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blouisparadise · 3 years

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We frequently get asked what our members favorite fics are, so for today’s rec list, we asked each member of BLP to choose FIVE favorite fics for this list - no repeats allowed. Please keep in mind that this is not a complete list of our favorites - there are so many amazing BL fics out there that we all have a lot more than this! Still, we hope you enjoy. Happy reading!

1) Take Off Your Business Suit | Explicit | 3082 words

“Yes, let me get another chair.” Louis said, leaning up off of the desk. He stood up but before he could leave the office to get another chair, Harry was grabbing his hand.

The words that came out of Harry’s mouth made Louis’ knees weak and heart beat quicken. “Just sit on my lap.” Harry said. Whatever he said afterwards didn’t make it into Louis’ ears as he was moving quickly over to Harry and placing himself on Harry’s lap.

Louis would take anything Harry wanted to give him; hand touching, lap sitting, all of it. Louis hadn't realized he was holding his breath until it came out in a quiet sigh. “Okay so th-this one will be slightly different right?” He asked as he pointed at the sheet of paper in front of him.

2) Quietly Our Hearts Beat | Explicit | 7539 words

Note: This fic is locked and can only be read by AO3 users.

Louis and Harry in the universe of ‘A Quiet Place’.

3) A Love Reaction | Explicit | 9968 words

Note: This fic is locked and can only be read by AO3 users.

Louis’s staring up at him, head tilted slightly back, and his blue eyes are glassy, locked with Harry’s in an unblinking and gentle gaze. He looks ready to do whatever Harry says, to please him whatever way.

4) To Love Without Reason | Explicit | 8854 words

“Come on in, soldier,” Louis pats Harry’s chest and walks away, leaving Harry to follow behind.

Harry stands in the living room, looking around at Louis’ dwelling. Family pictures placed high on a shelf, certificates of Louis’ practice, and other trinkets that make Harry entirely too nostalgic.

“I have to warn you,” Louis says as he puts the kettle on, the water droplets from his hair trickling down the golden skin of his back. “The door jams if you lock it so you'll have to leave it ajar.”

Harry acknowledges with a soft hum, too entranced by Louis’ glistening skin to form a coherent reply.

5) No Good Unless It’s Real | Explicit | 17021 words

Louis is a very busy farmer who’s just trying to make it to his next nap and Harry’s the new hot vet that’s determined to infiltrate every area of his life.

6) A Springtime’s Wilt, An Autumn’s Bloom | Explicit | 20593 words

Harry is Louis' personal chauffeur, and although he hides his feelings for his boss behind a wall of rigid professionalism, Louis still manages to squeeze through the cracks.

7) Ready To Fall | Explicit | 21220 words

“Ninety and rising,” Nick says triumphantly, as though making Harry’s heartbeat pick up by thrusting an obscenely attractive person in front of his face is any kind of success. “Louis Tomlinson has just walked into our control room and suddenly our dear Harry Styles has lost all ability to speak. Could this be some kind of strange coincidence?”

“I hate you,” Harry hisses, forcing his eyes back into Nick’s direction, uncaring that the mic must have picked it up. “I thought we agreed that you were going to play fair.”

“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Nick denies, except he’s holding up a picture of Louis’ face now, sharp cheekbones prominent, soft lashes nearly sweeping against his cheeks as he looks down, and his fucking mouth –

“A hundred and two!” Nick crows, all but clapping his hands together in glee. “The highest it’s ever been!”

“To be fair, I did bend over the desk on purpose,” Louis’ voice comes crackling in the headphones. Harry practically breaks his neck whipping his head around at the sound of it, gaping at him through the glass panel. “You can’t really blame him for getting a little excited about that, can you?”

8) Written In The Stars (That’s You And Me) | Explicit | 22632 words

Louis pushes himself up on one elbow and stretches enough to just barely trace his fingertips over Harry’s jawline. Harry’s eyes drop to track his movements as he does it again. “D’you feel that?” he whispers.

To him, it feels like all of the universe’s magic lives just beneath his skin when he touches Harry with intent. It feels like something special. Louis watches Harry’s lips part and wants to touch that too. He almost does, but then Harry shakes his head. “Feel what?”

9) Middle Ground | Explicit | 23561 words

Note: This fic is locked and can only be read by AO3 users.

Harry moves to a new town for work where he meets the enigma that is Louis Tomlinson.

10) England Has My Bones | Explicit | 24087 words

The next time Harry thinks about calling, it’s 4.14 in the morning on a Parisian hotel balcony.

11) Like A Siren In The Night | Explicit | 24868 words

“There is an infestation in my home,” Louis hisses, righting himself quickly and pushing his way past Harry, heading directly for the kitchen. He’s rather haphazardly dressed himself, a coat thrown on over a loose flannel shirt and black pants, slippers on his feet.

Harry resists the urge to sigh, closing the door and trailing behind him slowly. “What kind of infestation?”

For all he knows, Louis is going to claim that there’s a ghost infestation. Harry has no idea what the end game is here – all he knows is that Louis has found at least three complaints a week to bring up since he’s been living on Harry’s property, and he’s been living here for six months.

It’s way too many fucking complaints, is what Harry is saying. Especially when most of them are ridiculous to start with.

12) Hold Onto This Heaven (Of Yours) | Explicit | 25213 words

An ode to being too young, too sad, and too in love.

13) The Devil’s In The Details | Explicit | 25372 words

He squeals when Harry smacks his bum as he bends over to pick up his bag, swinging it over his shoulder. Harry smiles smugly at him, bottom lip caught between his teeth. “When are you going to start calling me professor?” He asks.

“When you actually are one,” Louis says with his hand on the doorknob. He cocks his head to the side in curiosity. “Isn’t that how words work? You did study English, right?”

Louis’ quick to slip out the door before Harry can smack him again, his laugh echoing through the hallways as he makes his way to his next class with flushed cheeks and a bright smile.

14) A Trail Of Honey Through It All | Explicit | 27086 words

The boy in front of him, well really, the man in front of him, was like something out of a confusing wet dream. Built, tall, tan and muscular, his skin glistened with sweat after a long day of working outdoors with his hands. He was wearing a cut up old American football shirt, the bottom hem was torn and the sleeves were cut off to the point where the t-shirt was really just a loose tank top. The shorts he had on had clearly been full length jeans at one point, and were now just crudely cut off above the knee. His white socks were pulled up too high on his calves, and the brown work boots he had on were old as fuck, the leather peeling along the edges of the soles. Curly brown hair stuck out from the edges of his backwards snapback, and there was a smudge of grease wiped along his brow bone. The smattering of hair along his jaw proved that he hadn’t shaved in a week or two, the hair growing in thicker across his upper lip and around his chin. His sinfully bowed mouth was pink and plump, and Louis was suddenly hyper-focused on the way that he chewed at the toothpick stuck between his lips. He looked like he needed a shower. Louis wanted to lick him.

15) You Fit In My Poems (Like A Perfect Rhyme) | Explicit | 27598 words

The one where Harry works in an old bookshop and Louis is the pretty stranger that ends up stranded there in the middle of a storm.

16) Where The Lights Are Beautiful | Mature | 31170 words | Sequel

The accidental bonding A/B/O fic.

17) Once Upon A Dream | Explicit | 33319 words | Sequel

Louis is psychic and gets caught in the middle of a murder investigation led by FBI Special Agent Harry Styles.

18) Stuck On You | Explicit | 33983 words

Louis’ life revolves around his stickers. Harry’s life revolves around his job. The universe has decided their worlds should revolve around each other.

19) Coeur De Pirate | Explicit | 34207 words

He tilts his chin up as the Captain strides across the deck, his footfalls falling loudly against the planks. The crew watches them from afar.

Stepping into his space, the Captain wraps an arm around Louis’ waist and pulls him in. He lowers his head to breathe his words against Louis’ cheeks. “I won,” he whispers, “I’ve come to claim my prize.”

20) What This World Is About | Explicit | 34472 words

An eighties American high school AU; there are first times, football games, and feelings.

Alternatively titled: the beginning.

21) Close To Nowhere | Explicit | 34589 words

Louis and Harry are psychics who kind of hate each other. They go to Tennessee to investigate a haunting.

22) Before We Knew | Explicit | 39830 words

Louis has been skeptical of soulmates for years so it seems like fate when he finally bumps into the owner of the obnoxiously large signature printed onto his skin since age sixteen: Harry Styles, a human rights attorney who is firmly against soulmates.

23) The Space Between | Explicit | 39917 words

Harry Styles is the alpha rockstar who can’t sleep and doesn’t know why.

Louis Tomlinson is the omega PhD student who helps him figure it out.

24) The Sweetest Incantation | Explicit | 40580 words

Harry is a witch who's still working on developing his powers and Louis is a werecat who falls into his life and turns it upside down.

25) Worth Dying For | Explicit | 44906 words

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Louis says, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest. In the center of the table, a set of three glossy photos stares up at him, mocking him.

“A security detail is non-negotiable, Louis, you know this,” his mum reminds him, tapping the middle photo with two fingers.

Louis doesn’t look back down at the pictures, gesturing towards them wildly, over-dramatically. “This is not a security detail!” he protests. “This is a lanky college student. In what world do you hire someone like this kid to protect me?”

26) Tastes Like Summer, Smiles Like May | Explicit | 47519 words

A cold prince, an alpha with nothing left to lose and a kingdom with a secret.

27) Love’s Truest Language | Explicit | 48195 words

The first part was meant as a joke. He didn't really expect Harry to buy anything. It was just Louis’ way of softening the ‘get the fuck out’ blow.

“Where's your order forms, then?”

“I don't want your flowers.” Louis chided before directing all of his attention to the arrangement in front of him.

Harry laughed under his breath as he stood to his full height, “Who said anything about them being for you, love?”

28) Through The Wheatfields And The Coastlines | Explicit | 52855 words

The one where Louis needs inspiration, and a certain cowboy and his lamb are the perfect distraction.

29) Latibule | Mature | 54322 words

A Spirited Away AU of sorts where Louis just wants to heal and be left alone, only for all his plans to be destroyed by the hands of an infuriating British God.

30) Warming Up To You | Explicit | 56227 words

Prompt 111: Louis and Harry are strangers that somehow got stranded during a blizzard. They find themselves in an abandoned cabin and have to cuddle for warmth. Cuddling leads to much more.

31) Feeling Borrowed, Always Blue | Explicit | 68214 words

Louis has been dreaming of his wedding since he was young - he just never expected it to happen like this.

32) Curly Bun Man | Not Rated | 68597 words

I just paid for these Doritos but they're stuck in the vending machine and I know you've been waiting but I am not going to let you buy something until you help me. AU.

33) Waiting On You | Explicit | 76584 words | Sequel

“Vampires,” Louis says with disgust, glaring over at the vampire who is noisily slurping from the woman’s neck nearby.

Zayn gives the neat fang marks on Louis’ neck a meaningful look.

“Can’t live with them, can’t live without them,” Louis finishes, ignoring Zayn when he rolls his eyes.

Louis takes a long sip of his milkshake, presses his fingers against the marks on his neck, and definitely doesn’t think about the vampire who left them there.

34) Through Struggles, To The Stars | Explicit | 80582 words

Louis is a Starfleet captain trying to find his place in the universe. Harry is a prince just trying to do what's right.

35) I Want You So Much (But I Hate Your Guts) | Mature | 83648 words

AU in which Louis gets accepted to play for the Manchester University Alpha-Beta Football Team. The only problem: Louis is actually an Omega. He is determined to make it big in the football world, though, and he can't do that bound to an Omega team. With the help of a faked doctor's certificate and some pretty strong suppressants he is ready to fight for his dream.

That Harry Styles (Alpha, second year and youngest football captain of the A-B team in ages) doesn't seem to like him complicates matters, though.

36) Where You Lay | Explicit | 86038 words

When Louis's upcoming heat threatens his success at his new dream job, he asks the best (and only) person he can think of to help him through it: his best mates' best mate, Harry Styles. Harry reluctantly accepts, and together the two navigate a strange friends with benefits relationship that quickly turns complicated.

37) And Down The Long And Silent Street | Mature | 86090 words

Wherein Louis and Harry are on the opposite ends of the social ladder, but their paths still cross on the filthy streets Louis calls his home. The odds are staked against them from the beginning, and even more when Louis' past finally catches up with him.

38) Swim In The Smoke | Explicit | 101778 words

“What about this, Captain?” Liam asks, nudging the boy kneeling between their feet with the toe of his boot. The boy hisses and swipes at him, slurring out something unintelligible around the makeshift gag Niall had to stuff in his mouth. He misses by a mile and tries again, just as ineffectively.

Harry looks down at him, at the way the sun streams over his face and shoulders, at the way the gag stretches his mouth, lips pink and chapped. He’s lithe and pretty, smudged all over with dirt. They had found him tied up below deck, mostly unconscious, next to a barrel full of gold. He’s clearly a prisoner, but there’s something familiar about him, something that niggles at Harry’s brain. Something he can’t quite put his finger on.

“Put him in my cabin,” Harry decides, turning back to deal with the rest of the loot. The boys screams out jumbled curse words at Harry’s back, muffled by the gag, and Harry can’t understand any of it.

39) The Galaxy’s Edge | Explicit | 113921 words

Things never quite go as they are planned during a simple rescue job.

40) Tainted Saints And Velvet Vices | Explicit | 126057 words | Sequel (WIP)

A self-fulfilling Hogwarts AU in which Louis is new to seventh year and Harry is the resident devil-may-care Slytherin set to make his entire experience a living misery. Due to less than favourable circumstances they're forced to forge an unwilling, tentative relationship for their own survival. Repressed emotions, decidedly unromantic ballroom dancing, Triwizard Tournament tasks, creative jinxes and twilight flying above the Forbidden Forest ensue.

Check out our other fic rec lists by category here and by title here.

#fic recs #blp fic recs #bottom louis #top harry #larry

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slasherholic · 3 years

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Contains: gender neutral reader, torture, forced scarification, bondage, spanking, fear play, body horror, threats of violence, mentions of drugging.

Asa Emory x Favorite!Victim Reader | One More Chance | Chapter 2

part one here

He stops in front of the elevator. Green-grey mold climbs the peeling beige wallpaper on either side of it like creeping fingers. The tarnished doors sit locked away behind a rusting barred gate. You had tried to use this exact same elevator when you almost got away from—

When you disobeyed him, interjects the part of your brain that just spared you your limbs. You had tried to use this elevator when you disobeyed him.

But he had locked it up tight from the top floors, too.

Upon realizing that, you nearly went slinking back to your room. You remember thinking that if you went back, if you crawled back inside your trunk and shut the lid, if you curled up very tight and very small, if you were good for him, when he found you, he might forgive you. There would still be a punishment for jimmying the lock; but if you showed him that you were sorry, ready to obey, ready to let him keep you without a fuss, the punishment might be bearable.

Then you had discovered a vent with a screw loose. Loose enough for you to peel back the grate.

The moment your slow descent to the lobby through the vents began, you knew forgiveness was out of the question. If he caught you before you made it out of this hotel, you would be tortured for it.

There is not a single doubt in your groggy, muddled, drugged-up mind that you are still about to be tortured for it.

He lowers your body to the grimy floor and unhooks his keychain from his belt. The keys jangle as he flips the ring once around his finger and catches it again.

A shrill cry leaves your throat when his boot comes down on your temple.

He presses the rubber firmly into your cheek, smushing your face against the cold floor, covering your eyes. He’s not going to let you see this part.

You hear him flipping back and forth between the keys, in no particular hurry to find the correct one.

One,

two,

three locks click open.

The pressure on your temple lifts mercifully away. You watch his boots as he slides the grated rusty door barring the elevator open. When he picks you up again, he slings you over his shoulder, his hand coming down to hold your naked thigh.

There are fifteen amber buttons on the chrome panel inside the elevator. You know your room is on the eighth floor.

Dread knots your stomach when you see the counter above the doors pass floor number eight.

He’s not taking you back to your room.

The elevator stops on floor fourteen. He steps out, and into a part of the hotel you have never seen before. He starts down the decayed hall.

You pass one of his dolls. You don’t shut your eyes in time before you see her.

The first thing you see is the woman’s guts.

Shimmering in a slippery wet blue-purple pile on her abdomen like a tangle of worms, leaking blood down her ribs from stress-worn ruptures in the meat. The stench of her insides hits you like a kick to the face. You realize you must be smelling the chemicals of her stress and fear, cortisol, adrenaline, the pungent amalgamation of everything her panicking brain released when he did this to her.

It must have been recent; nobody could survive this for long.

She whimpers weakly at the sound of his approach. Where her eyes are meant to be, there are only bloody, glistening hollows.

Reaching out, he grazes her IV line with his fingers, letting his hand brush her face tenderly as he walks past.

The woman’s whimpers rise into a steep pained cry that twists her features and dribbles quickly back to whimpering when she seems to realize that he has continued on walking, and isn’t going to linger to touch her more.

He takes you to the end of the hall. You hear the jingling of his key ring, the squeal of a turning handle.

The room inside is utterly unlike the rest of the hotel. Clean, tidy, well-furnished, well-lit. The cream colored wallpaper is spotless and adorned with charts boasting detailed portraits of various species of beetle and moth. All the furniture looks new.

He carries you to a long leather ottoman and starts to push it with his leg away from its resting place next to a bookshelf. In the middle of the room, he deposits you belly-down across it. Your arms fall limply to both sides. He steps out of view.

A radio crackles and sputters to life. Some melody plays faintly over it.

This is some sort of study.

You stare blankly at a locked glass case on the opposite end of the room as he moves somewhere behind you where you can’t see him. Sat upon the shelves are rows upon rows of insects preserved in jars of orange fluid.

Except some of them are very clearly not insects.

You shut your eyes, not caring to see what’s in those jars. Behind you, he opens a cabinet door, and starts to push a trolley cart with a squeaky wheel. You open your eyes when he gets too close.

There are two trays atop the cart. One white, one silver. You watch him lift a thin tool out of the silver tray, turning it over in the light, and your heart falls into your stomach.

It’s a scalpel. He’s holding a scalpel.

You launch right back into your desperate pleading frenzy.

Wait, wait, no no no, I’ll be good, I’ll be good—

The words come out as pitiful, slurred garbling. The drug has paralyzed your tongue.

His gloved hand shoots out. He seizes the underside of your jaw, cruelly. The pleading catches in your throat.

“No more of that.”

The order is stern, yet his voice remains unnervingly steady. It is the first you’ve ever heard him raise it above a whisper.

Fresh tears prick the corners of your eyes. You obey him without thought and fall silent.

From a desk in the corner, he pulls up a three-legged stool, and sits down next to you, knees level with your face. The simple proximity to him has your heart beating out of your chest. He wipes your back down with something cold and then his fingers alight to trace your shoulders gingerly. He rap-tap-taps the scalpel he’s about to use on you against the leg of the stool.

Steadying you with a hand pressed flat on your back, he starts to work.

The bite of the scalpel is unforgiving. Your tears come fast. Before long you’re shrieking, sobbing, struggling to breathe. He doesn’t tell you to stop, doesn’t tell you to be quiet. His incisions are swift and skillful. You can feel the little flicks of his wrist as the blade sinks in and out of your back.

You see him wiping thin bloody slivers into the white tray on the rolling table, pieces of you. The sensation of the warm blood streaming down your back and shoulders turns you clammy and cold. He wipes the runny red up with a cloth from the trolley before it gets on his ottoman.

When it is over, your mind is soup.

You gape like a fish as you suck in shuddery breaths and stare blankly at his gloved hands as he sets the dripping scalpel down in its tray again, passing it through the light once more, watching it shimmer with your blood.

Your body flinches reflexively as he stands suddenly from the stool. Straddling you over the ottoman, he rearranges your legs to make room for him. His shins graze the back of your thighs as he sits. Pressing his palm flat against the small of your back, he traces your skin gingerly, examining his work. You whimper and cry. He pats your cheek.

Getting up, he goes to his desk. When he comes back you hear the click of a camera, the whirr of a picture printing. With two fingers, he slides a polaroid photo onto the ottoman, and tells you to look.

You tremble and cry. You don’t want to.

“Do I need to repeat myself?”

You obey him and look.

You start choking on your own sobs.

Butterfly wings. He’s given you butterfly wings. Wings with intricate, skillful patterns. Their graceful swooping tails reach all the way to your lower back. Bright red pools in the raw pink divots where he removed layers upon layers of your skin.

His hand closes firmly around your wrist. He cleans your fingers with a wipe. Rotating your hand behind you, he makes you feel the slippery cuts.

You whine at the sting, trembling in his strong grip. The wounds are just as deep as they look.

“It’s going to scar,” he states, matter-of-factly.

He leaves the polaroid sitting on the table next to your face as he begins to dress the wound. The cleaning hurts almost as much as the cutting, and though he’s being gentle now you think it would be more bearable if he was being cruel. His light brushes leave you trembling like a leaf.

On goes the adhesive bandaging. You watch him through shimmery tears as he gets up, goes to stand at the glass case, undoes the lock, and squats to reach the bottom shelf. He removes an empty jar and a bottle of preserving fluid.

Going back to the trolley, setting the jar down, he screws off the lid. The preserving fluid sloshes as he pours it inside. Reaching into the white tray, he carefully sets the thin pieces of what he sliced off of you into the preserving jar, one by one. You watch them flutter down and settle at the bottom. He screws the lid back on and writes something in cursive in black marker on the label. Going back to the case, he carefully moves aside a beetle specimen, and places his new collection piece on the top shelf.

He checks his watch. Peeling off his gloves, which are wet with your blood, he deposits them in a small trash can in the corner and removes a new pair from his back pocket.

He doesn’t put them on. When he walks past the ottoman he trails the gloves lightly across the nape of your neck. Your body winces and shudders. You don’t hear him shut the door as he leaves the room.

His confidence in his drug is accurate; by the time he comes back, the only movement you’re able to accomplish is a useless twitching of your fingers and toes.

You aren’t facing the right way so you can’t see the chains he’s holding in his hand but you can hear them and the sound makes a pang of dread explode inside of you. They clank and rattle as he drops them beside the ottoman. He greets you with another soft caress of your nape. His gloves are wet again, with someone else’s blood.

He peels off the dirtied second pair and doesn't bother putting on another.

He crosses your arms behind your bandaged back as you sob into the leather. Snap. The pair of thick shackles close around your wrists. The cuffs are tight and uncompromising. He measures the circumference of your neck with a measuring tape, wrapping it taut around your throat, holding it to the base of your skull with two fingers.

You make fragile broken whines as he fits a stiff steel collar around your neck. You hear the click of a padlock. His warm knuckles come down to stroke your cheek.

His hands go under your body and he lifts you, sinking down on the ottoman in your place, splaying you across his lap. He grips the chain shackling your wrists behind your back, securing your arms tightly. In his shadow, you see him pull back his hand.

Whack.

A shattered sound rips out of you at the impact. You think for an instant that he has taken his knife out of his pocket and stabbed your backside.

With the next smack, you realize that it's his palm, and that he’s spanking you.

One more and you know he’s about to ruin your ass.

Ten seconds on and your sharp yelps are rising into screams. Thirty seconds and your cries are animal. Your cheeks are burning, blood rushing to the spanked area. His palm comes down again and again.

You feel him switch hands. His fingers curl around the front of your throat, gripping you above your collar, hot from the friction of his slaps and your own swelling skin. He rests his palm on your bruised bottom, groping the stinging flesh.

“Count,” he orders. “Out loud.”

Whack.

You obey his order through tears, blurting out the numbers between strangled sobs.

Whack. Wham. Whack.

The slaps are brutal. He’s putting all his strength behind it. Your lips are trembling as you count your punishment. You realize you can feel his clothed erection pressing against your side and that makes you sob harder.

At five, he stops. His hands leave your body, and you hear him fidgeting with his mask. The unlaced black fabric concaves in on itself as it falls to the floor, resting next to his boot.

You can’t look him in the face. You wouldn’t even if you could. You don’t want to see him.

Gripping your jaw, lifting your chin, he presses his nose and mouth to your ear.

“Shh… Shh shh shh...” He shushes your whimpering quiet.

Brushing your cheek with his knuckles, he informs you that five is the number of days he’s going to feed you with nothing but the tube he’s about to shove down your throat.

#third part may take longer heh #asa emory #asa emory x reader #the collector #the collector x reader #the collection #slashers #horror #fanfiction #writing #reader insert #tw: torture #dark fic

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svchengss · 3 years

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two halves | l.mh

PAIRING. mark lee x reader

GENRE. fluff, heavy angst

WARNINGS. major character death, grief

WORD COUNT. 2.4k

SUMMARY. right after his death, mark watches how you cope with the loss

A/N. i saw this one tiktok and it kinda inspired me to write this

// just to let you guys know, reblogs and feedbacks are appreciated !! thank you for reading :D

white walls, white room.

mark scrunched his face, his eyelashes slowly fluttering open, the dark brown iris adjusting the size of the pupils due to the brightness of the walls reflected upon it. a soft groan vibrating from his throat, he assessed his surroundings where nobody or nothing else is present. he looked down to inspect his clothing, hoping that it would give him any clue of this room or space he’s in - an all white outfit. this scene looks exactly like the one in the movies where the characters realize they are dead. except this time, he really is.

THE REALIZATION.

the muffled sounds of cries and sobs rang through his eardrums, triggering a reflex to wake up from the state that he thought was a slumber. he is lying on the hospital bed with the light blue clothing piece, faint light illuminating the space where people are huddled up around him. he waved his right hand in the air to let them - who he later remembered as his family members and friends, know that his eyes are already open. nobody moved even the slightest, the atmosphere being very much dead, scent of medicine intoxicating his mind.

then he saw someone who he holds very dear to his heart - you, enter the hospital room, dropping onto her knees as soon as she saw his state of condition. in an instant, he shot up from his lying position and ran over towards the crying you, shoulders shaking and all. bringing his hands to hold you in his embrace, not even a glance spared by you brought a hundred and one questions to him. why didn’t anybody acknowledge him when he woke up? why can’t you feel his touch?

“mark lee. time of death, 10:23 pm,” the tall doctor with glasses rested on the bridge of his nose announced before leaving the room, holding the clipboard close to his chest. mark gauged the monitor screen next to the bed, the line indicating his heartbeat is no longer showing spikes going up and down - instead becoming a flat line, deafening beep present with it. then he sees himself still laying on the white sheets, eyes still closed and no signs of breathing evident. a surge of panic rushed through his veins.

this can’t be real.

mark rushed into the bathroom, a surprised gasp leaving his lips. his body is semi-transparent, the shape of the toilet bowl can be seen through his left shoulder. his body shakes with terror, slapping himself in the cheeks multiple times just to make sure that this whole fiasco is just a nightmare.

oh my god. no, this is real.

mark stood in the back of the crowd, witnessing the funeral of someone and that someone being him. of course, he’s never expected to get the sight of his own service. his mother is standing beside you, her hands rubbing circles onto your back in an attempt to calm your mourning state. you’re still looking ever so pretty, a black chiffon dress on your body with white pearl necklace on your collarbones and your wavy black hair hanging down your shoulders. not that anybody else would notice, it’s someone’s death after all.

“stay strong, y/n. he will always be in our hearts,” the same rhythm of sentence in tones full of pity being directed towards you. mark’s sister enveloped you into a warm hug despite the chilly atmosphere, whispering comforting words into your ears before getting into the family’s car. you’re not going back home, not yet when you still feel reluctant to let him go.

“why did you leave me?” the only coherent words from your hoarse voice can be heard. mark, who is crouching next to you, is holding his tears back. instead, he sends a sorrowful smile - not that you can see him anyway. is there any way to let you know of his presence?

“goodbye, love. i’ll see you tomorrow. i promise,” you dusted the back of your dress from any dirt or debris, leaving a rose on his tombstone. the thing is, he doesn’t want to part from you. and that’s why his figure is seated beside you in the cab. he grazed his thumb on your knuckles, making you feel tingles rushing through. you pushed the slight thought away, you must be tired to be feeling things.

you slowly opened the door to your apartment, you and mark’s to be exact. the whole house is making those memories make their presence in the back of your head again. the kitchen where you two baked cookies for christmas last year. the bedroom where you snuggled upon his chest, not wanting to start your day just yet. the piano where he sang those cheesy songs for you. the living room where you slow danced at 3 in the morning. his favourite mug resting on the countertop, probably will not be used again. this whole situation is too overwhelming for you. you feel weak.

with each day passing by, you didn’t even miss one without a visit to his resting lot. you would tell him stories of how your day went or something that you read which would made him ponder. the words carved on it are already etched onto your brain.

mark lee. a son, a brother and a loving partner.

the clock hanging on the grey wall has it’s arms stretched out to display the time - two in the morning. you can’t sleep just yet, not having any for the past few days even. dark circles are appearing around your eyes, not yet recovered from the puffiness from all the crying. mark’s heart aches everytime he takes upon your state. he feels very guilty, not that death was his choice after all. it’s simply fate, a cycle of life, a destiny that every single creature on this planet will end up with.

you’ve taken the whole month off work, still feeling ever so helpless. in fact, you can’t even remember the last time you’ve stepped out of the apartment, the night before his passing perhaps? you’ve completely shut yourself out from any interactions - deactivating your social media, not accepting any calls. you just need time to heal.

as if you’re being controlled by some type of mastermind, you shoot up on the balls of your feet, pulling away from the couch. those images of you slow dancing with mark, hands in each other’s holds, your chin rested in the crook of his neck and being ever so engrossed in love are coming back more often now. you trudged to the vinyls arranged neatly on the shelf, picking one before placing it on the turntable - frank sinatra, one of his all time favourites.

holding your hands up at about his usual height, you start twirling around. you can almost see the outline of his smile, his features right in front of you. except, he is. he’s been observing your moves the whole night. mirroring your current position, as if you can really see him, it’s a miracle for him. overjoyed actually, he doesn’t realize the salty tears streaming down his cheekbones and so are yours.

