#it ended up being the worst neighbor everyone in the neighborhood hates him he’s the neighbor that calls the cops on everyone | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

imagines-mha · 3 years

Text

✰ haikyuu and their part time jobs ✰

Daichi- he worked in a shoe shop for a few years and was the BEST worker they've ever had. Customer service was 10/10 and he always came to work with the best attitude. His boss almost cried when he had to leave

Suga- he was a private tutor for 12-year olds failing at math lmao. Kinda harsh, but every single one of them passed, plus all the moms fucking loved him

Asahi- the scary-looking guy who worked part-time at a flower shop cliche lmao. He knew all the languages to the flowers and made his mom custom bouquets like once a week like the angel he is

Noya- dog walked for his neighbors. Noya was like his neighborhood's little sweetheart, and he used it to his advantage by asking them if he could walk their dogs for money. Of course they said yes, and they think he's too cute not to spoil with extra cash so he got RICH

Tanaka- he did car washes with a bunch of his friends one summer. The plan was to only do it to win over cute girls, buuuut that never really worked and he actually got into tons of trouble for not knowing how to clean a car right and getting in sponge fights with his friends lmao

Ennoshita- he was a cashier for a week, and he tried way too hard to be perfect. An angry woman shouted for him and asked to speak to his manager and he cried the entire way home then handed his resignation notice in the next day lmao

Kageyama- he was way too awkward to get a job smh

Hinata- tried to work with noya walking dogs at some point but their energy just annoyed EVERYONE within a 10m distance and noya ended up firing him because he was “making his stocks go down”

Tsukishima- snarky cinema cashier that sighed really loud in your face if you asked for mixed popcorn BUT he always let underage kids get into R rated movies which made him kinda loved in the town

Yamaguchi- worked at a stationery shop and devoted his entire heart and soul to making everything look neat and presentable. The really cute cashier everyone had a crush on

Oikawa- he applied for a job once and didn't show up to the interview cus he had volleyball practice lmao

Mattsun- he got a job at a frozen yogurt shop to make a little money when he was 16. All his friends used him for free food and it became the seijoh hangout spot for like a year

Makki- his aunt got him a job at her candy store but he was the WORST employee. Turns out just because ur family doesn't mean everything is free. he was shocked and appalled. she fired him

Iwa- he was a bartender for a few years, and he always made sure girls in his bar were safe at all times. 100% would punch a guy in the face if he tried anything with them

Kunimi- this man thinks being alive is still a full-time job yall pls

Kuroo- worked the front desk at a fancy restaurant and used his charm to manipulate people into buying more stuff and subscribing to deals and memberships. It worked EVERY time

Kenma- he didn’t get a job but he sells shit on depop sometimes lmao

Lev- got a job in a call centre for like a week and then got fired when his boss realized he just hung up on people when they were rude/ when they asked to speak to his manager. He also NEVER did his job right and got distracted while on the phone to customers?? would fr end up talking about harry styles and everything like lev please

Bokuto- sports shop employee that has SO MUCH ENERGY AT 7AM. He’s always asking if someone needs help and complimenting little kids when they buy something his manager loves him

Akaashi- bookstore employee that every indie customer falls in love with. He’s tall, he wears glasses, he’s polite, he’s quiet. They’re in heaven smh, but he's really just constantly exhausted and relies on books and coffee to keep him stable lmao

Konoha- this man has had 18 different jobs, and cant last more than 3 months in each of them he’s a NIGHTMARE

Ushijima- he's rich he didn't need a job

Tendou- he worked as festival staff and he misses it every single day of his life. He had nonstop parties every week during summer and made so many friends :((

Goshiki- the most nervous barista you have ever met in your life. Takes sm care with every drink and still manages to fuck most of them up smh. Cried a lot in the back room.

Semi- small record store employee who sits behind the counter and tunes his guitar all day. Yes, he will talk to you about your music taste and yes, you will have a crush on him because he is GORGEOUS

Kita- the kind corner shop worker that knew everyone in his town and asked about their day and everything smh he was so good. Never received a complaint

Atsumu- gets a job as a personal trainer for his local gym, but he only did it to brag about himself lmao. Also unnecessarily snarky. Got a lot of his pent up anger out but definitely got fired for his attitude

Osamu- worked at KFC for a month to get free food but quit because he ate too much of it and actually felt sick when he saw popcorn chicken

Suna- he got discounts on food from kita’s corner shop, so he would buy as much as he could and then sell it all in school for double the price smh

Futakuchi- clothes shop employee who had an attitude when you asked him where anything was. He only worked there to give his life purpose and direction but hated every second of it

Aone- babysitter for literally all of his mom's friends. All the kids in his neighborhood know and love him because he was so kind and sweet to them all

Koganegawa- toy shop employee who got fired for playing with the toys and never actually doing work

terushima - another sports shop employee- only he was fucking terrifying. Definitely fuckboy energy and he was so in-your-face about everything. like 70% of the population hated him lmaoo

849 notes · View notes

bucky-hues · 3 years

Text

bucky barnes fic recs

here are some bucky fics i loved reading!

many of these are 18+ and there are some dark fics in here, so please read the warnings for each fic! if any of the writers i’ve included want anything removed/edited, please let me know!

one shots

jack pendleton | @roger-that-cap

author!bucky x reader

moving into an apartment to get away from your last relationship was fun all fun and games until you met your extremely attractive across-the-hall neighbor, who makes awesome cookies and even better novels.

grip | @pellucid-constellations

bucky x reader

You knew Bucky didn’t like his arm. You just didn’t know how much until he accidentally hurt you with it.

voicemails to an unmanned inbox | @pellucid-constellations

bucky x reader

When Bucky takes an argument a little too far, you take off. All he wants is for you to come back home.

can’t get the words out | @pellucid-constellations

bucky x avenger!reader

Bucky’s been awfully distant lately. You don’t think your heart can take what you know he’s about to say.

his everything | @likeahorribledream

bucky x avenger!reader

Bucky has trouble talking about his feelings and he ends up pushing away the one person he needs the most.

eavesdrop | @bestofbucky

bucky x avenger!reader

things spies don't notice | @starrysebastians

bucky x avenger!reader

don't you worry (your pretty little head) | @babyboibucky

guitarist!bucky x reader

You agree to spend twelve hours with Bucky whom you just met.

suburbia | @wkemeup

bucky x avenger!reader

Posing as husband and wife, you and Bucky infiltrate a quaint suburban neighborhood in search of a Hydra hacker. Perhaps if you weren’t so in love with him and he hadn’t broken your heart, the act of pretending wouldn’t hurt so much.

sparklin' eyes | @19ana45

roommate!bucky x reader

Prompt: Character A’s current boyfriend/girlfriend/partner mocks Character B for their crush on their best friend, [A]. [B], feeling humiliated, withdraws from the friendship with [A], who is completely oblivious [B] has feelings for them.

reoccurring face | @swtbbybarnes

bucky x reader

he’s been around a lot lately, sometimes multiple times a day, and you’re starting to wonder how much coffee one man can actually drink.

falling for you | @comfortbucky

roommate!bucky

moving on | @bucky-bucket-barnes

bucky x reader

After Bucky had been missing for a year, you had presumed him dead. Time passed, yet you seemed unable to move on from his death. That was until a familiar face came to your doorstep one winter night.

bucky bitchass barnes to the rescue | @bucky-bucket-barnes

bucky x avenger!reader

In an attempt to escape from hectic life as an Avenger, you decided to go out on a date. Unfortunately, you got stood up. While Bucky hates you, he hates seeing you embarrassed more and decides to fill in for your M.I.A. date.

pansies, pain, and other things about bucky | @bucky-bucket-barnes

bucky x avenger!reader

You and Bucky are begrudgingly paired on a mission together. This is less than ideal considering neither of you are too keen on the other tagging along. All goes as normal until a surprise attack severely hurts both of you. Feeling incredibly guilty, Bucky helps you tend to your wounds. He has trouble admitting it, but he wants to make sure you’re safe.

the lost converse | @firefly-in-darkness

bucky x reader

Last nights party was a bit of a mad one, what do you do when you wake up in someone else’s bed?

nervous | @dailyreverie

bucky x reader

A nervous Bucky introduces you to his fellow Avengers during game night

fever | @dailyreverie

bucky x reader

a little old fashioned | @gogolucky13

bucky x reader

Bucky is a bit subtle in telling you he likes you.

sweetart | @onlyjamesbarnes

soft!bucky x baker!reader

your best friend bucky tries to stay platonic with you, letting you live out your dreams, but his instincts soon get the better of him.

the things you've done | @divine-mistake

bucky x reader

what if the world ended tomorrow and all he did was spend his last day with you thinking about how you never hold his metal hand and you never walk on his left side and you constantly reach out for his right arm?

do you still love me? | @thatfangirl42

bucky x reader

2:00am | @thatfangirl42

bucky x avenger!reader

miscommunications | @empyreanwritings

bucky x avenger!reader

cookies, kisses, and such | @sweetbucky

neighbour!bucky

pretending | @multifandomwriter

bucky x reader

Bucky notices you at a party and is instantly attracted to you. Steve instantly notices the lovestruck look in his eyes, but also his nerves that are stopping him from talking to you. So Steve plays on Bucky’s jealousy to get him to make a move.

good together | @irndad

bucky barnes x avenger!reader

bucky and his girlfriend are in secret, and they think they are absolutely perfect for each other. literally everyone else in the compound thinks bucky and nat are made for each other.

l-o-v-e | @irndad

college!bucky x reader

college!bucky meets reader in a library and it’s all downhill from there. He’s desperately in love and pining and it’s all ridiculous and he doesn’t think she could like him back.

tell me the truth | @bwhitewolfbarnes

bucky x avenger!reader

Bucky finds himself overhearing your conversation with his younger self, and he hates the way it makes him ache. He needs to know what is real.

the staring contest | @jobean12-blog

bucky x avenger!reader

Bucky has a staring/glaring problem and you can’t figure out why!

lavender | @wkemeup

bucky x reader

Not every nightmare is the same and Bucky doesn’t always wake up as the man you know.

little lion man | @wkemeup

bucky x avenger!reader

Sent on an assignment back to 1943, you encounter a drastically different version of the man you know

purgatory | @wkemeup

bucky x avenger!reader

While on a mission, Bucky becomes dissociated into the Winter Soldier. But instead of becoming a threat, his instinct is to protect.

i love you, you idiot | @chrisevansjellybeans

bucky x reader

all the good things | @houseravenclaws

bucky x avenger!reader

bucky’s been more than a little happy recently. sam thinks it has something to do with the pretty girl on the team.

tap | @houseravenclaws

bucky x avenger!reader

bucky never talked much. he fell in love anyway.

shaking | @clintbartonswife

bucky x avengers!reader

after you get injured on a mission, the usually stoic Bucky breaks, and you see a side to him that he’s kept hidden ever since his acceptance into the Avengers.

deserving | @hanoella

bucky x healer!reader

When someone bad mouths Bucky in your presence, you set things straight.

keep me cool | @chouettedubois

bucky x avenger!reader

You and Bucky are on your third undercover mission acting as a couple. Things go awry when you fall ill. Cue caretaker!Bucky to the rescue.

on, off and repeat | @avasparks

neighbour!bucky x reader

i wished on the moon for you | @sunmoonandbucky

bucky x reader

After losing Bucky, you were devastated. So when Howard Stark asks for volunteers for an experiment, you’re the first in line.

the hottest avenger | @watchmegetobsessed

bucky x avenger!reader

Being locked together with Sam and Bucky brings the worst out of you, picking on each other constantly. Following an arguement Bucky accidentally calls you his girlfriend in front of Sam when your relationship was supposed to be a secret.

hey daddy | @watchmegetobsessed

bucky x avenger!reader

You join Peter and his friends for a game of Truth Or Dare but you wish you stayed in your room when MJ challenges you to do a task that will definitely out your secret relationship with Bucky.

crash course | @watchmegetobsessed

bucky x reader

Bucky is a regular at the café where you work at and seeing him struggling with technology, you offer to help him, teaching him the basics while you are both thinking about taking it a little further than just a crash course.

little things | @watchmegetobsessed

bucky x avenger!reader

missed chances | @soap-bubble-nebula

bucky x avenger!reader

Bucky is about to ask out the reader, but right before she could answer him her ex calls her up and she answers happily as she always wanted a second chance with said ex

truth or dare? | @soap-bubble-nebula

bucky x avenger!reader

the experiment | @soap-bubble-nebula

bucky x reader

make believe on christmas eve | @green-eyeddragonfanfiction

bucky x reader

When your family insists you bring your [nonexistent] long-term boyfriend over for Christmas, you panic. You hadn’t expected to be put in this situation; you never thought you’d actually have to bring “him” over.

sick day | @nastybuckybarnes

bucky x avenger!reader

you tell a little white lie to escape Avenging for a day, and Bucky finds out. He’s hurt and upset, until he finds out your reason why.

spies and secrets | @barnesandco

bucky x reader

Bucky buys a new jacket that is… uncharacteristically bright. Sam ribs him for it, and you- you don’t know what to do with yourself.

the bar rules | @buckyhoney (18+)

bartender!bucky x reader

the family lunch | @buckyhoney (18+)

dad'sbestfriend!bucky x reader

forbidden fruit | @bucksfucks (18+)

dad'sbestfriend!bucky x reader

you attempt to set your ex’s things on fire. bucky has a better idea.

mr. brightside | @bucksfucks (18+)

ex'sdad!bucky x reader

the one where you fuck your ex's dad

left gasping for air | @bucksfucks (18+)

bucky x reader

doused with sex pollen, you & bucky are met with a difficult decision.

love me harder | @celestialbarnes (18+)

bucky x avenger!reader

you and bucky have been flirting and screwing around for months now, after seeing him getting frisky with someone else, you decide to do the same and bucky’s just about had enough.

sweeter than sugar | @angrythingstarlight (18+)

chubbybaker!bucky x reader

look my way | @sableseb (18+)

neighbour!bucky x reader

boyfriend upgrade | @multifandomwriter (18+)

roommate!bucky x reader

You have always been close with your roommate, Bucky, but tensions start to rise when your boyfriend begins to stay over at your apartment. You feel like you’re drifting apart until Bucky accidentally sees you almost naked.

lure | @bccky (18+) dark

bucky x reader

it’s all about the perfect lure

plan | @sergeantxrogers (18+)

bucky x reader

“I was supposed to forget about you, and you were supposed to forget about me, but damn it if I could ever forget about you because since the day I saw you, you never left my mind and you were all I thought about,” he rambled, focusing on anything his eyes could land on that wasn’t you. “You’re… you’re still all I think about,” he whispered, voice tired and beaten, like the very sentence had been waiting in his throat for years just to get a chance to come out into the open.

play pretend | @wkemeup (18+)

bucky x avenger!reader

When Bucky is injected with a substance that leaves him desperate for release, you offer your help.

you’re mine | @marveicinematics (18+)

bucky x reader

Having a secret relationship with a man as insecure and complex as James Buchanan Barnes may not have been the best idea you had, but one thing was certain: you knew how to make him feel better about the things that bothered him.

white lies and truth serum | @mariessecretfantasies (18+) dark

dark!bucky x avenger!reader

You and Bucky share a dance, a few too many drinks, and a night in bed together. Unfortunately, he neglects to tell you that he can’t get drunk.

bitter fruit | @divine-mistake (18+)

bucky x avenger!reader

“The mission was already a success!” you say and you can feel tears burning the back of your eyes. You will yourself to blink them back. “You had the files, the base was set to detonate, I don’t understand why you didn’t just stay on the fucking jet.”

“Because you were going to die.”

always here | @simsadventures (18+)

bucky x avenger!reader

You have an obvious crush on Bucky, and kind of hope he feels the same. But when you overhear agents talking about you, and then even Bucky, you realise there is no hope for you. At least you think there isn’t.

your captain | @onlyjamesbarnes (18+)

dark!bucky x reader, husband!steve x reader

a perfect anniversary night gets interrupted by his best friend, who happens to be your boss.

series/multi-chap

graveyard , sacrifice | @wkemeup

bucky x healer!reader

As the unofficial healer for the Avengers, you pride yourself on the ability to mend heroes with the touch of your hand. Only, your gift comes at a heavy price — one you keep secret from your friends —and when Bucky asks you to do the impossible, they’ll discover why your gift is called a sacrifice, too.

sunrise | @wkemeup (18+)

veteran!bucky x librarian!reader

After an explosion takes his arm and his only sense of belonging, Bucky is discharged from active duty and sent back to civilian life. Left with a storm of unchecked guilt, Bucky is content to live out the rest of his days in the hollow comfort of the dark. This is, until Sam drags him down to the local VA and he meets you.

