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dragonmuse · 1 year

Note

Could we get Izzy’s perspective at the passport office when he ran into Pru? I also wonder if he would bring Lucius’ drawing to their coffee meeting? I’m loving the “and be prudent” tag!!

(@objective-j also requested more of Pru and Izzy meeting, so here is more of that from Izzy's POV. and lol I don't usually give the more minor OCs tags, but that one felt right! Also Pru seems well liked so she may crop up from time to time.)

“No fucking way,” Lucius voice echoed around the car. “For a big city, this place can be small as hell. Are you okay?”

“I don’t know,” Izzy admitted. He hadn’t actually pulled out of his parking space. He didn’t actually have anywhere to go, a lie told to let him escape. “Sort of. I mean I barely knew her. She was a kid.”

“Why don’t you come over, huh? I’ll make you a drink while I do prep.”

“Yeah, yeah all right.”

The back door was closed, but unlocked when he arrived and slipped inside. The Swede was sweeping and singing along to ‘Dancing Queen’, occasionally swirling the broom around. Eddy was laying down on the stage pointing up at some of the lighting while Jim stood over them. When Izzy entered, they gave him a lazy finger wave.

“Hey, boss.”

“Iz!” Eddy cried out from the floor. “What are you doing here?”

“Stealing your liquor.”

“Don’t tell Stede, he gets prickly about that.”

“Why the fuck would I tell him?” Izzy rolled his eyes. “Are you stuck down there?”

“Nope, trying to figure out which bulb is flickering. It’s not doing it regularly, so if I stay down here I might catch it and we can replace it before show time.”

“You’ll get spots in your vision.”

“Probably!”

Izzy decided against continued argument. Jim could handle it. Or just sit there and wait for their ‘I told you so moment’. Both seemed equally satisfying. He took his usual seat at the bar and didn’t have to wait long for Lucius to emerge from storage brandishing vodka bottles in both hands.

“Goblin!” he set the bottles down on the bar and came over to give him an acessing look. “Figured out how you’re feeling yet?”

“Working on it.”

“Pink or yellow?”

Izzy didn’t bother asking for what. “Yellow.”

“Cool, try this,” Lucius set a martini glass in front of him. It had about an inch of very yellow liquid in it.

Izzy took a sip and did his best to keep his face neutral. “Little sour.”

“Damnit,” Lucius sighed, picking it up and taking a sip himself. “Ooooh shit. Yeah. Okay. Went too hard on the pucker.”

“What’s the pink?”

“Same idea, less sour, more strawberry. I want to put a few fun drinks on the menu for February. You know the month of loooove.”

“Cute,” Izzy shook his head. “Yellow one doesn’t really seem in line.”

“Excuse you, but I’m in love with a sourpuss myself,” Lucius grinned.

Izzy huffed out a pleased laugh. “Is that what you’re going to call it?”

“Maaaybe. We’ll see. Got to make it drinkable first. For now,” Lucius poured him a straight up shot of vodka and set in front of him. “Down that than talk to me.”

“Thanks.” He threw it back and then set the glass aside. “I don’t know. It was sudden. Barely recognized her.”

“How old was she the last time you saw her?”

“Fourteen, maybe fifteen. And yeah, decades ago.”

“Does...I don’t know. Did she look like Faith?” Lucius talked about her now like he had known her too and Izzy hadn’t known how much he’d needed that.

“She didn’t back then. I mean yeah, you could tell they were sisters, but Pru was taller already by the time I met Faith. I mostly recognized her from her nose. Pru had a very up-turned nose as a kid. Between that and the accent, I got there.”

“What was she like?”

“Only talked to for a minute. Mad, mostly.”

“Why?”

“The ring.”

“Shit. Really?”

“I showed it to her. She didn’t know it was from me, apparently. They threw out all of....” he couldn’t really think about that. Couldn’t say it. “Gave her my card, then go the fuck out of there.”

“Uh, Iz. You gave her your business card?”

“Yeah, I didn’t want to go through the whole dance of trying to give her my number.”

Lucius lifted his brows, “So, you know that I think it’s incredibly sweet and all, but uh, did you tell her what you named the business?”

Izzy stared at him for a long second, then groaned and dropped his face into his hands. “Shit.”

“I think it’s fine. I’m sure she’ll draw the right conclusion from it.”

“What conclusion?” He asked into his palms. “Is there one that doesn’t make me seem kind of pathetic?”

“There is nothing pathetic about how you love people,” Lucius chided. “It’s enduring. It’s beautiful. And kind of obsessive, but lucky for you I’m into that.”

“Thanks,” he sighed. “Well. It’s done anyway. Doubt she’ll call.”

“Bet she will,” Lucius countered. “Hey, you think she’s got a photo of her?”

“No idea. Possible.”

“HA! FOUND IT! FUCK YOU LIGHTING FIXTURE!”

“I think I’m going to be asked to get the stepladder,” Lucius determined. He dropped a kiss in Izzy’s hair.

Izzy stuck around, watching the entire inefficient show that was the Revenge staff trying to change a lightbulb. If it had been happening in his home base, he would’ve killed all of them, but here it was mostly amusing. Distracting.

He stayed for the show too, then gathered a goodbye kiss from Lucius before heading back home. It wasn’t until he had eaten a late dinner, finished the book he was reading, showered and gotten into bed that his feelings caught up with him. He lay in the dark and let the grief wash over him. It had been a long time since he’f felt it so hard.

Izzy: figured it out. Sad.

Lucius: That tracks. Sucks though.

It did suck. Izzy fell asleep about it and felt mostly all right in the morning. The tingle of potential incoming complication didn’t leave right away, but he still had to move through his day. She wasn’t going to call, he reminded himself. No use in getting worked up over a chance meeting.

He only dimly remembered Pru as part of the amalgam that had been Faith’s terrible family. He pictured her yelling down the stairs as Faith went out the door or tucked in behind her mother like a miniature version of her. Faith would complain about her, the way she stole, rifled through her things, talked incessantly and complained endlessly.

Izzy had hated Delly like that once.

Mid-day, he picked up his phone and texted.

Izzy: If you don’t have plans, I can get the kid tonight for a few hours. Had a change in plans.

Delly: Really? Yes! That’d be great.

Izzy hadn’t had any plans at all. But he couldn’t really do much for Delly at fifteen, abandoned to handle their parents alone. This he could do.

When he picked Pickle up, he asked casually,

“I can’t remember, were you in the same grade as Prudence Callahan?”

“Hm?” Delly was moping off Pickle’s face after a close encounter with a very ketchup intensive hamburger. “Uh...no? I think she was in the grade or two above me. I remember the name. Wait. Wasn’t that your girlfriend’s sister?”

“Yeah. Ran into her the other day.”

“That must’ve been fun. Ok, take her purple backpack by the door and you two are good to go. Bye, sweetheart. Don’t wear your uncle out.”

“Kay!” Pickle wrapped herself around Izzy’s arm. “Bye, Mommy!”

It was easy to forget his own shit when he had Pickle. She needed his full attention. He dropped her back off, both of them tired, sticky and with far more knowledge of Barbie’s fairy kingdom than they had been at the beginning of the night.

“Thanks, asshole,” Delly grimaced as Pickle explained exactly how much ice cream she’d eaten.

“You’re fucking welcome,” he said pleased. Despite herself, Delly looked far more relaxed and in another room, Izzy could hear Thomas whistling. Disgusting. He hid a smile.

The days passed and each one that ticked by without a call, Izzy let go a little more. What did it matter? They had nothing to say to each other. Lucius did hand him something mid-week.

“Just in case.” He’d offered and Izzy had taken it. Couldn’t hurt to have on hand.

Nearly a full month passed and he’d practically forgotten about the encounter at all, especially when he had to take Read to the E.R. in the middle when she’d stepped in to prevent a beating of the guy they were following. Man just had a stupid mouth, he probably didn’t deserve to get the shit kicked out of him, but Read had gotten a rib busted for her trouble. Izzy lectured her all through the long sit in the waiting room and she’d taken it with an annoying fond smile.

Asshole kid.

So it was with some surprise that he opened an email absently on Thursday and read a request to meet for coffee. He agreed and they set a time and a place.

“Do you want me to come?” Lucius offered.

“No, it’s okay,” he decided. “Don’t want her to feel ganged up on. I think I spook her as is.”

“Yeah, bet you scare all the soccer moms, hot stuff.”

But she’d mentioned her boyfriend’s kid. Possibly she had her own, but when she slid into her seat across from him in her immaculate white knitwear and precise haircut, it seemed unlikely.

They regarded each other over steaming cups.

“You’ve done well for yourself,” Pru said eventually. “I saw your website, read some reviews.”

“We get by,” he agreed. “What about you?”

“I’m an interior designer. Mostly personal spaces, but I’ve done a few offices.”

“Huh, what’s that like?”

Pru seemed relieved to talk about something familiar, so he asked a few questions, letting her ramble a little about her work. When she ran out of steam though, she grimaced.

“This isn’t what you want to talk about, is it?”

“It’s fine,” he shrugged. “It’s a lot to face headon.”

“She’s been dead way longer than she was alive,” Pru said bluntly. “And I think about her a lot, but not name my business and keep her ring around my neck every day a lot. Back then, I didn’t figure you cared much at all really.”

“What do you mean?” He frowned.

“I mean you were around a lot, but I figured...” she sighed. “You know. Why does any high school boy stick around a girl?”

Izzy barked a dry laugh, startled by the bluntness, but welcoming it. “Yeah, no. I’m gay.”

Pru stared at him then spluttered out a ragged, “What? Did she know?”

“I didn’t know then. She wanted a guy who would protect her and not touch her in ways she didn’t want to be touched and I was good for that,” he said, but the words no longer sat so easily on his tongue.

Years together. Years that were volatile and strange. He’d watched from a distance and now a little closer as Mary’s kids struggled through high school, the way Alma fell in and out of relationships and Charlie barely seemed old enough to consider them.

“And we loved each other,” he amended. “A lot. By the end anyway.”

She nodded slowly. “I can see that. I wish...I don’t know what I would’ve done with that back then, but I still wish I’d known that.”

“She didn’t trust you,” he said then wished he hadn’t. What was the point all those years later?”

“I know,” Pru didn’t look hurt. “I tattled on her one too many times. Stole from her. Made fun of her. She gave it back too. She was no saint.”

“Yeah, she had a mouth on her,” he said and it was hard not to make it sound like praise.

“Once she told me I was too stupid to tell my feet from my hands. I was nine,” Pru said, her lips twitching like she might smile over it. “I actually worried about that for weeks.”

“She used to call anyone who cut us off on a bike ‘filthy dickbags’.”

“Oh my god,” Pru did smile. “You know Dad used to be all over us about swearing. I still can barely say ‘hell’ without wincing. Guess she was braver than me.”

“Did you get out?”

“Soon as I turned 18.”

“Then I’d say just as brave. Braver. If you did it on your own.”

“I did,” Pru lifted her chin, eyes glinting. And there, just for a second, she did look just like Faith. Izzy had to look away.

“I uh...you said you didn’t have much of hers?”

“Just the boots. Ran out in them. Sturdier than my sneakers back then. I still have them, but that’s it really. Mom and Dad when on rampage, tried to act like she’d never even existed.”

“No pictures?”

She shook her head. “Never were a big photo family. Mom might’ve had some, but I didn’t even know she’d died until years after it happened.

Izzy hadn’t been hoping for much, but that tore at him. Nothing at all. Not for the first time, he wished he believed in a higher power so he could thank them for bringing Lucius into his life.

“My boyfriend is an artist,” he pulled out the envelope. “He found her yearbook picture and drew this. He made a print for you when I told him I’d run into you.”

“Seriously?” She took the envelope and opened it with a single long nail. They were nicely painted, some kind of white tip situation. It was precise, like the rest of her. Pru was a woman held together by right angles. Izzy could relate.

“Yeah, I think it’s good, but I’m not really-”

“Oh my god,” she gasped as she drew out the paper “It’s her. That’s her.”

He sat back, watched her take it in, pressing her hand to the paper. “Thank him for me. Please.”

“I will.”

“Oh my god,” she said again and closed her eyes. “I half think I made her up sometimes. Is that strange?”

“No. I know the feeling.”

“I think I need to go before I start bawling in public,” she said quietly. “But...I’d like to talk again. If that’s okay. Maybe meet your boyfriend so I can say thank you in person.”

“Any time,” he found himself promising.

She didn’t take her coffee with her. Izzy bussed it for her, tossing both their half-finished cups away. He decided to walk back home. It was raining every so slightly, the terrible mist of late fall that clung and made everything damp instead of properly wet.

“Your sister turned out okay,” he mumbled. What was another gray haired guy talking to himself on the street? People could mind their fucking business. “I think you’d like her now. Maybe not. Maybe you’d just tolerate her during the holidays. Would’ve done that with you too.”

He could imagine it so easily. Faith hadn’t liked parties, neither had he, but they probably would go to Delly’s annual romp anyway or whatever fussy Martha Stewart nightmare Pru might do. Maybe both and after they’d compare notes, trying to outdo each other on who had the most passive-aggressive thing said to them. Faith would win since Delly tended to be more massive-aggressive.

Or maybe...maybe they would’ve enjoyed both in their own way. Or maybe they wouldn’t have made it there together even if she lived.

None of it mattered. He couldn’t live his life in what-ifs. What he had was a Lucius, who was getting very thoroughly thanked when he came home tomorrow night and someone else to reminisce with from time to time. That was more than enough.

#leda house and the kraken verse #ficlet #izzy hands #lucius black #have a little faith #and be prudent

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the-final-sentence · 2 years

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Top Final Sentences of 2021

15. Tell them that you appreciate them so, so fucking much, ‘cause they’re your chosen family. - Michelle Buteau, from “Friendship”

14. And I think I can survive anything, even you. - Eliza Jane Brazier, from If I Disappear

13. I challenge us to change, because as Charles Darwin once observed, “It is not the strongest species that will survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” - Harriet A. Washington, from Medical Apartheid

12. But maybe I don’t have to figure it all out right now. - Nita Tyndall, from Who I Was with Her

11. Not today. - Connie Willis, from Passage

10. Something new was thundering in her soul - it felt like hope. - Anne Schraff, from Lost and Found

9. When he looked at her again his face was filled with such an extraordinary gladness, and the third time she kissed him it was for love. - Silvia Moreno-Garcia, from Mexican Gothic

8. I am a person figuring out how to be the best version of myself, one step at a time. - Kelly Jensen, from “The Light Bulb, the Broom, and the Work They Don’t Tell You About”

7. That’s the witch I have to learn to be. - Sarah Hollowell, from A Dark and Starless Forest

6. And if you were of the lucky sort, sometimes that life chose you back. - TJ Klune, from The House in the Cerulean Sea

5. ‘I hope so,’ she said. - Alexander McCall Smith, from Tears of the Giraffe

4. ‘I think we’ve both waited long enough to turn the page in this story, don’t you?’ - Dahlia Adler, from Cool for the Summer

3. My mother was wrong and not wrong, like the calf who approached the monster and licked the blood from its fingers. - Traci Brimhall, from “The Last Known Sighting of the Mapinguari”

2. When you notice a cat in profound meditation, The reason, I tell you, is always the same: His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name: His ineffable effable Effanineffable Deep and inscrutable singular name. - T. S. Eliot, from “The Naming of Cats”

1. The key is to keep asking yourself the same question, again and again and again: this is your life - what do you want to pay attention to? - Catherine Price, from How to Break Up with Your Phone

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jjksblackgf · 4 years

Text

domestic!bts headcanon

kim seokjin

you felt an urge to eat a cake

so, naturally, you went to the kitchen to bake some

30 minutes later, your cake was in the oven

but the kitchen... oh…. the kitchen…...

“what happened here?” seokjin asked with wide eyes as he came home from practice

“I felt like eating cake,” you said without looking at him “I will clean everything as soon as I finish mixing the frosting”

he didn’t say anything after that, just dropped his bag on the sofa, and grabbed a few dishes so he could help you clean

he reached for a few bowls in front of you, his lips very close to your ears

“you could’ve just gone to the bakery store” he said

you leaned back a little bit, to feel his chest to your back, and said “I was bored.”

min yoongi

your ladder was quite short, so you could see a bit of his belly as he reached to the ceiling to change the light bulb

“what else you got?” he said as he came down

“there’s a screw that’s loose at my bedroom door handle,” you said with an apologetic tone “can you help me with that?”

“that’s kinda easy, you sure you need my help?” he smirked as he crossed his arms

“the damsel in distress didn’t help me today, did it?”

“babe, I am literally your boyfriend,” he said as he hugged you, knowing this act very well, as it was played before “you could’ve just come to the studio or called me if you missed me that much”

“but I don’t want to interrupt you, or be a distraction, or anything” you pouted

“You’re not a distraction, baby,” he took your chin to make you look in at his eyes “you’re my muse”

jung hoseok

Barry White was blasting on the Spotify you set on the tv

you were about to use the broom as a microphone and sing to him

you know, like in a cutesy rom-com, or whatever

but he was really concentrated on cleaning the stove

so you had no choice but to start singing with a very deep voice

“if feels so good, you lying here next to me” you sang

that was enough for him to pay attention to you, with his eyebrows arched and a playful grin on his lips

“oh, what a groove, you have no idea how it feels”

he was about to start filming your antics, but your body roll on the broom just made him burst laughing

but it was not long until he joined you, forgetting all about the cleaning

“why do you always put some weird playlist to clean the house” he said as he grabbed your waist and dipped you

“I don’t know, but I know that you like it” you were now back on your feet as he swirled you into his arms

easy to say the cleaning was on pause until the song was finished

kim namjoon

he was chilling on the porch, taking care of his bonsai trees

you were at the garden watering the flowers

he put on a new playlist he created just for moments like this

starting with Banana Pancakes by Jack Johnson

he loved watching you just be yourself in his garden

he rested his chin on his hands and smiled at you, his heart Doing Things™ when you looked at him

you smiled at each other, but you couldn’t see him clearly because of the bright sun

he decided to join you with the flowers, but you had already finished

“help me with the lemons at the yard” you said dragging him by the hand

you were holding a small basket as he picked up the lemons

“this is such a nice summer day” he noticed with a smile on his face

“I know, right?” you agreed

just to spite him, God sent a summer rain

and just like a movie, you two ran towards the house, giggling

“Good thing you’re not a weatherman on local news” you teased him as you reached the porch

“I would, legit, starve” he humored with you as you entered the house.

park jimin

you were missing some home cooking meals with your busy week, and you also wanted to cook something for Jimin

so you two went to the grocery store to grab a few things

but you could tell that he wasn’t in his best mood

he was distracted, not really paying attention to the day and bumping the shopping cart into others a lot

“babe?” you asked

“yes, honey” he answered unlocking his phone, only to lock again, without looking at anything

“can you grab me that blue box?” you pointed to one of the high shelves

you didn’t really need that, but this little thing always made him laugh a little, and you wanted to see if it would work again

he grabbed it easily, and after putting the box in the cart, he kissed your cheek and grinned “thanks”

“what was that for?” you asked, already knowing the answer

“I just love when you make me feel tall” he laughed

you joined him with a playful slap to his shoulder

kim taehyung

“nah uh, babe, you’re throwing this away” he said with command in his voice over a dress you didn’t remember buying

“why?” you screeched, taking the dress from his hands

“we’ve been dating for a whole year and I never saw you wear this” he said and went back to look at clothes to throw away

you mentioned that you had no space in your closet anymore and asked for his help to clean it up and judge a few of your outfits

“this has to go too” he said with a disgusted tone in his voice

“but I look so good in these…” your voice lowered as you placed the tube top in front of your body

he looked at you up and down with an expression of disbelief, but his face changed as an idea popped up in his head

“I think you can make a case for these clothes” he smirked as he traced his index finger on his chin, wiggling his eyebrows, “model them for me”

and after that, you gave him a whole fashion show with clothes he never saw you in, accompanied by Madonna on the speakers and a grinning boy as the audience

jeon jungkook

“why can’t you believe that they had chemistry?” he asked as he went to the side of the bed

“they did have chemistry, but only as friends” you said taking your place by the other side

“so you’re saying they could end up boyfriend and girlfriend if they were given the opportunity?” he questioned as he placed his hand under his side of the mattress

flipping mattresses was the worse job at the house

so Jungkook always liked to start some sort of “controversial” topic to get the adrenaline going

why? to forget about the most boring chore

“eww, of course not” you replied catching the edge that was now upright

he helped you put the mattress and the bottom sheet in place and then jumped on the bed

“I can’t believe I am dating a kataang shipper” he huffed as he grabbed your arm to join him in bed

“they work because it’s canon” you clapped as you said every word, only to be silenced by a kiss

#bts ambw #bts imagine #bts scenario #bts fanfic #bts reaction #bts headcanons #domestic!bts #domestic bts #black kpop fans #kpop ambw #black reader #black kpop stans #black kpop #jjksblackgf writes

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midnightghastly · 3 years

Text

Ink Pages pt.1

This is fan fiction that is posted on AO3 by the same name. It features Inkypages/Tintedlenses (Macaque x Tang) Hope you Enjoy!!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/33650371/chapters/83623204

The day was plain, Macaque leaped from roof to roof. It’s been two days since fought with Monkey King and was defeated by Monkie Kid. Furious, he tries to figure out another way to defeat Monkey King. Staying in the dojo wasn’t much help so he decided to get some fresh air.

“Come on, think! What type of weapon is out there that could kill that immortal bastard” - the thought to himself. That’s when he spots Mk running down the streets.

“Now what do we have here.” - he grins, getting a better look at Monkey King’s successor. Mk stops for while, catching his breath.

“*huffing and puffing* C-Can’t be late … gotta get … the package” - Mk says to himself before running off again.

Macaque decides to follow him, waiting to know why he’s in such a hurry. After a while, Mk stops and enters Outdoor Market Place. Macaque stops and makes his way down an alley. It seems like Mk is looking for someone. He sees an opening to attack Mk without anyone knowing.

‘Your mine now’ - he says to himself, preparing to attack.

He gets startled as someone calls out to Mk. Mk turns, smiles, and runs towards the person who called him. Macaque gets irritated. Who dares interrupt him?!

He peeks at the corner and sees … someone … beautiful. Macaque sees the most beautiful human being he’s ever seen. A man with glasses, a red/white coat, and a scarf.

“There you are, Mk! Where have you been?” - the scholar says.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Mr. Tang. Pigsy gave me more orders to deliver.” - Mk replies with a weak smile.

“Pigsy, Pigsy. He’s giving you way too much work.” He replies, shaking his head in disappointment. Tang pats Mk’s head.

“I’ll talk to him later about your work. He shouldn’t give you so much work. It’s not healthy for a growing boy.”

“You know I’m 22 right? I’m not a kid anymore”. Mk replies, fixing his hair.

“I know but, you’re my kid.” Tang chuckles and wraps his arm around Mk.

Mk and Tang laugh it off, not knowing the shadow monkey observing them

Macaque’s heart can’t stop beating. He looks at Tang, he looks at his body, up and down. It’s perfect, his body is perfect. His skin… it’s smooth and soft. His eyes are beautiful. So is his smile.

“Well, we better go get Pigsy’s delivery. It’s getting late and the market is starting to close. Let’s not keep Pigsy waiting.” Tang says leading the way.

“Yes, sir.” - Mk replies, following not far behind.

Macaque follows them around the market. After a while, he winds up following them back to Pigsy’s. He sees the pig waiting outside, hands crossed and with a frown. Tang and Mk arrive with the package.

“What took you two so long? Do you know what time it is? I’m about to close the store!” - Pigsy scowls.

“Sorry about that, boss. With all the extra deliveries, I arrived at the market late.” - Mk apologies.

Pigsy gives a heavy hump. Tang looks at Pigsy with a glare.

“Pigsy, you can't be angry with Mk, he works extra hard and is the Monkie Kid, fighting DBK and hanging out with Mei and Sandy. Give the kid a break.” Tang says with a sad expression. Mk joins in, making puppy eyes.

“Ya, like a day off?”

“Don’t push it, young man, now go set the package on the counter.” - Pigsy snaps back.

“Ugh, fine.” - Mk makes his way into the shop with a frown.

“Don’t drop it, or you’re fired!” Pigsy yells out.

“You know you can’t fire your only employee, Pigsy.” - Tang replies with a smirk.

Pigsy sighs. “Must you always be a smartass?”

Tang lightly chuckled. His voice made Macaque’s body numb, he felt a sudden heat run through his body.

‘What … am I feeling?’ He thought to himself. He snaps back when he hears Pigsy yelling at Tang!

Macaque could feel something boiling inside of him. Suddenly Pigsy hits Tang on his head, making the scholar fall back.

“You should think twice before saying anything smart, you freeloader!” - Pigsy shouts.

“Ow, that hurt!”

The boiling turns into a flame as Macaque is triggered by this. The Lamppost nearby light suddenly went dark by Macaque’s sudden anger. It startles Pigsy and Tang, Macaque quickly hides in the shadows, not being seen.

“What was that?” - Tang said, concerned.

“Not sure. The bulb must have popped.” - Pigsy replies, reaching a hand out to tang, helping him up. In a single pull, Tang gets up.

“Wow Pigsy, have you been working out? You seem to have gotten stronger, you could almost lift me with one hand.” - Tang smiles on. Pigsy’s face turns red by the sudden compliment and prays he gets from Tang. Macaque notices this and gets even angrier, making him kick a garbage can. Pigsy and Tang suddenly turn in the direction where it came from.

“You head inside, I’m gonna go check it ok?” - Pigsy says patting Tang on his shoulder.

“ Ok, be careful.” - Tang says, heading inside.

Pigsy grabs his broom and heads towards the alley. Macaque quickly hides in the shadows.

“Who’s there? Come on out!” - Pigsy demands.

That’s when a raccoon pops out, startling Pigsy. He shoos it off and it runs off. Pigsy turns back heading inside the shop. From inside, Macaque can hear Tang asking what happened. Pigsy tells him that it was just a raccoon. Macaque makes his way out of the alley but runs back in when he sees a green motorcycle park. A girl gets off and runs off, calling out to MK.

“Mk! There you are! I thought you said we were going to meet at the arcade?!” Mei yells, angry from waiting for an hour.

“Sorry about that, Mei. Had a couple more orders plus had to get a delivery for Pigsy.” - Keeping his head down in shame.

“*sighs* I guess I could let this slide.” Mei looks at Pigsy, “You shouldn’t give so much work to Mk. He works so hard, fighting DBK clones plus training with Monkey King.” Tang gives Pigsy a smirk. “Told you so.” Pigsy opens his mouth but closes it knowing he isn’t winning this argument. Everyone starts bursting into laughter. Macaque focuses on Tang’s voice. Hearing him laugh, warms his heart, it makes him smile. He wants to feel this feeling forever, and more. He wanted to do things, he never imaged he would do. But how could he get close to him when his enemy is near him at all times? Unless … he isn’t his enemy. Not anymore.

“Hey Mk, can I ask you something?”

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“Whatever happened to that weird purple thing that attacked a few days ago?”

“Oh-oh that, um … well uh … Me and Monkey King took care of it. Don’t worry about it. W-why do you ask?”

“Oh no reason, it just, don’t get me wrong but that thing kinda looked like him?”

“W-What no it doesn’t look like him at him at all.”

“He’s right, it looks more like me. ” - a sudden voice enters the conversation. Standing in the door was Macaque, hands on his hips and a smirk on his face.

