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roseglazedlens · 9 months

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⦑ close wounded ⦒✶.*

pairing(s): chris redfield x b.s.s.a gn!reader synopsis: you suffered a gunshot wound on the field. your captain checks in on you, concern lingering on his face. content: angst, mutual pining, shirtless reader (body parts not mentioned), mentions of medical treatment, blood, gun wounds, death, trauma. « 1.3 k words┇masterlist┇reblogs appreicated <3 »

When you were a wee lad, you wanted to do something cool.

Serve the country despite disapproval from all ends. You didn’t learn the real cost until you join B.S.A.A. The memory of your dead friends stalked you, ostracising you from the peace you desperately desired till this day.

There was no room for grief. No room for emotions to weaken you. Yet why does your heart dance when it was just you and your captain staking out at the rest site? Why do you read the newspaper on your off days, skimming through the ‘R’ names on the obituary, praying his name is not listed?

You’re in no position to worry about others, every day your training was more gruesome than the previous. The fields were worse – not only physically abuse, but the mental torture that paints a vivid image of corpses, died in countless methods too gruesome to explain, making you imagine what yours would look like when you die.

Your weakness was how you ended up right here. Face drained of colour from the loss of blood, lips bled from holding back your screams, wrists gripped so tight your nerves protrude. Your thoughts drifted into a middle point where you’re in tune with your subconscious.

“Hang in there. Worst part’s over.” The medic retrieved the bullet that was submerged in your flesh, proceeded to clean the wound fast. They ran out of anaesthetic long ago. She needed to operate quick, you lost too much blood.

It hurt like hell.

But you’ll live. For better or worse. After everything you had witnessed. For a second, you envied the soldiers next to you who died a quick death, while you are bound by the curse of living. You relieved when the medic started wrapping you with a bandage.

Your ears sharpened at the sound of Chris’s boots hitting the floor on the other side of the curtains of the makeshift operation room, a very distinct pace you recognise everywhere to be your captain.

“Are they okay?” Chris moved the curtain aside and walk in, just to walk out the same way immediately with eyes averted before the medic could respond.

You looked at yourself, the throbbing pain on your belly led you to forget that your shirt was off, as requested by the medic for easier access to your wound. Your cheeks flushed slightly, putting your shirt back on as fast as your wound allowed you. With a long list of injured soldiers, the medic left promptly, finding the next injury to tend.

“Captain. You can come in now.” You uttered.

You watched the mud coated boots lift under the curtains, paused a beat, before entering with apprehension.

“How are you feeling?” Chris straightened up after seeing you clothed. Relieved.

“Better. Still stings though.”

You commented, keeping your sentence short in attempts to not aggravate him further. Chris was already plenty upset when you ran into the open field to save a lost child from the onslaught of bullets.

“You’re lucky you got way with one bullet wound.” Chris scoffed.

“She needs our help.” You affirmed, despite how much you liked Chris, you did what you needed to. “If I don’t make a difference, who will?”

Chris let out a deep groan. His eyebrows furrowed, exhausted. Years of baggage resting underneath those bloodshot hazel eyes. You wondered if he had a moment to rest since you guys retreated into the safehouse hours ago.

“I won’t let my team die. Not under my watch.”

The word held weight in his breath – filled with pain, sorrow, and remorse. Your hands, as if possessed by the Plaga of your own undeniable desire, outstretched an arm to place your hand on his. Chris’s gloves was all scratched up, but you can feel his exposed fingers from the glove, rugged with a sensation of safety.

You can’t find the words to say – to be fair, there was nothing you could say to him at this moment. Chris had been through so much, and you had only seen a fraction of the nightmare he had witnessed.

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I know you can take care of yourself.” Chris nodded, the ghost of a grin loomed over the corner of his lips as he placed a tender hand on the crown of your head, ruffled messily at your hair.

Chris rarely smiled. This is the closest you’ll get. You watched as his irises captured the colours of his surroundings, reflected the speckled dust of debris and shimmer radiantly. Only Chris could make the dirt and blood on a war field looked so spectacular.

You wanted to tell him how beautiful his eyes are, you want them to look at you forever.

And maybe it’ll feel like this world isn’t fucked up for once. That you two can just be two normal people. Maybe then you’d have a chance in love.

You expect Chris to brush it off, nod respectfully as he does to any other soldier, politely excusing himself. Only that he doesn’t. Drooped eyelids accentuating his long, thick lashes, eyes plastered on yours, expression softened.

Was it you… or was it him that stared first? Suddenly, the details are a blur.

Chris’s hand no longer laid on your head, but on your chin, a finger brushed the corner of your lip where the adhesive strip on your cheeks stuck. His blistered thumb thawed the coldness away on your cheek, melting away your barriers.

“God. Be careful. Please.” Chris whispered, almost pleading. You thought you were fooling yourself, Chris’s voice sounded… tender… loving even. “Who will take care of you when I’m gone?”

You mustered the strength to stop, but your body moved on your own. Chris’s words summoned a force so powerful it sent the butterflies straight down your spine, fluttering in your stomach. It ignited something you never thought you will have, almost forbidden and despite your body’s resistance, you found yourself inching closer and closer.

Chris didn’t respond, but his lidded eyes darted around your face, observing every trivial mark on your face, like this was the first time his eyes ever laid on yours.

“May I..?” You nodded promptly.

Chris leaned in before you could finish your second nod, no hesitation in his movements. Chris already knew your answer just from your looks. You wanted it too. You wanted it just as long as he did.

You fluttered your eyes closed.

A gentle warmth spreads from his lips to yours with just a brush, both of his hands cupping your face now. You pulled Chris closer, flushed against his bulletproof vest. It was stained with the blood of enemy and reeked pungently with decay of the undead, but you sensed a faint of warmth through it. A faint of hope, after all that you two had been through together.

It felt just right. You know it.

His chest rising and falling against yours, a breathy groan released from the depths of Chris’s throat as his grip on you tightened like Chris didn’t want to let you go.

Chris slowly parted his lips with yours, leaving you disappointed. Not satiated yet with the taste of him. The feelings come pouring out from inside of you, and the need to be with him transcended your fear.

“I have something to tell you, captain.” You said, a quiet whisper, your gazes inseparable. You wanted to tell him, pour all out all these emotions you can no longer hold together.

“I already know, my love.”

And he sealed your love for each other with a tender kiss, an imprint of much more to come.

thanks for reading! come check out my other works. ––yours truly, rose.

#꒰✒️ rose fics ♡.꒱#chris redfield x reader #chris redfield x you #resident evil x you #resident evil fluff #resident evil fanfiction #chris redfield #resident evil x reader #resident evil #fanfiction #꒰✒️ rose fics sft ♡.꒱

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fanficsforheartandsoul · 4 months

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Happy Ending | Simon "Ghost" Riley x Fem!Reader

Note: This has been ghosting around in my head for some time now because of the song "Wallpaper" by Megan Cromwell. I noticed that whenever I don't have the pressure of a request in the back of my head for a story it's much easier to write. That's why I wrote this rather easily and quickly. I just wanted to post something again lol. So yeah, have some good ol' super dramatic angst. I'll be more active again hopefully.

Fandom: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II (2022)

Warnings: Angst, Heartbreak, Unrequited Love, Mentions of NSFW Stuff, Trauma, Reader has some Issues

Summary: Ghost wants a happy ending but not with you.

Word Count: ~2k

If you want to be tagged in my stories send me a pm with the fandom/character name! Or comment on the fic :)

Masterlist

Call sign: Vigil

"We can't do this anymore."

You had known from the start that sleeping with him was a bad idea.

Generally, people advise you against sleeping with a co-worker. Because it makes things complicated. Even more complicated when you're both in the military.

Because technically you’re not allowed to fuck, your actions could be clouded by emotions, potentially risking not only your but the lives of your fellow operators as well. But that little clause in your contract was printed in that tiny font, and so you decided to ignore it.

It didn’t stop you from getting involved with your lieutenant. You were never a big fan of rules after all. Your rank as a sergeant after so many years of service in the military said enough about that.

