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saturdaysickness · 25 days

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4.3.24 - the liminal space called assimilation

it's been almost 2 years since my last journal entry. in those 2 years. there was a lot of personal development happening that has helped me reach some kind of stability that the me in previous journal entries struggled to find. guess you could say i "grew" in those 2 years. i've finally become a bit more "rational" (using this word loosely because i don't consider myself to be completely rational just yet).

well, i'm 24 now, which means i have technically entered the mid 20's, phasing out of the early 20's of entries from 2 years ago. i don't remember exactly what my 22-year-old self imagined my current self to be, but i'm sure glad i'm not in that space anymore!!!!!!!!! god, it was awful.

im finally finishing my undergrad this summer, which has me thinking a lot recently. themes around growing up as an immigrant, being the first in the family to go through the american higher education system and having to navigate it by myself, and a yearning to reclaim what was missing during my coming-of-age years keep circulating my thoughts. i guess the adulthood growing pains i discussed 2 years ago, the feeling of being torn between wanting to stay as a child versus having to grow up still lingers, though this time around, i feel like i am finally ready to step into full-blown adulthood while honoring/healing the child in me (using "healing the child" loosely, again, because this concept is tossed around so much that i feel like it has kind of lost its weight and became a kind of buzzword).

anyhow, i wrote this a few days ago while tossing and turning in bed, struggling to sleep on the night before my first day of class for the last term of my undergrad studies. i couldn't stop thinking about how close i am to finishing school, but at what cost. the journey has been painful, to say the least. i kept imagining in my head what i would say if someone were to ask me on the day of my graduation how i feel now that i have graduated, in which i see myself responding with: "it wasn't worth it, if it takes you more than 4 years to complete an undergrad then maybe just give up, maybe i should've given up". obviously, that's not my general outlook on higher education because as we know, navigating higher education is not a linear path nor should there be some kind of deadline that everyone must follow. rather, i am projecting. i am projecting what life would be if i didn't feel the burden to be the first in my family to hold a degree. i am projecting what life would be like if i didn't "waste" time stretching out my schooling, i could have been completing graduate school instead if i had stayed on track. i am projecting where i would potentially be now had i just gave up on school. part of me still feel that perhaps i would be more Free if i had just given up entirely and focused on something else that makes me happy rather than fulfilling my family's hopes. nonetheless, this is where i am now, i am proud of myself for returning to school and following through with it after so many struggles and failures, despite the pain that it brings me. i am proud of myself, for my resilience, not what i will be accomplishing, which is quite sad and very "first-world problems" of me because i should be very grateful that i have had the opportunity to participate in higher education. anyway, that's enough prefacing, below are my 5am thoughts.

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when i was young, i couldn’t wait to grow older so that i could finally wear the white áo dài that high schoolers wear, too bad i left viet nam a few years before that dream came true.

at the beginning of the pandemic, i had a lot of time to reflect on my relationship with my identity and feelings about living in diaspora, all at the ripe age of 20. i yearned for home yet struggled with feeling like that connection was far too damaged in my process of assimilation. i couldn't write in vietnamese without consulting google translate on every other word, and my reading comprehension degraded so bad that i no longer had the ability to scan texts. i felt shameful, how could someone born, lived, and partially grown up there turn out this way - it's a disgrace. so i began texting my parents in vietnamese. first without the accent marks, because i was embarrassed about making spelling errors, then finally incorporating them once i've gained enough confidence- this was the first time i had texted them in vietnamese in the 10 years that we've immigrated. i was ashamed of my immigrant identity in grade school and chose to abolish all traces connecting to that piece of me; i went as far as lying about being born in the us to internet friends, even though my voice rang with an accent whenever we skyped. but i was content with erasing that part of myself if it meant i could shield myself from scrutiny. i worked on my accent- to sound like Everyone Else; i would repeat certain words/phrases until they sounded Correct; i would practice my speech in front of the mirror to see how my words and manners would be perceived; i recorded my voice to hear what it Truly sounds like to others because i had read from somewhere that sometimes your ears deceive you of the actual sounds you are making. i would (somewhat forced myself to) read books and watch shows to further perfect this american accent and develop my vocabulary. is this why i can't bear to sit down and enjoy a fictional novel or shows/movies anymore as an adult? i didn't want to sound dumb because i believed that people think immigrants are dumb.

16: Phương Vy to Susan, legally

i no longer looked forward to wearing the white áo dài as a high schooler since that objective has now become obsolete, instead, i was counting down to the day when i naturalize because then i knew that legally, i can no longer be ostracized. i could then flex a travel picture on instagram with my blue american passport and substitute teachers could no longer mispronounce my name. i used to get extremely anxious when there would be a sub for class because that meant they would butcher my name and someone would laugh. i lived in this fear up until high school where i developed a fool-proof strategy: to tell the sub ahead of time before roll call that i go by Susan instead of Vy (pronounced: vee). i would even mispronounce my own name on purpose as vai so that they could find it on the list.

and the day came, i was 16, our family had been in the us for 6 years, and we had finally gathered enough money to afford the application process. i was lucky to not have to take the test, but my parents pored over the practice questions every night after work for months. my dad was the first to take the citizenship test - it was the same day i was getting my braces off. he called my mom and i after my appointment to let us know that he has passed. instead of feeling joy for him, i felt a selfish relief for myself. 16, now with straight pearly whites AND a us citizenship? i was as american as one could be. first order of business was to get my name changed, i was adamant that it was done quickly. my mom took out time from work going back and forth with the city court for a few months to legally change my name to Susan. i struggled to determine whether i wanted to keep Phương Vy or just Vy as my legal middle name, in which i ended up settling with just Vy because those with longer names usually find themselves having a harder time in bureaucratic processes, as i have witnessed by my own mom. her legal birth name contains 5 words, she was the last in our family to get her green card when we first arrived, and the last to naturalize because of it. she immediately changed and shortened her name upon naturalization. ridding Phương from my name felt painful, because it is an homage to my late aunt, because it is a part of my identity as Phương Vy - a vietnamese social custom to refer to someone by both their middle and individual name for identifying purposes because many people have the same individual name. my old friends called me Phương Vy, my teachers called me Phương Vy, the name tags stitched onto my school uniforms bore that name for years, and most importantly, i knew myself as Phương Vy until i was told to become Susan because it was easier for americans to pronounce. deciding to rid Phương in the legal name change felt like i was shutting away an important part of my identity, but i thought that it was a necessary step in my plan to achieve the American Identity. and so, my name was legally changed, i was no longer Lâm Phương Vy, this is a new chapter for a girl now legally named Susan Vy Lam (*notice the stylistic choice to include/not include accent marks).

i was now proudly able to post pictures of my class schedules and new school ID pictures on sinsta with my new full name blasted (!! i know a lot of people call it finsta but in my locale we referred to it as sinsta - secret insta/sin insta - love word-play). no more fear of accidentally showing my fob name! i was living the american dream! (*using fob - fresh off the boat- here as means of reclaiming the power to the word, both of its negative/pejorative connotation as well as my past rejection of the identity) and at last, i was able to do what i had always dreamt of, an instagram story of my blue american passport with a boarding ticket for Susan Lam tucked in it - destination: viet nam. funny juxtaposition.

20 to 21: đụ má

back to my identity crisis at 20. after 10 years of suppressing my fob identity, i realized that perhaps all those struggles i have gone through may have all been in vain - it has done far too much damage by now that teenage me couldn’t have foreseen. i could barely write and read in vietnamese, i could hardly say a full sentence without using an english word or stuttering while trying to find the correct term. at least my accent was still acceptable. i found my first vietnamese friend in the us at 20, and they were also born in vietnam! for the first time, the piece of me that i have locked away for so long feels seen and recognized. they understood my experiences living there and here. i was still embarrassed to speak vietnamese at the beginning of our friendship, i was barely able say đụ má correctly without sounding americanized. this is hilarious thinking back on this instance because đụ má is a curse word/phrase, yet it is so integral to vietnamese colloquial language, it's the first thing that most people would teach non-vietnamese speakers - it is an essence of the vietnamese identity. i first learned the phrase as a little kindergartener and used to secretly and quietly learn how to say it grammatically and situationally Correct in a corner with my kindergarten friends. i would use đụ má behind adults' backs in elementary school with friends and cousins, along with a plethora of other curse words and phrases to show that i was Cool and Rebellious - đụ má was never foreign to me, until it was. by 20, i haven't used the word verbally for 10 years because i couldn't curse at home nor did i have vietnamese friends. i was disgusted by the sounds i heard when i tried to say it out loud again at 20 - it was so foreign, so american, so việt kiều. similar to how i used to repeat english words until i got the mannerism and accent down, i did the same to đụ má- obsessively repeating the word to myself until i got it Right. and one day, i said it out loud around my viet friends, and i did get it Right, i was so proud of myself.

it's quite funny how much the tables have turned since the time that i left high school 6 years ago until now. now i work with vietnamese youths and adults, speaking, reading, and writing in the language regularly on both conversational and professional levels. i've mc'd 3 years in a row for community tết events wearing áo dài publically. i joke around with my students in vietnamese and correct people on mispronouncing names. i write and speak about my experiences as a vietnamese immigrant without fear. i don't think teenage me could have fathomed how this could've even come about, and neither can i. in my interview 3 years ago for my current job, even though the entirety of the interview was conducted in english, i purposely sabotaged myself and butchered my own accent in a very simple vietnamese test the interviewer has given me because i was embarrassed of sounding too fob. i have a perfectly fluent vietnamese accent yet i forced myself to sound americanized to establish myself as Vietnamese-American, not Vietnamese. because to me, Vietnamese = fob = i'm new to the country = i'm not eloquent/qualified enough for american institutions. i was 21 at the time. i don't think i was able to shred myself of this internalized xenophobia until a year into my work. it is exposure to my culture, people, and language that helped me feel comfortable embracing it again in recent years.

22 to 24: returning to college

at 22, i understood that i was not on track to complete the traditional 4-year college course. june of 2022 came, my once-projected college graduation date, my classmates from high school were graduating college while i'm sitting at home and had dropped out of school for almost a year. their photos flooded my instagram feed - i couldn't bear to look at them because of how shameful i felt. i've always been a good and diligent kid, how could i have gone so far off the path? then i started daydreaming about what i would've worn if i had graduated that june - of course, it HAS to be the white áo dài, absolutely. i HAVE to walk across that stage in a white áo dài.

so for the next 2 years, i revisited my priorities and decided to go back to school after failing classes left and right for a full year and taking another completely off from school to work and reexamine my relationship with education. i struggled to get back on track for school at the beginning, but i buckled up and got serious with it. age 23 and currently the beginning of 24 is hell, i work and go to school full time, simultaneously. if i wasn't doing in-person work, my butt is glued to the computer chair. tuesdays and thursdays i am working in person all day; monday, wednesday, and friday mornings until 5 were preserved for meetings, writing emails, obsessively checking teams messages, and work projects/assignments. down time during the work days are used for homework, but after 5 until night is strictly homework time. i often skip meals, most days barely getting enough nutrients to fuel myself, and is often highly disappointed and upset at myself for not being productive enough on school work. i hate it, i'm highly critical of my own performance, seeing my self-worth reflected only in my level of productivity and my on-trackness to graduation; i barely see the world outside aside from time spent commuting to and from work or solely for work purposes; i don't have time to see my friends, and I'm getting sick of only spending time at home that i become unreasonably agitated with my parents. i cry all the time and is always angry, frustrated, hopeless, disappointed, exhausted. i would go for a few days without showering and weeks without washing my hair because as soon as i shut off the computer, i'm too tired to take care of myself. i keep asking myself: who am i doing this for? i became resentful of my parents for immigrating and placing me into this predicament. they say i would have had no future if we had stayed in viet nam, that i am receiving world-class education because we got the opportunity to immigrate, but instructors of my so-called world-class education see my country of origin as nothing but a case study of an undeveloped country. i became resentful of my parents for not exposing me to the local vietnamese community and thwarted me into schools where vietnamese kids can be counted using ten fingers, and i am envious of my own students who have been able to participate in an immersion vietnamese dual language program since elementary school that my schools did not have. i became resentful of my parents for not being equipped with the academic language and familiarity with higher education to support me in school. i became resentful of my parents for telling my elementary school 14 years ago that i would go by the name Susan when i didn't choose that name for myself. in reality, these resentments are wrongly directed to them solely because i have no idea where i should be directing them. they did all that was within their ability to provide me a(n objectively) good/better future and protect me from persecution of american society. i often think about what life would have been like if i had stayed in viet nam, would i really have had no future? is my education really world-class when there is clearly an order of world-classness levels among universities and degrees? i resented my parents for not knowing enough about the convoluted reality of america that i, myself, barely have a grasp on it. and so i set my ill-directed resentments aside and abide by the hopes and dreams of all immigrant families: be a first-generation college graduate.

i still struggle to define where i fall in the Vietnamese-American spectrum. lately, i find myself feeling envious when i see tiktoks of vietnamese people living in viet nam, imagining them as myself, living in the sài gòn concrete jungle that i love, not in some neck of the woods in oregon. maybe that's why i love visiting nyc because its crampiness and vibrancy remind me of the home that i once knew. but the gap is too wide, i cannot be them anymore, i am too distanced from the country and the culture today, all i know about viet nam is left in 2010, anything beyond that is from the perspective of a visitor. all i could do now is come to terms with the fact that i am now a Vietnamese-American, living in diaspora and constantly searching for enclaves of my own culture for a reminder of my own identity. i fought so hard to be seen as Vietnamese-American the first 10 or so years of my life here, yet now i seem to strongly reject this identity. i am not Vietnamese enough for the people of my homeland, i am not american enough for America.

i don't have a conclusion to this giant free-write essay that i just conjured up - in fact, a conclusion is not necessary because this isn't the end. i'm not finished in this journey of self-identity and struggling to find my own self living in diaspora. maybe one day i'll have an answer, maybe one day everything will be much clearer to understand. maybe i could just turn all of these thoughts off and stop overanalyzing everything, but i can't. and so, i will continue to wrestle with these conflicting feelings, and perhaps, one day i will be Free.

-s

#entries

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nightowlwriting · 3 years

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summary: steve is acting weird. avoiding you, being snippy and mean, leaving the room when you enter. all you want is your boyfriend back, but all he wants is to pretend you don't exist. when he's almost hurt on a mission, you do what you're made to do.

word count: 11k

reader specifics: no race/gender/sexuality/body type mentioned, no pronouns for reader used, powered!reader, insecure!reader

warnings: steve is mean to the reader in the beginning, heavy angst, hurt/comfort, canon-level violence, brief ptsd symptoms, slight description of blood, brief mention of racism in the '30s & '40s

brief mentions of: reader's parents being toxic, homelessness, past accidents, ableism in the past & present

note: this one hurt me lmfao. idk why this went the way it did but i'm not mad at it // also i am a queer, trans, disabled american. i have fundamental disagreements with things that marvel/the mcu as it stands for and some of the more nuanced things that you might not notice unless you're looking for it. this will take place in my writing because i cannot separate myself from the lens in which i consume/create content.

title credit: lil nas x

mobile masterlist - request - support my work? - ao3

Falling in love with Steve Rogers went against every instinct you had. You knew that he was going to hurt you from the first moment your lips touched his. Sure - he’s clever, righteous, courteous… You can’t forget he’s also drop-dead gorgeous because every trashy gossip magazine in a three-state radius of New York doesn’t let you forget. Neither does the sight of him waking up in your bed every morning. (Well, actually, maybe that would remind you if he was still fucking doing that.)

But lately, you’ve had to rely on the fucking tabloids to catch a glimpse of your super-hero boyfriend. The university class you had picked up on a whim at the end of the summer - Life & Times of the ‘30s and ‘40s - avoids any mention of Steve Rogers and the Howling Commandos. Not that your classmates do because, Christ on a bike, those magazines manage to catch pictures of you and Steve in moments that you don’t even remember. Plus, you’re an Avenger too. It’s bound to catch some attention when you waltz into a college classroom.

You’re sure if you were an undergrad trying to fill a gen-ed requirement and were sitting next to someone who could kill you without blinking but also dating Captain Rogers you’d be a little distracted too. You try not to blame your classmates too much, but they do make it hard to concentrate with their -really dating Captain America?- and -wonder if I could get an autograph- whispers. None of that matters because you’re learning, really studying, in between missions and missing Steve and believing that maybe the gossip reporters are right.

Maybe he’s forgotten about you.

You grit your teeth and push the thought away. It does you no good right now, while you’re training with Peter. He’s working his way up to bona fide missions and, because you’re the only one on the team who has experience with real-life teenagers outside of saving their lives, it’s up to you to get him to the level that he needs to be. Plus, the mission where he’s going to get his gills wet is just you, Tony, Steve, Nat, and Bucky. You’d much rather be the one to train him because you won’t traumatize him.

Right now, though, you’re just kicking his ass to try and get rid of some of the tension in your body. You feel a little bad about it, but when you started as his mentor you told him point-blank that you’d never go easy on him. That meant if you were having a bad day he either needed to up his game or he’d have a bad day too. It appears he’s taken that to heart as he struggles to dodge the hits you’re throwing his way. He lunges out of the way when you try to land a right hook but practically walks into the leg sweep that sends him crashing to the ground.

“Awe,” Peter groans, letting his guard down. You take the momentary lapse of focus to grab him by the collar of the hoodie he’s wearing and haul him to his feet, jerking one fist back to cold-clock him but he beats you to it. You hear the sound of your nose cracking before you feel it but then the pain rushes you all at once. You’ve had worse but coming from Peter, the move surprises you. You don’t yell out but he does when you push him away from you and call the fight off. Peter practically yelps your name, hands up by his head as he watches you bend at the waist, both hands over where your nose is absolutely gushing blood. “I am so sorry, I just reacted-!”

“It’s fine, Pete,” You shake your head and stand straight again, the blood beginning to leak through your fingers, “Just go get me a towel, okay?” Peter practically trips over his feet to get something for your nose and as you track him on his way into the locker rooms, you see Steve, Bucky, and Nat. The latter are looking your way, eyebrows raised like they’re asking you if you’re okay. Steve hasn’t even broken stride in his conversation so you wave them off with a bloody hand. Peter’s back in a flash, pressing a wet towel into your grasp and snapping you out of your self-pity party. “It was a good hit,” You compliment as you wipe your face off, “I just wasn’t expecting it. Prob’ly wouldn't have landed it if I had.”

He wrings his hands, shifting from foot to foot. “I’m sorry-”

“It’s a good thing, Peter, means you’re getting better.” You deadpan, checking to see if your nose has stopped bleeding yet, “I don’t think you actually broke it, but I’ll go down to medical to check later.” You do your best to clean up your hands with the wet towel, but it’s so soaked with your blood that it mostly just smears it around. You grimace and shake your head. “Well, I should go now before our sparring match ends up looking like I murdered you.”

“I’ll go with,” He offers, “I’m the one who broke your nose.” You let Peter walk you down to medical even though you were originally going to refuse. Perhaps petty, but it was the way that Steve didn’t even look your way as you left that made you let the teenager walk you the two floors to where you’d be able to clean yourself up. He hums in the elevator and you know that he wants to ask you something - it’s the way he holds his mouth when he’s prying for information or keeping a secret that tips you off. Finally, just before the elevator opens, you sigh and turn to him.

“What, Peter?” He grins but then it falls when he has to skitter after you down the hall. Maybe that’s why it falls - the question he asks next nearly sends you to your ass.

“Is everything okay with you and Captain Rogers?” He easily catches up to you when you stop in your tracks, ignoring that you’re still bleeding a little bit down your face and you might be dripping blood everywhere from where it’s run down your arms.

“What?” You do your best to look confused like everything is fine, but Peter is perceptive. He may fumble around and be pretty awkward, but those are really just teenager things that he’ll hopefully outgrow. You should have known that when someone caught onto how bad things are on your end, it would be Peter. (You wonder if Nat or Bucky has brought it up with Steve, considering he’s spent more time with them in the past week than he’s seen you in the past month.) “We’re fine.” Your words are stilted as you begin walking to the medical wing much faster than before.

“I just thought I’d ask, well, because I’ve sort of noticed… Something just seems off, you know? Like, you two used to spend a lot of time together, and maybe it’s the recon mission coming up, but I was just thinking that you two really barely look at each other even when you’re in the same -”

“Peter!” You say his name much louder than either of you expected and both of you jump. “Peter,” You say softer, looking at the glass door to the medical wing instead of him, “Just leave it, okay? It’s nothing you have to worry about, kid.” Peter ducks around to open the door, forcing you to look at him. “He’s just focused on his stuff and I’m focused on getting you whipped into shape for this mission. We only have two days.” Once you’re inside and surrounded by the medical crew Tony keeps on staff, he thankfully drops it. You love Peter, you do, but it’s a lot like having a little brother. You can only love them so much before you want to fucking strangle them. Eventually, as the doctor checks to make sure he hasn’t broken your nose, you have to order him away to go study or something. “I’ll join you later,” You promise him as the doctor prods at your tender flesh, “I have an essay due soon.”

That’s another thing that’s been bugging you that Peter surely picked up on. Nearly everybody knew you were taking a course at the local community college, but nobody knew what it was about. You’d wanted to keep it a secret until you told Steve, but the day you had registered he’d flown out for a two-week mission without telling you or saying goodbye. After that, you decided it didn’t really matter if anyone knew what class you were taking, and keeping it a secret sort of spiraled from there. If they wanted to know they could look it up. Maybe it was petty, but you just wanted the class to be over and done with so you could forget that you really only picked it up so you relate to your boyfriend more.

If you can even call Steve your boyfriend anymore. You’re not so sure where you stand and, honestly, you’re really close to giving up on the relationship as a whole but you can’t do that. Before you were dating, you were friends, and Steve… He never gave up on you. Not once. How could you repay him by giving up on your relationship? The one that you thought was The One? Even if it hurts, even if you’re unsure more than sure these days, how could you? Somewhere, though, you know you deserve better. You don’t deserve the sinking, dark feeling that lingers in your gut for most of your days now or the way that you second-guess every move you make - even in the field. It’s dangerous but you can’t do anything to fix it.

You’re too scared. You know that eventually, it will happen, he’ll break up with you, but you’d like to put that day off for as long as possible. To relish in the love he once had for you, how pure and powerful it was. You’re sure that you’ll never experience anything like that again.

Hell, you might never fall in love again.

Those thoughts don’t do anything to help you, though, so you try not to have them. You get clearance from the doctor and get cleaned up as much as you can without taking a full body shower. The idea to go back to your room and take one crosses your mind but you know that Steve’s probably done training, probably heading back for his own shower, and you don’t want to open that can of worms. Instead, you go to the common room and drop into the couch between Peter and Tony. They’re talking about something something science something something, but you pull your stack of books and notebooks out from the shelf underneath the coffee table and continue outlining your essay from where you left off. The assignment was focused on how the end of WW1 changed American life and then how life changed leading up to and during WW2 but that had hit a little too close to home for you, so you’re writing about the racial tension and overall racism of the times. Tony and Peter keep talking over your back and then you hear footsteps heading toward the common room.

You barely look up when they enter - Nat and Bucky - because it’s fine. It’s normal. They’re just two of Steve’s best friends, that’s all, nothing to be jumpy about. You don’t even register that emotional pain that hits when you realize that, yeah, you’re not one of his best friends anymore. You doubt you’re even considered a friend in his book.

You groan and lean back into the couch, bringing your study materials with you. Peter glances over, skimming over your page and a half of shorthand, and gags. “Jesus, can you write like a normal person?”

