Tumgik
#my plate ended up with a pile of peppers & onions
najia-cooks · 1 year
Text
Tumblr media
[ID: Five large, enclosed bao piled on a plate. The topmost bao has been opened to show a bread-like dough texture and a vegetable filling. The bao are garnished with chopped chives. End ID]
Bánh bao chay (Vietnamese vegetable dumplings)
Bánh bao are an iteration on the Chinese da bao (大包) brought to Vietnam by Cantonese immigrants. Like da bao, bánh bao are commonly filled with some combination of minced meat, Chinese sausage, and hard-boiled eggs; however, some versions of bánh bao are also made with Vietnamese vegetables, herbs, and flavorings. Vegetarian bánh bao (bánh bao chay) may have no filling, a filling consisting of a variety of vegetables, or a filling of sweetened beans or sweet potato.
This recipe combines Vietnamese vegetables, herbs, spices, and sauces with Vietnamese meat substitutes to make a well-rounded filling that's equal parts umami and fresh. The yeasted, enriched dough is tasty, fluffy, and light, but still has enough structure to hold up against the filling.
Recipe under the cut!
Patreon | Tip jar
Makes 16-20; serves 6.
Ingredients:
For the dough:
4 cups + 2 Tbsp (500g) all-purpose flour
2 tsp (7g) active dry yeast
7 Tbsp (90g) granulated sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp (10g) baking powder (optional)
2 Tbsp (16g) cornstarch (optional)
1 - 1 1/4 cup (135-295 mL) lukewarm soy or oat milk, or water
1 Tbsp cooking oil
The basic components of this dough are flour, yeast, sugar, salt, oil, and milk. The baking powder is added to help with leavening; the cornstarch works to create a light, fluffy dough that will not become soggy when filling is added.
For the filling:
1 large carrot (100g)
4-inch piece (120g) cassava root / yuca
1 cup (100g) shiitake or wood-ear mushrooms, diced
4 large pieces (50g) sườn non chay, or 1/2 cup diced or crumbled chả lụa chay
1/2 cup water + 1/2 tsp vegetarian 'chicken' broth concentrate (optional)
50g tofu skin (đậu hủ ky)
1 red onion, minced
5 cloves garlic, chopped
4-5 chives or scallions, finely chopped
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/2 tsp sugar, or to taste
1/2 tsp salt, or to taste
2 tsp bột nêm chay, ground to a powder (optional)
1 1/2 tsp fermented bean paste + 1/2 tsp light soy sauce (or 2 tsp vegetarian fish sauce)
2 tsp vegetarian oyster sauce
1/4 cup soybean oil, peanut oil, or other cooking oil, divided
Sườn non chay (roughly, “vegetarian ribs”) is a meat replacement made of textured soy protein. It may be found in bags online or in the pantry / dried goods section at your local Asian grocery store—the bags will be labelled “sườn non chay” as well as “vegan meat slice,” “textured soy bean protein,” “vegetarian food,” or “vegan food.” Most sườn non chay are large and pale in color, but they sometimes come in "beef" or "pork" styles—the difference is not the flavoring but rather the size, shape, and coloring of the pieces. In my experience, the "beef" ones are more darkly colored, and both "beef" and "pork" styles are smaller in size and thinner in shape than the non-specific ones, which I often use to replace chicken.
Chả lụa chay is a vegetarian version of a Vietnamese pork sausage. It can be found in the form of a large loaf in the refrigerator section of a Vietnamese or Asian grocery store. It will be labelled "chả lụa chay" or "gio lụa chay," as well as "vegetarian pork roll," "wheat meat," or "vegetarian food."
Đậu hủ ky, or tofu skin, is prepared by taking the film off of a batch of tofu as it sets. Tofu skin may be purchased fresh or dried, in sheets or in sticks: for the purposes of this recipe, any kind will work! Chinese tofu skin produced for sale abroad may be labelled "dried beancurd sticks."
Bột nêm is a Vietnamese seasoning sold in powder or granule form. Vegetarian ("chay") versions of the seasoning may contain shiitake mushroom, lotus seeds, carrots, tomatoes, and kohlrabi, as well as salt and MSG. It can be purchased in pouches or boxes from an Asian grocery store, or you can use any other vegetable stock powder.
Fish sauce and oyster sauce are common inclusions in pork fillings for bánh bao but are often simply omitted from vegetarian ones. I've used vegetarian substitutes for these ingredients—if you don't have vegetarian imitation fish or oyster sauce, just increase the amount of salt, sugar, and bột nêm to taste.
Instructions:
For the dough:
1. Heat 1 cup (135mL) non-dairy milk to lukewarm in a saucepan or in the microwave. Stir in the yeast to dissolve. if you’re not sure your yeast is alive, proof it by allowing to stand for 10 minutes—it should foam.
2. Add the baking powder, sugar, and salt and whisk to dissolve.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together flour and cornstarch. Pour in the milk mixture and mix well to combine. Add additional milk 1 tsp at a time if it remains too dry to combine. The dough should be slightly tacky but not sticky.
3. Add oil and knead by hand until dough is smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise in a warm place for about 3 hours until doubled in size. If you live in a cold climate and don't have a proofing drawer, heat your oven on the lowest setting for a few minutes, turn it off, and then proof the dough in the oven.
For the filling:
1. Prepare the proteins. Soak the tofu skin (if you're using dried) and sườn non chay in cool water for about half an hour until rehydrated (or simmer them for a shorter amount of time). They are fully hydrated once flexible and a couple shades lighter. Gently squeeze the water out. Dice tofu skin; rip sườn non chay into small pieces lengthwise and then dice widthwise.
2. Prepare the vegetables. Peel cassava root and carrot. Cut both into a fine julienne, or grate them. Dice the mushrooms; mince the red onion; chop the garlic.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
3. Cook the filling. Heat oil in a large skillet on medium. Add the garlic and sauté until fragrant.
4. Add the red onion and continue to sauté until fragrant and slightly softened. Add black pepper, bột nêm, and salt and allow to cook another 30 seconds.
5. Add carrot, cassava, mushrooms, chả lụa chay (if using), and tofu skin and stir to combine. Reduce heat to low and cook, stirring often, until tender. Remove from pan.
6. If using sườn non chay: in the same pan, fry sườn non chay in 3 Tbsp of cooking oil on medium until they’ve absorbed the oil. Whisk 'chicken' stock concentrate into a small amount of hot water, then add the stock into the pan. Cook until mostly dry.
Soaking in water, deep frying in oil, then simmering in a flavored broth is the typical Vietnamese preparation of sườn non chay. The simmering in stock could potentially be skipped if you're including vegetarian oyster and/or fish sauce, but personally I find that dried soy products benefit from being soaked or simmered in something other than water.
7. Mix sườn non chay in with other filling ingredients, salt, sugar, sauces, and chives.
To assemble:
1. Turn dough out from its proofing bowl and gently divide into two even parts. Cover the half you're not using and gently roll the other out into a log of even width. Use a dough cutter or sharp knife to divide the log into 8 or 10 even pieces.
2. Place each disc of dough on its side and roll it out into a circle about 5" (13cm) in diameter. The edges of the circle should be much thinner than the center, since the edges will be bundled up and folded together.
Tumblr media
3. The folding method is the same as for baozi and momos. Hold a wrapper in the palm of your non-dominant hand and add a couple tablespoons of filling (if you’re not experienced with making dumplings, it may be easier to add less). While pressing the filling down with your non-dominant thumb, use your other hand to pinch pleated folds in the dough all the way around the circle of the wrapper. Remove your thumb and make one last fold to close the bao. Pinch firmly at the place where all the pleats come together (where the drawstring would be if it were a drawstring pouch) and give a small twist to seal.
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
4. Set each finished bao on a small square of parchment paper on a baking sheet or in a steamer and lightly cover with plastic wrap or a light kitchen towel. Continue folding until you have formed all of the bao.
To steam:
1. Place a bamboo steamer in the bottom of a wok or large pot, and fill the wok with enough cool water to cover the bottom rim of the steamer by ½". If you've added baking powder to your dough, you may add a splash of vinegar to the water to help neutralise the dough's pH and combat yellowing of the dough.
If you’re using a metal steamer, tie a kitchen towel around its lid to prevent condensation from dipping back down onto the dumplings. Carefully place the bao, along with their parchment paper squares, into the steamer, leaving an inch or so between each one. They will expand as they steam!
If you don’t have a steamer, place a small bowl in the bottom of a wok or large, deep pan or pot. Place the dumplings, with their parchment paper squares, on a plate and place the plate on top of the bowl–the plate should fit inside your pot. Make sure that you can cover the plate and dumplings with a lid. If your lid is domed, there is no need for a kitchen towel, since the condensation will run down towards the outer rim. If your lid is flat, tie a tea towel around it just as you would with a metal steamer. Fill your cooking vessel with 2 or so centimeters of cool water.
2. Raise the heat to high and allow the water to come to a boil. Once boiling, lower the heat to medium-low and cover your steamer or pot. Steam the dumplings for about 8 minutes, until the dough is tender and cooked through. Keep finished bao warm in a covered casserole dish in an oven on low while you steam the others.
234 notes · View notes
yourqueenb · 1 year
Text
So last night my bf and I tried to make this dish from Slow Burn
Tumblr media
So I thought I’d share how it came out with you guys 😅 Pics/videos, a couple of recipes, and some notes from me under the cut!
In hindsight, I probably should’ve taken more pics and videos throughout the process, but this is a really involved dish. And since it was my first time making it, I was more concerned with getting everything right. But here are the apricots plumping in a mixture of honey, water, and cinnamon and the almonds browning in olive oil on my stovetop. The apricots especially smelled delicious 😋
Tumblr media
And here’s a video of all of the ingredients simmering together so that the flavors could really meld! (Excuse the noise in the background. My bf started playing 2k as we got closer to finishing 🤦🏽‍♀️🙄😂)
Now we didn’t have couscous or chickpeas as some of the recipes I looked at suggested because we couldn’t find them at our local grocery store. So we ended up eating this with plain white rice. And with that in mind, plus the fact that I’m not an actual chef, I didn’t know how to plate this nicely. So it kind of just looks like a pile of mush 😭 (The chicken was super tender though so imma just chalk it up to that 👌🏾) But if anyone actually wants to see it plated, here you go…
Tumblr media
I promise it tastes way more delicious than it looks 💀 If it didn’t take like an hour and a half to 2 hours to cook, I’d make it again in a heartbeat. So overall, not a bad suggestion from the Choices cookbook. I just wish they would’ve provided actual recipes for everything instead of just general descriptions.
But if anyone’s curious, here are the links to the two recipes I used as guidelines while making this. (Fair warning: You need a lot of seasonings. We have a whole cabinet full and still had to buy a couple — namely, saffron and coriander powder).
You don’t have to follow them to a T. For example, I didn’t use exact measurements for all of the seasonings. I just eyeballed it and worked mainly off of the way everything smelled. Also, I saw a few other recipes that mentioned other ingredients like onions or peppers, so I took from those. (We chose to add sweet onion). I didn’t make the chicken on my stove top because I find it hard to get the chicken to cook evenly that way. So I air fried it. And lastly, the order in which I did everything was a bit different as well. But aside from all of that, the recipes were still really great for helping me figure out how to make this. So I hope I did it justice 🙏🏾
Let me know what y’all think or if you’ve made anything from Slow Burn 😌
16 notes · View notes
restorativemeal · 15 days
Text
Menu Twenty-Nine
Menu Twenty-Nine from Rowan Bishop and Sue Carruthers' "The Vegetarian Adventure Cookbook
Tumblr media
Tagliatelle with Primavera-Yoghurt Sauce and Nuts: tagliatelle, butter, onion, garlic, capsicum, mushrooms, broccoli, zucchini, carrot, white wine, fresh basil, oregano, honey, fresh tomatoes, parsley, salt, pepper, cashews, plain yoghurt, cream, parmesan. 
Fettuccine with Spinach and Walnut Sauce: fettuccine, spinach, butter, olive oil, garlic, walnuts, ricotta, salt, pepper, pine nuts. 
It was the last week of February, one that disrupted my notion of rewriting each year because there hadn’t been a February 29 in four years. The Twenty-Fourth dinner party was to fall on the 28th, the day in February that would usually signify an end, it did last year, for two reasons but the second I won’t go into. The aim of completing the Vegetarian Adventure Cookbook was becoming unclear. Most things were becoming unclear. I was once again unsure of the menu and the week that I was heading into. At the same time, I was experiencing delusions of grandeur, declaring to friends that I had “rid myself of my defeatist attitude”. I knew it was the end of February only because I could not, in good conscience, list it above January in my iPhone’s note of month rankings. The dinner tonight would be the first held in the new dining room.
Supermarket shopping was confusing this week as the list was long and did not include only ingredients from the cookbook, as it usually did. On Wednesday afternoon I noticed I had left broccoli off of the list. I walked across to the fruit and veggie store, in tiny shorts and birkenstocks. The weather was still hot because there were still two days of summer left. When I paid for the broccoli the shopkeepers closed up around me. The fruit and veggie store could not be the only stop I made that night, when I got home I believed that I was prepared to start until finding there was no plain yoghurt in the fridge. Admitting defeat, I drove to the supermarket in the same outfit. When I walked through the entrance I hit the sensor gates and set an alarm off but didn’t look back.
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Lethal preparations
Finally home, I was motivated only by the fact that I had to begin. I had said that dinner would be 8 PM but now needed to push this back to the regular 8 30 PM. I chopped vegetables and got tear gassed by onions. I took a photo of my face on SnapChat and wrote across it “ong these onions” with a spelling mistake because my eyes stung and streamed a cloudy liquid. I collapsed, frail and defeated, on the floor of the new lounge. The largest pan handled the ingredients for the Fettuccine with Spinach and Walnut Sauce, while the Baccarat cooked the vegetables for the Tagliatelle. I boiled water and salt in two different pots for two types of pasta that to me looked exactly the same. Liquids were added to the respective pots, where they simmered simultaneously.
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Week Twenty-Four, the Baccarat pot, and a new dining room.
The guests came through, six of them. Four of them were privy to the information of the dining room change as two of them had partaken in the move, and three of them were in the group chat in which the change had been organised. I refuse to remove people from the chat when they move out. Two of them, had the group chat on mute, and therefore were not aware the change had taken place. The only guest who had no way of knowing was disappointed by the new lounge, as I had marketed it as a “suprise” and they thought it meant I had invited a shock guest.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Menu Twenty-Nine served on Week Twenty-Four, in the new dining room.
When I served dinner in the new dining room, its faults came to light. It felt like a drag, shepherding the guests from the lounge into the room. Walking the dishes past the bathroom into the new dining room. I felt the walls that I abandoned watching me as my guests piled the pasta on their plates. It felt awkward, eating in the confined space I had once slept in. I was tired of pasta. 
Looking at February critically, to justify its placement on the month ranking list, the sameness between menus, took away any individuality to the menus. This was Menu Twenty-Nine, but it could have been any other number and I would not have noticed. The fettuccine and tagliatelle were indistinguishable on each plate. It’s difficult to learn anything, practical or otherwise, when you engage in the same thing over and over. Vicious circles. On Thursday morning, the extra day of the year, my MacBook Air was seemingly dead, it would not turn on. 
0 notes
reportshrine05 · 2 years
Text
What Is A Full Service Catering Company?