But at the start, you truly believed that a physical relationship with him wouldn't cause trouble to you or anyone else.

You thought you had it under control. At least in the beginning.

Yes, you had been attracted to him since your first meeting when you had signed your contract with Taskforce 141. Mysterious men were your thing, and he embodied such a man with his skull mask.

So yeah, you did allow yourself to daydream about him, and have some dirty thoughts every once in a while. It wasn’t like you were the only one.

You were attracted to him and you knew he was attracted to you. It was mutual and actually pretty obvious.

You could feel his searing gaze on you just a few days after you had joined the taskforce; the way his eyes trailed up and down your body. The looks he gave you were charged with want.

But attraction doesn't necessarily lead to a romantic relationship, right?

He was a good-looking man in your opinion; tall, rugged, buff, with muscles and fat in the right places, just the way you liked it.

His face couldn't be considered conveniently attractive yet that made it so much better for you. The arch in his brows, the dark eyebags, the scars on his cheeks, his cheekbones. He was your type. And his rough appearance fuelled the fire in your lower stomach and your imagination.

What was the harm in joining him in the sheets and having a bit of fun? It wasn't like you loved him.

That’s what you had asked yourself.

It was much better to get rid of your pent-up frustration with him instead of a toy or a rare one-night stand when you were off-duty. And damn, was he good in bed.

Rough, fast-paced, keen to try out every possible position, and not shy of pleasing you. You could've expected it. He was a man who wasn't afraid to get down and dirty. Dirt, blood, sweat, and other fluids... It didn't matter.

Short summary: It was pure ecstasy every time.

You two had lots of fun together in lots of different positions and locations, and that was all it was. Just some fun.

No strings attached, as you both declared at the start. Just fuckbuddies.

"I'm not a relationship kind of guy, Y/N" he had told you after you had spent your first time together.

You had snorted because shit, you weren't either. Both of you were too broken and bruised by the baggage of your pasts. Your traumas would probably weigh you both down in the long run. So you were fine with the line he had drawn between you.

It was okay. No emotions, no obligations, no lovey-dovey shit, just a means to an end.

Just a meeting in your room after a mission, a phone call on your days off, then a quick meet-up in a hotel. Just pleasure. Not love.

Until it wasn't just that anymore.

You two had settled into a routine where he would join you in your room late every other night.

After you had pleasured each other enough, he would leave soon after, and somehow - with time, you began to miss the warmth next to you on your bed.

The feeling came slowly creeping, and it took you by surprise.

You never asked him to stay; you didn't dare cross the line. To ask for a bit more affection. But you wished.

That he held you just a bit closer during the act. That he remained next to you just for a few more minutes after it. That he kissed your scars, your lips. That he touched you as if you were something, someone precious to him. Someone important.

Sure, you liked it when he treated you like an unbreakable object when his grip left bruises on your body - in a way, they satisfied your need for more. They marked you as his. But just for once, you wanted to be treasured by him. To feel that you meant something more to him.

You didn't know when your feelings for him had turned into a fluttering mess in your chest. He wasn't just a means to an end anymore. You valued him. Not just as a soldier who had your back. Not just as a friend. But as a man, a partner. A man you wanted close to you. For the rest of your life. No matter how long that would be.

Because Simon had done something no one else had been able to do before.

He made you wish. For a future. A future with him.

He made you wish to be better, to be a little less broken. To pick up the pieces that had once made you whole. You wanted to be better. A better version of yourself. For him. To have a chance to be truly happy. To get that fairy tale life others dream about – you once had dreamed about when you were younger, your shoulders lighter.

His attention made you excel, it made you stronger, faster, harder. You were just better when he was around. A better soldier, a better woman, a happier person.

And you thought, no, believed that he understood that. That he helped you to be better. That you needed him. Not just in your bed, but by your side. As your other half.

You both were people of few words, so you thought that through your actions, your eagerness during missions, and your gentle touches during your time together, you conveyed all these feelings. That he got it, saw how you felt about him.

But you never spelled it out. Never said; I've come to love you.

Just let these feelings simmer under your heart, hoping that one day he'd get what you felt for him.

"We can't do this anymore, Vigil."

You'd love to say that it came as a surprise when he, one day, called you to meet up and told you these words.

But you knew subconsciously. Felt it. Long before he actually said the words, they were coming.

His calls had been less frequent, his visits rarer, and to your confusion, his eyes began to look different whenever you saw him. They looked clearer, and happier.

Only after you saw him at the party after your successful operation in Chicago did you understand. He did look happier.

But not because of you.

And only then did you realize that your brain had played a trick on you. You were so consumed by your feelings for him that you didn't realize how big the rift between you two had gotten.

He laughed.

Simon Riley laughed heartily for the first time since you knew him. Not just one of his usual chuckles that he reserved for your or Soap's jokes.

No, true deep laughter that came from deep within his chest.

And all because of a joke that the woman next to him had told him.

You didn't know her; you had never even seen her face before. She was a complete stranger to you, and yet Ghost rested a hand on her hip as if she belonged to him. As if she was his fucking girlfriend.

Soap looked at you, then who you were staring at.

"That's Ghost's new lass, I heard. Can't believe that guy found someone before us, eh? Surprised me too, I tell ya."

His words were like poison, and you tasted bile in your mouth. So much made sense to you now.

"Why not? I thought you liked it?! I enjoy it every time."

"That's not relevant anymore. I'm just telling you, Y/N. This thing is done. I won't come here anymore."

"But-"

"Let's just forget this happened, alright?"

"...."

"Okay."

You hadn't even been able to argue. Or tell him your feelings.

After all, you were the one who said you could never be in a relationship with him or fall in love with him. It was pathetic to get back on your words and admit it in front of him.

So you just shut your mouth and accepted his words for the time being.

A tiny voice in your head whispered that you could tell him your feelings later when he calmed down a bit. When he started to miss you.

You knew the whole situation with Hassan was getting to him and the others, so you cut him some slack. You thought he would change his mind. Believed it. Blindly.

But now, here you were. Looking like a fool. Feeling like one. Being one.

And the thing was, you couldn't even say anything to him.

He was the one who made you happy. Who made you want to be better. Less traumatized, more whole.

You could see in his eyes that she was that to him. Not you.

So, what right did you have to intervene?

You wanted him to be happy, after all.

How could you deny him that? You both had gone through so much.

She seemed to be the complete opposite of you. She basically glowed in the room, her smile radiant, and her aura was light as if the world had blessed her to never know hardship.

Her frame was soft, and her skin unblemished, untainted by the cruelty and darkness that existed in the world.

You couldn't help but compare yourself to her.

Your cracks, the marks of your trauma, made themselves known through various scars on your body. Your hands were rough, covered with old blisters; so unlike hers, and you were all jagged and sharp edges, while she looked so cute and bubbly.

You could see her appeal, and it hurt to think that way, but in another world, in different circumstances, you could see her as your potential friend. She just had the appearance and aura of someone who people gravitated toward. A soothing soul.

In that sense, you could understand Ghost. Why he searched her side. But you fucking hated it.

As lovely as she seemed, right now in this bar; you couldn't help but despise her.

She took him from you.

A voice whispered in your head. The ugliness of that thought made you want to throw up, because didn't it prove that you weren't completely right in the head?

Ghost wasn't your property. He had his own free will, and just because she appeared didn't mean she stole him away.

After all, he never belonged to you anyway.

This was probably why Ghost didn't chose you, you thought to yourself. Your ugly jealousy and possessiveness were rearing their heads.

I wouldn't choose myself either.

You felt like crying, but you couldn't even do that.

You hadn't cried for years now, and although the pain in your heart was worse than any of the bullet wounds you had received during your career, not a single tear welled up in your eyes.

You were truly broken. And the man who could fix you wasn't at your side. He would never be.

You looked at the two of them once more. An ugly thing clawed at your chest, begging to get out. Your vision turned red. You clenched your fists.