“Oh, sorry,” You say lazily, not looking up as you continue to scribble in your incomprehensible code, “I do forget that some of us had privacy at home.” You lift your lips just a little bit to let Peter know you’re kidding, looking up at him through your lashes as you slouch next to him. He looks red in the face. “Besides, once you have to start doing mission reports you’ll be begging me to learn my shorthand and use my stenography machine.”

“I keep telling you that I can update that ol’ thing,” Tony draws your attention. For the first time, you realize that Nat and Bucky are on the loveseat looking at you expectantly. Steve is standing in the corner over their shoulder reading a book from the bookshelf in front of him. His back is tense and he looks like he’s not reading, just listening. You force your eyes back to Tony on your right and shake your head.

“No, because then you’d know my shorthand and it makes me too happy to see you spend hours trying to decipher it.” His eyes wander to your essay again, trying to find any patterns that he can use to figure out what the hell you’re writing on anything ever. He’s opening his mouth to make a smart-ass remark that will no doubt lift some of the weight off of your shoulders when another voice speaks up.

“Wow,” Steve doesn’t even look at you even as he says your name sardonically, “Way to be a team player.” Your mind comes to a screeching halt, trying to figure out what the fuck he’s playing at. Even Bucky and Nat look surprised at the cold way he spoke to you, Tony and Peter both gasping from your side. You can’t say anything, throat tight and burning with tears as you stare at your boyfriend with raised eyebrows. What do you say to that? How do you respond? You know it wasn’t a joke because he’s not laughing, not smiling, not even looking up from that fucking book in his hands. You can’t tell if you’re more hurt or embarrassed, but either way, you don’t want to stick around for someone to get the nerve to say something.

Instead of replying, you slam your textbooks shut and bundle everything into your arms. You doubt Steve even notices that you’re making such a hasty retreat but if he does, he doesn’t say a fucking thing. You feel like you’re in high school - practically running through an empty hallway with your notebooks and textbooks pressed to your chest, trying not to cry. It’s ridiculous. You’re a trained assassin, you’re an Avenger, you are strong and powerful and yet… And yet. You’ve given so much of your heart and soul to Steve Rogers that he can knock you down eight pegs without even trying. Without even looking at you. You can’t wait to go on this fucking recon mission, where you can put all of your focus on making sure Peter is doing okay and gathering the intel. Where you can stop thinking about how easily Steve Rogers seems to be pushing you to the side.

You spend the next two days writing your essay, ignoring almost everyone, and working on your essay. On the day of the recon mission, you’re running out the door for your eight a.m lecture, printed essay in hand, and reminding Tony that he promised to pick you up on campus after class for the mission.

You’re lucky that you went, too. You hadn’t counted on the professor making everyone stand up and tell the class the subject of their essays - didn’t realize that it would be twenty-five percent of the grade on the paper. You’ll never understand college professors and the weird shit they do, but the class is informative and entertaining. He goes around the room, starting on the opposite side of you, so you’ll be last. Great.

Several students did their papers on the propaganda of the time, one student was brave and did her essay on the ethical dilemma of the super-soldier serum and eugenics, and most of the other students focused on pop culture and how it changed. When your professor looks at you it’s almost like he’s expecting you to have done nothing but fawn over Steve and Bucky, considering you know them personally. He looks surprised when you clear your throat, stand and say: “I focused on the casual and institutional racism that faced non-white Americans at the time.” You almost preen when he looks impressed and then the shame fills you. It’s just… You want Steve to be proud of you. You want him to congratulate you on going back to school, even if it’s just for one class. You want him to be happy and surprised that he was the inspiration for taking the class.

Though, lately, the class has been more for you than for him. You like learning new things, pushing the boundaries of assignments, making people uncomfortable with the truth of the times you’re studying as told to you by two people who lived it. It’s nice. Normal.

Everyone needs a little bit of normal.

But, honestly, normal is fucking boring. By the time your class is over and you’re handing in your essay it’s like ants are crawling over your skin. A combination of nerves from the upcoming mission, a head full of fog from whatever is happening with Steve, and a little bit of fear at the thought of taking Peter into the field has you bolting for the door the moment your essay is taken from you. You’d worn your tac-suit underneath a pair of baggy sweats and a loose hoodie, so you don’t even bother slowing down as you head toward the car that Tony has waiting for you. He’s in the front seat, grinning at you from underneath his aviators and Peter is driving.

You slip into the backseat without thinking or looking at who’s there, tossing your bag in the back and peeling your hoodie off. “God, Tone, we’re goin’ to die before we even get to the mission with Petey driving.” You toss your hoodie back to join your bag and finally see who’s sitting next to you.

Of course, it’s Steve. He’s looking at you - but not really. He’s looking through you, like he can’t stand that you’re both crammed in the backseat of Tony’s electric car. His gaze catches you and holds you in place. Everything around you goes cold and fuzzy, making you miss Peter’s indignant complaining that he has his license so he should be able to drive… And then Steve scoffs and looks out his window, ignoring you. It stings but you have a job to do. You make some witty retort back to Peter, but it falls flat as you struggle out of your sweats. This is what life is, you think. Relationships aren’t meant to be forever - you learned that at a young age.

Until your accident at fifteen, you had watched your parents run out of helium, their relationship expanding and cooling in arguments, in days spent not talking, in trips to your grandparents without the other, in passive-aggressive computer searches for divorce attorneys left open for anyone to see. Then, after you were trapped between those machines - after you spent hour after agonizing hour with electricity pressing between your atoms, being torn apart and rebuilt as a young god - after that day you watched them expand against each other before the neutron core of their relationship collapsed on itself and the resulting supernova sent you to the streets. But then Fury found you. Then Tony, then Nat, then Steve.

Your parents exploded out from each other and the shockwaves ruined your life. At least now, your relationship with Steve is ending silently. There’s no explosion, no collapse, no rapid expansion to take over your cosmos. Your relationship with Steve is simply approaching the event horizon, where it will hang in the air until one of you takes the final step and you both become frozen, two collapsing objects on opposite sides of the universe. Maybe that’s what you already are. You feel so far away from him in the back of Tony’s car - like he’s eons and light-years away from you - and you feel so cold. Frozen, down to the bone. It makes you stiff in your replies to Tony and Peter, slow on the uptake when the car pulls up to the quinjet, nearing stasis and unable to respond when Nat asks if you’re okay.

Finally, you turn to look at her, nodding. “Fine,” You clear your throat, “Been a rough day.” You do your best to smile at her, but your face feels heavy. Your chest feels cold and tight, making you worry about your performance on the upcoming mission. When Peter shakes his head next to you, discreetly telling Nat not to press, you’re focused on Steve and the electricity humming in the most base part of your body.

He scoffs and rolls his eyes. You turn away and force yourself to smile, throwing a weak and numb arm over Peter’s shoulders. “Are you ready for this, Pete?” You jostle him back and forth, leading him toward the sitting area behind the cockpit. “Gonna get your ass kicked?”

“Please,” He shoves you off, nervously laughing, “Not with the skills you’ve taught me.” He mimics throwing webs, making hissing noises under his breath, and you bark out a laugh, shaking your head.

“You’re payin’ my medical bills when I have to save your ass, Spidey.” You shake your head and strap in next to the wall, Peter taking the seat to your right. Tony, from the aisle across from you, points a thick finger your way.

“You don’t pay medical bills anymore,” He waggles his finger, “So you’ll just have to make him do your homework for a week.”

“Mister Stark!”

“He’ll have to earn shorthand to do your essays,” Nat chimes in from between Bucky and Steve, who are both doing their best to not look at you - or anyone really. “You willing to share that with him?”

You lean back in your seat and jab at Peter with your elbow. “Hell no, so I guess Spider-Boy better do his best.” The arachnid in question grumbles, crossing his arms and slouching in his seat.

“No pressure, right?” He complains, “Not like I’m already nervous or anything.”

“You’ll do fine, kid,” Bucky pipes up, drawing your eyes back to Steve, “It’s goin’ to be a cakewalk.”

“Don’t jinx it, Barnes,” You warn half-heartedly, tucking in on yourself, “We need this to be easy.” From the look on his face - everyone’s face, really - you know that they heard you loud and clear when you were really saying I need this to be easy.

After an uneasy laugh from Bucky, a claustrophobic silence settles over you all as the jet begins to take off. You’re in for an hour ride and plan to spend it going over battle plans with Peter when harsh whispering catches your ear. It’s Bucky and Steve nearly crushing Nat between them until she gets up and sits across from Peter, rolling her eyes. Still, you try your best to run him through the actions you both had planned - the names, the setups you needed to execute them, everything. If something happens to Peter, you’ll never forgive yourself.

And then, cutting through your soft promptings to Peter and his equally soft replies, Bucky’s voice. “Leave it, Steve. Until after this mission.” Even Tony looks up from his tablet, curiosity piqued. Their faces are both red, set hard and angry at each other and your stomach drops. What the hell is going on that Steve ‘Till The End Of The Line Rogers is fighting with Bucky You And Me, Pal Barnes? You must shift, or lean too far into Steve’s eyesight, because for the first time in what feels like years he is looking directly at you - and seeing you, too. It makes your pulse jump and, almost instinctively, you want to reach out and ground yourself on the rubber of the seat underneath you.

You don’t get the chance, though, because Steve speaks. “No, why should I? This is clearly affecting the team.” He’s still looking - glaring - at you like you’ve done something wrong. “What’s the point of waiting? I’ve been waiting to talk about this.”

“Bo, I don’t think this is the time,” Bucky looks over his shoulder at you, then, and you know what’s coming. You know that it’s time, that Steve is about to break up with you in front of your teammates. Your friends. Your family. You steel yourself for the anguish you’re about to feel and then jerk your chin out, hardening your resolve.

“Buck, it’s fine. If Steve wants to address something, he can.”

Natasha says your name, a low warning over the hum of the quinjet. “I think he should wait.”

“Well, I’m not goin’ to wait!” Steve unbuckles himself and stands, “I have tried waiting, and look at where that has gotten me.” He puts his hands on his hips and puffs out a breath. You unbuckle and stand, too, unsure of where this is going. “You need to,” He holds one hand out, pointing at you while his voice shakes. You notice his hand is shaking, too, but fractionally. If you didn’t know Steve as well as you do you may have never noticed it. “You need to get it together.”

“I need to get it together?” You question, eyebrows nearly hitting the ceiling with how fast they shoot up. You’re not totally sure you’ve heard him right because what do you have to get together? The broken shards of your relationship? The information and research for your final paper? The awful way you’ve let yourself be treated for what seems like forever?

“You heard me,” Steve says, at the same time Bucky leans his head back and groans deep in his chest. “What? Someone had to say it.”

“We should wait for this,” Nat speaks up again, but lifelessly. She knows now that you and Steve are both on the warpath, neither of you are going to stop. (That’s also why the two of you work together as a couple so well. Very rarely are you both so worked up about something that you can’t back down, so the other is always there to meet you halfway and get you back to earth.)

“No, no, no,” You say, near hysterically, “No, he wants to do this now? Before a mission? Instead of the fuckin’ weeks we had to hash whatever crawled up his ass and died out? Be my guest. He’s already dragged everyone into this by treating me like a pariah.” You’re not sneering, but your teeth are gritted so tightly together you can hear them scraping and feel a tension headache beginning to bloom in your temples. Bucky looks… Almost incredulous at your statement. Like putting the blame on Steve is a dick move or something.

“Oh, so I’m the bad guy here?” Steve is curling his lip, glaring at you. There’s something behind his eyes, but he’s buried it so deep that you can’t reach it and figure out what it is. “I’m the bad guy, right. Right, right, right.” He scoffs, shakes his head, and then he’s running his fingers through his hair like he really can’t believe what you’re saying to him.

“Well, what else am I supposed to think?” You throw your hands out to the side and let them slap back down on your thighs. “You ignore me, you make me feel like shit, you talk down to me like I’m some insignificant foot soldier. How else am I supposed to take that, Steve?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe ask me what’s wrong? Maybe ask me why I’m acting like this, instead of ignoring all of your problems like a child?” He mirrors your moments, but the sound his hands make when they hit the outside of his suit is more powerful than yours. Fueled by anger, you think. Anger and whatever the hell was in the serum Erskine pumped into Steve.

“Ask you?” You repeat, near-hysterical, “Ask you? Oh yeah, let me get right on that. Hey, Mister Rogers? Mister Captain America? Mister Ignores-His-Partner-For-God-Knows-Why? Hey, just why are you doin’ that?” You’re surprised that you’ve said something so snotty, but you don’t back down. (Steve looks surprised, too, and Bucky has stood up next to his friend like he’s about to start berating you as well. At least he looks more cautious about it, like he’s not totally sure that this fight should be happening.)

The more surprising part of your fight is how fast it’s shut down. Tony and Nat stand at the same time and exchange a glance like they’ve surprised each other. “That’s enough,” Tony starts.

Nat cuts him off. “I don’t care if you fight this one out instead of talking, but if you do it before this recon mission you two are going to blow it. Do you understand me?” She looks dangerous, the sharp edge of a knife spiraling through the air. You force yourself to look away from her, from Tony, from Bucky, from Steve. She’s right. You know she’s right - especially on this mission. Peter is there, going to be in real danger even though there’s not supposed to be one Hydra agent in a four-mile radius. You have to clear your mind and focus on protecting him.

Steve seems to think the same thing because he stands down. When you watch him collapse in on himself, Bucky’s arms around his shoulders, into the little quinjet seats your everything aches. Heart, lungs, eyes - everything. Even though you don’t know what’s going on, what could have possibly happened to make your relationship sink this quickly and out of the blue, you still love him. He’s still The One for you. You still want to be the one to comfort him and make him feel whole when he’s struggling.

But you can’t. You can’t and it kills you.

The heat of battle makes a lot of things fade into the background. Important things like why the fuck are there Hydra agents here? and Steve is going to break up with you when you get back on the jet and Tony swore on the fucking limited edition AC/DC vintage tour poster he has in his office that this would be an easy in/easy out information mission. None of that matters, though, because you’re in deep shit. There are seventeen of them, all primed to the teeth with weapons made to take your team down permanently.

You’re practically glued to Peter, calling out commands and plans for him to initiate. It’s when all of your plans fall through that you take a hit from a heavy fist on purpose, hitting the ground hard. “Plan F, Spidey, Plan F!” You cover the instruction with a groan and then you’re back on your feet, working your way toward him.

“Plan F?” Tony says, somewhere above you in his suit. Your comms crackle ominously as another heat-seeking grenade is launched, interfering with the radio waves your tech relies on. You don’t worry about it, because you know Tony is on it. He’s your eyes in the sky.

Peter is the one who answers his question, watching your close hand-to-hand tilt out of your favor briefly. “Plan Fuck It, Mister Stark.” He grunts as he webs up a Hydra agent, jerking him away from where he was about to slip a knife up and under Natasha’s kevlar. You finally drop the guy in front of you, ignoring Steve’s disappointed Language! and toss one of your knives toward Nat for her to use. Tony is still laughing in your ear, wheezing as he drops down and snags the rifle from one of the snipers and then takes back off.

What your little protégé failed to mention about Plan F is that it’s not just chaos, but controlled chaos. You let loose, letting a soft current cover every inch of your skin as Peter switches to his conductive webbing and takes special care to not web any of his allies. Except for you - if you’re in the way and he catches you in a web it doesn’t matter because you’re you, alive with electricity that drops the men that get caught in the web, too. You rip out of the webs and turn the current off when one of your teammates gets too close.

More Hydra agents are pouring out of the woods, topping out their numbers around twenty-five. That’s twenty-five too many in your opinion, especially when you can see Peter getting tired, his anxiety spiking, his moves having more and more hesitation behind them. You need to get this over with quickly, but you don’t have the options to do that. Steve, Bucky, and Nat are really the heavy-hitters - you, Pete, and Tony are the only ones without serums despite all of your individual abilities. Desperately you reach out for a web that’s still connected to Peter’s arms, pulling him out of the way of a baton that’s about to come down on the back of his neck.

The baton the agent is wielding glints in the coming dusk, freezing you as Peter scrambles past you with a quick apology. You’ve seen that before - seen it, felt it, know it like the back of your hand. There’s no way that you could ever forget that weapon. The man stumbles when his hit doesn’t connect but then rights himself and searches for a new target.

A long, black baton that splits into two prongs at the end is heavy in his hand. Electricity crackles between the bulbs at the end, flashing in the setting sun and your memories. The man only has one, but if it was hooked up to a machine, spinning. If there were four, five, six. If you were pinned between them, screaming in the pain as they rewrote your DNA… You’ve only felt it once, but you’ll never forget it.

And now, you’ll taste it again. On purpose this time. The man holding the stun baton is going for Steve’s back - his strong back, the one that protects people, the one that holds the weight of the world, the one that lays in your bed, the one you see whipping out of rooms as you’re entering just so that he doesn’t have to look at you - and you can’t let that happen. It only takes ten amps to kill a regular human, but you know those things are cranked up to twenty minimum. You don’t want to see how many amps of current it will take to stop Steve’s heart. You’re between the baton and Steve before you can think about what you’re doing or what comes next, the hard bulbs settling unyielding into your side and cranking out maximum power for maximum damage as soon as the current is connected and able to flow from one bulb to the other.

The pain hits you and your throat catches on it. It burns through your body, setting everything on fire - your chest hurts as your heart protests the electrons and then your powers kick in, sweeping them into your very atoms and cells. You’re a live wire now, ears humming and body thrumming with power you’ve only dreamed of. It hurts, and it burns, and you feel tears rising in your eyes because you’re back there - back begging for death or for life or for God and god at the same time - but then it’s over. The man sees that you’re not seizing up, not dropping dead in front of him, and he takes three steps back.

It’s not far enough.

You’ve only felt like this once before - right after you were unhooked from the machine that changed your life and brought you to your new family. You remember how you looked when you were put in front of a mirror with all of the pent up electricity circling your body - how your eyes were filled to the brim and dripping with bright and blue electricity, the way it was jumping across your body, how you didn’t need to breathe because your body was fully saturated with pure, unadulterated power. You wonder if you look like that now and assume you do because you can see the bright blue reflecting in the terrified eyes of the Hydra agent.

Your suit, unlike everyone else’s, is not grounded. It’s metal, metal, metal. You’re made to conduct, born for it, and the earth beneath you comes alive with bright white as you release all of the energy, the power, surges down and out. You’re practiced. You can reach out and feel the synapses and neurons of every human being in the clearing, know exactly where your teammates are standing, and know exactly how to target everything but them and the pitiful amount of electricity their brains carry. You grin, something truly feral and unhinged, and you can see the fear in the Hydra agent. Then, you let go.

You know that everyone is going to be pissed. (Maybe not everyone.) You’re not built for this, not made to take down nearly twenty fucking people at once. As you let go, you feel what they feel. The seizing muscles, the stopping of their hearts, the inside of their bodies crisping against their bones. At that moment, that delicious moment, you see the universe.

You become God. You become everything - your mother and your father and God and god and anyone else who’s watching your life from the ether. You become the judge, jury, and executioner of souls that you don’t know from Adam. You become lightning, and thunder, and exposed nerves of the cosmos at the same time. The world bends to your will and you relish in it, taking that power in your fist and wielding it to protect the man you’ll love for the rest of your life and the family that you’ve made. You will stop at nothing to end this, even if it means turning yourself inside out to do it.

You damn near do turn yourself inside out too, but that doesn’t matter, does it? The blood spilling from your ears, nose, and eyes feels like heaven. It’s hot, and thick, and it’s proof of the power that your body holds. You’re a temple and a sanctuary, a war-room and a bunker, a field of flowers and a sun-dry desert. It does not matter if Steve doesn’t love you at that moment, because you are love and hate wrapped into one package. You are everything and nothing, spread thin at the beginning and the end of time.

And then none of that is true. You are just… You. Standing in a clearing, surrounded by twenty-something dead Hydra agents and your terrified, terrified family. It hurts to breathe and you can taste blood in your mouth, but that’s an afterthought. Steve is still standing behind you, but he is alive. That is what matters.

This is what love is, you think.

Pain and pleasure.

Even if he leaves you, you will always love him.

Pain and pleasure.

You’re weak at the knees when he finally turns to see you - and you’re a sight. Struggling to stand, fingertips blackened with soot but not burnt, blood pouring from your nose, ears, eyes… You look like death, but you feel like life. Someone says something behind you - Peter, maybe? Or maybe Tony, in your comms? - but you don’t hear it. Everything tunnels out, your weak knees finally collapsing as you keel backward.

Steve bears down upon you almost immediately. You’re halfway to unconsciousness when he wraps you up in his arms, keeping you from falling in with the pile of bodies around you. He’s saying your name, harsh and soft and then in a voice like he’s ordering you to wake up. You loll about as he drops you down onto a patch of clear grass, hands searching your body for wounds. When he skims over your side, where the baton has burnt through your suit and your flesh, you surge back toward being able to have cohesive thoughts. The pain brings you back, hands wrapping around Steve’s arm and calling out his name. “Steve! Fuck, that hurts!”

“Honey,” He breathes, “Fuck, we have to get you back to the jet.” His jaw ticks, hair dirty and loose from its normal style. “Why’d you do that?” Steve doesn’t wait for an answer from you, ordering Peter to web something up to carry you over your protests.

“I’m fine,” You argue, only slurring slightly, “I feel fine.” But you’re going to let Nat and Bucky load you up on the webbed stretcher anyway because it’s the first time Steve has cared for you in a long time. You want to relish in this moment, the way that he didn't say your name but called you honey.

Well, and because Natasha slides a thumb across her neck over Steve’s shoulder in a silent threat.

You groan when Bucky accidentally grabs your calf where there is an absolutely awful stab wound, but you wave off his apology. “How could you have known?” To be honest, you hadn’t even known it was there until his Vibranium hand was slipping against it and sending shockwaves of pain through you. Peter is next to you the whole time that you’re being carried back to the jet - Tony staying back to begin scanning the bodies of the Hydra agents for the information you need and any other information they may be carrying. The poor kid is nearly at a breakdown, so you reach out to him and shake his arm when his fingers twine with yours. “Chill out, kid, I don’t know how you got it into your head that this is your fault, but it sure isn’t.” He sniffles, but hands back with Steve as Bucky and Nat get you situated in the small medical room of the jet. They transfer you and then make to leave, only Bucky hesitating near the door.

“Stevie’s goin’ to be here soon and… I don’t know what made you do what you did but you have’t explain it to him. He’s bendin’ over backwards to figure it out, and we don’t have’a clue. Came out’a nowhere.” He looks at you for another moment before shaking his head and stepping out of the room. Your head is spinning, partially from what Bucky just said and partially from the pain and stimulus of electricity. You wait there, then, because this is it. This is the event horizon. You wait there, eyes closed, until you hear footsteps approach the med room, and then the door slowly opens. Steve says your name, holding all the finality and weight of an atomic bomb. You don’t open your eyes until he swings a chair next to the stretcher and lays a hand on your calf.

“You don’t have to do this,” You finally say, pushing yourself up onto your elbows to watch him. “I know that you don’t want to.” Steve only scoffs and begins to wash the stab wound using a packet of soap and a water bottle. You say his name twice before he looks at you, something between hate and hurt curdling into a glaze over his eyes that stops you in your tracks.

“Just let me do this. It is the least that you can do.” His words are painful and stilted, like it’s taking force to push them past his teeth. You lay back down and close your eyes, content to just feel the pain of Steve beginning to stitch you up and then dress the wound before you feel the pain of Steve leaving you like you knew he always would. (Falling in love with Steve Rogers went against every instinct you had. You knew that he was going to hurt you from the first moment your lips touched his.)