The contract states there is a $1.00 per slice cake-cutting service and that an automated service cost of 18% might be added to the whole invoice. You’ll know how much your project prices even earlier than booking a pro. My wife and I loved her firm, attention to element and all dishes! Give us a couple of particulars and we’ll match you with the best pro. You’re able to reduce stress and maximize the event’s success. Additionally, the shows at the company’s events are often interactive and encourage fun and participation for friends. I even have never had such a pleasant expertise working with a gaggle of people. 外燴 and her staff are all so very type, professional and accommodating. You need catering transport provides to get your prepared meals off-site with out dropping temperature. This is why insulated meals pan carriers are a caterer’s greatest good friend. They may be loaded with meals pans of varied sizes and used to maintain food sizzling or chilly. Great taste is the name of the game and we're dedicated to stepping up to the plate. That's why we put together all of our meals with contemporary, locally sourced components. One Hundred Easy Get Together Meals Ideas You'll Make All The Time I serve most raw however I cook issues like asparagus, cauliflower and broccoli. Doesn’t get more Aussie than a pile of unpeeled cooked prawns and dipping sauces! Including the RecipeTin Family Special dipping sauce. 😇 For a complicated possibility, strive theseindividual Prawn Cocktails. Curious about what number of ounces of cheese per individual will suffice? If you’re pairing yourcheese board with meats, you’ll want much less Brie, cheddar, and Gruyère than you would if you’re serving the cheese solo. These vodka jello shots are tasty and can give simply the correct quantity of buzz to your guests! They’ll certainly add extra shade and excitement to any celebration. Here’s another candy treat that may absolutely be successful to your dessert-loving guests. You’ll find my best party meals concepts within the publish below. They embody spectacular platters, tasty finger meals, delicious dips, and extra. They’re the recipes I make time and time once more for holiday events, cookouts, and birthday celebrations, and each is all the time a hit. Whether you’re internet hosting a gathering or in search of a dish to pass, I’m certain you’ll discover one thing you love. Hors d’oeuvres are acceptable for celebrations in any location. We offer vegetarian, kosher, gluten free, and vegan options for our menu. Our professional cooks handcraft each chew, creating a beautiful presentation and chic style. With a menu spanning from mini cheeseburgers to imported Brie cheese, our catering firm has the right snacks or bites on your subsequent occasion. Two cubes of beef tenderloin, green and red peppers and recent onions. Fresh tomatoes, basil, purple onion and additional virgin olive oil, served on toasted Italian bread. Wholesale Restaurant Supplies Online It also can get financial savings on water and vitality used by dishwashers and may eliminate the necessity to exchange reusables that are broken, broken, stolen or accidentally discarded. In a restaurant, cross-contamination is the switch of bacteria or different dangerous microorganisms from food, gear, or individuals, to meals. This can occur during any stage of meals manufacturing, together with the packaging of food for takeout and delivery. In the wake of COVID-19, many restaurants closed their eating rooms and pivoted to takeout and delivery, using instruments like TouchBistro Online Ordering to maintain each workers and customers secure. Just think about how rather more appealing takeout sushi is when all of the rolls are sitting right-side-up versus once they all get smushed together. The tricky half is, there are several components to think about when selecting your restaurant meals packaging. For the restaurateurs on the other end of this equation, the best way to resolve this type of scenario is to begin with correct packaging. The proper restaurant meals packaging helps keep your food heat, intact, and ready-to-eat out of your kitchen all the finest way to your diner’s door. If you are not positive if the container you would possibly be presently packaging your food in is ovenable, check the product to see if it is labeled, "oven-ready." Remember, not all products will state whether or not they're oven-ready. Solo paper scorching cups feature a smooth rolled rim that offers rigidity to the cup and ensures a leak-resistant lid match and are available in a selection of inventory or customized prints to complement any operation. Hugh More and Lawrence Luellen invented a disposable paper cup referred to as the 'Health cup' or 'Dixie cup' that can be disposed after single use. By the Second World War, packing supplies like plastic and Styrofoam had been out there. It initiated the vicious cycle of manufacturing extra disposable plastic food packaging that ended up in landfills and oceans. These containers provide an eco-friendly solution to packaging customers’ carryout orders or leftovers. Our choice of deli and food trays and lids covers a extensive range of uses, from catering purposes to cafeteria service and concession snacks. Never run out of provides by stocking up on trash and waste baggage for your workplace or facility. Make it easy to throw things away and recycle with our selection of containers. You're sure to find one that's the proper size and shape for your place of business. We have trash pickers and grabbers, and even trash compacting equipment when you're serious about sustainability. Restaurant Menu It's some of the various nations on the planet, with every region and subculture having its own must-try dishes. India is an actual paradise for meals lovers, together with street meals fanatics! Check out our collection of Indian street food recipes, appetizers, and sharable bites, from samosas to pakoras to sweets like kulfi and gulab jamun. Toss your favourite pasta and veggies into an anything-goes pot of scorching hen soup. Add the entire remaining greens besides the green beans, and produce again to a simmer. Cover and simmer over low warmth for forty five minutes to an hour. Hi Anonymous ~ Would you thoughts contacting me via e-mail, please? (The tackle is in the Contact Me data near the top.) I’d prefer to know your name and where you live. Thanks a lot -- and thanks for reading Special Request, every Wednesday within the food section within the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Our number of catering beverage service provides includes all the tools needed to hold and serve your event’s featured drinks. Deliver meals and other requirements out of your prep kitchen to an event location with these catering storage and transport provides. We have all of the disposable catering supplies you want to make cleanup straightforward, from dinnerware and utensils to aluminum chafer pans and food trays. 200 Occasion Catering Concepts 2019 Version We are right here to help you in all your catering wants. Our great occasion coordinators are here to walk you thru your menu to ensure that your occasion is a private one that reflects your individual style and culinary tastes. Whether you are in search of catering for a couple of folks or a crowd, we have quite so much of menu options particularly for company shoppers including field lunches and meeting breaks. Multiple menu options make it simpler to satisfy all your visitors, significantly these with meals allergies are specific diet restrictions. Cons – While meals prices may be reduced, liquor costs tend to be larger than with other service options. Guests expecting a full meal may be disenchanted, so it is very important spotlight cocktail service in your event invitations. Combine this with a “captain’s call” where servers notify each desk when it's their turn to proceed via the buffet. There might not be sufficient space in the room to accommodate both the buffet traces and the aisle house necessary to permit enough site visitors move if you have lots of of guests. Consider the setting and dimension of your gathering and who will be attending if you're planning an event. You may find yourself with a less-than-stellar evaluate when you select one format over the other without contemplating all of the angles. It’s also a lot easier to create aninclusive menu, friendly to all of your vegan-with-a-gluten-intolerance pals and nut-allergy relations. Copyright © 1999 – 2019 GoDaddy Operating Company, LLC. All rights reserved. Wedding Catering This is an awesome alternative that turns mini parts of french fries into hors-d'œuvres which would possibly be individually dished out. Using this tray makes them cell and creates a stunning show. The newspaper wrappers are a cute twist too and might be branded to your occasion or a reprint of a significant day in historical past. This is one of the finest catering ideas to convey out the love for desserts in your friends. Finger meals, especially those you should buy in bulk from shops like BJ’s Wholesale and Costco, are less expensive than serving a standard meal. Plus, if you display them buffet-style and skip having them passed by a wait employees, your price range will stay even additional intact. Lastly, by serving appetizers you also won’t must be concerned about visitors becoming too full after cocktail hour to take pleasure in their meals during dinner (it’s common!). If you and your associate are open to untraditional catering choices, it can save you a ton of money by taking a special route with food. From meals vehicles to creative takes on bars and menus, listed beneath are some concepts to get your brainstorming began. Brown Brothers Catering provides a variety of delicious, high-quality catering hors d’oeuvres that look nearly as good as they style. Think of your favorite lunch place and start constructing a menu just like the one they provide lunchtime eaters. If you don’t assume you can make a menu just like the eatery’s, ask them to cater a lunchtime marriage ceremony reception for you! Buying in bulk AND on a lunch portion can prevent tons of cash while nonetheless feeding your guests a great meal. Preparing meals for a big crowd including kids requires some additional consideration. Since it is such a large crowd, applying majority guidelines so far as style preferences is essential. Pleasing children’s’ palates can be achieved by using few and easy elements. Here are some pleasant catering setup ideas to create a surprising catering display. It’s a good suggestion to include fruit in your dessert options for many who choose one thing with less refined sugar. But throwing the fruit in a bowl with some prongs is so very boring. Instead, take a glance at this dramatic presentation using a tree. You can use a variety of different string or ribbon that goes along together with your theme. Invite friends to drag or snip the candy treats they need out of your tree. Turning Side Dishes Into Primary Dishes 2) This choice will incur the prices of extra wait workers than a buffet meal but still much less than a "Plated" meal. 2) This choice nonetheless may not be probably the most appropriate when you all of your guests must be completed at the very same time. 1) Plated Meals may have further costs included as a result of increased, mandatory wait staff as there are payroll and gratuities involved for the wait employees. Also, you'll probably be renting the plates and settings which may additionally come with a rental, set-up and cleansing fee. It is very common to see coffee companies and snacks all through the day as properly Continental breakfasts, lunches and sometimes dinners following a "Social" Cocktail Hour. In that method, no guest is left without an entrée in entrance of them when the rest of the desk is served. Have mini chalk or whiteboard food marker signs available together with some cardholders or thick ornamental toothpicks. Make branded allergy playing cards along with your emblem on them that warn friends of widespread allergens and meals issues in certain dishes. Bring some seasonal decor pieces corresponding to wreaths, pumpkins, and dried flowers alongside to spruce up blank areas between tabled dishes. Order further ornamental fruits similar to pomelos with the stems and leaves attached for practical snacking options plus a contemporary pop of color on otherwise bland tablescapes. You might want to take away a few of the duties of the desk servers by having a couple of roving server with bread, condiments, and wine. The only exception to this rule might be weddings as a result of some receptions are designed to be informal. Otherwise, at all times suppose twice about asking well-dressed attendees to navigate by way of a buffet line and carry their very own food again to their tables. Also, formal sit-down occasions will often include some kind of presentation during the dinner. You don't want visitor wandering backwards and forwards to the service buffet during an aria or speaker's speech. Deciding whether or not to supply your guests a sit-down catered dinner or a buffet isn't only a matter of personal desire. For a plated service, the whole expense will come down to your visitor listing and how many tables have to be served. You'll also should spend money on place cards or make use of an escort to guide guests to where they're supposed to sit down. Buffet servers will need the identical pay and tip consideration however there are fewer hands to fill. One consideration for buffet strains is the time the server is engaged on the road. 69 Simple Summer Salad Recipes But you needn’t be caught between cloth or the original surface. Consider issues like beans, kernels, or easy stones as a backdrop for your meals. This simple DIY concept incorporates sandwich fixings. Everything is labeled on butcher block paper however the same factor could possibly be carried out with chalkboard stands. Use rows of similar-sized apples topped with glass to create a surprising special shelf on your buffet. With this concept, give each visitor their very own picnic basket. Inside they've every little thing for their own little spread. Notice the paper straw just isn't solely a cute design, nevertheless it also won’t endanger native wildlife or the setting. Although they’re fairly sufficient to take a seat close to your cake pops, they are for a really completely different course. If you don’t have much floor space or are on the lookout for ways to include a buffet desk, with out the table, go wild with this swing invention. And because your attendees wish to have one thing completely loopy to indicate their peers that couldn’t make it to your event. We’ve already talked about how meals is extra fun on a stick however the base you use to support your sticks can completely remodel your catering display. For instance, if you’re hosting a book launch or tutorial event this is a nice tie-in. S’mores convey out the kid in all of us however most occasion planners don’t take into consideration them for an indoor event.
1 note · View note
his-mochi-cheeks · 3 years
Text
A Long Night
Tumblr media
Genre: fluff? Slice of life?
Word count: 1200ish
-
The light tippity tappity sound coming from the laptop's keyboard as your fingers did their dance across its face did nothing to help your mood. In fact, it seemed to cruelly mock you as it was getting late and you were nowhere near as close to finishing the expense reports as you had hoped to be. Earlier you told yourself that if things went well you would be able to close early and enjoy a comfy night in, maybe watch a movie snuggled up on the couch with your boyfriend who was home on break.
Well, it was the end of the day. And you weren’t done. Things hadn’t gone well.
It was going to be a looong night.
You initially didn’t hate the idea of having to work from home. You could work in your fluffy pjs if you so felt like it. You could also pick your nose or a wedgie without the risk of embarrassment from a co-worker seeing. Of course working from home had its perks! And yet nothing could have prepared you for the amount of work that seemed to pile to new heights with each passing day, as well as the system crashing whenever it felt like it (which usually just so happened to be when you were about to finish an excruciatingly long report). It could not be helped, so you furrowed your eyebrows, pushed your glasses up the bridge of your nose, and continued your typing, trying to ignore the annoyance that had slowly boiled and come to a simmer within you at your current situation.
How much time had passed since you last ate? How many hours since you got up to stretch? Whats the last thing you looked at that wasn’t a bunch of numbers or an infuriating email from an incompetent co-worker? Really, you didn't have a clue. At this point of your exhaustion the digits were starting to shamelessly waltz all over the spreadsheet as you read the same line for the 5th time.
“Drink” you vaguely hear a deep voice say.
With a hand rubbing at your forehead and eyes fully focused on the screen you hadn’t noticed the cup of water that suddenly appeared on the table next to your laptop. No, you just mindlessly grabbed and gulped half the glass down, realizing only then how thirsty you actually were.
"Thanks" you mindlessly mumbled, your sense of urgency to finish your task not allowing you to take your eyes off the computer screen. Another couple of gulps and you set the glass back down, immediately starting where you had left off.
In the same way that the glass appeared it had disappeared, wordlessly taken away by your boyfriend Kyungsoo who, unbeknownst to you, had been silently watching you struggle through your work day.
After some time as you powered through you became dimly aware of a most delicious aroma that wafted out from the kitchen to greet you, making your head perk up at its tasty invitation. What was that smell? A savory blend of onions and bell peppers came to meet you, making your mouth water and your stomach growl with anticipation.
No, you told yourself, no distractions, as you turned back to your tasks, stubbornly ignoring the rumble you felt in your belly.
A plate now suddenly appeared in front of you, this time stacked with semolina bread toast, a snack which your boyfriend knew was your all time favorite comfort food.
"Eat" Kyungsoo says, his soft command only temporarily ungluing your eyes from the screen in front of you. You turned to look at him with exasperation written across your face.
"Soo, I can't. I'll eat when I'm finished" you halfheartedly promised.
"Yeah? And when will that be?" he responds with a lift of an eyebrow from behind his thick black rimmed glasses.
Annoyed, you turned back to your computer with a pout, attempting to start up where you had left off. You refused to answer his question, mostly because you didn't have an answer for it. That wasn't something you had to admit to him though.
After your silence he continued, "Hey. You've been staring at that same line for 10 minutes. You can use a break"
He was right and you knew it. But still, you refused to move from where you sat hunched over your computer. To move would be to admit defeat, to acknowledge that you hadn't been able to finish all that you had set out to accomplish in your work day. You just didn't know if you were ready for that yet.
“Well,” Kyungsoo said simply, shrugging as he sat down across from you at the table, “I guess I’m going to have to eat these all by myself,” and with his big beautiful brown eyes never leaving yours he slowly lifted a scrumptious looking slice of rock toast up to his mouth, took a deliberately slow bite, and let out an exaggerated “mmh” as he chewed and then swallowed.
That snapped you out of it.
You lunged forward, grabbed the plate and slid it over to your side of the table, pointedly ignoring the smug smile you saw forming on Kyungsoo's face. This was a battle you didn't mind losing. You saved your work on the computer and gave the plate in front of you your full attention.
The first bite you took instantly filled you with contentment as you felt warmth spread through to each one of your tired limbs, in part due to the satisfaction of finally putting food in your system, but mostly at the realization of the quiet love and care with which Kyungsoo treated you with.
"Ok so," he said, knocking you out of your thoughts, "tell me about your day."
You froze in the middle of dipping a slice of toast in ketchup and sagged, not really wanting to think about everything you've had to deal with throughout the day.
"Soo, I don't want to bother you with that" you tried to dismiss his request.
"It's no bother"
He knew. Somehow he was always able to read you. With the need to vent and the desire to complain taking over you spilled it. Like a dumptruck tipping and unloading all the dirt it held inside you released the pent up annoyance, gradually feeling better with every detail you shared. Kyungsoo, in his quiet way of doing things, just sat there and listened to you, head nodding or raising his eyebrows to show he was listening.
At last satisfied, you finished and waited for a reaction from Kyungsoo.
"I think," he said standing up, "what you need," he said walking over to you, "is to relax" and after placing a soft kiss on your temple he scooped you up into his arms and sat you on his lap on the couch instantly grabbing a throw blanket and draping it over you both.
On the coffee table in front of you sat two glasses and a bottle of wine, holding the quiet promise of a night spent in warmth and in love. With your arms draped over Kyungsoo's shoulders and his plush lips trailing over your jaw you knew,
It was going to be a looong night.
-------
A/N: Surprise! Aldkaldkals I don't think you were expecting this one 😁. Happy happy birthday to my dearest @sooibian ♥️😘✨🎂🥳💟 i hope you like it 🥺 (part 3)
Special thanks to @vampwrrr and @baek-byunies 💕💕💕
49 notes · View notes
revisionaryhistory · 3 years
Text
Three Days ~ 108
Tumblr media
~*~Sebastian~*~
Emma had left her hair in beachy waves. She was standing at the bathroom mirror, her cheeks the slightest pink from the sun today, putting on mascara. I leaned on the doorframe watching while buttoning my shirt. She turned and smoothed her hand down the buttons on my chest, “You look delicious, birthday boy.”
“Thank you,” I smiled and kissed her cheek. “What are you wearing?”
“I’ve been waiting for you to ask. Whatever you pick out.”
“The coral dress with pink flowers.” I bit my lip. “Not that I’ve thought about what you might wear.”
“I can tell by how long it took you to decide.” She opened her eyes and mouth wide with surprise before kissing me and walking around me to the dresser. She pulled out a bra and panty set in a soft pink to match the flowers. The dress slipped over her head and she turned to me. “Satisfactory?”
I swallow hard, “Yeah. Satisfactory is just what I was thinking.”
Downstairs everyone was sitting in the living room. We joined them and a waiter came over to take our drink order. A quick glance at the people, not me, who knew the menu, showed red wine would be a good choice. We went with it. Maybe ten minutes later the same waiter told us dinner was ready on the patio.
I was excited. Also hungry. I led the way to the long table. As soon as my foot hit outside the door the smell hit me. “Oh god, that smells amazing.” I went to the head of the table and checked out the food while everyone found a seat. Each plate had a filet and lobster tail. Platters down the middle of the table held grilled corn, asparagus, and skewers of grilled shrimp, peppers, tomatoes, and onions.  Marcus had come up behind me. I turned, “Thank you. I can’t wait to dig in.”
He held his hand out toward the table, “Please, enjoy. I’ll be in the kitchen if anyone needs anything.”
I sat down and waited for everyone to settle, before picking up my glass. “Thank you all for this. The dinner, the day, and the beach party I don’t know about. It means the world to me for all of us to be together. So, to the greatest group of friends I could ask for.” There was a clinking of glasses before drinking. “Ok, let’s eat, I’m starving.”
Everything tasted as good as it looked and smelled. I could never pick a favorite. Maybe the lobster tail. I'd taken a picture of the spread and after the table was cleared I asked one of the waiters to take a picture from the other end to get all of us. It took a couple for Charles to approve. Getting ten people to not blink at the same time isn't easy. Chace was diagonal to Emma. I had him take just she and I. Emma nodded to someone behind me. A few seconds later they were all looking. A smooth-sided multilayer cake was sat in front of me. The icing was milk chocolate with a ring of darker icing on the top edge with a curtain of drips down the side. “Happy Birthday” was written across the top and decorated with icing stars. There were three candles. I laughed, "One for each year before forty."
They sang to me, I made a wish, and blew out the candles. Exactly then every one of them exploded one of those birthday crackers. Loud bang. Confetti flying. Me jumping out of my skin yelling, "Fuck.", and all of them laughing.
Ethan looked at me with squinted eyes, “Did you come?”
I just closed my eyes and shook my head. I don’t see this ending anytime soon.
Next, the waiter brought out a pile of presents. I was most excited about the two wrapped in Winnie the Pooh paper. The first thing I opened was a card game, "The Shame of Life."
Will tapped the box, "Not Candy Land but we can modify."
"Candy Land? The kids game." Kelli was confused.
We explained the rockstar modifications. "I felt up Emma's best friend and these two," I pointed to Will and Emma, "had a competition for who could tell the best sex story."
Emma sang, "I don't like to lose."
Alissa sighed, "That was a good night."
Some presents were silly and others were serious. I saved Emma's for last.
Envelope first. Calligraphy on card stock saying "I.O.U. 48 hours of Yes."
"What is that?" Toby asked.
Emma explained, "For forty-eight hours. I say yes to anything he wants. Vedder birthday tradition."
"What if he asks for something that's a hard limit?"
"It's not all about sex. Movie, food, music, where to sit on the couch."
Ethan joined in, "The hard limit is a trust thing. Asking for something over the line abuses the power of the Yes Day and puts the other person in an awkward position to say no."
Mina added, "You wouldn't ask an alcoholic to drink."
Will looked at Alissa, "I want a Yes Day."
I reached for the bigger of the presents. Emma stayed my hand and shook her head. The other present felt like a book. I opened carefully to find "Illusions" by Richard Bach with a red velvet ribbon tied around it. I nodded toward her, "Yours?"
"Notes and all."
I kissed her, "I can't wait."
They were looking at me. Alissa asked, "Explain please."
"We were unpacking books at mom's on day three." I paused, remembering what a great day that was. When we had that conversation we hadn't even kissed yet.
Emma took over the story. It was hers anyway. "It's a book we read in college. The deal was you read it, made notes, highlight, whatever. You make it your own then give it away. That person keeps your copy. When they meet someone they want to share it with they buy their own copy, make notes, highlight, and give it away.”
"I held up the obviously well-loved book. "This is hers. I wondered if I'd ever get it."
"I had more notes to make."
Kelli leaned forward to look at Emma, "You give really good presents."
Emma smiled and I responded, "She does. Can't wait to see this one."
Emma shook her head with clenched teeth. "I'm nervous about this one."
The last present was a 3 x 6 x 2 inch box wrapped in Winnie the Pooh paper with a bright red bow. Under the paper was a dark blue box with "Happy Birthday" written with a silver marker. Emma's handwriting. Inside that was a leather box with a metal clasp. I opened the top and just stared at the contents. It looked like a new and improved version of my old leather key fob. This one had a carabiner as a key ring, no torn leather, no loose stitches with torn strings, and where the hole had been on mine was a silver disc that looked like it spun.
Before I could figure out what to ask Chace said, "She gave you back what was already yours?"
"No, mine ripped apart." I looked at Emma, still not certain of my reaction. The gift was thoughtful, but couldn't replace the original. "You had one made?"
She shook her head quickly, "It's yours. I had it restored."
I picked it up. It felt right in my hand. The size and the feelings it evoked. It felt like mine. "How?" I was more than a little stunned.
"There's a leather guy in Seattle who makes reins for the horses, guitar straps, shoes. I took it to him and asked if he could repair the leather." She turned it over and pointed to where the rip should have been. "He spliced the leather together and reinforced the whole loop. He restitched it with a raw thread so it would keep its age. Conditioned the leather. Then I took it back to New York. Keaton's sister is a jewelry designer and metalsmith. She straightened out the rim and since you said you fidget with it when you're anxious I had her make a worry stone." She ran her finger over the silver. "On this side it's domed and smooth."
I flipped it to the other side, "This is concave and rough." Two different sensations.
Emma nodded, "The rough is my fingerprint."
I rubbed my thumb over, looking from it to her. "So ... I'm feeling you?"
She nodded slightly and bit the side of her lip. Uncertain.
I sure as hell wasn't. In my hand I held my past and future combined. "I fucking love you." I cupped the back of her neck and dove into a kiss.