TiMER | @xbuchananbarnes (ongoing) (18+)

bartender!bucky x reader (soulmate au)

“If a clock could count down to the exact moment you’ll meet your soulmate, would you want to know?”

the match | @babyboibucky (ongoing) (18+)

ceo!bucky x reader

You come across your boss’ Tinder profile.

the holiday hack | @gogolucky13

bucky x reader (modern au)

You ask Bucky to be your stand-in boyfriend for your family’s Christmas party.

sexual healing , medicine | @gogolucky13 (18+)

bucky x avenger!reader

You ask a touch-starved Bucky if he wants to try something new in an attempt to take your minds off work.

vacant mirrors | @whirlybirbs (18+)

bucky x reader

shit's been rough. shit was rough even before the blip. dr. hart shares an office with dr. raynor, and you share with waiting room with bucky barnes. set before tfatws; a friends-to-lovers, slowburn, eventual smut.

salvatore | @nsfwsebbie (18+) dark

dark!bucky x reader

Bucky Barnes doesn’t believe in love anymore. Especially after the tragic, unknown death of his wife, Natasha. He thinks it’s stupid and a waste of time and- oh my. Hello there, you. There you were, with your notebooks and your novels, writing your heart away. He’s hellbent on saving you from this nasty world, his elusive neighbor that has him under the stupid spell of love. You soon find yourself trapped in a tragic love story with Bluebeard, not Prince Charming.

polyonymous | @bubblebuckys

bucky x reader (social media au)

You met James on Twitter three months ago, and you’ve talked everyday since. You really like him, and you don’t think you’ve met anyone like him. That is, until the fateful night that brings the Avengers to you. You meet Bucky Barnes, and then you’re stuck choosing between two guys so alike you find yourself asking why they couldn’t be the same person.

going live , offline | @ritesofreverie (18+)

camboy!bucky x reader

your new neighbour looks so familiar, where had you seen him before?

heavy metal lover | @mypoisonedvine (ongoing) (18+)

sub!bucky x dominatrix!reader

working as a dominatrix is never exactly easy, but a new client brings challenges you never expected.

fake boyfriend real orgasms | @bucksfucks (ongoing) (18+)

roommate!bucky x reader

when bucky needs a date to sam’s wedding, he makes a deal with you. when it starts to turn into something a little more real, you realize how deep you’re in.

almost had me believing it | @tuiccim (18+)

bucky x avenger!reader

An undercover operation playing Bucky Barnes’ wife is a dream come true. Playing house in the suburbs while trying to take down a drug ring brings you and Bucky closer but a nosy neighbor causes trouble in paradise.

it's brooklyn, baby | @my-divine-death (ongoing) (18+)

college!bucky x reader

hush 1 2 | @starbuckie (ongoing)

bucky x reader

in quiet corners and selfish moments, y/n and bucky have kept their relationship a secret, one love that was pure and untouched by the darkness that surrounded them. but after bucky is able to walk the streets a free man once again, will their love be able to survive?

misconceptions | @firefly-in-darkness (18+)

bucky x avenger!reader

Bucky Barnes overhears a conversation that he shouldn’t have…

what a night | @jurassicbarnes

bucky x reader

Bucky Barnes is out in the new world, navigating through everyday life and it’s trials and tribulations. His therapist insists he tries new things. He has collected a few new hobbies. But when it comes to making new acquaintances, what’s a better way to meet new people than a little dating site called Tinder.

hey, professor | @balenciagabucky (ongoing) (18+) dark

professor!bucky x reader

professor barnes always had his eye on you, you noticed it, your girlfriend noticed it, even his friends and after one raunchy photo sent to him, a joke, nothing more, in his world you become more than just a student

missing piece 1 2 3 4 | @likeahorribledream

bucky x avenger!reader

seeing red | @mypoisonedvine (18+)

bodyguard!bucky x actress!reader

bucky used to brag that he didn’t have a celebrity crush, or really care about famous people at all, which is what made him the perfect person to start working for a celebrity like yourself. except, of course, it’s just his luck that he’d fall for you.

flight risk , no control | @wkemeup

bucky barnes x avenger!reader

Bucky becomes a flight risk after a failed mission and is put in lockup under Steve’s orders. Even though Bucky won’t say a word of what happened, you camp outside the door to his cell so he knows he isn’t alone.

bad match | @justreadingfics (18+)

bucky x reader

Bucky and the Reader are set up on a date, but things don’t go as well as expected.

unbroken | @constantwriter85 (18+)

bucky x hacker!reader

Bucky isn’t happy about being paired with a snarky, untested hacker on a stealth mission to infiltrate Hammer Industries. But when the mission spirals out of control and they’re both captured, he finds out just how much heart his hacker has–and how far she’s willing to go to protect the lives of others.

if i only had a heart 1 2 | @chouettedubois (18+)

bucky x reader

Team Cap is back at the compound after being pardoned. Bucky is suffering from the shoddy work HYDRA did with his prosthetic. Tony brings reader in to fix it—and maybe help him find his heart in the process.

text me | @soap-bubble-nebula

bucky x reader

Tony and the other’s are off on a mission, and it’s up to you to help Bucky get comfortable and assimilate into normal life. He texts you because Tony told him he could.

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x female reader #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes fic #fic rec

279 notes · View notes

hargrove-mayfields · 3 years

Text

Everyone likes to pretend Billy was never even there. Life goes on, people change, the past gets forgotten.

A year isn’t enough time for Max though. Right now it feels like the rest of her life wouldn’t be enough time, but Neil and Susan, they were doing just fine.

It’s almost like they like not having him around, that extra burden they couldn’t shake. The plan only Max knew was that Billy was going to stay at home until she was old enough to go with him so she’d be safe.

She knew he was fed up and looking at some local apartments within walking distance of Cherry Lane anyways, but then July happened, and Billy died.

Now it’s July again, and her hair is in twin braids of red with pure white ribbons on the end, and her and her mother are wearing matching blouses. There’s bruises under the bangle on her mothers wrist and one under Max’s own sleeve, and she just wants her brother back.

It’s a holiday they told her, her father (he’s not her fucking father, they never made her call him that when Billy was around) is a veteran, they have to celebrate. Better just dry her eyes and get over it.

Her mother invites all the family they have in the area over to their house for a little get together picnic, and they do their little happy family routine for a while, but Max can only handle so much of it.

Billy should be here by her side, flicking watermelon seeds at her face and putting ice cubes from the cooler down the back of her shirt, being an asshole to distract her from the reality of her family.

And that was that she didn’t really have one, a family. It was always just her and Billy.

Even at these events made for bonding with family, they were off to the side, messing around while the adults talked like they weren’t even there, and she knew she was a little naive then, but it stung more than ever, knowing that even after she’d lost her brother, nobody even stopped to say hi or check up on her, it was just straight into gossiping about the neighbors and those disrespectful bastards across the street who weren’t flying a flag for the holiday and family members who couldn’t be there.

But Max never heard Billy’s name come up even once, and not even in a respect to the dead boy and his grieving sister type of way, but rather, in the way that they just didn’t want to acknowledge his existence. None of these people had come to his graduation in May of last year, or his funeral two months later.

Billy was a taboo that the Hargrove-Mayfields didn’t dare taint their celebrations of freedom and justice with. The irony made Max sick to her stomach.

Or that was at least, until Neil couldn’t help himself.

His words are slurring already, with an excuse to party he’s on what Max would guess to be his fifth or sixth beer that afternoon, and someone just made the mistake of mentioning their own son, Billy and Max’s third cousin or something, and it spurs Neil off on a tangent about his.

“That boy was always good for nothing anyways. It’s almost the same now that he’s dead, ‘Cept maybe now I get some more quiet around the house.”

Nobody knows what to do when he says that, there’s a couple awkward laughs and one shocked gasp, that one was probably from her mother, but Max knows exactly what she wants to do.

What she wants is to watch Neil choking on his blood instead of her brother, his body being lowered into the ground instead of Billy’s, and in the moment she feels like she could be the one to make that a reality, but instead she just stands abruptly, a plate of the food her mother worked so hard to prepare for them she’d been too queasy to eat falling off her knees to the grass, and she says everything she’d bottled up for the past year.

“Don’t talk about Billy that way!

“Now, Maxine-“ Neil starts, but Max is livid, can’t hold back all the things she wished she had said before Billy died, when she got grounded after the funeral, when Neil started beating her, “No! I’m not going to let you do to me what you did to my brother! You don’t get to control me like you did him, it’s your fault that he’s dead!”

It’s her mother’s turn to try to stop her, slender hand covering her mouth painted red, “Maxine..”

“Stop trying to reason with me! I’m sick of pretending to be a family when I had to watch my own brother die! And I’m sick of being treated like I’m crazy for being the only one that cares about Billy!”

More than one person chimes in on that one, offended by the notion they don’t care about family, though it’s Neil that insists, in that faux calm, close to snapping voice of his, “We do care, Maxine. We’re all grieving in our own ways.”

She fires back, “Grieving what? The loss of your punching bag? You hated Billy! You don’t care that he’s dead, all that matters to you is having someone to hurt, and you no trouble adjusting to beating up on your wife and step-daughter instead!”

She catches a backhand to the face for that, and all the background chatter comes to a halt, Neil gritting out through his teeth, “Inside. Now.”

There are tears in her eyes that sting almost as much as the knuckle marks on her cheek, but Max feels like she won, getting her step dad all riled up in front of their family, she feels almost invincible, and she sneers all smug like and bitter, “I can’t go inside yet. I’m celebrating your service to our country, dad. You know, as a family.”

But when Neil's face turns as red as the blood that dripped from his wife’s nose the night before and he stands from his chair and drags her inside by the wrist himself, she realizes that it wasn’t exactly a win.

And when her brain goes numb trying to focus on both the repeated slaps and punches that explode like firecrackers across her skin and the way Neil is yelling and lecturing her until his voice is raw, giving her the same lessons her brother had burned into the back of his mind, she feels like she’s lost everything instead.

When she has to choke back her tears and apologize for embarrassing Neil and for making him hit her as punishment, she realizes, this isn’t a game that can be won or lost at all.

Max isn’t allowed to go back outside to the party. That rule goes unspoken, but words aren't necessary with the way Neil storms off without another word, slamming the back door behind himself. She’s slowly starting to figure out what the things her step father does instead of says mean.

She misses being allowed to be clueless, having someone to protect her or take what punishment she had earned. She wishes she wouldn’t have asked so much of Billy though.

Her own room isn’t safe anymore, what once had been the place she’d be ushered off to when Neil got bad had become more like a trap, the place Neil went to first when he was angry. Everything that had been hers felt wrong, so she goes to Billy’s room and doesn’t come out for the rest of the night. Even now that he’s gone, he still kept her safe.

There’s a welt on her face and fresh bruises forming everywhere, hot tears wetting her sunburnt cheeks and the pillows that smell like Billy, or at least used to before Susan decided his room needed cleaned and washed away every trace of her brother.

All night long there are fireworks going off, a big show put on by the city downtown has her shaking, unable to close her eyes for fear those distant explosions would take her back to the mall, bring back memories she’d never forget, and covering her ear with her hands.

The cracks and booms that shake her windows and her entire life, a headache and a heart break even stronger.

She tries her hardest not to think about Starcourt though, so instead she thinks about how Billy would’ve been proud of her for standing up to Neil. He would’ve called her an idiot, but he would’ve cleaned up her scrapes and held her through the panic attack after, and he probably would’ve liked to see the person Max was becoming too.

That makes Max’s heart hurt, the fact that he won’t get to. She cries harder, and she feels so alone without Billy.

Some part of her knows that she isn’t though. She isn’t the only one that lost somebody last July.

Hawkins’ cemetery was alive with flowers and wreaths and decoration, and more than anything the grieving. All of the victims had families, or in the case of the Holloway’s where their whole family was killed, they had friends and neighbors in the tight knit community who remembered them. El was still grieving Hopper, and Max knew Billy had people like that too.

Billy was popular, his death had a huge impact on the younger population of the town, but not only that, he had his closest friends, Steve and Tommy and Carol and Nicole and Adam from the pool, and of course Heather couldn’t be there, but those people were all keeping her brother alive.

As much as it felt like everyone was trying to forget him, they weren’t, and that brought Max a little bit of hope.

Hope that Billy would be remembered for the things he did right, and who he was behind the boy he had to be to keep them safe.

Hope that with his memory kept in the hearts of so many, the burden of grief wouldn’t fall solely on Max forever and make things a little easier.

Hope that the wound would someday heal, and she could look back on the time she did have with Billy, those seven too short years, with a smile on her face.

For now, she wraps herself in Billy’s jacket and comforter, listening to his music to drown out the distant fireworks, and dreams of the day when things won’t be like this, when she can leave Hawkins and all it’s bad memories and the “family” holding her back to live a life her brother would be proud of, a life that would honor his.

Max decides then with determination, flinching when a bright flash lights up her window, a loud echo through the quaint neighborhood, that she was going to do what Billy hadn’t been able to and break the cycle.

Tomorrow, she’d tell the school counselor she’d been assigned when her depression was at its worst all about Neil Hargrove.

#billy & max #max mayfield #neil hargrove #billy hargrove #ej writer #story by ej!#tw child abuse #also on my ao3!#is this me projecting? pfft no way

118 notes · View notes

lady-divine-writes · 3 years

Text

Kurtbastian fic “Always and Forever” Chapter 3

Summary: After the death of their daughter Grace, Kurt and Sebastian drift apart. Kurt wraps himself up in his grief so tightly he starts to push Sebastian away, and Sebastian, feeling himself shoved aside when he needs Kurt most, cheats. They make the decision to start over, to leave New York City and their pain behind, and start over again in a house Upstate. Sebastian buys Kurt a "fixer upper" and gives him free reign. While redecorating the room that will be his studio, Kurt comes across something interesting underneath the wallpaper. It starts to become an obsession for Kurt - an obsession that begins to replace Kurt's love for his husband, which Sebastian is holding on to by a thread. Can Kurt and Sebastian break through the pain and the hurt and find a way to fall in love again?

Read on AO3.

Chapter 3 (4753 words)

Kurt stares out his studio window at the neighborhood below. It’s 10:15 a.m. and a Tuesday, so it isn’t as if the place is teeming with activity. Everyone living on Colony Lane seems content to stick to their own spaces, abide by their own schedules, and go about their lives without much interference from the world outside.

Kurt hates to hand it to Sebastian, but that’s what he wants as well. Isolation in a quaint fixer-upper is precisely what he needs.

Another point for Sebastian.

Damn.

He seems to be racking them up lately, while Kurt…

Kurt can admit that he’s not trying as hard as he should be, but he’s giving himself permission to be selfish. There shouldn’t be a timetable for bouncing back from loss, and Kurt got the double-whammy.

Sebastian gave him betrayal to get over, too.

Kurt knows that he should deem repairing his marriage a priority, but he also needs to do what’s right for him.

He hasn’t figured out what that is yet, but it'll come to him.

Underlying childhood guilt has him believing that he should introduce himself to the neighbors. Etiquette and all that. It’s what his mother would do. Every time his family moved, and there had been a handful of times, Kurt’s mother would bake a batch of cookies for the neighbors. She'd put a baker's dozen into colorful cellophane bags, tie the tops with curled ribbon, and take them door to door to say hello. She wouldn’t wait for people to show up on their doorstep with a casserole and a smile. She believed in being proactive. She would tell him, “New neighborhood, new life. Go out and be a part of it.”

But Kurt doesn’t want to, and the neighbors seem fine with that.

It’s been three days, and Kurt and Sebastian have only gotten one visitor – the technician who came to fix the heating. Of course, the neighbors could be waiting for them to get settled. Then they’ll pounce over with perfectly iced Gingerbread Bundt cakes and Chicken Kievs, church invites, and Girl Scout cookie order forms, like a swarm of Stepford Wives.

Kurt doesn’t care about being proactive, and his mother isn’t around to scold him for behaving like a hermit.

That may sound harsh, but it's true.

The clouds pulling together in the sky overhead, threatening rain, give Kurt an excuse to shut himself away and work on the house - an excuse he can ply without the assistance of a tragic backstory. With his laptop open on the floor in front of him, he browses those websites that feed his design fetishes: Ethan Allen, Neiman Marcus, Anthropologie.

But he's not the least bit inspired.

He’d decided to start small, take things room by room instead of attacking everything at once. But he gets stumped, staring at the screen in front of him, unsure whether the chair he’s been mulling over for the past half hour is gorgeous or gaudy.

He should focus on bringing the living room together since it’s where they do the bulk of their entertaining, provided they ever start entertaining again. And he should do something about the master bedroom, which, for the moment, houses a bed, a TV, and a dresser within the confines of four ashy walls.

Opinions on the topic vary, but Kurt has always felt that the bedrooms are the heart of the home. They’re sanctuaries where dreaming, planning, and affirmation happen. He only has the one to worry about, so he should put extra effort into making it comforting, relaxing, sensual on the off chance he ever plans on touching his husband again.

The jury is still out on that one, unfortunately.

The kitchen, he’s not looking forward to decorating. Aside from his studio, he and Grace spent much of their time together in the kitchen. They baked daily: cakes, cookies, bread, and anything else they could slop onto a baking sheet and shove into the oven. They also made jam, pickled fruit, and taught themselves (using YouTube videos mainly) to prepare various types of cuisine. Some were a hit, others a miss, but it was always an adventure.

Kurt had done something similar with his mother and her collection of vintage cookbooks, congregating around the kitchen island in the afternoons to shed the angst of public school, and spread the wings of his stifled creativity. He and his mother discussed everything in the kitchen while sifting flour and creaming butter. It was a tradition he had so looked forward to continuing.

Now, he’d rather not be bothered going into the kitchen again.

He could pick a page out of the IKEA catalog and recreate it. That should offend him. It did when Sebastian suggested it the first time Kurt redecorated their penthouse. But Kurt hardly cares. It doesn’t matter as much as it did. He can’t remember the last time he stepped into the kitchen and prepared anything more elaborate than toast and coffee, maybe dry scrambled eggs. Sebastian took over cooking duties after Grace died, which, nine times out of ten, means ordering out, if for no other reason than he gets to leave the house to pick up the food.

He knows Kurt appreciates the time alone more than he does a home-cooked meal.

Then there’s Sebastian’s office, which Kurt is decorating for the first time. He has tried to start a shopping cart for it numerous times, but, unlike the windfall of ideas he had for his studio, he can’t get into a groove. He remembers a time when thinking about decorating Sebastian’s office put a hundred ideas into his head.

Currently, he has only one.

The cheap, vomit-worthy, knock-off furnishings of the no-tell hotel room he pictures whenever he thinks of Sebastian sleeping with another man.

Kurt shivers in disgust. He wouldn't wish that on his worst enemy.

The room or the infidelity.

But how would Sebastian react if Kurt decorated his office to look like the business suite at the Marriott?

Kurt snickers, envisioning the sitcom-worthy shock that would erupt on Sebastian's face if he presented that to him.

"As you can see," Kurt would say, strolling through the room with his head held high atop the straightest spine pettiness can deliver, "I have chosen the most flame-retardant carpet available in subtle hues of tan and beige, a color combination well suited for concealing cum stains. This ergonomic, curved leather loveseat, for when you want to get adventurous with your afternoon romps, which, at your age, requires plenty of lumbar support. Plus, it cleans up in a snap with just a Clorox wipe, so that's a useful feature. Faux fireplace, faux aquarium, faux chandelier... are we sensing a theme? And in the corner, I've provided you a foldout of your own, for when you bring... ahem... work home."

The grin on Kurt's lips slides when Sebastian, wearing a gutted expression, pops to mind. It's an expression that Kurt didn't believe possible for Sebastian till their daughter died. He's only seen it once. He doesn't want to bring it back.

He sighs.

Revenge-dreaming isn't helping.

It isn't as satisfying as he thought it would be.

He’s not breaking through his creative block anytime soon. He puts his plans for the other rooms on the back burner and decides to spend time picking out furniture for his studio. With the exception of his sewing machines, he didn’t bring anything from his penthouse studio here, so he’s starting over fresh. He switches tabs and starts filling his online shopping cart with the basics: a new drafting table, a cabinet, a chair he’ll have to custom-upholster, a bolt of drapery fabric he can repurpose to make a bedspread (if he goes through with his plans for a foldout), and a few other miscellaneous odds and ends, nothing worth wasting too much brain-power over.

The clunk-clunk of Sebastian stacking cans in the kitchen cabinets reaches Kurt upstairs, as does the water running in the sink while he washes dishes and the squeak of the sticky pantry door when he fixes it. Kurt plans on redoing the kitchen and giving the entire room a facelift. Sebastian knows that. But repairing the door gives Sebastian something to do.

Sebastian has been considerate enough to let Kurt do his thing undisturbed for the morning. Kurt’s reluctance to talk to anyone extends to Sebastian, which Sebastian understands. He’s keeping his distance. But it’s nice to hear him puttering around the house. It gives Kurt comfort, the same way listening to his father snore in the middle of the night helped Kurt feel less alone after his mother died.

He may want to be left alone, but it’s nice to know that he’s not alone.

Especially not today.

Today did not start out good for Kurt.

