#spies can take a day off to swim too

[ohmystarrynight]

One last swim before summer ends and the next semester starts

Clark is NOT COLD.

#concept art #illustration #digital art #pilot's art! #pilot speaks! #summer #swim #50s aesthetic #50s #50s vibes #retro aesthetic #retro #cowboy #1950s spy movie but make it so queer coded #spies can take a day off to swim too #Clark is doing everything he can to make this the best summer ever for cassius #spies #spy #secret agent #pilots ocs! #color study

[aleksanderscult]

Analyzing "Demon in the Wood" (book) - Part 5

(Part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4)

(TW: self-harm!, suicide!)

Did you think I had forgotten about this meta?

ABSOLUTELY NOT

I was just dealing with a small health issue and before that I didn't have the motivation.

But now my meta-analyzing-self has returned with the fifth and last part of the book.

This is the passage from the book that actually made me think "What if Aleksander himself started sleeping less and less as an adult?". He "adopted" so many things from Baghra. It's possible that he did this too. Sleeping very few hours at night and always ready to leap at the first sign of danger.

Also, not Eryk not wanting to get smacked from his mom if she catches him. 😭

“It’s not enough.” His voice made me jump. The Darkling emerged from the shadows onto the lamplit path.

He really can startle people with his silent movements.

And the fact that he has been trained by hunters!

So he has learned from hunters, seers, Kings, Saints. Through all these four hundred years he gained an enormous amount of knowledge. (I would honestly sit and listen to his experiences for free)

HE'S TOO CUTE I JUST--

He really preferred to get interrogated by his mother for his wet clothes than get naked in front of a girl. 😭🫶

We went from this "He felt too shy to remove everything."

To this "His hand slid down to my hip. I felt a little trill of panic as my skirt slid higher and his fingers closed on my bare thigh."

They grow up so fast. 🥹🥹

It's that beautiful realization that he acts like a kid that makes me happy. All giggling and smiling while playing and swimming. This is the life he was supposed to live and he knows it.

He's so happy and hopeful that he starts making plans! 😭

He just wants to stay somewhere.

The Darkling never hated the otkazat'sya. It wasn't hate he felt but (overtime) he just only came to know their nature.

Eryk really liked Sylvi and thought her a good company to have her around.

He was aware of the way men looked at his mother.

I'm sorry but I find this line kind of awkward. It may only be just me. But little Aleksander seeing men giving lustful looks to Baghra is a little awkward. Like, man, not in front of her son. 😭

It was one more weapon in her arsenal.

Actually an anon once sent me an ask saying that the Darkling was promiscuous on his earlier days out of his need for touch and to gain information.

At that time I said that I doubted it since he had other means to gain information (through his spies, his natural charisma etc.) but @stromuprisahat discussed this in the comments and now I agree with her that Aleksander would sleep with someone to gain information. And, in the end, it was this line that fully convinced me. Just like I've said previously, Aleksander mimics his mother in almost everything. He just copies her behavior and patterns. And that's one more pattern that he must have copied. If he didn't have any other choice and was desperate (also it would depend on the person he had in front of him) Aleksander would go in "flirt mode" to get what he wants. Seduction was one weapon out of the hundreds in his arsenal, ready to be used if necessary.

Well hello socially awkward Aleksander.

That might be my hot take for him I think. Aleksander Morozova was actually socially awkward in sensitive matters (this moment right here, revealing to Ulla that they're siblings, his first kiss with Alina).

He was never raised in a stable home, never had healthy friendships and was raised by his mother very strictly and to value power over love. So whatever compassion he had as a person, he had it out of his own character. He was born with it and not nurtured to feel it or have it.

He doesn't know if this question about her mother is appropriate because he normally doesn't have conversations with peers and hasn't learned to.

It's a very sad but true fact about his character.

Eryk: "Thanks mom for nothing I guess".

I don't think people realize how cut off Aleksander was from literally everyone. And it was Baghra that cut him off. Not one single word about his father like she created him by herself or something.

(Now I also remembered how Alina was the only other person Aleksander could bond and be with since she was immortal too but Baghra took that from him as well. That woman really said "You'll have no one but me")

now I'm angry

He really really tries.

I've analyzed this moment a bit here but basically Aleksander was very awkward with others showing a vulnerable side. He isn't used to being close with others since he constantly travels, so here he does his best to comfort Annika as she lays bare her thoughts and feelings. He wants to let her know that her father didn't fail but did his best to protect his remaining family.

Hell nah!! 😭😭

Not my boy being protective over his new friend 😭😭

He only knows her for a few hours and he feels already close to her.

This shatters my heart because he doesn't want to believe the truth. He doesn't want to face it in the beginning. He's like "Oh. Maybe we're playing". He doesn't want to know that his friend has turned against him.

*tears up*

Can you hear me crying in the background? 🙂

He was so ready to protect her against a boy taller and stronger than him. Because they're friends. Friends are supposed to stick together.

*I'm ready to cry*

He's still in denial. 😭

And seeing the difference between this young Aleksander to his older version. The young one being naive, innocent and weak because he lets his emotions get the better of him. While the older one never begged for anything (at least directly), shed that side of him and still died because he still wanted things.

THE STRATEGIC BABY GRISHA IS HERE!!

He cleared his head and started thinking of ways to get out. And what better way of escaping than making Annika and Lev fight each other?

I personally think he said that line for two reasons:

He wanted Lev to know what he is in order to make him come over, break the ice and even stop Annika so he could buy himself some time and escape.

It's very interesting that he said "you won't be able to push her or her sister around anymore". He could have said "When Annika wears my bone she'll be more powerful than you" but he brought up Annika's vulnerable position and that shows that he understands why Annika does this.

But still he won't sit and let her finish the job.

His determination is the one quality that admire in him the most.

Take this moment for example. Someone just hit his head with a rock and he focuses on staying awake and alive. He doesn't allow his own body to take him down.

And here the same thing happens:

He's ready to vomit and pass out but he just forces his body to do more, to escape and survive. He never lets anything deter him from what he wants. And apparently it was Baghra that made him this way too:

She nurtured his strong will and over the years he became a driven, focused and determined person. And it were these qualities that kept him alive all those centuries.

When Alina left him behind on the Fold he survived and kept going.

When Sturmhond left him with a broken ship, a wounded arm and in the middle of nowhere, he survived and kept going.

When Alina betrayed him and brought a building down on his face, he survived, took the throne and rose again.

When his mother committed suicide, he cleared his head and continued his war.

When he came back from the dead, he still continued the march towards his ambition.

Literally nothing could stop him. Even "when he wasn't so sure he wanted to go on" he put his one foot in front of the other and set his eyes towards his dream. Whether that was to provide the Grisha a safe home, or the Ravkans a safe country or himself a companion to have. Or all of it together.

It was enough to make him less a boy than a prize.

A sad existence to live. Especially in your childhood. Your own people seeing you as a trophy to have, to wear and use than a human with a life of his own.

He revealed his gift to Annika when he showed kindness to her and now he pays the price.

His relationship with his mother is one of the most (if not the most) pivotal aspects of his character. Her words and teachings have been implanted deep inside him and can hear her often in his mind (just like he did in RoW).

Did he also hear her voice whenever he was close to dying in his adulthood?

He lashed out of fury, desperation and sadness for everything that happened that day. Just when he thought he had it all, fate came and took them out of his hands along with his hope.

Let me make a mark on this world before I leave it.

He succeeded in that. The Little Palace is the greatest proof and people talked about him long after he was gone (and they'll continue to do so).

As a child he saw how Grisha came and went from this world without "touching" anything. He didn't want the same thing to happen to him. He wanted to make something.

(Also the fact that he dropped that iconic, serious line at the age of thirteen. The Darkling at thirteen "I want to make something grand before I die". Me at thirteen: *watching Shakira clips and failing school like nobody's business* 😭😭)

I don't think most of us understand that Aleksander literally self-harmed himself to survive and save his mother's life as well. Used his own power against him to make sure that they won't be burned alive for what he did.

For the Ulle to be so sure that nothing would happen at their camp makes me think that they were being established successfully there for a long time. But that surety and protection faded because of his own people who are so desperate to gain power in order to survive. It's not a matter of selfishness. I don't see it that way. But it's a matter of survival especially since the Grisha are a group of persecuted people that are hunted down for their powers, feared and shunned.

Whether you believe it or not, I've seen people say that Aleksander didn't regret the fact that he was responsible for the burning of that village.

*screaming in frustration*

So. I'll repeat that it wasn't an act of selfishness but a matter of survival. It's not a black and white situation. If Aleksander had said the truth he would be executed alongside his mother for what he did. And the other Grisha wouldn't hesitate to do it since they already feared Baghra. And what people fear, they destroy.

Aleksander opted to cut his leg deep with his own powers, lose unconsciousness and tell a fake story to save his mother and leave from that settlement in one piece. But he didn't take pleasure from it. He wasn't glad when Lev and Annika died and felt sorry for their parents and their reaction. And now he feels sorry for the burning of the village. He knew they were innocent and he supposed they were going to interrogate them or something. But kill all of them? That he neither expected or wanted.

Look. I think Baghra loved her son. But let's be honest. If he wasn't so powerful, if he wasn't immortal he would cast him away the same way she did with his siblings. Sooo....yeah. It's a toxic kind of love. She loves him for what he can offer her (companionship mostly) so it's not an unconditional love. She mostly wanted to keep him safe because, if he died, she would be left with no one.

Bardugo in a podcast called her "a horrible, horrible mother" and she is. But I still find her a fascinating character that I can't get enough of for some reason. I don't like her but I find her interesting.

Honestly, me neither. Annika was not my favorite character in this story but I don't hate her for trying to kill him. She wanted to protect her family and their position in the camp. It's a bleak world for the Grisha and they have to "eat" each other to survive.

Aleksander really said: "I will make my people matter. I'll make them touch this world and make themselves known. We will be seen".

All the Grisha characters that were trained in the Little Palace owe their reputation to the Darkling. Alina would never know who she was and, even if she did, she would waste because she would be unable to use her powers without someone to guide her. Zoya would never achieve that reputation.

Grisha would just continue to live in caves and hidden establishments. Afraid to go out and show their powers to strangers.

By S&B the Grisha were still despised but there was a minority that held them in awe. But that did nothing to change the situation. Now they are seen but used by the Crown. It was the only place they could have in the kingdom.

It rose from the trees surrounding it like something carved from an enchanted forest, a cluster of dark wood walls and golden domes. As we drew closer, I saw that every inch of it was covered in intricate carvings of birds and flowers, twisting vines, and magical beasts.

“Welcome to the Little Palace,” said the Darkling.

He did it. The crazy son of a bitch did it. 🥹🥹

He managed to create a safe home for them. Made sure for them to be surrounded by other people like them, sitting in front of a warm hearth, in unity not in conflict with each other. Somewhere to rest their heads under the gorgeous carvings of vines and birds. A place to practice their powers freely and eat luxuriously. Somewhere to come back to, like all of us do when we want to go home. Somewhere to belong and somewhere to stay.

(fuck you Tolya for what you said in that duology. Fuck you and everyone who talks shit about Aleksander's greatest accomplishment)

That was the end of the book and I absolutely loved that story. I need 20 more novellas like this from the perspective of the Darkling from his earlier adventures. I'll analyze the Graphic Novel next.

#I've missed analyzing SO MUCH #anyway hope you enjoyed this part #the darkling #pro darkling #aleksander morozova #pro aleksander morozova #demon in the wood #demon in the wood meta #meta #shadow and bone #grishaverse #baghra morozova #annika

[earlgreyinpajamas]

Do you have any comfort fics? Like, fics where you’re having a bad day and rereading them makes you feel better?

merthur

1. match made in (heaven) by radioactivesunflower

“You are a client. This is my job. I’m not here to be your best friend. I am here to make the best match for you so you can find love. If you are not going to take this seriously, just leave. I have plenty of people who want my services.”

By this time, he had finished his little rant. Arthur’s smile was downright wicked as he leaned forward in his seat, holding eye contact with Merlin. “I was just going to do one meeting to please Morgana and piss off after, but you know what?” Merlin didn’t want to know what, as it sounded very bad for him.

“You intrigue me, Merlin. Let’s see you work your magic! Find me my true love, wizard boy.”

aka the one where merlin is a matchmaker and a big fat lair arthur likes to spend most of his time annoying merlin a love story between a matchmaker and client that share a past only one knows about

~~~

a newer fic but it gave me fuzzies when i finished so it has been promoted to comfort fic

2. The Proposition by fifty_fifty

Hit by another scandal and with the reputation of the monarchy hanging on by a thread, Prince Arthur finds himself in desperate need of an image rehabilitation.

When the press assumes his blossoming friendship with his maths tutor Merlin is more of a romance, his father proposes a proposition: ask Merlin to continue portraying a wholesome relationship for a few months to regain the prince’s reputation, and receive his university costs paid off in full in return.

With his image restored and a new beau lined up, Arthur is left with a difficult decision; bend to his fathers will, or defy him.

In the end, it’s not such a tough choice. Love always wins.

~~~

just them being in love + the ending also gave me toothaches therefore a comfort fic

3. With Flowers in Your Hair, With Courage in My Heart by Mischel (@magicalmischel) 

Merlin's magic has always been connected to his emotions, but when it starts reacting to his love for Arthur and flowers start appearing every time he looks or thinks about him, instead of a confession he chooses to pretend he has a magical cold. Arthur doesn't like it when Merlin avoids him though. And neither does Gaius. Or Morgana. Or Gwen. Or even the bloody dragon, it seems.

Sooner or later, they'll have to talk. And Merlin can only hope that Arthur won't mind the mountain of flowers they're swimming in because really, it's his fault for being so damn good-looking.

Written for the flower mini-challenge on the Merlin Fic Book Club server on Discord.

+ ART

~~~

and this is angst free and full on fluff for a really bad day

00q

Spies That Are Ridiculous by Celyan

James has plans for his Quartermaster.

~~~

they're in love. that's the plot

2. Third Valentine’s the Charm by Castillon02 (@castillon02)

The first time, Bond was in Rio from 3 to 16 February, and between him and 003 in Kiev, Q didn’t even think about Valentine’s Day until he was browsing the half-priced chocolate at his local Waitrose.

~~~

they're such dorks i want to keep them in my pocket forever

3. Casting On by storm_of_sharp_things

Bond and Q are delicately knitting a relationship together but Bond is far too free with gift-giving for Q’s taste.

~~~

asdhfjkjfhl bond

#merthur fic rec #00q #bbc merlin #merthur fic recs #merthur fanfic #merlin #merthur #00q fanfiction #00q fic rec #00q fic recs #merlin emrys #merlin bbc #merthur fanfiction #merthur fic #merthur kiss

[quietlyimplode]

Black Widow Fest 2023 - Day Two

The Aquarium

Warnings: a visit to the aquarium is cut short :(

Word count: 1212

Pairing: Clint/Nat

This fic is thanks to @broken--bow ‘s amazing art (for my eyes only) and borne of a conversation for Clint and Nat having a place to meet, that only they knew about, and meant something to them. The penguins of Kyoto Aquarium are famous for having their relationships recorded. A fluffy piece before we get into the real angst of the week. As always, your likes, comments and reblogs are always so appreciated. Welcome to day two of bwfest2023.

Clint rubs his arm, the scratch from the katana not deep, but itchy as it heals. He nods and smiles to the straight faced Japanese man sitting across from him.

The man nods and stares back.

Clint forgets that, as an American, his mannerisms are not universal. He wonders how Natasha is getting on.

He sends a quick text and stands to get off at the station he has no hope in pronouncing.

His phone vibrates and he smiles.

She’s almost there too. He opts to wait for her train, and sits on the bench.

He loves the Japanese train system.

It says the next train arrives in 4 minutes.

And it will. He loves the fact that if it’s even if a minute late, they apologise.

The train system in America is horrible.

Natasha steps off the newly arrived train, the announcement permeating the station.

Clint waves low and smiles big.

“Hey,” he grins, giving her a hug and kiss into her hair.

“Hey,” she grins back.

“How long do you think before they realise we aren’t on the plane right now?”

He laughs.

“Soon I think.”

“Shall we?”

He takes her hand, and rubs his thumb over her knuckles.

“You’re doing okay?”

She nods.

“I’m wearing like a pound of makeup. And the stupid rib wrapping is making me sweat in all the wrong places.”

She lifts her top slightly to show that she’s actually strapped her broken ribs.

“Well done,” he tells her, slightly proud that she’s taking care of herself.

“You?” she asks.

He shrugs, lifting his sleeve to show his bandage wrapping, then slightly lifts his t-shirt to show the bruising on his hip.

Natasha nods, taking his hand and squeezing it.

“I’m glad you’re okay.”

Clint smiles as they ascend the stairs, squinting in the bright August light.

To anyone, they look like tourists, not international spies, one back from a mission in Sapporo and the other from a mission in Singapore.

Kyoto was a midway point, somewhere to meet, reset and have a much needed date.

“This felt like a shorter walk last time,” she huffs.

He squeezes her hand and lets go, the sweat on his palms making it uncomfortable.

He agrees but doesn’t want to tell her that it’s likely because the injuries she’s carrying are taking it out of her.

They round on the Aquarium, Natasha seamlessly buying tickets and leading him to the entry.

The Giant Salamander is the first thing they see, and they stop to see them piled on top of each other.

“They’re so large.”

They stop and stay still with the salamanders, before Clint is distracted by the seal. It swims fast and he migrates over to follow it’s movement.

Natasha grabs his hand again, and points to the sign for the penguins.

“How long do we have?” she asks, looking to the sign and then the café.

“Food, then penguins? Or penguins, then food?”

“Mostly I just want to see the penguins,” he laughs.

Natasha loves this side of Clint, the one where he seems so playful and carefree. He just enjoys life and what’s in front of him.

They guide each other until the large board of the penguin relationships greets them, and she can’t help but laugh too.

“There’s been some changes since we’ve been here,” she tells him, pointing to the board.

“Oh no! Sen and Maru are not together.”

“What about Barney?”

“Clint, just because you can’t read Japanese, doesn’t mean you can make up names for the penguins,” she chastises.

“I can, it’s consistent. Barney, the one that starts with the hiragana ば, then ど for Doris.”

“You know some hiragana, and you’ve just generalised that?”

Clint continues to the tell her the hiragana he knows, and Natasha doesn’t have it in her to correct his poor pronunciation.

It’s like when she tries to teach him the Cyrillic alphabet.

He’ll get there. It just takes time.

He often gets sad about how quickly she picks up languages and how long it takes him.

“Barney and Doris aren’t together anymore.”

He points to the broken love heart and traces it with his finger to the two penguins.

His pout makes her laugh again, and she points out a few more changes before moving onto the actual penguins.

“They’re just cool,” she breathes, staring at them as they play and move around the keepers.

Clint looks to her and then to the small animals, playing and squeezes her hand.

“They are, aren’t they?”

He feels his phone buzzing in his pocket, as he takes a step towards the window.

He knows it’s Phil.

They’ve both missed their check ins.

Natasha’s phone is next.

“Don’t answer,” he implores, with his best puppy dog look.

She sighs and shakes her head, unlocks the phone and says hello.

“Yeah, we’re together.”

He laughs at her rolling her eyes, as they move along, sidestepping children until they find a quieter spot.

“Medical won’t miss me. Yes they’re strapped. Umm. I don’t know. Fine. 8pm.”

Natasha hands him the phone.

“He wants to talk to you.”

He growls low.

She smiles in revenge.

“He called you first,” she whispers, pressing the phone into his hand.

“Hello?”

“Clint? You missed check in.”

“Yeah.”

The keeper moves into the cage with food, and they sit together next to everyone else.

“You’re both okay?”

He starts to feel bad, not telling Phil their plan to meet up.

“Yeah, we just needed… time. After Suriname, and the girls. I think. Even though we had separate missions, we just needed a break.”

Natasha’s head pops up at the mention of Suriname.

He shakes his head, hoping to convey that it’s all okay.

“Understood. You have til 8pm. Then, I can’t keep it from Fury, and he’ll probably have disciplinary actions. If you miss the plane, I can’t help, okay? You have four hours to get to Kansai.”

“Yeah, yeah okay, okay.”

Phil pauses.

“She said she strapped her ribs, did she?”

Clint glances at Natasha.

“Yeah, she did.”

“And you, you took care of your wounds? Including the stab wound?”

Clint nods, “yeah, it’s fine.”

Phil’s huff, and pause conveys nothing but patience for his charges.

“8pm Clint.”