Everyone but Mk has confused looks. This guy looks like Monkey King but is very different from him, besides appearance. Macaque looks at Tang and gives a small wave. Mk quickly takes out his staff and stands in front of his friends.

“What are you doing here?!” - Mk yells at him.

“Wow, easy there kid. I just wanted to stop by and say hello to my favorite student.” -Macaque replies with a grin on his face.

“I’m not your student, not get out of here before I knock that smudge clean off your face.” - Mk threatens back. Pigsy can see the look on Mk’’s face, anger, and fear.

“How did you know I was here?” - Mk demands.

“I saw you at the market,” Macaque leans over, looking directly at Tang. “With your cute friend back there.”

Tang feels uncomfortable by the sudden flirting the demon is giving him. Without a second thought, Pigsy stands next to Mk, ready to fight. Mei joins in.

“Leave this place Macaque or else.”

“Ya! Leave you Monkey King Imposter!”

“Easy there. At least here me out-”

“I don’t need to hear anything from you. You just can’t come in and threaten my friend like that.”

“Threaten? Now, why would I threaten a cutie like him.” Macaque winks at Tang, angering Pigsy.

“Get out of my shop, Now!”

“Mk!” A sudden shout comes from behind Macaque. Wukong walks in, looking at the ground, not noticing Macaque.

“You left your-” he sees Macaque. “Jacket…” There was a long silence between them.

“Monkey King! Nice to see you again, ‘bud’. ” - Macaque chuckles. Wukong drops Mk’s jacket and launches himself at Macaque, violently pinning him by the throat on the wall.

“How dare you come back! You didn��t get the memo, to leave us alone.” Wukong takes the staff from Mk.

“Looks like I’ll have to get rid of you myself.”

Tang, not far from the demon monkeys sees what is about to happen. Not a fan of violence plus not wanting Pigsy ‘s shop to end up destroyed, he speaks out.

“Wait!” - Tang yells out, making Wukong and Macaque turn and look at him.

“I’m not sure what exactly happened between you three but clearly violence doesn’t solve anything. If we want him to leave, we should at least hear him out, despite his” Tang gives Macaque a worried glare “odd approach towards us.”

Macaque smiles.

“See, he gets it.” Macaque turns into a shadow, freeing him from Wukong’s grasp. He makes his way to Tang, appearing behind him.

“Tang!” - Pigsy yells out.

“Cutie here knows how to treat an alley.” Macaque places his hands on his shoulders leaning his head on Tang’s shoulders. Wukong quickly grabs Tang, yanking him away from Macaque. Tang gets behind Wukong.

“Keep your filthy hands away from him!”

Macaque snarls at Wukong for taking his price away from him.

Mei interrupts “What do you mean by alley?”

“Ya, spill.”

Macaque looks at Tang, stops, and takes a quick breath. “Ahem, as I was saying.” He looks at Wukong.

“I want to redeem myself.”

#inkypageshipping #tintedlensesshipping #tang sanzang #six eared macaque #inkpages

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jhoudiey · 3 years

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NRC School Newspaper, Feature Interview with the Birthday Student, Yoru Crowley!

Yuu: Happy birthday!

Yoru: ...You’re that kid that can’t do magic and has that irritating cat thing.

Yuu: Um, yes? But this isn’t about me, I’m here to interview you for your birthday for the newspaper.

Yoru: Why? I’m not a student here.

Yuu: Because the headmaster asked me to do this for everyone on campus, and specifically requested I do one for you. He said something along the lines of “make my Nugget look nice and charming, I want her to make so many new friends!”

Yoru: What?

Yuu: Can I ask why he refers to you as Nugget?

Yoru: No. And if you put that in the paper I will make your life hell.

Yuu: So you’re against being called Nugget, then?

Yoru: Keep calling me it and see what happens.

Yuu: …

Yuu:... Moving on then, what sort of things do you normally do for your birthday?

Yoru: Nothing, usually. Well I’ll have dinner with my dad and sometimes the staff come. This year they had a surprise party for me.

Yuu: Oh the headmaster did mention that, how did it go?

Yoru: It was uncomfortable with all those people there specifically for me.

Yuu: So you’re not a fan of parties then?

Yoru: Not at all, the food was good though, and I got a few cool gifts.

Yuu: What sort of gifts did you get?

Yoru: Sam got me some dragon blood that’ll come in really handy, I think. Trein got me a book about Harpies, though there isn’t much new information in it. Oh, and Crewel got me a book on antidotes that might come in handy next time I poison myself, heh.

Yuu: What did the headmaster get you?

Yoru: I have no idea, I don’t think he got me anything? Maybe his “gift” was the party itself. Oh I also got a cabbage from a girl I’ve never met. It was really nice and crisp, I wonder if she’s got more.

Yuu: You got a cabbage for your birthday?

Yoru: Yea, it was really good. I think I’m going to go see if she’s got another I can have.

Yuu: Wait! I still have a few other questions to ask you!

Yoru: Just make something up, I gotta check on this cabbage thing.

Yuu: ….Is it safe to just… make up the rest of the answers? Is she going to come back? I can’t publish this, this is awful...Even Idia gave a better interview than this…

***

“Headmaster I’ve finished the interview” Yuu handed over the transcription to Crowley with a grimace.

“Oh my! This is… bad! My sweet little Nugget was not very forthcoming it seems. How sad!” Crowley pouted, looking over the notes, hoping there was something he could glean out of it to show her in a better light. “Wait! I have an idea! You still have that camera I gave you? Come! Let us get a picture of my sweet girl! I’ve even got a birthday sash specifically for her!”

“Headmaster, I can clearly see you’ve just crossed out ‘boy’ on birthday boy and wrote ‘girl’ over top” Yuu said, raising an eyebrow looking at the vandalized sash. “Couldn’t you have done it with magic?”

“Well yes, but this has a certain charm to it, don’t you think?!” Crowley said happily, draping it over his shoulder. “Now, let us go find that daughter of mine!” They began their search, though it was a very short quest, Yuu had thought to check Ramshackle Dorms’ garden first. Yoru was being warded off by Kore wielding a broom, telling the bird to stay away from her garden and that she couldn’t just take whatever she wanted when she felt like it.

“Ahhh Miss Hightower! Thank you for entertaining my daughter, she’ll be coming with me now! Keep up the good work!” He steered Yoru away with a thumbs up and smile at Kore. Yoru tried to fight back, but the grip Crowley had on her shoulder was iron.

“Now now Nugget, make sure to smile! This photo will be in the newspaper, you know!” Crowley draped the sash over her and adjusted it so the words could be easily read. “Now Yuu, if you would be so kind!” He stepped out of the frame, keeping a firm grip on Yoru’s shoulder so she couldn’t fly away. The bulb flashed, and Crowley let go of Yoru’s shoulder. “How wonderful! This will make such a nice feature! Wait Yoru, where are you going? You have to finish your interview with Yuu!” He called to her back as she flew away, the discarded sash laying in a heap on the ground at his feet. Crowley shook his head and sighed, looking at Yuu.

“Ahhh teenage girls, you know how they are”. Yuu gave him a brief smile as if to say “I don’t, but I don’t want to continue this any longer than I have to”.

***

“Hehehehehehehehehe Yoru! Yoru! Did you see this? He did it..the headmaster actually did it ehehehehehehhehehe” Idia was bent nearly double from laughter when she arrived in his room the next day. He had a copy of the newspaper clutched in his hand, tears streaming from his eyes. Yoru shook her head and grabbed the paper, sitting down on his bed to read.

A bird like no other, my daughter, Yoru “Nugget” Crowley. Inquisitive, determined, and full of moxie! The best daughter a father could ever hope for! Every day I’m happy to see my Nugget growing and making friends, and while she doesn’t attend our illustrious school, I’m sure all of the students here will be open and kind to her when they see her! I know that together we can all enjoy our time at NRC, and my daughter, above all wishes to get to know all of you better! She’s recently started work at the Mostro Lounge, so please make sure to stop by and say hello! Though be warned! If any of you fall in love with her, and I wouldn’t be able to blame you if you did, if you break her heart you shall hear from me, and I will have to be most unkind! Happy 18th birthday my dear daughter, I hope this letter reaches you well as you still won’t talk to me, I am very hurt, Yoru, please talk to me soon! I love you, and miss you! Happy birthday again!

Yoru looked up from the newspaper her mouth agape, Idia watching her intently, trying to stifle the laugh on the verge of bursting from his mouth.

“I’m going to fucking murder him” She said flatly, Idia giving way to a fresh gale of laughter.

#twst oc #twisted wonderland oc #yoru crowley #dire crowley #happy birthday yoru #twisute oc

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wind-goddess-eri · 3 years

Text

Lemons in the Hospital (Hannibal King x F!OC)

Okay, here me out. I was watching Blade and It was on my mind cause I’m weird. I made a little smut thing......Enjoy!

Warning ⚠️: mental hospital, death, abuse of power, needles are mentioned.

The Mental Institution seemed even gloomier today than usual in Nurse Stella Mercer's eyes. Granted that she worked in a hospital that not only took care of the physically, mentally and strangely disabled, but also for those with 'certain qualities'. Qualities like being vampires that were somehow disabled in some form or another, vampire slayers that couldn't work anymore, demons that passed as humans, like Nurse Mercer who was a half demon half human herself, that couldn't 'function properly' around human mortals. This place took care of not only humans, but the inhuman as well.

Working here made anyone's day gloomy but today the supply for candles as lighting only made it gloomier. The hospital was trying to cut back on using so much power so the main doctor ordered all the staff to use every candle available for light in rooms that didn't have light bulbs. The room Nurse Mercer was currently in was one of those rooms, filled with probably 100 candles or more out of reach of the three patients she had today. Running a hand through her light brown hair she sighed deeply at the sight before her.

There was Deacon, a vampire patient in here because of his mental disability he'd gotten a while back during one of his hunts in Africa. With his medium length hair that was pulled into a ponytail and his toned body he seemed to stick out like a sore thumb because his posture was that of a child's, clearly not looking like he was 'normal'. His case was so severe that he only had two options; Let his vampire clan kill him so the secret would be safe or come here, where all abnormality was welcome, even to humans who were the doctor's favorite type of patients. Deacon had somewhat of a bipolar personality; in one moment he'd act like a child and seemed to take everything around him like any child would. Other times though, when he was really mad he'd claim he was going to break out and kill as many humans as he pleased. Since he was a vampire, the staff took him seriously. If anyone tried to take away his bagged blood (which was how they fed their vampires) he'd become violent, so no one bothered him too much. It was only bagged blood, no harm no foul. He was calm today. None of the human staff were allowed to be near the vampires. Even if they worked at the institution, no human was allowed to know of supernatural beings. It wasn't hard to keep that secret when there were mind wipers working in the building.

Hannibal King was a curious case really. Clearly the man was human, with his tanned skin, muscled chest and arms but what gave him away most was his scent. His reflexes weren't that bad either. The ruggedy look he always had on also gave away that he was an aging mortal. With short cropped hair and eyes that just pulled anyone in he would have made a very impressive vampire, which he claimed he once was until he found a cure. No one but Danica believed he was ever really a vampire because none had ever changed back into a human. Danica knew all his thoughts and knew he was telling the truth. The fact that Hannibal had chosen to become human again scored him high in Danica's book, though Danica wished she could have that choice. Hannibal King had once been a human vampire hunter or slayer but had gotten into a bad accident on a mission with the daywalker Blade that had paralyzed him from the waist down. All he could now move was the waist up and was bound in a wheelchair for the remainder of his life. He seemed to take life as a handout; whatever he got he deserved. Sometimes though, he would write in his notebook with such vigor that he'd look like he was cursing the world for what he'd lost. Hunting was all he knew. The fierceness in his eyes almost made Nurse Spenser fearful every time she was around him, which was strange to her. Like somehow he'd be less human than what he was. Strangely though, him and his roommates Deacon and Danica, both vampires, got along well.

Casually Stella's eyes looked over at Danica Talos. She had black, messy hair with golden, yet unfocused eyes. Her case was simple, yet just as hard to believe as Deacon because it was hard to damage a vampire, let alone make it permanent. She was blind from an incident that was so freaky it actually blinded her permanently and nothing could be done. Since she'd also gone partially deaf she couldn't be allowed into the world on her own.

These three were now Stella's permanent patients. Only about four times before today had she actually taken care of them in the past six months she'd worked here; mainly because she'd only substituted for their main care giver before but now she'd been assigned as their permanent Nurse. Mrs. Cole, their old nurse, had passed away. Now she was responsible for merely three patients at all times instead of different patients every day. They seemed to like her enough to not complain. Deacon claimed that she was like an older sister to him, Danica always expressed her gratitude for Stella 'clean thoughts' by playing songs for her on her keyboard for her when she asked. Hannibal King always let Stella read his journal entries about his life before he came here. He wouldn't let any other read his stuff and he used violence to enforce that. He may have been in a wheelchair, but the man was still deadly.

As Stella gazed about the small common room the three of them shared, she saw that Deacon was playing with his toys (clearly mentally five years old right now), Danica was playing her keyboard messing with melodies and Hannibal was staring out the window. Straightening out her uniform, Stella made her way over to Hannibal and started to wheel him away. "It's time for your bath, Hannibal," she whispered in his ear trying not to disturb Deacon and Danica even though both could clearly hear her. They were still vampires even if damaged ones. Stella took him to the entrance of his door and walked away for a moment or two.

Before she knew it even happened, Hannibal had grabbed her hand and looked her in the eyes. She'd never seen that look in them before and could not distinguish what it was. "Don't leave me," he whispered so quietly that she knew not even the others would hear. She walked back to him from her short distance, getting even closer with every step. With ease she removed his hand trying not to blush because as much as she didn't want to admit it, she thought he was too sexy for his own good. Sweetly she smiled at him. "I must Hannibal. I have to get everything ready for your bath." With that she walked away again. Not even four steps later she heard the sound of glass break. Quickly turning around she entered into his bedroom and found that he'd taken his night drinking glass and broke it. As she bent down to pick up the big broken pieces she felt his eyes staring at her. She ignored him for a moment but when she used the broom and dust pan to remove the little pieces and still felt his eyes on her she turned around to find him staring at her ass. Slowly she raised her left eyebrow at him until he noticed she was watching him watch her.

Finishing up with the broken glass Stella turned to head for the trash can in the other room then heard a 'thud'. Quickly dumping the shattered pieces of glass into the plastic purple bin she turned around to find the source of the sound. Before she even took two steps she saw Hannibal at the doorway crawling towards her. Having no clue as to what to make of his suddenly strange behavior, she did the logical thing; her job. Making sure not to walk over someone, she paced herself carefully and picked him up, making sure not to squeeze too tightly and crush him with her demon strength and put him in his wheelchair and rolled him to the bathroom.

Speak of the devil, right as she turned the water on in the tub to the right temperature Deacon came in with a goofy child-like smile on his face. "What are you doing Nurse Mercer?" he asked in a child-like way, his voice sounding innocent. His ruby red eyes gleamed of curiosity.

She didn't turn to him as she answered him, continuing to adjust Hannibal's bath water. "It's time for Hannibal's bath Deacon." The water was perfect now.

Unexpectedly, Deacon's voice took on a tone of humor. "Ha ha, Hannibal's a dirty boy! Hannibal's a dirty boy!" Before he could continue his chant, Nurse Mercer got up, took Deacon by the hand and led him back to the common room the three of them shared. "Where are we going, Stella?" his attention completely distracted.

"It's time to play with your army men, Deacon," she answered. While setting Deacon G.I. Joe in front of him, she noticed Danica was wandering around, as if she was searching for something. "Danica, are you looking for something?"

She paused where she was at. "Just keep staring at me so I can see through your eyes where the bathroom is. I need to discard this shirt and puke in the toilet." "Why do you need to do those things?" Stella asked politely.

"For one thing, Deacon poured something all over me. Secondly, he made me swallow some of Hannibal's human food." With understanding she took Danica to the bathroom, ignoring her protests and led her directly to the toilet.

Quickly unbuttoning her shirt, Stella turned to leave. "Are you ok from here?" she asked again.

"Fine, thank you, Stella," she whispered as he regurgitated into the toilet. She hoped Danica wouldn't miss the bowl by accident SOMEHOW. She was a vampire after all.

When Stella came back to the other bathroom where Hannibal was, she noticed that he had already stripped down butt-naked on the floor. Using her massive strength, she picked him up and set him in his bath water. The soap slipped from her hand as she'd reached for it and dropped on top of his legs. Eventually getting to his back after she'd made her way from the legs up. Out of nowhere, she heard him speak. "You're very pretty, Stella," he whispered very quietly. Momentarily she stopped washing him and looked into his eyes, searching for the truth in them; and she found it.

Then she shrugged and continued washing him, remembering that this was her job. "I'm serious. You are beautiful," he continued, his voice a little louder than the first time. Again she shrugged, trying not to blush (which wasn't working). Her eyes did not meet his this time as she could tell he was waiting for her to answer but she remained silent. After cleaning his neck she reached for the shampoo and proceeded with going after his succulent, thick and short brown hair. As her fingers dug the cleansing product into his scalp, moving through the soft hair her attention was so caught up that she didn't even see him reach for her until she'd been pulled into the tub with him.

Too shocked to do anything else, she merely got out of the tub. In doing this, she'd noticed that both her white pants and undergarments were completely soaked. Slightly irritated she grabbed two towels, placed them next to the wheelchair, picked Hannibal up, put him back into it and placed the towels over his crotch. "Bath time is over." The words came out harsher than she'd meant them to be but he ignored her anyway.

Wheeling him to his room she heard him speak again. He seemed to be getting on her nerves a lot today. "You should change," he suggested. Apparently he seemed to not notice her predicament of having no extra clothes.

"Uh, no Hannibal. I don't have spare clothes here." There, that was logical, wasn't it?

Unfortunately he wouldn't let it go. "Just grab a towel. No use walking around in wet clothes." The way he said it was so calm that as he said this it actually seemed to make sense to her. So she did. Once she'd removed her wet clothes and the towel was around her waist (her shirt still on) she started to dry him off, sadly attempting to NOT stare at his crotch. Yes he was one of the sexiest beings alive to her but just because she was his nurse didn't mean she could just ogle his private parts while changing him.

While she was drying off his chest he'd grabbed her so quickly behind her neck and kissed her passionately. For a lack of better judgment, she merely gave in to his power he'd had over her from the moment she saw him, sitting in his window. She was his if he wanted her because somehow, this man had claimed her half demonic heart even though they hardly knew each other. "I've loved you since the first time I saw you, Stella." he whispered into her ear when he went to take a breath. This got her heart racing faster than it had ever gone before in her life. He pulled her face away from him so she'd look into his eyes. The lust and passion was evident in those brown orbs. "I don't care if you're half demon, I want you!"

With that he quickly unbuttoned her blouse and worked his magical hands over her skin, making sure to touch every inch of her flesh. For the first time in over twenty three years, she'd made a rash decision without thinking and just let her lust take over as she let him over power her body. Once the garment was removed he unclasped the front of her bra and released her breasts from their confines. His hungry mouth latched onto one of them, causing intense heat to build up in her lower abdomen. He taunted the tight nipple, making it hard as rock and just when she thought she couldn't take anymore, he moved to the other one, giving it as much attention as the one before. But she could only take so much torture. As the pressure built inside her she felt the need to create some friction, hoping it would ease some of the tension. Just as bare as the day she was born she rubbed her nude body against his slightly, only intensifying the build-up. Pushing him down against his mattress, she straddled his waist just above where she wanted him most.

His cock stood hard and firm, waiting for her make him sink deep within her. She kissed up and down his chest, tasting every inch of him before returning to his lips. Those lips looked like they needed a good sucking and she was happy to be the sucker to taste those babies. The pressure of his hands guiding her hips near his length brought back her fierce arousal. Without even another thought she rammed herself on his painfully erect cock. She couldn't wait for the foreplay; she needed a release as much as he seemed to need a good fuck. God only knew he looked like he needed one badly.

The feeling of his hard member inside her made her pant hard as she started to move fast, taking the lead instantly. Faster and faster she rocked her hips to match his as he used his arms to thrust up inside her, hitting that sensitive spot. Sweat started to pour over the both of them as they felt the tip of their orgasms. Bucking harder it was only seconds a few minutes later until they both completed the race to the finish with a mind-blowing, out of this world first rate orgasm.

Removing herself from on top of him she laid next to him, still not believing that they had just shared a passionate moment together and that he was in love with her. But as the seconds ticked by she started to believe because I DID happen. Both of their bodies were covered in sweat, the room smelled like sex, and the fact that they were both flushed pink only hardened the evidence.

Just as she was about to say something to break the silence that had been going on for several minutes there was a loud banging on his door. Apparently she'd locked it and forgot why at the moment. By the sound of the person's voice it was the doctor with his weird, raspy voice. "OPEN THE DAMNED DOOR!" he yelled. Not wanting to either upset the doctorshe quickly threw on her (now) dry clothes and helped Hannibal dress as fast as they could then opened the door with a smile. The look on his face showed his annoyance at once. "Why as the door locked?" he asked, using his calm voice suspiciously.

The answer came to her only that quickly because it was completely true. "Deacon was bothering Hannibal today so I locked the door while changing him so he'd have some privacy." Quickly her eyes darted to the movement of doctor's hand. "What's with the needle?" she asked, suddenly noticing how huge it was as he waved it around in his hand.

The doctor smiled evilly, like he always did. "It's time for Mr. King's check-up. Wouldn't want our little human to die on us, would we?"

Suddenly she noticed how eerily quiet it was. It was never this quiet, not when you had a vampire that never slept who thought he was five years old and another vampire who again never slept but played the keyboard almost constantly. Something felt wrong. "I'm just going to check on Deacon," she mumbled as she walked out of the room. Briskly walking to Deacon's room, what she saw made her heart stop cold. His body laid lifeless (more than normal) on the floor. His frame was perfectly still, flat on his stomach with a giant needle standing straight out from his spine. It was the same exact kind that Hannibal was going to be given.

Without another thought she raced back to Hannibal's room, not bothering to check on Danica, knowing that she was already dead. If the doctor was going to start killing off his patients, he would start off with the ones that would warn the others. In this case, it would have been Danica. At least she could have given a fair warning that would have alarmed Deacon, Hannibal and herself. Deacon would have probably just kept playing with his toys.

There he laid on his side, coughing and gasping on the floor, his life fading before her very eyes. NO! This couldn't be happening. Not when she'd finally found someone to love her just the way she was. She didn't know what to do since she had no clue what was in the needle so she started to freak out, pulling her hair and such. Kneeling next to him she took his pulse and found it almost non-existent. He only had seconds left to live. Pulling out the needle she was about to try and suck out the drugs he'd been given but his hand pulled her to his face. "Just let me die. Trust me," he whispered, a smile dancing his face she saw for the first time. And with that, the heart of Hannibal King, former evil-vampire slayer's heart stopped beating and he died.

#n/sfw text #smut #tw death #hannibal king x f!oc #blade trilogy #fanfic #my writing

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spaceskam · 4 years

Text

Follow up to this ❤️ special thanks to ul1tsa on ao3 for idea!

ao3

Warnings: talk Jesse and his bullshit & bombs

Michael waited a few weeks before he got drunk and lost that thing in his brain that kept him from doing dumb shit.

He went to the cabin and unlocked the door with his key. He didn't usually use keys, he had one in his brain, but there was something about having a key to Alex's place that felt special. Besides, he needed to make sure that's actually what it was. He pushed the door open and tried the light switches. The bulb on the porch was out. He'd need to get a new one.

He slowly navigated around the space, making a list of tiny things that were bothersome. He didn't even know if he was welcome here... But why else would Alex give him a key?

It was a two bedroom and had a bathroom that connected the two rooms. The kitchen was small and it didn't have a washing machine or dryer. The living room was old. None of it looked like Alex. What exactly would Alex's space even look like? He'd figure it out.

He went back outside to the wrap around porch, walking around it slowly and holding onto the rail. There were a few old boards that could stand being replaced. There was a window unit in each bedroom. He didn't figure it'd be too hard to change that for a central air system.

Michael went back inside and towards the kitchen. The refrigerator was unplugged, so he moved it to plug it back in. The cabinets were empty aside from some old canned beans and a single pan. He went back to the living room.

The couch was even more uncomfortable than he remembered, hard and a little dusty. He sat down anyway and rubbed his hand over it. When he laid down and breathed in, it didn't smell like Alex. It was unfair. Cruel, even.

He laid there anyway, lulling himself to sleep with the memory of Alex's skin.

It became a thing.

When his mind got chaotic and he needed something to do with his hands, he'd go to the cabin. He replaced boards, cleaned, hooked up a washing machine and dryer. After a couple months, he bought a comfier couch from an old lady who was selling it. He took down the hunting memoribillia and tried to find things that Alex might like. A couple trinkets bought during a trip to the nearby reservation, a painting bought from an artist who showed her work at the renaissance festival, and a hand-woven blanket from an older lady who traveled all the way from the Navajo Nation to sell the two she made a month at the market–and then vowed that he would never pay that much money for anything ever again.

He started spending more time there than he spent at his airstream and, after passing out on the couch after spending his entire day off trying to set up a central air system, he decided it might be worth buying food. So he did. He bought a few things, added three extra locks to the front and back doors, and brought his thrifted silverware and dishes from the airstream to set up a place for himself there.

It was slowly coming together. It felt like a home. He bought a broom.

He didn't tell Isobel or Max about any of this, they didn't need to know about Alex. Instead, Michael kept it to himself and spun lies about where he was whenever they asked questions. Usually they didn't. He was Michael, after all, it wasn't that odd for him to drop off the map.

He eventually started fixing up the bedrooms which were a little harder. It looked too much like a middle aged man stayed there and that was absolutely not the look he was going for. He got new bedspreads and sheets from a discount store and matching bedside tables from the dump that only needed some sanding and some finish to make nice. A new showerhead made out of things he found around the junkyard fit nice too. He played with the water heater until it stopped needing to be manually reset every 60 gallons, sanded and put finish on the dresser, built a new bed frame and headboard out of scrap wood, and fixed the janky doorknob of the closet. It looked livable now.

Alex's birthday came around and he didn't have a number to reach him, so Michael did something a little stupid and a little sentimental and found himself at a thrift store. He bought a set of two identical rocking chairs for the back porch. He almost threw them out three times, but he decided on leaving them there and just ignoring them until he stopped feeling like they were too much.

There was something about the cabin as it came together that both felt like home and like it was far too sacred to make a mess of. He kept it cleaner than he'd ever kept a place before. The dishes were always done, his dirty clothes always ended up in the laundry basket, never let himself get drunk enough that he'd be compelled to make a mess, and he swept and mopped every Sunday. His shampoo and body wash didn't leave rings in the bathtub.

It was nice.

It was about a year into renovating and six months into practically moving in when he found a broken telecision in the junkyard that someone had dropped.off. Curiosity got the best of him and he found himself trying to make it work in his free time. There was a strange sense of pride when he plugged it in and it turned on, the picture only slightly tinted blue and the sound as perfect as the speakers would allow. He wrapped it up in a couple blankets and loaded it into his truck, stopping by a thrift store on the way to the cabin to buy a few interesting DVDs for 50¢ a piece. He couldn't remember the last time he actively sat down to watch a movie for fun.

It took about thirty minutes to mount it above the fireplace, but eventually it was up and he found himself smiling as he put in a shitty mid-2000s straight-to-DVD teen movie. It played easily and he smiled wider. If there was one thing fixing up the cabin did, it was make him smile. It felt good to fix things up.