“thank you for coming, dear. it’s a pleasure seeing you in what, weeks?” a laugh escaped the woman’s lips. you reciprocated her hug before stepping into the living room. it’s been a long time since you’ve been here, was it in january? mrs. lee had invited you over for a simple dinner, checking up on how you’ve been. you can see that the family is still struggling over his passing, the way his sister’s eyes are not twinkling as usual makes it hard to cover up the lie.

“you see, this was on his high school graduation day. he was very happy that day, doing all sorts of dances and stuff. finally escaping from hell as he said,” she giggled. she’s been displaying all sorts of memoirs to you, photo albums and photographs scattered on the wooden floor. to be honest, you’ve never seen these before. all smiles mark lee, easy to notice among the crowd. not that he’s changed, he’s still that boy now. mark just sat on the couch - his favourite spot, observing the throwback session going on. if he’s still here, his sister for sure is going to tease the hell out of him.

“he told us so much about you, you know? as if everything reminds him of you, that boy is lovestruck. really,” that sudden confession made your tongue dry, unable to find a perfect response. you were really that special to him.

“drive safe honey, you can come over whenever you want. you know you’re always welcome here, right?” mrs. lee handed you the small box filled with some things you’re going to keep. she kissed both of your cheeks, mr. lee standing behind her giving you a small wave. a small smile crept up onto your face before igniting the engine, turning your wheels out of the housing area.

the netflix show is playing on the television, the faint voices of the characters playing in the background. you’re sitting on the floor, flipping through the photo journal you two decorated throughout your one year of relationship. you can see his little scribbles and doodles, often a little dinosaur symbolising your always grumpy personality.

in one photo, a golden birthday hat is nicely placed on your head with him kissing your right cheek. you remember clearly, a surprise party for you last year. in the following ones, they are mostly candid shots - you blowing out the candles while he looks at you full of love, him eating a portion of your dish while you pout your lips. you would say it was the night of your life, spending it with the guy who stole your heart.

the next page of the journal is a shot of mark taking a photo of you in the park. you suppose it was taken by donghyuck? that one picture of you was stuck as his lock screen wallpaper for a while, you remembered getting so embarrassed over it. mark would give you the same excuse every time you questioned him about it, implying that the sight of you would light up his whole day. cheesy really, but that was what remained as memories of the past, tied neatly in your heart.

the rain trickling against your window eventually made you doze off to wonderland, creating the perfect chance for mark to browse through the journal in your hands. carefully lifting it from yours so that you won’t be stirred from your sleep, he settled down in the space beside your sleeping figure. slowly turning the pages, he smiled fondly at each photo holding a thousand moments that can’t be recreated ever again. some of them would make him giggle. he kneeled down slightly to place a soft kiss on your forehead, making you squirm a little due to the faint touch.

“give him a chance. i’m not saying that you should forget mark but it’s been months, you should live up a little,” yerim’s voice sounding concerned from the other end of the line. perhaps she’s right but you just need more time. but how much longer? you’re afraid you yourself have no specific answer for that enquiry.

you’ve been feeling better by now, welcoming people back into your life and carrying out the same daily routine of yours. going to work, buying groceries, going to the drive-thru and whatnot. of course, the void is still obvious - coming back home to an empty atmosphere instead of him waiting for you on the couch, sometimes dozing off, no more weekend cafe runs. but at least you’re trying your best. you bid your goodbyes before tapping the red button, ending the call. plopping the device onto the mattress, you stared at the white ceiling, deep in your own thoughts.

you should give him a chance. live up a little.

yes, you should.

getting hold of the phone and immediately opening the messages app, you searched for jungwoo’s number. he’s been trying to take you out for dinner for a while now. you still remember his exact words, whenever you’re ready he’s always there, waiting for you. you’re not really sure about that particular question but it wouldn't hurt to give it a try, right?

typing in the words ‘okay, sure’ is already a pressure for you but you still proceeded to press the send button. glancing at the clock showing the time, the notification ping redirected your focus onto the screen.

jungwoo: cool, is tomorrow night okay with you? i’ll drive, of course :)

tomorrow night. okay, tomorrow night.

an elegant red gown is wrapping your curves perfectly, a thin necklace with the seashell charm around your neck while your lips is decorated with the dark red tone, highlighting your poise appearance. hearing the doorbell ring, you tidied up the dresser as your eyes landed onto the picture frame holding a photo of you and mark. a sad feeling crept into your heart but you pushed it away, opening the door to reveal jungwoo in a black and white tuxedo.

you would say that the dinner went well, none of his questions or chatters crossing any borderline. he’s just so polite, even you are amused. feeling comfortable with his presence, the small gap in between is eventually closing down since you’ve learned so much about each other during the other few dates. one night completely changed it for you, him offering you a dance at some event he’s bringing you with.

you observed that his moves are slightly similar to mark’s - not completely of course, mark’s is very unique and very…mark-ish. for the first time ever in the recent turn of events, you flashed a genuine smile. one that is not just for show, one that only comes out when you’re truly elated, one that you only manage to give to certain. mark just observed the scene from a distance, admiring how you’ve managed to find the spark of happiness you once lost.

alas, mark saw his other half become full again with another, her eyes twinkling with the same joy but this time, it’s not him in the reflection.

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hispipsqueak · 3 years

Text

A Workplace Affair

Kei Tsukishima x F!Reader - NSFW

Summary: As the new tour guide at the Sendai Museum and presenter of their space exhibit, you have to work closely with the head of the dinosaur exhibit. Can you and Tsukishima learn to put aside your differences or are you going to have to work things out a different way?

Word Count: 3781

A/N: AHHHH. I put my soul into this piece I swear. As you know, Tsukishima is the absolute love of my life and I actually based this piece on this lovely commission from @/novaasoph on Instagram! I spent so long looking up dinosaur facts and the dress in the picture and story is actually a dress I own. Yes this is EXTREMELY self-indulgent, but I tried to make it as inclusive as possible because WE ALL NEED TO BE RAILED BY TSUKISHIMA IN A CLOSET OKAY?? As always likes and reblogs are hella appreciated 💕

TW: unprotected sex, enemies to lovers, slight public sex, oral sex (m receiving), workplace sex, my simping for Kei is v apparent

Here you were, a fresh-faced college graduate. After years of grueling nights spent studying and pulling all nighters to reach your goals, you had finally landed the job of your dreams working for the Sendai museum. The museum had hired you for their new Space exhibit and you would be one of their lead tour guides. The man who hired you, your new boss technically, had been desperate. The museum was preparing for an onslaught of tours now that the space exhibit was open. As Mr. Hashimoto excitedly explained, “Kids love space and dinosaurs and we finally got them both! Now we just need a good tour guide!” Mr. Hashimoto was an older grandfatherly type man, with large glasses, and a bushy grey mustache. Immediately you felt comfortable and warm from his friendliness.

He led you through a short tour of the museum, finally stopping at the last and largest exhibit, a cheery green sign declaring it the “Dinosaur Zone!”. You were in awe over the large T.Rex skeleton in the center of the room.

“It’s beautiful!” You excitedly turned to Mr. Hashimoto.

He smiled at you, his eyes crinkling.

“It really is, isn’t it? One of our prized displays. And of course, here comes the man of the hour.” He gestured toward a tall man walking towards the two of you.

The man was tall, at least 6 feet. His hair was blonde with a slight curl near his ears. He wore black half-rim glasses and his eyes were a bright golden hue. You could tell through his suit he was toned and muscular. His white button up was fitted very well against his broad chest and you felt your body heat up. Whoever this man of the hour was, he was HOT.

And the hot guy was staring at you, clearly annoyed.

“Miss Y/N, this is Mr. Kei Tsukishima, the “Dino Man”, if you will. He used to run the tours on this end, and now works more on the exhibit handling. If you need to know anything about this area, he will be your go-to!” Mr. Hashimoto chuckled.

You extended your hand happily and after a beat, Tsukishima shook your hand. His hand engulfed yours in size and you felt a shiver run down your spine.

“Since you are new here, Tsukishima will be assisting you on running the tours, at least in this area. You two will be spending a lot of time together, so I suggest getting to know each other well!” He clapped you both on the shoulder and walked away. You saw Tsukishima stiffen and you were slightly disappointed when he began heading back toward his office, leaving you alone.

“Um, Tsukishima!” You called out, your voice echoing in the empty room. The blonde turned back, an eyebrow raised. You waited for him to respond but when he was silent, you spoke again.

“Uh...I look forward to working with you!” You smiled. He stared at you blankly and gave the briefest nod, before turning back around and walking away.

Well...that was...terrible.

Feeling dejected, you headed back to grab your bag and head home. You heard a door close in the distance. What you didn’t see was Kei with his back pressed against it, face red with a blush.

---

“As you can see here, these guys were pretty ferocious. I mean look at how big they were!” You stretched your arms out exaggeratedly, earning a loud laugh from the children you were currently leading on a tour. A few of the kids also started stretching their arms, growling at each other and laughing. You smiled, before hearing Tsukishima clear his throat.

“Well...ferocious if you were a tree. That’s an Aralosaurus. They were herbivores. Meaning they only ate plants.” Tsukishima gave you a pointed look, the ghost of a smirk dancing on his lips. You could feel your face heat up and turned around to face the children.

“Either way, it’s a pretty scary guy, I think!” You said smiling at the kids. You were determined to not lose your cool in front of the group you were leading.

“Actually, they were pretty docile creatures. They used this bulge to blow air out and scare predators away, but they weren’t a ‘scary guy’ as you so eloquently put it”. Tsukishima interjected.

You could feel your eyes about to roll back into your skull and you forced your smile to remain cheerful.

“Thank you so much for the information, Mr. Tsukishima. Or as we call him around here, Dino Boy!” You gave a fake laugh, feeling satisfied at the little crease appearing between his eyebrows as he gritted his teeth. You directed the children to the interactive sandbox where they could dig for plastic fossils. As the kids excitedly grabbed their buckets and shovels, you took a much needed mental break. Your exhibit was last, as the kids needed to burn out their excitement before the planetarium show and the dino exhibit usually tuckered them out well enough.

Lost in thought, you didn’t hear Tsukishima walk toward you. He stopped right next to you, his shoulder practically touching yours.

“Dino boy, really? That’s what we are going with today?” he muttered as the two of you watched the kids dig in the sandbox. You smirked and turned to face him.

“At least I don’t spend all day correcting people.”

“Well if you actually researched anything for your job instead of acting like a child, I wouldn’t have to correct you.” He looked at you with a withering stare. You felt yourself crumble inside. Tsukishima’s gaze could kill a man, but fuck if you weren’t going down without a fight.

The two of you held similar arguments every day. Whether it was an incorrect fact, going down the wrong “order” of displays, heck even the way you wore your badge, Tsukishima was there with a snide comment and you were sick of it.

“So I don’t know every little thing to know about dinosaurs. There are better ways to correct people you know!” You let out a short huff, before turning your head to walk back to the group. You could feel his gaze on you and you held your head high as you led the children to the space exhibit. As you began to talk about the galaxies, out of the corner of your eye you saw Tsukishima walk into the room and find a seat near the back.

Curious, as he usually didn’t interact with you outside of annoying corrections in the dinosaur exhibit. You chose to ignore him and kept talking, getting more excited as you explained the Milky Way galaxy and described the show you would put on for the tour group. You started the exhibit and sat down in your usual seat, which happened to be next to Tsukishima.

As the lights dimmed and the stars began to display on the arched ceiling, you could feel how close you actually were to Tsukishima. Your arms were nearly touching and you became very aware of how your heartbeat began to race. You attempted to focus on the program, as the built in narrator discussed the difference between the planets. You turned to sneak a look at the man next to you and found him already looking back at you. Your breath caught in your throat. His expression was unreadable but he didn’t look angry. His honey colored eyes were fixated on you and you felt your body tremble.

Before you could process what any of this meant, the narration stopped and you jumped up.

“As the video discussed, the planets fall into multiple categories! The cool thing about that is that even though we perceive them as something solid and perfectly round similar to basketballs, some of them are gas giants...”

You continued on, feeling only slightly disappointed as you watched Tsukishima sneak back out the door.

-----

“Are you kidding me, Tsukishima?” you shouted. You were standing in the break room, hands on your hips. He was standing in front of you a white mug in his hand, with his eyebrow raised.

“What are you even talking about?” He looked almost bored with the whole interaction as he poured coffee into his cup.

“Somehow all of my mugs are on the tallest shelf. The shelf only YOU can reach.” You glared at him.

He placed his mug down on the countertop and turned to you, lazily.

“Why on earth would I do that?” His eyes narrowed and a smirk crossed his face.

You crossed your arms.

“I don’t know, because you are just a giant bully?” Your eyes lowered and before he could react you grabbed his cup of coffee and stalked off.

-----

“What is the matter with you?!” Tsukishima yelled from his office, his voice echoing in the empty exhibit hall. The next tour wasn’t for a couple of hours.

You gently placed the box of files you were carrying on the cart in front of you.

“I’m sorry, I don’t follow?” You looked up at him with false innocence in your eyes.

“Why are all my pens now pink sparkle gel pens???!” He shouted at you, a fluffy topped pink pen in his hand.

Your eyes widened in mock surprise.

“Now Tsukki, why on Earth would I do that?” You turned to push the cart and ran right into Mr. Hashimoto, who cleared his throat, smiling at the two of you.

“Now I am always one for inter-office tomfoolery, but the two of you are going a little overboard. So unless morale improves around here, I may have to take drastic action.” He kept the smile on his face but there was a warning look in his eyes. You both gulped.

“Sorry, Mr. Hashimoto. This will never happen again.” Tsukishima was the first to speak. You bowed your head in agreement and Hashimoto, satisfied with your responses, walked away. You turned to walk away back to your cart before Tsukishima grabbed you by the wrist, and dragged you into a tiny storage room.

“Look, I know you despise me but I am not going to lose my job to some little girl in a stupid dress.” He hissed at you.

You looked down at your dress. It was dark blue with galaxies and planets patterned all over, quite fitting for your job actually.

“Shut up, dino boy. My dress isn’t stupid! And I am not going to lose my job to some mean schoolyard bully.” You raised your hand to flick his forehead, and he grabbed your wrist, pushing you against the wall.

“You need to learn some manners, little girl.” His voice dropped to a dangerously low whisper, and the two of you glared at each other. He was so close to you, his chest nearly touching yours and you felt your blush creep up as his brilliant eyes pierced into you.

You felt the heat pool between your legs and you squeezed your thighs together. The shadow of a smile passed over his face.

“Don’t tell me you’re turned on right now.” He said, letting out a soft mocking laugh. You gritted your teeth.

“Of course not, asshole. You’re the one who dragged me into a closet and are now pressing yourself against me, perv.” You spat back.

The sound of voices interrupted your argument and Tsukishima quickly clapped a hand over your mouth. The two of you being caught in this position regardless of the reason would be a terrible look for both of you. Your eyes widened and you held your breath until the voices outside the door faded away.

He slowly pulled his hand away and the two of you looked at each other. Before either of you could think, his lips were against yours, pressing you into the wall of the storage room.

His hand cupped your face as he deepened the kiss and you fell back, letting him take charge. He tasted like peppermint tea and citrus and you felt dizzy from the overwhelming sensations. You wrapped your arms around him, running your fingers through the curly hair behind his ears, gently tugging to pull him closer towards you.

He let out a low groan into your mouth, and you nibbled on his lower lip. He had one hand tangled in your hair and the other was making its way down your body, pulling down the strap of your dress. His kisses moved lower, soft lips pressing down your neck. He sucked a mark into your skin, grazing his teeth over the spot before soothing it with his tongue. You closed your eyes, arching your back away from the wall.

“Fuck...you know how long I’ve wanted to do this?” He whispered into your skin, before kissing your collarbone. Your skin intoxicated him and he needed more of you in every way.

You breathed out a sigh, “Could have fooled me.”

He pressed his forehead to yours, gazing into your eyes.

“You’re annoying, childish, ridiculous, absolutely over-the-top stubborn. And fucking gorgeous. You don’t know shit about dinosaurs, and yet you can make dead stars seem like the most interesting thing in the universe. You captivate the room when you walk through the door and I’ve been in love with you since the day we met.”

This time it was you who kissed him, your tongues exploring each other's mouths. His hand slipped under your lab coat and tugged slightly on the zipper of your dress, waiting for confirmation. You moaned into his mouth and he dragged the zipper down slowly, his fingertips brushing your spine. You slid your hand to his chest, unbuttoning his shirt. You could feel the muscles and ran your fingers over his abs, chiseled from years of athleticism.

He shrugged off his jacket and loosened his tie, as you let your dress pool to the floor. His eyes roamed your body, wanting to claim every inch of it as his. You were ethereal and Tsukishima had the urge to worship all of you.

You looked up at him, eyes shining brightly even in the dimly lit room. He placed a finger under your chin, tilting your face up to his.

“Stunning.”

You giggled, and pressed a kiss to his neck, leaving a mark from your lipstick. He leaned back against the wall as you kissed down his chest, leaving a trail of cherry red over his porcelain skin. Soon you were on your knees, running your fingers over his soft happy trail before undoing his belt. Slowly, you slid down his slacks, noticing the dark stain of precum on his navy boxers. You pressed a kiss on each side of his abs, in the indentations of his V line. You ran your nails over the head of his erection, teasing him. He let out a soft hiss and you grinned. Perhaps another time, you would have spent all day teasing him, his whimpers like music to your ears.

But today, you were in a time crunch.

Using two fingers, you tugged down the elastic waistband of his boxers, freeing his cock.

It was beautiful, just like the man it belonged to. Long and slender, with the prettiest pink tip, dotted with a slick bead of precome.

You gave kitten licks to the tip, savoring his taste. Tsukishima threw his head back biting his lip. He needed more of your mouth and you were oh so happy to please.

Taking his length in your mouth, you deepthroated him, pressing your nose to the base, and felt the soft curly blond hairs tickle your skin.

Tsukishima's eyes rolled back as you began to suck him down, your throat clenching around his cock. His hands gripped your hair almost painfully, though it only added to your excitement.

You bobbed on his cock, pulling it nearly all the way out of your warm mouth before forcing it back down your throat. Swirling your tongue around the head with each thrust. You looked up at him, your eyes brimming with tears.

"Fuck you look so beautiful wrapped around my cock like that. I just wanna ruin you, pretty girl."

He started face-fucking you, slowly at first but when he felt no resistance from you, he began to speed up. His fingers grasped your hair, forcing his cock deeper down your throat with each thrust. Your tears fell freely now and you could see red smears of your lipstick decorating his shaft.

You moaned around him, your face wet with spit and tears and you could only imagine how wrecked you looked. Tsukishima let out a string of curses under his breath, jerking his hips upward to meet your mouth.

"Shit, fuck, just like that, baby. Fuck yes just like that…fuck gonna cum, gonna cum…" His eyes were screwed shut and you could see the blush enveloping his face, small drops of sweat running down. You forced yourself to take him as deep as possible, gagging on his cock.

With a loud moan, Tsukishima exploded inside your mouth. You could feel the hot ropes of cum sliding down your throat and you whimpered as you swallowed all of him down.

You finally released him from your lips, strings of saliva connecting you to his cock. He pulled you up, pressing a kiss to you.

"Fuck that was incredible." He whispered, wiping the smeared mess off your face. You felt something poking your thigh and realized he was still hard.

He looked at you and chuckled.

"Yeah turns out being an athlete gives you stamina." he said teasingly before pushing you up against the wall. “Don’t tell me you think I’m done with you yet.”

His fingers slid down your body, roughly tugging down your bra. He buried his face in your chest, biting and sucking on your tits, grazing over the hardened buds with his teeth. While he busied his mouth, his hands continued down, circling the wetness on your panties.

“You want this, pretty girl? You this wet for me?” he whispered, before easing a finger into your soaking hole. You threw your head back. His fingers were long and slender and hit the deepest parts of you. He began to roll his thumb over your clit softly, listening to your quiet moans. He pressed another finger inside you, fucking you on them in preparation for his cock. Your arousal dripped down his wrist and his mouth watered thinking of your taste. Soon, he wanted to bury himself between your thighs, making you cream on his tongue over and over. But that would have to wait.

“Fuck...Tsukishima...I need, I need your cock. Please, please, please.” you panted, almost like a prayer.

“Say my name, pretty girl. Tell me who’s cock you need. Do that for me baby.” He grinned, working a third finger into you.

“Fuck...Kei...please, please Kei. Fuck me. Need your cock, Kei.” You pleaded, your body ablaze with your imminent high.

“Such a good girl.” He smirked, before pulling his fingers out abruptly. You whined as you clenched around nothing, but not for long as he pressed his cock to your entrance.

“Look at me.” He demanded. You looked up at him. Your hair and makeup were ruined, your eyes lidded with desire. Your lips were puffy and parted, whimpers of his name falling from your lips like a mantra as you begged for him. You were so goddamn beautiful.

He gripped your thighs, spreading you open, and slammed himself inside you. You swore you could feel the walls behind you shake. He pistoned his cock in and out of you, each thrust hitting deeper spots. You felt like you were breaking in half and coming together at the same time.

“Fuck Kei!!! Feels so fucking good.” You cried into his neck. You could taste the sweat on his skin as he gave all of himself to you.

“So tight, pretty girl. So fucking tight. God you’re so fucking perfect.” He panted into your hair, as he dug his fingertips into your plush thighs.

Your eyes rolled back, stars dancing in your vision. Your cunt clamped down around him, squeezing around his cock tightly. His balls slapped against your ass as he buried himself deeper and deeper into you. You were rapidly approaching your climax, each thrust taking you higher and higher.

Kei bit down on your shoulder, his movements sloppier as he neared his own release. You could feel his body tense, his shoulder muscles flexing under your fingers.

“Cum with me, please y/n. Please pretty girl, cum with me.” He groaned into your ear, and his voice sent you over the edge.

“Oh god, fuck….Kei!” You screamed, and he quickly swallowed your shouts with a kiss. You could feel his cock twitch inside you, unloading streams of cum as your pussy milked every last drop from him. Your combined juices coated the tops of your thighs and you held each other for dear life, both of you gasping for air.

Your legs threatened to give out underneath you and he held you closer, pressing soft kisses to your hair, whispering inaudible words of praise. Your body melted in his touch and the two of you stood there for what felt like hours, but must have only been minutes.

Your phone chimed from the pocket of your labcoat, drawing the both of you from your post-coital haze.

“Shit, tour in twenty minutes.” The two of you scrambled to get dressed and you checked your face in your phone camera.

“Fuck I can’t give a tour looking like this!” You panicked, wiping furiously at your face. Tsukishima laughed, before producing a box of tissues from a shelf behind you.

“I’ll grab some water, though I must say it’s a damn shame since you look so beautifully fucked out.” He teased, before adjusting his tie and walking out. He returned quickly with a water bottle and you attempted to make yourself somewhat presentable, to his sarcastic yet sweet commentary.

As the two of you prepared to leave the room, he glanced down at you.

“So, dinner tonight?”

You grinned.

“Sure Dino Boy.”

-------

Bonus:

The two of you left the room as nonchalantly as possible, though still a little disheveled from dressing in a dark closet. A booming voice rang out.

“There you two are! Your tour is just about to start, Y/N!” Mr. Hashimoto motioned for you to head to greet the group. As you walked away (and Kei attempted to not stare at your ass), Mr. Hashimoto turned to Kei.

“You know, Mr. Tsukishima. Red is quite a good look for you.”

#tsukishima x reader #Tsukishima #tsukishima smut #tsukishima kei #kei tsukishima #tsukki x reader #tsukki smut #hq smut #haikyuu smut #hq timeskip #haikyuu timeskip

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fire-lady-ilah · 3 years

Text

What if Ozai actually loved his family?

This could extend to Iroh and Lu Ten and Azulon, but what I mean by this is that he truly loves Ursa (as this is highly debated in canon), Zuko, and Azula. The no strings attached love that children deserve. Buckle up because this is gonna get long and need a cut.

Aang might not win in this universe.

It would start with Zuko’s birth. He has no spark but Ozai has never held something so small that had his eyes. His wife lays exhausted on her bed. Zuko does not almost die that night. He was lucky to be born, yes, but it is said with love rather than scorn.

Two years later, Azula is born and he finds himself loving her just as much as her brother, even if she has a spark he doesn’t. Ursa is severely weakened after the birth and he decides not to try for more children— he loves the ones he has and he wouldn’t want to lose his wife.

Outside the Fire Nation, his brother burns down swathes Earth Kingdom. This Ozai isn’t a good person, he proposes ruthless plans in the war room, just as he would in canon, he laughs as his brother dreams of the day he burns Ba Sing Se.

The only difference is that he loves his family. His son almost dies and he saves him. He thanks the spirits that he was a strong swimmer and makes the point to train his son in swimming for the rest of their time on Ember Island. The current is dangerous, and it is even more dangerous for a weak swimmer.

Azula is a prodigy in firebending. Zuko is not. He makes a point to show them the same amount of love (because he does love them both). He reinforces Ursa’s teaching of empathy, not counteracting it like he might’ve in another universe. Azula begins to tell her brother all her tricks, things that come so naturally to her that her brother doesn’t realize.

He is nowhere near a prodigy like her, but he’s only a few sets behind her at any given time, and he’s leagues better than he would be at the same point in canon. Ursa sits with him and they watch their children fondly— they have a bond no one could break now, able to share thoughts without words. One day, they will be an unbeatable team. Now they’re just children, practicing together, playing together.

The turtleducks in the pond hound both children when they walk by, knowing only soft hands and small pieces of bread.

Azula is a firebending prodigy, but Ozai watches his son carefully. He sees the light touch of his feet, the quick reflexes when he almost knocks a vase off a shelf, the way he watched with wide eyes as they happened upon two guards sparring while not on duty.

Ozai calls for the best swordsmaster he can, housing Master Piandao of Shu Jing in the palace. Piandao’s assignment is to teach two children, after all. It wouldn’t do to send both his children away for so long. (He would miss them, as would Ursa.)

Azula is a prodigy firebender, Zuko is a prodigy swordsman. He picks up any style Piandao tries to teach him with ease, eventually settling on the dual dao as his favourite. Azula picks twin daggers.

Their weapons are two halves of the same whole, just as Zuko and Azula are. Zuko tells his sister all his tricks, all the things about sword fighting that come naturally to him that she doesn’t realize.

The Seige of Ba Sing Se beings. The family write letters to Iroh and Lu Ten often. Iroh sends a doll for Azula and a dagger for Zuko.

(“It’s okay, Lala. Obviously he couldn’t find any twin daggers there. It wouldn’t be right for you to wield just one dagger.”)

The doll doesn’t burn, though it lays in a chest, collecting dust. Zuko’s dagger is used to open each subsequent letter, though it has little other use. He has his dao for fighting, and Azula has a collection of far better daggers that she would let him use if he asked.

(Mai tells Azula (who is a bit softer around the edges than she could’ve been, though her teeth remain sharp) of her slight crush on her brother. She just pushes them together like any other child would and laughs at their blushing cheeks.)

Ozai and Ursa watch their children, hand in hand as they walk together. Neither of them have a reason to be disappointed in their children or in each other.

Lu Ten dies. Azula’s voice is cold as she proclaims that her uncle should have burnt Ba Sing Se to the ground.

This time, everyone recognizes the words for what they are. Ursa holds her daughter and soothes her as Zuko collapses into his father’s arms.

(A doll is pulled from a dusty chest and held to a girl’s chest.)

Ozai kneels before his father and says he would make a better Fire Lord than his brother. He may love his family, but he still wants power and his words are logical.

This time, his punishment sounds like a punishment and not a boon.

(“Grandfather ordered dad to kill you.”

“Dad wouldn’t do that.”

“I know.”

The siblings spend the night huddled into the same bed anyway.)