And he hangs up the phone.

The penguins are eating.

Natasha smiles and takes his hand.

He passes the phone back to her.

“You just had to answer, didn’t you?”

“8pm, the curfew?”

Clint sighs, looking out as they waddle along then dive.

“More like 6 for check in, and an hour and a half to get from here to the airport. Which means…”

“We have to leave now?”

He stares out.

“Yeah. I think so.”

They take the long route out, passing the dolphins, then the sharks and jellyfish. They’re both quiet as they approach the end, and even quieter as they exit.

Silence on the train, each lost in their own thoughts.

“We’ll come back here,” she promises, “just like we always do.”

“Yeah,” he replies quietly, “maybe Doris and Barney will be back together.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

It’s clear that both of them don’t want to go. That the brief interlude of normalcy, whilst gave them pause, is not their lives.

Clint glances to her.

Kisses the top of her head.

“We’ll be back,” he promises.

“We’ll be back.”

.

#bwfest2023 #natasha romanoff #clint barton #clintasha #black widow #my fic #hawkeye #natasha romanoff fic #clintasha fanfiction #clintasha fanfic #marvel fic #clintasha fic

[imthepunchlord]

Random Story Setting Idea (you don't have to do anything with this if you don't want to, I just want to see writers' thoughts when they hear these prompts):

The whimsical and charming garden with topiaries and fountains in a world where people can see into the future.

Jasper Phlox has gotten through life with his cunning, charm, and confidence in knowing the human nature. It was his key as a master manipulator, the Maven of Shade, Overseer of all Shadows. And part of his success was the lack of faith. In Exaltare, if any discovered what he was, there'd be chains upon his wrists, if he was lucky. His mother had long warned that faith was a dangerous thing. If he was to keep his head, he'd keep enemies closer than any fancy of fondness.

But a month into their contract, Lady Calypso Tenebrae was working to unravel it.

The quiet but quirky noble insisted she could share the truth of fate, the reason she crept her way down in his lair, why she brought a prospect of a deal.

The Maven of Shade agreed to her contract out of amused curiosity. All the juicy information his heart desired, for an elusive ticket out of Exaltare. She even insisted that she'd know more than his spies.

It was a comical claim, until her words bore fruit.

And upon the acting of a weak whim, where his curiosity stood too strong against reason, he asked for her secret.

She already knew his, and he suspected she was the same.

But all she said was that she'd take him to the Garden of Insomnio. That his answer was there.

Which was surprising.

Before the day Arensia bore their metal and rule upon Exaltare, the Circle of Insomnio were the suspected royal family of Exaltare, the Sowers of Chaos. Before the Great Banning, they were the chessmasters of Exaltare. Nothing they did made sense to anyone but themselves.

So respected and feared, the Imperial family sought to honor their power and wisdom with the Garden of Insomnio. The only mercy they offered as all were slaughtered.

Through a passage way very few knew (of course Lady Tenebrae did), Jasper slowed as he took in the garden. It had the classic flowers of all kinds, various fountains stationed through the path, and a spread of owls made of stone and leaves, the symbol of Insomnio. At this time, the evening was around the corner, but it wasn't dark enough to light the lanterns.

Lady Tenebrae leaned out from the shadows, doing a quick look around, then telling him it was clear. She took the leaf, leading Jasper to the grandest foundation, though it bore the smallest owl, it's big eyes pointed skyward, little mirrors set for it's eyes to always reflect what it sees.

"Here," Lady Tenebrae decided, plopping down on the rim, glancing back to watched long finned koi lazily swim through the water.

In a cheeky tone, Jasper asked, "Is this where you reveal you're the long lost descendant of Insomnio?"

His smile grew at the flat scowl she gave him. She corrected, "I'm here to have you talk with an Insomnio."

That time Jasper didn't hold back his laugh. "Talk with one? You know a surviving Insomnio?"

Oh the Imperial family would be twisting in their silk to learn they missed one.

"No, she's dead like all the rest."

Jasper paused at that, the realization hitting him.

So he was right in his suspicions, just not what her magic was.

Lady Tenebrae held out her hand to him, bare and small. With a small frown, he pulled his own glove off, flashing the scars and nicks that covered his, setting his hand upon hers, letting her link their fingers. She was warm and smooth, easily dwarfed by his own.

He felt the tickle of magic, cold in contrast to the playful warmth of his. His vision blurred and his hearing seemed muffled. Disliking the shift in perception, he clutched her hand tighter, letting her ground him. When his senses cleared, Jasper gasped.

They weren't alone in the garden as he initially thought.

All around them were slightly see through people in robes, with hair all uniquely reflecting the colors of the sky, and all bore black starry eyes. It seems, in this garden meant to honor them, is where all of the Insomnio haunted.

"You brought me the Maven of Shade, just as I asked."

Jasper turned, coming face to face with an older woman, her hair reflecting the colors of twilight, her black eyes locked onto him, glittering with tiny little stars. She offered him a warm smile, and gave a small bow.

"I greet you, Overseer of Shadows. Would you like to know the coming future?"

#ask Punchie #original writing

[randomingoftherandomness]

Yuanzhi didn't make it in time. His Hua Gongzi is dead because he was too slow, he doesn't cry because he is not sure if he will ever stop then.

For some reason his mind recalls when for the first time Hua went to the clinic and asked him "I really like you, can I kiss you and marry you?". They didn't ever talk before that but that's how their love story began.

But now he is dead.

And Yuanzhi wants to go with him.

Tags: Main Character Death, Angst/No Comfort, Suicide

—

Yuanzhi feels it before he sees.

A sort of free fall and a sense of sudden, inexplicable loss that hollows out his chest. He nearly drops his sword when it happens, saved only by muscle memory seizing his sinew to move and deflect the blow meant to harm him.

Panic trickles down his spine in the moment he realises his eyes cannot find the one face he’d been keeping half of his concentration on.

“Xiao Hua!”

Yuanzhi turns to where he last saw him, singular focus stealing his breath away as he bolts forward.

Please, please, please…

His mind begs with every desperate jackrabbiting of his heart.

It can’t be.

Yuanzhi fights off two assailants and brutally dispatches them with a detached efficiency. One more who aimed for his jugular just as he spies a head of hair wearing the familiar silver glint of hairpieces that match his own. Another who stops him in his tracks with a punch to his gut, but the pain is barely a blip on his senses when he fights this assailant off, summarily ending it with a shot of his hidden weapon between the eyes.

Frantically, he calls out for his Hua gongzi. Fear now bleeding into his voice.

And then.

Yuanzhi lets his swords drop just to catch Xiao Hua when he falls.

“No…” Yuanzhi chokes on his spit, cradling him, half dragging him away from the melee. “Xiao Hua. Xiao Hua!”

Heated prickles burn in the corners of his eyes but he does not let any tears fall. There’s a cold touch to his cheek and Yuanzhi folds his hand to keep it there.

“I’m sorry,” Xiao Hua whispers around a trickle of blood that drips from his smile. “I’m sorry…”

“Don’t say that, don’t you fucking say that!” Yuanzhi’s chest hurts with helplessness. “You promised me, so don’t you fucking dare leave!”

His husband, because Yuanzhi refuses to think of this man as any less than the person he chose to have and to hold, can only smile, blinking sluggishly up at him.

“I’m just going ahead of you. You can come meet me in your own time.”

The horror and the grief is becoming truer to him as the seconds pass. Yuanzhi holds on. Curling a hand over Xiao Hua’s cheek, he presses his thumb to the corner of his lips, leaning in to press his own over them.

He trembles as he kisses Xiao Hua, a wounded sound escaping him.

Here are the lips that had smiled at him that first day in the clinic as Yuanzhi had been reorganising his herbs. A stranger dressed in black that leaned against his doorway. Yuanzhi had almost told him to leave if he had no business here, and was stayed only by a sudden declaration.

“I really like you. Can I kiss you and marry you?”

It was strange enough to pique his interest. One moment leads into another, then into a companionship that blooms into romance, and then into Yuanzhi braiding his hair ornaments into Xiao Hua’s hair, letting him slide a ring on him in return.

And now Yuanzhi is here, carding his fingers through his Xiao Hua’s hair, nails catching on the silver hairpieces.

“Didi, let go of him.”

Someone tries to take Xiao Hua from his arms to which he makes to stab with the dagger in his sleeve. They stop. No one tries again.

“Didi, you need to let go of him.”

Gege’s face swims into view and for a moment, he wants to give into the childish urge to ask him to fix this, to bring Xiao Hua back.

What he says instead is a quiet, “I want to go to him. I want to be with my husband.”

A pained grimace flashes over Gege’s face. He crouches down, eyes searching as he clasps Yuanzhi’s neck. “Didi, you’re hurt alright? You’re bleeding. We need to get you some help.”

Yuanzhi shakes his head. Turning back to Xiao Hua in his arms, he dislodges one of the poisoned tips from the mechanism in his arm guard. Keeping his eyes on his husband’s face, he smiles, kissing him once more. With a quick flick of his wrist, he slices his palm, feeling the burn and sting of the wound cut through the numbness and fog in his head.

“I’m coming to you. Wait for me.”

#you just had to Nonnie huh #my journey to you fic #my journey to you #Hua gongzi x gong yuanzhi #Hua Gongzi #gong yuanzhi #gab writes stuff #damn this was a trip and a half

[witches-and-devils]

Addiction, Chapter 13

“Alright, we’re havin’ a talk about Incubi first and foremost,” Damascus grumbled as Ace settled down with a thick blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He laid out a long piece of paper with a terribly scribbled… Incubus? It looked like a stick figure with vague squares coming out of its back. Also a very tiny dick. That part looked way too realistic. “You know the whole deal about the seven types of Demons, blah, blah, elemental shit.”

“I’m a Greed Demon. We deal with earth and metal, so that’s usually where our shit lies. Hence earthquakes and sniffing out carats of gold and gems. But where we’re super physical and tough, Incubi are magical and frail.” The Demon tapped the vague circle for the drawing’s head. “They got a lot of shit with fire and wind. Not to mention the fact that they’ve got enough magical endurance to put most to shame.”

“But what makes ‘em the most dangerous is that they have little to no scent, and they can look like anybody. They’re spies. Precise and manipulative. Just ‘cause they can look pretty doesn’t mean they will.” Damascus paused, his nose scrunching up in a weird way Ace could only compare to smelling meat that had been left out for weeks. “But they got a soft spot for what they consider a ‘pretty face’ and will tend to, as ya’ve seen, fixate on one until they get it. If he’s kept trying to mark you, he’s probably intendin’ on bringing’ ya back to hell to add to his harem.”

“Good thing I don’t plan on vacationing to hell any time soon,” Ace grumbled, though he couldn’t deny the shudder that rolled up his spine at the idea of being stuck with the Incubus for the rest of his days. To be fair, most Demons probably liked the idea of whisking him away the moment they found out how powerful he was, not that he was thinking about it…

Nope. Not going to think about that. Creepy. “Well, at least I’m fairly skilled with wind magic as well. Hopefully, if he takes to the air he’ll be easier to knock out of it. Though I don’t see how hiding away would help him much now. Let’s just hope we can find him in a less populated area.” Pausing, he looked down at the palm of his hand with a furrowed brow. “If only I could figure out what kind of magic that was earlier. I’m not even sure how I would cast it again.”

“Whatever it was, it hurt like shit,” Damascus complained, scratching at a bit of his skin that was still partially flaking off from whatever burn he’d received.

“Well, if I could figure out a way to keep it from harming you-”

“Focus on what we can right now, this isn’t the time to be trying out some fancy new magic bullshit.”

“Fair enough. Though, for you-” Ace paused, gently nudging the Demon to the side and sketching out a quick, simplistic diagram, “This here lists out the general weaknesses for Witches. The basic ones we need to keep in mind are emotion and exhaustion. I’m sure you’ve seen it before when I’m in a fight. Keeping a hold on you and casting can take its toll and eventually my body begins to… essentially reject itself if I try to cast anything when my reserves are empty. Meaning that if we keep the Witch casting, play the long game, eventually they might just end up killing themselves from exertion.”

“Aside from that our magic is harder to control when we don’t have a proper handle on our emotions. It’s why most Witches you encounter that are any good tend to seem cold and calculating. We kind of have to be.” Dropping the blanket onto what remained of a nearby stool, Ace rolled up the sleeve of his nice button-up shirt and displayed the deep and long-since healed burn scar wholly encompassing his wrist. “We’re also… essentially allergic to iron. It burns out skin and if placed properly could keep us from casting altogether. Lobelia will distract us, but I doubt we’ll be able to find any around here.”

Ace turned to look back up at Damascus, worry and reluctance still swimming and twisting in his stomach over this whole partnership idea. He was still concerned that his Familiar might be plotting another attempt at escaping the moment he got the chance. “You need to try and keep that temper of yours in check too. If this Witch has been tracking us for as long as it seems, she probably knows some things about us. You need to try and stay focused during the fight and remember to-” Fucking hell, Damascus was rolling his eyes already-

“Just be careful? I can keep shields on you well enough to keep you protected but it’s not going to go great if I’m having to try and reign you in because you keep getting pissed off and yanking against the chain without realizing it.”

“Yeah, yeah, fine. But you are just about as squishy as a marshmallow. You gotta not run off, ‘cause if we’re doin’ this whole ‘working together’ thing, ya gotta stick near me. Not do the whole ‘fuck you, I’m running ahead to let you distract everybody’ thing.” Damascus folded his arms across his chest. “Ya don’t gotta be right next to me, but at least be in jumping distance.”

Ace huffed, quickly conceding despite the shake to his head. “Kinda fuckin’ hilarious that you picked a big Greed Demon to work with and your weakness is iron, though. Our biggest problem is still going to be if he pounces on you and whisks you away. He’s way faster ‘n mobile than me. Our end game’s gotta be keepin’ you near me, you keepin’ the Imps off my back, and me tryin’ to fuck up a Witch. Gotta assume there are traps there. And that they’re going to have a small army of at least some Imps. And whatever else Lothario had under his belt. Since they seem to just be pissed we killed their boss- and Imps are stupid as shit, so they’ve got no self-preservation.”

Damascus held up his hands in a rough approximation of the beach-ball-sized shits. “Just… little balls of spite. I hate ‘em.”

As long as Damascus wasn’t going to try and go berserk like he usually did it shouldn’t be a problem staying closer to him. Besides, if he’s near enough he would be able to waste less energy on the shields for both of them and just maneuver himself behind Damascus’s. “Stay close. Got it. Don’t worry, so long as I’m careful it should be manageable to keep them a safe distance away from you. But-”

Ace carefully rolled up their ‘plans’, tucking them away before hopping onto the remains of the kitchen counter with a huff. “Just in case anything goes wrong- I’m not saying it will don’t give me that look. Just in case, I’ll try to create a portal for us to jump through. It should give us enough time to regroup and recover. If teleportation isn’t an option, you grab me and you book it, got it? At that point, we’ll just have to hope that we can get out of there without the fuckers breathing down our necks.”

Then they’d just need to go back to square one and figure out exactly how they were going to beat these guys. It… wouldn’t be too bad, right? Now that they had a decent idea of what they were up against. The only thing that worried Ace was how much of an unknown this Witch was. She’d done a good job of keeping herself hidden, so she was smart. To add to that, she was either powerful, cocky, insane, or all three for her to try and get the drop on them this many times. Or maybe they really were just a shit team.

“There’s a good chance that whatever this Witch is trying to do will fuck with our plans. We don’t know exactly what it is, and I don’t like it. We just have to be on guard and willing to swallow our pride in case shit goes sideways and we need to book it out of there.”

“There’s no way it’s not a trap. Expecting the worst ain’t the worst idea.” Damascus gave a hefty shrug. “They didn’t take us with ‘em or kill us. Which means they’re either gonna strike again or they’re waitin’ for us. And I don’t like either. So. I say we strike as soon as possible. Give ‘em as little time to prep as possible.” The Demon scratched at his messy hair, flicking a stray bit of dried Imp blood as Ace’s pants with a brief, spiteful look in his red eyes. “We’ll talk about a new place to hold up after the fact, but I’m demanding a new fucking chair.”

“And I already told you that I would find you a new one,” he grumbled dismissively. This felt strange. Collaborating, discussing plans together instead of Ace just spewing off what he thought was best and Damascus only doing what he was ordered to. He knew it wouldn’t last, but… this is the sort of thing that he’d desperately wanted to get out of a summoning.

… Though that just sounded like he was using him again, which made him feel disgusting, and- Dear fucking God did that blood go into his hair? He spent so long trying to make sure he’d gotten rid of it all! Blood was insanely hard to get out of his hair with the matching color and-

Ace groaned, swiping at his hair and running his fingers through it. Nope. No. They couldn’t leave until he found it. “You’re right, it’s best to leave as soon as possible and hope we can stop them before they set up something too deadly,” he agreed quietly as he combed through his hair. Giving the Demon a dirty look, he huffed and sat there until he was sure that the fleck of blood was gone, and even then he was half tempted to wash his hair in whatever water was left from the kitchen sink.

“Alright, alright. Stop giving me that look. We can go.” Ace rolled his eyes, hopping down from the counter and tightly wrapping himself up in his coat. He fastened the collar around his neck before marching out into the cold with the Damascus close behind.

⬲⦓⧫⦔⟴

It was simple enough to track down Loran now that he had plucked a few hairs from Ace’s head. Soon enough, Damascus had picked up on the scent and started to lead the march through the snowy forest and away from the remains of their old hideout. Ace found himself quietly wondering if he would ever see the rundown cabin again. It hadn’t been the best, but it’d done a good job of keeping them safe within the confines of the thick pines and snowy atmosphere.

Worry was already beginning to creep its way through the Witch’s mind, settling in close and whispering in his ear. This was too easy. From what it sounded like, Incubi and Succubi were crafty beings. They wouldn’t just leave a scent that would be so easy to follow unless they wanted the pair of hitmen to follow it.

… Damascus was right, there was no way this wasn’t going to be a trap. Still, the Human stuck close to the hulking behemoth and continued to carefully scan the area. This all began because you couldn’t keep your dick in your pants long enough to think. Ace frowned, brushing the thought away as he silently continued forward.

“Damascus, hold,” Ace whispered, gently reaching forward and tugging on the sleeve of his suit. Quietly, he held a finger up to his lips to indicate silence. A long, drawn-out beat of nothing echoed between the two. Not a single sound. No wildlife, no wind, just the soft sounds of their feet crunching through the thick, snowy forest floor. That pit of dread that had settled like a rock in the bottom of his stomach was beginning to grow larger with each passing second.

A few quick movements with his hands and the two were atop the snow, barely making any noise as they passed over it and leaving the barest hint of an indent in their wake. That would help, at least…

⬲⦓⧫⦔⟴

“And you’re certain that everything is ready?” The young woman, Julia, questioned, finally peeling her gaze away from the old spellbook to level her gaze onto the Incubus. “We might only get one shot at this, and I want to ensure that the transition is as smooth as possible.”

“Yes, of course, everything’s ready!” The raven-haired woman sighed, rolling her eyes as she closed the book and set it down beside her.

“I still think it would be easier for us to kill the Witch after weakening Damascus.”

“But Julieeeeeeeeee-” The Incubus flailed out onto the back of the Witch’s desk chair. Now even though he loved choosing pretty humans to masquerade as, he knew his true form was stunning. His long silver hair fell in a molten fountain around his pale face. His golden eyes shone bright enough to rival the sun itself. He was built like he was born to dance. “He’s adorable. I’m going to bring him home, so he’s not gonna be a big problem for you!” His fingers reach out to start combing through her hair… He was feeling touchy. This job would be done soon, and he’d get to go home to his Lovelies- with a new one in tow! But he missed the intimacy dearly.

He was going to shower them in love and kisses and- damn, did he miss them. His hands moved of their own accord, weaving her dark hair into braids.

“Just lemme keep hiiiiiiiiim…! He’s an adorable little treat and he’ll get along with my little mates and-”

“Loran!” Julia snapped, causing Loran’s hands to still almost instantly before she released a soft sigh and gestured for him to continue with his work. “I am merely pointing out that while yes, our place will work and everything should go fine, we are going against arguably the most powerful Demon and Witch bond on Earth. I’ve no issue with you taking the Witch, but if he needs to die for us to move the bond to me, he will die. Understood?” Loran frowned, slowly pulling his hands out of her hair with a soft pout on his lips.

