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stranger-nightmare · 2 years

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Okokok ANGST PROMPTS!!! Here I come 🙂🙂

10. “ I didn’t want you to find out this way.” “You mean you were never going to tell me.”

For Druig please 😌🥲

Oh god I can feel my heart break already!!

𝐊𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐌𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐝, 𝐊𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐌𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭

Pairing: Druig x (gender neutral) Reader

Summary: Druig has been keeping a big secret from you, but by the time you find out, it’s too late…

Warnings: angst, mention of blood, character death, Eternals spoilers

A/N: listen when I tell you that I actually cried whilst writing this, @redroomproperty I’m sending you my therapy bill🥲 hope you guys like this and sorry in advance🙈✨🖤

P.S. I have changed the plot of the Eternals movie ever so slightly, you’ll see what I mean when you read it, but just thought I’d let you know in advance🖤✨

You wanted to be angry. You wanted to hate him. A small part of you did.

But you were in too much agony to care.

It was like your heart was being ripped from your chest.

How could he not tell you?

Why? Why did he not tell you?

Why? Why did it have to be like this?

You sobbed as you held his weakened body in your arms, his head in your lap, his breathing ragged.

You were on the beach after the Eternals had just finished putting Tiamut to sleep, ensuring he wouldn’t wake up and destroy the entire planet. What everyone, including Druig, had failed to mention to you was that the effort of putting a celestial to sleep would take every ounce of Druig’s power.

Every ounce of his life force.

It would kill him.

Another wail of pain tears through your chest as you notice the tiniest trickle of blood leak from his lips as he struggles to breathe in your lap.

“No no no no no no no...” you whisper fervently, wiping away the blood, desperately caressing his face with your shaking hands. “No no no no no you can’t leave me, you can’t” you bawl, your voice breaking.

“I... didn’t want you... to find out this way” he breathes, his voice raw and strained, you can hear the sheer pain he’s in. You feel another sob threaten to rack through your body but do your best to force it down.

“You mean you were never going to tell me” you whisper, sniffling as you stroke his face. Your tears fall from your eyes and land on his cheeks, mixing with his own.

“I’m sorry” he wheezes. “I’m sorry, I just wanted to save…you the… pain. I didn’t want… didn’t want to see heartbreak every time you… you looked at me. I wanted you to keep... your joy, your light, your love. I didn’t want our last days… to be spent in sadness” he chokes out, his speech broken by his struggling breath as he coughs on his own blood.

He tries to squeeze your hand but he’s so weak now you can barely feel it. You just shake your head as you sob again. You grab one of his hands and hold it to your own face, kissing his palm furiously, as if you could somehow kiss life back into his body.

“I’m sorry” he wheezes again. You just continue to shake your head in denial, kissing all over his hand and wrist as you held it against your face.

“Promise me, my love...” he almost whimpers. “Promise to keep me in your mind. Keep me in your heart” he whispers, another tear slipping from his eye. An anguished cry sounds from you as you lean to place your forehead on his, just wanting to be as close to him as you physically can.

I’ll always be with you. You hear his voice carry through your mind. A shuddering breath rocks through you as you push your mouth onto his gently. You can taste the tang of blood on his lips. You can feel how cold they are already.

He pulls away from you weakly, his body going slack in your arms. He uses the last of his energy to look at your eyes one more time.

Druig's eyes flash gold, his voice spinning around your mind one final time, pushing his thoughts into your head.

Then his eyes fade.

But not back to their normal blue.

They fade to grey.

You hear his last exhale as the life leaves his body, his entire body draining of colour. It’s like you feel your heart leave with him, a hole opening up in your chest. A hole that was filled with nothing but pure anguish and pain, a grief that you don’t think will ever fade.

You release an earth shattering scream, desperately clutching his body to yours. You rocked the two of you back and forth, like you could somehow shake him back to life. You bawled into his body, reeling from the last ever words he left in your head.

His words that would be branded into your brain for rest of your life. The words that you would keep in your mind, in your heart, forever.

I love you, my beautiful, beautiful y/n.

—————

Masterlist

A/N: group therapy after this? I'll see you guys there🥲

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pinkhairedlily · 3 years

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Chapter 10 - Student Council President Sakura

SCPS AO3 | PREVIOUS CHAPTER

To Sakura, world still revolved normally; nothing changed between them, nothing mattered enough for her to behave differently. To Sasuke, the world shifted in its axis, having revealed a glimpse of his true feelings to her however falsely convenient she deemed them to be; everything changed between them, everything mattered enough for him to behave differently.

Like flinching at her slight grazes on his skin or his ears picking up her voice in the middle of the crowd noises or his eyes following the trail of her rose hair tied up in a ponytail, bewitched by the sway of the strands as she tousled to get to the front of the fray, her fingers burning a hole through his sleeve.

“HOMERUN!” The announcer screamed through the microphone, the feedback running through ripples in the throng of people. “Uzumaki Naruto nails a clutch win in the last inning for his team in their first ever nationals!”

Screams erupted around them, and as others jumped and cursed and hugged each other, she stood there frozen in time, her hands on her mouth. “He won. He won, Sasuke.” Her voice quivered, and he knew then that she was crying.

“Yeah, the blonde idiot won.” He allowed himself to smile, picking the blonde among the ruckus that enfolded below.

An hour and lesser filled stadium after, the two went down to congratulate their friend with open arms despite the sweat and the grit. Sasuke went with the flow, jumping up and down and circling about in the middle of the pitcher’s mound. They broke away from each other’s hold after several minutes, breathless in the undertaking, and flushed with all the gleeful screaming.

Two firm pats on Naruto’s back and a ruffle on his porcupine hair. “You did well, idiot.”

“Ah I earned a compliment from grumpy. This truly is the best day of my life!” His teammates broke in laughter in the background.

“I’m so proud of you. I’m so glad we took the bullet train to watch your game,” Sakura said through tears. Perhaps it was the height of the celebration or the ride of her emotions; she reached for Naruto’s face and placed a kiss on his cheek.

Sasuke turned away just in time, thankful for the screams, hoots, and whistles that possessed the student body. In his aversion, he also saw another face who kept looking anywhere but at the two. Hyuga Hinata, his ironic comrade in heartbreak.

Haru was in the group of spectators earlier, a pseudo-coach and mood-raiser for the team, his undercut prominent against his cap. Sasuke guessed him and Hinata were civil enough to be enclosed in a common space. He walked towards her, hands in his pockets.

“I’m gonna confess to him in the cultural festival,” she told him before he could reach her side.

He leaned against the bleachers, shutting out the continuing noises from the student body. In the midst of it, he can hear Sakura scolding all of them for misunderstanding. “And you’re gonna get rejected.”

“At least I told him what I felt,” she replied. “Did you already?”

He shrugged, unsure himself whether he got the point across or not.

“You better make it clear. You berated me for giving mixed signals after all.”

“You don’t hold your punches, Ms. Hyuga.” Sasuke sighed. “I think she rejected me already.”

Hinata let out a small laugh, the first in his vicinity. “Well, I’m just giving back your advice. If you think it so, you should ask again.”

“A second heartbreak won’t do me good.”

“The future has a lot in store.” She finally landed her gaze on Naruto and Sakura who separated now and were engaged by Haru in some funny exchange. “Good luck to us, Uchiha. I’ll take my leave.”

Sasuke detached himself from the bleachers. “Without saying congratulations?”

But Hinata continued on her exit without giving him a reply. To his surprise, it was not only him who caught her leaving; a pair of blue eyes also followed after her, mouth agape, hesitant to call her name not when he was in the presence of her ex-boyfriend and ex-captain. Ah, we’re all stuck in this complex hell, aren’t we?

His phone vibrated against his pocket. On normal days, he would ignore the call, but today wasn’t normal and he had to act nice for the favor he asked.

“Did your best friend win?” Itachi’s voice greeted him.

Sasuke didn’t correct him on the terminology. He just grunted a small yes, and somehow, he can hear his brother smiling on the other end of the call.

“Glad my donation helped fund their team’s expenses. I take it you also spent some for the bullet train?”

Again, another small yes.

“That’s nice.” It was the first time he heard Itachi chuckle again after the accident. “I’m glad you have friends.”

They’re not my friends fell silent on Sasuke’s lips. All he wanted was to consistently rank first, have uninteresting interactions…but all of those foiled because of the two. “Yeah, something like that.”

He heard the beeping pager in the background. “Gotta run, little brother. See you.”

Little brother. Sasuke swallowed back an unfamiliar sound.

It was a sob.

--------------------------------

Sakura tried to look at anything but him – the titles of books on his shelves behind, the heads of other faculty members bobbing, the ticking of the second hand on the wall clock. Kakashi clucked upon seeing her career sheet.

“Haruno, you’ll be graduating salutatorian, just points away from Uchiha Sasuke and yet you haven’t listed a university or a job listing. It’s referral season, and you’ve done a lot of good in this school.” Kakashi held his eyes steady on her, a firm line on his lips. “Don’t you want help?”

She mustered a smile, if that was what they call it nowadays, and handed him a filled out form. Whether he could see that it was written with wavering hands, she’d never know. “I settled on fashion design. I’ve always wanted to be a seamstress myself.”

That was a lie, and she knew Kakashi knew judging by how the firm line stayed. He briefly nodded and let her go.

Sensing the bubbling anxiety, she traversed the noisy hallways and almost sprinted to what has also become her safe space – the hidden spot of the boys behind the library. It wasn’t lunch time yet so Sasuke and Naruto wouldn’t be here. She slumped against the wall, sobs racking throughout her body.

Aimless was what she would describe her direction, untethered her depth, and a black hole her emotions.

“I wish you would let me help you.” Kakashi’s voice made her jump. She scanned her surroundings but cannot find a telling strand of silver in the hedges. He was probably standing on the entrance, just before the canopy of vines. “I didn’t follow you. I just knew the three of you went here for lunch and after-school chats. I’m a faculty, Sakura.”

“Please go away.” She never heard her voice sounded so small…and vulnerable.

“Sometimes, talking it out would make the burden feel lighter.”

She didn’t respond, and he didn’t wait for it. His audible footsteps were an indication he was moving away so she took the bait. If this was one way to be near him, why couldn’t it be in the guise of her pain?

She emerged in the hedges, eyes bloodshot red and strained, only to find him leaning against the wall, waiting with a handkerchief for her.

In an ironic turn of events, he brought her to the program she initiated. When he turned to leave to give her the privacy she needed, she asked him to stay. And that simple silent gesture gave her the courage to face her reality.

That her parents were divorcing, and in a futile attempt to cope, she made herself scarce, almost invisible.

Perhaps she was too much work for a middle-class couple with a lot of bills and unemployed siblings to feed. Maybe if they didn’t have a child that hindered their defining career opportunities to relocate or get promoted to an overseas position. Her outstanding community work and numerous distinction medals just weren’t strong enough to warrant a reconsideration of their decision.

And maybe it was a wrong move to get a part time job and dissociate from the pink-haired, studious Sakura and be the adult black-haired, funky cashier Sakura because it only gave them the idea she can live just fine on her own without any of them worrying about her instead of seeing the whole thing as a call for help.

“If you’re ready, you should share your problem to the two,” her sensei said when they finished with her therapy consultation.

“They have heavier baggage,” she simply replied.

“They’re not comparable. Naruto has an empty baggage, a kid with no past, yet he drags it around. Sasuke has sand for load, it’s leaking at the seams but he refills it. And for you, it could be air or water. It’s because you’re compressing them all inside that they become heavier.” He laid a hand on her head, an action of a sensei to a student. “Thanks for sharing some of those with me, Sakura.”

--------------------------------

Cultural festival was an amalgamation of confessions, last clinchers, and stolen moments. Whoever snatched a dance with someone they liked would be blessed with good relationship – that was how the saying went among the ranks of students.

It was the reason why Sasuke and Naruto hid throughout the day in their spot, content to eat instant ramen, batches of onigiri, and packs of orange and tomato juices. Throngs of freshmen and second years were on the hunt for their feet as dance partner.

“If only they knew I have two left feet,” Naruto grumbled. “I can’t even enjoy the day with Sakura. It’s pathetic to think I’m stuck with you.”

“I second,” Sasuke said. “Do you think she’ll confess to Kakashi later?”

“She hasn’t made a move yet?”

Sasuke shook his head.

“Wait what do you mean you second?”

Minutes of silence ensued. Sasuke put a whole onigiri in his mouth, too flustered to say it right at his face. “I like Sakura.” The words were jumbled with his chewing, and he was sure Naruto didn’t catch it.

But the idiot grinned and laughed maniacally. “The great pretender finally admits! When did you realize it? Did you have the fireworks in your head too?” He even mimicked a rainbow with his hands.

“That’s a rainbow, you idiot.” Sasuke scratched the back of his head. “When she was busy looking at Kakashi playing the piano.”

“Ah, will we ever have the chance?” Naruto snickered. “Let’s confess tonight, grumpy.”

“Already thought of that and already prepared for it.” Despite the seemingly downfall trajectory of their common affections, Sasuke still managed a smirk.

Not to be one-upped, Naruto pulled out his phone and flashed a small bouquet of dahlias. “Ready to be picked up tonight.”

A Greek tragedy, that was them; two best friends falling in love with and being rejected by the same girl.

--------------------------------

Majority of the school population have gathered around the giant bonfire on the campus grounds, but Sakura knew Kakashi would be stuck in his cubicle in the faculty lounge, nose-deep in a novel, headphones in to drown out the noise, and feet propped up on his desk.

Tonight was the night she would bare her other truth naked to him.

But before she could even step foot in his space, she already heard the voice of his favorite book drifting across the nooks and partitions.

“You should be with your students.” Giggling and a sound she would only assume was a string of kisses.

“I don’t have much time with you. Let me be greedy just this time.” Hearing her sensei say that painted him in another light. So there was this very attached Kakashi, far from the laidback and chill professor she knew.

Sakura should turn her heels and join the rest of the student body. She should act like a good student model, ignore her teacher’s affairs, and pretend she was never here. Except she tripped while running, and that summoned the two of them to her aid.

“Sakura? Did you need something?”

She side-eyed Rin Nohara and shook her head, her one only good chance blown to bits by her own recklessness and stupidity. She muttered an apology and starts to walk away with limping feet when Rin stopped her.

“I’ll get a drink in the vending machine. I’ll be back in five minutes Kashi.”

Thank God for women intuition, Sakura thought.

But inevitably she was left alone in the corridor with her heartbeat far stronger than the noise of the band outside around the campfire and the unknowing subject of her admiration. She held tightly to his rubber tie around her wrist, the mark etched deeper by each day she leaves it there mangled with her pulse.

He crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall, a smile etched on his face, the soft moonlight falling on his features only to highlight his beauty mark. It was unfair seeing him like this only to have him break her heart.

She knew she didn’t stand a chance, but even then, she had to hear it clear and loud.

“I like you.”

Were three words ever enough to encapsulate the three years of affection she held for him? One word for each year she felt content with glimpses of him, may they only be passing shadows in the halls, an echoing voice in the adjacent room, the silent arbiter in council meetings or a silver strand she could easily pick out in a sea of black of white.

Kakashi looked at her, his smile still etched, his face still immaculate. “That wasn’t a question.”

“And that wasn’t a reply.” It was nature to look away when one was too scared to face truth, but for the many times he helped her, even without him fully realizing the extent, she owed it to him to be brave.

“But you already know the words.” A head pat, the same gesture that gave her comfort in the past was the same gesture that broke her heart just now. How easy it was for the breaker to give and take minute and mindless affections, but what right did she has to think they were special to begin with?

It was the end of an illusory conception.

--------------------------------

A bouquet of dahlias and a bouquet of daffodils were hidden behind Naruto and Sasuke. It was dark, already past seven, the bonfire in its final vestiges, its sputtering flames waiting for last-minute lovers to dance in their splendid light.

Within the shadows came the girl of their dreams, hair untangled and morose emerald irises dipped in pools. Sasuke first noticed the bare wrist, the rubber tie gone, and he knew then that she confessed, and she was heartbroken.

He didn’t need to say anything to the blonde beside him. Her stance was enough to convey her present state of being. What she needed right now were her friends, not aspiring lovers stupid enough to break the friendship label.

And so they hid the bouquets on their backs, safe in the clutches of the dark, and when she reached out to them, their free hands already grasped her trembling fingers in waiting.