When he’s done he sits back and puts his elbows on his knees, head in his hands. He heaves a heavy sigh and then shakes it off, “I’ll dress your burn, and then we’ll talk.” And normally, yes, you would agree but this is too important. You want to get it over with so you can lick your wounds metaphorically and dress them literally - and then you want to go home, you want to pack your bags, and you want to disappear and remake your life somewhere else.

Some far-off place where everyone you know won’t take one look at your face and know that you’re still painfully, deeply in love with Steve Rogers, end of your semester be damned. Family you’ve made be damned. You can’t sit around and be in love with him like a neon sign on a dark highway while it’s painfully clear that he hasn’t had a sign on his highway in a long time.

So instead of agreeing, you swing your legs over the stretcher and swallow your flinch when the burn pulls tight. Steve opens his mouth to argue but you give him a tight-lipped shake of your head and his jaw snaps shut. “No,” You say, voice not giving in to the emotion swirling in your chest. “I have let this go on long enough.”

It’s the wrong thing to say because Steve fucking scoffs again and looks away from you. “One day was long enough.” He says, cutting straight to your core. Okay, ouch. You take a deep breath and shake your head to try and bite back the tears that are inevitably rising in your eyes. If one day was long enough for him to realize he doesn’t want to be with you, why did he let it go on for nearly a full year? Why did he spend so long leading you on, pulling you by a thread before garroting your heart with it? What was the point?

“If you want to leave me, just say that,” You reply harshly, standing and wobbling away from him. He just watches you go, watches the way you struggle past the lead weights your muscles have become, the way you’re starting to feel the stab wound on your leg, the way the skin on your burn is beginning to blister and only just now losing its heat. He just watches you, where the Steve that loved you once upon a time might have helped. You turn your back on him, hands on your hips so that you can hide the way that you’re crying and your hands are shaking.

“If I want to leave you? If?” He says. You hear the scrape of his chair as he stands, “I think after what you’ve done, it’s not an if, sweetheart.” The way he says it tastes like iron. Steve never calls you sweetheart like he never calls you by your name. It’s always honey, lover, dovie. You don’t turn to face him because you’re struggling to keep yourself above water. “I spent so long thinkin’, wonderin’, askin’ myself - God damnit, will you look at me?” You turn slowly, not because you’ve never heard Steve speak like that but because his voice is desperate and raw. When you turn, you’re not sure what to expect. Maybe him, standing in front of you, broad-shouldered and disappointed like in those PSA’s he had to film once. Maybe he’d be angry, hands clenched at his sides and eyes narrowed like he gets in meetings when he doesn’t agree with something but he’s out-voted. But you never expect to see him crying, lip wobbling, folded in on himself like a young boy instead of the strong, invincible man you’ve come to love.

He looks so different.

It hits you, then, that you’re not looking at Steve Rogers. Not really. He's not Steve Rogers, not Captain America, not even Captain Rogers. You see him as he was - before America spat it’s untruths all over him and injected him with a serum that changed who he was, is, will be. He’s not the able-bodied man that you know, not strong and unreachable, not the heartthrob that overshadows the team during press events. He’s not America’s Darling, not really. Not where it counts.

You’re looking at Stevie Rogers. Stevie Rogers who, for all intents and purposes, was supposed to die before he made it out of toddlerhood or soon thereafter. Stevie Rogers who the doctors said wasn’t supposed to survive. Stevie Rogers who grew up sickly, rattling painful breaths and never playing ball with the neighborhood boys. Who couldn’t walk until middle school when he got his braces off. Who never had a partner because Bucky, strong and handsome and tall Bucky, was always deemed the better option. Who believed in his country so much that he tried to sneak into the second world war, subjected himself to a painful medical procedure so that he could change his very DNA to be what the world wanted him to be.

Captain Steve Rogers. Captain America. Strong, blond, patriotic, resilient.

You’re sure that if men don’t want to go to therapy now, in the modern age, they certainly didn’t want to go in the ‘40s. So where did that leave Steve, your Steve, standing in front of you and looking small, and broken, and sad, and alone? Did they expect him to take his new, taller, working body and run with it? Did they not think about how he would lose a part of himself in the process? How did they expect him to go from disabled to abled without some disconnect?

You think about the You That You Were Before and the You That You Are Now, and how you lost a part of yourself when the accident gave you your powers and how you’d lose yourself if someone figured out a way to take them away. You Before formed your identity around being normal - living in a shitty home with shitty parents, sure, but normal - and You Now form your identity around your powers, your team, your job, your love. If you lost those things, what did you have left? Who would you be?

When Steve lost his identity and became everything that America wanted everyone to think that America was, what did he have left? Sure, he could tell himself that he represents America - strong and patriotic and just - but it must have conflicted with everything he knew about himself before that. You know that disabled people now know that American society is unjust, unfit for them with abled people not willing to make room to allow them to thrive. You can only imagine what it was really like for Steve in the ‘20s and ‘30s and ‘40s. What he had to do just to survive. (Medical experimentation, you remind yourself. Did they know it wouldn’t kill him? Did they know his body wouldn’t rip itself apart with the new sinewy muscle they were packing on? Did they care? Or was he just a body they saw as broken? A project to fix? To turn him into something more like them and call it patriotism?)

You shake your head at him, still filled with despair, and try to figure out what he’s talking about. “Stevie,” You start, pet name easily replacing what you had been calling him because it’s not fair to shoe-horn him into a body that doesn’t feel like his own. You wonder if he still expects the bone-grinding pain that he used to tell you would happen when it rains. He raises a hand, a strong and family hand, shaking his head.

“I just need to know why I wasn’t enough for you,” Steve looks sad, slouching in on himself like he’s expecting to get his ass handed to him in another alleyway and hope Bucky is there to save him. “I need to know why you wouldn’t just break up with me if you wanted to see other people so badly.” You suck in a shocked breath because, okay, that’s not what you were expecting. Between that and the paradigm shift you’ve had on how Steve must view his identity, body, and self, you’re stunned. Steve continues like he doesn’t even register that you look shocked and pale and now you’re crying because he thinks you’re cheating on him? “And I get it. I get it. You have no idea how much I understand. If I were you, I wouldn’t want me either, okay?”

You cut him off there because what the actual God damn fuck is he talking about? “No, Stevie, I’m not cheating on you.” You shake your head again and this, your statement, lights a fire in him. He still looks like Stevie rather than Steve, but there’s anger there. You imagine that’s what it might have looked like moments before he got himself in trouble back before he was serumed. “I’m not.”

“Oh, yeah?” He challenges, jaw ticking and chin jerking up, “Oh, yeah? You can’t lie to me. I know, okay? The act is up, it’s over, I know, okay? You can stop pretending.”

“Steve, I do not fucking know what you’re talking about but I”m not cheating on you!” You raise your voice, not really angry but more out of necessity. You need to get it out of his head that he is anything less than everything you want - that you could possibly love anyone more than you love him.

“I wanted to clarify something for you,” Steve says like he’s reading an old script from when he was just a beefy, red/white/blue stage prop for the American military, “I am excited to meet with you, but there are some rules. Do not talk about Captain Steve Rogers. I don’t want to hear about him,” As he continues to recite something that has clearly hurt him, you go lax. You know exactly what’s happened - your fists unclench, your jaw drops a little bit, and it feels like someone has gutted you, “I think it is wise to keep work and pleasure separate, and it’s a rule I will enforce heavily. I look forward to seeing you again.” He’s sneering at the end, tears falling down his ruddy cheeks.

“Steve,” You try again, but he cuts you off.

“Am I just work for you?” His voice is shaking more than you thought possible, and so are his hands. You’ve never seen Steve so off-kilter, so thrown, and it breaks your heart that yes, technically, you’re the cause of this. Before this, before this horrible misunderstanding, your relationship with Steve was the paragon of trust so neither of you cared if the other read emails or texts. You remember the email - the email from your fucking college professor - because it had made you so angry that he’d referred to your relationship with Steve as something as simple and base as just pleasure - like you could even put words to the galaxy of a relationship you had with Steve - that you’d gone to the gym to work off some of that irritation. You hadn’t wanted to take it out on anyone accidentally. When you came back from the gym, Steve was gone on that two-week mission that he’d left on without saying goodbye.

Oh, God. You feel sick to your stomach as the paradigm of the way that Steve’s been treating you shifts violently to the left. You have to physically hold yourself up and try to speak past the lump in your throat. Steve looks… Brokenly smug. Like he knows he’s right, but he’d rather gnaw his own legs off than be right.

“No,” You croak, “No, Steve, you’ve got it all wrong.” You want to reach for him, but it feels like the room is closing in on you. You’re second-guessing everything now - especially what you’ve just said. How many people said the exact same thing to him pre-serum because they said something meant for Bucky to him? How many times did he hear that when he was getting a new diagnosis, hoping for the best? How many times had his own mother said it to him when he told her something someone had said, fresh-faced and not yet used to the way that abled people sometimes treated disabled people? You think you might be sick. “That email was from my professor, Steve. I’m not cheating on you, I’d never.” He laughs darkly and sits back down in his chair, head in his hands again. You try to gather the strength to move toward him when you see his shoulders shaking, a telltale sign that he’s crying.

“A professor,” He says with a watery laugh, “Right.”

Finally, you realize that he needs you, needs to know you love him, that you’d do anything for him. You can iron out the kinks later - figure out why he didn’t want to come to talk to you past the original hurt, why he treated you so coldly, why he didn’t trust that you wouldn’t do this to him - but now, you need to show him that you’re here. That you choose him. That you’ll always choose him.

You make your way to him and set a shaking hand on his shoulder. For a brief second you think he’s going to shake you off but then Steve’s hand shoots up and latches onto where your hand is resting, dipping his head to press against your arm. “Stevie, please,” You say, unsure of what you’re asking him to do, “I picked up a class, just one, and it’s… I picked it up for you, it’s about the ‘30s and ‘40s and…” He looks up at you and he looks so broken - face ruddy and wet with tears, lip wobbling, chest heaving as he tries to not sob. His brows are knit and he looks confused, “I just wanted to be able to understand you better. You had to leave so much of yourself at the door when you joined the Avengers, had to leave so much of yourself in the ice… In Erskine’s lab… Stevie, I just wanted you to be able to be you when you’re with me. I wanted to know the you that you were before you became Captain America.” Your voice is shaking, knees knocking together, and honestly? You feel like you might blackout.

“What?” He rasps, “What?”

“He sent that email because too many kids signed up for his class thinking that they’d be able to look at pictures of you and Buck for a semester. Emailed me directly because he knows we’re…” You choke on your words, shaking your head because you’re not even sure there’s a we anymore, “Because he knows I’m on the team. Didn’t want me walking in and making his class about just a few years in the ‘30s and ‘40s rather than the culture of the time.” You don’t know how else to explain it to him, but Steve isn’t saying anything - practically isn’t moving or breathing- so you continue to try and explain what’s really happening as best as you can, “And - and that email made me so angry because he singled me out, didn’t email anyone else about it, and I left to try and work some of that out; I didn’t want to take it out on you, or let it spoil - let it spoil… But when I came back from the gym, you were gone. You were gone for two weeks and I didn’t know why.” You’re crying harder now and pretty sure that within the next sixty seconds you’re going to collapse if you don’t sit down.

Steve shakes his head, still looking like he doesn’t understand. “What?” He says for a third time, “A class? A college class?”

“I just wanted to feel closer to you,” You confess, “Just wanted to understand a fraction of your life without making you do the heavy liftin’ and teachin’ me. Shouldn’t have’t do that,” You’re sobbing, barely biting out your words as you realize that something you’ve done to strengthen your relationship with Steve has destroyed it, “Shouldn’t have to explain a whole different time just to feel loved, Stevie. Should be able to be with someone who understands without you havin’ to explain.” You’re not sure you can say Peggy’s name out loud, and you hope he understands what you’re saying without making you actually say it, “Should’a been able to have love with someone who knew, and I know I’m nothin’ compared to what you should’a had, but I want to be. I want to be in the same ballpark instead’a watchin’ from the stands.” You wipe your face with your free hand and look away from Steve when he stands in front of you. You don’t want to see the look on his face - what he’s thinking about what you’ve said.

He says your name and you glance at him, but his expression stops him in your tracks. Where Steve looked broken and hurt and fuming with anger to hide the anguish, now he looks stricken. You shake your head, “No, no. I didn’t say that to make you feel guilty-”

“You think that I care about whether or not you can understand the ‘40s?” He cuts you off, hands moving to curl around your biceps, “You think that I care whether or not you can relate to a time in history when you weren’t even thought of?”

“Of course I love you. I love you more than anything in this world, but you shouldn’t have to not care, Steve,” You argue, shaking your head, “That’s what I’m trying to say. You should be with someone who understands without explanation. I just wanted to give that to you - didn’t know that this would happen.”

“I should be with someone who loves me,” He argues back, “If you love me, that’s all that matters. My past be damned.”

“But your past is you!” You try to pull away from Steve, but he anchors you there. You’re dizzy from being so close to him after this long, but also because of how many different twists this situation has taken. You can barely keep up with how bad your communication with Steve has become - barely keep up with how you need to fix it, or how to fix it. “Your past is you,” You repeat when you realize that Steve isn’t going to let you go. “And you shouldn’t have to give that up so that someone will love you.”

“But you love me,” He says desperately, ducking his head so that he’s nearly nose to nose with you, “You love me, right?”

“More than anything,” You say, closing your eyes and relishing in the feeling of being so close to Steve, “I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone. I don’t care about what anyone else thinks, or anyone else. I’ll even stop goin’ to class if you want me to - Steve, I just can’t do this anymore. Can’t do this thing where you don’t talk to me about what’s botherin’ you.” You’re choking up, barely whispering, but you know he hears you. YOu can feel his warm breath on your face, “Nearly fuckin’ killed me.”

“I thought it was goin’ to be easier,” He breathes, nose bumping yours, “When you eventually decided to leave me for him. Thought I was savin’ myself some trouble.” You can practically taste his tears as they fall again, “Buck and Nat tried to tell me that you weren’t - that you wouldn’t - but I just couldn’t believe them.”

When you open your eyes, his are closed. This close to him you can see the soft freckles that are blooming over his eyelids, his soft eyelashes kissing his cheekbones. You can feel him breathing, feel him nearly pressed against you in a way that feels hauntingly nostalgic and terrifyingly fleeting; like you’ll be able to feel his warmth for years to come, but he’s about to disappear. “That’s okay,” You finally whisper, “It’s okay that you didn’t believe them. That you thought what you thought. It’s okay.” He shakes his head against yours, opening his mouth to protest, but you refuse to let him feel guilty about feeling this way - you have plenty of time to sit him down and talk to him candidly about the way he acted because of these feelings, anyway. “If I would have been in your place I’m not sure I would have believed them.”

“I treated you so badly…” He shifts and wraps his arms around you. It’s almost immediate - you relax into his arms and wind yours around his waist, keeping him pulled against you as he presses his face into your neck and you press your cheek against his chest. “So awfully.”

“We’ll talk about that, okay? But later. Right now you just need to know that I love you, Steve. I love you more than I can tell you - more than I can express.” You want to kiss him, but you can’t. Can’t kiss him, you need to wait for him to kiss you, for him to close that gap and show you that he still loves you like you love him. “We’ll have to have a talk, a long and hard conversation about this, Stevie, but for now… For now, I’m just content to be with you, okay? MIssed you so much.”

He sighs, nose pressing against yours again. “Missed you too, dovie. Missed you more than I can even say,” His voice breaks as his lips brush yours. Your relationship is not without its flaws and problems - Steve’s actions when he thought you were cheating on him are proof of that and, well, the fact that you didn’t realize what was happening, why it was happening, or a large part of your boyfriend’s psychological makeup having an impact on your relationship while it went unknown by you… There is a lot of work for the two of you to do, a lot of work to do, a lot of communication to be done… But you’d do it all for Steve, over and over again.

When he presses forward and presses his lips gently to yours, you know that he’ll do it all for you, over and over again, too.

#steve rogers imagine #steve rogers/reader #steve rogers x reader #marvel imagine #mcu imagine

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let-me-luve-you · 3 years

Text

Dr. Holland

Tom Holland x Sister

Summary: Tom’s big sister is the hardest working person he knows. He is extremely proud of her and he can’t stop himself from talking about her during an interview.

Warnings: Overworked, maybe some angst, loving siblings, mentions of doctor work

MASTERLIST

Tom sighed as he got a text from you saying that you were scheduled to work the one week he was home. Another message followed saying you only had to work three days instead of the normal five. You were an emergency room doctor and you worked a lot. Tom was proud of his older sister. She worked her but off through medical school to get where she was. Now she was working her butt off to get the position you really wanted, Pediatric Oncologist.

Tom had been filming Spider-Man in America when you were going through medical school. You would call him to keep you company while you were studying. And when time was on his side, he would quiz you. Tom never thought he was smart enough to become a doctor, but he knew enough to get by now.

It was early Wednesday morning when you pulled up at Tom’s house. You had gotten off work at 6am and stopped by your house to shower and change clothes. Tom had texted you last night that he had a few Zoom interviews this afternoon that would take a few hours of his time. Tom told you that you were free to sleep in his room after breakfast. But with only a few days with your brother, you decided you could sleep at night when they sleep.

You took the key Tom gave you for when you house sit and let yourself in. The house was quiet so you knew everyone was still asleep. You moved towards the kitchen. You sat your purse down and went straight to the coffee machine. Normally you would drink tea, but after a long night and soon to be long day, you needed all the help you could get to stay awake. While waiting on the coffee to be made, you took out all the pans and ingredients you would need to make breakfast. You decided to make breakfast burritos since those were your favorite and you didn’t get them often.

Halfway through cooking the sausage, bacon, and eggs, Tom walked in rubbing the sleep from his eyes, his hair flying every which way. He walked over to you and gave you a big hug. You smiled into his chest.

“Still short, I see.” Tom said with sleep lacing his voice.

“Still rude, I see.” You said back.

Tom squeezed you tighter, “I missed you.”

“Missed you to bubs.” You pulled back and watched him walk towards the coffee pot. You gave a small laugh and turned back to what was at hand.

“How’s the hospital been?” He asked as he sat on the counter next to the stove so he could see your face while he talked to you.

“It’s been good. Being in the ER means inconsistent hours and long shifts. Dr. Hamilton is planning on retiring in the next few months and he's told them my name as a replacement. Hopefully that works out so I can finally be a Pediatric Oncologist.” You said.

“I know you’ll get it and you'll be the best at your job.” Tom said matter of fact.

“Thanks. I hope I get it. If not, I may have to switch hospitals. I don’t think I can stay in the ER. I had night shifts this week. Day shifts last week. I went from day to night on Sunday. I had six hours off to rest since they made me work this weekend. They messed up the schedule but if I asked for Sunday night off, they were going to make me work the rest of the week.” You said taking all the food you just made to the island. Tom followed you and sat at the counter. You started fixing his burrito.

“I can make my own you know?” He said with a laugh. “But honestly. Stick it out. No one is more deserving of that position than you. You care for the kids and you know exactly what you are doing. Everything will work out. I’m so proud of you. Don’t know if I tell you that enough, but I am.”

“Thanks Tom.” You smiled at him. After making your burritos, you continued to talk about everything in your lives. He caught you up on the movies he was doing. He explained what the interviews were for. You just stared at him in awe as you saw the passionate look in his eyes when talking about acting.

A few hours after breakfast, you went to sit with Tom in his office. You laid out on the couch joking with him before his interview. Tom’s phone rang and he saw that it was his manager so he answered. Ten minutes later when he hung up he looked at you asleep on the couch. He stood up and grabbed the blanket and laid it across you. He knew that you would be out the whole time he did interviews as long as he didn’t make any sudden sounds. Tom was grateful the call through his computer rang through his AirPods. That sound would have woken you up and he knows you need sleep. Tom clicked the green answer button and was met with a smiling reporter.

“Hello Tom. How are you today?” The reporter asked.

“I’m doing great. How about yourself?” Tom asked back. Talking quieter than he normally would for something like this. His eyes drifted up to you to see if you moved and he didn’t even see you flinch.

“I’m doing great. Thank you for asking. So my name is Gerald. I’m with Buzzfeed. And I wanted to start this interview off asking what you’ve been up to these last few months.”

“Well, I’ve been in Germany working on a movie. Can’t go into detail just yet about it, but news will be dropping soon.” Tom checked one more time on you before he moved his full attention onto Gerald. “Sorry if I’m talking quieter than usual. My sister is asleep on my office couch. She’s been working like crazy lately so I didn’t have the heart to wake her.”

“Your volume is perfectly fine. If you don’t mind me asking, what does your sister do? We know about your other brothers since they are more involved in your line of work. They even travel with you. But we don’t really know a lot about your sister.” Gerald asked.

“My sister is amazing. Her name is Y/N. She’s a few years older than me. She is currently a doctor at one of the hospitals here in London. She’s been an emergency doctor but she is working towards becoming a Pediatric Oncologist.”

“That sounds fancy. What is that?” He asked.

“It’s a doctor that treats children with cancer. Y/N has worked so hard to get to that point. She’s so caring and loving and knows so much that I think she would be the perfect fit in any hospital in that position.”

“You sound proud of her.” Gerald said, pointing out the fact.

“I’m incredibly proud of her. She is just so amazing at everything but I was in the front row watching her work to this point. I wasn’t ever great at school and she was always working for those perfect grades. She would let me study with her so she could help when I needed it. I was her first call when she was accepted into med school. I remember crying when she told me that because I knew the work she had put in during undergrad to get there.” Tom said as he looked up at you. You were still sleeping soundly and Tom smiled at that.

“When I was filming Spider-Man: Homecoming, she would call me. It would be six or seven o’clock at night where I was and so I knew it was around midnight her time. She just wanted my company while she studied. She was so used to us working together she needed me there to help concentrate. She would email me her note cards and I would spend hours quizzing her. We were close before that, but we were almost inseparable after that. She’s my big sister and I love her and I’m so, so proud of her.”

“It sounds like it. It’s refreshing hearing you say such great things about your sister. I bet the whole family is proud of the both of you.” Gerald added.

“I know we are all proud of Y/N. For me, I know my family is proud, but what I do doesn’t even come close to what she does. After not seeing her for months due to COVID, any good I do, will never compare to the good she does.” Tom said thinking of those awful months you refused to see your family so you didn’t put them at risk.

“Well, tell her we appreciate the work she does. We would love to meet her sometime. You should bring her around a set or press tour sometime.”

Tom laughed. “I’ll have to try. She always turns me down though. Maybe if I film in London. But she does always make it to my premieres. Thankfully we almost always have one here in London, so it’s easier for her, but she’s made the trip to LA a couple of times.”

“Can’t wait to meet her one day.” Tom smiled at Gerald. “So you said you’ve been in Germany…”

Gerald continued with his interview. Once he was finished with that one he went right into the next. He spent three hours doing interviews and you never woke up once. He was grateful you were getting rest. When the final interview ended, Tom went over to you and gently picked you up. You stirred in his arms.

“Tom?” You said tiredly and confused. “Where are you taking me?”

“My room. You need more sleep and I need a nap. We can go out for dinner afterwards.” He said as he sat you on his bed. He walked to the other side.

“Okay.” You said rolling over towards him. “I love you bubs.” You whispered. Tom wrapped you in his arms and kissed you on the head.

“Love you too y/n/n.” He whispered back before you both fell asleep.