You had to get out of here. Now.

"You okay, Vigil?" Soap asked next to you, noticing that you seemed a bit off.

"Yeah. I just- think I didn't turn my stove off. I got to go."

You mumbled before you turned around and hurried to the exit of the bar. Soap tried to protest, but you were out the door before he could even finish his sentence:

"But you just arrived- Damn... off she goes."

He sighed and looked towards that woman and Ghost. They made eye contact. As if Simon was already looking at him. Or you.

#call of duty #call of duty modern warfare ii #modern warfare II #modern warfare 2022 #simon riley #simon riley x fem reader #x fem reader #ghost x fem reader #ghost x female reader #ghost #soap #john soap mctavish #simon ghost riley #soldier reader #141!reader #special forces reader #fem reader #fanficsforheartandsouls

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fantastic-nonsense · 2 years

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absolutely obsessed with how Kanej is a friends-to-lovers relationship where their broken pieces fit together and complement each other in a way that is nearly impossible to achieve with anyone else in their lives

We get several fun little tidbits of Kaz and Inej's pre-canon relationship sprinkled throughout the books, and it's honestly fascinating how Bardugo did the best she could to scream "they're best friends!" without outright saying so.

We know that Kaz gave Inej her first knife and personally trained her ("Kaz taught her to crack a safe, pick a pocket, wield a knife"). We know that Inej regularly spent time in Kaz's room doing everything from giving reports while watching him casually undress (lol) to lounging on his windowsill while he worked. We know they stole the DeKappel together. The literal second chapter of SoC mentions that they "spent weeks" playing Buzzfeed Unsolved about the Exchange murder case. And we get these delightful throwaway lines too:

In nearly two years of battling side by side with Kaz, of late-night scheming, impossible heists, clandestine errands, and harried meals of fried potatoes and hutspot gobbled down as they rushed from one place to another, this was the first time she had touched him skin to skin, without the barrier of gloves or coat or shirtsleeve. -Ch. 28, SoC

Kaz had rescued her from that hopelessness, and their lives had been a series of rescues ever since, a string of debts that they never tallied as they saved each other again and again. -Ch. 4, CK

But I’m here now, he thought wildly. He had carried her, fought beside her, spent whole nights next to her, both of them on their bellies, peering through a long glass, watching some warehouse or merch’s mansion. This was nothing like that. -Ch. 26, CK

Like...they're besties, y'all. Inej became the one constant in Kaz's life and she gets him on a level that no one else does. Meanwhile, Kaz manages to always see Inej even though she's crafted her entire persona on being invisible. Jesper may be Kaz's brother and Nina may be Inej's sister but Kaz and Inej are each other's best friend, and the bond of all those shared experiences are a big part why they fall in love with each other.

That bond also deeply informs how they interact with each other throughout the books. Kaz and Inej are in some ways custom-built for yearning and pining and loving from a distance because of their pasts and mutual trauma, and there aren't very many other people who could understand how that trauma affects them and what healing looks like. The reciprocity of that understanding and the allowances they give each other because of it is a genuine rarity that I don't think many people appreciate, especially in a relationship weighed down by that much mutual baggage.

Kaz can't touch skin and Inej often walks on metaphorical eggshells due to the fear of her skin being touched. And while their trauma comes from dramatically different places, they both react to it similarly: by becoming "untouchable," keeping most people at a distance, and laser-focusing on a personal goal. Even their PTSD manifests in similar ways: Kaz physically and psychologically feels like he's drowning when he's triggered, but Inej dissociates and retreats inside herself, drowning within her own mind.

But as traumatized as they both are, as angry and stubborn and mean as they can both be with each other, they're each other's safe harbor in a very lonely and dangerous world that dealt them both a shitty hand; relying on and trusting each other helped keep them afloat and alive. So they're willing to let each other go even if it kills them inside, because they have too much personal respect for each other and themselves to do anything different...but they're willing to fight for each other too, and that's what makes them click in a way that would be insanely difficult to accomplish with any other person.

Kaz and Inej don't really want to become more whole for each other, though that's part of it, but they absolutely want to become more whole because of each other. They want each other, physically and emotionally. They can't necessarily have each other at first because of their mutual trauma, but they're also both willing to a) fight for the chance to be together and b) give each other the space, time, and freedom to heal on their own terms, because they both fundamentally respect the other as a person and friend...which is the solid foundation that enables them to eventually come together and succeed as a couple.

Anyway nothing says "this ship is for yearning" like the boy who can't stand physical touch and the girl who escaped from sex slavery, both of whom are deeply traumatized by their pasts but see each other as bringing safety and magic into their world. We simply have no choice but to stan.

#AND HERE'S PART 2 OF THE MASSIVE META I HAD TO SPLIT UP #in which I wax poetic over Kanej AGAIN #(also the more I think about the tiny breadcrumbs bardugo left for us the more obsessed I become over pre-canon!Kanej)#six of crows #crooked kingdom #long post #soc meta #kanej #kaz brekker #inej ghafa #otp: on the seas and in the city

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butchxdaddy · 3 months

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It seems like you're thinking of a partner as more of a therapist than a partner...

noo big difference, but there are similarities. i’ve seen a lot of avoidants have this response, where they are comfortable dumping trauma, work difficulties, family issues, past relationship issues, mental health issues, etc on partners but then when their partner has issues and goes through mental health crises, they leave them.

in therapy, there isn’t a mutual space. one person pays the other to listen, advise, validate, etc. the dynamic is inherently manipulative- you’re seeing the best part of someone. it is their job (and an important one). but there’s a reason couples therapists give out homework… the actual work is between the two partners

partners should also include this- but on a mutual level. there is space for both experiences. partnership should be safe spaces where forgiveness, healing, acceptance, and accountability exist. you don’t just dump emotional baggage on your partner then leave them the way you do a therapist. it’s a mutual experience, where you both share and work through emotional, mental, spiritual experiences together. sharing vulnerabilities and being there for one another during tough times is literally a major component in relationships.

even just in friendship, this should exist. whenever a friend of mine hurts me, i don’t point fingers that they’re a bad person. i reflect on why that happened, how they grew up, what i know about their past, what would have informed that response, why they maybe haven’t been feeling safe, etc. i communicate immediately (not wait a month to bring it up) and hold them accountable to hurting me while also extending forgiveness and empathy, thinking of the little kid that’s hurting inside them. if they’re willing to accept responsibility for their actions and can reflect on what’s going on, willing to work to do better- amazing! an opportunity for trust and growth :) if they fire back, blame shift, shut down, withdraw, etc- then that’s someone who isn’t emotionally available for growth.

therapy can help build, strengthen, and repair relationships- but only if those actions are also happening in the relationship. a partnership without active forgiveness, mutual healing, a desire to work to understand the other, & to become better partners for each other, isn’t partnership.

the perfect partner doesn’t exist. in reality, people fuck up. they hurt each other. those that love you will recognize this, take responsibility for it, and express a desire to do and be better. those that love you will stay. those that give up, that leave, that don’t own up to their mistakes, that can’t extend forgiveness, that don’t care to understand why their partner functions a certain way, that don’t care to heal and be better… those people aren’t built for real, authentic partnership.

so, to conclude.

there is a stark difference between leaning on your partner for support & having your relationship needs met by them vs having them be your therapist. unfortunately, many ppl who run more disorganized/avoidant can shut down when their partners need to rely on them and start showing their own wounds. then they will say “you didn’t want a partner, you wanted a therapist” … in reality, they wanted a partner who genuinely meant for better & for worse, who loved them enough to stay when it got hard & support healing- not be responsible for it. those people who shut down when their partner has emotional baggage, wounds, and flaws need to reevaluate what relationship means to them, what it looks like, and open up communication instead of withholding, ruminating, and withdrawing from their partner

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daydreamingfuel · 8 months

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Freak Like Me

Chapter 6

Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader

AO3 // previous // next

Y/N has just moved to Hawkins from England with her parents and is starting at the high school in the final term of her senior year. Eddie immediately takes a liking to her and they become fast friends, deciding to take her under his wing and falling to her charms. This is Hawkins however and things are never quite as they seem...