There they were, three broken-hearted people, wallowing in their own respective pain, sitting on the dewy grass that would leave stains on their clothes the next morning. When the school band started the last song, Sasuke stood up, abandoning his bouquet on the side, and pulled the other two up.

“Would be a shame to end our last cultural festival like this.”

Ten steps later, they were in the middle of the crowd of couples, three awkward friends holding each other’s hands and stepping on each other’s foot.

“For the love of God, you really can’t dance Naruto. Can’t you do a simple turn to the right?” Sasuke complained.

“Why are you putting all the blame on me? You’re the one who can’t differentiate the right from left!” Naruto spat back.

She laughed, and it somehow stopped their bickering for a moment. Bent at her stomach and eyes clinched shut in crinkles, that was their Sakura.

AO3 LINK | NEXT CHAPTER | CHAPTER 11

#SCPS #student council president sakura #sasusaku #narusaku #kakasaku #uchiha sasuke #haruno sakura #uzumaki naruto #hatake kakashi #this did not feel heavy as i thought while planning it #is it a good or a bad thing? hehe #anime fanfic #fanfic #fic!pinkhairedlily #fic!pseudolily

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septembriseur · 3 years

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Snippet of Zemo fic I’m working on as a change of scenery.

The Pashtuns have a story they tell, dating back to the nineteenth century— to the time of the Second Anglo-Afghan War. A girl walks onto a battlefield: not just any battlefield, but a small pass in the mountains. It is distinguished by no notable history, this pass, and with no notable history yet to come. Amidst this breach in the wall of individually-named mountains— Tabal Koh, Torah Shah, and Shah Maksud— two armies mingle. On one side, the turban-hatted tribesmen, barefoot perhaps in their shalwar kameez; and on the other, the empire in their red coats and khaki.

(He has always enjoyed the way that the English say khaki, inventing an implicit r and in the process rendering it less a color than a state of being. In the Persian it was a color; to be khak-e was to be earth-genitive, dirt-affiliated. But the British: oh, they are so very much feeling khaki.)

The battle, as you might expect, is not exactly even-sided. The turban-wearers are being massacred. And yet onto the field this girl comes— this girl called Malala, this water-bearer, daughter of shepherds, and when she sees that the flag has fallen, she takes the scarf from about her head and waves it to her countrymen as a battle standard. In her own language, she sings a poem of war, a landay, saying: I will take the blood from my lover, who has died for our homeland, and I will wear it upon my forehead as a beauty-mark.

And, as you might then expect, the Pashtuns won the battle.

Today the story is told with different morals, which we need not delve too deep into: the strength of women, the glory of Afghanistan. Ask a Pashtun, however, and he may tell you that you have misunderstood the story entirely. Only in Pashtu could Malala have made such a cry, and it was by the secret power of this language that she rallied the people of Maiwand. That power remains within the words now, though quiescent. You can feel it with each pronunciation, in the bones of your teeth. Try.

***

These days, Zemo speaks English, although he reads in French and German— sometimes Russian, if he’s feeling particularly full of vim. When James Barnes visited him in the prison, it had been four hundred and eighty-five days since he spoke the Sokovian language. He was surprised, following his escape from the prison, by how naturally it came to his lips, and then disturbed to find it recurring without his permission. He would search for a Russian word, and find the Sokovian word there instead. Phrases disarticulated themselves and reassembled in podge-hodge chunks of polyglottism. Dayte mi le knigu. Hast du li videl’ mokh ami?

He feels out of control, no longer practiced at wrangling the storm of undercurrents that run seething, awaiting the moment to reassert themselves again.

***

It’s easier reassuming the role of baron. And when Zemo welcomes his new companions into his automotive collection, his personal jet, the Avenger (Wilson) looks at him with intermingled disgust and envy. Zemo wonders what Wilson knows about growing up in a place synonymous with war zone, a place that can be, with such indifference, wiped from the map. Perhaps: a bit. Perhaps he knows the precarity of the rat that strains against the limits of its rat-world; the alacrity with which it will climb atop the backs of other rats. Perhaps he knows enough to have some measure of admiration for the nimble and swift acrobatics involved in becoming the king rat.

His family’s title has been meaningless since 1939. His grandparents and great-grandparents were shiftless and malcontent exiles before that, drifting about the upscale resorts of Europe, racking up some truly aristocratic bills on credit and mysteriously vanishing as part of their exotic-Ottoman act. Only after they’d been stripped of their status did they settle down to make some money: who better to sell you some exceptionally dodgy artifacts than an exceptionally dodgy artifact? He wonders sometimes how many of Sokovia’s Thracian tombs and medieval churches had their treasures pried loose at his grandfather’s hand.

Better, perhaps, that the art survived, he supposes. Given—

See, a man can justify anything. This is his great skill. Imagine the elaborate artifices, or perhaps edifices is the word he intended to have chosen, the high structures he constructs for himself to pretend that he has escaped the land of rats at last.

***

He likes Barnes, and not just with the noblesse oblige that his family, fantastically gifted at speaking in one way and acting in another, took care to drill into him. He likes Barnes because it’s instructive to observe his struggle: here is a man who was a men among men, and now he is not a man any longer, and he thinks this means he can no longer live in the land of men. You can see it on his face, a haunted look, as though the world has invented a new kind of pain just for him.

Zemo knows him better, perhaps, than anyone has ever known him. Better than he perhaps knows himself. Every video, where video footage exists: Zemo has seen it. Every audio recording of a sound that the Winter Soldier made.

(What Zemo would confess to an interviewer, if one asked: in all honesty, it becomes rather boring, consuming repeated acts of violence. One person dying looks much like another, and any honest soldier will say so. After a time, you find yourself skipping past the screams and gurgling. You are irritated with how long it takes them to die. With torture, the same: how many times can Barnes’s face achieve the same contortions? Must they use the electricity over and over? Haven’t they a creative bone between them? Zemo knows, of course, that the monotony itself is an aspect of the torture. And, too, it’s useful for the torturers: past a certain point, not only habit but an exhaustion of the empathy sets in. Still, something in him rebels, perhaps his last moral instinct. Yes, it’s true, his boredom is moral! He would like to believe so. Do what you’re going to do, he thinks, but for fuck’s sake don’t make it commonplace.)

He’s even watched the tapes of Barnes’s earliest therapy sessions— not his deprogramming, in Wakanda, where Zemo had failed, to his frustration, to find an in from his prison, but the psychotherapy that followed his return to the United States. The sessions made for quite compelling viewing; in his earliest days of isolation, they obsessed him. Barnes was a ragged, still-feral creature in them. He was prone to prolonged and uncomfortable bouts of silence. It took him a long time to find language. When asked to reflect on this, he sat for a long time without speaking. Zemo can picture him now: oddly soft-edged where he hunched in the oversized armchair, pulling the sleeves of his jumper over his fingers. He had lost a dramatic amount of weight, and his face looked haunted, but he had not yet cut his hair.

“Maybe there are words for what I want to say,” Barnes said, “but don’t know ’em. I don’t know how you would learn ’em. So everything has to be translated. You know? Or— not even translated. It’s like I’m the first person who’s ever had to say it. I’ve got to find the right shape cookie cutter to show you. The right…sharpness.” His metal fingers twitched. Zemo liked to think that he was looking for a knife.

A knife was a cookie cutter that was always the right shape cookie cutter.

In that moment, watching, Zemo had wished too for a knife. Not because he did not know the borders or form of his response, his reminiscence, but out of outrage at the very authenticity of Barnes’s speechlessness. How, Zemo thought, do you not know the words?

He had thought that everyone possessed this secret language, though you did not reveal your fluency in it, at least not in polite company. No wonder Barnes is so unmade. He has passed the age when one acquires such skill through sudden immersion.

(He himself experienced, perhaps, the opposite form of immersion. His childhood between the wars was sheltered by privilege, he knew only that any persons could vanish without warning, and that you would hear, later, hushed whispers when their bodies were found: exegesis of the marks from a which a saga of pain could be inferred. Then came age nine, and the daring, unprecedented separatist attack on his prestigious lycée. The wet red flesh of a classmate; the smeared trajectory of a body sketched out where a child had collapsed against a wall. His parents said, This Is No Place For a Child. In a month’s time he was living comfortably in Switzerland, Hong Kong, Madripoor, places that were For a Child. He spoke French, German, and English. In time, he came to associate the Sokovian language with that other language of his childhood: fear and grief. He thought less of his classmates because they were ignorant of these languages, acquired a kind of hauteur about it— at the same time as he understood, on some childish level that resisted penetration, how his expertise was the source of a morbid, drenching shame. )

Perhaps there is a kinship that comes between two men who speak the same language. In Madripoor, he feels it, as he caresses Barnes’s body and detects no flinch. An almost sexual pull there, maybe. Dangerous; electric.

Does Barnes know that Zemo plans to kill him at the conclusion of this escapade?

Difficult to guess.

#tfatws #my fic

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problematicfavesareproblematic · 3 years

Text

On Days Like This (part 5)

Carwood Lipton x Reader

Warnings: survivors guilt, comfort, a disgusting amount of fluff, a sick and sad mother of Easy Company doing his very best, some random dialogue, a lack of forward progression but I’m still proud of it for some reason

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

You wake up to the smell of cigarette smoke and for a few moments you think you are back in the makeshift hospital you’d been taken to in Foy.

It’s the feeling of Carwood’s heartbeat against your cheek that brings it all back for you- how you’d snuck out from under the aggressive nurse’s nose during her shift change and managed to bully your way onto a supply truck headed to Hagenau, dressed in a combination of pilfered wool sweaters and a set of fatigues you’d collected from the bodies of fallen soldiers.

You’d stolen some boots from the supply truck, and when they’d threatened to tell your superior officer you’d informed them that they were more than welcome to do so, as long as they were prepared for your SO to also be told that the supply truck had been delayed a day because it’s drivers wanted to engage in one last sexual encounter with the nurses who’d welcomed them into their beds.

The two men hadn’t bothered you after that.

The moment after you’d reconnected with Nix and Sink, you’d gone to find Car.

Just from the way he’d broken down upon seeing you again, you knew that he’d lost some sense of himself in the time you’d been apart. It broke your heart. It had taken everything in you not to cry as well.

But Carwood had needed you to be strong, and you had decided long ago that you would do anything for him.

If that meant holding him as he cried himself back to sleep in the first mattress you’d shared since your time in Georgia, then so be it.

When you allowed one eye to peek open, you found that the smell of smoke wasn’t coming from somewhere outside the room- but rather from Carwood himself.

You watched for a moment as he lifted the white stick he’d once called a cancer tube to his lips and pull from it like he’d been doing it for years, a memory of him chastising you for lighting one up beside his cot after he’d been wounded in Carentan flickering in your mind’s eye.

Taking a deep breath, you allow your ribs to expand as you arch your back in a creaking stretch, the movement alerting Carwood of your wakefulness.

“Hm, never thought I’d see the day Clifford Carwood Lipton would willingly smoke a cigarette…”

His light chuckle is warm against your ear, the arm that he’d wrapped around you pulling you close into him and his fingers prodding your ribs playfully until you yelp and attempt to roll away from it.

Car leans over the side of the bed to stamp out the cigarette and set it down, shaking his head slightly as he exhales the remaining smoke in his lungs through pursed lips.

Before he can reply to your teasing, a body-racking cough has him sitting up and trying to catch his breath, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and bracing his elbows on his knees to combat the force of the hacking.

You frown, pushing yourself up to sit behind him and wrap yourself around his back, pressing a kiss between his shoulders once his coughing subsides before resting your cheek there.

“Got the black lung already?”

He sniffs, clearing his throat a few more times before sighing deeply.

“Doc says it’s pneumonia. Not much he can do.”

You hum at that, closing your eyes as you listen to the strong thud of his heart again.

“You should’ve told me you were hurt.”

Opening your eyes, you lift your head from his back, furrowing your brows at his admonishment.

“Huh?”

Lip turns enough that he can face you side-on, his tired eyes looking even more exhausted as he nods his head guilty at your arm.

Looking at your right arm, you take in the large lump of bandages wrapped around your bicep, the gauze beneath the sleeve of your sweater making it look almost comically swollen. The three bullets they’d pulled from your arm still remain in a pouch, buried near the body of your knapsack.

“Car,” you sigh, ready to assure him that you’re perfectly fine and that it’s nothing and that he doesn’t need to worry about you. But, judging by the way he narrows his dark eyes at you, you decide it’s best not to argue the point any further.

“I could’ve hurt you, Y/N! You should’ve said something, shouldn’t of let me grab at you like that—”

“Well, sorry that I was so excited to see the man I love that I didn’t think to give you a full medical report.” you snap, shaking your head and rubbing a hand over your face. “I’ll be sure to remember that from now on….”

Lip clenches his jaw and curses under his breath, raking a hand through his mussed hair before mumbling your name softly and taking your hand from your face to hold it between his.

“I didn’t mean it like that, you know I didn’t mean it like that.”

When you continue to stare at a point over his shoulder Car sighs and turns to face you further.

You allow his hands to come up and hold your face, eyes flickering to meet his remorseful ones and biting the inside of your cheek.

“You’re right, I’m sorry...Hey, c’mon.”

The press of his forehead against yours is sweet, despite the fact that you can feel the fever radiating from his skin.

“I just get worried, you know. I missed you so much—”

You shake your head, pulling your forehead back from his so you can press a kiss to his hairline.

“I do. I know. I’m sorry, too.”

With your uninjured arm, you brush your cooler fingers across his cheek, feeling a bit guilty for snapping at him.

You wondered if a day would come when the two of you would stop having to worry about each other. These days, it was hard to imagine a life consisting of anything other than loss and pain and heavy exhaustion.

At the feeling of tears rolling over your fingers, you pull back to look at him with concern.

“Lip?”

“I’m so glad that you weren’t there.”

Your throat feels tight, immediately knowing what he’s referring to.

Your torment at the hands of the German army was nothing compared to the horrors you’d heard occurring in the forest Lip had been in. whatever earth-shaking fear you had experienced second hand couldn’t ever hold a candle to what it must’ve felt like to Easy and Dog Companies.

“I’m so sorry,” you whispered, ignoring the slight twinge of discomfort in your other arm and bringing your other hand to his face to wipe the tears from his eyes. “I’m just….I’m so fucking sorry, Sweetheart—”

He’s apologizing again, and you know that he’s not simply apologizing to you for crying in your arms.

With devastating sobs, he tells you about all of it- of Buck and Toye and WIld Bill. you pull him to lean against you when he cries for Muck and Penkala, the other eighty-two lives that had been snatched away from this world while he’d ‘cowardly hid in a hole’ the whole time.

You don’t interrupt him, tears of your own welling in your eyes but unwilling to let them fall.

He needs this, he needs this, I can be strong for him

When he does pull away from you, he’s red-faced and his eyes are swollen, weakly repeating how sorry he is. You kiss him as softly as he had kissed you for the first time in Toccoa, inhaling sharply when he pulls your face closer and smashes your lips to his almost painfully.

You stroke at his face when he pulls away, letting him catch his breath in his own time.

When he starts coughing again you reach blindly around his feet until you find his canteen, giving him an appreciative smile when he helps you sit back up again.

He drinks dutifully, closing his eyes and letting his head roll from side to side as he swallows.

As you bring his once abandoned cigarette to your lips and relight it with the lighter you’d also managed to find, Lip looks over at you and sighs a weak laugh.

“You shouldn’t do that, young lady,” he jokes hollowly, taking the cigarette from between your fingers and taking a puff before putting it out again. “It isn’t good for you.”

Smiling at the ridiculousness of it, you blow the little smoke you’d managed to get into his face.

“You’re lucky I like you, otherwise I’d hit you, you handsome hypocrite.”

With a soft groan, you swing your legs around so you’re sitting beside him, your thigh pressed against his as you mirror his pose. Car brings your hand into his and laces your fingers together.

“In the interest of being candid, I should probably tell you that I’ve lost three toes since we’ve last seen each other—”

“What?”

His head whips to the side to look at you in surprise, gaping at the casual shrug you offer in explanation.

“Frostbite is a bitch….”

Carwood opens his mouth to protest your nonchalance, before seeming to think better of it and shooting you a glare.

“Well, as long as we’re being honest, I might as well tell you that I’ve been promoted.”