Michael grabbed a beer that was beside the leftovers in the fridge and settled on the couch, kicking his shoes off and pulling a blanket onto his lap. His phone was on the coffee table and charging with an alarm queued up to wake him up for work in the morning .It was the most normal he'd ever felt and he never wanted to give it back.

And it seemed like he wouldn't have to until the door creaked open.

Michael shot to his feet, standing like he was caught red handed as Alex stepped inside. He was still in uniform, a duffle bag hanging off his shoulder. His eyes were wide with wonder, though, as he looked around at all the shit Michael had done. It was the first time he regretted it.

"I'm sorry," Michael blurred out, catching Alex's attention, "I should've asked. I shouldn't have changed shit and I shouldn't have stayed here, I'm sorry, I'll go."

"Guerin, relax," Alex said, smiling in a pure way that Michael hadn't seen since they were seventeen, "I knew you were staying here."

"You did?" Michael asked skeptically.

"Yeah," he said, carefully putting down the duffle bag and closing the door, "Electric bill?"

Michael's eyes widened. "Oh, fuck, I forgot about that, I'm so sorry."

"Guerin," Alex laughed, "Stop. I'm happy you're staying here. I don't mind, really."

Michael swallowed and tried to believe him when he said he was happy. Because Michael was happy. Happy to be here, happy to see Alex, happy to see where tonight led. He tapped his hands against his thighs as Alex took another look around.

"I didn't expect all this, though," Alex breathed.

"It's, uh, not all of it. I can show you around?" Michael offered awkward. Alex smiled wider and nodded.

So Michael gave him a tour of his own house. He showed him the kitchen, the bathroom, the bedroom, and how the locks on the doors worked. Alex put the duffle bag in the closet and gently touched Michael's shirt that was hanging in there like he didn't believe it was actually there. Michael stood with his hands clasped behind his back and rocked up on his toes as Alex felt over the headboard he made and the blanket on the bed. He shook his head, looking over at Michael.

"I can't... I can't believe you did all of this," Alex said, looking at him. He wasn't smiling anymore. Instead, he looked like he was about to cry.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to–"

"Michael," he cut him, laughing softly as he came closer. He touched his arm, his hand sliding up as he moved in closer and draped his arms around Michael's neck. Michael rested his hands on his hips. "I love it so much. But it's so much. How much did you spend? Let me pay you back."

"No, don't. Most of it's stuff I fixed from broken stuff or I got for super cheap, I barely spent $300 over the last year," he said. He purposefully left out what he spent on the more decorative things, those could simply be gifts from all the birthdays he missed.

"Still," Alex said, swallowing hard as he reached out and touched Michael's cheek. Michael leaned into it. He hadn't realized how successful he'd been at distracting himself from missing Alex until then. "This is all so nice. I-I don't even know what to say. I didn't expect this at all."

"I mean... I just didn't like that it looked like an angry old man lived here, I get enough of that with Sanders," Michael said. He was struggling to see what about the dumb little things made Alex emotional. In fact, they were selfish. He wanted to pretend Alex wasn't a million miles away. That was as selfish as it got. But Alex laughed and kissed him and Michael stopped feeling guilty.

"Thank you," Alex gushed against his lips, "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

Everything about this was completely contrary to Alex's last visit home. It wasn't confusing or blurry and he felt safe. He felt loved. He clung to Alex and kissed him hard, trying to quench the desperate, overwhelming feeling in his stomach.

"I gotta take a shower, I'm gross from that fucking plane and I need to be clean for the things I wanna do to you," Alex breathed, pulling away just a little. Michael nodded, going in for another kiss anyway. Alex giggled and leaned back. "It'll be quick, I promise."

"I worked all day, I need one too, so let me join?" Michael asked. Pleaded, really. He didn't want to let go.

"Good idea," Alex said, "Do you have a security system set up?"

"It's next on my list," Michael said honestly. Alex grinned, cupping his cheek in his hand and slowly starting to pull him to the bathroom.

"Good boy."

"Can I tell you something?"

"Anything and you know it."

Alex huffed a laugh and rolled his eyes, staring up at the ceiling. Michael loved seeing him like that. His hair was slightly past regulation, laying on his forehead and smashed against the pillow. After a long shower and stumbling into bed, they'd finally wore themselves out. Now they were in bed in Alex's house.

Their house.

Alex shifted to face him, face a little too serious consider the circumstances. Michael slowly faded to seriousness to fit it. Alex reached out, fingers grazing Michael's cheek and down his neck, over his shoulder, down to his torn up hand. Michael very quickly got serious and watched him pull his hand up to his lips.

"It's embarassing," Alex said.

"Since when have I been known to judge you?" Michael asked, stretching his leg out to wedge between Alex's. Alex parted his knees just enough to lock their legs together.

"I just... I've been thinking about my dad," Alex whispered.

"Uh oh," Michael said, trying to lighten the mood. Alex rolled his eyes.

"I've been trying to work through all my issues, I guess, since I realized you were staying here. I want this to work, you know?" Alex said and Michael was all ears, "And I think I didn't realize he was a bad guy until I saw him do this."

"What do you mean?" Michael said before he could process if that was a smart thing to ask.

"Like, I spent so many years thinking that my mom was the bad one because she left and at least my dad was there. It didn't matter if he beat me as long as he was there," Alex explained. Michael didn't really understand, but, with all the things they felt that overlapped, it was fine if he didn't understand that one thing. "And I... Even when I rebelled, I just wanted his approval. Part of me still does. I think I always will. Which is stupid because all the attention he gives me is solely on his terms, especially when it's positive."

"He's not worth it."

"I know," Alex said, smiling slightly before he kissed his hand again, "Logically, I know. But illogically... I'm still trying to remind myself he's a bad guy. It just took me so long to see it."

Michael didn't say anything, simply nodded and let Alex touch him as he needed to keep himself calm. Whatever kept him in bed, kept him in their space. He didn't know how long Alex was going to be home and he was too scared to ask, so he didn't.

"But, I'm trying," Alex sighed, looking at him in the eyes. He was so intense with every look and sometimes Michael felt compelled to look away, but not in moments like this. Never in moments like this. "I don't want to mess this up by trying to please him."

"I don't wanna fuck up either."

"I think we're on a good track, though," Alex smiled, tightening his legs and tugging Michael impossibly close. Just where he wanted to be. "Off topic, but I'm hungry."

Michael laughed softly and was incredibly thankful for a subject change. "I have leftover pasta in the fridge if you want that."

Alex smiled ridiculously wide for something as meaningless as day old pasta.

"Leftovers," Alex repeated in a whimsical tone, "You're gonna make a good little househusband."

"Shut the fuck up," Michael laughed, shoving his shoulder. Alex laughed right back and moved to get up. Michael followed suit without question. There was no way he was leaving his side.

"Let's eat."

Michael woke up to his alarm and an empty bed.

Panic struck him and he thought about calling out for Alex, but his voice wouldn't work as if subconsciously knowing the answer. Terrified, even. He slowly pushed himself out of bed, pulling on a pair of jeans. Dread continued to pool in him as he tiptoed out of the room and into the empty living room. But it smelled like coffee which was definitely a good sign.

It took him only a few seconds to see that Alex was out on the back porch in one of the rocking chairs. His heart seemed to skip a beat or two or four. The sun hit his shirtless body perfectly and he seemed to fucking glow. Michael had to take a few deep breaths before he stepped outside.

""Morning," Alex hummed, looking over at him. His hair was still a mess, but he looked better rested than Michael had seen him in a long time.

"I thought you left," he said stupidly. Alex shook his head.

"I can't really sleep in anymore and I didn't wanna wake you up. Sorry if I scared you."

"It's okay," he said. And it really, really was. This was the perfect sight to see in the morning and it made him angry at Sanders for employing him. "I, uh, I have to go to work. I can call in, though."

"Don't," Alex said with a warm smile, "I'll be here when you get home."

Michael felt his whole body heat up at that. Home. Alex would be here. He wasn't sure he would actually believe it until he saw it.

"Yeah, uh," Michael said, clearing his throat, "How-how, like, how long are you..."

"Michael," Alex said, standing up and walking closer. Michael was going to melt if he kept saying his name. Alex kept his mug firmly in one hand and touched his cheek with the other. "I'm home for a month."

"A month," Michael breathed. Alex smiled and nodded, leaning forward to kiss him. It sounded like a short period of time, but it would be longest consecutive time they'd ever spent together. Ever. It sounded fake.

"So, go to work. I'm not going anywhere," he promised. It was hard to listen, but he did.

And you know what? Alex was home when he got there that afternoon.

"Where the fuxk are you living?"

"Airstream."

Michael spoke casually as Isobel stood by his feet as he worked on the car. He knew it was wrong to lie to her about something like this, but, fuck, he was barely sure this was real himself. He'd woken up to Alex for three whole weeks and he only had one left. He wasn't wasting that time and he wasn't bursting his domestic bubble.

"Stop lying to me! You haven't lived at the airstream for months now," Isobel argued, "You're never here at night and if I call you, it takes you for fucking ever to get to my house. Where are you staying?"

He sighed, trying to ignore her more and more. It didn't work very well as she stood her ground and basically decided she would follow him when he left work if he didn't tell her.

"It's a cabin outside of town, okay?" he caved, deciding on a half-truth. He didn't need to say it was Alex's.

"A cabin?" Isobel asked skeptically, "And you just haven't told me or shown me? What if something happens? I need to know where to find you, Michael."

"Fine, fine, okay?" he sighed, "Just, give me a week. It's a fucking wreck."

"You promise?" she asked. He nodded. "Good."

If he couldn't keep his home a secret, he could at least keep Alex to himself for a little while. He could deal with that later. In a week, his house would be empty. In a week, his bed would be empty.

He could deal with her then.

The bed was a lot of colder than he remembered.

January 30th, 2017 at 21:45.

Or, at least that's when Michael found out. The actual event happened on the 26th, a bombing injuring 30 Airmen and killing 3. There wasn't an article about it and he didn't receive a call. Instead, when he was stalking one of the mothers of a guy in Alex's group, he saw she posted about the bombing and saying her son was one of the lucky ones and thanking God. Michael nearly had a breakdown.

He spent the next hour calling Alex and when that didn't work, he started calling down a list of military hospitals. He found him eventually at Landstuhl and had to lie about being his brother to get him on the phone along with a warning about him being drugged up. But at least he was alive.

"Alex?" Michael whispered. Once again, he found him scared that Alex wouldn't answer. But he's spent an hour panicking and he wasn't about to just not talk.

"Huh?" Alex said, voice hoarse. Michael closed his eyes, bowing his head. It was small, but it was something.

"Hey," Michael croaked, doing his best not to cry. He wanted to go see him. He couldn't. It didn't work that way. As nice as it was when they pretended they didn't have a care in they world, they did have a care. His name was Jesse Manes. Not to mention the giant alien hole he hadn't even told Alex about... "You scared me."

"Sorry," Alex said. Michael breathed in deep.

"No, it's okay. How are you feeling?"

"Tired," he whined, "I wanna see you "

Michael looked up, blinking away tears as quick as he could. It was difficult, but he managed it. He could cry later.

"I know, I wanna see you too. Maybe you can come home soon and I can," Michael suggested. Alex hummed a noncommittal tune. "So, uh, what all happened? Did you get, um, get burned or something?"

"A little," Alex said. Michael swallowed harshly. "Hey, you know what they did? They took my leg."

Michael's breath caught in his throat.

"What?"

"My leg," Alex repeated, that sort of dazed tone in his voice, "Couldn't save it, had to go."

Michael didn't know what to say. He didn't know how he was supposed to react to this. There wasn't a handbook. Instead of letting himself react like he was the one who lost something, he fed off of Alex's tone.

"How do you feel about that?" Michael asked. Alex hummed.

"My foot itched all day and there was nothing to scratch."

Michael huffed a laugh, rubbing the hell of his hand beneath his eyes to try to get rid of the tears.

"Well, if that's the worst of it, sounds like you're doing good."

"They gave me so many drugs," Alex told him, yawning halfway through. Michael smiled and nodded even though he couldn't see him. "I'm tired."

"Do you want me to let you go to sleep?" Michael asked. Alex didn't answer and that felt like an answer enough. "I'll call you tomorrow, okay?"

"Mhm."

"I love you so much," Michael said. He didn't think about it, he just said it. It needed to be said.

"Mhm."

Michael huffed another laugh again, "Goodnight, Alex."

He ended the call and looked around the house that he'd spent over a year of his life renovating. He tried to picture Alex in it again, a version of Alex who might need accessibilities he didn't think of when he did things the first time around.

And now he had new projects.

Turns out it was pretty easy to widen doorways.

It took Michael about two days to widen one Interior door, ripping off the door frame and sawing through the wall itself. He widened them all from 30" to 38" in width and felt thankful that the exterior doors were all double doors. He didn't even know if Alex would be using a wheelchair, but it felt like a safe option regardless.

He ripped out the tub from the bathroom, replacing it with one with a little more traction on the bottom. He installed bars all around the bathroom and a wooden seat that was attached to the wall so it could fold up or down when he needed it.

Again, he found himself taking a lap around the porch to check for any loose boards or nails. He fixed any that even might've been questionable. It gave him the idea to add ramps beside the steps to the porch. He built them and jumped on them as hard as he could go make sure they didn't break.

It helped when he got angry–ngry at something, angry at nothing, angry at everything–to put things back together again. It made him feel useful even when phone calls consisted of Alex being short with him and hanging up. He was focusing on PT and learning how to use a prosthetic and Michael knew it was frustrating. He could hear it in his voice even when he refused to talk about it. He always refused to talk about it. Some days he refused to talk at all.

He refused to let it out distance between them.

On extra bad days, Michael would drink and Google random accessibility ideas. He knew Alex. As sweet as he thought his renovating for him was, he knew Alex would be too stubborn to ask him for help on anything. He wanted to make it so he didn't have to as much as possible. Open spaces, all but gluing the rug down, a bench at the foot of the bed, a chair in the bathroom, a stool with wheels in the kitchen, sanding down the sharp edges of the kitchen table, dumb shit that might help maybe once.

He was trying because Alex was trying. They still wanted to make this work.

And they were going to no matter what.

#malex #malex fic #alex manes #michael guerin #rnm fic #my fic #verse: just one normal night

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welllpthisishappening · 4 years

Text

On This Night and in This Light (1/3)

Emma Swan knows she's pretty good at what she does.

Helping the magically afflicted and affected find jobs in this realm isn't the most glamorous thing in the world, and, sure, there's a lot of paperwork, but she figures she's helping people and that's the important thing. It's structured. Calm, even.

Until. It's always until.

Killian Jones shows up with his stupid smirk and his tendency to lean against the door frame in Emma's office and his distinct lack of magic. Or knowledge of what they're really doing at Mills Personnel. Everything kind of goes off the rails after that.

----

Rating: Teen, but I’m me, so kissing is guaranteed Word Count: About 6.5K this chapter AN: About a week ago @shireness-says sent me this post, about a job agency that specifically helped people with supernatural abilities or supernatural problems find a job. I believe my exact response was “Don’t do this to me” and then Devon probably laughed or something and over the course of the last three days I wrote about 19-thousand words. Nonsense is guaranteed, as is the kissing, hopefully some banter and a bunch of magic. The next two chapters probably Tuesday and Thursday of next week?

|| Also on Ao3 if that’s how you roll ||

----

“So, that’s basically it. The guy was cursed, super greedy and—” “—Babe c’mon, that’s my dad.”

The guy shrugs.

Which Emma figures is pretty fair, all things considered. Although she also can’t remember his name, so maybe she’s a quasi-villain in this story. She’s fairly certain it’s in the paperwork. The guy’s name, not her potential villain status.

In her defense, that one lightbulb above her head is very distracting. Flickering on and off, she’s going to have to tell Graham about it, which will probably somehow alert Regina and Emma isn’t sure she’s capable of dealing with Regina right now. It’s been a very long morning.

At— she glances at the tiny string of numbers in the bottom corner of her computer monitor, nine twenty-six in the morning.

“Jeez,” Emma mumbles, drawing the attention of both of the people sitting in front of her. Not very often that a pair comes in. She supposes that’s nice.

In an overwhelmingly, romantic kind of way.

God, maybe she’s bitter.

She’s totally bitter. Thinking anything else is ridiculous.

And if Emma doesn’t get some coffee soon, she’s going to fall asleep at her desk and inevitably offend this nameless, albeit nice-looking guy who until recently was spending his days as a solid-gold statue in front of an antiques store on Broome Street.

“Not—not you guys,” Emma says quickly, and the girlfriend’s eyes widen. Her name is Abigail. Emma’s, like, forty-six percent positive.

“You know he didn’t mean it,” maybe-Abigail says. “It was...well, Freddie was very heroic about it. Protecting my dad and—he was head of security at the building. Kids thought it’d be funny to try and break in, but Freddie was—” “—Courageous?” “Very. The kids wanted my dad’s gift, but Freddie wouldn’t let them near him. Of course that made sure he was close to my dad and he...well, he got touched by accident and....”

Humming noncommittally, Emma lets the rest of the details float into the back of her mind. She doesn’t particularly want to hear this story. Most of them are the same, anyway. Heroic deeds beget undeserved rewards, and there’s always some sort of deus ex machina fix that’s inevitably magical, and she figures that’s part of the deal at this place, but that bitterness of hers runs far deeper than she’s willing to admit. “And you didn’t want to go back to work at the cursed dad’s office?” Freddie shakes his head. “Not really all that interested in security anymore. Ya get frozen for three years and it kinda loses its shine, y’know?” “Makes sense,” Emma replies, and she hates to admit it takes her that long to realize what he just said. Maybe she should have read the paperwork closer. She didn’t have time. “Wait, wait did you say three years?” “And, uh, like fourteen days. That’s right, right babe?” Abigail smiles. That must be the answer. “We’re just looking for a fresh start. My dad is—well, maybe greedy is the right word. He doesn’t view this as a curse, it's...I called it a gift before, didn't I?” Emma nods, trying desperately to ignore the state of that light bulb. “Nothing we do is going to change his mind. He’s going to keep it, and he tries to be careful, but—one wrong move and there’s a golden something right in front of you. We don’t want to risk it again. That’s why we came here. It’s supposed to be the best placement service in the city.”

Biting back the immediate retort of it’s the only placement service like this in the city, Emma plasters what she can only hope is an encouraging smile on her face. The lightbulb stops flickering.

It dies. Completely.

She hopes that’s not a sign.

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” she stammers, before turning back to her keyboard and a monitor with time that must be going backwards. “So, three years removed from any interaction with society and that’s—” Her smile is making her cheek muscles ache. “What kind of skills do you have, Mr. Greyston? Any specific interests or ideas about what you want to do?”

Freddie does not have any ideas. Or interests. Or concerns besides Abigail, it seems. Who is not just his girlfriend, but his fiancée, and a rather vocal wealth of both ideas and interests, none of which fit any of the potential jobs Emma spends the next forty-seven minutes finding.

Something is wrong with each and every one. Wrong location. Too far a commute. Weird hours. Requires a uniform and—“Have you seen the width of Freddie’s shoulders? There’s no way he’d be able to wear a mass-produced jacket like that.”

Emma hasn’t been paying much attention to the width of Freddie’s shoulders, honestly.

She’s far more preoccupied with the pain blooming behind her left eye and, somehow, at the base of her skull and she’s a few seconds away from turning both Freddie and Abigail into frogs when she hears footsteps approaching her half-open office door and he actually has the gall to cross his feet at the ankle when he leans against the frame.

“What about personal training?”

Both Abigail and Freddie freeze. One of them tilts their head. Presumably in thought. Emma can’t be bothered figuring out which one.

Not with her fingers hovering over her keys, the pop of her lips as they fall open sounding far louder than it should and the stranger leaning against her door frame smiles at her.

Smirks, really. One side of mouth tugs up, and the sleeves of his shirt are rolled halfway up his forearms. It’s offensive, that’s what it is.

As is the overall shade of blue in his eyes.

“Can I help you?” Emma asks. Demands, honestly. One word comes out sharper than the last, drawing a soft chuckle from the questionably good-looking stranger and that’s—

No. No compliments. Just insults. Of the sharp-tongued variety.

Most curses require a sharp tongue, in Emma’s experience. And she suddenly finds herself fantasizing about the several different ways she could curse this self-assured bastard to the other side of the office.

“I think, love,” he says, leaning forward like that’s allowed, “I might be able to help you. Couldn’t help but overhear—” “—Because you were eavesdropping?” “Inevitable when your voice carries the way it does.”

Her mouth is already hanging open, so Emma can only imagine what she looks like when it feels as if her eyes are also intent on falling out of her face. Not great, if the increased smirk'ness of the smirk is any indication.

Smirk'ness is not a word.

“Personal training could be kind of cool,” Freddie muses with interest. Abigail beams. Emma comes up with twenty-nine different curse possibilities. “Don’t you need something for that, though? Like a certificate or something?” Blue-eyed bastard, fuckface chuckles again. “You do, in fact. ‘Fraid you can’t simply approach strangers and start training them. But the requirements aren’t hard to complete and there’s always a fairly high demand for trainers. People want to get in shape, y’know?” Suggesting that there’s no way this guy with his stupid sleeves could know the exact tone Freddie had used to a voice very similar question not even an hour earlier is as stupid as his sleeves, but Emma cannot rationalize any of this and she should have known he was out there.

Lurking in the hallway, as it were.

There’s always some sort of—signal. A smell. A flicker of familiarity that ripples up her spine and latches to the back of her brain and she assumes the migraine that now seems pretty inevitable is not that. It’s just painful.

Nothing else. She didn’t feel anything. She should have felt something, unless—

“No,” she gasps, and she’s got to get a handle on her audible reactions. “I, uh—I mean, no, no, that’s a great idea, actually. What do you think Mr. Greyston?”

Freddie narrows his eyes. “I...I just said it sounded cool.” “He did,” the wanker with that one piece of wayward hair hanging across his forehead says, “I heard it. Didn’t you hear it?” Nodding emphatically, Abigail is far too quickly swayed by all of this. “I did and that’s—Emma, why didn’t you think of that before?” Anger curls low in Emma’s gut. Rises in the back of her throat and threatens to scorch every inch of her tongue, like that’s something an emotion is capable of. Fisting her hands under her desk, the edges of her nails leave crescent-moon shaped cuts on her palm, but she doesn’t have another outlet for the energy running through her.

Especially if she’s right.

She’s seventy-two percent positive she’s right. Which is better than how she felt about Abigail’s name, and she was totally right about that, so.

Math, or whatever.

“Didn’t even cross my mind,” Emma admits through clenched teeth. “But thankfully we’re a collaborative effort here at Mills Personnel, and it’s always good to get multiple opinions, including some from our newest—” Swallowing her tongue isn’t the most embarrassing thing Emma can do in a moment like this, but it’s starting to feel somewhere in the top five and if this guy doesn’t stop staring at her like that she’s going to scream.

Or self combust with magic.

Her magic appears to be running on overdrive.

“Killian Jones,” he says, answering a question she hadn’t actually gotten around to asking. “It’s my first day,”

“Is it just?” His answering hum isn’t as sarcastic as Emma’s was. She supposes that’s another failure of hers today. Her brain’s already started making a list. “Did you know they have an espresso machine in the break room?” “I work here,” Emma answers.

“As I can see. Just—” “—Trying to tell me about espresso?” The other side of his mouth moves. That suggests Emma is staring at his mouth, which she might be, honestly. When she isn’t wholly preoccupied with his eyes or that one strand of hair, and she can’t believe that one strand of hair exists, but she’s also a witch and Freddie was made of gold and she never did ask how they managed to fix that.

Emma’s starting to wonder if she actually sucks at her job.

“Make conversation,” Killian says. “And maybe help a little bit. That’s the gig, isn’t it?” None of the muscles in Emma’s neck are particularly interested in nodding, but her hair moves so that must mean she accomplishes at least some sort of movement and the two pairs of eyes sitting in wholly uncomfortable chairs opposite her are watching the scene with open interest. “Alright,” she says brusquely, certain Killian’s eyes get brighter, “Mr. Greyston, let’s start working on a plan for getting your certification and then we can set up some contacts with area gyms.”

She’s not sure when Killian leaves, exactly.

Only that he doesn’t try closing the door behind him and when Emma walks into the breakroom thirty-one minutes later, there’s a post-it with ridiculously swirly handwriting clinging to the espresso machine. Try this one, it says.

And that doesn’t really make sense. It’s an espresso machine, there aren’t a ton of different options. Emma’s almost charmed all the same.

It wasn’t True Love’s Kiss.

Frederik Greyston wasn’t released from his gilded prison by the most sweepingly romantic bit of magic in the world. It was water from Nostos, which Emma knows is expensive and hard to come by, but knowing the little she does about Abigail’s father, it makes sense and she’s disappointed all the same.

Six years working at Mills Personnel and still not a single person has been saved by the power of True Love’s supposed Kiss.

She’s starting to think it doesn’t even exist.

Honestly, the whole thing is Mary Margaret’s fault.

She’s the one who got Emma the job after all, and maybe that’s more a commentary on Emma’s disinterest in joining the traditional workforce or being a functioning member of society, but she’s also quick to argue that society hasn’t really done much for her lately. Not a ton of professional options for someone with a record and the tendency to glow every now and then.

So, Emma had agreed to the interview.

On a Thursday at two in the afternoon, at the office tucked into the bottom floor of a building on 62nd Street, with etched letters on the door.

Mills Personnel, it said.

And still does, really. Not much has changed since Emma first walked into Regina’s office, least of all the lettering on her door, but she’d like to believe she’s maybe a bit more confident than she was that time and—

“Regina, is this a joke?” Emma asks, not able to sit in one of the chairs. Pacing seems entirely more reasonable, even as the muscles in her calves start to ache. “Because it can’t—none of this makes any sense.” “Why not?” “Repeating myself is redundant.” Making a noise Emma can only assume is an agreement, Regina doesn’t bother looking up from the paperwork in her hands. Another client. Another problem. Something else Killian Jones can probably solve.

Nearly a week after the incident in Emma’s office, the new guy is apparently some kind of job placement wunderkind, able to match any person with their dream position while also boasting a wealth of contacts across the city. Yelp reviews have appeared in droves — sent to Emma nearly every morning because apparently Ruby has some sort of sick sense of humor, and only a few of them mention Killian’s rolled-up sleeves.

That’s insane.

Emma can’t imagine not mentioning his rolled-up sleeves.

Maybe she’s part of the problem, actually. Just like—with society, as a whole.

“You want to repeat yourself, don’t you?” Regina asks knowingly, drawing a strangled sound out of Emma that nearly makes her trip mid-pace. One should not affect the other. And yet. Everything seems to be falling apart in rather quick succession, the kind of worry that’s already taken root in the center of her and wrapped its way around every single one of her ribs, and she’s got no idea how many ribs she’s currently in possession, but she figures it’s got to be a lot.

Based almost entirely on the constant tightness in her chest.

“How are you not freaking out about this?” Regina shrugs. “Nothing’s going to happen. People love him.” “People think he’s got a good-looking face.” “You think that and—” Sputtering on her own inevitably witty retort, if only she could get it out, Emma can’t do much more than dramatically exhale as soon as Regina does lift her eyes. Leveling her with that same look she’d used during Emma’s initial interview, like she’s got all the answers in the world and will be willing to share them.

Eventually. At her leisure.