“So, when they arrive-” There it was. That sharp look in her eye. Loran knew what it meant before the words even left her mouth. “They’re coming,” Julia spoke calmly, carefully tucking some of her hair behind her ear as she stood up from her seat. “Remember to keep the Witch busy while I focus on Damascus. So long as we can get them separated and weakened everything will be fine, Oh, and…” Placing a soft kiss on the top of Loran’s head, she pulled back and patted his cheek. “You’ve been doing quite well. Thank you for this, Loran.”

⬲⦓⧫⦔⟴

“They know we’re coming now,” Ace droned, an annoyed look on his face. He knew the moment Damascus’s foot had broken through that faint, white barrier of magic that they were in for some trouble. “That was an alarm.” He moved a bit closer towards the hulking Demon, holding his hands together before a clear shield began to gently hover around the two of them. There, no they had something just in case a horde of Imps came charging at them.

“Oh, well don’t look at me like that’s my fault. You’re the fancy schmancy magic boy, and I’m the muscle.” Damascus rolled his eyes, cracking his fingers as he walked through the snow. “Alright. Stick next to me. Neither of us runs off. I don’t rage too much and you don’t do the ‘whee gonna do my own thing’ thing. Sounds good?” He cracked his neck to one side. “If you get snatched, then this whole thing will be-”

Ace yelped as he felt Damascus’s hand grab his shoulder with a death grip, yanking him out of the way just as a pair of lithe arms tried to scoop him up.

“Ace! So good to see you again,” the Incubus called down, waving cheerfully. “I hate to say this, but this is kind of your last offer to just come with me, Dear! My master’s not too keen on keeping you alive. So. Let me just make my case!” He paused, placing a hand to his chest. “My name is Loran. I’m an Incubus with three other partners, but I’d love to make it four… I cherish all of my lovers. And I can take good care of you. You don’t have to be lonely anymore. All you have to do is just leave that brute’s side and come with me.”

Even though he was high in the air- it seems that he wasn’t stupid enough to make his romantic gesture on the ground- he offered out his hand. “Please? I’d hate for you to get hurt.”

Ace paused, staring at the hand warily. For a brief moment, he considered taking it. Just grabbing the hand and leaving but… he’d made a deal with Damascus. The Witch swallowed heavily, glancing back to his Demon for a moment… then reached out and grabbed Loran’s hand. “Damascus, keep me in place.” The moment the Demon’s arm hooked around his midriff and held tightly (almost too tightly-) Ace smirked.

Soon enough his sleeve began to blow back from the force of the whirlwind he was summoning. It was strange, buffeting the Incubus back as he dug his nails into his hand. But the wind was sharp. It swirled and turned, leaving shallow cuts all over the man’s body until he managed to yank himself away.

“I’m not interested in leftovers, but thanks for the offer, Loran.” Ace slipped out of Damascus’s arm, digging his feet into the snow as he threw up a few more shields…

… Which became quickly useful as a bright bolt of blue lightning slammed into and shattered through one of the shields. “Loran!” A voice called warningly, the same woman from the part stepping out into the clearing as various Imps and the weaker Demons that survived the first two onslaughts began to sprint past her. A brief flash and her own shields were raised. She had the spellbook in one hand, the old bag of bones hanging from her other as she stared at Damascus almost greedily.

“H-hehe. S-sorry. I just. I thought this might end peacefully.” Loran fluttered back to Julia’s side, wincing heavily. God blood dripped from his arm as he looked at Ace almost sadly. “I-I’m sorry I couldn’t have found you before all this. Maybe it wouldn’t have-”

But his words were cut out as a stream of Imps catapulted themselves towards Ace and Damascus. A few splattered against Ace’s shields and for a moment the Witch feared that Damascus would lose his temper already, only to breathe a sigh of relief when the larger man bashed an Imp away from him. “Fuck ‘em up, Boss.”

It was clumsy. Damascus wasn’t used to moving with Ace by his side and ended up nearly bashing his skull in a few times if it weren’t for the trained reactions and hard yanks on the Chain. Ace wasn’t doing any better, the Demon beside him sharing a small litter of thin cuts from brief bursts of wind meant to keep the Imps at bay. Not to mention the Incubus kept trying to scoop Ace up at every odd opportunity.

It looked like shit, but they were slowly, slowly making progress.

“Dammit all,” Julia hissed as Imps splattered and fell to the snow in the dozens as Ace flung spell after spell into the crowd. She huffed, dropping the bag of bones unceremoniously to the ground, reaching into the book and grabbing the few strands of bright red hair from the page. She held it up to her lips, whispering something in a strange foreign language as her eyes sparked a bright purple.

“Damascus! Try to grab him next time he co-” Silence. Ace paused, his magic faltering before stuttering to a halt as a hand reached up for his throat. He opened his mouth. Nothing emerged. Wait- fuck, focus on that alter- the Imps! Ace threw up some more shields, tossing out another wall of wind to buffet Loran back… then pain exploded through his arms and legs. It was like every time he stepped or tensed a muscle in his body it was getting stabbed with thousands of needles all at once.

The Witch faltered again, hissing but unable to hear his pained cry as he swung to look at Julia as she whispered to herself while locking her intense gaze on his struggling form. She swiftly tied the few hairs to a bundle of sticks, lighting it ablaze before kneeling beside the bones.

“Loran! Grab him now dammit!” She yelled as she unfolded the cloth that held the ancient remains and began to carefully set them out in their proper order as if she wasn’t in the midst of a tense battle. A simple flick of her hand and another bolt of lightning flew through, shattering one of the shields. Ace panicked, throwing his arm up and replacing it as another wave of sharp pain shook through his body. He stumbled, having to painfully steady himself against Damascus as he tried to focus on the swarm of enemies around him.

⬲⦓⧫⦔⟴

Damascus snarled, bashing an Imp aside that’d broken through the shield. The plan was falling apart. Ace could barely cast spells, and who knew if he’d soon be unable to altogether. The Incubus was hovering around them, looking for a place to snatch him up. He pulled the Little Boss closer. Okay. Time to retreat. This wasn’t going anywhere and he’d be damned if he broke his word to the little shit. He roughly pulled Ace against his chest, jumping back far enough to give them some space from the onslaught of enemies.

But as Julia cast her bones out, carefully arranging them a faint golden light began to drift off of the remains. It coalesced like bubbles drifting from the bottom of a lake… and he couldn’t look away. Why couldn’t he look away? What kind of fucking trick was this?

He absently swatted away a few Imps.

Fuck.

The shields were…

Breaking…

The bubbles formed an outline.

Everything stopped for Damascus. The falling snow, the Imps colliding against the steadily fading shields.

He…

A man in ancient armor with a whorled dagger at his side to slay monsters and a handsome smile to slay ladies.

Legends knew him as a half-god king that bridged the divine and the mortals.

Damascus only knew him as his adopted son.

“Gilgamesh…?”

⬲⦓⧫⦔⟴

Ace gasped as he hit the snow, struggling to pull himself up as he stared back at Damascus. Julia was smirking, slowly standing from the bones and beginning to make her way over to his familiar in a purposeful, calculated manner. No, no- shit- shit he needed to- he needed to get them out of there- why was he…? His blind eyes looked back to the figure of light that Damascus seemed to be so transfixed with. Shit. What the fuck had that book given her? Okay- he just had to- Ace leaned down and began to trace the sigil for a portal from some of his blood in the snow despite the horrid pain that wracked his body.

Then he was yanked into the air. He tried to screech, to snap Damascus out of the strange, hypnotizing state but-

He beat on Loran’s arms as hard as he could despite the pain that shot through his body. His arms flung out, his mouth hanging open in a silent scream as he focused on shielding the man as much as he could.

⬲⦓⧫⦔⟴

The young man glanced around, slightly confused but… content. He paid no attention to the chaos that surrounded the pair of them, he didn’t even seem to notice them in the first place. His gaze flickered over towards Damascus, his head slightly cocked to the side as his hand went to rest on the hilt of the dagger at his waist.

“Damascus?” This was not the correct place. It was far too cold, though he still looked at him with the same expression he always did. Grief mixed with love and betrayal all swirled together in a conflicted stare. “Swiped me away again? Wasn’t content with leaving me be?” He snapped, that gentle face lashing out like a viper in an all too similar way to his mother’s when she’d grown furious. “Or is it that you’ve finally stopped hiding from me like a coward?”

“... Why did the Church… I-I--” Damascus stared at his son. His son. His boy. The boy he plucked oranges from tall trees for, who climbed on his shoulder to tap at the stones on the ceilings of the castle, who curled up against him when he had nightmares- his son. “I’m so sorry.”

The snow seemed to be golden at that moment. Sun sparkling off of desert sands. His son. He almost seemed to be in color. He could see the black curls tousled by a fragrant wind. “Your mother… sh-she. I. I loved her so much. I never… I di-didn’t mean for-”

“Did you really think I loved you, Damascus?”

A knife in his back- poisoned. A powerful mortal poison but a bee’s sting to him- smacking her away out of instinct as she reared back again-

Her delicate neck at the wrong angle-

He couldn’t hurt Gil. He’d done nothing. He. He’d defended himself. But he’d raise Gil. He loved Gil-

Gil found out. He tried the same. But he couldn’t kill him. He couldn’t. Not the boy he’d raised to be a king. He left on an island full of oranges and-

The people didn’t love him. He’d taken their Queen, their Prince, and-

Alone.

Time didn’t matter. They didn’t care. No one cared. Why should he?

“I-I’m so. So sorry, Gil. I- I’m so sorry-” Damascus fell to his knees. His son. He wanted to hold his son. He wanted. He wanted his wife and the orange tree and- his heart hurt so much.

“She wasn’t even a threat to you!” The man screeched, stalking towards Damascus and to anyone else that wasn’t caught up in the illusion? It simply appeared like the figure of light was moving identically to Julia as she made her way towards the Demon. “None of us were! Lying and hiding for years- years you ruled a secret tyrant- and the day I discovered your lies? Your murderous ways!? You send me away because you don’t even have the fucking courage to face me!”

He was up in front of Damascus now, looking him dead in the eyes. That bright, shining gaze now filled with a deadly rage that fueled him to avenge the mother he’d lost so long ago. “If you were truly sorry, you’d let me kill you. Not hide away like a filthy insect to live another day.”

⬲⦓⧫⦔⟴

Ace leaned down, biting deeply into Loran’s forearm until he could taste the metallic grit of his blond on his tongue. Using that to ground himself, he threw his hand out towards the bones that sat so far away. Please work, please work, PLEASE- a harsh wind shot out from the Witch’s hand and the moment it left, Ace's world began to spin. He released Loran’s arm, barely registering that the Incubus had dropped him a good twenty feet.

The snow surrounded him, clogging his eyes, stinging his exposed skin, but everything began to blur. He tried to push himself up, he tried to stand- to keep going- but he watched the wind just barely brush against the bones before his vision went black.

⬲⦓⧫⦔⟴

In that brief flicker, what looked to have been Gilgamesh’s dagger going straight for Damascus’s throat was revealed to be Julia. Her delicate hands grasped at the fuchsia chain that hung around Damascus’s neck and began to turn each section a lovely shade of blue. Then it was back to the young king, his bloodthirsty eyes glowering at Damascus as he tried to finally enact the moment of revenge that had been denied to him thousands of years in the past-

Damascus let out a shuddering breath. He grabbed his son’s hands, lightly putting his forehead against his. “... Even after a thousand years. Even after a thousand more. I will never, ever forgive myself for what I did to you and your mother.”

… This wasn’t his boy. And he wasn’t in the city that feared its own name. He closed his eyes… as he roughly shoved the phantom away. He felt the cold sting of the snow against his cheeks. His breath puffing out in great clouds of mist… The chain hung so loose around his neck.

And that polluting blue hue.

His eyes glanced over to his Little Boss. Passed out in the snow. The woman before him, eyes wide. If ever there was a time to free himself, once and for all, it was now. He could kill this woman. And the Little Boss.

But he had broken his word once-

I’ll always protect you.

-and he never would again.

That being said, he slowly turned back to Julia. His red eyes were now pitch black… The earth began to rumble. Trees fell. The ground began to hiss and crack. With a single flex of his fingers, a massive chunk of metal thrust itself up from the ground.

Iron was a common metal, after all. And now Julia could have herself a coffin of it, as it closed in around her living form, burying her, her book, but not the bones. There wasn’t much he could do for Gilgamesh, now, but a proper burial seemed only right.

He spared Loran a look, who hovered uncertainly near Ace. “Touch him and you die.”

The Incubus froze… and disappeared into a gaping mouth of fire and smoke. Fucking good. Go back to Hell. Bastard. He crunched towards the Little Boss and slung him over one shoulder. “You alive?” He barely asked as he started heading over to pick up the bones. They got a much gentler treatment. He wrapped each one with such care in that little cloth...

⬲⦓⧫⦔⟴

The Witch only groaned, still barely conscious but… the pain was slowly settling into a light buzz with each bump and shift. “I… can’t… t… alk…?” No… No, he could. He could speak. What had… happened? Where was…?

He felt like he’d been dropped from a cliff. Had he been dropped from a cliff? He was still barely able to move, much less cast anything… Why wasn’t he running? Or breaking the chain, or…?

“...Y… our… n-not killing… me��?” He murmured, just managing to register the sack of bones that he’d scooped up. He honestly thought that the moment Ace had weakened in the slightest sense that Damascus would go back on his word. That he would break through the chains and devour him whole like he’d threatened to over and over again for the past eight years.

It was highly doubtful that he did it for him, but…

“What happened…?” He gasped as the Demon stood up from the snow and began to walk, wincing as he tried to keep himself from-

“Damascus- down- put- put me-” The moment he hit the ground, Ace was vomiting into the snow. His forearms shook from exhaustion, blood mingled with his bile. He assumed that his nose was bleeding yet again by the faint drops of slowly freezing blood. He sat there, gasping for air and emptying the contents of his stomach for a good few minutes before he flopped over onto his side and shakily curled up into a ball.

“Shut up. The deal was still in effect, so ‘course I kept my end of the bargain. I’ll try and kill you again tomorrow.” Damascus took this opportunity to walk a few steps off. He laid the bundle of bones beneath a nice pine tree. Ace watched as with a wave of his hand, a chunk of gold ore rose from the earth. It melted over the bones, formed a soft little coffin… and then sunk back down. Deep, deep, deep into the earth where no one would disturb them again.

His massive feet crunched in the snow towards Ace’s crumpled form.

“You gonna die? Or do you want to be a sack of potatoes on the way back to the shit cabin?”

Ace groaned, awkwardly throwing his arms into the air. “Potatoes, please- and be more gentle, you ass, you’re gonna break my ribs.” God, the moment he was picked up and Damascus started to move again the little man felt like passing out.

Instead, he let his head hang back, awkwardly bouncing against the Demon’s arm as he tried to focus on the cool snow that rested gently against his skin. A steady… odd silence fell over the two of them.

…

“We… made a surprisingly good team, despite how fucked that’d gotten.”

…

“You only almost hit me a few times.”

…

“... Do you want to talk about it?”

He blinked up at the Demon, waiting for some sort of response though he assumed that he would either receive a snarky response or nothing at all. It was clear from the beginning that this was only a circumstantial team-up. Still, it… might be a good idea for them to focus on that style of fighting and planning in the future. He doubted either of them wanted to be made a fool of again any time soon.

“... I wanna know why the Church had my son’s bones.” Damascus trudged through the snow, white flakes clinging to his blood-stained hair. “... After I killed his mother, I left him on an island of oranges. I checked in on him. He didn’t stay there. I want to rule a kingdom of his own. He flourished. The people I tried to take care of rebelled.”

His pinprick eyes shook in their black pits. “I killed them.”

“My boy died a king in his own land. But I killed the friends he grew up with. I killed their mothers. And their fathers. Because they didn’t stop. I was some tyrant that killed their true rulers. The old king. The old queen. And they’d never know my son found his own place to rule. They just… they didn’t stop.”

“... I gave them every luxury. Food. And water. And weapons so fine they could cut through stone. I ruled them as a good king. I spared those that broke my laws. But even if I am a greedy man… I still have Wrath running through my veins. Betrayal never suited me after Alea. I killed anyone who tried.” Ace blinked, he could see the cabin in the distance, but… Damascus looked so… old and tired. “... After everyone starts betraying you, you just learn to stop the new ones before they can even try.”

… He really did have a whole family so long ago, didn’t he? It was strange. Ace’s situation was completely different, it was his fault that Valdis died, and even though he’d run from the Church ten years ago and summoned a Demon to help keep them away… he still technically had a family.

A terrible, abusive, manipulative family that he wished were dead, but they are still there.

Ace didn’t say anything else on the way back, though if he did curl in a bit and let his head rest against the warmth of Damascus’s body for a while, it was only because he was freezing and exhausted.

Slowly, he helped himself out of the Demon’s arms and shakily leaned against the counter of the kitchen when they’d gotten back to the cabin. Without thinking, he snapped his fingers and a fire lit up in the now dank and cruddy ‘home’. Pain shot up the Witch’s arm from overexertion and nearly caused him to tumble to the ground again, but he managed to keep himself standing.

“I need… to rest. You should too. We need a different place to stay and… I need to find you a new chair.” Ace chuckled dryly, a frown tugging at his lips when he noticed the ever grim and distant look on Damascus’s face. “... Thank you. For not… breaking the chain. It… yeah. I’m sorry about your son.” He turned, grabbing a damp and thin blanket from the floor and wrapping it around his snow-covered shoulders as he slowly shuffled his way into his room and towards his admittedly uninviting bed.

Distantly, he could hear Damascus murmur something after him, though he couldn’t make out what it was before the Demon slipped into his own room

Tomorrow, they would look for a new place to stay. Tonight… tonight they just needed to rest. And recover.

#original story #original characters #angels #demons #tetraphilia #enemies to lovers #enemies to kinda sorta maybe lovers #Damascus is an asshole #So is Ace #They have issues #And trauma #slow burn? #eventual smut #magic #gore #lots of death #They're not good people #monster fucker #tw monsterfucking #exophilia #witches #forced feeding #mlm #Ace & Damascus #tw religion #tw religious assholes (no seriously) #toxic relationship

[elliemarchetti]

Wretches and Kings (Part II)

This is my fill for @steverogersbingo for the square Huddling for Warmth

Part 1

Plot: When the ship they were traveling on get caught in a storm, Steve is unable to leave Dania to her fate, and the witch desperately wants the gentle enemy to become her partner in misfortune

TW: nothing I can think of, but me know if anything could be triggering

Words: 2799

The ship rolled too much. Dania felt the huge waves crashing hard on the hull, while the werewolves upstairs struggled to stay on course and take advantage of the wind, with the deck and the rudder so slippery and the sails so soaked. What at the start was only a stream of water occasionally coming down the cracks on the ceiling, had now turned into a freezing and noisy waterfall, the puddle on the floor now reaching their ankles. When the weather began to deteriorate, the youngest of her fellow prisoners started to cry loudly, until her screams died down in soft sobbing, and finally subsided suddenly, convincing Dania, who could hardly see her, that she was dead. The other witch gave no sign of understanding the situation, nor she tried to convince their jailer, who removed her gag on Dania’s umpteenth plea, to free her to save everyone’s life, sure she was more likely to survive alone. At least from that point of view, Dania was undoubtedly smarter: there was no way to escape a storm of that magnitude, especially not when they were weakened to the point of barely standing up and found themselves in the middle of the North Sea, tied to rusty chains and rowan handcuffs who gave no sign of breaking, regardless of how hard they tried to wriggle, pull and yank, leaving them not only unable to use their magic but to swim too. A lost load, the survived Hounds would define them, while friends and relatives would wait at home for a return that would never happen. Although she lost track of time by now, Dania supposed Heimdall learned of her kidnapping; if only she was a little more important, Odin or Frigga would’ve sent someone to look for her, but she was just one of the many spies they could replace in the blink of an eye, and the truth was she was most likely going to drown alone, yet another victim of a war that couldn’t end if not in genocide. There was no way she could imagine the only thing Steve thought of when he saw a wave so high that it obscured the crescent moon, was her. He couldn’t stand the idea of leaving the resilient witch stuck with chains pushing her further and further toward an endless, chaotic and cold nothingness, so if nature wanted them all dead anyway, he would go with a clear conscience, and only then let the sea drag him to his destiny, where he could forget the training and the unbearable pain his mind and body endured once a month. He knew the torture was about to return: within a couple days, he would become a monster, a beast wanting nothing more than to destroy and contaminate. As he clung with all his might to the balustrade of the ship’s deck, he shut his eyes tightly, as if to ward off the useless feelings of guilt. It was a curse of many, and he did everything in his power to undo it, so it had to be enough. With the uncertain step of a child, he entered the hold, and using the chains to keep balance, he reached the one who hadn’t taken her dark eyes off him even for a second. When he put the key in the lock, the ship finally gave in and rolled over its side, water pouring in from everywhere.