WHOLE FIC TAGS & WARNINGS: gratuitous use of Y/N (I'm not sorry), friends to lovers, slow burn, mutual pining, eventual smut, semi-fix-it-fic, angst, injury, canon dialogue and events used, canon graphic violence, no main character death :)

Chapter Tags & Warnings: Y/N's backstory - illusions to SA and drugging but no graphic detail, trauma flashbacks, Eddie and reader have a heart-to-heart-bonding moment, Patrick gets vecna'd in the lake, mass amounts of swearing and sexual innuendo and tension, two idiots in love in hiding, insecurity, anxiety, reader has baggage, Eddie is protective.

Chapter Word Count - 6.1k

A/N - I had writer's block for a while, so another 2-month gap in uploads, sorry. apologies in advance, this chapter is incredibly dark, and you may need tissues. I had my best friend proofread the trauma flashbacks to ensure that it wasn't too much to read emotionally but still, Heavy Trigger Warning for mentions of SA.

“Wait!” Eddie stopped her before she could launch into her story, “Let’s get you off the floor first.”

Slowly and shakily rising from the floor, Eddie managed to get a still out-of-it Y/N back to the boat, carefully sitting her down. Frantic eyes checked over her constantly, looking for any signs of another attack. Her red raw bottom lip was pulled between her teeth, hands fidgeting in her lap which was bouncing rhythmically. “Eddie, what I’m about to tell you…it’s really dark, I just…I don’t want you to think any less of me…”

“Sweetheart, there are very few things on this earth that could make me think less of you, I can handle it.” His voice had a slightly playful lilt to it, wrapping her hands in his ring-clad ones.

Y/N took a deep breath, eyes fluttering as she tried to keep her thoughts in check, “Before we moved to Hawkins - before my dad got this new job - there was an incident at my old school.” Eddie nodded as she paused, silently encouraging her to continue, letting her fiddle with his rings as she continued to speak, “I didn’t use to look or act like this…I was a preppie. I thought I had to be to survive, and I promised myself that when I started at Hawkins High, I would be myself, completely, and I’m so happy that I did because I found you and I’ve never felt more comfortable in my own skin but…what happened, it still haunts me.”

Y/N’s perfectly manicured nails tapped against the desk absentmindedly to the song in their head as the teacher at the front of the classroom talked the classroom through the imagery in one of Shakespeare’s sonnets. A note slid itself onto the wooden surface from beside her. She smirked to herself before even opening the note, knowing that it came from her boyfriend sitting beside her.

‘You still up for Saturday? Haven’t stopped thinking about what I’m gonna do to you, baby.’

Theo stifled a laugh as Y/N blanched at the words before quickly scribbling a response and passing the note back, readjusting her posture as he read the note.

‘Of course, I’m up for Saturday, but you can keep those thoughts in your head.’

‘Come on! It’ll be a laugh, I’ll be gentle.’

‘You know I want to, I really want to, but I do not want my first time to be at a party where anyone could overhear us or walk in.’

‘But that’s part of the fun baby, come on I wanna make you scream for the whole house to hear.’

‘Drop it or I’m not coming at all. You can have me all to yourself another night.’

‘Alright, jeez, loosen up a bit baby, I was just teasing.’

By Saturday night, 3 days later, unbeknownst to Y/N, Theo had told his friends all about his plans for the evening whilst not bringing it up again to her at all, acting the perfect gentleman. The party hosted by a member of the school’s popular boys, a friend of Theo’s, was in full swing by the time Y/N arrived, flouncy baby pink dress skirting her thighs sweetly. She mingled and danced and laughed, Theo’s arm slung around her shoulder, hand slowly getting closer and closer to her chest with every hour.

As the night went on, Y/N started to feel time moving slower and slower, despite having not drunk too much of anything and mostly sticking to non-alcoholic beverages. Most nights like this, she chose to be able to remember what had happened and hated the headaches that followed when she didn’t.

“Theo, can you take me somewhere to lie down? I feel dizzy…” Y/N slurred slightly, leaning on him, and feeling the rumble of his laugh in his chest. Not hearing his response, she let out a small yelp of surprise as she was suddenly guided to an upstairs bedroom, “Thank you…you’re so good to me…”

Y/N took a shaky breath before letting out a bitter laugh, “‘You’re so good to me’. What bullshit…”

Eddie was silently fuming in his seat, hating every word that spilt out of Y/N’s mouth with eyes like thunder, as she continued the story.

Waking up the next morning, Y/N blinked harshly and groaned as the sunlight hit her face. The more awake she becomes the more horrifically aware of her surroundings and exposed state of being she becomes. Memories of the previous night came flooding back to her in a daze of blurry images and incoherent phrases, making her sick to her stomach. Theo waltzed into the room wearing only sweats and a smug smirk, eyeing the powdery pastel pink of her dress discarded in a corner along with her underwear and shoes.

“Morning baby, sleep well?” The implication dripping from his voice twisted at her insides, despite the seemingly sweet words. All she could do was sit there, clutching the duvet to her exposed chest, staring at him in complete and utter betrayal and hatred.

Breathing growing heavier with rage, Y/N managed to control her emotions enough to speak somewhat calmly, “What happened last night, Theo?”

The boy in question sauntered over to the bed and perched next to Y/N on the bed, making her shuffle away in disgust. “Don’t be like that. You were practically begging me to get you in bed last night,” Everything about his being made her skin crawl, instantly feeling an intense need to scrub every trace of him off her.

“No…I wanted to sleep, I was dizzy…I don’t even know why, I barely drank,” Y/N urged, the door looking miles away from where he had caged her in on the bed.

His laugh, cocky and victorious rang in her ears, “Oh, baby…you were being so fucking uptight, I just wanted to help you relax a little,” The world around her blacked out. “God, you were so clingy, it was almost too easy. ‘Oh, Theo, you’re so good to me…make me feel so good…’”

“I- I didn’t- what did you- you didn’t, please tell me you didn’t.” Tears streamed down her face uncontrollably.

Theo groaned in frustration and rolled his eyes. “Are you really crying right now? I’ve been nothing but good to you. And I remember all those nights we talked and talked on the phone as you told me every single one of your dirty little fantasies, you’re a little freak. I know you wanted this. You asked for this.”

Y/N rocked herself back and forth slightly, her grip on Eddie’s hands vice-like; Eddie looked as though he was about to commit homicide. His mind raced with all the different ways he could hurt the person who hurt her without a single care. Breathing heavily, Eddie gulped down the growing lump in his throat, knowing that despite his rage, all his energy should be focused on the girl in front of him. He calmed his racing mind to take in her state, and almost crumbled. She was a wreck. Their eyes were frantic as she relived that memory in her mind, tears streaming freely down her face, still shaken from the panic attack and more so from the vicious words circling her head.

“I got out of there pretty fast after that.” Y/N sniffled, pushing away the painful memory, “On Monday, back at school, I tried to avoid him, but it was impossible, we shared so many classes and I ended up walking straight into him. I tried to walk away but he pulled me back, he- he told me that if I tried to tell anyone, nobody would believe me. He’d told his friends and they’d told basically the entire school, not that they needed to. Half the school had already seen me all over him at the party and jumped to their own conclusions about what happened when we disappeared. Everyone thought that I’d, like, begged him to-” She took a deep breath to calm herself, “It was torture, none of my friends would look at me the same after, and so many people talked about what they thought happened, I couldn’t escape it, so I became a recluse. Stopped talking to everyone, just went to school, did my work, tried to ignore what everyone was saying and got the hell out of there without saying goodbye when dad got offered his job here.”

“He should be in fucking jail for doing that to you. Actually, no, fuck that, he should be six feet under.” Eddie furrowed his brows, mystified by the sad tale, and wondering why or how anyone would be capable of hurting her in such a violent manner, “Why did you think that I would think any less of you?”

