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macfrog · 9 months

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if i had a gun cowboy like me chapter 12.5 (joel's pov)

long-awaited, pain-packed, and sealed with a bow by yours truly. i love y'all. thank you for being so patient and kind with me on this one. this chapter is joel's experience of the end of illicit affairs and all of hits different. you might wanna check those chapters out before you indulge in the angst-fest that is this one. hope you enjoy 🧡

pairing: dbf!joel x fem!reader

summary: walk a mile in joel miller's shoes. see if you'd do anything different

warnings: more heartache, more angst, lois, alcohol + drug consumption, mention of reader being roofied, very brief mention of joel punching knox, age gap (reader is 23, joel is 48), cursing

word count: 9.8k

terrible news! there is no more taglist! make sure you're following @macfroglets w notifs on if you wanna be buzzed when i post 🤍

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“Right. Sorry. It’s just…we kinda have a…situation, here.” It’s you. He fucking knows it’s you. His heart begins to hammer. He doesn’t give a fuck whether she puts two and two together or not when he asks – “Where is she?” “We’re still at Frank’s,” Anna says, sniffing. He can hear the booming bassline of music, muffled; the sharper chatter of voices. She’s on the street. In his head, he can see her shoulders hunched; her bare arms wrapped around her body for warmth. She goes to say it again. “We’re still at –” “’n where is she?” Joel cuts, and she finally cracks.

You’re still fast asleep when he lifts his head.

You’ve had this argument plenty before. I do not snore. Yes, baby, you do. I’ve heard you. I don’t! It’s alright, it’s okay that you do. It’s a cute snore. Joel, I don’t fucking –

Right now, he’s pretty certain you’re snoring. He just wishes you were awake to hear yourself.

He thinks about pulling his phone, taking a video so that once you’re up, you can hear the little bursts of air, the tiny rasps from your nostrils as you snooze. But if he ever did record anything like that – just like the Hillcrest pictures, until you’d found them last night – he’d keep it for himself. Wouldn’t offer it up so easily.

Just something for him to have, for all the time he spends without you.

Your hair’s still all over the place. Tangled in Joel’s right arm, still smelling of chlorine and sex. Your head rests softly on the crook of his elbow like it’s a pillow; your lips and eyes are puffy, tired. You have this ridiculously strong vice grip on his left arm; during the night he felt you wrap your wrists around it and pull it into your chest, tucking it gently under your chin until your entire upper half was drowned in his.

His chest snug against your back, his arms encasing you safely, and his hips…his hips lined with yours. His now semi-hard cock buried between your legs – he’d slept inside you last night, and it was like, after forty-eight years, someone finally took him by the shoulders and said: This is how you do it. This is how you rest.

He was out as soon as his head hit the pillow, soon as his eyes fell shut. He stirred only to feel you maneuvering his arm, and then fell straight back asleep.

He felt comfortable. He felt safe. Big, old, tough guy Joel Miller. Never let anybody in since Sarah’s mom left. Alone for almost seventeen years, and fine with it. His cheeks heat at the idea of needing – of wanting to feel that. Safe. But then you came along, and he realized he’d been waiting his whole life to feel it. Didn’t even notice he’d been missing it.

That’s how these things go, right? Can’t miss what you don’t have, and all that.

But now he has it. Now he has you.

And you make him feel things he’s never felt before, or if he has, it was so fucking long ago that he’s forgotten. You drive him fucking insane. Keep him up at night, wondering what the hell he’s gotten himself into. Make him do stuff that his reflection glares at him over. Are you being serious right now? Make him…different. New.

The night before last, when he’d picked you up from Frank’s after rodeo night, he promised to make you a big breakfast in the morning. Compensation for not swinging by McDonald’s on the way home. But then your dad called, and you had to take off before Joel had even properly woken up.

When he eventually rose from the bed, he went straight to the store. Stocked up on eggs, flour, sugar, bananas. He’d printed a recipe from his computer while you were gone. Marked the items off as he meandered through the store. Stood for ten minutes deliberating over which gluten-free flour would be best, before an assistant asked if he needed any help.

I’m good, he muttered, and then, as the kid wandered off, cleared his throat and said, Actually –

Greg – the kid assistant in question – had suggested the red bag. Said it’s corn flour, instead of wheat. Joel can’t pronounce the brand name. He just knows it’s tucked behind a box of cereal in the cupboard downstairs – he hid it there so you wouldn’t find it and snuff out his plan.

His plan, which he now has to put into action. Without waking you. He’d lie here forever just staring at you, if he hadn’t sworn to himself to make good on his promise and cook you some damn pancakes.

So he slowly pulls his left hand from between yours, loosening your death grip, and steals it back across your waist. He does the same for his right arm – more careful, though, so he doesn’t tug on your hair. Like some kind of wild cat creeping through the jungle, every moment calculated and careful.

He bunches the comforter up a little at your back, so that if you do stir, it might feel like he’s still there. Still a weight, curving around you. He takes a good five minutes just to travel the length of the room – the lightest he’s ever walked, dodging the spots on the carpet that he knows make the floorboards squeal.

When the door gently clicks back into place, he heads downstairs. Cracks out his frying pan – non-stick, obviously – and all his ingredients, pulls the printed recipe from its hiding place between two cookbooks and lays it out on the counter, flattening the creases and unfolding the corners. And gets to it.

His first egg cracks messily over the lip of the bowl. The yolk runs down the outside, and he curses before swiping it back up with his index finger. The second egg empties fully inside the bowl, but drags with it tiny fragments of shell. Joel spends five minutes focusing on picking every single piece out of the mixture. He crouches to make sure he’s poured the exact amount of milk, eyes level with the top of the liquid, and he double checks every step before he follows it.

This has to be perfect. Has to be. For you.

The entire time, all he can think about is you asking to sleep with his body inside yours. Wanting him closer than you’d ever wanted him before, as close as he could physically be. Your sleepy voice circles between his ears on loop – want somethin’ else. That safe feeling creeps up on him all over again.

He knows he shouldn’t. He can’t. He’s spent the last month purposefully pushing those feelings down, dampening them anytime they rose to the surface. Only allowing himself to feel them, to acknowledge them, when you’re around. Because he can’t fucking help but acknowledge them when you’re here – they stare him straight in the face.

So he’d been making peace with letting the floodgates open just a little bit at a time – one quick rush whenever you’d give him one of your meaningful glances, when your hot skin would brush against his, when your mouth would fall open at the feeling of his first deep thrust inside you.

And then he’d bolt them back up.

Except that, now…he’s not sure the dam can hold much longer. There are cracks he’s not repairing quickly enough. Unintended consequences hammering against the other side of the stone in the form of angry white waves.

He’s staring at the beige circle of batter in the pan, swept off with the waves into someplace far from his kitchen, when the sound of your voice draws him back.

“Joel? You down there?”

The floorboards at the top of his stairs creak. You’re leaning over the banister.

“Yeah, darlin’, I’m here.” He slips halfway out of the kitchen door, closing it over his body in hopes you won’t smell the pancakes. You ask what he’s doing, and he says, “Just makin’ a coffee. You want anything brought up?”

“I’m good,” you reply. “’m gonna take a shower.”

“Alright, baby. There’s probably some stuff in Sarah’s bathroom you can use.”

He listens closely as your footsteps recede, waiting to hear the hum of his shower before he relaxes again, flipping the pancake over. It sizzles away as he runs one thick finger along the inside of the bowl and tastes his handiwork. Pretty damn good, he thinks. He’s sucking his finger clean when his cell goes.

Joel swipes to answer, and before he can utter a Hello?, your dad’s voice is screaming down the line to him.

“Mornin’, pal! You in? You up?”

He figures this is the infamous speakerphone you rambled for ten minutes about last night. Like a fucking foghorn, man. I’m deaf in this ear now.

He doesn’t wait for Joel to respond. “I was just passin’ by, remembered you got that leakin’ pipe, or whatever it is. Under your sink, right? You good for me to drop in ‘n take a look?”

“Uh – uh, I’m –” Joel stammers his way through a sentence he doesn’t know the ending of, slotting the phone between his cheek and his shoulder and giving the pan a rattle against the stovetop. He slips the spatula under the mixture, and when he flips it over, the pancake is charcoal black. “Fuck.”

“What’s that?” you dad roars, deafening in Joel’s ear. Fuckin’ speakerphone.

“Nothin’, it’s…” He sighs, accepting his new-found position: backed into a fucking corner. What’s new these days?

“Yeah, I’m up. See you in a bit.”

He hangs up the phone midway through an Alright, buddy from your dad, and whacks the chargrilled pancake on top of the pile. His phone surfs across the counter in a blur of blind panic, before Joel’s taking the stairs two at a time to get to you.

The door’s ajar. He can hear you quietly singing to yourself. Same song you’re always fucking singing, always trying to coax Joel into singing along with you. You’re humming the guitar solo when he whips the door open.

“Hey, hey,” he’s panting, taking your towel in one hand and reaching for the shower door with the other, a blur of movement before his eyes like he’s not in control of his own body. “Out.”

“Huh?” you reply, blinded by the soap suds running down your forehead and into your eyes.

“Baby,” Joel whispers, desperate, “you gotta get out. He’s here. Your damn dad’s here.”

He drags you over to the first place he spots: his closet. He knows it’s no fucking good, but he can hear your dad’s car squealing to a halt in his drive, and he’s in a blink panic wondering what artefacts, what evidence of your being here lie dotted around his house. Your bikini’s hanging up out back, there’s probably a hoodie still strewn over the back of his couch.

He doesn’t have time to think, though, because in the midst of his mental scan of every room whilst explaining to you what’s going on, your dad’s heavy boots just thudded onto his doormat.

“Miller?” he calls up the stairs. And Joel closes the closet over.

----------

He stands by the front door watching your dad’s car purr off down the street, waiting until it turns left and disappears behind the Dawsons’ back fence to shut the door. When he turns back into his hallway, the house is uncomfortably silent. You’re still up in his room.

The weight of your phone pulls at the waistband of his jeans. He slips his hand into his back pocket, fishes it out, and takes one step toward the stairs. The screen lights in his palm.

There’s a cluster of notifications from some film class group chat, a couple Snapchats from Sarah. A reminder to take your birth control from some pink-icon app, and then –

I’m heading over to Joel’s to check something out for him. Wanna meet me there?

He stares at it until the text burns into his eyes. Blinks, and it’s seared into his lids. His breath leaves his chest in a heavy, burdened sigh. It trembles as it pushes from his lungs. He feels something burning under his skin. All over.

He’s angry. And he’s trying to keep it contained.

Keep it where it lies, keep it beneath the surface. Stop it from pooling right behind his lips, collecting in the light of his eyes. Keep it from revealing itself. But when his foot lifts to the first step, it’s like a deadweight in the air.

He’s angry. But he’s fucking exhausted.

The bedroom is empty when Joel pushes the door open. You’re still hidden in the closet. You don’t look up at him when he pulls on the shuttered door, letting light flood across your hands, still covering your face. There are flicks of dripping wet hair peeking out from under the towel on your head.

He wants to put his arms around you. Wants to kiss you all over. Tell you, It’s okay, it’s alright. He didn’t see nothin’.

But he can’t. Because neither of those things are true.

Your dad saw the cowgirl hat. Hell of a lot like a hat my daughter has. It sent a sharpened bolt of panic through Joel’s body the second the words came tumbling out. He might’ve seen your bag lying at the bottom of the stairs. Might’ve passed your car on his drive here. There are so many loose fucking ends.

And more than that – harder to accept: maybe this isn’t okay anymore. Maybe it hasn’t been the entire time. And maybe, despite all his good efforts and the fucking way you make him feel, despite it being weeks now of tiptoeing and lying and covering your tracks – maybe you finally crossed a line.

He can’t look at you a second longer. His heart’s in his throat. If he opens his mouth to speak, he’ll probably choke. Break down. So he walks away.

You follow him downstairs a few minutes later, fully dressed and silent. Your touch sweeps across his shoulder blades, and it takes everything in him not to turn to you then and there. Come here, kiss me. Pretend none of it’s happening, just for a moment.

He sets your plate down in front of you. He’s taken the burnt pancake. He follows a pattern: cuts into the food, glances out to the backyard, and back to the plate. It’s the only thing keeping the words from rolling out onto the table in front of him. The only thing stopping him from –

You kick his leg. So gently, he barely feels it.

“You gonna eat?” he asks in response, chewing on the smoky flavor of burnt batter. Your hands hesitate, and he feels his own flinch as if to take them, rub them, squeeze them. And then he watches as you drag your knife through your own breakfast.

He wants you to yell at him. He wants to give meaning to the guilt he feels. He knows what’s coming, and he isn’t so sure that you do.

This is…impossible. It has been, from the start. Always sneaking off, coming up with excuses. So many fucking excuses, he can’t even keep them straight in his head anymore. She’s here, droppin’ my flannel off. Now we’re upstairs, I’m showin’ her my guitar. Need her to help with decorations. Your TV’s broken, did you know that? Don’t mind us, just sat in this private corner of my backyard, out of view of fucking everyone. I’ll pick her up from her rodeo night, take her home. She’s at Anna’s all day today, right?

And your dad – kind and naïve, or maybe just so fucking gullible that every single one lands like the flour did in the egg mixture. Just gracefully floats down into his brain, absorbs itself and folds perfectly into place.

So, yell at him. Get mad. Make him feel like the fucking asshole he knows he is. Leading you on, and letting you get close to him, and then when it gets too hard – pushing you away. Doesn’t matter if that’s what he did or not; doesn’t matter whether he did or didn’t mean it. He wants you to be mad at him. To justify what he’s about to do.

He slides you your phone. Motions for you to read it.

“Fuck…” you whisper, and then he thinks you get it.

But then you say, “…he didn’t see me, though. Right?” and his heart sinks.

No. He didn’t see you. But he saw so many little pieces of you, that Joel finds it impossible to consider that he isn’t already seeing the entire picture. He’s picturing your dad at home in the living room, one hand on his hip, the other running through his hair, adding two and two and two and two and –

You’re bickering. Actually arguing. He doesn’t know how to navigate it, save for letting the frustration take the wheel and drive the point home: you came too close to being caught.

You’re smarter than this, he knows you are. He knows that you can see plain as day, everything that he can. The bag, the hat, the fucking home-cooked breakfast sat on his kitchen counter. He’s watching you argue your point, hands dancing in the air animatedly, eyebrows lifting, eyes widening. Hear me out. Listen to me. Hear me out.

“I didn’t fucking mean to let him see the b–”

“That’s not the point,” Joel says, before he has time to stop himself.

“Then what’s your point?”

He feels his voice carry off into the air with the images racing around his head. Hank’s shadow under the door. The roar of voices downstairs as you climaxed. Your body pinned under Joel’s on your couch. The way the morning light screamed into the house as your front door burst open.

He doesn’t sound like he has much of a point, even to himself. He’s in it just as much as you are. He’s lied and he’s hidden just as much as you have, and made mistakes that are…worse, as far as he’s concerned.

And the worst one of all sits directly opposite him. Head low, eyes boring into the wood of his kitchen table. He can see the tears swelling across your waterline. Can feel the heat from here as it spreads across your face. Anger thrums through his chest again, and his teeth grit.

He murmurs, pushing himself up from the table and away from you. Tells you there’s some stuff he needs to see to. You’re mad about it, like he knew you would be. Like you should be. He promises he’ll be back in a couple hours; promises you’ll talk when he gets home.

And then he leaves.

----------

Clark’s is on the other side of town. It takes him nearly forty minutes to get there, and more than half of that time is spent staring at the tail lights of a Honda in front of him. Some accident up ahead. His eyes bore into the burning red strip of brake light until it’s singed into them, a blur of blue when he finally rips his glare away and stares up at the white sky.

He thinks about calling you. Saying, Hey, I’m stuck in traffic, talk to me, but he doesn’t. He just…doesn’t.

Instead, he wonders what you’re doing. Whether or not you’re still at his place. He wouldn’t blame you if you weren’t. But if you are – and he hopes you are – what are you doing?

He thinks: She’s on the couch. Bundled in blankets. Grey’s is on TV. She’s rewatchin’ her favorite episodes.

Least, that’s what he wants you to be doing. Wants you to be making yourself feel better, because he knows he was a complete ass earlier. You didn’t deserve any of it. Nothing that he didn’t deserve himself, just as much, anyway.

He thinks about coming home, and you hitting pause, pushing yourself off the couch and sauntering around to him. Wrapping him in the blanket until your bodies are pressed together under the woven red, and kissing him. Kiss me kiss me kiss me.

And the thought of you, standing on your tiptoes to press your soft lips to his, your fingers sifting through his hair, is like a cold pack on a searing wound. Dulls his anger, even if it’s just for a second.

His wide tires crawl silently across the smooth lot of the plant hire, parking right in front of the wire fence. The truck door slams shut when he gets out. He doesn’t mean it. Maybe he does. But he does it without thinking, and with a hot head, a temper sharper than nails, he strides over to the glass-paneled door and swings it open.

She’s sat behind the desk, same as always. Dark, deep auburn hair, groomed and set to perfection so that when she looks up, it doesn’t move an inch. Curls around the sweetheart shape of her face, smooth and shining. Her blue eyes twinkle in the glaring light from outside, and she stands.

She tugs lightly on the hem of her white blouse. You’d probably elbow him and say, That’s cream, not white. She smiles at him and it doesn’t look a thing like your smile. He doesn’t remember the last time he saw your smile. Fuck, he thinks, when did I last make her smile?

And he’s still wondering, when Lois says, “Hey, stranger,” and puts a gentle, pale, red-nailed hand down on the desk. “Long time, no see.”

“Yeah,” Joel grumbles, clearing his throat and glancing at the man in a pair of thick, steel-toe boots, sat in a waiting area to his left. He thinks it’s probably polite to ask how she is. It’s been seven weeks since he blew off her hint for a date.

“Good, thanks,” she replies, cheeks swelling even more. They’re lightly shaded crimson, a soft shimmer to them against her snowy skin, dappled with light freckles. “You?”

He nods once. “Good,” he echoes, not sure what else to say. He’s lying, and she doesn’t seem to figure him out the way you would.

No. Instead, Lois steps back, straightens up, and twirls the pen in her fingers. “What can I do ya for?”

“Got some equipment I’m after,” he mutters, hand slipping into his back pocket for his phone. Lois’s eyes flit up and down his body as he taps his passcode in with his thumb.

She asks him something, but it sounds like she’s speaking through a closed door. He’s elsewhere.

The phone unlocks, screen lifting to reveal the last open app: his camera roll. His thumbs hover over the screen, tracing where yours would’ve tapped last night.

The video’s muted, she won’t hear it even if he let it play, but he swipes away the second he recognizes the tangled mess of your hair, his fist locked tight in it. His own hair, salt and pepper buried deep in the crook of your neck.

Something in his chest aches. Pulls tight, hurts his heart. He takes a deep breath and scares the feeling away. He’s staring at his camera roll. Staring at twelve little square thumbnails – couple of them work stuff, couple of them lists of supplies he has to remember to pick up – and then. Then.

You. At the Hillcrest. Dimples in your cheeks. That’s what made him take his phone out. The soft dips in your skin that appear anytime you smile, laugh, sometimes even just when you talk. He’d first noticed them when you had a mouth full of pizza, chatting animatedly about Meredith and Derek, and he’s noticed them every time since.

He’d seen them, as you posed with Sarah for a selfie at lunch. And his hand had slipped into his pocket before his brain even had the chance to finish the thought.

His quiet way of marking how he felt in that moment. How his chest seemed to fill as if with air, or something thicker. Sweeter. Like it was trying to push words up, a comment to tell you how beautiful you looked. Trying to make him move, run his thumb light as air across that tiny valley in your cheek and look at you with eyes that translated the words hammering behind his eyes.

But you had company. And all he managed to do was take two fucking photos.

Lois talks again, and this time, there’s no closed door.

“Huh?” Joel’s head snaps up, takes a few seconds to focus on the red hair in front of him. “Sorry, Lois, sorry.”

“’s alright. You okay?” She’s smiling so warmly, so sincerely. And there are no dimples in her cheeks.

“Yeah,” he clears his throat, “just checkin’ for the address.”

She holds out a pad, a stack of hire agreement forms hovering between her body and his, but he’s not looking. He’s still scrolling through his phone, thumbs searching your dad’s text thread for the information. Lois lowers the pad to the counter, places the pen on top. Fiddles with it until it’s lined up with the top of the form perfectly.

Then Joel looks up, and she smiles again.

“Not for you, then?” she asks.

He shakes his head. “Just the messenger.”

“Got it. Well, you know what you’re doing. Let me know if you need anything.”

Lois takes a step back, eyes still on Joel, who smiles politely, then swipes the form from the desk and takes a seat between Steel-Toe Boots and some tall, leafy plant that he has to bat away when he sits down. He’s copying the site address, phone resting on his thigh, when the receptionist speaks again.

“How’s Sarah doin’? She home yet?”

“Yeah,” Joel replies, “been home a couple weeks now. She’s been in Nashville this weekend.”

Lois lifts her head, blinking slowly. “Nashville. Nice. So, you’ve had a weekend to yourself.”

He scoffs. “Yeah,” he croaks.

“And what does Joel Miller get up to when he has an empty house for a few days?”

His fingers squeeze around the pen, pushing deeper into the paper. His expression hardens. “Nothing excitin’ enough to share. Sat by the pool yesterday. Was nice out.”

She agrees. “Sure was. You have company?”

Joel shakes his head once. Blinks the image of you and your red bikini from his vision. Focuses on dragging the pen one digit at a time across the line labeled Phone Number. If he cared enough, he’d give the obvious hint a couple seconds’ consideration, even just to protect Lois’s pride a little.

But he doesn’t care. And right now, he ain’t interested in protecting anyone but you.

“Nope. Just me ‘n a few beers.”

“Better off that way,” a hoarse, forty-cigs-a-day voice rasps from his right. “Less fuckin’ problems.”

Joel’s jaw rotates a degree towards the work boots; notices the folds of dry, leathery skin piled atop the raised gray eyebrows of their owner, and then turns back silently.

Lois clears her throat awkwardly. “Well, I spent the day with my book. I’m readin’ a Colleen Hoover. Adam’s at camp, so – quiet house for me, too.”

Joel finds himself nodding. Autopilot. He’s pretending he’s listening.

You’re still in his sight, wandering over from the sliding kitchen doors, a bottle in each hand. He can hardly see you when he looks up, the sun’s so bright. You hold a beer out, condensation dripping down your fingers towards Joel’s when he takes it, and then you slump down in the sun lounger next to his.

His arm reaches across, and your small fingers wrap and then unwrap around his, running across his knuckles, nails lightly scratching his worked hands. And he’s smiling, and he doesn’t even notice it until his eyes meet yours and you laugh, and he asks, What? through a chuckle, and you say, Nothin’, you just look happy.

Your dimpled blush blurs back into checkboxes and scrawled handwriting. You’re gone again. He’s in a white office, and the gentle lapping of the water on the pool’s edge fades into the headache noise of a fan humming, and he feels the warmth of your gaze on his skin turn into the cold, harsh spotlight glare of Lois’s eyes on him.

He looks up. She’s still smiling. At this point, he finds it fucking unnerving.

He rises from his chair, swings a wandering leaf from that ugly green plant out of his way and paces back over to the desk, sliding the pad back across to her. Their hands brush as she takes it from his grip, and he pulls his wrist close to his body. Lois doesn’t seem to notice.

She’s running the pen down the form, checking everything he’s filled in. Her tongue moves around the inside of her cheek, sucking on a hard candy. “Delivery on Friday?” she double checks, and Joel nods. “Alright,” she says, tearing away his copy, “we’ll call ya.”

“’ppreciate it,” he mumbles, folding the paper into his back pocket.

She turns, reaching to slip the form into a blue tray, and Joel pauses. Thinks to say something – he hopes Adam has a fun time at camp, or that Lois enjoys the rest of her quiet week. But then he sees you sat opposite him, staring fixedly at the plate before you, tears threatening to spill down your cheeks. He feels your hand laced in his, hears your laugh still ringing in his ears.

He misses you. He should never have left you. You matter more to him than some equipment for a site. Matter more to him than anything. He should’ve never fucking left.

Joel nods. Reaches for the handle of the door. Glances back to Lois. “There a florist anywhere near here?”

----------

He pulls the truck in alongside the florist. Teal window frames, a little pink door. He can hear you now. How fucking cute is that store? Give me your phone, I gotta get a picture. Mine’s is in my bag in the back. Look, the traffic’s movin’, Joel, give me your phone – quick!

His fingers hook around the silver door handle. He pats his jeans once – wallet’s right there – and goes to pull, when his cell vibrates from the center console. He can see himself in the glass screen, your dad’s name written across the reflection of his forehead.

He bites down on his lip. Hard. Glances up to the road ahead. Blinks. And decides to answer.