“Don’t let me die,” she snarled, panicked, and as the mechanism clicked, she slipped out of the handcuffs and onto his arms, ready to try to achieve the impossible. The spell itself wasn’t particularly complex, but casting it while she had to hold her breath and avoid the pieces of the shattered hull wasn’t exactly something she practiced for. In the beginning, nothing happened, and for a moment she feared she was too weak, and this would be the horrible end, lungs on fire and eyes burning for the salt. At least she wouldn’t be alone, although dying in the arms of a Hound who wanted to exploit her powers wasn’t quite how she pictured she would go. When an unexpected rush of current washed over them, she almost screamed of joy, nearly forgetting to save as much air as possible until they reached the surface, where they were abruptly separated by another wave. Like any witch born in the Republic, Dania spent most of her childhood divided between books and the beach, with her head bowed over printed pages in the morning and her feet dipped in hot sand during the afternoon, so swimming until she reached a piece of wood thick enough to act as a rudimentary raft wasn’t a problem, not even wearing the woollen skirt, which soaked as it was weighted like a boulder, but rescuing someone who was at least twice her size, dressed in weapons like a mannequin in a museum, wasn’t quite the same thing. Truth be told, she still didn’t know why she was so adamant to join him: perhaps she felt she owed him something, since he shown her more attention than he gave to the other prisoners, or perhaps she wished to have company, sharing the misery of travelling to whichever coast was closest with someone. Also, the adrenaline of the moment was waning, and she was too exhausted to stay awake and cast a spell powerful enough to bring her ashore, so she needed someone to swim and stay alert when she couldn’t keep her eyes open and her head above the water. As she suspected, the Hound wasn’t breathing, and no matter how hard she shook or slapped him, he still didn’t, so she couldn’t do much but retort to a human technique, something that required stability, but if practiced right, would lead to the results she hoped for. It was with great effort that she dragged the young man to the centre of her makeshift raft, but even more difficult was undoing the belts, buttons and laces that separated her rigid fingers from his sculptural chest. Ignoring any perplexity, she followed the directions a sailor gave her long ago. Thirty compressions are needed to be sure to save a grown man, he said, his voice croaking, a strange accent exacerbated by the toothpick he held in his mouth. He came from a distant place few wanted to visit, a land with much to offer and much demanded back, but he couldn’t get away too long, and once he returned, he wasn’t sure he would see other coasts again. In the Court, time passes differently, he explained, while with bright eyes he watched the crew of the fishing boat trying to revive the poor boy who got entangled in one of the nets. They hired him in Belmar, one of the many orphans who asked for charity near the inns and pickpockets too drunk patrons. They must’ve thought he had quick hands, but those born on dry land don’t always know the pitfalls of a boat, even if it’s anchored. Perhaps there he could’ve been saved, the man continued undaunted, unaffected by the death happening before his eyes. It must’ve been the old age, which Dania could guess from the white hair and wrinkled skin, burned by sun and salt, or perhaps the decennial experience, hidden in the calloused hands and in that odd pose all sailor maintained even on land, or maybe it was something different, something hiding under the sturdy clothes and heavy boots. I know what you want, little girl, he concluded, before disappearing into a dark alley, yet another shadow merging with the darkness of the new moon, but I don’t know the secrets you’re looking for, only those of life and death. Follow my advice: to save a drowned man, compress his chest thirty times and blow air twice in his mouth, but remember to close his nose, or all your efforts will be in vain. At the time of the interaction, Dania had recently begun her job as a spy and gave little thought to the bizarre words, focusing mainly on the fact that a complete stranger, whom she met by chance only for a couple minutes, immediately understood she was searching for something, but over the years, she started to consider the memory something worth investigating, a path to follow when the others turned out to be dead ends. Did the sailor knew that one day his teachings would be useful enough to save her life? There was no way to know for sure, but she certainly intended  to use them, probably longer than she should, refusing to believe a mountain of muscles, struck by a curse that would prevent him from dying of old age or disease, could perish for spending a few seconds too long underwater. Her efforts led to a positive outcome when a lazy trickle of water ran down the Hound’s lower lip, sliding down to his chin. Quickly, Dania pushed him onto his side, and watched anxiously as he profusely vomited salted water.

“Witch,” he whispered, glancing at her sideway, the semblance of a smile reviving his pale face. Only after many hours the sky proceeded to open, the torrential rain giving way to the first, timid rays of sun, but it was long past dawn when they saw in the distance something that looked like rocks, large, black and sharp stones peeking out from the surface of the water, white, foamy waves crashing on their peak. There hadn't been many words since Dania explained her plan, and she didn’t think there would be any more when they finally arrived on the dark beach, too different from what she was used to, to belong to the Mortal Kingdom. If that was the wolves home, the armistice between them was over, and she was once again going to be a prisoner, and him a jailer. Sure, she could’ve killed him, after all a werewolf alone, even if well trained, can do nothing against a witch, but for that she would’ve to wait, and above all silence her conscience, which begged her to spare the young man who swam in her place all that time.

“There’s something up there,” he gasped, pointing to a very specific spot between the mountains, which soared toward the sky less than a mile from the coast. At that distance, it seemed only a little black mass, a mirage before the fog of the pass that opened narrow and dangerous just in front of them, but it could’ve been a tiny village, or at least a shelter that allowed them to warm up and eat something.

“Signs of civilization?” Dania asked, hoping the Hound didn’t understand the multiple reasons behind her question. She was trained to deal with other of his kind in human form, and if they met any mortal they would’ve probably helped her, even if they dwelt in enemy territory, but during the night she noticed how little was left before his next transformation, and she wasn’t able to compete against more than one of those soulless beasts, who proved to be good witch hunters even under the full influence of the curse. What happened when a sorcerer was bitten, no one knew, but she didn’t have time to ask her companion, since he replied negatively to her previous question and extended his big, warm hand to help her get up. The sharpened eyesight, the ability to regain heat faster and also the incredible strength and stamina, everything that saved them was part of the spell their races were fighting over, a concept not so easy to accept. Shaken by the thought she should thank it for once, she followed the Hound unusually quiet, lost in brooding on the past, present and above all future of the war. What the werewolf saw from afar turned out to be a strange dwelling, a dome of stones smoothed by the current, with a low chimney allowing the smoke from the hearth, located in the centre of the building, to disperse outside. Evidently, no one entered it for a while, but Dania wouldn’t have called it abandoned or disused, with heavy woollen blankets folded neatly and ample supplies of wood and dried fish to await the owner’s return. There were also some strange ampoules, apparently filled with perfumed water, but neither she nor the Hound approached them, doing the same with the massive trunks.

“So you live like this?” she asked, looking around. The furniture was extremely rudimental, functional and minimal, but there were enough kitchen tools not to be considered a barbaric household. Judging by the spatula and the wide, flat pot, there must’ve been some chickens somewhere as well.

“Our cities are more beautiful, and the miners’ houses are carved into the mountains raw rock,” he replied, vague, as he tried desperately to light the fire. For some reason, he seemed frightened, and Dania decided to alleviate his suffering with a movement of her right hand, silently casting one of the first spell taught to children when they started their studies in the Republic. The smaller twigs caught flame easily, and the crackling sparks reflected for a while on her companion’s blue eyes, a contrast so interesting it distracted her from hi reaction to the deliberate use of magic in everyday life.

“You should take your clothes off,” she suggested, starting to get rid of her boots and socks, noting how his lower lip trembled slightly. “You may have a much higher base temperature, but by the time all those layers dry up, you’ll be frozen to death.”

“If this is your way of disarming me, I must inform you I’m as dangerous naked as I am with my knives,” he replied, getting up anyway to remove at least the coat. He couldn’t say he hadn’t thought about it, the closer the full moon was, the more his animalistic side influenced his mind, but he didn’t recognize the place, and even the coast seemed different from those of the Land of the Alpha, therefore he still couldn’t decide whether it was wise to abandon his weapons, if not for the witch’s safety, something he kept reminding himself he should’ve never cared about, at least for his own. Furthermore, his wilder side was clouding his mind even in regard to the young woman who was undressing in front of him, removing with painful speed every strip of soggy cloth separating her pale skin from the blanket. Regardless of how wrong it was, the corrupted part of him wanted to hold her in his arms and feel the softness of her body so greedily, he would probably rather let her freeze to death than approach her.

“I know, or I wouldn’t be in this situation,” she replied, harshly. “But I must inform you things are different now and I could get rid of your ass even if you were in full armour.”

"Why don't you do it, then?" he asked, breaking the silent pact they sealed saving each other during the shipwreck. Not for a moment he paused to think about the other prisoners and Hounds, and for that he couldn't blame his condition, only his own selfishness, telling him that perhaps it would be better if they were all dead, their absence giving him time to think about how to resolve the situation he got into when he captured his saviour.

“I still don’t know, I just don’t want to, probably,” she shrugged, throwing her underwear on the floor as well. The thought of certain parts of her body made him salivate, and for the first time since their journey began, he realized he was the prisoner, and of his own mind too. Pathetic, like his lack of willpower. It had been a long since the last time he was naked with a woman, but it was normal when his life was entirely devoted to finding a cure for lycanthropy, yet, though he vividly remembered each of his last private moments with Peggy, someone he loved and was reciprocated by, this time was somehow more intense, and cruelly platonic. In the silence interrupted only by the crackle of the fire, he listened to the witch’s breath slow down until it reached the regular rhythm of sleep, while her limbs relaxed perhaps for the first time since they met. Her face was serene, and Steve couldn’t resist the temptation to draw her closer, the slow beating of her heart soothing his. Half asleep, Dania intertwined her fingers with those of the one who should’ve been her enemy, and led by the warmth of his body, she wondered if perhaps the cold of the Mortal Kingdom hadn’t been so unbearable because she hadn’t the right person to huddle in the night.

#steve rogers bingo 2022 #werewolf steve rogers #beta steve rogers #steve rogers x original female character #previous peggy x steve #multi chapter

[rileymcdaniels]

It's just past midsummer in Rivain, and it's hot. The sun lingers in the sky. Each day seems longer than the last. Riley's travels keep her along the coastline, but not even light linen clothes and generous breeze off the water offer much relief. It's rough. And it makes long days that end with frustratingly little progress even rougher.

At least Llomerryn's inn has an open room. And at least one of the girls working at the inn is nice enough to haul a generous amount of clean water up to that room for her.

As Riley scrubs the day's sweat away, hunched over the water basin, she considers her next move. A Friend of Red Jenny sent word to her that a fisherman in Llomerryn could provide her with information. However, before she could get ten words out, the fisherman said he had a job for her before he was willing to talk. The job might take up to a week to finish. She smells a dead end, but it's the best lead she's got.

Anxiety claws at her throat, vicious with the knowledge that she is running out of time. Who knows how much time she has left, but each day that passes is one day closer to something like the end of the world. Maybe. She doesn't know.

She has no army, no network of spies, no steady stream of gold. She has herself, a few scattered friends, and not much else. Fuck.

She dunks her head into the basin to rinse the harsh soap out of her hair and to stop that line of thought as best as she can. She dresses in fresh clothes, her movements smoother now than they were right after she lost her arm. She chews on some field rations as the exhaustion begins to settle into her bones, too tired to think about going to the tavern for a meal.

She collapses in bed soon after, and although sleep comes easily, it's not restful.

She dreams of Skyhold and of the library, sandwiched between Leliana's ravens and Solas' murals. She's looking for something. She's looking for a book, but when she runs up the stairs and to the shelves, she can't read the titles on the spines. The letters swim, and she can't make sense of them even when she squints.

Then, she stands in her bedroom in Skyhold, and when she turns, Solas is sitting at her desk.

"It looks like a mess," she says, gesturing to the piles of paper, "but please don't touch anything. I actually do know where everything is."

He doesn't reply. Then, for a moment, his face morphs into memories of the Nightmare, and then memories of sickly green light and spiders and her brother's face --

She wants to scream, she tries to scream, but there's no breath in her lungs. She desperately sucks in a breath, but it disappears just as quickly as it filled her chest.

Outside, the sky tears apart. She tries to look out the window, but Solas fills her vision instead. She tries to shove him away so she can get to the balcony to see what happened outside, but her hand can't find purchase. Her fingers keep slipping, and her muscles are drained of strength. There's nothing she can do to stop him, he's immovable and advancing, and she tries to cry out, but her voice is suffocated.

He laughs, and she's never been so fucking terrified. The world is ending, drenched in shades of sickening green, and her voice is suffocated by the weight of failure.

@dreadwxlf

#pls do not feel like you have to write this much!!! #i wss just Feeling It #dragon age au #dreadwxlf

[casspurrjoybellbittner]

Wreckless - The Baltimore Zoo

*Warning Adult Content*

Emmett

I didn't shave yesterday or this morning hoping that a bit of scruff will help Finnegan feel better.

I felt like shit the other night, honestly, although I think I handled it pretty well and we got through it.

The poor guy ended up working late again last night so I didn't seen him but I'm about to head over, pick him up and take him to the zoo.

I think he's going to love it.

It's much bigger than people usually think and they have a little train that takes you from one end of the park to the other.

Plus animals. Lots and lots of animals of every size, shape and color.

I can't think of a better place to take a little.

"Hi Emmett."

He's grinning from ear to ear and sounds very eager.

It's adorable.

"Did you put sunscreen on?"

I texted him this morning to remind him since he got pink at Peter's but I want to be sure he remembered.

"Yep."

"And you have on comfy shoes?" I ask, looking down.

Yes, they look great... he's sort of bouncing on the balls of his feet.

"Yep. Can we go?"

"Since you did such a good job of getting ready, yes, we can go. Lock up."

It doesn't take us long, just fifteen minutes up eighty three and we're pulling into the huge lot.

It's fairly busy, it is a Saturday in the summer but that doesn't bother me.

Finnegan and I will both be able to see just fine even if there are a bunch of children in front of us.

As soon as we walk in he spies the gift shop.

"On the way out, you don't want to carry stuff all day," and he agrees, then sees the prairie dogs.

"Lead the way."

I'm happy to follow him around all day.

"Oh my God, they're so cute," he exclaims, squeezing to the side to get a better view.

"I love them," I admit.

Their habitat is big and full of holes and there are constantly little heads popping up and cute little guys running to and fro.

Sometimes I feel sorry for animals in zoos, the animals often don't have enough space to satisfy me but these guys always look so happy that I can't help but smile.

Three hours later we've ridden the train, seen elephants, zebras, monkeys and so many others that I've lost count and fed the giraffes.

Finn laughed and laughed at the warthogs and oh-ed and ah-ed at the polar bears swimming next to us at the underwater window.

Now we're eating a snack.

It's not exactly anything healthy but it's a special day.

"Can we stop at the gift shop? I wanna look," he asks.

"Of course."

I follow him in, curious to see what will catch his eye.

He immediately grabs one of those pens with eight different colors of ink, then goes to the wall of plushies.

"Plushies are for babies, right?"

There's a long way from diapers to plushies.

"Nah, get one if you want."

Two teenagers at check-out are buying a huge one and I point them out.

"See?"

He decides on a reasonably sized stuffed elephant and then wanders towards the shirts.

"Maybe they have a fun one."

"I'm sure you can find one."

He throws his hand over his mouth, points up at the display too quickly for me to see what he's pointing at and then rummages through the bins underneath.

Then he holds up this...

"For you," he says gleefully.

How can I say no to that smile?

"Okay."

I'll have to be very careful about where I wear it but I can certainly wear it around the house in the evenings.

And maybe to work, Peter would probably laugh his ass off.

He decides he doesn't love any of the shirts, except mine and forces me to let him pay.

I'm not gonna cause a scene in a gift shop and since I spent most of the cash he gave me on sex toys, I'm not too bothered.

On the way home he rests his hand on my knee.

"I had a really good time, Emmett.  Thank you."

"I'm glad."

"And I'm really, really looking forward to tonight."

Actually...

"I thought we'd wait till tomorrow to go heavy, that is if you want to at all this weekend. I know you had a rough week and I'd like to spoil you rotten tonight."

He removes his hand and inhales sharply but I'm too busy driving to even glance over, this merge is awful.

"How does that sound?"

"Honestly?"

What kind of question is that?

"Always."

"I will go along with whatever you want and I know I'll enjoy myself thoroughly but I... I just hoped, it's just that... could you be nice to me tomorrow?"

So that's a yes to going heavy this weekend.

Okay.

"Are you sure? We haven't done anything since, really, except the mornings and I... uh, I don't know what I'm saying. I don't want you to think that's all I want."

"Same."

He laughs.

"I'm the one begging for it. I don't know, Emmett, I just feel like it could help me get this week out of my system, somehow. It's cathartic in a way, at least it was last time. I've been looking forward to those plugs since, what? Sunday? Definitely Monday when I started looking. Do you have them?"

"I do."

"When you said we'd do the small zoo and have time to play I just thought... sorry, I got my hopes up. We can do whatever."

He's right, I had more than implied it, I've just given it some thought since then.

"Darling."

Damn, my pants are getting tight.

I have to try to rearrange myself without hitting the gas pedal and ending up going one hundred at the risk of losing my bumper.

"I am up for whatever."

Literally.

"I just want to be with you and if that's what you need tonight, you're going to get it."

His hand reappears but this time his pinky is teasing my cock. 

"Oh, tell me again. Tell me I'm gonna get it."

"You little rascal. You're gonna get it, Finnegan. You're teasing and you're going to make it up to me. I think it's time for your second lesson, don't you?"

"Fuck yes, I mean, no? God I'm so confused," he jokes.

"So Em, yes please and thank you and no, I don't like your lessons."

Thank God we're almost home. 

One day I'm going to have to figure out how to say 'no' to that boy but apparently today is not that day.

[alexandriasgarden]

A sickly, acrid scent mixes with the overpowering salt of the ocean. Dirty, foamy waves crash together, spraying onto the man's face. He retches, again. As his hands grip the railing, his balance compromised, he wonders if he might fall into the water below. Seasickness may be one thing, but he also cannot swim. That he should find himself on the ocean, then, is quite the event. He has spent all of his life on land, and most of that working at the university. He is an astronomer, and the whalers have dragged him here to peer at the sky.

The night sky in Net is a beautiful thing. Up, far above the reach of any living thing, stars twinkle and shift as though travelling through an invisible river. They fade in and out, forming shapes and drawing paths upon the inky black firmament. The astronomer often imagines ancient men, seeing the same sight as himself. Mortal, fleeting eyes catching their own glimpse of that outer place, tracing the steps of its dancers in search of some truth beyond earthly matters. He wonders if their gods were the same as his.

The sea finally calms, and night falls soon after. The astronomer does not eat, and does not sleep. He stays, laid flat upon the deck of the ship, looking at the stars above. He holds a notebook in his hands, one of many he has filled with recordings of the stars. He writes of their myriad behaviors, painstakingly ordering and categorising in the hope of finding some sense among the patterns. This night, he sees nothing new. An hour passes, and then another. The astronomer charts the course of the stars in his inscrutable personal shorthand, recording as much as he can see before exhaustion takes him from the waking world. If there is something special about the sky in this place, he does not see it tonight.

He wakes up having been moved to his quarters by (no doubt) one of the mute seamen. The crew holds a superstition against speaking out on the water. They still grunt and cry out, and do not flinch at the crash of dropped rigging or the peal of the dinner bell. It is something about the words, they tell him. They beget horrors, and from the horrors blooms madness. The astronomer feels mad enough from the swaying of the ship, but does not argue. He fears being thrown to the waves far more than he loves the spoken word. The sailors wouldn't have much to tell him anyways. Their attention is focused solely on their whale hunt, unaffected by the astronomer and his starstruck writings.

On the second night, the astronomer spies an entirely new shape. Streams of light undulate through the sky, many short pieces aligned within some unseen order. They, like the stars, flicker in and out of sight, irregular in form. Some leave trails of fleeting stars in their wake, drawing transient dotted lines across the void. Others appear to weave themselves into the backdrop, appearing like children's stitches through a deep black cloth. The astronomer stands up from his supine post and looks across the ocean. In the surface of the water, he finds the light of the stars reflected, warbling with the constant movement of the waves. The threads of light are reflected, too, likewise distorted and chopped up by the water's surface. He finds their beauty lost through the lens of reflection, their nature obscured through alteration. Beneath them, the astronomer spies a different constellation of lights, smothered by the ocean surface rather than reflected in it. They are blue, and twinkle like the stars above, on and off, in and out of sight.