Morning comes and Fire Lord Azulon is found dead in his bed. Prince Ozai and Princess Ursa are taking breakfast with their children when they find out. They are the picture of calm.

They are a family and they love each other. Ozai would not let Azulon break them apart, even if it meant committing parricide with his wife’s aid.

Prince Ozai becomes Fire Lord Ozai. Princess Ursa becomes Fire Lady Ursa. Prince Zuko becomes Crown Prince Zuko and Princess Azula is his closest confidant as she always is. Everyone knows the Fire Lord’s Chief Advisor is nearly as powerful as the Fire Lord themselves anyway.

The war in the Earth Kingdom continues. General Iroh returns as a changed man, yet finds solace in the fact that half of his family is healthy and whole.

Two years pass with Zuko as the Crown Prince. He is known as a formidable firebender (though still weaker than his sister. He was the first person she showed her new, blue flame to) and a master swordsman. He cannot lie to save his life, but he has a charisma that he clearly got from his father. His father looks at him and sees the greatest Fire Lord the Fire Nation will ever have, even if he still has a lot to learn. This is his son.

Two years pass with Azula as his best friend (as if the nine years before hadn’t been the exact same). She is known as a master firebender, though few know of her skill with a blade. Lies fall through her lips as easily as any other word. Her father looks at her and see’s the actress her mother once was (still is) and pride surges in his chest. This is his daughter.

Iroh brings Zuko into a war meeting. Zuko speaks up against a plan he finds despicable. He is more confident now, his words more eloquent, but he has the same conviction and tendency to speak without considering the consequences of his actions.

The Fire Lord hears not disrespect in his son’s words, but the voice of his people. Ozai is not an idiot, and loving his son is all it takes for him to listen a little deeper. He knew of his people’s growing discontent with the war, but he didn’t care until their words find their way through his son’s lips.

Ozai forbids the plan. His brother (for he was once the Dragon of the West, for he still is and Ozai should do well to remember as such) suggests a plan that would cost less lives and only a little more time. It is an acceptable exchange.

Zuko walks out of the war room, his head held high. His face remains unblemished.

His mother scolds him and punished him, for he was still disrespectful and the general would’ve been within his right to challenge him to an Agni Kai.

(“I could beat him.”

“Of course you could, I taught you. But mom’s right, it’s a stupid risk to take, Zuzu.”)

The forty-first finds themselves passing a letter between them that speaks of a prince speaking up to save them from a general. Loyalty to the royal family is cemented in this one group of soldiers, barely more than recruits.

Azula finds herself thankful for Piandao’s calligraphy lessons. The small glass vials, prepared with her mother’s careful tutelage remain hidden in her room.

Part of being the Fire Lord’s Chief Advisor is keeping him safe from his own stupidity.

Ozai takes the time to teach his son to hold his tongue. It is a lesson taught not with pain and fire, but that was a mode of teaching he would’ve never considered. He loves his son.

Years pass and the siblings flourish. Zuko begins to officially court Mai and deals with his sister’s incessant teasing. He knows he has her to thank for their relationship anyway.

He could’ve done without his father’s attempts to give him the Talk though. He sat in horrified silence for nearly ten minutes of pure awkwardness on both sides before he managed to squeak out that his mother already gave him that conversation.

Both father and son are quick to flee from each other.

Zuko is fifteen and Azula is thirteen as they begin their journey in learning lightning. Azula does not pick it up nearly as quickly as most firebending and finds it a thrilling challenge. Zuko finds himself pulled away by his uncle and taught to redirect lightning.

Why Iroh ever thought he wouldn’t share it with his sister, he didn’t know.

Zuko is sixteen when he manages his first bolt of lightning, his sister having almost perfected the art.

Zuko is sixteen when news comes from Commander Zhao that the Avatar has been spotted in the viscosity of Kyoshi Island, wearing the tattoos of an airbending monk.

Zuko is sixteen, face unblemished, head full of hair pulled carefully back into a top knot when he approaches the Fire Lord and Lady (his father, his mother) and requests to hunt down the Avatar.

His sister is only a half step behind him, for what is the future Fire Lord without his Chief Advisor?

(What is the Fire Lord without his heirs? Ozai thinks. What is a father without his children?)

Part: [2] [3] [4]

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space-helen · 3 years

Text

Sweep

Words: 1460

Pairing: Nick Stokes x Reader

A/N: Not proof read again but I wanted to get something out for you all. I hope you enjoy! :)

Request: Maybe a dangerous situation, someone hurt, protective I dunno.I just like to read more nick x reader ^^ - @pumpkinfriend

______________________

The house was cold and uninviting. An eerie silence echoed throughout the property. You followed the police officer ahead of you into the room the victim lay, Nick a couple of steps behind you.

The police officer gestured to the body “We’ll be outside. Call if you need us.” and with that they were gone.

You looked around the study for a moment. “Interesting house layout.” you commented

Nick agreed “Study leads into the bedroom. No living area.”

“Maybe studying was his way of life.”

The man laughed and started to snap pictures of the man in his desk chair. Taking another look you could clearly see the gunshot wound to his head. “It was reported an hour ago right?”

The man nodded “yeah. Reported when neighbours heard the shots. Officers were the first to find his body, still waiting on Superdave to arrive.”

“Poor guy.” you snapped pictures of the photo frames nearby. The shelves looked like they’d been rummaged through. “Looks like he was close with who I can only assume were his parents.”

“He’s really young too. Officer said twenty three.”

“Nice place for a twenty three year old.” you commented “A big collection too. You don’t often see someone this young with material like this.” you gestured to some books on the shelf. “You’ve got it covered here?”

Nick nodded “Yeah, yeah. You take the bedroom.”

You moved across the room through the door into the bedroom. You took in your surroundings and snapped pictures. The man had lived what seemed to be a very clean, and organised lifestyle.

You noticed a drawer in the bedside table open, taking a picture of it, you carefully moved towards it and opened it. Snapping a picture of the inside you noticed that it was unorganised, a huge contrast to the rest of the room. You contemplated moving through to the previous room to grab print powder when you noticed that the wardrobe door was slightly ajar. You could have sworn it wasn’t when you’d come into the room.

Looking through the photos on your camera a cold chill went through your spine “Nick it looks like we have a ghost in here.” you nervously called. But just as the words left your mouth an arm was around your neck and you were being pushed harshly into the wall.

You fought against the man’s grasp and he tugged at your camera that was around your neck to bring you close to him. Wrapping his arm around your neck he squeezed, slowly cutting off your air. Kicking and scratching at the man you finally got free and called for Nick. You were unsure if he even heard you.

The man grabbed you again and pushed you harshly to the floor. You felt a vase smash beneath you on your way down, it must have been knocked over in the struggle. You got to your feet and attempted to move away again.

“Y/N?” Nick instantly reached for his gun when he saw the sight in front of him but instead of drawing it he rushed to break up the fight.

Amongst the struggle between the three you were pushed into the wall and hit your head. Sinking to the floor the realisation your legs and hand were bleeding settled in even though the fight before you was still underway.

Nick pushed the man into a corner and drew his gun. “Hands up. I said hands up.” The man obliged and Nick called for the officers. “Smart move pal.” Nick spat as two officers dragged him away.

The original officer who’d shown you into the property hung back to talk to Nick. “I’m sorry, we did a sweep of the property but-”

“Well now you know for next time to do it better.” he came across slightly patronising “I’m sorry I didn’t mean it like that. Accidents happen, just don’t let it happen again.”

“I understand.” was all the officer said before disappearing.

Nick quickly made his way over to you. “Y/N? You good?” he took in your features, you were really beat up.

“I’ve been better.” you tried to laugh but it sounded pathetic.

“The first aid kit’s in the other room let me grab it.” The man pushed some hair behind your ear before running into the next room and returning with the first aid supplies. “Now let’s see what I can do before we get you some real medical help shall we.”

You laughed.

“Alright. Show me your hand I can see it’s bleeding.”

You obliged “I cut it on the vase. I think. Also got my leg too but I haven’t checked it out… I’m scared too. It feels bad.”

He nodded “Your hand doesn’t look too bad just some scrapes.” he gestured to your trouser leg “May I?” you nodded and he rolled it up.

You winced at the pain and he apologised “It’s ok.” you squeeze your eyes tight. How bad is it?” you could feel the warm wetness on your knee.

“It’s not nothing. I’ll clean it up a little but I think you have some glass in there. I don’t want to mess with it too much but I’ll do my best.”

“Thank you.”

The man got to work on your knee. During a particularly painful part you reached up and grabbed his shoulder. The man allowed you to squeeze it.

“Alright that’s all done. Anything else?”

“I hit my head pretty bad.” you admitted “It hurts a lot.” the splitting pain from initially hitting it had eased slightly but it was still bad.

“Feel sick? Drowsy?”

“No, it just hurts.”

“Alright.” he nodded to himself “What a ghost hey?”

You genuinely laughed this time.

“Now that’s what I like to see. Alright, let’s get you to the hospital.”

“The scene-”

“We technically can’t take it anymore because of this little…” he words trailed off.

“Yeah, yeah I knew that.” you shook your head “I’m sorry I just forgot.”

“Hey, don’t be sorry.” He gave you a sad smile as he packed away the supplies. “Ready to stand?”

You nodded “I might need some help” The man got to his own feet in front of you.

“That’s ok.” he put his hands out and you took them gratefully. “On three. One, two, three.”

On his count you got to your feet and he supported you. As you stood you attempted to take some uneasy steps.

“It’s alright I’ve got you.” he reassured.

You smiled as he slipped a bag strap over his shoulder. “We’ll stop at the hospital first then go back to the lab.”

“Sounds good to me.”

The man kept you close and supported you as you walked out to the car, he helped you into the passenger's seat before throwing his kit into the trunk and slipping into the driver's seat.

The journey to the hospital was quiet, and he kept looking at you throughout to make sure you were awake and ok. Although you said you were fine he couldn’t help but worry.

Nick parked up the car and was at your side instantly opening the door and helping you out. He sat you down in the waiting area before registering you into the emergency room it didn’t take long for someone to call you into a room. Nick stayed silent and by your side the entire time, watching the Doctor clean and dress the wound appropriately.

“That’s you all set. I’d suggest staying away from heavy work or even taking the rest of the day off. Rest the leg and let it heal.”

And with that you were being sent away from the busy emergency room.

“Back to the lab or home?” Nick offered, knowing which you would pick.

“Lab. I need to make myself useful in some way. Even if it’s just looking at footage or research.”

“Thought so.” he smiled “You just won’t stop will you?”

“Stopping isn’t in my nature.”

“You know they’re going to try and force you to take time off and give you the ‘don’t push yourself’ talk right?”

“I know I just can’t be home alone. I feel like I’m wasting my time.”

“I get that.” there was a pause “but seriously if you need some time off and want company take it and I’ll take some time as well.”

You took a second and thought it over “I can’t ask you to do that.”

“Yes you can.” he laughed “We’ll get some take out and watch a movie.”

“Only if I can pick. The last movie we watched was terrible.”

“In my defence Greg picked out that movie.”

“True. We have another movie night with him tomorrow so you better pick a good one.” you teased.

“Only the finest.”

Tag List: (open)

Nick Stokes: @wanniiieeee @pumpkinfriend

CSI:

#nick stokes x reader #csi x reader #csi vegas x reader

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libraryofnesta · 3 years

Text

Tied to Ruin

ao3 link

Summary:

Cassian and Nesta were lovers, partners in crime. They did everything together. That is until tragedy strikes, causing Nesta to run away, far from everything she once knew.

Over five years later, Nesta is living life to as full as it can get. It’s not until an incident occurs that drags her into far more than she bargained for.

Notes:

thanks so much for reading. i'm a huge hoe for exes to lovers, so i have like 20 ideas in my head, and this is one of them. It's multichapter. i'm not sure how long this is gonna be, but definitely over ten chapter. this fic has two timelines. One will show them from when they're kids to teens, and one while they're adults. Both will occur at the same time, so things will start to unravel as you read.btw! velaris is gonna be like a super small town in new york. like no one knows about it.

TW: implied domestic violence, nothing graphic.

Chapter 1: lonely beds, different cities

Words, how little they mean

When you're a little too late

I stood right by the tracks

Your face in a locket

Good girls, hopeful they'll be and long they will wait

Sad Beautiful Tragic

Taylor Swift

2016, Small Town Velaris

“Please,” she whispers, voice hoarse. Nesta is practically begging at this point, but she has nothing else to relent to. “We can get out of here.” She swallows hard when he doesn’t reply. “We’re still young Cassian, we can still-”

“Nesta.” He says. It's one word, but it makes her pause. He rarely calls her Nesta. It’s always ‘Nes’ or ‘Sweetheart.’

“I can’t.”

Their lives have changed so drastically over the past few weeks. Nesta’s whole childhood is here. Everything she’s ever known. She’s not sure how much more of it she can handle now.

She’s well aware of the tears streaming down her face. Nesta doesn’t know what she can say to convince him, so she says the one thing that she’s been repeating over and over.

“You can…”

Cassian’s face seems to harden. The look he gives her makes her take a step back. He hasn’t looked at her like that in years. “Go ahead and leave Nesta.”, he says, voice rising. “Go live that picture perfect you always wanted. I won’t stop you.”

“Not everyone wants what you do.”

2021 New York, Manhattan

Something about leaving Valkyrians still makes her feel at odds. She’s not as resistant to the sight of blood anymore, and she’s not sure if she can ride a motorcycle as well as she used to. There are still parts that linger though. She still remembers how to throw a punch. A damn good one too. She still feels uneasy when someone walks in the same direction for too long though. It might be the worst part of it all.

Nesta doesn’t do much for fun. She doesn’t dance as much as she likes. The amount of books she reads has decreased. Her days consist of work and eating, even though she skips more meals than she should. But she’s free. That’s what really matters, doesn’t it?

The muscles in Nesta’s body ache. She just finished a seven hour shift, and got a promotion that pays much better. Nesta wants to celebrate. She wants to talk to someone. It’s been so long since she’s talked to anyone. The fear of someone finding out about her past is lodged so deep in her head it caused her to isolate. The simple way of putting it is she has no friends.

Coworkers are the only source of non-work related conversation she engages in. It’s always small talk too. Just as Nesta is about to fall asleep, she rubs her eyes and forces herself to stay awake. Getting up from the lumpy couch, Nesta walks to her cabinet, grabbing a random mug and pouring wine into it. Once she gets a better look at the mug, she can’t help but scoff.

It’s ironic. Complaining about being lonely. It’s almost like she chose loneliness. She loves the quiet. When she was younger, all she wanted was alone time. She dreads it now. Nesta gets up after finishing her glass. She’s a bit drowsy, and is way too tired to walk all the way to her room. Instead Nesta walks back over to her couch. She lies horizontally, staring into the abyss until she eventually falls asleep.

She dreams of seeing him that night. It’s a regular occurrence. It’s lessened over the years, but never fully disappeared. The image of him is blurry. It’s not as precise as it used to be. She hates still thinking of him. It doesn’t stop her from reminiscing a little though.

Her being upset makes sense of course. They’d known each other for over ten years, hating one another at first. Eventually, he began to grow on her. Their bickering had become playful, before they once again became estranged.

“Cassian?”

The figure turns around, and he knocks the wind out of her. His hair is out of it’s usual bun. He gives her that familiar boyish smile, walking towards her and putting an arm on her.

“Missed me Sweetheart?”, he says, ruffling her hair a bit. Nesta scrunches her nose in response.

“You wish.”

He rolls his eyes. “Yeah yeah whatever.” He talks for a while. Nesta’s barely paying attention. It’s just nice to hear his voice again. He asks her what she’s reading, and she replies the same every time. It’s silent after a while. They’ve talked themselves out. It’s a nice silence though. Her favorite silence.

Cassian stares at her for a few seconds, giving her a soft smile and pushing a loose hair behind her ear.

“Come back,” he whispers.

Her breath stutters. “It’s been five years, Cass,” she mutters, breaking eye contact. Her eyes flicker between the ground and his face, gauging his reaction.

He doesn’t stop looking at her.

“I didn’t want to leave,” said Nesta. There’s a lump in her throat.

He scrubs a hand over his face. “Yet here we are.”

“You know why I left.”

Her eyes feel like they’re beginning to water. “I asked you to come with me. You’re the one who didn’t.”

Cassian looks to the side. He looks impassive, yet also emotionless. “You’re the one who ran away, Nesta.”

“I didn’t run away.”

He scoffs in response. “Keep telling yourself that.” Cassian starts walking away. It’s cloudy and has no solid ground or sky. At that moment she remembers where she really is. Nesta stands there, waiting until he fully fades away. It always feels too real.

The dreams always end like that.

Nesta can barely pry her eyes open when she wakes up. She has the next two weeks off. Her boss, Helion, had insisted she take a week or two off, since the bar was under a small renovation. She checks her phone and it reads 12:03. Jesus, she really had overslept.

In all honesty Nesta had no idea what to do with her free time. Maybe she’ll finally finish that book she started months ago. But in reality Nesta knows all she’ll do is go to a bar and let a stranger fuck her into oblivion until she kicks them out or leaves.

By the time Nesta leaves her house it’s around 3:00. She goes to the coffee shop next door. She orders a coffee and sits in the corner of the room. Nesta somehow feels like the center of attention. It’s an empty shop, but it feels like all eyes on her. The room feels too cold.

The feeling follows her when she goes to the local bookstore. It’s crowded, but the area is quiet. Nesta browses through the shelves, sticking to the romance section. She holds a few books. It’s not until Nesta drops one, people begin to look at her. It makes a loud thump hitting the floor. Several pairs of eyes turn to her. The cover is of a shirtless man too.

Fuck , she thinks, This is embarrassing. Nesta purses her lips, hand curling into a fist as she puts the book back on it’s shelf.

It’s around 5:00 when she takes the train home. Nesta spent the rest of her day at the park, not wanting to stay at home. It doesn’t feel like home as much as she’d like it to though. Finally, Nesta makes it home.

She’s in an empty parking lot. The area she lives in is pretty small. Nesta knows basically everyone in her apartment complex. It’s a tiny place. She never talks to anyone, but they do acknowledge each other. Barely anyone has a car either, herself included. So it is a bit weird to see an unrecognizable car. It’s odd, but Nesta thinks nothing of it. It’s probably just someone visiting.

Nesta goes into her apartment, before leaving once more to go to the bar that’s the second closest to her apartment. She’s usually working at this time, flirting with customers and taking them home when her shift ends.

The bar is crowded and loud. Lights are flashing, voices yelling, bodies moving. It’s out of her comfort zone. She’s been doing this for years and is still isn’t used to it. She sits on one of the stools where the drinks are served. A girl approaches her. Nesta never approaches anyone. She can’t see clearly in the light. The girl’s hair is brunette, though her roots are dark. Her brown skin illuminates in the flickering light.

“Hey”, she says “I’m Nora” Nora extends her hand to her. Nesta smirks in response, resting her elbow on the counter grasping her hand with the other.

“I’m Mila,” she says. No matter what she does, Nesta will never use her real name. Nora’s eyebrows raise. Nesta can see her lick tongue move as it pushes on her skin.

“Pretty name.”

They talk for around five minutes. It’s all small talk. They drink while they talk. Most of the things she responds with are lies anyways. Nora grasp’s her arm with her hand. “Wanna get out of here?” she asks. Her words are slurred, and Nesta has to restrain herself from flinching.

Something in her head tells her not to let anyone in her house though. Something is wrong, but she can’t put her mind on it. The idea of letting a stranger in her house sends goosebumps across her arms. Before, she’d never question it twice. Now that she thinks of it, doing this practically screams stranger danger. Especially with her past, this person could be anyone. Nesta slowly probes herself from the girl.

“I’ve gotta go”, she says. “Sorry, but there's something I need to do.” The girl doesn't seem to mind, either too drunk to care, or only looking for a one night stand. She nods, before introducing herself to someone else. Nesta feels her chest lighten, exiting the crowded bar to call an uber.

Whenever it’s quiet, she always reminisces.

2006, Small Town Velaris

Nesta wakes up and finds herself stranded. She has no idea where she is. She’s lying in a bed inside a mostly empty room. There’s only a few pieces of furniture, a stool and a drawer. It’s relatively small. The last thing she remembers is being in a car with her sisters and parents. She hears voices outside of the room yelling.

“You expect me to leave-”

“Her father is-”

“She’s nine what would she-”

“So what if she’s young!”

“-s innocent so what if-”

She hears a loud smack. The silence after is deafening. The voices are quiet after, whispers. Afterwards, Nesta hears footsteps approaching. She scrunches her eyes shut, trying to pretend to be asleep. Nesta hears the door open and close. A hand lays on her forehead. As the person removes it, a calming voice talks. “Are you awake?” Nesta slowly looks at the person, opening only one eye, then another. She sees a woman with black hair and tan skin. Her cheeks are flushed and she has a small smile on her face.

The woman squats down so she’s the same height as the bed Nesta is laying on. “Hi,” the woman whispers, voice solemn and comforting. “My names Aurora,” she says. Nesta squishes her lips together. She’s confused and feels like crying. Nesta doesn’t cry though. She’s pretty sure her eyes water though, because Aurora strokes her hair and whispers, “It’s okay to cry.”

Nesta gasps and shakes her head. “Mommy says I’m not supposed to cry.” Aurora seems to be shocked silent. The silence makes Nesta become aware of everything that is happening. She slowly sits up. Once her feet are off the bed, Nesta quickly sprints to the door, opening it and running out. She has no idea where she’s going.

Suddenly, Nesta is hit with a hard impact, and falls down on her butt. She looks up and sees two boys. They’re both around the same height. They have the same dark hair too, except one is longer than the other. Nesta gets up and brushes off the dust on her leggings.

She notices it then. The leggings. She’s never worn pants before.

It’s also when she notices the juice smeared across one of the boy's shirts. It’s the long haired one’s. He drops the red cup to the ground and makes an angry noise. “That was my favorite shirt.”

Nesta feels sheepish as she whispers a quiet, “Sorry.”

The one with longer hair whispers to the other boy, obviously meaning for her to hear too. “She’s probably not even double digits.” The other boy is quiet, looking at the ground. He seems nervous and shy.

Nesta feels a sense of outrage course through her. She pouts, crossing her arms. “I’m almost ten. I’m nine and a half” The boy crosses his arms too.

“Well I’m ten and a half,” he says.

“Cassian,” Aurora scolds. “Play nice.” She puts a hand on Nesta’s shoulder and bends down. “I need to talk to…” She doesn’t continue.

Nesta turns towards her, and realizes she needs her name. “Nesta,” she says.

Aurora smiles, “That’s a wonderful name.”

Cassian still seems angry. “I think it’s stupid.” Aurora sighs and gets up. “Azriel”, she says to the other boy. He hadn’t talked the whole time, Nesta almost forgot he was there. “Make sure he stays out of trouble. And Cassian, please change your shirt.” The two (stupid) boys walk away. Once they’re from a far enough distance, Aurora looks back down at her. “I have to talk to you about something.”

2021 New York, Manhattan

Nesta walks into her apartment tired and half asleep. Once inside her apartment, she changes into more comfortable clothes, sweatpants and a grey t-shirt.

Nesta’s about to go to bed, until she hears the sound of glass shattering and liquid spilling. She freezes, thinking about the mug of wine she left out.

No.

Nesta scrambles towards the kitchen and grabs a flashlight from a cabinet, flashing the light to the ground. The mug is shattered to pieces, and she can still see little droplets of wine. The words aren’t visible anymore, letters broken and unreadable.

There’s no way it could’ve fallen on its own. It was in the middle of her counter. Unless...

Suddenly it all makes sense. The unrecognizable car in the parking lot. The uneasy feeling in her stomach. The constant nagging in her head, telling her that something is wrong.

She thinks about calling the police but goes against it. Years in a fucking biker gang taught her better then to trust those scumbags.

She always kept a gun in her house. Just in case. She really hates how no matter what she does. she’ll always be connected to this.

The person inside her apartment most definitely knows where she is. Nesta grabs a broom, sweeping the glass shards into an empty bag. She can fix it later. Tying it up, Nesta leaves it on her counter.

There's a wall blocking the entrance to her bathroom. She walks towards it, opening and closing the door so it seems she went inside. Grabbing her gun from the small drawer, Nesta lays her back against the wall, barely peeking out the wall, but just enough so she can see them as they crawl out from behind her couch.

The figure moves stealthily, back turned towards her. If she weren’t directly staring at it, there would be no way of knowing it was there. The moves look familiar, but she can’t put her mind on it. The moonlight shines on them so she can see the most obvious features. It’s not until the floor creaks the figure turns towards her direction. Nesta turns back to face her bathroom door, hands drawn to tight fists. There’s no way they hadn’t seen her. She moved too slow. Nesta peeks her head out to look again.

It’s not until she sees a familiar pair of scarred hands in the moonlight, it all comes together.

“Azriel Night?”

In dreams

I meet you in warm conversation

We both wake

In lonely beds

In different cities

And time

Is taking its sweet time erasing you

And you've got your demons

And darlin' they all look like me

PSA!! go to ask’s to be added to tag list

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thekillingjoke-haha · 3 years

Text

Angel With A Shotgun

Summary: The Novak family was big talk,but not nearly as famous as the L/n’s. Togther they can be unstoppable,so what say family ties like guns,drugs,money,and murder?

Paring: Michael!Dean x Male!Reader

1900's Mafia/Gangsters AU

A/N: this is a Micheal fic,but its him in Dean's body so like...idk its the same snake different skin. Also Chuck is referred as Charles

Warning:Blood,guns,knives,gore,torture,swearing. Homophobic comments like just a few. No proof reading

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The Novak's that a family that was one of the most feared yet respected. The way people talk about them down south you'd think they were inspiration for the Bible itself. A man by Charles or Chuck Novak is the head honcho with five sons to help him run is kingdom.

The youngest is Castiel he was probably the nicest of all his siblings,but also the most protected with three other brothers, Gabriel is the definition of trouble and if he slipped up head could easily get lynched good thing he puts that silver tongue to work. Raphael was one of the more head strong,but sadly he was shot when several rivals attacked at on of their bars. Lucifer is the second oldest and the most hot headed with a temper to match the black sheep in his family if you will, then last,but not least Michael he was something else entirely the play boy,a demon is a flat cap and tailored suit.Now that the Novak's have been introduced the world's most feared gang the L/n's is one family not to be fucked with.

(Father's name) leading his kingdom no...empire with his wife (Mother's name) and togther they had only two sons. The second born William and the oldest M/n. William wasn't much involved with the criminal side of the business,but his big brother was the prime example of a gangster. No one besides the L/n gang has seen him he stays out of newspaper coverage and that only allows his terror to run ramped. A man with no face and a title of Satan himself made the oldest Novak just a little timid when he found out. "WHAT THE HELL!!!" Michael threw the newspaper on his fathers desk in anger the older man looked up after glancing at the paper. "I'm due to be wed to a L/n and none the less a man! I can be hanged for so much as saying I do and it IN THE FUCKING BULLETIN!!!" He was seething with hatred in every word. Michael will admit it hurt a lot finding out he was to be wed by the slight disgust look he got while grabbing the paper before getting coffee. "I wanted to tell you sooner,but you were handling something. There's no way out of this a deal was made before you were born me and (Father's name) have been waiting for his wife to bare a girl or your mother to do the same,but your mother's untimely passing and (Mother's name) having gone unfertial our oldest are due to wed." Chuck sighed taking off his thin wired glasses.

"You two were once friends,but I guess time got rid of those memories." Chuck sat down his spectacles down looking at his son. Michael turned to father with shock evident in his eyes. He was friends with M/n L/n the man with no face. Everything was too foggy. The shorter male stood up to a shelf in the office and grabbed a small match box opening it looking around before pulling out a picture. Handing it over to his son he sat back down. "He was one of the only people you'd go to when you were a baby. Heavens he was probably the only person you liked,but when he was five and you were three the fact that our business was centered around blood and there's on bonds it became a fight,mafia versus a gang, and you guys saw eachother less and less till around the time Luci was born not at all." Chuck sighed. The young man was in shock a little boy maybe two or three was cuddled up to a baby in a pale blanket that he remembered was blue fully awake and if the picture could come to life he's sure the boy was humming all while rubbing the infants back.

"No ones seen a picture of him in twenty six years and he was on his fathers hip with a match box car. He's in town and should be coming for dinner here by himself in three days time. So til then keep your brothers in check we don't need them to shoot the young man with a stray bullet." With that Charles dismissed his eldest son as the green eyed boy stormed off in a huff. Michael started to do digging. M/n L/n was in headlines weekly in every post known to man from shootings,assassination,and gangbanding to rumors of his love-life,what he wears,and people claiming to have met him. One thing caught his eye that made him falter. "Gangsters M/n L/n Captures Murderer" that when he started reading the full paper that crumbled a bit due to age. Maybe he's not so bad the guy he caught never saw a courtroom,but met a far worse end all because he caused problems with his people. It was admirable the brunette knew he'd do the same,but not just for anybody. Marriage wasn't settling well with him that didn't mean it felt completely wrong.

