Friends to Lovers/ Vessel x reader
Summary: A close friendship evolves into love after a show.
Words: 633
FLUFF
You and Vessel have been really good friends for many years.
There's always been a certain level of intimacy and trust between you. Sometimes a cuddle on the shoulder, sometimes a gentle rub of the thumb over the cheek or a kiss on the hair.
His bandmates tease you, claiming Vessel and you are in a relationship and you both just don't know about it yet.
"I'm so tired." You mumble, dropping onto the black leather sofa in the backstage area, exhausted. A sigh of relief escapes you as you watch Vessel out of the corner of your eye as he removes his white mask with the red details in front of a mirror
"What about me?" He asks with a grin and opens the clasp at the back of his head. "You just stood next to the stage and watched. I gave it my all and sang."
"And danced." You add with a grin.
"Yes, and danced." Vessel replies with a soft chuckle and places the mask next to the black charcoal he applied to his body before his performance... or rather, you applied it.
"I could sleep through a whole year after the tour." He says and watches his charcoal-stained face in the mirror for a moment.
You lean your head back against the soft backrest of the sofa and look up at the ceiling with a grin. "You say that every time and then you sleep just like you did on tour, maybe an hour longer." You say playfully.
Vessel laughs softly and sits down right next to you. His shoulder brushes yours as he leans back with a relieved sigh.
You tilt your head to the side and look at him.
It doesn't take him long to notice your gaze and he turns his head towards you. "What's wrong? You look like you've seen an alien."
A grin creeps onto your lips. "I just find it amusing how messed up you look after every show." You say with a shrug and raise your hand to brush your fingers across his cheek.
He rolls his eyes playfully and gently clasps your wrist. "Go ahead and make fun of me." He says, rubbing small circles on your skin.
You look at each other in a moment of silence, his gaze darts from your eyes to your lips.
And finally, the other Sleep Token guys would be standing next to you cheering, Vessel slowly moves his face closer to yours.
You can literally imagine III's cry of joy as your lips meet in a gentle kiss.
Butterflies ignite in every fiber of your body. Your lips melt together as if they were made for each other.
But they part far too quickly.
You open your eyes as Vessel leans back. "That was..." You whisper.
"It was perfect." Vessel says softly in a husky voice. His thumb circles your wrist gently.
"I never thought..." A smile forms on your lips. "...that this would ever happen between us."
"It just felt right to do it." He looks into your eyes and can't help the playful tone in his voice. "And besides, we're already very intimate with each other anyway."
You grin softly and answer playfully. "Basically, it's the same as before."
"Exactly." He leans closer to you. "Except now I'll kiss your lips more often instead of just your forehead."
Vessel looks at you with a mischievous gleam in his eyes. "Is that okay?"
"Mhm." You hum, which is enough of an answer for Vessel as he gently presses his lips back to yours.
If III knew what was happening next to his room... he'd probably jump for joy, just like your heart leaps in your chest as you gently return Vessel's kiss.
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I Am Not My Own
summary: Following the Battle of New York, Steve begins to lose himself to the mantle of Captain America. Torn with guilt over the loss of his friend and struggling in a time that does not belong to him, Steve takes comfort in his only solace.
pairing: steve rogers x reader
word count: 3.8k
warnings: descriptions of a panic attack, sad boy angsty steve
a/n: This takes place between Avengers 1 and TWS. Based on an anon request from ages ago along the lines of exploring “the impact of traumas like seeing Bucky falling from the train and the guilt over Bucky's capture, the feeling of displacement which he kept quiet while carrying the mantle of Captain America.” Title inspired by a lyric in Party of One by Brandi Carlile.
Steve Rogers looks upon the crowd gathered below the podium – a sea of star-spangled commercialized t-shirts and homemade costumes. Adoring fans scream as they hold posters raised above their heads professing their love and allegiance. Even as he stands in the back corner of the stage attempting to fade into the shadow cast by the American flag beside him, it does not sway the attention of the crowd.
He can still feel them watching him. Waiting for him. Bouncing on the balls of their feet in anticipation of his slightest movement.