The next day, like the previous, passes inconsequentially. The astronomer is not concerned with the affairs of daylight lest they relate to the stars. He sits in his cabin and ponders the threads of light. They offer little answer for him, much like the cold, distant stars he knows so well. Some times he imagines the lights of the night sky to be the drawings of gods. Not the abyssal gods of man, but new, different gods. Above rather than below. Ageless and ineffable, deigning not to even touch the affairs of mortal creatures. Leaving trails of stars, that they might guide any other gods to their heavenly palace. Other times, he imagines them to be animate creatures. Living spirits of light, casting about, back and forth, inscrutable, unthinking. Their patterns' meaning invented by the wishful minds of every astronomer before him, and every astronomer to come.

The ship, like all reputable vessles, carries with it a unique passenger. She is a sealed one, her body obscured by reams of layered gossamer fabric etched in countless overlapping runes. She makes no sound as she moves, somehow muting the rustling of her robes, and does not speak, even on land. Upon her face hangs a single piece of paper, upon which she writes her words. She approaches the astronomer today with a message. Her face paper reads

"The Fabric here is thin."

When he has finished reading, as if knowing his mind, the text on the paper begins to change. The sheaf folds without moving, betraying a great depth beyond its paper-thin form. As it folds, more words appear. They are not written upon the paper as much as slipping onto the surface as though they had always been there.

"Pray that it does not tear."

Silent and prescient as before, the text disappears once it is read, with the same mind-bending not-motion. The astronomer opens his mouth, but the sealed one has already turned away from him. She retreats into the lower decks, the wind whipping at her garments.

This night, the astronomer has eyes only for the ocean. He has been entranced by the false stars beneath the waves, and begins to write about them. They flit about, as if to entice creatures above the water. There are many kinds, or so he thinks, and he begins organising them, first by shape, and then by brightness, and then by their blinking patterns. They are totally unlike the stars above. The astronomer leans over the edge of the railing to get a better view. He sees that the lights also have depth, some farther down than others, some climbing or sinking as they travel. He leans further, looking closer, forgetting the placement of his body and the crack of the railing until-

He falls into the water. He sinks, and holds his breath, and does not close his eyes. He wants to see the lights under the waves. He sinks, deeper, consumed by the allure of submerged will-o-the-wisps. They encircle him, filling his vision with a chaotic, disorienting dance. He has lost sight of the surface, not that it matters. Far, far below, more lights manifest like whispers from the deep. The astronomer no longer feels cold, or wet. He does not feel the weight of the water pushing down on him. He feels, instead, as though his body has flattened compared to the world around him.

The space around him flexes, like a sheet being fitted over a bed. The astronomer wonders where he left his notebook. In his cabin? He should have brought it with him when he decided to take this venture, he thinks. He can't remember what he was doing. The warp and weft of the space around him are gone. He can't feel his limbs. As his consciousness drifts, he sees, for the first time, something that was always there. A mass in the darkness, nondescript, but large in an impossible way. A massive eye opens, and within it are hundreds, thousands, of equally massive eyes. All staring, all watching. The astronomer opens a mouth he does not have in order to scream, and infinite inaudible sounds emerge. Behind him, if the word "behind" means anything, the ocean waters rush to fill a space that never existed.

In the morning, the crew find his notebook on the deck of the ship. The side railing is broken, and his body is nowhere to be found. The sealed one is called upon to perform the burial rites. She performs her ritual unceremoniously, and pockets the astronomer's notebook before returning below deck. Four days hence, when the ship returns to port with its usual catch, there is no waiting party for the astronomer. How could there be? The university has not had an astronomer in decades.

[forever-rogue]

if you’re still taking requests for Bucky, can you do one from this quote if it sparks any inspiration: ‘when you realize you can tell someone your truth, when you can stand in front of them and show yourself and their response is “you’re safe with me” - that’s intimacy.’

A/N: please, this is so soft 🥺

Pairing: Bucky x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 2.1k

Warnings: none

MASTERLIST

»»————-　♡　————-««

A heavy sigh escaped soft lips as Bucky laid on the couch and stared at the ceiling. There was almost no sound in the room besides the rhythmic ticking of the aging clock on the wall, combined with the sounds wafting in from the open window, and the almost non-existent humming of his vibranium appendage. He reached his hand up to his chest to ground himself by touching the dog tags that had been his for way too many years now. A temporary moment of panic set into his bones when he realized there was nothing there, but revelation quickly dawned on him as he remembered that they were currently with you. The last he’d seen them, you were wearing them, the metallic silver tags safely nestled under the soft fabric of your t-shirt.

When he’d given them to you, a sign of his desire to call you his, among other things, he never actually expected that you’d wear them. The first time he’d spied you wearing them, along a casual outfit consisting of jeans and a t-shirt and sneakers, he’d almost short circuited. There was something about comforting knowing they were safe and sound in your possession now. They were yours now too - just like he was.

A gentle tugging lifted the corners of his mouth into the semblance of a smile. How foreign it still felt sometimes, the gentle feeling of blossoming happiness and knowing he was loved. Loved. What a strange and odd concept that was. He couldn’t remember the last another soul had told him they loved him besides in the most platonic sense. But the first time you’d whispered those words to him, so effortlessly, so easily, I love you, his whole world came to a screeching halt and he was sent into a wild spiral that left him speechless. Bucky hadn’t reciprocated your words then; but it wasn’t long after that he did. It had been a half shout, half declaration as you just grinned at him, pulling him against your lips and only letting him go when you were both breathless and dizzy.

He relaxed at the thought, settling against the pillow as he reminded himself to swim in happy memories, rather than drown in the ghosts of the past.

His phone vibrated against the glass top of the coffee table as it startled him out of his stupor, causing him to almost roll off the couch in surprise. He scrambled to grab the phone, and relaxed when he saw your name on the screen. Straightening himself up, he cleared his throat before answering, “hi sweetheart.”

“Bucky!” your excited voice on the other end of the line made his heart relax as he just imagined you bouncing around your small floral shop, making sure everything was perfect, “it’s about time you answered, old man. I’ve called you like three times! Did I disturb your afternoon nap, Barnes?”

“Hey, watch who you’re calling an old man,” he snorted as he stood up and stretched, surprised by how easily you were able to read him, “I got decades on you, kid, respect your elders.”

“Respect me when I’m right,” you grinned as he laughed lightly. How easily everything seemed to flow between the two of you; he’d never thought he could have anything like this again. Even once he’d left Wakanda and life slowly went back to a semblance of normality after the Blip, he still had a hard time trusting people; perhaps, more than anything else, he didn’t trust himself.

While he knew he was himself again, Bucky, and not the Winter Soldier, he still was never quite convinced that he wouldn’t ever go back. For so long he had been nothing but a killer, it was hard to believe that he could ever be fully himself again. So he’d closed himself off, steeled himself, despite the constant reassurance from the people around him that it was okay to let others in. He couldn’t trust himself - after so long...how could he? How was he just supposed to be able to pick the pieces and just be James again?

But he was learning, over time, slowly, bit by bit, that it was okay to let people in, okay to feel, and be okay and also not be okay. Sure, some days were hard, but the good days were good. And they were getting to become more and more frequent.

“Bucky? Hello?” you called his name from the other line, trying to get him to snap back into attention, “James? James Buchanan Barnes?”

“S-sorry,” his voice was soft and gentle for a moment, “I...yeah.”

“Yeah,” you teased softly, “zoning out again huh, my love? I know how you get. What are you thinking about, Bucky?”

“Nothing much,” he admitted, shrugging to himself despite the fact that you weren’t able to see him, “when are you off?”

“Whenever I want to be,” you reminded him, “I’m the boss now, remember? Why do you ask? Got some grand plans for us?”

“Nah,” he confessed, “just want to come and see you. Is it okay if I stop in? I’d come and bring you some flowers...but that would seem a little...on the nose.”

“Ahh, look at you,” he could practically hear you grinning, “very clever, aren’t you? Come and see me - it’s been slow so I might as well close up when you get here. Maybe we can go for a walk and get dinner?”

“Sounds great,” he agreed softly, “see you soon.”

“See you soon, Bucky.”

»»————-　♡　————-««

While you waited for Bucky to arrive, a brilliant idea popped into your head. You quickly grabbed a vase and started to gather some of the flowers that reminded you of him. It wasn’t long before you had a variety of them, neatly arranged and topped off with a bow, ready and waiting for him. He walked into your small shop, ready to announce himself but quickly found that he didn’t have to.You were perched up on the counter, swinging your legs back and forth as you tilted your head to the side and studied him with a small smile. He was dressed casually today, sporting a dark blue henley and a pair of well fitting jeans. His arm, intricate and beautifully designed golden and black vibranium, wasn’t on full display, nor was it completely hidden. Progress; a step in the right direction, albeit small. He’d get there when he’d get there and if that took another five years or fifty, you planned on being there for him.

“Hi James,” you popped off the counter and met him halfway, letting him wrap you up and envelope you in his warm, tight grasp. His arms, his body, was your favorite place to be. You never felt more safe and secure than when you were wrapped up in him, “I’ve missed you.”

“Missed me?” he chuckled as you just nodded, pouting lightly as he couldn’t help but kiss you softly, “it’s only been a few hours since we’ve seen each other.”

“I know,” you ran a hand through his dark hair, “but it doesn’t mean I can’t miss you, does it?”

“I suppose you’re right,” he agreed as you took his hand and pulled him over to the counter. Bucky dramatically rolled his eyes as he trailed after you. Your hand looked so small in his hand; delicate skin contrasted against harsh callouses as you gave him a squeeze of reassurance. Whatever hesitation or tension was left in his body seeped, replaced by a feeling of saccharine bliss, “what are you up to?”

“You always think I’m up to something,” standing in front of the flowers, you paused, studying his features before reaching up to tenderly cradle his face in your hands. Bucky, resilient and strong, turned into a puddle of mush and practical whimpers as you traced a delicate fingertip across his features, “perhaps this time you’re right.”

“Tell me then,” he turned his face, pressing a gentle kiss to your palm as you used your free hand to reach behind you and push the vase to your side so he could see the ornate display. Blue eyes narrowed, highlighting the wary crease in his brow before they widened, softening all the way through. His hand slinked down to your waist, a light squeeze followed as he shuffled to the side and studied the flowers. Bright yellows and oranges, brilliant crimsons and pinks, and mellow pastels were suddenly under his intense scrutiny as he took in the sight of the blossoms, “w-what are these?”

“And here I was, thinking you were smart,” standing behind him, you wrapped your arms around his waist, delicately and slowly at first so you wouldn’t startle him. His frame stiffened for a mere moment before he relaxed, the weight of your head on his back a welcome burden he was happy to bear, “these are called flowers.”

“Very funny,” you could feel the laugh vibrate through his chest as a hand, one colder and more metallic than normal, but still all him, settled on your own. Pressing a line of soft kisses to his shoulders, you listened to the steady beating of his heart, “what’s the occasion?”

“There is none,” you insisted, “I just thought you would enjoy them. Look at the colors and blossoms, they all reminded me of you. So brilliant and warm and bright and lovely - just like you, Bucky.”

A few beats of silence met your ears as he inhaled and exhaled deeply, a million thoughts swirling around his mind. Before you could speak or say anything else, he turned around in your arms so he was facing you. He gestured between you and the flowers for a few moments, finding himself at a loss for words, “me?”

“Yes,” you promised him, “for you. Do you like them?”

“I love them,” he reassured you, an easy warmth settling over you, “back in the day I would have been doing this for you…”

‘You’ve gotten me flowers plenty of times,” you laughed, a sound that had easily become his favorite thing in almost no time, “besides, you deserve some nice things too.”

“I’ve been thinking…”

“That’s a new one,” you teased as he jokingly groaned, “ I jest! I’ve noticed you’ve been a little more quiet and stoic lately...I didn’t even know that was possible for you. What’s been on your mind, my love?”

“There’s this quote that came into mind...I heard it somewhere, but I can’t remember from what or who,” he mused as he rubbed thoughtfully at his chin, “it’s something along the lines of ‘when you realize you can tell someone your truth, when you can stand in front of them and show yourself and their response is “you’re safe with me” - that’s intimacy.’ I feel like...I can do that with you - like I can be myself and you’re not judging me, even though you know who I am.”

“Bucky - James - I know who you are,” it was surprising you didn’t melt into a puddle then and there, melting into nothingness at his feet. You leaned in, looking at his eyes for a few moments before capturing his lips in a soft kiss. You broke apart slowly, reluctantly before resting your forehead against his, “I know exactly you who are. And I love you for it - a good man, friend, partner, and so many other things. You are good, and it doesn’t matter what anyone else says or thinks. Fuck them - the people that know you know who you really are.”

“Even after…”

“Even after everything that’s happened,” you promised, “you are safe with me. I’m not going to suddenly turn my back on you and walk away. I love you, Bucky. You have me, now and forever, and I’ve got you, always. That’s not going to change. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” you could feel him smiling against your lips as he breathed you in and let you overwhelm his senses, “I know that.”

“Good,” you smiled as you reached for his hand, “let’s go to get dinner. I’m starving.”

“Don’t you need to close up?”

“Nah,” you winked at him, “I closed up as soon as we got off the phone earlier so we would have interruptions. C’mon Buck, I’m going to take you for a night on the town! What do you say?”

“Sounds perfect,” he agreed, “there’s just one more thing.”

“Hmm?”

“This,” he pulled you into his arms and kissed you deeply as your body melded into his, “I love you too.”

»»————-　♡　————-««

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[whatifyoulivelikethat]

a kiss from the moon | jjk

pairing(s): jungkook x reader

summary: All these years, all these summers, Jeon Jungkook has loved you. His problem? You have no idea. Mostly because he has always said it far too platonically and thrown up in your lap after saying it. Drunk. Fuck. Oh, yeah, and you're also Park Jimin's best friend since preschool. Shit.

warnings: language; alcohol consumption; pining; JK gets distracted by (your) tits during his quest, typical; non-idol!BTS - purple-haired!Jungkook x sleepy af, noona!reader, ft Park Jimin and Kim Taehyung radiating big soulmate energy; childhood friends-to-lovers

yes, it's JK from the 'Butter' beach photos

--

“I love you!”

You lifted your head out of the mountain of pillows, groggy and hazy, squinting at the moonlight filtering through the floating curtains. The night breeze was warm, drifting in softly with the low hum of cicadas. But what was that other sound? That other sound was familiar, wasn’t it?

You heard your name being shouted, followed by, “Wake up!”

You made a face and stumbled out of the bed, sticking your head out of your bedroom window, your own hair flying back and smacking you in the face.

“Yah! Jeon Jungkook, are you trying to wake up the whole damn neighborhood?!”

“Get down here!”

You put on your best disgruntled expression and peered down at the form on your front lawn, shoving your own hair aside.

“What are you going on about?” you muttered, seeing Jeon Jungkook looking up at you, puffing his cheeks, long wet purple hair fading to gray because of the chlorine from swimming all night at that party Park Jimin had invited you to earlier today, to which you had responded, no thanks, I’m going to sleep all day, I worked three double shifts in a row and I have zero desire to be flung into your family’s swimming pool at this time, but I will acknowledge that your offer is very generous, and then promptly passing out for a good – you glanced at your phone with the pink bunny case Jungkook had given you two summers ago – ten hours and it was still not enough for you to comprehend why your best friend’s best friend was standing on your front lawn yelling at your parents’ house that you were watching for a month while they were in Italy getting drunk on far too expensive wine and eating cheese they probably couldn’t pronounce.

Jungkook was shirtless, clad only in orange swim shorts and sandals like a fucking hooligan. He was clutching a plastic red Solo cup and he threw it at the house, yelling your name again.

“Oh my fucking God, don’t litter, you idiot!” you bellowed back, throwing yourself away from the windowsill and crawling on the floor to your bedroom door like the evolution of mankind, making it from all fours to two legs by the time you got to the stairs – good thing too, you might have broken your neck if you were still disoriented – and you dragged yourself downstairs, yanking your white slip dress straight. Not your choice of pajamas. Your mom’s, who told you to be more ladylike, whatever the fuck that meant, and who also informed you in the same breath that it was your only choice of pajamas since they donated all your clothes from high school.

Awesome.

You go to university and your parents yeet all evidence that they had a child and go vacationing.

Good for them.

You wrenched your front door open and shoved your feet into your dad’s giant brown sandals and clapped your way over to the pink-faced, mildly drunk, shirtless man in swimming trunks on your front lawn.

“It’s two in the morning. Why are you standing here drunk and professing your love like some kind of deranged Romeo?” you sighed, rubbing your eyes. “Why aren’t you at Jimin’s?” You spied the red Solo cup and picked it up, whipping your head back to Jeon Jungkook.

He was staring at you with his mouth open.

Charming.

He didn’t say anything for a good ten seconds.

“Alright, fine, let me call my loser of a best friend and tell him to pick up his loser of a best friend, so I can go back to sleep,” you muttered, about to turn around.

Jungkook seemed to sputter back to life. “Wait, um, noona–”

“He speaks! He’s not dead.”

“A… Ah… Um…”

You squinted at him and reached up to knock the side of his head. “Hello? Anyone in there?”

Jungkook blurted out, “I love you.”

His breath smelled a lot like alcohol.

“Yeah, I got that. You also said that when I got you through your Chemistry and World History exams. Both times. You also say that to like, what, six of your guy friends? Don’t get me started on the amount of times you’ve said it and thrown up in my lap right after. Don’t do that this time,” you added sternly, prodding at his chest. “I’ve got one set of pajamas because my mom forgets that human beings change clothes, so throw up on the grass.”

“Uh… that’s pajamas…?”

“Lady pajamas,” you grumbled sarcastically, lifting the lid and chucking the crumpled Solo cup into your parents’ trash can. “Since I’m not lady enough apparently according to my mom, even though I’m ninety-nine percent sure giant band t-shirts are completely unisex but, whatever, it’s just a dress, not a big deal.”

“Um.”

You looked at Jungkook, who looked back at you, who put your hands up and gestured him to say something, who in response rose his hands and flapped them in confusion, giving you absolutely zero helpful communication. The movement reminded you he had gotten his right arm and hand tattooed in the last couple years, the black ink standing out against tan skin. You hadn’t seen him too many times during your university years, too busy completing research papers and staying late nights in laboratories, only to now end up working on hospital software and sitting on your ass all day. Life, eh? These past three days were spent on working through bugs for the next software update and you had maybe lost all social skills as you attempted to unravel lines of code that you stared at for forty-eight out of the past seventy-two hours.

Fun!

“Do you need a cookie? A shower? The Bible?” you offered, waving your hands. “Maybe tell me why you’re here, yes?”

He was staring and you realized you were slightly bent over in your gesture, your breasts firmly pressed into the cups of the slip dress. You straightened and Jungkook’s wide dark brown eyes went back to your face.

“I… I didn’t realize you had come back, noona.”

You raised an eyebrow. “What are you talking about? I told Jimin last week. He said he was hanging out with you and Taehyung. I figured he’d just tell you guys then.”

Jungkook shook his head quickly, gray-purple hair flying about. He pointed to the left, where Jimin’s house was several blocks over. “He only mentioned it just now, when he was throwing up in the bathroom from doing eight shots in a row because Taehyungie dared him.”

“…. Maybe he needs the Bible…” you muttered, shaking your head.

Then the realization hit you.

“Did you walk here from Jimin’s and straight up abandon the party?”

Jungkook tilted his head and thought about it. “Yeah.”

You looked around to find the camera and see if you were being pranked, but there was no camera because this life wasn’t purely for entertainment, right? Nah, this wasn’t The Matrix.

Mhm.

“Hah, well, what’s wrong? Are you upset I didn’t go to the party or something? I had three double-shifts this week, I wasn’t going to be any fun passed out before actually drinking–”

“Yoongi-hyung was passed out before drinking.”

“In some ways, I swear that guy and I are the same person,” you laughed, shaking your head. “Anyway, I’m sorry I didn’t go and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, I really banked on Jimin not being an airhead, but once again he is, so maybe I should reconsider him as my best friend…”

“Noona, I…”

You looked up from your mental consideration of Park Jimin’s pros and cons, the first pro being he punched that ex of yours that cheated on you with some Tinder hookup and that was already enough to stop contemplating, so you blinked at Jungkook curiously, looking into wide brown eyes, long strands of ash-purple floating around his handsome face from the night breeze, brushing against his parted lips, highlighting the mole underneath them, placed perfectly in the center like a kiss from the moon itself.