Kurt woke up later than he’d intended, and when he did, he couldn’t remember where he was. Sebastian had woken up and gotten out of bed hours earlier, leaving Kurt alone to sleep in. Kurt climbed out of bed and wandered around frightened, hands crawling along the walls, searching for something familiar. Footsteps passed somewhere underneath him, and he froze. He didn’t want to venture downstairs because he didn’t know who could be there. Maybe someone had broken in, or worse - this was somebody else’s house, and Kurt was the intruder.

His heart raced. He started hyperventilating. He went from room to room, trying to figure out where he was and why he was there. It wasn’t until the second time he went into his studio that he began to remember. He saw his bag on the floor and, beside it, his sketchbook. He remembered sitting in there the day before, making plans. He remembered the wood grain of the floor, the dusty glass, the tree outside, the wallpaper, and that ripped corner by the window, which Kurt refuses to acknowledge any more than he has to.

He feels it behind him, like the sun on his back, trying to get him to turn his face to it, but he refuses. Of all the things he needs to deal with, that ripped corner and the word beneath it don’t make the list. It isn't doing the palpitations in his chest any favors.

It confuses him.

It angers him.

It saddens him.

It makes him consider what could have been, forces him to face everything he's lost. He didn't succeed in running away from his problems. He ran headlong into brand new ones.

But this is his house. He has to get used to it.

These episodes aren’t uncommon. They crop up whenever Kurt needs to adapt to change. They’re unexpected, like mines in fields he discovers he’s been running through when a second ago he was picking flowers in the park or strolling down the street.

It's their unpredictability that is the true torture.

They show up even on his good days.

His life for the last ten years revolved around his daughter. When she was a baby, he adjusted his work schedule to match her sleep schedule. They had the money to afford the best nurses in New York, but Kurt didn’t want that. He didn’t want his daughter raised by a governess. He was as hands-on a parent as there ever was.

As Grace grew, her schedule changed, and Kurt adjusted: daycare, Gymboree, kindergarten, ballet, elementary school. He dropped her off in the mornings, then picked her up in the afternoons. They spent the rest of the day going over her homework until it was time to make dinner, which they did together.

That was the great thing about being a designer and freelance editor. Kurt could work from anywhere, and, aside from doing consultations at Vogue, he could work any time.

When Grace became sick, her doctor visits and her medication regimen dictated Kurt's schedule, then her chemo.

Towards the end, there was only one item written in Kurt’s schedule - lie beside his daughter in her bed, holding on to her for dear life.

And not just her life.

His, too.

In sickness and in health, Grace kept Kurt’s life regulated.

Things flipped drastically when she died.

He felt adrift. Detached from the life he had gotten used to, he didn’t know what to latch on to. His internal clock would wake him up at six to get Grace ready for the day, only to find himself walking into a vacant bedroom. At the supermarket, he would grab her favorite cereal out of habit and put it in his cart, even though it wasn’t on the list. He would jolt when he'd come across a song he thought she’d like or saw an advertisement for a movie he thought she’d enjoy.

He has yet to stop the automatic deposits from his bank account to hers, her weekly allowance piling up on top of birthday and Christmas money. She had earmarked it for college (her decision, not his). Now it waits to be donated to the children’s hospital that took such incredible care of her. He doesn’t have the heart to empty it. She was so proud of it.

He doesn’t know what it will do to him to see the balance at zero.

But the worst moment of all, the absolute worst, was when he tried to go back to work right after they lost her.

There are many moments after Grace’s death, during Kurt’s own struggle for acceptance, that blur together, but this one he remembers so vividly, it brings a lump to his throat and tears to his eyes.

He was in the middle of a brainstorming session with his team. His boss Isabelle was there. She had dropped by with a box of cronuts and a grande nonfat mocha. Kurt hadn’t been eating. Everyone could tell. But Kurt overlooked the signs – the sharper than normal angle to his cheekbones and chin, his collarbone that showed through his skin a little too much, his hands that never stopped shaking. He had waved the food away when she offered.

An hour later, he was on his third one.

The tension of his presence in the office so soon after his daughter’s death slowly dissipated, making way for the familiar, though attenuated, back and forth banter he had so missed. Without knowing it, he was paving the way for a potential comeback. He wouldn’t have a line up for a while, and he would need to keep an eye on fashion trends as they came and went in his absence. But this, this felt so natural, so normal, it almost seemed like it was. He got caught up in the rhythm of this impromptu jam session. He smiled, he laughed.

He felt alive again.

Somewhere in the middle of outlining a rough schedule, he glanced down at the time on his phone. Mid-sentence, he got up from his chair and walked over to get his coat off the hook by the door.

“Alright,” he said with a chuckle over Chase’s last clap back at a jab from his boyfriend Ian, “thanks for everything, you guys, but I’ve gotta run. We’ll talk about this more when I come in tomorrow.”

The room went pin-drop silent. Kurt didn’t notice.

“Where are you going?” Isabelle asked, getting up from her seat on the corner of his desk and approaching, knowing that he would need her in a second, the way she always knew. Kurt has referred to Isabelle as his Fairy Godmother ever since he first walked into Vogue fresh out of high school and trying to find a foothold in the hectic Gulf Stream that is New York City. She became his pillar of support, a sympathetic ear, and a clear head whenever he needed one. She had thrown his bachelor party. Hers was the condo he stayed in the night before his wedding. She’d hosted Grace’s baby shower.

Also, Grace’s wake.

She didn’t have children of her own and didn't plan on it, but she loved Grace as much as anyone.

And hers was the shoulder Kurt cried on when he found out Sebastian had cheated.

Kurt looked at her, confused, wondering why it was that everyone around him seemed to be holding their breath. “I just… have to go pick up Grace. From school. I’m going… I’m going to be late.”

Isabelle shook her head and put a hand on his. “Sweetie… ”

It took Kurt a second.

Even after one person gasped and another sniffled, with Isabelle’s sorrowful eyes staring at him, begging him to remember so she wouldn’t have to say it, he didn’t catch on.

When he did, it hit him like an electric shock straight through his body, rendering his muscles useless, and he crumbled to the floor. Isabelle held him for over an hour in that spot until Sebastian arrived. Kurt didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want to go to their empty penthouse and face the truth about his empty life. He wanted to stay at Vogue with Isabelle and live in that moment where everything was alright again for one shimmering second, even if it wasn’t real.

But he had to go. He had to leave with Sebastian, who had hurt him, back to his home, even if it killed him because even though he felt like his life was over, everything else continued on. People lived, and people died. The sun set in the evening, but in the morning, it would rise again.

He just didn’t want to be a part of it anymore.

Not without his Grace.

He was cried out by the time Sebastian got him home. Sebastian undressed him, helped him with his cleaning and moisturizing routine, and then put him to bed. It was Friday evening when Kurt shut his eyes and went to sleep. He lived that horrible moment at his office over again a hundred times before he opened his eyes. And when he did, it was Sunday morning.

Like this morning, but to a greater extent, when these attacks happen, locked in his own brain, sifting through the pieces to find one big enough and sturdy enough to hold on to, Kurt loses time.

In a blink, hours go by, sometimes a day. He’ll climb in the shower in the morning, turn the water on hot, and by the time he realizes it’s cold, it’s close to noon. He has sat at the dining room table for breakfast, staring at a bowl of oatmeal, and when he found the will to pick up the spoon, the oatmeal was old and stiff, and it was dinner time. He’s gone to bed on Monday and stared at the black behind his eyelids till Wednesday.

As far as Kurt knows, it’s only around lunchtime, but he glances at the clock in the corner of his screen to make sure.

12:45.

He breathes a sigh of relief. He double-checks the date to make sure he has a reason to and sighs again.

Still Tuesday.

Kurt switches back to the IKEA tab he’d been laboring long but not hard on earlier. He looks at the shopping cart he’s been steadily filling, scrolls through his selections of personality bereft, assembly line furniture, and groans. This isn’t him. This house, this blank slate, should be an endless fount of motivation.

But he's numb.

Maybe he's rushing into this. He should give this house and the neighborhood time to grow on him before he sentences it to the mundane.

He needs a break. (Kurt Hummel need a break from shopping? Since when?) He flips to a new page in his sketchbook. For shits and giggles, he tries drawing a sketch for his husband’s office. He starts with the easy part – Sebastian’s desk. Sebastian didn’t leave that in the penthouse, so Kurt will make it the linchpin and design around it.

Things flow surprisingly easily from there once he gets started, with a pencil in his hand writing on paper instead of working on a screen: an ornamental rug, a matching leather chair, burgundy velvet curtains, a chainmail style Tiffany desk lamp, 1930s art deco décor with a soupcon of Persian flair. But he doesn’t want the room to be too dark. No. Kurt wants nothing in their house to be dark. He adds a Salento chandelier over the open portion of the room and a sweep of color – one wall, opposite a window, a lighter shade than the rest. He doesn’t know what Sebastian’s office looks like, but there has to be a wall in there that will fit the bill.

An enamel and copper vase, a Khatam inlaid photo frame, a few Negar Gari…

Kurt stops.

Would Sebastian want that? The softer elements countering the strict lines of the art deco pieces, what could be described as feminine influences, are Kurt’s signature touch. But might Sebastian prefer the art deco without Kurt’s fingerprints all over it? Isn’t that what Sebastian meant by Kurt being heavy-handed with the pastels?

Back in high school, Kurt had decorated his bedroom so that he and his stepbrother could share it. He'd skipped school so he could complete it in one day. He’d worked hard on it, trying to fuse a masculine air with his theatrical influence. What he thought was an eclectic representation of the masculine and the feminine turned into a Moroccan-themed disaster.

The word his stepbrother chose to use at the time was faggy, but there were ulterior motives behind it.

Sebastian made jabs in high school about Kurt not wearing boy clothes, comments that adult Kurt recognizes as the teenage boy equivalent of pulling Kurt’s pigtails. But at the time, they stung. Sebastian wouldn’t have made those comments if there weren’t a grain of truth to them, would he?

Sebastian has never retracted those statements, so as far as Kurt is concerned, they stand.

Kurt flips his pencil over and starts erasing. He’ll pare down the extras – trade the Tiffany lamp for a banker’s lamp, replace the rug with something more Brooks Brothers than Pier 1.

Maybe he should just opt for another IKEA recreation, but that feels like copping out, going back on his word.

He could always ask Sebastian. He swears his husband has passed by a few times, his footsteps rising and falling outside his door, but Kurt didn’t think anything of it. He figures Sebastian is passing through on his way to get something from the bedroom that he needs downstairs. Kurt doesn’t imagine the man is pacing the hallway, even if he is, trying to find a way to tell Kurt that lunch is ready. Little things like lunch, innocuous things, have become huge divides over the past few months. With anyone else, Sebastian has a history of railroading over them, hurt feelings be damned.

But Sebastian has learned his lesson. He paid a hefty price learning it, too.

Contemplating between clearing his throat so that Kurt knows he’s there and letting another meal go cold, he sees Kurt’s head lift up. It seems like an opening. Whether or not it is, Sebastian takes it.

“Lunch is ready.”

“Mm-hmm,” Kurt mumbles, brushing eraser shavings aside.

“Are you… are you coming downstairs?”

Kurt erases again, then pencils something on a sheet of paper that Sebastian can’t see. “Hmm… mmm?”

It sounds like a question and an answer, but since Kurt doesn’t follow it up with anything, it most likely means that Kurt will be skipping lunch… again. Sebastian knocks idly on the door frame, giving Kurt a second longer to tell him for sure.

“Alright.” Disappointed, he turns to leave. “I guess I’ll come back up at dinner then.”

Kurt doesn’t know why the thought returns when he wasn’t even thinking about it, why it decided to nag at his brain when he had been able to ignore it for this long, but that’s the way his brain works now. His thoughts don’t always travel straight paths. They twist and turn, taking one thing and linking it to something unrelated. Erasing the ideas he’d sketched out, removing every inch of himself from Sebastian’s office, made him think about how eager he was to be rid of that word darling from above the window, and that ripped corner returns to his mind with a vengeance.

Well, as long as Sebastian is there, he might as well ask.

“Sebastian?”

Sebastian pauses in the doorway, not daring to move. “Yes?”

“When was the last time you were here?” Kurt raised an eyebrow at the idea when it originally came to him. When would Sebastian have come to this house that Kurt didn’t know? They traveled Upstate once a year, but they always did it together as a family. And while they were here, Sebastian rarely ventured out alone. Sebastian isn’t the kind of person who would buy a house sight unseen.

Unless he had found it during one of his outings with Grace. Which would mean that Grace had seen the inside.

Grace would have seen this room and thought it would be hers, thought that they would someday live here, and Sebastian hid that word darling by the window for her and not Kurt.

The thought is so painful, it makes Kurt want to tear his nails out with his teeth so he’ll stop thinking about it.

Sebastian keeps his eyes locked to Kurt’s profile so he won’t miss the moment Kurt decides to look at him instead of the floor, the wall, or the ceiling.

“I found this house online. It wasn’t even on the market when I stumbled on it. To be honest, I’d only driven by it once. I hadn’t been inside until we moved in.”

“But you saw the inside,” Kurt asks. “Otherwise, how would you know about this room?”

“I took a virtual tour,” Sebastian admits sheepishly, “but it was extremely thorough. I’ve seen the blueprints, gone over the permits and the zoning. I had Tristan from the office look over the place when he came up to visit his folks. He facetimed me while he was here.” Sebastian furrows his brow. “Why? Is something wrong?”

Kurt’s heart beats regular again. Grace hadn’t seen it.

Thank God.

His eyes find the torn section of wallpaper, but they don’t stay there. He doesn’t want to clue Sebastian in about it if Sebastian doesn’t already know. He wants to uncover this mystery on his own. If Sebastian gets to keep secrets, big ones at that, then Kurt wants this one for himself.

“No, no. Nothing’s wrong. I was just curious, you know. Wanted to understand your process. Why this house, why this neighborhood, that sort of thing.”

Kurt’s sentence comes out choppy. It’s odd how awkward talking has become for them. Sebastian used to think that the two things they had mastered were talking and fucking. They did both together with such ease. There were never any boundaries between them, emotionally or physically. Even when they were cutting each other down, which they did in the beginning, they did so with such finesse.

Not like now, when Sebastian is walking on eggshells and Kurt doesn’t want to hear half of what he has to say.

“If you come down for lunch, we can talk about my process. If you’re curious, that is.” Sebastian watches Kurt expectantly, waiting for an answer.

And while Sebastian does, Kurt looks at his sketch – Sebastian’s office, the same way Sebastian always has it decorated. This is Sebastian without him and Grace: bland and emotionless, no light, little color, and no joy. Nothing exciting, nothing nuanced, nothing to indicate that he and Sebastian are together.

Not even those snapshots he’s so proud of.

Kurt hasn’t decided whether that’s a bleak picture or not.

“Sure. I’ll be down in a sec,” Kurt decides because he does and doesn’t have an answer to that one. It changes as the day changes, and the days change too quickly.

“Alright. I’ll be waiting.” Sebastian walks away, or Kurt thinks he does. He checks the time on his clock. It’s closing in on 2.

Kurt glances up at the window, the dangling wallpaper bouncing with the breeze coming from a draft near the ceiling. It would be so easy to tear it down – grab an edge and rip, be done with it once and for all. It might even feel cathartic, exposing whatever is underneath it. But lunch is ready. He’s already left Sebastian waiting long enough.

He leaves that mystery for another day.

#kurtbastian #sebkurt #sekurt #sebastian smythe #kurt hummel

20 notes · View notes

bruh-haikyuu · 4 years

Note

Hey! Can I request the Seijoh teams reactions to finding out that Kyotani has a gf whose the total opposite of him? She's from another school but these hoes manage to spot them getting close behind a corner when she comes to support Kyotani at an official game or sm. Btw, I really enjoy your writing! 💖

A/N: you see,,, I deadass have this complex for delinquent-looking characters who are actually soft. Even though the chances of coming across one of those is rare, THOSE KINDS OF PEOPLE ARE MY TYPE. SO THIS REQUEST REALLY WENT AND S P O K E TO ME. THANK YOU ANON FOR QUENCHING MY THIRST

cingulomania. | kyōtani kentarō

word count: 2057

warnings: some swearing!

(n.) a strong desire to hold a person in your arms

At first, Kyoutani had been your neighbor. True to everyone’s surprise, he was much shyer in person regardless of how much boys and girls in your neighborhood told you that he was a monster. You thought that he was alright.

It was when both of your parents introduced you to each other that you started to slowly build the foundation of your friendship. He’d timidly nag you to help him play volleyball and dirty your clothes when you accompanied him to check on the stray dogs by the river. You’d drag him up to your room to play pretend restaurant and ask him to pick out one of your frilly dresses to wear to a birthday party. Your differences didn’t matter to any of you. You thought that he was kind.

He was ‘Ken-chan’ to you for a rather long while until he’d snap at you to stop calling him by that nickname. You were hurt, of course. As any other 10-year old would. But you had complied to his demands, even with tears and snot streaming down your face. He had never yelled at you, not even once. So he had hugged you that day, engulfing you with his regret and affection. And that was when it started for you. You thought that he was kind of cute.

Your feelings for your childhood friend didn’t remedy as time passed; much to your chagrin, you felt that it simply multiplied. Especially as the both of you matured into your second year of junior high, when Kyoutani decided that he wanted to have his volleyball skills “known and feared throughout the prefecture”. But was there really a need for it though? You thought that he was already amazing.

In your last year of junior high, you felt a rift beginning to form between the two of you. It had become increasingly difficult to even spend time together, especially with your high school entrance exams looming over the corner. The lunch box you usually reserved for him had gone cold from being untouched for months. You had made many friends in hopes to fill the growing hole in your heart while he had made multiple… adversaries. You didn’t like making hunches, but it had seemed like Kyoutani was deliberately avoiding you. He’d run off quickly whenever he saw you and barely replied to your texts anymore. It was like he never wanted you in his life to start with. You had cried in heartbreak from the thought. You thought that he was selfish.

After what seemed like ages without contact, Kyoutani had finally called out to you, saying he wanted to talk. You were angry, seething even; you considered turning him down. This was the same boy who avoided you like a plague for months. But he was the same boy you grew up with and by the graces of your ancestors, fell in love with. You hadn’t even thought of an outcome when you accepted his invitation. It wouldn’t matter to him anyway. You thought that he was spontaneous.

══════ ⋆★⋆ ══════

“Sorry for avoiding you,” he had said, sheepishly scratching the back of his hair. “I guess you felt a bit lonely.”

“Thanks for noticing,” your response had been ice cold that day and your frown didn’t falter.

You had agreed to talk to him by the river you used to play at. Silence dwindling between the both of you, you had watched his contorted expression reflect off the river’s waters.

“But you had been making so much friends lately, it was kind of hard for me to talk to you.”

Your frown had only deepened into a frustrated pout, “You’re one to talk! You and your volleyball. Volleyball early in the morning, volleyball late into the night. It’s always been volleyball when we were kids too, Kentarou! I didn’t want to stop you from doing what you love, but it doesn’t have to be like this either, you moron…”

Kyoutani’s lips had fallen into a flat line and his eyes wavered from yours. You had brought your knees closer to your chest and spoke again.