Emma moved away looking wary. "They're doing it too. The looking back and forth like Alissa and Kirk did."
I turned my head, looking at my friends, "What?"
All the men looked at Will, who said, "Don't try to pull me into this. This is life now. Enjoy. Bask in the glory of new normal."
They laughed. I did too. Emma was looking at me. I sighed, "The version of me you don't know would not have reacted well to your gift. I would have felt trapped and angry that you assumed it was ok to connect yourself to something I'm never without and means so much to me."
Toby was skeptical, "And this new you?"
I shrugged with a smile, "I love it." I flipped the key fob over in my hand. I felt the memories it held, but without the anxiety of knowing l'd not take care of it and it was falling apart. The memories were clean, untainted. I touched the fingerprint again. I felt love, caring, her. I’d trusted her to take it home and she did this. I was feeling a little overwhelmed with all the feelings swirling around in me. I took Emma’s hand as I stood up, pulling her up and into my arms, because I knew the solution was to hold onto her.
I have no idea how long we stood there. I was floating in this wonderful world surrounded by friends and a partner. In my hand was an old strip of leather, on its face nothing special, but it meant the world to me. I’d carried it from Romania, the only home I knew, as a reminder and way back. It wasn’t just my past anymore. Today it became my way forward too. I felt all those overwhelming feelings knitting together, incorporating themselves into my reality. This was my life now. I felt this moment where everything slid into place. A perfect moment in time.
“Come with me.” I let Emma loose, taking her hand. I slid the keychain into my pocket where it belonged. I led her past the table on the way to the beach. I yelled behind us, “Stay off the beach it’s mine for an hour.”
Will yelled back, “The hammock is shit for sex.”
The hammock is exactly where I was heading. Good to know it was out. I grabbed a towel from the cabinet by the stairs. Sunset was close and the end of the pier was far enough out in the water. We’d been with friends. Now I wanted to be alone. I laid the towel out on the ledge above the hammock. One of our naked asses was going to be there and splinters were bad.  There was zero way to get in that hammock gracefully. I scooted off the ledge and into the middle, reaching out for Emma.  She wasn’t any more graceful than I was. She curled up next to me with her head on my shoulder.
I played in her hair while watching the sun go down. As soon as the sun dropped below the water and we were soaking in the pink-purple afterglow my Emma loved so much, I turned her face up where she was looking at me. “I never expected to fall in love like this. I never knew I could be this happy and relaxed in a relationship. Comfortable. I know part of that is being comfortable in my own skin, but a big part of it is you. It’s the hundreds of little things you do that are just you. Like how you picked where we’d go to dinner the night we met and considered what clothes I would have at mom’s and had another outfit in case you needed to change. And going out tonight first so my friends wouldn’t be left out. Big things are easy, but you do those little everyday things that matter most.” I smiled, “For me anyway. That you went to the trouble of not just fixing my key fob, but doing everything possible to keep it mine. The hole in it, I didn’t know what was missing. I couldn’t remember. You filled it with the future, which is exactly what it needed. Me too.” She didn’t even the whole story from Romania, yet she treated that part of my past with such respect. I kissed her with everything I was feeling. My hand laying against her soft cheek. “You know how you have those times when everything fits together and for that moment, your life is perfect?” She nodded. “I’m having a perfect moment.”
Emma moved her hand directly over my heart, with a soft smile on her face, and I could feel her happiness for me.
I felt loved. Completely and totally loved for everything I was and for everything I wasn’t. “This is the best birthday since the one where I was actually born. Thank you for that and thank you for being the kind of person who talks to homeless drug addicts in the grocery store.” I shook my head, “I don’t know how to tell you how much I love you, but I hope like hell you can feel it.”
“I feel it all.” She scooted up, running her fingers from my forehead to my lips. She trailed them down my chin before kissing me. “I love you, Sebasti-an.”
There it was again. A mix of history and future.
The hammock was good for talking and making out. Sex, ahh, not so much. Our butts sank. I imagine it would be like having sex in a water bed, which I've never done. Facing each other with Emma's leg over my hip we moved together kissing and touching.
"I want to make love with you." She'd probably figured that out as my fingers were buried deep in her panties.
Getting out of the hammock was decidedly un-sexy. I rolled onto the deck and Emma crawled. I pulled a condom out of my pocket. Emma had one too. I don't know where she was hiding hers. I smiled, "You may have planned the night, but I planned on beach sex. I thought when we got back later, but now’s good.
"I'll save mine for later." She tucked it in her bra and shimmied out of her panties.
I sat on the towel, shorts down to my thighs. Emma straddled my lap, sinking down as I held my cock. Her arms rested on my shoulders, "I want to make love with you too." She settled with me completely inside her. "You feel so good, baby."
I buried my face in her neck and moaned, "Very good." I kissed along her neck, loving how she shivered in my arms. There was a lot of kissing, holding on, and eye contact. The intimacy and intensity were dialed up to eleven. Perfect night for it. I snaked my hand between us to use my thumb against her clit. We locked eyes, breathing each other’s air. I watched the progression of pleasure on her face. "You're so beautiful. I love you."
A few seconds later I was rewarded with her orgasm and hearing my name floating on a breathy moan. She sealed her mouth over mine, kissing the fuck out of me until I came. My hands went up the back of her dress and I hugged her tight. "Mmm, happy birthday to me."
Emma ruffled my hair, "Adorable."
We went back to kissing for a while then went back to the others. They'd moved to the fire pit area. Emma joined the women. I sat next to Charles and he put his hand on my leg, "I'm sorry, man."
"On your birthday too." When Ethan finished the words, three of them hissed in a breath through clenched teeth.
I shifted my eyes between them. "What are you all talking about?"
Charles put his arm around me, "There was no confetti or anything. We figured you couldn't come."
“It might not be the partner, sometimes it just happens as you get older,” Toby’s smile was evil.
I looked at Toby, "You're right behind me, buddy." I pointed toward the dock. "Confetti's out there. Lots of confetti. Sparkly confetti."
"So the hammock is a viable option? Will just lacks skill." Chace smirked around his drink.
Will said, "Will does not lack skill."
I frowned, "The hammock is not good."
Chace nodded, "Sounds like a challenge."
Someone had seen the time. Alissa yelled over, "Time to go birthday boy and friends. The van should be here."
Emma and I had missed the pregaming having our own party. She was carrying a bottle of tequila, "We need to catch up."
We piled into the van and passed the bottle back and forth a few times before sharing it with our friends. Will had grabbed a bottle of whiskey. I drank both. Tomorrow I will likely regret this, but tonight I will have fun.
It couldn't have been ten minutes when we pulled into a crowded parking lot. The lights from the club and beach were clearly visible and when the van door opened the music streamed in. "In a Big Country" by Big Country. I jumped out and helped the rest out. The song ended as we walked toward the entrance. "Sweet Dreams" The Eurythmics. I jumped up and down, “They have an 80's night?"
Toby snarked, "If you pay them enough."
"Aw, you all love me."
We were shown to a corner counter and tables on the edge of the deck. There were two stairs down to the beach dance floor. It was nothing more than a section of beach with string lights overhead. Nobody wore shoes. The song changed to Scritti Politi’s "Perfect Way." I grabbed Emma's hand, "Must dance!"
This place was awesome! We rarely left the dance floor. They delivered drinks out there too. Toby and Chace didn't have a problem finding dance partners. They spread the love around for a while before picking the ones who would go home with us. We danced in a group, trading off partners, laughing at our shitty moves, and having the best time.
Sometime after midnight, someone who wasn't me, thought going out into the water was a good idea. Turned into a water fight with folks kicking and splashing water at each other.
Might have been me.
We were much soggier when we got in the van to go back to the villa. We were also plus two. Chace had picked up a five foot nothing brunette. Next to him she looked like a pixy. Toby found a tall red head.
Out on our patio we turned on the fire pit and fell all over the seating area. I plugged my phone into the speakers and hit my ever changing playlist. We'd lost Emma, Alissa, Mina, and Kelli on the way through the house for them to get snacks and drinks. Thankfully they weren't too far behind us because we needed more drinks. I was hungry too. I wasn't alone. Those of us who'd fallen onto furniture got up and went for the table. I looked over the booze selection and wasn't enthused. I caught Emma's eye across the table, "Will you make margaritas?"
She smiled at me, "Sure." On her way back to the kitchen she walked behind me and grabbed my ass. Alissa went with her to make that cranberry thing. They came back with enough for everyone. We settled back around the fire in couples. Emma draped her legs across one of mine. My hand went to her thigh, my thumb making circles. We laughed reliving parts of the nights and making connections to old stories. My face hurt from laughing and smiling all day.
"This has been the best birthday. I love all of you." I glanced at the two new girls. "Not you two, because I don’t know you, but I'm sure I'd love you if I knew you."
Red head smiled," Well, happy birthday."
"It is no longer his birthday."
I glared at Toby, "It's my birthday until I fall asleep."
"Or pass out."
"Strong possibility." I laid my head over on Emma's shoulder. When "Every Time I’m With You" came on. I perked up, "This is our song." I wiggled out from under her and held my hand out. "That's one thing we haven't done today. Dance with me?"
"Sounds like fun, baby." Her words were a little slurry on my hearing was. Emma put her hand in mine and followed me to an open part of the patio.
The last thing I remember was singing to her while we danced.
6 notes · View notes
sw124 · 3 years
Text
Monster Boyfriend!Reader insert!
Female Reader! Shadow boyfriend.
[The reader is nicknames are Angel by the boyfriend and Bo by everyone else]
Another day, another chewing out by your asshole of a boss who as usual promoted the skinny collage girl over you; despite the fact you worked at this office for over five years and kept it running! In your opinion your boss was a misogynistic piece of garbage who believed all woman had the minds of toddlers, that and their only purpose was to be servants/playthings/baby factories to all men. The only reason he promoted this new girl was because he was looking for new eye candy.
It was just your boss who shared this view however, the other members of the office didn’t share their views. All of them were married and had kids, you could feel the unease when the boss made filthy jokes about someone’s daughter…especially when that daughter was only thirteen years old.
The father of this girl was your friend and neighbor Roy, he was tempted to punch his boss senseless but at the moment he couldn’t afford to. He just found out he and his wife were expecting baby number two, his wife worked from home but he always believed in having a safety net.
[Lunch break]
You sat down by Roy and Trevor, he was from accounting and pretended to be a bachelor when he actually dating a very nice young person, they preferred not to be labeled with a gender.
“Hey Bo, heard the boss yelling at ya; what was it about this time?” Asked Trevor opening his lunchbox.
“The account he assigned to the new girl was lost and he’s blaming me despite I had no part in its loss. He just wants to get on the girls good side so he can try an sleep with her…” you mumbled as you pulled out your own lunch.
You weren’t skinny, you were round with curves and a belly. This lead to many comments from your boss but you brushed them off, especially when you got home cooked lunches from your boyfriend. Today’s lunch was as beautiful as before, he got into making those character bento lunchboxes he saw on tiktok. Today’s lunch was fried chicken meatballs with rolled up omelet and little rice balls. The meatballs were decorated to look like hedgehogs, the little rice balls made to look like penguins and the omelets were speckled with green and filled with cheese.
“Lee went all out on that didn’t he?” Retorted Roy with a chuckle, his lunch was a grilled panini he ordered from the shop next door.
“He loves to cook and I love eating his cooking.” You smiled as you chowed down into his creation.
There was a small avocado salad on the side with diced raw onions and a small squirt of hotshots on it. It was a interesting combination but it actually worked out well.
You were about to dig into this salad when your boss walked in, so begins his usual walk around the tables giving comments on everyone’s choice of lunches. Mocking men who didn’t have properly made lunches by their wives or joked about being bachelors. You finished the penguin rice balls when he came your table.
“An what has this group prepared hm?” He leaned over Roy and his sandwich. “Wife not making you lunch anymore, what you two get into a fight again?”
Ugh; you hated how he smirked every time he put someone down, he looked over at Trevor. His lunch was simple homemade steak and cheese wrap his partner made.
“Huh, thats surprising; most single guys don’t know how to cook, where’d you buy that?” Trevor was about to answer but the ass turned to you and eyed your lunch. “Well what does the pig have today? Something that looks decent, bet it tastes like shit though?”
He reached for your food, Roy was the one who pulled it away from him. “Sir, need I remind you that the last time you took someone’s food the CEO of the company came down here to scold you?”
Your boss glared at him but backed off, yes he literally took someone’s food from them and was reported. He managed to play it off as a misunderstanding but it didn’t stop the CEO from chewing him out.
“Fine, let the pig eat her slop.” With that your boss left.
“Thanks Roy…” you sighed, this was going to be a long day…
[A few hours later]
Finally it was time to leave, three’o clock, you got all your things and bolted for the elevator. You made it in time too, you knew your boss came looking for stragglers to do extra work. The doors closed just as he walked into look for anyone; preferably you. But you escaped, you learned when and how to avoid him near the end of the day.
Now piled into your car you, Trevor and Roy all heading back to the same apartment building you shared. Trevor lived on the fourth floor of the apartments while you and Roy were on the second floor, he lived in the apartment across the hallway from you and your boyfriend. You said goodbye to them and walked into your apartment, the money you made was good despite your boss.
You composed yourself before hand and as you were closing the door…you saw your shadow growing, it grew larger, bulkier and once it reached a hight of 9ft…three bio-green eyes appeared; feral and happy.
“Welcome home Angel.”
His large clawed hands picked you up and cradled you in those burly arms, the term ‘broad chest’ didn’t do your darling justice. He had hair but it was so molded to his body it almost looked like a helmet minus the part that hung off. He had what you called an inverted pixie bob, he nuzzled you and peppered your cheek with little kisses. He didn’t have a visible mouth, nose or ears but that only added to his charm.
“Hi Caine, I’m so happy to be home. Lunch was soooo good, I loved those little penguins you made.”
You watched those eyes of his turn into stars as he hugged tightly, you hugged him back….oh you needed this. You needed ‘him’ right now more then anything, just him and his big arms hugging you.
“I’m making pizza tonight, I figured it’d be cheaper then buying it.” He whistled.
“Ooh that sounds good.” You whined happily.
You only had your eyes closed for a moment before you found yourself in your bedroom. He sat you on the bed and proceeded to remove your shoes, what on earth did you do to get a guy this awesome?
“Oh, so you know; Brandy called me and told me about your company throwing a family picnic!”
Right…the picnic, another excuse for that ass of a boss to mock everyone’s lifestyle and show up his wealth. You smiled at him, he loved picnics and meeting all the people you worked with. No way were you gonna say no, but that didn’t mean you weren’t gonna try and stay as far away from your boss as possible.
“Its gonna be a potluck kind of picnic so lets make something yummy together hm?” You smiled as you stood back up and changed into your comfy clothes.
He squealed with glee and whisked you back up into his arms, dinner was delicious and so was dessert. Just simple store bot gelato but still good, the two of you sitting on the couch bing watching documentaries and internet cat videos.
[two weeks later]
The weather was perfect, there was a nice light breeze and there were clouds, lots of them. White, fluffy clouds that casted shadows to shield you from the sun from time to time. Not that it was terribly hot, warm but not hot. You and Cain parked the car under a tree and got out, the company picnic was being held at the local park near the river. It was a very nice place, already you saw many of your co-workers here.
Cain had already delved into your shadow, not out of fear but it was easier to move around crowds. You already saw a few other co-workers who brought their spouses. Mark from HR was one of the few you knew who was dating someone who wasn’t human, his girlfriend was the same height as Cain but unlike Cain she was more mammalian. She was what many called a ‘wendigo’ but she had more of a wolf appearance mostly due to her skull face; her name you recalled is Sophie.
You and Mark had that in common, the two of you love large, adorable creatures that could crush you in their embraces. You watched Mark talk as Sophie filled a plate with ribs and handed them to some other co-workers. You walked over, greeted her and sat down two large bowls. One had your famous fruit salad while the other had Cain’s spicy garlic Parmesan chicken wings.
Cain was about to come out to say hello when everyone was silenced by the tapping on a microphone.
“Everyone, thank you all for coming! I’m so thrilled to see everyone’s bright faces here!”
You gritted your teeth…it was your boss, here it comes. He did this whenever possible, bringing people up and passively insulting them for whatever reason an pass it off as a joke. Well today he was bringing couples up and joking, he already had Roy up there and joked about his family. It was clear Roy wanted to punch the guy’s lights out an you didn’t blame him.
“Thanks Roy for being a great sport, up next…why our own Ms. Bo!”
Well crud..it was your turn, you felt Cain gripping your shoulder but you had no choice. You patted the invisible hand and walked up onto the stage, you saw how he leered at you.
“Well everyone, here she is Miss Bo. Where’s your boyfriend, oh I’m sorry dear I guess the rumors are true men don’t like chubby little bitches like you.”
Uh oh…now he didn’t, you watched your shadow shift and move, steadily growing behind your boss as he continued.
“Any single men out here wanna plow this porker? No? Well thats to be expected, lots of smart men know to stay away-“ the mic was yanked out of his hand, he spun around…only to be face to face with three murder colored eyes.
You reached an took the mic. “Sir, I’d like to introduce you to Cain, my beloved boyfriend of four very happy years. We met in middle school, started dating in collage. Thats all you need to know….Cain put him down please.”
You didn’t need to look, Cain had your boss by the scruff of his shirt, dangling him over the edge of the stage….he relented and sat him down; he turned and took the mic from you.
“An for the record; you call my girl anything other then her name…well..” he exposed his rarely seen mouth, inside were rows of razors ready to tear him apart.
“The last thing you’ll be seeing are these.”
You refrained from saying anything..especially about your bosses soiled trousers.
[later, after the picnic]
Back in your apartment, cuddled on the couch; sitting in his lap with a box of macarons and other sweet treats. You look up at Cain who still seemed a little mad from what he heard.
“Honey its ok, the boss got fired for what he said and we’re getting a new one, its all thanks to you.” You give him a kiss, that seemed to melt the grump off.
“Yeah, though I’m still upset that you went through all those nasty things…”
Oh no the puppy eyes…the sad ‘mama I need love’ puppy eyes. He always got his way when something happened. Last time he did this was when you had you wisdom teeth taken out and you were in pain.
“I know but you know what?”
Cain looks down at you.
“What?”
“You made it worth it, every day I’d come home to the best thing nature ever created.”
You saw stars dance in his sweet eyes as he hugged you tightly, for the rest of the night was filled again with cat videos and documentaries until the two of you slowly drifted off to sleep, you safely tucked into his loving embrace.
End.
[so you know all of this was inspired by the drawings of @semisolidmind and her monster boyfriend series oooh their sooo cute! Semi I hope you like this you inspired this!]
9 notes · View notes
nonbinary-renfri · 3 years
Text
inspired by this post by @elliestormfound
It’s Lambert’s turn to cook dinner tonight for the witchers wintering in the keep and he’s feeling rather inspired, after Geralt and Eskel went ice fishing and came back with four lovely large trout. Going down to the root cellar while the other two witchers were taking care of the gutting and cleaning and de-scaling of the fish out in the yard, Lambert picked out some onions and some potatoes and some garlic. He also took a container of the goat milk butter they’d started making after Eskel had insisted on getting the keep its own mini goat herd. The animals themselves were stinky, ungrateful bastards, but even Lambert would admit having the fresh milk was nice. Once they finally figured out this goat cheese thing, it’d be even nicer.
But for now Lambert’s heading back upstairs with a basket full of potatoes and onions and garlic and is greeted by some absolutely beautiful fish fillets laid out on the kitchen counter. A lesser man- such as many high-class chefs with their fancy restaurants in the cities- might shed a tear at the sight of such divine knife work. Lambert is so glad Eskel let Geralt do the filleting this time.