You feel your face drop in surprise for a moment before you grin like an idiot, bringing his hand to your lips and kissing it excitedly.

“Lieutenant Clifford Carwood Lipton,” you murmur, liking the way the title tastes on your tongue.

“Just wait till my mother hears that I’ve snagged myself a Lieutenant—!”

When Car rolls his eyes you press a quick kiss to his cheek.

The dead may always hang over your heads, and maybe they’re meant to.

But, for right now, the two of you have never felt more alive.

And that was more than enough.

~ ~ ~

( ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ here we be, kids. I love you bbs and will fight for your honor any day of the week (just not Mondays at 11am, bc Mama has therapy)

Taglist: @mrseasycompany @itswormtrain @mrsalwayswrite @happyveday @sunsetmando @teenmagazines @liebgotttme

#band of brothers imagines #band of brothers x reader #carwood lipton x reader #carwood lipton imagines

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wayward-nephilim · 4 years

Text

Before it all started // Rafe Cameron

Prompt: You finally break up with Rafe after you catch him doing coke again and you can’t stop thinking about how you guys were before.

Warnings: Drug abuse, angst

A/N: I hate Rafe and he’s kind of awful, but you also can’t deny that he’s just a boy with daddy issues and I believe that he would have been a halfway decent person if he didn’t have a shitty father and drug addiction. This is my take on what I believe he was like “before” (Ps re-reading and editing this i realized i made him like not a villain at all. Maybe i’m confusing Drew with Rafe)

“DONT YOU DARE LEAVE!!” He yelled at you, getting up from his spot on the couch. The lines of coke spread out on his table. Reflecting perfectly on the mirrored tray he had. You felt sick to your stomach and it felt like everything keeping you alive had been ripped out of you. This wasn’t the first time you caught him snorting, the first time was the worst and you voweled to help him but you had failed.

You fought back the tears in your eyes. “Rafe. I can’t do this, I can’t watch you fall down the same hole my mom did.” You loved your mom, and you loved Rafe almost as much. But you sat back and watched your mom kill herself and were watching the love of your life do that same thing.

The blue in his eyes were hardly able to be seen, his pupils so dilated from the coke. You knew how he got, you watched him start it. And at first he actually had you convinced he had it under control, he could do a line and that would hold him off for a couple days, it was a social thing. And then slowly you saw him doing more and more. You saw him stumble down into a dark and twisty hole as he battled with his mind.

“Baby, please. I can get it under control. I can fix this, I can fix us.” He sniffled, eyes glossy.

Your lip quivered as you watched the boy in front of you plead. “Rafe.” Your voice broke, “I love you, but I can’t do this. You promised me you would get a hold on it and then you didn’t. I offered you my support and I broke my back to get you help. I did everything I could to help you and I’m tired.” You sighed, disappointed in him and yourself.

“Listen, Y/N. Give me a couple of months.” He said, now crying, “I promise I can get better.” He seemed so small, gabbing the edge of his shirt and pulling it down as a nervous tick.

Your heart broke as you watched the boy you were in love with completely crumble. You wanted to believe him, you supported him and loved him when everyone else was against him and the both of you knew that you held him down and kept him grounded. “Rafe.” You sighed, disappointedly. “I can’t keep doing this with you. Why didn’t you take my help when I offered it?” You pinned the blame on yourself, thinking you could have pushed him harder.

“Look- It’s not that simple.” He looked down, refusing to make eye contact with you. “I have it under control.”

You groaned and threw your head back, “NO, YOU DON’T.” You yelled at him flinging your arms in your direction. “You don’t, Rafe. And you know it. I can’t help you this time.” This situation felt too familiar, and you needed to get out of there. Your chest rising and falling even harder and tear spilling from your eyes.

“Please.” He pleaded, noticing your change in demeanor. He straightened up and walked over to you. Trying to comfort you. “Y/N. Baby, it’s okay.” He hugged you. “I promise.”

You pulled your body away from his and looked him in the eyes. “It’s not, Rafe.” You sniffled, “You know it’s not. And I can’t ask you to get sober for me. Clearly it doesn’t work. I need you to get sober for yourself.” You sobbed, “I need you to want to be okay for you, I want to be able to live a long life with you and have kids and get married. But I’m not going to sit here and watch you refuse my help.”

“I will. I promise Baby.” He tried reaching for you and you pulled your body away because you knew that if you hugged him back you’d fall back into him. “I can get sober. I’ll do it.” You wished with everything in you that he would.

“I need to go, Rafe.” You said, turing around and letting your tears stream from your eyes. He wasn’t a bad man, he wasn’t mean to you and he hardly ever got a temper and not once in the year you guys have been dating has he ever put a hand on you. He just needed intervention and therapy, a lot of it.

Every step away from him felt like another string of your heart was being pulled. You ignored his begging and continued to walk, breaking down every step of the way. Your body was sweaty and you were hyperventilating. Rafe was always the one to calm your panic attacks and now he wasn’t hear and this one had to be fought on its own. You texted Sarah,

‘please keep an eye on your brother for me. we broke up and i need to know he doesn’t do anything irrational.’ You would always care for Rafe, nothing could change that.

You turned your phone off and walked towards your home that was only a couple doors down from the Cameron’s. You glanced up at the sky, clouds rolling in. Storm season was bad this year. Rain drops started falling slowly and you were kind of grateful, hoping they would wash out your tears so your father didn’t ask questions on your way in.

You sloshed around the foyer of your house and hang your soaking jacket on the coat rack, slipped your shoes off and walked up to your room. Not bothering you turn your light on, you stripped out of all of your clothes you flopped into bed. You lay staring at your ceiling. The ache in your heart over powering everything.

“Rafe, put me down.” You giggled, he had grabbed you by one arm and a thigh and was swinging you off of the boat. You squirmed in his hands until he placed you down on the deck of your tiny sail boat.

“What’s wrong, baby?.” He smiled at you, his blue eyes filled with life and his blonde hair wasn’t slicked back as you would normally see it. It was messy and all over the place. You loved seeing him like this, he was himself and he was happy and it was just the two of you.

“You know I’m ticklish.” You pouted your lip out, looking up to him.

“Oh, that’s just an excuse.” He said, running towards you and playfully tackling you down to tickle your side.

You kicked and laughed until your belly hurt. “Rafe-“ You laughed, “Stop it.” You managed to get out from his hold and run away laughing. He caught up with you and picked you up, your legs wrapping around his waist as he placed a kiss on your lips. You moaned as he laid you down and deepened the kiss. You pulled your head away and put your forehead onto his, staring into his bright blue eyes. And felt completely lost in them.

“Rafe.” You spoke softly, putting your hand on his face, “I love you.” It was the first time you said it, but you knew in that moment how you felt about him.

His mouth fell open in shock before he closed it and smiled, “I love you too.” He said against your lips and you opened yourself up to him.

Your tears fell even harder. The beginning of your relationship with Rafe was perfect, he was every thing you could have dreamed of and treated you good. He never pushed you to do anything you weren’t comfortable and was patient. It made you miss him even more.

“Y/N.” Rafe tried to offer you a smile, but you saw through it. His shirt was unbuttoned and both his face and ribs had bruises on them.

“Rafe. What happened?” You spoke, dropping your bag and keys and rushed over to him. You fell down to where he was in the ground and cupped his face in your hands. “Baby, what happened?” You cooed, glancing around the room, you saw a shiny tray on on it was little white lines and a rolled of $50 bill. You held him close to your body.

He cried into your shoulder and held you right. “I fucked up.” He sobbed,

“Rafe. What happened to you?” You voice cracked,

“He hit me.” He didn’t need to tell me who, I knew. It was his father. Ward had a tempor, everyone knew that. Especially you.

“I won’t let him do anything else to you. I’ll protect you.”

You lay stuff on your bed, digging your palms into your eyes to stop the flashbacks of you two together. You didn’t want to see all of the intimant moments. There were too many good ones. Rafe was good to you. He cared about you and pushed you in a positive way to do better than him. You knew he loved you and he knew you loved him.

Turning over, you put your head into your pillow and screamed until your lungs couldn’t take it anymore. Sobbing, wanting to be held by someone.

One hand was on your waist, the other clasped around your hand. He spun you so your back was against his. “I love it when you dress up.” He whispered in your ear.

It was Mid-Summer and you couldn’t deny that you hated it but also couldn’t deny that you enjoyed dressing up in a beautiful light dress and wearing a flower crown. You smiled up to him and gave him a kiss on the lips.

“Let’s go somewhere more private.” He spoke in your ears. You didn’t take much time unwinding yourself from him and pulling him into an empty locker room. Locking the door behind you.

You eagerly kissed him and pressed him against the lockers. He moaned and put his hands in your hips, pulling you into him. You smiled and pulled away, “I love you.” You kissed him, “I love you. I love you. I love you.” You said kissing him between each statement. And you did, you loved the Cameron boy with every fiber of your being.

“I love you more.” He laughed, pulling your dress up and then lifted you up so you could wrap your legs around his waist.

“Not possible.” You smiled, wrapping your arms around his neck as he undid the belt and button on his dress pants.

“It totally is.” He kissed you.

By now you were convinced that you would never find another love like his. He was a sour puss to most people, but he was real and true and wasn’t afraid to be himself around you, even if you were out in public. He wasn’t afraid to show his affection despite his reputation.

You wanted to call him and tell him you love him. But the rational part of you told you to not do it. You know it’s not your job to keep him clean, but you wanted to protect him from everything. You knew him better than anyone in his life. You know what he’s thinking right now and it’s not too different from your own thoughts.

This time, it was you two laid out on the deck of your boat. Staring up at the stars. Rafe was clueless when it came to the sky. The only thing he knew was where to find the big dipper. “That one right there, that’s Orien. He’s my favorite.” You smiled over to him, pointing above you. “Mainly because he’s the easiest one to find.”

“How exactly do you know so much?” He questioned you, looking over to you.

“I don’t know, I guess I’m just into stars and stuff. It’s crazy what’s out there. Ya know?” You shrugged, feeling slightly insecure for geeking out. “I find it interesting.”

Rafe noticed your change in demeanor. “I don’t think you’re weird for it.” He said, “I dig it.”

The both of you stared so intensely at each other. Comfortable with where you were in life. You turned to face him and placed your arm around his torso, snuggling into him. Being alone and comfortable in his presence was the one thing that always made you feel better. He made you better.

Right now, you wanted nothing more but for things to go back to the way they were before it all started.

#pope outer banks #kie outer banks #outerbanks #outer banks #obx #rafe cameron #john b #jj maybank #pope hayward #kiara carrera #sarah cameron #drew starkey

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jisungsmochi · 4 years

Text

rich girl reader x caterer mark

(this sounds odd but idk how else to describe it HAHAHA)

your parents wanted to throw an extravagant party to celebrate your brother getting into college. yes. not a birthday party, or an engagement, but a college admission party. your family had too much money for your their own good and often wasted it on materialistic and highly expensive items. you couldn’t say you were any different. you weren’t unhappy with your living conditions and exorbitant lifestyle but you were unhappy with the way your parents often tossed you aside with their money. everytime you came home from school, visibly upset due to stress, your parents would just transfer money into your account, for ‘retail therapy’. everytime you racked up the bill at an expensive restaurants with your friends, your parents would cover the costs. it was a never ending cycle, that you wanted to stop at times.

you were sitting by the pool as the catering staff for your brother’s party had arrived to organise their set up. you watched as they all were trying to appease to your parent’s requests. you felt bad for them, that they had to change their usual ways of business in order to please your parents. you ignored most of the commotion, continuing to read the book you were trying to finish.

you were interrupted when a boy with fluffy black hair approached you, blocking the sunlight. you raised your head from your book,

‘may i help you?’ you asked, it coming out more rude than you intended.

‘ah yeah, do you live here? i can’t find the owners and i have some decorations but i’m not sure where they’re supposed to go’ he explained, running his hands through his hair, clearly tired from all the moving he has already done.

‘oh um yeah i’m their daughter, i’m sure you can just leave them here in the yard, and wait for them to come back. i’m sorry i’m not much help’ you have him a small smile before completely closing your book.

‘thankyou!’ he nodded before walking away. you watched as he and some of the other workers were unloading the items. you felt bad that they had to do such hard work on such a hot day. you ran inside, grabbing as many water bottles as you could, whilst asking your maid to cut up some fruit for the workers. she nodded at you as you headed back outside, only to be met with the boy from earlier, he was now sitting on the chair next to yours.

he looked up at you, smiling as he saw your hands full of bottles,

‘here let me help!’ he made his way towards you before placing the bottles all over the nearest table.

‘i got them for all you guys, and my maid is cutting some fruit, you all deserve a treat for your hard work’ you offered as he kindly took the water bottle you held in your hands and took a sip.

‘you’re pretty laid back compared to your parents, no offence’ he looked back at you, his comment made you chuckle.

‘i get that a lot actually’ you smiled before taking a seat next to him.

‘so this is your life? sitting by the pool and reading?’ he started, causing you to feel slightly embarrassed.

‘i mean, i guess so! i don’t really leave the house, we pretty much have everything here. my parents throw all these parties just for the sake of it, kinda takes away the whole, having fun part’ you ranted as he listened carefully, watching as your hands fidgeted with your words.

‘well i’m kinda thankful for this party, my parent’s business hasn’t been doing so well, and this party will help us out alot’ he commented as you looked back at him. his eyes sparkled in glee, you knew he was truly thankful.

‘i’m sorry to leave all of a sudden but there’s more stuff to set up.’ he slowly got up, not wanting to leave just yet.

‘oh it’s okay, can i get your number? you know, incase my family needs anything else’ you blurted, watching as he turned back to you, surprised at your words.

‘y-yeah sure’ he grabbed your phone from your hands and tapped away.

‘i’m mark, by the way’ he smirked, returning your phone. you felt a slight blush arise on your cheeks,

‘oh and i’m y/n! well uh i’ll see you later mark’ you waved before making your way back inside. he shook his head in amusement as he chuckled, he found you completely adorable. more than what meets the eye, that’s for sure.

you had only really called mark once, when you overheard your father being stressed about the desserts being served.

mark picked up almost instantly,

‘oh hey, y/n! what’s up?’ he spoke into the phone as you sat against your bedroom door, eavesdropping on the situation.

‘my dad is kinda stressed about what desserts you guys are serving, and i’m just calling so i can finally get him to relax’ you explained, hearing shuffling on his side.

‘ahh yes hold on a moment, i’m going to find the list my dad gave me! i’ll send a photo so you can show your dad’ mark quickly snapped a photo, texting it to you immediately.

‘thankyou so much! i’ll see you on saturday!’ you cheered as you hung up and went to dissolve your dad’s worries. you were thankful that mark was able to help you straight away, you couldn’t wait for saturday.

the party was in full swing, the caterers were efficiently serving the food as well as preparing for dessert. your brother was socialising with his friends, before he saw you and asked to talk.

‘hey sis’ he caught up to you, as you sat against the bar.

‘yes jeno?’ you sighed. even though you were both close, it was clear that he was your parent’s favourite. he was the classic jock, good grades, had a girlfriend, and just got into one of the best colleges, without my parent’s having to bribe them. he always made you feel inferior, unintentionally.

‘enjoying your night?’ he asked, sitting on the stool next to you.

‘could be better’ you shrugged as you took a sip from your drink.

‘yeah well how about you talk to that caterer guy? he seems to be checking you out’ jeno smirked, nudging your side as your eyes went to find mark. he was serving drinks to your aunts and uncles when he caught you looking and gave you a wave. you returned it before turning back to jeno.

‘not a chance, he’s just friendly’ you pushed aside, finishing your drink.

‘whatever you say, don’t get too wasted, otherwise mum and dad will kill you’ he wanted before heading off to talk to more of his friends.

as the night went on, you kicked yourself for not talking to mark. he was so busy, constantly walking around, you just wanted to catch him on a break. you found yourself back at the bar, ready for another drink.

‘hey, y/n’ you watched as mark shot you his adorable smile, as you sat yourself across from him.

‘your parents really know how to throw a party’ he commented, mixing a few drinks together before pouring the mixture into a glass.

‘yeah, i’m gonna predict that in another hour, the guests will all leave and it will be left to the staff to clean up’ you have him a solemn look, as he slowly nodded.

