to visit her. I has been counting on it, planning for it.

Two weeks or so before that she informs me that she wants to invite her boyfriend over instead of it, which is like. Ok. Fair. But for the first time in this entire story I felt jealousy. Because that ranch, those stars, that sky... it was our place. I did not wanna share those experiences I had with her with anyone else. But I kept quiet of course, because how could I not? I tell her “yeah it’s a bit upsetting because I was hopping we could see each other, but I am genuinely happy you get to spend time with him!”

She ghosts me in that week.

To this day, 12 years and 2 months later, I do not know why. I do not know how. I know her grandma called again when she learned the boyfriend was gonna come over and not me, but that’s all.

She ghosted me before ghosting was even a thing. So I had no other social parameter to deal with the situation. I will never forget the absolutely heart wrenching pain I felt when I figured out she had blocked me on MSN. It’s indescribable.

It’s indescribable because she was the first person I felt like actually gave a flying fuck if I lived of died, if I was happy or if I cried. And she had up and decided to fucking cut me out her life without a single fucking word of explanation. One night everything was fine, we even had a group chat with her boyfriend. The next day she is gone forever. I don’t know, nor I think I will ever learn what triggered it. What was the last fucking draw, the last fucking prejudiced word directed at her that made her do it.

My world had been full of color, full of life, and even if literally everyone around me in real life would be so much happier if I didn’t exist (back then I DID NOT get along with my mother), she had seemed this entire time to be so much happier with me around. She was the one person who liked my existence. And literally overnight, I wake up and my world is empty. My world is empty and my air is missing and I don’t fucking know why.

It’s been 12 years and I still don’t know why.

Her boyfriend harassed me a bit back on orkut. Like, I have no idea why. It was unprompted. But it does give you a big fucking clue does it now?

I haven’t gotten a single word from her ever again. I know she’s alive, that’s not the fucking point of the story. I know because I tried to contact her again through every fucking means possible. I even sent her a letter of all things for fuck’s sake. When facebook came along I found her there too and sent her a message. Once 3 years after the fact, and then again 6 years after the fact. That was the last time I tried contacting her.

I cannot say I was “faithful”, so to speak. I cannot say she has been the only thing in my mind. I cannot say that I have not loved again, because I have. I had a serious 3-year relationship, as I mentioned. I had actual gay disasters stories in between. She has not remained the foremost thing in my mind. She has not remained my one true love. There were times where I spent months without thinking about her. Even silly crushes are enough to stray my thoughts away, to stray my heart away

But what worth are those times if I always go back to thinking of her as soon as I see myself without someone? What worth are those times where she is not in my mind, if she had never left my heart to begin with?

What worth is forgetting about her at times when she is my default setting?

I know what you're thinking. “you’re not in love with her, you’re in love with the idea of what could have been”. And you’re absolutely right. I know you are. I’m fully aware of it, of the implications of it, not only on my love life but my mental health.

But she has been the single most influential person in my life. She was the one that got me to writing. She was the one who made face my mother and have The Talk we needed for fucking 16 years about who my father was. Fuck, she is the sole responsible for setting my life on that path, and all the domino effect of events that happened because of the decision of talking to my mother about it. She was the one that made me figure out I was bisexual. Not a lesbian, definitively not straight, but not gay either. Bisexual, out and proud.

She was my first love.

She was my first love and she is the one that makes me give some credit to the saying “at the end of your life you will see you’ve fallen in love with the same person over and over again”.

She was my first love and she makes me go fucking crazy enough to give the whole “soulmates” concept a decent thought, because this cannot have been natural. Loneliness cannot explain the entire thing. It cannot explain how ridiculously drawn I was to her right away. Attraction doesn’t explain it either. It cannot explain how insanely synced up I’ve always felt to her. How insanely connected.

I’m not gonna lie, I loved my ex. Truly and deeply. They were the only person to ever treat me respect, and I felt almost as connected to them as I did to her. Almost.

If we are getting technical, I felt, like, 95% synced up with them. Which is more than the vast majority of humankind can only dream of feeling.

But it was not 100%.

There has only been one person in my life that I have felt 100% connected with. One person in my life I have not been able to shake away, have not been able to get over. Oh I have moved on. I have moved on and moved back in and then moved on again. Many times, over and over.

But I have not gotten over you. I will never get over you. What happened. How it ended. You were my biggest heartbreak. You were my biggest love story, and I didn’t even get to live it.

You make me so illogical that I sincerely hope there is a next life out there. One we can meet, sit down, and talk.

I’m sure you are a completely different person right now. I am a completely different person too. And it is insane, it is illogical, and it is immature to think that these two completely different people would still have any vestige of a thing in common like we did as kids. Because we were kids. We were kids and now we are both adults, and have a single damn thing changed?

A whole fuckton of them changed. Seasons changed. Years changed. The entire fucking world changed. I have changed more than you can possible imagine a person would in 12 years.

But you being the default setting of my heart has not changed. No matter how “unfaithful” I’ve been to you. No matter how much I will keep on living not being attached to you. No matter how much I know at some point I will forget you, forget this feeling, and bask into the pleasure of a new love. No matter how much at some point I will surely think “wow, what a crazy bitch I was back then, with all these feelings for a random girl who certainly doesn’t even remember I exist”.

And that’s one of my biggest fears you see. Cause for me you are half the fucking book. For me you’re the constant element that comes back when sea is calm and things are ok.

And I fear that to you I was nothing more than a line, maybe a throwaway paragraph in your life.

#my stuff #my writting #gay disaster

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