“He doesn't have magic,” Emma hisses, feeling as if she’s lost her last tether to reality. No one else is worried about this. Ruby has at least eighty-four opinions on Killian’s face. David’s not totally swayed, but thinks the guy’s at least doing a good job so far. Mary Margaret wants to invite him to game night next week.

To play goddamn Settlers of Catan. Like they’re normal people. And not witches, or some other unnecessarily gendered description of magic-users.

“He—he,” Emma continues, and now her hands have joined the fray. Waving them around her head only makes her feel more insane. “How can you think that he’ll be able to place people in jobs when he doesn’t know why they really need jobs?” Her voice cracking on the question can’t help her cause much.

But Emma needs this to stay the same. She needs consistency and maybe not comfort, but comfort-adjacent and the fucking Settlers of Catan. At some point, she’s going to win that dumb game, she’s positive.

And Killian Jones poses a very real threat to all of those alliterative sentiments.

Because Mills Personnel is not a normal job placement organization. Emma’s not even sure it’s an organization, technically. Maybe an LLC.

She’s not a lawyer.

The point is, it caters to—a slightly different sort of clientele. The kind that’s been affected by magic. Whether that’s because they’re in possession of it, or have been cursed by it, or are only spending some time in this realm while hiding from a revenge-prone dragon in their homeland, who also happened to be their mother, and need a job while they wait it out.

That last one has always been Emma’s personal favorite. Lily spent three years working for an appraiser on Park Avenue.

She was really good at it.

And Emma is good at this. At helping. At providing people with their own plan, and their own possibilities and she has got to get off this alliterative kick because—

“Hey,” Regina mutters, nodding towards Emma’s hands. Both of which are dangerously close to phosphorescent “Reign it in for me, huh?” “Seriously, how can you be so calm about this?”

“He needed a job.” “What? How did you even find him?” Squeezing one eye shut, Regina clicks her tongue thoughtfully and it’s almost enough to make her seem like a normal person. Instead of a person who can regularly summon fireballs from her palms. “Friend of Robin’s. I think you met him last solstice party, but—that’s not the important part. Anyway, we worked with Scarlet once. Or David did, helped him get a job in Brooklyn after he’d been stoned in Wonderland.” “I’m sorry, stoned in Wonderland?” “Mmhm, literally. Anyway, his girlfriend’s known Killian for years and he just moved to New York and one thing led to another and here we are.” “Here we are,” Emma echoes. “The repeating thing isn’t just redundant, it’s obnoxious,” Regina sighs, finally moving the papers. It’s not a victory for Emma. Not when it only ensures Regina can also lean back in her chair, cross her arms over her chest and tilt her head at that very specific angle that practically radiates judgment. “He just needs some money for a couple of months. He’ll be out of here before anyone will have a chance to enlighten him on what he’s actually doing.” “Giving jobs to magical people.” “Not all of them are magical,” Regina argues, “some of them have just been impacted by magical forces.” “Yuh huh. And how exactly are we hiding all of these magical forces from Killian Jones, totally mortal human being?” The head tilt’s at nearly forty-five degrees now. “You are mortal, you know that right? It’s important that you know that.”

“I know that,” Emma snaps, flickers of light falling from her fingertips for good measure. “I just—when you hired me, you made it very clear that the line between magic and the rest of the world was tenuous at best. We just...we exist and hope no one burns us at the stake, but now you’re totally cool with some inherently normal guy being here. Everything we do is going to freak him out.” “It hasn’t already. And so long as you stop sparking at regular intervals, I think you’ll be fine.” “I’m not worried about me.”

Widening her eyes, Regina's judgment reaches across the questionably originate mahogany desk, hangs in the air for all of fourteen seconds and then smacks Emma squarely across the face. In a magical sort of way that makes her skin tingle.

“Not cool,” she mumbles, but Regina doesn’t do much more than sneer. “Alright, fine, fine, you think this is a totally great idea—” “—I didn’t say it was great. I said it wasn’t going to be as bad as you thought it was going to be, and we’re doing some old customers a favor.” “Sounds suspiciously like nepotism.” “Or good business.”

Emma rolls her eyes. She’s getting another migraine. “Tell all your friends about Mills Personnel, the only option for the magical and magic-damaged to ensure they can keep paying their rent.” “Not as catchy as I’d like, but I accept that it’s a work in progress.”

“Yeah, yeah, something like that.” Having never sat down, it’s easy for Emma to make a quick and relatively drama-free exit from Regina’s office, swinging open the door and marching into the hallway and—

“Ah, fuck,” she grunts, slamming into something far too solid to be anything except another human being. Who smells suspiciously like laundry detergent and salt water.

“Swan.”

She blinks. Once. Twice. Tries to remember that she is in fact mortal, and that requires a consistent stream of oxygen in her lungs. But breathing is something of a challenge now, and he’s smirking at her when she finally lifts her head. “What are you doing?” “Walking,” Killian answers easily, but there’s a hint of laughter clinging to the word that manages to frustrate Emma and do the exact opposite all at once. “Do you have somewhere especially important to go?” “No, no, that’s—why do you say that?” “Seems you’re in something of a rush.” “Or you take up way too much of the hallway.” Full-blown laughter is at least twenty-thousand times better than the clinging variety or whatever sound Emma’s managed to imagine he makes in the last week or so. She hasn’t imagined it that much. She’s a God awful liar, actually.

“That might be true,” Killian admits, taking a step back, and there’s a pile of papers resting on his hip. A pen barely stays behind his ear, that same wayward strand of hair taking up residence across his forehead and the rolled-up sleeves of this shirt appear to have some sort of floral pattern on them.

“What are—” Emma swallows. Licks her lips, Tries not to spend too long thinking about the undeniable way Killian’s eyes fall to her lips. “Where are you going?” “Back to my office. Woman in there who claims her only talent is singing, but she’s not too keen on performing. Says she doesn’t want to draw a spotlight. So, trying to come up with some other options for her.” Mind racing, Emma tries to figure out what the woman actually is or who she’s hiding from, but explaining any of that is impossible and she’s admittedly having some trouble forming sentences when Killian keeps doing that thing with his face. Having one.

“Any suggestions?” he asks, and there’s no sarcasm. No joke. Just blatant interest and possibly some veiled hope, which is not a word Emma’s all that familiar with.

That’s more Mary Margaret’s schtick, and at least this is passably cyclical. Somehow this has to be Mary Margaret’s fault too.

“What about working for a promoter or something?” Emma ventures. “You know—backstage sort of stuff. Keep her in the industry, let her work with other talent, but none of that pesky spotlight. Probably plenty of people looking for an assistant or something.”

Stunned surprise could be very insulting, as far as expression-based responses go. Luckily for Killian and his face, it’s a pretty fantastic look. Particularly when it’s directed at Emma. And mixed in with something that feels suspiciously like awe.

She’s not especially concerned with the adjectives. All she knows is it makes her magic roar in her ears, threatening to knock her knees together.

“Wow,” he mutters, “that’s genius.” “Happens from time to time.” “More often if breakroom information is anything to go by.”

On second thought, embarrassed regret is her new unexpected favorite. Color dots Killian’s cheeks, a red tinge to the tip of his ears and it really says far more about him than Emma’s powers of observation that it’s only now she realizes he’s missing his left hand.

“I, uh—” Killian stutters, and Emma can’t help the stretch of her smile, “well it’s not that I’m gossiping about you per se, just...making conversation.” “And I’m a hot topic of conversation?” “No, no, you’re just—” His inability to finish sentences is also oddly endearing, the muscles in his throat moving as he swallows back what Emma can only hope would be a slightly twisted compliment. Regarding her and the word hot. “Well, I appreciate the help. Sometimes it feels like it’s impossible to get a straight answer out of these people. None of them know what they want to do.” Cold sweeps over Emma, in the form of crushing realization and a return to a reality with starkly-lit hallways. He doesn’t know. Can’t know. About this place, or what it really does, and Regina’s surprisingly cavalier attitude aside, non-magic users finding themselves in the entirely magical world never ends well.

Someone always gets hurt.

“Yeah, no problem,” Emma says as she takes her own step back, and that shouldn’t be as difficult as it is. “If—I mean if you ever get another hard one or…”

Her face is on fire, she’s sure. Spontaneous combustion would be a small miracle, giving her a legitimate out of this conversation and the latest expression that’s now standing several feet away from her. Self-satisfied, that’s the word.

Or phrase, as the case may be.

“If you need some more ideas,” she clarifies, “I’m around. You helped me with that Greyston case, after all.” It’s not a cease fire or metaphorical hatchet buried under Regina’s questionable taste in carpet, but it’s something and if this is going to happen, then Emma reasons she might as well try and keep it all in check. Helping Killian helps everyone, really.

She’ll repeat that on mental loop for several hours if necessary.

Right after she stops obsessing over the precise way he leans forward, ducks into her eye line and says, “thanks, Swan.”

It isn’t until she’s managed to plug her phone in, exhaustion creeping up her spine and fluttering behind half-closed eyelids that Emma realizes she never once told Killian her name.

When she was twelve years old, she lit up. Like, her whole body. Light hung from the ends of her hair and circled her right wrist, wrapped its way up her arms and settled on either one of her shoulders until it was difficult for anyone to spend too long looking at Emma.

None of it was on purpose.

Magic’s always been something almost instinctual, at least for Emma, and the yelling from the living room of the latest foster home she’d only recently been shipped to had been grating on her ears long enough that she didn’t know what else to do. She reacted. Power rippled off her in perfect cadence with her frustration, and she hadn’t known all those words when she was twelve, but she’d known exactly how everyone would respond and Emma was not disappointed.

At least not like that.

Standing halfway down the steps, she’d glowed. Bright and determined, like being strong enough would protect the rest of the kids in that house, and that was never really Emma’s job, but she always felt like she could do something more, or should do something else and—

They’d sent her back the next day.

Something about a bad fit and just not right and that second thing could have been the sub-headline of Emma’s entire life.

Just not right.

Nothing about her was right. Her magic was often untempered and prone to outbursts, flashes that Emma couldn’t always control and inevitably led to lingering glances and confused stares that rather quickly morphed into fear when they looked too long.

Sometimes people pretend they’re not totally freaked out. Sometimes they tell her that she’s ok, every lie settling under her skin like it’s something she should believe in, and it’s been awhile since Emma’s allowed something like that to happen, but she imagines there’s a cliché about scars and the way they don’t always disappear and—

That’s not important.

History is just that and Emma’s not one to make the same mistake twice. Or at least make it more than twice, and she might be intrigued by Killian Jones, with his smirk and his stupid sleeves, but she doesn’t entirely trust him yet.

She can’t imagine that changing any time soon.

She nearly runs into whoever is opening the Mills Personnel front door at five-oh-four on a Friday evening.

It’s a habit Emma would like to break sooner rather than later, this trend of not looking where she’s going — although, if she’s being honest it’s also because she’s distracted, and has been since the game night announcement, and the phone in her pocket hasn't stopped buzzing for the last hour, the most recent texts regarding pre-game night plottings and alliances for Settlers of Catan or whatever else they decide to play.

She has respond to Mary Margaret soon.

Presumably after she apologizes to the woman she very nearly plowed over, and it’s almost the end of business, but this woman doesn’t look like she operates on traditional schedules and—

“Sorry, sorry,” Emma says, backing up quickly. Partially because of good manners. And the rest because of the look on the woman’s face.

Furious. A little threatening. Decidedly magical.

“I’m looking for Ms. Mills.” “Right, yeah, of course. She’s, uh—” Emma’s phone buzzes again, and she knows it’s another message about games. What she can figure out is why that particular thought leaves her feeling frozen and a little threatened and the woman’s eyes narrow at the first shift of Emma’s magic. “Still in her office, I think. I can let her know you’re here, if…” The woman doesn’t nod. Doesn’t move, really. And all Emma wants is to sprint out of that office and maybe to her couch, but she can’t seem to move any of her limbs and the clack of Regina’s heels is strangely hypnotic.

“Zelena. What are you doing here?” Rolling her shoulders back, the woman Emma assumes is Zelena only looks passably annoyed at being addressed by her first name. “We have some things to talk about.”

“That so?” “Several, I’d say. You have a few minutes?” It doesn’t sound like an actual request, hackles that are more likely part of Ruby’s genetic makeup than Emma’s rising as Zelena breezes by her. Glancing over her shoulder, she notices a muscle in Regina’s temple jumping.

“You want me to stick around?” Regina shakes her head. “No, I’ll be fine.”

“Ok, but—” “—Go, Emma,” Regina finishes, and there’s no mistaking the command in those words. She nods once, not running into anyone else on her way out and hoping the sense of dread currently twisting itself around one of her kidneys is only those pessimistic tendencies of hers, instead of the warning she’s worried it actually is.

The problem is, she likes him.

Like, as a human being. Mortal or otherwise. No other reason. Nothing to do with his hair or his eyes or that dim, but still visible scar on his left cheek.

She just—

They might be friends. Emma hopes they’re friends.

Over the next two weeks she comes to realize that Killian is not only very good at his job — the siren who was certain her only talent was singing in dimly lit clubs and inevitably luring grown men to their doom, but wanted to turn over a new leaf, without telling him any of that, of course, sent a gift basket to thank him for all the help — but he’s funny, and more than capable of working the espresso machine so it doesn’t produce its usual bitter swill, and, Emma realizes, one Wednesday afternoon, a little lonely.

“Trying to find somewhere to live in this city is impossible,” he announces, slumped in one of the breakroom chairs with a stack of files splayed in front of him. “Like a needle in a haystack.” “Try finding somewhere with laundry on site,” Emma grins, “and then talk to me.” “Sounds like a palace, and that’s far too mythical for me to believe a place like that exists.”

Stomach flying into her mouth, Emma bites the side of her tongue so she doesn’t do something stupid like list all the clients of hers who, at one point, lived in a vaguely mythical palace. She can think of at least a dozen off the top of her head. “No palatial experience wherever you are now? Where are you now, actually?” “Scarlet’s couch.” “Ah, so decidedly non-palatial, then.” Killian grins. “Not as such, no. Although if you could not mention that to him, that would be great. Bastard won’t ever say it, but I've vastly overstayed my welcome and I’m pretty positive he and Belle spend their nights plotting ways to kick me to the curb.” “Metaphorical or…” “Absolutely literally,” he says, and that smile is nearly blinding in a way that isn’t quite like Emma’s magic, but feels as powerful. “You didn’t hear it from me, but I’m pretty positive they want to have a family soon.” “You think I gossip about Will Scarlet way more than I do.”

His ears do that thing again. That blushing thing, that apparently only Killian’s ears are capable of, but it’s also entirely possible that Emma is just far more aware of Killian’s ears than anyone else’s. She’s also perfectly aware what a psychopath she sounds like.

“Did I apologize for that?”

“For?” “Not necessarily gossiping,” Killian says, “because it wasn’t entirely that, but—getting information on you, I guess.”

Tensing, Emma’s jaw clenches hard enough that she’s briefly worried about what it will do to her teeth. And it takes her a few moments to school her features — more than enough time for Killian’s eyebrows to lift, and the ends of his mouth to tilt down, but she’s almost confident she doesn’t look like she’s totally freaking out when she opens her mouth.

“What did you find out?” Ah, so not freaking out was a total lie, then.

Killian’s lips twist as he stares at her, like he’s considering the exact tone of her voice and how to properly proceed from there. Leaning forward, his hand inches towards hers and for one genuinely blissful second Emma is certain he’s going to cover her fingers with his. He doesn’t. He pulls away at the last moment, clearing his throat and sitting up straighter and that’s fine. It’s fine, everything is fine and great and—

“You’re very popular here,” he replies, “good track record of even better work, which is why If we’re also keeping track of required apologies, I should mention I’m sorry for butting in on the Greyston case. Was an absolute dick of a move.” “Would you use of in that situation?” “I mean, I just did so—” “—You were kind of a dick,” Emma agrees, “but that was mostly because you were showing off and it totally worked.”

His eyebrows get higher. Pointier. It’s absolutely absurd. “That so?” “Don’t sound so amazed, you know it did. Freddie the former—” She’s about to say statute. The word sits on the tip of Emma’s tongue, waiting to be said because if she was talking to anyone else she’d be able to say it, but she’s not talking to anyone else and doesn’t really want to and she can’t imagine it’s very comfortable sleeping on someone’s couch for the better part of a month. “Former security guard,” Emma exhales, “is reportedly doing really well at the new gig. Ruby said she saw a bunch of social media posts advertising his recently-certified personal trainer services.” “An ambitious start for Freddie.” “Eh, you know how it is when you get psyched about something. Full-speed ahead and all that.”

“I believe that is the appropriate cliché, yes. So what do you think?”

“About?”

“Accepting my apology for being something of a dick, and because Ruby is the absolute worst gossip in this office who told me in no uncertain terms that she thought our prospective children would be very attractive.”

Emma’s not drinking anything, so the choking sound she makes at that bit of information is not really correct for the situation, but she can’t stop herself. Laughter bubbles out of her, mixing with something that isn’t quite stunned surprise, but might be a hint of put-upon frustration and the overall width of Killian’s smile is in the realm of overwhelming.

“How did you end up here?” Emma asks, and she’ll blame the state of her teeth on her inability to censor her own questions.

His smile falters. For just a moment, before it’s back and a little less legitimate than it was a moment earlier. “Worked with Belle at the Central Library in Boston. For years, actually. And you know how it is when you meet someone who...well, they’ll go to bat for you?” “Another good cliché. And yeah, I do.” “It was like that for us. She’s—it’s pedantic to suggest she’s my best friend, but that’s what it is and what it’s been and we’ve always helped each other. So, couple months ago when they cut staff, she told me to come to New York.” “She was already in New York?”

Killian nods. “Has been for a while, ever since she met Will.” “And how did she meet Will?”

If he’s put-off by her twenty question approach, Killian doesn’t show it. He just keeps leaning into her space, like there are magnets involved or several other words and feelings Emma’s wholly incapable of dealing with right now. “Strictly happenstance as far as I know. She was in New York for a library conference—” “—They have those?” “Mmhm, whole bunch of nerds losing their minds over recently stocked books and stories that fascist governments said we should burn.” “Do those normally go together?” “More often than you’d think,” Killian laughs. “Anyway, Will was working at the bar he owns now and—” “—He owns it?”

“If you keep interrupting, I’m never going to get to the interesting part of the story, love.”

Goosebumps explode on her skin. Her heart threatens to explode out of her chest. Magic rushes from the top of her hairs to the toes of sneakers that are now emitting a faint gleam, and maybe Emma should trim her nails.

So as not to keep cutting up her palm.

“Took him some time to save up the money to buy the bar,” Killian continues, “but if you know Scarlet, you’ll know he’s something of a stubborn asshole. Which also circles us right back around to the romance of the story. Suffice it to say, there were conversations, requests for phone numbers, a refusal to let time or distance damper their connection and—” He clicks his tongue. “—Two years ago, I gave a very impassioned speech regarding the power of love at a wedding that made several people cry.“

“You included?”

He winks at her. Not very well, but it’s the thought that counts or something and Emma’s starting to have several thoughts about Killian.

None of which are going to make it any easier to keep her magic a secret.

And part of her isn’t even sure she wants to. The other part of her wants to stretch across this wobbly table, some of which is deceptively sticky, grab the front of Killian’s floral-printed shirt and kiss him until neither one of them think about anything except how fantastic they are at kissing. One another, specifically.

So, really, she’s absolutely and monumentally fucked.

#cs ff #captain swan #captain swan ff #cs fic #captain swan fic #on this night and in this light #not the originally advertised spooky fic #but spooky all the same #everything i write is really just devon's fault at this point

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1-800-roflmao · 3 years

Text

Wash Day Delight Pt. 2

Fandom: Undertale (Video Game)

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: No Warnings Apply

Relationships: Papyrus (Undertale)/Reader, Papyrus (Undertale) & Reader

Characters: Papyrus (Undertale), Reader, Original Characters, Original Female Character(s), Mentions of other AU Papyri and Sans

Additional Tags: Reader Is Not Frisk (Undertale), Reader Is Not Chara (Undertale), reader is poc, reader is mixed, Reader has curly hair, Undertale Monsters on the Surface, Friendship, Wholesome, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, I’m Bad At Summaries, Not Beta Read

*Anyone else have that one curl that is your favorite? Like you just can’t stop messing with it? Also, promise the other skeletons will be joining in soon. For now, enjoy some fluff.

PREVIOUS || NEXT

As soon as she heard the bell above her door ring and the door settle closed with a click, she was rushing around her office tidying up and filing paperwork. She knew Papyrus would not waste any time if he could help it. She only hoped he took it easy on the little old woman. She had a feeling Mrs. Ida was tougher than she looked, but considering this was only their first meeting, she couldn’t help thinking she looked as fragile as a porcelain doll. “Please don’t break my client, Papi,” she pleaded, shutting and locking the last drawer on her desk for the day.

Her business was still small so she didn’t have any need for filing cabinets just yet, but it had been picking up. Most of her clients were elderly, which was to be expected when one dealt with wills, funerals, and burials. She wished more young people thought of wills. A properly notarised and established will could ease the mind, not only because it dictated what happens to your earthly possessions after death. No, a will could make sure your body and memory is honored how you wished despite you no longer being there. She had witnessed one too many funerals that were practically an insult; honestly, some it would have been less offensive to simply spit on the dead’s grave.

Just as she felt her brows pinching, she huffed and closed her eyes as she took in a few calming breaths. It does no one any good getting mad on her own. A little snort escaped her at that thought. Her getting “mad on her own” was the catalyst for her to start her own business. “ANGER IS NOT INHERENTLY BAD. IT IS JUST HOW YOU DIRECT IT!” She made a mental note to thank a certain tall, pointy skeleton in her life for those words. She sent a mental thank you to his therapist as well.

As her mind jumped from one subject to the next, her hands and feet had stayed moving. By the time she zoned back in, she had finished tidying up and sanitizing the office. “Bad habit there,” she muttered, tossing the soiled paper towel into the bin tucked underneath her desk. A quick peek inside determined it wasn’t nearly full enough to toss and nothing in the bin would smell or pose a hazard. It could go another day.

Peeking at the clock as she locked the windows and pulled the curtains closed, she noted it had been only a couple minutes. Papyrus wasn’t back yet, surprisingly. She should be thankful as that means he didn’t rush and possibly her client wouldn’t be recovering from whiplash. She swears that skeleton could give a cheetah a run for its money. What’s terrifying is he is not even the fastest of the monsters she has met. Monsters were something else.

A couple minutes later and she had finished all her closing tasks: office locked up, hall and waiting area swept and wiped down, the last of the windows curtained, and furniture and often touched places sanitized. She’d even given the guest bathroom a quick clean up and gathered the dirty mugs and empty plate from the little refreshment corner she provided for clients waiting. Slipping her phone from her pocket, she checked the time with a quick double tap. Goodness, had Mrs. Ida parked that far down? Maybe she didn’t like parallel parking on these streets and instead parked in one of the hidden lots just off teh main road? Or had the two gotten lost?

A bubble of anxious energy caught in her throat as her mind jumped to the possibility that they were in trouble. She forced herself to take a breath and simply breathe. No, this was a safer area. She’d moved and chosen to place her business here for that reason. It did little to comfort. She was not ignorant to the fact that no matter how “safe” a place is, it is not completely immune to danger and the unfairness of life. Plus, Papyrus was a monster. And sadly, the portion of humanity that didn’t like change, didn’t like different, turned their prejudices to them or just broadened their spectrum of hate. What was even sadder was that some people of color, people who should know better and know how it feels to be treated as subhuman, hopped on the bandwagon; they were just happy it wasn’t directed at them anymore.

The pinch and strain in her forehead told her she needed to calm down. She breathed in slowly, deeply, and held it, counting down from ten as she rolled her shoulders back and let them drop. Once she hit zero, she let the air held in her lungs out in one long, even breath. She could feel the tension melting off, the bubble gone, and overall she felt lighter. Mal would be proud. She almost missed the munchkin flicking her forehead any time he saw her frowning. It reminded her of her mother telling her to “fix her face.”

Moving on, she saw she had a few notifications, but none were messages from her friend. She wished he sent something if it was going to take time for him to get back. She peeked out the front door and squinted down the street, both ways, trying to locate the two. She couldn’t see either, but she did see Papyrus’s red sports car parked just in front.

The area she lived in was considered the downtown area. It was mostly small businesses, shops, restaurants, a couple bars further over, and if you traveled just a few minutes further, you would hit the residential area. Well, the official residential area, anyway. And in the opposite direction was the main center of Ebott. Most business owners in downtown lived above their work space and some even rented out rooms. Her little office was on the quieter of the two main streets that had mostly offices, a little cafe, and a couple shops. This was Eighth Street. If you wanted to party, go to Sixth Street. That was where all the bars, clubs, taverns, and odd little gems were. She enjoyed going to hunt down her favorite food vendor.

Stepping outside, she sighed as the cool night air kissed at her cheeks and the exposed skin of her arms, causing goosebumps to rise. She was tempted to wait outside for him, but he expected her ready to go once he got back. One more glance at the clock on her phone and she decided to wait for him inside. He was an adult. She needed to have faith he could take care of himself. Plus, she had no clue which way they had gone and it would do no good to possibly wander in the wrong direction searching for them. She muttered a quick little wish for their safety before turning around and going back inside.

Like others on this street, she lived above her office space on the second floor. It felt nice to know her mortgage payments went to owning both her home and place of business one day. It also just felt good to have a space all to herself. She loved her mother and siblings, but she had been ready to go. Scooping up the dirty dishes on her way back to the little hallway, she balanced the tray in one hand and fished out her keys with the other. She could thank those years of waitressing and retail for two things: multitasking skills and patience. Keys secured, she found the right one, and unlocked the doorway to her haven. She left the door unlocked and just slightly ajar to let Papyrus know where she was and to let himself in.

It was clever how the building was set up. The ground floor had an office space, waiting area, guest bathroom, and small hallway connecting all three. The extra door in the hallway just looked like it would lead to a broom closet. It tickled her inner child each time she had to slide the false wall away and reveal the stairs that led up into her second story home. Stepping up the first few steps, she slid the wall back into place, then flicked a switch to turn on the lights in the stairwell before she quickly ascended the rest of the stairs.

On the landing, she tapped a foot on a nearby standing lamp and it filled the living room with gentle, warm light. She prefered using lamps over built in lighting. Most lighting in apartments were bright white and blue toned, while she had grown up with warmer, off white bulbs. She also was simply used to a dimmer environment back in her mother’s house. They didn’t keep lights running all day long. Only time the lights were on was at night for a bit and if you needed to look for something. She liked to consider her home cozy and welcoming despite the low lighting.

This space was enough. It felt bigger than it was since it was just her living here. It was hers, and it felt amazing every time she walked around her home how she wished, cooked what she wanted to eat, placed things where she wanted, and one day, she’d maybe get a pet. Removing her shoes at the landing, she slipped on a pair of slippers and padded across the vinyl flooring. While it was nice not having an inch of permanent carpet in her home, she had learned these sorts of floors could be chilly and it was a habit not worth breaking to wear house slippers or slides inside.

She beelined for her bedroom after dropping off the dishes in the sink to take care of later and tossing her mask into the trashcan. Now, she needed to get changed and do something about this hair. The “previous arrangements” Papyrus had spoken of was their weekly workout session. Usually, he would pop in after she had closed up and the two of them would take a jog or walk around the block, then hit the local gym. Her hair being down during a workout was just asking for frizz, tangles, and possibly it getting in the equipment at the gym. Plus, it was just hot as hell to keep it down while moving that much.