“I got into Wakabayashi Girls’ High School.”

“Ah, congratulations… I heard the criterias for Waka-joshi are the toughest—”

“You don’t get it!” There it was. Your string had finally snapped.

“…”

“I know we can’t be together forever. I know that! Our paths to different high schools are proof of it. But somehow I want us to,” you had muttered, slowly unlocking every defenseless part of your heart accompanied with the hot, searing tears that nearly swallowed your face whole. “I want us to be together for a really long time, Kentarou. But… but not as… not as…”

“Not as friends.”

When you had looked up to see him, he wasn’t like he was Kentarou anymore. It was like he was Ken-chan all over again. Your Ken-chan. You’d missed him so much it hurt, but you were glad he was here.

“We’re so different. You’re sociable and cute and you cry at the smallest things. And I’m just… the fucking worst.”

You hand had reached out to take his, fingers lacing with each other. “Ken-chan…”

“But I can’t help it. I hated myself for the longest time for it but I wondered if I really did have a chance with you. I wondered if you’d let me ruin this friendship of ours. Or maybe you’d hate me forever for it. But hearing you say that to me now, I don’t give a shit anymore.”

Kneeling in front of you, he had taken both of your hands, eyes fixated on the small rhinestones you had pasted on your nails. Against the rough palms of his beastly hands, yours had seemed so tiny, but he couldn’t help but to notice how well it fit with the contours of hand.

“I like you, Y/N. Please go out with me.”

Just like that, Kyoutani Kentarou had offered you his entire heart. And you took it unconditionally.

Arms thrown around his shoulder, you had sobbed hysterically into his shoulder, splotches of tears staining his shirt. “K-Kentarou!”

“H-Hey, I’ll fall over! Idiot, don’t just do things like this so suddenly!” he had scolded but ultimately rested his arms around your torso as he fell into the calming lullaby of your heart. You had smiled.

You thought that he was rather silly.

══════ ⋆★⋆ ══════

You felt like you were going to lose yourself in the crowd sooner or later.

When Kyoutani told you it was going to be “a little packed” in the Sendai City Gymnasium, you didn’t think you’d be squeezed in like a can of anchovies. You were going have to ask him to be more specific about numbers next time.

“Hey, Y/N-chan, you think Oikawa-kun will make eye contact with me from the stands?” your friend Natsumi murmured, looking at you with hopeful eyes.

“Nacchan, you’re lacking ambition!” your other friend Yayoi chuckled, affectionately ruffling Natsumi’s well-kept hair. “We’ve got our secret weapon Y/N on our hands. If anything, we’ll ask her boyfriend to introduce us.”

“Yayoicchi, I don’t think Kentarou would want to do something like that,” you finally chirped, having given up on trying to interpret the lousily marked venue map.

“So selfish, Y/N-chan! You guys are so different, I don’t get why you don’t just go for the cute guys,” Natsumi groaned.

“But it’s quite romantic, isn’t it? The tale of Seijoh’s beastly Mad Dog and Waka-joshi’s sparkly princess…” Yayoi swooned, her glasses nearly slipping down her face.

Just as you were about to chastise your friends for being annoying, your cell phone piped up, alerting you of a text from your “beastly” boyfriend.

From: Kyoutani Kentarou

Subject: Where are you?

10:34 AM

I’m waiting by the entrance. Hurry up. I only have a few minutes before the others find out I’m missing.

You replied with a quick “I’ll be right there!! \(-ㅂ-)/ ♥ ♥ ♥” and hurried your way through the bustling crowd.

“Y/N-chaaan! Where are you going?” Natsumi hollered.

“I’ll be back! You two find our seats, okay?”

“Hey, Y/N! Buy us some croquettes while you’re at it!” Yayoi echoed, her voice drifting away with the background.

When the cool breeze of the spring air kissed your face, you felt your shoulders lighten—it was beyond your imagination, but you survived the rampaging influx of people in the gym.

It didn’t take long for you to identify a lanky, scary-looking boy tucked away into a secluded corner of the gym’s field. Approaching him carefully, you felt him flinch violently under your grasp when you wrapped your arms around his torso as a surprise.

“Kenta~rou!”

“Y/N! Don’t do shit like that!” Kyoutani scolded, turning around in your embrace to pull at your cheeks in annoyance. “I could’ve punched you by accident or something.”

“Kentarou, stop pulling at my cheeks,” you grumbled, hands flying to his wrists to unsuccessfully pry him off your springy face. “If you’re going to punch me, then punch me out of love~”

“No way. You’re weird.”

“Don’t be cruel. I came here to watch you play,” you pouted, crossing your arms in mock frustration. “It was super hard to ask for permission from the teachers and my parents to come here right after school ended, you know!”

Kyoutani nodded solemnly, giving your head a few gentle pats before finding interest in your shoes. “I see. Sorry for all the trouble and thanks for coming, I guess.”

You gave him a pleasant smile, enough to make him hear angels singing in the horizon. “It’s okay, Ken-chan. Do your best today, alright?”

“Y-yeah.”

Leaning in to press a quick kiss to his cheek, you were stopped in motion when a shrill cry broke the atmosphere between the two of you.

“Yoohoo, Mad Dog-chan! We’re done registering, so let’s—Oh?”

Kyoutani tensed up against your skin. Ah, it was him. The elusive captain of the Aoba Johsai Volleyball Club. Heartthrob Oikawa Tooru, accompanied by every other senior Kyoutani had been so dead-set on avoiding just for this moment.

“Ain’t that the Wakabayashi Girls’ High uniform?” Matsukawa said, eyeing your uniform intently.

“Ah, that’s right!” you exclaimed. You had completely forgotten to change out of your uniform when you hurriedly chased the bus to the gymnasium.

Placing his hand beneath his chin in a display of wonder, Oikawa flashed you a grin that was sure to make Natsumi and Yayoi green with envy. “So, what’s a pretty Waka-joshi princess like you doing out here with our Mad Dog? Are you his relative? Or maybe his friend? Or perhaps—”

“Don’t.” Kyoutani stressed, teeth bared in defense. “Let’s just go already.”

Sighing in defeat, Oikawa complied, only once turning back around to simply wink at you and say, “I hope you’ll be cheering for me, Himesama-chan~”

You shivered in disgust. Now you were certain why Kyoutani wanted to evade him at all costs.

Once you were sure Kyoutani’s seniors were gone way past the corner, you called out for your boyfriend again.

“One more thing, Kentarou.”

“What is it now?”

Giving him a light peck on his chapped lips, you grinned when he stared at you with eyes as wide as saucers. “Good luck.”

At that exact moment, you thought that he looked a bit like an excited Corgi.

══════ ⋆★⋆ ══════

“She kissed him!”

“Be quiet, Oikawa, he’ll hear us,” Iwaizumi hissed, craning his neck a little further in hopes to get a clearer view of your romantic escapade.

“I’ll bet you this week’s ramen that he scared her into dating him or something,” Hanamaki said, eyebrows furrowing deeply. “There’s no logical way. She’s just so fluffy and cute and he… Nah, man! It just doesn’t add up like that.”

“Lucky, he’s just lucky. Maybe he drew some kind of crazy fortune on New Years’.”

“I want crazy fortune like that too, we’re going to need it to win against Shiratorizawa this year.”

“Makki, you’re asking for too much. Luck comes from hard work too, you know.”

“Hey, if you think about it… We’re third years who spend our days playing and thinking about volleyball; it’s like we’re married to it or something,” Matsukawa pondered aloud. “Even Kyoutani has a cute girlfriend to balance it all out. At some point, aren’t we kind of…”

The third years sighed, shoulders slumping, realization dawning across their features.

“Lame.”

#haikyuu #haikyuu!!#haikyu #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu scenario #kyoutani kentarou #kyoutani kentarou x reader #kyoutani kentarou imagine #kyoutani kentarou scenario #aoba johsai x reader #sfw #bruh haikyuu writing #kyoutani x reader #kentarou x reader

2K notes · View notes

cogentranting · 3 years

Text

Braid Your Life with Mine

Summary: A series of snapshots over the course of Sarah and Bucky's lives, showing their past and their intertwined future as they meet and find healing alongside each other. Read on AO3

Falling

Bucky couldn’t make sense of it. He was still falling. He must be. Otherwise he’d be dead. Hanging there from that train car, he’d known with absolute certainty that he was going to die. It had all played out in slow motion. Grabbing the shield. The energy blast. Holding on so tight his fingers felt fused with the metal rail. Blood running down his arm. Steve reaching out to him. The sickening sound of tearing metal as he was dropped off the edge of the world. Falling. Falling so far he had time to think about how it would be the last thing he ever knew.

But he wasn’t still falling, and he wasn’t dead because surely, surely, being dead wouldn’t hurt this much. Being dead couldn’t feel like being crushed and torn apart at the same time. So he must be alive. He couldn’t be sure though because everything was fading in and out, reality and unreality mixing like a scream in his mind. He could see trees above him and feel rocks and snow against his back. They were dragging him. Who? Steve and the team? They’d seen him fall—had they found him? No, Steve wouldn’t be this cruel, wouldn’t drag him knowing it hurt this much. The question slipped from his mind without an answer. The pain demanded too much attention to focus on anything else long enough to make sense of it. The one sight he kept coming back to when the world faded back in was that thing dragging beside him, leaving a trail of red on the snow. A bloody, mangled thing. Right where his arm should be but somehow distant and disconnected. It stayed with him as they dragged him, and he couldn’t understand what it was. The thing jarred against a rock and Bucky blacked out again.

He must be falling. He was falling, and this was all a nightmare, the hallucination of a single moment before he hit the ground. There was a steel table beneath him. People moving around. Straps tight across his chest and limbs. All of it familiar in a way he couldn’t lay hold of with the wisp of consciousness available to him. It didn’t matter though, because his body was at war with itself, fighting to die while something within him kept him bound to life. Then there were needles and machines and a saw. And as the saw began to do its work Bucky had a realization, fully formed in a moment of startling lucidity. This wasn’t a nightmare, and he wasn’t falling; he never had been. Falling was what woke you up from a dream. That’s what it had all been—Steve, the Commandos, Captain America, the entire two years since his rescue—it was all a dream. A ridiculous composite of bits of his life. He had never been rescued. Now, he was awake again. Still strapped to a table in Zola’s lab. The nightmare was the only real thing.

***

Emptying

Sarah looked down at the little plaque grave marker. The funeral had felt odd. Like she was standing still as time moved in spirals around her. There was a big turnout. People from the neighborhood, family, friends from different corners of his life. Everyone cared so much. They brought more food than she could possibly eat. They swept in with hugs, and advice, and offers of help. They all had so much to say. There had been hours of stories, sweet, funny, simple. All the ways that he had touched the people in the community. They had laughed. But they also cried. And Sarah resented it. What did they have to cry about? He wasn’t their husband. How could their grief compare to hers?

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He’d been young. She was young. “Widow” wasn’t a word that meant a woman her age. “Widow” wasn’t a word that meant less than ten years of marriage. “Widow” wasn’t a word that meant… her.

The little things were what took her feet out from under her. They’d had their big plans. Hopes and dreams. Those were gone too, but they weren’t what paralyzed her. It was the thought of empty mornings, and conversation-less dinners. The movie he’d been looking forward to that he’d never see. The fishing trip he wouldn’t take AJ on. The anniversary present she wouldn’t buy this year. The couch she’d sit on alone each night once she put the boys to bed.

When they were getting things ready at the church for the funeral, Sam had had his nose in everything, always doing the most, and ended up with his arms full of flowers stacked on programs, on the verge of dropping both, having three conversations at once. Always the same, and she’d shaken her head and made a mental note to tell him all about Sam’s antics when she got home. Until she remembered he wouldn’t be there. Cass had laughed that morning, his sweet little baby giggle, and Sarah had turned to get his reaction. But, of course, he wasn’t there. At the church, one of the old ladies had worn the same ugly hat they’d joked about for years, and Sarah turned to share a knowing smile with him, but no one met her gaze. He wasn’t there, and he never would be again.

The wind blew through the trees in the cemetery. Sarah closed her eyes and twisted her wedding ring on her finger. They’d danced under trees like these at her wedding. She could almost imagine herself back there, if not for the ache that hollowed her out. More than loneliness, more than missing someone. Those things have an end. But this loss. Where was the end? That was what weighed her down. He wouldn’t come home in a few weeks, sit with her on the couch and tell her about his trip. The man who made her laugh, and smile, the father of her children, her best friend, her other half. Just gone. All her life past and future was sloped toward that moment of gravity, the moment where someone cut out a piece of her and left the widow in place of the wife.

So she resented their tears even though she knew it wasn’t fair. They’d all cry and tell their stories and find their way to remember. But how could any of them ever feel even a shadow of the grief she felt for him?

Cass started to cry from across the way where Sam waited with the boys. She knew she had to go over there soon. But she needed a moment more. In a few days, Sam would go back to D.C. where he had a new job at the VA. The neighbors would go back to their routine. The extended family would scatter again. None of them were abandoning her, of course. They would be there. They would support her. But none of them would have to live in the grief the way she would. So in a moment, she would go over there and be a mother, and a sister, and a community member. But for a minute longer she squeezed her eyes shut against the world and nursed the open wound where the world had carved out her heart.

***

Withering

It was the same for the Winter Soldier every time. The respirator forcing air into his lungs, his body too warm and too cold at the same time as they ripped him back from the brink of death where they kept him for months or years at a time. He’d wake shaking, fighting against the phantom cold that sat like ice in his gut and in his lungs.

In a way that first space of time was the worst. It was when he was most and least a person. The memory of his last mission was fresh and untouched by Hydra’s meddling. HIs programming was loose, allowing just enough room for him to chafe at the control. And sometimes, depending on how long he’d been awake the last time, fragments of something from before filtered through, unsettlingly strange, like someone else’s memories staining his simple frost-scorched reality. The three mixed and competed: programming, experience, and a past that was more sensation than memory. There was more in him then, than at any other time, but it did not coalesce and left him a wounded animal. He was confused, he was afraid, he was volatile, and he was oh so violent. That was when he resisted. Maybe for fear of the one thing he knew was coming. Maybe because of those glimpses of old faces and whispers of forgotten names that had come seeping through in his sleep. Maybe just because fighting was all he knew, and there was no one else to fight. Then they’d strap him into that chair. It would drive out everything. All the past missions, all the conscious programming, all the hallucinatory memories. Everything but the sound of his own screams. That was the one constant in his world: how much he hated and feared that machine. Then the words would come, a vise around his throat, narrowing the world until all his will, all his rage, all his pain, all the training and experience of the Winter Soldier, was neatly compacted into a bullet to be pointed wherever they chose. And his own voice in his head was muzzled.

Every time was the same, even the last one. They had to wipe him twice, yes. That was uncommon but not unheard of. And after it happened, he wasn’t even fully aware of it at first. Not until it all started to crumble. Not until the helicarrier came crashing down around him, and he found that he was too aware. Too aware of decades of pain. Too aware that he was afraid for his life. Too aware that he couldn’t make sense of the world. Too aware of the shadowy past clawing at him. Too aware of the voice in his head screaming against the muzzle.

Afterwards when he was alone and on his own for the first time, he spent days trying to anchor himself. The quiet lack in his mind had always been painful. Like frostbite. But now there was too much. Where before there had been chained and frozen order, now there was chaos. Guilt competing with fear, bloodstained and sepia memories at war with each other, life and half-life both claiming to be real. Through it all his programming still tearing at him, demanding he return to his masters. He wouldn’t have been strong enough to resist it had he not known they were dead and dismantled. In those days he knew that, given the chance, he would have chosen the burning, suffocating flash as the cryo chamber froze the blood in his veins and the beat of his heart, would have chosen a return to the brink of death and nothingness over all of this. And he was ashamed of that.

***

Dreading

Sarah was in town when she saw the first person turn to dust. The woman was reaching for a box of cereal in the grocery store, but when her hand touched the box it gave way into a million pieces, and Sarah watched the woman’s face turn to horror a second before it too collapsed. For years to come Sarah would remember the way time slowed down as everyone tried to take in what was happening. People across the floor falling into nothing, and those remaining waiting in a stunned panic to see if they would be next. She’d remember looking around the store with the slow, dawning realization of the scope of what was happening. And she dropped her groceries on the floor and ran for her car, ran to get home to her babies. The babysitter was gone when she got there. A pile of dust in the kitchen. Later Sarah would feel sick sweeping that up. AJ was crying. Cass had slept through it all. She snatched them both up and sat on the couch, holding them against her, not letting them go even when they squirmed in her embrace. She gripped them as if she was holding them together with her bare hands. As if the second she let go they’d dissolve in front of her. And, as she held them, she played the news. Watching it all unfold. The chaos. The confusion. The fear. The slow realization of what had happened. She watched for hours, eventually letting go of her boys when it seemed clear that no one else would disappear. But she kept them on the couch beside her as she watched the news for any glimpse of the Avengers.

When her phone rang, after hours of waiting, her hand shook so hard she could barely answer it. “Sarah-“ Steve Rogers’s voice. She’d met him a few times after he started working with Sam, before the Sokovia Accords had sent both of them into hiding, and she’d seen him on tv. His voice was rough. She could hear the tears in it. In the weeks and years to come, eventually she’d spare a thought for his grief. But not then. Then all she thought was how his voice was the last voice she wanted to hear because if he was calling, it meant Sam couldn’t.

She didn’t remember the rest of what Steve said to her. But she remembered, when the call was over, going into the next room and closing the door so that AJ and Cass wouldn’t hear her sobs. She stayed there for a long time.

She sat up all that night, watching her babies sleep where they’d dropped off on the couch. The world was suddenly a much more terrifying place to have such dear lives to care for. Her sobs were long depleted, and she was exhausted in that terrible unique way that only comes from a long time crying. Still, she was kept awake by the single echoing thought, I’m alone. Her parents, her husband, her brother. Gone. That thought nailed her to the ground. I’m alone, and I can’t protect them. So she sat on the living room floor, without even any confidence that the sun would come up in the morning.

***

Impact

Sarah smelled like fish and engine grease most days. Her back usually hurt too. And her thoughts were crowded by a million worries big and small. Could they afford to keep the boat? Did AJ finish his homework? Was the neighbor boy getting enough to eat? Was Sam safe wherever he was in the world? Would the business make money today? She was a dozen things at once. Everything she needed to be. But, oh, she was tired sometimes. Her whole little world on her shoulders. She sometimes felt she’d aged a hundred years since the Blip. Today wasn’t so bad though. A million worries, sure, but with Sam and the whole town out to help her sort through them, that wasn’t so much.

A pipe was leaking, gushing steam. Sam ran to fix it, trailed a moment later by his friend. Bucky. He greeted her as he went by. There was a complicated story. She’d heard most of it from Sam. She hadn’t, however, really thought that much about the man himself, except as his story related to her brother. Most of the pictures she’d seen of him were either faded black and whites from the 40s, entirely removed from her reality, or distant and blurry news shots related to his time as a fugitive. She got a real look at him for the first time as he passed by her and fixed the pipe. 106 looked good on him, she noted as she went back to her work.