#tom holland #tom holland sister #tom holland x sister!reader #tom holland x sister #tom holland x holland!reader #tom holland x y/n #brother!tom holland x sister!reader #holland!reader #Holland!sister #tom holland imagines #tom holland fanfic #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland oneshot #tom holland rpf #tom holland real person fic #brother!tom holland

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secretobsessionstuff · 3 years

Note

i’ve missed madix and riley a bunch lately!! so maybe when you’ve got the time (and inspiration ) would you write something for them? maybe with the phrase “hey, you passed out. don’t sit up yet, just relax.” (or something along the lines of rhat) for them? i hope you are staying well & healthy, and happy new year!!!

Sorry it took me so long to get to this prompt. Anyway enjoy this fic that is in no way inspired by my life.

“I know you’re nervous, but you have to eat something,” Madix said to Riley as they drove into the student parking lot.

It was early, around 8 o’clock in the morning, and neither of them had had breakfast yet. There was a coffee shop inside the building that Madix hoped would have his favourite donut. Next to him in the passenger seat, Riley wiped his sweaty palms on his thighs for the millionth time. Riley was certainly not hoping to eat a donut because his stomach was already queasy from the nerves. It was the master’s thesis presentation day, and he dreaded what was to come. A full day of watching presentations was not appealing, especially since he was the second to last person. Riley wished that he could have been earlier and just get it over with, but instead he had to sit through other people presenting their research.

When Riley didn’t respond – too focused on wiping the sweat on his pants – Madix carried on. “There’s still a while before we all meet in the lecture hall. At least get something to drink.”

So that’s what Riley did. He carefully sipped his tea (coffee would simply make his hands shake more) while Madix ate a decent breakfast. He munched on his donut, forever worried about his boyfriend who looked around nervously. Madix reached his hands across the table to grab onto Riley’s. “It’s going to be fine. It’ll be less than an hour and then you’re done!”

“Forty-five minutes is so long.” That is an ungodly amount of time for one person to talk continuously. Riley thought back to his undergrad thesis that was only 10 minutes and even that was terrifying! He did not want to ramble in front of a whole room for an hour.

“And the whole thing is fantastic,” Madix insisted. “You practiced for me a billion times and it always sounded great.”

“I wish it could just be you in the room.”

“Then just look at me the whole time.”

Riley let out a nervous laugh. He supposed looking at Madix for an hour straight didn’t sound too bad. “Okay yeah, yeah. It’ll be fine. It’s fine.”

Madix raised Riley’s hands to his lips and gave them a kiss. “It’ll be more than fine.” Then he pushed a donut towards his boyfriend who was looking far too pale that morning. “Now eat something goddammit.”

Later when that donut and tea were sitting uneasily in Riley’s stomach, they all found themselves in the lecture hall. Riley tapped on the table in front of him, waiting for the presentations to begin. The first half of the day wasn’t terrible. The presentations were interesting enough that Riley could forget about his own. Well, his taping fingers and bouncing legs never really forgot about what was to come, but the panic didn’t start until his time slot got nearer. By the time the lunch break came around, Riley’s stress was rising higher. Of course, he completely ignored eating again because the ache in his belly was more than a little stress stomach-ache.

His time slot was next. Every inch of his skin was on fire except for his hands that were cold and clammy. From beneath the table, he felt Madix put his hand over his bouncing leg.

Madix leaned over so that he could whisper. “Please breathe, you’re as white as a ghost.”

Riley wished that he could be a ghost and disappear. Instead, he settled for a trip to the bathroom. Maybe he could flush himself down the toilet. “I’ll be back.”

As Riley stood up from his chair, he needed to catch himself on the desk in front of him. He reached his sweaty palms out to save him from falling forward as the edges of his vision got dark. Whoa, his head felt funny. And God, his stomach felt worse. As if he were drunk, he swayed out of the door. Madix didn’t follow him but that was okay because he needed a moment to himself.

Riley felt like he was dreaming as he walked down the hallway. Once in the bathroom, he braced himself on the sink and tried to take deep breaths. Sometimes he swears that his eyes have dimmers, and in that moment, he thought for sure that someone was dimming the lights behind his eyes.

The darkness didn’t spread luckily, but the nausea was certainly spreading through his body. Oh fuck, he really did not want to be sick just minutes before his presentation. He also didn’t want to risk presenting with a vomit-stained shirt, so he knelt to the floor in one of the stalls.

The still water in the toilet taunted the choppy seas in his own belly. Actually, he wondered how his stomach could have been anything more than a dried-up wasteland. The only thing he ate or drank that day was a donut and a tea. Still, his stomach was mad and didn’t like the stress that ran through his veins.

A harsh gag came up Riley’s throat, but it was dry. Oh God, oh no! He couldn’t believe this was about to happen. His stomach spasmed again but still nothing came up. His chest burned. He didn’t want to do this; he didn’t want to be here. Another gag grated up his throat.

Meanwhile, Madix was getting more concerned with how long Riley had been gone for. The current student was wrapping up his presentation, and then there would only be the question period before it was Riley’s turn. That’s it. Madix left to find his boyfriend.

Madix opened the bathroom door just in time to hear a strangled noise come from one of the stalls. He could see Riley kneeling on the floor. Riley moaned miserably after letting out that choked gag. Madix swore under his breath and mumbled, “Oh deer…”

He stood behind Riley who left the stall door open. He watched as Riley’s shoulders quaked with each empty heave. “Well shit, Ry.”

Riley was too focused on the roiling of his gut to be surprised by Madix’s sudden appearance. He sniffled as snot ran from his nose. “Ugh – I’m sorry.” He coughed which triggered another rough retch. “I can’t. I – hic.”

“Alright, alright.” Madix got to the floor next to Riley and put his hand on the boy’s trembling back. He needed to calm him down before anything worse happened. “Remember to breathe.”

Instead of breathing, Riley decided to make thing worse for him. “Is it my turn yet?”

“I’m not sure…” Madix bit his lip in worry. “How about you focus on calming down before worrying about that.”

Riley really wanted to get up. His time had run out and no one would care that his stomach was in knots. “I have to get back.” A belch burst from his mouth that left saliva dripping from his lips. He wiped it away. He made a move to get up, but a heavy hand stayed on his back. “I haven’t actually puked yet.”

Madix clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “That’s because there’s barely anything in your stomach, baby.” He hated the fact that he could feel the tension in Riley’s muscles. He hated the way Riley’s legs shook as he tried to get up. “You’re hurting yourself.”

“What else am I supposed to do? I have to do this.”

Madix stayed quiet, unsure how to respond. He had no clue what time it was, but he guessed that the lecture hall would be waiting for the next student. Madix sighed and backed up with his hands in the air. “…If you say so.”

Riley sniffled and stood up with legs that trembled as bad a newborn deer. Once he became upright, those lights behind his eyes flickered for a moment. That dream-like sensation returned and he couldn’t tell which way was up. There came another flicker of his vision before the lights died out completely.

“Riley!” Madix shouted as his boyfriend went limp. The boy’s legs buckled awkwardly, and some unconscious part of Riley’s brain made a last-ditch effort to catch himself before blacking out. His arms came reaching out towards Madix.

“Ah okay, I got you. I got you.” Madix caught Riley before he could fall to the ground. They became a tangle of arms, and Madix wasn’t prepared to untangle the mess. He heard Riley mumbled something in his semi-conscious state, but it was all gibberish. “Shh, You’re okay.” It was good that he only really blacked out for a second.

“Ugh…Madix.” Riley’s eyelids fluttered opened, but soon closed again. There was no way for him to hold his own weight. His head rolled forward onto Madix’s chest as he was being carefully lowered to the ground.

Madix gently sat Riley up against the wall. They were no longer in the stall because Madix had stumbled backwards to catch his boyfriend. He clumsily brought them both to the floor just as Riley’s eyes began to regain clarity. Madix put his hand on Riley’s pale cheek and slightly rubbed his thumb across his dry skin.

“What happened?” Riley mumbled. He squinted in the florescent light of the bathroom and moaned in pain. Everything hurt. His mouth was dry, and the nausea was as persistent as ever. In his disoriented state, the only thing he knew for certain was that his belly was being stirred up. The thumping of his heartbeat was a ticking clock telling him that he was still screwing up. He put his hands on the ground, about to stand, but then he saw Madix’s sweet face.

“Hey, you passed out,” Madix said softly. “Don’t get up yet. Just relax.” He gave Riley’s shoulder a squeeze. His boyfriend really did look awful with dark sunken eyes and a grimace of pain.

Riley groaned and wrapped his arms around his torso. He wanted to say something to Madix, probably sorry or thank you, but the only thing that came out was a wet gag. He followed it with a weak heave, the first one to not be dry. A small amount of pale vomit spilled past his lips and landed on his shirt.

Madix cooed, feeling terrible that his boyfriend had to deal with this. “You’re alright, baby. Let it happen.”

Riley let out a shallow burp that brought with it a thin string of bile and frothy saliva. A hiccupped seized his chest and forced his shoulders forward as another small gush of sick dripped down his chin. Riley wanted to cry but his eyes were too dry. “Ugh, what am I going to do?”

“I’ll tell you what you’re going to do,” Madix said as he ran a paper towel under cold water. He came back with the wet paper and gently wiped Riley’s face. “You’re going to sit here until you feel ready to get up – until you won’t pass out when you try to stand – and then we’ll talk to someone about rescheduling. We’ll see about getting you a more private presentation.”

Riley moaned. “I don’t like any of this.”

“I know you don’t,” Madix said. “I’ll help you fix this. There must be accommodations for mental health.”

That seemed like the best Riley could hope for. He accepted that there was no way he’d be able to go on today. It was irresponsible for him to push himself anymore, and Madix managed to convince him that he didn’t screw anything up. Things happen and most people are understanding.

“However,” Madix began with an intent look, “that doesn’t mean you can just not eat or drink. Like I said, you’re hurting yourself, and I don’t like seeing like this.”

“I know...I’m sorry.”

Madix gave his boyfriend a sad smile. “No need to apologize to me.”

#emeto #emetophilia #emeto fic #sickfic #fainting #pass out #nervous stomach #puking #dehydration #faint #Madix #Riley

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simonfarnabyslegs · 3 years

Text

tag game

thank you @anxietyvarietyhour for tagging me! <3

nickname: my high school english teacher and a few other people i knew growing up used to call me cookie. a girl i knew in undergrad called me kay-kay. and i knew i man from donegal who used to call me kyah (pronounced sort of like hyah, like how you would urge a horse on) because he couldn't pronounce my name when he saw it written out.

zodiac: aquarius, but i also don't think that means anything

height: well i thought i was 5'2 but i've met two girls recently who claim to be 5'3 who were both shorter than me, and a guy who said he was 5'5 who was quite a bit taller than me, so i don't know what's true.

last movie: uhhh i honestly can't remember because i don't watch a lot of movies. probably my most recent rewatch of bill on the night ghosts was released, while i was waiting to be able to watch it here in the us.

last thing i googled: "charles ii king of bling" so i could show it to my friend.

fave musician(s): nirvana, tom petty, prince, yusuf/cat stevens, the beatles, harry styles, hozier, vienna teng, of monsters and men, måneskin, the lumineers, dervish, lil nas x

song stuck in my head: the funky monks song from horrible histories because my professor was talking today about how funny and weird monks were and that was the first thing my brain thought of.

other blogs: listed in my pinned post

blogs following: 310, but they're probably not all active tbh

amount of sleep: last night, between 3-4 hours. i tried to take a nap this afternoon but that didn't really work out

lucky number: i like multiples of three, but i wouldn't say that those are lucky

what i'm wearing: short black dress with long sleeves. earlier i was wearing a long red and black tudor inspired thing over it and shoes that look a bit like thomas's lady shoes but i took those off when i decided to attempt a nap.

dream job: i would love to work as a historical consultant on a period piece one day, or as a writer. more realistically, though, i'm trying to get my phd so i can be a professor. maybe the other will come later once i've got the credentials and experience under my belt. i also still think about getting back into acting and comedy, but i feel like it's probably too late for that.

dream trip: i think iceland sounds nice. or maybe new orleans.

fave foods: my stomach feels awful so i'd rather not think about food right now but i like fried chicken, and chicken strips or tenders or nuggets, stuff like that. various potato dishes. cheeses.

play an instrument: i used to be able to say i played 14 instruments and that i am a classically trained vocalist but i haven't really had the time or access to a lot of the instruments i play(ed) to be able to practice in several years, and i've stopped singing except to myself or my cat.

languages: again i used to be able to say i spoke 5 languages but i haven't had much opportunity to use them so i don't know how good i am at them anymore, but that would be english, spanish, irish, scots (learnt from my grandfather; and yes it is a language), and some french.

fave songs: too many, so i'll limit myself to three: "i courted a wee girl" (cover) by dervish, "recessional" by vienna teng, and "like real people do" by hozier. essentially, i'm sad, dramatic, and love women.

random fact about me: i was born tongue tied, meaning my tongue was almost completely attached to the bottom of my mouth by a strip of skin. it never affected my speech because i learned to talk around it, but it did look pretty weird and kids used to ask me to show them or show their friends and it really freaked them out. i had a surgery when i was 10 or 11 to correct the issue because my mother was worried it would make it difficult for me to speak or do my music later on.

describe yourself by aesthetic things: not sure what this means but i do a lot of historical dress, or just historical inspired dress when it's too hot to actually wear all the layers, which is quite frequent here in the american south, where i live currently. when i'm not dressed like that, i've been described as an "emo hippie" because i wear a lot of loose, flowy black or dark-coloured outfits.

tagging: i'm not sure who's done this already, so i'm not going to tag anyone, but if you'd like to do it, you can absolutely say i tagged you!

[do not reblog this post]

#tag game #do/nt reb/log

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spiderman-homecomeme · 3 years

Photo

you know how to treat it (you know how to eat it)

in which a very drunk Peter calls MJ late one night and tells her about one of his biggest fantasies

thotumn. day 6 & 9. face-sitting. “Shut up.” “Why don’t you make me?”

Thank you again @spideysmjs for setting this up! and bc i am a grandma i don’t know how to schedule things correctly, so this is goin up a little early! Enjoy!

Michelle blinks, eyes itching with exhaustion as she finally closes the textbook in her lap, tossing aside the convoluted words and scribbled notes. It’s late, too late for having an eight AM class in the morning, but Dr. Wheeler seems to have it out for her class, sending out an assignment with just twelve hours to go. You won’t have time in the real world, she’d said. People will throw things at you and ask for it back in an hour, she’d said.

While MJ didn’t doubt the validity of that statement, she thought thirty pages of notes with no warning was a little excessive. This is just undergrad.

Her phone pings, and she knows it’s from Cindy, ranting about that very same assignment. And sure enough, she sees the text wall, the string of upside down smiley-faces. Tapping out a reply in solidarity and a quick good night, MJ sets her phone aside, flopping back against the mattress and tugging the blanket up to her chin.

She’s just turned off her bedside lamp, just nestled into the covers, just found the that perfect spot on the bed, when the buzzing of her phone on the nightstand yanks her back into the conscious world.

Blowing a puff of air through her lips, her curls landing back on her face as she sits up, she grabs for her phone. And even if she’s a little annoyed, a sleepy smile stretches across her lips as Peter’s face lights up the screen.

“Hey.” Her voice comes out in a tired, croaky murmur.

“Emmmmmmm Jaaaaaaaaaaay,” Peter draws out warmly, so much so that she swears she can see his silly, delirious grin.

So he’s drunk.

“Hey, Pete,” she says again, falling back against the pillows. “What’s up?”

“Jus’ wanted to call and say hi—” he says slowly, as if he’s careful not to trip over his words, trying to sound sober even though he’s very much not. “—to my beautiful girlfriend.”

She cracks another smile, glancing at the alarm clock on her nightstand, knocking her feet together. “At… One in the morning?”

Peter gasps. “Aw, shit. Em, did I wake you?”

“Well, no. Not really,” she lets out a light laugh. “I was just getting in bed.”

“Oh. Okay, good.” She hears shifting on his side, hearing him almost drop the phone as he shuffles around what she assumes is his own bed. “Yeah, me too. Harry, Ned, and I went out and… I’ve been drinking. Just a li’l bit. But we got home and I just was like ‘Wow! I really wanna hear MJ’s voice.’ So I called you. Here I am.”

The ooey, gooey side of her that melts when Peter says anything of the sort threatens to come out, and for not the first time, she’s glad to not live in the dorms anymore, her only roommate being on the other side of the apartment. “Cute,” she says.

“Just know I’m giving you the biggest phone-hug right now.” His voice is muffled as he no doubt pushes the phone against his face.

Even cuter.

And even though she feels a little silly, she squeezes her phone, too. “Weirdo,” she says, unable to hide the affection in her tone—though to be fair, she’s not really trying all that hard.

“But you loooooove meeeeee.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“And I love you!” There’s more shuffling on his end, his grunts from trying to get comfortable making her grin. He lets out a long sigh. “God, I can’t wait to see you this weekend.”

MJ’s chest warms at the reminder. “Me neither.”

“We’re gonna have so much sex.”

The snort she lets out surprises her—almost as much as what he’s just said. While she doesn’t doubt his statement—because yeah, she definitely misses that—she just can’t help but laugh. “How much have you had to drink?” She asks.

“Just a li’l…” He mumbles, though from his tone she can tell that he’s severely understating how much he’s had to drink. “Like… I’m drunk but like—I’m not… Druuuunk. You know? Like, I’m not, ‘woooooooooo party!!’ drunk.”

Taking her bottom lip between her teeth, she nods, even though he can’t see her. “Yeah. Sure. Uh huh.”

“I’m jus’ sleepy,” he says innocently. “Very, very sleepy.”

“Then you should go to sleep,” She teases, her cheeks starting to hurt. “Get some rest, Tiger,” she says softly.

“I wanna talk to you first, though,” he says, and she can almost hear the pout in his tone. It makes her shake her head fondly. “I miss you. A lot. So much.”

A pang of something tugs at MJ’s heart. “I miss you, too,” she replies earnestly, a lump forming in her throat.

They knew what they were getting into, going long-distance. What, with Peter choosing to stay at Empire State and Michelle choosing Princeton. It wasn’t too long of a drive, by any means, but it was still an hour and a half. It meant not being able to see each other on the busiest days. It meant having to go weeks without seeing each other, without holding or kissing each other. And it was nights like this, long nights after rough study sessions that she wished they could be together, that she could cuddle up to him and squeeze away all of her worries, even if just for a few moments.

She refuses to let this get to her right now, though. Not while they’re on the phone in the middle of the night. Especially not while he’s intoxicated.

“God, I wish you were here,” she hears him breathe into the phone, and she has to crack a smile at that, biting her bottom lip. That tone is one she’s very familiar with. “With me. In my bed.”

She holds back another snort at that. “Yeah?”

“It’d be pretty nice,” he continues. “I just wanna…”

He trails off a bit, and she’s wondering if he’s fallen asleep when the words tumble out of his mouth.

“Just wanna taste you.”

“Peter!” She scolds him lightly, not expecting him to go from zero to a hundred that quickly.

“I love eating you out, though. Oh my God.”

She can feel her face absolutely burning now, hearing his gruff voice right in her ear; she can picture it so clearly, his head buried between her legs, his curls tickling her thighs as he—

“And you know what’d be, like, really cool?”

She has to laugh at that, covering her mouth, unconsciously crossing her legs. “What?”

There’s another bout of silence where he doesn’t say anything. “I’ve been thinking about this so much, oh my God. But like… I really wanna eat you out but… with like you above me? Y’know? There’s a word, or some term for that I know but I can’t think of it…” His voice lowers to a mumble at the end, and she can hear him take a deep breath as he tries to think. His drunken, fuzzy laugh tugs at her chest.

Her lips twist into a knowing smile, her face hot, a gentle ache forming between her thighs as her own breathing starts to slow. “You want me to sit on your face?”

“Fuck, yeah. That’s it. God, Em. You’re so smart.” He hums. “That’d be so great. So hot.”

“I try,” she jokes.

“You always suc—succeed,” he says, pausing as he tries to navigate each syllable. “I just can’t stop thinking about you and like—your thighs just around my head and you—you just grinding yourself on my face. Fuck—”

She almost hates Peter for bringing this up—drunk or not—because now it’s all she’s going to be able to think about for the next few days until they can see each other. Squeezing her legs together to relieve some of the ache, she smiles. “That does sound pretty cool.”

“Right? So cool. So cool.”

“I mean,” she starts slowly, her fingers absently playing with a loose thread on the blanket. “We could probably try that,” she offers with a feigned sense of nonchalance. There’s nothing casual about how she’s feeling right now. This is definitely something she’s going to have to talk to sober Peter about tomorrow. Or the next time she sees him.

Not ignoring this. At all.

“Wait. Fuck—Really?”

And again, she has to hold back the laugh at how enthusiastic he sounds, feeling that dumb, warm fuzzy feeling even when he’s talking about wanting her to sit on his face.

“Yeah,” she replies, a little breathless.

“You’re the best girlfriend ever,” he beams into the phone. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“And not just because you let me eat you out—”

She swears, if he says, ‘eat you out,’ one more time—

“—But also because you’re so smart, and so funny, and so pretty, and just so amazing, and such a good person and I’m so lucky to have you, like, holy shit. I really hit the jackpot.”

She can only manage a short, near-timid response. It’s not a strange occurrence, her boyfriend showering her with praise—this is just a day in her life being with him. But hearing his soft voice at one in the morning—even drunk—somehow just hits differently. “Well, jeez, Pete…”

“I love cuddling with you, and holding you, and kissing you—”

“—And having sex with me?” She asks, teasing.

“—Especially having sex with you. F’course.”

His voice is starting to trail off, syllables melting together as he fights to stay awake. She wants to call him on his shit, to tease him for tapping out after drunkenly trying to initiate phone sex—sure, it might have been doomed from the start, but it could’ve been fun.

Instead, she laughs, listening as his breathing slows. She smiles hearing his gentle snore.

When he texts her the next morning, he doesn’t mention his little fantasy. In fact, he doesn’t seem to remember their late night phone call at all. The night before is all just a fuzzy, blurry haze of too much tequila shots, according to him. And given how he doesn’t remember the exact number of adult beverages he’d had—it has to be somewhere in the late teens with his super-liver and super-kidneys—it’s not all that surprising that his initial good morning text is just a series of the throwing-up emoji.

At least, she would sincerely hope that’s not related to what he’d said last night.

But still, she decides to take this opportunity to both mess with the love of her life, and surprise him—her two favorite things. This decision comes from how clueless he acts when she asks, the series of question marks that follow her question about what exactly he remembers. She doesn’t fill Peter in on what he said, keeping it all to herself. No, the less he actually knows, the better the surprise will actually be. And the fact that he’s apparently been thinking about this for a long time—all without saying something—just makes it all the more sweeter.

And just as she’d thought, she can’t get Peter’s words out of her mind. With another visit coming up in the next two days, it almost makes the wait even worse. Everytime she so much as stops whatever busy-work she’s doing, her brain immediately swerves back into that lane. In class, in the library, on the quad, in her apartment. It’s all too much. It doesn’t matter. Ever since Peter said that, she hasn’t known peace.

It takes everything in her the next night not to bring it up again during their regular skype call.

No, she’s able to get a grip, at least to some degree.

But every sense of self-control goes flying out the window as soon as she’s on his doorstep.