The mayor nears the end of her well-rehearsed speech, and the crowd begins to grow antsier with every second. They’re not here for the mayor’s latest initiative to rebuild the subway following yet another otherworldly attack defended by the Avengers. No – they're here for him.
He almost misses his cue when the mayor steps back from the podium and gestures for him to come forward. The crowd alights with excitement; applause echoing through the treetops of Central Park and casting birds from their homes on the branches.
Steve settles the racing tempo in his chest and presses a tight smile onto his face before he steps from the shadow. It’s what he was trained to do, after all. He shakes the mayor’s hand as he’s done for the last four mayoral projects – none of which have held up to their promises to help the people of this city, but they’ve increased the mayor’s polling averages and the eased public tension toward SHEILD, and he supposes that was all it was ever meant for anyway.
So, Steve waves a hand to the crowd and throws on the charming grin he practiced in the mirror earlier that morning. He poses for pictures in the stance shown to him by the rather uptight woman in PR and he pretends for a moment that this is all there is.
No nightmares that chase him through the cold dark of his dreams until he wakes in blinding terror. No aliens slipping through a hole in space above New York. No memories of a hand he was inches from reaching; of the cold, blistering wind through the snowcapped mountains. No echoing of a scream he’ll never be able to erase as his best friend falls to the ravine.
It’s only the flashing lights. The tight grip of the mayor’s hand in his. The endless chanting of his name through the crowd.
A strange feeling comes over him as the sea of voices begins to fade, as he listens to a chorus of strangers call his name – praising a hero he does not recognize in the mirror. He hears his name and realizes it does not belong to him anymore.
Steve Rogers. Captain America. His name, his title, stripped from his grasp and given to a podium he never asked for. The mantle of the hero Steve can hardly live up to – painted only in light acceptable to the public relations department on level seven.
They erased the dark lingering under his bones and pretended like there is little more to their prized trophy than the glory of red, white, and blue. Because what use is he to them if they discover he is just as broken and battered as the rest of the soldiers left to rot on their own after they’re returned to US soil? What good is Captain America if he can hardly sleep through the night? If he’s constantly looking over his shoulder for the next threat? If he’s got a boulder on his back crippling his spine, burdened with such guilt and shame, he’s certain he’ll drown under the weight of it?
Pieces of him were torn away in the wreckage of the Atlantic, shredded remains left behind in the forties, lost to the battlefields in the city he grew up in. Fragments ripped from his clutches under bleeding nails and given to the people chanting his name, to the lawmakers in their ivory towers, to the only sense of purpose he could find within the walls of the Avengers Tower.
He realizes it then. Steve Rogers is not his own.
***
“Captain Rogers!” a shrill voice calls behind him as he trudges through the main lobby of the tower. Heels click behind his PR agent, Linda, as she struggles to keep up with his long strides. She means well. He knows she does. But he also knows she’s more of a babysitter than anything else – hired to make sure Steve doesn’t stray too far from the picture-perfect image they have set up for him.
His escape plan is thwarted by the elevator when it refuses to open its door before she catches up.
“You’re a fast one, aren’t you?” Linda huffs, trying to catch her breath. She's laughing as if she’s in on the joke, but Steve can barely muster a smile.
All he wants is to get this damn uniform off – to rid himself of the mockery it’s become and the outright lie of heroism attached to it. He feels like he might suffocate under it, like the fabric might burst into flame and devour him whole if he doesn’t peal it from his skin in time. He can already feel the singing burn against his forearms, against his chest, against his back. It’s boiling hot. It’s agonizing. It’s–
“Don’t forget about the auction this Saturday! You’re our top earner!” Linda chimes, scribbling something down in her notebook just as the elevator doors open. Steve exhales a sigh of relief when she does not follow him inside. She doesn’t even look up at him as she rattles off the rest of his upcoming schedule. He lets the doors close before she finishes. He wonders if she will even notice.
The sudden silence in the elevator might have been a relief if not for the constant ringing in his ears. Steve lifts a shaking hand to the strap of his helmet and unlatches it. Slowly, as the elevator begins to climb, he pulls it off. Weight slips from his body but it’s not enough. It’s like removing a stone from the back of a boulder – insufficient and pathetic.