Most days Bucky didn’t feel hardly like a person at all. Just a tangled mess of guilt and grief. Haunted images of the things he’d done casting shadows over the holes left by everything he’d lost. It was his anger that kept him stitched together. Anger at himself. Anger at what had been done to him. Anger at Walker, at Raynor, at Sam. Anger at the world for being different from the way that he remembered it in all the insignificant little ways that made sure he never fit right. Mostly anger at nothing at all. When he didn’t feel broken or monstrous, he just felt lost. Today wasn’t a day like that though. Today he’d fixed some things. Zemo was back where he belonged. Ayo had forgiven him. He was here, making things right with Sam. The sun and the sea breeze and the sounds of people sharing in life together, it all chased his anger away to hide in some dark corner. Not gone, just retreated.

He didn’t think of any of that when he saw Sarah. He saw her, competent, self-assured, beautiful, and fell back into old routines like muscle memory.

“Hi. I’m Bucky.”

She didn’t think of any of her responsibilities or worries or aches when he greeted her. She saw him, skilled, strong, charming, and felt the shiny, bubbly rush of infatuation.

“Oh. Sarah,” she said.

“Sarah,” he repeated with a smile.

He felt like the soldier of old, confident and full of swagger. She felt beautiful and captivating and full of life. For just a moment the scars of the past were swept away, and they felt young.

***

Waiting

Sarah was at the dock with the boys when Bucky rolled up this time around. Both he and Sam were coming in from different parts of the country, and they’d chosen to rendezvous here before heading off on some mission. Sam’s flight had been cancelled, so he wasn’t there yet though he was supposed to have arrived a few hours ago. Bucky always arrived with Sam or just after. He was careful about that. If he’d beaten Sam here it meant he hadn’t gotten word about the cancelled flight. When Bucky realized Sam wasn’t there, he made some excuse about driving back into the main part of town to get something. She waved him off, convincing him to hang around and entertain the boys while she finished work on the boat and then head back to the house with them to wait for Sam.

She had gotten used to Bucky coming around. He’d show up with Sam after some trip. She got the impression that it was the space immediately after missions that Bucky struggled with—it was an experience he’d never had until recently. Returning home. So Sam brought him here. They’d roll in, both of them a little bruised, bickering with each other and asking her to take a side. As part of her solemn duty as a sister, she usually sided against Sam. Just to aggravate Sam, she told herself. No other reason.

For their part, Cass and AJ loved Bucky the way young boys love anyone they can climb on. Cass had grabbed Bucky’s arm and was trying to climb up his side. He was too big for that sort of thing really, but that didn’t matter with super soldier strength. Sarah watched them out of the corner of her eye with a smile. Cass jumped off and wandered away, while AJ began to shadowbox with Bucky.

It happened fast. A missed step. The thud when Cass’s head hit the post. Then blood. A lot of blood.

Bucky was by her side a second after she had the boy in her arms. He pressed some cloth—a clean shirt from his truck—against the boy’s head to stop the bleeding. Cass was crying. She couldn’t tell if he was more scared or hurt. Sarah could hear herself talking but didn’t hardly know what she was saying. Asking or telling Cass that he was okay, over and over. A little too fast, the words tripping over themselves. It was so much blood. Bucky had one hand holding the cloth to the wound, the other on her shoulder. He was saying something, that it wasn’t that bad, how much head injuries bleed, and she was nodding.

A part of her did what she always did. It was her voice coming out strong and clear, making the decision to go to the hospital. It was her who led the way to the car as Bucky scooped up Cass. But inside the panic reigned, and she couldn’t shake how small Cass looked with blood running down the side of his face. So when Bucky insisted on driving so that she could sit in the back with Cass, she was grateful.

By the time Sarah found a chance to slip out and check in on AJ out in the waiting room, she was exhausted. The second she entered the room, Bucky left off whatever he’d been distracting AJ with on his phone and crossed to her for an update. Six staples, no concussion, Cass a little shaken, a little teary but fine overall. Bucky listened attentively. She was glad he was here. Glad she didn’t have to worry about AJ too, through this. Glad just to have someone to say these words to.

Bucky sighed in relief. Sarah was struck, yet again, by the simple indisputable fact that this was a good man. What a thought: the Winter Soldier, waiting with baited breath to see if her son was okay.

Bucky’s gaze broke off from hers, trailing after a cart of medical supplies being pushed by a nurse. Syringes. A scalpel.

“Does being here remind you of…” she glanced at his metal arm and trailed off. Of when they cut off the rest of your arm and stitched on a machine. Of the years they spent experimenting on you in labs.

He followed her meaning. His hand flexed slightly. “No.” He shook his head dismissively as he said it. But he’d hesitated, and his eyes didn’t meet hers.

Sarah ran a hand over her hair. She made her tone light. “You know what, it’s still gonna be a while here. Why don’t you take AJ back to the house? Sam can pick me and Cass up when he gets here.”

She watched him study her for a couple seconds, his blue eyes carefully taking her cues. But he dropped his eyes and shoved his hands in his pockets as he responded. “No, that’s okay. We can wait, at least til Sam gets here.”

Sarah hesitated.

“You shouldn’t have to wait here alone,” Bucky insisted.

Relief flooded her. She accepted and, after a brief word to AJ, headed back to where Cass was waiting. She would hold Cass and keep him safe. Bucky would watch over AJ. She could keep her boys safe. And when she got back out there, Bucky and Sam would be waiting there for her. Warm calm blossomed in her like a sunrise.

***

Reviving

It was the same each time Bucky saw her. A little hitch in his breathing as she caught him off guard. To be near to that much life stunned him. The force of her brought everyone else into orbit; grounding Sam, lifting up her boys, seeing and sheltering those that others overlooked, and inexorably drawing Bucky in.

He took her to dinner. Someplace quiet and comfortable, down near the water, where the sunset cast oranges and pinks across them as they ate. A simple date. They knew each other. He didn’t need to make a big gesture to impress her. He didn’t want excitement. He just wanted to talk to her.

Words didn’t come easy for Bucky anymore. They did when he was young in Brooklyn. But even before he fell, he’d felt his throat closing. Already Zola’s lab and fields of death and violence came between him and the man he was in Brooklyn. There were things in those memories that couldn’t be named, shouldn’t be named lest it give them a foothold in his mind. So even in those days, he smiled for Steve and the team while the shadows pooled unspoken in his mind. Then for 70 years that tendency for reserve was gouged deeper and deeper into him. The Winter Soldier had no stories, only reports. No opinions, only tactics. And if he ever found any of those things in himself, an opinion, a question, a free thought, welling up from some long-dammed spring, any attempt to voice it would have been punished with a beating or, worse, being sent back to the machine to be wiped. Then there were the years of hiding, isolation, and self-imposed punishment. Life had spent 80 years silencing Bucky.

But with Sarah he wanted to tell stories. Stories that he usually kept close, locked away and guarded because their warmth was a rarity to be jealously hoarded. Every time he came around with Sam and saw her there in lively step with the heartbeat of her community, he felt it wake in him. Springtime Brooklyn. Wakandan summer. Even a few clear-skyed days in Romania. Everything in his past that was good and alive yearned to be near Sarah.

They sat at their table long after the food was gone because the words wouldn’t stop flowing, from either of them. Sun-soaked days by a lake in the Louisiana woods. Stickball matches played with life and death intensity. Cookouts on the dock with the whole neighborhood. Little sisters trailing him on his walk to school. Sam’s antics over his first crush. Dragging Steve away from impossible schoolyard fights. First job. First kiss. First apartment. Anything and everything, so long as it had deep roots in their past joy. They talked until the restaurant closed.

He walked her up to the door, and they lingered on the porch. The youth of the night had soaked into the marrow of their bones and neither wanted to let it go.

Bucky was alive with restless sparks. “Let’s go dancing. Can I take you dancing?”

Sarah laughed. “What, you wanna go find a club? You don’t really seem like the club type.”

He made a face of exaggerated contempt. “No. That’s not dancing. Here let me show you.” He pulled out his phone and with a quick search brought up a song he remembered. A song he’d danced to when he was young and uncomplicated. The music drifted out of the phone’s speakers, unconcerned with time or history. Bucky offered his hand and felt a moment’s hesitation at the sight of the sleek metal. Sarah took it eagerly. They danced on her porch. He forgot the steps. She stepped on his feet. He spun her around. Their hearts beat fast with laughter and June moonlight.

***

Aspiring

Sarah looked up at the warm light spilling out into the twilight from her kitchen window as she drove up to the house. Cass and AJ were spending the night with friends, and she’d expected to find the house empty. She felt a little butterfly start up in her stomach at the expectation of seeing him, then chided herself. She wasn’t 14. But she was so glad it wouldn’t be an empty house tonight.

Bucky greeted her with a kiss in the kitchen. She breathed in his scent. Lately, she’d chased the echoes of that scent in her mind when he wasn’t around. d

“James Buchanan Barnes, did you break into my house?”

“It’s hardly breaking in when you don’t lock your doors.” He smiled that lopsided, roguish smile that made her feel like a teenager falling for the first time. “I thought I’d surprise you with dinner.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You cooked?”

“Of course not. Why would I want to make your day worse? I ordered in.”

She dropped onto the couch with a groan as they waited for the food to arrive. “You would not believe the day I’ve had.” She launched into an animated retelling of the day as he settled next to her.

From the start she’d been amazed how easy he was to talk to. The way he saw the world was so different from her—from anyone really—after all he’d seen and done. But something about that met with her experiences so well. Interlocking mechanisms. Maybe it was because he listened with the same intensity he brought to everything. He listened with fire.

“I swear, these people… I’m gonna lose my mind.” She finished her rant.

Bucky nodded very seriously. “Do you want me to kill them for you?”

“Of course. Why else would I be dating the world’s deadliest assassin?”

She curled into his side and rested her head against him. If the food didn’t come soon, she’d fall asleep. His arm wrapped around her. Her eyes closed, but she didn’t fall asleep. Time slowed around them. Her breath had fallen into sync with his. The symphony of the wind in the trees drifted in through the open windows, serenading them. There were a dozen other moments from her day that she wanted to tell him, but she wasn’t in any rush. There would be time later. Time stretched around her like the teal depths of a lake, and for now all she wanted was to float in this moment endlessly.

“I would marry you if you asked me.” She hadn’t planned on saying it, but she didn’t second guess it. The thought had been carried in the beat of her heart long enough for her to be sure of it.

Bucky looked surprised. Only by the comment, though, not the concept, Sarah was pretty sure. He nodded, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “I’ll make a note of that.”

“Would you marry me if I asked?”

“Well… I’d kind of like to do the asking.”

She smiled. “Well don’t take too long, or I’ll beat you to it.”

“Fair enough.”

There was a pause. His fingers traced circles lightly on her back.

He lifted his left hand from the couch and examined it. “How do you think wearing a ring on a vibranium hand works?”

Sarah reached for his hand to consider it. “We’re just gonna paint it on.”

She felt his laugh in her bones. Her hand trailed up to rest over his heart. She held it there, content to just sit and count every steady beat.

***

Abiding

Bucky was transfixed by the moment. The hushed chatter from where AJ and Cass had sprawled out on the floor to watch the movie. The smell of microwave popcorn. The cool breeze drifting in the window. Sarah’s touch. Every sense flooded him, as he tried to drink in every detail, etch it into his memory.

Sarah’s fingers ran absent-mindedly over his hand, making slow circles over the smooth vibranium, occasionally breaking off the rhythm to trace the gold-lined grooves. By now a familiar habit, Sarah’s attention to the movie didn’t waver—she knew every whorl and curve of that metal, could trace every line without a thought. But Bucky couldn’t focus on the movie. All he could do was thank God for Shuri’s genius because he could feel it. He could feel the warmth of Sarah’s hand on his. Not quite the way he felt in his right hand, but there all the same. The other thought was almost too big for him to form—it overwhelmed his senses. He thanked God for Sarah. It had been years, but her touch still awed him. Still captivated him so much that reality melted away. In it’s place all that was left was her. Her and this family- his family. All of it washed in gold like the rising sun.

He reached across with his right hand and played with one of her braids that had come loose. A smile graced the corner of her mouth and without looking away from the movie, she stopped caressing his hand long enough to squeeze it. He kissed her cheek.

He’d spent dozens of evenings just like this one. Still sometimes he lost himself in the wonder of it all. It was like a dream, a dream he’d spent years afraid he’d wake up from. But that fear faded with each day that rose around him. So perfect he couldn’t make sense of it.

#tfatws #sarahbucky #bucky barnes #sarah wilson #buckysarah #my writing #sarahbucky fanfiction

32 notes · View notes

richincolor · 3 years

Photo

New Releases for the Week of May 3, 2021

It's great to see so many new books hitting the shelves this week. I know I've been waiting for several of these and am happy to be able to finally read them.

The Ones We’re Meant to Find by Joan He Roaring Brook

Cee has been trapped on an abandoned island for three years without any recollection of how she arrived, or memories from her life prior. All she knows is that somewhere out there, beyond the horizon, she has a sister named Kay. Determined to find her, Cee devotes her days to building a boat from junk parts scavenged inland, doing everything in her power to survive until the day she gets off the island and reunites with her sister.

In a world apart, 16-year-old STEM prodigy Kasey Mizuhara is also living a life of isolation. The eco-city she calls home is one of eight levitating around the world, built for people who protected the planet―and now need protecting from it. With natural disasters on the rise due to climate change, eco-cities provide clean air, water, and shelter. Their residents, in exchange, must spend at least a third of their time in stasis pods, conducting business virtually whenever possible to reduce their environmental footprint. While Kasey, an introvert and loner, doesn’t mind the lifestyle, her sister Celia hated it. Popular and lovable, Celia much preferred the outside world. But no one could have predicted that Celia would take a boat out to sea, never to return.

Now it’s been three months since Celia’s disappearance, and Kasey has given up hope. Logic says that her sister must be dead. But as the public decries her stance, she starts to second guess herself and decides to retrace Celia’s last steps. Where they’ll lead her, she does not know. Her sister was full of secrets. But Kasey has a secret of her own. — Cover image and summary via Goodreads

Meet Cute Diary by Emery Lee Quill Tree Books

Noah Ramirez thinks he’s an expert on romance. He has to be for his popular blog, the Meet Cute Diary, a collection of trans happily ever afters. There’s just one problem—all the stories are fake. What started as the fantasies of a trans boy afraid to step out of the closet has grown into a beacon of hope for trans readers across the globe.

When a troll exposes the blog as fiction, Noah’s world unravels. The only way to save the Diary is to convince everyone that the stories are true, but he doesn’t have any proof. Then Drew walks into Noah’s life, and the pieces fall into place: Drew is willing to fake-date Noah to save the Diary. But when Noah’s feelings grow beyond their staged romance, he realizes that dating in real life isn’t quite the same as finding love on the page.

In this charming novel by Emery Lee, Noah will have to choose between following his own rules for love or discovering that the most romantic endings are the ones that go off script. — Cover image and summary via Goodreads

They Better Call Me Sugar: My Journey from the Hood to the Hardwood by Sugar Rodgers Black Sheep

Growing up in dire poverty in Suffolk, Virginia, Sugar (born Ta’Shauna) Rodgers never imagined that she would become an all-star player in the WNBA (Women’s National Basketball Association). Both of her siblings were in and out of prison throughout much of her childhood and shootings in her neighborhood were commonplace. For Sugar this was just a fact of life.

While academics wasn’t a high priority for Sugar and many of her friends, athletics always played a prominent role. She mastered her three-point shot on a net her brother put up just outside their home, eventually becoming so good that she could hustle local drug dealers out of money in one-on-one contests.

With the love and support of her family and friends, Sugar’s performance on her high school basketball team led to her recruitment by the Georgetown Hoyas, and her eventual draft into the WNBA in 2013 by the Minnesota Lynx (who won the WNBA Finals in Sugar’s first year). The first of her family to attend college, Sugar speaks of her struggles both academically and as an athlete with raw honesty.

Sugar’s road to a successful career as a professional basketball player is fraught with sadness and death–including her mother’s death when she’s fourteen, which leaves Sugar essentially homeless. Throughout it all, Sugar clings to basketball as a way to keep herself focused and sane.

And now Sugar shares her story as a message of hope and inspiration for young girls and boys everywhere, but especially those growing up in economically challenging conditions. Never sugarcoating her life experiences, she delivers a powerful message of discipline, perseverance, and always believing in oneself. — Cover image and summary via Goodreads

Excuse Me While I Ugly Cry by Joya Goffney HarperTeen

Quinn keeps lists of everything—from the days she’s ugly cried, to “Things That I Would Never Admit Out Loud,” to all the boys she’d like to kiss. Her lists keep her sane. By writing her fears on paper, she never has to face them in real life. That is, until her journal goes missing…

An anonymous account posts one of her lists on Instagram for the whole school to see and blackmails her into facing seven of her greatest fears, or else her entire journal will go public. Quinn doesn’t know who to trust. Desperate, she teams up with Carter Bennett—the last known person to have her journal—in a race against time to track down the blackmailer.

Together, they journey through everything Quinn’s been too afraid to face, and along the way, Quinn finds the courage to be honest, to live in the moment, and to fall in love. — Cover image and summary via Goodreads

Hurricane Summer by Asha Bromfield Wednesday Books

Tilla has spent her entire life trying to make her father love her. But every six months, he leaves their family and returns to his true home: the island of Jamaica.

When Tilla’s mother tells her she’ll be spending the summer on the island, Tilla dreads the idea of seeing him again, but longs to discover what life in Jamaica has always held for him.

In an unexpected turn of events, Tilla is forced to face the storm that unravels in her own life as she learns about the dark secrets that lie beyond the veil of paradise—all in the midst of an impending hurricane.

Hurricane Summer is a powerful coming of age story that deals with colorism, classism, young love, the father-daughter dynamic—and what it means to discover your own voice in the center of complete destruction. — Cover image and summary via Goodreads

Indivisible by Daniel Aleman Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

There is a word Mateo Garcia and his younger sister Sophie have been taught to fear for as long as they can remember: deportation. Over the past few years, however, the fear that their undocumented immigrant parents could be sent back to Mexico has started to fade to the back of their minds. And why wouldn’t it, when their Ma and Pa have been in the United States for so long, they have American-born children, and they’re hard workers and good neighbors?

When two ICE agents come asking for Pa, the Garcia family realizes that the lives they’ve built are about to come crumbling down. And when Mateo returns from school one day to find that his parents have been taken, he’ll have to come to terms with the fact that his family’s worst nightmare has become a reality.

With his Ma and Pa being held in separate detention centers, Mateo must learn how to look after his sister and himself. The choices Mateo makes, and the people he turns to for help, might reunite his family… or tear them apart for good. With his parents’ fate and his own future hanging in the balance, Mateo must figure out who he is and what he is capable of, even as he’s forced to question what it means to be an American teenager in a country that rejects his own mom and dad. — Cover art and summary via Goodreads

Counting Down with You by Tashie Bhuiyan Inkyard Press

Karina Ahmed has a plan. Keep her head down, get through high school without a fuss, and follow her parents’ rules—even if it means sacrificing her dreams. When her parents go abroad to Bangladesh for four weeks, Karina expects some peace and quiet. Instead, one simple lie unravels everything.