Y/N laughed in hysterical relief at his protectiveness and understanding, gazing at him with such adoration that he thought he might explode, before it faded into anxiety all over again, “Ever since that day, there’s been this voice in my head telling me that I deserved it. That I ruined everything, and that I’m going to keep ruining things, because I’m just some horny bitch who couldn’t keep her legs closed and made everyone hate me…” her voice came out as barely a whisper, “that I, fundamentally, don’t…deserve to be loved. That everyone is just going to use me and leave me.”

Eddie pulled her into the tightest, safest, embrace. She breathed in his scent, stronger from being in hiding but still very much Eddie, and allowed her eyes to fall shut as she nuzzled into the juncture of his neck. One of his ringed hands cradled her head as his other arm locked itself around the small of her back, his head resting on hers once more, the curtain of his hair falling over her face. Trembling hands held tightly onto him as he let her cry into his neck. Whilst his mind spun with the new information, his heart ached – wanting nothing more than to make sure that nothing like that ever happened to her again, and knowing that his own actions hadn’t made it any easier.

“After it all happened,” mumbling into Eddie’s neck, just loud enough for him to hear, she tried to further explain herself, “I didn’t report it, I was too scared, but my parents knew. They’d heard from other parents when it had circulated the school and sat me down to talk about it. Mum was pensive, but I could see on her face that she was in pain for me, despite not saying anything about it. My dad…well, our relationship has never quite been the same…I think he partially blames me for what happened, thinks I was too reckless, that I should’ve never got involved with him in the first place…he always hated Theo.”

“Anyone that could even somewhat blame you for that is just as much a douchebag as he is,” Eddie stated defensively, hands flexing as he barely stifled his temper, bumping her dad up his mental list of people he hated.

She pulled herself off his chest to look him in the eye, “You really believe that?”

Eddie stared down at her in disbelief, “Of course I do.” She smiled softly, leaning back into his touch.

Their surroundings started to phase back into reality, and quite quickly became all too aware of her own skin and the things touching it, snapping her out of her self-pity. With a sigh, she pulled herself up, and started rummaging through her backpack, stuffing a clean pair of underwear in a pocket, having packed them earlier in case a ‘you-never-know’ situation occurred, “Does Rick’s house have a shower we could use? I’d quite like to get this grime off me.”

“Uh- Y-yeah, follow me.”

Sneaking out of the shed, for fear of lurking townies, they made their way up to the house, Eddie pulling a key out of his jacket pocket. The house had a lingering herbal scent, as though it had seeped into the walls and taken up permanent residency, that made Y/N snicker slightly. Eddie strolled pretty casually through the house, knowing the floor plan with his eyes shut, and led her through to a back room where the den was, overlooking the lake, attached to a small bathroom. Opening the door for her, Eddie guided her into the small, tiled room. It wasn’t particularly new or fancy looking but it was clean enough, and towels were stacked in a tall wooden cabinet near the door that she could use.

“I’ll be quick…don’t want to be here long enough for anyone in the area to notice,” Y/N thought out loud and Eddie hummed in agreement, saying that he’d knock if they needed to make a quick escape back to the boathouse. Deciding that it’d be quicker to not wash their hair, Y/N scrubbed at her body with the generic-looking soap in the shower whilst keeping her hair as dry as possible. The warm water wasn’t quite hot enough, but got the job done and she was out of the shower in under 10 minutes, despite having spent the first few figuring out how the shower worked, trying to make it hotter and then having a little cry before actually washing.

Eddie paced the length of the den as she showered, keeping an ear out for any signs of movement around the house from potential townies. Despite the horrific things he’d seen happen to Chrissy and being in hiding for her presumed murder, the story Y/N had told him about her past was all he could think about. Why anyone, how anyone, could do that to another person? How he wished he could punch the asshole in the face, repeatedly, with iron knuckles. How utterly terrifying it must’ve been. His head couldn’t help but also go back through every one of their conversations and encounters, searching for any sign that he had made her feel uncomfortable in any way, for any sign that she didn’t want what he wanted. But when she appeared back in front of him, skin flushed from the steam, clothes clinging to her slightly differently from the precipitation, any thoughts of doubt fled his mind. She looked at him with utmost care and respect, her body pulling itself into his personal space like gravity.

“In different circumstances, we’d be sat on these sofas, probably high as kites, watching some stupid movie that Rick has in his collection, right now.” Y/N sighed wistfully at the thought of doing functionally nothing with him, curled up in peace and safety.

Eddie smiled, moving impossibly closer to wipe a stray water droplet from her hairline running down towards her temple, “Wouldn’t that just be perfect, considering our last movie night got ruined by this mess.”

Y/N laughed dryly. Everything she had planned for that night, flew out the window pretty fast and had been flying just out of reach ever since, feeling more and more like a pipe dream with every day that passed. “We technically have all the time in the world right now, to talk about everything but…God, it just-!” She cut herself off, frustrated with the world. “Every fibre of my being is still so confused and tired and angry about this whole fucked up situation, but all I can think about when I’m with you is you. It would be so much easier if you didn’t take up so much of my goddamn brain space.”

She collapsed face-first onto one of the old, blanket-draped, sofas and let out a muffled noise of frustration. He cautiously sat next to her, thigh by her head and arm hanging off the back of the sofa above her. “Do I really take up that much space in that pretty little head of yours?” His voice was slightly cocky and teasing but with that underlying sincerity and insecurity that had made her so infatuated so quickly, and eased her frustration somewhat.

“Yes.” She answered into the sofa, making him chuckle. She lifted her face up and out of the fabric, “Don’t laugh.”

Eddie grinned at her cheekily before it faltered, “Sweetheart, I’m honoured, truly. I don’t deserve it.”

“Shut up, yes you do Eds. If I didn’t think you deserved that time or energy I wouldn’t be here. Dumbass.” Annoyance dripped off every word, but he knew that it wasn’t malicious.

“Someone’s cranky,” She flipped him off, which he returned, a smile trying to force its way onto her face, but being stubbornly repressed. “How are you feeling, anyway?”

“Grim and still anxious, but better having showered,” she sighed pulled herself up to sit, legs touching his, right as her stomach grumbled loudly, “We should probably eat something. I brought all our favourite snacks but there’s also some leftovers from Mum in my backpack-”

Eddie’s face lit up, not saying a single word before pulling her up and dragging her back to the boathouse where her bag was. If there was one thing that Eddie had grown extremely fond of from having Y/N in his life, apart from Y/N themselves and everything they did together, it was her mum's cooking. No matter what she made, he was almost guaranteed to love it. Even the things he wasn’t so sure about he ended up loving. “I don’t know how she does it, she must have magic in some capacity to make vegetables taste good,” he had said one night after she made a veg-packed pasta dish that he knows he would’ve hated if anyone else had made it.

“Eds, ease up, you’re gonna pull my arm out the socket,” Y/N whined as she was pulled behind the man on a mission. They sat in the boathouse sharing the tub of leftovers, that were somehow still good even cold, in comfortable silence, too hungry to talk between mouthfuls. Once devoured, Y/N stuffed the empty box and cutlery back in her bag and collapsed against Eddie, trying to find a comfortable position to get some rest. Ultimately, they found themselves in an all too familiar position, her head on his chest, one of his arms curled around her back and the other behind his head, their legs tangled. Though intimate, the position was comforting and lulled them into a false sense of security. Any other time they had cuddled like this, it was in the safety of one of their rooms after a long night of studying, food, and D&D prep, whilst they listened to music and talked until it was time for the other to leave for the evening. Sometimes, they cuddled up like that under her smoking tree, stargazing deep into the night. But snuggled up in the boathouse in hiding, it meant something different to them both.

“Weirdly enough, the rocking of the boat in the water is oddly soothing…is this how babies feel in the crib?” Eddie broke their comfortable silence.

The question made her scoff into his shirt, shaking her head slightly. “You know, you come out with some right odd shit? But yeah, probably.”

He hums in acknowledgement, before asking another question, “Are you scared?”

“Terrified. You?”