“Joel,” your dad chirps down the line. “Sorry, buddy, you’ll be sick a’ the sight ‘n sound of me today.”

Joel manages a convincing laugh. “What’s up?”

“Just makin’ sure you’re rememberin’ to put Friday’s date down for delivery on that order. We’re gonna need the stuff over the weekend, so.”

“Yep. Just been to do it right now. Friday’s date, Harvey’s site, your card details ‘n everything.”

“’attaboy. Good job. You’re all grown up.”

“Funny.”

“Thanks, pal. I appreciate it. There wasn’t no chance I was gettin’ time to do it myself,” he lowers his voice, “I’m still stuck here with Kelman.”

Joel’s fingers trace around his steering wheel. “Oh, yeah? He keepin’ you busy?”

“You bet. Had to haggle with ‘im just to get a lunch break. Speakin’ of – I swung by the house and that daughter of mine wasn’t home. Haven’t seen or heard from her since yesterday mornin’. I’m just checkin’ she ain’t stop by to see Sarah or som’?”

His fingers lock tight around the leather. “Sarah’s still in Nashville, she gets in tonight. Couldn’t tell you where yours is. I’m not home yet, so.”

It’s a half-truth. He could wager a pretty good guess, but he can’t be certain, can he?

Your dad chuckles down the line. “She spent the night at Anna’s. My house must be like prison to her – she’s never around anymore. I’ll hear from her soon, I’m sure. Alright. Thanks, again, Joel.”

He drops the phone back into the cupholder with a sigh, leaning back against the headrest to stare at the roof of the truck. He’s still picturing you in his living room, head turning to the street at every sound of a car door, or tires rolling by. And then the image is marred by your dad, peering in the window back at you, catching you wrapped up in a situation you shouldn’t be in.

He doesn’t want your dad to find out. For obvious reasons. Because it would mean the collapse of their friendship, the collapse of the world they built between them – for you, for Sarah, for themselves. Comfortability, and normalcy, and routine and order all thrown to the wind on account of some month-long fling.

But more important than all of that: it would mean dragging you into all of that, too. Fucking up your relationship with your dad. Making things weird between you and Sarah. Ruining whatever’s left of what you and Joel had, before you both took it too far.

And if he doesn’t want all that – if he doesn’t want your dad finding out – then something has to change. Something’s gotta stop.

His fingers wrap tight around the key and turn, and the truck jumps to life. He turns away from the teal-colored florist as he pulls off.

----------

You take it about as well as he reckoned you might. About as well as you should, given the circumstances. He isn’t surprised, and he doesn’t blame you. He’s probably on your side, when you argue back with him.

“You’re not serious, right? Joel. You’re not –”

“Kid, I…”

“No. What? Because of a fucking bag?”

He lifts his gaze and pleads with you. “Because of the lying.”

You’re right, with your response: it’s never been an issue until now. He’s been more than fucking happy to sneak off, take you as his own, and then return with a satisfied grin and a mouth full of excuses to feed your company. He almost agrees.

It’s just: this time, your dad’s at your heels like a bloodhound. A little less sharp, maybe. Blind as a fucking bat, sure. But he can smell something’s up. And he’s circling it, nose to the ground, drawing nearer and nearer to the pair of you with each step.

You ask if he wants to tell the truth. That thought scares him just as much. Knocks him back a few steps. No, he doesn’t want to come clean.

The words fly back and forth like a tennis match. Too fast for him to keep control of what he’s saying and how you’re hearing it. He wants to break it off – is there anything to break off? – but he doesn’t want to lose you – how can you lose something you never had? – and then: did he ever have you in the first place?

You’re standing over him, between his knees. “End it,” you tell him. “I’ll go.”

There’s a casualness in the loose shrug of your shoulders that scares him more than the prospect of you actually leaving. How easy it looks like it could be, for you to just wander out. Sling your bag over your shoulder and revert back to the start of the summer, when he was just a ride home after a rainy day at work.

Forget how to touch him the way he’s certain only you can, forget the secret language between you, forget every stolen glance and whispered word and every thought that ever translated from your brain to his as easy as they would pass between your lips.

“You don’t mean nothin’ to me? That what you think?” He’s laughing. Disbelief, fear, shock. Whichever one it is, it pulls across his cheeks painfully. Somehow, you’ve ended up at the foot of his bed.

“Well, what else am I supposed to take from this, asshole? That you’re fuckin’ in love with me?”

It’s cold water over an already-dying fire. The words smother into ash on his tongue. No more come to the front. He just stares at you. His phone starts to chitter out into the silence between you.

You take a step forward. Your voice is low. “You don’t get to do this, you know. You don’t get to pull me in and then drop me…once you’re done with me.”

“Don’t.”

It’s not much, but it soars from the pit of his stomach, through his throat and past his lips like a final arrow. All he can muster up.

“Don’t.”

There’s a weight where the words originate from. Something deep in his gut, an ache pulling its way upward, swelling across his chest. His ears are screaming.

Of all the things you might think – he’s an asshole, he’s a liar, he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing – the worst one would be that he spent this entire time leading you on. Making you feel special. Making you think you were something to him.

You are something to him. You’re – you’re fucking everything to him. It’s why he’s doing this, right? Going against every instinct, every gut feeling. To protect you. To do what’s right by you. He’s not fucking done with you. He wonders if he’ll ever go another day in his life without thinking about you.

“I can’t read your mind anymore…” you whisper, and his lungs steal a breath. His lack of response flattens your expression.

Joel might not be done, but you are.

He can feel you slipping from his grasp like sand through his knuckles. Each grain rocking itself loose, choosing to throw itself to the depths below rather than spend another second wrapped in his clutch.

He’s trying so desperately to hold onto you. Listen to me, he thinks, and he knows you can’t hear him anymore. Because now you’re really going – you’re tripping out of his room. Your heel catches on the threshold, like one last-ditch attempt from fate to pull you back into him, but you stop yourself and spin, fleeing down the hallway.

He takes a loose grasp of your wrist, fingers barely meeting on the other side of your skin before you tear it away from him like he’s scalded you. The look on your face makes him think for a moment that he might actually have done it – burned you. Pained you. Raised the skin below your gentle palm in a furious, red glow.

He’s swapping words out like they’re tools, each one immediately breaking and being flung back into the box. He’s trying any combination, any useless, futile order of words to make you stop in your tracks. You know how much I care about you, ‘s why I’m doin’ it, baby, come back, we can talk about this.

And he opens his mouth to give voice to the only words he knows would stop you – the reason why he’s doing it in the first place, the only thought he’s had anytime he’s looked at you for the last couple weeks. He opens his mouth to say it, or say something like it, when the machine silences the ringtone and the pair of you, too.

Her voice is like ice down the back of his shirt. He stares at the machine, red light blinking like a rag to a bull. He could walk over to it and smash the ever-loving fuck out of it with his fists until it’s dust on his coffee table. Until it shuts the fuck up, stops interfering with his fucking business.

And then he thinks about Lois, and her cream blouse, and her red nails, and her big, blue eyes, and her soft drawl and everything about her that is so entirely opposite to everything about you.

And how much – despite how nice and friendly, or funny and good-natured she is – how much he hates her right now, and how much he fucking loves you.

But you’re gone, now. Washed away by the tide. No more sand in Joel’s palm.

He tries to stop it. Tries to wind back a little, tries to make the sea cough up what it just stole from him. Give her back, you fuck. His eyes are stinging like salt water. Why are they stinging? There’s a roaring in his ears – the waves laughing in his face. Sickly and deafening.

He’s doing his best to keep a hold on his trembling voice. He knows he sounds pathetic. But yours is louder, stronger, steadier. And when you talk, it’s with an air of finality. Like you’re turning over the horizon. The last time he’ll ever see you again.

“I’ll see you ‘round, Joel.”

----------

He doesn’t call or text you that night. He doesn’t know what he’d say. Doesn’t even know where he’d begin. You’re mad, and Joel figures you got every right to be. This entire thing – today, this weekend, the whole month you’ve been together – is one big fucking mess.

He spends the afternoon hunched over his kitchen table, trying to distract himself with work. Twirling a pencil between his fingers, reading three, four, sometimes five times over the same building plans before deciding that the words and numbers won’t fucking sink in. He leaves them strewn across the table, wanders aimlessly upstairs and takes a cold shower.

Sarah’s flight gets in at 8PM. Joel’s sat curbside, truck engine humming, scanning every single figure that walks out of the airport building. When he spots the gray hoodie, the brown hair tied back with a pink scrunchie, the much-too-big-for-four-days-away suitcase rolling at her heels, he gets out.

She hugs her friends, they nod in passing greeting to him, and she skips over.

“Hey,” he breathes as she wraps her arms around his waist. “How was your flight? Saw you comin’ in.”

She shrugs in response. “I’m hungry. Wanna go get McDonald’s?”

Joel grumbles, slotting her case in the back of the truck. “You don’t wanna get home? Take a shower first? You smell like plane.”

“Ha! No.”

She opens the passenger side door and hoists her foot up on the seat, retying her sneaker. Joel’s already in and buckled up, hands on the wheel, watching her blue nails loop the laces.

“There’s one, like, ten minutes away.”

He’s shaking his head. “We got food in the house.”

Her gaze lifts. Her foot drops. “Oh, c’mon, it’s on the way home. We’ll be, like, five minutes. I just got off a two-hour flight, dude, right through dinner. I’m starving, I –”

“Would you just get in the damn truck, Sarah?”

It’s shorter, snappier, angrier than he meant. But he’s parked in the middle of the packed pick-up area, and the rattling of suitcase wheels and the whistling of cab drivers and the fucking roaring of planes overhead are making the headache behind his eyes worse.

Sarah freezes, one arm still leaning on the doorframe. “Jesus. What the fuck?”

“Sorry,” Joel mutters, shaking his head. “Sorry. Just – get in.”

“No need to be an asshole about it,” she murmurs, pulling herself up into the passenger seat.

Joel’s face is in his hands, elbows atop the steering wheel. “I’m not tryna be an asshole,” he says into his palms.

His daughter looks at him. Concerned. “Somethin’ happen? While I was gone?”

He shakes his head again.

Nothing happened.

He’s quiet the rest of the night. The rest of the week. Sarah notices, he knows she does, because she pries. In her own way. She’s smarter than he is. Less obvious.

She’s already up and in the kitchen when he rises on Tuesday morning. Spins around at the toaster, tells him the machine’s ready for his coffee. Asks if he wants her to make it. Asks if he wants any breakfast.

Thanks, kiddo. No, I’ll get it. No, you’re good, thanks.

They sit opposite one another in silence, save for the crunching of Sarah’s toast. He can feel her eyes on him, same way he felt Lois’s. Trying to burrow deep inside, take a look at his brain. Catch a glimpse of the words he’s thinking over and over and over.

There ain’t no words, though. It’s just images. Video replay of your back as you strode down his driveway, the way the wind caught your hair and brushed your cheek, the way your hand came up to wipe your tears. And the way he stood there, like a fucking idiot, and did nothing.

His chest hurts any time he thinks about you. Pulls in, knits itself together in knots. He’s good at pushing feelings down, good at turning them away from the sunlight like faded pebbles. But this is different. It’s a different kind of hurt.

It’s unresolved, it’s an open wound. It’s you. And it’s every time he hears REO Speedwagon, every time he pulls a flannel over his shoulders and catches the scent of your perfume on it, every time he’s flicking through the TV and catches a flash of a hospital setting, it’s a pair of hands deep inside the wound, pulling it a little wider.

It aches. It stings and it aches and it winds.

And then he turns the pebbles around. Back to the shade. Over and over and fucking over.

On Wednesday night, he caves. Asks Sarah if she’s spoken to you.

She’s chewing on a slice of pizza; licks the grease from her fingertips before she answers. “Not really. She’s been quieter than usual. Why?”

“She’s been quieter than usual?” he repeats, playing off the way his head shot up by looking straight back down at the pizza box.

Sarah narrows her eyes. “Yeah. I figure she’s working a lot.”

“Right. Right.”

“She gets tired of being in the house all the time, I think. Getting treated like a kid still. So I guess the more time she can spend outta there, the better.”

Joel nods slowly. He already knows that much.

Sarah studies him. Watches his hands as he dabs a pizza crust into the dip. When he tosses it in his mouth, he looks back up at her.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she says. “You want the last slice?”

“You take it,” he mutters, sitting back and wiping his hands on a napkin. “I’m stuffed.”

She hums, reaching forward. “Whatever it is,” she says, pulling the dough apart, “that’s got you this down –”

“Ain’t nothin’ got me down, kiddo.”

“– whatever it is,” she continues, “I bet it works itself out.”

Sarah stands up, taking her water with her, and wanders out of the kitchen.

----------

Joel struggles through another sleepless night, Thursday through Friday. His eyes don’t close over once. He hauls himself out of bed early in the morning, forces a black coffee down his throat, and heads off to work.

He’s up at some new client in Waco. Andrew Curtis – or, well, Andrew Curtis’s father, but Joel’s been dealing primarily with the son, and the guy’s a fucking imbecile. Doesn’t know his head from his ass, probably. And he has a voice like nails on a damn chalkboard, and his shirt’s untucked around the back, but Joel ain’t got a tone kind enough, or half the wordsmanship, or an ounce of energy to tell him.

Anyway – he spends all day at this dusty site, trying to work and instead, thinking about whatever the fuck you’re doing. Wherever you are, whoever you’re with. It’s almost seven by the time he’s leaving, packing up his truck and watching Andrew Curtis across the yard. He’s spotted his own shadow; he’s twisting around to reach the ducktail poking out from above his belt loops.

Joel thinks to call you about it on the way home. Tell you all about the guy: his dry conversation, his flannel, the fact he kept calling Joel Joe all day. He figures it would make you laugh, least the way he’d tell it, and he reckons that’s exactly what you need right now. That’s exactly what he needs, right now.

When Clark’s call him, he dials your dad. Has his ear blown half to hell by the speakerphone. Learns midway through the conversation that you’re right there in the car, too, and bites back a stream of incoherent, senseless words. Settles for a quiet reminder: he’s right here if you need him.

He doesn’t expect you to take him up on it. Knows you got better things to do than deal with some asshole who’d rather break your heart than have a few difficult conversations. You’re probably having fun, probably finally feeling good again. You’re probably fine.

But still. He doesn’t sleep that night, either.

It’s just gone two when Anna calls. He’s lying in bed, some shopping network on loop on the TV. His tired eyes bore into the screen, defocusing over the pixels, not watching nor listening and barely fucking breathing until he picks up the phone. Her voice is panicked, shrill, and shaking so much he wonders if his own phone is trembling with it.

“Mr. Miller?” she asks, and Joel sits up. “Got your number from Yelp. ‘m sorry it’s so late, it’s…oh, fuck – it’s, like, 2AM.”

“Anna,” Joel says hoarsely. Get to the fuckin’ point.

“Right. Sorry. It’s just…we kinda have a…situation, here.”

It’s you. He fucking knows it’s you. His heart begins to hammer. He doesn’t give a fuck whether she puts two and two together or not when he asks –

“Where is she?”

“We’re still at Frank’s,” Anna says, sniffing. He can hear the booming bassline of music, muffled; the sharper chatter of voices. She’s on the street. In his head, he can see her shoulders hunched; her bare arms wrapped around her body for warmth. She goes to say it again. “We’re still at –”

“’n where is she?” Joel cuts, and she finally cracks.

In one long, drawn breath, she spills. “She was fucked from the second we walked in here; she drank too much too quick, Mr. Miller – Joel,” she says when he corrects her, “and then she just – I dunno, she just – fucking disappeared with these guys, me ‘n Kara never saw ‘em in our lives – and they went upstairs we think, and she came back smelling like weed, and then this guy – he just, like, scooped her off, Mr. M– I mean Joel, like, totally dragged her away, and then –”

“Who–? Anna – Anna, wait,” Joel says, shushing her between her rambling, trying to rein in what she’s saying. When she finally shuts up, he speaks slowly and calmly. “Who dragged her away?”

“We don’t fuckin’ know!” she almost shrieks down the line. It cuts out for a second and Joel’s heart stops dead.“– so we don’t know,” she says when her voice filters back through into his ear, “but Sam said he saw the dude drop something in her bottle when he turned away. A pill or something.”

Joel’s body tenses. Freezes solid, with the blood in his veins. His eyes fix on one spot on his dresser: the loose handle that sits a little squint. He stares at it until his peripheral starts to blur.

“He – say that again?”

“He roofied her, we think. But we can’t fucking find them. Sam and Kara are in there just now looking. The guy pulled her away, that’s what I’m tryna say!”

“Right,” whispers Joel, nodding. He drags a heavy hand over his eyes, tries to push the image of you in danger out of his head for one second so he can figure out what to do.

Anna doesn’t hear him. She keeps talking. “…and then Sam said she told him not to call her dad, but I had to call someone, y’know? You’re the only person I think she wouldn’t – I think she wouldn’t mind me callin’. Please.”

He’s already halfway down the stairs, arms pushing through the sleeves of his shirt. He keeps the phone against his cheek when he bends to reach for his boots, ties them loose and grabs his keys.

“You call me as soon as you find her, you hear? I’m on my way,” he tells Anna, and hangs up.

He’s panicking. Fear, transferred between her cell and his, creeping over his shoulders, wrapping long, cold fingers around his throat. He’s panicking. He’s panicking. He never panics. Where the fuck are you? Who the fuck are you with?

There’s barely any traffic on the road, but the drive takes for-fucking-ever. The lights at the side of the road blur into long, thin streaks of orange. His hands are tight around the steering wheel, his jaw clenched. Your name lies loose on his lips.

He pulls up right outside the bar. There are small clusters of people, congregated tight together under the streetlights; cigarettes hanging from lips, bottles loose in hands. He shoves by them on his way to the door. Some guy shuffles out of his way, looking up to cuss Joel out and quickly dipping his head again when he locks eyes with the grizzly expression.

He shoves the door open with his shoulder, and spots you instantly.

----------

His knuckles are throbbing. Skin stretching anytime he moves his hand, searing hot and sharply stinging across the bone. Your touch is the only thing soothing them right now.

He got two good punches in. Just two. Burst the guy’s nose. He would’ve kept going, had he not been in a bar full of people – people who knew who he was – and had you not been stood behind him, body liquid-like from how much you were swaying.

But he has you home now. Up in your room, settled in bed. You’re safe. You’re with him.

You’re fucking wasted. Like, can barely lift a glass of water to your lips unaided wasted. He spent the entire drive watching over you, stealing glances when your head turned or your eyes lulled closed, checking you were still awake, still talking, still fucking breathing.

Whatever that asshole gave you, you don’t seem to have had enough for it to do too much damage. The alcohol is the real culprit. Though you were cognitive enough to yell at him over Lois in the kitchen, which relieved him for a second before it fucking crushed him. He’s lying awake right now – listening to the sound of your snoring – replaying the argument in his head. Over and over.

You’re an asshole and a liar. Just stringing me along this whole time.

He’s some awful cocktail of angry and terrified and fucking heartbroken. You’re lying inches from him, your hand resting softly on top of his, and yet – you’re miles away. The space between you both – fragmented, treacherous.

In a perfect world, he’d have wrapped his arms around your shoulders. He’d have pulled you against his weight, against his strong, steady form. And he’d have walked you, as slow as you needed, out of the bar and to his truck. Maybe laughing. Maybe singing.

He’d have told you everything was fine, told you he loved you, told you he was gonna get you home, make you feel better. He’d hold you until the sun came up, and then hold you until it went back down.

He’d love you. And you’d let him.

Maybe that world doesn’t exist, Joel thinks. And maybe that’s for the better.

It fucking hurts, though. Stings like a hot blade through his chest. All this time, messing around, pretending there was nothing more to it. Letting his feelings through like water in a fucking dam. It was bound to break eventually.

And maybe he really thought, even just for a fleeting moment, there could be something here. Something worth holding onto. More than two idiots messing around, more than sex and secrecy.

He didn’t even realize. Didn’t notice the shift. When did he start feeling…more? When did it cross that line?

He’s staring at the end of your bed. Thinking about you under him, gripping onto his shirt, his hand between your legs. The very first time. And every other fucking time since then. Which one was the threshold? Who pushed who?

His ringtone bursts through the silence, making him jump. His arm swings to fish it from the nightstand, swiping to answer before he’s even read who’s calling, just to shut the thing up.

“Hello?” he murmurs.

“Hey, Joe? Uh, I mean, Joel? It’s Andrew Curtis here.”

He rolls his eyes. For fuck’s sake. “Mornin’, Andrew.”

“Hi. Sorry, I know it’s super early. I’m just checkin’ we’re still good to go. I got my guys ready, we’re rarin’ to get goin’ whenever you are.”

Joel clears his throat, pushing slowly off the plush mattress, resting your hand on the sheets. “Yeah, uh…” He slips out of your room, hopping over to the bathroom and closing the door over. “…I had a, uh…a family emergency durin’ the night. I’m gonna be a little late, but I’ll be there.”

“Oh, gee, I hope everything’s alright?”

He phrases it like he wants Joel to clue him in. He considers for a second actually saying, Yeah, my best friend’s daughter – who I’ve been sleeping with for the last month – got plastered at a bar – Frank’s, local place, you heard of it? – because I broke things off with her – but I didn’t want to, I was just tryna be fuckin’ noble – and I went and picked her up, punched a guy who was tryna hurt her, because guess what, Andrew – I’m in fuckin’ love with her.

He sums it up with: “Yeah. Everything’s fine now. Thanks.”

“Alright, well, great news! Call me when you’re twenty minutes out, I’ll have the guys here for you arrivin’. Safe journey, Joe!”

Joel breathes an Uhuh and hangs up, holding the bridge of his nose. He has a headache, like he’s the one who’s been drinking. It’s only going to get worse, too, heading off to go spend his Saturday with Andrew fucking Curtis and his loose flannel.

The sun’s rising slowly, lighting the hall in a warm glow. Joel pads quietly into your room and pulls the cover back over his side of the mattress. You stir; your head jerks only to move some hair from your face, and then you sigh, sleep pulling you back into its arms.

He watches you for a second. Wishes he could run a light hand down your cheek, kiss your head. Whisper a goodbye, the same way you did to him almost a week ago.

He shakes the thought, collecting his boots from the floor. His hand hovers over his shirt for a moment. And then he lifts it by the collar, lays it neatly on the pillow by your head, and leaves. You can keep it, trash it, burn it. But it’s yours. Everything about him is yours.

In the kitchen, he stands by the sink, nursing a cup of coffee. It’s a quarter to six. This early on a Saturday, he figures he’ll be in Waco by seven, seven-thirty latest. His eyes fix on the spot you two stood last night, yelling back and forth about Lois. She seems so far away, now. He can barely remember the shape of her face, the sound of her voice.

His grip tightens around the mug. He places it in the sink, and grabs his keys. As he passes the stairs, he pauses. Leans on one foot, head tilted to listen out for any sound of life. Any fucking sound – the creak of a floorboard, the squeak of a door handle. Anything to keep him here. Anything.

Nothing comes. No sound, no movement, no you.

He closes the front door gently on his way out.

----------

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buckets-and-trees · 5 months

Text

Warm Shadows - Carving Through the Dark (3/4)

Fandom: MCU Collection: Warm Shadows [ part one | part two ] Title: Carving Through the Dark Characters/Pairings: established Alpha!Bucky x f!Omega!Reader, Alpha!Steve x f!Omega!Reader Word Count: 14.4k

Summary: Worse than a nightmare because it's real, Bucky has to track down his kidnapped omega and the man - the super soldier - who had been his closest friend turned into the dark, rival alpha, Captain Hydra.

Content Warnings: DARK, a/b/o dynamics, angst, explicit smut, vaginal intercourse, consensual forced orgasm

Logistical Notes: Shhh - yes this was the final story update I had planned for the Dark Forest Fest and it's the first week of January! But. Well. The word count. But we're here now, okay? Title taken from Hozier's Who We Are.

Additional Notes: Okay, I know that I did a poll asking last month if folks wanted the final chapter split into two parts or just one long chapter and - er - I kind of did both. I did not split this chapter, but a couple of days ago I realized we needed a fourth and final part. Lastly, @biteofcherry has been an absolute lifeline during the composition of this chapter - thank you for putting up with my conjectures and letting me piece together some of the elements. And even a little thank you to @rookthorne for cheering and bullying me over how long this got.

↠ Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

“I can’t help you,” Shuri states, though there’s the flicker of it almost being one final question of it in her eyes.

“No,” Bucky confirms. “No more than you already have.”

He knows she says it as one last opportunity for him to change his mind, but also in acknowledgment that he must do this on his own. They clasp hands and then he turns to walk up the ramp of the aircraft.

“James,” she says when he’s nearly gone. He turns back to look at his friend, one who has seen him at the best and worst of times. “Whoever he is now, he knows Bucky, he knows the Winter Soldier, he will have learned everything about the Soldat from their archives, so you must truly be the White Wolf. She knows the wolf, but he does not.”