He doesn’t have to look at his reflection in the silver doors to know there are red marks lining his face around where the mask meets his skin. They’ll fade in a few minutes, but they’re deep now. They look like mutilations upon the bone itself. He had asked once to adjust the framing of the helmet to avoid the painful marks, but he was told the alterative designs didn’t poll well in focus groups.
Though he tries to avoid it, Steve catches a glimpse of his reflection in the dull shimmer of the sliver doors. His hair is unkept, messy from the helmet and a rough night of sleep. The bright reflection of red, white, and blue stares back as if to mock him. But what startles him the most is the weight in his own eyes. He looks tired, he realizes. Dark circles under his eyes that never learned to fade after he took his first sip of bourbon alone in an empty bar the night he lost his best friend.
And that crowd dared to call him a hero.
Steve can’t help the shiver that sweeps up his spine. It isn’t a pleasant one. No – it's dark and cold and leaves his fingertips shaking enough that only the sharp curl of his fist is all that eases him. And even then, it’s not enough. The tremors retreat up his arms, past his shoulders, and burrow into his chest around his heart where he’s certain the muscle will twist in on itself until it gives out entirely.
He doesn’t notice the elevator doors have parted until they begin to close again. Steve quickly slips through the small opening before they can trap him inside.
He’s sweating by the time he reaches his room, though he knows the air conditioning is blowing full blast. It’s not the heat of the tower, but his own heart pulsing into overdrive. It’s the kind of panic he endured as a scrawny kid in Brooklyn, so he recognizes the feeling as it settles in.
He might have thought the serum would have taken care of the panic attacks for him, but as it turns out, even superheroes aren’t immune to the consequences of guilt and shame.
Steve digs a hand under the collar of his suit, trying to peel away the fabric from his chest but there are too many zippers. Too many straps and hooks. His hands fumble desperately with the latches but it’s taking too long to rid himself of the material. It's as if the walls are closing in on him – suffocating him, burying him.
He can’t stand the uniform. It doesn't matter how many focus groups the design has undergone or how much cutting-edge technology they sew into the fabric. It’s still the same lie. The same goddamn lie.
He’s not a hero.
He's a propaganda poster.
He watched his best friend fall to death. He laid waste to his own city in an attempt to save it. He aligned himself with politicians and intelligence agencies that puppet him around like he’s little more than a poster boy. He’s not saving anyone. He can’t save anyone.
He’s nothing.
He’s weak. He’s pathetic. He’s —
“Steve?”
He freezes at the sound of your voice. The top of his suit is half hanging off his chest, still stuck to his left arm from all the damn sweat. He keeps his back to the door where he knows you’re standing, where he knows you’re looking at him with devastating pity in your eyes. He can hear the confusion in your voice, the concern. He knows what you must think of him.
Your footsteps carry you into the room though he refuses to turn around. He can feel your gaze trailing over him, observing every ounce of the high, rapid rising of his chest, of the flush on his skin, and the sweat beading into his hair. You set your hand against his forearm as you step in front of him and slowly, Steve dares to meet your eyes.
Whatever pity he was preparing for is absent. Instead, he finds only a kind understanding that nearly knocks him off his feet. It’s too much. It’s more than he deserves. And yet, there you are.
Without saying a word, your hand slides up along his arms to begin working the suit from his tired body. He barely moves a muscle as he allows you to peel away the fabric, gentle hands coaxing over his tense muscle. Your lip tugs between your teeth in the effort and Steve can’t help but watch the sharp indent you make, how red it is when you finally release it from your bite.
A chill sweeps over him as you remove the jacket and set it carefully on the bed. He takes in as much of a breath as his lungs will allow – finally able to breathe now that the suit is no longer suffocating him.
You glance at him cautiously before your eyes dip to his belt.
“I’ve got it,” he tells you then, his voice a little rough at its edges, but at least he’s not gasping for air anymore.