He dices onions and garlic and preps the potatoes, washing them and piercing them in several places with a knife. The wood-stove is already lit, doing its best to spread fingers of warmth through Kaer Morhen’s cold stones. Opening up two of the burners, Lambert plunks down a pair of heavy iron saucepans onto the stove. He makes two batches of an onion-butter sauce, one with garlic and one without. While that’s simmering, he seasons the fish with rock salt that he’s fairly certain Vesemir collects and grinds himself, and then divides the fillets out evenly between two baking pans. Lambert pours the sauce over the fish before sliding them, along with the potatoes, into the large oven to slow cook.
With some time to kill, he washes the dishes he’s created so far and then starts poking around in the kitchen cabinets. He finds things he knew were there, like shelves filled with jars of different spices and a section dedicated to baking supplies, and things he didn’t, like glass bottles of apple cider in a bottom cupboard. Lambert uncorks one and sniffs it, and, yep, that is apple cider and it’s still fairly fresh too, probably squeezed and bottled by Vesemir this past autumn. He doesn’t think the old man will mind awfully if Lambert commandeers some of it; it’s for a good cause, and it’s not like Vesemir won’t also get a share of it.
Putting a larger pot on the stove top, Lambert mixes up a hot drink made with apple cider, a splash of squeezed fruit juice, and spices. Sticks of cinnamon and dried orange and lemon slices float in bubbling amber liquid as it simmers on the burner. Dinner will be done before the wassail is, but that’s alright; they can have it as a nice follow-up afterwards.
Lambert glances up from stirring the drink as Vesemir enters the kitchen. The old witcher is carrying a basket with fresh broccoli from the winter garden, tiny bits of ice glimmering on green buds from being washed outdoors in the cold. Taking a deep breath in, he smiles appreciatively. “It smells delicious.” Yellow irises find the bottles of apple cider out on the countertop. “Ah. I see you got into my juice stores.”
“For a good cause, old man.”
Vesemir’s nostrils flare as he leans towards the pot. “Yes, indeed. An after-dinner treat?”
How does he always know these things. “Yeah,” Lambert admits.
“Would you be willing to trust me to watch over your handiwork for a bit? I thought I would add broccoli to the menu tonight, but the table in the hall could really use a wipe down before we sit down to eat.”
“Sure, I can go do that. Stir the pot on the stove occasionally and don’t fucking burn my food, okay?”
Vesemir acquiesces with a nod and waves the younger witcher out the door.
The table is rather dusty and bread crumb-covered from a multitude of meals, so Lambert wipes it down with a dry cloth and then a wet one. He also takes the opportunity to set the table, putting out plates and silverware for all the witchers, though not in the pompous, shitty way a noble household would. Just a fork and a knife, thank you very much. The butter dish and the ceramic howling wolf salt and pepper shakers Eskel had brought back one winter go on the table too. Vesemir keeps his eyes on the broccoli he has searing on the stove as Lambert comes in and out of the kitchen, pretending not to notice as the younger snags napkins for the table that he knows will be neatly folded beside their plates. And he thinks they don’t know that he cares.
Eventually all the food is done cooking and the old witcher lets Lambert take care of the plating of things, helping him carry the platters of roast potatoes and fish and broccoli into the hall. The smells must reach the other witchers in the keep as Geralt and Eskel quickly appear at the door, dressed in clean clothes with cheeks pink-flushed and the slightly spicy-sweet scent from the witch hazel soap they keep in the hot springs wafting off of them.
“Wow, that smells good,” Eskel comments. Geralt’s nostrils flare in agreement and the two are quick to take their usual seats at the table, eagerly eyeing the spread in front of them.
As soon as Vesemir fills his plate, the rest of them are free to dig in as well. Scenting the air, mouth partway open, Geralt gravitates towards the fish without garlic and scoops a good chunk onto his plate. Eskel takes a smaller piece from the same pan and a similar one from the other as well. Like Vesemir, Lambert takes a big serving of the fish with garlic. They all take potatoes and cut them open, steam wafting into the air from the well-cooked soft white insides. Goat butter melts quickly from the heat and they sprinkle rock salt on top of potatoes now drenched in gold. Broccoli joins the rest of the food on their plates and they eat in silence for a while, too hungry from the day’s work and grateful for a good meal to have the wherewithal to interrupt it with conversation.
Eventually though, as Vesemir and Geralt go back for second servings of their preferred fish and Eskel takes more broccoli, they find themselves able to take their concentration enough off the food to talk.
“Thank you for making dinner, Lambert,” Geralt says, because sometimes he can be a polite bastard. Lambert suspects it has something to do with all that time the white-haired man spends around a certain uppity sorceress.
“Yeah, thanks,” Eskel parrots, talking through a mouthful of potato because he doesn’t have a questionable influence in his life to teach him courtly manners. “’S delicious.”
Vesemir nods in agreement. “Quite.”
Resisting the urge to shrug off the praise, Lambert pretends the tips of his ears aren’t turning red. “Mhmm. Yeah. Uh. You’re welcome, I guess.” He remembers the wassail he has simmering in the kitchen still, and takes the excuse to flee the room. “Hot drinks, for after dinner. Should be done, so I’ll, uh, go get them.” Getting up and walking away, he waits until he’s completely out of eyesight of the others, because Vesemir would somehow fucking know if he didn’t, before he lets the bubbling warm feeling in his chest spill onto his face. He smiles the entire walk back to the kitchen.
Returning with a big wooden pitcher full of hot wassail that drifts the sweet scents of apples, citrus, and spices into the air with curls of steam, he pours it into the mugs gathered at the far end of the table, placing one in front of each witcher.
Vesemir, the madman, doesn’t even blow on his before gulping down a large mouthful. He swallows and immediately goes back for a second, humming his approval.
Slightly more cautious, Eskel blows on the surface of his drink before trying it. His face changes to a contemplative look and then he nods, seemingly in approval.
Geralt takes a sip from his mug with an unreadable expression. Lambert watches him carefully, knowing the other witcher can’t stand to drink apple cider on its own. Taking another sip, Geralt lets out a quiet grunt.
Lambert’s voice gets ahead of his head. “So? Is it good?” Shit shit shit way too pushy, what, do you need validation or something-
Shrugging, Geralt says, like he’s simply stating a fact, “Everything you make is good.”
There is a pleased yet embarrassed heat rising in Lambert’s cheeks, because Geralt doesn't say nice things when he doesn't mean them. “Fuck you.” Dammit, why can’t he be the kind of person who just goes speechless in moments like this.
Geralt doesn’t reply, but he’s smiling in that tiny way he thinks is unnoticeable, with the very corners of his lips and the tilt of his eyebrows, or something. The white-haired witcher doesn’t go back for seconds of the hot drink like Eskel does, or fourths like Vesemir, but he finishes the mug that Lambert poured for him, which is compliment enough in the younger’s opinion.
It’s a good night, he thinks, as they finish their drinks and Geralt and Eskel take the dishes back to the kitchen to scrub them clean. Even better as they all pile into the study, with it’s warm wooden walls and bearskin rugs a ballast against the winter’s chill. They quickly have a fire burning bright in the hearth, and the room becomes cozy and comfortable. Vesemir settles into his armchair with the old bestiary he’s currently annotating and the three younger witchers tangle together in a pile on the fur splayed before the fire. They wrestle lazily for a bit before sprawling out drowsily, serene and drifting somewhere close to sleep.
In the early hours of the next morning the armchair is empty, bestiary shut neatly on the accent table beside it, and the fire has reduced itself to cold ashes. Lambert wakes up to white hair tickling his nose and his feet tangled with Eskel’s, the other man’s calves laying on top of Geralt’s knees. Soft fur brushes his chin from the bearskin that had been spread over the three of them sometime in the night, keeping them warm beneath it with their combined body heat long after the fire had died out. There’s no window in this room but Lambert has a feeling it’s still not late enough for them to need to get up, so he lies there with his eyes closed, simply enjoying the weight and warmth of his brothers beside him.
46 notes · View notes
foodbytesback · 3 years
Text
A Millenial's Guide to Dinner Parties
Tumblr media
Ok, sorry.  I didn’t have time to write anything real  for this week, because I was too busy planning a dinner party.  But uhhh that counts as a food-related topic, so I’m just gonna write about that. 
You may be asking “just how much “planning” do you need?” The answer? Much.  
I feel like I never understood how “we’ve been planning this dinner for months!” made any sense as a sitcom throwaway line, until I tried to plan a dinner between myself and 3 other adults- 1 who just started a second job, 1 who just started grad school, and 1 who lives out of town.  But people who love to say “fail to plan, plan to fail” rarely seem to specify what kind of planning that entails, so let me break down my approach (or, in some cases, things I learned in light of my approach) so that you too can funnel your anxiety into worrying about all the right things.
Consider your living space
Since I knew 2 of those 3 really like Indian food, I decided I’d base the menu around that.  Incidentally, this ended up having one major benefit that I would recommend keeping in mind: if you, like me, don’t have a proper dining room table, don’t serve anything that would require a fork and knife.  If you’re gonna be eating on the couch (Or, if you have a studio that doesn’t have room for a couch, bed? Floor? Getting imaginative about how to host people in a studio is its own challenge), you should consider serving something that can easily be eaten one-handed while balancing the plate in your lap.  Besides curries, I would also recommend tacos (or any kind of finger-food), stir-frys or any sort of braise/stew, although a soup that’s too thin is just asking to be spilled.
Cook as much as you can ahead of time
Tumblr media
The day of the event, you’re really gonna want to make sure all your mise en place is… uh, en place.  It’s a given that dishes that are a multi-day process (like the bread dough for the naan) are going to be done well beforehand, but you really will be better off taking care of as much of the things that could be dismissed as doable the day of as you can the night before (or the day before that, depending on your schedule, if your produce is fresh it will survive a couple of days chopped).  For me, this meant dividing up the bread dough into smaller, individual portions, pre-cutting anything that needed to be cut (which luckily ended up being just onions, garlic, one serrano pepper, paneer, and chicken), marinating the chicken, and making the sauce for the chicken tikka masala.
You may have noticed that one of those containers used to be soup.  Or that the pepper’s in a ziplock bag.  Yes. Listen: I don’t work for Food Network, I don’t have hundreds of those little bowls lying around.  I didn’t even have lids for most of those deli containers.  I can only steal so much from work before it becomes noticeable.  If you’re only making one thing, feel free to combine ingredients that get added in at the same time in the recipe together in one container.  I ended up keeping most of mine separated out like this because I needed garlic for pretty much everything, so it made sense to just have one big thing of garlic, etc.  Honestly, you should just have one big thing of garlic on hand at all times, dinner party or not. 
Even with all that prep, it still took me close to 2 hours to cook the chicken, add it to the sauce that I had dumped into a crock pot for reheating, put the rice on, make the 2 paneer dishes (for clarity: saag paneer and a weird dish one of my friends mentioned liking that doesn't’ seem to have any actual basis in Indian cuisine that’s just paneer sauteed with onions and cumin seeds) and bake off several naan.  Which leads me to my next point...
Provide entertainment that doesn’t involve you
Yes, the whole point is that you want to spend time with your friends. But, unless you’re making something like dumplings, where you can easily enlist your friends to help you, you’re gonna be alone in the kitchen while your friends hang out without you.  In this case, they played WarioWare on my Switch and played/made fun of this weird foodie trivia game that I had never even bothered to unwrap from its protective plastic that focussed way too much on Julia Child-era cooking shows, wine varietals, and antiquated edicate, all while I listened from the kitchen.  Because my apartment is pretty small, “from the kitchen” means about 5 feet away, so it’s not like I was really feeling that left out.  I was able to break away from cooking every-other question or so to shoot someone a judgemental glare any time they couldn’t get an answer that I assumed was somewhat-common knowledge right. I should also mention that if you know it’s gonna take a while to cook everything, put out some sort of snack, too.  I hadn’t thought about this, and ended up throwing a box of pumpkin spice Twinkies at them.  
I guess this can be avoided by just having them come when the food is ready. I guess. 
Clean as you go
Tumblr media
This is pretty much true for any time you cook something, but seriously, the dishes really start to pile up when you’re cooking larger quantities.  This goes double for things like tasting spoons, which I’m normally fine with reusing when I’m cooking for myself, but I will NOT subject my guests to double-dipping.   And take my word for it, you’re gonna want to go into the actual serving of dinner with an empty sink, because after everyone’s left you’ll turn around and be caught completely off-guard by how many dishes have to be done.  
Have fun and be yourself
No, really.  If your friends are anything like my friends, they’ll just be happy to see that one friend from out of town again or at the very least get a free meal.   Like, despite (or because of?) my obsessive planning, when the time came to actually start cooking I felt no pressure to have to go at my usual breakneck line cook pace, because my friends were there to have a fun little evening, and that’s exactly what I gave them.
3 notes · View notes
trillian-anders · 4 years
Text
chicken noodle soup
pairing: chef!bucky x plus!reader
warnings: fluff, fluff, fluff, a little angst. just a dash.
word count: 1779
description: chef!au; bucky makes you chicken noodle soup when you’re sick, and you guys have a talk. 
note: i’m extremely sick and this is what i wrote, i needed a little comfort. if you have a request for the next dish, let me know loves.
just a taste masterlist
Tumblr media
You watched the corded muscles of his back from your spot on the sofa. His right arm moving up and down, steadily chopping carrots as the garlic and onions sweat in a large pot on the stove. His left arm, something you still didn’t ask him about, mottled skin covered with blooming flowers, a rosary, whisping into a vintage pinup girl that posed on his forearm, hands tangled in her hair as she arched her back against the flowers behind her as if laying in a field of flowers. 
His left arm held down the vegetable, knuckles facing the knife as he cut the carrots into thick pieces, practiced fingers running against the blade before he switched hands, left moving not quite as steadily, but still practiced. 
You were sure your apartment smelled delicious, if only you could smell it. 
He came over even though you’d told him not to. Last night when you’d stumbled in your front door after a very draining workweek. The winter deadline met, first quarter final report submitted and a head pounding and nose clogged you’d collapsed onto your couch with a bottle of NyQuil. Dead to the world. 
He’d called worried, you’d been telling him you hadn’t felt well all week. “You need to rest babydoll,” He scolded, you’d rolled your eyes on the phone with him, your heart warming with the concern laced in his voice, toeing your socks off before slipping under the covers. “Stark can go a day or two without you.”
“After this week ends,” You said, “I just have to meet Friday’s deadline and then I’ll rest.” Friday had happened, and everything was done. And you collapsed on your sofa. Resting. 
His call came in two hours after you’d fallen asleep, a groggy, “Hi baby.” And he sighed, 
“I’m coming over.” You snuggled deeper into the cushions of the sofa you’d spent way too much money on, suddenly appreciating how large and soft it was. 
“I’ll be fine,” You croaked, “Really.” But you could already hear his keys in his hand. 
The food truck had been doing really well, well enough that Bucky and Sam hired some extra help. A kid named Peter who needed an after school job that would just handle plating and taking money while Sam or Bucky cooked, finally giving them enough time off between them to start seriously looking for commercial space for their restaurant. Something Bucky had been giddy about for weeks. 
“I told Sam I needed tomorrow off,” He said, toeing off his boots by the front door. Your sleepy face peering at him from behind the blankets pulled up to your nose. “But I’ll have to work Sunday.” He had a large paper bag he’d set on the counter before padding over to you and pressing a kiss to your forehead. 
“You really didn’t have to come,” Your nose stuffed and red, a pile of discarded tissues next to you on the coffee table and reruns of Survivor playing on TV. He rolled his eyes, picking the snotty mess of tissues up and saying, 
“When’s the last time you ate?” You didn’t know. “Here.” A glass of orange juice and a glass of water, “You need liquids.” You sniffled and he ran his fingers best he could through your tangled hair. “Wouldn’t you rather be in bed?” 
“I’m comfy here.” You mumbled, eyes half lidded. He nods, brushing his thumb across your cheek, 
“Sleep babydoll, I’ll wake you up to eat.” 
He’d refilled your water, the small sips for your scratchy throat was a marvel. He’d placed a pack of honey cough drops and a new bottle of NyQuil on the coffee table. There was a multi-pack of tissues sitting still in the plastic beside them. The tv had been turned down to a quiet amble. He was listening to some kind of podcast in the kitchen. 
He poured a box of chicken broth into the large pot. A smaller pot next to it cooking egg noodles. A ginger root sat idly beside the stove. 
You knew Bucky loved to cook, he loved making you things you’d never tried before, he’d love to experiment with flavors and you were his own personal guinea pig to try new recipes. They were trying to nail down their menu after all. But he would also make the best comfort food that warmed your very soul.
He knew exactly what you needed and when you needed it. And this soup, as stuffy and clogged, as your head pounded and your body ached, you needed this soup. 
He stirred, a strand of hair falling into his eyes. It must be late. He’d changed into pajamas. The loose sweats and t-shirt wasn’t what he was wearing when he first arrived. He must have felt your eyes on him, turning to look at you as you pulled your lips into a chapped smile. He laughed softly, 
“You look so pathetic.” He joked, pulling a bowl from the cabinet. 
“I am.” You whined, rubbing your head against the pillow, comfortably watching him scoop some noodles into the bowl before ladling the broth on top. Chicken, carrots, celery, mushrooms, a bit of grated ginger, the broth was dark from some soy sauce. Red pepper flakes mixed in and garnished with cilantro. “Spicy Asian chicken noodle soup.” The broth hit your nose and you could almost feel your sinuses clear then. “You’ll be able to breathe again by the end of this.” His socked toes meeting yours as he curled up next to you, sitting you up and handing you the bowl. “I know you like spice.”
It was so fucking good. Runny nose be damned. You hadn’t realized how hungry you actually were. A bowl was finished, and then a second. His fingers tracing up and down your spine while you ate. 
“If you’re not feeling better by Sunday, you should call out on Monday.” The soup had been packed and stored in your fridge. The noodles separate from the broth. “Stark can afford to go one day without you. You have those sick days for a reason.” You know. You know. 
His arm wrapped around your shoulder, pulling you tight into his chest. 
“I’m gonna get you sick.” You mumbled into his soft well worn shirt. His fingers massage your scalp, your eyes drooping. 
“I’ll be fine,” He pressed his lips to your head, “Don’t worry about me. Sleep sweetheart.” 
And you did. 
“So next week Steve is coming up from DC for the weekend.” Bucky called from the kitchen, heating up the leftover soup from last night, “If you’re feeling better by then we were going to go out to dinner, he’s been asking about you and Sam and I think it would be good for you to meet him if you can.” Steve. The other part of the trio.
Bucky had told you they were inseparable once, meeting in basic training the three of them becoming quick friends. Their paths crossed a year after, the three of them chosen to be part of a special ops squad that moved mostly undercover. It didn’t need to be said that the story behind his left arm was buried there somewhere. But he wasn’t ready for that yet. And that’s okay. 
“If you’d like me to.” Honestly it gave you anxiety. You and Bucky hadn’t really had the talk yet, the two of you not even breaching the conversation having sex after spending the majority of the last month together. There was making out, kissing, and a lot of it. But if he wanted you to meet 
Steve it must mean something right?
But there was still this paranoia, this little niggling in your brain that made you feel like the rug was going to be pulled from beneath you. Just like it had before. 
How many times had you been really into a guy and when it came to the point, in what you thought was a relationship, to meet his friends or family he was suddenly really shady about it. A guy had literally told you once, “My friends would make fun of me if I dated a fat girl.” That had been a heavy blow. 
And you know you’re beautiful, you know you’re smart, and you know that you can survive on your own. But you didn’t want to anymore. You wanted to start working towards a partner, possibly getting married, maybe having or adopting kids. And Bucky seemed so perfect. A little too perfect. 
“Of course I want you to.” Meet Steve. The bowl was carefully handed to you while he settled down next to you with his own bowl. “Why wouldn’t I want you to?” The soup was just as good as you remembered it from last night. It had been late, almost one am when the two of you cuddled up on the couch and cleared your sinuses for the first time in a week. 