He nods and then walks further into the aircraft, leaving Shuri behind.

After you’d been violated and taken from him, Bucky had lain in anguish until just before dawn, raging over the loss of his world and everything he’d worked for, built, found, cherished. He would find you again – when he’d sworn, “There’s no corner of this earth you can go where I won’t find you,” it had been a promise to you as much as a warning to the monster – but none of you three were the same after that night.

To be the White Wolf…

It will take all the tactics he learned in the army, that he was forced to acquire as Hydra’s finest assassin, and since he escaped and then truly reclaimed his freedom. As angry as he is, as desolate as he feels, he holds the emotions at arms’ length, he needs to be at the eye of the hurricane so he can maneuver the way he needs to.

Bucky hasn’t been able to feel you. His desperate hope is that it’s because you’re sedated and unconscious and not … not anything else.

In Wakanda he and Shuri hadn’t been able to find even a sliver of a trace of the jet that had come and gone for Steve to enact his plan. It was a statement that whoever he was now, Captain Hydra was utilizing every ounce of knowledge Steve had and blending it with whatever Hydra hat put in him.

Bucky won’t leave a trail either.

It will take Steve time to figure out how Bucky left Wakanda – on foot, ground transport, or air transport – if he can figure it out. But Bucky was the untraceable ghost over fifty years of missions for Hydra, and he didn’t have the motivation he does now.

Bucky devised that going on the already-scheduled aircraft to the Wakandan Outreach Center in Oakland gave him the best options. He assumes Steve would have managed to get into the networks used by the Avengers and SWORD, and since he flew an aircraft in and out of Wakanda undetected and Bucky won’t be able to use Wakandan technology to best him either, so landing in Oakland also puts him in proximity to the hardware, software, and network resources he would need to build his own tech. During his convalescence in Wakanda before the Infinity War, it had been days of goats and technology research and development in the most advanced science facility in the world. He is not the expert that Shuri is, but he knows enough. His aversion to much of “modern” technology has always been due to how primitive it was compared to anything from Wakanda.

It takes weeks, but Bucky acquires the hardware he needs, modifies software, creates the network and protocols he needs to start Hydra hunting, and puts it all to work. He knows what to look for – the patterns, the seemingly innocuous inconsistencies – and he knows it because he was running data point for the team of analysts dedicated to Hydra hunting before this. He had taken more responsibility at the base of operations and fewer and fewer field assignments to be home and build his life with you.

Bucky doesn’t hesitate in ignoring any ethical limits whatsoever for his surveillance protocols. When he was working within the system, they had established some lines they weren’t willing to cross.

With seven billion humans in existence and him alone looking for two, lines to cross no longer exist.

He knows he will never get his life back, but he will not let anything prevent him from getting you back.

He puts every piece into play immediately as he builds, sleeps only the bare minimum. Truthfully he had only indulged in more than the minimal sleep a super soldier needed these past years because it was time spent blissfully with you. Without a reason to rest, he didn’t have any problem cutting back to short sleep allotments to keep him operating at peak condition.

In putting his own tap into the Avengers’ database, he studies the work that had gone on while he was gone for his annual retreat away with you. He discovers that Steve and Sam followed leads in Europe.

“Damn you idiots,” he murmurs.

The reports show his two friends go dark after losing comms nearly a month ago. A team went in after them and their debrief says they found only their communication devices. ‘Search ongoing…’

That was a month ago.

He knows the status of Steve.

Sam could be a live asset in play, an asset still being trained and molded by Hydra, their prisoner for torture, or he could have been eliminated already.

It takes him sixteen days from the beginning of his build to finish – he’d been collecting intelligence, but once everything is in play and he continues to hone in on incoming results, things progress systematically, satisfyingly, in a foreign familiarity that evokes memories of this time hunting as the Winter Soldier.

Two more days and he’s got enough evidence in the intelligence to confirm you’re somewhere in Europe. Within two hours Bucky recalibrates calculations based the new findings, conducts new searches, gets confirmation of a face on a traffic camera in Gdańsk that looks like Steve, and when he’s able to piece a clear trail that follows him through the city and then to an aircraft that he’s further able to track until it disappears over northern Italy. He knows this for what it is – a trail tempting him closer to the trap. A challenge, an invitation, but only if he can put together more pieces to find you. How many times did he set beautifully complex traps for some of his prize targets when he was the Winter Soldier? Breadcrumbs to entice, to drive his opponent to work harder, to put their prowess to work, to make them feel confident so he could trick, trap, and kill them in the end.

This monster of a man tricked him in Wakanda. It will be the only time. Expert and intricate traps of this sort are something his opponent has been playing with for a few weeks. Bucky has more practice and expertise, infinitely more motivation, and no distractions.

He travels under cover of transports between Wakandan outreach centers from Oakland to Washington DC, and then from Washington to Bilbao. When he touches down in Bilbao, his information relay device has a new lead based off a visual of Steve in a bookshop in Turin twice in the previous week.

He takes the train to Turin. Within twelve hours he finds the location of the Hydra facility, and Bucky makes enough noise to reveal to Hydra that he’s in the city and trigger the personnel to raise the facility to its red alert security status. He plants a false trail indicating that he’s given up and gone further north, all the while watching every aspect of the base, making plans to infiltrate, and ensuring sure none of the vehicles or teams moving in and out look like they’re transporting you somewhere else. They drop to an orange threat level, and then yellow – standard caution and operating procedures.

Bucky would have been floored that they believed he’d missed them in Turin and moved on to search somewhere else, but it spoke to one of the weaknesses of Hydra’s organization: the arrogance. Instead, Bucky hacks into their base network as well as their external communications channels.

This observation, research, recon, and analysis Bucky does not rush. Everything he cares about is at stake. If he’s going to be successful in getting you back there can be no room for error as he’ll be up against Hydra and the only other super soldier on the planet who could potentially match or outmatch him.

And as the weeks wear on, the other thing he cannot deny, that he’d known from the beginning of this nightmare even if he’d wanted to try to ignore it, it that he isn't in this to rescue only you.

When all is said and done, the reality is he has to get Steve back, too.

Bucky knows the longer it takes, the more dangerously close he gets to your next heat. He knows an omega being in a distressed environment will affect the heat cycle. It could bring it on early, or potentially also push you to the extremes of a dry heat depending on the conditions they are keeping you in, and how you’re feeling. Once he determines he knows enough to start putting together a plan of extraction, he also determines it’s too close to when your heat might hit, and he can’t risk trying to extract you if you’re in heat – it becomes an element he can’t predict and ensure that his plan will still be successful.

His own senses are strained with the tenor of your unease in a way that’s different from before. It’s driving his alpha side mad, and he wants to storm the facility and reclaim you, and that’s one more element contributing to the volatility of the situation. He knows he can’t gamble on so many unpredictable elements.

He must wait.

But when he sees Captain Hydra leave in his jet right when Bucky is certain you are close to your heat, Bucky is stunned.

It might be too damn close to your heat, but clearly you’re not in heat yet or the other alpha would not leave you. This was not his plan, but it is a prime opportunity he can’t ignore – not if he can get to you alone and save you from a heat away from him. His heart can’t deny this unexpected opportunity.

After Bucky had hacked into the Hydra base’s network, he’d discovered that the small jet Captain Hydra had exclusive use of had been excluded from all navigational tracking and that the man only communicated by radio with one individual whenever he left. He’d further discovered that Captain Hydra was a weapon still cloaked from most of Hydra, with nothing about him other than his existence as a new asset available on the network. Even his former identity was not yet disclosed or recorded anywhere digitally.

This means Bucky has no idea where the man is going or when he will be back, but he hears Captain Hydra and his liaison discuss and confirm his time of arrival and his estimated time of return. Bucky must work quickly, but there is a window.

As he had not anticipated infiltrating so soon, he still has to finish putting things together for the actual extraction – like transportation, supplies, and thoroughly planning out three escape routes and destinations – and while he works quickly, he does not rush those final preparations, and so that takes him a significant amount of the window of time he knows he has.

But he only needs long enough to get you out.

He will have that.

He ambushes the delivery truck bringing in the week’s food shipment with no trouble and drives it right into the base as he has all the proper credentials on his person and its still pre-dawn hours, so lack of light works in his favor to get through the first gate.

But of course when he doesn’t follow delivery procedures once he rolls up to the shipping and receiving dock, that’s when his limited time really begins. The first decision he must make is whether or not to take out a man of average height but portly build that approaches the truck – one of the cooks, Bucky has studied the personnel files for everyone registered on this base – and Bucky evaluates as he steps out of the truck. He could kill him, but this man should probably be spared. Bucky doesn’t want unnecessary blood on his hands. So with lightning fast moves and a choke hold, the man goes down. But next are two security personnel, and them Bucky shoots point blank, taking each of them out with single shots. He leans down to lift the comms off one of them, putting the piece in his ear so he can hear everything as it unfolds across the base.

He yanks open the first door and moves down the hallway. And then there’s a frantic message over the comms, “Code Red! Winter Soldier, loading docks, two personnel down, in pursuit!”

Bucky growls and turns back down the hallway and swears when he sees the man putting comms in his ear and squaring up a gun he’d clearly lifted off one of the security guards was the cook he thought he’d put out cold. Apparently the man had more in him than Bucky had accounted for, and so now Bucky takes aim and shoots him once he’s close enough to secure the kill shot, only having to dodge two close but errant bullets himself as the cook had tried to run him down.

Lethal force for everyone it is, he thinks.

He’s irritated he wasted extra time on this man trying to keep down the body count.

He does not make that mistake again, killing everyone who comes across his path. The silver lining working in his favor is that this base in Turin is a science facility, not a military facility, so he has fewer muscle personnel to deal with than other places you could have been kept, and he can hear over the main comms that scientists and researchers are being given orders to shelter in place while there are instructions given over the security comms in Bucky’s ear that prime-level scientists are to be evacuated. It’s the directive he expected, which benefits him as the security personnel are split between pursuing him and evacuating those individuals deemed indispensable.

But dealing with those who are in pursuit of him is simple. When he’s out of ammunition, he makes quick work dealing what should be lethal wounds with his knives. Every man or woman down is one less he will need to contend with while trying to safely get you out, and while he’s reasonably sure he’s dealing death to everyone, there are a few he thinks may survive.

He has studied every aspect of this facility while making his preparations, and he sends a message to Captain Hydra that he was prepared by shooting glances cleanly into every camera he knows he passes.

There’s a flash of fear that ripples through him – it comes from the bond he’s tried to keep dormant between you since you were taken, but this is too powerful, and it’s a barb he can’t ignore. It flares and then dies out, which could be either a good thing or a bad thing. He squares his shoulders and moves more quickly.

As Bucky reaches the quadrant they’ve been keeping you a few moments later, the words, “The Omega is secured, sedated, and ascending to the roof with team Foxtrot, thirty seconds until air evac.”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

He knows he can’t make it in time, but Bucky still races down the hall to the stairwell, launching through the door and then hurtling up the stairs, taking them three and four at a time. His super speed isn’t enough to scale four flights of industrial facility stairs, and he bursts out on the roof to see the coaxial helicopter already twenty meters up in the air and navigating away to the north.

He wants to shout until his lungs bleed because he was so close, but he knows he can’t afford to indulge in emotions that strong in this moment. Instead, he takes huge gulps of the fresh air, pulls the door from its hinges, and hurls it across the roof before going back down the stairs.

He does not engage with anyone but comes across few through his retreat. Instead, his focus now is decimating what he can of the facility without wasting time or going out of his way as he escapes the base, rigging explosives quickly in key areas on his way out.

While he left destruction in his wake, and he leaves alone, he was precise in how much damage he dealt. He left the area of main logistical operations intact because he didn’t want to destroy their network and communications, eliminating his ties to tracking their next moves.

Bucky immerses himself in tracking and monitoring everything the second he’s back in his hideout with his tech. He sees the Captain return. He watches the final evacuations. They send him to Geneva, and Bucky is ready to follow, knowing exactly where the Swiss facility is located since he’s fully infiltrated the Hydra network of information. He can’t travel as quickly since he doesn’t have access to any Hydra aviation, but he makes it there by sundown.

He wouldn’t risk trying to disrupt your heat now, not with everyone moved and on high alert, it would be dangerous for you. Instead, he works on setting up his new undercover observation point in Switzerland. He fine tunes his information tap into the Hydra system. As he works, he notices the rise of an anxious feeling pulling at his hind brain. He’s felt the press of you trying to reach across the bond while you’ve been apart, but this is different – there’s a frantic, wild tug, and while it’s insistent, it’s more erratic, like the flickering of a flame, as if you aren’t even concentrating on the connection to him.

He knows so much of you that he knows you have to be on the brink of your heat but that you must desperately be trying to fight it. The discomfort he can sense continues to ebb and flow. It morphs. It becomes tinged with more discomfort. Then there’s a lick of desire that is almost imperceptible. That’s followed rather quickly be a flare of adrenaline – or is it fear? Another shift a few minutes later, and tone of this is pure arousal, the feeling he’s shared so much of with you, and the thought that you…

He grits his teeth, shuts his eyes, and abruptly stills every muscle in his body. You are his omega. Another alpha bonded you. Your heat is undeniable. His brain knows that – it’s one of the things he’s been focusing on, acknowledging the various scenarios that could play out for this heat, he just did not want this, nor was he prepared for what it might feel like. And so, with forced, measured breaths, he does everything he can to concentrate on shutting down the connection, to put his alpha side to sleep, because he can not bear this. He has suppressed so much of everything since losing you, only holding onto the faintest tether, but he cannot endure this – not and keep his rationality and do what he needs to do now, which is to formulate the next steps, the things he needs to figure out and watch for now that this cruel game has changed. Emotion will distract him, but there’s also the flow that could go the other way and throw you off, and he swore to keep you safe.

Diving into the network databases of this new Hydra facility, Bucky notices something he noticed in Turin: there are no records that contain any of your names on file – not you, not Steve, not Sam. He thought it was strange before, but he had a theory it could have been the nature of secrecy around all the projects at the research facility in Turin – there were very few data files on the science being explored on that base. But in transferring the Turin personnel out, with a contingent of them going to Geneva, he pours over all the documentation and the only he finds is the transfer of a high-level asset referred to only as Waffe SR4718. He easily knows the German word for weapon, and without missing a beat Bucky knows the letters and numbers are supposed to seem random but clearly refer to Steve Rogers whose birthdate is the fourth day of the seventh month in the eighteenth year of the previous century. It’s innocuous to anyone coming across it, but abundantly clear that it’s specific for those who were supposed to know.

With all Bucky knows of his own time with Hydra, how there were always layers within layers, secrets buried, hidden, withheld, he’s certain the acquisition of Steve and metamorphosis into Captain Hydra is as dark and as quiet as his own existence as the Winter Soldier.

There are quarters assigned to Waffe SR4718, and Bucky tags it track all status alerts – comings and goings, services, requests. He also puts the cameras for that hallway up on a constant feed monitoring protocol with the AI he’s adapted to bring up the imagery if there’s any movement in or out of the door.

Knowing you’re in heat, Bucky concentrates on new extraction tactics and mapping out escape options from this new facility.

But at three in the morning during the second night in Geneva – the second night of your heat – the door movement alert goes off, and Bucky immediately turns his attention to watch as Steve slowly emerges.

Why would he have any reason to leave you during your heat? He knows he could order food, clothing, bedding, medical personnel if absolutely necessary…

A quick check of the log shows that there have been no such requests.

And then he sees the unthinkable.

You’re right there behind him, following as he starts to make his way down the hall, dressed in darker clothing as he is. He has a small tactical pack slung across his back.

“What the hell are you doing?”

The question is only uttered out of frustration and disbelief because he could immediately decipher what is happening.

As precarious as it is to interfere with your heat, the two of you are clearly on the move.

The other alpha has no intention of staying at this base.

But why?

His mind begins deciphering even as he’s pulling up security cameras as the pair of you move through the facility, tracking your movements and actions.

The calculated risk is to get out when you’re supposed to be in heat. Bucky did see that status reported on the log – omega in heat. The protocols were to leave alpha and omega Hydra personnel undisturbed unless a priority one situation developed – typically reserved for life or death and rarely anything less urgent or pressing. It meant no one would think to check after the asset immediately. Even if an alpha skipped regular ordering for a meal or two to the living quarters, that wouldn’t be taken as out of the ordinary, merely unnecessary or forgotten due to being otherwise occupied, or deciding to make do with the food already with them.

The movement logically progresses toward the transportation hangar under the building – intending to employ ground transport.

On the way, the two of you duck into a room and close the door. Bucky accesses the schematics to discover it’s a data analytics workspace – cooperative computer sharing area. There weren’t any goons to hide from, so Bucky works quickly, trying to pull up the specific workstations in there. He sees the log in for a science officer. The user accesses the personnel transfer files for everyone from the Turin base submitted due to the evacuation. Four names are brought up on the roster and their locations are changed from Turin to the other the other bases anyone from Turin was reassigned to – a pair of them to Odessa, the other pair to Trondheim.

Subterfuge. He’s displacing security agents – or at least their location statuses.

Bucky frowns.

The rest of your course takes you directly to the vehicle hangar. Moving in the dead of night has capitalized on as few people as possible moving around the base for you to encounter, and it paid off. The other alpha selects a smaller SUV, loads some readily available weapons and supplies from the nearby vicinity into the back and then – faster than lightning – he withdraws something from a pocket near his chest, presses it over your mouth, and Bucky can see you seize up and then slump into his arms. He tucks you in amongst the supplies before throwing a canvas over everything and closing the hatchback.

Clearly you had been cooperating with this escape, so why was it necessary to knock you out?

Then he leaves the vehicle, leaves the hangar, goes back up two floors to the security personnel floor, and knocks on one of the doors.

Bucky accesses the database to see who’s assigned to that room as he watches this man converse briefly with whoever answers the door.

The two names assigned to the room match the two names reassigned to the Trondheim base on the evacuation transfer records.

“What larger game are you playing, Captain Hydra?” Bucky murmurs.

Because it’s back down to the hangar and the SUV with you stashed in the back, but then he waits.

And within five minutes, two men in full tactical gear get in the vehicle as well, and only then does he start up the car and leave. There’s a tracking device on this vehicle, so Bucky starts to pack up his tech, and pulls up the tracking on his smartphone.

He’s about to shut and pack away his laptop when he thinks of doing one more thing. It will take time, and this is why he knows Captain Hydra didn’t do it, but it will be worth it. But after his time in Wakandan labs and building up his own robust systems, within twenty-five minutes, Bucky has gone through the security camera system and successfully removed all footage of you and the captain moving throughout the base, rewriting it with the empty hallways from just before and after, effectively erasing the evidence of your escape. This will buy more time. No one may have thought to look for any movement in and out of Waffe SR4718’s quarters, but now they won’t find it when they ultimately go back and try, extending Bucky’s time to tail you without Hydra in the mix. They will assume the alpha and omega are still in heat seclusion now without any reason to doubt it.

Bucky leaves his temporary Geneva hideout with the essentials he arrived with. He chose this location because it was two streets down from one of the larger private car services in Switzerland. Bucky knows he can pass as a mechanic with his clothing, and the service staff works overnight to keep up maintenance for the large fleet of vehicles that provide VIP transportation, airport pick up and drop off, limousine transfers, corporate chauffeur services, ski transfers, and event chauffeuring. Acquiring a non-descript vehicle is as easy as he hoped, and it’s more than simple to de-activate this car’s GPS tracking system.

Within half an hour, he’s comfortably in pursuit. The vehicle he’s tracking has maintained its course and is an hour out of the city now, but an hour ahead is reasonable.

When the Hydra vehicle is three hours outside of Geneva, it makes its first stop. Bucky presses a button on his phone to pin the location. The stop is for less than five minutes, and then it continues, but Bucky will stop there as well to assess the purpose and glean any information he can.

Bucky is an assertive driver, making up speed, but not at a point to draw attention. When he reaches the pin he’d set on the route for the stop your vehicle had made, it’s on a bridge.

There’s only one reason Bucky can think of to stop on a bridge.

A reason that could make Bucky’s heart stop with devastation, but he must continue to operate under the assumption it wasn’t your body dumped into the river. Anything else wouldn’t make sense.

Unless the other alpha has become completely unhinged and all of this is an elaborate game to drive Bucky beyond all limitations of his own reason.

Within the next two hours, he sees you pass the border into Germany, and then another stop is registered on the GPS tracking near the city of Albstadt. Bucky has made up a significant amount of the head start the other alpha had had. When he arrives in Albstadt, he finds the SUV. It is most likely that this vehicle had been abandoned for another, but Bucky has to stop at this point and tap into security feeds for the city to see whether you’re here or not. He picks a spot that advertises wifi with their sandwiches, refueling his body while setting up his tech in a spot most won’t question him to hunker down for some serious work on a laptop. He gets into the city’s street cameras, sees Steve steal another vehicle, pulls the license plate, and then he programs his algorithm to watch for the number to track the route now. He won’t be able to smoothly follow the route of a GPS-tracked vehicle anymore, but Bucky knew this would grow more difficult. As long as his goal was to draw out the Soldat, Captain Hydra will still leave a trail of breadcrumbs, but it will be scant if he’s trying to evade Hydra.

While Bucky has questions of intent, he has no question that it’s what the Captain is doing now.

Bucky is able to pick up the trail with license plate tracking and route mapping into Stuttgart. All the way to the train station. But this is where the other alpha shows incredible skills for blending in. It’s a busy station. Bucky will have to run thorough security camera assessments of the Stuttgart station, figure out when – or if – they got on a train, and then continue tracking from there. If the alpha and omega got on a train, Bucky can at least narrow his search to that route and its stops for that schedule, but Bucky used train stations to cover his tracks as well, and sometimes that involved never boarding the train but leading anyone tracking him to believe that he had.

With that much information, he writes new coding into his overall system, sends it back to the larger machine he left in Oakland to do the heavy computing so it can start the work he’ll need to fine tune once he can settle in a more permanent stopover, pays for his meal, and then drives to Stuttgart. The hacking into facial recognition has been so enhanced beyond boundaries though – especially because he can tailor it to look for only two faces he knows as well as his own – that he sees the two of your board a train headed west, targets the route, sets up the watch parameters for the schedule, and catches you getting off in Paris.

Another smart move blending into the vibrancy of a large city, but Bucky is sure it’s not the final destination either. But Steve knew enough French to blend into the country, as well.

It takes Bucky and his systems six more days, but he confirms three separate facial recognitions for the other alpha in a town outside of Bordeaux small enough to be off the beaten path but big enough to blend in and go unnoticed by its people.

Bucky travels there as quietly as possible. He does not want to tip his hand. He’s too close now to have you slip through his hands again.

After two more days and with the assistance of satellite imaging, he has found the small house in a forested area outside of the town.

Bucky grips the edge of the small desk he’s been working at, grounding himself. Adrenaline had immediately surged through his veins, but he must keep everything contained. He has practiced so much control and restraint that if his heart betrays him now, he’ll carve it out himself and leave it behind. He cannot compromise this delicate situation.

He drives out to the area and leaves his vehicle well-hidden a kilometer out from the house and approaches on foot, circling at a large perimeter and slowly moving further in, cautiously, taking in everything. He doesn’t want to trip anything the other alpha may have set up to alert him to intruders.

What he discovers is minimal, and all old tactical elements – things they’d done as

Cap and the Howling Commandos back in the old war.

Effectively things that would have worked on anyone from this day and age but that only Bucky would know to look for.

He doesn’t trust it.

This is another trap.

But he has to walk into it and fare as best he can.

That’s what Captain Hydra had said was his plan from the beginning – draw out the Soldat.

The White Wolf would enter the trap but would need to control it and come out on the other side with his omega.

He can’t even think those words without his pulse racing now, and he digs his vibranium fingers into the trunk of the tree under his hand, splintering the wood while he closes his eyes and stamps down everything that wants him to sprint to the house he can see, break down the door, and launch himself into your arms.

He timed his approach when he’d seen the other alpha leave – likely for more food and supplies – but he knew the time alone would be limited.

Bucky takes measured but determined steps to the green wooden front door of what’s essentially a little cottage.

Straining his ears and focusing on his enhanced hearing, he doesn’t pick up anything beyond ambient noises – and your soft, slow breathing.

He takes a deep breath, slowly twists the doorknob, and opens the door.

There you are, curled up in a cozy armchair, dozing, hand pressed up against the spine of a book that has fallen to your chest after you clearly fell asleep reading, and this.

This simple scene nearly knocks him to his knees.

The way you’re there, feet away from him, it’s the most beautiful sight of his entire life.

But still, he is quiet, cautious.

His entire chest aches for you.

He shuts the door softly behind him, then crosses the small living room and kneels next to you. He eases the book out of your hands and puts it on the small side table. He’s done this before so many times. You make a slight hum through your sleep.