He paused, deliberating how honest he should be. Of course, he was scared. The whole situation was mortifying, and what was scaring him just as much, was how much danger he had put her in. The thought of losing her, of what happened to Chrissy happening to her, made his blood run cold. She could be at home with her mother, peacefully unaware of any of this, safe and out of harm’s way. If only she had chosen another lunch table. If only she hadn’t joined Hellfire. If only she hadn’t taken over every waking thought he had. They wouldn’t be in this mess. But…

But then he would be alone in hiding, alone in his fear. With only Dustin to keep him in check and safe, from a distance. A long and very silent distance. Banished though he may be, at least he wasn’t banished alone. And there was no one he would rather be banished with than her. It was selfish of him but in that moment with her safe in his arms, being on the run wasn’t too bad.

“Not as scared as I could be right now.” His eyes closed, heartbeat picking up as the words fell from his mouth. With her head to his chest, she could feel the skip of his heart and smiled a little. Not another word was said as they drifted off to uneasy sleep.

Waking up every few hours, as noises from the woods made it hard to sleep, eventually, Y/N felt as though she had rested enough and woke up a final time to sunlight pouring in through the arch and windows. Eddie had been awake for a while, having been woken up by sounds of movement in the trees and, though nothing came of it, he couldn’t get back to sleep for much longer after that. His body ached from the wood of the boat, and the tarp hadn’t done much to help keep him warm in the early hours of the morning, but the warmth from Y/N’s body and the sound of her soft snores, as she dozed, helped to take the edge off. Pulling her closer as her eyes finally fluttered open, he gazed down at her, sunlight kissing her sleepily pouted face.

“Mornin’, sweetheart,” Eddie murmured huskily, what little sleep he had caught in his throat.

She closed her eyes again and buried her face into his chest, one hand gripping the fabric as the other played with a near curl of his hair, “Mornin’, honey.”

“Killing me here,” He groaned at the softness of her early morning state, “If this is what it’s like to wake up with you, I never want to wake up alone again.”

She laughed lightly before sitting up and feeling just how stiff she was, letting out long whines and groans as she stretched as much as she could without leaving the boat. As she stood to stretch out her legs and back properly, she thought out loud to herself “Need to pee…” before wandering to the door of the boathouse.

“Where d’you think you’re going?” Eddie questioned, tilting his head with a raised eyebrow. He had propped himself up with his arms behind him slightly, watching as she moved to the door.

She looked back at him in bewilderment, “The bathroom? Gotta go.”

“Be quick, okay? Then back here, it’s early but we can’t be too careful.”

The day was going to be long, and though they were in hiding, they still needed to be human. Luckily, she had food covered and Eddie had found a hiding spot with access to plumbing. She scampered up to the house and back as fast as she could, the adrenaline of potentially being caught had her moving inherently faster. Trying to find ways to pass the time, they spent the day slowly snacking on the supplies Y/N had brought, talking about ideas for the next campaign, discussing theories for what the others were doing – “Knowing Dustin, he’ll have gone full detective, you know, like how he is whilst trying to figure out the next move in D&D?” Y/N had suggested, causing Eddie to laugh with a strange fondness at the thought of the freshmen - and coming up with silly games to keep them occupied, deigning to go to the house only when absolutely necessary, and rarely alone. The conversation didn’t dare breach anything too heavy, already anxious enough and clinging on to any sense of normalcy between them, though the reality was creeping back in with every hour. Sleep that night was more uncomfortable from the lack of any real food, Eddie promised to check Rick's cupboards the next day before drifting off to sleep. Sounds of their stomachs grumbling pulled the pair from their slumber. Y/N reached for her nearly empty bottle of water and took a sip, savouring it before passing it to Eddie who finished it off.

“How many of these do we have left?” He asked, playing with the bottle as he watched Y/N rummage through the bags and rationing out what food was left.

She pulled out another large bottle of water from one of the bags and put it down on the workbench, “This is the last one. God, I hope the others are okay, I thought they’d at least check in to see if we’re still alive or needed more food.”

“They left a walkie for us.” The black device stood on the workbench, taunting them, “I’ll try to get a hold of them in a bit, right now I’m too hungry to care about trying.”

Digging into their breakfast of slightly stale toaster waffles, both of their minds raced, feeling as though their luck was running out. They spent most of the day like they had spent the last, only more on edge. It was past noon before they decided to venture back up to the house, needing some hot food no matter how gross it might be. Rick’s kitchen seemed to have been abandoned long before his arrest, with dust on the counters and shelves and a mostly empty fridge. Y/N jumped up to sit on the counter as Eddie rummaged through the cupboards. Watching him riffle through the abandoned kitchen made a warm domestic bubble settle in her stomach, knowing inherently that it was something she would never be tired of, holding dear all the mundane life moments she had with him, whilst she still could.

With each drawer and cupboard he opened, he muttered a small ‘nope’ to himself before finally opening the cupboard above the oven and inspecting a can, “Yeah,” he snorted, “You’ll do.”

“What are we having, chef?” Y/N watched as he pulled a saucepan from a cupboard and turned on the stove.

When the contents of the can were slowly heating, he turned to her, “A nutritious meal of spaghetti hoops. It was all I could find that wasn’t a potential biohazard.”

Once the hoops were sufficiently hot, they wandered into the living room passing the pan and spoon between them, neglecting to properly plate up the food in sheer hunger. Eddie’s agitation wasn’t fully squashed by the meal, however, “Throw me the walkie…I’ll try to get a hold of Henderson…” He fiddled with the knobs as Y/N collapsed onto the sofa with the hoops, wrapping themselves in a blanket thrown haphazardly onto the backrest. Eventually, he got it to the right channel, holding down a button to talk, “Hey, Dustin, this is Eddie the Banished. You there?”

Static. Silence.

“Dustin, can you hear me?”

Nothing.

“Dustin?” He tried again, getting more impatient, “Earth to Dustin.”

“Hey, it's Nancy.”

Y/N recognised the voice of Nancy Wheeler, Mike’s older sister. They had only briefly met a handful of times when it was her turn to pick up Mike from Hellfire, she never stayed for long. Only once had she actually gotten out of the car to greet Mike, and that was when he was stalling and talking to Eddie about the campaign for a little too long for her liking, practically dragging him back to the car with a silent nod at Eddie and Y/N as she went.

“Wheeler! Hey.” Eddie sighed in relief of finally getting a response, Y/N jumping up to stand with him by the door, saucepan in hand, “Um, we’re gonna need a food delivery, like, really soon, unless you want us going out into the world.”

“No.” an immediate response from Nancy, “No, no, no. Don't do that. Stay where you are, and we'll be there as soon as we can.”

“Thanks, Nancy, we were starting to get a little worried,” Y/N took the walkie, “How is everything?”

There was an almost palpable silence before they heard Nancy’s voice again, “We’ll tell you when we see you.”

The pair locked eyes, “Well that’s never a good sign.” Y/N mused, deciding not to hold down the walkie button so Nancy couldn't hear.

“Listen, um…” Eddie pinched back the radio, “Can you pick me up a six-pack?”

Y/N stared at him in exasperation for a few seconds before walking away and eating more of the now slightly cold spaghetti, flopping down on the sofa.

“I know, it's stupid as shit, drinking right now,” He said pointedly, not taking his eyes off Y/N as she stared back at him over a spoonful of hoops, “but a cold beer would really calm my jangled nerves.”

“Hey, I'm gonna have to call you back.” Nancy ignored the request, seemingly distracted by something, and they were once again met with silence.

Eddie panicked, “No, don't you da-- Wheeler? Wheeler?”

But she was gone. Eddie cursed to himself before collapsing into the space next to Y/N, and taking the saucepan from her to finish off the rest himself. “Was the beer request necessary, Eds?”

“Look, if we’re gonna be stuck here for longer than a week, I’d kinda like to spend at least some of it not sober,” Eddie grumbled into his pasta, knee bouncing. With a sigh, she slid her hand onto his restless leg to soothe him a little, allowing her head to rest on his shoulder lightly. “Although…”

“Fuck off, Munson.” She denied him, the smile ever present in her voice, making him snort a laugh.