‘you look like you need a drink’ he tried to lift to mood, handing you the glass.

‘you’re not gonna like poison me? right?’ you joked.

‘of course not, just try it!!’ he rolled his eyes, waiting for your reaction.

‘not bad, not bad’ you complimented before continuing to take small sips.

mark smiled to himself, wiping down the surface of the bar table. you debated whether or not asking him this,

‘do you want to get out of here? i know you’re working and it would be unprofessional to just leave like this but i really wanted to talk to y-‘ you were cut off by his abrupt laughter.

‘y/n, i was finished over an hour ago, i just stuck around because well, i was hoping you would come and talk to me’ he shyly admitted, avoiding your gaze.

you were surprised at his response, perking yourself up before taking your hand in his and dragging him away from the bar.

you led him to this secluded part of your backyard that your parents neglected a few years back. you ended up making it your own little sanctuary where you could just read or just have time away from the craziness of your family.

mark seated himself on some cushions you placed on the grass under a small teepee structure.

‘this is kinda cute’ he mumbled, as your cheeks flushed red.

‘thanks, decorated it myself’ you smiled, sitting next to him.

there was a short silence, mark looked over at you, unsure of what to say.

‘do you ever wonder, what life would be like, if you weren’t....’ he started.

‘rich?’ you finished, he was shocked that you already knew what he was asking.

‘yes i do’ you continued. ‘i wonder what it’s like not going to a private school where my parents pay excessive funds to the school for me to be a part of clubs and teams that i really don’t enjoy being in. i wonder what it’s like, making a mess in my own room and not having to call my maid to come clean it for me when i really just want to it myself. this sounds like such a ‘rich girl problems’ type rant but sometimes it’s not always about the glitz and glamour for me’ you shrugged, looking over at mark who had that sparkle in his eyes as you spoke.

‘you’re really not like all of them. i mean, i know we’ve had like two solid conversations but it seems like you’ve missed out on a lot. i kind of want to show you my world for a day’ mark offered, as you enthusiastically nodded.

‘would you really? i would love that!’ you smiled widely as he slightly giggled at your reaction,

‘you’re really cute when you get excited’ he mumbled. your face was completely red at this point.

‘t-thanks’

‘i’ll come by tomorrow, we can get into my old ass car and just drive around, i’ll show you my school and my friends and maybe one day you can do the same with me!’ mark had a way of making you feel normal. he made you feel like, your feelings were valid. you adored him. so so much.

you nodded at his words before placing a quick peck on his cheek.

‘thankyou for understanding me’

‘anytime’ he replied as you both chatted about random things for the rest of the night.

mark lee was unlike anyone you had ever met. so empathic, so understanding, so wise yet so goofy. but he made you feel normal, and that’s what you wanted to feel all along.

would anyone like a part 2?? just curious hehe

#mark lee #mark lee imagine #nct dream imagines #mark lee fluff #nct imagines #nct fluff #nct fic #nct au #nct mark #nct dream fluff #jisungsmochiimagines #jisungsmochi masterlist

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anotheronechicagobog · 4 years

Text

Tylenol and Tequila Part 3

written by @anotheronechicagobog

Warnings: swearing, mature themes, fire, chemical reactions

A/N: This one is REALLY long. I don’t know the word count but it took up ten pages in google docs with size 11 font, so I hope you guys like it!

Also, I came up with the term ‘Hermann Horde’ to describe him and his kids, I think it’s hilarious, but let me know what you gusy think.

Stella Kidd has always wanted to be a mother. To experience the joy, fear, love, frustration, cheer that being a parent brings. The only problem? She didn’t want to be the one to actually give birth to them and she didn’t agree with surrogacy. But she had been homeless and in the foster system when she wasn’t living with her addict parents, so she knew that there were lots of kids who just needed someone to love them. This had been a point of contention between her and Grant. Biological kid(d)s are the only ones he would accept. It would end in screaming matches, Grant saying at some point that it would happen whether she liked it or not. That should have been a huge red flag for her, but she’d loved him so she ignored it.

With Kelly though, he understood. He understood that if she got pregnant she would have to take leave from being a firefighter for a while, so long as there weren’t complications with the pregnancy that were severe enough to end her career, and that was something he would never ask or expect her to do. When Stella wanted to have a serious conversation about kids he watched her collapse in relief that he shared her opinions. That he thought it would be better for both of them to foster older kids, pre-teens and teenagers.

Kelly had never liked Grant. Always thought that he was a manipulative piece of shit, and every even remotely serious conversation had been about Grant ignoring Stella’s wants, needs, and choices. If Grant showed his face again it would take an army and at least one dragon to stop him from killing Grant.

The only people they’d told were Boden, cause he’d need to know as their chief, Matt and Sylvie because they’d need someone to talk to about it besides each other and references. They’d all been ecstatic for the couple, Sylvie in particular. She didn’t remember much about her time in foster care, but she remembered enough to know how terrible, nightmarish, and broken it was.

Kylie was the first kid who popped up in both their minds. Her dad was a neglectful cop who had multiple families and her mom was a heroin addict. Kylie did what she could to remain afloat, to distance herself from who her parents are and what they do, but it was hard. Her dad just showing up and doing whatever the fuck he wanted and leaving ruins in his wake, and her mom was only around a third of the time, almost always on a bender with whoever she was ‘dating’ that week. Kylie had spent most of her childhood living with her grandma after being placed there by social services but was dumped back on her mom after seven months after her grandma passed three months in the system. The four months she spent being tossed between group homes and foster families were not times she advertised or wanted to remember. Girls on Fire had brought the support that she hadn’t had for so long into her life. When she missed a Girls on Fire meeting Stella got worried, it didn’t correlate with her character.

A call to detective Jay Halstead from Kelly brought out the depressing truth. Her mom had gotten high, signed her out of school, and then dragged her to a scummy abandoned warehouse to help her score some product. Kylie managed to slip away and call 911 for help after the dealer smacked her around for saying ‘no’. But he found her at the end of the call, and he didn’t react well. They’d rushed over to the ED when they found out where she was.

Stella actually started to cry when she saw the state Kylie was in. So frail, monitors beeping, covered in bandages, arm in a sling. Kelly tracked down Natalie to figure out what her condition was, and it wasn’t good. Amelia Wood, a social worker showed up just as she finished explaining everything.

“Hello, I’m Amelia Woods from DCFS, here for Kylie Reyez?”

“Of course, Ms. Woods as I was just explaining to lieutenant Severide, Kylie has a minor concussion five bruised ribs, a shoulder fracture, and we’re waiting on the results from her sexual assault kit.”

“And why would you be explaining it to lieutenant Severide? The only relatives listed in her file are her deceased grandmother, ineligible father detective Mark Reyez, and criminally negligent mother Daphne Adams.”

“My girlfriend Stella Kidd runs a program called Girls on Fire, a fire department outreach program for girls, and Kylie’s signed up for it. When she didn’t show up for the last session she had a really bad feeling and Kylie wasn’t answering her phone so we called some people and found out she was here. We rushed over, Stella’s actually with her now. What, uh, what’s going to happen to Kylie?”

“Well she’s not going to live with either of her parents, and she has no other family, so she’ll go into the system.”

“Group home or foster family?”

“... Group home to start... We’ll try to find a foster for her but that’s unlikely at her age.”

“Stella and I are in the final stages of getting approved as a foster family, would it be possible for Kylie to be placed with us?”

“Who’s the social worker assigned to you?”

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After a week in the ED Kylie was permitted to leave, and go to Severide and Kidd’s apartment. Kylie was ecstatic, Stella and Kelly had made it clear that their apartment was a safe place for Kylie, that all she would have to do was be a teenager. There would be some rules and curfew in place but Stella and Kelly were just focusing on making sure that Kylie had a stable home.

When they got home Stella gingerly showed Kylie her room. It was plain, had been seen Matt moved out the year before, but Sylvie had offered to help Kylie decorate it when she was comfortable. “We can arrange for that shopping trip in a few days, let’s just get you settled in first.”

“Ladies, our deep dish order has been placed and should be here in forty minutes. I think that maybe we should take this time to talk about some rules and stuff. Then we can chow down on pizza.”

Stella chuckled at her boyfriend’s attempt at humour, and Kylie smiled at how they looked at each other. “That sounds like a good idea Kel. You ready Kylie?”

“Yeah, let’s hear it.”

“Okay, so curfew is 10:30pm, but if there’s something special going on that night just let us know in advance and we can extend it.”

“School is priority, if you want a part-time job or something that’s fine, but school comes first.”

“Look, we don’t want you drinking or having sex-”

Gagging from Kylie interrupted Stella, “yeah, yeah, it’s gross to talk about with your guardians but we get that as a teenager that’s just something you might get into, so if you need condoms or a ride home or something, just let us know or call, we just want you to be safe. We won’t exactly be happy that you’re partying or whatever, but anything’s better than playing keep-up.”

“And if there’s stuff you want to talk about, we’re here. And if you don’t want to talk to us, that’s okay too. As long as you’re talking to someone, a teacher, guidance counselor, Brett, whoever, just as long as you talk to someone.”

“When we’re on shift we’ll both have our phones on if you need us, we’ll leave you by yourself so no parties, please. If you want to have a friend over that’s fine, but let us know beforehand and we’d like to meet them first.”

“The system actually covers therapy bills so you could even talk to a therapist if you want. And as far as the money from the government goes, we’ll budget it so that some pitches into groceries, and there’s some spending money for your room or stuff you want, but the rest will go into a post-secondary school fund for you, which we’ll also be personally putting some money into.”

“... Really?”

“Yes, really. We are here to make sure that you have support, and that includes making sure you have some money for when you’re out of high school.”

“Thank you...”

“You really don’t need to say ‘thank you’ sweetheart, we’re here to help and love you as much as we can.” The doorbell ended their conversation that left tears brimming the eyes of all three, “I guess it’s time for pizza.”

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There had been some disagreements and adjustments, but overall everyone could agree it had been a complete success. A month later, after the move-in and hours spent convincing Kylie that having money spent on her was okay, Sylvie, Stella and Kylie met up at the nice shopping area of downtown with money to spend. The plan was to spend the morning shopping then meet up with Kelly and the rest of 51 at the park for a picnic with the lovely souls from 51, 21, and MED.

“Where to first, Kylie?”

“Umm, a bedding store maybe?”

“Kylie, we talked about this, it’s okay that we want to spend money on you, okay?”

“Kylie, I went through this too. I still get freaked out when people spend money on me, especially if I didn’t have time to discourage them from doing so. I’m still pretty stingy if I’m honest. I know that it’s hard, you feel panicked and like you’re not worth this, you’re not worth this waste of money. What I find helps is taking lots of deep breaths, going straight to the sale and clearance racks, and remembering that all the stores we’re going to are family businesses, and that by spending money here we are supporting small businesses and people who work really hard to earn money and own a store of their own.”

Kylie thought for a moment, taking in Sylvie’s advice. “Okay, I’ll try that.”

“Okay.”

“So, where to?”

“I could use a couple shirts...” Stella and Sylvie smiled brightly, grabbed onto an arm, and marched over to the nearest boutique.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After dropping everything off at the apartment the three women made it to the park a thirty minutes after the designated time. “‘Bout time you three showed up!”

“Cool it, Halstead, besides, shouldn’t you be spending your girlfriend?”

“Hailey is not my girlfriend!”

“Y’know, it’s kinda funny, Stella didn’t even mention a Hailey...”

“Hey! I have more than enough people on my back about this, I don’t need a kid I haven’t met- oh waiiiiit, you’re Kidd and Severide’s foster right? Well, I’m Jay Halstead, Severide hasn't shut up about you, everyone’s really excited to meet you.”

“Including Hailey.” Jay froze for a second, before an exasperated expression took over his face, then he leaned his head back and groaned loudly before stomping away, leaving nothing but laughter in his wake.

“You know what Stella? I think Kylie should meet Hailey first.”

“Ooooh, yes.”

“Hailey! We have someone we want you to meet!”

They all ran across the field to her after hearing the panicked ‘NOooOOOooo’ from Jay Halstead. The confused blonde greeted them with a chuckle. “Hi, I’m Hailey Upton, you must be Kylie. It’s really great to meet you.”

“You too, I’ve heard a lot about how badass you are.”

“Oh, don’t listen to all that you hear-”

“Ig- *gasp* ignore her. She’s awesome.” A stressed-looking Jay sputtered out as he took his place beside Hailey. “Well,” Kylie slyley started, “I’m not sure that you’re unbiased, but I guess I’ll take your word for it.” Jay panicked, Hailey was confused, Stella and Sylvie were doing everything in their power not to laugh.

“Wha-”

“Maybe she should meet Casey next, hmmm?” He gave a well-placed look to Sylvie and she started to pout.”

“That was cold.”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It had been a long day, filled with grilled food, cake games, and new family members. Kylie was happy though. It had been a lot, but she felt like she connected with and could count on everyone there. She was full of food and happiness. “That was really fun. It was great to meet everyone.”

“Really you didn’t feel like it was too much?”

“We were worried that we’d overwhelm you.”

“No, I think it was good to do it this way, like ripping off a bandaid.”

“Good. Well we have shift tomorrow, starting at six in the morning. So we should probably head to bed.”

“I’m gonna do the same, I am beat the Hermann Horde really knows how to wear it out of you.”

“The Hermann Horde, oh my god... That describes them perfectly.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shift had gone rather smoothly so far, a couple fire drills at local schools, a few fall-down and PD calls for ambo 61, and a smoke-detector check in an apartment building. All was well and good until around two o’clock when Stella got a horrifying phone call from Kylie.

“Stella?”

“Kylie? What’s wrong your voice sounds really shaky.” Kelly’s head snapped up at her words and she gestured for him to come over, he’d arrived and Stella turned the phone so they could both hear and talk just as they heard screams. “Kylie? Kylie!”

“There’s a fire, it’s getting big and we’re trapped and I don’t know what to do.”

“Okay, where is the fire? What lit it? Has anyone called 911 yet?” Kelly prattled off doing his best to be helpful instead of curling into a ball and crying. “Chem room, sulfuric acid and a chlorate, and everyone else is calling 911.”

“Okay, are you near a carbon dioxide extinguisher?”

“Uh, cupboard next to me... Yeah!”

“Pull out the pin, lift the nossel and aim at the BASE of the fire by squeezing the levers together.”

They didn’t get a response but could hear what was happening, it took a few minutes before Kylie picked up the phone again, “it’s ou-t but smoldering or- smoking a bit? What-ever, it was down enough for all of us to- get out, so- we’re running.”

“Oh thank god. We’ll come right away- or do you want us to meet you at the hospital? You need to get medical attention if you were near ractive sulfuric acid.”

“Uh, how about I just keep you on the phone as I get checked out, we can figure it out from there?”

“Okay, we- we’ll wait.” Stella and Kelly just about collapsed in relief, all the members of 51 who had gathered around them smiled and offered them as much comfort as possible. “Hey, um- my foster parents? They’re on the line, they’re firefighters, uh, just want to know what hospital we’re going to, if I’m okay.”

“Well, tell...”

“Stella Kidd and Lieutenant Kelly Severide.”

“Kidd and Lieutenant Severide to meet us at Chicago MED.”

“We’re leaving now.” They both froze and stared at Boden like deers in headlights. “Alright,” in Boden’s usual gruff voice, “mount up everybody. We’re going to MED. We’ll keep our radios on and leave from there if necessary. Kidd, Severide, I’ll need to call in a floater to cover one of you for the rest of shift. It’ll be easier if it’s Kidd, cause at least one of you has to stay with Kylie. I’ll see what I can do about a floater for you though, Severide.”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Amelia met them at the hospital, there were some incident forms, but because Kylie called them for help and saved herself and her classmates because of it, Amelia just gave them a smile and told them they were doing great. Kylie needed to stay at MED for a couple days because of the smoke she inhaled, but so did her classmates and they kept each other entertained. Then OFI showed up. Seager was quite obviously still carrying a torch for Kelly, but was still very polite to Stella and Kylie. “Well, your story matches up with the evidence we have and the statements collected from your teacher and 29 classmates.”

“Wait, she has 30 classmates, there’s 31 kids in her class.”

“Yes, well, Chad is the only one who’s story is off, but that’s because all the evidence points to him messing around and starting the fire. None of you can say anything to any of the other victims and their families.”

“Got it.”