The door to his apartment isn’t even closed before MJ’s on him. She’s been dangling this “surprise” over his head for the past two days—two days too many. Her kisses are greedy, drinking him in as she grabs fistfulls of his shirt and nearly ripping it off of him. And she revels in the feeling—as she always does—of his skin under her touch after so long apart. The feeling of his hands roaming her hips and waist, needy and insistent, fingers digging into her skin is the high she needs, the one she always needs, that she can’t imagine living without.

“So you really don’t remember what you said on the phone the other night?” She asks against his mouth, perched on his lap, his hands gripping her hips as she unconsciously grinds down.

Peter’s eyes squeeze shut at the feeling, his grip tightening as he breathes out a laugh. “No. No, I don’t.”

“Mmm…” A floaty smile tugs at the corner of her lips as they gently press against his in a deceptively chaste kiss. “Shame.”

He pulls back after a moment, something in his eyes saying that he’s already picked up on her tone. “Was it good? Bad?”

Her hands wander up, hanging around his shoulders, one playing with the curls at the nape of his neck as she squints playfully at him. “I’d say good.”

“Oh?” He takes his bottom lip between his teeth as he looks up at her. “Well, cool. Glad I don’t have to worry about saying something stupid.”

“No, you always have to worry about that.”

“Hey!”

With a swift pinch to her sides, she jerks forward, curling into him with a surprised yelp.

“Don’t be rude,” he says through a laugh, still tickling her. “What did I say?”

“Okay—okay, fine!” Michelle pushes him away, unable to hide the humor in her tone. “I’ll tell you. Or—I guess I’ll show you?”

“‘Kay…” Peter looks up at her with wide, curious eyes; especially when she stands up, removing her shirt and underwear and kicking them to the side. His smile only widens when she pushes him back onto the bed, hovering above him, straddling his hips. And because she can’t help herself, her lips immediately capture his, melting into him with a slow, heated kiss. His breathy moan shoots straight down between her thighs, and she presses against him in an effort to relieve some of the pressure.

There’s a cheeky grin on his face when he pulls back as one of his hands wanders down to roughly knead her ass. “You gonna tell me what I said?”

With another quick kiss to his lips, she sits up. “Well, you were absolutely wasted.”

“Yeah…”

“And you were rambling on and on about how much you missed me, how much you loved me, how much you liked kissing me.” Despite her apparent confidence, her chest and cheeks are burning, her breath catching as she speaks.

“Checks out.” A lop-sided grin tugs at the corner of his mouth.

“And how much you liked eating me out? Apparently?” She just barely makes that out, her heart hammering in her throat, the heat in her center becoming almost unbearable.

Peter closes his eyes, nodding solemnly. “Yes. Yup. I do.” He cracks another smile as he playfully squeezes her hips. “Flavortown is my favorite place.”

“No—” She gently slaps his bare chest, struggling to bite back her own grin. “Stop that.”

Her hand smooths over his pec, down to his abs, smirking in delight as his muscles twitch under her touch.

“Sorry.” He winks. “Continue.”

“Well—” Michelle speaks slowly, starting to move herself up on him. “—You said you wanted to try something. Related. To that.”

His eyebrows raise curiously, his forehead wrinkling. “Yeah?” He asks, tilting his head.

“Yeah. Something about me sitting on your face?”

The way his eyes widen is something she can’t help but find adorable—so much so, she wishes she could take a picture of it. He breathes out a surprised—somewhat horny—laugh. He nods, giving a casual frown.

“So does that sound like something you’d say?” Michelle asks, her voice low. “Is that something you want?”

Peter’s hands wander from her hips, ghosting along her sides, his thumbs caressing the undersides of her breasts, and back down again, and when he looks up at her, there’s something in his eyes that causes her stomach to flip in the best way possible.

But then, of course, he’s Peter.

“MJ, you’ll be glad to know. Just for this moment—”

And he has to open his mouth.

“—I saved the best seat in the house for you.”

He emphasizes his point, patting his mouth with two fingers.

She has to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling, her lips twisting as she glares at him. “Okay. No. I’m done. Bye,” she says, struggling not to laugh as she starts to climb off of him.

“Nooooooo—” Peter immediately keeps her in place, his hands on her hips. “—Please.”

“I’m so tired of you!” She laughs.

“Oh?” Peter tilts his head. “If you’re tired, why don’t you—” Another pat to his face. “—Take a seat?”

Only he can make her eyes roll in the back of her head in more than one way. “Shut up.”

There’s stupid, lopsided little grin on his face—full of too much mischief—as looks up at her, challenging. “Why don’t you make me?”

And she could swear that the wind’s been knocked out of her at that moment, the corner of her lips twitching upward into a surprised smile.

He scoots them back, close enough that she can hang on to the headboard—of which he tells her she’ll definitely need to do.

She almost smacks him again.

The air around her crackles with electricity as she slowly climbs up his chest, his hands on her thighs guiding her as she moves to straddle his face. Her own hands steady herself on the headboard, but she doesn’t look down until she’s in place, because, to be frank, it’s a lot to take in. Sure, she’s seen his face between her thighs plenty of times—it’s become one of her favorite sights in the world—but this, being above him, his mouth and nose covered by her as their eyes meet causes a heady rush to flare in her chest. There’s something about the way he grips her legs, his fingers digging into her thighs as he pulls her down.

It’s gentle at first, the deceptively chaste kisses he plants along her center, his eyes fluttering closed as he breathes her in. Already, he’s barely touched her and she feels seconds from falling apart, her face burning as his gaze flits up to meet hers. His lips ghost around her clit, never quite touching where she wants, and she can feel him smile against her as she unconsciously tries to grind herself onto him. He holds her still, looking up at her with a raised, amused brow, before licking a long stripe up her center.

The breathy moan he releases as he tastes her sends her head thrown back, and he smiles again as she sucks in a breath at the vibration, her grip on the headboard tightening. A shuddering sigh slips past her lips as his tongue swirls her arousal around, dipping down to the wetness at her entrance, his nose brushing against her clit.

It’s the whine that leaves her lips that has him desperately pulling her closer, pressing her to him with such need, such hunger, such insistence; as if she’s oxygen. He moans without abandon into her cunt, his hard sucking on her clit causing a jolt of electricity to shoot up her spine, her toes to curl into the sheets.

“Fuck, Peter—” She breathes, hanging her head as she struggles to hold herself upright on the headboard.

He only hums, clearly in enthusiastic agreement, holding her flush against him, mouth hot and wet as he laps fervently at her heat, his fingers massaging her thighs, drifting to her hips and squeezing, before finally coming to the curve of her ass.

She’s uncharacteristically shy at first, the tentative rocking of her hips coming in the heat of the moment. The muscles in her thighs twitch when he flattens his tongue and guides her, grinding her against him, his grip on her turning his knuckles white.

It’s always intoxicating, feeling him everywhere, his soft lips as they suck her clit, then his tongue as it spreads her arousal, as it starts fucking into her so well. A moan rips through her, her wet breath catching as he wraps a hand around to flick at her swollen clit. The warmth pooled in her lower stomach swells, melting, radiating through her legs to the tips of her toes, up to her chest.

One of her hands falls from the headboard, snapping to his head, fingers carding through his curls for purchase, her chest heaving as fucks her with his tongue. A throaty moans escapes him as she jerks him closer, rutting herself against his face as she arches her back.

She’s so close. Her thighs squeeze his head, the coil within her tightening and tightening, and—in an instant—there’s the invasive thought that he might not be able to breath. But when she tries to loosen up, when she starts to pull just an inch away, he reels her right back, more insistent, his hands on her hips, weighing her down.

“So fucking good, MJ,” he praises filthily into her cunt, emphasizing his point with a hard slap to her ass.

Her back straightens, rigid as she chokes on a gasp, the lewd sounds of his needy grunts, his sloppy kisses, her arousal—how wet she is on his lips and tongue—cause her body to burn, to set her skin alight, and she almost curses the both of them for not doing this sooner.

It’s addictive, dangerously so, as she crumples forward against the headboard, her fist still in tangled in his hair, her muscles tightening, burning. This time, she doesn’t stop herself as her thighs close around his head, squeezing with a force that only eggs him on, his mouth urgent as it works her over.

“That’s it, baby—” His voice is muffled in her heat, drowned by his ministrations.

She comes with a broken whine, panting with want as she feels herself spasming, a floaty, wavy smile pulling at her lips as Peter laps her through her orgasm.

But even as she comes down from her first high, Peter—never one for backing down—doesn’t seem ready to quit. When she pulls up again, he yanks her back, his gaze pleading as he looks up at her, silently begging her not to move. It’s so soon after, though, and his mouth still so hot on her sensitive clit sends a shock through her, her hips desperately rocking against his face—the feeling both too much and not enough.

Her second orgasm takes her by surprise, ripping through her as he sucks harshly on her clit. It’s an out-of-body experience—cliche as it sounds; she swears her vision goes out for more than a second, and she wonders if she’s somehow accidentally pulled a chunk of his hair out with how hard she was gripping. It takes more than a moment to come back to reality, her hips bucking as Peter still laps languidly at her cunt, flicking slowly at her clit, as if he still hasn’t had his fill. It’s almost as if he’s making a show of it, the moans coming from his lips, the vibrations of them against hers, somehow making her even wetter.

He pulls back slightly, and her mouth and throat goes dry seeing his nose, mouth, and chin slick and glistening with her. His lips puffy and pink, hair wild, looking completely fucked out. “You think you got a third?” He asks with a gentle pat to the curve of her hips.

And it’s his voice that makes her have to keep her eyes from rolling back; at least an octave lower, husky.

But it’s the adoration in his eyes that makes her heart swell.

Taking a shuddering breath, she nods. “Yeah,” she replies, biting her lip through a smile. “Please.”

He grins back up at her, scooting down on the bed a bit, pulling her with him. It gives her enough room to bend forward, now bracing herself on the mattress. His warm breath fans over her soaked cunt, and it takes everything in her not to squeeze her legs together again. His hands smooth over her skin, kneading the flesh of her ass as he pulls her down again. And he takes a moment to place another tender kiss on her sensitive clit—a gesture and touch that causes her hips to jolt—before taking hold of her and roughly pulling her down again.

This time, he’s quick to wrap his lips around her clit, sucking and swirling his tongue over the sensitive bundle of nerves, yet still savoring her. Her choked moan is cut off as one of his hands coils around behind her, swiping his fingers through her wetness, coating themselves in her arousal.

How Peter can get these sounds out of her, she thanks whatever higher power there is for that. The breathless whine the tumbles from her lips as her jaw goes slack, her body slumping further as he starts to pump two fingers into her, curling just so that she can’t help but chant his name like a prayer, over and over into the pillow.

It’s not long before she’s coming all over his fingers, his mouth, feeling herself fluttering around him as she desperately grinds down. For a moment, she almost forgets where she is, smiling and mumbling dreamily, not even sure what she’s saying as Peter moves out from under her. She feels his lips on her back as he kisses his way up her spine, his lips soft and gentle, full of love, on her skin.

When he reaches her face, his hand moves to cup her cheek as he lays beside her, his thumb smoothing over her skin.

She blearily looks at him, dazed, body still thrumming, buzzing from her third orgasm.

“Hey,” he says, his smile lop-sided, dopey; an expression so soft coming from someone doing such filthy things moments before.

Peter.

And MJ hums, closing her eyes again as he pulls her close, capturing her lips with his in a searing kiss. Another moan escapes her as she tastes herself on his mouth, her tongue slipping past his lips, drinking him in.

When he pulls back again, he can’t help but bite his lip. “How was that?” he asks, though from the smirk on his face, he seems to already know the answer.

Still breathless, MJ grins, shrugging as she starts to sit up. “It was alright.”

“Woooooow.” His jaw drops in mock-offense as he follows. “Three times was alright?”

“I think we’ll have to do it again,” she teases. “Just so I can really form an opinion. You know?”

“Oh, of course,” he murmurs, looking up at her with half-lidded eyes, his hands migrating to her hips, ready to pull her into his lap.

But she stops him, her eyes tinted with mischief as she glances between his face and the outline of his painfully hard cock straining against his boxer briefs.

“Is this seat taken?”

#spideychelle #thotumn 2020 #the return of flavortown #lmao #rated: e #petermj #the day 6 and 9 thing was not planned i swear dkfjslajfdak

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atlafan · 4 years

Text

Take it Slow - Part Thirty-Seven

a/n: okay this is my first shot at a harry:y/n fic, and it will be multiple parts. y/n had a bad experience with an ex over a year ago, and finally accepts her coworker and good friend Niall’s invitation to go on a blind date with his friend Harry.

Warnings: Fluff and Smut.

Masterpost (all previous parts can be found in the masterpost)

Niall really did have the best tequila. You and Sarah were playing just dance while the guys made margaritas. You and Sarah couldn’t stop giggling as you played the game.

“I get to play the winner!” Niall shouts from the kitchen.

“Deal!” You and Sarah shout back.

The boys come over with four frozen margaritas. You and Sarah finish up the game, and you end up winning by a couple of points. You pause the game to take a drink.

“I am suhweating.” You say, taking your drink from Harry, sipping on it. “Mm, so good. I need to take a break.”

You all sit on the floor. Harry lounges, and props himself up with his elbow, hand on his cheek. Niall and Sarah lean against each other.

“You know what would be fun?” Sarah speaks up, grabbing everyone’s attention. “Let’s play never have I ever.” She giggles. “Everyone put their hands in.”

You all shift to lay on your stomachs, propped up on your forearms, hands all in circle. You could feel the tequila hitting you, so you knew this would be fun.

“Okay…hmmm…never have I everrrrr gotten a parking ticket.” Sarah says.

“Ok, we’re playin’ it this way?” Harry chuckles.

“Easing us into the juicy stuff.” She explains. You, Niall, and Harry all take a finger away. “Let’s go clockwise, Y/N, you go next.”

“Hmmm, never have I ever failed a test.” You giggle at everyone’s expression as they take a finger away. “Yikes, you all should study more.” You take a sip of your drink.

“Never have I ever sucked a dick.” Harry says bluntly, clearly trying to make the game more interesting. Niall bursts out laughing. You and Sarah take a finger away.

“Never have I ever been fucked in the arse.” No one takes a finger away. Niall and Harry look at each other and raise both of their eyebrows. “Sarah, you’re turn again.” She takes a sip of her drink, and a devious grin grows on her face.

“Never have I ever…” You take a sip of your drink. “Participated in a threesome.” You choke on the margarita, and start coughing.

“Sarah!” You say, catching your breath. Your cheeks grow bright red.

“What? It’s a simple question. Fingers in or out boys?”

The boys look at each other, then at the both of you. Both sigh, and take a finger away.

“Hah! I knew it.”

Your head hangs as you slowly also take a finger away. Harry’s eyes nearly pop out of his head.

“No fucking way.” He says to you.

“Think this just turned into a share circle, lemme grab the blender, we all need more.” Sarah says. You all sit up, you still can’t look at Harry. Sarah refills all your glasses. “Who wants to go first?”

“I’d like to hear from Y/N.” You slowly meet his gaze and give him a weak smile.

“It…happened when I was in California.”

“Was Rachel involved?” You scoff.

“No…but she had one before and made it sound like fun.” You take a sip of your drink.

“So was it with two guys then?” Niall asks, very intrigued to be learning this about you.

“Um, yeah.” The boys look at each other then back at you.

“But you didn’t take a finger away when I made the arse comment.” You raise an eyebrow at him.

“Right.”

“So…how did you do it?” Harry asks. You look at Sarah, who has heard this story before, and smirk.

“One of them fucked me, while I sucked the other’s dick, okay?”

“The other didn’t want to fuck you?” Harry asks.

“No he did. He fucked me afterwards while the other one made out with me.”

“Did you know them?” Niall asks.

“Sure.” You shrug. “They were part of our friend group out there. Not something I would do again, but it was an experience I can say I’ve had.”

“Do you still talk to them?” Harry asks.

“Nah, lost touch when Rachel and I came back here.” You sip your drink.

“So you’ve had one, and Rachel has had one.” Niall looks at Sarah. “Not you?”

“Believe it or not I’m the most innocent out of the three of us.” She giggles. Niall kisses her cheek.

“Your turn.” You say looking at Harry. “Did you two do it together?”

“Y, yeah.” He looks at Niall and they both shake their heads.

“Undergrad or grad?” Sarah asks.

“Both.” They both say and laugh.

“There was this girl, in undergrad, who had a thing for both of us. We had actually both had sex with her separately.” Niall explains. “She came to one of our party’s one night, and she brought it up. She said she wanted to have sex with us both again, but at the same time.”

“Wouldn’t that have been weird though, since you two are friends?” Sarah asks.

“Not really, not like we hadn’t seen the other naked before.” Harry says.

“And you both were like woohoo let’s do it?” You ask, giggling.

“Pretty much. Wasn’t somethin’ either of us had done before, so we went into my room, locked the door, and did it.” Niall explains.

“And I’m assuming one of you fucked her in the ass?” You say bluntly.

“Mhm.” Harry says.

“Of course it was you.” You roll your eyes.

“Niall was scared, and I had done that before, so it just made sense.” He takes a sip of his drink. “Knew how to be careful, and all that.”

“Okay, so it happened that time, and again in grad?”

“Yeah…with a different girl obviously, but it was sort of the same situation.” Harry explains.

“Niall, who knew you could be so wild?” Sarah giggles, and kisses him on the cheek. “Harry, what did it feel like? I’ve always been so curious about this.”

“What did what feel like?”

“Doing it in the butt.” His cheeks blush.

“Um…well…I don’t really remember.”

“You’re sucha liar.” You slur. “Go ‘head, tell her. S’fine.” When did you get so drunk?

“It just feels really tight, nothin’ really more to it than that.”

“But weren’t you worried about like making a mess or something?”

“Not really. Girls were all clean, used a condom and some lube.”

“I heard you’re supposed to use your fingers first though.” Sarah says.

“You can put a condom on your fingers.” You scrunch your face at the uncomfortable feeling.

“So what, did some girl say fuck me in the ass?” You ask. “Like how does that even happen?”

“Heat of the moment, was a long time ago, love.” He puts his hand over yours.

“I know. I’m not like mad or anything. Was before we knew each other.” You smile reassuringly.

He leans in and kisses you, and you kiss him back. His lips were cold from the frozen drink.

“Okay, okay, not hostin’ a make out party.”

“Aw, but dad.” Harry says, breaking your kiss. “I just like her sooo much.” You giggle.

“Maybe we should get goin’. I cannot wait for the party tomorrow, s’gonna be so much fun.”

“S’gonna be a rager.” Niall says, leaning into Sarah more.

Harry takes his phone out to order an uber. Neither of you were in any condition to drive.

“I’ll have t’pick m’car up tomorrow.”

“S’no problem, mate.”

“S’here babe.” Harry gets up, and helps you to your feet.

“Thanks for a great night guys.” You give Sarah a hug goodbye.

Harry gives you a piggyback ride up the stairs to your door. Both of you giggling the entire time. He keys into your now shared space, and brings you right into the bedroom. You hop off his back.

“I have to pee so bad.” You shuffle into the bathroom. You feel an immense amount of relief. You wash your hands and come back out. Harry was just taking his rings and watch off.

“Baby.” You whine.

“Hm?”

“Can’t reach my zipper.” You pout. He smiles at you. You were just so stinking cute.

“Course.” Both of your eyes were glazed over. “Might want this off too.” He tugs at the scarf around your neck. He unravels it, and hands it to you. He turns you around and unzips your dress. “Such a nice color on you.” He turns you back around. “Really makes those beautiful eyes shine even brighter.”

“Ya think so?” You tug at his shirt and start to unbutton it as you get on your tip toes to kiss him. You stick your tongue in his mouth. Your fingers lace through his hair. “Please fuck me, Harry.” This would be your third time today.

“You sure you feel up to it?” He rests his forehead against yours, rubbing your arms. His touch raising goosebumps on your skin.

“Mhm. Want you so bad, need you.” He loved hearing you talk like this. He wanted to hear every dirty thought you had leave your lips.

“Need me?” He kisses your cheek, then just under your earlobe. You moan out, and push his shirt off his shoulders.

“Feel so empty, won’t you fill me up?” You look up at him through your lashes, and pout again. “Don’t tease me Harry, s’not nice. Like at dinner, you said you wouldn’t tease me if we had sex before we left, and you did it anyways.” You swallow. “Thought I had been a good girl for you.” He tilts your head up by the chin. Your words send a tingle up his spine.

“You were a very good girl.” He tucks some hair behind your ear. “Think ya should be rewarded?” You nod yes. “I agree.” He smiles.

He pushes your dress off your shoulders, and watches it fall to your feet. You had a black lace bra on. He reaches around to unhook it, effortless as usual. He tugs your nylons and panties down, and helps you step out of everything. He takes the rest of his clothes off, and gets you on the bed. He lays you down.

“So how would my baby girl li-.” He looks down and sees your eyes closed and lips parted, light snores coming from you. He wants to scream and wake you up. He finally got you talking like he always wanted, he wanted to see how much further you’d take it, how much further you’d let him take it.

He goes into the bathroom to do his nightly routine. He gets back onto the bed and lays on his back. He was incredibly hard. He could easily just go jerk it, but it wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying as if you were to take care of it. He tried to relax and fall asleep. The alcohol in his system making him drowsy.

You wake up around three in the morning, bladder full. Your head was still fuzzy. You slowly get up and go use the bathroom. Harry was turned away from you on his side. You get back into the bed, trying not to wake him. You remember him taking your clothes off, but you knew you fell asleep before you were able to do anything. You meant what you said earlier, you needed him. You inch closer to him, and spoon him gently.

Harry’s eyes flutter open when he feels your touch. His hard on coming back instantly. You press further into him, and lightly kiss his shoulder. You snuggle your face into his back, and stick your leg between his.

“You awake?” He whispers.

“Mhm.” He turns over to face you.

“Fell asleep on me earlier.” He giggles.

“M’sorry baby.” You lean your head on his chest. Without the alcohol in your system, you certainly weren’t feeling as confident with your words.

“Couldn’t sleep…” He takes your hand and puts it on his hard cock. “Look what ya did t’me.” You smirk.

“Not very nice of me was it?”

“Nope.”

“What do you say we go ahead and take care of this, hm?”

“Think it’s a great idea.”

You pull him on top of you, and start pumping him as his hand dives between your legs. Your back arches when you suddenly feel him knuckle deep.

“Fuck, Harry.”

“Like feelin’ me so deep?”

“Yes.” You moan. “Wanna feel your dick.” He kisses you and sucks your bottom lip into his mouth.

Harry retracts his fingers from you, and lines himself up, slowly pushing inside. You both moan out at the feeling, his swollen cock finding some relief from being inside you. The hand not propping himself up goes for one of your breasts and kneads it, fingers finding your nipple, and pinching it. Your wrap your legs around his waist, and he starts to move. Your head falls back into the pillow. You felt addicted to him, now more than ever. You always wanted Harry, but now that the two of you were having sex, real sex, it was like you wanted him quite literally every second of the day. You just wish you could adjust to him more easily, so when you wanted to go a second round you wouldn’t have to wait hours. Although, it was pretty fun to tease him.

You tug at his hair as he hits bottom, and quickens his pace a bit. He does all he can to not pound into you too hard, as much as he’d like to. He wanted to absolutely wreck you, to make you forget about any more person you’ve ever been with. To make it so you couldn’t even remember a time before him. He takes one of your legs and hooks his arm around it, getting in you at another angle.

“Oh fuck, that feels good.” He starts hitting that spot from within.

“Yeah, you like that?”

“Yes.” You moan.