Once back in the boat house, with the empty can of spaghetti Eddie had brought back with them, the pair resided themselves to setting up camp for the rest of the day, settling back into their hideaway routine. From the sound of things with the others, or lack thereof, Y/N slowly let it settle in her head that they might be stuck for longer than she first imagined. It had already been an exhausting couple of days, and they were both getting antsy, waiting for the shoe drop.

Sometime in the afternoon, Eddie started a little game for himself, throwing things he could find into the empty spaghetti can from increasing distances. At first, Y/N just ignored the rattling sound of the can before it became too much, and she resigned herself to join him instead. They took turns trying to beat each other at the shot, nudging the other to make them miss, bickering as they did and keeping score.

Eddie was beating her 4-2 when tires on the path to the house made them immediately stop and duck down from the window above the bench they were sitting on. Eddie, slowly peering over the edge, looked out to see if it was just Steve in the Beemer but immediately crouched back down, “I don’t think it’s Harrington.”

Shaking slightly, Y/N peeked out through the window just as a familiar unfriendly face came into view getting out of the car, and ducked back down to whisper to Eddie, “It’s Jason. And I think he brought friends.”

“Shit…shit.” As Y/N took a few deep breaths, Eddie checked on the group outside, “They’re going into the house, we might have to make a break for it.”

Y/N nodded quickly before scrambling to collect anything important as Eddie tried in a desperate attempt to contact the others, “Hey, Dustin. You there?” He took frantic glances out of the window as he spoke, “It's Eddie. You remember me, right?” His eyes locked with Y/N’s as she came to stand by him once more, essentials in pockets in case they needed to run. “Hey, if anyone's there, I really think we might be in a bit of trouble here. Okay? Wheeler?” He hit the radio hard against his hand, as he sunk back down to crouch beneath the window, “Anybody?!”

“Eds, we’ve gotta try to stay calm, too much noise and they’ll come down here,” Y/N implored and reached for his hands. He put the walkie down, brushing her hands away before pulling her into him. She whispered into his chest just loud enough for him to hear, “They might give up after searching the house and realise we’re not there…”

“Let’s hope so,” Eddie whispered back, closing his eyes, and trying to focus his panicked breathing, his arms wrapped tight around her.

The sun set as Jason and his friends searched the house, the night growing darker and colder as Eddie and Y/N huddled ever closer. Eventually, when the moon was high in the sky, his curiosity got the best of him again. Eddie peered back through the window for any more signs of movement, the glow from the lights in the house alerting him to the townies ever-persisting search. Gripping the walkie tightly, he tried the others again, the desperation and fear fuelling him, “Dustin? Please. Are… Are you there?” After being met with yet more silence, only the sounds of the water against the boat to listen to, he gave up, “Never mind.” Placing the walkie down on a bench in the wooden vessel they had been sleeping in, he rounded it and called Y/N over softly, helping her into it before clambering in himself.

Trusting him implicitly, and not wanting to leave his side, Y/N followed his lead and silently helped him unhook the boat from its mount and started to paddle out onto the lake. They barely got 30 feet into the water before they heard a call from the bank, “Hey, Freaks!” Jason had finally found them. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Fuck.” Y/N could feel her heartbeat pick up more, as Eddie scrambled to reach the engine, cursing to himself. Faintly, Y/N could hear bodies in the water, swimming over to them, as she tried to tune them out and focus on her feeble attempts to row the boat solo as Eddie argued with the boat engine, which had obviously been attached and installed by Rick himself.

No longer caring about being heard now they had been seen, Eddie tried emphatically to get it to work, emphasising each word with a pull of the starting cord, “Just come on, you piece of shit.” Weakly, the engine spluttered in response but did not roar to life the way they wanted it to, “Come on. Gotta help me out here, man. Come on. Come on, you piece of shit!” He tried harder to bring it to life, but nothing worked, “Come on! Goddamn it!” He hit the engine in defeat as Jason and his friends swam ever closer, “Nope? Okay. All right. Okay.”

Scrambling back over to the bench to help Y/N, and almost falling over in the process, he picked up an oar and joined her in rowing away from the two boys in the water, gaining on them. Together, they managed to keep distance between themselves and Jason in the water, but it didn’t stop Eddie from shouting at him to ‘stay back’ and threatening to hit him with the oar if he did start coming too close for comfort, standing up to get more leverage to swing at him.

“Come on. We almost have them,” Jason called out behind him but stopped swimming when there was no response, looking back over his shoulder, “Hey, Patrick. Patrick!”

Y/N stopped rowing and turned around to see what the kerfuffle was about, just in time to see Patrick be pulled under the dark water of the lake, seemingly by nothing. With only the moon's reflection on the lake to illuminate the water, the group could only just see each other without straining, let alone movement below the water. Gripping the oar in one hand and the leather of Eddie's jacket in the other, Y/N scanned the gentle waves of the water frantically for any sign of Patrick beneath the soft currant. But found nothing. “Eddie, it’s happening again,” Y/N curled into herself as a cold chill ran down her spine as the air grew thick with apprehension.

Jason continued to call out for his friend, getting increasingly more terrified, until suddenly Patrick's body lifted 10 feet into the air above the lake. Dropping the oar and staring up in horror at the boy’s body suspended in mid-air above them, illuminated in the moonlight, Y/N let out a terrified scream before she registered Eddie’s shouts and then a loud splash as he fell backwards into the water from the shock. “Eddie!” Y/N shouted and, in complete disregard for her safety, dove in after him. She managed to grab his arm and keep a hold of him as he flailed to try to keep afloat.

Kicking for the surface, Y/N gasped for breath, as Eddie coughed to dispel the water from his lungs nearby. As Patrick's bones started to snap, they lurched backwards in their fear and found themselves clinging to each other in the cold water. Jason cried out for his friend, as he watched in disbelief as his body contorted, suspended in mid-air above him. Patrick's body buckled and bent out of shape limb by limb as his eyes were gouged out from behind his skull, his jaw finally dislocating before her was dropped mercilessly back into the lake, with a loud splash. Dead.

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#eddie munson #eddie x reader #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x female reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson fic #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson angst #eddie munson smut #stranger things vol 2 #reader insert #freak like me #leaf writes

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csphire · 6 months

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Rosemary, Lilacs, Lilies and Bergamot

Words: 5,917

Astarion / Anna (OC Tav)

A sequel to Purples, Blues, and Gold.

Astarion is offered a night of intimacy with the one he loves. She manages to provide him with an experience he's yet to recall ever having despite his long life and many lovers. Something we all feel he deserves and needs more than anything. A good rub down to work out decades-if not near century-old knots with some of his favorite fragrant oils until he melts into a puddle of sheer bliss. However, upon finding the beginnings of tranquility, new worries and responsibilities emerge but he takes comfort in the knowledge he no longer needs to face them alone.

Astarion did not know what to expect. Whatever she was planning put him on a higher level of alert than usual. It had him also taking a few deep and slow breaths to steel himself before opening the door with a forced flirty and amused expression.

True, he trusted her, well more than anyone else in this wretched world. But he did not miss those ever-scheming gears turning away in that pretty head of hers. All behind a smile so kind and cajoling, it could and did charm even ogres. The problem was he also witnessed firsthand his dear warlock’s occasional more chaotic nature. How she could go from all sweetness and light to sinking a blade or blasting a spell into more than just one chest. But the worst thing she had done so far was trick a vile woman into paying them upfront to steal a githyanki egg and then proceeded to launch a surprise attack. All the while Lae’zel, at her side, grinned from ear to ear as she took the last blow.

“It’s a surprise, and I have a feeling you’ll love it,” the high half-elf, would only promise.