Brushing his fingers over your cheek is almost enough to make the nightmare of the last six weeks vanish as if it really had only been a nightmare.

He almost doesn’t dare to breathe.

But the warmth of his hand against your skin evidently reaches in to stir something in your subconscious, because you shift slightly, sigh, and tilt your head into his touch and murmur, “Bucky…”

The stutter of his chest is both painful and euphoric at once, and everything wells up in his chest, everything he’s been holding back.

He drops his hand from your cheek to your shoulder, gently trying to nudge you awake.

Coming back into consciousness, you take in a deep breath before blinking your eyes open. Your gaze drifts to him, and then your body seizes up one moment, and the next you’re scrambling up and away from him, whipping over the back of the armchair you’d been curled up in.

“Bucky?” your voice comes out in a wounded whimper of a tone that pierces him, confounds him.

“Yes, it’s me,” he answers, brow furrowing. He hadn’t allowed himself to think over what this moment was going to be like – he knew the fixation would have been too painful to hope over – but it was not supposed to be this, with you looking at him with caution, with hesitancy, with your guard up.

“Omega?” he questions tentatively, rising from where he’d been crouched on the floor.

You don’t move your position, but you draw yourself up to your full height as well.

Bucky maneuvers around the furniture, wanting to remove the barrier between you, but he changes his position slowly, allowing you time to retreat if you feel compelled to. You hold your ground but do keep yourself squared off facing him as he moves. He does what he hasn’t done since this ordeal began and definitively opens up the gateway of the bond between you, tentatively reaching out, trying to read you.

Your mood is hard, and it doesn’t fluctuate. There’s a steady mix of fear, doubt, and what he thinks is exasperation there.

No, it’s more than that.

“You’re angry with me?”

“I’m more than angry with you!” you hurl the words at him and cross your arms over your chest. “I’m livid.”

“I came to you as fast as I could!” He steps closer, and now you step back. He moves closer again, but with a smaller step.

“It’s not that, I know you worked as hard as you could–“

“Then what else could you possibly be upset about, Omega?” His tone is desperate, earnestly seeking the answer, but also tinged with a warning he can’t help from bleeding into the question.

“I couldn’t feel you.” The anger gives way to let the anguish of your words bleed through, and they sweep over both of you. “You cut yourself off from me. I was desolate and scared and alone, and you withdrew any hint of our connection.”

He steps forward once more, finally close enough to reach for you, and as he continues to close the distance, you unfold one of your arms and backhand slap him. “I needed you!”

Bucky staggers a step back from the raw force you hurled at him, but it only takes him the space of a breath for him to recover enough, and he surges forward and pulls you into his arms, uttering your name the way one pleads in a fraught prayer. You try and push against his chest and squirm out of his arms, but he only secures you more firmly, holding you dearly and desperately to him.

“I needed you,” you sob out. Instead of continuing to try to struggle away from him, to hold your hurt at bay, he feels you stop fighting and the turn as you let everything out. He holds you, soothing you, but not trying to quell any of this yet. He knows everything you’re feeling is warranted, can feel now that you held back as much as he did while you were apart. Endured as much hurt as he did – more in many ways. He won’t tell you to settle down, because the hurt needs to be acknowledged and not minimized.

Once your chest is no longer wracked with sobs, when your crying has abated from steady streams of tears to the small sniffling, he gently wipes the tears from your cheeks. Then Bucky decisively nuzzles his face down into the crook of your neck. Slowly, tentatively, he presses his lips to the place he claimed and bonded you as his omega, his mate. You whimper, but your hands clutch at his shirt, and the immediate flood of relief, of love, of devotion, washes over you both. He can feel it, he knows you feel it.

His large hands are planted firmly on your back, one at the curve of your spine, and one between your shoulder blades, pressing you as close together as he possibly can. He plants a longer, more concentrated kiss to the mark, and your right hand slides up to thread your fingers into his hair and press him closer.

The more he kisses into your neck, the more whole he feels. He had ignored the hollow, empty feeling in his chest, had truly rejected all feeling, as cold and empty as he’d operated while being the Winter Soldier. He’s feeling human again. Himself again – or at least it’s all coming back to him now.

He doesn’t even realize when your body has fully melted into him, too caught up in the mending of the connection, but then you’re urging his face up away from your neck, but only so you can press your forehead to his, and you say, “I need you, Bucky.”

He nods, and then you kiss him. In a movement familiar to you both, his hand moves down, curving over your ass and to the back of your thigh, and he picks you up. Your legs wrap around him as you deepen the kiss, nipping at his lips. He carries you across the big open space to where there’s a bed in the far corner.

He sets you down gently on your feet, and his hands are already reaching for the hem of your shirt, and you readily lift your arms so he can pull it cleanly off your body. You’re reaching for his belt, and he’s pulling his own shirt over his head. Your lips eagerly seek each other as much as they can. You push his dark jeans down, and he huffs and sits down at the foot of the bed so he can hastily unlace and yank his boots off, so he can shuck his pants off all the way. When he raises his head, you stand before him in nothing but your simple underwear, one hand pressed against your torso, biting your lip.

You’re so damn beautiful to him, his heart aches again at the sight of you nearly naked before him again after so long torn apart.

He reaches for you, and though you don’t hesitate to take his hand, as he tugs you into his lap, your thighs straddling either side of his hips, he doesn’t miss the slight tremble of your body, and it kills him but there’s a deep part of him that resonates, recognizes the feeling. The separation had been hell on an alpha and omega level, and this is still too much, overwhelming, and altogether not nearly enough to soothe the deep loneliness he had pushed beneath the surface. His arms wrap around you again. While your left arm wraps around his neck, your right hand roams over his bare skin – shoulder, arms, chest, neck, face – questing to rememorize him.

He wants to be inside you, but having your chest pressed into to his chest, it’s like your heartbeats are syncing back together, and he almost needs this more. The side of your face rests against his, and the way he can hear you breathe in and out right next to his ear, can feel the warmth of every exhale, it’s yet another inimitable balm he didn’t know he longed for.

He murmurs your name softly against your shoulder.

“Mmm?”

He knows you can tell he’s working out something to say. Every season you two had been together had been time you had worked to only continually knit your souls more tightly to each other, not only to love each other more, but to understand each other, to work together, to support and lean into each other as true partners.

It had made the separation all the more painful.

He squeezes you more tightly for a moment, then inhales to speak. “I need to tell you why I put up the walls I did.”

He feels you tense slightly in his arms – of course he does, there’s no way for him to miss it any more than there was any chance for you to try and hide it when this intimately entwined. He bestows a soft, light kiss to your bonding mark, and you whimper, but turn your head to brush your lips over his cheek, and then both of you draw back just enough to look at each other.

“I’ll never know if it was the right or wrong thing to do to you, but it felt like the only way I could hope to survive navigating back to you. Immediately I knew I couldn’t allow the anguish of pain and anger I was feeling to flood to you when I knew you were living your own nightmare. When I held that back, the way Hydra had conditioned me to repress all feelings when I was their fist resurfaced, and I knew shelving the emotions would leave me to focus and be more effective in everything I was doing to track you and find you.”

“Bucky,” you start, but he shakes his head slightly, his eyes pleading for you to let him continue. You give a little huff. “Okay.”

The corner of his mouth lifts, and he pecks your lips before going on. “When I was closing in on where they were keeping you, I didn’t want to alert you and have you have to worry about how to hide that.”

“That’s a fair strategic tactic,” you grudgingly admit.

He grins at your tone, but it abates quickly. “I also…”

He pauses for half a beat and takes a breath to steel his resolve because you deserve his raw honesty as it’s still a concern in play.

“Also what?”

“I didn’t know how much of our bond he would feel. I didn’t want to tip him off, but I – I didn’t want to feel what might go the other way and bleed from him through you either.”

“Oh, Buck,” you bury your head into the crook of his neck now, nuzzling against the bonding mark you’d given him. “Our bond is ours, not his.”

“It’s not?”

“No, no,” you press quick successive kisses against your bonding mark on the juncture of his neck and shoulder. “You might feel the wake of what I feel from his bond to me, but the ties to each of you are very distinct within me. I’m especially sure of it now that ours isn’t dormant anymore.”

He holds you close while he sorts through this revelation from you. “I didn’t know – and I was worried if I felt him it would either devastate or enrage me and either way make me overrule logic and slip up, do something rash.”

“Now I understand,” you speak right into his ear. “Concentrate though, what do you feel right now?”

He breathes in. Breathes out. Another breath in. Out.

“Only you,” he says, no question.

Your lips drift back down his neck, and you press an insistent kiss to your claim on him this time, then you open your lips and suck over the spot.

Bucky shivers and groans, and you wince and laugh when his arms flex around you so tightly it actually hurts. Because he reacts so strongly, it doesn’t shock him in the slightest that you’re spurred on to seek more, but now he’s ready, so when you’ve satisfied with your initial torment and he feels you slot your teeth over the mark, he bares his neck, ready when you bite down to renew your claim on him, and he shouts – euphoric, flooded and overwhelmed with the way everything opens in such a raw way when a bonding mark is refreshed.

It drives you to rock your hips against him. You’re both still in those last pieces of underwear, but the friction of your cunt against his cock is glorious, and he can’t help the satisfied rumble in his chest in answer to the simple action.

His hand clamps on your plump, round ass, and he pushes you hard against him and holds you there – he doesn’t want the rocking, for a moment he just wants the intense pressure, the reality that you’re here with him.

You crash your lips to his desperately. He slants his head and works his tongue along the seam of your mouth, which willingly parts for him, an open moan passing between you both, your tongue inviting him into your mouth, stroking against his. Both of you fiercely hold onto each other, keeping that close chest to chest contact while you kiss more than you breathe. When you ultimately have to break off from each other to get air back in your lungs, the heaving expansion of your ribcages against each other is such a simple but intense intimacy, breaths mingling – another moment that adds to the replenishment for how much his soul had been depleted without you.

“Need you inside me,” you plead.

He nods while turning and tossing you onto the bed.

As he climbs up to join you, you quip, “No more clothes, Alpha.”

“Bossy Omega,” he chuckles, but complies in pushing his boxer briefs down and tossing them away.

You quirk your lips. “Give me what I need, and I won’t need to be so demanding.”

He growls, but it’s teasing, the feeling in his heart is a light one, a feeling he feels echoed in you, lines of it running through the overwhelming need.

Bucky moves up the bed, hooks his fingers beneath the band of your underwear, and you lift your hips so he can remove them immediately. He leans down and presses a broad flat lick of his tongue over your hip bone, causing you to squirm – desire and a sensitive spot of skin he discovered on your years ago. “I know what you need, Omega.”

“Yes, Alpha,” you nod eagerly, and he flips you over onto your stomach

He hears your breath hitch. He knows you love roughness and to be handled as often as you love softness, but the latter isn’t what you need right now. He crawls up over you and plants his left arm up by your shoulder while he slots himself between your legs. Your left hand finds his, twining your fingers together while he lines up his cock with your slick entrance, and the sigh of ecstasy that escapes you as he pushes his length in sings in his ears. The feeling of your warm channel gripping him is better than he remembered – or at least it feels that way – and he tries to push in as slowly as he can to savor coming home to where he belongs inside you, but it’s not nearly as slow as he wants it to be.

Once he’s fully sheathed in you, he kisses your shoulder, then nips along until he’s at the juncture of your neck, and you keen and bare your neck to him. He licks over his bonding mark, then bites down, reclaiming you, and you cry out, body thrumming beneath him. He starts to move behind you, pulling his hips back before thrusting back in. Your right leg hitches back to tangle up and over his, urging him on. He grips your hip, and then he fucks you. It’s the most primal it’s ever felt with you, the force of it rocking the bed to knock against the wall, and he almost worries about whether or not it’s too much, but you rock back against him, meeting his thrusts as much as you can in your prone position, eagerly taking all of him.

“That’s it, darling, take my hard cock inside you,” he urges you both on.

You sob out a breathless, “Yes,” that makes his chest rumble in satisfaction.

He can feel your cunt fluttering around him, can feel you on the edge of ecstasy, but it also feels like you’re refusing to fall over the edge.

“Come on, darling, let go.”

“No.”

That shocks him but doesn’t slow him down.

He maintains his pace and slips his hand down between you and the mattress, cupping your pussy and finding your clit. “Yes.” He starts to rub quick, concentrated circles over your tight bundle of nerves.

You shake your head desperately. “No, I don’t want it to end,” the words tumble out, and he hears the sound of you crying again.

“Omega, I will give you more. I’ll give you as much as you need, but I need you to give in to this, surrender and fall over the edge with me again.”

“Bucky!” you cry out as you’re unreservedly flung over the edge. Your cunt clamping down on him was the last of what he needed to reach his own climax, and so his shout echoes your own, and he exerts those final thrusts to pump his seed deep within you.

He stays sheathed within you but rolls both of you to your sides, brackets his arm around your waist, and keeps you close, nuzzling into your neck. You sink back against him, resting your arm over his and threading your fingers together.

“That was…”

He nudges your chin for you to turn your head back so he can kiss away the tears that escaped during the emotions that came through there at that end.

“Intense?”

“Yes.”

“We both needed it, Omega. I need you as much as you need me. Do not doubt it.” You shiver in his arms, and he swears, “I’ll make sure you never question it again.”

“Never let me go.”

“Never again.”

You shift and turn over to face him. He’s just as content to wrap you in his arms this way. You tangle your legs with his as you have so many times before. This is so familiar.

You brush your fingers over his face, retracing the lines and angles that define him, and he watches your face as your eyes drink in his features.

“I’m yours, Omega,” he says in a quiet, low tone.

A soft smile lifts the curve of your mouth. Your hand cradles his jaw and beckons him in to kiss you, and he is happy to acquiesce. The kisses he shares with you now are slow, solemn promises of lips and tongues, heated but not demanding.

When you eventually come up for air, you tuck yourself more closely into his chest, humming with contentment. He’s half hard again, and the frantic last moments of the sex he shared with you flashes back to the forefront of his mind. “I promised to give you more. What do you need from me? Tell me how I can please you, how I can love you.”

You reach up and press your fingers delicately against his bonding mark. “Just this. Hold me. I only need to be with you.”

He can feel how true it is as your fingers stroke lightly over the place where you claimed him all those years ago, reclaimed him here in this bed, flooding him with more peace. His brushes his lips over your forehead. “Whatever you want, sweetheart.”

There’s a little chirp that bubbles up out of you when he calls you sweetheart again, and it makes him just as happy as it does you. He slowly caresses your back, hand moving up and down, up and down, in a soothing motion, soothing himself as much as you.

There is still so much ahead for you both, but this – your connection to each other – he can feel that again so strongly. He never doubted it, but after being deprived, the return of how powerful it is engulfs him. This will anchor him through what’s coming.

“Buck?” you murmur against his neck.

“Mmm?”

“I can tell your brain is beginning to work away from here.”

He sighs. “Can you blame me?”

“No, but talk to me, take me with you if you’re going to think.”

“There’s so much to think through.”

“Start with one thing.”

You’ve done this with him before – late nights, afternoons, mornings, on a drive, on a walk, sharing a meal – you could always feel when he started to get tied up in his brain with his thoughts, and you’d listen, ask questions, sift through with him. He was perfectly capable of sorting through things on his own, but sharing with you made it altogether different. It was one of the best parts of having you as his mate.

“Why…?” He frowns and trails off. “No, nevermind.”

“No, Buck. I worked hard to soothe and relax my alpha. I want this gift of respite with you, however brief it is, and whatever string you don’t want to tug on first clearly is one that’s important.”

He nips your shoulder. “My gutsy omega.”

“Alpha,” you press, also literally pressing a finger insistently against his chest.

“Alright…” His tone turns serious. “Why didn’t you try to escape – especially here where he leaves you alone sometimes?” From the way he’d found you, it was clear this wasn’t an anomaly.

You cluck your tongue impatiently and roll your eyes. “First, how was I reasonably supposed to outrun him, hide from him, and try to find you? I don’t have any of the tactical skills or training you two do.”

“Fair enough. And second?” The first point is obvious now that he’s asked it and heard you answer, but he wants to hear the rest of what you have to say.

“Second,” you continue, your tone altering to something more somber, “he took me to lure you to him, so the most logical thing was to stay and wait for you.”

“Ah,” Bucky nods, the smallest of smiles taking over his mouth. “My smart omega.”

“And third,” you continue, though your words tone is cautious now, and you drop your eyes to his chest.

“Yes?” he urges you to finish the thought.

“He’s my alpha, too.”

This isn’t news – he’s known it from the second he witnessed that bite to claim you, he thought of it frequently while he was hunting for you both, he knew it would be the new reality, you’d even discussed the two bonds together in this bed – and yet having to think about it yet again in this light is still straining on him.

Clearly you feel his unrest, because your hands come up to cup his face and basically attempt to soothe him with gentle but insistent strokes along his jaw. “Bucky, I’m always going to be yours.”

He sighs and angles his head down to touch his forehead to yours. “I know.”

And it’s not jealousy that drives his unrest – it’s the not knowing what this means, not right now and not for the future. He’s started thinking about possibilities, but he’s limited until he can confront the other alpha. So, he decides to concentrate on what it has meant so far.

He makes sure his tone is soft but serious when he asks, “Did he hurt you?”

You’re quiet for a beat, then say, “I don’t know how to answer that.”

Bucky starts to sit up, but you pull him back down to the mattress, trying earnestly to soothe him. “What he did hurt us both, and it was meant to hurt. It was absolutely calculated. But they broke him, Bucky. They tortured him and tried to make him comply for weeks. They were experimenting on Sam, trying to pull the science they could from old records on you and what they could pull from analyzing Steve’s blood, but they weren’t having success, and so they enacted their last use for Sam – and they killed him in front of Steve. It destroyed him.”

Bucky’s own chest aches as he listens, throbbing painfully at this reveal, and his vibranium hand fists the sheet.

“And when he was at his most devastated and spent emotionally, what I have been able to piece together is that that’s when he couldn’t stand to feel anymore, shut off his emotions – or his humanity more like, and it’s his humanity that made him Steve. That’s when they were able to take over and mold him into the fist they wanted in Captain Hydra.”

Hurt, anger, the horror of his own past life as the Winter Soldier, it’s surging through his veins, but you continue.

“So that night in Wakanda? That was Captain Hydra at his height of cruelty. I haven’t seen that iteration of him since that night. It’s been slow, but he’s different now. He’s not our Steve, but he’s not Captain Hydra.”

It’s a few moments before he registers that you’re done – at least with that piece of sharing.

He cups your jaw and looks into your eyes. “Do you trust him?”

He sees you clearly put thought into your words before answering, worrying your bottom lip. “The heat he and I shared was intense in every way. It changed things fundamentally between us, but since the heat our connection has still been very tenuous. We’ve both been very guarded with each other. I know he’ll keep me safe, but I’m still wary of him.”

He nods.

“Where is he right now?”

A wry laugh tumbles out of your chest. “I don’t even know where we are right now, Bucky. I know we got off a train in Bordeaux, but then he moved us here while I was in one of my heavy end of heat sleeps. From the food, books, and supplies he’s brought for us, I know we’re in France, but that’s it. There’s not a lick of technology kept in here while I’m alone. We don’t even a radio.”

Bucky grunts at this news. He doesn’t like this, but other than being kept here cut off from the rest of the world and having claimed you and separated you in the first place, it seems you’ve been appropriately cared for.

“Wait, no radio?” He growls. Bucky had looked away to consider the new information, but his eyes snap to you again. “Have you had any music?”

“No,” you groan, and he can feel the pained irritation.

“That won’t do.”

He quickly rolls off the bed to a small whine of protest from you, but it was so rare that he’d ever been in a space with you and there hadn’t been music playing – loud for you to sing, or low in the background keeping you company – and this is something he can fix easily.

He fishes the small communications device he had put together out of the pocket of his discarded pants, then comes back to sit on the foot of the bed and begins typing away. You’re quick to crawl up behind him, and you wrap your arms around his chest and settle your chin on his shoulder while he works. You don’t see the smile that breaks across his face as he feels your excited impatience radiate off you, having figured out what he’s doing. It’s so palpable he wouldn’t have needed your emotional bond as alpha and omega to sense it.

Once he’s modified his device to play music, it doesn’t take him much longer to hack into your music account. He pulls up the list of your most-played songs, picks one that he thinks will be perfect for this moment, and hits play.

You croon with joy and then fall back on the bed, arms spread out in pure rapture. He beams and then crawls up next to you, handing you the device. You hold it close to your chest with one hand and pull him in for a kiss with the other.

You break off the kiss so you can sing along to the chorus, and he laughs. He knows exactly the last time he felt this happy: the last day by the river with you in Wakanda. When the chorus is over, you actually kick your feet in delight, grinning at him. You kiss his nose, scoot your body as close to him as possible, then settle back into the mattress and pull his arm to rest over your stomach.

The two of you talk, sing, and continue to hold each other for a while. A string of two or three softer songs play, and you and up drifting into sleep, late afternoon sun pouring over both of you, its warmth too much for you to ignore after the physically and emotionally exhausting afternoon. He watches the rise and fall of your chest, his hand over your heart, no thought for time. He doesn’t want to move, doesn’t want to take his eyes off you. How did he survive without you for all those weeks?

A flare of light across the room pulls his focus though. It’s a repetitive flashing coming through the window to the wall.

Morse code. His blissful mood evaporates.

C-O-M-E O-U-T-S-I-D-E

The other alpha is out there, summoning him.

He identifies which window the light is being directed into, then pads over, and releases the drape to cover the window, pulls it back, covers it again, and then secures it back in its open state. The other alpha will know he’s received the message.

Bucky has referred to him as the other alpha for so long now, but he’s ultimately about to discover who this man is. You say he’s no longer The Captain Hydra that he was, but not yet his Steve either.

He doesn’t hurry getting dressed. The other alpha isn’t going anywhere. He’s waited this long. He can continue to wait.

Bucky takes a long look at you from across the room before he leaves.

He’s relatively sure he will come back to you. There’s only one outcome that will keep him away, and now that he knows the potential danger, he won’t let this man ambush him ever again.

Bucky stalks as carefully to the tree line where the signal had come from as he had when he’d first approached the little house. He can smell the other alpha on the breeze that rustles through the trees. He tracks him in a kilometer or so – not in the direction Bucky had left his vehicle, but that works fine for him because if he needs to cut and run, he’ll be able to get to you in the house and then continue on to get to the getaway without having to double back and without the other alpha being able to cut off the route.

Bucky will think through every possible scenario as each moment of this unfolds.

His brain got him here.

His brain can get him out.

He will keep you safe.

The scent he’s known nearly his whole life grows stronger, and when he reaches a small pocket of the forest devoid of trees – not quite large enough to be called a clearing – instead of slipping silently out of the shadows, the other alpha steps out unabashedly to meet him.

“What took you so long, Buck?” he has the gall to ask, his voice barely covering notes of anger.

Bucky roars and hurls himself at the man standing before him, taking him to the ground easily, and they scramble against each other. They’re so closely matched in skill, prowess, and power, and the energy they’re both exuding is raw, primal, and angry. Bucky is incredulous that the other man is angry with him.

His own rage lands him a punch. He takes a blow to the ribs, and the other alpha gets a hand on the collar of his shirt, resulting in a tear, but it allows Bucky to grab his wrist, twist him around harshly, and pin the arm behind his back as he decisively thumps him into the ground, pinning him there.

The man beneath him only makes two attempts to struggle and shift out from under his hold, but then he sighs and sags into the tall grass they’ve been tussling in.

Is he feinting?

Bucky honestly doesn’t know.

“Who am I talking to?” he asks – the same line of inquiry Steve used on him in an abandoned warehouse outside of Berlin.

He knows it, letting out a guffaw beneath him. “I’m not him anymore.”

“Not who?”

“I’m no longer their Captain Hydra,” he pauses before adding, “but I’m not the kid from Brooklyn either.”

Bucky knows they’re not going to stay like this forever, and he needs to see this man’s face and look into his eyes if he’s going to be able to sort out any of this, so as swiftly as he can, he releases the alpha, pushes himself up, and takes a wary stance a few meters away.

Steve remains on the ground, but rolls over and sits up, planting his feet on the ground, and leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. It’s almost a casual.

Bucky will have the advantage of already being up on his feet if the man before him tries anything.

Bucky needs to know how to read whoever this is, so he decides to go with a different line of questioning – things that are more cut and dry.

“When you left the base in Geneva, there were two Hydra security with you. You stopped over a bridge two hours into your journey, and they weren’t with you when you switched vehicles in Albstadt. Who were they, and why the elaborate ruse only to drop them in a river so quickly?”

Rather than being surprised, it seemed he was satisfied that Bucky knew this much about what had played out. “Alright, we can start there. Leaving under the initial guise of a mission on security footage was supposed to be helpful when they started looking for me.”