“Touch yourself while I’m doin’ it.” You move a hand down your clit to rub yourself. “That’s so fuckin’ hot, you have no idea.” He nips at your jaw, and at the skin just under your ear.

“Harry.” You moan, music to his ears. “Harry.” He starts moving his hips in a circle to match the motions you’re making on yourself. “Harry!” Your eyes screw shut, he feels you pulse around him. Your legs shake as you ride out your high. “Shit.” You say out of breath. The orgasm you just had was indescribable. You weren’t sure how he was able to do this to you.

He doesn’t give you much time to recover before he starts thrusting in and out of you again. You were sensitive now, and over stimulated. The man with the inked skin, and chiseled chest hovering over you was the absolute love of your life. You never wanted to let go of him, ever. You feel tears start to well up. He looks down when he hears a sniffle, and immediately stops moving when he sees the wetness go down your cheeks.

“Fuck, what’s did I-“

“Don’t stop, babe.” You put your hands on his hips.

“But you’re...you’re crying, what happened?”

“Nothing, m’just happy. Happens sometimes when the o is that good.” You smile. He sighs with relief. “I love you, Harry.”

“I love you too, Jesus ya scared me.” Your eyes continue to leak. “You can stop crying.” He chuckles, and starts to move again.

“I’m trying, but it won’t stop.” You giggle.

He leans down to kiss you, tongues intertwining. You pull him as close as you possibly can. You realize now that you weren’t just fucking, you were making love. Your hands reach for his, and your fingers lace together. He brings them up over your head as he buries his face in your neck. He was breathing heavy, so lost in you he couldn’t take it anymore. You feel his hot come shoot inside you with sloppy thrusts. He stays on top of you for a few moments, both of you needing a second to catch your breath. He leans up and kisses you, you wrap your arms around him.

“I love you.” You say against his lips.

“Love you more.” He says right back.

After cleaning yourselves up, you cuddled and fell back asleep. You decided to go to the gym in the morning while Harry slept in. You would’ve slept in too, but you didn’t want to waste your second to last day off from work. When you came home, you saw a smoothie sitting on the counter for you, and Harry sitting at his desk. You take the drink and gulp it down. You come up from behind him and give him a kiss on the cheek.

“Thanks for making this, love.”

“No problem.” He smiles.

“M’just gonna go shower quick, and then do you wanna go grocery shopping? The fridge is barren.”

“Sure, sounds good.”

About two minutes into washing your hair, you hear the bathroom door click open. You knew he was going to follow you. You part the shower curtain slightly and give him a look.

“Hi.” He says.

“Hello.”

“Can I join you?”

“Sure.” You giggle. He takes his boxers off, and steps into the shower.

One decent shag, and three orgasms later, you both get out of the shower and get dressed. You were sore, there was no doubt about that. You had fucked more times than you could remember in such a short amount of time, but once it started to feel really good, you didn’t care how sore you’d be later. You grab your reusable shopping bags, get into his car, and head to the store. His large, ring clad hand stays on your thigh the entire time.

“You know, I really do like this new ring.” You say, twisting it on his pinky.

“Me too, perfect find.”

“You know which one I like best?”

“Which one babe?”

“The rose.”

“One of my favorites too.” He gives your thigh a squeeze.

Harry pushes the cart and watches you talk to yourself as you read from your shopping list. Everything you did was cute to him. From the way you’d furrow your brows at the prices, to the way your face would light up when you’d find a coupon for an item. He never really liked grocery shopping before. He always got frustrated with the people who would just stand around taking up space. But it was fun with you. You’d hold up different things to him and ask him which he’d prefer. You’d ask him what he’d like for dinner during the week. He was fully considered in whatever you were planning.

“We should probably pick something up to bring to Niall’s tonight.” You say scanning over your list to make sure you had everything you needed.

“Maybe a couple bottles of wine?”

“Good idea.” You kiss him on the cheek, and head down the liquor isle. “What do we think, red or white, oh maybe one of each?”

“One of each sounds good.”

You grab the bottles and stick them in the cart, making your way to the register. You stop short to look at him.

“What?”

“We haven’t talked about this yet, but just as we’re splitting the other bills now, I’d like us to split the groceries too. I don’t want you being sneaky and trying to pay for all of it, okay?” He wants to fight with you about it, but figures it’s a lost cause. Besides, splitting the groceries really did make a lot of sense.

“Alright, we’ll split ‘em.” You smile big at him, and start to place the items on the belt.

You take out your bags and hand them to the bagger. The cashier scans your coupon app.

“Harry Styles, is that you?” You both hear a woman say. She was pushing a cart with a smile child in it

“Lydia!” Harry exclaims, and give the woman a hug. “Oh my goodness, look at how big Marie has gotten!” The child beams up at Harry. “Haven’t seen you in ages Marie.” He holds his hand up for a high five.

“We need to come see you again soon.” Lydia turns to the side and rubs her stomach. Harry gives her another hug.

“Congratulations. I know how hard it was with you to get pregnant with this one.”

“Thank you so much, Mark and I are thrilled.” You make a coughing noise.

“Oh, sorry, Lydia, this is my girlfriend Y/N.”

“Nice to meet you.” You put your hand out to shake hers.

“Same to you. Wow, a girlfriend, last time I saw you I didn’t think that word was even in your vocabulary.”

“Very funny. Just moved in together believe it or not.”

“Wow! Congrats to you then. Listen, is your number still the same? I think in a month or so we’ll be ready to take baby announcement pictures.”

“Yup, all contact info is the same.” He smiles.

“Wonderful, I’ll definitely be calling. Your boyfriend here is the best photographer I’ve ever worked with.”

“He really is.” You smile.

“That’ll be $120.43.” The cashier breaks up the conversation.

“We’re going to split this.” Harry says, handing him his card first. “It was so good to see you.” He gives Lydia one last hug.

“You too. Talk soon.”

After you pay for your half, and get everything into the car, you ask how he came across Lydia.

“She and I actually go way back, she was a senior when I was a freshman. We had taken some random elective together and got paired up on a project. We became pretty good friends. She was already dating her now husband Mark, nice guy. I took their wedding photos for them. They had a really tough time getting pregnant. She lost two babies in the process, just awful.” You nod along. “When she was able to stay pregnant, I took her maternity photos, and then took newborn pictures for Marie. And I think we did one year pictures for her too. She’s about three now. Nice to see her carrying again.”

“That’s going to be so special when you take new photos from them.”

“That literally just made my day runnin’ into her.” He glances over at you, and raises your hand to his lips. “Shoppin’ with ya was pretty fun too.”

When you get home you work together to put everything away. You’ll meal prep everything you need tomorrow. You go into your closet trying to decide what you’ll wear tonight.

“How come you’re doin’ that now?”

“Just wanna see what I have hanging up.” You look over to your pile of dirty laundry. “Might wanna wear that blue dress I wore in London actually. So much laundry to do.” You pick up your basket and bring it over to your washer to throw a load in. “I can do yours too, just set your basket over here for me.”

“I can do my own laundry.”

“I’m already doing mine, I really don’t mind sweetie.” You press start on the washer. “In fact, I think today is going to be a chore day. I need to strip the bed and change the sheets, scrub down the bathroom, clean up the kitchen, dust vacuum.” He blinks at you.

“You do all that in one day?”

“Sure, then it’s all done for the week.”

“Alright, well I can wipe down the kitchen.”

“You’ll need to mop too. Swiffer’s in the pantry.” You wink.

You strip the bed, and put fresh sheets on. Then go into the bathroom and bleach it down. You were starting to sweat and your nose was beginning to run. You needed to take a break before the fumes made you pass out. Harry was leaning against the counter, phone in one hand, rag in another mindlessly rubbing a circle of cleaner around. You shake your head, and snatch the rag from him.

“Hey.” He says.

“That’s not going to clean anything.” You take the bottle of granite cleaner and spritz it across the island. You rub big circles one way, and go back over it another way. “You have to like wax on, wax off. I don’t mind doing this stuff. Maybe, could you just take of all the trash, and put new bags in?”

“Sure.”

“Don’t forget the trash in the hall bath too please. And then could you take a stack of toilet paper and replenish it under the cabinet in there?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you!”

You wipe down the kitchen while Harry takes out the trash. You finish up in the larger bathroom, and make your way to the washer and dryer to flip your load. Then you go down to the hall bath and clean up the sink and toilet.

“Harry, can you bring me the Swiffer please!” You yell to him. In a couple minutes he brings it to you.

You wipe down the tile in the bathroom, and then mop up your front hallway.

“Could you start vacuuming our room while I dust out here? Already dusted in there.” He loved hearing you say our room. He nods his head. You hear the vacuum turn on, and proceed to dust. The vacuum turns off only after a couple minutes and he wheels it out to you.

“That was quick.”

“Not a ton of floor to clean in there.”

“Did you get under the bed? Detach the nozzle to vacuum off the heat?” He doesn’t say anything, he just turns around and proceeds to do what you said.

Five minutes later he brings it back to you so you can vacuum the living area. He watches how you do it. Eyes squinting at every possible area dust might be. You detach the nozzle, get on your hands and knees and vacuum under the couch. Harry can’t help but smirk at the way your butt wiggles in the air. You get up and use the nozzle to vacuum the couch cushions as well. Harry had never done that before. You think of everything. Once you were done you hand it to him to put away. You look around, satisfied with how tidy and clean everything is.

“So…are we done?” He’s almost afraid to ask.

“Yup.” You plop down on the couch and turn the TV on. “Look at how much we got done today. I went to the gym, we went shopping, and now the place is all clean.”

“You do all the once a week? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you clean like that before.” He sits down next to you.

“I usually do a lot of it when you’re not here, but now that you’re here all the time we can do it together. Many hands make light work.” You kiss him on the cheek. You both decide on The Office.

You grab a throw pillow and put it next to the arm rest so you can lay your head down. You lounge on the couch, your body feeling ready for a nap. Harry sneaks in behind you to hold you as you both watch TV. You loved cuddling like this, just enjoying being close to each other. Your feel your eyes become droopy, but you jolt awake when you hear Harry laugh hysterically. You sit up to see tears forming in his eyes. He has to sit up to catch his breath.

“What happened?” He takes the remote to rewind it. Kevin dropped the chili pot.

“That gets me every time, the poor bastard!” He continues laughing. You laugh along with him. He wipes the few tears away. “Man, that is just good television.”

“Babe, you think you ready for some lunch? I’m gonna whip up a salad.”

“Yeah, I could eat. Need any help?”

“Nope, you stay.” You smile.

You chop up some lettuce and other veggies, and make up two bowls of salad for you and Harry. You come back over and it one to him.

“Thank you.” He kisses you on the cheek. You hear the dryer ding and get up. “I can flip the load if you want.”

“S’arlight, I got it.”

You flip the load, feeling relieved there’s only one more load that needs to go in the wash. You return to the couch and scarf down your lunch. You suck on a mint afterwards. A reminder goes off on your phone.

“Oh shit!”

“What?”

“My hair appointment is in half an hour! I completely forgot that was today. Fuck, and I washed my hair already.” You groan.

“So?”

“So my hairdresser is going to wash it again, that’s not good for your hair.” You stand up and grab your keys. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

“Hours?”

“Yeah, it takes like forty minutes for the color to sit, and then she’ll wash it, cut it, and style it.” You hold your phone up to look at your face “Could stand to get my eyebrows done too.” You kiss him on the cheek and head out the door.

Harry goes over to the desk and works on a project that he’s been putting together for you. Once all of the foils were in your head, you decide to send Harry a goofy snapchat. He nearly spits the water out he was drinking when he sees it. Not only were cute, but you were had a good sense of humor.

“How short are going? Gonna let me do something fun?” Your hairdresser asks you.

“Just some long layers like usual, I wanna keep growing it out. I like the way it looks in the high pony when it’s long.”

“Alright. Color is already looking great.” She starts to cut your hair. “We doing a blow out today?”

“Yeah that would be great, could you also throw some curls in? I’m going to a party tonight.”

“You got it. Once I’m done cutting it, I’ll bring you back over to wax your brows, should’ve done it while I was washing your hair.”

“Need my lip done too please.”

You really didn’t mind getting waxed. You had been getting it done for so long you could barely feel it anymore. In fact, you found it pretty relaxing while she plucked a few strays. Your lip, however, still hurt like hell anytime you had that done. You sigh when you feel the cool relief of the moisturizer hit your skin. She blows your hair out, and styles it how you like. She rakes her fingers through it create your waves.

“It’s perfect! Thank you so much.”

You leave a generous, holiday tip as you pay, and head back out to your car. Harry hears you key into the apartment, saves and closes down what he was working on.

“Well?” You say flipping your hair with your hands. “How’s it look?”

“Beautiful as always.” He furrows his brows at your face. “You’re a little red, love, ya feelin’ alright?”

“Oh! Yeah, I just got my eyebrows waxed is all.” You shrug and grab a glass of water. “It’ll go away soon.”

“Your lip’s red too.” He moves to put his thumb over it, but you swat him away.

“If you touch it now I’ll break out. I get my lip waxed too.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, a lot of girls do.”

“It’s noticeable enough that you get it waxed?”

“Yeah. Hurts like a bitch too, but it gives me peace of mind so it’s worth it. My face always feels so clean after I get it all hair free.”

“How did I not know these things about you before?”

“Not sure, I usually wouldn’t see you right after having it done. It’s okay to not notice my lip hair babe.” You giggle.

“Well, your hair looks really pretty.” He takes an end between his fingers. “Very soft.”

“Don’t get any funny ideas, I don’t want it getting messed up before we go.”

“What if you were on top, won’t get messed up that way.”

“I’ll get sweaty. We can have sex when we get back.”

“Ya spoiled me yesterday, we haven’t done it all day.” He pouts. You roll your eyes playfully.

“Oh stop. I need to go figure out what I’m wearing. It’s gonna be cold tonight, I don’t really feel like wearing a dress.”

He follows you into the bedroom. You dig through your closet for something to catch your eye. You find a black lace dress you haven’t worn in a while. It was form fitting and deep cut. It had long sleeves, so you knew you wouldn’t be frozen.

“I’ll have to tape my boobs in, can’t wear a bra with this.” The back of the dress was deep cut as well.

“Thought you didn’t want to wear a dress.”

“This looks so cute though. And I have the perfect black nylons and heels to go with it. What are you going to wear?”

“Not sure. Might where my grey trousers and like a light pink button up.”

“Oh! That would look nice babe.” You find the garments he’s talking about on his side of the closet and lay them on the bed for him. You furrow your brows. “Yeah, I like that.” You look up and smile at him.

You put your makeup on in the bathroom, and pull your dress on halfway up. You grab your boob tape and do your thing to keep them in place, and pull the rest of the dress up. The dress never looked so good on you. You lean against the doorway when you see Harry. He’s cuffing the ends of his shirt. God, his butt looked so good in those pants. Sometimes you almost wished he worked a corporate job just so you could see him dress like that more. His eyes snap up to look at you and his jaw drops.

“You…you look so…fuck.” You push your hair away from your face and blush. “This is gonna be a long night.” You saunter over to him, and give him a kiss.

“You don’t look too bad yourself.” You grab a tube of red lipstick off your dress and go back into the bathroom.

He follows you in to watch you put it on. He liked watching you smack and rub your lips together. You blot your lips and pucker them in the mirror. Then you check your teeth to make sure nothing got on you.

Harry wasn’t sure how he was going to make it through the night without being able to touch you the way he was desperate for. You looked absolutely incredible, and you knew it. As you slipped your heels on and looked at yourself in the mirror, you felt truly powerful. You saw a version of yourself that hadn’t seen in a long time. You were happy to see her again.

#harry styles #take it slow #harry styles imagine #harry styles x reader #harry styles y/n #harry styles fluff #harry styles smut #fluff #smut #harry styles smut fic #harry styles fluff fic #harry styles y/n fic #sorry this part got long #we love domestic harry #hes a dumbass sometimes tho #do we still like the story?#are you done with me yet?

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always-against-the-grain · 4 years

Text

thirds

Summary: You invite Negan over for dinner when your parents are out of town. Continuation of party favor

Pairing: AU Negan x reader (female, named Eddie)

Tags: AU Negan, Negan smut, Negan x reader, rough-ish smut

A/N: no proof read. we die like men

“Oh, fuck” you complained to no one, feeling your muscle soreness settling in as you hopped off your fathers SUV.

You had just come back from the gym and were excited to have the house to yourself. Your folks left town for your mother’s work and you had your whole night planned, get a stoned, eat some lasagna your mom pre-made for you, shower, smoke some more, watch some stand-up, and rub one out.

As you walked towards your front door you heard the faint clinking noises, accompanied by soft rock music; noticing Negan’s half open garage, beaming white light escaping onto the gray pavement.

You entered your home and read the note on the counter:

Eddie,

Your dad and I left for my work trip (that free loader). Left some lasagna in the fridge. 375 45 min.

Love you,

mom (and dad)

DONT USE THE GARBAGE DISPOSAL. Negan will take a look tomorrow at 9am, so please be up to let him in and get coffee going.

Knowing Negan was going to be in your home soon brought tingles to your insides. Reminiscing on how you fucked you in the bathroom a little over a week ago.Your memories aroused you, but frustrated you as well, remembering how he toyed with you that firework infused night.

You snapped yourself out of it and began setting the oven when the door bell rang.

You walked over an peeked through the side window.

Negan?

You opened the door and without a proper greeting you asked, “Um, weren’t you supposed to come by tomorrow?”

“Well hello to you too” Negan commented on your weak hospitality.

“And yeah, for the sink... I’m just here to let you know you left your headlights on” he informed you, tilting his head to the direction of the driveway.

“You couldn’t call?” You questioned his motives for being at your doorstep.

Not that you wouldn’t fuck him over and over, but you wanted to be the one to initiate that. He wasn’t gonna control the situation this time.

“Your folks got rid of the landline.”

That comment served as a potent reminder that you hadn’t physically lived in that house other than school intermissions, and that you didn’t know that much about Negan regardless of how good friends he and your parents were.

“And I don’t have your number, cause that would be inappropriate” He added with a smirk, knowing you were miles past appropriateness.

“Funny” you commented on his response in a dead-panned tone.

You reached for the keys on their respective hook on the wall and walked out towards the car, Negan followed behind. You unlocked it and reached your arm in to switch the lights off.

You shut the car door, noticing Negan was cutting through the lawn, half way towards his front door.

Having already gotten you slice of Negan you couldn’t resist him. Flashes of what tonight could potentially lead to infiltrated your mind.

Fuck

“Hey!” you called out to him.

Negan stopped in his tracks and turned his head towards you.

“You like lasagna?”

He paused in thought for a moment.

Should he enter your home without your parents? What if a neighbor saw? What would they think?

“Is it your mothers or that frozen shit?”

“It’s a Frankie original”

“Fuck. Alright” he was easily convinced.

Your mom did make a mean lasagna.

You set the prepared lasagna on the counter as you continued to wait for the oven to heat.

“You can take a hit of that if you want” you gestured towards the packed glass pipe and lighter sitting at the edge of the bar countertop.

“This what you always do when your parents aren't around?” He asked, reaching for the pipe.

“Smoke? Or invite not-age-appropriate men over?” You teased.

“Both” he said as he struggled with the lighter.

Spark after spark with no flame.

“I think that ones out. Let me get another” you skipped upstairs to your room.

Negan waited patiently, flipping through his phone. He noticed some leftover oil and grim on his fingers and got up to wash his hands. While you were in ransacking your drawers, your phone rang downstairs.

Negan let the first call go, but when the second call came he peaked over, concerned it was one of your parents needing to get a hold of you.

He was thrown off by the name on the screen.

Myles

“Found one” you said coming down the steps, Negan in the middle of drying his hands.

“Here” you handed it to him feeling the dampness on his fingers.

“Thanks doll. Your phone rang by the way” He let you know as he sat back down on one of the stools.

Negan took a couple hits as you opened up your phone and typing a quick message before setting it down.

Negans curiosity quickly unraveled.

“So whose Myles?” Negan asked, smoke exiting along with his words, “Myles with a Y...”

“Um. He is.. he’s my.. boyfriend” you said awlwardly, knowing how fucked up it sounded.

“If he’s your boyfriend, why the hell did you sleep with me. Twice for that matter” Negan questioned, almost interrogating you

“One, don’t come at me like that,” your defenses riding

“Two, it’s not like I’m doing anything he’s not already doing” you replied, taking a hit.

“Shit really? How do you know?”

“We were on a date one night, it was a normal day” you spoke holding your breathe and smoke in.

“and- and I don’t know, I looked at him, and I just knew.” Your voice becoming clearer as the white clouds left your body.

Woman’s intuition, Negan thought to himself. Reflecting on his own past.

“And his messages proved it so, there’s that” you added.

“Shit I’m sorry doll” Negan empathized, taking the pipe for his turn.

“It’s okay...” you said, a bit of sadness painting over your face.

“...you’ve help me get over it quite a bit” your voice lightening up, trying to keep yourself from getting down.

“Does he know you know?” he asked sparking another hit.

“Nah, not yet.”

“Why haven’t you told him? Hoping to work it out?” Smoke blowing from his lips

“Fuck no!” you laughed

“I didn’t confront him about it cause it was right before summer, he’s abroad, I’m doing an internship here. Would’ve been really stressful dealing with a break up right now.”

“But that a bridge we’ll cross when we get there, in the mean time I’m just gonna dick around” you said nonchalantly as you reached for the pipe once more, intentionally grazing his hand half a second slower.

Your final hit closed the conversation on your relationship.

You set the pipe down, free for Negan to grab if he’d like to continue.

“Okay, what about you? What’s your is deal, what do you do around here?” You guided the conversation towards his occupation, rather than his love life, worried that that information might put you off.

Negan grabbed the pipe.

“I teach” he said before taking a puff.

“You teach? You? A cigarette smoking, beer drinking, motorcycle driving, bachelor?” You busted his balls

“First of all honey, there’s not a wrong way to live a life. And secondly, I know I’m not perfect. Hell, I’m light years from perfect, but I am proud of what I do. I’m a good ass teacher, I make these kids find awe in bi-fucking-ology .”

“Biology? I’m sorry, but this is wild! I didn’t expect you do me a science geek.” You were actually intrigued, “How’d you get into teaching?”

“Well, I did my undergrad degree in biology. And I TA-ed a course and I realized I really liked teaching so after graduation I went ahead and got my Master’s in education.”

“Wait, I thought you coached”? You jumped to the next question

“I do that too. I teach 4 classes, 2 intro bios, 1 ap bio, and one health period. Then coach after school”

”What do you coach?”

“Coach women's basketball in the winter, and help out with baseball in the spring.”

“I’m guessing you like it? You seem very passionate.”

”I love this teaching shit. Plus, I’m someone these kids can talk to, someone who can guide them and be raw-fully honest about anything- I don’t patronize these kids. I get to be the person I needed at their age, it’s a sweet gig” He couldn’t help the smile spreading on his face

This conversation fine tuned your image of Negan. You found yourself lost in the dichotomy of it all. Here he was, shirt covered in black oil stains, smoking weed, cursing, yet vulnerable, gentleness peaking through his macho-ness.

Beep

You walked over to lay the lasagna on the rack. Negan admiring your ass as you bent over. He stared for as long as he could. Blood flowing to his manhood.

“So, we got 45 minutes to kill” you closed the oven and walked around the counter towards him.

Your hands went towards his knee cap, pushing his leg out to fit your stature between his seated figure.

“What can Coach Negan teach me in that time?” you whispered as your lips gravitated towards his.

You wantonly kissed him. Sliding your tongue in his mouth to wrestle with his. His hands firmly cupped your ass, pulling you closer to him.