While she just wanted to toss off her clothes and bra without a care and face plant on her bed, maybe veg out on the couch, she knew she couldn’t cancel on Papyrus. Her drip for today was a four piece pantsuit gifted to her by Black and Edge for her birthday not long ago. Something about her needing to look powerful as a business woman and “none of her current attire was up to their standards.” The two had amazing taste though, so she couldn’t get too mad at them dissing her wardrobe. The blouse was made from a soft fabric in her favorite color. A black corset style vest with an honestly beautiful work of art of the back comprised of hand stitched embroidery and silk fabric, with matching silk lacing. The pants were custom fit--how they knew her measurements was still a mystery, but she suspected Wine had something to with it-- and also black. The long trenchcoat that matched with it that she hadn’t worn today was made of a heavy fabric in her favorite color with that same patterned silk lining the inside. It was hanging in her closet. She carefully removed the peices she wore before laying them on her bed neatly to avoid unnecessary wrinkles. She was pretty sure this suit was the most expensive thing in her home.

Digging through drawers, she picked out a pair of athletic tights, a sports bra, and a t-shirt the pun lovers of the skeleton family had given her. While it didn’t have a pun on it, it made for a lot of fun interaction when she wore it. Across the chest was written “Bet you Can’t Read the Back of This Shirt” and on the back “Bet You Can’t Read the Front of This Shirt.” The amount of people who try to slyly look at the other side after reading one then slinking away after realized they had been tricked was always amusing.

It took less than a second for her to unclasp her current bra and throw it into her hamper. It took a bit more time to slip on and clasp her sports bra. She took a moment to debate using the the j-hook before deciding it couldn’t hurt to have a little more stability. She froze as she heard movement in her house, something sliding, and then footsteps. She only began moving again after hearing Papyrus annouce his presence. She practically ripped her tights up her legs as she was very aware of the sound of his now bare feet clicking across her living room and getting closer. Her shirt was tugged over her head and arms slid through her shirt sleeves just as he poked his skull through her bedroom door, which she had apparently left open in her haste. Whoops.

Once Papyrus was sure he wouldn’t look like a nightlight bobbing along on his way back to his friend’s home, he finally left the cover of the bus stop and back onto the sidewalk. His mind was running over everything that had happened that evening. He wondered what possibly led the elderly human to assume he and his friend would be… canoodling, canoodling was a word he could handle to describe what she was hinting at. He preferred his magic to stay put right now. An exasperated sigh fell from his parted teeth as he considered the possibility that he was just overthinking and overanalyzing. The elderly human was probably just pulling a dirty jape on him. The next time they met, he would have to return the favor. Of course with a more classy, sophisticated jape, but a jape none the less.

“Papi!” she greeted with a little wave, blowing at her now mussed up hair from rushing to get dressed. She eventually had to push it out her face as it simply kept falling back. She was sure she looked a right mess at the moment.

∆∆∆

His sockets took in just how dark it was getting. How long had he been out? Did it really take that long to pretty much jog to the bus stop? Or had he taken that long to recover? A glance at the sky revealed the stars were in full view now, but the moon was still low. He focused on his hearing, but didn’t hear the usual ruckus from Sixth Street; so, it couldn’t have taken too long.

“NO SENSE IN WASTING ANYMORE TIME STANDING HERE!” he declared with a little stomp of his foot. “AND NOW I HAVE NOTHING HOLDING ME BACK!!” he practically cackled as he launched into a sprint, tearing down the sidewalk. She had better be prepared, especially considering all the extra time she had been given unintentionally. He refused to fail in his duties as her best and greatest friend. One such duty was pushing and supporting her goals. He had been ecstatic when she had told him she wanted his help with improving her health and getting in shape that first time. Not only had she come to HIM out of everyone, but now he could hang out with her even more.

Papyrus didn’t stop running until he had to hit the brakes infront of her front door. He noted that the lights had been turned off downstairs, but he could see warm light filtering through the second story window. Making his way inside, he closed and locked the front door, sliding the bolt at the top of door to secure it. There was two ways in and out of her home, this front door and the “back door.” The back door actually led to a side patio that wrapped around back to connect to a second staircase outside. He locked the doorway in the hall as well before practically bounding up the stairwell.

He made sure to call out your name once he reached the landing, “READY OR NOT, I HAVE RETURNED!!!” he added with his best impression of Edge’s cackle for humor. As he removed his shoes and set them on the rack against the wall, he could hear shuffling and little thumps from across the small, cozy home. His toes lightly clicked against the floor as he made his way to her room. As he got closer, he could hear the shuffling get more urgent and a little curse here and there.

“HUMAN, ARE YOU ALRIGHT IN HERE?” he didn’t know what he had expected when he peeked into her room, but his teeth clicked shut audibly as he tried to stifle a snort and keep himself from grinning. The human had apparrently been hurrying to finish dressing and had just pulled her shirt down. He had peeked in just as her head finally popped through her collar, or rather all he could see was an adorable fluffball. Her curls which had been relatively neat and orderly before was now... well, everywhere. He could see her lips which were now pouting after a failed attampt at blowing her hair out of her face. Her nose crinkling cutely in aggravation as she brings a hand up to shove the errant curls back.

His sockets focused on her fingers which had been all but swallowed up by her hair. The digits sinking in and he couldn’t help wondering how it would feel to tangle his own digits into her tresses. Was it as soft as it looked? Or would it be coarse? It wasn’t his first time wondering such things. She had a habit of playing with this one particular curl at her nape. He would often catch her twisting, pulling, and twirling that one lock of hair endlessly. That one curl now sticks out cutely anytime she wears her hair down and his phalanges itch to play with it like she does anytime he sees it.

“Papi?”

The skeleton jolted as he refocused on the present as her voice, so much closer than before, and a fleshy palm passing his vision. He blinked as her face came into view, looking up at him with a warm flush to her face. Well, what of her face he could see as she had released her hair and some had fallen back in her face again.

“I know my hair’s a mess right now, but I didn’t think it was so bad to leave you speechless,” she muttered, looking away as her hand came up to play with THAT curl again. He tore his sockets from her fingers deftly twisting the curl and brought a hand to catch hers, moving it away. She released the curl with little resistance, but still refused to look at him. That little curl snapped back and while he wished he could appreciate and marvel at how it did that, he had a friend to comfort.

“WHILE YOUR HAIR, YES, IS A MESS RIGHT NOW,” he held back a wince as her shoulders hunched a bit, “I DON’T THINK THAT’S A BAD THING!” he added with a bright smile. He could see her chancing a peek up at him from the corner of her eye. If she didn’t like people touching her face suddenly, he would have simply turned her head himself. Good- NO, GREAT friends respect boundaries. “IN FACT, I THINK IT’S VERY… OH, WHAT IS IT YOU HUMAN’S SAY?” he paused, pretending to think for a moment before snapping his phalanges, “CHIC!!! NO, FIERCE!! YES, I LIKE THAT ONE MUCH BETTER!” Was his volume control out the window at this point? Yes. Did he care? No. Because now she was looking at him fully, head tilted back and forcing curls to fall away. Her flush seemed to have worsened though.

Papyrus watched her as she took a minute to suck in a deep breath and exhale, closing her eyes briefly. The shock had apparently worn off as she now looked up at him bashfully from under her lashes. “Papi, has anyone told you you’re too much sometimes?” she asked with a little shake of her head as she seemed to be fighting back a smile.

Leave it to Papyrus to bring her mood back up in mere moments and hype her up to a point she might consider leaving the house like this. If only her hair didn’t pose a safety hazard at the gym and didn’t trap heat like a lion’s mane in the savanna. “Thanks, Papi,” she wiped a tear that had gathered in her eyes and took another moment to calm down and catch her breath.

He knew it was probably one of those questions that humans didn’t expect answers to, but he just grinned wider and answered anyway. “NOPE! AFTERALL, THE KEY TO POPULARITY IS LEAVING THEM WANTING MORE! NYEH HEHEH!!” And now his evening was even better as her laughter rang in his skull and she was smiling again, genuine and joyful.

∆∆∆

“ANYTIME FOR MY FAVORITE FLUFFY HUMAN!” her skeleton friend boasted. She just quirked a brow at the affectionate descriptor. She couldn’t say anything about it though, since half the skeleton household had nicknamed her as such. She couldn’t even argue that it didn’t fit. It was better than “Curly” atleast, or the various food and drink related nicknames Sugar and Oak had tried on her.

Sighing, she loosed her hand from her friend’s grip and stepped back. “Come on, let’s get out of the door. Can’t be good for your back and neck,” she ushered him in with a gentle tug to his hand. He stepped inside with little urging and almost immediately he was rolling his shoulders and stretching. He must not have realized how long they had been in the doorway. Thankfully, her home had higher ceilings than normal, but sadly the doorways were still made for average sized humans so anytime the Papyri or Oak visited, they had to duck through the doorways. She was saving up for renovations for atleast the first floor to be more monster accommodating one day.

Letting go of his hand, she padded across her room and into her private bath. While her bathroom wasn’t extravagant, it atleast was nicer and bigger than any bathroom she had used before now. Correction, it was the nicest before she visited the skeletons’ house. She could have lived in that tub. The water pressure in the shower had been amazing as well. Stepping up to the sink and vanity, her eyes scanned the counter top for a particular item. “There you are,” she mumbled as she picked up the spray bottle. It was filled with water and detangler, just the miracle she needed to help her tame this mane and hopefully get it pulled back into atleast a ponytail. Maybe she should go with a pineapple puff? No, too many loose ends to get caught on equipment. A bun then? Or a braid? After checking how easy her hair would cooperate, she settled on two thick french plaits.

She hadn’t even gotten to pull the trigger once before she heard Papyrus in the doorway as he ducked through and stared at her with curious empty sockets. Even without eyelights, she could feel where his focus was. It was on her hand poised with a spray bottle aimed at her hair. Rather than saying anything or asking what he wanted, she pulled the trigger and started the process of dampening her hair. It wasn’t until her curls started to get weighed down with moisture that Papyrus finally spoke up.

“HUMAN, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Her gaze locked with his visage in the mirror as he had moved closer. His gaze wasn’t on the spray bottle anymore and rather on the top of her head. What was so interesting that he had to move closer? While this bathroom was on the bigger side, it wasn’t quite big enough to not feel cramped with a towering skeleton monster sharing the space as well.

“Taming this hair down,” she stated simply and she could see his teeth part to ask another question, most likely “why” she was doing this after his encouragement. “Papi, you do remember where we’re going tonight right?” She didn’t continue speaking until he nodded, “Sorry to tell you, but this FIERCE hair is a little too much for the gym. It gets caught on a shit around here, rather not think of what it could get caught on at a place with heavy weights, equipment, and the occasional fool who can’t keep his or her or their hands to themselves.” She’d started off wanting to play it off lightly with a joke, but some frustration had leaked into her voice as she remembered there were still people who didn’t understand you couldn’t treat others like a petting zoo.

It’s not like touching her hair is completely off limits. Just ask first, most times she’s fine with it so long as they don’t over do it. Plus, she worked to hard to ensure the health and texture of her hair for it go unappeciated by not only herself, but those close to her. Strangely, none of her skeleton friends, except one, had recently tried or asked to touch it. Only one had tried and she had gotten on him about consent. That had been Cash, back when they had first met, but now he was pest about it and she had taken to telling him no just to spite him.

Papyrus had originally ducked into the bathroom to ask if he could get himself a glass of water while he waited, but had been struck with curiosity as he saw his human friend aiming a spray bottle at her head, more specifically her hair. It was similar to the spray bottle they had used to discipline the cats back home at one point. He was aware that humans had various products--thousands he had discovered--for their hair. Especially the women of the species, but the men weren’t exempt either. It had been overwhelming the first time he had stepped into a store on the surface. They just had an overwhelming amount of choices for pretty much everything.

Zoning back in, she noticed Papyrus’s teeth had just closed, “Sorry, did you say something? Fraid I missed it,” she piped up apologetically as she started wetting her hair again. Maybe it would have been easier to just duck her head under the shower at this point. “Papi?” she called as he didn’t answer, peeking up at him again in mirror, but he ssemed to be lost in his thoughts again. Sighing, she left him to it and picked up a wide tooth comb and began working out knots gently as she could.

∆∆∆

He wandered closer for a better look as she began spritzing her hair. He could smell that the bottle didn’t just contain water. It didn’t smell bad though. No, it smelled warm and comforting, just like her. His sockets locked onto how the water seemed to bead and run down her hair, reminding him of how water would just roll off a duck’s back. Some of the beads got caught on the kinks and turns her hair would make, but her fingers helped to gently coax the water to absorb until her hair started to lay down with the excess moisture. He’d asked what she was doing, but much to his shame, he was hardly focusing on her answer.

He nodded to her question. Of course he knew where they were going, but wasn’t quite understanding why the place mattered? Then again, now that he thinks about it, he had never seen her wear her hair down when they went to the gym or on runs. He’d simply assumed it was her preferred look for those moments and he enjoyed seeing all the different updos she could manipulate her hair into. He wasn’t afraid to admit he didn’t want her to “tame” her hair as she had put it right now.

He more heard her explanation, rather than actively listening, but understood what she saying. It made sense. It was practical reasoning. He kept quiet as the last bit registered with him and held in a dejected sigh. He had hoped Cash was pulling everyone’s legs about her not liking others touching her hair. His alternate was almost also pulling pranks and getting lectured for it. “Of All Things For Cash to Be Serious About…” he muttered, not caring if he was pouting.

He let himself get lost in the practiced movements of her hands. She hadn’t shooed him away so he guessed he was permitted to stay and watch. He took note of how she worked a comb through her hair, the teeth were wider than the gag comb Sans carried in his hoodie pocket and she gently worked out knots starting at the ends and moving up. Once she deemed her hair knot free, she had grabbed an even funnier looking comb. This one had thinly spaced teeth, but had a long piece extending from the relatively small comb part. She used the long tapered part to part her hair down the middle then in what seemed effortless, she twisted one side of her hair and stuck the long bit through it like a hair pin. To his surprise, it stayed in place and didn’t unravel. Was she going to do this to the other side as well? Combs were an odd accessory, but he wasn't judging.

His head tilted as it almost looked like she getting her fingers tangled, but he finally figured out what she doing once she started moving. He watched in muted amazement as she braided with practiced ease, fingers gathering new hair to work in as she moved from her temple to her nape. The braid was chunky and laid neatly against her scalp, while the rest rested against her shoulder and neck as she finished it. She plucked the comb from her hair and ran the teeth through the end of the braid before twisting. The end result was a neat curl at the end that worked like magic to him keep the entire thing from unraveling. His jaw had dropped open without him noticing, only clacking closed as heard her giggle. Her fingers were already braiding the other side as she smiled teasingly up at him in the mirror.

Cheekbones flushing pink with magic for the second time that evening, Papyrus was thankful there were no windows in this room as he was sure his friend would not appreciate him throwing himself through it to get away from his embarrassment. “IT’S RUDE TO STARE,” he griped, only flushing more as she smiled more. “NO, STOP THAT. CEASE!” he commanded, straightening up with a flustered glare as she was practically grinning up at him now.

“Stop what, hmm?” Oh no. “And what do you mean it’s rude to stare? Weren’t you staring at me this for the past… ooooh, couple minutes?” Damn it.

Papyrus had nothing to say in defense, but a mess of words poured from his jaws and stars, maybe he should try throwing himself through that wall there. It couldn’t be that thick. He was sure he was practically glowing by now and he should just respond with his normal snark, but his usually brilliant mind was failing him at the moment. Once again he found himself muffling an embarrassed screech in his palms as a human woman laughed. Atleast this time, said woman was trying to comfort him and bring him back down to earth with familiar warmth and comfort that was all her.

#papyrus x reader #papyrus x self insert #papyrus x y/n #papyrus x you #papyrus #poc reader #curly haired reader #thick hair struggles #undertale #undertale au #fanfic #fic #undertale fic #fluff #oh so fluffy

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desiraypark · 3 years

Text

Fried Turkey: A Dramatic Saga (Final)

Clyde and Terry have a chat. Clyde x Sherri series Clyde x Sherri Xmas 2020 (Tag) Content: Fluff; family stuff; reminiscing; mentions of separation/ended relationships; question about disability. Featured Characters: Clyde Terry Simmons, Sr. Terry Simmons, Jr. (TJ) - late 20s Princess Miller (Sherri’s niece/Robyn’s daughter) - 20 months old Devon Miller, Jr. (DJ - Sherri’s nephew/Robyn’s son) - 4 years old Reminder of what the exterior of Clyde and Sherri’s house looks like:

CHRISTMAS EVE Sherri’s family had arrived around one o’clock in the morning but most of them were up and full of energy when Clyde left for work. He arrived home at about 6:30--later than usual because of the holiday traffic--and he didn’t have to unlock the door as he usually did. The front door was left opened and unlocked, and the first floor was busy, busy, busy. Terry was on the floor, playing with Princess and DJ was on the sofa, occupied with an electronic toy. TJ was in the dining room, pushing a broom around, and Clyde could hear his wife’s familiar laughter echoing from the kitchen.

“Good evenin’, everybody,” Clyde said, taking off his shoes.

“Hi Uncle Clyde!/Evenin’ Clyde!/gahbgb,” DJ, Terry, and Princess responded.

Usually, Clyde would go straight for the kitchen to give Sherri a kiss (and a little swat on the butt if he was feeling frisky), but he thought it’d best to make his way upstairs and get cleaned up. He hung up his coat--the scent of the restaurant, coated in his uniform now wafting in his nostrils--and walked up the wooden steps. He’d just taken off his shirt when someone knocked on the bedroom door. That sure wasn’t Sherri coming to greet him.

“Yeah?”

“May I come in?” Terry asked.

“Yes, sir.”

Terry took one step into the bedroom, Princess on his hip.

“How’s about a tour of that shed of yours?” Terry asked.

As opposed to taking off his pants like he really wanted to, Clyde took off his socks. “You don’t wanna wait until it’s light out?”

Terry smiled. A look of secrecy flashed in his eyes and he squinted them and nodded. “Let’s take a look at it this evening. If you don’t mind.”

Clyde took the hint--whatever was being hinted at--and nodded. “Alright.”

____________________ “This is a matter of great importance,” Terry said, throwing back a bottle of beer.

Clyde did the same. They stood in the center of the old, unused, and unfinished shed. No chairs. Just standing under a single light bulb.

“What y’all plan to do with it?” Terry asked.

“Well, if we start havin’ kids, we figured on bringin’ everything in that third room upstairs in here. Might expand the wall if needed. Put a lil’ bar in.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

A near silence filled the air. There was a slight winter breeze in the air, and you could hear the faint sound of chatter from the kitchen. Princess was now under TJ’s watchful eye. The family, bustling with the festive spirit, probably hadn’t even noticed that Clyde and Terry were missing.

“Would you think I’m an asshole if I asked to help with the turkey?” Terry finally asked. Clyde took another sip of his beer.

“Naw,” he responded. “I kept tellin’ Sherri to tell you to do it.”

Terry chuckled. “Well, you and I both know that nobody “tells” Sherri to do anything.”

Clyde’s eyebrows lifted and he chuckled, too.

“Sherri was about...13, 14 when I started fryin’ the turkey. I can’t remember if it was for Thanksgiving or Christmas. It was just an experimental thing, at first. Just to see if I could do it...”

Becoming uncomfortable without chairs, Clyde and Terry shifted on their feet. Eventually, Terry turned to face Clyde, and in turn, Clyde reflected the action. Terry cleared his throat and continued.

“Everybody liked it, but I think Sherri loved it the most. She would watch me unwrap it and prepare it and do all of the stuff you’re supposed to do to it. Then, she’d stand on the back porch with a fire extinguisher, watchin’ me cook it and everything. Even after she’d gone to college, she’d do that..”

A smile formed on Clyde’s face. Picturing Sherri with a fire extinguisher in her hand was the cutest mental image.

“...I would make potato salad, greens, macaroni--you know, whatever me and Ramona felt like makin’ on any given year. But Sherri never stuck around to watch any of that. I don’t know what it was about that turkey, but she was my little cheerleader every year. I think she just wanted to make sure I didn’t get hurt, I suppose.”

“That sounds about right,” Clyde said.

“Yeah...”

Terry drifted into his memories, then snatched himself back. “I’m not one of those fathers that’s scared to watch their kids grow up. Or their daughters, rather. But between the separation and my kids becomin’ adults, I lost so much with them. Ramona didn’t lose much. Sherri watched me fry the turkey. She still went to the grocery store with me, even when she was a teenager. Most kids like to stay up under their mama. But Sherri was my shadow.”

Terry took a swig of his beer.

“When the kids started movin’ on from the separation, me and Sherri got back on friendlier terms again. Only about a year had passed where I didn’t fry a turkey. Then, the next year--after everything had gone down--Sherri called me and asked me if I could fry the turkey,” Terry said with a smiled. He continued on.

“She came right on over to my house--see, this was before I was allowed back at Ramona’s house. Our house. Sherri came right on over to my house and watched me fry that turkey. But after that, she didn’t really come over much. She’d started workin’ and everything. So I’d just fry it by myself or at my mama’s house or somethin’.”

Silence befell them again. Terry completed his story, his explanation. And Clyde nodded, acknowledging its finish.

“Me and my brother had started frying our turkey after I lost my arm. We ain’t do it every year. It started as a challenge for me, too. But I ain’t got no attachment to it. I think you should just do the honors, alone,” Clyde said.

“No...” Terry said. He shook his head. “I shouldn’t have even asked to help you with it. Sherri wants you to do it. You’re her husband. This is y’all’s house. I’m just an old man that’s whinin’ about his kids gettin’ older.”

Clyde chuckled. “I’ve got somethin’ corny to say.”

“Can’t be cornier than all the shit I just spilled a few seconds ago.”

“I think the best Christmas present we can give Sherri, is to let her watch her dad and her husband prepare a turkey together, under her roof.”

Terry nodded and smiled. “I think you might be right, Clyde.

“We’ll figure it out. And she’ll probably get a kick out of watchin’ us figure it out.”

Terry laughed. “She sure would.”

Terry looked around the shed. “Let me know when y’all plan to get started on this shed, son. I would love to help you out.”

“Yes, sir.”

The men made their way out of the shed--Clyde flicking off the light switch before stepping out and closing the door.

“May I ask a personal question?” Terry asked as they walked back to the house.

“Sure.”

“Don’t take offense--I’m just curious. But how do...how do you fry a turkey? I can’t imagine that cookin’ anything is easy for you.”

“It has its hard moments. But I take my time and I stay kind to myself. And as you know, whenever I need help, before I can say the word, Sherri is already right there.”

#clyde x sherri #clyde x sherri xmas 2020

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doctorthasmin · 4 years

Note

I love your writing! It would be great if you could do more stories involving sam👉👈❤

Thank you! I like Sam too, here’s a story about the first time Sam sees the Tardis.

“I’m going to refrain from expressing my wonder, because I’m sure you’ve heard it in every way in every language.” Sam whispers as they look up to the crystals, the size of it, the magnitude of physics rewritten. The Doctor raises her eyebrows smiling.

“Well that is a first, well done Sam.” The Doctor says clapping them on the back as they both move to the console, Sam gently touching the crystal pillar grinning as it pulsed with energy.

“So you said Ryan and his grandpa are in trouble?” Sam asks worriedly, biting their lip as the Doctor nods sadly.

“My fault, we’re more of a foursome really, Yaz had to work and well it was a bit much to deal with by ourselves. Yaz really brings a lot to the team, preservation wise.” The Doctor notes grinning as she types the coordinates for the planet she’d just come from.

“Okay, well what can I do to help, where are we going?” Sam asks, zipping their jacket back up, holding onto the console bar the same as the Doctor.

“2000 years into the future, little mix up during an energy crisis, they think Ryan and Graham were trying to steal the plans for a off world hydro base.” The Doctor informs them, pulling the lever down and smiling as the whirring of the Tardis starts.

“God we’re still having energy crises that far into the future?!” Sam yells over the whirring.

“There’s always suits to fight Sam, some things don’t ever change!” The Doctor yells back before there’s a slow thump and they land.

“Well fair warning, I’m not much of a fighter, but I’ve got a temper.” Sam offers quietly as they exit the Tardis and out of the broom closet she had landed in.

The Doctor takes their hand in hers and they sneak along a few corridors, the Doctor comically turning around everyone like a floating head. When they get to the cells the Doctor stations Sam at the corridor entrance brushing their shoulders off.

“Okay, you stay here and look tough okay, I’ll go get Ryan and Graham, holler if there’s trouble.” The Doctor whispered, accepting Sam’s nod before she jogs down the hallway to find them.

“Look tough, Jesus, I’m an electrician from the 21st century.” Sam mutters, ruffling their hair a bit keeping their eyes on the hallway.

A few minutes go by with nothing and then they hear steps, looking down the hall they see what looks like a guard, unarmed making their way towards them. Sam turns to click their fingers down the hall hoping to get the Doctor’s attention, who’s busy sonicing what looks like a lock.

“Christ here goes nothing.” Sam mumbles as the guard approaches, a stern looking fellow a good 5 inches taller than them.

“Report!” He barks at them, his hands behind his back standing ramrod straight.

“We’ve got a dodgy light in a cell, think the fuses are popping the bulbs are breaking all over this sector. We’ll be done soon.” Sam reports, taking the time to appear releaxed before flashing the guard a smile.

“I didn’t see a maintenance appointment on the roster.” The guard challenges, hands on his hips now. Sam swallows before scratching their head.

“Don’t know what to tell you man, we got the call, prisoners rights and health and safety, higher ups don’t want to give the inspectors the satisfaction eh.” Sam jokes, swallowing again before the guard curls his lip rolling his eyes as he walks away. Letting go of a shaky breath Sam spins on the spot making their way down the corridor to the cell door Ryan and Graham are climbing out of.

“When you’re ready, I’ve just bought us some time.” Sam grins, taking Ryan’s hand and heaving him out.

“Great job Sam!” The Doctor compliments clapping them on the back before Graham pokes her in the shoulder indignantly.

“Why did you involve the kid.” Graham asks sternly, the Doctor to her credit swallows guiltily.

“Kid, I’m 27.” Sam states smiling as they all pile out of the corridor and back towards the Tardis.

“Okay and when you’re 30 I’ll stop calling you kid.” Graham says gruffly as the Doctor has the good sense to unlock the door and let the rest of the them through.

“Sam did a good job and I needed some help, you were right Graham, Yaz is an important part of our team when we’re doing stuff like this.” The Doctor relents as Graham nods clapping his hands.

“For the record I was happy to help.” Sam notes, as Ryan pulls them towards the kitchen for a brew. Graham smiles and so does the Doctor.

“I know you were, kid.” Graham says, giving them a thumbs up.

So Sam gets to see the Tardis and go on a rescue mission! Time for a cuppa I think 😊

#doctor who #thirteenth doctor #graham o'brien #ryan sinclair #incorrect who #doctorthasmin stories

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the-final-sentence · 3 years

Quote

I am a person figuring out how to be the best version of myself, one step at a time.