“Can I take a shower and sleep it off here?”

You tilted your head. “Yeah, sure. You can borrow my dad’s clothes. You should call Jimin though. You don’t want him to panic that he lost you.”

“Y… Yeah, okay…”

-

Jeon Jungkook really thought he could say it this time.

Collected all his courage and ran, ran as fast as he could, couldn’t believe Jimin had neglected to say she was coming home over the summer for more than a day, days without her reminding Jungkook that he was a coward for not saying it when he could have, having lost his most important person in the world because he was too afraid of telling Park Jimin that he was in love with his best friend.

He remembered that smile wearing nothing but a large t-shirt, sitting on Jimin’s bedroom floor, crushing all of them at UNO and cackling as Jimin blew up for ending up in last place for the third time in a row, yelling that the game was rigged, and Jungkook remembered thinking, I should tell her tonight.

And he didn’t.

He remembered her saying to Taehyung that she just wasn’t into girly things. They were having this argument over pizza and Taehyung was waving his around saying she should at least try a dress on every once in a while, never know, might actually like it, and her rolling her eyes as she shot back that she didn’t have to do anything just because it was stereotypical for her gender. Taehyung told her to stop using big words and waved his hands, accidentally flinging his pizza slice into her lap, and Jungkook remembered thinking, I should tell her after we clean up.

And he didn’t.

He remembered seeing her prepare to leave for university once again, holding a small package from the internet and handing it to her, a small but practical belated birthday gift, both of them surprised when she opened it, not the matte black phone case he had ordered, but somehow mixed up with a pink bunny phone case that had no business being owned by someone who didn’t like girly things.

“Oh, shit, I’m so sorry, I didn’t order this–”

And she laughed, shaking her head. “That’s okay, I gotta go, thanks anyway, Jungkook!”

The years went by and every year Jungkook told himself, this is the one, and every year he just couldn’t say it.

He thought he could say it now, drunk and furious at Jimin for not preparing him for this moment, but on his way here Jungkook figured that perhaps this was preferred, that maybe it was better that he couldn’t sit around nervously overthinking what to say.

But, of course, the problem was…

He had already said it in a platonic way.

Shit.

He really fucked himself throughout the years.

Jungkook sighed, now wearing borrowed clothes, holding the note of her handwriting as he rubbed his hair with the towel.

I washed your shorts and they’re hang-drying now. You can sleep in the guest room. I left a glass of water and some hangover meds. If you need anything, I’ll be asleep but you can attempt to wake the dead if you want.

He walked down the hall, towel around his shoulders. Her bedroom door was open. He stood outside the entrance, sighing, seeing her sleeping form and her bedside table, her phone sitting on the charger.

His breath caught in his throat as he recognized that pink bunny phone case.

-

“Where’s Jungkook?”

“Probably at her parents’ place, confessing his love,” Kim Taehyung snickered, picking up the beer bottles left behind next to the pool.

“Hah, of course he would leave without cleaning up,” Park Jimin grumbled, pushing the recycling bin along as Taehyung tossed each bottle inside.

“You think he’s gonna tell her?”

“He didn’t even tell me,” Jimin muttered, shoving used napkins into the bag hanging off the side of the recycling bin that he was going to toss into the trash later. “I had to find out from you. I think he’s hopeless. Why does he like her anyway? She’s fun to be around, yeah, she’s good at school, yeah, knows a lot of random facts, yeah, if you get into philosophy with her like Namjoon-hyung does, you begin to question humanity and reality, yeah, but other than that…”

“You hitting on your best friend, dude?”

“I mean, she’s kinda hot, she wouldn’t say no to me.”

Taehyung snorted.

Jimin smacked him in the ass with the recycling bin.

“Anyway, he’s probably just standing in her bedroom creepily watching her sleeping.”

-

Jungkook stared down at her sleeping form.

He looked up, looking out the window into the late, late night. He was tired, and yet he couldn’t sleep, too busy wondering.

I don’t deserve her if I’m not brave enough to say it.

“Jungkook?”

-

You squinted at the large form in your bedroom.

“Why are you just staring moodily out the window?” you mumbled, rubbing your eyes. “Is something wrong? Are you hungry? I can make you a snack…”

“Noona, do you know what the worst feeling in the world is?” he asked softly, still looking out into the warm night.

You grunted and scrunched up your face. “Stepping on a Lego?”

You heard Jungkook laugh and you smiled a little despite your groggy state, hearing a little bit of his old self, the younger Jungkook hanging out with you, Jimin, and, later, Taehyung, the four of you getting up to no good. Somehow, in the past few years, he had gotten quieter and quieter, at least around you, but then again you only came home to visit for a day or two before going back to university.

“Have you ever been in love, noona?”

“Yeah, with the red bean popsicles they used to sell at the ice cream trucks, but then they stopped, those assholes, I’ve never been so heartbroken in my life,” you grumbled, remembering the day where the ice cream man told you they were sold out and your young teenage heart shattering.

“I love you, you know.”

Was this a fever dream? Why did he keep repeating himself? You looked over to his back, still looking outside onto the street, the street where you all used to run and laugh every summer, pretending you were surviving in the wild and not in the middle of a suburban neighborhood, sitting around sipping lemonade and complaining about the heat even though you all could have gone inside, lighting sparklers at night and seeing whose would last the longest even though such a thing was only based on chance anyway.

“Is that the worst thing you’ve ever heard?” he added quietly.

“The worst thing I’ve ever heard was accidentally hearing Jimin jacking off. Twice.”

Jungkook finally turned around, giving you a disgusted look. “What?”

You placed a hand on your face and sighed heavily, trying not to remember. “For some reason he thinks the bathroom isn’t echoey or something, like, at least do it in the shower, so the water masks the sound…” You chuckled, shaking your head. “Anyway, I would much rather hear you say you have love for me than listening to Jimin getting off.”

“I don’t have love for you.”

You raised your hand from your face and shifted your gaze to him, half-smile lingering on your lips from remembering Jimin’s carelessness. You made eye contact the second the words left his mouth, those brown eyes shrouded in shadows, but still so clear, a little helpless, a little sad.

“I’m in love with you,” Jungkook whispered softly.

Your eyes widened.

A soft breeze swept through the window, lifting the purple-gray strands from Jungkook’s face, revealing his lost, desolate expression.

The cicadas hummed.

A car alarm honked loudly, screeching through the night.

Both you and Jungkook jerked to face the window. You bolted out of bed and you both threw your hands onto the edge of the window, yanking it shut, wincing at the loud noise.

“Ah, jeez… what the hell…?” you groaned, slumping to the ground.

“What’s with people…?” Jungkook muttered, falling to the floor beside you, yanking the towel off his shoulders.

-

“Fuck, I pressed the wrong button!”

“Taehyung, what the hell, turn it off!”

“I was just trying to put the tangerines your parents gave me in my car!”

“I don’t care what you were doing, turn it off!”

-

“Anyway, sorry, you were saying something important and you got interrupted by some dumbass,” you sighed, nudging Jungkook with your shoulder.

“Uh… well, that was it…”

You blinked at him, tilting your head. “What, that you’re in love with me?”

“Y… Yeah?”

You blinked some more.

“Not the, want to go to the arcade and see who can get the highest score in PAC-MAN or go watch shitty action movies and rate the unrealistic plot lines or dare each other to eat whatever expired delicacy is in Taehyung’s fridge, kind of love?”

Jungkook made a repulsed face. “I regret eating that tofu. Don’t think I can ever look at uncooked tofu without gagging a little now…”

You leaned over and caught his eye.

“Do you mean the… want to date and get married and make babies, kind of love?”

His lips parted and the moonlight lit the small mole placed perfectly underneath his lower lip.

A delicate kiss from the moon itself.

Then you realized he was staring at your tits.

You yanked the neckline up a little and Jungkook started, looking back up at you with wide eyes.

“Sorry, I’m just not used to you in a dress, sorry, I’m being really rude–”

“It assures me that you’re at least interested in the making babies part,” you chuckled.

His ears turned red and he reached up to cover them, trying not to look down. “S… Sorry…”

“So…?”

He chewed on his lip, messing with his earrings with his fingertips. “Um… yeah, that kind of love. The latter kind.”

You lowered your hand. “You’re not messing with me, right? I swear, if this is one of Taehyung’s elaborate ideas to mess with me, I’m going to ki–”

Jungkook shook his head quickly, purple hair flying about. “I’m not joking around. I wanted to tell you for a long, long time, but…” His eyes darted about, panicking a little, before looking back to you helplessly. “You’re Jimin’s best friend, besides Taehyung, and what if… what if you thought I was gross or something and then I don’t think I could hang out with you guys anymore, but then you went to that prestigious university far away and I thought, I’m so stupid, I should have said something, anything, but every time I could even think about it, I didn’t know what to say, nothing seemed right…”

He let out a big sigh and tapped his head against the windowsill, closing his eyes.

“Also, I said it before and threw up in your lap right after, so that kinda fucked me up.”

“Can’t say I was really feeling the romance, yeah.”

He groaned and covered his face with his hands.

“I’d date you though. For real.”

Jungkook removed his hands and blinked at you. “What?”

You chuckled. “Why are you acting so surprised? I’m not going to date Jimin, blergh, I’ve known that guy since I was in preschool. I’m not dating Taehyung, I’m pretty sure he’s on a different brainwave than other human beings.”

You smiled at him and turned around to pick up your phone, holding it up.

“I don’t like girly things or cute things very much, but I kept your gift because it was from you and, funnily enough, I think it made me realize that I was rejecting femininity because society puts such a negative connotation on things young women like and because my friends growing up were primarily male, thus I wanted to seem cool or relatable so I rejected stereotypically feminine concepts…”

“… What?”

Now it was a confused what.

“Uh, never mind,” you laughed awkwardly, putting your phone back on your nightstand. “Anyway, Jungkook, you made me realize things about myself, and I love being around you, but I thought a handsome guy like you would want to date a pretty girl, and I’m not really that.”

Jungkook furrowed his brows. “What are you talking about? You’re the prettiest girl in the world. No one could ever be prettier than you.”

You felt your neck heat. “Yo, don’t inflate my ego when it’s not the truth,” you chuckled sheepishly, waving a hand. “You’ve been drinking anyway. Alcohol makes everyone prettier.”

“It’s the truth.”

Was he drunk or were you drunk? Why was Jeon Jungkook getting closer?

“Would you really date me?”

You stared into those chocolate eyes and smiled.

“Yes, I would.”

And you leaned forward and kissed him.

His eyes widened, staring at you and you closed your eyes, pressing your lips to his, inhaling his scent, memories of hot summers and mirthful laughter filling your head, standing beside Jungkook and kicking Jimin and Taehyung’s ass at table tennis even though Jungkook was doing most of the work, finishing a movie together after Jimin and Taehyung had passed out on the couch on top of each other and talking excitedly about it until you both fall asleep, getting lamb skewers after Jimin and Taehyung went off to eat ramen in a huff, unable to agree on the same meal as a foursome, but it was fine, no, better than fine, perfect even.

Because you were with Jungkook.

You broke the kiss and opened your eyes, smiling at him.

He blinked slowly, looking down at you.

“Noona…”

His hand raised, fingers spreading out longingly. You quickly reached up and pushed it back down.

“Jungkook, I swear, I do want to touch you in a less than holy way, but maybe not when you’re wearing my dad’s clothes, including his underwear, because that’s really fucking weird.”

Jungkook looked down at the brown t-shirt and beige shorts. “Oh. Yeah. Right.”

“You know, come to think of it, I feel like Taehyung has slowly stolen Jimin from me over the years, so maybe this was fated…” you mumbled, remembering at the moments you had shared with Jungkook were because your other two friends had abandoned you.

“I feel you, sometimes I feel like a third wheel…”

-

“I’m so sleepy.”

“I’ll tuck you in first, but I’m going to get us some water so we don’t die tomorrow morning.”

“Ugh, Jimin, bring another pillow please.”

“Hah, fine, but you’re buying breakfast tomorrow…”

--

masterpost

#jungkook x reader #jungkook fluff #bts fluff #jungkook x you #jungkook x noona #jeon jungkook x reader #jeon jungkook x you

[afriendlyblackhottie]

Nosy

Summary: The team notices Bucky sneaking off the compound every weekend. Now they’re standing outside of an apartment in Brooklyn while Redwing spies out the window.

Warnings: Language, smut, sex tape, daddy kink

Pairings: Bucky x Black!Reader

(A/N: This is a rewrite of Bucky’s Secret Life because 😬. Anyway enjoy. Likes and reblogs are great thanks.)

“C’mon, aren’t you a little curious?”

Steve huffed and rolled his eyes as Tony nudged him. Bucky had been acting a little stranger than usual. If they didn’t have a mission he was leaving in the evening on Friday to come home Sunday nights. This had become a weekly basis kind of thing to the point where he didn’t even show up to parties unless it was something completely mandatory.

It’s not like Steve had never asked him about it. Bucky was his best friend and of course he was curious why he was so hush hush. He hadn’t been expecting for him to freeze up and stutter his way around giving him any details. 

It was killing Sam the most because of course he was nosey as hell and between the three of them, he hated not being in the know. Natasha was even curious. Wanda kind of knew, but that’s because she couldn’t help the things she saw. Besides it wasn’t her place to tell. 

Because what Wanda had been seeing when she’d get a glimpse into his mind were filthy. Absolutely fucking filthy. The images flashing into her mind of him and the same naked woman that he was doing unspeakable things to. It played like porn, but they were clearly memories. She stayed quiet because it was none of her business.

“Why don’t we mind our own business,” Bruce suggested. “Bucky’s been through a lot. Maybe he’s just unwinding.”

“Bruce is right.” Steve smiled at the scientist, appreciative at him for speaking up.

Natasha raised an eyebrow, shrugging her shoulders. “Is he, though?” She replied. “What if he’s doing something dangerous. He could still be having issues.”

“True,” Rhodey finally giving his input from his spot at the table beside Tony. “We would rather be safe than sorry.”

Steve groaned. “Fine.”

Steve reluctantly trailed behind Natasha, Sam, and Tony as they followed Bucky the next weekend. They went about their day as normal as possible. They didn’t want him to get suspicious. As soon as he’d left they had Friday give them the word so they could make their move after. Sam had even had Redwing follow after him. 

“Guys, Bruce is right. We should leave it alone,” Steve tried to reason with them as they’d finally ended up outside of an apartment in Brooklyn. 

“No,” Sam said, as they tried to act nonchalant waiting for someone to open up the door. “We’re here let’s do this.”

Bucky placed his hands underneath your ass, balancing himself as he rammed into you. Your hands were splayed above your head as you took it. For someone who literally couldn’t get drunk he found something so intoxicating with the way your breasts bounced with each thrust. He couldn’t help himself as he leaned down to capture your nipple in his mouth. Swirling his tongue around the brown nub.

You could feel yourself getting so close, but you weren’t allowed to come without permission. Since you weren’t in the mood to be punishes you obeyed him. You wanted to be a good girl for him this weekend after the way he’d made it hard for you to sit after you acted like a brat last time.

You’d made dinner, but it had been abandoned in favor of him dicking you down. He just couldn’t wait any longer to have your tight pussy wrapped around his dick. The plan was supposed to be a romantic evening with a home-cooked meal like you usually did on Friday nights. Saturday’s were usually for junk food as you spent the day either binge watching shows and fucking. It was the routine when he wasn’t busy with work.

It sucked that it felt like you’d never have a life outside of this apartment, but Bucky only needed a little bit longer. He needed to make sure there was nothing that could hurt you once your relationship became public. He’d seen to many romances end in tragedy and it scared him. He’d be damned if something bad happened to you.

His cock was stretching you wide open. “Fuck me, Daddy,” you moaned, leaning up so you could wrap your arms around his neck and then press your lips to his. He didn’t let up as he let you fall onto your back. He moved his hands from your ass to your legs to bring your knees to your chest.

He was so much deeper in this angle. Your head was swimmings you moaned into his ear, throwing your head back. “God, yes!”

“That’s it, Doll,” he moaned, leaning down to kiss you again. His tongue was in your mouth and you struggled to keep up because of how hard he was fucking you. Fuck you love it when you were at his mercy. In these moments it felt like he owned every inch of you.

The knock on the door brought the two of you out of your bubble. Bucky didn’t let up, though, hoping that whoever it was would get the hint and leave when you didn’t answer. He needed to make his girl cum first. Whoever was on the other side could wait.

She nodded with a whimper, feeling too blissed-out to even do anything, except for what you were told. You were so close. The way you tightened around him. Pussy hugging his dick like it was afraid to let go. You whined as your juices seeped out of you.

“Can I cum?” You whimpered out. 

“Yeah, Doll.” He grinned down at you through his pleasure. He couldn’t help himself. You were to damn cute like this. All spread open taking every inch of him. Those noises sounding so good coming out of your mouth as your eyes rolled into the back of your head.

You cried out, hips moving to meet his thrusts. That coil finally snapped in your stomach as you came around him. Metal wrapping around your neck while your fingernails dug into his back,

He was determined to make you cum again. Except there was another knock on the door. This one louder, angrier. Bucky groaned, irritated already at whoever was interrupting. “Fuck,” he mouthed, jaw clenching. “I’ll get it. You stay right here, okay.”

You nodded unable to use your words as he pulled out. He covered you with the duvet, kissing your forehead lovingly as if he hadn’t just rearranged your guts. He slid on a pair of sweats and a red t-shirt - yes he kept clothes at your apartment. It was easier so he didn’t have to pack anything. Besides he knew you were wearing his hoodies when he wasn’t around. Yes even though you spent most of your time together naked, it was just more convenient.

Your head was resting on your pillow as you watched him walk through the door with half-lidded eyes. A dopey smile had spread across your face, snuggling under the covers as you waiting for him to come back.

Bucky looked through the peephole, then backed up seeing Steve on the other side. “What the fuck...”

“Bucky, c’mon, we know you’re in there,” the blond said through the door.

“We?” He frowned before opening it, but not undoing the chain. He could peek out just enough to see Natasha who was standing beside him with a little bit of Sam behind her and what he assumed was Tony next to him by the sudden waft of Axe Body Spray. “What are you doing here?”

Tony huffed. “Just let us in.”

He groaned, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “You guys should leave.”

“We’re just making sure you’re okay,” Nat said, trying to at least get a glimpse inside. It looked like a normal apartment, but Bucky’s body was blocking whatever else she could see.

“Gotta make sure you aren’t doing anything dumb,” Sam said.

“We were worried,” Natasha added.

Bucky scrunched up his face even more. “Worried about what?”

Just then you screamed from the bedroom. Bucky’s heart dropped as he heard you because if anything had ever happened to you he’d probably murder someone. His first thought was that they followed you which led to someone following them as he ran back to the bedroom. 

You were standing there with one of your many throw blankets covering you. So you were okay. As he walked over to you, he grabbed your hand. “Baby, what’s wrong?” 

“There’s something in the window,” she breathed, now standing behind him for cover. Whatever it was, her super soldier serum, metal armed boyfriend could take care of it.

They finally felt victorious as Bucky fully opened the door. Until Redwing was thrown out. “Sam, what the fuck!”

“Hey!” The other man gasped, seeing his beloved bird on the ground before picking it up to cradle it into his arms.

“Who was that?” Natasha asked with a smirk on her face now. 

“My girlfriend! I’ve been seeing someone! Is that a crime.” He threw his hands up. “I didn’t realize I needed your permission to date.”

Steve raised his eyebrows and sighed. “See I told you guys this was stupid.”

Tony pouted, crossing his arms like he was disappointed. “I was so sure you were being brainwashed again. I was actually ready for a little action.” 

“It’s not his brain being washed,” Sam said with a similar smirk to the one Natasha wore before frowning as he looked down at the slightly broken Redwing. Bucky wanted to hit him so bad.

“Baby, is everything okay?” You asked, walking into the room with wobbly legs after hearing her boyfriend raise his voice.You’d slipped on the matching sweatshirt to his sweatpants. It was really baggy. Hitting you mid-thigh. All he could think suddenly was that god you better be wearing panties. Or else you’ll be getting that punishment you’d been trying to avoid this weekend.

“Yeah, Doll. They were just leaving.” His face softened. Although you saw him in a sexy dominating way, you never saw him genuinely angry. Even the few times you’d argued he never even raised his voice. He was so afraid of scaring you away that when he was around he softened himself. So now that you were so close he had to show a little restraint.