Seager left with a longing look directed at Kelly, but no one was looking at her. Kylie had started to tear up, the reality that she could have died finally hitting her at full force, and both her parents (what she’d started calling Stella and Kelly in her head) immediately tended to her. Hugging her, letting her know they were there, and that it was okay to cry. So Kylie lay there, shaking and sobbing, as the two people who loved her just as much as her grandmother had, did everything they could to let her know they loved her, and that they had been scared too. That they would be sad if she had died. At some point the tears stopped being about fear and started being about love.

This was the scene that Casey walked in on, he quietly stepped away, knowing just how intimate this moment was supposed to be. He walked back to the waiting room. “Not yet guys, they need some time to themselves. I think it might be better if we came back later with some food or something.” A call came over their walkies before anyone got a chance to agree with their captain.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kylie had transferred schools after the fire, the smoke from the chemical reaction that started the fire had gotten into a vent and messed up the entire air con system, meaning the school had to be shut down for the rest of the year while it was replaced. The air quality was deemed too dangerous for students and staff to even retrieve their stuff from the school. So Kylie had been transferred to the same high school as Lee Henry Hermann. He’d shown her around the school and introduced her to his friends. Things had been going really well until 51 got a call to a mattress factory fire. Kylie hadn’t been around when Otis died, but she could still see how everyone was affected by his death. The fire was so bad that the news had been reporting on it since before school even started and new, terrifying developments were still coming. Kylie was scared, her stomach was so twisted she felt what she could only describe as extreme nausea, she couldn’t focus, and she was practically jumping out of her skin everytime she got a notification on her phone. She couldn’t find Lee anywhere either, she had no way of knowing how he’d be handling it. While he was around to know Otis, his dad had been a firefighter longer than he’d been alive. Maybe he had coping methods.

After another panic grab for her phone Kylie was excused from class with a sympathetic glance from her teacher. She wandered the halls for a few minutes, doing everything not to cry, not to feel hopeless, when one of Lee's friends spotted her. “Henry heads to the greenhouse on bad days.” Was all Donovan said before walking away. Kylie took a breath, hiked her bag higher onto her shoulder, and headed to the greenhouse. What more did she have to fear?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The door was unlocked, so she walked in and... Immediately took off her cardigan. “Lee?”

“Kylie...” His voice wasn’t confident like it usually was, it was hoarse and weak. She maneuvered her way around all the planter boxes before finding Lee sitting on a small, poorly made if she was being honest, wooden bench that was surrounded by peonies of varying colours. It was strange seeing Lee the way he was. Sickly pale, eyes red, exhausted lax muscles. “You’re scared too.”

“Terrified... I don’t know how you’ve dealt with this your whole life...” Kylie couldn’t control her emotions anymore. Lee tugged her by the wrist to sit beside him and wrapped her in his arms. “I don’t know how I’ve dealt with it either. I don’t think I do, really.”

“Does chocolate help? Cause I’ve got some in my bag...”

“Oh, yes. Chocolate helps.” The rest of their last two periods were spent crying, hugging, and eating chocolate in the greenhouse. They didn’t find out until they were leaving that the last of the fire had been put out, and that no first responders had died, and while three had been injured none of them were from firehouse 51.

“This may seem childish, and I know you don’t do this, but I think I’m gonna head to 51... I need to see that they’re okay for myself...”

“The only reason my siblings and I don’t do that is because our mom manages to keep them in the dark still. She used the child safety functions to keep the news from giving us alerts, she only tells us something happened after the ash has settled, or she just tells us that dad had a bad shift a half hour before he gets home. She runs so much interference, but, I... I disabled the child safety stuff when I was twelve, so that I could watch some PG-14 movies, I didn’t find out about the news notifications until a month later. I mean, I saw that news apps were specifically selected when I disabled the setting, but I didn’t think anything of it until they got a call to a train wreck. I had never been more afraid for my dad in my life. I hadn’t fully comprehended just how dangerous my dad’s job was until that day. Every five minutes there was a... higher body count, reports of trouble at the scene, a video of a gas explosion that 51 was barely able to control... I strongly believe that it was the worst day of my life. I wanted to go to the firehouse, I told my mom that I found out from friends, I didn’t want her to turn the news off again... But she told me I couldn’t go see him. I had to wait. It was a long four hour hours. So, I get it. If you want, there’s some time before I have to pick up my brothers and sister. How about we go pick up some doughnuts, then my siblings, and then make a visit to 51.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want you to feel like you have to do this for me.”

“Yeah, this way I get to see my dad after fearing for his life all day and I can use you being worried as an excuse when my mom asks.” Kylie laughed as Lee smirked, proud of his plan.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Hey Brett.”

“Hey, I brought you doughnuts, courtesy of the Hermann Horde and Kylie.”

“How annoyed is Hermann that the nickname caught on?”

“Very.”

“So, how do the kids look? I imagine at least Lee Henry and Kylie saw the news today.”

“Kylie looked like she was going to burst into tears when she saw Stella and Severide. Lee looked like a weight came off his shoulders when he saw Hermann. But then, he uh...”

“Hm?”

“Lee Henry looked at Kylie and smiled, really softly, and he got this puppy dog look in his eyes.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I know what I saw.”

“You think there’s something going on?”

“Not yet... But I’m keeping my eye out.”

#One Chicago #Chicago Fire #chicago med #stella kidd #Kelly Severide #stellaride #stella x kelly #kelly severide x stella kidd #matt casey #matt x sylvie #sylvie brett #matt casey x sylvie brett #brettsey #Christopher Herrmann

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angelicthor · 5 years

Text

billion dollar man - part 11

pairing: tony stark x reader

summary: after mounting bills and debt cause you to look at alternative means of making money, you’re thrown into a whole different kind of life when one of the most famous billionaires on the block offers to be your sugar daddy, of course in exchange for a different from of payment. non-superhero au.

warnings/genre: +18 only, sugarbaby/daddy relationship, slightly nat-centric chapter, FLUFF

masterlist | billion dollar man masterlist

a/n: this is the last of the reuploads! the next chapter is gonna be brand spanking new (and its super long oops), as always please let me know what you think!

Staying up with Tony in his lab become routine for you after that night, whether it be going down with him knowing he couldn’t sleep or waking up to an empty bed and seeking him out, Tony’s lab soon became a familiar place to you. Sometimes Tony would work and talk to you as he did and others you simply went down there to sleep, curling up with a blanket on an empty workbench wanting him to know that he wasn’t alone, and you were happy to see that little by little Tony was indeed joining you to sleep more and more.

He still didn’t sleep enough but it was a start and one you would happily take.

Nat’s birthday was fast approaching, and you had helped everywhere you could with the planning, the moulin rouge themed party bigger than anything you had ever seen before in your life. Nat sure as hell had gone the full mile for this and nearly everything was ready, the both of you were shopping for your outfits today but there was one thing you had yet to do: get her a birthday present.

I mean, what do you buy for someone who has everything?

You had racked your brain for days and the closer her birthday got the more you began to panic. You were meeting up with Nat later and you wanted to have some sort of idea before you did so you could drop some subtle hints and test for a reaction before you actually bought anything.

The paper with ‘Nat’s present ideas’ scribbled at the top was void of any other writing – the same as it had been for the past 5 days – and with a huff you jumped from the couch, dropping the pen you were twiddling in your hands as you went off in search of Tony.

Tony was sitting in his office, eyes mulling over the papers in front of him when you sat yourself on his lap, arms wrapping around his neck as you nuzzled into his neck. Although his eyes never left the papers on the desk, a ghost of a smile played at his lips at the feeling of you pressed tightly against him.

“Aren’t you supposed to be meeting Nat soon?” Tony murmured, pressing a kiss against your forehead as his hand gripped your waist keeping you close to him.

“I am but I have a problem.”

Tony’s eyes snapped up to yours, worry filling them instantly at your words as his gaze washed over you, searching for any signs of injury or distress. Unable to find any, Tony quirked a brow at you, leaning back in his chair as he gave you his full attention, “What’s wrong?”

“I have zero ideas on what to get Nat for her birthday and I don’t have long left! What if I can’t find anything in time and then I’m the only one that hasn’t got her anything and then I’ve hurt her-”

“Wait, wait; that’s what’s bothering you?” Tony asked you incredulously, staring at you with a slack jaw before he started to chuckle at your expense, “Y/N, baby, you don’t have to worry about that. Presents aren’t really a thing in this world, presents are pre-bought and delivered to parties by the host. It’s a little redundant to ask people to get you stuff when you already know exactly what you want and can afford it easily, this way there’s no disappointment or drama of ‘oh they never bought me anything’, you know?”

“Wait so no one gets anyone any presents? Ever? That seems really… cold. I mean, for me, presents were never about how much money someone spent or if it was something I really wanted, the best presents were those personal things that only that person could have thought to have got you. You know, the inside jokes and the special memories that only you have together.”

Tony watched you with a fond expression as your teeth worried at your bottom lip, troubled that gift giving simply wasn’t a custom here, one side of his mouth curling in an adoring smirk. “You’re something else, you know that?” He murmured, tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear, finger grazing your cheek before he gently pulled you into a sweet kiss, “Don’t worry about Nat beautiful, she’s just happy to have you as a friend, trust me there’s not much out there that she doesn’t already own anyway.”

The sound of your ringtone cut through the room, Tony pressing one final lingering kiss to your lips before he let you go, watching as you pulled the phone from your pocket and saw the photo of you and Nat lighting up the screen. You smiled at the picture before you swiped to answer it, leaving Tony’s office as you headed to fetch your jacket, the phone pressed to your ear as you listened to Nat eagerly tell you how excited she was.

“Anyway, I’m sitting outside waiting for you to make an appearance so hurry the fuck up!” Nat cut the phone off without so much as letting you say ‘bye’ and you could only chuckle at her impatience.

You stared at the photo of the two of you once more before it faded from the screen, the cogs in your brain starting to slowly turn as an idea began to form for her present. Clicking on your photos you scrolled through the many pictures you had stored there of you, Nat, and the rest of the gang – the silly selfies and off-guard shots brought a smile to your face and you remember the look Nat had when she saw your first photo together, the naturalness of it was something she was unfamiliar with, telling you that the only real photos she had where from professional photographers or paparazzi and she had practically begged you to send it to her.

That’s when it hit you like a tonne of bricks, the perfect present for Nat; a photo album filled with personal photos of her and Sam and her friends. Grinning to yourself, you pocketed the phone and dashed out the front door to meet with Nat, practically flinging yourself into her car as she laughed at your enthusiasm.

“Wow Y/N, keep this up and people might thing you actually missed me,” Nat teased as the car pulled off towards the designer stores Nat had requested you go to.

Given that Nat was throwing a Moulin Rouge themed party, it was no surprise she was requesting that people dress appropriately and when Natasha Romanoff requested something only a fool would say no. She had asked you to come shopping with her for her outfit, wanting your opinion before she purchased something and giving you the opportunity to get yours as well.

Entering the store, you were blown away by the various outfits on display; beautiful corsets embedded with diamonds on mannequins in the window whilst luxurious feather fans and headdresses lined the shelves. One thing you did notice however, was that the store was near empty, the only other people in it bar you and Nat seemed to work there but before you could question it, one of the women were approaching you with a wide grin.

“Miss Romanoff! We’re so glad to see you; per your request this is completely private so feel free to browse at your leisure and myself and Mary-Anne are here to help you with anything you need,” The woman - who’s name tag read Julianne - informed you, holding her arms out wide to gesture to the empty store.

You arched a brow at Nat in disbelief and she only gave you a sly smirk in response before dragging you over to look through everything in the store. Mary-Anne brought you both a glass of champagne as you surveyed everything in the store, Nat holding things against her body for some idea of how it would look, adding the one’s she liked to her every growing pile to try on later.

Nat also forced you to pick out the ones you liked, adding them to your own pile but you were far more reluctant than her, the idea of wearing something so form-fitting and revealing in front of so many people making you apprehensive.

Heading to the back where the changing rooms were you both tried outfits on for the other, leaving your favourites until last of course, and giving each other opinions on what looked good and what you could pair it with.

Whilst you changed into your final outfits, you called out to Nat through the wall of the dressing room; “Hey Nat, once we’re done here do you want to get a massage? My back is killing me.”

“Yeah of course, what did you do?”

Unable to think of an excuse you tried to brush of Nat’s concern, but you should have known by now that it wouldn’t have been that easy, “Oh, it’s nothing, just a little stiff is all.”

“Y/N.”

You could hear the warning tone in Nat’s voice as you finished adjusting your corset, cringing before you slowly opened the door and saw her standing there with her arms crossed and brow raised like a disappointed mother.

Glancing behind you at Julianne and Mary-Anne you made sure they were occupied and not eavesdropping, grabbing Nat’s arm and moving her further away from the two just to be safe before you told her the truth.

“It’s just, Tony’s being doing really well with therapy and he is sleeping more but he still spends a lot of time in the lab, so I started going down there with him; sometimes I can stay awake but sometimes I sleep on one of the work benches down there and it’s not exactly been great for my back.”

Nat’s expression morphed into one of concern, moving closer to reassuringly grip your forearms, “Why are you sleeping in the lab, why are you even down there to begin with when Tony has a perfectly good mattress to sleep on upstairs? Is he making you do this because I-”

“No! Nat, god no he doesn’t ask me to do it it’s just – I just don’t want him to feel alone you know? I think that’s always been part of the problem for him,” You mused, Nat nodding her head slowly in understanding, “Please don’t tell Tony Nat, he’ll only feel guilty and it’s not his fault I promise, besides it’s nothing a little massage therapy won’t fix.”

“Hey, you never have to worry about me telling anybody anything ok? You’re my best friend, your trust means everything to me, I’ll take it to the grave I promise but I do have one question; are you sure that what you feel for Tony is just ‘friendship’ or whatever bullshit you said this arrangement is?”

You froze at Nat’s question; you knew that you were worried about Tony, who wouldn’t be? And you’d do anything to help him. But you’d do the same for any of your friends. Wouldn’t you?

You did have to admit that whatever lines you did have were beginning to become blurred but whether it was extending past platonic at this point you couldn’t decipher and you knew it was dangerous territory to try to at this point.

Swallowing against the dryness in your throat, you shook your head of the dazed feeling that had come over you, giving Nat a soft smile in reassurance. “We’re just friends Nat, I promise.”

Nat hesitated for a moment and you panicked thinking she was going to question you more but to your relief she simply grinned and took your hand in hers, leading you to the huge mirror so you could appreciate what you and she were wearing.

“Wow, you look good,” You complimented, eyes wandering over her very eye-catching outfit. Nat’s outfit consisted of a corseted bodysuit and was completely embellished in tiny silver diamonds with black diamond detailing that caught every ounce of light, making her shimmer with every slight movement. The outfit was finished off with fishnet tights that had diamonds sown into them and black silk gloves that ended at her wrists, a black top hat with a diamond completed the ensemble and if you didn’t know any better you would think she was off to perform any second now.

Nat could sure as hell rock this look that was for sure.

“Correction; WE look fucking amazing,” Nat said with a pointed look, linking her arm through yours as you smiled at her reflection.

You did have to admit that you liked what you saw, the idea of wearing to Nat’s birthday party seemed less daunting then it did half an hour ago and you sure as hell couldn’t wait for a certain billionaire philanthropist to see you in it.

Unlike Nat’s outfit, yours came in two separate pieces, a blush pink satin corset and a matching pair of panties, the corset had minor diamond detailing on it - compared to Nat’s which was covered completely in them - but it did have a diamond fringe that followed the along the bottom of the corset, creating a V shape on your front and behind. There was a diamond embellished garter strap that came down from the corset and attached to the matching pink hold-ups you were wearing. Your white silk gloves reached your elbow and you had a white and pink feather piece clipped into your hair.

You both admired each other in the mirror some more before your eyes met Nat’s in the reflection, smiling at her as you linked your hands together, “You’re my best friend too ya know, well, you and Wanda.”

Much to your surprise Nat pulled you into a bone-crushing hug and you froze at the unexpected gesture before you melted into her touch, wrapping your arms firmly around her as you returned the embrace.

The two of you were pulled apart when Julianne asked if everything was ok or if there was anything else that you needed.

“Everything’s great: we’re definitely gonna be taking these.” Nat answered, the both of you heading back into the dressing rooms to quickly change back into your clothes.