Kelly Jensen, from “The Light Bulb, the Broom, and the Work They Don’t Tell You About”

#The Light Bulb the Broom and the Work They Don’t Tell You About #Kelly Jensen

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closetfanfictionauthor · 4 years

Text

5 times lily was jealous of james because she was in love with him and the 1 time she finally realized it

i hope y’all enjoy lemme know your thoughts i always read your tags :)

this can also be found on ffnet and ao3

It happens for the first time in sixth year when Lily catches James helping Henrietta Blackstone on her broom-riding technique. She’s on her way to the Quidditch Pitch looking for Sirius of all people when she sees the two of them on the field. Alone. Henrietta has her legs on either side of the broom and a death grip on the handle. James has his arms around her, his hands on Henrietta’s as he corrects her grip. Lily sees him whisper something into her ear, and really he can’t avoid it with the way he’s standing.

Lily feels a tightness in her chest at the sight of the two of them, but she assumes it’s because she’s out of shape and not because it has anything to do at all with the sight of James wrapped around another girl. James is her friend, and he has a right to be wrapped around whoever he wants, it’s no concern of Lily’s.

At least that’s what she sternly tells herself.

Henrietta is turning red in the face and staring up at James with wide eyes as if he’s her hero and something about it puts Lily in a foul mood. She can feel herself scowling and she knows the minute someone so much as breathes wrong around her, she’s going to bite their head off.

“James!” she snaps as she marches towards them across the field. Both Henrietta and James jump at the sound. James turns towards Lily, his face immediately lighting up with a smile that crinkles his eyes at the sight of her. His reaction mollifies Lily, although she would never admit it to anyone.

Henrietta, on the other hand, rises slowly in the air. She lets out a squeak of alarm, her hands turning white as she grips the handle of the broom. At the sound, James turns around and jumps, grabbing hold of the end of the broom and pulling Henrietta back to the ground. Lily can’t help but stare at James’s lanky frame as he stretches and his back muscles bunch up from the exertion and his shirt rides up, showing a sliver of his lower back.

But only because she’s making sure he doesn’t get carried away with Henrietta, forcing her to rescue both of them.

“Have you seen Sirius?” Lily asks once Henrietta is safely back on the ground. She ignores the way James puts his arm around Henrietta and how much she tenses at the sight of it.

“No,” James says with a frown. “But I doubt he’d be hanging around an empty Quidditch Pitch. You’d be better off checking the kitchens.”

“Kitchens. Kitchens,” Lily mutters to herself and with a sigh says, “Alright, thanks.”

She spins on her heel and marches away, her head held high on the way to the kitchens to look for Sirius Black. She definitely only stops at the edge of the pitch to make sure Henrietta is okay and not for any other reason.

James pretends he doesn’t see Lily glaring daggers at them although he can’t help but feel delighted at the sight of a jealous Lily Evans.

The second time it happens, Lily is in Hogsmeade with the girls and they’re tromping into the Three Broomsticks for some Butterbeer and Lily catches sight of James at the bar, a glass in his hand, the pretty barkeep, Rosmerta blushing as she talks to him. She comes to an abrupt halt in the middle of the only path into the bar and sends her friends crashing into each other as they all walk into her back.

“For fuck’s sake Lils, my nose!” Dorcas exclaims from right behind Lily. She’s far too short to see around Lily’s tall frame in the crowded bar.

“What’s the holdup?” Marlene barks from her spot at the back. She’s bobbing up and down on the spot, trying to see around her friends to the problem with no success.

“James, it’s so good to see you!” Andromeda Black yells out, oblivious to the inner turmoil that Lily is experiencing. She pushes her way out of the middle of the group and strides towards James at the bar.

“Dromeda, what a surprise!” James exclaims and throws his arms around her. Rosmerta takes this cue to move onto other patrons who need her attention. “How’s Ted?”

“Ted is doing good, the family’s not too thrilled about my choice of partner, but what can you do?” Andromeda shrugs. She holds James at arm's length and looks him up and down. “What a handsome young man you’ve grown into, not the little eleven-year-old with limbs too long for his body anymore now are you?”

“I know the ladies just can’t seem to stay away,” James lets out a long-suffering sigh. Lily thinks if she clenches her jaw any harder, all of her teeth will break. Meanwhile, Dorcas and Marlene are watching Lily struggle to keep her face relaxed. To anyone unfamiliar with Lily, they might think she is completely at ease, but Marlene and Dorcas are watching the way Lily’s jaw is working as if she’s chewing on a tough piece of meat.

“I swear one of these days she’s gonna snap,” Marlene whispers to Dorcas as she stares at Lily in fascination.

“For God’s sake woman don’t say anything she might eat us,” Dorcas hisses back.

“Is there something you’d like to share?” Lily snaps, turning on them, eyes narrowing.

“Oh look, there’s an empty table over there!” Dorcas exclaims and before Lily can say anything, she drags Marlene off to claim a spot.

“Come on, Dromeda, the girls found a table,” Lily interrupts the reunion between James and Andromeda and tugs on her arm. “James looks a little busy with dear old Rosmerta, we should let him get back to it.”

She can’t keep the bite from her words. Lily has never had a problem with Rosmerta before, but suddenly she finds the woman incredibly irritating for reasons she is more comfortable not examining. She misses the look that passes between James and Andromeda and heads toward Marlene and Dorcas.

“She’s a little slow on the uptake, isn’t she?” Andromeda mutters to James before following Lily.

No one mentions the fact that Lily spends the rest of their time seething, glaring daggers at the back of James’s head as he laughs (loudly) at the things that Rosmerta says. No one comments when the light bulb hanging over them explodes.

“Don’t you just hate loud places?” Lily grumbles when they finally leave. She finds the biting winter wind that hits her when they exit the Three Broomsticks to be refreshing to her burning skin.

“I thought that was one of your favourite things about the Three Broomsticks?” Andromeda comments, as she tromps through the piles of snow shovelled to the side.

“No, I hate it, you can’t hear anything that anyone is saying unless you’re right up in their face,” Lily goes on, the image of James’s face only centimeters away from Rosmerta’s flushed face and sparkling eyes.

“If you ask me, I think that’s just an excuse to get close to someone,” Andromeda continues on, ignoring the look of thunder on Lily’s face. This only sends Lily stalking off at a quick pace, leaving her friends behind.

It's in the middle of the summer when Lily has a good day with Petunia that the two of them go out for coffee. At this point in the many years that Lily has known James, it feels as if she has a sixth sense when it comes to his presence. She knows he’s there before she’s even laid eyes on him.

When she walks into the coffee shop with Petunia, she can immediately tell that James is there before she’s even seen him. It’s as if there're magnets attached to the two of them, she has no trouble locating him in the small shop. But the smile on her face dims when she catches James, coffee in hand, leaning against the counter laughing with the pretty barista on shift.

There’s nothing to suggest there’s anything going on between the two of them, absolutely nothing to show that there’s anything other than a friendly conversation going on and yet Lily can’t stop the jealousy she feels in her heart, because it is jealousy what she’s feeling. She hates to admit it to herself, and she’ll never admit it aloud to anyone, but she can’t deny that she feels territorial when it comes to James.

But she’s convinced it’s only a friendly territoriality that she feels. She feels the same way regarding Marlene and Dorcas is what she’s told herself.

(Although she has never felt this way about either of them, she refuses to think about that.)

She just doesn’t like to share what she considers to be hers.

Lily’s too wrapped up in thinking about how much she dislikes that James is giving someone the smile he always saves for her. She never stops to question why James is getting coffee in a shop that’s only ten minutes away from her house when he lives in Godric’s Hollow, which is several hours away.

At the sound of the bell on the door, both James and the barista turn towards Lily and Petunia. James can’t hide the look of pleasure on his face at the sight of Lily, and Petunia is confused as to why her sister has suddenly become so tense.

“Lily!” James cries and before she can do much else, he’s wrapped her in a hug. She can’t stop herself from melting into his chest or inhaling his smell as her arms wrap around him before she can think twice. Lily tries not to think about how much she enjoys pressing her face into James’s chest. She tries not to think about how warm and solid he feels or how deliciously large his hands are.

(She is unsuccessful.)

“I can’t believe I ran into you here!” James says excitedly. Lily’s head is all fuzzy from the feel of James and the smell of soap coming from him; she never thinks that the odds of him running into her at a coffee shop in her neighborhood are actually high.

Petunia looks between the two of them, a thoughtful look on her face as she considers the reaction of her sister before asking, “Lily, who’s this?”

It’s this that snaps Lily out of her trance and she pulls herself out of James’s arms as if she’s been electrocuted and clears her throat, embarrassed. “This is my close friend James,” Lily says, and she hates how breathless her voice sounds.

“James? You mean that boy you spent years swearing you were gonna throw into the lake for the squid to eat?” Petunia asks, confused.

“The one and same,” James agrees cheerfully, his arm around Lily’s shoulder as he holds her to his side. The confusion is clearing from Petunia’s face the longer she looks at the two, and Lily prays that her sister won’t say something insensitive.

For once in her life, Petunia keeps her disgust and disdain over the Magical World in check and is actually civilised, much to Lily’s surprise.

“Say Lils, since I’ve run into you, are you busy the rest of the day, I was thinking we could do something together?” James asks, grinning down at her. Lily can feel rather than see Petunia stiffen next to her, and it’s not even a choice she has to think about.

“Sorry, I can’t today, I’m spending the day with Petunia, but if we run into each other again, then for sure,” Lily says apologetically, ducking out from under James’s arm and linking hers with Petunia. “Besides, you seemed like you had plenty to do before we came in.”

But when Lily looks behind James to the barista, she finds the girl playing with Sirius’s hair. James presses his lips together to keep himself from laughing at the deepening blush on Lily’s face.

“You mean Sirius’s current summer fling?” James asks as innocently as he can.

“I-well-yes-I didn’t see him-” Lily stutters before Petunia comes to her rescue.

“We really have to go, we have a busy day ahead of us,” Petunia says, and before Lily can recover from her failed display of pettiness, Petunia has their orders and steered them out of the store. Lily pretends she doesn’t see the smug look Sirius throws her way.

“Didn’t you say that James boy lived in Godric’s Hollow?” Petunia asks as she takes a thoughtful sip of her chilly drink.

“He does,” Lily says, surprised that Petunia remembers such a minor detail about James.

“That’s far from here isn’t it? I wonder what he was doing getting coffee so far from home?” Petunia says nonchalantly, her eyes glued to her sister's face.

“Like he said, visiting Sirius’s summer fling,” Lily says with a shrug.

“Funny, I don’t recall ever asking a friend to tag along when I’ve hung out with Vernon,” Petunia pushes but Lily doesn’t respond.

James has always been a popular guy with the girls at Hogwarts but Lily has never realized exactly how much until the day Gryffindor wins their first match of the season in her last year and the girls crowd around James, stars in their eyes.

Lily spends the entire game with her heart in her throat, her eyes glued to James as he swerves and dives around the other players. She can’t help but gasp every time it looks as if he’s about to fall off his broom and can’t help but grip the stands when a stray Bludger collides with James’s broom and sends him spinning out of control.

When the team wins the game, Lily’s fighting against the crush of people to get to the fields to congratulate James, only to find him already surrounded by a mob of girls with the same idea in mind. James can’t help but beam at everyone around him as his teammates clap him on the back for a well-played game before heading off to the castle to celebrate.

Some of the excitement begins to seep out of Lily as she watches him accept praise from everyone surrounding him. James gives a word of thanks to every compliment on his well-earned win, blushing a light pink at some compliments he is given.

And Lily can do nothing but stand at the fringes of the mob away from everyone, watching him bask in his glory. She isn’t sure when it happened, but James has become one of Lily’s closest friends, someone she confides in for everything instead of sighing in irritation over how disruptive he can be. She does not want to lose him, but with so many people vying for James’s attention, she isn’t sure he feels as close to her as she feels to him. Suddenly she is trying to blink tears out of her eyes as she thinks about the fact that she is the only one between the two of them who feels this way even as her stomach tightens with jealousy at the warring idea that there is someone out there who is closer to James than she is.

She tries not to think about the fact that her sadness is rooted in something a lot deeper than just platonic affection for James. She turns to make her way back to the common room on her own and has only gone a few metres when she hears her name yelled from behind her.

James is jogging towards her, his broom slung over his left shoulder, his right hand raised in a wave to catch her attention.

“Did you enjoy the game?” he asks Lily once he’s caught up, beaming down at her, sweat still gleaming on his forehead, James’s normally chaotic hair lying flat on his head.

“I-yes,” Lily stammers as the two of them resume walking back to the castle. The rest of the school is streaming back to their respective common rooms around them, but as far as she is concerned it might as well just be the two of them walking in that moment.

“I saw you waiting for me, sorry it took me so long, it’s hard to shake people off after you win a game,” James says to her, leaning in and lowering his voice so the surrounding people can’t hear him. Lily tries to ignore the flutter in her stomach or the way her heart is racing, telling herself it’s just the leftover adrenaline from the game. But she doesn’t have a ready excuse for why she can’t look away from James’s hazel eyes.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to drag you away from everyone, I was just going to congratulate you,” Lily says, her hands twisting in her scarf.

“Nonsense I’d rather be around my favourite person,” James says looking down at Lily. There’s something tender in his expression that Lily doesn’t know what to do with, so she looks away before she embarrasses herself like giggling.

Or, heaven forbid, swoon.

James pretends he doesn’t see the satisfied look on her face as Lily determinedly avoids eye contact, but says nothing.

It isn’t that Lily has never thought about her future; she thinks about it constantly. She knows that once she graduates from Hogwarts, she’ll go into the Auror department at the Ministry to help fight Voldemort and join the Order. She knows that it’ll be hard work and she’ll probably have to distance herself from her family to keep them safe. She knows that they will eventually defeat Voldemort and live happily ever after.

But Lily isn’t sure of much else.

Marlene talks about how she wants to work in the International Relations department at the Ministry one night while the girls are sitting around the roaring fire and almost everyone else has gone to bed. She dreams of falling in love in a different country, maybe Italy, maybe Paris, maybe Egypt, she’s not picky. Lily can hear the wistfulness as Marlene talks about wanting children and being so in love it grosses everyone else out.

Dorcas has a look in her eye as she listens to Marlene talk that Lily doesn’t know what to make of. When it’s Dorcas’s turn she only says that she thinks she might like a small cottage in the countryside with little children running around and vegetables in their backyard. She says that she’s not sure what she wants to do for the rest of her life, but she wants to be happy.

And when it’s Lily’s turn, she isn’t sure what to say. She hasn’t thought further than the defeat of Voldemort because she assumes it’ll take so long to achieve that by the time it happens she will have had time to figure out the rest. She doesn’t know if she sees children in her future; she doesn’t know if she sees a husband.

(Although her daydreams contain a figure that looks an awful lot like James Potter, but she would rather mow her lawn with scissors before admitting that to anybody.)

“I don’t know if I’m suited for marriage and domestic life,” Lily says with a sigh. “I like my own company and space too much, I don’t think there’s anyone I like enough to build that kind of life with.”

Lily’s staring into the fire and misses the look that passes between Dorcas and Marlene at her words. Lily may have convinced herself that she feels nothing but platonic affection for James but she doesn’t see her face the way everyone else does when James is in the room, she doesn’t see the way her eyes are always flashing to him or the way they follow him when he moves.

“I wonder where Sirius will be ten years from now?” Marlene wonders out loud, her voice almost too loud for the quiet common room.

“Probably in prison,” snorts Dorcas. “That boy gets into far too much trouble for his own good.”

“You’re absolutely right. I’m willing to bet money James will be married with five kids in ten years if not less,” Marlene goes on, glancing at Lily who’s trying to hide her frown.

“I reckon his wife will be an absolute supermodel, a tall blonde,” Dorcas says, nodding in agreement. She can see Lily shifting uncomfortably in her seat at the prospect, but says nothing.

Lily can see the image vividly in her mind's eye and she doesn’t like it. She aggressively dislikes the image of James married to a beautiful woman, looking at her adoringly, a special smile only for her. Her hands curl into fists without her notice when she thinks about children that look like a mix of James and someone else, and she can’t help but scowl at her friends.

“Someone as handsome as James, I can definitely see him with a Veela,” Dorcas goes on nodding.

“And he’s such a gentleman to boot, who wouldn’t want to snap him up,” Marlene gushes, fully aware of how quickly Lily’s mood is souring.

“I think I’m going to bed, I’m absolutely exhausted,” Lily announces, cutting the discussion short. Before Dorcas and Marlene can say anything else, Lily is taking the stairs to the girls's dorm by twos, leaving her two friends alone.

“How much longer until she finally gets her head out of her arse and realizes she’s half in love with Potter already?” Dorcas asks, shaking her head at the empty couch.

“Can’t be long now, Lily can’t possibly be that daft to what she feels,” Marlene says.

“I think you underestimate how much of a dumbass she is.”

Lily’s world is shattering around her.

“Did you hear Katie Hodgins asked James out on a date?” the girls around her whisper to each other.

“I heard he said yes and they’re going for lunch at the Three Broomsticks,” another girl replies, nodding her head.

Lily stares at the wall next to her in the common room and blinks blankly at the news. The ground feels as if it will drop out from under her any second. Her stomach is turning at the news that James is going out on a date and she feels as if the next time she opens her mouth, she will vomit.

The very idea of James going out with someone feels so wrong and repulsive to her, it’s as if it defies the laws of nature. James cannot possibly be going out with anyone. It disrupts the order of everything in Lily’s life. She refuses to think about the fact that she may have to share James’s time with someone else, that they will have to spend less time together because he’ll be devoting his attention to his girlfriend.

The very word leaves a rotten taste on her tongue.

Lily can’t stop her face from twisting in disgust, and Marlene, who’s reading in the chair right across from her, raises her eyebrows and asks, “Something wrong, Lils?”

“I believe hell has frozen over Marlene,” Lily declares distractedly. Her face feels flushed, in fact her entire body feels uncomfortably warm, as if she’s suddenly running a fever.

Lily can’t stop thinking about how she’ll force herself to act glad to see James with someone else, to endure his affection being aimed at someone else, to listen to him call Katie Hodgins irritating pet names without wanting to peel back her own skin. Her thoughts are in such a scramble Lily can barely form a coherent sentence.

It feels fake. Her James cannot possibly have agreed to go out with Katie Hodgins.

And that’s when it hits her.

Her James.

“Oh no,” Lily whispers, her hands coming up to her cheeks.

“Things are finally clicking in that thick head of yours?” Marlene asks serenely. She turns a page in her book and continues to read as if a veil isn’t lifting before Lily’s very eyes.

It is finally hitting Lily just how sickeningly in love she is with James Potter and that she has been for a very long time. He has always been her James, even when she is deluding herself into thinking she feels nothing but friendship for him. All those flairs of jealousy she felt, the way it felt as if the sun was shining on her when James smiled at her, the way she was always trying to make him laugh.

He was her James and always had been. Lily did not want to share James with anyone, she would sooner paint her walls with nail polish than see him doting on someone who wasn’t her.

“He’s in the Head Offices if you were wondering,” Marlene says, interrupting Lily’s spiral of doom. Not once does Marlene ever look up from her book.

“I have to go,” Lily says, already on the move. She does not remember walking to the Head Offices, Lily does not see any of the paintings in the hallways or even the ground she is walking on, it’s as if her body is on autopilot, taking her to wherever James is. She has only enough presence of mind to not sprint.

Lily may be a lovesick fool, but she has enough dignity left to speed walk to the man she is in love with.

She bursts into the Head Offices, breathless, her calves cramping from their exertion, and slams the door shut behind her. James, who is sitting behind the desk looking at a Prefects schedule, jumps at the sound and looks up.

“Lils, what’s wrong?” he starts, brows furrowing in concern.

“You can’t go out with Katie Hodgins,” the words burst out of Lily so rapidly she isn’t sure if James understood anything she said. His mouth hangs open as he stares at her in confusion.

“What-”

“You can’t go out with her to Hogsmeade, I am in love with you and the very idea of you dating Katie Hodgins or kissing her or holding her hand or giving her nicknames and growing old together and having children and having - oh God I think I’m going to throw up,” Lily says in one breath. “You are my favourite person in the whole world James Potter and the idea of sharing you with anyone makes me want to spontaneously combust and I absolutely will not do it do you hear me?”

James sits in his chair, stunned, processing the words that are coming out of Lily’s mouth. Lily stands before him, her chest heaving, her face cherry red, eyes wide like a frightened animal. He puts down the sheet of parchment and walks around his table towards Lily, who looks as if she’s about to bolt.

There’s a twitch to the sides of his mouth and a twinkle in his eye when he puts both of his large hands on both of Lily’s arms and says, “Lils, I’m not going out with Katie Hodgins.”

“I-what?” she asks in confusion. “But I heard-”

“I know what you heard, but I am not going on a date with Katie Hodgins, much less marrying her,” James interrupts and he can no longer stop the triumphant grin from spreading across his face. “In fact, Katie Hodgins never even asked me out.”

“But I heard these girls in the common room say-” Lily begins, facing scrunching in confusion.

“Yes, I know what you heard the girls say darling Lils because I was the one who spread the rumour in the first place,” James announces proudly. “With Katie’s permission, of course, I can’t believe you even take anything from the rumour mill seriously.”

“You spread the rumour,” Lily starts indignantly. “But why?”

“You seemed like you were struggling to understand what was going on in that head of yours, and you were never going to listen to reason coming from anyone else, so I thought I’d give you a little push in the right direction,” James says shrugging. Lily is too busy getting ready to poke him in the eyes to notice how close James has gotten to her, or that he’s backed her against a wall.

“I cannot believe-”

“Yes,” James interrupts her.

“Yes to what?” Lily asks, distracted from the tirade she was ready to go on.

“Yes, I will go on a date with you Lily Evans, in fact I will go on as many dates as you want me to,” James tells her, coming closer still, eyes glued to her lips. James is so close Lily can see the freckles across his cheeks and smell the clean boy smell that’s specific to James. She can’t stop the anticipation and excitement she feels in her stomach at having him so close, and without thinking about it, she wraps her arms around his waist and pulls him closer still.

“Now how about we make use of this very empty, very private room, and this sturdy wall behind your back?” James asks her.

Lily’s sigh and nod of agreement is all he needs to close the distance left between them.

#james/lily #jily #harry potter #fanfiction #fanfic #fic #james potter/lily evans #fluff #romance #humour #dorcas meadowes #marlene mckinnon #andromeda black #sirius black #pining #jealousy #marauders #hp

58 notes · View notes

sunmoonandeddie · 5 years

Text

my sweet girl

pairing: 40s!bucky barnes x reader

word count: 13,561

summary: After WWII, James finds you and rescues you from the rest of the world.

prompt: ‘whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.’

warnings: swearing, violence, mental illness

a/n: This was written for @whiskey-cokenfanfic‘s 30th birthday writing challenge! Happy birthday and I hope you enjoy!

“What’s on your mind, sweet girl?”

I don’t move from my perch, my head leaning against the cool glass of the bay window. The one I always sit in while I wait for him to come home. The trees are fluttering in the late summer wind, and I can see hints of autumn starting to peek through.

Soon my garden would wither, and I’d have to wait until spring to tend to my beautiful flowers.

I can feel James’s stare from across the room as he sits in his chair. His throne in his little kingdom. If he’s the king in this place, then I suppose that would make me the queen. I have my own little throne in the bay window, with all its pillows. But when he’s home, I prefer to curl up with him in the chair, my legs thrown across his lap and my head tucked into the crook of his neck.

“Sweet girl?”

I turn my head, a little surprised to find his eyes focused on me. “Yes?”

“You’re thinking awfully hard there,” he says, mirth coloring his words. He looks so regal in his suit, his hair nicely coiffed. It’s no wonder that he’s such an important man. “Talk to me.”

Shaking my head, I look back out the window. “Just lost in a daydream, I suppose.”

“Must be some daydream,” he says, the book closing with a resounding snap. His fingers run over his five o’clock shadow as he observes me.

Perhaps he’ll let you help him shave this time.

The brunet leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. “Now, let’s try this again. What’s on your mind, sweet girl?”

“I…” It’s the usage of his favorite pet name that gets me. Because I like being his sweet girl, and sweet girls are honest. But even so, I’m hesitant. “James, do think your friends would like me?”

“Why do you ask?”

I shrug, my hands twisting in the soft material of my dress. The soft cotton feels so nice. Maybe I’d ask him to pick up more fabric tomorrow. It’s been a few days since I’ve sewn anything and my hands were starting to get restless again. “I’m just curious.”

“Don’t you know the old saying?”

“What old saying?” I ask, brows furrowing as I sat up straight. My mind isn’t very sharp anymore and it’s a little frustrating to know that the old me would’ve known what he was talking about immediately.

He’d take the old you to meet his friends.

James rises to his full six feet and my breath catches. His oxfords are almost silent on the hardwood floor as he saunters over to me. The way he takes his sweet time is reminiscent of a jungle cat—a tiger, maybe—stalking his prey. My face always ends up ablaze whenever he does it, the warm spreading from my cheeks all the way down to my toes. “Curiosity killed the cat, kitten,” he says as he sinks down, one knee on the ground.

A light bulb flickers on in my head. “But satisfaction brought it right back,” I say, lips stretching into a bright smile. With my excitement, I momentarily forget about what I was asking. “James, did you hear that? I told you! I’m getting better every day!”

The smile he grants me sends my heart a flutter, because I know it’s the one he only gave to me. No other person in the entire universe gets to see that smile. “Yes, you are, sweet girl. Yes, you are.”

“But…” I trail off, getting quiet once again as I remember my question from before. I am rather surprised that I do. My mind tends to wander more often than not and I can be so forgetful. “Why can’t I meet your friends?” My hands find his, soft digits running over the calloused lines in his skin. When asking such questions, I’ve learned to be touching him in some way or another. It soothes him. “Are you ashamed of me?”

His eyes simmer as he squeezes my hands. “Of course not. How could you ever think that?”

“I… I watch you leave every day for work, and you always tell me all of your stories about your friends,” I say, eyes dropping once again. If I upset him, I don’t want to be looking into those deep blue eyes. Seeing him upset just makes me upset and that never goes over well. “And I just sit here at home. None of my stories are interesting, and—”

“I find your stories incredibly interesting,” James insists. The setting sun beaming in through the window sets his face ablaze. He’s still got his tan from all the time we’ve spent outside this past summer and I do hope that it’ll stay into the winter. “I always love listening to you, sweet girl.”

“But none of them are any good!” Despite the fact that I’m verging on whining, I can’t bring myself to care.

“What about the one about the bird that got into the house? And you had to chase it around with a broom?” He says, his thumbs gently massaging my hands as they rested in his. “And I love hearing about the books you read. Like The Little Prince and Gone With the Wind.”

I still find it hard to believe, though it’s becoming easier and easier. But then again, I’d believe anything he said as long as he keeps looking at me like that. Like I’m something precious. “Really?”

“You’re an excellent storyteller. Put all mine to shame,” he says, a soft grin spreading across his face. “My friends won’t ever be half as interesting as you.” He presses a gentle kiss to my nose, smirking as I dissolve into giggles. “I love you, sweet girl.”

“I love you more, James,” I say, as all my questions from beforehand are forgotten.

And to be quite frank, I can’t even remember why I asked in the first place.

“—just like this,” James said as he guided my hand. His chest is pressed against my back, his left fingers splayed against my stomach.

It felt good to be touched. I hadn’t been touched in a nice way in so long, and all of his touches were nice. Every time he reached out for me, I immediately leaned into it, whereas with anyone else I might’ve flinched away.

I stared at the royal blue stripe of paint that was now on the otherwise white wall of the master bedroom. “Are you sure you like this color?” I asked, my voice barely audible. I was still a little unsure of where I stood with him, what my role in this house was. “We can still pick another one if you don’t.”