“So, this is her!” Sam asked, surprised as hell at seeing that Bucky really was hiding a girlfriend. “Hi, I’m Sam and you are?”

“Y/N,” you replied, politely, offering up a small smile. Yet on the inside you actually wanted to run and hide. This was not apart of the plan for when you finally met everyone. Besides you probably looked like shit after what Bucky had just done to you.

“I’m Natasha!” The red head chirped so unlike herself leading the four men to look down at her like she’d grown another head.”This is Steve and Tony.” 

It wasn’t very often that Tony Stark was speechless, but there he was as quiet as a mouse. All because the tin man had a girlfriend. A cute brown skinned girlfriend who was wearing his clothes. 

“Doll, why don’t you wait for me in the room,” Bucky said. “I’ll be there in a minute.” 

“Okay, D- Bucky...” you caught yourself leaning over to kiss his cheek before doing as you were told. 

He stared at her to make sure she got in the room before opening his mouth again. “Now will you leave. I’ll deal with you all and we can maybe have a team meeting about how important privacy is.” He glared at Tony who loved those little meetings about whoever was putting coffee grounds into the sink.

It was Vision.

Obviously.

At first. 

Until it became a fun little game for everyone to do to irritate the shit out of him. It was terrible yes, but his reactions were so, so, so entertaining.

The three grumbled to each other as they started to walk away, while Steve stood there shaking his head. “Sorry about this, Buck. I told them to leave you alone, but you know how they can be.”

“It’s fine.” He sighed. “I was just hoping to keep her all to myself for a little while.”

“She seems nice,” he said.

“She’s amazing,” he had to stop himself from gushing about you because he hadn’t been able to before and he was pretty sure he could go on for hours.

Steve couldn’t help, but smile. “I’m glad to see you happy.” After all the shit Bucky had been through it was nice to see him adjusting. 

The two finally said their goodbyes and Bucky finally got to shut the door. He went back to finish what he’d started with you, needing to make sure you were wearing panties under that sweatshirt before coming out to greet his friends. He knew you could be a little tease and you needed to be put in your place.

Steve jogged to catch up to his three nosey teammates who were almost out of the entrance of the building. He really was happy for Bucky. He deserved to be happy.

When they’d made their way back home, Sam decided to review the footage on Redwing while in the kitchen. At first, it was just the general views of him walking down the street and then the subway. “Well, at least we know Bucky is boring.” 

Steve looked over his shoulder shrugging at the footage that was just Bucky walking to your place. “You should probably just delete it now.”

Sam fast-forwarded it as his friend got to your apartment, punching in the code to be let in. “I dunno, it’s kind of funny to see Bucky walking around like a normal person.”

“And, he never noticed Redwing??” Steve asked as Natasha came to peek with them.

“That’s kind of weird. I would think Bucky would be more aware of his surroundings,” she noted.

Sam shrugged. “Clearly no-” he stopped speaking as he saw what the camera had suddenly focused on.

“We should probably talk to him about that,” Natasha said, taking a bite out of her protein bar. “We should invite her here, though. It’d be nice to have another girl around. Me and Wanda get so bored listening to you guys sometimes.”

Sam’s mouth went into a straight-line while his eyes widened watching as you the women he’d only met for five minutes had gotten on her knees with Bucky’s metal hand grabbing you by the hair stuffing his cock down your throat. Your nose was pressed to his pelvis as he held you there before he started fucking your mouth. 

“What is it?” Steve asked, quickly noticing how silent Sam went. 

Natasha leaned over to take another look at Sam’s screen just as Bucky had pulled you off to toss you on the bed and smack your ass. “What the... Sam! Delete it!” She gasped seeing Bucky impale you with his cock from behind, smacking your ass again.

You were very clearly enjoying how rough he was being with you as you bounced back against him, arching your back so you could take it.

“I’m trying! It’s not letting me!”

“What is it?” Steve asked, now looking again himself, seeing you the women he’d just met being fucking railed by his best friend. Bucky was saying something that they couldn’t make out, but the way he’d stopped moving only for you to buck back against him, it must have been absolutely filthy. “What the hell!”

“I didn’t know!” 

“Make sure it gets deleted.” Steve sounded so exhausted. If they’d listened to him in the first place this wouldn’t have even happened. 

“I’m trying!” He repeated, pressing different buttons on the panel.

“It’s kind of hot actually,” Natasha surprised them with saying. “I wasn’t really expecting Bucky to be like this.”

“What were you expecting?” Sam asked stopping to look at Natasha with his face all scrunched up.

Neither of them had ever seen her blush, but there she was. Face almost as red as her hair. “I don’t know. I haven’t thought about him since the Red Room.”

“Wait, what?” Both of them asked, but Natasha had already started to walk away from them as if she hadn’t even said anything. Or like she hadn’t just seen a video of Bucky fucking you raw. They didn’t see the glazed over look in her eyes as she let her imagination run wild.

“What’d you guys f-” Tony asked, right when Bucky had flipped you onto your back with his hands under your ass, leaning down to take a nipple into his mouth. “What... the fuck... actually... wow...”

“I know. I think I might ask Bucky if she has a sister or something.”

“All of you are monsters,” Steve said. Inside he was very intrigued, but he wasn’t about to say that outloud. “Make sure it gets deleted.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Sam said with a sighed.

“Captain Buzzkill.” Tony pouted.

#Bucky Barnes smut #bucky barnes x black!reader #Bucky Barnes x reader #Bucky Barnes x reader smut #bucky barnes x you #Sebastian Stan smut #sebastian stan x reader #Sebastian Stan x black!reader

[hlizr50]

The Raven and the Songbird

Chapter 1

Read on AO3

The warmth of the sun wasn’t unwelcome. Azriel was the angel of death, wreathed in tendrils of darkness and mystery, but the summer sun was a balm to him. The light glittering off the stone of the training ring – the need to shield his eyes from the brightness – was a reminder that the Hewn City wasn’t his home, not his life. The light was a breath that whispered of life and potential.

He crossed his arms as he observed Cassian – brother in all senses of the word, save by birth. The sheen of sweat shimmered on his bare back as he paced around the ring observing the trainees, offering corrections verbally. And if that didn’t fix the errors he would ask permission to show them, to physically move their bodies to make the adjustment. That simple question was the reason so many more of the priestesses had chosen to join them in recent months.

Azriel scowled.

It was fucking disgusting that something so simple as consent was considered such a grand gesture. But it was a courtesy that hadn’t been granted to many of the females here.

It hadn’t been granted to her.

Gwyn.

His shadows danced over his shoulders at the mere thought of her. He needed to get that under control.

He had let his gaze slide to the priestess – the Valkyrie – too many times already. She glowed in the sunlight, even without the perspiration now dampening her face. It had reddened with her effort, but also from the many days they’d spent baking in the summer heat. The color suited her.

No matter how hard he tried, especially in the past two weeks, his attention always turned to her. She moved with such grace, her long legs strong and swift. The leathers fit her differently than they had a year ago – her body had changed. Lean cords of muscle had developed where nothing had been before. She had never been frail – he would ever use a word like that to describe her – but now she was…

Cauldron.

The Spymaster shook his head, willing his writhing shadows not to follow the dangerous path of his musings. He should not desire her. He didn’t deserve that bright spark that had begun to illuminate the male underneath the death and terror. He didn’t deserve her for the simple fact that death and terror and nightmares were what he was. But there was also the unspoken thing between them. The thing he’d done. The reason for the tension these past days and the reason he kept all of his leathers on under the blazing summer sun, relishing in the distraction of his discomfort.

Her eyes still haunted him.

The hurt that had dimmed Gwyn’s bright ocean gaze had nearly brought him to his knees.

Azriel hadn’t been party to the conversation, and he didn’t know how it had come about that Gwyn and Elain were both in the library, in the House, at the same time, in close enough proximity for Elain to notice the delicate necklace that hung from the priestess’ long, regal neck.

All of the satisfaction he had felt whenever he saw that gold chain tucked under her leathers or when she idly twisted the pendant in her fingers when she was reading… it disappeared when she had stormed through the dining room, desperate for the door, stopping short when she saw him there. His heart had cracked when he looked up at her.

Those beautiful eyes of hers, wide and glossy, swimming with hurt and anger. And embarrassment, further painted by her flushed cheeks, neck, further down. And still she had held that flower in her fingers, as if she couldn’t bear to let it go.

He didn’t get the time to register what must have happened. She scurried out the door, leaving a lingering breeze that smelled of water lilies and the salt of her tears.

The report he’d been reviewing slipped from his fingers and he made to go after her.

“Don’t you dare.”

It had been a long while since Azriel had felt intimidated, but Nesta’s voice had sounded to him much like he imagined his did when he was deep in the caverns of the Hewn City, pulling information from unwilling sources.

Cold. Measured.

Deadly.

Nesta’s eyes had all but glowed silver with her ire, even with her reduced power.

“What exactly were you trying to accomplish by giving Gwyn that necklace, Azriel?”

All he had done was stare back at her, unable to find his voice.

“Did you think she wouldn’t find out? Did you think about how it would make her feel when she did? That the treasure she hasn’t taken off for half a year wasn’t meant for her? That she was the afterthought when you couldn’t pursue the one you truly wanted?”

Nesta’s sharp words had opened a crater inside of him. That hadn’t been his intention, not in the slightest.

“That wasn’t my aim at all,” he had murmured. “I… would never want to do that.”

“Well that’s what happened, intentions be damned. Cauldron, Az, I know you didn’t want to hurt her. How could you be so fucking stupid?”

Nesta had left him then.

And he hadn’t spoken to Gwyn since that day, either.

But he still spied that thin gold chain around her neck.

Teal eyes snagged his gaze for a fleeting moment and a grin lifted her pink cheeks. Azriel only nodded and forced his attention elsewhere.

He had been avoiding her. It shamed him to admit it, shamed him even more to see her smile at him just like she had before. He had avoided her at night, as well. If he heard her in the training ring on those nights when darkness chased them both out of their beds he would retreat back into the house and go elsewhere. After all, he had other places he could go to work out some pain and aggression. He would not force Gwyn to relinquish the one safe space she had away from the Library.

He missed her, missed those nights where they understood each other without speaking, but bantered anyway. He missed sparring to the point of exhaustion so they could both find the rest they so desperately needed. He missed the nights where they didn’t train at all… when Gwyn just needed to breathe in the air and settle her mind and let the moonlit breeze dry her tears. Those nights she allowed him to just exist with her, silently support her. She’d trusted him enough to be there in those moments, to let him see beyond the vivacious young priestess with the irreverent humor and easy smile. She’d trusted him enough to let him see his darkness mirrored in her own.

He couldn’t imagine she would trust him with that now.

“Alright, ladies, that’s all for today.” Cassian’s voice broke him out of his reverie. “Take time to stretch and cool down. And hydrate. You’ve all been doing a lot of work out in this heat.” The training ring descended into female chatter and the sounds of clattering weapons being put away as the trainees were dismissed. Azriel saw the glint in his brother’s eyes and steeled himself as the general stalked up to him.

“You know, when I asked you to help with the Valkyries last year the expectation was that you actually train them, not do everything within your power to avoid a certain red-headed priestess.”

“I don’t know what –“

“Are you really going to try to lie to me, brother?” Cassian interrupted his automatic denial. “I can smell the tension on you. And you haven’t corrected anything she’s done in two weeks.”

“Maybe she doesn’t need it,” the shadowsinger ground out.

“Maybe she doesn’t, but that never stopped you before.” The Illyrian general gave him a wry smile and a wink. Azriel stared back at him, unamused at the insinuation – and the truth of it. His friend pursed his lips, the playful gleam in his eyes replaced with a softness that others wouldn’t match with the muscled male, the definition of a warrior. “You should just talk to her, Az. She’s not going to run away.”

“She should.”

“Az –“

“You didn’t see the look in her eyes that day, Cassian.” His voice was bitter and shredded as he returned his attention to Gwyn. Her smile gleamed as she laughed with Nesta and Emerie, copper locks riding the breeze. He felt Cassian’s broad hand fall on his shoulder.

“Brother.” Azriel turned back to him. “I may not have. But I know you, and I know Gwyn. So do you. She cares about her friends, and you are counted among them, at the very least.”

The Spymaster took a deep breath. Perhaps his brother was right.

“Nesta is worried about her,” Cassian murmured. “Says she’s happy but something is off. I can’t really tell, but I know better than to doubt her intuition.” The hand on Azriel’s shoulder squeezed once, then the general left him alone with his thoughts.

What could he say? How could he explain what he’d been thinking when he gave Clotho that necklace and asked her to give it to Gwyn? He had just wanted to make her smile without overwhelming her with his attention. Had she really never taken it off? And why was she still wearing it now?

Had he truly made her feel like an afterthought? Something second best? That guilt made his lungs burn as if he’d inhaled acid.

His thoughts were muddled as he surveyed the emptied training space. He could stand to work out the tension that had built over the training session, so he stepped in the direction of the small basket with long ribbons of material. The least he could do was wrap his hands before punching the padded wooden post into oblivion. At least he had that much sense.

His shadows whirled around him as the painfully familiar voice pierced the midday heat.

“So, are you ever going to speak to me again?”

Tag List: @tealnymph-writes @trashforazriel @secretlovelybeauty @meher-sumedha @imsointobooks @flora-shadowshine @positivewitch

#gwynriel #gwynriel fanfic #gwynriel fanfiction #gwyn x azriel #gwyneth berdara #azriel shadowsinger #fanfiction #ao3

[wavesmp3]

you jump; i jump

sunwoo x reader 

requested from sensory prompts #46: the waver in someone’s voice when they’re stressed genre: spy au, exes (ish) to lovers wc: 5.6k  warnings: cursing, tiny bit of gore/blood

Sunwoo used to pride himself for being able to keep his cool, in even the most unimaginable situations. He kept his exterior when Haknyeon turned out to be double crossing their agency, Creker, and secretly sending information to a rivaling one the whole time. Sunwoo didn’t crack when his entire mission in Sydney blew up right in his fucking face, never even flinched when his gear malfunctioned dumping him in a hospital for a week. But all those instances seem to fall flat now. All the times where Sunwoo stayed strong seem to disappear the moment he feels a tap on his shoulder and turns around only to come face to face with you. “What are you-“ he falters, grasping at the last bits of crumbling pride and hanging on to the dip in his voice. “What are you doing here?” 

“You forgot this,” you continue, ignoring him entirely, “forgot it in Vienna specifically.” You dangle a watch in front of his face. The same watch he lost somewhere in Austria three months ago, at the same time that he was in the middle of the most intense and longest mission the agency had ever given him, and more notably, around the same time he met you. “Don’t look so shocked.” You scoff when he fails to respond. “You told me you were gonna be here.” 

Sunwoo laughs, except it’s less of a laugh and more of an exhale of pure disbelief. “I know what I said, but you’re…” his voice trails off, some part of him unable to finish the sentence and another part of him still too disturbed to believe it. 

You tilt your head with faux confusion. “I’m what?”

Sunwoo gulps. “You’re supposed to be dead.”

VIENNA, AUSTRIA  THREE MONTHS AGO 

Sunwoo remembers, with a starling amount of clarity, all that happened three months ago. He can recall every day he spent roaming the streets of Vienna with you despite the way he’s been trying to drown out the memories and douse his lingering feelings. 

When he met you at a pub on one of his first nights there, he told himself he entertained your conversation because, well, to put it bluntly, he thought you were cute. Although the small tug in his gut doesn’t help justify why he found himself stumbling back to his hotel room with you by his side. And there’s really no good excuse for the tiny sting of disappointment Sunwoo feels when he wakes up alone the next morning. 

It’s two days after that night when Sunwoo sees you again, sitting on a bench with a book in one hand and a to-go cup of coffee in the other. It’s an odd coincidence that he should see you in Vienna again, but the small pang of doubt is quickly replaced with a more promising burst of elation. Sunwoo can’t tell if it’s exhilarating or terrifying.

“Ah,” you mutter when you notice him approaching, “Sunwoo right?” It’s a facade, Sunwoo thinks to himself, he knows you remember his name, knows you only pretend to forget. But he doesn’t mention that, instead he nods rather lamely, shoving his fists into his pockets and burying away the voice of reason in the back of his head telling him this is a mistake. “Sit.” You say, moving your things to the other side of the bench and patting the now empty spot next to you. “I’ve been waiting for you.” 

And in retrospect, it’s quite obvious that Sunwoo should have found the words alarming. Really, he should have begun to put his guard up the second he spotted you in Vienna again. But at that moment in time, the only thing Sunwoo can think to ask is if he was worth the wait. 

Your tongue darts out, swiping at your bottom lip in thought for the smallest of seconds, before disappearing into your mouth again. “Yeah,” you say, lips turning up into an intrigued smile, “you were.” 

—

Sunwoo doesn’t think much of the way he comes to trust you so easily, telling you the truth about his job in the darkness of the hotel room. He doesn’t think anything of the way you hang onto his every word without ever sharing much about yourself. And when one day, you sit down at the cafe booth across from him and ask, “what’s your current mission,” Sunwoo doesn’t think twice before telling you everything about his objective to infiltrate Pegasus. He also doesn’t notice the phone call you make soon after. 

—

When the truth does come out, it comes fast, like water rushing off a cliff and crashing into Sunwoo sitting unsuspecting at the bottom. It comes in the form of a charity event that he only attends as part of the mission which sent him to Vienna to begin with. The truth arrives, like a rock in his gut, at the same second that Sunwoo sees you across the hall. You, who he last saw at the hotel, and you, who’s supposed to be on a train to Paris right now. And when your eyes finally catch his, there’s something unmistakable swimming in them. You’ve been caught, Sunwoo thinks, finally placing a name to the familiar way you swallow and dart your eyes around the room. Sunwoo recognizes the feeling, vaguely remembers the rush he felt once in Santiago and again in New York. 

“I can explain,” you hiss, quiet and breathless, finding him outside the hall after a few minutes. 

And Sunwoo knows he should be dying for an explanation of what you’re doing here or who you’re really working with. Some small part of Sunwoo knows that he should already be replaying every conversation and trying to determine how much information he’s given you to use against him. But another, larger part of him, that’s poking at his heart and prodding at his brain, chooses to stare at your lying eyes, study the face he’s come to memorize, and lamely ask, “how much of…” his voice tapers off, gesturing to the empty space in between you two, “of this was a lie?”

You don’t respond, but in the silence Sunwoo finds the answer anyways. 

All of it.

—

It’s not long after that night that a new message from the case officer shows up for him.  

You’re on thin ice. New mission: get rid of that Pegasus agent. 

PRESENT TIME  THREE MONTHS AFTER VIENNA

“You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here?” Sunwoo asks you again, shifting in his plastic red chair and keeping his gaze focused on the street you’re both seated beside. He hadn’t planned on hanging out after crossing paths with you earlier today. In fact, the only thing he wanted to do was put as much distance between the two of you as possible, but when you offer him a meal in exchange for a conversation, his rumbling stomach agrees before he can even consider the offer. The scene you lead him to is a busy one, filled with people rushing down the road and bustling behind each of the food stalls. It’s a mosh-posh of neon signs, kicked up dust, and the aroma of food being fried. More importantly, it’s a loud area, one where you and Sunwoo can talk freely without the worry of being heard by someone seated nearby. He takes a bite into his skewer, waiting for your response. 

“And you still haven’t told me why you didn’t follow through with the mission,” you counter, twirling your lime green straw with the tip of your finger. “The one where you were supposed to kill me.” 

You say it plainly, but something in Sunwoo’s stomach turns hard at the reminder anyways. “We’re spies,” he mutters behind clenched teeth, “not assassins.” 

“I don’t know,” you shrug, taking a sip from your coke, “the job description is pretty vague.” 

The words are met with a taut silence, a snap of Sunwoo’s eyes towards yours, and a search for any implication of murder behind the sentence. 

“It’s a joke,” you choke, wiping the coke that slips from your mouth and quickly shaking your head, “I haven’t killed anyone.”

“Well anyways,” Sunwoo continues, “I tried to finish the mission. Even hired someone to find you.” And as soon as the words leave his mouth, Sunwoo realizes he’s told you too much, realizes he’s let the truth slip too easily--again. Biting his lip, he thinks this must be what people mean when they say ‘old habits die hard’. 

“He didn’t follow through.” You tell him as if to fill him in on how exactly you’re still alive and sitting across from him right here, right now, miles away from Vienna and months after Sunwoo’s hire took his money and ran. “But you knew he wouldn’t, didn’t you?”