Nat finished everything with the order and even paid for your outfit even though you told her not to and Mary-Anne arranged the delivery to be sent to Tony’s apartment given that you would be getting ready there. You didn’t understand why you couldn’t just take the one you had tried on home, but Nat explained that they were only for show, not for sale, the ones you both would be wearing would be made to order and delivered to you.

After a successful day of shopping together, you went out for lunch at Nat’s favourite bistro chatting more about her upcoming party and what she had planned, both of you laughing over the boys’ latest shenanigans before she asked you if she could meet Wanda. The request took you by surprise but what shocked you more was the fact that the Natasha Romanoff looked nervous, your wide eyes and slack jaw morphed into a warm smile as you reached across the table and took her hand in yours, telling her that you’d love for her to get to know Wanda at which a relieved smile played at her lips.

The conversation soon returned to the usual and you and Nat headed off to get massages, having the kinks and knots in your back worked out felt heavenly and the day you two had spent together had put you in amazing spirits so much so that as soon as Nat had dropped you back off at Tony’s you had headed back out to gather everything you needed to make Nat’s birthday present.

And that’s how Tony found you, sitting on the floor of his living room, an open scrap book in front of you and a stack of photos to your left, scissors, glitter, glue, and stickers surrounding you as you decorated the pages surrounding the photos you had glued to the center.

Tony simply allowed himself to watch you unnoticed for a minute longer, allowing himself to take in the enthusiasm you crafted the book together with, the sparkle in your eyes and pleased grin on your lips causing him to smile too, your happiness far too contagious to be ignored.

He couldn’t quite place what it was about you that made you so damn special; your kind heart, your selflessness, your loyalty and dedication, the fact that you could – not matter the situation – get him to laugh, the way you had taken every single one of his problems in your stride, he honestly didn’t know. Tony was beginning to suspect that he would never understand how anyone could be so astounding without even realising but as he watched you carefully add glitter to the page you were working on, tongue poking slightly out as you concentrated on your design, he knew that he had never made a greater choice then when he chose you.

a/n: i don’t have a tag list but if you want alerts please follow @angelicthorwrites and turn on notifications

#tony stark x reader #tony x reader #tony stark x you #tony x you #tony stark series #angelicthorwrites

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imaginarycircus · 4 years

Text

Today is my birthday and all well wishes are giddily accepted. I’m going to level with you. I’ve felt disappointed in myself lately more and more. For the last few years I’ve been increasingly selfconscious and kind of embarrassed about my age, my appearance, and my lack of success for a given value of success. Like I’m an old washing machine that needs to be taken out back and disassembled for parts or used as a fire pit. The worst part is that I knew I was selling myself a bill of goods and I couldn’t stop.

This is venting. I’d love it if you have time and energy to listen, but please don’t give me advice. If you want to share your experiences or feelings that is cool. I’d love to hear about you. I’m sorry this is like a 3 TED talk series, but you do not have to read it and I don’t expect anyone to do so.

If a friend told me they felt like this I’d theoretically grab their face in both hands and look into their eyes and say, “You precious, wonderful, jar of dumbass jam.”

“You have a messy life and stuff that gets in the way and maybe you’re not always doing your best, but you try to and you’re nice to animals and you sure do cry about them a lot. This writing deal is hard. You started 17 years ago, which was a bit late, and you’ve worked really hard. Despite every rejection, you have not stopped. Do you realize how much better you’ve become than you were? Sure. You’ve had some bad luck. Everyone has, but yours is yours. It sucks, but don’t let it define you. Oh. You already let it define you. Past-you is gone and now-you can stop doing that.

You got the MFA. You wrote a novel and your agent couldn’t sell it, but you did it. And you got an agent, which is pretty good. You did well in that Penguin contest. You didn’t win, but top 50 out of 5,000 isn’t too bad. You created two scripted series and wrote the first season of one of them 2-3 times and planned the other in exquisite detail. It’s in development hell and I know you’re tired and you’ve kind of given up hope, but the people negotiating stuff believe in your work (also @kyrieanne‘s work.) You’ve written a lot. You’re writing a novel right now and your agent is on board. Plus you’re still riding around on this planet. There were times you wanted to get off the ride, but you didn’t.

No one else but you swims in the alchemical product of your past, your traumas, your joys, your education, your hard work, your chronic health issues, and your many mistakes. Own it and fucking walk up the chest of anyone who says you’re not good enough. Yeah. You got walk up your own chest now, buddy. Take some advil. I love you. Take out the trash. And remember you had three separate cancer scares this year. Two surgeries. Two biopsies, one of them a total nightmare, and you were bleeding so much because of that uterine polyp you had no iron for carrying oxygen to your bits and bobs or your brainbox. Take a breath. Take a shower. Drink water. Go out this evening and eat a warm buttered lobster roll and drink some good wine and realize how fucking lucky you are to be able to do that. I love you, you beautiful, dumbass jar of jam.”

But my inner convo has been like, “Dude. Honey. Me. Plz stop. Comparisons are odious. Yes, we like John Donne. No, we do not usually think about ourselves in the third person, but for this exercise it makes sense that even when I am talking to myself I may be talking to another part of myself I’m so at odds with they seem like a different person. We contain multitudes! We also have the adhd and what were we talking about? Oh, yes. We think we’re old and a failure. We’ve bought into it so hard that it keeps us up at night and stalks us during the day. If it walks like a failure duck and talks like a failure duck...

Okay. The WE thing has to stop. Switching to 2nd person, extremely goddamn familiar.

You’re 48 (49 today) and everyone around you is seems so accomplished and has racked up cool resume worthy successes, which you learn about on that bastion or truth and moral rectitude--the twitter. They ARE things. While you? Are nothing in particular. Mostly a lot of “does not live up to potential.” And what the fuck have you done? 3k NY Times crossword puzzles? You haven’t published anything and maybe that’s because you’re not a very good writer. You’ve written a lot of shit in the last two decades, but where has it gotten you? Maybe you’re a dilettante with no substance. You can’t prove you aren’t.

People 20 years younger have accomplished so much more. Now you’re old and annoying and occasionally confused by the youths and their slang. You’re still never sure of the nuance of bougie because it seems to be used in so many different ways. You got cagey about telling anyone your age bc the number sounds alarming. You know you’re buying into a bullshit patriarchal system that devalues people further if they’re no longer baby factories.

And there was that bullshit when some partially baked people told adults to get out of fandom and you kind of said fuck that noise gently with a chainsaw, but you also felt bad. Like an old cranky dude in a ratty old bathrobe who pours beer on his generic cheerios (tragically called rings’o’oats) and shovels them into his mouth thinking about how he could have BEEN someone, but was struck down by tragedy, or an ego so fragile a light breeze destroyed it. Who refuses to teach a young whipper snapper the ancient art of smacking an object from one place to another bc he’s golluming over his manpain. An off-brand Obi Wan who must be harassed to rejoin the human race and who starts to live again after helping some prodigy succeed. Except you? You’re in the ratty bathrobe phase, probably for eternity, and no one is coming to ask you to do anything, because you never did anything. You’re getting wrinkles and you feel invisible a lot of the time in a way that makes you want to set things on fire bc you’re a middle aged lady, who is not particularly pretty, accomplished, or a mom so wtf are you? And you know that’s a world of absolute bullshit, but you’re soaking it like it’s the world’s biggest tub of Palmolive and you don’t remember getting into it. You know what would make you feel better and give you an ersatz sense of accomplishment?”

And then I do another crossword puzzle. I went back into therapy with someone who specializes in adhd. It’s helping. I haven’t been around here much bc... welp. You’re reading this. I didn’t want to be No Face in Spirited Away vomiting all this trash on you, especially because I know it’s the most womp womp, irritating, middle aged white lady thinks her life is hard and must tell you about it at great length. But then I remember my shitty feelings are valid and I do not ever expect anyone to read this so I can put here if it helps me.

I will be fine. These are human shaped problems. But if you’ve read this nonsense and thought about it, giggled at it, or wondered if you should call someone like I’m a cat stuck in a tree who did not know fully comprehend the consequences of her actions? Thank you. I appreciate you. As always I hope a dog looks at you and wants to be your friend, or a cat walks on your hair because it loves you. (It should go without saying, but feel free to substitute any animal or item into my well wishes as per your requirements.) If you need an excuse to eat cake today--I have decreed that you must do this in my honor. But only if you feel like it and you can eat cake. Also the cake can be made of anything. The cake could be avocados or mathematical. Use your imagination.

To wit; I am 49 fucking years old today. I’m owning it. I’m owning every wrinkle and sun spot. (I started using a serum to deal with sun damage and it seems to work. People told me to wear sunscreen, but I did not.) I’m owning my own failures (and sun damage). I’m learning to own my successes too, especially the ones that don’t make sense to other people without a power point presentation, a Q&A, and a ritual burning of certain artifacts.

Here’s what I’ve done with my life. I’ve lived it.

#personal #food cw #blithering about my own nonsense #I'm Stuart Smalley #It's 17 degrees for the 17th?#I apologize for my needlessly Baroque prose #mental health #I never thought I'd be middle aged because it's a state of mind #Now I realize it's the physical equivalent of being a 1985 Honda with 150k miles on it

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like-a-bag-of-potatoes · 4 years

Text

Hunted - Chapter One

A/N: This series is a military AU that will feature characters from Marvel and Supernatural. This will be a rollercoaster and I will try to warn accordingly for every chapter. Also, I want to throw out there that feedback is the fastest way to my heart. And last but not least, a shout out to my girl @thorne93 for betaing all of this (and yelling at me), and to my girl @superapplepie for letting me test this story out on her, you guys are the best.

Flashbacks are italics.

Warnings: Angst.

Characters (this chapter): Julia Smith (OFC), Bucky Barnes, Clint Barton, Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Steve Rogers, Thor Odinson, Natasha Romanoff, Sam Wilson, Tony Stark

Wordcount: 2736

Series Summary:

Julia Smith has spent her entire adult life serving her country, but now she lives her life as an inactive marine in New York city. She’s trying hard to find her footing as a civilian, but she can’t shake the restlessness that has settled in her bones. One day she gets an anonymous note with information about a friend’s suicide, and the chase for information begins.

Her first stop is her old comrade, James Barnes, and together they set out to reunite their old squad, to gather intel, and to solve a mystery. The deeper they dig, the more dangerous it gets, and it does not take long before they understand that they’re being hunted. Now it’s a race against the clock. Can they get to the bottom of this and find out who’s hunting them before they lose anymore men?

The squad is united again for one last mission, and it’s gonna be one hell of a ride.

May 16th 2018, New York City:

“So, how are you doing today, Julia?”

The bright, homey office of Dr. Maria Madsen had become Julia's refuge after coming home from the war. She could close her eyes and still see every plant, picture, and piece of furniture in there, right down to the little notebook the doctor had next to her phone. Even the lavender scent that filled the office gave her a sense of calm now, even though it had given her a headache in the beginning. At first, Julia had been in here three times a week, but because of the progress she was making, it was down to once a week now.

Julia Smith was a simple woman in many ways, but her mind got complicated after the war, something she was still trying to adjust to. During the last six months of her deployment she had thought much about life as a civilian, how peaceful and simple it would be. She had hopes and dreams for her future, but it proved to be much more difficult to adjust than she had imagined. “I'm doing alright,” she said, locking eyes with her therapist. “Been sleeping and eating well, and the nightmares aren't as frequent anymore.”

Maria looked at her patient, trying to find something in her body language that indicated a truth that wasn't spoken. She was used to veterans lying to her, telling her what they thought she needed to hear to give them a clean bill of health, but Julia wasn't like the rest of them. She had come here voluntarily, and even though she was reluctant to talk at first, she had opened up and kept the dialog going, making Maria's job a little simpler. Still, she couldn't help her instinct, so she always looked for subtle clues in her patients. “And how are you dealing with Sam Wilson's suicide?”

It had been three weeks since Julia got the call from her comrade, James, that Sam had ended his life. “I'm dealing. The funeral was hard, but I'm glad I got to say goodbye to him,” she said, averting her eyes to try and hide the tears that stung behind them. “It was nice to see the squad again too.”

Maria watched her patient, the slight quiver of her chin and the way her eyes glossed over told her that Julia was still mourning her friend. “You're allowed to grieve,” she noted.

“I know.” Julia was tough, she had to be to make it through this life, and showing her vulnerable side like this was something that didn't come naturally to her, it was something she had to learn, something she was still working on.

Julia had the military running through her blood. She came from a long line of military men, so when her father was killed in combat there was no doubt in her mind that she was to follow in his footsteps. The day of her eighteenth birthday, she enlisted. Camp Lehigh became her home and her squad became her family, but as a girl, she had to prove herself every day, she had to prove that she could hold her own. She had to be tough.

“You have lost a lot of your friends-”

“Family,” Julia corrected.

“Sorry. You have lost a lot of your family since you got deployed the first time, and a couple more this past year, do all those memories resurface when you get a phone call like the one you got when Sargent Wilson died?” Maria asked, trying to get Julia to talk about her losses.

“They're on my mind every day. Everyone we lost in battle and everyone we lost since. I don't think that there will ever be a day that they aren't on my mind,” she said with a very defensive tone, feeling like her doctor didn't appreciate how closely knitted one became when you went into battle together.

“That's understandable,” Maria mumbled while she wrote something down on her notepad. “Does it affect you differently when they are a victim of war as opposed to victims of suicide?”

“They are all victims of war,” Julia stated simply. “Whether they died in battle or took their own life after, they're still victims of war. The things that we see, the things we have to do… they never leave you, the war never leaves you,” she said coldly, her eyes drifting to the vast window that overlooked some of Manhattan.

“How about you? Can you live with the things you have seen and done?” Maria asked, sensing a change in her patient. Right now she couldn't put her finger on what it was, but something was different today.

“Are you asking me if I'm suicidal, doc?” Julia quizzed, raising her brows in disbelief as her attention was drawn back to her therapist.

“Maybe.” Maria shifted in her seat, leaning forward as she awaited the answer that never came. “Are you still going to group?”

“No. I haven't been there in a few months,” Julia informed. “Sitting in a ring with old geezers talking about their old army buddies wasn't exactly therapeutic to me.”

“Alright. Do you at least have someone else to talk to? A friend maybe? Someone who can check in on you every now and then?”

“This is bullshit. I'm not suicidal,” Julia snapped.

“Okay. It just feels like you're in a different headspace today, that's why I'm asking,” Maria defended as she leaned back in her chair.

“You know, I think I've had enough therapy for today.” Julia got to her feet and grabbed her purse from the coat rack in the office.

Maria also got to her feet. This was not the first time that Julia finished a session early, but there was something in her behavior on this particular day that worried Dr. Madsen. “Do you want to schedule your appointment for next week before you go?” she asked as she put her notes on the chair she had just been occupying.

“I'll call and make an appointment,” Julia said dismissively, storming out of the office without looking back at her therapist. For the last nine months she had been coming here, any therapist worth their degree would know by now that she wasn't suicidal, it was insulting that she even got asked that question.

“Ms. Smith?” Dr. Madsen’s receptionist called after her, but Julia didn't stop so she had to run after her. Once out in the street, the dirty blonde woman caught up to Julia, waving an envelope in her hand. “This was left here for you,” she said, handing Julia the piece of paper.

“Who gave this to you?” Julia asked after seeing her name neatly written on the envelope. No address or stamp on it, which meant that someone delivered it personally, someone who knew she'd be here. An uneasy feeling crept up on her as she looked into the secretary's blue eyes.

“I don't know. It was on my desk when I got back from the bathroom, figured it might be important,” she said with a shrug.

Julia's eyes was trained at the envelope as she offered a quick thank you to the woman next to her.

***

The door to the small studio apartment in Brooklyn flung open and was shut just as fast when Julia finally reached her home. The small space wasn't really decorated at all, no personal belongings except for a picture on her nightstand of her squad, her family. She had all the necessities of living, a kitchen, pots and pans, a bed, a small television, a tiny bathroom, but there was absolutely nothing in there that would give any clue as to who lived there, and that's exactly how she wanted it.