One day later

Looking in the mirror Michael watched as his maid adjusted his tie while another smoothed the wrinking in his white button up and vest of his three piece suit. As the oldest he had business to handle people to keep in line. When their hands left his body they scurried out of the room rushing to be down stairs before him. His dress shoes met the floor as he grew closer to the door his youngest sibling ran up next to him. "Can I come,please!" His raven head of hair and doe blue eyes almost made him cave,but with a firm look he gazed down at him. "Sorry little raven,but I have things to handle another time." The pout on Castiel lip didn't move as he held up his hand his pinky out. "Promise?" Interlocking with the ten year olds pinky. "Promise." With that he happily skipped away to play in the garden.

Out the door he went. His flat came on his head and coat thrown over his shoulder his effects tucked in his waistband. Screams caused him to smile as he stood before the butcher on payroll. He wore the man's leather apron having abandoned his tailored suit jacket in the front of the deil. "Were is my money?" He cut the man some more as he continued to scream in pain the white fire from the rusted meat hook in his shoulder flaring with each jerked motion. "Help please!" He yelled all of a sudden in the past hour he hasn't called for assistance. "No can do." A deep voice said behind the oldest Novak turning around sharply his green eyes clashed with e/c. The man looked like anyone off the street his shoes tattered and clothing dirty form labor no bet. "I came for my five notes." The didn't seem fazed at the torture. "Fuck you gypsy scum!!" The pig of a man responded as the tall s/c man crept closer gripping a knife Michael was using. "I just unloaded a load of meat in the summer heat that would give the devil a sweat and all I asked for my effort was five notes nothing more nor less so cough of the money that you clearly owe both of us or I'll carve it out of you and make you squeal like the piggy bank you are." His tone dropped further the blade under the man's fat chin and the Novak felt aroused at the threat. This guy meant every word when the hanging man spat in his face the off color of snuff and blood made the normally clear liquid seen and thick. Let's just say Michael sat back crossing his legs in a attempt to compose himself as the man hit pitches not even the girls in the church choir could master. The heavy weight man forked over the money then some I got my full and he ended up giving the mystery man a hundred notes if he made the pain stop after pocketing the money he shot the man.

He turned around and began to leave when the brunette stopped him. "Wait! I give you my thanks friend he was stubborn for a hour almost" The h/c man turned looking at him giving a smile tilting his head for the Novak to follow as he stepped out the deli. Scrambling he walked down the street next to the man their attire clashing a well tailored suit next to rags that looked more like a potato sack then cloth. "Glad I could help a fine looking fella like yourself." His flirtatious grin caused butterflies to run ramped in Michael's guts. As they walked down the street they slowly moved from the good side of the town to the slums. No cars drove on the gravel a fire hydrine spat out water for all the children playing around it,women hung up clothes on wire between tenements and men looked more like the mysterious gypsy next to the Novak. Speaking of the mystery man he went to each crowded tenements door and knocked the women or young men of the families came to the door and he handed over twenty notes each. The women cried and clung to his tall figure and the boys almost men looked at him in wonder like a hero before running off to tell the adults of the place. "Why did you do that?" Michael asked as they walked out of the town. "You worked for that money and gave it all away." He was confused he's never seen a man work for a family that wasn't his own.

"They need it more. Schools out the children don't get meals and the men work hard to feed them at least a meal a day. I'm alone here no lover or children with the energy and muscle to work." Novak wasn't sure before,but he was sure now this was love and it felt better then any harlot he could spend the night with. "Thats very admirable of you." Michael complmented which was not a normal accuracy. "It was truly nothing to admire,handsome. I'm not saying I'm amazing,but sometimes I'm decently above average. That's what people need someone decent enough go care."

Before he knew it they were back on his side of town and getting closer to the business. "It's been a pleasure,Mr. Novak." The man dripped his head as he turned to leave somewhere. "You know who I am and I don't even get a name." He turned back around and got closer to him his chest pushed up against his till he was pinned to the wall he leaned down his lips so close to his face just out of reach. "I'm N/n,but you can call me the man of your dreams." Michael almost leaned up to peak his lips when the warm body pulled away taking with it the lust filled tension. N/n turned and left out of sight that night was full of the man tossing and turning dreaming of the e/c man that made him feel high as the clouds above. N/n smiled as his men drank around him he finally saw his baby boy all grown up and he's taking what's his this time.

Two days later=Six Hours Before Family Dinner

The buzz of the New Yorker coming to Kansas was the rage. Any man that was new in town was watched like a hawk by commoners and the Novak's. Michael was no longer looking forward to this marriage he didn't want this man no matter who he was. N/n stole his heart like a petty thief and ran away from him. No one in Kansas knew who he was a s/c skinned,h/c haired,e/c eyed gypsy was all he had to go on no last name just a image that burned bright in his mind. Michael sighed as he left his office and went down to the bank he needed enough cash on hand to throw away on booze and maybe angel dust. People parted for him like the red sea and he easily got money when gun shots went off. The teller in front of him fell to the ground wounds ridding his body and Novak turned to see men...no boys with guns.

"Everyone get down on the ground. We've come only for the money we won't hesitate for blood as well." The group chuckled as the leader smirked people shook as they easied to the ground all except Michael who stood tall. "Ah! If it isn't Michael Novak no men to protect you now." A man he didn't realize came behind him hit him over the head with his gun causing him to fall to his knees. "Pathetic." The band of thugs leader grabbed the Mafia bosses chin looking and the blood coming from his brow. Someone stood from on their knees a flat cap covering their hair and a long trench coat that was only slightly open. "It would be in your best interest to leave,boys." They all train their guns at the man. "Why's that,you motherless bastered?" The man turned his gaze upward deadly sharp e/c orbs looked at him and Michael was in shock it was N/n. "Cause I have twelve guns ready to blow holes in you and your men." After his words ten men stood up all wearing the same clothing flat caps,overcoats,and suspenders with a Tommy on every man except the leader. The cowardly man looked frightened looking around keeping his gun on the s/c man. "I only count ten I still have the upper hand." N/n gave a devilish smile that made Michelle gaze on love struck and excited for what's to come. His gray trench coat hit the floor and two sawed-off shotguns in each hand. "Upper hand you say?" He pulled both triggers the left one killing the man sending himself flying back and the right killing the man behind Michael blowing his brains painting the tan walls this made the others fire as well. The bodies of the criminals and one civilian litter the floor.

N/n sent the men off to get the people out as he walked up to the bleeding Novak. "Thank you." His green eyes gleamed making the standing man give a grin as he held his hand out to help him up. "Consider it a gift from M/n L/n." The gleam disappeared from his eyes his soon to be husband was in town has been in town and set his men up to keep him safe. "Now if I'm not mistaken you have a dinner to get ready for,pretty boy." He takes the handkerchief out of his waist coat dabbing the blood away. "Will you be there?" Michael voice sounded weak so full of hope. "You can count on it. We'll be seeing eachother alot more." The man stood up and quickly left and not a moment later Mafia men came in running tending to the boss. Looking longingly at the piece of cloth (Your Initials) were sowed into the reddend white square of fabric.

Family Dinner was about to start the Novak's sat at the table Charles sitting at the end his three eldest sons to his right while his youngest sat to the left two spots were available one across from Michael and the other on the opposite end of Charles. A maid came in the dinning hall and cleared her throat. "The L/n's are here." Two young men came through the door one taller then the other the shorter of the two sat across from Michael while the other sat at the other end of the table closest to Michael and the other man. Charles smiled at them both and Michael was in a state of shock. "M/n been a long while hasn't it?" The oldest Novak looked at the man infront of him waiting for a response when the man he thought to be just a gangster working under the L/n's answered. "That it has Chuck. Sorry father couldn't come he had some other business to handle." N/n or M/n now to Michael's knowledge said before placing a hand on the man beside him. "This is Benjamin or Benny my right hand man don't mind him." The man gave a nod of acknowledgment his blue eyes piercing. "Heard about the blood bath at the bank quite impressive from what Michael has told me." A side smile and a teasing look was turned the mentioned Novak's way. "Saw low life scum trying to rob the place and touching what's mine,their little toys they call guns were child's play compared to my men." M/n sent a wink addressing the men hitting Michael from behind.

"Are you a knight that saves people?" The youngest asked his blue eyes wide in wonder. The s/c males eyes turned to the child a warm smile gracing his lips. "Sometimes when I want to be." A bubbly giggle rang out. "You saved Mikey making him your prince." Those words caused different reactions from all the men. Gabe covered his mouth trying not to laugh at his older brother,Lucifer grinned leaning over to his brother. "Did he have to kiss you sleeping beauty?" He chuckled lowly making kissing noises in his ear,Micheal was beet red as he couldn't bear to face any of them,Chuck smiled looking at his son and son-in-law,Benny nudged his boss sliding something to him while everyone was distracted. "Yeah and I'm gonna make him my king and take him to my castle." M/n leaned towards the boy and whispered in his ear. "We'll ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after." Castiel was gobsmacked as he gazed at his brother all giddy he was gonna live a fairy tale like in all the books their mother use to read. "Um if you'll excess me. I need some air." Micheal stood up and not long after M/n followed when given a reassuring nod from Charles.

The garden of the estate was beautiful in the moonlight and it wasn't hard to spot the oldest Novak on a bench on looking the pond that reflected the night sky. "You knew the whole time who I was." Micheal didn't look up at the man as he sighed. "Yes I knew who you were...we were once closer then the stars and the skies itself." The L/n sat next to him on the bench looking forward. "Chuck knew as well." Michelle turned in shock at that statement a goose chase for nothing. "He didn't know what I looked like now,but letters everyday asking about you seemed to do the trick." Those e/c eyes turned to look into those apple green ones. "Learning from a young age that in you grasp was the person you were due to wed was shocking I almost hated you,but the moment you grabbed my finger as if I'd slip away made me realize it can't be so bad." M/n held out his hand palm up so the younger male rested his hand in his grasp. "I was afraid at first you'd hate me. So I swore to protect you always. Some of my men live here with their families and they keep me posted. Just last year a rat was found on you door step admitting his faults."

Micheal remembered that the maids came rushing to get the family and a man bloody and beaten spilled his guts about planning to cross the family having been hired by a rival Mafia to get information to attack them at a weak state. "I know this won't mean munch to you know,but maybe at some point you'll be happy to carry my last name and call yourself my husband." In M/n hand that wasn't interlocked with Micheal's he opened a box revealing two wedding bands both were silver while one had a gold trim and the other had a f/c trim. "No matter what,Novak,I'll be there when yiu need me through it all most of the times guns blazing." M/n chuckled lightly taking in a deep breath. "Just ponder on it,pretty boy,I'llbe here waiting." as he slipped the ring on the silent man's finger before doing the same with himself he gently kissed the top of his head as he stood up and left wanting to give him space. Micheal smiled at the ring that perfectly fit his finger. The one man he felt attracted to was his guardian angel always there no matter what.

Lifting his hand up he kissed the metal band as a laugh left his lips. "My angel with a shotgun."

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A/n: Second Male reader and I had to spell check for almost 50 she/her in her so I think I got them all lol.

@spnquotebingo

Quote: "I'm not saying I'm amazing,but I'm decently above average."-Blacklist @spnquotebingo

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eliemo · 4 years

Text

The Worst Thing in the World

Summary: Everyone knows Virgil needs to be handled a little different. He might not like it, but that’s the way it is, and living with the light sides won’t change that. After all, it’s common sense. Right?

Notes: So this is a lot longer and sadder than I planned on but i tend to get carried away. All main 6 sides are sympathetic here.

TWs: Talk of physical violence, implied abuse (past) Sympathetic/morally gray Remus and Janus but Unsympathetic unnamed characters

Part Two: Getting There

Virgil paused outside the closed door, holding his breath and listening, ensuring everything was silent for what had to be the hundredth time.

It had taken him an embarrassingly long time to work up the courage to even make it down the hall.

But everything was quiet. Logan was with Thomas working on the schedule for the week and should be occupied for a while. It was fine. Virgil could slip in and out and no one would ever know.

He really shouldn’t be pushing his luck like this. They’d been so...so ridiculously nice to him since he’d tried to duck out, and it had been everything he’d wanted for longer than he knew how to say.

They were welcoming, understanding, and patient. And most of the time, he was able to convince himself it was genuine. That they were all trying.

And yeah, he knew it wouldn’t always be this good. He was still getting used to all of this, to being a part of things, so they were cutting him some slack. Letting him adjust. Giving him time to get comfortable.

Honestly, at times it was a bit painfully obvious how hard they were trying, especially considering how far from perfect he’d been despite his best efforts.

They’d let far too many things go in favor of getting Virgil to relax. Things that never would slide if he’d been around longer.

He’d put a clean glass in the wrong cabinet after his first dinner with the light sides, and Patton had only smiled, quickly corrected him, and moved on.

He’d accidentally spilled his drink on the table, and Roman had just shut down his string of prepared apologies with an almost odd smile before actually offering to clean it up himself.

(Virgil had, of course, shut the offer down. He knew what they were doing, pretending his mistakes could be overlooked, but it didn’t mean he was useless. He was still trying to be good)

Virgil had even bumped right into Logan the other day, moving too fast through the darkened hallway in his haste to get to his room, causing the logical side to stumble and drop some papers he’d been holding. Virgil hadn’t even gotten a chance to open his mouth before Logan had gracefully picked up the papers, gently told Virgil to slow down, and continued on his way.

It was...really kind of sweet, once he realized what they were doing. They knew he was wary, knew he wanted this so badly. So they were giving him extra chances, careful to be gentle as he settled in, not wanting him to duck out again.

But now, weeks later, things had been changing. Not in a bad way, of course. Far from it. Things were just...more comfortable. More familiar. He was actually starting to feel like a part of their family, like maybe he could actually belong, and the others seemed to actually agree, gradually relaxing in his presence.

Of course, it also meant all those extra chances wouldn’t be handed out freely anymore. He couldn’t expect to get away with things so easily now that he was settled in.

Which was why he really shouldn’t be sneaking into Logan’s room.

He was just...he needed something to do. His anxiety had been through the roof since he’d woken up, making him antsy and restless, and with the others busy all day he hadn’t had an outlet since breakfast.

He’d noticed Logan had been lost in a book for the past few days, rambling on about it a bit once he was finished that morning, and while Virgil couldn’t exactly remember any details, something about the title and general idea had piqued his interest. Or maybe he was just desperate at this point.

It had been a while since he’d been able to get into a good book, but it usually did help him calm down.

And of course he could just ask Logan but...he could all too easily picture the logical side mocking the request or turning him down without question, and while Virgil knew it was unrealistic, he couldn’t muster up the courage.

But it was fine. He knew what the cover looked like, he’d find the book, read it alone in his room, and return it when he got the chance.

Easy.

Except...well, that thought went right out the window as soon as he actually stepped inside. In hindsight, he should have seen it coming with how much Logan valued literature.

He just hadn’t expected Logan’s bookshelf to be so big.

Jesus, how many books could a guy even read? Logan barely even had any free time as it was. His library took up an entire wall, floor to ceiling, and Virgil didn’t think he’d ever seen so many books in his entire life. It was like something out of the fantasy stories Logan liked to deny enjoying.

Virgil knew he should turn back. He was still trespassing, and there was no way he’d find the specific book he was looking for in the limited time he had.

But...maybe the specific book didn’t even matter. He could find something to read, maybe even a few, just to keep him occupied until Logan was distracted in a few days and he could return them.

He carefully shut the door behind him, waiting a moment like Logan would pop up at any moment, and carefully approached the shelf.

They were all clearly meticulously organized, first by genre, then author in alphabetical order, and Virgil wondered how long it had taken Logan to do.

He scanned the genres: fiction, nonfiction, historical fiction, sci-fi, textbooks, articles…

There was a brief moment of panic as he ran his finger along some of the book’s spines, frantically wondering if he would even be able to put it back in the right place, and what Logan would do if he found out Virgil had stolen--

“Greetings, Virgil.”

Virgil jumped so hard his shoulder slammed into the edge of the shelf, fear and realization hitting full force as two books toppled over and fell to the ground, leaving behind silence louder than a gunshot.

Virgil was frozen like a deer in headlights, gaze locked on Logan who was giving the fallen books a quizzical look.

“Apologies for startling you,” he said, which was not how Virgil was expecting this to start, but it was almost worse than the anger he knew was coming. “I hadn’t expected you to be in here.”

Virgil tried not to flinch, legs feeling like jello, panicked mind running through endless possibilities of how this was going to go. He’d seen Logan angry, of course, heard him yell, seen him lose himself to frustrated rants.

It was impossible to know for sure how Logan would handle this, though. Handle him. He would want to discover the best method for a lasting impression, right? He’d probably been waiting to experiment different responses.

“Virgil?”

“Sorry,” Virgil said quickly, realizing he’d gone silent. “Sorry, I wasn’t...um, I wasn’t stealing. I-I know how it looks but I promise I was gonna bring them back I was just...I-I knew you were busy so…”

He trailed off, heart sinking when it occurred to him just how guilty he sounded. He was a thief whether he was going to return them or not, and here he was, babbling like a scared child in front of the evidence.

He swallowed, knowing there was no way out of it. He shouldn’t be trying to make excuses. “S-sorry.”

He couldn’t meet Logan’s eyes, but he saw the logical side take a cautious step forward. “You were...oh, the books. Virgil, if you were interested in borrowing some reading material you could have simply asked.”

Virgil did flinch this time, the reminder like a punch to the gut. God, why couldn’t he have just asked. A few seconds of anxiety and a bit of awkwardness would have been worth avoiding this.

What the hell was wrong with him? How could he sneak around and steal from the people he tried so hard to earn the trust of?

“I...I know,” he managed. “I just...sorry. I shouldn’t have, um, yeah. I know I shouldn’t have snuck in.”

“Oh, it’s quite alright,” Logan said, the blood rushing to Virgil’s ears as he came closer, voice nearly drowned out by his own racing heart. “It can hardly be considered sneaking- you do live here. Besides, I’ve read most of these already so you are welcome to--”

At the moment, all Virgil registered was Logan’s presence now beside him, and the hand moving forward just in the corner of his vision.

He was moving before he had the chance to even think about it, crumpling to the ground out of Logan’s reach, hands moving to protect his face, hunching his shoulders and waiting for the blow.

The blow that...that didn’t come.

“Virgil.”

Virgil flinched at his voice, biting his tongue to keep from whimpering. He could feel Logan standing above him, annoyed even more now, no doubt. What was he waiting for?

“Virgil,” he said again, softer this time. “Will you look at me, please?”

Oh. Oh, of course. Logan wouldn’t want to punish Virgil if he wasn’t sure the anxious side was even aware enough to understand. He wanted Virgil to see what he deserved.

He got that. He understood.

So he nodded, hating how hard it was, digging his nails into his palm when he felt himself growing dangerously close to hyperventilating. He wouldn’t let himself fall under a panic attack. He wouldn’t hurt Thomas because of this.

Virgil slowly raised his head, realizing idly that he was shaking. His throat felt tight, eyes burning, and Virgil kind of wished he could just hit himself.

God, what was wrong with him? He wasn’t going to cry. He couldn’t. He’d known what he was doing, knew all too well what would happen if he fucked it up, and he had (of course he had).

He deserved this. It was fine.

He was, however, mildly surprised to find Logan lowered to his level, the logical side crouched down on the balls of his feet, watching Virgil with an almost worried frown.

“Take some deep breaths, please,” he said. “I was only going to help you pick the books up off the floor. I apologize if I moved too quickly.”

Virgil shook his head, clenching his jaw to keep the teas at bay, not even sure how he was supposed to respond to that. Why the hell was Logan apologizing?

“It’s...it’s whatever,” he managed. “Sorry for, uh, you know. F-freaking out like...like that.”

“It’s quite alright.”

Virgil took a shaky breath, realizing Logan’s silence was probably him waiting to make sure he wasn’t about to send Virgil over the edge in any way that could affect Thomas.

His heart was in no way slowing, dread and apprehension rising unbearably but...but the waiting was only going to make it worse, the anticipation sickening. Best to get it over with.

“Alright,” he said, almost impressed with how steady his voice came out. “I’m ready.”

Virgil expected something to happen right then and there. He was less than prepared for the hesitation followed by...nothing?

“Ready?” Logan echoed. “Ready for...what?”

Virgil forced himself the shrug, still not able to quite reach Logan’s eyes, struggling to maintain nonchalance he didn’t feel in the slightest.

“I don’t know,” he muttered. “However, uh...however you wanted to do it, I guess. Whatever you’re gonna do.”

A beat of silence and Virgil remained tense, bracing himself, willing himself to relax and take it. But all that happened was Logan awkwardly clearing his throat, leaning back on his heels.

“Well,” he said. “I...had only planned on replacing the fallen books and assisting you in picking out some things to read.”

Virgil nodded, blinking furiously to push back tears fighting to break through. “Ok? Uh, you mean...before or-or after?”

“I’m...I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Logan admitted, incredibly out of character. “Have I missed something? What...exactly do you believe is happening?”

Virgil wasn't exactly sure why that mattered. Was this...was this part of it? Making sure he understood?

“Uhm, I-I broke into your room? I mean...I know I shouldn’t have taken your stuff without asking. I know...I know that’s not ok. I’m sorry.”

He saw Logan tilt his head slightly, frown deepening. “It really is not an issue, Virgil. My books aren’t exactly locked away. I would only prefer you ask next time so I do not end up startling you, but you’re reacting as if I--”

He stopped himself, and Virgil saw the moment realization dawned, something in Logan’s expression hardening.

Oh. Of course. Logan hadn’t been sure Virgil would know something like this was coming.

But he did, of course. He understood, as much as he hated it. He was anxiety, there wasn’t any other way to handle him. There wasn’t a choice.

“Ah,” Logan said, softer than before. “I see.”

Virgil nodded again, heart still racing so fast he thought Logan might be able to hear it, glad that now they could at least get it over with.

But Logan still wasn’t moving, still talking in that achingly gentle voice. “Virgil, I have no intention of harming you in any way. I’m not even remotely upset with you.”

And that...that didn’t make any sense. Virgil had literally just gone into someone else’s room without permission, and Logan had just said he’d prefer to be asked so why--?

Unless...unless he was being given another chance. Again. Another chance he didn’t deserve in favor of over the top friendliness.

“Don’t,” he said, before he could even consider stopping himself. “Don’t keep doing this, Logan, please I...it’s ok, you guys don’t have to keep pretending. I know you’re angry, I know--”

“I’m not angry,” Logan interrupted, firm but somehow still gentle, and Virgil shrank back. “I believe we have a larger issue to discuss as a group but for now please understand that I am not angry with you. And even if I was, I would never intentionally bring you any harm. I know for a fact the others would not either.”

Virgil shook his head, hating all of this, hating feeling small and pitied, hated delaying the inevitable like things could work any other way.

He hated the treacherous, nagging hope in his chest.

“But they will,” he insisted. “You all will, I know you're just...waiting to make sure I won’t leave again but I won’t. I know it's how it works, ok? It’s fine.”

The lie tasted like acid on his tongue. But some of it was true, at least. He wouldn’t try to leave again. He was finally feeling like a part of things. And if he was good, well...maybe that could last.

Logan was silent for a long moment, and Virgil was just beginning to think he’d finally managed to convince him to set the pity aside when he was speaking again.

“Virgil, do you think you could accompany me to the commons? I believe it is imperative to discuss this with the others.”

Virgil froze, realizing he may have just made a simple situation worse by raising his voice. Did Logan really need to get everyone? It was bad enough that just Logan was upset with him but all of them...

But he knew better than to risk any further anger by arguing. And Logan was carefully offering a hand, palm up, no sudden movements or pain when Virgil hesitantly took it and was helped to his feet, so maybe...maybe Logan wasn’t actually angry.

Not right now, at least.

Logan led them down the hallway to the living room, Virgil unable to stop his trembling the entire time, legs a bit unsteady and weak. He almost wished the short walk took longer, dread building up in his gut the closer he got like a man being led to the gallows.

He had to remind himself to breathe when he saw both Patton and Roman already there, lounging casually, all smiles amid easy conversation.

Logan cleared his throat, Virgil left to shift awkwardly beside him, the other two sides immediately glancing up with bright, welcoming smiles.

Virgil felt guilt twist in his gut at having to ruin that.

“I believe,” Logan started. “That we need to have a...family meeting, as Patton might call it. There’s been a bit of a miscommunication that needs clearing up.”

“Everything alright?” Roman asked as Patton, cheerful as ever, waved them both over. Logan didn’t answer, and Virgil was too busy staring at the ground to think of a reply.

He ended up being seated on the couch beside Roman, Patton sitting across from him and Logan standing at the arm of the couch. For a moment nobody spoke, Roman and Patton clearly at a loss.

“Virgil,” Logan prompted. “Would you mind telling the others what happened from your point of view?”

Virgil’s eyes widened, head snapping up to look at Logan with something almost like betrayal, and any hope he’d had that this was going to be forgiven without consequences suddenly vanished.

But Logan was quick to reassure him, hand moving to rest against Virgil’s clenched fist. “I assure you, nothing about my previous statements will change. I only want to ensure they have all the context.”

Virgil shakily nodded, like he had any choice in the matter, trying not to wince when his voice came out small and breathy when he finally spoke.

“I...I went into Logan’s room,” he admitted, waiting for yelling that never came. “While he was with Thomas. I-I was looking for something to read but-but I was going to give it back, I promise, I wasn’t stealing I was just too anxious to ask, so I--”

“Wait,” Roman interjected, curiosity turning to something close to amusement. “That’s all you did? I steal from Logan all the time!”

Logan blinked. “You what?”

“Kiddos,” Patton chided, unable to help the small smile on his lips. “Now we usually don’t go into people’s rooms without asking but I’m sure Logan understood. What’s this all about?”

Virgil suddenly had absolutely no idea how to respond, this entire conversation now taking a much different turn than he’d expected.

What the hell was happening? Was this...part of it? It sure felt like he was being punished, but Patton’s smile was as genuine as ever.

Logan leaned forward, furrowing his brow.

“Virgil can you tell us what you believe is going to happen to you? What you thought was happening when I found you?”

Virgil, far too lost to do anything but comply blindly, couldn’t understand why Patton and Roman suddenly looked so confused.

“I was...I was going to be punished, right?” He didn’t understand the purpose of making him explain something everyone already knew. “I mean, Logan said he wasn’t mad so I guess I’m getting another chance but any other time I would’ve--”

“Wait a minute, what?” It was Roman’s turn to sound baffled, all his attention now focused solely on Virgil. “Punished? What do you mean, like- like grounding you? You aren’t a child, Virge.”

“I do not think that’s what he meant.”

“But he...Logan, he--”

“Virgil believed,” Logan cut him off, sounding more hesitant than Virgil had ever heard him. “That some type of...physical punishment was inevitable. At least, that is what I gathered.”

“You think we’re going to hit you?” Patton’s voice, verging on frantic, easily overpowered the others. “Over this? Over anything?”

Virgil flinched back against the couch, desperately trying to figure out what he’d done wrong, how he’d managed to make this so much worse than it was just five minutes ago.

“I don’t...I'm sorry?”

“We’re not going to punish you, kiddo,” he said, the word ‘punish’ almost spat out like something sour. “We’d never do that to you! Never.”

And oh, that was Patton, trying so hard to be kind, even when he was so visibly furious. Looking out for all of them to the end. Careful not to let Virgil’s emotions affect Thomas.

“You guys don’t have to keep doing this.”

Patton blinked, trying and failing to get Virgil to meet his eyes. “Keep doing what, kiddo?”

“I’m not gonna duck out again,” he said, the smile he offered meant to be reassuring but he was certain it was wobbly and frail. “I-I like it here. With you guys. You don’t need to keep...cutting me all this slack. I know I keep messing up and I know if this is going to...work I have to be--”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Roman’s language wasn’t even corrected, Patton hardly acknowledging the outburst at all, but the moral side looked somehow just as furious.

And there it was, genuine fear and panic returning with a vengeance, the sudden knowledge that he’d probably done irreversible damage in an effort to reassure them.

“Kiddo you...what is it that you think you’ve done wrong? You’re not...oh my god, you’re not talking about the little things, are you? Spills or- or misplacing something or...or…”

“I- yeah?” Because what else would he be talking about? “I’ve been...I’ve been trying to be good, so I-I don’t think I’ve done anything else to--”

“Is that how you think we handle things?” Roman was rigid beside him, his fury overwhelming, and Virgil hoped one of them would hurry up and just knock him unconscious. “So, what? If Logan drops something am I just supposed to hit him?”