You shrug, spooning more of the spicy salty broth into your mouth. He gives you a strange look, “You’re my girlfriend,” Brow scrunched, “Girlfriends typically meet their boyfriend’s friends.” Your chapped lips parted and closed, “I mean I know we never like, officially, said anything, but… I thought you knew we were together.” His voice sounded a little sad. His eyes meet yours, placing his bowl on the coffee table. 
You shook your head, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know if you wanted to--” You sighed heavily, “I’m sorry. No, we are together.” 
“Did you think we weren’t?” The bowl was taken from your hands and gently placed beside his on the coffee table, grasping your cold hands in his. 
“I… I didn’t know,” It was hard to look at him, “Sometimes, it’s just…”
“I’m sorry I didn’t make it more clear what my intentions were.” His voice level and reassuring, “I want to be with you, I want to be your boyfriend.” Your eyes glassy. Your period was probably going to start soon, to be fair. You’d cried during Masterchef earlier when the girl had burned her sauce. It had been devastating. 
“No, I’m sorry.” You shook your head, “Communication goes both ways and I just didn’t think to ask.” In case you said no. He softly pressed his lips to yours, 
“Y/N, will you be my girlfriend?” You sniffle, 
“You’re gonna get sick.” Bucky rolls his eyes, smiling, 
“Are you gonna answer my question or not?” You bit a little dry skin off your bottom lip before nodding, 
“Yes.” 
The next weekend had been at his own apartment, his stuffy nose and watery coughs a mimic of yours. The dinner with Steve would have to wait. 
.
.
.
taglist //  @bookish-shristi​ @saturnki​ @jennmurawski13​ @geeksareunique​ @the-soulofdevil​ @tinmunky​ @albinotigerpython
352 notes · View notes
Text
Rise and Fall
Summary:  Roman is finally starting to feel better and it shows, though the others are understandably still worried. Please heed the tws for this fic.
Warnings: suicidal thoughts, discussion of suicide, referenced and implied depression
Ships: Virgil x Roman, Prinxiety (not very focused on)
WC: 2, 723
Logan stepped out of his room rolling up his sleeves and nudging the door closed with his foot. Looking across the hall to one of his roommates' rooms. They lived in a fairly big apartment to accomodate all four of them since they had all decided to keep living together after college for companionship's sake. The doors were all decorated in accordance to their individual styles; Logan’s was a bit plainer with galaxy printed washi tape around a printed paper name plate. Patton’s of course was covered in bright stickers in all shapes and textures while Virgil’s looked like if you walked into his room you’d be expecting a Halloween store; bats, spiders and other dark decorations absolutely covered its surface. The one across from his own, Roman’s, waas a practical explosion compared to the other two however. The entire thing glittered which he had chastised the other about for months after he had done it since it had then covered the rest of the apartment in microscopic glittery pieces of foil that was impossible to vacuum all of no matter how many passes were made over the floor and other surfaces. Drawings and doodles from both Roman and Patton and less so from Virgil and Logan himself were taped and stickered on with a variety of differently printed materials. It was an absolute mess but today that was the furthest concern from Logan’s mind.
The actual concern was the fact that the door was shut tight, no source of light even shining from underneath the jam. Walking closer revealed that there was no sound to be heard from inside either. No music, no singing, no furious scratching of pens and pencils. Just complete silence that made Logan frown and file the observation away for later. It was only nine in the morning on a Saturday, it wouldn't be unusual for Roman to have a late morning to the start of his weekend and he refused to be worried about it when in reality he was probably the only one awake at this hour.
Moving down the hall with coffee and cartoons on his mind ehcocked his head as the first sound he’d heard this morning made itself known: rhythmic snapping. Raising his eyebrows he followed the sound to the living room, the sight before him catching him with surprise.
Roman sat on the floor in front of the couch, music playing softly from his phone with coloring books stacked one side and colored pencils spread out on the other. He couldn't quite make out what was playing but he watched as Roman quietly mouthed along to the lyrics and snapped a rhythm with his other hand. He looked relaxed and happy, and the sight nearly made Logan tear up in the doorway. Instead he made his way to the side of the couch and cleared his throat to make his presence known, smiling more as Rooman turned and flashed his own genuine one his way.
“Morning Pocket Protector. Did I wake you up?”
“No, I- I had my alarm set for 8:30. I thought everyone was still asleep; are you alright?”
Roman’s face softened somewhat as he nodded. “I’m fine Logan. Just got an early start this morning and wanted to relax.”
“Oh, well then by all means, don’t let me distract you.” Turning to go to the kitchen he stopped as Roman called for him.
“Hey wait! You don't have to leave nerd, I’d like the company if you wanna hang out.” He rummaged in his pile and grinned triumphantly as he found the one he was looking for, waving it for Logan to see. “I even have a coloring book for you if you want to join my creative hour!”
Anatomy by Color was shaken in front of his face, something Logan assumed had once been used as a studying tool by Roman before he had no longer needed it, having used that genre of coloring book himself in high school for Biology. Smiling he plucked it from Roman’s hands and turned on his heel, making a beeline for the kitchen before he could get distracted again. “Coffee first!” He offered over his shoulder as Roman laughed after him. Logan smiled wide as he heard the TV being switched on and moments later The Owl House theme being paused for him to come in when he was done. It had been a while since he had caught Roman enjoying a bit of free time and stimming along with music, and he was very glad for the tentative return to normal.
-----
Later that day Roman heard clanking in the kitchen, smiling with a wince as he stretched and stood up from his cramped position on the floor. Logan had left after a few hours of binging their newest show with him and coloring in an old study book he still kept in his collection. Sweeping his pencils back into their box and stacking the books neatly in a pile he waltzed his way into the kitchen with his headphones still playing his playlist on loop. Shoving his hands in his pocket as he leaned against the doorframe he watched as Patton bustled around the kitchen gathering ingredients since it was his turn to make dinner that day. He could see a pile of potatoes in the sink waiting to be washed and a deep dish pan filled with chicken yet to be seasoned. Patton wasn’t...the best cook in their small group but he did try his hardest. Very often he ended up burning whatever he tried to make either trying to make sure it was truly cooked or because he forgot it was in the oven and the smoke alarm letting them all know that dinner was definitely ready. As a result the meals were usually simpler ones that required him to simply put them in the oven for an allotted amount of time and tell at least one other person so that they could keep track of the time together.
Stepping into the kitchen, Rpman unplugged his headphones and set his phanoe down on the table as Patton turned around, the other giggling as Roman caught his heads and set them twirling around the kitchen in an improvised dance that had them both tripping over eachother and laughing like madmen until Roman stopped by the sink and bowed, rolling up his sleeves to wash the potatoes.
“What kind of seasoning are you trying today Padre?”
Shaking out the last of his giggles Patton grabbed up the seasoning containers he had been grabbing before Roman entered. “Just something simple since movie night is later! Little bit of garlic and onion, some salt and pepper, and curry.”
“Sounds delicious Patton. You're getting better at mixing flavors.” Roman meant that genuinely, they had all improved drastically with their cooking, but Patton was making better and better dishes all the time, even if he did still burn half of what he tried to make.
“Thank you!” Patton beamed at him as he started on measuring out the spices, leaving Roman to scrub at the potatoes and start cutting them up to roast, both of them moving and shimmying to their own beat as the music continued to play. Roman missed however the many careful looks Patton shot him as they worked, smiling softly after each one seeing how truly happy he really seemed to be.
-----
Virgil settled his chin atop his boyfriends fluffy head as they all got comfortable for movie night, bowls of customized, microwave popcorn in front of each of them with a shared bowl for Roman and Virgil nestled in the formers lap since they had the same taste. He squeezed around Roman’s middle gently causing him to squirm back into him and huff out a quiet laugh as the movie started. The opening notes of Cinderella started playing, an old favorite of all of them that they had voted on earlier and he could feel any lingering tension in the room leave as they all seemed to sigh contently at the same time. Roman was warm and relaxed in his arms and Virgil knew the soft smile that had been present on his lips all day would be there still even if he couldn’t see it.
He reached for some popcorn at the same time as Roman but when he tried to pull away his hand was caught and brought up for a chaste kiss by the cheeky flirt in his arms, making his laugh softly and smack at his face before grabbing a big handful and shoving it in his mouth.
“You get popcorn crumbs in my hair and I will never forgive you.” Roman muttered quietly.
Grinning Virgil wiped his lips before leaning his head down and planting a lingering kiss on top of his head. “Wouldn’t dream of it my Prince.”
Knowing Roman’s face would be scarlet he grinned devilishly and settled careful hands on the others hips, massaging slowly as they continued watching the movie, Logan and Patton politely pretending they didn’t hear anything over the film.
-----
“Roman?” Virgil carefully closed the door behind him, biting his lip as he quickly opened his phone and went to his speed dials.Roman turned slightly and smiled, not at all easing the anxiety spiking in his chest as he watched Him shift slightly in his cross legged position on the wide roof railing.
“I’m okay, I’m just sitting.”
“Yeah?” Virgil licked his lips nervously, putting his phone in his pocket but keeping it on. He had no idea how much delicacy this situation would need but if Roman needed him, he would be here. He tried not to feel too hurt that he hadn’t come to him before deciding the top of their apartment building was the best place to sit.
“Yeah, here I’m sorry for making you nervous.” He breathed a grateful sigh of relief as Roman turned and slid off the short wall and made his way over to sit against the gate surrounding the satellite dish instead. Carefully walking over and sitting beside him, Virgil looked over to him attentively. He had seemed to be getting better, had been leaving his room and making things again, taking time to relax and slept on a more regular schedule. It didn’t take a monumental effort to get him to eat anymore and Virgil didn’t have to take junk food away from him at a two in the morning binge of hunger and try to convince him to eat just a small meal instead and to drink water. He had even been changing his clothes more regularly and the bags around his eyes were gone, stimming happily with music and smiling more.
All that said Virgil had read there was a possibility it would get worse before anything got better, and even scarier that things could seem better before they got worse. Major depressive episodes weren’t anything to take lightly, Virgil definitely knew that which was why he had been trying so hard to keep an eye on his partner even more than usual. Did he feel smothered? Did he feel too babied? Not taken care of enough? Should he check in with him more often or was he being pushy already?
“You think really loud.” Roman voice snapped him out of his thoughts, making him shake his head and reach for his hand, grateful when it was gripped tightly between them. “I really am okay now Virge, you don’t have to worry so much.”
“I do anyway, you know that. You’ve been really busy lately both with work and what you work on after and I just- I’m afraid you’re pushing yourself.”
“I’m not.”
“Then why-” did you look like you were going to jump. The unspoken though made him tense and Roman squeezed his hand, offering him a small smile.
“I’m sorry. I’m just...a mess.” Roman laughed and looked away, making Virgil’s heart clench.
“You aren’t. Tell me what’s happening Ro.”
Roman breathed deeply and let it out in a whoosh of air. “I’ve been thinking a lot lately and it’s making me a little...scattered.”
Squeezing his hand again Virgil nodded. Thinking. He could handle thoughts. “Thinking about what?” He encouraged.
“Thinking that- things were a lot...easier when I was alone.” Roman pressed his lips together. “Before I met any of you, I could sit and wallow as much as I wanted. I could self-pity in peace without worrying anyone. It’s nice to have people that care about me and that I care about but now that I do- people would care if I left. I have people that would be disappointed and sad so I can’t- I can’t go. And sometimes that’s worse, for the most selfish reasons.”
“It isn’t selfish.” Virgil breathed out, earning a rueful smile.
“Not everyone would agree.” They sat in silence for a few minutes before Roman broke it again. “Before I met any of you I was very sad, all the time. There didn’t always have to be a reason sometimes I just...was. Nothing I did worked but I honestly didn’t try too hard. I didn’t feel like there was a need to. I just kind of existed. And I was always tired and sad and lonely, though I didn’t know I was the last one at the time. I isolated myself on purpose for whatever reason, it isn’t important now. I felt like I was nothing.”
He shifted closer to Virgil and Virgil detangled their fingers to wrap his arm around him instead, reaching across to hold his hand that way instead. Roman gratefully sank into the warmth before speaking up again.
“I’m not suicidal now, but I was then. I just turned numb to the idea I suppose. Almost like a ‘Well I’m not doing anything else’ sort of thing.” He let out a joyless laugh. “And then I got inspired again. I still wanted to die, that just got pushed to the background in favor of doing other things. I told myself I would still do it, I just had to finish some things first. But I never finished them.”
He shifted again to look up at Virgil. “I kept feeling guilty for leaving half finished projects so I told myself I had to finish those first. And then I met you, and Patton and Logan and I knew I couldn’t leave. I missed my chance, because I knew you all would be devastated. As much as I didn’t care about myself you three did ten times as hard for me. I got really sad again that I hadn’t been able to go through with it in time. And as happy as I am now, I’m frustrated because I thought I would be dead by now so I didn’t think there was any point in working on so many things I had ideas for, and now that I know I’m staying here there’s so many things I want to finish and start and it’s so much. I could have done so many things before this but I feel like I’m just getting started. It’s...overwhelming.”
Virgil sat in thought for a moment before speaking. “There’s nothing wrong with just getting started, especially if that means you're focused on those creative things that make you happy instead of the thoughts of wanting to end your life. As frustrating as you feel like it is, and as behind as you think you are, you don’t have a time limit anymore. You can do anything and everything you want, and take it one step at a time because you know you’ll still be here tomorrow.”
Leaning down Virgil planted a soft kiss on Roman’s forehead. “I’m really proud of you that you were able to find something to keep you here, and I couldn’t be happier that Logan, Patton and I can care for you.”
Roman hummed and turned his face into the hoodie covered chest, scrunching his face as the rough stitching scratch at it. “I’m happy I’m here too, especially with the three of you.”
Resting his cheek on Roman’s head, Virgil squeezed tightly around the others shoulders in an awkward half hug. They’d definitely have to talk about this tomorrow, preferably with their other roommates so they all knew how to move forward with Roman’s mental state, but for now it was enough to simply hold him close. And be.
This work and others are also available on AO3!
21 notes · View notes
whump-tr0pes · 4 years
Text
Honor Bound 4 - 9
Tumblr media
Honor Bound 4 - 9 (Taking the bullet) @badthingshappenbingo​​​
Requested by anon... and taken very metaphorically here.
~
This is a series. Start here, continued from here.
This is a sequel to Honor Bound, Honor Bound 2, and Honor Bound 3.
AO3
Cw: dissoci@tion, pain medication, self-hatred, trauma survivor blaming another survivor, death mention
~
Isaac dragged his feet as he made his way to the kitchen. The smell of meat and bread and garlic swirled around him, and his stomach growled. He hadn’t realized just how hungry he was. He couldn’t even remember the last time he had an actual hot meal.
He turned the corner into the kitchen. Gray, Edrissa, Finn, and Ellis were busily slicing bread, checking on meat in the oven, sautéing vegetables. Isaac licked his lips. His mouth watered.
“Uh, hey guys,” he said softly.
They all turned and looked at Isaac. Gray and Finn smiled at him. Edrissa’s eyes flicked to his, then down to the floor. Ellis pursed their lips and turned back to their pan of onions and peppers cooking with garlic. Isaac tore his gaze from the food and looked around for Vera. She was on the couch with Tori, her arm tight around Tori’s shoulders. Sam sat on her other side, pale, cradling their arm in its sling as they smiled tightly at Isaac.
Vera met his gaze with the shadow of a smirk before her smile fell, her gaze moving over his face, taking in the stoop of his shoulders. The shame in his eyes. Her eyebrows pulled together and she leaned forward.
Tori tensed, and Vera froze. Vera leaned back, her eyes still fixed on Isaac in a silent question.
Isaac bit his lip and shook his head. His cheeks flushed as Vera’s mouth fell open. Her gaze searched his face, a sadness in her eyes that made Isaac’s stomach churn. He stared at the floor and turned to the others.
“Can I, um, help with something?” Isaac said weakly.
“Almost done,” Gray said, their voice sounding as light as Isaac had heard it since the family had reached their house. “I didn’t want to wake you.”
Isaac flushed deeper. He heard Gavin come into the kitchen behind him. Isaac froze.
“Hi, Gavin,” Gray said, their gaze now on Ellis. Ellis’s shoulders were tense as they stirred the vegetables, turned firmly away from Gavin and Isaac.
“Hey,” Gavin said quietly. Isaac shot a glance at him. His shirt was right side out now.
Oh, shit. I didn’t even mention that to him.
“I’ll set the table,” Isaac ground out. He jerkily walked to a counter before he realized he didn’t know where the plates and silverware were. “Gray—”
“Plates are there,” Gray said as they pulled a pot roast out of the oven, set it down, and pointed to one of the cabinets above the counter. “Cups right next to them. And silverware…” They pointed to a drawer right next to Isaac’s hand. “…you were already on the right track.” They took out a knife and sliced the pot roast into large pieces
“Okay,” Isaac murmured. He pulled the drawer open and took out nine forks and knives. He turned to the other cabinet and saw Gavin already taking down the plates. Isaac met his eyes for a moment, then looked away miserably. Gavin set the plates on the counter and took down some cups as well.
“Dinner’s ready,” Gray said. They stepped away from the counter and gestured to the line of food. “Help yourselves.”
For a moment, the only sound was the vegetables still sizzling faintly in the pan. Edrissa stepped forward with a shy glance at the others. She took a plate and took a large slice of pot roast, a scoop of sautéed onions and multi-colored bell peppers, and a slice of bread. She stepped away and made her way to the table. As if a spell was broken, Finn and Ellis stepped forward and began loading their plates with food.
Isaac turned back to the living room and made his way to the couch where Tori, Vera, and Sam sat. Vera gently guided Tori to her feet. Tori’s gaze seemed to waver between here and not here, her mind threatening to disappear into a place no one else could follow. Vera’s arm tightened on Tori’s shoulder and Tori looked up, dazed.
“I’m here,” Tori said softly.
“Good,” Vera said, sounding more than a little relieved. “Let’s go eat, babe. Then we can go to bed if you want.”
“Sounds good,” Tori said as she unsteadily made her way to the kitchen.
Isaac held out a hand to Sam. “Hey Sam,” he said gently. “Need help?”
Sam cradled their right arm and shuddered, their face going pale, sweat breaking out across their skin. “Um…”
Isaac took a step closer, his eyes fixed on their face. “Your arm?”
“My everything,” Sam ground out between their teeth. Their breath came heavy. “It just… it just hurts.” They trailed off into a whimper.
Isaac looked over his shoulder at Finn, who was carrying their plate to the table, their other arm around Ellis’s shoulders. “Finn?”
Finn looked up and placed their plate on the table. “Yeah?”
“Can they… um…” Isaac swallowed hard. “Can they have another pill?”
Finn glanced into the kitchen, at the clock set into the oven. “Yeah,” they said, and pulled the bottle out of their pocket. “No problem.”
“Sam,” Isaac said softly. “Let’s get you to the table, so you can take your pill.”
Sam moved to get up and stiffened. Their whimper hit Isaac in the chest like physical pain, making his ribs ache even more with each breath.
“Um…” Sam’s hand squeezed into a fist. “I don’t think I… um… I’m not very hungry. I might just—”
“You need to eat, Sam,” Isaac said, and held out his hand again. “Come on. You need to eat, or you won’t heal.”
Sam’s lips trembled. “Isaac—”
“I’ll carry you, if that’s what you need,” Isaac said, his voice sharp. “Or I’ll take a plate to you. But you need to eat.”
Sam raised their head and met Isaac’s eyes. The dull pain there made Isaac’s stomach heave, and the familiar wash of my fault my fault my fault broke over him. He forced it down. That isn’t what they need. My hatred for myself has never helped them.