Grabbing her trusted bottle of whiskey, she sat down on the lumpy couch and took a big gulp of the golden liquid, not bothering with a glass. The uneasy feeling that had settled in her after she got the envelope put her nerves in high gear, and she needed some liquid courage before she opened it. Ever since she got the news about Sam, she had been on edge, her instincts telling her that something wasn't right, but ultimately she had chalked it up to grief. However, she had spent all her adult life relying on her instincts, so why should this be any different?

With a deep breath she ripped the envelope open and pulled out the note that was folded up inside of it. It was handwritten, neat and easily read, and just by looking at the letters she knew it was a woman who wrote it.

Julia Smith.

You don't know me, and you have no reason to trust me, but I have been working on a case for the past year, and now it has lead me back to you and the last mission you worked during your deployment last year. I can't give you much information, but I wanted you to know that Sam Wilson and Natasha Romanoff were murdered.

A higher power is at work here, and I am working the case on my end, but dead soldiers are a bit beyond my pay grade. I don't care what you do with this information, but I didn't feel right sitting on it.

Regards,

Anonymous friend.

“Shit.”

Julia ran over to her closet, knocking the whiskey over on her way, but there was no time to worry about that. Her military issued duffle bag lay on the bottom of the closet, already packed and ready for a quick get away, so she pulled it out and threw it on her bed before she started taking off her clothes to get changed.

Out of the duffle, she pulled a black pair of jeans and a black t-shirt that she threw on before grabbing her combat boots from their place by the front door. If anyone had seen her like this, they would think this all happened in a frenzy, a person panicking and acting irrational, but it was everything but. She was calm and collected, she knew what had to be done, and she did it efficiently.

When she stepped into the bathroom, she put her brown hair up in a high ponytail and put on a black baseball cap, pulling the hair through the little hole in the back. She needed to hide her face as best she could. When she left this apartment, she needed to be invisible.

The last drops from the whiskey bottle fell to the floor as she shoved her gun into the lining of her pants before she put on her leather jacket to hide it. Now all that was left was the photo on her nightstand. Her slender fingers picked it up carefully, the smiling faces of her squad, her family, greeting her. These people were all she had in her life, and she intended to keep the rest of them alive, no matter the cost. The last thing she did before leaving her apartment was to fold the picture in half, putting a little more wear on the crease that had formed down the middle of the photo, and securing it in her back pocket.

***

Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes was the only one other than Julia that lived in the city, so he was her next logical stop, that didn't mean she felt good about what she was about to tell him. Navigating the streets of New York was simple enough, hiding in the masses of people, going unnoticed. But Julia had been looking over her shoulder the whole way, backtracking and making detours to make sure she hadn't been followed before she finally knocked on his door.

“Jules?” he questioned when he opened the door. It wasn't like her to show up unannounced, or at all for that matter. It wasn't that he wasn't happy to see her, but an unannounced visit normally came with bad news, and by the look on her face, this wasn't any different.

“Hey, Bucky,” she said, looking over her shoulder and down the empty corridor. “Can I come in?”

“Sure.” He opened the door wider and stepped aside to let her in, also letting his eyes scan the corridor. Bucky had known her for years, they had trained together, served together, basically spent all their adult lives together, he knew her better than he knew himself it seemed like. Just one look at her today, and he knew something was wrong, something big. “Want to clue me in here?”

This apartment looked a lot like Julia's, sparsely decorated, small, the bare minimum of what someone needed to live. The same photograph that she had in her back pocket was stuck to his fridge with a magnet, but other than that, no identifiers of who lived here. It's strange how this becomes the norm after spending most of your life moving around the world.

“Something happened today.”

“What?” he asked, concern flashing over his handsome face, his blue eyes narrowing as she pulled out the envelope and handed it to him. “What is this?”

“This was dropped off for me at my therapist’s office today. I don't think I was inside for more than ten minutes,” she informed.

Bucky kept his eyes on her as he opened the envelope and pulled out the note inside, unsure that he wanted to know what it contained. When his eyes dropped down to the words written, Julia kept a steady eye on his face, how his eyes moved across the page, how his eyebrows scrunched together as he took in what was actually written, and how his strong jaw flexed under the dark scruff that was covering it. She watched him get angrier and angrier with every word, until his eyes met hers again, a fire ignited behind them.

“Is this a joke?” he asked through gritted teeth.

“Do you think I would show up here like this if I thought this was a joke?” Jules challenged. As marines they were taught to hide their emotions, to bury them until the mission was over, and Bucky was normally one of the hardest to read. That wasn't the case now though, and she couldn't really blame him. “I told you that something was off about Wilson's death.”

“His suicide, you mean?” he countered.

“His murder.”

“You’re being paranoid, Jules,” Bucky said dismissively as he shoved the note back into her hands. “Natasha and Sam killing themselves was a tragedy, but it's not exactly uncommon for veterans to commit suicide. Doesn't mean that there are some kind of conspiracy behind it.”

“Come on, Buck. You have to admit that something isn't right here. Can you honestly tell me that the Sam Wilson you knew would blow his own brains out?”

“Hey!” Bucky warned as he took two steps closer. “He was a good man and a great marine, but he wasn't immune to the shit we did. We don't know what was going on in his head, maybe he couldn't deal with it anymore.” Bucky was a big guy, a head taller than Julia, and muscled from head to toe, he looked scary as all hell, but Jules knew that he had an even bigger heart than most people she knew, so she wasn't afraid of him.

“I don't believe that for a second,” Jules said stubbornly. She didn't as much as flinch as he came closer, towering over her while his voice was low and gravelly. She knew that the only reason why he was showing his emotions was because he was having doubts as well, but maybe he needed more time to get on board with this. “I'm gonna get to the bottom of this, and I'm here to ask for your help,” she said calmly and with as much resolve as she could muster up.

“Jesus, Jules. This isn't real. There's no story here, just leave it alone.”

“You know I'm not gonna do that.” She shoved the note back in her duffle and threw it over her shoulder. “Thanks for nothing, Sergeant Barnes,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm as she turned away from him and made her way towards the door.

“Don't be like that,” he yelled after her in an exasperated tone, but he got no response from her. “Fuck,” he muttered when she slammed the door shut behind her, leaving him alone.

********

Please let me know what you think. And if you want to be added to the tag lists, send me an ASK

#marvel fanfiction #Bucky Barnes #bucky x reader #steve rogers #dean winchester #Sam Winchester #sam wilson #natasha romanoff

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our-smooty · 5 years

Text

While The Moon Still Stands

Murdoc winced at the burning sensation in his throat as he tossed back the remainder of his rum. Moonlight glinted off the amber bottle as he turned it thoughtfully. Would Stu’s eyes be the same shade of amber right now if I hadn’t gotten in the car that day? He felt the sudden urge to watch the bottle explode into a million shards. There was no reason why he couldn’t act on that urge, of course. There was nobody outside with him. With a devilish smirk, Murdoc raised the bottle in the air. “Put that down, Murdoc. You know how Russ is about the shards you leave all over the roof.” That familiar twangy voice rang out behind him. Murdoc turned to see spiky blue hair and deep black eyes staring back at him. “I mean it. Do you really want him to have a go at you again over something stupid like this? Cuz I sure don’t wanna hear it.” 2D stepped out onto the roof, letting the door slam shut behind him. Murdoc rolled his eyes and exaggeratedly set the bottle down. “There, happy?” He snarked back, flicking his tongue out. Unimpressed as always, 2D reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette. “Yeah, actually. Got a light?” 2D looked at him expectantly, two cigarettes resting between his fingers. Of course Murdoc had a light. He always had a light. He dug his fingernails into his palm, muttering as the taller man flashed a smug grin. A quick flick of the wrist and the ends of each cigarette were lit. “You’ll have to teach me how you do that someday. Makes for a neat party trick,” 2D chuckled as he relinquished one of the cigarettes. Murdoc smirked as he pressed the cig to his lips and drew in a deep breath. “Well, first you have to make your first contact with Hell,” he chuckled darkly, blowing a steady stream of smoke into the cold night air. His companion fell quiet. Murdoc turned to look at 2D, who had gone rather pale and was now staring in shock at his unsmoked cigarette. “What did you think it was, a sleight of hand?” He joked, nudging him playfully. “It’s magic, you dunce. Come on now, don’t let it go to waste.” “Did you actually sell your soul?” 2D asked suddenly, his eyes now seeming far deeper than they had earlier. Murdoc often found that he could stare into those eyes forever and still always notice something new about them. The way the light hit them, the subtle expressions they played part in, the subtle shift whenever Stuart would roll his eyes. How they would sparkle and shine with excitement, or become dull and lifeless with each barking insult Murdoc threw his way. He found that he much preferred the shine to the emptiness, and had been trying to make Stuart shine more often as of late. But now there was a solemn darkness to them, making his already black eyes darker than the abysmal void Murdoc had stared into all those years ago. He looked away, unable to face the intensity of Stuart’s gaze any longer as he leaned back against the wall and took another long drag. “Yes. I did.” The stars shone so brightly, even through the smoke that surrounded him. 2D leaned against the wall next to him and finally took a drag of his own cigarette before tilting his head thoughtfully. “Was it worth it?” Murdoc froze. “Of course. Wouldn’t have done it unless it was worth it.” He flicked the ash off the end of his cig into a nearby potted plant. Russel would kill him for it later, not that Murdoc gave a shit. “Still have it though, of course. It’s not an upfront payment, you see. More like…well, let’s just say that when I die, I know exactly where I’ll end up this time.” He grinned, staring up at the moon. “No one can change that, no matter how hard they may try. My soul’s got a brand on it, you see. Nobody fucks with Murdoc Niccals now, eh?” He turned to Stuart, who simply raised an eyebrow in confusion. “A brand? On your soul? How’s that work?” Stuart squinted at Murdoc, and Murdoc wasn’t sure if it was because Stuart was trying to stare through him into his soul or if the man simply had the beginnings of a migraine. “The eye is the window to the soul, so they say,” Murdoc replied as he winked with his left eye. Stuart paled. “…branding is like…burning, right? So how…” 2D’s eyes widened in horror. “No.” “Yep.” “No. No way. Holy shit, that-that’s awful!” 2D cried out, tossing away his half-smoked cigarette as he grabbed Murdoc’s shoulder. Murdoc frowned distastefully at the wasted source of nicotine and tried to shake off the tingling feeling in his shoulder from the other man’s touch. “Didn’t hurt like I expected it to. Well, not physically, anyway. Just sorta felt like someone tryna gouge your eye out.” He drew in the last breath from his cigarette before snuffing out the end in the poor plant to his right. “No, the real pain is actually in your soul. It’s quite a blessing that we can’t feel our souls much, you know. If the human body is fragile, then the soul is like glass.” 2D’s hand fell from Murdoc’s shoulder. “…when did you…?” “Remember the night that Noodle recorded you singing the vocals to Gravity?” 2D nodded. “Russ found you passed out on the floor in the basement, shaking like a leaf. You didn’t come out of the Winnie for a week after that.” His eyes widened in realisation. “Wait, that’s when you-“ “Yep. Satan reached through my eye into my soul and branded it. Burned like fire throughout every part of me.” Murdoc shook his head and headed for the balcony. Uneven footsteps from behind signalled that 2D was following. “…Have you ever felt your soul hurt, Stu? It’s like the worst heartache, your worst fears, everything that makes you feel like absolute shit. But that night, it was everything I’ve ever felt, all at once, crashing over me like a tsunami.” He chuckled darkly. “Of course, I deserve nothing less. That’s just a taste of what lies ahead, waiting for me at the end of it all. So you know what?” Murdoc turned to look at Stu, who was visibly biting back apologies and tears. “I’m damn sure gonna get my money’s worth before that happens.” The wind kicked up a bit, tossing about thick strands of soft blue hair. 2D stared silently at Murdoc, tears finally rolling down his cheeks. “Why did you really do it?” He whispered softly, stepping forward and gently putting his hand on Murdoc’s arm. The bassist smiled and wiped away Stuart’s tears with a thumb. “Why do you think? It was for you, dumbass. All of you.” Murdoc turned back around, leaning over the balcony. The shifting shapes in the dark caught the light at odd angles, the sheen of necrotic blood becoming nauseatingly hypnotic. “Your shitty parents sure weren’t gonna let you transition. Russel couldn’t afford therapy for the shit he’s been through. Noodle? Fuck knows what kind of shit she’s seen in her life. We have a great thing going, but it wasn’t gonna pay the bills on its own. Talent isn’t enough in this business, Stuart. We needed a nudge.” “So you sold your soul?” “So I sold my soul.” Murdoc grinned. “Wasn’t using it anyway. Besides, I was already going to hell. Might as well get something out of it, yeah?” He stood upright again and patted 2D on the back. “Don’t think about it too hard, alright? Just be glad it paid the bills and got you your T. Russel’s getting the therapy he needs, Noodle’s getting a good education. Hell, you’ve got that surgery scheduled for next month. Think that would’ve happened if I hadn’t sold my soul? You’d still be skipping meals to save up for it.” 2D grimaced and grabbed Murdoc’s hand. “You didn’t need to do that. We were fine. We would have been fine,” the man pleaded, his eyes glimmering with sadness and regret. Murdoc snorted. “Can’t undo it now.” He gave one last glance at the moon before heading for the door. “C’mon, I need a drink.” 2D tugged on his arm. “Surely there’s something we could do?” “Nope. Why would I want to? I’ve accepted my fate, and to be quite honest with you, it’s quite preferable to the alternative.” Murdoc opened the door and gestured for 2D to enter. The blue-haired man paused, nose scrunched up in confusion. “Heaven?” “No, reincarnation.” Murdoc roughly shoved 2D in ahead of him. “I’ve lived too many lives, Stu. I’m done with it. Bargaining doesn’t work. Being on my best behaviour doesn’t do shit. So maybe being on Satan’s personal torture rack will end the cycle.” “But-“ “No buts, Stu. Keep walking and don’t think about it too much, yeah? I’ve already said more than I should.” Murdoc walked past him, heading for the elevator. 2D sighed and nodded, picking up the pace so as to not be left behind. They entered the elevator together, and Murdoc pressed the button for the ground floor. He wasn’t expecting to feel a large hand slide into his, grasping tightly. A quick glance confirmed that yes, 2D was holding his hand. Neither of them said a word, nor did they look each other in the eye. “So, uh…about that drink.” “Yeah?” “Want some company?” “I’ll allow it.”

(Bleh kinda lost the point of this writing tbh, it spiralled into something else entirely. i wasn’t really sure how to end it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ tried my best tho, hope you like it

#2doc #UHHHH #BEAUTIFUL #POETRY #murdoc is so self depreciating he needs a huge and some coco #smootysub #submission

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batbirdies · 4 years

Text

NaNoWriMo 2019 Batfam fic Part 7

I’m posting rough excerpts from my NaNo project this year which is a fanfic centered around Jason Todd eventually agreeing to dog sit Titus while Bruce and Damian are out of town. Involving some deep seated issues, unintended animal therapy, snarky text messages between robins and eventually, some reconciliation between father and son.

Takes place in a murky in between time sometime after Damian was resurrected.

A NOTE: These are very rough drafts, I’m copy and pasting from my google doc, I switch tense all over the place, so apologies. WARNINGS: content includes PTSD flashbacks of sorts, violence involving humans as well as animals, references to dog fighting, lots of swearing.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

“Mind telling me what the fuck this was all about?” The guy raised his eyebrows, seemed completely unphased by Jason’s poorly veiled threat a moment ago.

“Just an accident. Here, take my info.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out a business card that he held out, nothing printed on it but a phone number. Jason stared at it. “I’d be happy to cover your medical bills for that arm.” He nodded to Jason’s left forearm, still held tightly against his body. Jason plucked it out of his hand, eyeing it for a split second before tucking it into a pocket, he’d throw it away later.

“Real generous of you.” The guy smirked. Jason squinted at him, waiting for some kind of hint. “We met before?”

“Oh I doubt it.” He took a drag off the cigarette. “I’d remember your dog if we had.” He looked around Jason then, at where Titus was standing, tight up against the backs of his legs.

Jason took a step forward, fed up. “What the fuck do you want? You think I’m stupid? Your friend there sicked that dog on us, I saw it. You-“ Jason cut himself off, felt Titus nudging at the back of his leg, he gave a low bark, quiet but unhappy. He didn’t want to make any hints if the guy didn’t know anything.

Hell this was Gotham. Nut jobs did insane shit like sick their dogs on people all the time.