“Roman,” Logan said, sounding oddly choked. “Please.”

And oh. Oh. The realization hit like a punch to the gut, and Virgil realized all at once why they were so upset with him. He hadn’t done anything wrong, it was just a stupid misunderstanding.

Oh, god.

“No!” He insisted, voice a little stronger in his desperation for them to understand their mistake. “No, of course not! That’s not...guys, that's not what I meant.”

The tension in the room dropped a bit, Prince relaxing just slightly, but three pairs of eyes were still watching, painfully concerned.

“Sorry, I’m so sorry I didn’t realize you thought that,” Virgil continued, a little lightheaded. “Not you guys, never you guys. Obviously not, you all wouldn’t...you shouldn’t be punished like that. Ever. I promise I was just talking about me.”

He expected relief, understanding, and hopefully to just get this whole thing over with so they could hurry up and go back to normal.

But apparently he’d only managed to make everyone even more distressed. Logan and Roman’s eyes had gone wide and Patton...Patton had tears streaming down his face.

“Why would you think that?” It was quiet, barely a whisper, but Virgil had never heard Patton sound so furious, so cold and lifeless.

“I...I don’t know why you’re--”

“Virgil why would you think that?” Patton was standing now, taking a step away from the couch with a hand moving to cover his mouth. Logan reached for his shoulder, only to be quickly shrugged off.

“Patton, please attempt to calm down.”

“But he...he said...why, Virge? Why just you?”

Virgil blinked, fighting to swallow past the lump in his throat, still hopelessly lost to what he’d managed to do wrong. Did they...not know? Even Logan? Wasn’t it just...common sense?

“It’s...because it’s me?” he offered weakly. “I-I’m anxiety. I tend to- to mess things up, guys. I have to be, you know, dealt with differently so it doesn't affect Thomas as much, right?”

He was met only with deafening silence, before Logan cleared his throat, looking for once like he wasn’t entirely sure what he should be saying.

“That hardly seems logical,” he said, no malice behind it. “How would punishing you more severely do anything but succeed in making your mental state worse?”

“I...I don’t know. But it works. It makes me more...cautious. You guys haven’t really had to deal with me and my fuck ups before but now that I’m here you’ll have to...I just uh, figured you knew this, I guess. I thought everyone did.”

“No,” Roman said, hardly audible at all. “We didn’t.”

Oh. Well...at least it was out now. Virgil may not like it, but he knew getting hurt sometimes was necessary. If it made their lives better, it was worth it in the long run.

But still…

The thought that if he’d only known, realized sooner that their willingness to let things go and love him unconditionally really was genuine, he could have maybe lived without the fear of punishment for the first time in so long.

So much for that. All he’d done now was manage to make them angry, and he honestly wasn’t even sure what he’d done to make them all so upset.

“Who told you that?” Roman asked, Virgil wincing despite himself. “Was it...if it was my brother--”

“It wasn’t,” Virgil said, not really sure if that was the answer Roman wanted, but it was the truth. Remus and Janus had never been the ones to use any sort of physical violence on him, though Virgil never had any doubt that they could. “It was the others. I...they told me...I really thought you guys knew.”

Now, looking at it from a suddenly concerning perspective, he wasn’t even sure Remus or Janus had known.

“Sorry,” Virgil said to the silence, not even sure why anymore. “It wasn’t always that bad. That’s why I asked Logan, I wasn’t sure how you guys...uh, planned on doing it but apparently you didn’t even know you had to so we can--”

And suddenly Patton was gone, stalking through the kitchen doorway, practically leaving behind a visible trail of utter fury as he went, and Logan was following with one last worried glance over his shoulder.

Oh god, they were both mad. He’d managed to upset everyone, ruin everything in one conversation, and he couldn’t even apologize properly because he still didn’t know what he’d done wrong.

He’d just been trying to tell them it was ok, that there was no other way to deal with him, that it really wasn’t that big of a deal. He hated it, sure. It terrified him. He wanted so badly for it to stop but it couldn’t, it…

It couldn’t. Could it?

He felt Roman shift on the couch, probably to hurry and follow the others into the kitchen to get away from the mess on the couch they’d accidentally welcomed into their family.

Before he could stop himself Virgil was reaching forward, grabbing Roman’s sleeve with a weak, trembling hand.

“Please.” And there was absolutely no point in trying to hide the unsteady wobble of his voice. “Will you...I-I just don’t know what I did wrong.”

“Oh, Virgil.”

When Prince moved, there was a split second of blind panic where Virgil thought he was being attacked. But it faded as soon as he registered strong arms around him, pulling him against Roman’s chest, and Virgil immediately burst into tears.

Roman was shushing him gently, holding him tight but somehow not uncomfortably confining, running his fingers through Virgil’s hair as he muttered quiet reassurances.

Virgil could only sob into his chest, overtaken by hiccuping gasps that left him dizzy and weak and unable to stop.

And yet he was distantly aware that through his tears he hadn’t stopped his string of endless apologies, the desperate words falling without his permission.

“You’re alright, darling,” Roman said, impossibly soft. “You’re alright. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I-I ma-made him mad,” he insisted, breath catching on nearly every word as he tried in vain to calm down enough to speak properly. “Patton, I-I...h-he was mad, he’s upset and he’s...he’ll--”

“Patton isn’t angry,” Roman said. “He’s just a little upset. But not at you! You haven’t done anything.”

“But I…” he paused, aware enough to consider the words before he said them, how utterly unfair and selfish they were. But maybe…

“I don’t want you guys to hurt me.”

“We would never,” Roman said, holding tighter without hesitation. “I know you won’t believe this right away, and you’ll need to hear it from the others too, but just listen to me for now, ok?”

Roman pulled back, but only slightly. Virgil could still feel the Prince's heart beneath his own shaking fingers, and the creative side carefully cupped Virgil’s face in his hands.

“Nobody will ever hurt you again, Virgil. Nobody. I know we’ve only recently become friends, but I swear to you, for the rest of your life, you never have to be afraid of that again. Not from me, not from the others. Not from anyone.”

Virgil struggled to breathe, chest aching, lungs screaming for air, but the tears wouldn’t stop flowing. “But they...you have to th-they said--”

“They were lying,” Princey said, with so much venom Virgil had to forcibly remind himself that Roman wasn’t angry with him. “You heard Logan, it doesn’t make sense. No one should...you didn’t deserve that, Virge.”

But...but he’d...all this time he’d just…

“Patton will you please--”

“No, Logan! I can’t I- did you hear him?”

Patton and Logan were still in the next room over, and Virgil could now just make out the two of them standing at the threshold. He forced himself not to whimper at the obvious anger that came from both of them, but didn’t stop himself from clutching at Roman tighter, beyond grateful when Princey did the same.

“I did,” Logan said. “I was standing right there. But Patton--”

“How could they…god, how could they just--?”

“Patton.” Logan hadn’t yelled, not exactly, but it was loud and stern enough to quiet the other’s rant. “I know. I understand that you’re upset- we all are. But right now Virgil thinks you’re upset with him.”

Virgil’s breath hitched in the sudden silence that followed, doing his best to focus instead on Roman’s breathing, feeling the Prince move to rub along Virgil’s back, still hushing and whispering quiet reassurances.

He cringed when he heard a tiny gasp followed quickly by two pairs of footsteps making their way towards the couch, and he wondered just how far Roman would have to go to keep his promise.

“Oh, baby I’m so sorry.” That was Patton’s voice right above him, soft and sad and...and no longer quite so angry. “Honey...can you look at me please?”

Virgil tensed, reluctantly moving his head away from Roman’s chest, face burning as he let the others see his tear stained face, heart clenching when he realized Patton wasn’t much better off.

“Sorry,” Virgil whispered, guided more on frantic instinct than anything else. “Sorry, sorry, I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for.” Patton reached forward, slow and nonthreatening, lacing his fingers with Virgil’s. “I’m sorry. I’m not angry with you, kiddo. Nobody’s gonna hurt you. We would never do that.”

And god, Virgil wanted so badly to believe that, to hold onto every word, every sympathetic gaze, everything that was so clearly real love rather than pity and never let it go.

He wanted to feel safe with them. He wanted it more than anything.

But...but they had all been angry. He’d seen it just moments ago, heard the unmistakable fury in their voices.

And maybe he’d spoken aloud without realizing, or maybe Logan was just exceptionally good at reading him, because suddenly the logical side was crouched beside Patton, carefully meeting Virgil’s watery eyes.

“We were not angry at you,” he said slowly. “We’re only angry at whoever thought it was alright to hurt you. Who made you think you could ever deserve it.”

“But I…” he didn’t know why he was arguing, why he was frantically searching for reasons to destroy something he wanted to desperately. He settled for the only reason he’d ever really been given. “I’m anxiety.”

“You do represent Thomas’s fears, yes,” Logan said. “As well as many other fundamental functions.”

“That doesn’t make you bad, kiddo,” Patton chimed in. “We love you. All of you. We’re all gonna mess up sometimes, and that’s ok. Mistakes are part of being human.”

“Well technically we are not human,” Logan pointed out, earning an exasperated sigh from Roman. “But Patton’s point still stands. Each and every one of us will make mistakes. That is, of course, why we have each other. Not to punish, but to assist each other.”

And that...wow, that sounded good. Impossibly good. God, how did he manage to surround himself with the kindest people in the universe?

“But what if I…” he swallowed, trying to figure out how to phrase his worries. “If I do something wrong, like...like really bad--”

“Then we will discuss it as a group,” Logan said. “And work together to determine what happened and how to fix it without any lasting negative effects. Not just for Thomas, but for all of us.”

“Indeed!” Roman agreed with his usual flair, reaching around to lightly squeeze Patton and Virgil’s intertwined fingers. “And if any of the others attempt to bring you harm again, they’ll have to get through me first!”

“All of us,” Patton said, wiping his eyes with his free hand and flashing Princey a grateful smile. “We won’t let that happen to you again.”

Virgil shrugged, overwhelmed, aware the gesture did nothing to mask the emotion in his eyes. “It’s...it’s really ok, you guys. They aren’t like you, they were just...doing what they thought they had to.”

Logan frowned, averting his gaze. “Unlikely.”

“That doesn’t make it ok,” Patton said before Virgil could question exactly what that meant. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. “And we can see it left you really afraid, kiddo.”

“I-I guess. Yeah.”

“Sometimes talking about traumatic experiences can be the first step to moving past them,” Logan said. “And we will, of course, be willing to listen and help however we can.”

Virgil... didn’t really want to talk about. He still wasn't quite able to wrap his head around the fact that it wasn’t a necessity, never actually had been, a part of him still wholly convinced this was some kind of cruel, awful trick.

But...but Logan was looking at him with such gentle earnestness, Roman and Patton both nodding and smiling in gentle encouragement, those doubts were quickly being pushed to the side. At least for now.

They all looked so eager to help, Virgil couldn’t bring himself to shut them down the way his panicked brain, so used to isolation, was screaming at him to do.

And besides, maybe it could help. Maybe talking would help him come to terms with...whatever it really was that had happened.

But not right now. He wasn't sure he could handle anything else.

“Maybe,” he said after a moment. “Just, uh...not now. I don’t...I mean, i-if that’s ok, I don’t think I’m...ready.”

“Of course, sweetie,” Patton said, not sounding disappointed in the slightest, only understanding and patient. “Whenever you’re ready. You can come to us in your own time.”

“Is there...anything we can do for you now?” Roman asked. “Anything to make you feel better?”

“I guess, uh-” he paused, wondering if it was too much, too selfish a thing to ask. “Maybe just...stay here for a bit? All of us? Only if- if you aren’t busy, obviously, it’s ok if you are, I just thought maybe--”

“I think that is an excellent suggestion, Virgil,” Logan said. “Having some company will do you good.”

Patton practically squealed, squeezing Virgil’s hand before hurrying to his feet, blinding smile on his face. “Ooh! We can make some snacks and bring some blankets over! Be right back!”

Virgil was carefully maneuvered (probably a bit overly careful, like he was glass that could shatter at any moment) so he was now comfortably pressed against Logan’s side, Roman hurrying to follow Patton with promises to return in seconds, departing with a kiss to Virgil’s forehead.

Virgil was almost surprised when Logan’s arm moved to wrap around his shoulders, keeping him close, almost as protective and warm as Roman. He’d have thought Logan would be more averse to physical content.

He’d never been so glad to be mistaken, basking in the warmth like it was a sunlit room.

Virgil took a breath, breathing a bit easier now. “I really am sorry. I probably...really freaked you out, huh?”

“No apologies necessary,” Logan said. “I believe it’s safe to say you were much more...err, freaked out, as you would say.”

Virgil smiled, relaxing into his hold, but there was still something heavy sitting in his chest, nagging at him to voice it aloud.

“I feel like an idiot.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“But I do.” He didn’t move, terrified he’d lose his nerve without the warmth at his side. “I...it was stupid. All of this. I actually thought that...I still don’t really think that this can work. Without...doing all that when I screw up. I want to but it’s...I thought there wasn’t any other way.”

“There is no reason for you to be held to a different standard than anyone else,” Logan said, slow and careful. “We plan only on treating you as an equal. As someone we care very much for.”

“I should have known,” he muttered. “You guys are r-really...really great. I shouldn’t have accused you of that.”

There was a beat of silence that stretched on just a moment too long, and any other time Virgil might have taken that as a perfectly reasonable excuse to begin panicking all over again.

But with Logan’s protective hold still firmly around him, the easy warmth in his chest that lingered from everyone’s kind words...he couldn’t find it in him to be particularly worried over Logan taking a moment to think.

“You did not accuse us of anything,” the logical side said, continuing before Virgil could argue. “You reacted to what you assumed to be normal, no one can fault you for that. You’ve been taught to have a very particular mindset. As...upsetting as it is, your reaction was perfectly logical based on the information you had.”

Logan’s arm moved, just for a moment, to reach around and squeeze Virgil’s hand, just like Patton and Roman had done, just another reminder of newfound safety.

“What we need to do now,” Logan said. “Is work on making sure you never feel that way again.”

Virgil nodded against him, finding that, at least for the moment, his want to believe, to be safe and welcomed, was enough to outweigh the storm of doubt in his racing mind.

“Ok,” he said, glancing up just in time to see Logan’s relieved smile, loosening his hold as Roman and Patton hurried back to the living room. “Thank you.”

As the four of them settled down and rearranged themselves, there was an all too familiar burning in Virgil’s eyes, a tight twisting in his chest. But this time, it wasn’t from panic or fear.

This time, if he cried from this feeling, from being content and accepted, it might not be the worst thing in the world.

#sanders sides #fanfiction #thomas sanders #virgil sanders #logan sanders #patton sanders #roman sanders #ts virgil #ts logan #ts patton #ts roman #polysanders #prinxiety #analogical #moxiety #angst #writing

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hauntedbythefanficsofmypast · 4 years

Text

Roma Marinette pt. 1

Marinette's parents joined a traveling circus a year before Marinette was born. They make all the food that's sold as well as food for their fellow travelers.

Marinette is born in the circus. She is one of three kids. Only one year younger than Dick Grayson, Dickie as she grows up calling him, and five years younger than Johnny Grayson. Dick's nickname for Marinette is Marigold. Marinette takes to the Graysons she and Dick adore each other and all the Graysons love little Mari. With Tom and Sabine's permission they start training her along with Dick. Both kids fast learners with what seems like an ability to completely defy gravity and break its rules.

Dick and Marinette are stuck at the hip learning everything their circus family can teach them. Marinette is the one that decides that they should learn knife throwing and fire spinning. While Dick decides they are going to work out with the strong men and learn how to handle the animals.

While they are still too young to join in on the trapeze they are allowed in the show. Together they wow crowds doing cartwheels, flips, and complicated floor routines together. Once they are 6 they are allowed to fly with the rest of them. Their shows garner more and more attention, everyone wanting to see the two youngest aerialists in the world.

Everything is perfect in their lives, until they go to Gotham for a show. Dick parents begin acting weirdly, hugging Dick more and more, while looking at him in a resigned manner. This causes both to worry a bit but they don't let it show. When Dick sees people messing with the trapeze both of them brush it off. Before the show they meet the young Drake family and take a picture together. Marinette and Dick are on one knee together with Tim sitting on their bent knees.

When the lines snap Marinette and Dick stand on the boards opposite of each other watching in horror as the lines snap. In minutes both are on the ground near the bodies, Dick crying silently holding his mother's bracelet while Marinette holds him tightly crying herself.

Bruce walks up and talks to the two and is slightly surprised to find that Marinette wasn't their daughter. Marinette smiles weakly telling them she was pretty damn close. Bruce comforts Dick before going to talk with the Commissioner and a Social Worker.

Before the end of the night Dick is packing up his stuff and getting ready to leave with the social worker. Bruce never leaves their sides. Marinette stops Dick from leaving and hands him her stuffed tiger named Sikhaya. Dick hugs it tightly before pulling out his elephant Zitka and giving it to her.

Marinette pulls him into a tight hug sniffling into his shoulder.

Mari- Don't you dare forget me Richard Grayson. We'll find each other again someday Dickie. So until then don't you dare forget me.

Dick- I could never forget you Bluejay.

Two months later Marinette and her parents leave the circus and settle down in Paris. It breaks their hearts but after the Grayson's tragedy Tom and Sabine find it the best option.

Dick and Marinette don't see each other for a very long time, but they never forget the other.

Zitka is well loved and taken care of. The stuffed animal has a special place on Marinette's bed even when she is an adult. While Dick takes to putting Sikhaya on a shelf when his brothers come into the mix, not wanting it to be destroyed if they become destructive.

Dick grows up as Bruce's son becoming Robin when he turns nine. At thirteen he joins a team of young superheroes, at fifthteen he leaves behind Robin giving the mantle to his new brother Jason. He also begins dating Barbara. They break up a year later when Dick realizes he is continually comparing Barbara to Marinette. When he becomes seventeen he mourns the loss of his brother and nearly kills the Joker, only stopped by Batman. He takes a year break, taking counseling sessions with a reformed Harley Quinn. During his break he meets Tim Drake once again, he doesn't remember him however. He begins training Tim to find solace in acting as a brother again, he also digs up evidence on why the Drakes are terrible parents. Dick encourages Tim to become Robin, his first night out as Robin is Nightwing's return. When he turns 18 he goes to the police academy, and once he graduates he becomes part time and goes to college for business. He is 20 when Red Hood begins targeting the entire family. Jason was not prepared for how vicious Dick got when he shot Tim. Batman once again stops Dick in his anger, telling him once again that neither of his brothers would want him to kill. Jason uses this time to escape from the family and drops into hiding. He hacks into the Batcave and watches the caves videos and reading reports of what's happened since his death. When Jason finally comes back he is ashamed and is surprised when Dick simply hugs him crying. Things are tense between Bruce and Jason, but a few counseling sessions with Harley and their relationship is slowly rebuilding. Shortly after Damian comes into their lives. Dick is quick to knock Damian down when he attacks Tim. He tells Damian that he doesn't care who his mother is, or that he is Bruce's blood son. He slowly brings Damian into the family. While the boy is still distant and mean to the family they all notice he doesn't mean his insults anymore. When Dick is twenty-two he graduates college with a degree in business. He begins working at Wayne Enterprises as well, he mainly works from home and behind the scenes with Mr. Fox. No one outside the company knows he also works there, the entirety of Gotham believes he is just Officer Grayson.

Marinette grows up in Paris with absent parents. They love her but now that they have their own business they only have time for dinner with Marinette. While she is upset she joins gymnastics and aerial arts classes, quickly rising to the position of top student. She also begins going to regular school during her first day. She is so nervous she keeps tripping. The entire class soon begins to view her as clumsy, something that sticks. Even though Marinette only trips afterwards when someone does it on purpose, they choose to ignore the fact she catches herself quickly. While everyone believes she is just clumsy Marinette no one realizes that she is Paris's national champion in Gymnastics. Marinette is so good that they want her on Paris's Olympic team once she turns 16. When she turns ten she realizes she can sell her designs online. She pulls out all her notebooks pulling out her favorite designs and begins to make them all. Once done she creates a website under the name Marigold. On each outfit she hand stitches Mari in gold thread, for a signature marking. Marinette slowly makes friends outside her classmates, while they are nice they all stand by when Chloe attempts to bully Marinette and she doesn't like that. Especially when she sticks up for a few of them, she remains civil and polite to them although in her eyes she is clearly distant. When she is thirteen she becomes friends with Alya, the two girls slowly growing closer. She also develops a crush on Adrien that Alya blows way out of proportion wanting to help her new bestie. While Marinette likes Alya, Dick still holds the spot of best friend in her heart. Marinette also becomes Ladybug, she struggles at first but her years of training in flying helps her greatly and her aim has not deteriorated since leaving the circus. Marinette begins making less clothes and takes up karate classes as well four days go to gymnastics, two go to aerial arts and one to karate. Her three main instructors make the connection to her being Ladybug after a year, when Ladybug uses an aerial move that only she has ever used in front of them.

Aerial Arts- Madeline Saint Cloud

Gymnastics- Tasha Buchanan

Karate- Abraham Lebanon

Instead of confronting her the three get together and come up with a way to help Marinette. They start by deciding that Chat Noir either needs to get serious or get lost. One month later they all have solid examples of. why Marinette needs to bench him if he doesn't. It's at that time they confront her. Marinette attempts to lie saying that she isn't but stops when Madeline speaks up.

Madeline- My dear bird, you've never liked lying. You've rarely done it, and because of that you are truly terrible at lying

Marinette is dejected and apologizes to Tikki, but the Kwami just smiles telling Marinette that it wasn't the first time a Ladybug's mentor had found out.

Tikki- It's just never been three before!!

Marinette listens to her instructors carefully before telling them that she agrees. She tells them her partner looks through life with rose colored glasses. That while she does find him kind and silly she doesn't have a crush on him. That she doesn't find him as kind, caring, or as funny as Dick. She pauses after saying this, surprised that she hadn't said Adrien. Her instructors watch her as she closes in on herself taking a moment to sort through her thoughts. Once she is done a stray tear falls from her left eye.

Marinette- After all this time my thoughts still drift back to him…Chaton will never measure up to the person I truly love. His insistence and pushing do nothing more than cause stress on our partnership. I will look into having him either replaced or given one last chance.

That night she lays in bed hugging Zitka close to her chest as she stares out her open trap door at the stars. A few minutes go by and Marinette gets out of bed gently setting Zitka down. She walks over pulling the pictures of Adrien down, as well as his schedule tossing them all in the trash. Once done she climbs out onto her rooftop garden Tikki following her and sitting on Marinette's knee once the girl sits down.

Marinette- Adrien...Adrien Im sorry. I took your act of kindness and compared it to the kindness I use to have daily. Instead of seeing you, I saw Dickie. I thought I loved you, but I loved the kindness you showed me, that reminded me so much of him. I don't love you like that Adrien, instead of wanting to be your girlfriend. I just want to be your friend, so from this day on I will try harder to be that.

Two days later Ladybug tells Chat Noir to meet her on the Eiffel Tower that night after patrol. She tells him that she isn't in love with him and that she never will be. She knows she is coming off harsh and she tells him that, then explains that she needs to because after a year he is still acting like this. Chat is clearly saddened, this causes Ladybug to sigh and hug him.

Ladybug- I know it hurts, but you need to come to terms with this Chaton. You are my partner and you're like a brother to me. My heart is already taken, Chaton I have loved him since I was a child. Even if I was to date another right now I would just continue to compare them to my Robin.

Chat agrees to take things more seriously telling her that he still loves her, but he understands. He promises her that he will not let his feelings get in the way anymore. As the months pass the two become closer and closer. When Lila arrives Adrien already knows that she is lying and takes to avoiding her. When he spots Marinette getting put down by Alya and Nino for telling them Lila was lying he is quick to stand up for her. This causes a split among their classmates they don't want to be mean to Adrien, but he is always with Marinette. Lila is constantly telling the class that Marinette is bullying her and they want to do something but Adrien gets in their way. While Adrien and Marinette get closer they both realize one day that their partner in suits and civies is the same person. After them the two are rarely separate from each other. Gabriel finds Marinette very respectable despite Marinette being Roma, which would caused him to turn up his nose at first. He allows Adrien to spend more time with her, giving him permission to attend her gymnastics competitions. She is fifthteen when she becomes the new Guardian. By the time both are sixteen they have been outcast by their class and forced to the back. However they did not allow this to way down on them. Adrien had gained permission to model for Marinette along with their friends Luka and Kagami, and Jagged and Clara, two of Marinette's most famous clientele. Marigold was a very well known designer however no one knew what she looked like. Marinette never stepped out in public so the media didn't know the designer was a high school student. Marinette was also old enough to try for a spot on the Olympic team. She is sent an email the day of her birthday and Tasha laughs at the subtle begging in the email. Marinette is quick to agree and the four friends go out for dinner to celebrate. Only for it to be ruined when Lila shows up with Alya, Rose, and Alix claiming that they stole the table she reserved. Adrien was going to snap until Marinette placed a hand on his arm. She wiped her mouth standing up gracefully. She smiled politely at the four telling them not to worry the table was open now. The four walk away together not acknowledging Lila's glare. Marinette is seventeen when she participates in the Tokyo Olympics Adrien going with both her and Tasha. She uses Kaalki to get her and Adrien back to Paris for Akuma attacks. She loves her entire time in the Olympic Village. Marinette takes the gold for all four events. She is crying as she stands with her teammates four medals around her neck. Returning to Paris had been wonderful, she was greeted by the President and the Mayor and many fans. Adrien teased her relentlessly over the amount of fans she had. Once they returned to school the entire class demanded to know why Marinette never told them. Marinette simply sighs telling them she never kept it a secret. That she'd told them plenty of time she couldn't do something because of training. The class is really upset and they try to get Bustier on their side and the teacher just sighs softly wishing she never agreed with the Principal to teach Lila Rossi. Bustier knew she wasn't the best teacher but that girl destroyed her reputation by turning her class into the worst in the school. They are eighteen when they begin attending college Marinette for fashion and Adrien business. Marinette is nineteen when she and Adrien take down Hawkmoth only to discover Gabriel Agreste underneath. They hand him over to the cops before heading to the Eiffel tower together. Once there Adrien and Marinette de-transform and Adrien breaks down, Marinette pulls him into a tight hug tear of her own falling. Two months later Adrien sold off his father's company and the mansion. Moving into a cosy apartment with Marinette. Adrien takes the last name Dupain-Cheng and the announce it together on their way to the next Olympics when Marinette is twenty-one. She once again takes home all four gold medals, keeping her title for another four years. They graduate college together at twenty-two, and decide its time for the world to meet Marigold. Marinette reveals herself to the world as Marigold, and everyone in the fashion industry is talking about the young women who built her fashion empire before she was even 18. Adrien takes a job in her company head of PR. When they fully introduce themselves they become known as Marinette and Adrien D.C. The world is talking about the D.C. siblings, most of the conversations being around Adrien no longer going by Agreste. Together they travel the world, nothing changing in their lives until they visit Gotham, and Marigold receives an invitation to the Wayne Charity Event.

Marinette's first stop in Gotham is the place where the Graysons fell. Adrien goes with her hugging her gently as she softly cries. The next day she visits their graves alone, saying hello to the cold stone and asking if they remember her. She leaves flowers on the graves and a letter to each of them, including one to Dick.

Marinette- Thank you for all you taught me and encouraged me to learn. I never thought I'd use my flying to save peoples lives when I returned to Paris. Please continue watching over me and Dickie. I'm going to find him, I promise.

She leaves the graves feeling a lighter happy to have visited them once again

When the Charity Event arrived Marinette and Adrien D.C. couldn't wait to leave their mark on Gotham high society. Unknown to both of them that Dick Grayson had become Richard Grayson-Wayne.

@blackmagicforever

@chocolateherringtacofan

@mythogaychic

#maribat #miraculous ladybug #miraculous fandom #miraculous marinette #miraculoustalesofladybugandcatnoir #miraculous au #dinette #batfam dick grayson #dick grayson #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste #lila salt #circus #class salt #batman #batfamily #BatFam

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originalhybridloverfics · 3 years

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I'll Always Remember You

Summary: [AU Canon Divergence - if Serkan had met his daughter in the wake of a true tragedy]

Serkan's world is turned to shambles with devastating news. Mistakes etched in stone. Consumed with regrets he has to find a way to survive and be the father his daughter needs him to be in the wake of her mother's death when on he wants is Eda, smiling back at him.

[This will break your Edser heart. Consider yourself warned.]

A/N: I apologize in advance if this fic makes this cry but I did warn you. It's Serkan and Kiraz heavy with Edser dreams and flashbacks.Also I am no expert on the legal matters or turkey funerals and I am sure I got it wrong on so many levels and for that I apologize once again in advance.

“Serkan Bey!” Layla rushed into his office with an urgent look. The telephone clutched in her hand.