“What do you need, Sam?” Isaac murmured.
Sam’s eyes shone with tears for a moment. They blinked and looked down. “I need to stop hurting,” they huffed, the words coming out twisted.
“Okay,” Isaac said gently. “Let’s get a pill in you, and a little food, and you can lay down and go to bed if you want.”
“I can’t sleep like this,” Sam said bitterly. “I haven’t really slept.”
Isaac bit his lip as he looked down at his little sibling, his heart clenching as his gaze moved over the sling on their arm, the flakes of blood still in their hair, the dark circles under their eyes, the way they flinched slightly with every movement. He drew in a deep breath. “Well,” he said weakly, “You could always just ask Finn to tell you about the clotting cascade and that’ll put you right to sleep.”
Sam looked up at Isaac, pain still making lines around their mouth, around their eyes. Their lips slid into a smile and their shoulders shook with a weak laugh. They winced and shuddered. They took a slow breath in.
“Okay,” they said softly. “Dinner. Then the clotting cascade.”
“Let’s get you to the table,” Isaac said gently, holding out a hand. “And I’ll grab your plate.”
“Okay,” Sam said as they took Isaac’s hand and painfully pulled themself to their feet. They swayed slightly, and Isaac’s hands went to their shoulders to steady them. “Not too much, though. I’m really not that hungry.”
“No problem.” Isaac guided them gently to the table and helped them into a seat. Everyone else was already seated with their own steaming plate in front of them. “Thanks for waiting,” he mumbled.
“Of course,” Gray said, and smiled at Isaac. Isaac walked quickly to the kitchen to grab a plate for him and Sam. He placed a small slice of meat, a few peppers, and half a slice of bread on Sam’s plate. His he piled until the plate was full. He made his way back to the table and set Sam’s plate in front of them. He sat in the empty chair next to them at the end of the table. He looked up and realized he sat exactly opposite Gavin. Isaac flushed deeply and stared at his plate.
Everyone began eating at once. Next to Sam, Finn and Ellis dug into their food with an enthusiasm that was almost impressive. Sam took the pill Finn had placed at their spot and began picking weakly at their food. Vera and Tori ate quietly, unconsciously leaning towards each other. Edrissa’s gaze moved over each of them with every bite, although she shot glances down the table at Gavin every few seconds. Gavin ate with his head bowed, his eyes down, not looking at anyone else. Gray pensively watched them all.
For a while, no one spoke. The only sounds were the clink of silverware against plates, the satisfied chewing, the sound of Sam’s labored breaths. Isaac inhaled his food. The more he ate, the more he realized just how hungry he’d really been.
He was bent over his plate when Sam said quietly, “Um, Isaac?”
He paused with his fork halfway to his mouth. “Yeah?”
“Um, would you mind…” They glanced at the slice of meat, untouched.
“Oh.” Isaac’s stomach churned. My fault my fault my fault my fault—
STOP.
“Yeah,” Isaac said, and leaned over to cut the meat into bite-sized pieces.
“Thanks,” Sam said quietly, and continued eating.
Everyone was silent again for a while, the food disappearing from their plates. Isaac glanced up. Edrissa’s and Ellis’s eyes were shifted down and away from Gavin at the end of the table.
“Um,” Gavin said weakly. Isaac glanced at him. “Thank you for dinner,” he murmured.
Ellis scoffed quietly. “As if you weren’t fed the good shit when—”
“Ellis,” Vera and Gray barked at the same time.
Gray glanced at Vera and just slightly leaned back, their mouth twisting in a bittersweet half-smile. Vera turned her gaze and her fury on Ellis.
Ellis was already backpedaling. “All I’m saying is—”
“Tell me what you’re saying,” Vera snarled. “Tell me what the fuck you were going to follow that with.”
Ellis bristled, their eyes flashing. “I don’t know why the fuck you’re getting so butthurt at me,” they spat. “He’s the one who—”
“He’s the one who got us out,” Vera said fiercely, flinging a hand in Gavin’s direction. Gavin was bright red, and he stared at the table. “If not for him, we’d all still be there. He’s the only reason we escaped and if Colleen had killed him, or if he’d gotten away when they took us, we would have fucking died in that house.”
“I can go eat in my room,” Gavin said miserably, tears welling in his eyes. He stood up and reached for his plate. “I can—”
“Sit the fuck down,” Vera ground out through her teeth. “I’m not gonna set a fucking precedent of you being unwelcome with us. You’re part of this family.” Gavin sat down heavily, his eyes wide and fixed on Vera.
“He hurt Tori!” Ellis screamed, jumping to their feet. “He hurt Sam! He hurt…” Ellis swallowed thickly. “He hurt Isaac,” they hissed. “How can you defend him? How can you fucking sit there and—”
“Because I know what he did to save us!” Vera said, getting to her feet as well. “I know what he sacrificed. I know he did all that shit to make Colleen trust him. I know as soon as she did, the day she did, he got us all out. He didn’t let a suffer a moment longer than he had to. And if Colleen found out, Gavin would have died. His own mother would have killed him, and made him watch us die first.”
“How can you justify—”
“Because that’s what Ryan did!” Vera cried, and her voice twisted into a sob.
Ellis’s mouth fell shut with a snap. Their face flushed a deep red.
“Because that’s what Ryan did,” Vera said, quieter. Her eyes shone with tears. “He… he did the same fucking thing. Ryan made those sacrifices for me, too. That’s why I can defend him,” she said as she threw a glance at Gavin. “Because I know what it took for him to do that.”
Isaac turned his gaze on Gavin. Gavin trembled and kept his eyes fixed on the table.
“I’m not justifying anything,” Vera said in a wobbly, tear-filled voice. “I’m not. He hurt us, and we’ll carry those scars forever.” Vera’s gaze shifted to Tori. Tori sat back in her chair, her lips pressed together. Gavin whimpered softly. “But he…” Vera’s mouth twisted. “He did what he had to do. We all did. And he got us out. He risked his life every day, and he got us out.”
Vera sat down and swiped the tears from her eyes. She took in a deep breath and shook herself. She sniffed as she looked at the ceiling, blinking rapidly against the tears still in her eyes. Finally, she looked at Gavin.
“Thank you,” Vera said softly.
Gavin shuddered and heaved a sob. He pressed his face into his hands.
Ellis swallowed hard and sat down, their gaze fixed on the table. Finally they looked up. “I… I’m sorry,” they rasped.
Gavin shook his head, his face still buried in his hands. “No,” he whimpered. “Please don’t.”
“Gavin,” Isaac said softly. Gavin’s hands tangled in his own hair and he pulled. “Gavin,” Isaac said a little louder. Gavin lifted his head and stared at Isaac, his cheeks stained with tears. “Thank you,” Isaac murmured.
Gavin’s face twisted and he covered his mouth against a sob. “Isaac—”
“Thank you,” Sam said at Isaac’s side. They bit their lip as they looked at Gavin, their breathing shallow and harsh. Gavin raised his eyes to Sam and held their gaze desperately, like they could pull him out of the depths. He met their eyes like a man being promised salvation while teetering on the edge of hell.
“Thank you,” Finn said. Ellis pulled away from them, confusion and rage twisting their features.
“Gavin,” Tori whispered. Gavin shuddered and looked at the table again.
“I’m sorry,” he whimpered.
“Th-thank you,” Tori said softly. “For not, not letting her k-kill me,” she rasped. She looked up and took Vera’s hand. “Or Vera. Or any of us.”
“Thank you, Gavin,” Gray said gently, “For saving our family.”
Edrissa looked to Gray, and then Gavin. Her mouth was a hard line. She stayed silent.
Gavin looked around the table at them all, with eyes red-rimmed and brimming with tears. Finally, his eyes returned to Isaac. Isaac felt himself burn under Gavin’s gaze.
Gavin had saved them, but he hadn’t done just that. He’d seen Isaac’s scars. He’d been with Isaac in his brokenness, touched him where he’d been hurt, held him, even though he knew what Isaac was. Isaac was beaten, and broken, and Gavin still wanted him – still loved him – anyway. Gavin had seen Isaac in his lowest moments, and he still desired Isaac.
And Isaac wanted him, too. Nothing would stop that, now. Not fear, not Gavin’s past, not the world that howled for Gavin’s blood. Now that Isaac knew it, there was no going back. He’d protect Gavin, stay by his side. He’d give his life for Gavin if it was asked of him, like Gavin tried to do for him, like he tried to do for Sam. Gavin was Isaac’s family. Gavin was the one Isaac wanted. He’d proven himself in every imaginable way.
Gavin’s eyes flicked down to the table again, and his head bowed forward. “I just…” His lips trembled and his eyes squeezed shut. “I just wish I could have done it… sooner. I wish I could have…” He took a steadying breath and raised his gaze to look around the table again. I would have taken it all if I…” He whimpered softly. “…if I could.”
“What you gave is enough,” Isaac murmured.
Gavin’s eyes snapped to Isaac’s. Isaac wet his lips to speak.
“Isaac,” Sam rasped. He tore his gaze from Gavin and looked at Sam. Their face was drawn with pain, and they held their arm against their chest. Their skin was sickly pale.
“Oh. Sam. What do you need?” He reached out to Sam and stopped inches away, unsure of where to touch them.
Sam swallowed hard. “Can you, um…” They whimpered. “I n-need to, um, go lay down. Can you help me get, um, cleaned up, and help me go to bed? I just…” They bit their lip and blew out a slow breath. “It hurts,” they whispered.
Isaac lurched to his feet. “Yeah, Sam,” he muttered. “Absolutely.” He guided them up from the table and turned them towards the hall. “Gray, is it okay if I clean up my—”
“We’ll handle it,” Gray said gently. “We’ll handle the cleanup. You help Sam.”
“Okay,” Isaac murmured. He wound his arm gently around their waist, and winced when Sam hissed at the pressure against their lash marks. Isaac helped them as they stumbled weakly to the bathroom.
Continued here
@untilthepainstarts​​​​, @womping-grounds​​​​, @free-2bmee​​​​, @quirkykayleetam​​​​, @walkingchemicalfire​​​​, @inpainandsuffering​​​​, @redwingedwhump​​​, @burtlederp​​​​, @castielamigos-whump-side-blog​​​​, @insomniacscoprio​​​​, @cursedscribbles​​​​, @whumpywhumper​​​​, @stxck-fxck​​​​, @omega-em-z-02​​​​, @whumps-the-word​​​​, @justwhumpitwhumpitgood​​​​, @justplainwhump​​​​, @moose-teeth​​​​, @slaintetowhump​​​​, @finder-of-rings​​​​, @inky-whump​​​​, @thatsthewhump​​​​, @orchidscript​​​​, @insanitywishes​​​​, @this-mightaswell-happen​​​​, @newandfiguringitout​​​​, @whumpkitty​​​​, @pretty-face-breaker​​​​, @cinnamonflavoredhugs​​​​, @inaridriscoll​​​, @im-just-here-for-the-whump​​
74 notes · View notes
ltleflrt · 4 years
Text
Feels Like Home Ch 1 - Destiel Version
Small towns are quiet.  No cars, very few voices unless one visits the Roadhouse around mealtimes and at sundown when it converts from a diner to the local watering hole.  Sometimes the loudest thing a person hears all day is the buzz of electricity, or the hiss of wind kicking sand up against walls.
That’s what Dean loves about Lebanon Kansas.  At least now he does.  When he was a kid, he’d hated the small town he grew up in.  It was too small, barely a wide spot in the road, and he wanted to be part of the bigger world.  But after years in the army, and visiting many strange and exotic locations during his service, he came home.  The world is too big and too loud sometimes, and Lebanon’s small town silence is exactly what he needs right now.
So the sudden clang of tools is jarring enough to bring his head up to see what the hell is going on.  Unfortunately, he’s reminded rather painfully that he’s under the hood of a car when the back of his head connects with it.
Rubbing at the sore spot, Dean extricates himself a little more carefully from the car he’s working on and straightens to see what all the racket is about.  From the grumbling and cursing coming from the direction of the workbench at the back of the shop, he has an idea.
Confirming his suspicions, Jo is somewhat violently putting away tools, bitching and growling too low for him to catch any words.  Hoping he’s not the current target of her ire, he cautiously makes his way toward the back of the shop.
“Hey, I appreciate your sudden zeal for order,” he says dryly as he watches her throw a wrench into a drawer.  It nearly bounces right back out.  “But if you break it, you buy it.”
Jo spins around and pins him with her glare.  She has another, larger wrench clenched in her fist, and she brandishes it at him.  “These tools are made of fucking steel,” she snaps.  “I’m sure they’ll be fine!”
She looks pissed enough to bite through one of them, but he’s not dumb enough to tell her that.  Showing no fear in the face of her bark but no bite attitude, he pulls a rag out of his back pocket and attempts to clean some of the oile off his hands.  He eyes Jo for a moment before his eyes drift to the clock on the wall behind her.  It’s late afternoon already, and his stomach growls to remind him that he hasn’t eaten since far too early in the morning.  “You want to go to the Roadhouse and get something to eat?” he asks as if Jo isn’t seething with anger in front of him.
He isn’t surprised when she nearly explodes at the suggestion.  “No, I don’t want to go to the goddamn Roadhouse.  I just came from the goddamn Roadhouse, and now my appetite is ruined!”
“My treat,” he offers, ignoring her outburst.
“Are you deaf?” Jo demands.  “Why the hell would I want to go back there?”
Giving up on getting his hands any cleaner without some harsh soap, Dean tucks the rag back in his pocket.  Completely unafraid of Jo’s temper, and the heavy tool-slash-weapon in her hand, he steps close and slings an arm over her shoulder.  He takes the wrench, twisting until it slips out of her white-knucked grip, and sets it on the bench before guiding her out of the garage and into the afternoon sunlight.  “If you don’t go back, she’ll gloat about being right,” Dean says as a blast of heat hits him.  He’s already sweaty from working in the garage all morning, but being out of the shade only feels a hair cooler than the surface of the sun at the moment.
“She’s not,” Jo grumbles under her breath.  But her spine straightens and she shrugs out from under his arm to march ahead of him.
Dean grins after her, admiring the way the sun glints off her golden curls in an almost angelic fashion.  The little spitfire definitely reminds him much more of a demon the rest of the time.  A hot breeze sets him in motion again quickly though, and he hurries after her toward the air conditioned interior of the Roadhouse.
As Jo slams through the Roadhouse’s door, the bell clangs loudly to announce her, and he catches it before it swings shut, sighing in relief as cool air envelops him.  He wonders what Jo and her mother are fighting about today, but knows better than to ask.  Especially not within Ellen’s earshot.  He can handle Jo’s temper.  On a good day he can handle Ellen’s temper.  He’s not stupid enough to think he can ever handle them both at once.
Jo climbs onto a stool and pulls out a menu.  She glares at it sullenly, as if she doesn’t have the whole thing memorized forward and back.
“Heya Deano!” Ash calls from behind the counter.  His lazy grin doesn’t falter when he turns it on Jo, even when she tries to burn holes into him with her eyes.  “Hey there Joanna.  Back for revenge?”
Jo only glares harder for a moment before putting him on ignore.
“Hey Ash,” Dean greets cheerfully as he settles onto a stool next to Jo.
“The usual, buddy?” Ash asks.  His eyes are bloodshot, and he looks like he just rolled out of bed, but there’s a sharp mind behind that stoner facade.  For the umpteenth time, Dean wonders why the hell he’s hanging around Lebanon and not off working for the CIA or some other shady organization.
It’s not worth thinking about too hard though, because he’ll never know the real answer.  Ash likes to play up the mystery, and Dean wouldn’t know the truth if he heard it at this point.  Instead he turns his attention to filling his empty stomach.  Pie sings its siren song from under the glass dome at the end of the counter, but even with the A/C cranked up, Dean’s still feeling overly warm.  “How ‘bout the usual plus a chocolate milkshake?
“With or without the wakeup?” 
“With.”
Ash taps his knuckles on the counter.  “You got it, Deano.”  He turns and starts working his magic with the shake mixers behind the bar, and calls through the window that opens into the kitchen.  “Hey Benny, make Dean a burger.”
A head pops into view through the serving window, and Benny gives Dean a lazy salute.  “Hey, brother,” he greets warmly.  “It’ll be ready in a few minutes.”
Dean returns the salute and nods.  He turns to his prickly neighbor.  “You want anything, Jo?”
“Coffee,” she snaps.
A long sigh comes from the other end of the bar from where Ash is working his magic, and Ellen grabs the pot and carries it over to them.  She pours a cup for Jo without a word, then walks away.
Dean resists rolling his eyes where mother or daughter can see him.  He’s not angling for a slap upside the head, just lunch.
With a flourish, Ash whirls around and presents him with his shake, distracting Dean from the silent war going on next to him.  He takes a long pull off the straw, and sighs happily at the chocolaty coffee flavor.  “Thanks, man.  That hits the spot.”
“Yeah, it’s damn hot out there today, ain’t it?”
They chat about the weather, even though it barely changes at this time of the year.  But soon Benny’s pushing a heaping plate through the serving window and calling “Chow’s up!”
The burger is perfect.  Juicy, and piled with onions, just the way Dean likes it.  He digs in, groaning at the tang of sharp cheddar, and licking grease from his lips.  Jo glares at him with disgust, and turns slightly away from him.
By the time he’s finished the burger and is contemplating how many fries he can manage while still finishing his shake, Ellen and Jo have defrosted and are talking softly while he pretends not to hear them apologizing to each other.  Ash is singing off key to the radio as he fills the salt and pepper shakers, and muted clangs and clunks from the kitchen keep him aware of Benny’s presence in the kitchn.
It’s peaceful.  It’s the reason he moved back.  The quiet and peace of Lebanon keep the nightmares at bay.
But he still startles easily, so when Jo digs her elbow into his ribs it’s only through supreme effort that he doesn’t try to attack her.  She notices his aborted movement and raises an eyebrow at him, fully aware of what almost happened but not impressed.  But she doesn’t say anything about it, instead tilting her head toward the wall of windows to their right.
“Hey look,” she says, just as he registers the loud rumble of an engine outside, “someone got lost.”
Dean turns to see a motorcycle pulling up to the Roadhouse.  Gravel dust rises around the stranger as he comes to a stop, and the music from Ash’s radio seems extra loud when the bike’s engine shuts off.  Dean’s eyes trace over the man’s wide shoulders under a black leather jacket as the guy reaches up and pulls off his equally dark helmet.  Mesmerized, he follows the guy’s movements as he reaches up and runs fingers through the tousled dark brown hair revealed by the helmet’s removal.
This time when Jo elbows him he doesn’t jump at all, but it’s a reminder to breathe.  He lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding and turns his attention to her, plastering an innocent look on his face and hoping she didn’t see his reaction.  Of course he’s not that lucky, and he stifles a groan at the wicket glint in her eyes.  “Don’t,” he warns.
Jo shows him her teeth, more of a challenge than a smile.  Behind them the bell rings over the door as the stranger walks in.
As one, he and Jo turn to see the newcomer.
The guy stops just inside the door, and smiles shyly at the sudden attention he’s receiving.  “Hello,” he says with a nod of greeting before walking toward a booth near the window.s
Dean takes the greeting like a punch to the gut.  The guy is hot.  Smoking hot.  With traces of gray at his temples and a little salt in his not-quite-a-beard.  A beautiful mouth, and god those eyes.  Dark, maybe blue, and Dean itches to get close enough to find out for sure.  And the man’s voice, fuck.  Like a shot of whiskey, going straight to Dean’s head.
A little too quickly to appear casual, he turns back to the counter and looks down at the food left on his plate.  What the hell is wrong with him?  He’s seen plenty of hot men before.  Hell, he just has to look up and see Benny in the kitchen to find one.