“And why move the records of their transfer files to other facilities with two others?”

“I’m glad you picked up on that, too. Buying more time for some missing personnel before it was suspect and they figured out they really didn’t know where they were.”

“And why them?”

“Arbitrary.”

“Bullshit. You’ve gone on solo missions as Captain Hydra and you didn’t buy enough extra time by leaving with a two-man team to make it worth the set up only to drop them in the river without a reason.”

Steve’s brows knit together, and he chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment before answering. “One was arbitrary. He just happened to be the roommate of my target. The one I was after? He was part of the extraction team who took our omega out of Turin. Specifically, he’s the one who handled her so roughly she had bruises from his casual brute strength. I watched the footage to figure out who hurt her.”

Bucky cocked his head and studied the man before him.

“I had only been an alpha to her for a month and I was willing to kill someone who harmed her. What are you going to do to me, Buck?”

Bucky turned and paced way, running his hands through his hair. He didn’t want to show this much unrest in front of the other alpha, but he was thinking and feeling so much, trying to read and decipher too many pieces.

He lets out a long exhale and just speaks the truth. He can’t try and take any other angle. “I haven’t decided yet.”

Before all of this, if there had ever been a situation in which Bucky would have needed to trust someone else to keep you safe, Steve would have been his immediate answer.

Steve waits silently.

There are so many questions he wants answers to, and so he starts asking them. The answers don’t shock him, and he can see that even when Steve doesn’t tell him the full truth, it’s a cautious guarding of information, but he detects no lies in any of it. That Steve has some guards up also seems tenuous, possibly temporary, like if he can only ask the right question, the tide will turn.

But it couldn’t be that simple with Steve, could it?

And when did he start to think of him as Steve again?

Bucky deals out one of the questions he’s had the longest, since the very beginning of this. “What you said that night in Wakanda – you did all of this to draw me out. Why?”

Steve lets it hang in the air for a moment, but Bucky can see this is a crux for this conversation with him, too.

“I can’t explain everything that went into that plan – I don’t know if the machine of Captain Hydra was fully in control or if part of the old me was trying to grasp at you as a lifeline, but as the weeks wore on, the strategist in me knew he needed either the Soldat to join him or his best friend to save him.”

Those words sink into Bucky, and he can understand that explanation as no one else in this world can.

“What took you so long?” Steve asks again, but this time it’s tinged only with angst, not anger.

The accusation in it unsettles Bucky.

He’s still not sure how to address the question, but he starts with, “The Soldat is gone. The Winter Soldier? Not who I needed to be to get here either.”

Steve pushes up from the ground but maintains the distance Bucky put between them. “Who are you now then?”

Bucky narrows his eyes. “Depends on who’s standing in front of me.”

Steve looks off into the trees for a moment – in the direction of the cottage.

Bucky’s instincts have failed him less than a handful of times.

They’re telling him now that’s where to start, even though he’s not sure exactly where it will end. “I’ve seen a lot of versions of you – my childhood best friend, the punk who couldn’t stay out of trouble, the stars and stripes symbol, Captain America, the target who wouldn’t let me assassinate him and then refused to finish me off in the hellicarrier, the Cap who went against the Accords, Nomad in exile – but always Steve. You’ll never be who you were before – I never was. Doesn’t mean you’re irredeemable.”

Steve scoffs. “It’s not that easy.”

Bucky gives a wry laugh and shakes his head. “I more than know that. But you’re shades of all those men right now in front of me. She sees it, too.”

“God, she…” Steve shakes his head, puts one hand on his hip, and scrubs over his face with the other.

“If you can be you, if you can be Steve, she will have you.” He’s not sure where the words came from, but he himself believes them as he says them.

“I don’t know if I can be.”

“Do you want to be?”

Steve doesn’t answer immediately. Bucky can see him sincerely work over the question in his mind. It’s a simple inquiry, but one that will define everything, and Bucky knows he will be completely behind whatever answer he gives because that is the core of who this man is and always has been – fully committed to his convictions.

When Steve says, “Yes,” Bucky can hear the heaviness in his voice. Bucky nods.

“What about you?” Steve asks.

Bucky shifts his weight from one foot to the other as he digs back into himself and where his head, his heart, and his gut now sit with all of this. But the answer is clear enough. “Till the end of the line,” he answers.

“Even after I–“

“Stop,” Bucky cuts him off. “I’ve had little more to think about over the last six weeks than us – all of us. And it felt like my heart started beating again when I found her, but you… Before this I never fully understood why you fought so hard to get through to me when I was trying to kill you in DC all those years ago, why you searched for me for years, why you were a goddamn pain in the ass who wouldn’t abandon me in Berlin and believed in me without question, but now I get it. We are in each other’s bones.”

He doesn’t move, but Bucky sees the look change in Steve’s eyes, and he can practically feel the air alter between them. They’ve always had an acute awareness of each other, and Bucky can feel the tentative return of it, like déjà vu even though he’s still figuring out who this Steve is or who he will be.

“When did you start giving Captain America speeches?” Steve finally asks.

Bucky shrugs. “One of us had to do it.”

“What now then?”

Bucky has sketched out many scenarios for how things play out from here, but every stage of this, every new revelation shifts the direction they’re heading. Even in the last two minutes things have significantly shifted again.

Bucky licks his lips and stares at Steve for another beat before he decides to head down a path he hopes is the right one. “You’re always a man with a plan, so you tell me. Tell me where this started, when it changed, where you think it ends. I figured out a lot, I have theories, and I still have questions.”

“We went to Italy to investigate a lead that came up on our radar. We thought it was an innocuous enough whisper about a couple of Hydra scientists. And don’t,“ Steve pauses to pointedly look at him because Bucky was already opening his mouth to argue. “I already know you’re going to say we should have involved you, I thought of it every day they were holding us captive. I thought it the second I heard their boots. It was a week after you left for Wakanda, and Sam–“

He pauses again, and his shoulders fall just a fraction.

“Sam and I weren’t gonna bother you.”

“She told me about Sam,” Bucky says.

Steve closes his eyes for a moment, pressing his lips together. “I told her enough about what happened, but I didn’t tell her everything.” He opens his eyes and meets Bucky’s again. His face is truly haunted, and Bucky nods, his own chest tight. He knows more than enough about that. He had still had to face the demons of his past, but when he was ready, and he had fought to find his way to do that. Steve would find a way, but it would take time, and not likely be the same journey.

“After they killed Sam, they got a raw version of me, shut down, and they went to work conditioning me, shaping me into Captain Hydra. I was too lost to fight anything. I couldn’t save him. I failed us. I didn’t want to be me. It was easy too easy for them to get the version of me they wanted when I was like that.”

There’s a full shift in how Steve lays everything out – and as he shares, Bucky knows it’s still not everything, but he can feel that it’s everything Steve can bear to tell him.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

Steve tilts his head and looks off into the forest. “It was and it wasn’t. It will always haunt me.”

“It will, but less and less.”

Bucky walks to the edge of the small clearing and sits on a fallen log. Steve follows him.

“When I was trying to find you after DC and taking down S.H.I.E.L.D. I read everything they had on record about you, how they conditioned you. They used some but not all the same methods on me.”

“I couldn’t find anything on you, and I found more than enough other hidden monstrosities in their networks these past weeks.”

“I think they got smarter after we were hunting them after exposing them – they couldn’t keep everything off the databases, but they have projects now that they keep paper-only, small teams. There was the team that captured us, but after they put us in a holding cell, we were transferred. From that point through the torture, the breaking point, and the conditioning I only saw four faces – three scientists and one officer who became my liaison. When they sent or let me out into the field, I never went with a team of more than four of their men, always the same four. Two of them I ended at that bridge.”

Bucky nods.

Already his mind is calculating – this means they could potentially contain and eliminate all of the people who knew any specifics about Captain Hydra.

“One of the scientists was killed when you stormed the facility in Turin.”

Bucky raises his brows. Even better.

Steve goes on to tell him about how he was sent on a few missions to test his loyalty before he was given the task to bring back the Soldat.

“I didn’t have a chair, and they were very adamant that my point person was my liaison and not a handler, they gave me a fair amount of autonomy. They didn’t want me to drag you in. They wanted you to join me. I think they felt like an asset who had to be controlled could break free as they saw with you the first time around, and this time they wanted operatives who weren’t giving controlled compliance, but allegiance instead.”

Bucky grunted. “A tether rather than a leash.”

“Yeah.”

“But you knew who I was tethered to.”

Steve’s head drops. “Yeah.”

“And you knew I’d be the most vulnerable and off my guard in Wakanda.”

“I did.”

Bucky lets him sit with that discomfort.

Bucky has replayed that night in his mind so many times.

“But your plan changed that night. I didn’t register it in the moment, but everything about you changed the moment you bit into her neck to claim her.”

Steve doesn’t deny it.

“Before you sunk your teeth into her, you were taunting me, dangling her like something to be smashed and discarded, you didn’t even know if it would work, and I think part of you thought it might even kill her.”

Bucky sees Steve’s jaw tick.

“You were in no way prepared for how a bond would change you fundamentally as an alpha.”

“Obviously it didn’t flip a switch immediately, but yes, it altered what I intended to do,” Steve admits.

He goes on to explain some of the things that happened in Turin – missions he went on, how things had developed with you, the clothes, and the books.

“The books were for her?” Bucky breathes. “I saw security footage of you in the bookshop.”

“I wasn’t worried about exposing myself because you were already taking longer than I wanted you to take, but when you didn’t access any of the Avenger networks, bases, or safehouses, I expected you were underground and untraceably hunting for us.”

“What else did you expect?”

“I wanted you to get foolish in your desperation and tip your hand.”

“Not with her on the line.”

“No.” Steve narrows his eyes. “You never left Turin once you showed up on our radar, did you?”

Bucky scoffs. “Course I didn’t.”

Steve nods. “A ploy to see all the defenses of the base.”

“But you left dangerously close to her heat,” Bucky shoots, the disapproving accusation blatant in his tone.

“And that’s when you made your unsuccessful move to get her back. If you’d killed everyone you’d encountered from the beginning, you probably would have made it to her in time.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

“No, I know you do.” Steve sighs. “You know, back in 1945, I thought you were dead when you fell off that train.”

Bucky doesn’t interrupt. He knew Steve knew he knew this. They’d touched on it before. But clearly there was more and a reason for Steve to bring it up again now.

“The thing is, when they found you, I know Zola did what he did to you because of me, your tie to me. When they took me and Sam, they tortured him and killed him because of me, again. You were both people I cared about, and you were hurt for it. I was not going to let it happen to her. The sense of responsibility I felt for her had already been growing and evolving, but when I felt that surge of adrenaline and fear through the bond when you attacked the base and they moved her? It had been a slow melting of ice, what was developing there, but that shattered the ice. When I found out they had moved her, I kept my personal weakness guarded, and I knew I would do everything I could to get her out of their web and keep her safe.”

At this admission, Bucky is quiet. So is Steve. Bucky knows Steve is letting him think. There’s so much to consider there – the guilt Steve has still carried for him for years, the fresh hell of Sam, and the fervent determination to keep you from being another victim by association.

He could think over this for much longer, but there are more pieces he still needs context for, so next Bucky asks, “Why did you leave the Geneva facility during her heat?”

“Best cover for time – alphas are given room to take care of their needs during rut or care for omegas if they’re bonded during their omega’s heat.”

It verifies what Bucky had theorized himself.

“But it’s been eight days since you came here.”

“Yeah,” Steve nods.

“And you’ve just…been here.”

“Yeah.”

This is the piece Bucky has been suspicious of now.

“Explain.”

“When I took her to Turin, yes, it was a trap to lure you. When I brought her here, it was to wait for you to find us. I couldn’t find you when you went underground before, and I couldn’t find you this time, and if I tried too hard, I didn’t want to risk Hydra finding us, but I knew if we stayd in one place and I focused on keeping us hidden from Hydra, you could find us.”

Bucky furrows his brow, frowning.

“Simple as that?”

“Simple as that,” Steve confirms.

Bucky studies him for another quiet few seconds, then says, “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

“So, what now?”

“Her,” Bucky replies simply. “We’ve still got a lot of shit to figure out, but we’ve got to do it with her.”

↠ Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

Still with me? This was a lot. I hope I've answered some of your questions, and there are some more that have been brought up, but... we're here. We're this far.

This is the single longest story/chapter I've ever published. You can see where I've left off, and there's clearly more story, but Bucky reuniting with his omega and with Steve were the primary objectives, and both of those elements I didn't want to cheat or shorten as they began to unfold. I hope they've truly done justice to these characters and relationships, and we'll see how they can possibly move forward together in the conclusion. These three still have big things ahead.

read more from the Dark Forest Fest

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes smut #steve rogers #bucky barnes fan fiction #captain hydra #aspen wrote something #bucky barnes x female reader #steve rogers x reader #omegaverse #marvel omegaverse #warm shadows au #aspen's dark forest fest

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sitp-recs · 5 months

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My AO3 Wrapped: 16 Drarry Recs

This year I’ve embraced a change of pace and read way less than I intended to. This made me feel a bit disconnected from fandom but also allowed me to put this list together in record time so let’s not complain too much 😂 this is shorter and lacking my usual commentary but I didn’t want to break the tradition of sharing my fave reads of the year! Be it for their creativity or peak romance, these 16 amazing fics made my heart beat faster and got me even more in love with Drarry. I’ve read most of them in the first half of the year and it was interesting to see so many fics over 40k, as my usual sweet spot is 10k - 20k. I love the mix of tropes featured here and am very excited to rec authors I’m reading for the first time. ps: I haven’t included any Erised fics since the fest is still ongoing.

Thank you dear creators for sharing so many brilliant works with us this year! 2023 wasn’t my best year fandom-wise, but life has been so generous in other areas that I can’t help but feel humbled today. I wish everyone a lovely start to the new year! As always, please mind the tags and take some time to shower these authors with the appreciation they deserve. Oh, and stay tuned for a rare pair list sometime soon ;)

🍆 Snug by @moonflower-rose (E, 6k)

8th year | touch-starved Harry | soft cock kink

Potter can't keep his hands off himself. Draco can't look away.

🧩 Muscle Memory by @corvuscrowned (E, 8k)

curse breaking | partners to lovers | memory magic

There's something just beneath the surface, just at the periphery of Harry's mind. They've been here before — they've done this before. If only he could remember it.

👹 draco malfoy's substitute murder service by @oknowkiss (E, 10k)

odd jobs | D/s undertones | open ending

When Harry joins the Curse Breakers shortly after his twenty-fifth birthday, he’s surprised to find himself assigned to the Department of Creatures, Cryptids, and Associated Calamities.

🏰 the earth from a distance by spqr (E, 15k)

time travel | Wizarding history | only one bed

“Well,” Harry said gamely, once they’d managed to find the Leaky Cauldron – still under construction but mercifully open for business – and he’d turned up a few knuts from his pockets, enough to get them a room for the night, “it could be worse.”

🎚️ O Come, All Ye Faithful by toomuchplor (E, 20k)

vicar Draco | established relationship | Church of England

Aunt Petunia died, that was what began everything. Or rather, Aunt Petunia was dying. In the act of dying. In which Draco finds faith in the church, and Harry finds faith in Draco.

🎄 Waking Up Slow by @sweet-s0rr0w and @ihopeyoubothstaysafefromharm (E, 22k)

shop owner Draco | summer romance | light angst

'Twas the night before Christmas, although it’s July / Draco’s a shopkeeper, no-one knows why / There’s hiking and witch caves, freak snowfalls and more / Bad Christmas jumpers, nosy neighbours galore / Narcissa’s here too, but… something’s amiss / And what’s in those chocolates that’s making them kiss?

🚬 Sun Thief by @floydig and BlackRose532 (E, 28k)

slice of life | fast sexual burn | dark humour

It’s 2005, and Draco Malfoy says, “Fuck the Ministry,” Harry works as a handyman in muggle London, and Draco should really stop pissing off the Squib gangs.

🍷 Winner Takes It All by @skeptiquewrites (E, 41k)

break up make up | down & out Draco | hurt/comfort

As with all his friends’ wagers, it starts small. Fifty Galleons for one kiss from Harry Potter is easily done.

🏖️ LA, Who Am I To Love You? by @epitomereally (E, 42k)

Draco in the Muggle World | pining Harry | recreational drug use

Harry’s summer in LA is not going as expected. Pansy Parkinson keeps inviting him to parties in the Hollywood Hills and harassing him to finally go to the physical therapist, Blaise Zabini keeps slipping new strains of his company’s magical weed into Harry’s pockets in hopes of an endorsement, and Draco Malfoy keeps having sex with everyone but Harry.

🫃Shine On, You Crazy Diamond by @lagerloutfic (E, 42k)

fwb to lovers | gay awakening (Harry) | mpreg (Draco)

Harry has probably always wanted Draco, it just took him a few years to figure that out. A story about the joy of discovering exactly who you are and how easy it can be once you do.

🚣‍♀️ Our Objective Remains Unchanged by @citrusses (E, 46k)

rowing AU | enemies to lovers | university setting

Harry Potter, returning member of the Oxford University Boat Club, has two goals for the spring of 2005: beat Cambridge, and beat Draco Malfoy. Perhaps not in that order.

🧶 Polar Night/Midnight Sun by toomuchplor (E, 54k)

cabin fic | wintery vibes | only one bed

Harry travels to arctic Norway on the trail of dragon egg poachers, only to find he's been assigned to work alongside the only NorMagPol Auror north of sixty: one Draco Malfoy.

🎩 Nights With You by @the-sinking-ship (E, 58k)

holiday fic | fake relationship | mutual pining

Draco is mortified when moments prior to departing for the most anticipated destination wedding of the year, he is cruelly dumped. But when he learns that Harry Potter has, at long last, split with his horrible boyfriend, Draco is certain his luck has changed.

👮🏻‍♂️Rookie Moves by peu_a_peu (E, 75k)

auror partners | slow burn | humour

Aurors Potter and Malfoy crack the case.

🖼️ where all the veins meet by @saxamophone (E, 146k)

sad bois | Grimmauld Place | found family | 8th year

It's the summer of 1998. The battle is over, and Voldemort is dead, but Harry still has more questions than answers. Who is he without a piece of Voldemort's soul in his head? What is he supposed to do now?

📼 Always Already by @aibidil (E, 170k)

time travel | forced proximity | mutual pining

Harry and Draco are perfectly fine, separately minding their business in 2004, when the Unspeakables conscript them into service... in the First War against Voldemort.

#ao3 wrapped 2023 #drarry #Sitp faves

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gimmethatagustd · 1 month

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love song (1) | kth + pjm

After a surprise collaboration that shocked their fans, broke records, and earned them a Grammy, salacious rapper V and sweetheart idol Jimin are the duo the music industry didn't know it needed but now can't live without. Fans just have one burning question: Are V and Jimin dating?

○ Pairing: Rapper!Taehyung x Idol!Jimin

○ Rating: Explicit/18+

○ Genre: A/B/O, idols/musicians (not canon/BTS), friends to lovers, idiots to lovers, smut, fluff, light angst

○ Word Count: 7,253

○ Warnings: Suggestive language

○ Notes: This fic was written for the Omega Jimin Fest on AO3. It's inspired by Jungkook's Seven era and the way my soul left my body when I found out he was going to collab with Latto.

○ Post Date: April 29, 2024

○ Masterlist | AO3 Crosspost

○ What was Jai listening to? The series playlist

Series Masterlist

When Seokjin asked Jimin who he wanted to have featured on “Love Song,” he gave his answer before Seokjin could even finish speaking. It was two years ago today that Jimin texted Taehyung, having received his phone number from a friend of a friend. As careful as celebrities are about keeping their contact information away from the public, it often isn’t difficult to poke around for information if you know the right circles. It’s funny how Taehyung’s contact was once saved as “V” in Jimin’s phone rather than “Baby Bear” with an array of emojis.

V was an unexpected choice as a featured artist, which is precisely why he was perfect. Korea’s greatest bad boy, V isn’t known for pushing the boundaries of acceptable behavior in a conservative society — he outright crosses them. Seokjin had been wary of agreeing to Jimin contacting Taehyung about the song only a few months after Taehyung was cleared of a rumored drug scandal ending in a short but well-publicized investigation that found Taehyung innocent of the crime. Whereas most idols’ careers would be sorely impacted by such an experience, Taehyung’s alleged bad behavior only added to his allure.

Was it a risk for Jimin to fraternize with someone like V?

Yes.

Was it worth it?

Two years of friendship and a Grammy later, Jimin knows he wouldn’t change a thing.

Jimin wonders if Taehyung remembers that it’s the second anniversary of their meeting. He shifts slightly and tilts his head to watch Taehyung from where he’s snuggled in his lap, his cheek squished against Taehyung’s upper thigh and the rest of his body curled on the couch under a heap of blankets.

Taehyung is still dressed in the outfit he wore for the final concert of fellow rapper Bibi’s first world tour: a black silk shirt with the buttons undone low enough to show off the multiple thin gold chains that rest against his chest, black skinny jeans with the knees ripped out, and black leather boots. His wavy bangs are pushed away from his forehead, exposing his strong brows and expressive eyes decorated with just a touch of makeup to accentuate his dark irises.

He’d insisted that Jimin not lie in his lap since he’s sweaty from the performance, but Jimin doesn’t mind; he can’t find any problem with Taehyung smelling more like Taehyung. Sweat and adrenaline from the performance heighten Taehyung’s strong alpha scent, an earthy, spicy combination of driftwood and bourbon that makes Jimin’s nose tingle when he breathes in deeply.

They aren’t at Jimin’s apartment because of their friendship anniversary; they’re here because Jimin is recovering from a particularly draining heat, and Seokjin has a bone to pick with Taehyung. Their argument overstimulates Jimin, who is still sensitive and achy.

Likely noticing Jimin’s subtle movements, Taehyung resumes massaging Jimin’s head with his long fingers, weaving through his hair to deeply massage his scalp. Jimin can’t help but lightly purr, the sound quiet enough that only Taehyung can hear it. Jimin knows Taehyung does because the corner of his mouth twitches with the hint of a suppressed smile, and his dark eyes briefly flit down to look at Jimin before darting up again when Seokjin calls his name.

“Taehyung-ah, are you even listening to me?”

Jimin snuggles against Taehyung’s thighs and tries to ignore Seokjin’s yapping. The two men have been going at it for at least twenty minutes, though Jimin has been dozing intermittently. There’s nothing better for Jimin than to come down from a miserable, week-long heat spent alone by snuggling into his best friend’s warmth.

“Yes, hyung, I’m listening. You said I should be more responsible with Jimin’s image.” Taehyung’s literal response is harmless, but the singsongy, immature way he repeats Seokjin’s scolding sets the man off.

“As Jimin’s manager—”

“Hyung, it was a joke.”

“It is my job to protect him. You saying, in an international interview, that your joint album is going to be more explicit than ‘Love Song’—”

“Isn’t inaccurate.”

“—is unnecessary,” Seokjin clips as he crosses his arms against his chest. “People make assumptions, Taehyung, and it’s my job to control the narrative. You weren’t even supposed to say anything about the album at all. Now we have to move up the promotion schedule, which means we’re in a time crunch, and, well, look at him!”

Jimin drags his eyes from Taehyung’s smirk to Seokjin’s scowl and tries not to laugh at how ridiculous they are. They’re talking about him like he isn’t even there.

“I’m fine,” Jimin murmurs as he pushes back against Taehyung’s hand, which has fallen still, trying to coax him into playing with his hair again. “I’m just dehydrated. You don’t need to worry about me, hyung; it’s just the final symptoms of my heat wearing off. I promise I’m okay.”

No one in the music industry can say that their manager is more committed to them than Seokjin is to Jimin. They’ve been together since Jimin’s group, dreamscape, went on an indefinite hiatus three years ago. Jimin’s debut as a solo artist would have never gone as smoothly as it did without Seokjin’s support.

Of course, such care from a manager means that Jimin is fussed over constantly. Once Taehyung was added to the mix, Jimin found himself being pulled in either direction by two men who care for him dearly but don’t always think with their whole brains.

It’s cute rather than harmful, especially when Taehyung fusses. When Taehyung looks at Jimin with kind eyes brimming with affection, Jimin has to beat down the fluttering that kicks up in his chest without fail. It’s just the hormones from his heat, Jimin’s omega being needy, and Taehyung’s alpha being the closest one around. As a beta, Seokjin’s fussing does nothing but warm Jimin’s heart; as an alpha, Taehyung’s fussing makes Jimin feel things he chooses not to think about. It’s just hormones.

With a sigh, Seokjin slumps in the armchair across from the couch in Jimin’s living room. He reaches for his glass of red wine, which sits on the coffee table. Tucking his long hair behind his ear when he tilts his head back, Seokjin finishes the rest of his drink in one swallow.

“Tomorrow is Sunday.” Seokjin avoids Taehyung, choosing to look at Jimin, who barely has his eyes cracked open.