“There she is.” He applauded, as you tugged on his lower lip.

“I was waiting for your dirty side to come out and play” he said, knotting his fingers through your hair that was in a post-work-out messy bun.

You tried to bring your mouth back to his and you got close, but his firm grip held you back.

“Uh-huh” he said, barely audible.

Negan stuck his tongue out slightly, leaning towards you. Your lips were ready to welcome him, before he sprung back.

“Fucker” You let out a sigh that was between a laugh and utter frustration.

He toward over you, staring at you lustfully.

He had you desperate for more. Negan felt your try to fight against his grasp again.

“You lack patience” He informed you, keeping you away from him.

“And you’re a tease” You immediately shot back at him

He closed his fist further, the taut strands pulling on your scalp, “I’m not a tease. I just know what you can handle.”

“I don’t think you do” You were up for the challenge.

“Oh, honey” He smirked doubtfully.

Butterflies flooded your gut, tingles shot across your upper back. You were nervous, but gave him no indication of that, so he figured he’d teach you lesson, put you in your place.

“Other than the word ‘stop’ is gonna make me stop. Are you okay with that?”

“Yes” You answered attempting to kiss I’m once more.

Negan kept a tight grip of you hair, but allowed you to bring your mouth to his.

He brought his other hand to your clothed center. Pulling his lips away to see your reaction.

Breathily moans began spilling out of you. Your eyes fluttering shut, focusing on his touch.

He stopped his maneuvers, “Look at me”

Once you opened your eyes and locked with his he resumed to pleasure you.

He stood up, hands still wrapped in your hair and on your womanhood. He kept you neck extended, staring into your eyes as you both stumbled toward the living room couch. His eyes told you he was excited to show you what you had not yet experienced.

He gave your final rubs before as you arrived to the L-shaped couch.

You began undressing other other. As each item of clothing disappeared you found new areas to grope each other.

“Oh fuck,” he mumbled as you reached for his heavy member, pumping him slowly.

Negan grabbed the sides of your jaw, giving you a nasty kisses before directing you in a face down position. He placed you on your knees, your rear directed upwards. The feeling the cool air gust over your wet center gave you shivers.

He lightly tapped your clit with his dick. He did that multiple times before sliding it between your folds, lubricating himself with your fluids.

“Ugh Negan... fuck” you mewled

You started to lean back into him, wanting more contact. Negan didn’t appreciate it that. He held your hip tightly with his other hand as he teased you for what felt like hours. He eventually stuck the tip of his cock inside you and sat still.

You knew if you moved he would make you wait longer. You decided to be patient and let him make the call. Admitting to yourself that he took the wheel form you once more.

Once you’re breathing settled, Negan stuck the entire length of his member in one motion, accompanied by a load groan.

“Oh fuck” you yelled as your entrance stretched around him.

Negan brought his hand to the side of your face to hold you down. You felt your check rub harsher against the couch cushion as he built up speed. The sound of his balls slapping against your wet pussy filled the family room.

His thrusts were euphoric and dominating. He was punishing you and wanted you to enjoy it.

In between his plunges you were able to catch a whiff of his cologne with his natural musk sprinkled in. That scent did something primal to you.

Your felt your release was close.

“Ne-, I’m- I’m” you started to inform him.

He began to force himself harder and deeper. You couldn’t keep your position, your pelvis dropped, your leg fell of the edge, squirming and kicking.

“Mmmmm!! Fuck!” Your toes splayed as your climax enveloped you.

You thought Negan would slow down after cumming that hard, but he kept pushing into your prone body at the same pace. Your hand reached back to brace his quad, hoping to diminish his thrusts.

Negan roughly gripped the hand that was trying to stop him and pinned it over your head, his long torso over your back, closing the space between you.

His hips continued to drive into you as he growled in your ear, , “This is what punching above you’re weight class is baby.”

You began moaning, not you’re typical moans though. The sounds escaping you sounded like a porno. If you heard a voice recording of this moment you would swear it was staged

Groans bubbled and escaped Negan as he felt his release building.

He clenched your hair and pulled out of you. You were relieved as you were becoming over sensitive.

He brought his member over your face, holding your head down onto the cushions.

His manhood hovered over you, swiftly pumping himself.

“ughhh” You heard his as his warm milky seed splattered on the side of your face.

He was breathing fast and heavy after his release. He used his member to scoop some of his cum from your cheek and brought it into your mouth.

“Dirty girl” he smiled as welcomed his cock, and sucked tenderly on his bulbous head, extracting all of him.

Afterwards Negan helped you sit up.

He picked up your shirt from the ground and handed it to you to wipe your face.

“Thanks” you said weakly, yet satisfied.

He sat beside you. Hand grazing your thigh, slowly working towards your center, as you rid your face of his seed.

The instant his finger touched you nerve bundle, you jolted away from him, lightly swatting his hand away.

“You okay?” He chuckled, stopping his movements but pulling you back close to him.

“Yeah” you answered “It was just a lot, but it was really good”

“Are you gonna listen to me now? When I say what you can handle and what you can’t?”

“Yeah”

He stared at you, wanted a different answer.

You know that look. It was the ‘yeah’-is-not-an-answer look, given to you by your own coaches.

“Yes” you said clear and respectfully.

“Good” He brought his lips to yours, slipping his tongue through.

Your make out session was interrupted by the oven.

Beep

“Let’s eat” He said.

____________________

After dinner you both hopped in the shower. You had sex again. And he was much slower and gentle in that second round.

Negan sat the edge of your bed, towel around his waist. He looked around your room, while you found something suitable for him to wear.

Half of your room was neat and well put together. The other half looked like an artists went on a bender. The wall and ground were littered with your drawings and ongoing project ideas.

“Here” you handed him unisex navy blue tee and sweats, “Let me know if they fit or not.”

You went back to your dresser to dress yourself in a Nike long sleeve and compression shorts

“How’d that work out?” You asked facing away from him.

“Take a look” He said waiting for you to see what was wrong.

You turned around and didn’t see anything fit too tight or too loose. Then you noticed the sweats were well above his ankles

You burst out laughing “Never thought I’d see you in capris“

“They fit around the waist, that’s what matters” He laughed

You both went back downstairs. Drank beer and played the stand up you had planned on watching. You both sat close to each other, in the very spot you had fucked earlier.

Mid-way Negan interrupted the special, “Hey, when do you head back to school?”

“Two weeks. We’re gonna have a little party. I’m sure my folks will invite you. Why do you ask?”

“Just wondering” he said, but he really was plotting your farewell gift.

#negan x oc #negan x reader #negan #negan smut #Negan's thirst squad

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mosylufanfic · 4 years

Text

Five Times They Got Caught Off-Guard (and one time they decided to settle the question)

Hail, @youareiron-andyouarestrong, I am your Secret Santa! Merry Christmas and here's your present! The prompt “WHO KEEPS HANGING MISTLETOE EVERYWHERE WE ARE” just made me giggle, so I wrote a goofy, fluffy, slightly pratfall-y 5 Times fic. I didn't use all your ideas for majors, but I definitely enjoyed hearing them. You said smut was okay, and while this is still T, it’s pushing the upper edge by the end. I hope you enjoy it, and that you have an amazing remainder of the Christmas season!

Five Times They Got Caught Off-Guard (and one time they decided to settle the question)

Cassian was stripping meat from bone with unsettling efficiency when Jyn walked in the kitchen.

"I can't believe you want more of that dusty jerky," she said, hoisting herself up to sit on the counter. "I've still got strings in my teeth." She picked her teeth with her fingernail to demonstrate.

"I'm making soup," he said, tossing a leg bone onto a plate and a few scraps of overcooked, dried-out turkey meat into a bowl. "Might as well get some good out of this bird."

"Ah," she said, reaching down for a carrot stick from the veggie platter that Han Solo, that cheap motherfucker, had contributed to their dinner. "Good idea. Do Americans really eat one of those awful things every year?"

"I think it's usually a little tastier." He shrugged, as unfamiliar with American Thanksgiving as she was.

A big noisy holiday dinner had been Bodhi's idea. Most of them in the elderly, rambling house just off campus were too poor to make it home over the break, and about half of them were international students anyway.

Add in some of the strays that Bodhi seemed to pick up like a magnet picking up leftover paper clips, and there had been enough people, and enough dishes, to make up for the dreadful main event. Jyn rubbed her belly and wondered if there was any of Bodhi's veggie curry left. Or the elote Cassian had made. Or the chocolate silk pie that their landlords Chirrut and Baze had brought. Her mouth watered.

A yell exploded from the living room. They both paused in what they were doing and exchanged eyerolls. They'd been booed down for attempting to veto the American football game on the telly.

"Call that football," Jyn said, and bit the carrot stick in half.

"Que chafa," Cassian said, shaking his head.

She laughed. "Man United is playing, too. Night game. Probably almost done."

"Since when do you root for them?"

"Watch your mouth, asshole, I'm rooting for whoever's playing them."

He smiled to himself, looking over at her. Suddenly his smile faded.

"What?" she said. "What are you staring at?"

"How long has that been there?"

"What?" She grabbed a spoon out of the drawer and tried to use it as a mirror. "I got something in my teeth?" Fucking turkey. She'd taken a slice for politeness, even though it had required a gulp of water after every bite.

"No," he said patiently, "look up."

She craned her neck and squinted at the ceiling, almost directly above her. "That's mistletoe."

"Yes, I thought so too."

She lowered her gaze and met Cassian's, feeling her cheeks heat. "I didn't put it up."

He looked away, back at the bird he was still stripping down. "Neither did I."

Her lips tingled. She bit them, and made herself stop. "Someone getting ahead of themselves with Christmas decorations," she said airily, hopping off the counter and sliding past him.

He lifted his head. "Where are you going?"

"I - " She shrugged. "Dunno, my room or something."

He reached over and pulled a giant knife out of the knife block. "Here. Make yourself useful and chop some veggies for the soup."

"You're actually going to let me help in your kitchen?"

"It can't be insulted any worse than it was today," he said. "Leia Organa will be running the world one day, but she won't be feeding it."

"It was supposed to be her brother," she pointed out, taking the knife. "Just, his flight got cancelled and she insisted on doing it in his place. Why'd you let her?"

"Because I've never cooked a twenty-pound turkey before and I foolishly thought she had. Celery and carrots," he instructed, passing her the veggie platter. "Leave the tomato and broccoli."

"You still would have been salty if Luke had been cooking the bird," she observed, following orders.

"Yes, but we probably would have been able to eat it."

Jyn chopped up the veggies at his direction. When she was done, she leaned against the counter to watch as he performed culinary alchemy, combining seemingly random herbs and spices with the veggies and the remains of the turkey carcass.

"There," he said, covering it with water and setting the timer on his precious slow cooker. "Let it cook overnight and I'll add noodles in the morning."

She almost moaned. Turkey noodle soup while it was cold and rainy out sounded perfect. "Save some for me."

"Cooks' portion," he said and gave her a rare smile. "You make a good assistant."

"Great," she said. "A fallback in case the cybersecurity market goes to shit before I finish my thesis."

They washed the dishes they'd used, leaving them in the drying rack as the dishwasher chugged away at the dishes from dinner. It was comfortable and companionable and if Jyn thought of the mistletoe dangling above their heads about once a minute or so, she felt sure that Cassian didn't notice.

He nudged her as he was wiping his hands dry. "Want to come hang out in my room? Avoid the fake football?"

She felt the blush start somewhere in her stomach. She crossed her arms, smirking at him. "You hit on all your kitchen assistants?"

Behind his beard, his cheeks darkened. "What? I - no - I - "

Oh. Damn. Well. Fuck, this was awkward.

"I meant to watch the Cruz Azul game on my tablet," he said. "It'll be in Spanish."

She swallowed and attempted a joke. "What's the odds somebody's gonna trip over nothing, roll around like his femur is shattered, and get up five seconds later to jog off the pitch?"

"High," he said, sounding like their housemate Kay, who was going for his PhD in statistics. "Very high."

"Well, that's more like it. Yeah, all right."

Cassian rubbed his temples. He had a bitter headache and had just sent out a piteous text to the house group chat, begging for someone, anyone, to bring him a coffee.

He focused on the essay in front of him. "Alicia, I'd like to see you expand more on this point. You gloss over it somewhat. Professor Draven graded you down for that on your last essay, remember?"

The undergrad he was working with shook her mass of blond ringlets back over her shoulders and scooted her chair closer to his. Why, he couldn't imagine, because his office wasn't much bigger than a closet. "What do you suggest?" she asked.

Even though Alicia was in another section of Professor Draven's 202 class and thus had a different TA, she always came to see Cassian for help with her assignments. A lot of international students in the poli-sci department tended to find him, because of the number of languages he spoke. Alicia had been the most regular this semester, dropping by before every test and essay. Her heavy body spray, some kind of vanilla musk, filled his tiny office and intensified his headache.

He made some suggestions and she noted them down. "So what are your plans for Christmas?" she asked.

"Oh, I can't really afford to go back to Mexico for the holiday, so I'm staying here." He scanned along. "Now this conclusion is rather good, but it will only be strengthened if you expand on your earlier point."

"So you won't see your family? That's so sad, Cassi!" She put her hand on his arm. "My roommate and I are having a party after finals, before I leave for Berlin. Would you like to come?"

"Um," he said. "I - maybe we should get back to the essay."

A knock at the door interrupted him, and he looked up. Jyn leaned in. "Got a coffee," she said. "Want it?"

"Yes, please," Cassian said, reaching his hand out to take it. He took a sip. Three sugars, no cream, perfect. He smiled at her. "Do I owe you?"

"Your first-born, as agreed."

"Will you take a rain check?"

"No," she said, poker-faced, "I demand a baby right now. Make sure it's a nice plump one."

He chuckled and took another drink. His headache was already receding.

Alicia was studying them both, narrow-eyed. "Is that your girlfriend, Cassi?" she asked in German.

But it was Jyn who answered, in the same language. "Nope," she said, leaning against the doorjamb and slurping from her own takeout cup. Tea, probably, strong and sweet and milky. She was very English in that way. "Just his housemate and caffeine delivery person."

Alicia studied her for another moment, then shrugged and smiled. "Nice to meet you." She turned her back and said, "Can you tell me more about the parts in the middle that needed work?"

"Actually," Cassian said, handing her essay back, "I think we were about done."

"Oh - but -"

"I have to prepare for class," he said firmly. "Just work on those sections and it'll be an excellent final project."

"I still wanted to ask you - "

Even more firmly, he added, "I hope you have a good trip back to Berlin."

Alicia bit her heavily-glossed lip. "I'd still love to see you at my party. Here's my address." She scribbled on a piece of paper from her notebook and handed it to him. "Lots of fun, I promise!"

Cassian waited until she was gone to drop it in his trash can.

"Frequent flier?" Jyn asked, taking the seat she'd left behind.

Cassian shrugged, leaning over to crack the window. The air that rushed in was bitter-cold, but clean and fresh, chasing vanilla musk out. "She always wants a lot of help, but never really needs it. Her work is very good as is. I think she just wants reassurance." He opened a drawer and found a pack of crackers, offering her one.

Jyn took it and crunched in. "Or she's pursuing you."

He almost choked on his own cracker. "She's - I'm sorry?"

"She wants in your pants real bad."

"I'm sure she doesn't."

"I'm sure she does."

"She's just a very conscientious student, always works hard on her essays, arrives early for . . . office hours . . . " He trailed off. "Oh."

Jyn chortled into her tea. "Wake up and smell the perfume, Cassi."

He made a face. "Don't."

"Why not? Don't you like it?"

"No, but I've given up trying to correct her." He looked at his trash can, the party invitation taking on a whole different cast. "Hell."

"Not into it? She's pretty cute."

"No," he said. "And annoyed you had to tell me. I thought she just really liked international relations."

She patted his arm. "She probably does, but she's thinking of a whole different kind of relations." She looked up and froze. "And she's very determined about it, too."

"What now?" he said rather wearily.

She pointed and he looked up to see a sprig of mistletoe hanging from his ceiling. He squinted. "How did that get there?"

"Was she early today?"

"Yes, but how would she get it up there?"

"Was your desk rearranged?"

Now that he thought of it, his keyboard was a little off-center, as if it had been moved and then moved back, maybe when a certain blonde German undergrad had climbed up on his desk to hang mistletoe from his ceiling.

Jyn laughed out loud. "For a journalist, Cassian, you're not very observant, are you?"

"I blame the headache," he said, reaching up for the mistletoe. It eluded the very tips of his fingers.

"I got it," she said, stepping up onto her chair and then nudging the keyboard aside so she could climb on the desk.

"Jyn - !"

"I'm fine, I've got it," she repeated, stretching up for the mistletoe. She had to go up on her toes to get at where Alicia had taped it to the ceiling, and yank hard. "What did she use?" she grunted, "superglue?" She yanked again, and the sprig came free, knocking her off-balance. She took a step into thin air.

Cassian grabbed her waist. "Steady!"

She teetered, folded over, grabbed his shoulders, and they both froze. She shifted carefully, getting both feet firmly back onto the desk.

"M'alright," she said.

"Sure?"

"Yeah."

He became aware that his arms were wrapped around her hips and his face was practically buried in her - ah.

And he'd knocked both their chairs aside when he'd grabbed for her. They were just far enough away that he couldn't hook one with his foot and drag it over, not with their combined balances so tricky.

"I'm going to bring you down," he said. "All right?"

"Uh-huh."

He shifted his grip, stepped back, and for a moment her whole soft, curving weight slid down his front. Her boots hit the industrial carpet with a thump, and they both let go very fast.

"Thanks," she mumbled, her face pink. She snatched up her tea, which had miraculously survived the shenanigans, and backed through the door. "I'm just - I - see you at home, yeah?"

"No problem," he said, watching her go.

Jyn walked in, went directly to the couch, and faceplanted.

Some time later, she heard the door open and Cassian's footsteps on the creaky old wood floors. "Jyn?"

"Ungh."

"Are you alive?"

"No."

He sounded amused. "What killed you?"

"An all-nighter," she groaned into the cushions. "A bitch of a project. Bugs. Bugs everywhere. It's raining and I forgot my umbrella so I'm cold and wet, and I didn't eat lunch, and I may have to do my project over again because like I said, it was a bitch."

"Anything else?"

She considered. "My foot hurts."

"Well," he said. "I guess I'll just leave your deceased corpse there to rot. It'll be very smelly." He walked out again, creak-creak-creak.

"Nice," she mumbled into the cushions. "Spending too much time around Kay, that's what he's doing."

She considered getting up. Changing out of her wet clothes. Heating up some soup. She groaned again, and downgraded her expectations to getting her wet socks off.

She'd just chucked them to the floor - splat - and was attempting to burrow her chilled feet into the divide between cushions when the floors creaked again. Something thick and warm settled over her. She grunted and turned her head, rubbing her fingers against the fuzziness of the blanket. "What - "

"Just in case you might be revived," Cassian said, crouching by her head.

She smiled at hm, pulling her feet in under the blanket. They began to sting and prickle with warmth. "It is the season of miracles and all that."

His hair fell damp and soft over his forehead, and his shoulders were rain-spattered, so he must have come in just after her. He could have changed clothes or gotten his own food, but he'd elected to get her a blanket instead.

She wanted to reach out and brush her fingers over his beard. Would it be scratchy or soft? She wanted to run her hand down his throat and feel the motion of his Adam's apple as he swallowed hard.

His eyes flicked up and he frowned.

She pulled her hand to her chest, afraid she might have already been reaching out to touch him. “What?”

He pointed, and she twisted her head on the cushion to see a sprig of mistletoe hanging from the reading lamp parked almost directly above their two heads.

“What - “ she said, looking back at him.

They both realized at the same time how close their faces were, and he lurched back, almost butt-planting before staggering to his feet. “Anyway,” he said. “I’ll leave you to warm up.”

“Thanks for the blanket,” she said. “You want it back?”

He shrugged, backing away. “I have more.”

When he was gone, she pulled it over her head with a groan.

Cassian was grading papers from his section when Jyn found him in the library. "Just who I was looking for," she said, plopping down.

"Have a seat," he said absently, opening up the next essay that had been electronically turned in at the last possible second.

"Have you thought about Christmas presents yet?"

Who could think of presents when he had forty-two essays to wade through and an analysis of the effects of European colonialism on Egyptian foreign policy due in three days? But he set his stylus down and said, "No, why?"

"Because I found the perfect thing for Bodes." She called up a website on her tablet and passed it over. "Look at it. No really. Look. Couldn't you imagine Bodhi's face when he unwraps that?"

Cassian studied the bomber jacket on Jyn's screen. Buttery chocolate-colored leather with a shearling collar, warm and thick and stylish. "He would love it. But the price - "

"I know, I know. That's why I'm showing you."

"Even half the cost is a lot," he said gently. "My budget is candy canes this year and even then it'll be the cheap ones."

"I can math," she said. "And you don't have to give me anything. Look, the more of us get on board, the smaller the individual cost will be. If I blackmail Leia and sweet-talk Han and you appeal to Kay's sense of logic - oh, hey, have you got anything on Han? Because I'm not so sure about my sweet-talking skills."

"You have this all planned out, don't you?"

"Bodes has had a shit year," she said. "We can't send him back to London to see his mum and sisters, but we can give him something."

He bumped his stylus against his lower lip. “Chewie will be in no problem, so ask him first and he'll make Han do it. And go by the Philosophy department to talk to Chirrut and Baze. They're both teaching this afternoon."

She grinned at him. "Right, I'll just have to catch Chirrut after his capstone seminar but before Baze gets out of his 101."

"Good thinking." Baze was always grumpy after a section of his Intro course, mumbling under his breath about pampered babies who wouldn't know Aristotelian ethics if it bit them on the ass. "Just don't let them pay for the whole thing. I want in. And I'll see who else I can round up."

"You're the best," she said.

Two boys walked up, holding hands. "Hi, uh - "

Jyn leaned back in her chair. "Can we help you?"

"Are you guys using this table?"

"Uh, pretty obviously yeah."

"It's just that we kind of wanted to sit here."

"There's like a thousand other tables on this floor alone."

Although, Cassian reflected, none of the others were tucked away in a sunny corner behind bookshelves, private and quiet.

"I know, but - " The shorter guy blushed. "This one has the mistletoe on the window."

They both looked up. Cassian swore under his breath.

Jyn got up so fast she almost knocked her chair over. "All yours, lads," she said.

When Jyn told her about the mistletoe issue, Leia was supremely unsympathetic. "So? You happen to see some Christmas decorations sometimes, and sometimes you happen to be with Cassian when you do. It's December and we live in a society that pushes a yearly orgy of consumerism with the promise that - "

"Blah blah late stage capitalism, yes, I know, but," Jyn said. "It's getting out of hand."

Leia looked skeptical.

“I swear to you," Jyn said darkly, "that if Cassian comes along, a piece of mistletoe will materialize over our heads within twenty seconds."

"Confirmation bias," Leia said.

"Is not!"

"Is," Leia said. "Mistletoe as a decoration is ridiculously common. Look, there’s some above the door right there.” Leia gestured at the door of the Echo Base Coffee Roastery. “And no Cassian.”

“Give it time,” Jyn said.

Leia rolled her eyes. “It's not that the two of you are making it manifest, It's just that you're hyper-aware of it when you're with him." She smirked at her. "And why is that?"

"Because it's haunting us," Jyn growled.

"Because you want to kiss him so bad you're drooling," Leia said and bit into her scone.

“So what if I am,” Jyn said, and slouched in her chair.