“Not now, Leyla!” Serkan said sharply. “I am in the middle of a meeting.”

“But Serkan, they say it’s urgent and won’t stop calling until they get in touch with you.” Leyla insisted clutching the phone tight in her hands.

Serkan’s annoyance was high. He had been getting calls all morning from an unknown number and he ignored it because it was more than possible it was reporters and he did not want to deal with those vultures today.

He has been having a bad week ever since he woke up in a cold sweat, his heart hurting. He went to the doctor and was told there was nothing wrong with his heart. Furthermore, he couldn’t explain it but there was an empty feeling inside him. An emptiness he never felt before.

He forced a smile for his clients. “I’m sorry for the interruption.”

He held his hand out for the phone and Layla nearly tripped over her feet in her haste to hand him the phone.

“Hello,” he spoke sharply into the phone.

“Am I speaking with Serkan Bolat?” A woman’s voice echoed down the line. Her tone is professional.

“Yes, you are. What is this about?” Serkan asked.

“My name is Ayla Yavus and I am with Child Protective Services. I am calling on the behalf of a young child. Kiraz-”

“I don’t understand.” Serkan cut her off. “Why are you calling me? I have no children.”

“Well, according to Kiraz’s relatives. You do. You are from their understanding her biological father.”

Serkan pushed his chair out abruptly and walked out onto the terrace. Layla followed, closing the door behind him.

“Explain,” Serkan demanded.

“Kiraz is five years old. She was being raised by her mother in Italy unfortunately, the child’s mother was in a fatal car accident a little over a week ago. We had her in our custody for only a few hours before placing her in the temporary custody of her mother’s aunt.:

Serkan’s heart pounded, fear lancing through him. “And her mother’s name?”

“Eda Yildiz.”

Serkan’s phone clattered to the floor as she spoke the one name he would have given anything for her not to have spoken.

His knees gave way beneath him and he caught himself on the ledge, sinking to the ground, he turned pressing his back against it.

“Serkan Bey!” Leyla called out in alarm. “Are you alright?”

“Tell everyone to go home.” his voice was low barely above a whisper.

“Serkan Bey?” Leyla questioned.

Serkan looked up at her and Leyla fell back a step by the devastation written on his face. “I want everyone out of the building. Now!” His voice was loud, like a clap of thunder causing Leyla to jump.

There was something so terrifying about his demeanor that Leyla immediately rushed to clear the building.

Serkan didn’t move, he felt like the world was falling away and not in the good way he remembers when he was with Eda.

He felt like everything around him was dying while he was left to suffer in agony in a world without light and sunshine, without flowers and kindness. Without his star and the beauty that brought him to life.

“Serkan Bey,” Leyla returned, speaking tentatively. “Everyone is gone.”

“I want you to leave too,” he said not looking up.

“Serkan Bey, I don’t feel comfortable leaving you in this state.” Leyla protested, fighting back her fear of his anger.

Serkan looked up at her. “I don’t care what makes you uncomfortable, Leyla. I want to be left alone,”

Leyla didn’t want to leave him. Especially, after witnessing the devastation in his eyes but if she continued to refuse Serkan’s anger would erupt.

“Okay, if you need anything. I am a call away.” Leyla reluctantly grabbed her things and left the building.

Serkan wasn’t certain how long he stayed there, but he felt the wind pick up as the sky began to rumble.

With an effort he pushed himself up, grabbing his phone from the floor, and headed inside.

Mindlessly, he climbed the stairs to his office, and pulling out a bottle of liquor off the shelf he kept for guests, he grabbed a glass, setting it down on his desk.

He moved to his safe, pulling out a box, not bothering to close the safe he moved back to his desk taking a seat behind it. He sat the box down and opened it.

Side by side incased in the fabric were his and Eda’s engagement ring, his platinum band with her name inscribed into it, and sparkling flower engagement ring.

He reached, his chest tightening as his fingers brushed her ring.

Serkan swallowed hard, the phone call haunting him. Eda was gone, leaving behind a child.

Their child. A child he never even knew about.

How was he supposed to handle this? He could barely hold it together after learning that the only woman he ever loved was gone.

How was he supposed to be strong for a child and raise her? What was he supposed to say to her? How would he look at her and see her mother and not break down every fucking time?

He was on a cliff and he felt like he was going to slip off it at any given moment.

His phone rang again and he reached for it blindly, not checking the caller id. “Hello,” his voice was hoarse.

“Mr. Bolat, this is Ayla Yavus. I’m with-” “I know, we spoke earlier.” Serkan cut her off, he pulled the phone away to clear his voice and sound more presentable.

“I thought I give you some time to deal with the news from earlier. I know this is difficult-”

“Difficult? It’s impossible. You have no idea what this feels like.”

“Maybe so but you need to pull yourself together and gather your strength. You have a little girl who is going to depend on you for everything.” Ms. Ayla replied matter-of-factly.

“How is this going to work?” Serkan asked. “Do you bring her to me? Do I just take custody? Do I come to her?”

“As I said during our first phone call, currently, Kiraz is in the custody of her mother’s Aunt, Ayfer Yildiz. While it is believed you are the father of Kiraz we will need to perform a DNA test and a background check to ensure it is safe for the child to be in your care.”

“It’s my child. Of course, she will be in my care,” What the hell did they take him for?

“After all this is taken care of you will come and take your daughter into your custody. Now, if you do not wish to take responsibility you can sign over your rights and custody will be given to Ms. Ayfer.”

“No, I won’t be giving up my parental rights.” Serkan hadn’t even seen a picture of his daughter but she was the last thing tethering him to Eda. There was no way he would let her go.

He knew absolutely nothing about raising a child but he knew he would do anything to protect her and give her a safe home. He would love her as much as he loved her mother.

“Thank you for your time, Serkan Bey. We will be in touch.” the line clicked.

Serkan dropped his phone onto the desk and he reached for the bottle of liquor and filled the glass in front of him.

He made a few calls after downing the glass. Using his contacts to find out if a funeral has taken place and if not where and when. He needed immediate results.

When he ended the call he poured himself another drink and another.

Later he was awakened to the sound of his phone ringing. It was his contact calling to tell him that the Yildiz family was returning to Istanbul.

It was all Serkan needed to know. Ayfer was having Eda brought back to Instanbul to be buried next to her parents.

He didn’t know how he was going to bring himself to attend the funeral but he owed Eda that much and so much more.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Two days later his head pounding and feeling like he had the worst hangover of his life, he was pulling up outside the cemetery, sunglasses over his face, dress in his best black suit.

He stepped out of his car and saw a gathering of people. There was a lot. He saw people from his company. Serkan wasn’t surprised. Nearly everyone who ever met Eda became enamored with her. In his eyes, she had to be the most beloved woman in the world.

He scans the crowd and nearly froze, Melo stood next to Ayfer, a little girl in between them, she had her face, buried in Melo’s side, her shoulders shaking as she cried. His heart pounded painfully in his chest, his eyes bounced around and landed on the closed casket and he froze, ice keeping him still.

Then as he locked eyes with Melo, he was moving.

He turned away. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t be here.

A hand landed on his shoulder.

His eyes snapped up and Engin stood before him. A frown on his face. “Leyla called and Ceren told Piril about today’s services. I’m sorry brother.”

“I can’t do this.” Serkan shook his head.

“You have to,” Engin tightened his grip. “For Eda. You will do this. I know it means little right now but I am here. Right beside you.”

For Eda.

The words echoed in his head and he nodded slowly. This wasn’t about him. It was about Eda and the respect she deserved from him.

He moved forward slowly, seeing more people he knew but couldn’t bring himself to greet them. There were art life employees, Eda’s friends, Efe. Her grandmother and so many more people but he ignored them. He ignored everyone.

He walked up to the casket and placed his hand upon the wood, his mind working as an enemy against him as he recalled with perfect clarity what it was like to touch her skin.

His eyes slid shut and he could picture her so clearly, the light shining behind her, her smile bright, eyes shining, her dark hair falling down her back in long luxurious waves, her skin perfectly tanned.

His knees grew weak, an ache in his chest. He couldn’t breathe, his vision darkened.

“Serkan.” Engin was there wrapping his arm around his shoulder, steadying him. “Breathe, brother. Breathe.”

Serkan shook his head. “I can’t! I cannot. What right do I have to breathe when she isn’t.” He shook Engin off and moved back toward his car. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t watch them put his star in the ground.

“Brother!” Engin was hot on his tail.

Others had noticed his pain but it went unnoticed by Serkan. Babanne was angry that a Bolat had come and was being blocked by Efe. Ayfer wanted to make Serkan leave believing he had no right to be there but her path was blocked by Ceren and Fifi wanted to tear into him but was being stopped by Melo who stood in front of her Eda’s little angel holding tightly to her hand.

“You don’t understand, Engin!” Serkan whirled around. “She was my breath and now she’s gone. I cannot be here. It’s too real and I need it not to be.”

Serkan’s fell back against his car, and his breaths came quickly. He recognized he was on the verge of a panic attack.

He slumped leaning against the vehicle heavily.

“Serkan, breathe,” Engin said and tried to show Serkan by taking a breath and releasing it slowly,

Serkan shook his head.

“Serkan,” Melo’s voice appeared suddenly and he froze, his eyes went past her to the little girl just a foot away, her cheeks wet with tears.

Melo crouched in front of Serkan and took his hand in hers. “Son-in-law. You need to breathe,”

Serkan looked at her blankly. “I don’t want to.”

“I know.” Melo saw the pain in his eyes, he looked so lost. She knew him. She never truly understood why he and Eda couldn’t make it work. But what she knew without a doubt was that Serkan and Eda had never stopped loving each other. “But you have to. Eda would want you to.”

“Eda,” Serkan’s voice trembled on her name. “She’s gone.”

“I know but she loved you. She loved you until her last breath and she would want you to be okay and for that to happen you have to breathe.”

Serkan nodded slowly and took a shallow breath and released it, he did it again and again and again until he started breathing normally just as a soft voice penetrated the air, the voice of the little girl.

“Melo,” the child sounded so heartbroken and lost.

His eyes snapped back to the little girl. “Kiraz?”

Kiraz stepped closer to Melo.

Melo’s lips trembled. “I see social services contacted you,”

Serkan nodded, frozen.

“Are you well enough to meet her?” Melo asked.

“I’m never gonna be ok again but I am well enough.” More so Serkan wanted to look in his daughter’s eyes and see Eda. He needed something solid that connected him to her to hold onto.

Melo nodded and gently took the little girl’s hand and urged her forward, “Come, Kiraz, I want you to meet someone very important. This here is Serkan Bolat, he was a very precious friend of your mother.”

The girl sniffled, taking small steps forward until she stood in front of Serkan. “Are you sad, too?” Kiraz asked. “Mom’s gone and she’s not coming back.” the little girl lifted a hand to her heart. “Does your heart hurt like mine?”

Serkan couldn’t keep the sob in even if he wanted to, his child’s heartbreaking words tearing it from his chest.

“Oh, Serkan,” Melo murmured squeezing his hand.

“Do you want a hug?” Kiraz asked as her shoulders shook. “Mom always said hugs were like bandaids for sadness.”

Serkan couldn’t bring himself to respond as he pressed his hand over his heart that was so broken beyond repair he didn’t know how it was still beating.

Kiraz tentatively approached Serkan and wrapped his arms around his neck.

Serkan was shocked and stilled but then this feeling overcame him and he couldn’t explain it. All he knew was he was connected to this girl and even if he hadn’t know the truth he would have felt it.

He wrapped his hands around the girl softly, and he heard her sniffle as her tears drip onto his neck, her shoulders started to shake. “My heart won’t stop hurting.”

“It will be alright,” he found himself trying to comfort his daughter, stroking her hair and rubbing her back. He didn’t think he was going to be alright again but his child, Eda’s child needed to believe that it would be. She needed someone to be strong for her and hold her when she needed it.

Serkan didn’t think it was possible but the pain in his chest became worst. He wanted Eda and he wanted to protect his little girl from the pain she was feeling.

The world was too cruel and he didn’t understand how life could be so brutal and unforgiving to take Eda away from him and especially away from the little girl in his arms.

“Shh, it’s going to be okay. Your heart hurts now but this will pass. In time you will find it won’t hurt as much.” he said and began whispering soothing words, even as his voice choked.

“How do you know?” She pulled back to look at him with a tear-stained face, and devastated eyes.

Serkan wanted more than anything to be able to answer her but he couldn’t. He said the words to comfort her but they were empty. He was certain the pain ripping through him would never stop.

Serkan looked desperately to Melo for help.

Melo moved closer and ran her hand soothingly through Kiraz’s hair. “Because pain like this doesn’t last forever, we live through it, we survive and it makes us stronger.” Melo smiled weakly, a tear sliding down her cheek. “The most important thing you have to remember, love, is that your mother will never truly be gone.” She placed her hand over her heart. “As long as you keep her in your heart she will always be with you.”

Kiraz’s shoulders started shaking again. a fresh wave of tears overtaking her and she reached for Melo.

Melo took her in her arms and stood. “Son-in-law, I know it’s hards but you should be here.”

Serkan stared at the broken girl in her arms and he nodded, forcing himself back to his feet on unsteady legs, he followed Melo back to the proceedings.

Engin kept close to him, ready to be there for him if need be.

During the proceedings, a small hand slipped into his and he clung tightly to it, he looked down at her and her shoulders were shaking as she cried silently.

He ignored Ayfer’s and Babanne’s glares and lowered himself to the ground, offering her a shoulder to cry on and she took it.

It was then as he watched the woman he loved being buried, holding the child created in his arms that he knew with absolute certainty he wasn’t going anywhere. He would do anything to protect his daughter from any more suffering.

He will never be able to make up for his mistakes with her mother but he could, protect her, raise her, love her. Do right by her.

And truth be told he needed her. He needed something to tie him to Eda.

Her small body leaning into his side was the only thing keeping him grounded.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Melo looked around Kiraz in her arms as she prepared to get in the car and leave. She looked toward Serkan’s car, knowing she needed to talk to him. There was so much that needed to be discussed. Especially regarding Kiraz.

He wasn’t by his car but she saw Engin and Piril, standing next to it.

She looked back to Eda’s fresh grave and her breath hitched. Serkan was there, kneeling in the grass, his head bowed.

“Isn’t mom’s friend going to leave, too?” Kiraz sniffled.

“I don’t think so,” Melo shook her head. “I think he wants to stay awhile with her.”

Kiraz squirmed out of her arms. “I want to stay too. He’s hurting. You’re not supposed to leave someone alone when they’re hurt.”

“This is a different kind of hurt,” Melo reaches to take her hand and usher her in the car but Kiraz was already moving away from her back toward Serkan.

She watched as Kiraz moved in front of her father, her little hands reaching up to wipe his tears before she put her arms around him.

Serkan went rigid but then he was folding forward and she watched as his whole body shook with grief, holding tightly to his daughter.

Melo lifted her hand to her mouth, her hand shaking.

She didn’t know how any of them were supposed to get through this. She was barely holding it together but she had to for Kiraz.

Nothing was ever going to be like before again. It couldn’t.

She only hoped Serkan and Kiraz would make it out on the other side. Together.

A/N: Did you cry? If you did I'm sorry. My muse is evil but I am a slave to her.

#sen cal kapimi #edser #fanfic #eda and serkan #eda yildiz #serkan bolat #serkan x kiraz #kiraz bolat #edserxkiraz fic

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lady-z-writes · 3 years

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Chapter 2 of my Heisenberg x Reader fic is finally out!

Smut below the cut:

The large door slams behind [Y/N], blocking out the cold air. Brushing passed Heisenberg, she tosses the logs down on the fire, urging it to roar back to life.

He’s staring when she glances over her shoulder. When he’s caught, he looks away bashfully, pretends to really be focusing on the pictures on her wall.

“Take your coat off,” [Y/N] demands as she stands.

“What?”

“Your coat. Take it off.”

Heisenberg narrows his eyes, grips at his hammer. “What are you playing at?”

She smirks. “Cute. I don’t plan to undress you, despite what Serena’s pheromones might be convincing you.”

“They have no power over me,” he denies, setting his hammer down.

[Y/N] merely raises an eyebrow at him, extends her hand for his jacket.

The thought of being undressed makes his gut flip for some reason so he busies himself by removing the coat and handing it to her. His hands are shaking so he clenches and unclenches his gloved fist to try to warm up his fingers.

She disappears into another room for a moment before returning with a glass and a whiskey bottle. His coat is placed on a nearby rack, moved closer to the fire to dry it off.

“To warm you up,” she suggests, handing him the whiskey and glass. “I’ll run you a hot bath.”

“N-no, that won’t be necessary,” but his body is chilled through and he’s pulling a chair closer to the fireplace in order to warm up.

[Y/N] leaves once more, ignoring him completely.

“Ignorant bitch.” Opening the bottle, he pours himself some whiskey, takes a sip. “Good booze, though.”

Heisenberg wants to inspect the books on a nearby shelf, but the warmth of the fire is too enticing. He realizes that he’s still feeling a little dazed after the incident with the tree-lady. There’s still a heaviness in his gut, a vague need that he doesn’t want to acknowledge right now – and he’s sure it has everything to do with those pheromones.

[Y/N] returns at the worst moment; right as he’s flashing back to the incident in the snow – his hands tracing over skin…he hasn’t touched someone like that in…-

“Bath’s ready,” [Y/N] announces. “If you are.”

Forearms pressing to his thighs, he leans forward, hoping he can cover himself until it’s safe to stand up.

He tries distracting himself with chatter, but he’s struggling on where to begin. He has so many questions.

“How many Cadou experiments live here?” he decides to start there.

[Y/N] sits on the chair nearest him. “Well…the ones that aren’t failures?”

“Failures?” he repeats.

“I mean, I guess we all kind of are. Miranda’s island of misfit toys – those of us that didn’t have influential families; those that had powers that just didn’t make the cut to exist in the main village.” The conversation is very distracting for his current predicament. “You have…-Lycans, aren’t they?” he nods. “Think of our Wendigo in a similar manner.”

Heisenberg gets it now. “And the rest?”

“Like I said: there’s no ruler, if that’s what you’re insinuating.”

“And Miranda?” he drones.

[Y/N] goes still now. “I think your bath will get cold.”

Heisenberg stands in an instant, uses his free hand to grip at her throat. He crouches.

“You’ll answer me. Now.”

[Y/N] nods against his hand, her gaze drifting from his eyes to his lips. “She’s always monitoring – even when we think she isn’t.”

“Are they devout?” he nods toward the door, asking about the other villagers.

“Not entirely,” [Y/N] chokes out.

“Are you?”

“Are you?” she retorts.

With a huff, Heisenberg lets go of her throat, stands, cusses.

It’s not that he wants a bath, but it surely would warm him up. Plus, they’re at a standstill; one of them has to make a move in order to progress. But if he admits his disdain for Miranda, will she tattle? Can he trust her?

She’s left him alone upstairs so naturally he’s scoping out the place. Nothing fancy: two bedrooms and a bathroom. She’s got crystals strewn about in odd places, candles lit, all the curtains drawn. It’s quaint.

The door doesn’t lock, which is unfortunate. Heisenberg grumbles the entire time he’s undressing, but the steam from the hot water is making him feel better already. It’s…inviting. He’d never admit it aloud.

Feeling foolish, he settles into the steaming tub with a sigh – not realizing how chilled he actually was, how sore he’d been. The small table beside the tub makes a convenient place to put down his whiskey, right beside the soaps. He imagines [Y/N] placed the table in here for a similar reason; that or reading in the tub.

He has plenty on his mind – many more questions he needs to ask [Y/N] but he can’t – not until he knows whose side she’s on.

Despite his best efforts, his mind still drifts. [Y/N] isn’t…unattractive by any means. He’s sure his wandering mind has everything to do with those pheromones from that tree-lady, but the way [Y/N] was looking up at him when he had his hand around her neck…

“Fuck,” he hisses as he looks down through the clear water.

Hard. Again.

Shifting deeper into the tub, he tries to ignore it, enjoy the warmth, heat up…but he can’t shake the need in him.

Agitated, he decides to clean up a bit, surprised she didn’t leave him with flowery-scented soaps.

Fighting instinct, Heisenberg refuses to relax any longer – lest he falls asleep in this tub. His hard cock is still distracting. Well, it’s this or be disjointed all night; let his eyes travel all over her body instead of focusing on the answers he desires.

Her skin felt so soft…it felt so good to touch someone in that way.

His closed fist is moving around his cock before he even realizes he’s doing it; the slight whooshing of the water too loud for his taste. Right now, the thought of [Y/N]’s laughter as she sees him like this – teases him for being needy. It’s downright insulting.

Embarrassing to be masturbating in some stranger’s home; shameful, yet…sort of…erotic?

Thumb gliding over his tip, he arches and bites back a moan. He lets the water glide around him while he exhales through his nostrils.

Close. Too close.

He hears the whistling wind outside, decides to swallow down the remainder of the whiskey before he gets serious with his intention. There’s a nagging feeling that he needs to get this out of his system in order to really focus on what he’s doing here. Damn that temptress.

Heisenberg steps out of the tub, wraps himself in the soft towel [Y/N] left for him, and starts stroking his cock again as the water drains.

Closing his eyes, he lets himself fantasize…images of Serena, of [Y/N], his scarred hand on her soft skin, the way she looked at his half-chub, how she felt pressed against him. How long had it been since he’d let himself fantasize? Longer, still, since he’d touched anyone in a remotely sexual manner.

And there was a reason for that.

Because he couldn’t stop himself.

It’d been so long that he knew it would be the floodgates opening – a total fucking disaster for whatever poor soul gets his attention. He’d start and not want to let go. Heisenberg had shrouded himself away from his animalistic desires for so long, he’s almost nervous to see who he’ll become if the levee broke.

Well, he’s about to find out.

Fist pumping around his cock, he lets himself feel this pleasure. It isn’t long before he’s biting back grunts as he spills into the draining water, frantically chasing that release.

It’s enough to take the edge off, but it also isn’t nearly what he truly desires.

Dressing, he cracks his neck and takes a second to refocus, button up, shove down what he just unburied.

Right.

His goal is to learn this village, know what [Y/N] knew, maybe make an ally – a useful ally, might he add.

If only he could get passed that mouth of hers.

•••

[Y/N] is in the kitchen when he comes down – whiskey bottle a little lighter, clearly, she’s been drinking too. It smells amazing in the house and he realizes she’s mixing a pot of soup.

“I hope you’ll have some…and then I think it’s best if you leave.”

“Leave?” he repeats her. “Oh, no, I’ve got questions and you’ve got answers. I’m not going anywhere, sweetheart.”

The name wasn’t endearment but she still heats up anyway. A Lord calling her this? Unreal.

“I just…I really think it’s best for you,” she ladles soup into a bowl for him, places it on the kitchen table.

“What, you turn into a Lycan at midnight?”

“Nothing like that,” she dismisses.

“Then what?” he puts himself in her personal space, towers over her, likes the stirring in his chest. “I’m not moving until you tell me why.”

She looks contemplative – frustrated.

“It’s because of Mother Miranda, okay?”

He cocks his eyebrow at her. “S’that so?”

“I answered you, can you move?”

He raises his hands, side-steps, turns toward her as she takes a few steps back.

“You and Miranda talk much?”

She’s silent again, places her own bowl on the table. “Eat before it gets cold.”

“Rather powerless to be making these kinds of demands,” he teases.

“And in my presence, so are you.”

The menacing look he gives her makes her freeze. In an instant, she’s pushed up against the wall; his forearm against her neck, body pressing harshly against hers.

His gaze flicks down to her lips as she lets out a shaky – almost erotic – breath.

He doesn’t even say anything, simply presses his thigh between her legs just to hear that sound again. She bites her lip to muffle it, but it’s there, and he can feel a jolt in his abdomen. The excitement that blooms in him is surprising.

“So, I’m still having a reaction from that bitch’s pheromones – what’s your excuse?”

She’s embarrassed, called out, and it looks cute on her. He shifts his thigh just slightly but enough to earn a startled look.

“H-Heisenberg, I’m sorry.”

He hums a, “don’t be” before ducking to kiss her.

She kisses him back, meeting tentatively until his fingers knot in her hair and pull. It’s like he’s awakened something in her too, the way she’s hungry for more. Her hands drape over his shoulders as he removes his forearm from her throat. Hair still damp, he’s hatless and she thinks it’s handsome.

“You should eat,” she finally manages between heated kissing.

“Mmmm, yeah, I should…”

The innuendo makes her heated, pawing at his shirt yet almost trying to push him away.

“You don’t know what you’re doing, sir. It’s Serena’s power still.”

“And how, exactly, do I stop it?”

“This’ll just feed into it more,” she says this, but her eyes are taking in every inch of him that she can see – the crush she’s developed starting to make itself known. “It’ll wear off in time, but…” his fingers trail down her neck, lower until he cups a breast. “You aren’t exactly helping speed up the process.”

“May as well have fun with it, right?”

[Y/N] inhales sharply as his lips meet hers again in a hurried kiss. She doesn’t pull back right away, but lets him linger there before her better judgement kicks in.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she tries to sound demanding, harsh, but her voice waivers.

“Says who?”

“Says Miranda.”

Talk about a boner-killer. Heisenberg takes a step back, watches [Y/N] try to right herself. He narrows his eyes, sits down at the table.

“So, you do talk to her?”

[Y/N] shakes her head, sitting too. “When she sent me away to live here, she told me to stay away from the village – from you all.”

They’re silent during the time it takes them to eat their soup; him trying to focus on her words but still finding his mind drifting to more physical things, and her crossing her legs while barely tensing them just to try and get some stimulation.

She’s flustered, he can see that, but he’s sure it’s from the confession she just made.

“How ‘bout another drink?” he grabs the bottle and [Y/N] jumps up to get him a new glass, following orders.

He’s another half glass in by the time she gets the guts to say, “For the record, I’m not devout.”

At her words, he remains silent and she doesn’t know if that’s a good or bad thing. He could turn her into Miranda for that – clue her in that one of her creations isn’t praying to her every day. She’d wondered about the others – how the Lords took to Miranda’s demands and regulations.

“Really now?” he finally replies.

“Figure I’ve got a target on my back anyway. What’s the point in keeping it from you?”

He quirks a brow at her. “And what’s your plan if I tell her that?”

She shrugs. “I’m sure it won’t make much difference in the long run.”

The hollow look in her eyes is telling.

He leans back, finishes off his drink. “Noted, dollface.”

She deadpans at him, ignoring the nickname. “You’re not gonna scurry off and tell her any of that?”

“Why? Should I?”

“I mean, no.”

“Well, then?” he laughs at the stunned look on her face. “Look, I want the bitch dead more than anyone else. We just gotta play the game for now. And her finding out about those of us that aren’t devoted to her? Not a good game plan.” She wants to respond, but she looks shocked. “Ah, what, surprised?”

“You…want to kill…Miranda?”

“Yeah,” he says it so nonchalant, like it’s nothing.

It’s subtle, but she lifts her glass and clinks it with his in a sort of toast.

So, they’re in agreement then?

#karl heisenberg x oc #karl heisenberg fanfic #karl heisenberg #karl heisenberg x reader #heisenberg x oc #heisenberg x reader

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sam-and-buck · 3 years

Text

At Home With Captain America

Fandom: MCU

Pairing: Sam Wilson/Bucky Barnes

Rating: G

Words: 7.7k

Also on AO3

“What can you tell me about how you got to know the Winter Soldier?”

Wilson chuckles. “The first time I met Buck—Sergeant Barnes—he ripped the steering wheel out of the car I was driving on the freeway. He got on the roof, punched through the windshield, pulled the steering wheel off. Just like that.” He mimes with his hands as he describes it.

This doesn’t sound like an auspicious beginning to me, but Wilson is laughing.

At Home with Captain America

By: Adrien Davis

Published: February 2, 2026, 3:35 PM

To say I’m intimidated by interviewing Captain America in his own home would be an understatement, and I would never have thought to ask if I could do that if he hadn’t personally invited me. Normally, I’d start one of these articles by describing the location, maybe even throw in an anecdote or two about how I got there, but that’s not going to be possible here.

Sam Wilson lives on [REDACTED] in [REDACTED]. It was a windy day.

Here’s what I can tell you: it’s an apartment. A nice one. Two bedroom, two bath.

“Am I allowed to describe the inside of your house?” is one of the first things I say to him, after getting his permission to turn on my recorder.

“Go right ahead,” he laughs, arms crossed over the worn USAF logo on his gray t-shirt. “Just don’t put the street name in there or anything.”

Wilson gives me a moment to poke around. Whoever decorated this place has good taste; it’s no haphazard bachelor pad. There’s an exposed brick wall in the otherwise slate blue living room, several plants (which I assume are fakes—albeit convincing ones—since Wilson is, by his own admission, not home as often as he’d like to be), a sturdy walnut coffee table, and a magnificently squishy-looking red couch.