“Mhmm.”

“On Monday, the three of us and Yoongi are meeting with the director to finalize the details for the ‘Hurt So Good’ music video. Taehyung,” Seokjin points his empty wine glass at him, “If Yoongi doesn’t show up on time, I swear to god I will shit a brick.”

“What about the BuzzFeed Thirst Tweets episode?” Jimin asks as he slowly rises from Taehyung’s lap to sit beside him. “That’s on Wednesday, right?”

Irritation muddles Taehyung’s scent into something biting and charred.

“I don’t know why I’m in trouble over what I said when that BuzzFeed episode is gonna be a million times worse than anything I’ve ever done,” Taehyung is whining, but he’s got a smug twinkle in his eyes when he glances at Jimin, as though checking to see if he’s paying attention.

Of course, Jimin is. When Taehyung’s in the room, it’s impossible for Jimin not to give him his undivided attention.

Seokjin eventually leaves, but not without lecturing Taehyung. He puts his shoes on and insists that Taehyung ensure Jimin is well-rested for the remainder of the weekend. It’s out of love; all three of them know this. That doesn’t make it any less amusing to Jimin and irritating to Taehyung.

Taehyung takes good care of Jimin, bad boy reputation or not.

“How was your heat?” Taehyung asks quietly after bidding Seokjin goodbye.

“Awful,” Jimin admits with a sniffle. “I wish I could take suppressants so I’d never have one ever again.”

Heats spent alone without a partner are usually miserable. Unfortunately for Jimin, he doesn’t have a partner, and he has always suffered side effects from being on suppressants. He is particularly plagued by terrible migraines and increased blood pressure, both ailments that negatively impact his career. Since his heats take up so much time, he has to plan his job around them, which is why Seokjin is so bent out of shape over Taehyung prematurely leaking their album news while Jimin is still recovering from the week.

“I’m sorry. I wish you didn’t have to deal with heats either,” Taehyung says with a pout, “Not getting to hang out with you for a week fucking sucks. Though I’m glad you called me this time.”

“We are never talking about that.”

“I think we should.”

Jimin glares at Taehyung’s boxy grin and the evil glint in his eyes.

During most heats, Jimin hides his phone from himself so he doesn’t do anything stupid while his brain is foggy and sex-crazed. Seokjin or Hoseok, Jimin’s former bandmate, check on him at least once a day to bring him food and ensure he isn’t wasting away, so it really isn’t a concern to not have access to his phone.

This time, though, Jimin couldn’t bear to part with his connection to the outside world — his connection to Taehyung — even though he knew he should.

“Taehyung-ah, I miss you sooo much,” Taehyung’s naturally deep voice takes on a higher pitch meant to imitate Jimin.

“Stop it! Stop it right now!”

“I wish you were here, Taehyungie!”

“Shut up!” Jimin nearly shrieks with what little energy he has while Taehyung cackles as he gathers the blankets from the couch to carry them down the hall to Jimin’s bedroom.

Jimin doesn’t know why he reached out to Taehyung during his heat. In the two years they’ve known each other, Jimin has never done something like that – in his entire life, he has never reached out to someone during his heat. He doesn’t even want to think about what that means.

“Don’t worry, Jiminie,” Taehyung bumps his shoulder with Jimin’s as he passes him in the hall, “I wish I could make you feel better.”

Jimin doesn’t know if Taehyung understands how his words sound to an omega fresh off his heat. They sit heavy on Jimin’s chest, quickening his heartbeat and making him pause for a moment, fingertips pressed to the wall to steady himself when he has to take a deep breath. As an alpha, there are many ways Taehyung could make Jimin feel better during his heat.

Not that that even matters. Jimin and Taehyung are friends, and friends don’t help each other through their heats. Everyone knows that. Jimin must have called Taehyung because he genuinely missed him and knew Taehyung could comfort him; that's all.

Shoving his muddled thoughts into the back of his mind, Jimin follows Taehyung to his bedroom and takes the lead once they’ve dealt with the blankets.

It would be embarrassing for Jimin to have an alpha who isn’t his mate in his bedroom at the end of his heat, but, as in many cases, Taehyung is the exception. He follows closely behind Jimin, stepping over dirty clothes and granola bar wrappers strewn about the floor, only stopping when he reaches Jimin’s bed. Jimin thinks Taehyung looks sweet with his hands clasped behind his back as he rocks on the balls of his feet, respectfully waiting to be let into the messy nest Jimin has created in his bed out of blankets, pillows, and clothes.

“You can sit with me,” Jimin offers with a soft smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes because he’s sleepy and a little sad, though he doesn’t know why.

“I’m gross.”

“Shower first, then sit with me.

Jimin sorts through the items arranged in a misshaped circle in his bed, eventually untangling a pair of loose cotton pajama pants and a baggy t-shirt from the pile. He has to resist the urge to lift the clothes to his face and bury his nose in them until he breathes their scent so deeply that it alters his DNA.

“Here.” Jimin tosses the clothing to Taehyung, who catches the bundle with one hand.

“Jimin-ah! I’ve been looking for these!” Taehyung complains as he slips out of the bedroom to retrieve a towel from the linen closet in the hall.

Probably half a dozen more stolen t-shirts are wrapped up in Jimin’s little nest, all of them Taehyung’s. Nothing calms Jimin’s omega quite like Taehyung’s scent. It’s not weird because it makes sense. They’re best friends. If someone’s best friend doesn’t comfort them, are they really best friends?

The bathroom is an ensuite, so Jimin can see Taehyung through the door from where he sits on his bed. He fondly watches Taehyung wiggle his butt as he skips through playlists until he finds the right one to sing along to in the shower, and Jimin decides that it wouldn’t make sense if Taehyung didn’t bring him such comfort.

The rap playlist Taehyung picks isn’t a surprise, but his silk shirt balled up and thrown in Jimin’s face is.

“Tae!”

“You were gonna ask for it anyway,” Taehyung smirks as he reaches behind his neck to unclasp his chains. “And don’t act like you weren’t ‘cause you definitely were.”

Refusing to respond to such an annoying allegation, Jimin rolls his eyes and waves Taehyung away. It isn’t until Taehyung closes the bathroom door that Jimin allows himself to slowly exhale.

Perhaps Jimin has used Taehyung’s clothing to help him through his heat in more ways than just basking in his comforting scent. But that is because of hormones and biology, and nothing more.

When Taehyung returns from the shower, he smells like vanilla. Call Jimin conceited, but he only buys vanilla-scented hygiene products to match his own vanilla scent. His excuse is that he’d prefer not to muddle his own scent with whatever scented soaps he uses, though he could solve that problem by buying unscented items like most people do. That doesn’t seem fun, though, and Jimin would prefer to enjoy life rather than sterilize it.

Lately, sleepovers with Taehyung have become a common occurrence. Preferring to shower before bed, Taehyung often walks out of the bathroom in a cloud of steam, smelling like vanilla. Perhaps Jimin buys vanilla body wash, shampoo, and conditioner because he likes his scent on Taehyung.

Perhaps.

It’s a comfort thing, Jimin thinks as Taehyung crawls into his nest of blankets, sheets, and clothes. It’s a comfort thing and nothing more.

Despite typically staying up much later, the aftereffects of his heat make Jimin sleepy. He lies back on his many pillows. Like always, Taehyung follows his lead, tied together by their red string of fate — if Jimin believed in such things.

“All these clothes and stuff are clean, right?”

“I wouldn’t invite you in here if they weren’t, you sicko,” Jimin snaps with a smack to Taehyung’s arm, but all Taehyung does is grin like the little shit he is.

“Just making sure.”

It’s embarrassing, but not as much as it should be. Most alphas can’t handle heat talk; they act like it’s gross or oversexualize it—there’s rarely an in-between. Taehyung is different, though. Heats and ruts are normal, just like every other bodily function and hormonal instinct. Taehyung treats them as such.

“What are you doing tomorrow?” Jimin asks as he lifts his arm to let Taehyung snuggle against him to rest his cheek on his chest despite Taehyung’s damp hair wetting his shirt. “Does Bibi have another concert?”

“I’m hanging out with you. Did you already forget Seokjin hyung’s lecture?”

“Just because he said that doesn’t mean you have to listen to him…” Jimin points out with a shrug.

Taehyung is quiet. He drapes one arm over Jimin’s torso so he can reach the hem of his t-shirt. He plays with the inner seam for a while, picking at the stitches and making his fingertips brush against Jimin’s skin. The light touches make Jimin shiver, his body already hypersensitive from the hormonal overload he suffered through for the past week. He wishes his body wouldn’t react so strongly to something so innocent.

“You know I love kickin’ it with you, Chim.”

Taehyung’s voice is too soft, too low. He twists the hem of Jimin’s shirt around his long fingers and doesn’t say more.

“Okay…” Jimin nods even though Taehyung isn’t looking at him.

He can feel himself grow warm from Taehyung’s body heat and each brush of their skin, no matter how short or light. Hormones ruin everything. Jimin hates being ruled by them, even if only for a week every few months.

“Not gonna say it back?”

Whatever unusual softness that had overcome Taehyung is gone in an instant, a cheeky tone replacing what had been too gentle for Jimin’s sanity. Taehyung rolls over so he’s no longer lying on Jimin, allowing the poor omega to finally breathe.

“Go to bed,” Jimin is desperate to pull himself out of the heated bubble Taehyung has somehow created around them. He kicks away his blankets and turns on his side, giving Taehyung his back. “It’s late.”

“It’s not even midnight.”

“I’m tired.”

With a snort, Taehyung ruffles Jimin’s hair. He’s probably trying to be annoying, but it feels like a caress rather than a mussing to Jimin. Long fingers slip through his dyed strands, flopping them from side to side. It feels nice, even if Taehyung is being silly.

Jimin keeps his eyes closed, even when the bed creaks. He feels the mattress dip behind him and Taehyung’s warm breath fan across the curve of his ear.

“Night, Sleeping Beauty,” Taehyung murmurs so deeply that it rouses an ache in Jimin’s stomach. “Set an alarm, okay? We’re getting breakfast in the morning. Don’t make me have to wake you up with true love’s kiss.”

“You don’t brush your teeth first thing in the morning,” Jimin mumbles back and tries to swallow the anxiety-induced bile creeping up his throat. “Don’t put your lips anywhere near me.”

Taehyung pauses for a moment, just long enough for Jimin to hear and feel air rush from his nostrils. It’s the quiet laugh Taehyung is known for, one that’s almost mocking and makes Jimin feel both adored and humiliated when directed at him.

“Sweet dreams, Chim.”

The bed dips and creaks, and the blankets rustle. Jimin holds his breath until Taehyung is settled, then exhales quietly through his nose until he can tell Taehyung has fallen asleep.

Most nights, when Taehyung sleeps over, Jimin lies awake with a restless mind and an even more restless body. It has been two years now, but Jimin still can't meditate away the heart palpitations Taehyung gives him. Some nights, he wonders if his heart would still race if he and Taehyung were both omegas. On other nights, like tonight, he turns to face Taehyung, and wonders when his innocent thoughts about his best friend turned into a burning desire to know if his lips feel as soft as they look.

Hormones, Jimin’s mind whispers. His heart reminds him that Taehyung sleeps over more often than Jimin’s heats come.

Every night Taehyung stays over, including tonight, Jimin waits for sleep to sweep such thoughts into the ocean of his mind, losing them beneath the waves until they inevitably resurface with each new tsunami of emotions.

The cafe Taehyung and Jimin visit in Seorae Village is one of Taehyung’s favorites. It’s a little cafe squeezed between two larger establishments, an art gallery on one side and an ornamental furniture store on the other. Taehyung spends so much time in the French neighborhood that Jimin is surprised he isn’t fluent yet, though he doesn’t miss the opportunity to impress Jimin with his casual French speaking skills as he requests a table for two at the cafe’s outdoor patio.

“It’s so nice out,” Taehyung says, turning his face to the sky like a sunflower seeking the sun, "We should take advantage of the weather. You need a little sun, Chim, after being inside for a week.”

It’s embarrassing to allude to his heat out in the open, even if no one knows what they’re discussing. Jimin quickly looks at the waitress, who guides them out the side door leading to the patio. She doesn’t pay him any mind, likely because she’s staring at Taehyung in awe. Whether she’s admiring his good looks or she’s starstruck, Jimin can’t tell. It irritates him regardless.

The cafe’s patio borders the sidewalk in front of the cafe, separated by a short, decorative iron fence. The location is perfect for people-watching but too public for Jimin’s liking.

“Can we get a table in the corner there?” Jimin gestures to an empty table further away from the sidewalk’s edge.

Most of the patio tables are occupied; being away from the most populated side of the patio would make Jimin feel better. It isn’t that he never goes out in public, and he doesn’t worry much about going out without someone on his staff, but it still feels strange. All it takes is one cocky sasaeng to ruin what could be a relaxing opportunity to spend time with his best friend.

The waitress finally addresses Jimin when she squints at him. Her irritation is uncalled for, and Jimin is taken aback by how openly snappy she is with him.

“I’m sorry, but those tables—”

“We need to sit over there,” Taehyung interrupts the waitress in a steady and unforgiving tone.

Taehyung isn’t mean when he stands between the waitress and Jimin, but his scent spikes enough to make Jimin’s skin tingle when he inhales. If there’s one thing Taehyung is known for beyond his artistry, it’s his expressiveness. Such a quality has gotten him into more trouble than Jimin even knows.

Jimin can’t tell what the waitress is. She’s likely a beta or wearing scent blockers. Despite being petite, she holds her ground against Taehyung, even as she wordlessly beckons them toward the table Jimin wants. Outside appearances are never as reliable as scent when determining sub-genders, so Jimin tries not to make assumptions. Although he isn’t ashamed of his own status as an omega, he isn’t fond of people making assumptions about him just because he’s somewhat short. Hardly short! Very average, actually. It isn’t Jimin’s fault that he is surrounded by tall people.

“You’re being a bully today,” Jimin remarks once they’re seated. He lifts his eyes from the cardstock menu in his hands to see Taehyung grinning across the table.

“I’m an angel.”

“Hmm…”

Taehyung folds his forearms on the table and cocks his head to the side. His sunglasses are pushed on top of his head, forcing his bangs away from his face and making them stick out like a mane. He’s cute like this, all angular and bright, honey-tan skin glowing in the mid-morning sun. Meanwhile, Jimin is sure he looks like a pathetically pale dumpling. Not that it matters. Friends shouldn’t care about how each other looks.

Looking back down at the menu, Jimin picks at the corner edge and lets his eyes glaze over the nonsensical French. Despite being well-traveled and adventure-loving, he doesn’t know what most of these items are. Europe wasn’t usually on dreamscape’s tour schedules, and Jimin still hasn’t done his own world tour yet.

Jimin is just about to ask Taehyung to put him out of his misery and order something for him when Taehyung’s sudden question interrupts his thoughts.

“Are you mad at me?” Taehyung asks, a half-smirk punctuating the question. If Jimin is mad at him, he doesn’t seem exceptionally apologetic.

“No…” Jimin straightens in his chair and clasps his hands between his thighs to hold them in place. If he keeps fidgeting, he might go crazy. “Why? What did you do?”

With a shake of his head, Taehyung laughs, something airy and pretty that makes Jimin feel like he could do well to lighten up a bit, too.

“What haven’t I done?”

“Taehyung.”

“Alright,” Taehyung takes a sip of water and waves away the waitress when she approaches the table. “I thought you would’ve been upset that I spoiled our album.”

“I wasn’t mad…”

Scent spiking with something sweet, like bourbon and honey, Taehyung leans back in his chair and crosses his arms behind his head.

“I knew it. You’re pissed.”

Jimin rolls his eyes. Taehyung is so dramatic, a true celebrity, and a typical alpha. He weasels his way into things, and suddenly, everything is about him. The worst part is that Jimin always falls for it, forever a supporting actor to Taehyung’s main character.

The interview wasn’t as bad as Seokjin makes it out to be. Jimin remembers cuddling in his bed halfway through his heat with his phone rotated and propped against one of his many pillows. He could have watched Taehyung’s interview on the TV, but his body had ached too much to sit up straight. Watching the interview helped his mood a little. It was something to pass the time while Jimin struggled to fall asleep, and he’d been genuinely curious about what had made Seokjin so pissy.

Sitting through interviews is difficult for Taehyung. Whereas Jimin thrives under the spotlight, immediately unfurling the social butterfly often cocooned inside him when he isn’t making public appearances, Taehyung struggles to keep his interest. If the questions are boring, he’s likely to skirt over them or provide answers Yoongi will scold him for later.

Taehyung’s fans enjoy the interviews, even when he gives them very little to work with. Jimin supposes fans’ opinions are all that really matter.

The interview took a hard left turn when the interviewer suddenly asked, “So, V, we heard a rumor that you’re working on a joint album with Jimin. Is that true?”

A small smirk lifted one corner of Taehyung’s mouth, and he exhaled with a quiet, short laugh just barely caught by the mic clipped to the lapel of his black leather jacket before he simply stated, “It is.”

By that reaction, Jimin knew that the rest of the interview would go downhill. Their entertainment companies had meticulously planned their album announcement and preview as part of their pre-order campaign. Taehyung effectively fucked up months of planning in a matter of two words.

“I was annoyed but unsurprised,” Jimin stares hard at Taehyung’s cocky expression. “Seokjin hyung said he nearly threw his phone at the TV when he got the call from our producers saying that you were yapping away.”

“The interview questions were leading.”

“You’ve done a million interviews, Tae. You know how to handle tricky questions when they try to back you into a corner,” Jimin rebukes.

Taehyung just shrugs.

“I’m not an idol, Chim. I don’t have extensive PR training like you.” The wide-eyed, puppy look Taehyung pulls is a mousetrap Jimin willingly flings himself into without considering why.

“What? You are an idol, Taehyung!” Jimin whispers harshly, now leaning forward with his fingers curled around the edge of the table. They shouldn’t be talking about this publicly; the other cafe patrons could easily record them and do damage much worse than Taehyung’s loose lips in interviews.

“I am not. I’m a rapper.”

“So would you say that Hobi hyung isn’t a rapper because he’s an idol?” Jimin challenges.

“All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares.”

“What the fuck does that even mean?”

Shrugging, Taehyung’s eyes sparkle and remain on Jimin even when the waitress returns to their table. He gives her their food orders, mercifully choosing something for both of them and never once looks away from Jimin’s face.

“Why were you unsurprised? About me spoiling the album?” Taehyung changes the topic once the waitress leaves, and Jimin lets him because he lets Taehyung get away with everything.

“Have you met yourself?” Jimin snorts.

“I’m sorry.” The apology is cheeky and ingenuine but still as charming as anything that comes from Taehyung’s mouth.

“I’m sure you are,” Jimin grumbles between taking sips of water to give himself something to do.

Unease has crept into his bones, eating through his marrow like termites in wood, ever since he called Taehyung during his heat. It was out of character for Jimin and laced with connotations he still doesn’t want to consider. Yet here he is, staring at Taehyung with sleepy eyes and a wandering mind, just to watch how his pretty lips shape his name. It seems that even if he’s unwilling to consider what his strange behaviors mean, they aren’t going to disappear.

“Jimin-ah.”

Blinking, Jimin sets down his glass of water and runs the long sleeve of his sweatshirt over his mouth. “Y-Yeah? What did you say?”

“I asked if you’re excited,” Taehyung pouts from being ignored, “We’ve been working on this album for ages.”

Jimin’s excitement is unfathomable. Joint albums are uncommon, especially between a K-pop idol and a Korean rapper. It took them a year to complete the album — faster than Jimin had expected. It helped that they surprisingly work well together. Where Jimin is an executor, Taehyung is an innovator. Taehyung’s creative energy is boundless, but he needs Jimin to reel him in when he takes off too high in the clouds. Jimin can work a to-do list like no tomorrow, but Taehyung makes sure he sleeps at normal hours and eats regularly. Where one of them lacks, the other nurtures. Jimin doesn’t mind. He quite enjoys grabbing Taehyung by the coattails to yank him back in the right direction, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy being doted on — but only sometimes, of course.

It’s the hormones, probably.

After collaborating on “Love Song,” Jimin and Taehyung played around with the idea of working together on an even bigger project. For Jimin, he’d felt something electric, sparking every frayed nerve in his body, galvanizing him in a way nothing has for a very long time. Not only was working with Taehyung exciting, but Jimin was finally stepping out of the strict rules he’d had to follow under dreamscape — rules that prevented him from showcasing the mature side of himself that his producers deemed inappropriate for Jimin’s fanbase — as if his fanbase isn’t full of adults at this point in his career.

“Are you excited?” Jimin asks with a cheeky smile to match Taehyung’s. They both giggle, and nothing more needs to be said. They’re asking each other stupid questions; of course, they’re excited.

“What is it like working with Jimin? The two of you have had such great success together in the past, obviously, ‘Love Song’ winning a Grammy for Best Pop Duo last year,” the interviewer had asked in what Seokjin now calls “Spoiler Gate.”

“Jimin is fucking amazing,” Taehyung had responded.

The grin he flashed at the camera was boxy and lopsided, so different from the cocky expression he often puts on during interviews. Millions of people had already watched the interview by the time Jimin did. Jimin still feels like Taehyung's smile had been for him.

“Honestly, he’s the reason this album will come out on time. I’m good at ideas, but I can’t commit to anything. I’ll rewrite the lyrics and rearrange song orders. It took me weeks to get my verse for ‘Love Song’ to him because I kept doing it over. Eventually, Jimin was like, ‘If you don’t send me what you have, I’m going to ask Bibi to do it instead.’”

“He threatened you!”

“He fucking did,” Taehyung had laughed, soft and low.

“Bibi on the track would have been a much different song, wouldn’t it have?”

“Ah, Hyungseo is cool. She’s way more knowledgeable about pop music than me, so the vibe of the song would have shifted.”

“Fans, particularly Jimin's fans, were pretty shocked by the explicit version of ‘Love Song.’”

The cocky look returned when Taehyung confirmed, “Our album is going to be worse.”

On Monday, Seokjin insists on taking one of the chauffeured company cars to meet with the music video director, citing the benefits of traveling inconspicuously. Jimin knows Seokjin just doesn’t feel like driving. Either way, Jimin doesn’t mind. The travel time is minimal, and Jimin’s private Twitter account provides him with enough entertainment for the ride. One tweet in particular catches his eye, mainly because Hoseok brings it to his attention through an abrupt text message:

Hobi hyung 🌞 Jim Jam! How was your brunch date yesterday?? Jimin ??? My what Hobi hyung 🌞 [screenshot]

“JIMIN spotted with V leaving a cafe in Seorae Village,” the tweet reads. It boasts a candid and surprisingly high-quality paparazzi photo of Jimin and Taehyung at the little French cafe they went to for breakfast the day before.

In the photo, Taehyung stands beside Jimin, who sits at one of the cafe’s outdoor patio tables. From the angle, it looks like Taehyung is leaning into Jimin’s face with one hand pressed against the table and the other curled around Jimin’s shoulder. Jimin cringes at how terrible he looks. Still drowsy, he hadn’t bothered to dress fashionably and instead pulled on a lazy outfit of an oversized sweatshirt and baggy jeans despite the warm spring weather. Complete with a beanie that hid his cotton candy blue hair and face mask, he thought he’d looked inconspicuous.

Regardless of Jimin’s outfit, it’s obvious that Taehyung was the reason anyone spotted them. He didn’t bother hiding his appearance at all. His striking visuals are enough to make anyone stop to watch him walk down the street, and his short-sleeve t-shirt exposed the recognizable tattoos that decorate both his arms and creep across his collarbones.

The Twitter account is verified, but Jimin can tell it’s a fan account rather than a news outlet or saesang-run paparazzi account. This account is dedicated to providing updates on the dreamscape members. Despite how annoying it is to live in constant surveillance, it warms Jimin’s heart to see dreamscape fans, dreamers, still showing their love for the group. Their love is emphasized by the tweet’s many replies. Curious, Jimin scrolls through the commentary. He expects to find sweet messages from dreamers wishing him a healthy day or asking questions about his album with Taehyung. Instead, what he finds makes his chest feel tight.

“VMIN CRUMBS I AM LIVING,” one Twitter account shouts at Jimin with more exclamation marks than he can count. Another account below asks, “is this them soft launching their relationship?? taehyung i need answers.”

Lightly holding the base of his throat, Jimin takes a deep breath and quickly scans the other comments, finding much of the same. Both his and Taehyung’s fans keep referencing a term Jimin isn’t sure he’s heard before.

“Hyung, what’s a soft launch?”

Seokjin looks up from his phone to frown at Jimin. Admittedly, it’s a weird question, especially to ask without providing context. Jimin isn’t interested in providing context, though. He even twists slightly in his seat to limit the likelihood that Seokjin might see the tweet opened on his phone from where he sits in the backseat with Jimin.