You nod and step back, though you do not leave his room. Steve picks up a pair of sweatpants he discarded the evening before and takes them to the bathroom with him. He doesn’t dare a glance at the mirror, doesn’t want to know how flushed his skin has become under the rapid mixture of shame and panic. He doesn’t want to know what you must see when you look at him – this pathetic, hollow shell of the patriotic symbol plastered upon t-shirts and billboards and recruitment posters.
He steps out of his boots, discards the navy-blue pants to the corner tiles, and pulls on the soft fabric of old, familiar sweats. It’s soft against his skin. Loose. Discolored with age with fraying drawstrings and a rip at the hem under his heel. It’s everything the suit isn’t and Steve can finally breathe again.
By the time he gathers himself, he expects you to have left his room. You were dressed in your gym clothes as if you were on your way to the weekly sparring match with Natasha the rookies couldn’t stop gossiping about. You have places to be, clearly. You don’t need to be wasting your time tending to... whatever just happened with him. You’re not his babysitter.
Hell – Steve isn’t sure what you are to him, but he knows he doesn’t want you to see him like this and he’s grateful all the same. Conflict wars within him; this urge to push you away so you never witness his failings again and his desperation to sink into your arms until he finally believes the gentle encouragements you whisper.
But, of course, Steve finds you sitting patiently on his bed when he emerges from the bathroom. You stand as soon as you hear the door open, hands fidgeting in your lap. Your gaze drags over him, noticing every bare inch of his chest and the discarded remains of his suit on the floor behind him.
Your lips part, but Steve is the first to speak.
“You don’t have to be here.”
You furrow your brow, confused. “If you're about to tell me you're fine, don’t.”
Steve doesn’t look at you because he knows you’ll be able to read right through him. “It’s nothing you need to concern yourself with. I can manage.”
Something akin to anger flashes over your features, which surprises him. “You’ve been managing for years, Steve. You can’t keep going on like this.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Steve hisses back, surprising himself.
You don’t flinch at his bite, but he notices the sharp intake of your breath, the surprise that alters your balance just a fraction. Subtle expressions and movements he should not be able to recognize. Another gift of the serum he has come to resent.
You swallow, but you do not cower from him. “I know you’re hurting. I know the weight of the world is sitting on your shoulders. Let me help you. Let me carry some of that weight, Steve. Please.”
He hears the ache in your voice, the desperation, and it nearly brings him to his knees. But he locks the joints and refuses to give in. He can’t show weakness now. He can’t. Because he knows he’ll crumble under it. And you’ve been too good to him – too kind, too generous with your time, too willing to offer him warm smiles he didn’t deserve.
The air conditioner hums over his head as a tunnel of cold air pushes into the room. It’s not enough to quell the sweat on his hair line, and still, he starts to shiver. For a moment, he feels ice under his palms. He feels the wind whipping against his face as he clings to the cold metal of a moving train. He feels Bucky’s fingertips slipping out of reach. He hears— He hears the rusted screws give out under his friend’s weight. The short, sharp snap.
He braces himself for what he knows comes next. The frightened look in Bucky’s eyes as a weightlessness takes him for a fraction of a second. The air suddenly ripped from his own lungs as the realization sets in. And then – the scream.
It follows him to his dreams. It haunts every waking silence. Bucky’s scream as he fell into the ravine.
It happened so quickly and still, Steve remembers every second if he’d drawn each frame himself. Every line upon Bucky’s face. The feel of the ice under his palms. The sting of the wind against his cheeks. The shame burning holes into his chest as he watched Bucky fall until he couldn’t stomach it anymore and he turned away.
“They keep telling me I’m a hero,” Steve says, though his voice is little more than a whimper. “But I’m not. I’m... I’m nothing. I’m no one. I’m an experiment designed to be the perfect soldier and I... I still couldn’t save him.”
He risks a glance at you to find your eyes are wet with tears. He knows then that he doesn’t need to specify. You were with him at the Smithsonian when he first saw the exhibit dedicated to Captain America and the Howling Commandos. You saw Bucky’s face carved into glass and the footage of his youth. You held his hand when he felt like he might collapse under the weight of those memories.