They however didn’t usually seem so casually unrepentant and unafraid of the police showing up.

Tall Guy raised his hands in mock surrender. “Hey now, if you hadn’t jumped in, I promise you he never would have bitten.”

“Oh, cause you’ve done this before? Is that it?”

“I don’t know what you mean, didn’t do anything, this was all just an accident. Crusher can get aggressive around other big dogs. And that is one big dog.”

“Is this seriously about Titus?” Jason was recalculating the idea that this idiot might know who he was. He chuckled.

“Titus, good name for him. He looks tough.” Jason stares at the guy, feeling a muted sort of astonishment at the idiocy in the world. Whatever this was, he wanted no part in it.

“You know what, you can get lost.” Jason started to turn away, he didn’t need to tug on the leash, Titus was happily leading the way.

The sound of rushed footsteps had him turning just in time to see the guy reaching towards Titus head, he saw the flash of a red tip of a cigarette tucked near the guys palm and lashed out before he could think better of it.

Leash still in his hand, he struck with his bad arm, snatched up the guys wrist, twisting it hard and fast until he couldn’t keep up the nonchalant act anymore.

“Ok, ok, shit man.” He sunk to his knees in an instant.

“Were you just gonna fucking burn my dog?” His arm was throbbing, the crushing grip he was keeping on the guys wrist making the pain flare like a bitch. Blood was dripping drown his arm in thick rivulets, down his hand, ruining his jacket and the assholes alike.

“Hey, hey, I just thought he looked tough-”

“So you thought you’d test your theory?” His grip was entirely too tight, he could feel the Lazarus bubbling up in him, everything in his vision taking on that vaguely green tinge.

“Hey, honestly man, I’m trying to do you a favor-”

“You fucking-”

“You like to bet? I can make you a fortune if he’s as mean as he looks.” He was on his knees, gasping out the words, gripping the wrist Jason held in his fist with his other hand desperately. Eyes wide in obvious fear. He choked, color crawling up his neck. “Please man-”

Jason didn’t make the decision to break the guys wrist, but it happened just then, his grip so tight that when he tensed at the statement - it was enough.

He gasped, “fuck man!”

“You’re lucky I don’t kill you.” Jason was shaking as he hissed out the words, skin hot, he felt the urge come up, the pulse rack through him.

Titus let out a high pitched whine, drawing back on his leash hard.

Jason let go. Took a hard step back, breath heaving, blinking away the green clouding his vision.

“What the hell man?” He was crying, clutching at his broken wrist with his good hand. Titus whined again, pulling on his leash enough to make Jason stumble a step after him.

He stood his ground for a second more, staring at this - this - “If I see you or your friend here again, you’ll leave with more than a broken wrist, you hear me?”

“Man why would you-”

“I said do you hear me?”

“Ok man, ok!”

Jason relented, letting Titus yank him around until they were walking at a brisk pace in the opposite direction. He was still fuming, filling his lungs with deep heaving breaths, trying to rid himself of the feeling of hornets buzzing around inside his chest.

It took him too long to realize that Titus was leading them the wrong direction, away from his apartment. When he finally blinked back into awareness they were two blocks away and his bloody arm was throbbing with every step he took.

Jason directed them all the way back around the block they were on instead of turning around. Feeling like he could use the exercise even while his arm hurt so bad he was hissing through his teeth. They were leaving a dripping trail of blood down the sidewalk as they went, every person they met crossed the street when they saw them coming but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He feels so tightly wound it’s a miracle he doesn’t snap like an old guitar string.

By the time they’ve traveled all the way back to Jason’s apartment Titus has gotten decidedly more exercise than required or planned and Jason feels no less angry than he had twenty minutes ago. He unlatches Titus’ leash and goes hunting for his first aid kit, stashed under his bathroom sink.

He’s pissed about his jacket, the sleeve is completely torn up and their blood all down it. It was a nice freaking jacket and an expensive one and when he tears it off in a huff and slings it over the edge of the bathtub he wonders briefly if Alfred could fix it….get the blood out, stitch up the torn pieces? Maybe that was asking too much but the man could be a miracle worker sometimes. Not to mention Jason was feeling almost a little like he owed him after the stunt with the gift, even if that was a little ridiculous and he’s never say it.

Getting a good look at his arm he’s definitely not happy. The skin is punctured to varying degrees of depth in large crescent shape, on his forearm as well as the tender skin on the inside of the arm. There’s enough blood that it takes a while for the warm water running in his sink to even rinse it away enough to tell. Following with antibacterial soap hurts like a bitch but dog bites are known for causing infections and Jason does not wanna mess with one.

He dabs it all dry with a clean dust rag he has stashed in the hallway closet, not wanting to ruin one of his actual towels with blood. It happened enough already when he came home after patrol with injuries, he was down to two good towels that didn’t have unfortunate stains.

Then he plasters a good layer of antibacterial ointment on the whole mess and covers it with two large bandages.

He still can’t calm down and he’s not totally sure why. At first he thinks it was just the confrontation, the audacity of two assholes to sick their dog on him and Titus but it’s not just that. It’s the dog fights.

Nothing should surprise him anymore.

Jason grew up on the streets. He started fighting crime before he was even a teenager. He’d died, he’d come to life, he’s been raised from a Lazarus pit, been through training like no other, done and seen things that could barely be believed.

But somehow the depravity of the human race could still shock him.

He remembers the fighting pits. The fear, the pain, the terror and violence. Remembers the twists, the random handicaps to teach him how to keep going when he was on his last leg. Remembered never really knowing what would happen if he lost, just the vague dread that it would be worse than this, worse than the constant fights and the surprise attacks and the complete lack of human connection.

Jason thinks about those dogs and he can’t fucking let it go.

He finds Titus in the living room, just standing in front of the couch like he’s been waiting for Jason to come out, his tail hanging low but wagging slowly, like he’s unsure. He huffs out a low sigh and throws his head back, stretching his neck and wondering, for a split second, if any of the shit he does, that any of them do, in costume ever makes a damned difference.

“Hey boy.” He says quietly as he shuffles back into the living room and sinks down onto the couch. “I’m not mad at you. You can relax.” He scratches at his ears when Titus follows him, and the dog lays his big ol’ head in Jason’s lap and makes a happy little snuffling noise and inspite of the morning Jason feels the edge of his mouth twitch up.

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were-cheetah-stiles · 7 years

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The College Years - Sophomore Year (Chapter 30) - Stiles Stilinski

Author: @were-cheetah-stiles

Title: “The Booty Call Boy”

Characters: Stiles Stilinski, Scott McCall, Malia Tate & Reader/OFC

Warnings: Cursing, mention of sex.

Author’s Note: Malia was not getting enough love or attention in this fic, and I think she’s hilarious sooooo.

Summary: Stiles and Y/N fill in Scott on their theory about who summoned the rabisu to Beacon Hills, only for Scott to divulge a startling secret about the summoner's connection with the Pack.

Chapter Twenty-Nine - Chapter Thirty - Chapter Thirty-One

Stiles had his weight pressed firmly against both Scott and the rolling stand that held his IV drip, as they did laps in the hall around the hospital. It had been eight days since he was attacked outside of his house; ending up in the hospital with deep defensive wounds on his hands, forearms, and shin, a broken wrist, a lacerated liver, a perforated intestine, a massive loss in blood, and a swollen brain that had left him in a coma for four days. In the four days since he had been awake, Stiles and Y/N had figured out what had been attacking Beacon Hills: a demon from Ancient Mesopotamian mythology called a rabisu.

"So you think that Sam Wirths summoned the rabisu to Beacon Hills?" Scott asked, as he escorted his best friend around the hospital.

"I don't think, Scott, I know. He fits the bill. You know I have an eye for evil and this kid screams ‘evil’."

"He went to Beacon Hills High with you guys, and then he went off to Berkeley and was literally in my Mesopotamia class with me, Scott. It has to be him." You said, as you walked along with them.

"Okay well if it was Sam, then we should talk to Malia." Scott suggested.

"Why should we talk to Malia about Sam? We talked to him so little in high school that my Dad didn't even think to mention that he was the one who had died. Did she even know him? He was so quiet.. she would've walked all over him with her little coyote paws." Stiles joked.

"Yea, she knew him. You remember.. they hooked up for a couple of months during our first semester. He lived next door to Malia and Cora." Scott told the two of them.

Stiles stopped in his tracks, leaning heavily on the IV drip. "Malia dated Sam last year?!"

"How did you not know about this?" Scott asked, turning around to look at his friend, raising his hands in the air.

"Why would I know about that? It's not like Malia and I are incredibly close anymore, not since we broke up." Stiles said, glaring at Scott.

"Okay, why don't we just get Malia down here and see what she knows?" You suggested, as you took Stiles' elbow and continued leading him down the hall back to his room.

Scott and Melissa helped Stiles get back into his hospital bed. Stiles had made the hospital room his own: taping the crime scene photos, lamassu stencils, and pictures of you and him and the Pack to the wall next to his bed.

"Well, kiddo, you took three laps around the floor and your vitals are still good, I think Dr. Dunbar might release you tomorrow morning." Melissa said as she looked at Stiles' heart rate monitor.

"Thank god. I am going crazy being trapped inside here. I hate waiting around to hear that the next part of the plan has worked and no one has gotten hurt. I mean, when everyone was out painting the lamassu's last night, it was nerve-racking. My nerves were severely racked." Stiles rambled on to Melissa.

"I know how you feel, Stiles, but I've gotta tell you, just because you won't be here, doesn't mean that you'll be out there with them. You had three major surgeries just over a week ago, your arm is broken, and you were in a coma five days ago. You're gonna be confined to your house on bedrest for at least another month." Melissa broke the bad news to Stiles.

"Another month, Mom?" Scott asked from next to Stiles' bed.

"I don't know what to tell you guys, I don't make the rules, I just pass them along to the Sheriff." Melissa grinned and walked out of the room, letting Malia in as she opened the door.

"Okay what's going on? Stiles said it was life and death... and yet you're here eating Jell-O." Malia looked at Stiles, comfortably sitting in bed, wearing a t-shirt, sweatpants and hospital socks, and eating a cherry Jell-O cup.

Stiles put the gelatin treat down on the table, and pushed the button that placed the bed in a more upright position. "It is life or death, Malia. What happened between you and Sam Wirths?"

"Okay, I'm leaving." Malia turned on her heels.

"Malia! Malia wait." Scott ran over and closed the door. "What Stiles should have started with was that Sam was the guy who Sheriff Stilinski and Parrish found in his house with his heart ripped out."

"I know. I heard. Did you guys not know it was him? It’s not surprising, he was pretty weak... and annoying. I thought about killing him sometimes." Malia shrugged, took Stiles' Jell-O cup off his table, and sat down on the chair, putting her feet up on the edge of Stiles' bed. Stiles' jaw dropped and he looked around for similar outrage. "Why does any of this matter though? Parrish said that he didn't think it had anything to do with the attacks." Malia said in between mouthfuls of Jell-O.

"Well, I think it does. The rabisu need someone to summon them and we think that person was Sam." Stiles clarified.

"Makes sense, I mean, he was in that Mesopotamia class with Y/n, right?" Malia asked, nonchalantly.

"Oh my god, seriously?! Yes, yes he was, Malia. You never thought to mention that to anyone in the past few days?" Stiles raised his voice, frustration apparent in his tone.

"I thought Y/n would know. They were in the same class."

"Y/n didn't go to Beacon Hills with us, how would she have known who he was?!" Stiles yelled.

"Okay, alright... Malia, can you just tell us what happened between you and Sam?" You interjected, trying to stop the ex's from bickering.

"Or really anything about Sam, I didn't really know him in high school. Did he have a bad relationship with his parents or a sibling, or do you think he was just messing around with the stuff that he learned about in class and he got caught up in something he didn't understand?" Scott asked Malia.

"No, I mean, we didn't talk much, but when he would, he never said anything bad about his family or anything." Malia said, throwing the empty cup into the trash by the door. "And, I don't know, he had only been in the class with Y/n for a month when I dumped him."

"So you dumped him? Were there bad feelings about all of this?" You asked the blunt were-coyote.

"I don't know... Listen, I was in Comm 101 with Sam last Fall and he recognized me from Beacon Hills and he started sitting next to me. He followed me around like a puppy dog, and had a big crush on me. When I found out that his dick was big, I started having sex with him pretty regularly." Malia explained.

"Oh my god." Stiles threw his hands up in the air and rolled his eyes.

Malia looked at you and mouthed the word 'huge'. She then extended her hands from each other to demonstrate how big Sam's penis was. "Okay.. yea." You snickered. "Then what happened?"

"One night I let him be on top, and when I orgasmed, I lost it a little and my eyes turned blue, and I guess that he saw."

Scott cut her off. "Wait, wait, he saw your eyes?"

"Yea, only for a second, but then I had to explain to him what I was, well what we all were-" Malia continued.

"Jesus, Malia, you never thought to mention any of this?" Stiles asked.

"I'm telling you now." Malia replied, matter-of-factly. Stiles slumped in his bed and began biting at his thumb. "Then he became kind of obsessed with the whole supernatural thing, and he was all like 'let me be part of the pack, I could be useful to you all, I love you, blah blah blah' and as good as the sex was, that got really annoying after a few weeks, so I dumped him."

"WOW." Stiles yelled.

"Uh, yea... okay, was he pissed? I'm assuming he was pissed." You asked.

"Yea, I guess. He sent me some really pathetic hand-written letters saying he had gone to therapy and was doing poorly in his classes, but he was learning more about the supernatural and he still loved me and he just wanted to be with me and help the Pack and oh my god, he sent me like twelve of those and they were so irritating."

"That sounds unstable." Scott said, a worried look taking over his face.

"He lived next door to you, right? Did you ever run into him?" You asked.

"Yea, he'd wait for me sometimes, but that stopped when I started bringing Eric home to have sex with... The last time I saw him, he was waiting outside my apartment the day I moved out. He was all 'I'll see you this summer in Beacon Hills, maybe if something comes up this summer that the Pack is having trouble with, I could help.' And I just lost it on the little loser. I was like, 'Sam, you don't even know how many things we've come up against and defeated with ease without ever needing your help. Just get away from me, it's becoming pathetic.' and I left."

"That was harsh." Scott said.

"That was progress." Stiles corrected.

"Okay, well, Sam sounds..." You began.

"I think fucking crazy is the word you're looking for, Y/n." Stiles interrupted. You raised your eyebrows and nodded slightly. "I need to talk to my Dad and see what kind of stuff they found at Sam's house."

"Was there anything else, Malia?" Scott asked, worried of what her answer would be.

"Nah, I think that was it." Malia folded her hands behind her head and pushed Stiles' leg towards the middle of the bed with her foot.

"Ow! Okay, wow. Can she leave now?" Stiles complained to Scott. Scott nodded and walked out with Malia.

You walked over and sat on Stiles' bed. "Your dick is definitely bigger than Sam's." You told Stiles with a grin.

"Damn right."He pouted. “She ate my Jell-O...”

29 <- - > 31

@alexhmak @dontstopxx @iloveteenwolf24 @chivesoup @vampirepinary @parislight @surpeme-bean @snek-shit @mayahart02 @fuxkdean @teenage-dirtbagbaby @sorrynotsorrylovesome @dylrider @iknowisoundcrazy @l4life @ivette29 @5secsxofamnesia @lovelydob @vogue-sweetie @awkwarddly @therealmrshale @twentyone-souls @xmadwonderland @mrs-mitch-rapp93 @inkedaztec @sunshineystilinski @eccentricxem @lightbreaksthrough @ninja-stiles @maddie110201 @hattyohatt @stilinski-stydia-obrien @amethystmerm4id @completebandgeek @rhyxn @teamwolf2411 @acc3ssdenied @girlwiththerubyslippers @theneverendingracetrack @the-vampire-diaries-all-the-way @im-very-odd33 @vmach29 @sokkasbae255 @hirafth @caitsymichelle13 @dailyburritos @lolaversuslipstick @mieczzyslaw @atlas-of-the-world @anonimereader06 @bunnyboo10154 @itsamberh @hypothetical-cynicism @sp00der-m00n @molesandmischief

#the College Years TW #Stiles Stilinski #Stiles x reader #Stiles x ofc #Dylan o'brien #teen wolf #teen wolf Au #Stiles #Malia Tate #Scott McCall

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