“A soft launch is when a company releases its product to a limited audience rather than the greater public. Remember when dreamscape released the mobile game to select Dreamers before it was made available to everyone? I believe it’s to minimize damage if things go wrong in the early stages,” Seokjin resumes, idly scrolling through his phone, “Hoseok would know more about that stuff. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, nothing,” Jimin says with a bright, close-mouthed smile that puffs his cheeks.

Seokjin puts down his phone again and eyes him suspiciously. “Park Jimin, why do I have a bad feeling about you right now?”

This is what Jimin gets for spending little time on social media. He doesn’t even know why he felt compelled to look at Twitter today. The Buzzfeed episode recording may have something to do with this spontaneous decision, though perusing social media has always been Taehyung’s pastime. Jimin prefers to watch Netflix or play mobile games. Unfortunately, he forgot his headphones and doesn't want to bother Seokjin, who is already cranky from the anticipation of dealing with Yoongi and Taehyung simultaneously.

Clearly, everything has backfired.

“I saw something about soft launching a relationship, but I just didn't really know what that meant.”

It isn’t a lie, though Jimin isn’t above lying about most things. Being an idol provides few opportunities to enjoy a normal life if a few lies aren’t told when needed.

“Ugh, the youth,” Seokjin grumbles with a wave of his phone at Jimin. “It’s a cesspool, the internet. They’re co-opting words and turning them into phrases that don’t make sense! How do you soft launch a relationship? You’re either dating, or you’re not. Humans aren’t products to be tentatively unveiled.”

“Dating?” Heat creeps up Jimin’s neck and spreads across his cheeks. He slides his hand from the base of his throat to press against his sternum. Neither hold is comforting enough to self-soothe.

Why would their fans think Jimin and Taehyung are dating? All they did was go out to eat, something they’ve done publicly a handful of times before. From the tone of the Twitter accounts, it seems to Jimin that fans have had suspicions about his relationship with Taehyung for quite some time.

Jimin That’s really weird… Hobi hyung 🌞 Is it? 🤗🤩 You didn’t answer my question!! 🤔

Frowning, Jimin slips his phone into his pocket and turns toward the side of the car to look out the window, where no alarming conspiracies about himself lie, waiting to assault his mind.

Considering how many dating scandals Taehyung has had, perhaps their fans’ speculations aren’t wholly unwarranted.

Still, Jimin finds it all very strange. He can’t shake the thoughts muddling his brain, even when their car arrives at the corporate office of Kim Namjoon, one of the finest film directors in the Korean music industry. Jimin trails behind Seokjin, thankful he is willing to take over as they navigate the building’s lobby and shuffle into an elevator with Namjoon, who comes down to greet them personally.

“Jimin, it’s nice to see you again. How long has it been? Since dreamscape’s last comeback, I believe?” Namjoon’s handshake is warm like his eyes and fresh peony scent, and Jimin realizes he needs to stop floating along with his head in the clouds and get his Chelsea boots flat on the ground.

“I think so,” Jimin hopes his smile is just as warm as the fellow omega’s. He doesn’t mean to be aloof, but he hasn’t slept well the past few days. Like most things, it’s Taehyung’s fault.

“Are Taehyung and Yoongi here already?” Seokjin asks, and he doesn’t hide his disdain when Namjoon confirms that the other two men arrived a few minutes before Jimin and Seokjin did.

Although Jimin’s livelihood relies on Seokjin and Yoongi getting along, it’s a bit amusing to watch them snap at each other like an old married couple. With his odd mood, Jimin supposes a bit of entertainment could do him some good.

“I appreciate you coming down to my office. I know we covered a lot of ground with outlining and sketches over our video calls, but I think a final rundown before production is necessary to do in person,” Namjoon explains while he holds open the door to a small conference room on the twentieth floor for Jimin and Seokjin.

Namjoon is right; Jimin wouldn’t feel comfortable recording the music video without discussing it in person. Call him an old-school luddite, but Jimin isn’t particularly fond of technology, anyway.

Taehyung and Yoongi sit inside the conference room on one side of a long, rectangular table. It seems they’ve been deep in conversation, though Yoongi immediately stops talking once Seokjin enters the room. If Jimin thought Seokjin’s earlier look of irritation was over the top, the deep frown on Yoongi’s expression is laughable.

Rather than be polite, Yoongi and Seokjin give each other curt nods and don’t bother with proper greetings. Taehyung watches Jimin with bright eyes and a boxy grin, so Jimin pays little attention to whatever their snotty hyungs are doing.

“Hi, Tae,” Jimin greets, fingers twisting the sleeve of Seokjin’s buttoned dress shirt to pull him toward the opposite side of the table.

“Hi, Chim,” Taehyung beams as Jimin slips into the chair across the table from him. “You look well-rested.”

It’s hardly a compliment, more so an acknowledgment that Jimin is staying healthy, but he feels his face heat up with a blush anyway. Silly, Jimin ducks his head and mumbles, “I may have slept in too late this morning,” to which Taehyung laughs.

Jimin wonders what his fans see in Taehyung. The Taehyung that the public receives is so different than the Taehyung that Jimin spends time with. He wonders if his fans would still assume he and Taehyung are dating if they knew what they were like in private.

“So, we can approach this in a couple different ways.”

Namjoon gestures to the front of the room, where a large, flat-screen TV is mounted to the wall. His tablet’s screen is shown on the TV, and he clicks through various sketches and notes that Jimin recognizes as storyboard drafts.

“It’s my professional opinion,” Namjoon continues once he’s found the image he was looking for, “That we keep the choreography.”

“What?” Yoongi rests his forearms on the conference table and leans forward, his thin gold chain sliding across the surface like coins against metal. “I thought we established that Taehyung won’t be doing any dancing.”

Seokjin lets out a long sigh and rolls his head and eyes toward Namjoon to avoid looking at the other side of the table. In their last meeting, Yoongi made it clear that Taehyung would not do choreography in his music videos — or ever, if Yoongi had any say. Which, as Taehyung’s manager, he does, whether Seokjin likes it or not. The argument was that Taehyung has a particular image to maintain as a rapper, especially as an alpha rapper. Rappers don’t dance. Alpha rappers definitely don’t dance.

Jimin isn’t offended by Yoongi’s prejudiced mindset about sub-gender roles and art choices. He just thinks Yoongi is dumb, especially when his thick, oppressive alpha scent clouds the room from his frustration. Sometimes, Yoongi behaves like a stereotypical alpha, inconsiderate about keeping himself in check. Jimin is positive that he could never have a manager who wasn’t an omega or beta.

“Yes, but the song lends itself to choreo, particularly since we can’t shoot anything overtly about the subject of the song,” Namjoon finishes with a shrug.

“Because Jimin is so innocent,” Yoongi accuses.

“Excuse me,” Seokjin jabs his index finger at Yoongi, “The hip-hop scene may be full of grotesque misogyny, but I will not have Jimin in a music video with half-naked women engaging in various kinks just because Taehyung’s verse references fucking someone tied to a goddamn bedpost.”

Smug, Taehyung presses his tongue to the inside of his cheek and smirks as he gently rocks side to side in his swivel office chair. When he notices Jimin looking at him, he winks.

Jimin isn’t one to become overwhelmed, but he desperately wants to change the topic.

“If Taehyung doesn’t want to do choreo, that’s fine. Like Namjoon hyung said, there are plenty of creative routes we can take with this,” Jimin insists with an awkward laugh. He runs his fingers through his cotton candy blue hair and avoids Taehyung’s gaze.

“Actually, I’d be down.”

“You what?” Yoongi twists in his chair to stare at Taehyung, whose smug attitude hasn’t slackened.

“It’s just dancing. It can’t be that hard, right?”

Taehyung is sorely mistaken.

Series Masterlist

Disclaimer: All my writing is fictional and for entertainment purposes only. None of these characters are meant to actually represent the real people mentioned in the stories.

All rights reserved © @gimmethatagustd - Do not copy, repost, modify, or translate any of my writing. Do not use my writing for any AI purposes whatsoever. Do not use my fics for anything aside from reading and commenting on them. My fics will only be posted on this Tumblr and on AO3 (gimmethatagustd & daddytaehyungie).

#taehyung x jimin #bts fanfic #bts smut #bts angst #jai writes #gimmethatagustd #love song #vmin fanfic #bts fluff #taehyung fanfic #taehyung fluff #taehyung angst #taehyung smut #jimin smut #jimin fanfic #jimin angst #jimin fluff

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outerwilds-events · 30 days

Text

You heard right Travelers! Campfire Fest is July 14th - July 20th! Details below, FAQ below the cut.

Timeline

July 14: Ao3 Collection is revealed July 14 - July 20: Posting Period July 21 - July 27: Late Submissions Acceptance Period & Submit Event Feedback July 28 - Ao3 Collection closes July 29 - Hall of Fame is posted

Prompts

Day 1: Hourglass Twins, Angst, Slate, Locating the Eye Day 2: Timber Hearth, Fluff, Hornfels, Music Day 3: Brittle Hollow, Hurt/Comfort, Gossan, Warp Day 4: Giant’s Deep, Humor, Porphy, Sap Wine Day 5: Dark Bramble, Horror, Solanum, Ghost Matter Day 6: Space Station, Romance, Hal, Time Loop Day 7: Open Prompts

Lost Travelers Informational Guide

Q: What is A Fest?

A fest is a challenge in which participants choose a prompt or prompts from a list compiled by the fest moderator. It’s like telling tales, sharing art, and making music around the campfire.

Q: Do I have to answer all the prompts?

Of course not, Traveler! That’d be a lot of work! You can answer as many prompts as you want over as many days as you want. You can submit a single work for a single prompt during the whole week, or try to hit them all.

Q: Do I have to write for this?

Traveler, we aren’t all tale spinners and that’s a good thing! You can respond in any medium you want, art, fic, pod fic, playlists, or anything else you can think of is fine!

Q: If I do write, is there a word limit?

Nope.

Q: Is shipping allowed?

Let the mod handle it. Seriously, keep the fandom wars away from the campfire.

Yes…just, let’s leave the hatchlings out of it.

Q: Can I submit NSFW stuff?

Nope.

Q: What if I think someone is participating wrong or has a bad take?

Q: Do I have to tag my works for triggers?

Yes. Is that not just normal courtesy?

Q: Are spoilers okay here?

Did they not cover that in training? Traveler, spoilers are fine as long as you tag for it.

Q: I have another question.

That’s why there’s an ask button, Traveler.

#outer wilds #outewilds #outer wilds spoilers #Echoes of the eye #echoes of the eye spoilers #outer wilds events #campfire fest #campfire fest 2024

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dekusleftsock · 7 months

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Y’all reading the newest chapter scans is like whiplash

I forgot how unhinged he can be, and tbh how much more unhinged he’s currently being.

Anyway Izuku is my favorite character so, sorry y’all, I know everyone is excited about Katsuki

However. Everyone else can talk about Katsuki. I live on my scraps.

Love how Shigaraki tries to get a dig at Izuku about Katsuki like how Monoma did when he unlocked blackwhip, so his immediate reaction is diverge diverge diverge.

Talk about repressed but this is a whole new level.

And his eye bags, they just make him look so exhausted.

I said this before but the chapter after Katsuki woke up Izuku looked relieved to me yes, but also… very scared. Very afraid of Katsuki’s well being.

Especially since, if we compare what Katsuki is doing now (using the pain as an extension of his quirk), you could EASILY COMPARE to when Izuku unlocked danger sense with shigaraki. How concerned and afraid Katsuki was in those chapters.

The thing is though, Katsuki was honest. He was honest that Izuku shouldn’t be doing this on his own, he’s being honest now—“I’m Kacchan of the Bakugou’s!”

He knows how he’s feeling and he’s letting himself feel it.

Somehow, Izuku still isn’t.

Hell, when afo ignores Katsuki, what he does is laugh about how much pain he’s in, but that it’s the key.

Let’s compare how Katsuki is using pain to how Izuku is using pain with danger sense. Let us not forget, danger sense is a physically taxing quirk, much like the rest of ofa. It causes a migraine when in any immediate danger.

Idk about y’all, but I get migraines so bad sometimes I vomit from the buildup of pressure. I can’t focus on anything. I just cant really imagine Izuku using danger sense that well in a fight… yet he does.

And, what exactly is danger sense for? To get out of danger? Maybe to avoid the danger? Ofa is an extension of Izuku’s inner turmoil, every single quirk exhibits this, and it would make so. Much. Sense. For danger sense to mimic his avoidance of emotions and vulnerability.

Katsuki’s quirk as it is now uses pain in a very odd way to me—he doesn’t try to use it to exit himself from the danger or pain, but actively searches for it. The pain is the key.

Danger sense is also a relatively self serving quirk, only really useable for himself. And for him to reference danger sense of all his quirks rn, it would make sense since…

Izuku has been self serving and avoidant since before even this fight. Hell, before even the war arc. Maybe this has gone on his entire life.

I want to hit him so bad for this y’all don’t GET IT.

And, just so we all know, he did this in 348 too. When confronted with emotional conversations, his first thought will always be “but how’s the fastest way I can win this fight?”

MY PROOF YALL IM SO DONE WITH THIS DUDE

“You see I have never once thought about hurting the people I care about like that!” Okay maybe be less boring

HM I WONDER WHY

THATS SO CRAZY DEKU

YOU TELL ME

WHY IS THE GIRL WHO YOU REJECTED AND THEN SAID THAT HER WAY OF LOVING IS SOMETHING YOU COULD NEVER DO TO OTHER PEOPLE (ALSO IMPLYING JUDGEMENT IN THIS STATEMENT), SAD RIGHT NOW?

LETS USE SOME COMMON SENSE PLEASE

I’m hyped for when Izuku is forced to be honest y’all don’t understand. It’s gonna be an angst fest and it’s gonna be romantic and I literally can’t see it not heading down the “explicitly canonical” path.

#is he really your favorite character if you don’t want to punch his jaw #bkdk #midoriya izuku #mha deku #bkdk brainrot #bakudeku #bakugou katsuki #bnha deku #mha analysis #deku midoriya #like I want to hit him so bad sometimes because he’s so smart and so dumb #I wish I could kick him in the gut #call him stupid #tell him what he has to start acting like #and then say I’m sorry bbg you’re so amazing and you could do no wrong #and I’d lie to him with a straight face #<3

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xxoxobree · 1 year

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You Liked Me, Too

Neteyam X Fem!Omaticaya!Reader

Warnings- Cursing, Angst, Blood, Enemies to Lovers? , slightly suggestive behavior

A/n- I’ve Been Neglecting My Avatar Girlies 🥲

I felt my nose twitch at the anger I felt inside. I was a hunter, just like my father, but I had yet to earn the same recognition he had in our clan. The reason? I was a girl.

The clan was currently applauding Neteyam for being the youngest boy, I emphasize boy ,for a clean strumbeast kill. It was impressive, yes, but I had taken down the same beasts with more ferocity and skill than him, and yet, nobody gave me the same attention.

My mother brushed my shoulder, I looked up at her as she motioned me to clap for the boy. I rolled my eyes before clapping slowly.

I wanted so badly to leave this clown fest that is praising him, rocking back and forth on my feet, waiting to hear the words that we can go home now from our Olo'eyktan. His face glowing with pride, he keeps gesturing for more song, more praise, more incessant noise for his unbearable son. I wanted to scream, to make it all stop.

I looked back up, just to catch the eyes of Neteyam, a shit eating grin on his face. He loved the attention, not just personally, but to get under my skin. Mocking my own inability to hide my disdain for this ceremonial bullshit they're having for him.

I felt the tip of my ears heat up from my annoyance. I sighed, looking away from him, trying not to let him get the better of me. That's exactly what he wants - to rile me up and get me to react. But I won't give him that satisfaction.

The Olo'eyktan finally gave us the okay to leave and I high-tailed it out of there to avail Neteyam. I could feel the adrenaline rushing through my veins as I raced towards my home. The weight of pretending had finally lifted, and freedom was within my reach.

But just as I started to let my guard down, I heard the sound of someone else running towards me. I turned to see Neteyam,running towards me with a grin on his face.

I tried to keep moving, but his dirty little hands reached out to grab my wrist, bringing me to a stop. I yanked my wrist out of his grip, annoyed at his interruption. He was clearly on his way to brag , but I wasn't interested in hearing it.

I turned to face him, and that was when I saw the smile I had yearned to punch right off his face. "Didn't like the ceremony, Y/n?" he sneered.

I just rolled my eyes at him, staring blankly. He laughed, clearly enjoying himself. I could feel the anger building inside me, but I knew I had to keep calm.

"I enjoyed it very much. I could practically see your head getting bigger," I said rolling my eyes at him before turning my back to walk away again.

"Oh is little Y/n mad she's not as good of a warrior," he said, continuing to walk behind me.

I quickened my pace, hoping I would lose him, praying to Eywa that I wouldn't lose my shit.

"Woah, trying to get rid of me already?" he said, jogging to get in front of me.

"Why the fuck are you following me, Neteyam?"

"Because you're interesting when you're mad. I love it ," he said with a shrug a heinous glint behind his eyes.

I stopped in my tracks hissing at him.

"You're only celebrated cause you're the Olo'eyktan's son and a male, your hunt was mediocre." I spit at him knowing it would make him angry.

I think I was the only person in the whole clan who didn't care about Neteyam's feelings, his accomplishments, him becoming the next Olo'eyktan. I was just as good as him, in some cases, better.

I guess my words were hurtful because he was now inches away from my face, his chest rising and falling, huffing and puffing with anger. I couldn't help but smirk in his face.

"Mad are we?" I said, our lips inches apart.

"You're lucky you're a girl," he said before angrily walking away, his steps shaking the ground.

I chuckled at him, feeling successful in my mission to get back under his skin before I made my way back to my home.

The rivalry between us had started since we were kids, always trying to outdo each other, always trying to be the best. Our parents were high-ranking members in the clan, but I was always overshadowed by the next Olo'eyktan.

I had finally made it back home after this long ass day. As I walked in the door, I found my mother sitting on the floor, carefully weaving new clothing items.

"Do you like it, ma'ite?" She said, holding up the piece for me to see.

"Yes, mother, it's really beautiful." I said, giving her a smile.

"So...I see you've been with Neteyam. That is very good. He's good company." She said.

"We're not friends, mother. He's the biggest skxawng of this clan." I replied, feeling frustrated.

My mother looked up at me with shock on her face. "You must not talk about the future Olo'eyktan like that, Y/n."

I rolled my eyes at her statement. "That's the only thing everyone cares about; his family. Maybe I should be the next Olo'eyktan. I'm just as good as him, better in some cases."

I was met with no response from my mother, just as I expected. "I'm going to bed." I said, getting up and walking over to my mat.

I hoped that sleep could give me some relief from this exhausting day but of course it didn't as I slept my brain was running 100 miles per hour giving me dreams of me and Neteyam's ongoing rivalry.

I was still exhausted when I woke up, my eyes heavy, and my mind foggy. The rivalry between me and Neteyam was taking its toll on me. It seemed that every waking moment was consumed with thoughts of how to beat him, how to get ahead of him. It was a constant battle that had been going on for years, and I was starting to feel like I would never be able to get the upper hand. I knew I never would.

I looked over to my parents that were still asleep and decided that a walk would clear my mind. I got up and walked out into the early morning light. It was still quiet outside, the sun just starting to rise, and the only sound was the chirping of birds.

As I made my way to the serene lake nearby, my mind was consumed with thoughts of yesterday's events. Stress had been building up, and I needed a break from it all. I sat down at the edge of the lake and put my legs in, mindlessly swinging them back and forth as the fish swam by.

I heard a rustling from the nearby bushes and immediately grabbed my knife to defend myself. My heart was racing as I prepared for the worst, but then Neteyam emerged from the bushes. I put my knife back into the sheath and sat back down hoping that he would ignore me and let me have a wonderful day, but of course that would be an impossible task for him.

"Came out early to try and beat me huh?, sorry hun not gonna work," he said with a smirk.

I sighed heavily, knowing that there was no escaping his taunts, he took pleasure in tormenting me. But this time, I was determined not to let him get under my skin.

I turned to face him, my expression stoic. "I didn't come here for you, Neteyam. I just wanted a little peace and quiet."

"I doubt that very much," he said, settling down next to me. "You're always trying to one-up me. But that's okay. I like a little competition."

I rolled my eyes, but didn't say anything. It was pointless to argue with him. Instead, I focused on the tranquil scene in front of me. The lake shimmered in the sunlight, and the gentle rustling of the leaves calmed me.

He kept fidgeting and shifting, and I couldn't help but wonder what was on his mind.

I stood up folding my arms looking down at him.

"Can you leave , don't you have someone waiting to kiss the ground you walk on."

"Oh shut the fuck up Y/n and sit." He said harshly. I stood there for a moment, the anger simmering inside me, before turning to walk away. But before I could take a step, Neteyam grabbed my wrist, and my body froze.

In a split second, I turned around and swung the back of my hand right into his cheek. The stinging pain brought a sense of satisfaction, but it was short-lived as Neteyam's grip tightened around my neck, pinning my body to the tree. I struggled against him, fear filling my veins.

"What the fuck is your problem," he snarled, his voice low and dangerous.

I could snap your neck right here." He said something sinister behind his eyes, his grip tightening, making me see stars before he let me go and stormed off to who knows where.

I gasped, coughing and catching my breath. My body shook in anger, my skin hot. "How fucking dare he," I screamed, disturbing the peace that surrounded me. I rubbed my neck that was now stinging with pain.

I walked back to my home, tears in my eyes, planning my revenge on that asshole. He'll be lucky if I leave him alive. I spent the next few days plotting and scheming, until I had the perfect plan.

But what I didn't suspect was that his dad would come asking me to go on a hunting trip with his despicable son.

I gracefully accepted, knowing that my revenge would be that much sweeter.

I got up the next day, all my supplies ready for this trip, as I made my way over to the Sully's home. The sun was barely up, and a light mist hung over the trees, making the air cool and fresh. As I approached the house, Tseyek and Neteyam were outside. Jake greeted me warmly with a smile, but Neteyam's expression was different. He frowned not happy to see me at all.

I walked up, greeting the Olo'eyktan and the Olo'eyktan only. "What is she doing here, dad?" Neteyam said, looking at me suspiciously.

"She's going on the hunt with you. You two are the best hunters," Jake replied, his tone firm and unyielding.

Neteyam was beginning to protest, but he was cut off by his dad holding his hand up. He let out a frustrated growl.

"We should get going." I said firmly, calling my ikran.

"Don't ruin this for me," he said, mounting his ikran.

I rolled my eyes, followed by a smirk remembering my plan.

As we took off into the sky, the wind rushed past us, and I felt free for a moment.

The ride to the campgrounds was silent, but wonderful for me, seeing that I didn't have to hear Neteyam's annoying voice. As we drew closer to the camp he finally spoke up.

"Here."

"I know dipshit." I said landing my ikran.

It was almost time for the eclipse, and I hurried to set up my supplies. Behind me, I heard footsteps and sensed someone's intense gaze on my back.

"Stop staring," I snapped, not breaking my concentration.

"You're lucky to be here... with me," he said, but I cut him off.

"I really don't give a fuck, Neteyam. Shut up."

He pulled me up by my arm and stood inches from me, staring into my eyes. I was itching to punch him, but I knew I'd have the upper hand later.

I yanked my arm away, pulled out my knife, and pointed it at him.

"I thought I told you to never fucking touch me."

He smirked and pushed the knife away from his face. "That might be scary to someone else, princess, but not me."

He started walking toward me, and I backed away, not sure what he was planning. I tightened my grip on the knife, ready for anything.

I was now wedged between a tree and Neteyam's body, his hot breath hitting my lips, my heart speeding up.

"You know you'd make the perfect mate if you weren't such a raging bitch," he hissed at me.

I wedged my hand between our bodies, unable to stop my body from quivering at his touch.

He lowered his head to my neck, his breath tickling my sensitive skin. I swallowed, feeling heat rush to my core. Why was my body reacting to him this way?

"Nervous baby?" he asked, placing a small kiss on my neck.

"No, Neteyam," I said, trying to sound confident.

He laughed, turning his back to me.

"I knew you liked me," he said, disappearing into his tent.

I threw my knife down, watching it stick into the ground before I slid down the tree.

"What the fuck was that, y/n?" I said to myself.

A million thoughts raced through my mind. Did I really like him? Why did my body react like that to him of all people?

But I couldn't deny that Neteyam was a catch. His body was toned to perfection, and every eligible woman sought after him for good reason.

As I wandered through the forest, I couldn't shake the feeling of temptation that Neteyam had stirred in me. But I knew that giving in to him would mean sacrificing my pride.

I walked back to my tent and lay looking up at the roof of my tent, listening for the right moment to strike. Hours must've passed by before I heard rustling coming from the tent next to mine.

Time to strike.