So perhaps he shouldn’t be surprised by how easily you move towards him, how effortlessly you take his hand in yours and gently guide him towards the bed. His legs feel weak, his body aching and tired, so he does as you silently ask and sits on the edge of the bed. You crawl up beside him, kicking off your sneakers, and you tug him until he lays his full body across the mattress with you beside him.
You don’t say a word as you maneuver his arm to lay across your waist and guide his head to lay over your chest. It’s no small task given his size, but he uses what is left of his strength to follow your lead. When you're finished and his right leg is hooked between yours, his right arm curled around you, his ear resting over your heartbeat, Steve feels the weight ease a little from his back. The dizziness begins to fade, the fog over his mind dissipating. He concentrates on the steady thump of your heart until it drowns out the memories threatening to pull him under.
“You’re a good man, Steve,” you tell him softly. He feels the vibration of it in your chest and clings to it. Your hand slips into his hair, fingertips running gently against his scalp, and he sighs at the sensation. “The world sees you as Captain America. To them, you will always be a hero.”
He tenses at the word, but you don’t back down.
“Don’t mistake me,” you continue, “you are, but you are so much more than what they expect you to be.”
Steve shifts against you, but your hold on him doesn’t relent. You don’t shy away from his discomfort or his shame. You don’t wipe your hands of his fears. Instead – you hold him through it.
“You are the man who makes a fresh pot of coffee every morning after the team downs the first batch because you know it takes me longer to drag myself out of bed.” You only smile as surprise jolts in Steve’s chest. He doesn’t lift his head to look at you, but he can feel the soft brush of your fingers trail from his scalp down along his neck, brushing against his jawline in ginger strokes as if to soothe away his worries.
“I know you think I haven’t noticed, but it’s kind of hard to miss how wonderful you are.” There’s a breath of laughter in your voice – as if relief hangs on the end of every syllable. “You are the man who volunteered to teach basic combat after hours to the rookies who are falling below their benchmarks. You entertain all of Sam’s ridiculous attempts to outrace you and you have this uncanny ability to make Natasha laugh even when she’s veering on the edge of darkness. You are kind and sweet and thoughtful and a good, decent man.”
Steve wonders then if you can feel how frantic his heart is beating. Not from adrenaline, not from panic or fear, but born of something else entirely. Something that had to do with the way your hands soothed over his tense muscles, how you touched him so easily and so gently it was if you drew new strength back to his bones.
“And I know,” you begin, taking in a long breath, “I know you would have given your life in a second if it meant saving Bucky’s.”
Steve anticipates his stomach to bottom out, to feel the floor collapse under him. He’s certain the walls will cave around him and suffocate the last ounce of air from his lungs, but he only feels you. He feels every stroke of your touch, every steady pulse of your heart under his ear. He feels you against him and around him and holding him and somehow – that paralyzing dread he expects never comes. Instead, all that remains is a hollow, painful ache – a memory, a grief.
“I see you,” your voice comes as a gentle murmur against the tension surrounding his heart. “I see the man behind the uniform. I see you, Steve Rogers.”
Something breaks in him at the sound of his name on your lips. He has spent too many years giving himself over to the mantle of Captain America; erasing any trace of the vulnerable, grieving man under the surface. He allowed himself to be made into a symbol, a puppet, a caricature for SHIED, that he’d begun to drown under the weight of it.
But you –
You saw him gasping for air. You saw him struggling to stay afloat as salt water spilled into his lungs. You saw him and dragged his broken, aching body to shore.
Steve curls his arm a little tighter around you and he feels you sigh relief against his crown. Pieces of himself mend together by glue and tape the longer he spends in your embrace, with every reminder you offer of the man behind the mask.
“It’s easy to lose myself sometimes,” he murmurs against your chest.
You sigh, your chest lifting his resting head with a long inhale. “I know, darling. And I will always be here to guide you back.”
It doesn’t matter then what you are to him, he realizes, because he knows he loves you regardless. He must, because nothing has ever calmed him as easily as you do. He’s never found a safer solace than when he caves into the security of your arms. You are his anchor, his grounding upon uneven waters.
And you gave him back his name.
---
Thank you so much for reading! ❤️ If you enjoyed this fic, please consider supporting me at my ko-fi account ✨
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