Karina is my girlfriend.

Tutoring the school’s resident bad boy was already crossing a line. Pretending to date him? Out of the question. But Ace Clyde does everything right—he brings her coffee in the mornings, impresses her friends without trying, and even promises to buy her a dozen books (a week) if she goes along with his fake-dating facade. Though Karina agrees, she can’t help but start counting down the days until her parents come back.

T-minus twenty-eight days until everything returns to normal—but what if Karina no longer wants it to? — Cover image and summary via Goodreads

All Kinds of Other by James Sie Quill Tree Books

In this tender, nuanced coming-of-age love story, two boys—one who is cis and one who is trans—have been guarding their hearts to protect themselves, until their feelings for each other give them a reason to stand up to their fears.

Two boys are starting at a new school.

Jules is just figuring out what it means to be gay and hasn’t totally decided whether he wants to be out at his new school. His parents and friends have all kinds of opinions, but for his part, Jules just wants to make the basketball team and keep his head down.

Jack is trying to start over after a best friend break-up. He followed his actor father clear across the country to LA, but he’s also totally ready to leave his past behind. Maybe this new school where no one knows him is exactly what he needs.

When the two boys meet, the sparks are undeniable. But then a video surfaces linking Jack to a pair of popular transgender vloggers, and the revelations about Jack’s past thrust both Jack and Jules into the spotlight they’ve been trying to avoid. Suddenly both boys have a choice to make—between lying low where it’s easier or following their hearts. — Cover image and summary via Goodreads

Luck of the Titanic by Stacey Lee G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers

Southampton, 1912: Seventeen-year-old British-Chinese Valora Luck has quit her job and smuggled herself aboard the Titanic with two goals in mind: to reunite with her twin brother Jamie--her only family now that both their parents are dead--and to convince a part-owner of the Ringling Brothers Circus to take the twins on as acrobats. Quick-thinking Val talks her way into opulent firstclass accommodations and finds Jamie with a group of fellow Chinese laborers in third class. But in the rigidly stratified world of the luxury liner, Val's ruse can only last so long, and after two long years apart, it's unclear if Jamie even wants the life Val proposes. Then, one moonless night in the North Atlantic, the unthinkable happens--the supposedly unsinkable ship is dealt a fatal blow--and Val and her companions suddenly find themselves in a race to survive.

Stacey Lee, master of historical fiction, brings a fresh perspective to an infamous tragedy, loosely inspired by the recently uncovered account of six Titanic survivors of Chinese descent.

#new releases #YALit

32 notes · View notes

wehavelayers-shrek · 3 years

Text

Arranged D.M

Au:after war

⚠️:angst,anxiety

A Facade that was what you two were doing making everyone think that you two loved each other but clearly behind it you can see two broken people.

You and Draco have been married for 3 years now the two of you were arranged to be married ever since you two were born your family and the Malfoy's really had a strong bond even after the news that they sided with voldemort.

You and Draco never loved each other you hated him and he also loved someone else. But being you two were cowards and want to obey your parents you decided that you won't cause any dismay to them.

You wanted to travel the muggle world be free from the curse that your family brought upon you. And him he would spend all of his time not with you but with his mistress you really didn't care about what he did. Since you knew that you shouldn't be caring since his heart was never yours to begin with.

But one day you went home him not being there usually draco and you would share your dinner together not really talking but only glancing at each other. But today he was out probably with her mistress that was when you felt the emptiness of the house the gloominess of your sorrounding you really didn't noticed it before but now it's much more evident. You didn't wand to admit that you grew find of him even if you two rarely spoke the little things he do when you were sad and lonely or even when you had anxiety when the two would you go to family events.

Flashback:

You were at a wedding specifically your sister's wedding.

You and Draco didn't came together since he was with his mistress.

You can feel your anxiety growing as people would go to you and question where was your husband and why was he not with you

You can hear gossips about you and you can feel the anxiety growing and growing within you until you see those platinum blond hair in a suit moving towards you

Great more questions you thought

As he was getting closer your father asked you something you never really thought about

"so you two have been married for a quite a while so when are you going to have a heir" he asked

"I uhm" you really didn't want to anwser it and clearly it made you uncomfortable

"I want to see mini versions of you and Draco running around don't you two want that" he added

But before you could anwser draco anwsered it for you

"we weren't really thinking of that yet father, I think we would want to first have our time together before we have a proper family but maybe soon we'll have a heir" he kissed your forehead and told you to hold his hand the whole time you were there.

thinking of these just made your heart ache

"this isn't the life that I imagined for myself" you were now talking to yourself

"stuck in a loveless marriage, I just want someone to love me, someone to travel the world with fucking hell my husband even has someone" you were so frustrated at the situation you were in if you weren't such a coward maybe you were happy.

All this thinking made not only your heart ache but also your head you decide to go to sleep trying to forget the feelings you have for your husband who will never be yours to begin with.

You can feel arms hugging you late at night you turn to see draco hugging you tightly

You two never sleep at the same bed together ever since you two were married so this was really a surprise

You decided to ignore this occurance and not to wake him you look at him.

He was handsome you always thought of that. You were torn you know in everyone's eyes he was yours but in your eyes he wasn't and that broke you.

You get up and go to the kitchen to get a cup of tea.

"you're so dumb y/n" talking to yourself

"you could be in love with anyone in the world yet you chose someone who loved someone else, how dumb can you be"you sighed

You went outside to drink your tea there was no one outside only the cold wind and occational sound of animals can be heard you gazed over the stars thinking about the memories you had at hogwarts and how everyone of your friends already we're married to the love of their lives while you were stuck here heartbroken.

"if only I was brave" you sighed

"you are brave" someone said behind you

You turn to look who that voice belonged to

It was your neighbor Nathan he had long brunette hair brown eyes, he was tall and he was about your age you and him were pretty good friends

He sat down beside you

"so what could a pretty girl doing here"he questioned you

"I could say the same Nathan"

"you know I always get up at this time to watch the stars" he honestly said

"so how about you y/n why are you here this is the first time I saw you up"

"you know being married is exhausting, you know I really want more than this"

"I might say I am surprised, you and your husband always looked happy together"

"if you only knew"

"well if you and your husband got into an argument you can always come and vent to me"

"thank you Nathan I don't know what I would do if you weren't here in this neighborhood"

"anytime y/n you know you're also a great person"

You started to talk about your lives and what would you do if you weren't married.

"too bad you're already married y/n" he said

"I would like to travel the world with you"he smiled

"stop joking Nathan you don't even like airplanes" you laughed

"it's true" he said

"you're a pretty cool girl to travel with, you know what let's plan it it's my gift to you since I can see your pretty stress"

"I don't know nathan don't you think it might be scandalous I have a husband and if people see us travelling together they might get the wrong idea"

"hey you shouldn't worry about what people would think, people can think what they want, I'll talk to your husband y/n if your afraid to tell him our plan"

"well if you insist, I'm sure my husband won't mind to have the house for himself for a couple of weeks"

You thought this would benefit you and Draco since he can invite his mistress over while you went on a vacation to get your mind of off him

"great, tomorrow at lunch I'll come by to visit"

"I really had a great time tonight we should do this more often" he said

"yeah we should"you tell him

You bid your goodbyes and you went back to your house

As you were about to enter the house you can see draco in the living room his back faced to you sitting down at his chair a glass of wine on his hand

"draco?" You quietly said

"Why are you up draco"

"I could ask you the same y/n, with another man at this hour"

Shit he saw you with Nathan this won't go well

"oh, me and nathan were just planning ab-"

He cut you off

"I've heard you want to travel with him you two were being loud chatting"

There was a long silence until you decided to break it

"so draco would you let me travel with him, don't worry I won't ask you money I have a sa-"

"no you're not going to travel with him"

"you can have the house all by yourself you can even invite your girlfriend"you were trying to reason with him

You never stopped him from having fun with his girlfriend, why was he being selfish.

"Draco never did I stopped you from being with the love of your life why are you being selfish"

"I'm not being selfish it's you duty as my wife to be with me and not with some other man"his voice gradually growing louder

"I can't believe this, it's also your duty not be with another woman have you forgotten draco, why are you blaming me for wanting to find love"

" you are stuck with me wether you like it or not"

"You haven't change at all your still the same selfish boy I met on hogwarts, I really thought you'd change but no I gave you everything I gave you freedom even if it hurts, just this once I ask you to give me freedom and you couldn't give it to me"

Silence that's all you got.

"you aren't changing my mind y/n you are staying here" he left going upstairs

You can't believe how stupid you are to think he was a good man he never cared for you this being the moment you realize it you didn't go upstairs you instead just sat down at your couch putting your hand on your head massaging it. You were now silently crying it's like he purposely want to hurt you. You stayed there trying to get your composure back

You went up to your room, draco probably isn't there anymore

You open the door to see you were wrong draco was in your room sitting on your bed

"can you leave"you said

"I'm not leaving"

"draco stop being so stubborn"

"I'm not leaving y/n"

You knew how stubborn he is so you let him be

You sat on the other side of the bed

The silence was deafening and you can feel the tension you two created

"I'm sorry" he said

"I wasn't a good husband to you"

You didn't utter a word

"I am the one to blame here, I was selfish" he added

"I didn't realize how much I hurted you all these years"

"I know you don't love me y/n, I mean how can you love me im the worst person to be with"

You could hear him choking on his words he was crying

"draco I know you don't want to marry me and Im also sorry for what I said earlier your a great guy" you tried comforting him

"you want to know a secret y/n"

"Im inlove with you for a long time, pathetic right"

"I was insecure and ended up hurting you instead of making you feel loved"

"please give me a chance y/n I'll be better"

"draco I don't know what I should say"

You don't need to he kissed you passionately

"I promise I'll be good to you darling I'll be better"

Years past

You and Draco ended up having a son together he kept his promise to you you two raised a child together which you two loved dearly he was a great dad you ended up travelling the world together you two were happy maybe being with him wasn't bad afterall.

#draco fanfiction #draco angst #draco imagine #draco x reader

45 notes · View notes

stardustskz · 4 years

Text

An Ending

[ Prompt 15 ] Life went on without you. It was just an ending, they tell me, not the end.

prompt list: Ode to Sorrow

word count: 1k+ (is this even considered as a drabble?)

genre: angst

warnings: one curse word

member: changbin

note: pls watch out for grammatical errors, english is not my first language haha

“I like you.”

Changbin’s voice kept repeating in your mind as you stared at him in disbelief, sudden waves of emotion flooded your thoughts, preventing your ability to comprehend and process the current situation. You see, you’ve had a huge crush on him ever since you don’t even know what that word meant.

He was this cute little kid who wore denim overalls on top of his white sweatshirt, under the scorching sun back when their family just moved to your neighborhood. Holding a pink balloon on his left hand with a lollipop between his teeth, he waved at you as he walked closer to the fence of your mom’s backyard.

“Hi! My name is Seo Changbin and we just moved to the house next to yours!” He said while grinning from ear to ear.

Being neighbors for a long time, you both practically grew up together. You went to the same school, hung out with the same circle of friends, skipped on one house to another for a party, went to church every Sunday, and sometimes you’ll visit their house for a round or two of Uno. He had always been this overly cheerful friend of yours who laughs on every dad joke that Chan throws during lunch, the one who yells whenever the teacher is approaching the classroom, the one who would make fool of himself just so he can lighten up the mood, the one who would protect you over bullies, the one who would accompany you on your late night walks to the nearby park, and the only one that you’ve ever liked. You weren’t sure when exactly this newfound liking of yours towards Changbin started but you sure do admit that it lasted longer than you imagined.

It was by the end of junior year when you decided to confess to him. The weather was humid, and the sun peeked through the blinds of the clouds hovering over the sky as the season changed from spring to fall. You were beyond nervous, your hands were clammy and your throat felt deprived of water as you managed to choke the words out, under the shade of that one old oak tree that your school’s been taking care of for decades. You watched as his eyes swiftly changed from a look of anticipation to being in a state of shock and gradually, to one that mirrors sympathy. And as he stumbled over his words, you already knew his answer.

“It’s okay Bin, really,” you said, trying to organize your thoughts before continuing,

“Just please, promise me that nothing will change between us.” You held your pinky finger out as he promised, locking his finger to yours, before excusing himself for a club meeting. You stayed in your position, standing beneath the oak tree, watching the way the leaves wither and fall, seemingly empathizing with how your heart has just been shattered for the first time.

Everything went completely normal after that dreadful day, way too normal that even your feelings towards Changbin never strayed, you can guess it even evolved into something you can’t quite decipher. You watched him as he went in and out of his relationships, because he would always come to you whenever he loses one. Basking in the comfort and warmth that you give as you accompany him through his heartbreaks. But this one, this one was the worst so far, compared to the tens of heartbreaks that you experienced with Changbin’s previous relationships.

“I like you, Shia”

You felt everyone’s gaze in the room shifted to you, following Changbin’s drunken confession towards your closest girl friend. You shouldn’t be affected by this, so why do you feel your eyes water? You were all just having fun, the six of you, minutes ago, celebrating Changbin’s birthday with this small party that you planned for him at his apartment, not until he spitted these words out. You’ve witnessed him go through different relationships before. So why is it hurting so much? What difference does it make for this to fucking hurt more than the others?

“y/n…” you heard Shia whisper, but you have already decided that you’re done for this day, turning on your back and leaving for the door and you felt warm tears streaming down your cheeks as you shut it behind you.

You should have seen this coming, it’s not unlikely for him to like Shia. She’s a lovely young lady and you’ve seen the way he looked at her during the recent theatre play of your club. She was the protagonist, whilst you worked as the stage designer, hiding off-stage. And she played the role of the princess really well. That it broke your tough walls to see Changbin get smitten all over her, with his gaze, staring lovingly at her. It’s not her fault though, and you can’t bring yourself to hate her. She’s the closest to a sister that you’ll ever have so you can’t just blame her. So here you are, shutting everyone away as you cried your heart out in the corner of your room, hugging your knees. You should’ve listened to everyone who warned you about this boy, who never saw you as something more than a little sister. You should’ve avoided this collision when you knew that you’ll be the receiving end, the one who will be left more miserable than the other.

You felt the grasp of your necklace tighten, feeling it weigh heavier, before you unclasped its hook, and held it delicately between your fingers. Changbin gave this to you on your 16th birthday and you continued wearing it since then, taking an oath to never remove it. But you guess everything somehow must come to an end at some point. And this will be your first step into ending every ounce of feeling that you have towards Seo Changbin. You managed to dry your tears, roughly wiping off your cheeks with the back of your hands as you stood up from your sitting position. With an impulse of conviction shooting through your veins, you placed the necklace in one of your bedside drawers, making sure it was far enough from sight for the next morning. Because your life will go on without him. Of course, it must. It was just an ending, they say, not the end.

#stray kids changbin #stray kids drabbles #stray kids #stray kids au #stray kids angst #stray kids oneshot #stray kids imagines #seo changbin #changbin #skz changbin #skz angst #skz

45 notes · View notes

slashyrogue · 4 years

Text

AU-gust Day #30: Magic AU

Hannigram AU: Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered

There was a witch next door.

Will had watched him move in from his front window, annoyed at the crowd of his neighbors who stood gawking in their front yards not even bothering to pretend they weren’t desperate to welcome this strange man in their lives.

Everyone knew that witches weren’t to be trusted.

They used your own desire against you, preyed on them, and for a small fee would give you just that very thing for a short while. Witches didn’t give magic freely, and they sure as shit didn’t move into completely human neighborhoods without motive.

This witch, whatever his name was, wanted something from all of them.

Will was determined not to go near him.

Then, of course, his best friend and fellow neighbor Bev brought the witch to his house.

Bev and Will had a very close relationship that had only grown in the years since she pushed her way into his life. He loved Bev, despite her constant need to try to push her way into his non existent love life, and every Monday they played cards with Alana Bloom and her wife Margot. Will loved card night, though he pretended not to, and that Monday he was ready to host in his house.

The knock at his door made him smile and when he opened up to his guests he froze.

“Will! Look who I brought with me. Margot is sick, so I invited Hannibal. I don’t think you’ve met yet?”

Will glared at her. “No.”

Hannibal, the very same witch who lived just across the street from Will and who he’d avoided for almost two weeks now, smiled as he held out his hand.

“Hannibal Lecter, nice to finally meet you.”

Will stared at the offered hand. “I’m not...”

Bev grabbed his hand and smashed his palm into Hannibal’s, who then shook their hands together. He shivered at the touch, his eyes wide, and Hannibal blinked.

“Oh, I see.”

“C’mon guys, let’s get playing!”

Bev and Alana pushed past him but Will stared at Hannibal not letting go.

“What do you see?”

Hannibal smiled. “You don’t like magic much, do you Will?”

“No,” he said, “I’ve...heard nothing but bad things about...the people who use it.”

“From your mother? Father?”

He bristled. “What business is it of yours, Mister Lecter?”

“It isn’t,” he said, gently pushing Will to the side, “But I think perhaps...you’ve been misled for a very long time. Magic users are not all bad. You may one day wish to get to know one just a bit and see that for yourself.”

Will watched him go the card table, oddly warm, and stared at the hand Hannibal had touched.

His hand was glowing.

He felt his heart beat wildly in his chest as he locked eyes with Hannibal, who raised his hand up for Will’s view.

Hannibal’s hand was glowing too.

“What the fuck?” Will whispered.

He walked over to the table, sat down across from Hannibal, and Bev began to deal. “Five card stud?”

“Fine,” Will said, barely hearing her as she started to deal them all in.

Hannibal never once took his eyes off of Will, nor did he stop touching his hand that still glowed. Alana and Bev didn’t even seem to notice.

“See?” Bev whispered, leaning in as she patted Will’s arm, “Witches aren’t all that bad. You might even learn something about yourself if you’d just...try new things. You know?”

Will let out a long breath as he looked at the glow of his palm again.

“Yeah,” he said, lifting his gaze to Hannibal who smirked back, “I already am.”

Bev grinned. “Yay! See, I knew it was a good idea to invite Hannibal over. Gotta get you out of this anti witch stuff, right?”

“Right,” Will mumbled, squeezing his hand as he felt the warmth of the glow still.

The game ended up being one of the worst Will ever played, mostly because he couldn’t pay any attention to what was going on, and yet Hannibal did fairly well. He didn’t beat everyone, though Will was almost sure that was only because he didn’t want to, and as they headed into the next he vowed to win.

“Now we’re gonna play Will’s favorite,” Alana said, grinning, “And my wife’s too, so let’s all have fun for her.”

“What are we playing?” Hannibal asked, taking a bite of the cake he’d brought.

“Poker,” Will said, smirking, “Have you played?”

“I have,” Hannibal said, “Though it’s been some time since I last indulged. What are the rules again?”