Out of the corner of his eye he sees Ellen take the man’s order.  He catches himself leaning slightly in that direction in an effort to hear the man’s voice again and immediately straightens in his seat.  He stuffs a couple fries in his mouth and chews despite the fact that he can’t really taste them anymore. 
“Quit being a pussy and go talk to him,” Jo says, thankfully in a low voice that only carries to him.
“What the hell would I talk to him about?” Dean whispers back.
“You could start with an offer for a handjob,” Jo answers.  When Dean chokes, she smirks and pounds him on the back, and continues as if she hadn’t nearly killed him.  “Come on, it’s a great way to find out if he likes dick.”
Once his windpipe is clear he turns a glare on her.  “I like dick, but if a dude started a conversation with that, I wouldn’t be impressed.”
“That’s because you suck at getting with guys,” Ash says, leaning close to join in on the conversation.  “Want me to be your wingman, buddy?”
“No thanks, Ash,” Dean says dryly.  “Not sure you’d be that much help.”
“I could do it,” Jo offers brightly.
“Yeah, no. That’d be worse.”
Jo punches him in the arm, and he glares at her as he rubs the aching spot.  Which is a tactical error, because of course she takes it as a challenge.  She gives him a downright evil smile, and slides off her stool, shimmying away from his grasping hands so he can’t prevent the disaster about to happen.  She practically bounces across the hardwood floors, and plunks down on the bench opposite of the stranger.
Dean groans.  This cannot possibly go well for him.
This is actually a rewrite of chapter 1 of my most popular Mass Effect Fic, Feels Like Home.  I don’t know why I feel like doing this, but I do, so here we are.
42 notes · View notes
dcbbw · 4 years
Text
WIP Wednesday 7-15-2020
Tumblr media
Thanks for the tags @bebepac​ and @hopefulmoonobject​!
You all know I have WIPs; too many of them. Below are sneak peeks of coming attractions. Many are still in draft stages and subject to changes before being posted.
 Back Roads:
The last item to be cleared was the late King’s personal safe, which Bastien opened for them; it was protocol that only the monarch and the head of the King’s guard knew the combination. None of the friends knew what to expect, but nothing seemed untoward: certificates of marriage to his three Queens; a petition to declare his first Queen presumed dead; Queen Eleanor’s death certificate.
A plain wooden box simply labeled “The Walkers.” Everyone looked at the other, curious what was inside. Liam wordlessly handed the box to Drake, who looked suspiciously at the strongbox before lifting its lid.
Everything was neatly compartmentalized: The Cordonian Cross, awarded to Jackson Walker posthumously for “acts of the greatest heroism or for most conspicuous courage in circumstance of extreme danger.”  The letter and certificate which had accompanied the Cross had been given to Savannah.
A copy of the Widowers and Children agreement, signed by Bianca; a copy of Jackson’s life insurance and pension plan. Drake and Savannah were beneficiaries to both with payments to begin when their stipend from the Crown ended. And a sealed envelope with Drake’s name written on it.
“Open it!” Olivia urged impatiently.
Liam handed him a letter opener, and Drake sliced the envelope open. His eyes quickly scanned the letter, one section leaping out at him:
In honor of his father’s selfless act of heroism, it is hereby decreed that Drake Walker shall be named a Knight of Cordonia and accorded the title of Sir Drake J. Walker, and afforded all the privileges of the Crown and Palace, with the exception that he shall retain commoner status when it comes the hierarchy of the Throne.
His sister, Savannah J. Walker, shall be named a Dame of Cordonia and afforded all the privileges of the Crown and Palace, with the exception that she shall retain commoner status when it comes the hierarchy of the Throne.
Maxwell, who was reading over Drake’s shoulder, let out a low whistle. “Wow … Drake, you’re … noble!”
Sister Someone, Chapter 3—Sunday, Bloody Sunday:
Harper breathed in Ethan’s scent: fresh, green, with just the slightest hints of mint and musk. She wanted Ethan to move in with her; it seemed … natural. He was already spending a lot of time there: He had clothes in her closet, and a toothbrush in her bathroom.  Her fingers began a slow walk across Ethan’s chest towards the buttons on his shirt.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the ringing of her phone. With a reluctant sigh, she pulled it from the crevice between their bodies and felt her eyes widen when she recognized the number.
“Who is it?” Ethan asked, seeing the expression on her face.
“Work,” Harper said quickly as she declined the call. “I’ll call them back.”
She tossed her phone aside to pull Ethan to her. When Ethan suggested they go upstairs, Harper told hi to go ahead; she wanted to review some paperwork first. Once she heard Ethan climb the stairs, Harper returned the earlier call.
The steak was seasoned and laying on a bed of onions, peppers, and bacon when her phone vibrated. Harper answered tersely. “What?”
He caller gave a low chuckle. “And a good morning to you, Dr. Emery. Merely calling to confirm you’ll be joining my fiancée and I for brunch later today.”
Harper exhaled a low breath. “Do I have a choice?”
“There’s always a choice. This isn’t extortion.”
Harper ground her teeth. “I’ll be there,” she gritted out.
The caller’s tone was pleased. “Excellent! Lucy and I will meet you at Sonsie at 11:30. Bring Dr. Ramsey if you’re so inclined. I’m certain he and Lucy would love to catch up.”
The call disconnected.
Twenty minutes later, when Ethan entered the kitchen, Harper told him her plans for the day: going into the hospital and spending the afternoon with her niece, Aurora.
How I Met Your Wife:
One week before the wedding, Liam and Riley were having lunch at the restaurant when they began to bicker. Yu smirked to herself as the bickering progressed to a full-blown argument. The waitress was fond of both Liam and Riley; their love for each other was both evident and contagious, and she thanked Kei every day for seeing what she had not. The two cared, not only for each other, but for all Cordonia.
“YU!” Riley yelled.
Yu approached the table. “What is wrong, my dumplings?” she asked in a soothing voice, her hands lightly touching their shoulders.
“Sit down,” Riley patted the seat next to her.
Liam’s eyes were narrowed. “Don’t you DARE, Riley Brooks!”
Riley arched an eyebrow and leaned into Yu, pressing dark cherry painted lips against the waitress’. Liam scraped his chair back as he hurried around the table to break the kiss. Yu was stunned, but curious.
Good lip service indeed.
Before she could slip her tongue past the Duchess’ closed lips, she felt Liam’s hand on her shoulder, trying to pull the women apart. Instinctively, Yu’s hand squeezed the King’s ass.
She and Riley would not share tongue until the couple returned to the restaurant two months later, after surviving multiple assassination attempts, a wedding, a kidnapping, and a honeymoon.
The Queen’s Friendship:
Riley was chatting with Maxwell in the Delegates Dining Room at the UN, waiting for the gala to begin. Liam was at the head of the room, arm in arm with Madeleine. His eyes spotted Riley and he winked. Riley rolled hers and turned her back to him.
“Blossom, don’t act like this! You know he’s trying,” Maxwell begged.
“WE’RE trying! He’s kissing his fiancée,” Riley retorted. Her eyes scanned the room. “Oh, look … there’s Drake,” she stated before walking away from Maxwell.
Riley had no idea if it was Drake or not, she just wanted away. From Liam, Madeleine, Maxwell … Cordonia. Riley figured now was the time to make the break. She was back home in New York City. She still had her apartment, for the next month at least. She passed by elegantly dressed tables and came upon an hors d'oeuvres station; she paused to pile a tiny plate with even tinier bits of food when she heard her name.
“Riley Brooks?”
She turned, a disinterested expression on her face until she saw who it was. Riley hurriedly set her plate on the edge of the buffet table before wrapping her arms around Veronica.
“OH MY GOD, Ronnie! What are you doing here?” Riley shrieked.
Veronica hugged her old friend tightly. “It’s so good to see you!” The women separated. “You look great, girl! I’m one of the event planners, why are you here?”
Riley shrugged. “I’m with the band.”
Veronica shook her head in disbelief. “How did you end up with royalty?”
“I answered an ad to be a waitress.”
Paper Cut:
The two men moved in the kitchen quietly. It was Friday: refrigerator clean-out day. It was a ritual they had established when they first moved in together. When the tossing of old, expired, and smelly items meant they were making room for new groceries on Saturday mornings. When there had been hand holding, price comparisons, fresh produce from Farmer’s Markets and fresh cuts of meat wrapped in waxed paper.
When they were together and in love. Or what they thought was love.
Liam looked dubiously at the bottle of ranch dressing; he tried to remember when they first bought it, but memory failed him. He wanted to say the dressing been in the fridge when they moved in. He shook the bottle before uncapping it; a very distinct vinegary scent wafted from the container.
Liam poured some into a spoon he grabbed from the sink. The white creamy mixture was lumpy and slightly discolored. Grant Emerson turned from the trashcan, his nose wrinkled. “What the hell?”
“Trying to see if it’s still good,” Liam muttered.
“It’s expired. It went bad a long time ago.”
Liam wondered if Grant was talking about the salad dressing or them.
Grant huffed as Liam continued to inspect the product. “It’s practically curdling and smells to the heavens, Li! Toss it!”
“It’s garden herb. Maybe …”
He never finished speaking; Grant grabbed the spoon and the bottle, tossing both in the trash.
“It’s done.” He shook his head and continued to pull items from the fridge.
 What are you working on: @ao719​ @choiceslife​ @katedrakeohd​ @sirbeepsalot​ @bobasheebaby​ @jovialyouthmusic​ @thegreentwin​ @burnsoslow​ @pamelawalkerwrites​ @loveellamae​ @bbrandy2002​
35 notes · View notes
Text
Cooking Contest
Warning angst, swearing,
“Hey WIll, Look at this!” Beel shouted as he grabbed Willow by the hand pulling them backward, and nearly causing them to fall. “What is it big guy?” Willow chuckled they watched as the redheaded Demon buzzed with excitement. He was looking at a flyer someone had posted on a lamp post. “Looks like Diavolo going to be hosting a cooking contest at the Castle. Would you like to enter with me” He asked turning his eyes down towards his feet. 
*Cooking contest. Teams of 2. Each team must prepare a dish, of which will be decided  on the day of the event. One teammate will be the guide the other will be the cook. The cook will not be able to see the recipe. The guide will only have 30 minutes to study the recipe, then have to remember the steps and then will instruct the cook with as detailed instructions as they can. Each team must replicate the recipe as close as they can. Inquire at Hell’s Kitchen*
“Sure, that sounds like fun,. Which part did you want to do?” They asked green eyes shining up at their boyfriend. “I’d actually like to try guiding you through the recipe, I’ve got a great memory for food” he was beaming back down at them. “Well then let’s go sign up, I’m getting a but hungry as it is” they said pulling Beel back down the sidewalk. “Wanna ride?” He asked squatting down to let you hop on his back “Okay, Koala time” they said with a hop to get on his back. Wrapping their arms around his neck and resting their head on his shoulder, giving his cheek a small peck. 
As they arrived at Hell’s Kitchen Beel gently set Willow down, extending his hand to them, smiling sweetly. They took his hand and entered the restaurant. As soon as they were sat and ordered, Beel asked about the contest and how to sign up. Without a word a passing waitstaff put an application and pen on the table between them. “It looks like the contest is tomorrow, do you still want to do this?” He asked 
“They’ve done it in the past, but I never had anyone who would enter with me, so it makes me really happy that you want to enter with me” Beel said putting the finished application on the end of the table and resting his head on his hand “Of course, Beel. I love doing things with you” Willow said placing both hands on his taking it away form his face. 
The next morning Willow awoke to Beel gently shaking them. “Good morning, Will. It’s time to get ready.” He was already dressed and showered. “What time is it, I thought I had set an alarm” they said wiping sleep from their eyes. “It’s 9:00, and you did but you slept through it so I let you sleep a bit longer” His eyes were gleaming with excitement. “Can I have 45 minutes to get ready?” Willow asked getting out of bed and heading towards the bathroom. “Mhm, the contest isn’t until 12. I’ll come back in a bit I’m hungry.” He replied getting up and heading towards the door. It didn’t take as long as expected to get ready, and went to go meet Beel downstairs. They had just opened their door  and walked directly into second oldest “Oi watch where your going Will” Mammon said placing his hands on their shoulder trying to catch his balance. “Sorry Mams, I was going to meet Beel. We entered the cooking contest together and I guess my excitement got in the way of paying attention” They were blushing they usually are pretty careful when they leave their room. The last time they ran into someone it was after Lucifer had a particularly bad day and Diavolo could hear the yelling from his Castle. 
“Oh that’s what he’s so happy about, Where’s my fun date. I thought I was your first why aren’t you going on dates like this with me?” He was pouting now and crossed his arms in front of him “We’ll do something fun together too. I promise.” Kissing his cheek as they bounded off down the stairs to meet up with Beel. Surprisingly he was already at the bottom of the stairs waiting for them. “Ready?” His smile was contagious  “it’s only 10. Are you sure you want to go now” “I want to beat the lines, I know you don’t really like crowds. I made sure to pack snacks for myself too just in case we have to wait” he said holding up a almost over flowing bag. “Okay, then let’s get going”
There wasn’t much of a line when they arrive. While they waited in line a familiar face appeared walking towards them “Good morning Dia” Willow chimed as the demon prince walked by. “Good morning Willow, Good thing I’m just letting the contest happen here and not a judge I don’t think I could be non bias with your cooking” Diavolo chuckled “Sorry I can’t chat longer I’ve got a meeting to attend to. Good luck you two” he said walking away. “Beel and Willow” a voice called out, it was their turn to be shown the room and given the headset. “Todays meal will be a spicy Poison blue cheese burger” Little D said. As the two arrived at the room and Willow put on their shirt and head set, Beel got set up with his snack bag and started looking over the recipe while Little D walked Willow to the cooking area. “Okay Willow this is your station wait here until you are told to start, once the contest starts you’’ll have 30 minutes to finish the dish” 
“Ready Will, 5 minutes until start?” Beel’s voice boomed over the headset “Ready big guy” they responded making sure their apron was tightened. “First gather the ingredients. You will need onion, blue cheese, worcestershire sauce, egg, breadcrumbs, butter, buns, hellfire sauce, the burger meat, hemlock, oil *munch* also make sure you are wearing gloves when prepping and cooking”
“Okay got it” As Willow gathered the ingredients and placed them on the prep table they held their mic steady and asked “Okay tea-cake what’s next” they could hear the smile on his face, that was a favorite pet name of his. “Turn the stove on medium to low heat” 
“Got it” Beel could hear the stove clicking on over the headset “Okay *munch* next put a medium skilled on the stove top that’s on *munch* melt 2 tablespoons of butter” as they place the butter in the pan they could hear Beel’s next step “Okay next chop the onion into small strips *munch* when that’s done add them to the pan *munch* stirring them often roughly about 20 minutes” They set off to chop the onion and add it to the pan “What’s next?” “In a medium sized mixing bowl add the meat, egg, worcestershire sauce and bread crumbs and mix until all ingredients are well mixed, you can also add whatever seasonings you want here. I suggest garlic, salt, and pepper. *munch* once that’s all mixed turn mold the mix into 1/2 sized patties.” 
As Willow starts mixing the ingredients they ask “How are you doing big guy. Are your snacks keeping you satisfied?” “I’m doing okay, this is harder than I thought but I’m confident about the recipe… Just talking about the food is making me hungry.” “I know, and I’m so proud of you. You’ve been doing so well, I’m done mixing the ingredients and making the patties” “Great you are going to need to turn another burner on medium to low heat and grab another skillet when that’s set up drizzle a small amount of oil in the pan and let it heat up” “Got it, the onion still needs a bit more caramelization too” “Okay, when the pan is warm add your patties let them cook for 3 minutes while covered then flip them”
“Okay” “Willow flips the burgers and turns off the heat to the onion giving them another quick stir. “After you flip the burger add the poison blue cheese return the cover and let cook for another 3 minutes. “Once those are done it’s time to plate” “Okay place the bottom bun on the plate soft side up, and add a small pile of hemlock to the bun, once you’ve done that add your burger patty” “Okay got it” Willow does their best to make the plate look nice and tidy. Carefully adding the hemlock in a neat bed. “Ready for the last few steps Will?” “Let’s finish this bitch” Willow laughed “Okay carefully place your patty over the hemlock and add a small drizzle of hellfire sauce, last but not least and the top bun” Willow adds a small wooden skewer to the burgers to give it a small flair and backs away from their station, just as they do so a loud horn blares through the room and a voice echos through “Okay one by one your teammate will be brought out and your dish will be tested. 
It felt like hours before Beel and Little D came around the corner. “Okay you two, Willow grab your plates and the two of you follow me” Willow was trembling, they hoped they had followed Beel’s instructions properly. They trusted his food memory but not their processing ability. As they got closer to the judges table Willow could feel their temperature rising. Placing the plates on the table in front of the judges and backed up standing slightly behind their boyfriend. Each judge took a small bite and waved the two off. 
As they got back to the room Beel had been in during the contest another voice was heard over a loud speaker “okay all plates have been tasted and judged winners will be announced in 30 minutes” Beel pulled Willow into a small hug “No matter what happens I had fun, Thank you for doing this with me. Let’s sit down and rest for a bit” pulling Willow down into his lap. Willow dozed off briefly was startled awake by an announcement “The winners of todays contest, being the only team to have perfectly replicated the dish are Beel and Willow. You will each receive a voucher for one free meal at Hell’s Kitchen” 
Hugging his arms around Willow tightly he smiled “Congrats Will, Shall we do this again next year” 
4 notes · View notes
heli0s-writes · 5 years
Text
IV. I’m in the mood for love
Summary: Beyond the sass and the crass lies a tender moment Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader x Bucky Barnes A/N: Maybe I wrote myself into a pickle? Idk but I teared up a little at the end. Also this is the most politics I’ll ever put in my work-- let’s keep it civil and chill if we disagree.
Foot in Mouth Syndrome Masterpost
Tumblr media
 It’s a miracle that you had worked up the courage to trot downstairs to return the only covering that separated two bare-ass naked men from your eyes. And not to mention yourself, who was only covered in a towel, too.
You make Steve stand so far around the corner of the doorframe that all he can do is stick out his hand. Bucky rustles the shower curtain impatiently and makes a comment on how “non-hyperverbal” you’re being and you’re too nervous to even respond back. When Buckyeye starts looking at you and the swinging white hem at your shins, you shoo him up the stairs before he gets any other bright ideas.
“Didn’t know you were such a prude.” Bucky comments later as you fiddle around in the kitchen, “But I guess it makes sense-- you still have those stuffed animals on your bed.”
You bristle and glare at him, “Just because you didn’t have a childhood doesn’t mean I can’t.”
It’s a little too mean, and you hear the venom that shoots right into him as soon as it leaves your mouth. “Sorry.” You comment. Damn it. He grew up in the fuckin’ Great Depression where everything was dusty and shit.
“Not all of us can travel the world eating caviar at the ripe age of four.” Bucky snarls. Ugh. Why’d he have to do that?
“Oh, fuck you.” You retort the same time Steve sharply calls Bucky’s name to reel him back in. It doesn’t work, as Steve knows, because when you and Bucky get into it—you get into it.
“You wish, princess. Wait, you’re such a goddamn prude, anyway--”
All Steve can do is cross his fingers and bark, “Buck!”
It’s too late. You’re across the room before Steve can say much else and you’ve launched yourself over one empty couch and straight into Bucky sitting on the other. The force knocks it slightly and it teeters before flopping back with a muffled thud.
Buckeye begins to run around in circles, unsure of the kind of play this particular moment is.
You have no idea what you’re doing, and you doubt you even want to—or can-- hurt him in any way, but you are so finished with his bullshit. You death-grip his hair as you jab both knees into his abdomen. Bucky moves to rip you off, but you clamp your teeth over his wrist and he yelps.
“Fuck you!” You scream, “fuck you so much! I—ow! I fucking apologized, you—Ugh!”