It’s unmistakably lived in, though. I don’t get the sense that the place has been scrubbed spotless or particularly arranged for my visit. There are two abandoned mugs on coasters sitting on the coffee table, along with several different remote controls, and a stack of half-finished books with dog-eared corners. A pile of mail has been pushed to the side. Next to the door, a wall-mounted coat rack holds several leather jackets in shades of brown and black, and at least as many sweaters, mostly navy blue, charcoal and maroon. The shoe rack underneath houses multiple pairs of black combat boots, worn running shoes, house slippers. And next to that, on the floor, a large, gleaming silver case with red detail that could only contain Wilson’s Falcon wingpack. The legendary shield is propped up against it, ready to go at a moment’s notice.

I’m trying to imagine how it would be to leave the house for him. Got my keys, wings, phone, shield, wallet?

There are pictures on the walls and the mantle above the fireplace, under the television. People who I can only assume are Wilson’s relatives by their similarly gap-toothed smiles. Veterans. Wilson in full air force gear next to a blond man I don’t recognize. Then Captain Steve Rogers, in the 1940s with the Howling Commandos, and in the twenty-first century by himself. Wilson with Rogers, and Natasha Romanoff. One conspicuously empty nail where a large frame would clearly fit.

Scattered among these are several very old, dour black and white photographs of a dark-haired family. The first shows a mother, father and two small children, a boy and girl. The second is the mother and children only, taken some time after, judging by their apparent ages. The third is several years later still; the same children with light eyes and dark hair, but they’re teeangers now, and without parents. They look haunting and out-of-place among the glossy prints of Wilson’s big, happy family in matching 80s colorblocked tracksuits, or Wilson and his sisters in front of a Christmas tree, surrounded by wrapping paper and toys.

There’s also a wood-framed painting that stands out: an idyllic watercolor of a little farmhouse with a green roof and shuttered windows in a field. A small pile of lumber and a white mailbox make up the foreground. The most distinctive feature is the signature at the bottom: S.G.R. I know those initials.

“Captain Rogers painted this?”

“Uh huh,” Wilson nods fondly, hands now in his pockets. “Man of many talents. Maybe every talent. Having a hard time thinking of anything he wasn’t good at.”

I hear the unstated in that. A tough act to follow.

I think, for purposes of journalistic integrity, I should probably insert my bias before we go any further. We had never met before this interview, but I am and have always been enormously supportive of Captain Wilson and the work he’s done, and have written myriad articles and think pieces about him over the past several years. He’s shown himself time and again to be a man of unshakable integrity and endless emotional intelligence, and frankly, I’m more worried about the poor sucker who’s going to have to follow Wilson. Rogers did a lot of great things, but among the best of them was choosing a successor.

I tell him as much and he smiles, looking down at his shoes.

“Yeah, I know that’s how you feel,” he says. “I requested you for this piece, actually, because of that. People are going to accuse me of wanting a softball interview here, and maybe they’re right. For this one, I think that’s what I need.”

I’m not sure what he means by that, but he continues before I can ask.

“We should probably do this in the kitchen.” Wilson indicates behind us with his thumb, after I’ve stood silently in his living room for probably way too long. “That couch is too comfortable. I end up falling asleep every time I sit on it.”

The kitchen is, perhaps, a little cramped. There’s a large, dark marble-topped kitchen island that just fits in the center of the room with four bar stools tucked under it. The cabinets are tall, with glass doors showcasing a massive collection of healthy, but non-perishable food. The shelf nearest us holds several well-used bags of pantry supplies: chickpea flour, arrowroot starch, raw sugar. There’s a pasta shelf above it, but no Kraft Mac in sight; everything is lentil-based, chickpea-based, black bean-based.

“Have a seat,” Wilson says, inclining his head towards one of the barstools. “Can I get you something to drink?” He opens the refrigerator.

“We have…” he pauses. “Water. Sorry, just got back from Ecuador this morning. Sparkling or still?”

I accept a glass of still water from Captain America. He sits down on the stool next to mine.

His house, or what I’ve seen of it, is homey in a way I can’t imagine any of the late Tony Stark’s buildings ever were, and I mention this.

“I lived at the Avengers Tower briefly,” Wilson tells me. “Tony liked everything streamlined, really modern. Kinda sparse for my taste. I needed some real furniture when I got out of there, you know? Like, things that were made by human beings. Stuff with ‘character,’ that’s what Steve would call it.”

“So you decorated this place?”

“I think it’s about fifty-fifty,” Wilson says, indicated with vague hand motion.

This is my in.

This interview, as you may have read on the cover description, is actually intended to be an exposé about the working partnership between Wilson and Sergeant James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes, but I didn’t want to be the one who brought him up first.

All I knew going in is that they’re a package deal in the field, a unit. We’ve all seen the footage.

Also, Barnes lives here too, but evidently, he’s not home.

“What can you tell me about how you got to know the Winter Soldier?”

This doesn’t sound like an auspicious beginning to me, but Wilson is laughing.

“I hope he apologized to you for that,” I tell him, because I’m not exactly sure how else to respond.

“Oh yeah, of course he did, even though he knows I don’t blame him for it. He doesn’t remember it at all,” says Wilson. “There are a lot of gaps, to be honest. Most of it is gaps.”

What Wilson is likely referring to here is the decades-long period in which Barnes was under the complete mental and physical influence of the Nazi splinter group known as HYDRA. If you’re unfamiliar with the history of Sergeant Barnes, I’ll list a couple of great articles for you to read at the end of this one. I assure you, it’s worth your time.

Wilson has without a doubt been Barnes’s most ardent supporter. He’s spoken out many times about not judging Barnes based on the actions he couldn’t control, and has masterfully refocused the national conversation towards Barnes’s invaluable contributions in World War II and in the recent war to bring half the universe’s population back into existence. Wilson has been quoted as saying, “The least extraordinary thing about Sergeant Barnes is his vibranium arm.”*

But perhaps Wilson’s most effective act towards building public confidence in Barnes was his decision to designate him as an almost exclusive mission partner. Even if the general populace has been reluctant to trust the Winter Soldier, it is abundantly clear that Captain America does, absolutely. Barnes is a constant in the footage of Wilson’s exploits. The moment he touches down on the ground after a successful arrest or negotiation, Barnes is right there. He’s been sighted treating Wilson’s minor injuries, tightening straps on the Falcon wingsuit before Wilson takes flight, and he stands quietly behind Wilson during almost all of his many public appearances.

Despite his ubiquitous presence in Wilson’s company, Barnes has remained elusive for comment. He has no social media, and the only public statement he’s made to date was in November of 2023, in support of Rogers’s decision to pass on the legacy of Captain America. Barnes expressed his categorical agreement that Wilson is “the best and only choice for this job,” describing him as both “worthy of the honor,” and “equipped for the burden.”**

“Is it fair to say that Sergeant Barnes almost comes with the shield?” I ask.

Wilson makes a face.

“No, it isn’t,” he shakes his head. “The shield is an accessory; my partner is not. I really don’t like it when people lump him in with the shield. It sort of minimizes how Bucky and I have made a series of conscious choices to be the way we are now. Especially because he’s experienced being fully stripped of his personal autonomy—as a veteran, I can say I’ve had a taste of that, but nothing like what he’s been through—and I think it cheapens his choice to do what he does if we imply that he, as a person, is a package deal with my title, you know?”

The therapist in Wilson is showing. In addition to his decorated military history and service as Captain America, he has a background in psychology, and a Masters degree in Social Work with a focus on Veterans’ mental health issues. He’s worked extensively with the VA as a leader in group therapy.

“So Sergeant Barnes is by your side day in and day out because he wants to be?”

This, Wilson has another unequivocal answer for. “Yes. He wants to be there, and I want him there. And here at home.”

“Tell me a little more about that,” I say. “After the...steering-wheel-stealing incident. Once he was more or less himself. Did you two hit it off right away?”

Wilson laughs again. “Not at all,” he says. “I think there was this resentment, kind of, in the beginning. Like I’m Steve’s best friend and no, I’m Steve’s best friend. Real elementary school stuff. He really got on my nerves; just everything about him annoyed me, and the feeling was mutual. Looking back…”

And here Wilson pauses for a moment. He chews on his bottom lip, and I notice all at once how nervous his body language has become. His fingers are drumming on the table, the line of his shoulders is taut, his leg is bouncing. He clears his throat though, and seems determined to continue.

“Looking back, I can see where it was coming from. It wasn’t clear to me at the time, but now I get it. There was this one time, it was during the fight over the Accords. We barely knew each other at this point. Buck and I, we’re fighting Spider-Man—who neither of us had ever even heard of before, like, that afternoon—and he pins us to the floor of this hangar with that goo he shoots out of his wrist. Really gross. I manage to get Redwing [Wilson’s drone] to fling Spider-Man out the window. So we’re just laying there, me and Bucky, stuck. And he goes ‘you couldn’t have done that before?’ And I just turn to him, and I’m like, ‘I hate you.’”

At this, Wilson really starts cracking up. He relaxes visibly, just a little.

“Did you mean it?”

“I sure thought I did,” he says, still chuckling. “Like, I wasn’t about to take it back.”

He continues: “Anyway, so after Steve, you know, passed on the shield to me, that’s when things really changed. Actually, back up a second. After the whole Accords incident, we ended up sending Bucky to Wakanda for like… to hear him describe it, it’s like we sent him for a two-year spa retreat. They unscrambled his brain as best they could—and really, I think it’s a good thing they couldn’t do any more because I wouldn’t wish some of his memories on my worst enemy—and he spent like months meditating in a hut and milking goats and going to therapy every day. When I met up with him again, I barely would’ve recognized him.”

“So that’s kind of when you guys reconciled? The arguing stopped?”

“Oh, it never stopped,” Wilson says with a grin. “We still argue all the time, about all kinds of things. Just ask Rhodey [Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes, aka War Machine] or Scott [Lang, Ant-Man] or anybody. But the dynamic shifted a little, I think. Bucky’s got… Like I can’t imagine some of the stuff he’s been through, but he’s just kind of learned to roll with it. He is hands down the most resilient person I have ever met. Easily. It was real hard to keep hating him when he was so dead set on getting me to like him, too.”

“Can you walk me through the process by which you two decided to live together?”

“Yeah,” he says, and the nervousness is back. He smooths his hands on his thighs over his jeans. “So, basically, once I got the shield, we’d just barely come back. Like everyone else who got… I—I still don’t know if this is like an okay question to ask people. Do you mind me asking if you were dusted?”

I don’t mind. “Yeah, I was.”

“So you get it,” Wilson says. “Might be the most vulnerable I’d ever felt. I got nothing. Nowhere to go, just the clothes on my back. Then Steve hands me this shield and this enormous legacy—and I look back and there’s Bucky, standing a couple of yards behind me, nodding like, yeah, it should be you. He was the first person who knew, and he’s been right by my side ever since.”

“So you decided to stick together?”

“The original conversation about it was pretty logistical,” Wilson says, rubbing his beard. “There was so much going on, it’s hard to remember exactly what was said, but I think it was along the lines of him offering to fetch the shield for me while I learned how to throw it, and stuff like that. Just easier to do when we’re together 24/7.”

“So rooming together didn’t actually grow out of field partnerships?”

“It was definitely the other way around,” says Wilson. “Basically, I’d get a call from the powers that be that there was something I had to go check out, and it was easier to just walk across the hall than to pick someone else, try to wake them up, and then have to rendez-vous and strategize.”

“I’ll bet,” I say.

Wilson nods. “Easier and faster. Bucky can go from dead asleep to fully geared up in under three minutes. The first few times were like that, with me just knocking on his bedroom door like ‘hey, I need—’ and he comes barreling out covered in knives thirty seconds later like, ‘where are we going?’ We just… clicked. And I’ll be honest; I was really surprised. He’s got my six, I’ve got his, and I never question it. I started asking for him specifically on all my assignments after that, and Fury [Nick Fury, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.] and everyone caught on quick that that’s how it was gonna be. I don’t have to ask anymore.”

“Do you see this continuing long term?” I ask.

Wilson doesn’t hesitate. “Definitely.”

“How would you describe your relationship with Sergeant Barnes now?” I ask. “Clearly you’re partners in the field, and roommates, but…”

Wilson takes a deep breath. His hands are shaking, but he clasps them together in front of him and looks me straight in the eye.

“As of last month,” he says slowly, “Bucky and I are married.”

In the spirit of my interview with Captain America, who stands for honesty and justice and integrity, I think you deserve to know the truth. I want to say that I didn’t drop my recorder, but I did. It clatters to the floor, luckily undamaged.

That startles Wilson into a laugh. For the second it takes me to retrieve my recorder from under my seat, I wonder if he’s kidding.

“Come on,” he says. “Say something. I’m getting nervous.” He’s smiling, but not joking.

“Congratulations,” I blurt out. “I...really?”

“Yeah.” The tension leaves his body in a rush. “We, uh, it’s official.”

I’m struggling for questions at this point. The talking points I was planning on hitting in this interview are all suddenly moot, and I decide to throw out my mental to-do list entirely. I finally settle on, “How long have you two been together?”

“A little over two years,” Wilson answers. “About three months after I took up the shield.”

“How did it happen?”

Wilson grins. “Uh, well. I had sort of been…having feelings about him, you know, for awhile. Actually, it’s more like I had noticed that I was having more-than-friendly feelings in the few weeks leading up to that. I think the main reason we had so much trouble getting along in the beginning is that it took some time to process those feelings as attraction. So in a way, I was interested on some level right from the get go.”

“Even if that person wasn’t...behind the wheel of their own brain, so to speak—” I start, but Wilson interjects.

“I see what you did there.”

“—I think it would take a lot for me to be attracted to someone who had previously tried to kill me.”

“Less than I would’ve expected, that’s for sure,” Wilson says. “But it’s not like I was checking him out while he was busy tearing my wings off my back; I’m talking about once he was mentally present in his body. That was like...two years after the whole steering wheel incident, and I hadn’t seen him at all in the interim. I didn’t even know where he was during that time.”

“So it had at least been awhile since he had tried to kill you?”

“Oh yeah. And plenty of other people tried to kill me in those two years, and they weren’t even sorry about it. You gotta adjust your standards, you know?” he says with a laugh.

“Anyway, if you ask him, he says he’s been all in since the moment he saw me back in Wakanda after his little vacation. Now we’re talking about four years since the steering wheel thing. Me, Steve, Nat and everybody; we landed in Wakanda and Bucky’s there. He and I look at each other over Steve’s shoulder, and like, bam, that was it for him.

“And then there’s five years where neither of us exist. We get back, we fight the monsters, Steve gives me the shield, and while all this is happening, apparently Bucky has come to the conclusion that he’s in love with me. After that, he was just waiting for me to catch up.”

“And he just knew you’d get there? Did you give him any indication that you were interested, or…?”

“I definitely did, but not intentionally,” says Wilson. “He’s very perceptive—like way more than I was giving him credit for—but I think it’s a combination of that and me not being as subtle as I think I am.

“Because, see there’s this invisible line I’ve drawn here—at least that’s how he was thinking about it—and I keep dancing a little closer to that line every day, the line being the no homo line; the point where you can’t take it back. The flirting, I mean. I, of course, think he has no clue and that I’m being slick about it. Actually, lemme ask—how much detail are you looking for here? Like do you want to know the whole story or just—”

“Lay it on me,” I tell him. “Just however you want to tell it.”

“Alright. Where was I? So I’m just there going back and forth on whether or not it’s a good idea to risk this roommate-partner-buddy thing we’ve got going here by trying to make a move that, frankly, I have no clue if he’s gonna be receptive to. You have to remember we’re talking about a guy from the Great Depression here, like that’s the time period he grew up in. I’m no historian, but I think it’s common knowledge that if you were a man who was attracted to men back then, you mostly kept that to yourself. The chances of him bringing up his sexual orientation unprompted are very low. And like, I’m 90% sure I’ve caught him looking before, but that’s never a guarantee, you know?

“So, instead of sitting down and having a mature conversation about my feelings, I keep doing this thing where, for example, say he’s trying something new with his hair, and I’ll say something nice about it. And then I follow up immediately with, ‘Almost makes up for your ugly mug,’ or whatever, which—I mean, he’s such a good-looking guy, like what ugly mug, obviously I don’t mean that. And he’s not stupid, he knows what he looks like. So he picks up on what I’m doing, doesn’t say anything, and lets this go on for months.

“Eventually, there’s one night… We’re on the couch, watching like, I don’t know, Seinfeld or something. Whatever was on. He’s reading a book on my tablet, looking all relaxed and handsome. I can’t have that, so I start egging him on like I usually do, and I guess I got close enough to the line that he just puts the tablet down, turns to me and says, ‘Sam, you know there’s no line, right?’

“And I’m going, okay, what does that mean? Like, is this a conversation I was previously a part of and forgot or...? Where is this ‘line’ thing coming from? And so I ask him—I think I just said, ‘What?’ At that point he looks me right in the eye, and he goes, ‘You can kiss me if you want to.’” So I did, and he was ready for it, like no hesitation. Like I said: waiting for me to catch up.”

This, as you can imagine, is far beyond the level of detail I could have ever imagined I’d get about Captain America’s love life in my wildest dreams. I decide to ask a new question, because I feel like I’d be pushing my luck to delve further when he’s already been so open about this experience.

“Who proposed and when?”

“Ooh,” says Wilson, “I guess technically I did, but I’m gonna go on record saying that one was a group effort.”

“Well, now you’re gonna have to explain that,” I tell him. “What’s a ‘group effort’ proposal look like?”

“Hmm. I backed myself into that one, didn’t I?” he says. “First, I want the record to show that before I called you guys to set up this interview, I specifically asked Bucky if there were any us-related topics or whatever that were off-limits to discuss and he said ‘No,’ and I said, ‘Are you sure?’ and he said ‘Yes, I’m sure,’ and I said, “You better be sure, because whatever I say is gonna be public knowledge after that,” and he said “I know, I get it, Jesus.” Then I dropped it because he sounded like he was getting kinda irritated. If he didn’t want me to tell you any of this stuff, that would’ve been the time to speak up, so here we go:

“We were at… Well, I can’t tell you exactly where we were, but let’s just say we were working. There was nobody else in the room, but we were getting ready to go out in the field; seemed like it was gonna be a pretty...intense situation out there. I had my whole suit on, he was calibrating his arm, and the conversation ended up at living wills. As you can imagine, that’s an important thing to have when you’re in this line of work. So he proceeded to tell me that the last time he’d updated his was never and that his next-of-kin was nobody. And I was like, ‘So what, your grenade launchers are all gonna go to the state? I don’t even get the red one?’ and I’m just giving him a hard time, you know, and he’s like, ‘Sam.’

“And then, my god, he just goes all the way off about how much he loves me and trusts me and I—we don’t usually go there. I mean, we’d been on the same page for a long time as far as, we’ve established that we’re in love, this relationship is going well, but it’s not something that we’d verbalized in any real depth. That’s just a level of like, exposure, vulnerability, I think, that doesn’t come naturally to most people, myself included.

“So he just keeps talking—and I think it’s fair to say he’s not a very talkative guy most of the time—and I’m standing there with my jaw on the floor because he is not holding back, and this is all clearly unrehearsed. Like, this is just how he really feels about me, apparently. By the time he’s finished, I’m crying, he’s crying, it’s a mess. And so I open my mouth, and I have no idea what I’m gonna say to all that, but what comes out is, “Will you marry me?” I wasn’t planning on it, but suddenly I just knew. Best decision I ever made.”

“And you’ve made some very important decisions in your life.”

“That’s right. I know which ones I’m leaving out by saying this was the best, and I stand by it.”

At that moment, as if on cue, the lock clicks, and Sergeant Barnes walks through the front door carrying two very full bags of groceries on his vibranium arm. He tosses a set of car keys into a little dish and locks the door behind him.

“Hey, babe,” Wilson calls out, catching his eye.

“You did it?” Barnes asks.

“Yeah.” Wilson tilts his head up.

Barnes rounds the corner, pecks Wilson on the lips with all the comfort and familiarity of a couple who have done it a thousand times. I hear him murmur, “Proud of you,” under his breath.

Barnes sets the groceries on the counter in front of me as Wilson introduces us.

“Call me Bucky,” says Barnes, reaching out with his right hand to shake mine. There’s a silver band on the fourth finger, and when I look back over at Wilson, he’s slipping his wedding ring out of the pocket of his jeans and putting it back on his left hand.

“Wasn’t sure if I’d be able to go through with all this,” he says, gesturing to me and my notepad. “I took the wedding pictures down in the living room too, before you got here.”

“I knew he could do it,” Barnes tells me. His voice is low, soft, and so quiet, a hint of an old Brooklyn accent underlying his words even now, despite everything he’s been through and everywhere he’s been. He shrugs out of his nondescript hoodie and tosses it on one of the unused stools, grabbing a kettle and putting it on the stove.

“Hibiscus or chamomile?” he asks me, pulling two boxes of tea bags from one of the grocery bags and letting me choose before turning to Wilson. “Bad news, hon. They were out of your whole wheat pita.”

“Again?” says Wilson, with feeling. “Really?”

“They only had the gluten free. I guess I could check the other store tonight, but it’s supposed to rain later, and I kinda don’t feel like going out again,” Barnes says, head buried in the cupboard as he stacks cans. “I was thinking maybe I could just try making ‘em. How does that sound? How hard can it be, right?”

“‘How does homemade pita sound,’ he says,” Wilson repeats, jabbing a thumb towards Barnes. “Can you believe this guy?”

“I honestly can’t.” It’s the truth. My brain refuses to reconcile this man with the supposed playboy I read about in my 11th grade history textbook, nor the internationally feared assassin.

“Is that a yes or no on the experimental homemade pita?” Barnes asks Wilson, still deep in the cupboard. “No promises on quality.”

“That’s a yes, Buck,” says Wilson, then he turns to me. “Don’t listen to him; he’s a great cook.”

The Winter Soldier is a great cook, I write in my notes. And then I realize this is my moment to shine.

“I actually know a good recipe for homemade pita,” I tell them. “It’s whole wheat.” That gets Barnes’s attention.

“You do?” he says, pulling out his phone. “Can you send it to—hmm.” He frowns. “Sam, it’s not showing the thing.”

“What thing?” Wilson asks, taking Barnes’s phone from his hand. “Oh, yeah, that’s cause it’s set to Contacts Only, Buck, you have to switch it to Allow Everyone.”

Wilson looks at me, smiling. “Bucky here hates technology—”

“—I don’t hate technology—”

“Oh yes you do, you won’t even let me get you an iPad—”

“Yeah, for what? What do I need it for? I wouldn’t even use—”

“You wouldn’t use one, huh? How about I stop letting you borrow mine for a couple of weeks, then we’ll see how you feel.” Wilson turns to me, passing Barnes’s phone back to him. “He should be showing up on your AirDrop now.”

Sure enough, I’m able to send the recipe link to Bucky’s iPhone. He thanks me and starts scrolling right through it, argument apparently totally forgotten.

As Barnes continues to read, periodically checking on the kettle; Wilson excuses himself to help put away the rest of the groceries, which are mostly produce.

“I hope you have like, immediate plans for these,” Wilson says, inspecting the avocados as he pulls them out of the paper bag. “They are ripe, man. Tomorrow’s gonna be too late for them.”

“Yeah I do, I was gonna make grilled chicken and avocado sandwiches for dinner,” Barnes replies. “I got tomatoes, swiss cheese—”

“What’s all this about pita then if we’re having sandwiches?” Wilson asks.

“No, the pita is the bread here,” Barnes explains. “You stuff everything in the pocket. I’m gonna have to get started pretty soon; probably gonna double the rising time since it’s cold out.” Wilson hums in apparent approval of this course of action.

I lose Wilson to the refrigerator for several minutes. He stands back up after arranging things in the crisper to his liking.

“Any chance I could get a peek at those wedding pictures?” I ask.

“Oh,” says Wilson. “That okay with you?” He turns to Barnes, who nods, carefully steeping bags of tea in three steaming mugs, and then leads me back to the living room.

Wilson has stashed two silver-framed pictures in a drawer of the coffee table, apparently in anticipation of my visit, and he pulls them out to show to me. Both are taken in front of a familiar-looking farmhouse, which I struggle with for a moment before placing it as the exact one in Captain Rogers’s watercolor painting that’s hanging to my left. Wilson’s suit in the photo is a matte but brilliant shade of cobalt; Barnes wears black.

One is of just the two of them, arms around one another and foreheads together. It’s almost too intimate to look at; I feel as though I’m intruding on something intensely private, even though Wilson is standing right here offering me a glimpse of it.

He puts that one back up onto the mantle.

The next is them in the center of a large group that consists of some people I recognize and others I don’t. Familiar faces include Dr. Bruce Banner [The Hulk], Clint Barton [Hawkeye], and Maria Hill [Deputy Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.]. Also present: King T’Challa of Wakanda and his sister, Princess Shuri. There’s a young girl in a white dress, carrying a flower basket and missing a front tooth, standing in front of [C.E.O. of Stark Industries] Pepper Potts. Next to them is a teenager with floppy brown hair doing an indescribably awkward double thumbs up.

“Who’s that?” I ask, pointing at him.

Wilson snorts. “Some punk. Family friend.”

That picture gets hung on the empty nail next to Captain Rogers’s painting.

Barnes knocks quietly on the doorway behind us. “Tea’s ready.”

An awkward silence settles in with us once we sit back down in the kitchen, Wilson and Barnes next to one another, and me across from them. I flip through my notes, taking a sip from my mug.. My drink is sweeter than I was expecting, because apparently the Winter Soldier has added agave to the hibiscus tea he made me. It’s delicious.

Barnes eventually breaks. “So whatcha go over so far?”

“How we got together, how we got engaged,” Wilson answers him. “In detail too, so if you don’t want that published, you’re gonna have to grovel at the journalist yourself, because you said—”

“Oh my god,” says Barnes, old-school New York sarcasm dripping from every word. “How dare you tell people about the best thing I ever did, huh? Now they’re gonna think I’m like, a sensitive, good guy, and here I’ve been coasting along on this murder cyborg image. What have you done, you dick?”

Wilson rolls his eyes.

“So...you’re okay with it?” I ask them, absolutely ready to scrub the record if he hesitates.

“You kidding me?” says Barnes. “Every other week comes up some new atrocity I committed against my will in like...the 70s, and you think I’m gonna be upset with people knowing that once in a while I say nice shit to someone I love? Write it. Please. Knock yourself out.”

Okay then. Since Barnes seems willing to talk, I ask them if I can throw them a few questions I have for them as a couple. Barnes looks as though he wasn’t anticipating this.

Wilson turns to him. “You wanna be here for this?”

Barnes nods slowly, hesitantly, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

“You’re okay?” Wilson asks. “You decide you’re done at any point and I’ll end it. Or you can go hang out in the other room, your call.”

“I’m good for now,” Barnes decides. “I’ll let you know if that changes.”

“You can ask whatever you want,” Wilson says to me. “I can’t promise we��ll answer everything, but go ahead and shoot.”

“I guess the first question I have is: what’s the hardest thing about navigating your jobs as a couple? What bothers you the most about that?”

Wilson exhales loudly. “I mean, the obvious answer is the danger,” he says. “The nature of what we do is fundamentally unsafe. I think it goes without saying—I’ll still say it—that we’re always aware that one of us might not make it back from a mission, which is...” Wilson trails off for a moment, shaking his head. “You don’t get used to that feeling. The fear.”

“Mm hmm,” Barnes agrees, from behind his mug.

“And,” continues Wilson, “I’m also aware that by doing this interview, I’m putting Bucky in additional danger. I’m not naive enough to think that the people working against us won’t try to use my relationship with him as leverage against me.”

“That makes sense,” I say, because he’s absolutely right, and pretending that public knowledge of his marriage doesn’t put them both in a new kind of danger seems disingenuous. I face Barnes. “Your turn.”

“Racist assholes,” says Barnes immediately.

Wilson smirks and cocks his head in agreement. “Sometimes I think I’ve talked that subject to death, other times it’s like I could never hope to address it enough. Today feels like the first one.”

A diplomatic, but clear answer. Time to move on.

I’m about to ask the next question when he adds: “Another thing that gets under my skin is how it’s like Bucky’s image in the eyes of the general public is totally dependent on me hyping him up all the time. As far as I’m concerned, he’s proven himself a hundred times over, and yet if I’m not on T.V. reminding people of that every day, it’s suddenly like ‘oh, the Winter Soldier, can we ever really trust him?’

“I just… It bothers me. I want us to come to a collective understanding that everything that happened happened to Bucky, not because of him. It kinda circles back into another of the things I’m passionate about, which is mental health care and awareness. I think if we as a society were better about recognizing and addressing mental illness, and particularly Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, I wouldn’t have to keep having this conversation about my husband.”