Will’s agitation as he watched Alana and Bev fawn over Hannibal only grew, and his whole body felt hot the longer he shared space with him. The witch was doing something to make Will feel this way, he just knew, but Alana and Bev wouldn’t believe him.

He was quite sure of that since neither of them noticed Hannibal’s glowing palm as he passed out pieces of his cake. The smug smile he gave Will when he handed over a piece to him made Will want to punch him in the face.

“I hope you like this,” he said softly, “It’s an....old family recipe.”

“Eye of newt and toe of frog then, huh?”

“Will!” Alana said, hitting his arm.

Hannibal smiled. “It’s quite alright,” he teased, “The eye of newt is of course much a part of the recipe but I ran out of frog toes so you’ll have to settle for cinnamon.”

Both Bev and Alana laughed.

Will stared at the cake. He could say he wasn’t hungry, or just set the plate down without even taking a bite. Alana and Bev would say he was rude, but that would blow over.

Something made him take a bite.

The taste was amazing.

He swallowed, suppressing a moan, and set the plate down. “It’s ok,” he lied, “A little dry.”

Will watched the teasing glint go out of Hannibal’s eyes.

“Will, stop being an ass! Hannibal, the cake is delicious. Will just hates good things.”

He watched Hannibal set his own plate down and frown. “Thank you.”

The rest of the night Hannibal was oddly subdued, and Will noticed their glowing hands began to dim. He felt his chest grow tighter the more he watched the light go to almost non-existent while they played. Will’s guilt ate away at his concentration again enough that he lost poker, not that he cared much, and the minute the game ended he picked up his cake again to take another bite.

Will could feel Hannibal’s eyes on him as he pressed his fork into the moist dessert, and when the cake hit his tongue he was certain he had witch’s entire attention. He let himself indulge, eating every bite, and when he looked up Hannibal was smiling.

“You’ve come to appreciate the dryness, now?”

He blushed, setting the fork down, and took a long sip of his beer.

“That’s what the beer is for.”

Alana and Bev both smiled at him in that horrible knowing way that he hated.

“Beer and cake,” Bev said, “My kind of meal.”

Hannibal held out his hand. “Would you like another?”

His hand was glowing bright now, almost so bright Will’s eyes hurt, and as annoying as this all was he felt immensely better. “Please.”

Alana yawned exaggeratingly. “Well, I think I’m getting REALLY tired so I’m gonna go check on my wife. You all have fun but....”

“I’m going too!” Bev said loudly, jumping up so fast the chair almost fell over, “I...uh....have work to do.”

“At ten o’clock at night?” Will asked, taking the piece of cake from Hannibal.

“Yes,” she said, pushing her chair into the card table, “I...have lots of work.”

“You manage a comic book store,” Will said.

“Inventory,” she said, lifting up her hands, “I...I have lots of inventory.”

“Goodnight guys!” Alana said, grabbing Bev’s arm and almost pulling her.

Will rolled his eyes and took a bite of his cake.

“I suspect that this was more than a ‘welcome to the neighborhood’ invitation.”

He scoffed. “No shit.”

“I...suppose you’d like to talk about this.”

Hannibal held up his glowing palm.

Will held up his own as he set down his fork. “You think?”

“What do you know about your mother, Will?”

“What does that...”

Hannibal reached across the card table and took Will’s glowing hand in his. The effect was immediate heat, almost too much, and Will pulled away.

“Your father told you bad things about witches your whole life, I’m assuming. So much so that you grew to hate witches and magic of any kind, but there was a growing feeling inside that you fought to keep in. Am I correct?”

Will squeezed his hand. “Yes.”

“And you thought that feeling was some sort of curse that would haunt you the rest of your life?”

“What are you trying to say? That I’m a witch? That my mother...”

Hannibal snapped his fingers and a flame shot out of his glowing palm. Will stared at the flame, mesmerized, and felt an urge to touch.

“You can,” Hannibal purred, holding his hand out for Will, “I promise you, Will. You can touch all you’d like.”

Will put his hand over the flame and gasped at the feeling. His eyes filled with tears.

“My father hated me so much he made me hate myself? That’s what you’re trying to tell me.”

Hannibal grabbed his hand, snuffing out the flame, and pulled Will forward.

“You have magic in you, Will. Our magics are...attracted to one another. It’s not uncommon for witches to find companions this way or just...teachers. I would like to teach you. If you’d let me.”

He pulled his hand away, staring at the glow, and then at Hannibal again.

“No. I’m...no I have to...you need to go.”

“Will...”

“GO!” Will said loudly, just as suddenly several things flew across the room.

Hannibal stood. “You’re making a mistake.”

“It’s my mistake to make. Please, just go.”

He looked away as Hannibal headed for the door.

“You have such power in you, Will. I’ve never felt anything like it. It’s...quite something.”

Will turned away, tears filling his eyes, and when the door closed he covered his face with his hands.

“Fuck, fuck, FUCK!” he yelled.

It couldn’t be true.

His dad wouldn’t do this to him.

He wasn’t a witch.

Hannibal was just---

Will lifted his hand, and saw how the glow was still so very bright. He stood up, walked to the door, and opened up to Hannibal sitting on his porch. Hannibal didn’t turn.

“I apologize,” he said, holding up his hand, “I found it very hard to go.”

He sighed, stepping out, and sat down beside him.

“They’re both watching us.”

“Yes,” Hannibal said, smiling at him, “I confess that was one of the positives I associated with staying. Your friends may think you kicked me out and force you to talk to me again.”

Will scoffed, shaking his head. “I....”

“You never knew your mother?”

“She left when I was too little to remember knowing her,” he said, staring at his hand, “But...she’s still alive. I get cards every now and then that I usually throw away.”

“I see.”

“If this is true,” Will said, staring out at the street, “And I let you help me, what’s in it for you?”

“The pleasure of your company, and the satisfaction in knowing I helped your magic grow.”

“So, bragging rights that you nabbed a powerful new cult member?”

Hannibal reached for his hand and Will trembled when he squeezed their palms.

“Something like that.”

“Strictly business, then. Just keep it professional?”

“Or we could socialize like adults. God forbid we become friendly.”

Will pulled his hand away, rubbing where they’d touched. “I don’t find you that interesting.”

“You will,” Hannibal whispered.

He looked at him again, really looked, and felt an immense fear.

“This could be the biggest mistake I ever make.”

Hannibal smiled. “We all make mistakes, Will, but this is not one of them.”

Will sighed, “Okay, I’ll...let you teach me, or pull whatever hidden magic in me there is that’s just dying to get out.”

He felt like a weight had been lifted when Hannibal took his hand again and ran two fingers over his palm.

“Thank you for giving me this gift.”

“Aren’t you going to be the one giving me the gift?”

“Yes, I suppose,” Hannibal said, standing and letting Will’s hand drop, “But the true gift is getting to watch your magic grow. I am but a guide in this, Will, guiding you on your journey to becoming who you were born to be.”

Will blushed, rubbing his hand again. “Oh.”

“And with that, I will bid you a goodnight.”

“But...when are we gonna start?”

Hannibal smiled. “I will contact you when I feel the time is right. Goodnight, Will.”

Will frowned. “Goodnight.”

He watched him go, feeling oddly lonely, and when the door to Hannibal’s house closed he went inside his own. Winston ran up to greet him as he sat down on the couch.

The light in his palm was dimmer now, and Will wanted the brightness of before to return with every fiber of his being.

And he had no idea why.

#au_gust_2020 #hannigram au #magic au

63 notes · View notes

kadeunpc · 3 years

Text

the life of a barbarian;

An orphan in Clubs is less of a rarity and more of a staple. Some are taken in by kindly neighbors, others by calculating adults with ill intentions, but most are left to fend for themselves. Orphanages in practice if not in name are relatively common, and this story begins in one of them.

A small boy, old enough to walk but not to speak, appears on the doorstep of one such household accompanied by no one. The older children, used to new blood appearing in this fashion, take him inside to protect and raise him as brother just as their siblings had done for them. A house full of Club children with no guardians outside of the few teenagers who stuck around is a wild place to grow into adulthood. Fights were common, education near absent, but a warm home with others just like you is a better place to grow than the streets.

When he is old enough to question the world he asks one of his older sisters why he does not have a name. “Parents usually name kids, an’ you haven’t got any,” she replies bluntly, too busy trying to figure out how she’ll find the food to feed the budding shifter to care much for gentleness. “If you wan’a name you’ll haf’ta think’a one yourself.”

He ponders the issue. When others talk about him, they call him “HIM”, putting particular emphasis on the word. So isn’t that already his name? He decides it is, and though some of his siblings say his new name is stupid, they all smile when they say it, so he’s happy enough.

HIM grows quickly, eating far more than his siblings, even the older ones. Eventually, once he’s big enough, they tell HIM it’s time for him to get a job. Suspecting he is a shifter given the complaints of his siblings about his food intake, HIM harasses an old hunter in their neighborhood until he takes HIM on as an apprentice.

As his skill with axes and bows improves, HIM eventually becomes a hunter in his own right. Not only does he hunt enough to feed himself and his makeshift family, he’s eventually able to start selling the excess to bring in some coin. It is during this time period he confirms he is, in fact, a shifter. Luck and skill allow him to take down a dire bear, and after that it is a rare thing for him to be injured.

Never having learned maths nor how to read, HIM is taken advantage of by a few merchants around this time. When he catches on to the severe underpayments he’s been receiving, quite a few butchers go missing and a number of shops are destroyed.

It’s a poor part of town, in Clubs, so rather than confront the boy on the brink of manhood about his actions, the adults teach him. Reading is beyond his ability to care, but he latches onto maths and commerce. It takes less than a year for the man to amass a small fortune. He’s moved out of his childhood home, but he still provides the children living there with food. Eventually, growing weary of hunting daily, he looks for a new way to earn money.

He loans out his fortune: a bit here to help start a business, a bit there so a family can buy a bigger home. When the time comes for him to be paid back, there are few who try to fight back against him, and fewer still who live to tell the tale. While HIM has never been nor will he ever be the smartest man on the block, his ruthlessness and his strength have made him the poster boy for a rags to riches story.

Years pass, he enters the Spade Arena fights out of boredom and a desire for greater wealth. He wins, he’s the champion, he’s the best in the city... except he isn’t. Keahi Hilo, the prodigy. The strongarm avoids the Arena but HIM corners the other man for a fight back in Clubs, and he loses. They were both Kings so HIM didn’t lose rank, but as friendly competition turns into jealousy a cloud begins to cover him. He soothes his darkness with drink and warm bodies until he is always with one, the other, or both.

One of these bodies tastes sweet, too sweet. HIM is addicted but it’s not to the man beneath him, it’s to the chrono the other has introduced to his system. It’s during this time his fights become more violent and he earns the title he can never get away from: The Barbarian.

Addiction grows and logic fades. He’s on a bender when he contracts a witch to take care of his little problem. As Keahi Hilo loses status HIM finds he is not at all satisfied with this victory, because he was not the one bring about the man’s end. His thirst for power fades as he wallows in his own misery and attempts to change. He tries to find the witch again, to get her to reverse what she’s done, but she’s overdosed on chrono and left this world.

He can’t look at himself anymore.

Trying to find who he once was, he visits the home he’s long since ceased helping. The building’s been purchased and the children chased out. The old man who taught him how to hunt died years ago. HIM wants to do something, to change, but he cannot allow himself to become Ace. He does not deserve the rank, not after what he did, so he’ll have to find a different way. Fluctuating wildly between would-be messiah and the neighborhood addict, many in the city cannot decide whether they should idolize him or use him as an example of everything wrong with Clubs.

He funds the resistance, donating his monthly winnings from the Arena as well as a percentage of his underworld gains to help their cause. He donates through proxies, a new one every month so they never realize just how much he’s given them. Perhaps if rankings didn’t exist, men like him wouldn’t step on their brothers to get a leg up. He opens up real orphanages through further proxies still, paying people to take care of the city’s neglected children. He can’t kick his chrono habit, but he does his best to cut back. He’s still a loan shark, but only because he’s in too deep to get out. At least, that’s what he tells himself in his clearer moments, when the red hazing his eyes cools his head and reminds him of his ledger.

The corruption comes to Kadeu. He takes care of his own people and uses his power over the underworld to put pressure on others, forcing contributions to help fix the broken outer wall. He plucks natural-born leaders from their communities and funds their causes, knowing he’s burned too many holes in his own brain to lead the Clubs. His men start referring to themselves as the Barbarians; it’s supposed to be a sign of loyalty so they don’t earn his ire by taking credit for the work he funded, but none of them know how much he hates that name.

Days fill up with decisions he doesn’t want to make. People who should hate him look at him with eyes that beg him to take further action. Even strung out of his mind on chrono he could win a fight against Thagard, he could become the Ace, restore order to the city. Some make excuses for him while others begin to question why they’ve chosen to follow. He doesn’t want this responsibility, he never did. He hired leaders to do these things for him but they keep trying to make him approve plans. He was never supposed to be a real leader, he was only ever meant to be the figurehead so the target would be on his back rather than those crucial to the stability of the faction.

Where had it all gone wrong? Thagard had been a worse Ace than he’d thought, but was it the other shifter’s actions to blame or HIM’s own failure to truly lead? How many water elementalists had died because of that idiotic arrest order? How many business would go belly up thanks to the food requisition orders? Rather than devastate families who ran businesses essential to the Club economy, HIM had placed the burden of food rationing on everyone’s shoulders regardless of station. If he had taken the burden of being Ace, how many more people would be alive? How many more businesses would be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel?

It was too late now, he wasn’t the leader the people needed then, how could they trust him to be the leader they deserved now? Making himself the figurehead of this ramshackle organization of barbarians may have been the worst decision he’d ever made. He wasn’t the man anyone wanted nor the leader the Clubs required, but he knew who was.

Without a word to his followers he shifts into an eagle and, claws digging into the windowsill of his hideout, he sets off for the Keahi residence.

#HIM the barbarian #angryteddyarc

11 notes · View notes

mads-hatters · 4 years

Text

Protecting Edward From the Neighborhood Headcanons

It was obvious that Edward was having a hard time adjusting to “normal” life in the neighborhood. And it was obvious that he never would be able to fully adjust given his predicament. But you just didn’t understand why people in the neighborhood had to give him such a hard time. Sure, at first you had had your reservations about him, but once you had gotten to know him you came to find out that he was one of the nicest people you had ever met.

He spent so much time trying to make sure that everyone else was happy, or at least not disappointed in him that he practically made himself sick. And while that was more than enough for you, people still insisted on making his life more difficult than it ever needed to be, and you hated them for it. How hard was it for them to just mind their own business and leave him alone?

The worst part is, Edward always ended up with the blame placed on him. Even though you know that he would never do anything to hurt anyone purposefully, he quite literally couldn’t help it when people attacked and harassed him. Jim and his friends knew that too, and they would use that to their advantage more often than not.

Because of this, you tried to be around him as often as possible, but it was becoming obvious that Edward wanted his own space so that he could be independent. After a careful deliberation, more so on your part than his, you decided that maybe giving him some freedom might help. Edward wanted to prove that he could help and deep down you knew it was because he felt like he bothered you by needing help all the time.

While this couldn’t be farther from the truth, you knew that there was nothing you could say or do to convince him. The truth was, there was nothing that Edward could do that would ever bother you in the slightest. And even if you came across as smothering, you just wanted to make sure that he was safe and taken care of.

As Edward began adjusting to a little bit more independence, you could tell something was off. Even though he was usually quiet and withdrawn, you could tell he was even more so now. It just seemed that emotionally he wasn’t really there with you when you spent time with him. You had your suspicions of what was going on when you weren’t around, but you knew he would never tell you if something really was happening.

The problem was, that every time you tried to bring it up in conversation with him he would shut down even more. You knew that he would never outright ask for help, but you could see through him that people were upsetting him and you knew that you wanted to do something about it. You really didn’t want to follow him around because you knew that it would make him uncomfortable, but you decided that it was worth his momentary anger with you if he was safe in the long run.

The next day, you followed him around like a lost puppy, despite his obvious annoyance. You sat near him as he tended to the neighbors lawns, and you weren’t sure if it was because of your presence but nothing seemed to happen for the most part of the day.

It wasn’t until the high school down the road let out of school for the day and you and Edward began to head home for the day. You saw them immediately as you rounded the corner on to your street. You were so close to making it home when Jim and his friends cornered you two by the stop sign.

You knew that Jim and his friends wouldn’t do anything to you, but your own safety was the least of your concerns right now because you didn’t know what they might to do Edward. As you looked over to him you could see him growing nervous and it made your heart hurt as you realized what Jim had put him through.

As Jim and his friends Sauntered over, you instinctively stood in front of Edward which made them snicker at you. In hindsight, you knew it probably did look silly that you were trying to protect him but you couldn’t help it, and Edward wouldn’t protect himself so you if you had to be the one to step in you would.

As they approached you could hear the comments that they were making and you could feel Edward physically flinch behind you. Mustering up as much courage as you could, you looked Jim plainly in the eyes and told him to keep walking. That did little good, as he stopped laughing at a comment his friend had made about Edward and turned to you. “Protecting him now are you?” He sneered.

Edward stayed silent and you could feel him grow more and more tense as the situation progressed. You really didn’t want to stress him out but you needed to put a stop to this before things got out of hand. You laughed at Jim’s comment and turned your attention back to him. “Please, you know Edward could kill you if he wanted right? He’s just minding his own business why can’t you see that?”

To your surprise, at the mention of Edward being more dangerous than Jim, he seemed to shut down. He muttered something about Edward being a freak and didn’t know what to do after that. “Okay so are we good then? You’ll leave him alone? He’s done nothing to you Jim, you know that.” You continued, hoping he’d agree.

You knew this wasn’t over, but as they started to walk away you couldn’t help but to feel a sense of pride that you had managed to de-escalate the situation without Edward getting hurt.

You looked at Edward and saw him begin to relax. You wanted to tell him that he should stand up for himself and not let people treat him that way. But from the look he was giving you, you think he already knew that deep down. Instead you brought him into a hug and simply told him you were proud of him, just as you tried to do everyday.

#edward scissorhands #edward scissorhands headcanons #tim burton #this is bad i know im sorry

41 notes · View notes

dregstrash · 4 years

Text

Knife in the Back (ch.5)

A/N: I know I’ve been a tad MIA, but I did not forget about this incredible fic that I did with @wafflesandkruge

AO3 Link

Inej gathered her files again, hating how thin they were. For what seemed to have been such a messy killing, there was very little they actually recovered at the scene. The killer had been meticulous, almost every clue seemingly a red herring or meant to confound.

A glance at the clock told her it was nearly five.The morning shift– Nina– would be coming in soon. She stifled a yawn and continued straightening her desk. She’d run home and try to catch a few hours of sleep before returning in the afternoon. Surely they wouldn’t mind, she’d clocked more overtime this week than most people did in a month. She shoved the pertinent files into her bag and made a grab for her car keys, but they were snatched up by Matthias. She tilted her head up and gave him a questioning look. He looked troubled.