Buckeye, ever the perfect audience member, begins to bark to the rhythm of your screeching and aggressively nudges Bucky’s foot with his snout.
Soldat’s metal hand pushes your face back until its tilted up to the ceiling and further beyond, precariously suspended. The only thing keeping you from cracking your skull on the coffee table is your clinging to his hair. Steve’s concerned expression is upside down and his arms are outstretched, trying to determine the right configuration to pry the two of you apart. “Get that fucking! Aluminum foil finger the fuck away fr---”
“Shut up!” Bucky’s palm smashes against your mouth as his legs wrap around your back until you’re a squished human pretzel inside of him. You’re too crushed even to make any sounds and behind you Steve is sputtering vowels and consonants but not stringing together any real words. Finally, he nearly shrieks,
“Bucky! Jesus! You’re gonna actually kill her!”
Yep. This is how you’re gonna go, you think. The Winter Fucking Soldier has officially had enough of your bullshit, too, and he is going to bear-hug you to death. Who would have thunk it? Your fingers disengage and fall uselessly over his arms.
When time begins to slow and your soul starts to yeet itself from your body, Bucky blessedly lets go. “You’re bluer than I was in cryo.” He sneers.
Steve gasps, scandalized by the comment. For whatever reason, he’s covered Buckeye’s ears, too. You would send him an incredulous look, but you can’t feel your face.
With a pathetic whistle of air, you flop backwards and hang upside down over the couch, thighs gripped tightly by Bucky, heaving deep breaths until your lungs feel like they might burst through your rib cage. No wonder you are not a superhero—fuck the hubris, you are physically not built for this shit.
“I think I’m gonna vomit.” You mutter when Steve’s face begins to spin alongside your dog who slobbers all over your nose. Bucky yanks you up by the front of your shirt and the cough that blasts from your mouth goes right into his face. His smug expression twists into one of disgust and you take the moment to waggle your eyebrows suggestively.
Your sour mood has fled and now that you’re absolutely sure you cannot kick his ass—you return to the one thing you do know you’re capable of:
“Hey, baby. Is that a glock in your pants or are you just really happy to see me?”
To drive your point home, you bounce on his lap with a wide grin, wiggling your butt in exaggerated motions.
“Okay! That’s enough!”
Steve scoops you up and plants you back on the other side of the coffee table. “That’s too smart! Too smart!” He scolds as you pat your bottom and then curtsy. Bucky only huffs and crosses his arms, refusing to meet your gaze. Ha-ha. Winter Soldier, meet your match—Ass Woman. No, that just sounds like a porno.
“Alright, fuckers.” You declare, stepping over to the built-in bookshelf around the flatscreen and retrieving a leather-bound copy of The Wizard of Oz. “Ready for chili?”
They watch you open the front and stick your hand inside the false pages and retrieve a roll of bills. “What?” You ask nonchalantly. “Oh—shut up, Barnes. Like you guys really need me to pay back the vet fees. Technically, my tax dollars pay you.”
Steve shakes his head no. So, you casually toss him the roll of cash and then pull out another one.
“Jesus! Will you put these back?”
“Look,” You say, “For every month I don’t come home my mother puts another wad in this box.” You show them the pile of rolled bills, each encased in varying sizes of rubber bands. “She thinks it’ll ensnare me, but joke’s on her, the more I’m away the more there is to spend. She’s not very smart—a consequence of never having to think for herself.”
“And you’re fine with spending it?” Bucky ponders. The relationship you have with your family grows more confusing the longer they spend in your parents’ house. The memorabilia littered in your childhood bedroom seems to suggest that you aren’t completely detached from your family or your childhood. The way you respond to being home is paradoxical, too—disgusted at the excess one minute, reveling in it the next.
“It’s just fucking money. They make so much of it. I couldn’t bankrupt them if I tried. My father has offshore accounts in the fucking Caymans. I literally could not.”
They both pause before Steve speaks up, “Are you an only child?”
You frown. “No.” Then you aggressively push him by the shoulder and toward the exit, motioning for Bucky to follow. “It’s fucking Skyline time.”
Suddenly, you pause at the door and turn around to put both your hands on your hips. Looking both of them up and down, you shake your head impatiently. Steve is wearing his civilian Captain America outfit again. And Bucky, honestly, Bucky looks like someone cosplaying Bucky.
“Who dressed you?” You demand, exasperated, “You guys like, do spy stuff? It’s baffling to me that you don’t get caught immediately. Steve—khakis?”
Upon being admonished, he scoffs and looks around, “What’s wrong with my khakis?”
“Will you please tell him something?” You ask Bucky, who only rolls his eyes as if to say, you’re fuckin’ telling me. When it’s obvious that Steve’s poor choices are solely the result of him being an old fuck with no fashion sense, you mumble. “At least switch shirts. I’m going to take Buckeye out… please… fix this.”
-
When you come back, the sight of Steve wearing black and Bucky wearing light blue is so discomforting you cover Buckeye’s eyes. “It’s okay, boy.” You whisper loudly. Bucky flips you off but fixes the hem of the shirt he’s sporting. Steve—for whatever inexplicable reason, has decided to tuck… You quickly yank his shirt from his waistband and shake your head. “Christ, why are you like this?”
--
Untucked and uncomfortable in black, Steve looks at the menu as if the letters on it were runes from an ancient past. He doesn’t understand at all what Skyline Chili is or why it is. They’re coneys—this he does understand. But the rest of it—nope. Why would anyone ever need that much cheese? Bucky mirrors his sentiment by shutting the menu and crossing his arms.
The small bowl of oyster crackers in the middle of the table is being torn apart as you shovel handful after handful into your mouth. There is an inordinate amount of hot sauce sprayed on the top of the crisps, and you wipe your hands haphazardly on a napkin when you’re finished.
“Okay. You feelin’ spag or nah?” You ask, not even looking up. “Spagbol.” You continue, “Spag-y. SPAGHETS!” Then, in a terrible and very offensive Italian rendition, you pinch your fingers together and enunciate, “Its-a-spha-ghetta!”
Bucky slumps down into the booth until you stop. Steve puts his hand over his eyes.
“Why would you put chili on spaghetti noodles?” Bucky hisses.
The waitress arrives right after his question and you reach over to take his hands into your own— still reeking of peppers and vinegar from the hot sauce. “Shh,” You say almost tenderly, “Adults are talking now.”
“I hope you rub your eyes with that hand later.” Bucky snarls.
“I’ll cup your balls with it, instead.” You respond.
The waitress whimpers at the conversation she’s just stumbled into.
--
Six coneys arrive and as well as two plates of spaghetti. You explain to the boys that the Skyline specialty is steamed buns, mustard, special secret spice chili, raw onions, and hella shredded cheese. The noodles come with the same, sans mustard, and if you’re feeling extra frisky— beans. One plate is extra frisky today. Then you unscrew the cap to the hot sauce and shake the shit out of it onto everything.
They are bewildered at the sheer excess of American consumption as you shove almost half a coney into your face. Cheese flops down onto your plate.
“I think I’m gonna vomit.” Steve whimpers.
“Big baby, wimpy, Stevie can’t eat the cheesy?” Between mouthfuls, you’re still a dick. “Just try it! What are you, six?”
He glares at you and then sends a puppy-dog look to Bucky who already is lifting a coney to his face. You take another bite and watch them do the same.
Immediately, Steve coughs. Bucky starts laughing so hard he drops the pile of shredded cheese all over the table. You tuck into the overflowing plate of spaghetti, hot noodles melting the cheddar on top into an amalgam of gooey yellow. “I can’t do it.” Steve groans, “This isn’t right. This isn’t what God wanted.”
“God is dead, bitch.” You reply, “There is only Skyline Chili.”
--
“So what’s your deal?” Bucky asks from the couch.
The three of you have returned back to the house, winding down for the night. It’s eight now, and you’ve driven them around the city just to show them the sights. The gentrified downtown with its bustling crowd of young, white party-people interspersed with streets of dilapidated buildings and homelessness. There’s a bitterness to your voice when you talk about the changing scenery—but a kind of sadness, too. You admit you don’t really know the solution. The business brings in money to the city, but all the people left behind are really getting left behind.
You show them the more relaxed areas, like Over the Rhine and point out its massive brewery. You promise to take them there soon. There’s also the famous Cincinatti Zoo, and King’s Island, where you swear is better than where Steve wanted to go- Coney Island #2. There’s no point in taking him there, you declare when he starts to sputter, because he only wants to go to shit all over it, and because King’s Island is way cooler.
“What do you mean?” You ask back, flipping through the stations with your feet propped up on the coffee table. Steve and Bucky are sitting side-by-side under a blanket. There is a bowl of chips and hummus shared in their laps since Steve refused to eat during dinner and is now very cranky.
“All of this. Excess. Money. And then... you.” he waves to the house, then to you, sprawled out carelessly on a leather couch in mismatched pajamas. Buckeye’s head is faithfully in your lap, big eyes peering up at you, as if he’s waiting for an explanation too.
“You hating on my penguin top and pumpkin bottoms or what?”
“C’mon...” Steve beckons, knowing that your deflection is just another cop-out.
So, you groan, because they’re teaming up on you and after almost three months it’s bound to happen. They’ve told you so much about themselves already. You’ve learned all about the personal lives of the Commandos, the war stories, serums and experimentations, the cryo, the trial after the Triskelion... the blood, and sweat, and all of Steve Rogers’ tears.
“Well... it’s not as exciting as you think it is.” You mutter, tugging on Buckeye’s ear, finding the texture comforting under their persistent gaze. “Just a dumb girl born into an obscene family.”
But you tell them, truthfully and genuinely. Your family has old money- oil, or steel, probably both. As a result, you grew up in the lap of luxury, private schools, language programs, singing classes, dance lessons, horseback riding, trips to Europe and Asia, enormous birthday parties and a line of suitors as soon as you started growing breasts. The worst part, you admit, is that you loved it.
The picture they picked up in your room was from junior prom, and the date was a boyfriend- family friend- you’d been with for about six months, and he already planned on proposing. That was just how it was. Rich people marrying other rich people continuing the line of one-percenters.
Really, you say, your family was maybe the 10 percenter-range. As rich as maybe low A-list movie stars, not quite Jeff Bezos. But you know him, too.
“What changed?” Steve wonders out loud for both him and Bucky.
“Living in New York.” You half-smile at the memory of Union. “After Ohio State, I went to Union for my graduate studies and it blew my shit wide open. But that’s what happens when you start opening yourself up to other realities.”
You tell them about the immense struggle the first year at Union, feeling ostracized and realizing that your life is nothing like most peoples’ lives, and then beginning to frame your understanding of the world in a different way. You tell them you got mugged once and you felt like you probably deserved it.
“Then the election happened.” You sigh, and they both groan at the reminder. “As you know... it’s just been downhill and fucked. We had a big falling out here over Thanksgiving holiday.”
You didn’t come home in almost two years. You took out loans, you worked two jobs, took a full course load and wrote a thesis, and then went on to your Doctoral program. Your parents reached out to you and you eventually came half-way back into the fold.
“And spending their money?”
Most of the money you get you give to the local shelters. “That’s just direct action, baby.” You laugh. “We go at it, all the time. But you know, I figure... If I have to live in this shit world, might as well be a bastard about it.”
That earns a hearty chuckle from both your guests. “Jesus, that explains a lot.” Bucky grins as you nuzzle Buckeye and plant a kiss on his wrinkly face.
It feels so much better now that you’ve aired all the dirty, 1000-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets.
Steve hops up from the couch and runs downstairs, “Be right back!” He yells. You and Bucky narrow your eyes at the trail he’s padded into the carpet. In the distance, you can hear his rummaging and then thumping footsteps back up into the living room. He’s perfectly in one piece, because he’s Captain Damn America and nearly flying up a flight of stairs ain’t shit.
“I figured this would happen.” He grins, holding up a metal flask. “It’s time to break out the Asgardian mead.”
--
The three of you are drunk on whiskey and space-juice, tumbling around the downstairs living room. You are banging on the piano keys, tapping out a stuttering and off-kilter rendition of The Magic School Bus theme song while they wrestle. Why is it that no matter how old boys get, they still love to wrestle? Around their legs is Buckeye, running around in circles and panting, like a racecar at the Indy—only making left turns, having the time of his life.
“Get a fuckin’ ROOM!” You scream, throwing another shot down.
“You mean your room?” Steve laughs back, head under Bucky’s arm, tapping uselessly on his ribs.
“Captain America, fuckin’ in my room. Carve that on my grave, baby.” You mutter, as the piano lid slams down and you take a bow, knocking the bench over with a crash. “Oops.”
“Thas direct action, baby.” Bucky parrots you, “You’re so fucking lame.”
Buckyeye leaps into the air and licks him on the face. “Fuck!”
“Yeah, defend my honor, Buck!” You whoop. “Not you!” You point to Bucky, who flicks you off with a cackling laugh. The sound of it flutters into your ears like a ghost- leaving cold trails down your back. Suddenly, you get an idea.
“Hey-- you guys on Twitter?”
--
They sit crosslegged on the floor flanking you as you scroll determinedly through what seems to be endless tweets. There are other tabs open, too, of compilations of these. Thirsttweets, you explain. The internet loves and wants to bone the hell out of Captain America. Some of them want the Soldier there too—just watching, apparently.
Steve is seventeen shades of red and a little bit of purple. Bucky keeps cursing under his breath and at one point, you think, is reciting Hail Mary. It’s a million times worse than your playlist.
Who’s Got the Biggest Dick in Baseball is nothing compared to captain america could spit into my mouth and id say thank you
“I would never!” Steve gasps. “Or that!”
The tweet in question says: ruin my life big dorito daddy
“What does that mean?” Bucky groans, a little ruffled by all the lewd attention Steve is getting.
“His back is shaped like a Dorito, duh. Don’t get jealous, big boy. You’re next.”
For whatever reason, Bucky’s tweets are way worse. Maybe it’s his persona—that redeemed baddie type of thing. People eat that shit up like chips and dip—and apparently want to eat him too.
As long as I have a face, Winter Soldier has a seat rearrange my guts, Sargeant Sexy When will James Buchanan Barnes put his fist in me? WHEN? I didn’t know I was into getting choked until I saw that metal arm.
You snort whiskey into your lungs in the middle of reading one out loud and spend the next five minutes with your insides on fire. Steve has his head in Bucky’s lap and there are tears coming out of his eyes both from Bucky’s clenched jaw and you, crumpled into a heap spewing amber.
--
A jazz tune belts out from the surround sound system. Steve has picked a Music Choice station from the seemingly endless list of cable possibilities and of course, being a nostalgic thing, chose Swingers — wait, Singers and Swing. Your brain is loopy with joy.
“Didn’t you say you took dance lessons?” Steve asks nonchalantly.
“Uh-huh,” you sigh on the floor, legs crossed over Buckeye as you pull him down on your tummy. Rolling side to side with you, your dog begins to groan and flop, aggravated at your antics.
“You know, Buck used to dance.”
“Uh-huh, you sure did, didn’t you, big baby?” You kiss Buckeye on the nose.
“Bucky. Bucky, not Buckeye.”
He returns from the restroom with his hair pulled away from his face, changed into a long sleeved soft shirt and sweats. “What?”
“You used to dance!” Steve urges with a flick of his wrist, “Get on out there!” He waves his finger to the carpeted living space where you are spread-eagled, trying your best to keep your dog next to you. Damn it, you want cuddles!
“You want me to lead her? Stevie, I couldn’t lead the girl to water if she were a horse.”
“I am not a whore!” You cry indignantly, shooting up from the carpet and knocking Buckeye over with a yelp.
“A horse! Jesus H. Christ, ya deaf!”
You probably are, you think, as the music slurs itself into one long whine. Bucky grabs you by the hand anyway, determined to prove some point to Steve. He turns you around until you face him and takes a second to start on the right beat.
It’s like a switch has flipped and he becomes all step and sway as he moves to the music, leading you, too. Some vestigial memory digs its way out of your muscles from all those damn dance lessons and your feet point and tap along with him, hips rocking when he spins you around and pulls you back. A grin slowly breaks across his face, big and lopsided, all teeth.
You feel like a little puppet in complete submission to him as he expertly uses the perfect amount of momentum to change your course.
Laughter bursts forth from your mouth as you whirl dizzily around Bucky, hands clamped tightly in both of his. The room is a blur of colors and the blue of Steve’s eyes, watching.
At one point, you stand hip-to-hip side-by-side and kick your feet together before he takes you by the waist and dips you low. You’re breathless as he laughs, mirroring your puffs of warm air from above, wild with motion— his hair slipping from behind his ear to hang over your forehead.
“Holy shit you got moves.” You proclaim as the song finishes and he tugs you up with a satisfied chuckle. A slower melody comes on and you move to return to the couch where Steve is sitting with Buckeye, but Bucky tugs you again, closer.
He places one hand behind your back, resting on the ridged thread-bare waistband of your pajama shorts, and the other one he holds up to his chest. You blink away the fuzzy spots from your eyes and peer at him, looking so far away even though he’s just inches apart. His expression has changed, dropping into something distant and removed and staring straight through you.
You see it now. He’s not Bucky anymore.
It hits you like a bag of bricks, that this is James Barnes, in all his glory as a beautiful Brooklyn boy. Out dancing with a girl. Laughing, just like this: bristled, square-jawed and cleft-chinned. Wide, pouty lips. Bright steel eyes. Before he was a soldier, he was just a boy.
Before he was The Soldier, he was just a boy.
His chest rises and falls slowly as he takes a deep breath. The crooning in the background is tender, melodic, with the singer’s sweet voice pining for her loved one accompanied by delicate plucks of a piano.
Once, too, he pined.
The tears in your eyes spill over when you press your mouth to his. Bucky lets go of your hands and you catch his face with them, instead, holding onto his head, fingers grazing his ears and neck and brushing away his hair. You kiss him as if he might be shipped out to war tomorrow. It hurts even more to know that he probably had a night just like this, in the arms of a girl he loved, right before his entire life changed.
And then, you tear away and look at the couch where Steve sits, chewing on his lip, red-eyed too. You sob uncontrollably when you rush around the table and into his arms. He wraps them around you, pushes his face down into your shoulder.
“I love you guys.” You whisper, curled up in Steve’s lap, because the story of Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter was never explicit in the history books, but you know it too. “Oh God. I’m so sorry it’s like this. I’m so sorry.”
Steve forgets sometimes, that they were ripped out of time. He forgets the torment and tearing of Bucky’s entire being. They busy themselves in tomorrow and moving forward so much that they bury how the things that made them also broke them.
You are clinging onto his shirt, crying for him now, for both of them. Two handsome soldiers, living, dying, resurrected again. Having only each other to know and hold.
Sergeant Barnes of the 107th closes his eyes and presses his lips together. When he opens them, he is Bucky Barnes of the terrible, modern age once more. He crosses the room quietly, as he always does, as he was made to do. He sits down next to Steve as you look up at him with love and sympathy and so much sadness he can’t stand it. He links his hand in yours and smiles in a way that cracks your heart right open.
“Don’t get weird, kid.” Bucky whispers with moist lashes. Your laugh is strangled when it escapes your throat, all wet and whine as you squeeze his fingers tighter.
“I love you. You don’t understand.”
Steve breathes a sigh into your shoulder and rubs his damp cheeks on the penguin print of your sleeping shirt. From next to him, Buckeye looks up quizzically and gives his arm a long, slow lick.
“Yeah, yeah,” He mutters, swatting at your dog’s snout lovingly, lips pressed into your collarbone. Then, he kisses you too, tipsy and torn open. In the background, Julie London sweetly croons:
If there’s a cloud above and it must rain, we’ll let it.
But for tonight, forget it.
I’m in the mood for love.
Next Chapter
767 notes · View notes