I took a peek to see him walking, I made my way out of my tent silently following him.

I finally found my opening, kicking his leg, grabbing his queue tightly.

His screams of agony ripped through the Lush forest.

I tightened my grip on his queue, yanking it so that he would face me.

He growled at me, but it put a smile on my face seeing him completely at my mercy.

I pulled out my knife, slowly bringing it to his queue.

"No no, Y/n please, I'd rather you kill me."

I laughed, that'd be too easy.

I whispered in his ear, "You deserve much worse."

I brought my knife to his face giving it a small slash, I couldn't help but feel satisfaction wash over me.

The memory of what he did to me.

Blood dripped down his face as I leaned forward, licking it sensually. Yanking his queue, I forced him to face me.

"You'd make a good mate too if you weren't so weak," I whispered into his ear, running my hand down his queue. Neteyam shivered at my touch .The tendrils danced at my fingertips, and I couldn't resist the temptation to play with them.

"What are you doing?" he muttered weakly.

"Shut the fuck up," I snapped, pressing my foot harder on his leg. He winced, but he knew better than to cry out. I brought the tendrils to my mouth, sticking out my tongue, and let them dance around it. Neteyam let out a low groan.

"Like that, don't you, Tey?" I purred, enjoying the feeling of power that came with his submission.

I ran my hand up his queue, pulling his head back as I slowly straddled him, feeling his cock slowly harden.

"I can feel how turned on you are, seems like you like me too."

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firesnap · 10 months

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God can we please learn from our mistakes and not turn the qsmp into something that's just completely inaccessible to casual and new viewers?

Also let's avoid turning it into some grim-dark angst fest? Like there's horror elements but there's more hope and community on this server than anything else.

Also the whole "you all are sleeping/not appreciating/talking too much about" thing is old. This is how people get burnout. No one can watch all POVs and making people feel like they're being rude by not watching someone is just not where it's at. Yes, people can still talk about a Minecraft server without watching 9 hours of streams a day. No POV is all knowing, and talking about stuff based on the POVs you watch is pretty much in line with how the characters process information too.

And when someone's favorite CC, be it Jaiden or Wilbur or whoever, isn't around and their fans cling to mentions of their fave? That's not them making everything about some other person. It's just someone living off of crumbs and trying to enjoy the material through the lens of the POV they like. No one is trying to reduce anyone down to another character. They're just having fun.

Everyone's just trying to have fun and we can do that without being elitist or making the material unfriendly to casual watchers.

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1d1195 · 8 months

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Zipper Extra V

Read the rest of Zipper here

@jhughesangel (I hope this is you, I think you changed your Username on me since the last time I posted about these cutie pies) I hope you like this, I think you're probably my #1 Zipper fan so it's most important to me that you enjoy it specifically💕

This part is based on this ask from my amazing 🐱-anon, but I lowkey struggled as usual so it turned into Harry being whiny again but I gave her a full blown sob-fest. So hopefully I got it a little right--maybe a little more than normal anyway.

~4.7k words

Warnings: fluff, angst. Maybe a little bit of 18+ stuff but don't blink or you'll miss it.

(Maybe listen to Lover for some ambiance if you feel like it.)

He should have asked her out the moment he met her. They should have been one of those couples that had known since grade school they were destined for each other. It shouldn’t have taken Harry twenty years to come to his senses.

“Are you sure you want to be with Harry?”

It happened while they were at dinner with friends. Her friend Sarah had been wary of their relationship essentially since it started. Harry wasn’t supposed to hear their conversation, he was seated a few seats across and down from the pair of them. It was a hushed whisper and honestly, he had to strain to hear anyway while the guys in the group chatted about something else. Another pair of ladies were off getting drinks at the bar. Leaving Sarah and his angel to chat.

“What?” She nearly laughed. It was a joke, surely, that one of her best friends would say such a thing. Of course, she was sure. In fact, she wasn’t sure of much else in her life. Christmas was on the twenty-fifth, Australia was wider than the moon, nine times four was thirty-six, and she was in love with Harry. It was a fact of life.

But whatever the guys were talking about was irrelevant. Harry was focused so very hard on hearing every word of her conversation—especially when he heard the beginning of it. “I just worry you’re settling,” Sarah whispered. “You don’t have to, you know. You shouldn’t.”

“I really love Harry,” she affirmed. That made Harry feel marginally better.

“But he was an asshole,” Sarah reminded her. “Like...for a really long time,” what hurt more than them talking about this while Harry was in earshot...even if they thought he wasn’t paying attention was that Sarah was right.

“But was he?” She smirked like it was a joke. Surely it was a joke. Sarah loved Harry. She loved Harry. They had a rough start. A different start than most love stories. But it didn’t mean that he didn’t love her any less than if they had a normal approach to their romance. Harry worshipped her now. He wished he always did. He would probably regret it for the rest of his life.

“Babe, he should have kissed the ground you walked on for the entire time you knew him. Yes. He was an asshole.”

“He is not an asshole,” she said softly. Bless her gentle heart for defending him. Harry wanted to kiss her and thank her for being so kind even though she was wrong. Sarah was completely correct. He should have kissed the ground she walked on all the time. For as long as he knew her. He should have asked her out the moment he met her. They should have been one of those couples that had known since grade school they were destined for each other. It shouldn’t have taken Harry twenty years to come to his senses.

“Look, I love Harry,” Sarah said. At least she knew that much. “I just...don’t want your heart to get broken because Harry’s already showed exactly who he is.”

Harry knew that he had a lot to make up for still. But she always reassured him that it wasn’t necessary. It wouldn’t stop him from trying to fix the years of heartache he caused. Harry still thought about the sound of her perfect voice cracking when she asked him why he didn’t like her. Back when he was feeding her Chinese food because he was so worried about her health and how sick she looked from working herself so hard.

Maybe it would never be enough. But Harry wouldn’t let her slip away. Not after wasting all the time of their childhoods, teens, and early adulthood. Harry would never stop proving that this was good, they were meant to be. It was why she instilled confidence in Harry when he seemed like the shittiest boyfriend in the world: forgetting her birthday, giving her the silent treatment when he was frustrated, or when he accidentally ruined her white T-shirt with one of his blue socks. She felt—no, knew—that they were meant to be.

So why wasn’t she telling Sarah exactly that? The pause in their conversation was deafening. Even over the laughter of their friends. Sarah was sipping her drink. Like she was grateful she got through to her. Harry waited anxiously for her to say something.

But she never did.

Sarah didn’t bring it up again or press further. It was all Harry could think about. He wanted an answer. He wanted to know why she paused. Why wasn’t she defending him? Was she...agreeing? The other ladies returned from getting more drinks and the conversation looped back into everyone chatting away.

But Harry felt terrible. She seemed to notice almost instantly. Of course, she did. She always noticed the change in Harry’s demeanor. Always worried about him. She was perfect. Perfect, perfect, perfect.

Without fanfare, she got up to change seats to get closer to him; people shifted silently allowing her space. She perched gently on one of his legs, leaned forward, gently kissed his cheek. “You okay, baby?” She asked quietly, nosing at his ear.

No. Not at all. “M’fine,” he grabbed her hand and wrapped his fingers between hers. It didn’t make sense that she would suddenly feel like Sarah was right. Their fingers fit together perfectly. It was fate. They were...perfectly...imperfect.

“Wanna leave so we can go make out?” She asked with a smile.

It was hard to be frustrated when she was adorable. He wished that he had gotten his act together years ago. “Yes, please, kitten.” She pecked his cheek again.

The ride home was quiet. She didn’t pay much mind to it because she got a little sleepy after having wine. Harry took the time to think about how terrible he was as a boyfriend. What her silence meant. Was he making this a bigger deal than needed? He should have asked right then.

But they arrived home and made out for a significant amount of time before falling asleep. Harry had his hands in her hair and his lips devoured hers. His tongue searching for the answer to a question he didn’t ask out loud.

His hands slid down her body and back under her shirt. It made him moan against her lips while she kissed him. An involuntary shiver coursed through her body as he touched her. She dreamed of Harry like this more often than she cared to admit. More so when they started working together. Ever more so when they started being friends. She dreamed of Harry’s voice in her ear whispering to her while he kissed her, touched her, slid into her, and made her whimper, begging silently for a euphoric release. “S’matter, kitten?” His lips touched the curve of her ear making her turn to mush in his hands. “Y’worked up?”

She shook her head. “Just...really happy,” she whispered back. He smiled into her skin. He forgot about Sarah’s question. Forgot about how she didn’t say anything to defend him. It wasn’t the time to worry about it. Right now, he wanted to focus on her beautiful body, her soft lips, and just having her in his arms where he felt she belonged most.

Harry’s cologne made her dizzy, made her feel so safe and warm. She didn’t think about what Sarah said. It wasn’t a thought in her mind. Harry wasn’t her settling. He was worth the wait. No matter how painful it was at times. He was hers now; that’s all that mattered. Even at his worst, he was just a bit grumpier than she would have liked.

If not being friends for so long of their lives and not being a couple for just as long—if that brought her to him now, then it was well worth it. She would redo it over and over again and not change one thing. Harry was perfectly... imperfect. Their life just got stuck for a minute. Like when a zipper gets caught on something. They had to clear up the issue and start over from the spot it stuck. But they fit together... perfectly. Snug together zipped to the top. This is where she was meant to be. She wasn’t settling. Not even a little.

Harry was unbelievably nice following the night out. She wasn’t complaining in the slightest. It was just a little different. Not quite out of character, but the behavior usually followed a missed date or something that irritated her slightly.

He had to have gotten up an extra hour earlier to bring her coffee and walk with her to work. He held her hand and massaged his thumb on the back of her hand. During lunch she spoke rapidly about her cases, the book she was reading, a new recipe she found and wanted to try. He nodded eagerly at everything. Harry hardly spoke as she filled their lunch hour with just her voice.

But the way he gazed at her made her feel so warm and fuzzy. He had this smile that made half his face quirk up at an angle that made him look like an angel. She loved him so much it made her stomach twist. “What?” She asked wiping her hand across her face. “Do I have something on my face?” He chuckled, shaking his head. Silently, he walked around his desk, pulled her to her feet, wrapped his arm around her waist, cupped her hand in his, and began to slowly sway to the music playing from his phone. Her heart felt like it wasn’t whole up until that point but suddenly it felt like all the pieces snapped together. She looked up at him curiously, a laugh falling out of her mouth as she did. “What is this, Harry?”

He shrugged. “Jus’... I love you, a lot,” he murmured into her ear, pressing a kiss on her temple.

“Enough to dance in the middle of a lunch break?”

“Especially,” he nodded firmly. As if it was obvious, as if it was the only thing that made sense. If this was what everyone did when they worked.

She tried to remember if she had forgotten his birthday. Or their anniversary. But nothing popped into her mind. They were in work clothes, uncomfortable shoes, and her hair was tied up, so it was out of her face. It wasn’t her best look. It wasn’t necessarily what she would consider a good time to dance. But Harry never ceased to amaze her with how romantic he could be.

“Harry Styles, I love you so extremely, much,” she whispered. The sigh that left him sounded relieved, but she didn’t think much of it. She was happy to be in Harry’s arms in the middle of work and dancing like it was the most natural and normal thing in the world.

Even if it wasn’t, she thought it was because of him.

But just a few days later Harry practically ignored her. They were watching a movie together and Harry was more engrossed in his phone than the characters on screen.

“Harry?”

“Hmm?”

She blinked in surprise. “Um... are you mad?” He shook his head, but it felt like the opposite. Frowning, she turned her attention back to the movie. Maybe it was work. There was no way he could be mad at her over something. Nothing came to mind. “Upset?” She asked without looking at him.

“Everything is fine, love.”

She reached out for his hand, he held it lightly, brought it to his lips, and then dropped it back to the couch. Maybe she was reading into it. But dancing in the office in the middle of the week couldn’t have meant nothing and it certainly couldn’t have reverted to this standoffish tone and behavior in a matter of days. Harry scrolled through his phone again silently. “Are you sure—”

“Kitten. M’fine.”

The frown on her lips and between her eyebrows deepened. She was sad that Harry was upset. Even if he wasn’t admitting it. But more so she was worried that it was something she did. Sometimes she had to piece it together because of the knack Harry had for not telling her when something bothered him.

After a few moments of silence, a few moments longer of him ignoring her, he put his phone back on the coffee table. Carefully he pulled her into his lap, so she straddled his waist and he smiled at her like he did right before they danced together. “I adore you,” he murmured bringing her mouth down to his.

She forgot any worry she had when he did that.

It was impossible not to notice that Harry was still acting...weird. Since they started dating, he had always been more loving toward her, of course. Especially compared to the decades he wasn’t dating her. But this week...he was nearly attached to her hip. It was like he was nervous to leave her alone or move from her side. Maybe it was something in the air; they were approaching their second anniversary. Maybe Harry was trying to actively remember it this year. It wasn’t his fault—not really. He forgot her birthday again...and their first anniversary. But he warned her from the very beginning that it would happen. She didn’t mind. He always made it up to her and it wasn’t like he...meant to forget it. He set reminders and everything, but he kept managing to be busy.

Perhaps he was starting with the romance before he forgot it so it would lessen the blow.

But then he switched to that off-putting behavior like when they were watching a movie. It switched so rapidly back and forth. Hour by hour. It was like she had two different boyfriends.

After dinner, Harry was in his silent phase again. He was nearly ignoring her. She hated it. “Um...I’m gonna head home, baby. Do you need anything?” She asked.

“No, thank you, kitten.”

He didn’t even try to stop her. Didn’t worry about her Ubering across town alone. Nothing. It was completely different than the guy that begged her to stay the night—that he would wake her and dress her while she slept all in the name of snuggling with her until the morning. Sighing, she rubbed a hand over her face, grabbed her bag and kissed Harry on the cheek as she left him on the couch.

Certainly, she would have remembered if she did something to upset him. She tried to remember every interaction over the beginning of the week when his weird behavior started. As she got into her Uber her phone rang, alerting her that Harry was calling.

“I booked us a weekend getaway,” he murmured.

Blinking at the window, she bit the inside of her lip. “Oh?”

There was a smile in his voice. “Booked us all kinds of pampering, kitten,” he said excitedly.

Oh, he was the most confusing man she had ever met.

Their dinner was eaten in silence. Right after they watched another movie without really watching because Harry was busy melting her into the couch cushions with his lips and hands. Harry started clearing his own dish and silverware before she finished eating.

It was enough. She got out of her seat, leaving the plate on the table and followed Harry to the kitchen. He kept his back to her, so she had a moment to look at his cozy frame, draped in a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt. It made her dizzy to be around him when he looked so cozy. It made her sad she had to bring up something that might upset them both.

But she needed to be an adult. They needed to talk. “Harry, what has been up with you? You’ve been practically suffocating for half the week, and now you’ve all but...stopped talking to me. We’ve talked about this; you have to tell me when things bother you. We can’t use the silent treatment.”

Harry hated the way she said “we”. He hated it because she meant it so kindly—they were a partnership. They would get through it together no matter what it was. Even though everything she said was all on Harry.

But she didn’t tell him what she was thinking either. That much was made clear by her conversation with Sarah. Maybe she resented Harry more than he thought. More than she let on. Maybe that was her issue. But Harry didn’t want her to have an issue. He wanted her to be her—she was perfect. Truly. But sometimes Harry thought she didn’t push back. Maybe if she did when they were younger, things would be different. They would have gotten together sooner. At best, that was joint blame. But at worst, of course, that was Harry and his unapproachable nature the entire time he knew her.

But Harry didn’t speak.

“Is this just...some... trick? So you don’t forget our anniversary? I already told you I don’t care—”

“Jesus Christ, that too,” he muttered to himself and ran a hand through his hair. Just another thing that he was bad at. Another reason she was just settling for less than she deserved. She watched his head fall lower. His shoulders slumping forward. He needed to do something about the important dates.

She sighed, feeling exasperated by his reluctance to tell her what was wrong. “Harry, I’m trying to help, but—”

“Why didn’t you defend me?” He asked. His voice cracked as he spoke.

The sound of distress in his voice made her stomach violently ache. She had never heard Harry so sad before. It was heartbreaking. “What are you talking about, Harry?” She tilted her head and the annoyance in her voice was gone. Harry was clearly upset, and that broke her.

“Sarah said y’settled,” his voice was so sullen. Sad. The poor thing. He was leaning against the sink, facing away from her. Harry was tall and fit. His shoulders were broad, and she never felt as safe walking down the street at night as she did when Harry was beside her.

Right now, he looked so small and broken. His tall frame shrank under the weight of whatever he was feeling. But she didn’t even know what he was talking about; what did he mean about Sarah? “What... when did Sarah say that?”

“When we were out with everybody,” he mumbled. “Last weekend. Y’jus’... sat there,” he couldn’t face her. Because of course Sarah was right. Harry didn’t deserve her. She was too good.

“Baby,” she whispered softly and touched his back. She felt him stiffen beneath her touch. She frowned. “I don’t know—”

She was going to make him say it. She was going to make him say the very words that plagued him since the dinner conversation he overheard. This was worse than just thinking about it all week. This was punishment for everything he had ever forgotten. Every moment of those twenty something years accumulated into this one moment of absolute anguish—and he had to say it out loud with his own words. “Sarah said y’settled for me. And... that y’shouldn’t be with me.”

There was a flurry of activity in her brain trying to place what he was talking about.

“Harry,” she tried to keep her voice quiet and soft. She didn’t want to say he was ridiculous because it was so obvious, he was upset, and she didn’t want to minimize that feeling. Harry had a lot of emotions for someone who rarely expressed how he was feeling (except for grumpy—he was good at that one). “Baby, please look at me,” she whispered.

“No,” he muttered grumpily.

She sighed. “Baby, please,” she pleaded softly wrapping her arms around his waist. “S’okay,” she promised. “We’re fine.”

“We’re not fine,” he sounded so broken. Her heart thudded in her chest. This felt bad.

“Harry,” she tried again. He tried to push her away. It felt so awful. It was like... an ending. Her heart was breaking. “Harry, stop,” the tears sprung to her eyes. “Please,” she begged but her voice made this shaky cracking sound so loud and so sharply Harry thought she broke a bone—it was the only thing that could sound so sad like that. Harry nearly forgot why he wasn’t looking at her. He spun so fast to face her. He examined her for injury quickly scanning her from head to toe.

“Kitten?” He asked. She sniffled and Harry frowned, pulling her toward him and kissing the top of her head. “S’matter, love?” He whispered. As if he hadn’t just broken her heart.

“I should have defended you,” she croaked. She should have. Even if she didn’t remember the conversation now. Harry was sad. It made her sad. This was so bad. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry Harry. I don’t... Sarah was just looking out for me... I don’t know—” she hiccupped.

“Kitten, s’okay,” he murmured comfortingly, rubbing his hand up and down her back soothingly.

“You’re gonna break up with me, aren’t you?” She asked.

His mouth dropped open releasing a surprised gasp. “Baby, of course not. No,” he squeezed her tightly. “I may be an idiot, but m’not stupid,” he kissed her forehead, his lips lingering on her forehead for a long period of time.

“Why wouldn’t you look at me? You said we weren’t fine,” she continued to snivel and ruin Harry’s shirt. His cologne was so comforting it was hard to remember why she was sad. Maybe that was his plan. She would forget that they were having an adult conversation. That it would lull her gently and he could break up with her.

“Kitten,” he sighed and brought his hands to her face. “I love you with m’entire being.”

“But...” she sniffled finishing his thought.

“Y’don’t think you’re settling? Sarah was right... I was so mean t’you... and I should have worshipped—”

She sniveled more. “I don’t care about that.”

“Please stop crying, love. You’re breaking m’heart.”

“I think you want to break up,” she repeated, her voice shaking with every word.

“Angel, m’never letting y’go,” he promised. “It took me a while...but m’never gonna lose you. Not ever,” he brushed his thumbs below her eyes swiping away the tears that had fallen. “Baby,” he murmured. “I jus’... I feel like m’going t’be groveling forever and I should...but s’hard. I want t’be the best for you.”

“But you don’t need to grovel. You are the best.”

“I don’t think y’believe that...s’why y’didn’t answer Sarah,” he smirked sadly. Like he knew her own thoughts better than herself.

“Harry,” she whined. “That’s not true.”

Harry kissed her forehead. “I’ve loved you for s’long… I was too stupid t’realize it.”

“You said you weren’t breaking up with me!” The silence was deafening. The sound of her tears and sniffles were the only thing that could be heard. “Baby,” her voice cracked again.

“I think you should break up with me.” The sobs that left her at that moment were so loud. So full of anguish, it broke Harry’s heart. “Kitten,” he whispered. “S’okay.”

“I hate Sarah.”

“No, y’don’t, angel. Not at all,” he murmured. “She’s your best friend. She loves you. She wants what’s best for you.”

“You are what’s best for me.” He didn’t say anything in response. Why didn’t she just defend him last weekend? Why did Harry overhear? “You’re just gonna give up?”

“No love, of course not. Jus’ told you m’never letting you go.”

“So why are you—”

“Kitten, y’need t’know you’re a queen,” he returned his hands to her face a rubbed away the tears again and pressed a kiss to the center of her forehead. It felt like the pressure of his lips was seeping right through her skull and easing all the tension in her brain. “You deserve so much more than me.”

“I don’t want it,” she sniveled. “Please stop telling me what I need,” she whimpered. Harry didn’t speak. She tried again. “Were you mad...all week?”

“Not at you, m’love. At myself. Y’did nothing wrong. Y’jus’...brought it t’my attention. I wanted you t’defend me...but I... I didn’t really do anything worthy of defending myself,” he shrugged. After a few moments he spoke again after contemplating the week. “I guess I was pretty mad with myself,” he admitted. He wanted her to defend him. But she couldn’t. Subconsciously or not. There was no reason to defend him and his shitty performance as a person growing up in her life. Forgetting her birthday, their anniversary, or just...anything. His grand gestures didn’t matter. She was an angel in every meaning of the word. His perfect angel. It was infuriating. But she just...didn’t have it in her to tell her best friend that Harry was worth it. It made him mad. It wasn’t fair, it didn’t make sense, but it made him mad, nonetheless.

She frowned, the tears slipping over his thumbs faster than he could push them out of the way. She felt helpless. It was her fault it was like this. It was her fault that Harry wanted her to break up with him. It made her sick to her stomach. “I don’t want to. Please don’t make me,” she sniffed again. Harry had never seen anything as sad as the tears in her eyes. “You make me whole, Harry,” she cried still, and Harry felt like he was really making this worse than he wanted it to be. He just wanted her to be sure. She deserved every bit of happiness life had to offer... and part of Harry thought that might not be him.

“Hmm?” He smirked sadly. That piqued his interest though. “How’s that, baby?”

She inhaled shakily and Harry saw the tears start to settle. She swallowed trying to regulate her breathing so she could speak quietly. “When you danced with me at work,”

“Oh?” He asked.

“That was the most…romantic thing I’ve ever experienced,” she looked at him through her wet lashes. Harry thought that even when she was sad, she was the most gorgeous thing he had ever laid eyes on. It pained him to think he was ever anything but sweet to her. That he didn’t cherish every moment with her like he wouldn’t get another.

Smiling, he wrapped his arm around her waist and cupped her hand in his again. “Yeah?” He asked, starting to sway just as he had the other day. It felt just like it did in that moment. Her heart seemed to stop and start at the exact same moment. She wished with everything in her that she had fought Harry and told him that he was an idiot back when they were younger. Not because she was mad—just that she wanted more romantic moments like this. All the pieces of her heart snapped together. Her cheek smushed against his chest listening to his heartbeat. “Like this?” He whispered.

She nodded silently. “You’re the most confusing man I’ve ever met.”

He chuckled. It was a warm, gentle feeling and made every nerve in her body feel like it was melting. “M’sorry, baby,” he kissed the top of her head.

“I don’t want anyone but you,” she whispered. “You bought me all those flowers, all the getaways, the way you get medicine for me when I don’t even know I need it. You always check to make sure I ate lunch. And when I fall asleep on the couch you always take the hair elastic off my wrist,” she reminded him. “I’m sorry. You are so worthy of being defended.”

Harry chuckled quietly, his breath getting lost in her hair and warming the top of her head. “Then s’enough for me,” he twirled her beneath his arm, wrapped her back into his embrace and dipped her to kiss her so sweetly she thought her heart would totally give out. She wasn’t sure she would ever get over the electric feeling of kissing him. She hoped she never did. “M’sorry I didn’t tell y’what I was feeling. I won’t bring it up again. If y’want me, I won’t question it.”

She pressed her face back into his shirt and clung to him like she would somehow fall out of his hold. “You never need to. I love you so much,” her voice was firm.

“Good,” he nodded. They danced quietly for a few moments in total silence. Her breathing evened out. He kissed her hair again. “In case I haven’t said it in a while and it wasn’t completely obvious...I love you so very much too, kitten.”

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