He chuckled, shaking his head as he guided my hand once again, painting another thick stripe of paint on the wall. “Sweet girl, I told you that I love this color.” His warm breath tickled my ear. “And this is your house just as much as it is mine. You get to decorate it however you want, remember?”

I nodded, a faint smile lifting my face. “Yes, James. I remember.”

“So tell me, Y/N. What does your dream bedroom look like?” He asked as his cheek pressed against mine. His two day stubble scratched against my soft skin.

Not that I minded.

Any touch from him felt so good.

“There’d be a four-poster bed with a canopy made of white silk. Like the ones I read about in books. And there’d be an ottoman at the end of it,” I said, my mind trailing off as I stared at the newly bought paintbrush in my hand. “All of the wood would be mahogany. And I’d have a vanity. There’d be a piano beside a window so I could play while looking out at whatever view there is. Though I’d prefer a forest.” I paused, my eyes hazy. “I always wanted to learn piano, but mama said it was too expensive.”

“What would you play if you had a piano?” James asked, gently bringing me back to reality as he swayed me like a flower in the wind.

“Everything.”

That night, after the room was completely painted and the walls were dry, the furniture back in place, I tossed and turned. Even with the pile of blankets that covered me, I felt so cold.

So alone.

It felt so strange, trying to fall asleep without being able to hear someone breathing close by. During the war and after, there’d always been at least several others sleeping in the same room as me.

And though I barely slept, I couldn’t tell James. He’d already done so much for me and I couldn’t bear to burden him even more with my sleeping troubles.

But I hadn’t slept in two days.

I’d gotten into the habit of just staying awake until I passed out from sheer exhaustion, and yet release wouldn’t come to me tonight.

I stared at the ceiling, taking a deep breath before making up my mind. I couldn’t keep going on as I was. Dark circles were starting to form under my eyes and I could see the way James’s eyes would linger. He could read me like a book and I knew that he could tell something was wrong.

The floor is cold under my feet, sending a chill up my spine as I make my way across the room. The door opens with a soft creak, and I tiptoed down the hall towards the room James was sleeping in.

For the past two weeks, he’d slept in that room, away from me, and it felt wrong. It had been years since I’d slept with him close by, and I wanted nothing more than to feel his body heat.

But he was determined to make me both utterly giddy with happiness and miserable at the same time. He was such a gentleman, always being so proper. He didn’t do anything more than kiss my hand in the two weeks since I’d come.

It frustrated me to no end.

I hesitated when I raised my fist to knock on his door, suddenly losing my resolve. What if he was angry with me for waking him? What if he said no?

You shouldn’t worry him with your issues.

“But he said—”

You don’t want to be more of a burden than you already are.

I stood there for another long moment before turning to head back to my room. But I’m interrupted by the door swinging open, James’s voice calling out, “Y/N?”

I stopped in my tracks, my shoulders tensing.

“Sweet girl?” He murmured, stepping closer to me. His fingers gently wrapped around my wrist, turning me to face him. His hair is mussed, and his words are still slurred with sleep, but his eyes are alert, searching you for answers. “Y/N, what’s wrong?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” I admitted, before shaking my head. “But it’s fine. I’ll be okay.”

But his grip on my wrist tightened, stopping me in my tracks. “Hey,” he said as he pulled me back to him. “Talk to me.” When I don’t reply, he adds, “I know you haven’t been sleeping since you got here.”

I just stared at the white tank top that covered his chest, mesmerized by the dusting of chest hair peeking over the neckline. Everyone I knew would be so scandalized if they knew that we were standing there in our pajamas. He wasn’t even in proper sleep clothes, as he lacked the usual button down that would match his silk pants. It was improper, immoral.

But it was thrilling.

He lit a fire in my heart that I hadn’t felt in such a long time. It absolutely terrified me.

“Do you want to sleep in my bed?” James asked slowly, trying to gauge my reaction. We weren’t married, and if being this close while in our pajamas was scandalous, sleeping in the same bed was surely a one-way ticket to Hell.

But I nodded.

A fond smile tugged at his lips as he led me into what was technically the guest room. It was just as bland as the master bedroom, though you knew it was because he’d been waiting to decorate the house until you were there.

I fell into the bed as an angel falls from heaven—knowing that the world would disapprove but not really caring anyway. I knew if my parents could see me at that moment, they’d disown me just for allowing the only man who could ever understand me to wrap me in his arms and lull me to sleep with sweet nothings whispered into my ear.

The next morning, I woke to an empty bed. Despair bloomed in my gut as my hand splayed against the cold spot that James had been in just the night before. The curtains were still mostly shut, though I could see that the sun was almost to it’s high point.

It was almost noon.

You never slept in that long. Hell, you hadn’t slept longer than four hours or so in years.

“—right there.”

I frowned as I heard voices coming from the hall. There were four or five from what I could tell, but I wouldn’t have any true idea until I poked my head out the door.

Taking care to be as quiet as possible, I padded over to the door and cracked it open. Down the hall, a group of men headed downstairs. Once I deemed it safe enough, I creeped down towards the stairwell, wondering if I’d be able to find out what exactly they were doing here.

And also—where James was.

I froze as a floorboard creaked under my weight, though I didn’t hear anyone coming in my direction. I’m almost to the stairs when I glance over at the master bedroom. Its walls are now the royal blue I spent the day before painting it, but that’s not what catches my attention.

It’s the furniture.

With a final glance towards the stairs, I abandoned my earlier quest and found myself standing in the doorway of my room, completely speechless. A long the left wall was a vanity. A mahogany four poster bed was in the center of the room, white silk canopy fluttering in the wind coming from the open window.

And on the right side was a piano.

My mouth fell open in gasp as I stared at the sleek black grand piano that was sitting there like a mirage. The white and black keys shone in the late morning light. It was… stunning.

Why would someone break into the house and leave a piano?

“Do you like it?”

I whirled around to find James standing against the doorway. His face was the picture of calm, but the way his jaw clenched revealed his anxiety. “You…” I swallowed as I glanced back at the piano, almost afraid that it would disappear. “You got me a piano? Why?”

“Because you wanted one,” he said, as though it were obvious.

Shaking my head, I tried to make sense of his words. “Because… What?”

He smiled as he gently guided me across the room, his hand falling to my lower back. The silk of my nightgown felt cool where his hand was. “I told you that whatever you want, it’s yours. Last night, you said that you always wanted a piano.”

“But this is too much. This must’ve cost you a fortune,” I said, but I didn’t fight him as he pulled the bench out for me to sit on.

“Nothing’s too much when it comes to you,” he said. “I have the rest of the furniture coming later today, and I’ll make sure to get you piano books next time I go into town.” His fingers carded through my hair, untangling it as he watched me run my hands over the keys. “Do you like it?”

“I do,” I said after a moment.

James raised his eyebrows, knowing that there was a question on my mind. “But?”

“Why are you doing all of this for me?”

“What do you mean?”

I turned to look at him fully, peering up at him. “You’re doing all these things for me. Why?”

He chuckled as if it were obvious, sinking down onto the bench beside you. “Don’t you see?” He asked, brushing my hair back from my face. “I’m in love with you.” His eyes flickered to my lips and back. “And I will spend the rest of my life taking care of you.”

My days are filled with gardening and books, exploring the estate even though I have found every possible nook and cranny, and playing piano. Lots of piano. But most days, I find myself baking. It’s an easy way to past the time and there’s so many recipes in the cookbooks that line the kitchen shelf that I wouldn’t be able to get through all of them in a decade even if I baked every day. James comes home often to find me covered in flour with lips tasting of sugar.

Singing softly, I make my way to the walk-in pantry. The walls are lined top-to-bottom with everything you could possibly want. Except—apparently—for peaches. “Oh, dear,” I whisper to myself, biting my nails as I search the shelves. I thought that James had grabbed some the last time he went to the grocer but perhaps not. He wouldn’t go again until next week unless I ask him, but I want to surprise him tonight.

Well… Town was only a short walk away. Perhaps…

“No.” My hands fist at my sides. “It’s not safe. Remember what James said.”

But James will be so happy when he comes home to a freshly baked peach cobbler.

“But he’d be upset that I left.”

Just be back before he comes home. Town is only a short walk away.

Huffing, I glare at a jar of olives on the shelf in front of me, growing increasingly frustrated with myself. Arguing with myself was horribly exhausting. I can be so horribly stubborn. James says it’s cute most of the time, but I know when I ask questions he can get so frustrated. “But—”

You’d be back in time for lunch. He won’t be home until this evening, and it’ll be like nothing ever happened.

“Well,” I say, biting my lip as I glance around. I almost feel like the brunet is going to be around the corner, waiting to pop out and catch me in my act of disobedience. “He won’t ever know I’ve left.”

The air around me seems to shift at my decision. In James and I’s shared bedroom, I take care to open the bedside drawer without so much as a creak. After slipping a few coins in the pocket of my dress, I head downstairs. The front door looms in front of me. A beast waiting at the bottom of the stairs.

And even though I’ve walked through that door many a times, I know that today is different. Before, I was only going to the front lawn. I was lying in the cool grass while reading whatever books James picked up for me.

Now, you’re going to town.

“I’m going to town,” I say, butterflies coursing through my stomach. But with the elation, comes a twinge of fear.

You’ll be home before lunch.

I open the door and carefully step out, taking a deep breath as I look at the path in front of me. “Just follow the road, Y/N. Just follow the road.” With the door shut behind me, I take purposeful steps down the drive. My heels click steadily on the pavement and a grin takes over my face. “Follow the yellow brick road,” I sing softly, hands swinging by my side. “Follow the yellow brick road. Follow, follow, follow, follow. Follow the yellow brick road.”

My voice joins with the birds’ as I make my way to town. If I close my eyes for just a second, I can imagine that I’m in a blue and white gingham dress with ruby red slippers, a tin man, lion, and scarecrow at my side.

“We’re off to see the wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz.”

The walk to town only takes about thirty minutes or so, but my feet are already beginning to ache. I’m not used to walking in my heels on uneven ground.

The closer I get to where the forest ends, the more anxious I get. As the trees thin out, I find I’m no longer protected from the sun’s harsh rays. My dress is starting to stick to my skin and it’s not the most comfortable thing. Buildings are starting to peek through the trees. Cars are rumbling just up ahead, and it sounds like a monster waiting for me to get closer so it can gobble me up.

Steeling myself, I roll my shoulders back. “We’re certainly not in Oz anymore,” I say before continuing on.

As I walk down the main road, I find my resolve breaking with each person I pass. Their stares make me feel like a spectacle even though I am nothing more than a stranger to them. My hands are beginning to tremble with each step and I hide them in the fold of my dress.

They’re whispering about you.

“Stop it,” I say as my eyes roam the buildings. My eyes light up as I see ‘Harrison’s Grocer’ painted in bright red letters across the top of the building just a little more down the road. “They’re just not used to strangers.”

Maybe it would’ve been better if you had stayed home.

A little bell chimes above the door as I walk in, blushing as everyone in the building turns to me. I nod at them before moving to stand behind the counter.

“Excuse me.”

I’m a little surprised to find a man standing beside me, his eyes ablaze. “Hello,” I say slowly before turning back to look at the produce that lines the walls. Even though I made it to town, my goal is to talk to as few people as possible. I haven’t talked to people other than James for over three years now.

He got you out of that dreadful place and now look at you. Disobeying him.

“You can’t just cut in line,” the man snarls, shocking me enough that I take a step back. The mean look on his face just makes him look even uglier than he already is, with his beady eyes and receding hairline. His breath reeks of tuna.

He’d make a very good villain in a story book.

“I-I’m sorry,” I stammer, eyes widening as I look between him and the two people behind the counter. They seemed to be on the man’s side as they watched me with narrowed eyes. “I didn’t see you.”

He elbows me out of the way, making a point to stand right where I had been, before continuing on telling the grocer what he needs.

James warned you about people like him.

“Shut up,” I huff, glaring down at the ground.

And he was right.

“Excuse me?” The man in front of me whirls around, his eyes feral. His face is getting more and more red and the way his hand is raising terrifies me.

He’s always right.

“I-I was just talking to myself!” I say, rushing to calm down the situation. The other people inside the grocer have gone deathly silent, watching me cower. “I’m sorry!”

The man sneers before snatching the brown bags from the counter. The door slams behind him as he storms out, and it’s quiet for a few moments before everyone resumes what they were doing.

“How can I help you, my dear?” The man behind the counter asks. With his glasses sliding down his nose and his sparkling eyes, he looks very much like what I imagine everyone’s grandfather looks like. I believe mine did, at one point.

He’s probably just as wicked as the man before.

“I-I just want some peaches,” I say, my voice trembling as I dig out the coins in my pocket. They cling softly against the counter and I slide them towards him. “As much as this will buy.”

The middle-aged man’s eyes get as wide as saucers as he looks down at the mess of coins. “This is… This is far too much.”

“I just want some peaches,” I say, my throat tightening. “Please? I want to make a peach cobbler to surprise my husband.”

He must see my panic, because he nods before taking one singular coin. “One bushel of peaches.” The rest are pushed towards me, and I smile as I slide them back into my pocket.

I’m not quite sure how big a bushel is, but my heart stutters as I see the large crate that is placed before me. It’s overflowing with perfectly ripe peaches.

“Do you need someone to help you?”

“No!” I swallow, willing my heart to not beat so rapidly. He seems shocked by my outburst, and I quickly try to cover myself. “I-I can handle it.” I have to stand on my tiptoes to grab the large crate, almost dropping it as I pull it off of the counter. “Thank you!” I call out to the man before pushing my way out of the grocer.

The street is still as lively as ever when I get outside, though I don’t look around as much since I’m too busy trying to carry the peaches. The wood digs into my delicate hands and I know that I’ll end up having at least a few splinters.

You made a fool of yourself in there with that man.

“It wasn’t that bad,” I murmur, rolling my eyes. I’m having to take small, decisive steps down the sidewalk. Sweat is starting to from along my brow and my only reprieve from the summer heat is the cool breeze. “The grocer was nice, at least.”

But now you have to carry that crate all the way up the hill.

I bite my lip as I look down at the yellow-orange fruits. “I’ll be fine. It’s not that long.”

Those men are looking at you.

Frowning, I look up from the peaches and, sure enough, there’s a group of six men staring at me. They’re standing a little further up the sidewalk, leaning against a brick wall. They’re covered in dirt and grime and I can smell the cigarettes that hang from their lips from where I’m standing. My nose turns up at the smell. The cigarettes are cheap, that much is clear. They probably got them from the dollar store.

Thank the Lord James doesn’t smoke those.

“That’s because James has class,” I say softly, thinking about the Cuban cigars he loves so much. “He’d never smoke something so cheap.”

“Where you going, baby?” One of the men calls out to me, and I shrink in on myself.

I know that my husband would never approve of me making myself smaller for other people, but something about those men just screams trouble to me. If the street wasn’t so busy, I’d cross it in order to avoid them.

“What’s your name, sweetheart?”

Ignore them.

“Don’t ignore us.”

Get home. Get home and make your peach cobbler, and everything will be alright.

“Like that dress on ya. Bet I’d like it even better off.”

My skin crawls as I try to walk past them, knuckles white from gripping the crate so hard. Their raucous laughter reminds me of a darker time. Of a time that I don’t like to think about. Ever. I keep my head down, my h/c curls acting as a curtain.

As though you could hide from them.

“I don’t know what to do, Steve,” James says with a soft sigh. His head is pounding and the summer heat isn’t helping. The ceiling fans above aren’t making any difference. “She asked if I was ashamed of her because she hasn’t met my friends.”

His best friend takes a long sip of his scotch, and the brunet’s eyes were drawn to the little drops of condensation that fall down the short glass. “Maybe she should meet us.”

He sputters, disbelief clear on his face. “Have you gone mad?”

“It’s not that strange of an idea!”

“She can’t leave the estate. You know this.”

Steve leans forward, his hands folding together on the table. “What if we came to the estate? Just Peggy and me.”

Their early lunch has already been finished, plates stacked at the end of the table for the pretty waitress to take. She’s young, with lovely blue eyes, but not pretty enough to warrant a second look. They fell silent as she comes around, asking if they want desert before taking the plates and disappearing.

“Come on, Buck,” the blond says, swirling his glass. “Peg and I can come over for dinner some night. Y/N can have girl time with someone who knows the situation.”

James’s suit is feeling stuffier and stuffier by the second. “I just—”

He’s cut off by the sound of shouting outside the window. Across the street, six men are standing in a circle. They’re clearly construction workers, and he briefly remembers that they’re building a new police station downtown.

His heart stops when he gets a flash of h/c curls. He knew that hair.

“Hey, that’s—”

James is up and out of the chair before Steve can finish his sentence, bolting for the door. His own glass of scotch left half-empty on the table.

“Aren’t you gonna say anything?”

I stare down at the peaches as one of the men steps in front of me. I try to step around him, but the others quickly follow his lead and circle around me, effectively stopping me from moving any further.

You shouldn’t have left home.

“Look at the little debutante, all dressed up and pretty,” one of the men says, yellow teeth bared in a sneer. “Where you going so fast?”

“H-Home,” I say, jumping as one of them pinches at my elbow. The others snicker and it seems to encourage him, because he reaches out and pinches me twice more. With each one, I’m sent back a few more steps until I’m bumping back into the man behind me. I quickly step away from him, cheeks reddening. “Pl-Please stop.”

“Aww, come one, baby.”

“We’re just having a little fun, sweetheart.”

One of the men yanks on the crate, and I lurch forward as I attempt to hold onto it. With one final tug, he manages to pull it from me and I stumble forward. The wood scrapes my hands and a yelp falls from my lips. It stings worse than the time I got stung by a bee last summer. I can feel something wet sliding down my fingers and I know without looking that my hands are bleeding.

James is going to know you left. You won’t be able to hide your hands from him.

I gasp as one of the men yanks at the skirt of my dress. The others seem to find this new game funny and their hands twist in the pretty soft yellow silk of my skirt. A ripping sound fills the air and my heart breaks.

There goes your favorite dress.

I let out a cry as one of the men pulls me to him, hands grabbing my ass. My hands push at him desperately, hot tears streaming down my cheeks. I hadn’t even realized I had been crying until this moment. “Let me go! Let me go!”

“Whatever you want, princess,” he sneers before tossing me to the concrete.

I feel like nothing more than a rag doll as my head bounces off the ground. My ears ring, my movements lethargic as I try to focus on what’s happening. There’s a peach lying a few inches away from me, the fruits spilling everywhere after the crate was tossed to the ground.

A scream rips from my throat and I kick out as a rough hand wraps around my ankle, my skirt falling to expose my legs to the men. The man’s grip is so tight that I’m afraid the bone is going to snap like a twig.

“Nice stockings, baby. Wanna—”

“LET HER GO!”

The oh so familiar voice catches my attention, but I can barely see through my tears. The hand on my ankle disappears and I hear the men running away. My body shakes as a warm hand wipes at my tears and I can finally see who’s kneeling beside me.

James.

My heart hammers as I shoot up into a sitting position. Dizziness overcomes me as I try to scoot backwards, but my husband stops me, hands gripping my shoulders.

“Are you okay?” He asks, checking me over. There’s a sort of desperation lacing his voice. The man winces as he sees the bloody mess my hands have become, the scrapes along my arms from falling to the ground. I can already feel bruises forming along my shoulder blades.

My head alone feels like it’s going to explode.

“Sweet girl, look at me,” he says, hands cradling my face. “Come on, look at me.” My eyes slowly focus, his features becoming clear. “There we go. That’s a good girl.”

Another sob wracks my body as I look at him. He’s being so kind. So, so kind despite the fact that I disobeyed him. I betrayed him and his trust. “I-I’m sorry, James,” I say, voice cracking.

“Oh, darling,” he says, hands brushing back my hair. His startling blue eyes are rimmed with tears as he pulls me into his arms. He doesn’t care that we’re currently in broad daylight and people are staring.

It’s not as though they cared enough to stop those men.

He brings me back as he rocks me carefully back and forth, pressing soft kisses to my hair. “It’s alright. I’m here.”

“Y-You’re not angry?”

Of course, he is, you idiot.

“We’ll talk about it later,” James says with a deep sigh. It’s a sigh that resounds through his bones and makes me feel even more guilty. All he ever wanted was to protect me, keep me safe, and I just had to go out looking for trouble. His strong arms move me so that he’s carrying me, cradling me against his chest.

I close my eyes and wish for the rest of the world to go away. I just want it all to disappear so all that’s left is James and me. I want us to lock ourselves away in our little castle and never go outside ever again. He shouldn’t have to be around such cruel people.

James takes a moment to talk to someone, but I can’t hear exactly what it is, nor do I care to. As long as he keeps holding onto me the way he is, he can do whatever he wants, as far as I’m concerned.

My body shivers despite how hot it is. From where my hand is resting on his chest, I can feel the stickiness of his skin, though it might be the blood from my hands that’s staining the crisp white shirt. “You’re sweating,” I rasp, eyes opening to peer up at him. “I… I will run you a bath when we get home.”

“I think you need the bath more than me, sweet girl,” he chuckles, his chest vibrating against my cheek. He shifts me around so one hand is free, and I feel him open up the door of his car before setting me inside on the passenger seat. “There we go.”

The leather of the car seats burns my skin as he gets in the driver side and turns the car on, but I don’t dare say anything. Not when he’s being so kind, so gracious to me.

Others would’ve cast you out by now.

“But he would never,” I murmur, brows furrowing as I stare out the window. I know that James is listening by the way his fingers grip the steering wheel that much tighter, but he doesn’t say anything as he pulls out of his parking spot and heads for the hill.

But you’re useless. All you do is sit around all day.

“But I… I do things.”

Not much.

The rest of the drive up to the estate is completely silent. My body feels so numb. I can’t even feel the pain in my hands anymore.

We break through the trees and my breath catches in my throat. Even though I live in the house and I see it every day, it’s breathtaking. The white stone is crawling with vines, the windows sparkling in the sun. The lawn is as green as ever, though there’s a little patch where I always sit that’s been permanently trampled down.

James carries me inside and up the stairs, though I hardly register anything that’s happening. I know that I’m falling into my head. I can feel the fuzziness taking over. My mind feels disconnected from my body, as though I’m a million miles away.

Maybe Spain.

Spain would be rather lovely. Every book I’ve read that’s set in the country says so. The Gaudi architecture and the lively colors that make up the gingerbread fairytale. The way the everything blacks out in the afternoon for a mid-day siesta. The language that sounds like a symphony when it falls from the lips.

Yes, Spain is rather lovely, I decide.

I’m carefully set down, gingerly finding my balance as I stand. My eyes are hazy, unfocused as I stare at the ground. Someone moves around me to stand at my back, and I feel my shoulders tense.

It’s when I feel fingers tugging at the zipper on my dress that I snap. A scream rips through the air, and the only reason I know it’s me is because of the sting in my throat. I jerk forward, desperate to get away from the hands that are grabbing at me. Trying to defile me.

You need to get out. Get away.

Hot tears sting my eyes as I bolt for the door. My heels clack against the hardwood floor as I tear down the hall, desperately trying to reach the staircase that I can see up ahead. Maybe if I got there, I’d have a chance of escape.

“Y/N! Y/N!”

I can hear someone coming after me, their footsteps pounding as they begin to catch up. With how heavy their strides are, I can tell that it’s a man.

Another soldier. Another man determined to take what isn’t his.

I push forward, urging myself to go even faster. I’m almost to the stairs when my heel catches on a rug, sending me crashing to the ground. I try to scramble to my feet, but the pain in my ankle is making it rather difficult.

And then I feel him.

Hands grab at my ankles and I let out another bloodcurdling scream, kicking away at my assaulter.

“Y/N!”

The stranger’s weight bears down on me as he crawls up my body. He so easily holds me in place and even though I’m sobbing, I continue to fight with all of my might. “Stop! Stop!” I beg, though I know it will fall on deaf ears.

Invaders never listen.

“Y/N! STOP!” Thick thighs straddle my waist, holding me in place as calloused hands grab at my face. My fists are desperately pounding against a rock-hard chest. “LOOK AT ME!”

My chest is heaving against the constraints of my dress as I look up at the man above me. His face is red, his sea blue eyes filled with so much pain.

“Y/N, it’s me. It’s me,” he says, his hold on me keeping me locked in place. “It’s me, James.”

James.

Everything clicks into place, my mind suddenly coming back to me. “James?” I croak, and his face floods with relief.

“I’m here. I’m right here,” he says. He leans over me, his forehead pressing to mine. I can feel his thighs relax as he realizes that I’m back in my right mind. Our breaths mingle together as both of us try to get our bearings. “Nobody’s going to hurt you while I’m here.”

“I… My mind…” I swallowed, my eyes sore from all the crying I’ve been doing. “I did it again, didn’t I? I thought you were—”

A German soldier.

One of the men from town.

“I know,” James says, gently pulling me up so that I’m resting against his chest. His hand carefully runs over my back, soothing the restless pounding in my heart as I come down from my episode. Red blood is stained on his shirt, like his heart is blooming outside of his chest. “Come on,” he murmurs, gently picking me up. “Let’s get you in that bath.”

This time, I allow him to undress me without a peep, the ruined dress falling to the floor like a waterfall. His fingers are shaking as he carefully unhooks my stockings from my garter, the little black line along the back of my thighs disappearing as he rolls them down my legs.

“James, I think my stockings are ruined,” I say softly, eyeing the runs and rips that litter the nylon now.

The former soldier kisses my thigh and a shiver runs up my spine. “I will buy you all the stockings you could ever want, sweet girl.” He nudges me towards the tub. “Let’s get you in, and I’ll take care of your hands. Do you want rose, lavender, or pomegranate oil?” An impish grin spreads across his face. “Or what about olive oil? I can go down to the pantry and—”

“No,” I giggle, feeling some of the tension dissipate at his teasing. “Rose oil, please.” He steadies me as I step into the porcelain tub, sinking into the hot water. It’s perfect, as always.

Because he always knows what’s best for you.

James grabs one of the little glass bottles from the vanity, pouring a generous amount into the water. The sweet fragrance fills my nose as the water soothes my aches and pains from being tossed around like a rag doll. “Hands.”

I let my hands hang over the edge of the tub, water dripping from my mangled palms onto the tiled floor below. A white cloth is gently wiped across my hands, staining red as it cleans out the wounds.

He’s going to yell at you whenever he’s done.

“No, he won’t,” I say, huffing a little as I stare down at my hands, watching as he carefully wraps them. “He wouldn’t.”

“Sweet girl?”

I look up, e/c eyes meeting blue.

James’s face holds such my kindness that it hurts. “May I be a part of the conversation?”

“It said that you would yell at me,” I admit after a moment’s hesitation. “And I told it that you won’t.”

And he knows immediately what I mean by ‘it.’ What I call the voice that lives inside my head. “I won’t yell,” he confirms, brushing a strand of hair from my face. There’s a sheen of sweat covering my brow from the heat of the bath. “But I do have questions.” When my eyes drop, he tsks and tilts my chin up so I have to look him in the eyes. “Can you please answer them?” When I give my confirmation, he asks, “Why did you go into town?”

“I… I wanted to make you a peach cobbler,” I say, cheeks rosy. “But we were out of peaches. And I-I thought that I’d be okay if I just went and got the peaches and then went home.” I sniffle, but no tears come. It would appear that I’ve cried myself out for the day. “I just wanted to surprise you.”

“Is that why there were peaches all over the ground?”