And this you say with a taunting smile, catching his eyes like there’s a private joke concealed behind them. Sunwoo only gulps and pulls his focus back to the busy street.

“So what do you want with me?”

“I left Pegasus.” You answer, clearing your throat.

Sunwoo waits. He waits for you to take it back, for you to laugh at his widened eyes and say it’s a joke. The punchline never comes. “You’re an idiot.” He settles on.

“And I’ve got two agencies who’d prefer me to be dead right about now.” You grimace. “But despite the bounty on my head, I’m still here which means you’re probably not on great terms with Creker either.”

“Get to the point.”

“We both have people who want us dead. We both have next to nothing to lose at this point. So let’s team up.” You pause, checking Sunwoo’s reaction. He watches you intently, body pushing against the creaking plastic table in an attempt to hear you better. With an almost mischievous glint in your eyes and a satisfied quirk, you continue: “Let’s take back what we stole for them.”

There’s a long moment where Sunwoo just stares at you, deciphering what to make of the proposition. You appear genuine, Sunwoo decides leaning away from the table until his back hits the chair, but Sunwoo isn’t exactly sure how much he trusts his own judgement considering the last time he decided you were sincere you had been lying to him left and right.

Sunwoo lifts his hand to the vendor of the food stall you’re sitting by. The previous glint in your eyes is gone, overshadowed by a darker shade of doubt. “What are you doing?” you finally ask, voice lower and less excited than it had been a second ago.

With a tired sigh, he replies, “I’m gonna need more food while you explain your plan.”

Sunwoo has to swallow back the smile that nearly emerges at how happy you get.

--

It’s a simple enough idea. Clear our names, you had explained, wipe ourselves entirely from both agencies. And it’ll work too, Sunwoo realizes when you begin the second explanation on the logistics of the whole operation. The only downside to your plan is you. Because the last person Sunwoo wants to start a new mission with is the same person who broke his heart three months ago. And it’s bothersome, almost, how calm you are and how collected you appear, especially compared to how scattered Sunwoo feels just to be around you again.

“What do you think?” You ask once you’ve explained your plan completely, tapping anxiously on the table.

“I think,” Sunwoo starts, inhaling deeply, “you’ve thought about this way too much.”

“Well, yeah,” you scoff, gulping down some more coke, “three months is kind of a long time.”

And yeah, he thinks, it is. But despite the time that’s passed since you’ve last seen each other and despite the way Sunwoo thought he was over you, his stomach still flips each time you look his way. He just prays that the past three months have at least somewhat watered down how he used to feel about you.

“How do I know you won’t ditch me after we clear you?” Sunwoo asks, pushing away the thoughts of lingering heartache to a corner of his mind.

“We’ll do you first.” You state simply. “Steal your file off Creker and get the bounty off your head first. Then we’ll do me.”

“And then how do you know that I won’t ditch you?”

You falter at that, frowning for the smallest of seconds, then say, “I don’t.”

Sunwoo nods, pretending to contemplate your offer. But in all transparency, Sunwoo knew he’d agree to your plan despite the bile that turns up at your name because with the way he’s been hiding in a crappy motel and eating instant ramen every night, it’s kind of hard to refuse any proposition that gives him the slightest chance at an out from Creker. 

“Okay,” he finally utters, wiping the crumbs of his second skewer off his hands, “let’s do it.” You meet his eyes expectantly. Nodding, he says,

“Let’s team up.”

//

You and Sunwoo clash more than anything else on the first day of prepping for the mission, crammed in a corner of Sunwoo’s dingy motel with two half finished cans of red bull sitting forgotten on the table, fighting about even the smallest details.

“I know the building,” Sunwoo argues, pointing to the floor plan you have pulled up on your laptop, “and this is the entrance we should use.”

“But using this entrance,” you refute, dragging your finger across the screen to show him exactly what you mean, “will give us better access to security and admin. And trust me, I know the building better than you do.”

“How do you—” Sunwoo stills. Something seems to register in your eyes at that moment as well, a small recognition of the tiny slip up, a barely audible acknowledgement that comes in the form of a cough. And all at once, Sunwoo’s reminded of the time he spent spilling his heart to you in Vienna under more covers than he was aware of. Sunwoo’s harshly thrown against the realization that you must’ve been watching him, surveying him long before you ever found him in that Austrian pub.

“See, I knew this wouldn’t work.” He grumbles, shaking his head. “You know too much about me. No, actually, you know everything about me. And I--” there’s a dip in his tone, “I know nothing about you.”

“Fine then, ask.”

“What?”

“Whatever it is you think will even the playing field between us. Whatever it is you want to know about me,” you shut the laptop and turn your body to face him completely, an action that exudes largely frustration but more faintly, guilt, “just ask.”

--

Sunwoo learns more about you than he had intended to. He learns about the origin of the scar that runs along your spine. A fucked up operation in Shanghai, you tell him, writing over the lie you told him three months ago about it being from your childhood. He learns about your old partner Younghoon and about the shadow falling over your forehead at the sound of his name. He’s told about how you got involved with Pegasus to begin with, a similar story to Sunwoo’s beginning with Creker: an unlucky concoction of desperation and coincidence. You tell him, with reluctance, your most embarrassing story, followed by a long list of firsts and favorites. So by the time night falls, with two empty red bulls at the foot of the bed and the building’s floor plan now forgotten behind the black screen of your laptop, Sunwoo learns enough to rebuild a fraction of the trust he lost.

//

Everything goes smoother after that. You and Sunwoo seem to fall into a rhythm, meeting at a café in the morning and at the motel in the afternoon, planning out the missions with far less difficulty than before. A rather quick adjustment, from both of your ends, and an even faster allocation of responsibilities. He finds himself looking forward to sitting in front of your open laptop each day and conjuring new ways to distract you every hour. 

And it’s after meeting up with you one night, not as partners but—perhaps more cruelly—as friends, that a dangerously familiar warmth blooms in his chest and refuses to wilt away when he sees you again the next day. Sunwoo knows that he should be doing something, anything to blow out the flame, but instead he feeds the fire and prays that this time it spreads from his heart to yours.

//

“Where’d you get all of this?” Sunwoo questions one day when you show up at the motel with a suitcase full of equipment. An assortment of laptops, earpieces, weapons, and randomly picked gadgets.

“Took it from Pegasus before I left,” you smirk, pulling out an earpiece and holding it out in front of his ear. “You’re usually on the field, right? The one in action?” He nods. “Good, you can be the agent for this mission then,” you mumble, setting down the earpiece and holding up another. “I’m usually the person behind the computer anyways. Was even a handler for a mission in Seoul once.” You place the earpiece in his palm and begin to pull out the other pieces of equipment from the suitcase.

“What about Vienna?” Sunwoo says, inspecting a certain gadget from the case. “You were on the field then.” And it’s a question that would’ve been asked with malice if it had come up a couple weeks ago, but right now, there’s nothing but curiosity behind Sunwoo’s words.

“Oh,” you hesitate, a small smile appearing briefly, “I guess I do both.”

Sunwoo doesn’t ponder over your answer for long.

It’s later that day, right as you’re about to leave, that you frown at Sunwoo’s head, matter-of-factly saying, “you should change your hair before the mission.” Then, with a laugh bubbling behind your teeth, you add, “again.”

(Sunwoo changed his appearance a lot. One of the tactics that had stuck from his training days. Never really in big ways, but small changes here and there every couple of months. Sometimes it was a new piercing that he’d wear for a year and let close up in the next, and other times the change came in the form of a temporary tattoo imprinted on his neck whilst in Vancouver with Kevin. When Sunwoo met you in Vienna his hair was a light brown that he had gotten done in Tokyo and hadn’t bothered to touch up since. So when the time had come to change something again, he headed to the hair salon.

“When’d you do this?” you asked him that night, running a hand through the new red hair. 

“Just today.” He answered, hoping you wouldn’t ask for a reason. 

“I like it.” 

“More than the brown?”

“Way more.” You whispered, leaning in until he felt the breath of your words on his lips. 

And in the moment before you closed the distance, Sunwoo had made a silent vow to never change his hair again.)

Sunwoo gets his hair done the day after you suggest it, and when he returns to the motel from the salon, he finds you already there.

“Oh good, you’re back.” You mumble, arms full and an extra key card to his room that he had given you out of convenience a while back held between your teeth. “I just came to drop these off because I have to go to—" you stop, straightening yourself and eyes fixated on him. “You got your hair done.”

It’s an observation, a small, stupid thing really. A comment made in passing that should feel routine with as much time as you and Sunwoo spend together and one that should feel even more mundane considering you were the one to suggest it. But there’s something about the way you say the words that makes Sunwoo feel slightly breathless anyways. “Yeah,” he finally affirms, running a hand through his now black hair, “I did.”

You nod in acknowledgement, setting the things in your hands down, then turn to leave. 

“Wait,” he calls out. You do, pausing three paces away from the door and give a long look to the hand he’s placed on your arm to stop you before turning around to face him. And the next words seem to fall off the edge of Sunwoo’s mouth at that moment, tumbling back down his throat and landing heavily in the pit of his stomach. “Do you still…” he hesitates, attempting to smooth over the nervousness folding up in the corners of his mind. 

“What?” 

“Do you still like my hair?”

You consider it for a moment, bringing a hand up to tug at the new black fringe. And there’s something unmistakably domestic about the way you tilt your head in concentration, eyes fixed on Sunwoo’s hair as if there’s nothing more important for you to be doing in this moment. He watches you evaluate his hair closely. 

“Yeah,” you finally say, eyes meeting his and something like a double meaning swimming in them, “I still like it.”

//

The first mission goes smoothly thanks to you sitting back at the motel instructing Sunwoo which turns to take and what files to download. So with a flash drive containing all the information he needs to free himself from the agency stuffed in his pocket, he turns to leave, whispering into his earpiece, “is the exit path clear?”

“Shit.”

He stops walking. “What?”

“It’s blocked. I think I can get you out another way, but you’re not gonna like it.”

“Just tell me.”

“Okay, go one story below. Take two rights and then a left.” He does as you say, feet hitting the ground as quietly and as quickly as possible. The less time he spends in the building the better. “At the end of the hall, there’s a window.” You say once he’s near the place you directed him too. His stomach drops. “Jump from it.” 

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” He breathes, studying the drop with grimace. “I really hate heights.”

“I know.” And there’s a misplaced softness when Sunwoo hears you mutter, “I remember.” You wait a beat. “Do you trust me?” 

“Do I trust you?” He echoes, dread and disbelief coating his words. “I don’t even—”

“Just answer the question, Sunwoo. Do you?”

“I—” he studies the drop again, thinks and overthinks the newfound steadiness in your voice. Quietly, he mumbles, “yeah.”

“Then jump.” You tell him how exactly to do it as well, where to find the rope you packed and which hook is best to use. He does as you say, preparing for a jump he hasn’t decided to take yet. And once everything is prepared, the only thing that passes between you and Sunwoo on the intercom is silence. “Hey,” you mutter after a long while, something like a joke audible in your voice, “you jump; I jump, jack.”

“Except you aren’t jumping.”

“Technically, yes, that’s true but—”

“Okay, okay, okay. Shut up.” Sunwoo inhales deeply, closing his eyes and letting silence fill the intercom again. The silence, however, is interrupted the second he hears a group of voices travelling from somewhere down the hall. His eyes snap open.

“Sunwoo—”

“Fuck it.”

He jumps.

— 

“You’re bleeding.” Is the first thing Sunwoo hears when he walks through the motel room’s door, quickly followed by you rushing to him, tilting his head with a finger against his chin, and inspecting the cut above his eyebrow. 

“Yeah well your little jump stunt didn’t make for the smoothest of landings.” 

He means it as a joke. A bad one he realizes when you pull your hand away, eyes dropping from his face and guilt hanging over your head. “Sorry about that.” 

He shrugs. “It didn’t kill me.” 

“Come on,” you beckon, grabbing the first aid kit and heading to the bathroom, “I’ll help you bandage them.” 

Sunwoo sits on top of the closed toilet lid, folding up his pant leg to examine the gash running across his shin. The cut, he realizes, isn’t nearly as bad as it feels, but you make a small face at the sight of it anyways. It doesn’t take you very long to clean the cut on his leg, quickly finishing it while kneeling on the cold bathroom tile and asking him questions about the mission.

“No stitches?” He wonders when you pat a bandage in place.

You shake your head. “You should be fine. Nothing more than a gloried scrape really.” You add teasingly while rearranging the objects in the first aid kit. And when you laugh at the look he gives you for the comment, Sunwoo does his best to ignore the fluttering that appears in his gut at the sound. 

You move on from the cut on his leg, placing the first aid kid on top of the counter and poking the bruise that’s forming above his knee before getting up yourself. He smacks your hand away.

“How’d you know about my fear of heights by the way?”

“You told me one night in Vienna.” You answer, tearing open an alcohol wipe packet. “Do you not remember?”

He shakes his head.

Frowning, you let out a small, “oh.”

Neither of you say anything after that. And Sunwoo’s so focused on the frown that’s yet to leave your face that he barely registers the way you lean towards him for better access, propping your knee on top of the toilet and between his legs for balance. Although he does notice the warmth that radiates off your body. And a minute after that, he notices how much longer it takes you to clean this, smaller cut than it took to clean the one on his leg.

“Sorry.” You quickly apologize when you press against the cut too harshly. Sunwoo waves you off. “I am sorry though.” You repeat, seriously, lips still turned down in a frown and brows knit together.

“It’s really fine.” He chuckles, amused by the amount of gravity in the apology. 

“No. For Vienna.” The amusement dies in the back of his throat. “I never apologized for…” you falter there, fingers paused against his forehead, “for that. But I am sorry.”

“It was your mission.” Sunwoo gulps. “You were being a good agent.”

“And a shitty person.” You say, no hint of a joke laced in the statement. “In fact, the mission was just to observe you. Make sure you didn’t find out anything too important about Pegasus. Meeting you was mostly on accident. And everything that followed,” you bite your lip, and Sunwoo can’t tell if you’re biting back a smile or a frown, “all those other parts just sort of came naturally.”

The flame in his chest from before bursts into a bonfire, filling his lungs with a hopeful smoke. “Naturally?” He echoes.

“Yeah,” you repeat, tongue darting out in concentration while you complete the last step of smoothing out the bandage. You don’t lean away when you finish. You don’t remove your knee from between his legs. Don’t pull away the hand you have holding back his hair or the one resting against the side of his face. Nothing but your eyes move, trailing down until they find his, visibly gulping, then wandering further below. “Naturally.”

And the word is like a spell, lifting his chin and drawing him towards you until his lips are brushing against yours. It’s barely a kiss, a small hesitant press of lips that lasts no longer than a second, but one that has Sunwoo’s heart pounding wildly in a way it never did three months ago. He pauses there, lips unmoving and hovering just below yours, waiting for you.

You don’t move. Neither leaning in nor away. His gaze flickers up to your eyes, finds them half open, focused on the upper curve of his lip. He captures your lips between his again, a second attempt that is met with response when you lean into it, inhaling him in for a tiny blissful moment and exhaling him out in the next, pushing him back by the shoulders and stepping away yourself.

“I should…”

“Fuck.”

“I should go.”

And you’re gone before he can say anything else. 

// 

The kiss is ignored by both of you while prepping for the second half of the mission. A silent agreement to act like it never even happened and another one to not discuss whatever misplaced feelings led to it. It’s almost sickening how easily you and Sunwoo fall back into being just partners. Especially considering the fact that Sunwoo’s feelings haven’t faded, the bonfire in his chest still burning with the same brightness. So Sunwoo spends his days with you, attempting to put out the fire between his lungs, and he spends his nights alone, replaying the kiss you both pretend to ignore.

“Tomorrow’s the big day.” You mutter on the last night, a trail of anxiousness slipping off your tongue. “And then we’ll be done.” 

Sunwoo only nods, watching how your tongue pokes the inside of your cheek and mulling over whether you mean done with the mission or done with him.

--

The Pegasus mission doesn’t go nearly as smoothly as the Creker one, complications toppling around Sunwoo from the moment he begins. They start small first: a locked door resulting in a change of entry and a janitor straggling in a hallway that should have been clear. He makes it to his first destination eventually, quickly shuffling through the room of file cabinets until he finds your physical files, slipping them into his bag, and heading to the next room with you whispering directions into his ear. The next room is empty when Sunwoo arrives. He works quick, bypassing the security system and fingers flying across to find your information.

“Faster.” He hears you mutter over the earpiece. A hasty reminder of what you had told him earlier that week: the room never stays empty for long.

“Got it.” He exhales, finally pinpointing your files and beginning the process of downloading and deleting them.

“Sunwoo,” he hears an elevator ding from somewhere outside the room at the same time he hears you, “someone’s coming.”

He doesn’t move. Keeping one eye on the closed door and the other on the still-pending status of your files. “I’m almost done.”

“If you leave now, they won’t see you.” Voices fill the hall. “But you have to leave now.”

“I’m not done yet.”

The voices move closer, louder. “It’s not worth it. Please, just go!”

He hears them behind the door. “It’s you.”

There’s a jingle of keys. “How will you—”

“Hey,” the door unlocks with a click, “you jump; I jump, right?”

“Sunwoo—”

He pulls the earpiece out at the exact moment that the door swings open.

-- 

The rooftop is obscenely pretty at this hour, with the golden sun partly hidden by a high-rise building but still growing in the distance, scattering its light across the sky, and casting a golden shadow on everything it touches. It’s a gorgeous sight, and yet, there’s no one but Sunwoo here to appreciate it.

“You’re okay.”

He whips around only to find you standing on the rooftop with him, body trembling and hands clasped over your mouth. Behind you, the door to the roof is still falling closed. Your eyes are red, dark circles hanging under them that make it look as if you haven’t slept days. Silently, Sunwoo wonders how he’s just now noticing your sudden restlessness, and a small part of him hopes—no prays that whatever’s chasing your sleep away is the same thing chasing his.

“I got it.” He says, pulling out the flash drive he stayed to retrieve. Your eyes never flicker off his. “How’d you find me?”

“How’d you get out?”

Neither of you answer. Instead, you begin to walk towards him, asking if he’s hurt with a voice that’s too soft and too concerned for Sunwoo to make out an answer. You ask it again.

“No, I’m not hurt.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

You stop in front of him. Close enough for Sunwoo to see the tears welled up in your eyes. “You’re okay.” You repeat, voice wavering with a sudden gust of wind.

“I am, but I—” he hesitates; you take a step towards him, “I miss you.” He succumbs to the fire in his chest; lets it fill his lungs, burn up his throat, and throw the sentence, “I just miss you so much,” out of his mouth without bothering to hide the crack in it.

He meets your eyes and finds a starling amount of clarity in them. “I missed you too.”

“Really?”

You laugh at that, nodding your head and stepping closer to him again. “I missed you before we ever met.”

He stares at you. For too long probably. Watches a smile grace your features, spreading like a fire. The flame feels familiar. And for the first time since seeing you after Vienna, Sunwoo doesn’t have to hold back the urge to ask, “Can I kiss you now?”

“Please.”

He does. Lips crashing into yours, and you meeting the motion halfway, leaning into his lips, his body, him. A fervent want present in the way you pull at his neck and grab onto the collar of his shirt that would’ve probably been surprising if it wasn’t matched completely by him. He wraps his arms around your waist, pulling your body flush against his and deepening the kiss for a second more.

You both pull away, just barely, faces still close and bodies pressed against each other.

“Hey,” you begin, breath hot against his lips and a knowing smirk appearing briefly, “was I worth the wait?”

And suddenly Sunwoo’s in Vienna again, sitting on a bench, and asking you the same question.

“Yeah,” he murmurs, smiling, “you were.”

//

a/n: i apologize this request took me forever to get around too. and if the actual spy aspects to this fic make zero sense then my bad i was spit balling here. brownie points if u can find the scene inspired by queens gambit and the other scene inspired by the office lmao

#the boyz scenarios #sunwoo scenarios #sunwoo x reader #the boyz x reader #the boyz imagines #sunwoo imagines #sunwoo fanfic #the boyz fanfic #the boyz fluff #sunwoo fluff #sunwoo angst #the boyz angst #tbz scenarios #the boyz drabbles #sunwoo drabbles #kim sunwoo #the boyz #mine #you jump; i jump #lowqualityseventeen #was gonna make a banner or something for this but then got lazy and thot its not that deep :] #also i have zero graphic design skills