“I’ll drive,” he insisted, his voice a low rumble. “You look ready to drop.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. How will you get back to your place?”

“I’ll take the bus.” His tone left no room for argument. “Let’s go.”

The drive back to her place was silent, as the moments between them usually were. Inej snuck glances at him, trying to guess what he was thinking. He didn’t know about her past, the one Kaz had hinted about back at the station. Was he angry Kaz knew more than him? Or that she was clearly hiding something big from him?

But it wasn’t as if Matthias was an open book either. He’d transferred to Ketterdam two years ago after quitting from the force a few states over. Zoya hated his guts for some reason, and Nikolai tended to ignore him. And he had some kind of shared history with Nina, Zoya’s assistant. She’d done plenty of digging into his background, but there were too many sealed records and dead ends for her to find anything worthwhile. Matthias Helvar’s past remained a mystery and she was fine with that as long as hers could too.

The car rolled to a stop outside her apartment building. Matthias switched off the engine, but didn’t move. His fingers tapped his thigh nervously. “Inej…”

She raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“What Brekker was saying…” he hesitated, clearly not sure how to phrase whatever was on his mind.

“It doesn’t have anything to do with the case,” she said sharply. “And it won’t affect how I treat him. If he’s guilty, I’ll arrest him.”

“I don’t doubt that. But if there’s anything you need to tell me…” His pale eyes stared into hers.

“No. There isn’t.” She held his gaze for a moment longer before holding out a hand. He handed over her car keys without another word and got out of the car. Inej followed, locking the car behind her.

The sun was just starting to come up, its rays brushing the sides of her shabby building with gold. The neighborhood was alright by Ketterdam standards. She could afford to move into a better place now, but her apartment was comfortable and she was capable of taking care of herself. Her more unsavory neighbors knew not to bother her.

She thought Matthias was going to say something else, but he just shook his head and waved goodbye before jogging to the bus station a few blocks away.

When Inej returned to the station a few hours later, Matthias was nowhere to be found, but there was a hot cup of coffee left on her desk. Her lips curled as she saw the familiar crow emblazoned on the side of the cup. Brekker’s Brews. Had Matthias gone without her to interview the employees again?

Her question was answered when Nina swept by her, leaving the scent of fresh pastries and roses in her wake. Her friend was carrying a box of donuts from Brekker’s Brews and she promptly set them down in the break room. Inej followed, her stomach growling. She hadn’t had time for breakfast.

“You should stop visiting that cafe,” Inej scolded half-heartedly as she snatched a donut from the box. The rest of their co-workers started drifting in, lured by the promise of sugar. “The owner’s a hit man.”

“A rumored hit man,” Nina corrected, her green eyes sparkling with amusement. She took a seat at the table and pulled her chair closer to Inej. “Besides, if there’s anyone you should warn, it’s Wylan. He goes almost every day just so he can chat up that barista...Jesper?”

Wylan froze, his hand halfway to a pink-frosted donut. “I do not,” he insisted. Inej just took another bite of her donut, noting the redness in his cheeks. She liked Jesper well enough despite his association with Brekker. She still hadn’t quite managed to figure out if he was involved in Brekker’s less legitimate business, a fact that irked her to no end.

“Ooo, donuts!” a new voice exclaimed from the door. Inej looked up to find Nikolai Lantsov, the captain of the precinct, making a beeline for the pastries.

Despite his youthful appearance and mannerisms, he was well known around the country for cracking several notorious cases in the last decade. Zoya Nazyalensky, the precinct’s lieutenant, trailed in behind him with a roll of her eyes.

“All of you get paid to solve crimes, not eat overpriced pastries from a criminal’s business front,” she scoffed. At her arrival, the break room became a sudden flurry of activity as everyone muttered their excuses and cleared out. Everyone, whether they admitted it or not, was more than a little scared of Zoya.

According to one rumor, she’d been with the FBI before quitting and moving to the precinct after meeting Nikolai during a federal investigation. Yet another rumor she’d heard was that Zoya was a former Ravkan assassin. Which was absolutely ridiculous. She hoped.

Inej lingered behind, waiting until everyone other than the captain and lieutenant were gone before shutting the door softly. Nikolai was sitting on the table and trying to get Zoya to take a bite of his donut. She didn’t miss how their hands were interlaced, or the soft curve of Zoya’s smile despite her harsh words. Their relationship was the worst kept secret of the precinct.

Zoya noticed her first. “Something wrong, Ghafa?”

“It’s the Brekker case. Something’s not right about it.”

“He claims Rollins is behind everything, right?” Nikolai asked as he dusted off his fingers. “The gang leader we haven’t been able to put away?”

“Yes,” Inej confirmed with a frown. She leaned against the wall, trying to recall Kaz’s exact words. “He said...the Razorgulls were shacking up with the Dime Lions. That we weren’t seeing the bigger picture.”

Zoya frowned. “Brekker is full of shit. But that would explain the rise in gang activity we’ve been seeing near the Barrel.”

Nikolai’s face had gone serious. “Rollins is dangerous. There’s a reason he’s still free, and that’s because he covers his tracks well. If he thinks you’re on to him-”

“I’ll be fine,” Inej interrupted, a bit annoyed. She didn’t need to hear this warning again. From her boss, no less. Zoya shot her a warning glare.

“Alright,” Nikolai said with a worried look. “It’s worth investigating if you believe Brekker. If you need more resources, let us know.”

“Will do, captain.”

“And make sure you keep tabs on Brekker too. It would be great if we could finally throw that little gutter rat in jail along with Rollins,” Zoya ordered. With a toss of her hair, she left the room. Nikolai followed her after giving Inej an apologetic shrug.

Inej sat in the room a bit after they’d left, contemplating Zoya’s last words. It was true she’d dedicated much of her career to trying to catch Brekker, but it seemed for the second time ever, their goals were aligned.

She’d arrived in Ketterdam not as a detective, nor an immigrant, but a victim. Snatched from her family in Ravka, she’d been transported to Ketterdam as part of a human trafficking ring. She still had the scars to remember her time by- two bracelets around her wrists where handcuffs had been left on too tightly for too long and a long scar up her forearm where she tried to disfigure the peacock feather tattoo they’d branded her with.

And when she couldn’t bear being an object any longer, she sought out someone rumored to help any problem go away for the right price. And that’s when she’d met Kaz for the first time

Sighing, she stood up and began to make her way to Wylan’s lab. Hopefully, he’d have more evidence for her or this whole day would be a bust.

The precinct was unusually empty today, with most of the detectives out at scenes or on vacation. Matthias was still a no-show, which was strange for him. He usually called Inej at least a week in advance for absences of any sort. Just as she found herself missing his silent but reassuring presence, there was the sound of pounding footsteps behind her.

“There’s been another body,” Matthias shouted, not slowing his pace. Inej broke out in a run, trying to match his longer strides.

“Where,” she demanded as they turned the corner and exited into the parking lot. Matthias’ ancient, but reliable, convertible was waiting for them. Inej vaulted over the passenger door as Matthias struggled to open his with the keys.

“By the docks,” he said, his voice unusually tight. Inej realized why a second later. Nina lived by the docks, in a shabby apartment that Matthias was always bugging her about fitting with better security.

“Nina’s fine,” Inej said in an attempt to reassure him. “I just saw her inside.” He didn’t say a thing, just started the car and tore out of the parking lot.

The scene was the same as the one from the last morning. A body. Two gunshots. And all evidence pointing towards Kaz Brekker.

Inej dropped the corner of the tarp she was holding and stood up, done with her cursory examination. Wylan rushed by, snapping photos at every possible angle. Matthias was a few feet away talking to a uniformed officer. She took the moment to step back for a bit and think.

Two bodies in two days was an escalation if she’d ever seen one. Even if the real perpetrator was trying to frame Kaz, they were doing a shoddy job of it. Kaz’s kills were always spaced out, never more than one every few months. Or at least the ones she discovered. This time, there was a rag dotted with blood that Inej was sure would match Kaz’s once Wylan finished running his tests.

She caught a crime scene investigator who was rushing by. “Do we have an ID yet?”

“Mila Jansen. Twenty-five, a student at the local university. That’s all we have for now. We can forward her address to you in a few.”

Inej nodded, distracted. Wylan was waving her over frantically, mouthing something she couldn’t make out. She dismissed the investigator and made her way over to him.

“What is it?”

“Well,” he started, fidgeting a bit. “I think Kaz was telling the truth.”

“What do you mean,” she snapped impatiently.

“The body, while dumped this morning, was killed sometime last night. Between midnight and two in the morning. And Kaz was-”

“With me,” she breathed, the gears in her head turning. “I have to go. Tell Matthias I’m going after Brekker.”

#knife in the back #six of crows #KANEJ #matthias helvar #wylan van eck #Kaz Brekker #inej ghafa

32 notes · View notes

docstark · 3 years

Text

Ignite (Avengers/Bucky Barnes Fanfiction) Chapter 2 - He Would Have Liked You

<<Previous Chapter

So this chapter is jumping staying in Doctor Stark's story and will slowly move into the more of a Bucky fanfiction. It's kind of my running story.

Warnings: Language, violence, mentions of 18+ activities lol

----------

I managed to get control of my power and I made gauntlets so that I wasn’t getting massive internal arm injuries from the vibrations (Agent Coulson said that I probably used the last bit of vibranium that SHIELD had but as Fury didn’t want me to have broken arms…)

Long story short, my brother is Iron Man, I have powers, Captain America was found, and now after some thawing, a freak out in New York where he was taken to wake up in, Steve Rogers himself is now my patient….kind of. (I’m not a practicing doctor)

“I feel like we’ve met,” he said after a long silence.

“In a way we have,” I said as I looked over his blood work, “You knew my father.” His forehead wrinkled as he was looking at me like he was trying to place me with all the people that he once knew. “Of course, if you were to see my brother you would really see the young Howard Stark in him.”

“Stark? You’re Stark’s daughter?”

“Yep.”

“Is...Is he gone? Like everyone else?” He questioned looking at his feet.

“Both he and my mother died in ‘91,” I replied quietly, “Car crash, I was 15.”

“I’m-“

“It’s okay...it was a long time ago.”

“That doesn’t make it any easier,” he said. I remembered hearing from Aunt Peggy how Steve had lost both of his parents as well and it wasn’t something that you want to have in common with someone, but at least he could understand what I went through. “Anyway, are you doing more tests today doc?”

“No, you’ve got as clean of a bill as a super soldier that has been frozen in the ice for nearly 70 years,” I replied, “Got some interesting data on myself as well…”

“On yourself?”

“Oh...it’s nothing,” I said, not meaning to have said that last part out loud. As a scientist it made me curious to see what my own altered gene sequence looked like to that of Captain America’s since both our serums came from the same doctor and the same time period. I honestly wasn’t expecting any huge similarities, but I was surprised that what had been altered in me had also been altered in him, but because of the way that the serum was meant to activate within my body it didn’t turn me into a super soldier, but a weapon.

“And Bucky used to call me a bad liar,” Steve said, crossing his arms and sitting back in his chair, “What’s going on doc?”

I sighed. He was going to find out sooner or later because of The Avengers Initiative that Fury was putting together, so I just told him everything.

“All for that fact that your brother was kidnapped?” he questioned, “You are a tough one and got heart doc…”

“Yeah, well my brother damn near killed me when he found out what I did,” I replied, “But I’m good with my choices. But this isn’t about me…I brought these from the old SSR storage…” I went to go grab the couple of boxes that I brought with me that morning but he beat me to them.

“Let me get those for you,” he said as he carried them over to the table.

“Thank you,” I said, “These boxes have some of your belongings that were stored away after you went missing.”

He opened the box and looked in, there were some old photos, a signed baseball, his father’s dog tags, his mother’s wedding ring. Small things that were squirrelled away from his Brooklyn apartment for if he were to be found again. “These were in storage this whole time?”

“Yeah, I’m going to guess that either my father or Agent Carter had this done,” I said as I reached into the box and pulled out a picture that caught my eye.

“It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Peggy had it done,” he said, looking at the compass that was sitting on the table by where he had been sitting.

“There are other things that belonged to you that aren't as personal that you can find in the Smithsonian,” I said, captivated by the man in the photo.

“He would have liked you,” Steve said looking over my shoulder.

“What?”

“Bucky…he would have liked you,” he said pointing to the picture.

“This is a much better picture than the memorial one that they have in the museum,” I said as Steve and I sat down, “He has playful eyes…”

He snorted. “Oh you have no idea...he knew just how to make everyone feel happy even on the worst days, but when he was around others...oh and women could not get enough of him. Though thinking about it now he was actually quite picky.”

“Man, romance did die in the 40s,” I said lulling my head back as I put the picture back in the box.

He chuckled. “Guys today not what you wish they were?”

“I get more satisfaction from my hand then men nowadays…” There was a silence in the room and I looked at Steve whose ears were now a bright shade of red. “Sorry…”

“It’s fine…”

A FEW DAYS LATER

“You didn’t,” Natasha said as she blocked my punch.

“As you well know, don’t ask me questions you don’t want an honest answer to,” I replied as we continued to spar. As we did so I managed to grab her arm, twist it and use her own leg to give me a little extra leverage to jump and get my legs around her neck and flip her over.

“Good god, woman…” she said, landing with an oomph.

“I’ve been getting some tips from Agent May,” I said with a cheeky grin, “You are the one that told me not to always rely on my powers.”

She sat up and looked up at me. “Want to play it that way huh?”

“Oh shit…”

After getting my ass thoroughly handed to me (though Nat did say that I did quite well), we hit the showers and after returned to our previous conversation...thanks to her.

“So what did he say after you said what you did?” she questioned as we stood at one of the Triskelion’s coffee stands.

“Who say about what?” I asked at first not catching on to what she was talking about.

“Steve….what did he say?”

“Oh, nothing...his ears turned bright red and I apologised, I forgot that in the 1940s they weren’t exactly open about that kind of stuff.”

She let out a snort. “Oh if only the 1940s could see us now!” she said sliding down the zipper of her jacket with a wink.

“You’re horrible,” I said nudging her with my elbow.

“Anyway, what about that guy that you just broke up with?”

“Kevin?” I asked, wrinkling my nose, “For starters, he broke up with me.”

“Excuse me?”

I just shrugged. “He wasn’t worth the time anyway. He only cared about what I could do for his dick, and not what his dick could do for me. No satisfaction what-so-ever...always ended up sneaking off to the bathroom to get off.”

“I hate that...he’s losing out though,” she said as we grabbed our coffee and headed down the hall.

“I don’t need a guy who leaves me feeling unsatisfied or that tells me that I work too much, or that-”

“He does know that you have 3 Phds and are the co-owner of a billion dollar company...right?”

“Must’ve slipped his mind…” I said shrugging.

“Ladies,” we looked and saw Fury as he walked over to us, arms tucked behind his back.

“Doctor, I saw your final report...is Rogers ready when if we need him,” he questioned.

“I think he is, whether or not he thinks he is will come down to what he does when a challenge is put in front of him,” I replied.

“Very well, are you leaving tonight or tomorrow?” he questioned.

“Tonight sir, I believe that Nat is leaving tonight as well, I finished my work with Captain Rogers, got my training in, and now I need to get back to Stark Tower so that Tony and Pepper don’t completely steal my thunder with the sustainable energy for the tower.”

“Very well...a Quinjet will be available for you to take whenever you are ready,” he said with a nod of his head, “Agent Romanoff...good luck on your mission.”

“Thank you sir,” she said.

He left us standing there and I just looked at her. “Did I just get debriefed?”

“In a subtle way, yes.”

“Agent Doctor Stark or Doctor Agent Stark?”

“None of the above….”

“Party-pooper.”

That evening I did find myself back at Stark Tower, at the very top in Tony’s “Home Away From Home”.

“You know Y/N, technically...you could live here,” Tony said as me, him, and Pepper sat on the couch putting making sure we had all our plans put together for when Tony when to connect the Arc Reactor to Stark Tower.

“So generous, but I like my garden,” I replied, “And I like feeling like a normal human being first thing in the morning.”

“Your house is so small,” he said.

“I’m sorry my 3,000 square ft house bothers you so,” I said, “But it’s my ‘small’ house and has all the upgrades that I need. If I ever need a bigger house I’ll just buy the house next door and evict the neighbors and build over onto that plot of land.” I thought Pepper’s head was gonna snap off her neck with as fast as she turned it when I said this. “I’m kidding Pep...cool your jets.”

“The two of you have deep enough pockets, forgive me if I get concerned sometimes,” she said with a chuckled.

“Nah, I like my neighbors...guy across the street is kind of creepy but-“

“Big brother need to step in and take care of him for you?” Tony teased earning an eyeroll.

“When I moved in there, Nancy, the neighbor to the right of me said he’s been the head of the neighborhood watch for 20 years or something like that,” I replied knowing that though he was teasing me, part of him was also serious, “He apparently didn’t like all the people that came in and out of the neighborhood when I was having the house upgraded with Stark Tech, the lab put in the basement, and then the security around the perimeter...I disrupted the peace.”

“Look at you, turning suburbia on its head,” he said.

“Alright you two, enough...let’s get this finished,” Pepper laughed.

Two nights later project clean Sustainability was a go.

“How’s it look big bro?” I asked as Tony flew back to the Tower as it lit up the New York skyline.

“Like Christmas, only more...us,” he replied.

As he landed I turned to Pepper. “I will leave you two to celebrate, I have other work that needs to be felt with.”

“What? N/N, stay and have some champagne,” Pepper said.

“No, you two celebrate. Date night for you two...enjoy.” I headed to the elevator and to my office where I was greeted by my Artificially Intelligent Digital Assistant or AIDA for short.

“Good evening, Doctor Stark. I would like to congratulate you on making Stark tower the first fully clean and sustainable building in the United States,” she said as I sat at my desk, “Also I am being informed by JARVIS that Agent Coulson is trying to get a hold of both you and Mr. Stark, should I put him through?”

I sighed. “If I don’t, he’ll probably just hack his way-“

*DING*

“Agent Coulson…”

"Doctor Stark, I'm sorry to interupt your evening but there is something urgent that we need dealt with," he said holding out a file to me. Opening the file I saw a picture of a familiar blue cube paperclipped to the top. "What do you know about the Tesseract?"

"Only what was in my father's files," I replied. By now there were five people that knew about the files that were given to my by Aunt Peggy. I knew I couldn't keep them a secret forever so I kept it down to:

Fury Coulson Nat Tony Pepper

Thanks to Pepper and her due dillagence, most of the files were now store electronically on an encrypted harddrive. Though there were somethings that were secret to only me.

"Good, in five minutes send what you have up to Mr. Stark," he replied, "The Tessaract was stolen by an Asgardian by the name of Loki. We will need your help on this....time for you to suit up."

As Coulson headed back to the elevator I went over to my computer and pulled up my files. 'Why my father ever fished that thing out of the ocean instead of throwing it back I will never understand....'

TO BE CONTINUED....

Chapter 3>>

5 notes · View notes