Barnes’s face is getting pinker and he says nothing, but he’s smiling a little at Wilson, who puts an arm around his shoulders.

“Anyway, we can move on,” says Wilson, his expression going easy again. “Just had to get that out there one more time.”

“Hopefully this one’s a little more pleasant,” I say. “What inspired you to come forward about your relationship? I know you guys—” I gesture between them, ”—have been together for a couple years, so why now?”

“I want to go on a date in public,” says Bucky. “I haven’t been on a date since the 40s.”

“That’s right,” says Wilson. “We’re doing all this so I can take him Denny’s and hold his hand over a $6.99 Super Slam.”

When I finish laughing, Wilson continues. “Part of it’s because we realized it’s gonna get out there whether we like it or not. You already knew when you got here that we lived together, and that’s because that information got leaked to the public last week, so it was always just a matter of time before people found out anyway. I’d rather have some control over that narrative; better you hear it from me and Bucky, how we want to tell it, than in some tabloid.”

He’s right about that: they would undoubtedly have been outed one way or another. Their status as “roommates” was reported by TMZ a week and a half ago, and there was a Buzzfeed piece only yesterday, rife with gifs, entitled 15 Times Captain America and The Winter Soldier Made Us Wish We Were Their Third Roommate, that ended on the note of how Wilson and Barnes are “absolute BFF GOALS.” Wilson continues:

“But I think the biggest reason is that we decided, together, that we actually think it’s good for people to know. I’ve seen firsthand the impact that having a Black Captain America has had on the Black community and on the national topic of race, and we think—we hope—that a Captain America who is a member of the LGBT community will have a similar effect.

“The people who already hate me aren’t going to like me any better or worse for being bisexual, but some bisexual teenager out there is hopefully gonna read this article and feel a little bit better about themselves than they did before. That’s really the impact I want to have here. Got anything to add, Buck?”

“Actually, yeah,” says Barnes, staring at the counter in front of him and fiddling with his wedding ring. “I grew up gay in thirties. The idea of being able to just...tell people, that’s still amazing to me. The fact that I’m sitting here talking about it with a stranger and you’re not screamin’ in my face right now…”

“You do know I’m not straight either, right?” I ask him. I’m not exactly shy about that, it’s the kind of thing most people can tell just by looking at me.

“Even so,” says Barnes, finally looking me in the eye. “You fool around with a fella back in the day—or worse, you make a pass and he turns you down—then he knows about you, and then it’s like, what if he tells someone? Some of the worst shit I ever saw came from people who found out that way. So, other gay guys. Basically you never felt safe.”

“What about Captain Rogers?” I ask. “Did he know?”

“Oh yeah, Steve knew,” says Barnes with a dismissive wave of his hand, like that ought to be obvious. “He wasn’t gonna tell anyone; I got too much dirt on him.“

“Pfft. He’s messing with you,” Wilson interjects, directed at me. “There’s no dirt on Steve anywhere; believe me, I’d know by now if there was.”

“I want you to guess how many times I’ve had to clean up Steve’s puke,” says Barnes in a total deadpan, leaning forward. “Whatever number you think it is, the real answer is higher.

“This again,” says Wilson. “I keep telling you Buck, Steve throwing up on you at Coney Island isn’t the big scandalous story you seem to want it to be.”

“Sam wasn’t there, he didn’t see it,” Barnes insists. “We were with these girls and they just left us standing there by the Cyclone, covered in hot dog chunks. Actually, that part was kind of a relief ‘cause one of ‘em was definitely jonesing for me to kiss her before that, and I really didn’t want to.

“But seriously, after everything we went through together, I knew I could trust Steve with anything. And that made me luckier than most—at least I had one person. Lots of guys had no one.

“Anyway, my reasons for coming out with all this are probably more selfish than Sam’s. You know some of those Nazis—we’re callin’ ‘em something else these days, like ‘alt-right’ or whatever, but I know a Nazi when I see one—they have this crazy idea of what I was like back in the day. They’ve got this fantasy, like a golem of toxic masculinity with my face on it, and I just want to publicly shit on their dreams. Every date I ever went on with a girl was a total sham, and I was scared down to my bones that someone would figure that out. I fight because someone needs to and I’m good at it, but I hate hurting people and I’d much rather be sitting here cuddling on the couch with a man. This man.”

Barnes is grinning big and wide by the time he finishes—a real, genuine smile that brings out the sparkle in his eyes—and suddenly I feel like I’m catching a glimpse of what Wilson must be seeing in him. Wilson himself is laughing.

“I like how you snuck your little buzzword in there, baby,” he says. “Toxic masculinity. That’s one of Bucky’s things he learned about from his Wakandan therapist.

“Obviously super important,” Wilson adds, lest I think he’s making light of something serious.

“I think it’s great that we’re talking about it so openly now, especially with respect to the military.”

Barnes tilts his head in agreement, checking the time on his phone. We’re probably approaching the point at which he wants to get started on that pita bread, and I’m definitely in his way.

“So what’s next for you guys?” I ask.

“Isn’t that always the question?” Wilson asks, taking Barnes’s right hand in his left and resting them, intertwined, on the countertop. “Sometimes it’s aliens. Sometimes not. Who even knows anymore?”

“Hopefully, a whole lot more of this,” says Barnes, looking down at their hands.

Wilson smiles. “Well, that’s a given. That’s always.”

This is when Barnes gets up to pull a stand mixer out of one of the cupboards, and I read that as my cue to take my leave. I end my recording, Wilson thanks me for stopping by, I promise to give him an advance copy of my writing to make sure he’s comfortable with what I said, and I find myself standing back on the sidewalk of [REDACTED] moments later.

I’m not typically in the habit of including as many details about the dinner plans of my article subjects as I have here—and I’m certainly testing the limits of my editor’s patience with the word count—but in the spirit of Wilson’s wishes for what his coming out story will mean to the people of America, I wanted to emphasize how human his marriage is.

Barnes and Wilson have extraordinary jobs that they are undoubtedly uniquely suited for and that most of us will never fully understand, but they are also two people who have been through a lot of hardship and found happiness and peace in one another. And that’s something that most of us do understand: love, the human experience that transcends the divisions we give ourselves.

*From a press conference Wilson gave on May 7, 2025.

**From a statement written by Barnes and issued through a S.H.I.E.L.D. representative on November 1, 2023.

For further reading on Barnes, the author recommends:

1. Greatest Generation X: The Impossible Life of James Buchanan Barnes, by Ariel Guzman, published in 2025.

2. R.Y. Uhlencott’s column “The Wolf of Brooklyn” in the October 2024 issue of Time covers the basic timeline and trajectory of Barnes’s life.

#sambucky #sam wilson #bucky barnes #winterfalcon #mcu #marvel #tfatws #sam(antha) tag #my fanfic tag #fanfic

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cyhyr · 3 years

Text

Summer of Whump Day 25: Isolation

Fandom: Naruto

Rating: G

Pairing: Hatake Kakashi & Umino Iruka, pre-relationship

WC: ~2000

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Notes: Depression. Self-isolation.

A/N: This is sad, but it's also oddly sweet in the end?

Naruto leaves to train with Jiraiya and Iruka is happy for him, he really is. He’s happy that he’s with one of the strongest shinobi of their time, that Jiraiya-sama is going to keep them moving and keep Naruto safe from the Akatsuki. He’s happy that Naruto made time to see him before they left, and that he promised to write as much as Jiraiya deems it to be safe.

Really, he’s happy.

That doesn’t mean that he’s not…

Upset? No, that’s not right.

Within two weeks, Iruka stops going out after work. He packs up his bag and locks up his classroom, and when the other teachers wave him down and ask if he’d like to join them for drinks he says something like, “I appreciate the offer, but I have a lot of grading. Maybe next time?” And then next time comes around and he shakes them off again. After five or six attempts, his co-workers stop asking. Iruka’s not sure if he’s relieved or not.

Anko tries to invite herself over, but Iruka denies her entry, stating that he hasn’t cleaned.

“What? That’s never stopped us hanging out before! C’mon, Ruka, I’ve got beer and bad movies! It’s Friday night!”

But, no, he really hasn’t cleaned in… How long has it been since Naruto left? He closes the door, begging off that he just doesn’t feel up to it tonight. “Maybe next week?”

Anko tries again for the next three weeks. Iruka changes the wards and locks after she breaks in when he denies her the fourth time. She doesn’t try again after that.

And then the Academy goes on a month-long break. He sees Izumo and Kotetsu at the Desk, where he assists four afternoons each week. They talk over him and try to pull him into their conversations, but he does his work and then goes home without exchanging a word with either of them. He gets enough socialization from yelling at the shinobi who think that because he’s… low… means his standards for accepting mission reports have also dropped.

They haven’t. That news gets around quickly enough.

Tsunade-sama asks if he’d like to take on extra shifts or duties. He tells her he doesn’t have the time. It’s not wrong; but also, it’s not time he’s missing, not really. She looks at him oddly, but accepts his answer. Shizune gives him a folder of paperwork to peruse at home, just in case he changes his mind?

(She lied. The “paperwork” is informational pamphlets on empty nest syndrome, depression, and self-isolating. Iruka burns them all. He doesn’t leave himself in a room with just the two of them again.)

He’s only working enough to keep the lights on and put rice in the pantry. The rest of his time is spent curled up on his bed, staring into the abyss of his bedroom. Over the next week he uses up every other bit of food in his home, even the emergency ration bars in his closet. Anything to not have to leave the house unnecessarily and see everyone’s pity.

He’s not…

He’s happy for Naruto.

He’s not even related to Naruto. He can’t have empty nest syndrome because Naruto never lived with him!

Iruka absolutely doesn’t cry himself to sleep. Because he’s happy, damnit.

Iruka stops going to work. He can hardly make himself get out of bed anymore. He uses the toilet and makes a pot of rice once every other day, eating it cold between fresh pots. Tea is too much work, even though a niggling part of him that sounds like Sandaime-sama says that fresh, hot tea would do wonders for his mood. Instead he’s drinking only water from the tap and barely remembering to wash his cup afterwards.

Izumo and Kotetsu come over and knock repetitively on both his front door and his bedroom window. Iruka stays in bed and ignores them. He can’t take their pity anymore.

He wants desperately to be with his friends, but more than that he wants to want to be with them.

There’s laundry all over his bedroom floor, and he’s not sure how that happened because he’s been wearing the same uniform for—days? Weeks? The apartment is a mess, but how because he stays in bed all day except to eat or use the toilet.

His body aches.

He stares at a picture taken of him and Naruto after his back injury had healed. It has a place of honor on his nightstand, next to his perpetually empty rice bowl and glass of room-temperature water.

Maybe… maybe, in the solitude of his own home, he can admit that he’s a little bit sad that Naruto’s gone.

He doesn’t remember falling asleep. He doesn’t remember waking up.

He exists in an odd between-state; the worst part is that he exists.

Every breath hurts. Naruto’s smile lights up his room from his nightstand, but it’s the only beacon he has left.

The knocking starts up again an hour before he’s supposed to report to the Desk. It continues, again, six hours later. Both times, he tunes it out. He’s not ready.

Kakashi clutches the letter in his hand and looks up at the apartment complex. Naruto had been gone just over a month and already sent a letter trying to hide how much he misses everyone. But in his very last post-script, he asked Kakashi to do something…

Please check in on Iruka-sensei for me. He’s really good at hiding how he’s feeling, even if it includes hiding himself away.

And, well, Naruto can’t have known about the tiny crush Kakashi’s been harboring for Iruka since he stood up to him at the chūnin exam nominations almost a year ago. But he can do this for his student.

So he steps up to Iruka’s door and knocks. And instead of the door he knocked on opening, the neighbor’s does.

“What’s all this again—oh, you’re new,” the woman says.

“Ah, yes, I suppose,” Kakashi stammers. “I’ve been off on a mission and just got back. Do you know if he’s home?”

She scoffs. “He doesn’t leave anymore.”

Shit.

“His friends stopped trying to get him to open the door three days ago. Blessed silence, for once.”

“My apologies, for disturbing you,” he says. He places a hand on the door and gently tugs at the wards. They’re strong—stronger than what a chūnin schoolteacher should bother having, but not strong enough that he can’t break through. “I’ll be only a minute longer.”

“See that you are,” the woman shuffles back inside. “It’s been wonderful since Umino stopped bringing the Fox around. No screeching.”

Kakashi wills himself to ignore her and turn back to Iruka’s door. The neighbor’s door clicks shut, and so he pulls up his hitai-ate and looks at the wards with the sharingan. It takes him a careful three minutes of chakra manipulation to undo them, but soon the wards fall and Kakashi turns the handle.

Unlocked.

The apartment is… cluttered? It could use a quick clean-up, definitely. There’s this layer of dust on many of the hard surfaces, and the floors could use a mop. But at first glance, it doesn’t look like some homes he’s stepped into holding depressed people.

A quick look in the kitchen shows much more evidence of Iruka hiding something. Dishes overflow the sink, the stove top has burned grains of rice stuck in places, and an overwhelming bland smell permeates the air. He steps in quickly and checks the fridge, sighing. There’s a few condiment bottles, but other than that there was only a container of rice in the middle shelf.

He’s torturing himself. Kakashi wonders if he’s aware of this.

There are three doors at the end of a short hallway outside of the living room. One, on the right, is a bathroom. The other, the left one, he can tell is the “spare” room Naruto claims is his—there’s a ramen poster pinned to the door, and while he remembers that Iruka is also very fond of ramen, he feels he can say with surety that Iruka wouldn’t decorate with ramen-themed posters.

This leaves the center door at the very end. He knocks twice before opening the door slowly.

Here is where the depression has settled, clearly.

Here is where Iruka is laid out on his side, curled slightly towards his nightstand. His hair is down, streaming across his pillow in clumps. There are clothes all over the floor; Kakashi wonders if any of them are clean. Probably not; he’ll assume not. There are ration bar wrappers near the bedside and empty dishes scattered around.

He’s torn. Should he clean up and then rouse Iruka; or talk to Iruka and then ask if he wants help cleaning up?

Kakashi tries to remember what he was like after losing… but it’s not the same, is it? It’s never the same. Every loss, every kind of loss, hits differently.

He steps over dirty clothes and kicks aside food wrappers. He kneels down beside Iruka’s nightstand and pushes aside a clump of hair that had fallen over his face. Iruka’s eyes are red-rimmed, sunken, and worst of all, cold.

“Naruto sent me,” he starts with, hoping it will get a reaction. It doesn’t. He follows Iruka’s gaze to a picture of the two of them, taken a week or so after Naruto became genin. How had he never noticed that Iruka and Naruto have the same wide smile? Naruto must have picked it up from Iruka.

“He was worried that you would hide away how you’re feeling,” Kakashi continues. “I suppose he was right to worry.”

No response.

“You can’t keep isolating yourself, sensei,” he says. “It’s not healthy.”

An answer, finally, comes softly. “Okay.”

Kakashi narrows his eye. “Okay?”

Iruka shrugs.

“Iruka, do you even know what day it is?”

Iruka shrugs again.

Kakashi carefully reaches out to touch him. Iruka flinches at the contact, but allows it. He pleads, “You need to go outside.”

“People stare,” he mutters. “Don’t want their pity.”

“I’ll keep them from looking at you,” Kakashi says.

“How?”

“I can be fairly intimidating when I want to be.” Kakashi puts his hand on top of Iruka’s. His skin is dry and cracked on his fingertips. “Will you come with me?” he asks.

“Can’t.”

“Why not?”

Iruka blushes. “I... I don’t have anything clean to wear.”

Kakashi smiles. “That’s an easy fix. We’ll make a plan and do it later, after the laundry is done.”

“I don’t have the energy to—”

“I’ll take care of it,” he waves his other hand. “Why don’t you go clean up?”

Iruka squeezes his eyes shut tight and his shoulders shake minutely. “I think my hair’s a loss,” he sniffs. “I’d have to cut it off and I—”

“Iruka, please,” Kakashi interrupts. He leans in and presses his masked lips to the back of Iruka’s hand. “No more excuses. Please, try for me? For Naruto? He’d hate to see you like this. I hate to see you like this. If you need your hair cut, I’ll cut it. If you need fresh clothes, I’ll wash them. If you need groceries, I’ll buy them. I want to help you. Please let me help you.”

Iruka doesn’t open his eyes for a long time, but he also doesn’t pull away. Kakashi waits. And when the nod comes, small and hesitantly, he can’t help but kiss Iruka’s hand again.

“I’m sorry,” Iruka whispers. “I shouldn’t—it’s—I’m being such a burden and I’m sorry.”

“You’re worth it,” Kakashi shakes his head. “Whatever burden you are, I’m willing to carry it if it comes with you.”

Iruka blushes. “That’s… don’t use your Icha Icha lines on me, please.”

“It’s not a line,” Kakashi says. “Come on, you need a shower, a shave, and some real food—not just rice. I’ll start a load of laundry while you’re cleaning up, and order in.”

“What about outside…?”

“We’ll do that tomorrow.”

#summerofwhump #summerofwhump25 #isolation #fanfic #umino iruka #hatake kakashi #kakairu #my writing

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hispipsqueak · 3 years

Text

Just One Time

Asahi x F!Reader - NSFW

TW: Angsty, cheating, scumbag reader, manipulation, pregnancy trapping, unprotected sex, sugar daddy Asahi, age gap (reader in mid twenties tho not specified) Asahi in 50′s, unprotected sex, daddy kink

WC: 2.5K

Summary: Asahi’s in a bad marriage and you are there to liven it up...or are you?

A/N: I woke up today and chose violence I guess. @cozykozume and @hiskittyyywrites read this and yelled at me so if you want to yell, I feel that. This started off as a sugar daddy Asahi fic but....we got this instead. Also I really want to hug Asahi. I apologize in advance.

All characters are 18+

It was only supposed to be one time.

Fuck.

It wasn’t even supposed to be one time.

Asahi wasn’t sure how the hell he ended up like this. You were hired to work on his show, doing makeup for the models. His job in the fashion industry put him around beautiful men and women every day, dressing them and posing them. Hell, he saw them naked and yet you, just you sitting there sipping on the glass of champagne at the after party for yet another successful campaign launch had his stomach in knots.

You smirked into your glass as you saw the older designer not so subtly watching you from across the room. Standing up you walked over to the tall man and placed a hand on his chest.

“Great show Mr. Azumane.” You smiled at him. You could feel him tense under his button up shirt.

“Uh, oh you can just call me Asahi. Y-yeah, you did an excellent job on their makeup as well. Your name is Y/N right?”

You laughed, “Oh it’s so sweet you remembered. Most designers never pay attention to the crew...though you are certainly not like most designers.” With this, you slid your hand down his chest. “You’re so built for a fashion designer too.”

Asahi’s face reddened, and he choked on his drink.

“Uh, I uh, used to play volleyball a lot...and work out and stuff...sort of.” He stammered out and you let out another flirty giggle.

“Clearly. You look amazing. Is there anything you can’t do?”

Asahi was hyper aware of your hand on his chest roaming toward his bicep. Your nails grazed his skin. You gazed into his eyes and winked, before finishing your drink and putting the empty glass on the shelf behind him.

“Well...I guess I’m going to head out. Would you walk me out? I’m a little tipsy.”

The next thing you knew, you and Asahi were in the bathroom, his mouth on your neck. Your dress was tugged down below your chest and his fingers made quick work of your bra, throwing it across the room. He groped your tits, pinching and tugging at your nipples. You moaned out and he clapped his hand over your mouth.

“Shh...we can’t get caught.” His dark eyes stared into yours and yours widened.

“Of course.”

Your eyes fell to the silver band on his left hand and your heart raced. Yes of course sleeping with an older married man was probably going to send you to hell, but fuck...it was hot.

You could see him becoming unsure, so you slid your hands to his belt, undoing it before dropping to your knees. You gazed up at him, doe-eyed and Asahi’s resolve crumbled, as he nodded. Your fingers grazed his boxer-clad member.

“Fuck, you’re so big. Can’t wait to taste you.” You whispered, pressing a kiss against his lower abs.

Asahi groaned out as you pulled out his cock, stroking him. Your other hand cupped his balls and he bit his lip to stifle his moan. Slipping him into your mouth, you swirled your tongue around the tip, keeping your eyes locked on his.

“Fuck that f-feels incredible.” Asahi’s panted out. He placed his hands above your head, nervous to put any pressure on you. You grinned.

“You can touch me. Let me take care of you daddy.”

You took him further down your throat, and his hands fell to your hair as you bobbed up and down his cock. You moaned around him, the vibrations causing him to grip your hair tightly.

“F-fuck Y/N. You feel amazing. You’re so good.” Asahi muttered, his eyes closed. It had been so long, too fucking long since someone had worshipped him like this. Your mouth was divine and your moans caused his whole body to tremble. He could feel your throat clench around his cock, as you took him impossibly deeper and he looked down at you. Your eyes were glassy, your lipstick was smudged and you looked so incredibly lewd as you swallowed around his cock.

“Want to make you feel good. Let me have you.” Asahi grunted, pulling you up and bending you over the sink. You met his eyes in the mirror as he lined himself up with your entrance, before digging around in his slacks.

“Shit, condom. What…” He started. You giggled.

“Don’t worry, I’m on the pill.”

You could see the hesitation in his eyes. You arched your back more and looked up at him.

“Please, daddy?”

Fuck it. Asahi sunk into you and you pressed your hand over your mouth. The stretch burned, and you felt like you were being split in half on his cock. He towered over you as he continued pushing his length into you and finally stilled to a stop.

“You okay?” He asked, seeing your body quivering in the mirror. You grinded your hips slowly as a response, stretching yourself on him. As you moved, the pain subsided until all you felt was pleasure. Seeing you work yourself on his cock had Asahi feral. His hands kneaded your ass and hips, feeling how your body begged for him and craved his touch,

“God, beautiful. You take me so well. You’re so fucking perfect.” He whispered out, slowly pumping himself into you. He looked in the mirror as he fucked you, watched as your lips parted to spill moans that sounded like heaven to his ears. He could see your tits bounce with every thrust and it spurred him on even more. He knew it was wrong, knew he shouldn’t be fucking a girl twenty years younger than him in a bathroom at his party but when you looked up at him in the mirror, your eyeliner running down your cheeks and begged for daddy to fuck you harder, well he could only thrust into you faster and harder.

The sound of slapping skin filled the small room, only broken up by soft pants from both of you in an attempt to keep quiet, though you were failing. You could feel his thrusts becoming sloppy and felt yourself slamming towards your peak as well.

“I’m so close, so close angel.” Asahi mumbled, his hand clutching the counter so tightly you were sure it would break.

“Cum inside me, fill me up. Fuck fuck FUCK!”, you moaned out as your cunt clenched around his cock. His hips stuttered and you felt him shoot his load deep inside your hole. You could feel his cock throbbing as it filled you, and he could feel the fluttering of your pussy as it sucked every drop out of him.

The two of you collapsed in a heap on the counter, and as you cleaned yourself up, you placed a quick kiss on his cheek before sneaking out of the room. Asahi ran some cold water, splashed his face, and tried to bury the memory of this occurrence.

It was just supposed to be one time.

But when he got home to a dark house, he couldn’t help but be consumed by thoughts of you. He quietly slipped into his bedroom, praying his wife wouldn’t suspect a thing. He undressed, slipping into bed.

“Sorry I’m so late, the party ran pretty…”

“Can you just hush? I’m trying to sleep and you have to be so loud.” his wife snapped, turning her back to him.

Asahi mumbled a soft apology, and placed his hand on her shoulder.

“Asahi, seriously I’m not in the fucking mood, can you just go to bed?” She shrugged him off. He turned to stare at the ceiling.

It was just one time...right?

Days passed and he tried to push past the guilt he felt by going out of his way for his wife. He set up a reservation for a fancy dinner at an exclusive restaurant in the city, The owner had a daughter who was apparently a big fan of Asahi’s designs so he was able to pull some strings and get a table.

“Hey honey, I got us reservations for dinner tonight. You can wear that pretty red dress I like.” He smiled at her. She didn’t look up from her phone.

“I hate that dress. Why are we even going out? That place is ridiculously expensive.”

Asahi felt his face get hot.

“W-well okay, what would you like to do tonight?”

Still fiddling with her phone, she shrugged.

“Why do we have to do anything? We aren’t young people. God, you don’t get enough partying with your little fashion stuff?”

Asahi looked down at the floor.

“The place was pretty hard to get in. We really should go.” He stammered out, hoping she would change her mind.

She yawned. “Can’t you just take someone from work or something?”

-----

That was how one time turned to two.

Asahi couldn’t help it. You were so...fun. You hung onto his every word, asking him questions and laughing at his jokes. Your hands were always on him, his thighs, his arms, his chest. You looked at him like he hung the moon.

In turn, he loved spoiling you, lavishing you with high fashion pieces, unreleased from his collection. His guilt for not spending all his time with you led to him making up for it in material goods, which you definitely didn’t mind.

And the sex. God the sex.

You worshipped his cock, begged for him to ruin you. You were adventurous, letting him take control of you, teasing him in public, your fingers grazing his cock through his slacks, shooting him flirty looks as he blushed furiously.

Two times turned into five times, which soon led to a full blown affair. Asahi “worked late” so often, he was sure he’d be caught, but his house was always dark when he came home, his wife in bed asleep.

Yet, his phone had pictures of you, pictures you had taken in his clothes, in the lingerie he bought you that cost more than some people’s entire outfits.

His body still thought about you, the faces you made as you pleaded for his cock. He could imagine the chanting of “daddy” that fell from your lips as he fucked you brainless. Many nights, like tonight, he headed to his shower just to jack off to pictures and videos of your escapades. Your breathy moans filled his ear buds as he gripped the wall, imagining your writhing body underneath him, your warm cunt clamping down on his cock instead of his hand.

He came with a groan, cum splattering on the tile wall. Breathing hard, he turned the hot water on full blast.

Coming down, he watched the water wash his mess down the drain. He hated this feeling, the aftermath of his actions. Knowing his wife was asleep in the next room while he was getting off to his side piece. What kind of man was he? Yes, things had been not so great with his wife recently. But he still loved her...right?

Even if he didn’t want to answer that question and unpack that whole mess, she deserved respect. Not a husband who snuck around behind her back. He had to decide.

His eyes cast themselves down to his wedding band. It felt heavy on his hand.

He had to end things with you.

----

“Y/N, we need to talk.” Asahi’s voice shook, as he sipped his glass of water. The two of you were at his studio, a place he knew his wife would never be at. He hadn’t wanted to be in public when he broke the news to you so he invited you over, though now he was a little nervous to be alone with you.

“Asahi, I feel the same way.” You looked at him, biting your lip.

He breathed out a sigh of relief.

“Thank God. This was fun but I feel terrible and I really need to work things out with my wife…”

Your eyes narrowed.

“What are you talking about?” There was an edge to your voice, something he hadn’t heard coming from you.

Asahi’s dark eyes widened. “U-uh, this affair? We need to end it. Isn’t that what you meant?” His voice stammered as he watched your arms cross over yourself.

“Asahi, I’m pregnant.”

The room started spinning. The overhead lighting became harsh and he felt like he was underwater as those words repeated in his brain.

Pregnant....pregnant...pregnant

“Wh- what?! What about the pill?” He practically yelped, his face heating up.

“It didn’t work I guess. I’m carrying your baby...and you’re trying to leave me?” You asked, your voice rising as you stood up.

“I’m not trying to, I mean, I’m, I…” Asahi fumbled his words.

“You just said you want to work things out with ‘your wife’.” You spat the words out in disgust.

“I didn’t know you were pregnant! Are you...are we…?” He trailed off, looking at your stomach, which obviously had no visible changes and yet had visibly changed everything.

“Are you asking me if I’m keeping our baby?” Your eyes widened and Asahi could feel your anger seeping through the air. He quickly shook his head, desperately trying to diffuse the situation.

“No, no I’m n– I just meant...what should I do?” Asahi’s mouth went dry. His body felt like it was going to explode and he wanted the earth to swallow him, anything to get him out of this situation.

“You’re going to help me raise our child, Asahi. It’s our baby.” Your voice was cold. No longer the carefree, fun person he knew but instead a disconnected stranger, who he was now tied to forever.

Asahi put his head in his hands. He was ruined. His marriage was over. And now he was a father, at the ripe old age of 50 to a 20-something year old’s baby. This couldn’t be happening.

He felt your hands touch his shoulder and he looked up at you. Your eyes glittered with a look he couldn’t identify.

“We have some announcements to make, don’t we daddy?” You smiled at him. He stared into space, before taking your hand and following you out the door.

Your heart soared as you prepared on how to tell his wife that she’d be moving out. Maybe you weren’t pregnant yet, but he didn’t have to know that. It’s not like you wouldn’t be soon enough.

After all, it was never just one time.

#asahi x reader #asahi angst #asahi smut #azumane asahi #hq smut #hq angst #haikyuu smut #haikyuu angst

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