I draw my lower lip in between my teeth. “I-I stole some of your coins to buy them. I-I’m sorry.”

“Oh, sweet girl,” James laughs weakly, caressing my cheek. “My sweet, darling Y/N. I don’t care about measly coins. I just want you safe.” His thumb tugs my lip out from between my teeth. “And it wasn’t stealing. What’s mine is yours. You’re my wife, after all.”

The steam from the bath is filling the room, and James’s hair is starting to stick to his face. He had gotten rid of his suit jacket at one point, but I can’t remember when.

“I never want to leave here again,” I say, my nimble fingers reaching forward to carefully undo the two top buttons of his white button down. The little bit of chest hair that peeks out tempts me to keep going, but I know that now is not the time. “You told me I was safe as long as I stayed here, and I disobeyed you.”

“Sweet girl, I am not your jailer,” he says, taking my hand and turning it over so that the diamond on my left ring finger glints in the light. “I want to keep you safe, but I am not going to lock you inside our home.”

After my bath, he towels me off and dresses me in one of my silk nightgowns. Sleep welcomes me heartily, the plush pillows on our bed carrying me away to a dream land.

When I come to hours later, it’s to a delicious smell rising up the stairs. Languidly stretching, I wince as I feel the soreness in my muscles. The sun is setting, the late rays dusting the room in gold.

Even though I would be content to stay in bed for the rest of the day, I slide out of bed and creep out of the room. Some old jazz tune is playing from the kitchen, the notes reaching me as I come down the stairs.

The sight that greets me makes my heart flutter.

James is standing at the stove, humming softly with the radio as he makes dinner. He’s freshly bathed, in a clean, short sleeve button down that’s tucked into his slacks, his hair back in its perfect coif.

“James?”

His head whips around and a smile spreads over his cheeks. “How’d you sleep?”

“I… Uh, fine,” I say, brows furrowing as I step up to the stove. “What are you doing?”

He looks at me in confusion, glancing between the pots in front of me and then back to me. “I’m making dinner.”

Now he doesn’t think you’re a good cook. You truly are useless.

I immediately begin to nudge him out of the way, hands pressing against his chest to urge him backwards. “I can make it. You go rest.”

“What?” He shakes his head, hands moving to my hips. His fingers gently hold onto me, twisting the silk that barely covers my body. “Y/N, no. I’m going to make you dinner tonight, okay? You’ve had a rough day.”

“But—”

“No ‘buts,’” he says, pointing a finger at me. There’s a mischievous glint in his eyes as he nods towards the door on the other side of the kitchen. “Go look in the pantry.”

Still a little put off and confused, I take tentative steps towards the other room. When I glance back at James, he motions for me to keep going. When I open the door, a gasp falls from my lips, my hand reaching up to cover my mouth.

An entire shelf is lined with crates of peaches.

James threw his car in park, slamming the door behind him as he got out. He was absolutely seething as he made his way up to the front door of the red brick building. It had taken him hours to get there, and there was no way he was leaving without getting what he wanted.

Or who he wanted.

He’d passed a sign that said ‘Philadelphia State Hospital’ on the way in, and the energy had shifted the moment he did. The air felt colder. Like something awful was looming on the horizon.

The building felt more like a prison than anything else as he stormed through the doors. When he found the front desk, he slammed his hands harshly down on the counter, startling the lone nurse there.

“May I help you?”

“Where’s Y/N L/N?” He demanded, leaning over the desk to glare at her. He knew that she was less likely to help him with how coarse he was being, but quite frankly, he couldn’t bring himself to give a shit. “I’m here to pick her up.”

The nurse tutted, her perfectly trimmed nails tapping against the counter. “I’m sorry, sir, but it’s not visiting hours.” But she dug through the files in the cabinet beside her desk anyway, tugging out a file with the girl’s name on it. “And it says here that the only people allowed to pick her up are her parents. And you—” She raised her eyebrows as she appraised him. “—are clearly not one of her parents.”

But James didn’t care. Because right beside her name was a room number.

He bolted towards the hall the sign on the wall directed him to, cursing his restrictive clothing. Suit be damned, he needed to find his girl. It took him months to find her and he wasn’t going to let something so trivial keep him away from her any longer.

He can hear the nurse calling after him, heels clicking as she scrambled from out behind her desk. Two other nurses and a doctor joined her, and it struck him how few workers there are compared to how many patients he’d seen just along that hall. There are patients that are littering the hospital, making it that much harder for those chasing him. Some of them turn to look at him, but most stared lifelessly ahead as he ducked and weaved.

It’s more than a little disconcerting.

He finally found the right room and threw open the door without a second thought. The room he entered was devoid of any color, other than the dirt and grime that coated the formerly stark white walls. Five cots were along the far wall, so close together that he was shocked there was room to move. It’s cramped, unbearably so.

“James? Is that you?”

Heart pounding, he let out a sigh of relief as he saw me sitting in a chair by the window to his left. But at the same time, he felt something inside him break. I looked horrible. Like I did back in that cell back in the war. My eyes were sunken in, my skin sallow. The shapeless hospital gown did nothing to hide my state.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, voice cracking. There was a hazy look in my eyes, and it was clear to him that the doctors had me drugged out of my mind. “Not that I’m not happy to see you. You know I am.”

“I’m getting you out of here, sweet girl,” he said. Without a second thought, he picked me up, not knowing if I was capable of walking on my own or not. With how sickly I appeared, he wasn’t willing to take the chance. “I’m taking you home.”

Voices behind us were demanding that he stopped, and it sent a shiver through me. Those voices belonged to the nurses and doctors that ripped me apart.

They were just as evil as the men across the ocean.

James pushed the door leading to the courtyard open with so much force that it splintered. Alarms were going off all around us. Within what felt like seconds, I was resting in the passenger seat of his car and the tires were squealing as he peeled out of the hospital drive.

“Get some rest, Y/N,” James said after we were a safe distance away. I could tell when he felt we were going to make it by the way his shoulders relaxed, the way his hand reached over and grabbed mine. “We have a long way to go.”

When he finally got back to his estate, the first thing he did was put me in bed. He was sure that I hadn’t gotten a proper night of rest in forever, by the way that I didn’t stir.

The second thing he did was call Steve.

The blond got to his house in record time, and James met him at the front steps. He brought him inside before breaking the news—that he had actually gone through with taking you from the insane asylum.

“What the hell were you thinking?” His best friend asked as he paced the kitchen. His hair was mussed from running his fingers through it in agitation, his shirt untucked from his slacks. “You fucking kidnapped her!”

“I saved her,” James said, hands fisted at his side.

“You’re a government official, Buck! We work at the Pentagon! You can’t just do illegal shit like that!”

“You didn’t see it in there!”

Steve went silent as he saw just how badly the brunet was shaking.

“I couldn’t leave her there, Steve,” he said, his entire body trembling from pure fury. “It was disgusting. There was barely any room to walk, there were so many patients. And she looks just like she did when you rescued us. She’s—” He ran a hand over his face, tears pricking his eyes. “She was starving. Covered in bruises.”

The other man took in a deep breath as his own mind went back to when he first met you.

His hands pressed flat against the table. Closing his eyes, he tried to calm himself down. It wouldn’t do to wake you up when you were finally getting some well-earned rest. “I searched for her for months, and—"

“I know—”

“No, you don’t,” James said, cutting him off with a steely gaze. “You have Peggy. You had her during the war. I had to wait for over two years to find her again, and then I had to search for her for months after we got back. Only to find out that her family stuck her in a fuckin’ insane asylum. She—” He shook his head, wiping at his face. “She didn’t belong there, Steve.”

The other man sighed, looking all of his age in that moment. Becoming Captain America had aged him, left him a little worn. “But if you get caught—”

“I won’t,” he insisted, his mind drifting up the stairs to the master bedroom. “I’m not letting anyone take her from me again. I’m going to keep her safe if it kills me.”

“Sweet girl, where are you?” I hear James call from inside.

I feel a giddiness in my heart as I shout back, “I’m in the garden!” My bare feet sink into the soil as I trim the roses ever-so-carefully. There’s a stack of bright yellow sunflowers and pure white baby’s breath in the basket resting on the ground for the bouquet I’m putting together.

He appears on the back porch, his suit jacket already discarded and the top buttons of his shirt undone. “How are they looking?” He asks as he makes his way over to me.

“Just perfect,” I say with a warm grin, holding out a scarlet rose for him to inspect. I’ve already trimmed off the thorns, lest one of us pricks ourselves. “I think it’ll go rather well with the sunflowers and baby’s breath. Don’t you think?”

“You’ve got a keen eye, you know,” James says, tapping the tip of my nose with his finger. He then pauses. “How are you today?”

I glanced over at the rose bush. “Today’s a good day.” And it was. My mind wasn’t as hazy, though it’s still not as great as it once was. “How was work today?” I ask as I place the roses I’d already trimmed in the basket with the other flowers. Wiping my hand across my brow, I pick up the basket before heading for the house. The first thing I see inside is the stack of new library books he picked up for me, his suit jacket thrown haplessly over a chair.

My husband follows after me, as I expected he would, his hands in his pockets. “It was alright, I suppose. Work was work.” When I set the basket on the kitchen table, he pulls on my hand to twirl me around, bringing me into him with a soft gasp. My hands rest on his broad chest as one of his hands tangles in my hair, letting it down from the twist I’d clipped it into. “I didn’t get my ‘hello’ kiss,” he says as his other hand curves around to the small of my back, bringing me impossibly close.

His nose nudges against mine and I can feel his lips brush against mine. So close yet so far away. “I apologize for my oversight. Could you ever forgive me?” I breathe, playing into his little game. Even after all the years we’ve spent together, he still manages to make my heart race. I feel like a school girl about to receive her first kiss.

“I suppose I can,” he teases. “If you pay a price.”

“And what price would that be?”

“Five kisses.”

I bit my lip to try and stop myself from smiling, but it’s useless. Standing up on my tiptoes, I press a kiss to his forehead. “One.” To his left cheek. “Two.” To his right cheek. “Three.” To his nose. “Four.” And finally, my lips slot against his like puzzle pieces. Kissing him feels like coming home, like warm hot cocoa on a snowy day. “Five,” I say as I pull away. “Am I forgiven?”

He grins mischievously, squeezing me closer to him. “If I say no, will you keep kissing me?”

Laughing, I push him away so I can put the flowers into the empty vase resting on the table. “What am I going to do with you?”

James watches with soft eyes as I carefully arrange the flowers, content to just be in my presence.

I never thought I would find someone like him. Someone who loves me enough to go against the law, to rescue me from a dreadful existence. Someone who has patience for me, who understands that I’m trying my best and that sometimes my best isn’t that great.

Even from all of before this, I couldn’t have dreamt up someone as amazing as him in my wildest dreams.

He always says that he’s the lucky one, but I disagree. I was lucky when he ended up next to me back during the war. I had been alone for so long. I can remember crying the first time he spoke to me.

“I have a surprise for you,” he says finally, moving towards where I’ve started to pull out the plates for dinner. James gently takes the china out of my hands, placing them to the side so my full attention is on him.

“What is it?” My eyes brighten at the prospect of a surprise. “Is it more peaches?” I ask, thinking of the crates he had gotten me a few weeks ago.

“No, but I’ll make sure to pick some up when I go to the grocer tomorrow,” he says, grabbing my hips gently. His thumbs rub soft circles into my skin, having slipped under my loose blouse. “Tell me, sweet girl, how would you feel about two of my close friends coming over for dinner later this week?”

He wants you to meet his friends?

“Your… Your friends?” I stammer, trying to wrap my head around the concept of other people in this house. Of spending time with people other than James. It’d been weeks since the incident in town, and I’ve recovered rather well, but I don’t know. I’m still apprehensive.

You’re going to mess everything up.

“It would just be Steve and Peggy,” the brunet reassures me, his blue eyes locked with mine.

Being so close to him is like drinking a glass of whiskey. My entire body feels warm and I feel so relaxed. Like nothing could ever hurt me ever again. And I know that it’s his wish to make sure nothing does. In the days after the incident in town, he doted on me even more so than usual. He took a few days off work, choosing to stay home and keep me company. He’d changed the bandages on my hands every few hours, massaged the tension out of my muscles. There was nothing I went without.

“Still with me, sweet girl?”

I blink, realizing that I’d zoned out while he was talking to me. “I’m sorry. What were you saying?”

“You remember Steve and Peggy, right? From back during the war?” James asks, his voice lowering to a soothing whisper.

I nod hesitantly, trying my best to keep the memories out of my head. “You tell me lots of stories about them.”

“Well, they would like to have dinner with us,” he says, talking slowly as he gauges my reaction. “It would just be us four here at home. They’d be here for only an hour or two.”

“What if…” I swallow, my eyes falling down to the hardwood floor. “What if I have an episode?”

James leans his forehead against mine, his hot breath hitting my skin. “Then they’ll leave and we’ll spend the rest of the night just like any other.” He pauses. “But they won’t think less of you if you do. I want you to know that. They know about what happened and it hasn’t stopped them from wanting to really meet you and get to know you.” The silence that stretches on afterwards is long and heavy. Finally, he clears his throat. “What do you say?”

James threw the door of Steve’s office open, storming in like and looking very much like a hellcat. He absolutely radiated anger.

“Hello to you, too, Bucky,” the blond said without glancing up from his papers. He looked every bit the general he was. “It’s so nice of you to drop in.”

“Shut up. I see you for over eight hours a day,” he said, tossing the file down onto his desk.

Steve raised his eyebrows as he finally looked up at the other man, the sky meeting the ocean. “What the hell is this?”

He just motioned towards the file. As Steve picked up the file, he grabbed a glass from the minibar that was kept well stocked, pouring himself a generous glass of scotch. He stared out the window like some kind of Jay Gatsby. The liquor burned his throat but he didn’t care.

“You found her.”

James nodded, throwing back the rest of his drink in one gulp. “After eight months of digging, I find her.” He scoffed as he tried to pretend that his throat wasn’t tightening up, that tears weren’t rimming his eyes. “And find out her god damn parents locked her away in an insane asylum.” He whirled around to face him, the hand with the glass pointing towards him. “She’s not insane. She’s not.”

Steve stood up, trying to quell his own fury. “I know she isn’t, Buck.”

“She’s just—” He ran a hand over his face.

“I know.”

“That god damned war broke her,” James snarled, shaking his head. “She’s fought that war just like any other soldier, and this is how they treat her? Like some kind… some kind of animal.” But through all the anger, there was an overwhelming sense of helplessness. A feeling that he was determined to squash. “I’m getting her out of there.”

Steve sighed, his gut telling him that his best friend was about to do something incredibly stupid. “We’ll find a way to get her out of there, Bucky.”

“No.”

He froze, shaking his head as he tried to comprehend what he just said. “I’m sorry—what do you mean ‘no?’”

“That’ll take too much time,” James said, slamming the empty glass back onto the cart. He wiped his mouth as he began to head for the still-open door. “I’m leaving tomorrow morning. I’ll be back before tomorrow.”

“Buck—come on—you can’t just bust her out of there,” Steve laughed, sure that his best friend was pulling his leg. But when he didn’t laugh, he cleared his throat. “You can’t be serious. That’s… That’s kidnapping. You’re a fucking lieutenant general, for crying out loud.”

And any other day, James would agree. After the mess that was World War II, Steve was appointed general, even though he still went by Captain America. James and the other members of the Howling Commandos were appointed to various ranks for their service. And he was proud of that. He took his job seriously.

But this was his girl.

He rolled his shoulders back, fixing his best friend with a steely gaze. “I’ll be back to work in two days.”

I don’t look up as I hear the door open, scrambling back and forth from setting the table in the dining room and the stove. I have several pots simmering as well as a crown roast with apricot dressing in the oven. My face is covered with perspiration, but I don’t have time to think about that.

“The house smells wonder—” James broke off as he saw me running around like a chicken without my head. “Woah, woah, woah—where’s the fire?”

“I have to finish dinner,” I say, shaking him off when he tries to pull me into his arms. He doesn’t relent, though, and he wraps one arm around my waist, pulling me back against his chest. And despite the anxiety that’s running through my body, I allow myself to sink back into his embrace. “James…”

His lips press lingering open-mouthed kisses to my shoulders, trailing up my neck. “Why are you so worried, sweet girl?”

“I—”

“And don’t say you’re worried about burning dinner.”

“I...” I drew my bottom lip in between my teeth, my hands clutching at the arm wrapped around my waist like a lifeline. “What if they don’t like me?”

James hums as he sways me. “That’s nonsense. Of course, they will.”

You’re a fucked up mess and they’re going to remind James of that.

I feel as though I’ll fall if not for his arm holding me up. “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”

You should be back in that asylum.

He stiffens, his hold around me tightening. “Y/N, I know you’re nervous, but—”

They’ll convince James to send you back.

“They’re gonna think I’m weird,” I interrupt. My eyes are trained on the white cabinets. A hot tear trickles down my cheek and I sniffle. “I… I know that I’m different from other people. Before my parents sent me to the asylum, I heard people whispering about me everywhere I went. Saying that it was a shame that such a… a lovely girl like me was touched in the head. Said I would’ve made a pretty bride.” I frown down at where his hand is splayed against my stomach, eyeing the golden band that’s on his left ring finger. It matches the diamond on mine. “People don’t think I’m smart or that I know what’s happening. But I…” I break off, choking back a sob.

He deserves better than you.

“I know, sweet girl,” he murmurs as his other arm wraps around me like a vice. “But you are so smart. It might take you a while to get to the answer, and sometimes you forget things, but you are so, so smart. You hear me? You are the smartest, brightest person I know.” James kissed my cheek. “I’ll take care of all this. You go take a nice long bath and get ready for dinner, okay?”

Two hours later, and I find myself pacing the parlor. My heels are clicking against the hardwood floor, my fingers wringing in the silk skirt of my dress.

“My sweet girl, you’re going to wear a hole in the floor,” James muses as he appears in the doorway. His tie is hanging loose around his neck and I immediately move to him, fingers reaching for the silk. His mesmerizing blue eyes are roaming over my face as though trying to memorize every bit of me. “You are the most beautiful woman in the world.”

“What are you trying to butter me up for?” I tease as I deftly fix his tie, like I do every morning without fail.

He smirks, hands finding my hips. The look in his eyes always makes my knees weak. “I’m not buttering you up for anything. Can’t a man tell the love of his life he finds her to be absolutely stunning?”

“I think you’re trying to get lucky later,” I say, tugging on his tie to pull him down into a languid kiss.

“Oh, baby. I’m not trying to get lucky,” he purrs. Our lips slot together like puzzle pieces and an innocent kiss quickly turns into something more. His hands wander, pulling me as close as humanly possible. It’s hard to tell where he ends and I begin. “Sweet girl,” he moans against my lips. “I—” He’s cut off by a knock on the door. Groaning, he nudges his nose against mine. “We should send them away… Tell them to come back another time.”

“No,” I say, giggling as he pouts his lower lip. “Come on. Later.”

I stand behind James as he opens the door, revealing a tall blond man that I recognize as Steve and a pretty brunette that I can only assume is Peggy. The super soldier looks a little older than I remember him.

The two greet James with excited hugs, even though the two men had just seen each other a few hours before. My fingers fiddle together as I stand there nervously. It’s when their eyes find me half-hidden behind my husband that my breath hitches, my heart caught in my throat.

“Hello, Y/N,” Steve says, speaking softly as he flashes me a warm smile.

I glance up at James, who nudges me forward gently.

“Go on,” he whispers, lips brushing my ear. “I’m right here with you.”

Licking my lips, I look back up at the blond. “H-Hi, Steve. It’s nice to see you again.”

“It’s nice to see you looking so healthy,” he says. He then puts his hand on the woman’s back. “This is my wife, Peggy.”

She steps forward, holding out her hand for you to shake. “Hello. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. James and Steve had told me so much about you.” Her accent lilts her quiet words.

“James told me that… that you were from England,” I said, taking a moment to find my words. “What part are you from?”

She seems to light up at my willingness to talk. “I’m from Hampstead.” As James leads the three of you to the dining room, she continues, “I went to school in London, though. And you? Where did you go?”

The conversation carries easily through the first thirty minutes of dinner. We’re all laughing and joking around. It surprises me how easily I’m able to talk to them, but then again, maybe James was right when he said they would like me.

They just feel bad for you.

“No, they don’t,” I say under my breath, glaring down at my plate. What I don’t see is the other three all turn to look at me, their conversation quieting.

They’re only putting up with you because James asked them to.

“No.”

They don’t actually like you.

I bite my lip as I grip my fork so tightly my knuckles go white. “But—”

“Sweet girl?”

I looked up, the spell broken, to see three pairs of eyes focused on me. I shrink a little under their gazes, under their concern. “I’m sorry,” I whimper, my cheeks flaming.

James shakes his head as he takes my hand, massaging my soft skin. He’s turned in his chair so he can face me completely. “Don’t apologize. What’s wrong?”

I pause, eyes going to Steve and Peggy, but he gently turns my head back towards him. “It… It was saying that they don’t like me. That they’re only putting up with me for you.” I shrug as I look down at our joined hands, focusing on his touch. I’m trying to downplay how I’m feeling, I know. But I don’t want to ruin tonight. “That they’ll get you to send me back.”

“Do you want Steve and Peggy to go home?” He asks. After I shake my head, he smiles and presses a soft kiss to my lips. “You tell me at anytime if you want them to leave, okay?”

Almost an hour later, James shuts the door with a soft click after we say our goodbyes to our two guests. He turns to look at me as that smile spreads over his face. The precious smile that only I get. “I’m so proud of you,” he say as he sweeps me off my feet, twirling me around the room., leaving me in a fit of giggles.

“Where are we going?” I ask breathlessly as he starts to carry me up the stairs.

“I’m finishing what was so rudely interrupted, my sweet, sweet girl.”

I hummed softly as I leaned my head back against one of the bars of my cage. The cold of the concrete floor seeps into my skin, but I can’t really bring myself to care. Not when there’s so many other things to worry about.

Like the fact that I hadn’t eaten in over four days. Hunger pains twisted my stomach every time I moved. I’m afforded just enough water to survive. I felt as though I was withering away, ready to die at any second.

And honestly, I wish I would.

But the worst part was the boredom. The endless, never-ending boredom. I’d been the only prisoner for what I thought to be about a month, but there was no way to be sure. The days blended together after the only other person who was in there was taken to the operation room and never returned. Hell, it’d been

I could only sit and count the cracks in the wall so many times. My mind was starting to slip away from me. I could feel myself breaking a little more every day. I could find myself starting to talk to myself. To a voice that resided inside my head.

“Stars shining bright above you. Night breezes seem to whisper, ‘I love you.’ Birds singing in the sycamore tree. Dream a little dream of me,” I sing under my breath.

“Y’ got a nice voice.”

I let out a scream as I scramble backwards, heart pounding. By the door of the cell, the lump that I thought was a bunch of blankets began to move. A soft groan echoed through the room. “Wh-Who are you?!”

“Sergeant James Barnes of the 107th,” he said as he pushed himself up to a sitting position. It took a little longer than he probably wanted. “What’s yours, doll?”

I froze a little, seeing his face for the first time. Despite all the blood and muck that covered it, he was stunning. His startling blue eyes drank me in like he hadn’t had water for days. His brown hair was sticking to his skin from the amount of grease coating it.

Even so, he was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen.

“I’m Y/N L/N,” I say, my voice hoarse from spending so long without speaking.

“What’s a—” He grunted, pressing a hand against his abdomen. “What’s a pretty dame like you doing in a place like this?”

It surprised me, that he was able to flirt with me at a time like this. “Got kidnapped by German soldiers. What else?”

“You’re funny,” The brunet chuckled, though it was weak. He leaned back against the wall. “Half my regiment and I were taken. Don’t know where they are though.” He looked around the concrete room, at the bars that lined the wall, the tally marks that I’d given up scratching into the wall. A long forgotten attempt to keep tracks of the days. “What is this place?”

“People who are in here are… experimented on,” I said, going quiet as my eyes shifted to the door that the operation room lied behind. I had been dragged to that room kicking and screaming more times than I could count. “It’s always the same. They strap us down and stick us with needles. Put some kind of serum in us.”

“That’s…” James swallowed as he followed my gaze. “Horrific, for lack of better terms.”

“It is what it is,” I said before lying down on the ground, my back facing him. Having another person in my cell was more than a little overwhelming. Not to mention that I didn’t want to risk getting attached to him, only for him to be dragged away only to never come back. It was clear enough that I wasn’t in the mood to talk, and he went silent.

Yet no matter how much I tossed and turned, sleep never came.

Three weeks later, and all thoughts of keeping my distance from me had disappeared. Hell, I’d come to know him better than I knew myself. It had happened somewhere, in between the two of us individually being dragged into the operation room, only to come back a quivering, incoherent mess.

We leaned against each other, back to back, and I relished in the feeling of another human’s touch. “How’d you get here? Why were you taken?” He asked.

“I haven’t thought about that in a long time.”

“Come on, sweet girl,” he said, his fingers intertwining with mine.

I felt a rush of heat at his nickname. He’d taken to calling me such within a week. “I was a nurse for the 115th regiment,” I said, my voice shaky. My nurse’s uniform had been trashed ages ago and I’d been left in whatever scratchy clothing my captors gave me. “There was a snowstorm, and we were out of matches. Our men were falling sick and there wasn’t anything we could do to help them get better because we had no way to keep them warm. We barely had enough blankets as it is.” His thumb rubbed soft circles in the back of my hand. “So I said that I’d go across the line to the German troops. We had no reason to think that they’d hurt me. I’m a woman. A nurse.”

“You aren’t supposed to hurt women or children in wartime,” James grunted, tensing at the thought of someone hurting me. “It’s not honorable.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. Honor didn’t exist in war. Not truly. Only blood and fear. “When I got there, they took me. Knocked me out.” The concrete walls of my prison felt like they were closing in. “I woke up here months ago. Almost a year, I think.”

“I’m sorry,” he said after a pregnant pause. “If I could get you out of here…”

“I know,” I said, interrupting him. Something had changed within the last few days. There was a new energy between us. Lingering glances, whispered words. We’d taken to sleeping as close as possible without actually touching. “But you being here is enough.” It was useless to try to put into words how alone I had been, how much I had needed human interaction.

That night, when James woke me with his nightmares, I was there. I immediately jolted awake at his screams. They bounced around the concrete room, fading into soft whimpers when I gently shook him awake.

“James, it’s me,” I said, my fingers carding through his hair. My heart lurched with every sob that fell from his lips. I hated that there was nothing I could do except hold him.

“I’m sorry,” he cried into my chest. His arms wove around my waist, squeezing me tightly. His tears were soaking my shirt but I paid it no mind. All that mattered was him. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay, I’m here,” I murmured, kissing his greasy hair.

James sniffled, his fingers bunching up the fabric covering me. “Y/N?”

“Yes, baby?”

“Can you sing that song again?”

“Stars shining bright above you. Night breezes seem to whisper, ‘I love you.’ Birds singing in the sycamore tree. Dream a little dream of me,” I sang quietly, closing my eyes. I could feel him start to slip away once again, his spiked heart rate slowing. His tears weren’t coming as quickly as before. “Say nightie night and kiss me. Just hold me tight and tell me you’ll miss me. While I’m alone and blue as can be, dream a little dream of me.”

Even after he fell asleep, I rocked him back and forth, reminding him over and over, that no matter the evil that was being forced upon us, we were still good. The darkness inside me tangled with his and I was certain of only one thing in this world. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.

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