Leia stopped mid-chew. “Wow,” she said. “You really want to if you’re not denying it. So why haven't you just laid one on him?”

“He’s so calm,” she said. “I don’t know what he wants. He’s impossible to read. What if I slap lips on him and he screams and runs?”

Leia arched a brow. “Unlikely.”

Jyn pinched the bridge of her nose. “Look, I know what to do.”

“Slap lips on him, as you so romantically put it?”

“Nope. Avoid him until Boxing Day. You Americans rip everything down at 11:30 pm Christmas Day, and it’s like the holiday never existed. No mistletoe, no problem.”

“Yes,” Leia grinned, “but then it’s all Valentine's Day, all the time.”

Jyn’s face worked and then she huffed. “I’ll see you later.”

“You know I’m riiiiight,” Leia sang into her coffee cup, and Jyn made an obscene gesture. She stomped toward the door. Before she could grab the handle, it opened to reveal Cassian, Kay on his heels.

He stopped.

She stopped.

As if they’d practiced it, they both looked up at the mistletoe at the same time.

“Right,” Jyn said, pink-faced. “See you later then. Bye.” She nodded at their other housemate. “Kay.”

“Jyn,” Kay said, and stepped around her and Cassian both, announcing, “I advise you to get out of the way and permit the door to close. The wind is very cutting today."

“Right,” Cassian said. For a moment, he and Jyn performed a sort of awkward, shuffling dance as they both tried to pass through in opposite directions. Finally, Jyn was out, Cassian was in, and the door was closed.

Through the window to the left of the door, Jyn caught Leia’s eye. She pointed upward and mouthed I told you! Didn’t I tell you?! She was gesticulating so wildly she almost ran into a pole, and Leia made a dismayed sound.

Cassian looked at her. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” she said, watching Jyn scramble out of sight. “Just got some coffee down the wrong pipe.”

He looked doubtful, but turned back to Kay. “This is exactly what I was talking about. Now do you believe me?”

“Confirmation bias,” Kay said, surveying the offerings in the pastry case.

Leia smirked into her coffee again.

Jyn turned in her last final on the Thursday before Christmas, and slept like the dead for fourteen hours.

She wasn't the only one. The house was full of post-finals zombies. When she shuffled out of her attic room and down the stairs in sock feet and ragged sweatpants, she found Chewie, eyes hidden behind his mop of hair, wandering around the second-floor hallway with a toothbrush in his mouth. "Done with the bathroom?" she asked.

He grunted, went back and spit out his toothbrush, came out, and grunted again. Interpreting that to mean all yours, she crawled into the shower and cranked it as hot as it would go. She counted herself lucky that she'd remembered to peel off her sweatpants first.

She felt more human by the time she snapped the water off and climbed out. The sweatpants went back on, but she promised herself that she'd trade them for clean clothes up in her room. Rambling out of the bathroom, rubbing a towel over her hair, she almost crashed directly into Cassian. "Uh," she said. "Hi."

"Hi."

"Hi." Shit, she'd said that already. She slouched against the doorjamb, hoping she looked incredibly casual and not like she was feeling self-conscious about being caught by him in her rattiest clothing. "How's the grading?"

"Turned in," he said. "You? How did your final project turn out?"

"All in. It's probably shit, but it's in."

"I'm sure it's not," he said.

She shrugged. "How's everyone else holding up? Does Bodhi still gibber when you say the words high pressure system to him?" Their friend's aeronautical meteorology class had kicked his ass.

"He's downgraded to whimpers."

Somewhere off in the distance, the doorbell rang, with the four-note sequence of the Addams Family theme. (Chirrut thought it was funny.)

Jyn ignored it. Someone downstairs would get it and she didn't feel like moving. "Well, that's progress. We should go out tonight or something."

"Us?"

She choked. "Uh, yeah, all of us here in the house. Big, uh, big housemate post-finals party. Alcohol and cake and - " Debauchery, she almost said, and changed it to - "Frivolity."

"Maybe pizza to soak up the booze and sugar," he said.

"Right, yeah, that sounds good." She grinned. "The Mill?"

"That's a good choice. Han's so lazy he refuses to decorate for Christmas, so - "

"No mistletoe," she said brightly, and just like that it was all awkward between them.

She thought of Leia's skepticism that she'd be able to bury all this after Christmas. Especially with Valentine's Day coming up.

He rubbed his hand over the back of his neck and averted his eyes. "Jyn, I - " He choked on the rest of his sentence, staring at a spot just over her head.

With a certain feeling of inevitability, she followed his gaze to see a sprig of mistletoe, hanging from the light fixture.

She dropped her eyes again and met his.

He said, "I still don't know who's putting those up."

"Me neither."

"At least in here," he added.

"Right. Yeah. The Roastery and the library were probably . . . some poor worker who's getting paid minimum wage to climb on a ladder and - " She felt herself rambling and hiked up her chin. "Look, it's five days until Christmas. We don't know why these are suddenly turning up around us but it's just making it weirder and weirder, so I say we settle the question."

"The . . . question," he said carefully.

"Yeah. Let's just kiss and get it over with."

". . . That question."

The doorbell rang again, more insistently. Neither of them moved.

She crossed her arms and raised her eyebrows. "Well?"

He swallowed. She followed the motion of his Adam's apple down his throat and felt herself break out in a sweat, heat thrumming at all her pulse points. She wasn't sure when she'd decided she wanted to lick his neck, but she did, she did. Maybe some heretofore unsuspected infection of vampirism.

"Maybe we should," he said in a low rumble.

She unfolded her arms and rested her hands high up on his chest. Damn, he was tall. She tilted her head back to meet Cassian's eyes, sticking her chin out in a dare. Go on, then.

Downstairs, a babble of voices broke out. They could have been in the next zip code for all Jyn cared.

He put his hands to her waist, warm through her worn-thin Gerrera's Gym t-shirt, and leaned down. She shut her eyes just before his mouth brushed hers.

Dry, warm. Fleeting. Tendrils of agreeable heat began to curl through her belly.

Then he was gone.

She swallowed and opened her eyes again, feeling the tendrils of heat curl themselves into nothing.

Her body hummed with tension and dissatisfaction. Was that it? Was that little taste all she was getting?

Even though the light fixture and its stupid, stupid mistletoe was right above their heads, she couldn't read his expression.

She dropped her hands. "Okay. That's done, th-"

The last word was cut off by his mouth covering hers again. Her back hit the wall so hard the light fixture rattled. She ignored it, too busy winding her arms around his neck and pressing herself against him, kissing back hungrily.

This, now. This.

If the first kiss had been a taste, this was a five-course banquet. They devoured each other, tongues and teeth and lips and hands. His hands slid south of her waist, clamping on her ass and hauling her into the arc of his body. She whimpered and hooked one leg over his hip. He pressed her harder into the wall and licked into her mouth.

She gasped aloud when he left her mouth and started kissing her neck. Somehow, both her legs were locked around his hips, and his hands - Jesus, he had good hands. She felt like a volcano, all liquid heat inside and liable to go off at the slightest provocation.

"That's more like it," she said, and nipped at his ear.

"I've been wanting to do that since September," he said against her neck.

"So why didn't - ohhh," she groaned as his teeth scraped her skin.

"I'm usually very good at reading people. But I find you impossible to predict."

She grabbed his head in her hands and stared into his eyes. "Take me back to your room and fuck my brains out," she said. "How's that for a read?"

He rocked against her and demonstrated he had no problem with her proposed course of action. "Your room would be better."

"Yours is closer."

He kissed her hard. "I'm next to Kay."

"So," she mumbled into his mouth.

"He's asleep."

"So?"

"I don't intend to be quiet."

Oh. Oh damn. There went her last brain cell. "Right," she gasped. "My room it is."

Over at the Mill some hours later, Leia watched them snuggle in a booth with a little smirk.

She'd been keeping an eye on that, texting her brother with regular updates. Luke always liked hearing the gossip from her house, especially any news of a certain British-Pakistani aeronautics major. She'd always thought Cassian and Jyn had a certain similarity, under their wildly differing outer presentation. And of course they'd been thirsting for each other practically since they'd met. They made a cute couple.

The smirk turned into a blush when they started kissing and groping each other again. Okay, whenever they got over that in public, they would be a cute couple.

She turned toward the bar and the giant bowl of eggnog that Han Solo had rustled up. Call him what you like - and she did - he could pull a party together.

Bodhi was already there, pouring himself some. "Want one?"

"Absolutely," she said, leaning up next to him. "So - the mistletoe."

He ducked his head and made a sort of grunt.

"You were the one putting it all up in the house, right?" She'd noticed Bodhi decorating for the holiday as early as Thanksgiving morning.

"Yep," he said on a sigh, passing her a full glass.

She chortled and took a sip that threatened to curl her eyebrows. It was very strong. She blinked and shook her head. When her tongue had regained feeling, she pursued her line of questioning. "What, did you just get tired of watching them orbit around each other for the past few months?"

"Actually . . ." He looked down into his own glass. "It wasn't for them."

She sputtered out her next sip of eggnog. "Say again?"

He sighed. "I had a whole plan. Remember how Luke was supposed to come for Thanksgiving?"

"And his flight got cancelled, yeah."

"And then he was supposed to crash on our couch over break?"

"And then his advisor asked him to stay to work on some 'special project'?" She made a face. She wouldn't be forgiving Professor Yoda anytime soon for attempting to deprive her of her twin. "But - "

"Well, I figured if there was all this mistletoe up, it would be sort . . . of . . . romantic," he mumbled.

Her hand stopped. "Bodhi," she said, slowly and clearly. "How long have you been crushing on my brother?"

"Look, I wasn't trying to be creepy - "

"Of course you weren't," she said. "Just - how long?"

He shook his head. "It's dumb, it doesn't matter."

A voice from behind him said, "I'm interested."

Bodhi whipped around to see Luke standing behind him, face bright and hopeful. "What - you - when?"

"A few hours ago," Luke said. "I drove overnight. I was taking a nap in her room until just now." He toasted Leia with his beer. "She left me a text to come on over."

Bodhi was still goggling at him, the tips of his ears going brick-red. "But I thought - "

"I excused myself from the project. Professor Yoda's not too happy, but I don't care. So, uh, what was my sister saying? About you and mistletoe, and me?"

They wandered off, eyes only for each other, hands bumping. No need for mistletoe.

Leia laughed to herself and drank more eggnog.

"Hey, princess, look what I found!" Han leaned over the bar and dangled a sprig of mistletoe over their heads. "Pucker up."

She tossed her eggnog in his face and marched off, refusing to reflect on the not-small part of her that had been intrigued. It would take more than mistletoe to get her to lock lips with Han Solo.

FINIS

#Cassian Andor #Jyn Erso #rebelcaptain #rebelcaptainsecretsanta #fanfiction #mosylufanfic lives up to her damn name #boy it's been awhile since I used that tag #university AU #modern AU #everyone is an overworked and slightly crazed student #fluff #star wars

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mor-beck-more-problems · 4 years

Text

O, the Iron-y || Morgan & Cece

Timing: Last Night

Parties: @thebickedwitchoftherest & @mor-beck-more-problems

Summary: Witchy roommates unite when Morgan needs help identifying what, exactly, happened to the body she found with Kaden.

Contains: discussions of violence

“You know, someday when people aren’t getting murdered right and left, or at least when I’m not coping with so much trauma, we really need to get back to our trashy TV nights,” Morgan sighed from her spot on the floor. It had been a long time since she’d played corpse on the floor with herself, but the sight of that body had really done a number on her. Sure, she’d killed, but not like this. Not for pleasure or power or trophies or...whatever the hell was behind this. Morgan couldn’t imagine anything awful enough to just push someone into becoming so cruel. To treat supernaturals like bloody litter on the side of the street. “You could come to my place, if you wanted. The TV is so huge, you could practically see every pore on the bachelorette’s face.” She sighed again. Her enthusiasm wasn’t quite there even if she meant every word. She craned her head back to see the little witch at work. “I hope it’s a given, but thank you again, for doing this for me. How’s it going with those samples I gave you?”

Cece was leaning against the counter, staring down at Morgan and glancing every so often at her computer. From what Cece knew about the body, this didn’t seem like anything normal. Testing for normal drugs in the system could prove to be a complete waste of time. But even magic was rooted in some science. Sometimes over the counter drugs were used to create some of the most powerful spells. It all depended on the imagination, and the stamina. Finding out what she could about the body from a logical, scientific perspective could influence her findings. “That sounds amazing. The only thing that could make that show funnier is by focusing on every imperfection they have. Plus, I’ll feel like a Kardashian watching it from a rich person tv.” She tossed a glance back to the screen. Still loading in the results. “I should be thanking you. You gave me something to do on an otherwise boring night.” She also ended up back at work, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. “I’m running some normal tests first. Trying to see if anything sticks out. It can help me try to determine the clearly supernatural shit that went down. What can you tell me about the body?”

“Figuring age is hard with fae, I think, but she was an undergrad at the university. Maybe nineteen or twenty. Um, you’ve actually got...pretty much all that’s left of her. I found her with a friend just...abandoned. I’m assuming some warden is taking trophies, or...fuck, I don’t know. Having fun. Taking out some human supremacist bullshit on…” Morgan grimaced and forced herself to breathe slowly. Three months dead, almost, and it was still the first thing she wanted to do. Just breathe. Just bring the world back into the right rhythm, the right meter. “I mean, of all the ways you could possibly hurt a fae--” She shook her head, shuddering. “It was like an acid attack, only it must have been iron, right? Those are the weird, stiff pieces on the body, right? I mean, those burns, they’re everywhere. How much time did they spend planning this?” But there’s gotta be...I don’t know, some kind of underground Hunters R’ Us out there, right? Some signature that can be traced back to something specific, right? Or at least, I don’t know, if we know how, maybe someone can be like, oh yeah, my buddy goes around flinging iron at kids with wings. Great guy, why’re you mad?” She breathed again, realizing she was getting worked up again. She wasn’t going to help anyone like that, least of all whoever the body had been.

“ All that’s left of them.” It hadn’t been a question so much as a disappointed statement. Cece was concerned by what had been left of the victim. Cece had limited knowledge of Fae, but she knew enough to know that cold iron wasn’t their friend. For this girl, it looked like whoever did this really hadn’t like her. But Cece knew enough about the world to know that may not necessarily be true. Some people hunted them from some sense of duty, or for sport. People didn’t need a motive to be sick fucks. At least have the decency to make it quick. “Yeah, looks like iron burns,” Cece nodded, “They could have drugged her first. Made her easier to capture. I should know in a couple minutes.” Morgan was getting worked up over the murder. As far as Cece knew, this had just been a body Morgan stumbled across. But that seemed to be how Morgan operated. She cared a lot for everyone. “It’s hard to tell, honestly. A lot of the hunters I’ve known follow a code, but there are just as many that do it for fun. But I know there are hunters in town. From the looks of it, they were responsible for this. But I can’t promise I’ll be able to narrow it down based on some tox screen results.” She didn’t have any better answers or anything to offer Morgan at the moment besides her smile and the knowledge that she would help Morgan with whatever her next steps were. Cases like these were hard to explain and even harder to solve. Normally, justice may go unsolved. Cece didn’t have much to say in the way of justice, but she did know she could help a friend out. “And what do we do? If we found out who did it?”

Morgan grimaced and held her stomach tighter. “I’ll never understand that. I’ve done some shitty and questionable things, but this...it was slow and awful. They wanted her to suffer.” At least when she killed it hadn’t been torture. That counted for something; that was different. “We...I don’t know. Find out why. Make them answer to...someone, for what they did. Maybe she had family, or maybe...I don’t know. But I am so tired of supernaturals getting hurt and killed and forgotten. It’s bullshit. We’re people just as much as anyone else, but we’re the ones collared and thrown into cages or hunted like pests or living like who we are is something to be ashamed of or tortured and thrown where-the-hell-ever. How are we supposed to live like this, with humans, hunters, getting to hurt us for free whenever they want? Someone has to pay and I’m just...I’m tired of it. Don’t you ever get tired of hiding, Cece? I’d give up my body regrowing to have enough magic to make whoever did this pay.”

For what it was worth, Cece agreed with Morgan. As far as magic went, Cece had lived a pretty open life. The coven kept itself secret for sure, but she still was able to learn and grow with other magic users by her side. Things turned dark and for the worst, sure but at least she wasn’t hunted for it. This girl, this body was fucked. She had been targeted, hunted and tortured before they let her die. “Before we fall down that rabbit hole, you should figure out exactly what you want them to answer to. For people like them, justice isn’t clear cut. There’s no proving something like this in court. So, make sure we know exactly what we’re getting into before we decide what should be done with them.” How else did Cece lay this out to her? If Morgan wanted them eradicated from the planet, Cece was there. She had seen too many bodies like this. Leftovers from the coven, hell even herself. “It’s exhausting. Lucky for us, I’ve still got the magic for both of us.” Something flashed across her screen and she turned to look at it. “I can’t find any logical explanation as to what caused the metal to melt into her skin like that. But I’m pretty damn sure I have a theory.” Cece sighed, wishing that it had been something simple. “Can you go into my bag? Front pocket. There’s a container with a power that looks like soot. Grab that for me and sprinkle it onto the pieces of metal. I want to test something.”

Morgan knew what she wanted, if she could only admit it out loud. She wanted the hunter who did this to suffer as much as their prey had. She wanted them to fear for their lives, for their humanity, to feel the panic and indignity that she’d felt that day in the woods. She wanted them to die. A life for a life, that was the math of alchemy. And maybe she didn’t have the magic in her anymore, but she could still work her will on the world if she tried hard enough. Morgan reached for her snack pyrex and took out a chunk of muscle (deer thigh, if she remembered correctly) and started to chew slowly as she did as Cece asked. It wasn’t so bad this time now that she knew what to expect, or now that she had packed enough for a whole other meal with her. She unscrewed the lid and ran her fingers through the substance. It was so fine, it barely felt like anything, but there was a familiar sheen to it, some familiar flecks she remembered being quizzed on by her mother. It was used to detect and identify magic in a number of spells. Morgan’s brow furrowed. “You sure about this?” She asked. But Cece seemed sure enough, so, bracing herself, she sprinkled the powder over Coraline Adams’ body. The dust settled and, as her mother had trained her to memorize, a dark indigo smoke began to rise from the body.

“No,” Morgan said, backing away. “No, that’s...shit…” dust spilled from the tin and down her leg. She set it down clumsily before she spilled any more. “A witch did this?”

It hadn’t been Cece’s favorite theory. She had been keeping hope out for some type of explanation. Evidence of extreme heat, iron pills being found in the girl’s system. Something that still felt human, despite how monstrous the crime was. But the thought had been there in the back of her mind. The unexplainable could usually be explained through magic. Had her theory that a witch had been involved been at the back of Cece’s mind this whole time? Sure. She had still had her fingers crossed for the hunter theory. It was better than this alternative. More than the fact itself, Morgan’s reaction to it was what had made Cece so unhappy. She had needed to believe it was a hunter it seemed. It was hard to accept that what was once your own kind could be capable of this evil. Cece had seen it before, taken part in it. That didn’t mean she liked seeing it affect Morgan. “And worse than that, an alchemist.” Cece specified, creeping down to get a better look at the wounds. No doubt about it, the very field that Cece and Morgan had specialized in had caused this. The metal had been almost fused with the skin itself, probably while the girl had been alive. From what Cece knew about Fae and iron, the pain that would have caused would be immeasurable. It was cruel, inhumane. “At the very least, a witch was involved. Whether it was still because of hunter’s or not I can’t be sure. But we’re definitely looking for an alchemist in town. And someone with enough experience with human anatomy to know how to do this.”

“Alchemy,” Morgan repeated slowly. “They used…alchemy.” The iron hadn’t come from a stick. They hadn’t been beaten or pressed against something. The alchemist had turned the fae’s body into iron. The burns on Coraline��s face had come from a touch. “The components of the human body aren’t that complicated,” she murmured. “If you’re just trying to hurt, you don’t even need to do it well. You could just ramp up the hydrogen and nitrogen and start a combustion, or you could simulate the state of hypothermia in a few seconds, you could fill the bloodstream with sand or wear down the elasticity so it falls off, and it’s messy but if you’re just trying to kill someone or hurt them long enough to get away, it’s comparably minimal energy, but to do this...to force a body to do something like this takes practice. I mean, do you know how to do this?” She looked at Cece, completely abashed. “It’s a fucking alchemist,” she whispered again, covering her eyes and walking away from the body before she gave into the pull. “I hate this. I hate this so much. I--fuck. Thank you, Cece. I wouldn’t have guessed this, I don’t know what I would’ve done. I...I don’t know. You don’t talk to any witches in town, right?”

Morgan knew the specifics. Knew how dark their own line of magic could be. How fucked up their abilities were given a bit of anger and a rush of power. Cece studied Morgan’s anger, wondering why she herself couldn’t feel that same outrage. Had the coven desensitized her to things this much? That the closest Cece could feel for contempt was because Morgan was angry? Not for the actual body of the murdered woman that sat near them? Regardless, Morgan was angry enough for the both of them and Cece wanted to do something about that. “I could. If I wanted to.” Cece admitted. Because Morgan wasn’t wrong. This would be easy enough to do with some focus, and easy to fuck up if someone was angry enough. Passion was always a wild factor in magic. It altered it, spread lines thin and made spells harder to control. But this… “These marks are controlled. You can tell that whoever was doing this was being careful. Taking their time. It’s real fucked. And not in a good way.” Morgan questioned whether or not Cece knew any other witches. She did, but not like this. “Not any that could do this.” She didn’t know any that specialized in alchemy, and she didn’t know any that would murder someone this horrifically.

Morgan hadn’t really expected Cece to have the answer fresh out of the ether, but it would have been wonderfully easy. They could just march up to whoever’s door right then and there, demand an explanation, demand something. Sure, all witches didn’t get along, that was obvious. Some were awful. But knowing it was an alchemist shook her in a different way. Of all the things this alchemist could make, everything they could do with their magic, and they chose to destroy a fae like this. A kid. What reason could be good enough for this? What cause, what fucking spell could justify something like this. “If you, um...if you can wrap her up for me, I can take her back to my friend’s place. Figure out if there’s anyone in town who can, I don’t know, bury her or something, I guess. I...thank you, Cece, really. If you get in trouble for this I...I don’t know. I do wanna make this up to you, okay? Soon as I figure this out…”

It wasn’t hard to tell that Morgan was shaken by all of this. She had been acting strangely since she reached out to Cece, and things only got worse and worse the more they found out about it. Whatever this was, whoever did this. They needed to be stopped. That was Cece’s role now, right? Through a thick coating of irony that wasn’t long on her, she was now helping the police catch murderers and stop crimes. So this, although outside of the system and breaking so many policies that Regan’s head would pop clean off if she had been working here, was the right thing to do, right? “I got this. Seriously. Don’t worry about me. This isn’t my first rodeo.” Cece finger-gunned at Morgan, throwing in a dramatic “Yeehaw” for the dramatic effect. Someday the two could talk more about Cece’s time in the coven. Right now, considering the situation, that time didn’t seem right. “I can’t say that I know much about Fae, but I know a lot of them have their own traditions. I’d recommend reaching out to anyone you know that may be able to help out. Give her the burial she deserves and what not.” Morgan sounded like her brain was running a mile a minute, thinking too far beyond their current conversation. “Don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll think of something you can do to make it up to me, got it? Now off you go, you’ve got an alchemist to find.”

#wr cece #wr chatzy #wr cece chatzy #o the iron-y #wr #wickedswriting

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