Read on here:

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borderlinebelle · 11 months

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Ok, goodnight all of tumblr but especially the lgbtqia+ communities across all genres, styles, hobbies, traumas, bonds, binds, baggage, bravery and identities… it’s a fucking honor to rise with you for the first year openly 🥹

mutuals get a goodnight kiss on the back of their knees tho… ♥️🫡

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unhelpfulfemme · 8 months

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Being part of the Jedi Order or any other community cannot be considered equivalent to any kind of therapy

Reply to this post because I didn't want to hijack it with my long-ass essay.

While I agree that portraying Jedi culture as cold and detached and oppressive is plain incorrect and frankly bizzare (I love the Jedi culture and think that overall it's really neat), I think that everyone in the post I linked to is severely misunderstanding how therapy works, which is kind of fatal for a discussion whose main purpose is to determine whether something is or isn't adequate therapy.

Because living in a community by definition cannot be therapy.

Therapists aren't allowed to provide therapy to people with whom they have preexisting relationships outside of therapy. Nor are they allowed to begin a different kind of relationship with a patient. Now, you may say that this is because of the great potential for abuse of power but actually, no, while that's part of it it's actually not the main concern.

The main concern is that all forms of therapy - even those that are not "traditional talk therapy" (traditional talk therapy being psychoanalysis and the like 🤢) rely heavily on the relationship between the therapist and the patient. Many studies have shown that this is an integral part of therapy regardless of the therapeutic modality (i.e. the actual content of the therapeutic approach) and accounts for as much if not more of the variance in outcomes as the actual theoretical underpinnings of the therapeutic school (do with this as you will re what this says about therapy). What a therapist does is basically assess where you're at and then scaffolds a better way of functioning - the therapeutic modality just determines in what way they scaffold it, and they also have to have honest input from you in order to tailor it to your particular needs.

Now, here are the issues.

(1) For proper trust to develop so that all of this can be accomplished, the therapist-patient relationship must be devoid of both prior baggage and external incentive structures that might conflict with the goals of vulnerable self-disclosure on the patient's part.

Simply put, it's very hard to, for example, talk about your anger at father figures or your irrational reactions at certain innocuous behaviors coming from father figures when your therapist is also your father figure. It's very hard to talk about your nasty irrational emotions if the therapist is also someone you have a personal relationship with and whose good opinion you care about, or if the therapist is your boss, or someone who is personally close to a bunch of people you are also personally close to, because you might think "Hey, I'm angry at our mutual friend but I can't talk about that, because what if my therapist likes them better and is secretly on their side" or something similar.

A community by definition cannot fulfill this purpose because all communities have a) a power structure, formal or informal and b) social norms. A community might raise a child to follow psychologically healthy tenets of emotional regulation from scratch, and this is what the Jedi do. Here there's no conflict of interest, because when you're raising a child from a very early age trust is more or less the default because the child is still in that malleable stage where they naturally look to their environment to learn this, and your good example and the healthy interactions between you (whether you are one person or several people raising the child communally) and the child will probably be enough to give the proper scaffolding for healthy emotional regulation to develop properly.

However, to move on to Anakin specifically, when you have a child that comes to your community at age 9 with a shitton of preexisting trauma, this does not work because they have already built their behavior and assumptions about the world and way of regulating themselves based on their previous experiences.

Therefore, when you move them to a new environment, they will naturally continue operating according to these assumptions, even if they are deeply irrational and contradicted by plenty of your actions. They will have ugly and dysfunctional thoughts about themselves and others and ugly and dysfunctional behavioral patterns and they will be filled with lots of nebulous fear and/or rage that will be regularly triggered by things that are not deserving of it or that the child is blatantly misinterpreting in light of their previous experiences. They will interpret everything you do according to the preexisting notions that they've picked up from their abusive environment.

If a child is used to being regularly punished, rejected or exposed to threat (which a traumatized child will inevitably be), they will also likely be severely averse to emotional risk and hypersensitive to threat (unless the punishment was so inconsistent or all-permeating that they become completely disregulated in a "you'll punish me whatever I do/there's no way to control when or how you'll punish me because it's completely uncorrelated to my own behavior, which means I may as well do whatever the fuck I want" kind of logic). They'll also be likely to interpret ambivalent stimuli as threatening.

This means that if a child sees you as someone with the potential to wield punishments or the kind of moral or social judgment that leads to social rejection or exclusion (which is basically equivalent to pain for the human brain because we have a natural need to belong), it is impossible to develop a proper therapeutic relationship with that child, no matter how correct your philosophy of emotional regulation and mindfulness and et cetera is.

In broad terms, this is why a community cannot provide therapy- a community by definition must have a mechanism for selecting its members, and also a set of norms or moral criteria the members agree on, because otherwise it'd be overrun with exploitative assholes. Even if it would never cast away the traumatized person in question, they still by definition have the power to do it, something that a person with a hypersensitivity to threat and a history of people treating them badly will be deeply aware of. If you are part of a community, you also by definition care about their opinion and their very disapproval hurts. This can be kind of alleviated if the community in question has few norms about the members' emotional expression because it revolves around another thing entirely - this is why youth groups where the membership is around, say, a shared hobby, can often be helpful - but a community that is a cultural or spiritual community will by definition address these questions and have opinions on them.

Now, to go back to my favourite terrible murdery boy and his relationship to the Jedi, the Jedi are structured in such a way that they are... inevitably authority figures who are pasing judgment on the younglings/padawans. In fact, Anakin's first interaction with Jedi who aren't Obi-Wan or Qui-Gon is in a context of the Jedi evaluating him in order to decide whether he should be accepted or not. This is antithetical to a therapeutic relationship.

Because a situation where they are evaluated and might be rejected (and put back into their abusive environment) will kill any developing trust, immediately activate the abused child's fight or flight instincts, and put them on a track of probably suppressing their emotions and focusing on what they should do and say to please you or, alternatively, being defiant in an attempt to actively and preemptively defend themselves from you.

It doesn't matter whether the Jedi were "mean" or "harsh" in that scene as some people (IMHO unnecessarily and exaggeratedly) complain about - the incentive structure of the situation is the problem. It's like when you go to HR and the nice HR lady with the psych degree asks you how you're feeling about your new position and whether there are any problems - you're gonna say no no matter how nice or enlightened she is. And if this nice lady is your therapist, she won't be able to help you if you're not honest, because she can't tailor the therapy to your needs if she doesn't know what your specific problem is.

Furthermore, the Jedi then become a) Anakin's community, i.e. his only source of companionship, emotional validation, etc. b) The only people providing for Anakin's fundamental physical needs and c) his teachers. As his teachers, it is their overt and explicit role to assess the state of Anakin's learning - including how well Anakin is adopting Jedi teachings about emotional regulation - and then decide on whether they will promote him to the next phase or not or when, all of which determines Anakin's standing in this community and what he is or isn't allowed to do.

This is antithetical to a therapeutic relationship.

OF COURSE a traumatized child will just try to please you as best they can, and you are probably pleased when the child appears well-regulated. But the child doesn't know how to regulate themselves, and they need to be dysregulated for you to show them how, and because emotional regulation is an internal thing they need to express what they're feeling in some way so that you can help them work on it in order to demonstrate. But if they are too scared of your disapproval to express it, you will never get to demonstrate it, and they will never learn. They'll just learn to mask or suppress what they're feeling. And if you have a lifetime of regulating your emotions, they will never see you become dysregulated to the degree that they do, so they can't learn from YOUR example either. And emotional regulation really, really isn't a thing that's easily taught by making someone follow a series of standardized steps - if it were, we'd be living in paradise! You can say that of course getting angry is normal etc. etc. but a person - especially a traumatized person with an internal model of the world that presumes everyone will hurt or reject them - will not internalize this based on words only.

Things become worse when you realize that the Jedi teachings also contain the notion that, "If you are not regulating yourself well enough, you become succeptible to a malevolent corruptive influence that turns you EEEVIL and the antithesis of all we stand for that few if any people recover from".

Now, is this the material state of reality for the Jedi? Yes. Is this also a deeply threatening and fear-inducing scenario? Fuck yes! It contains a threat of a) severe moral judgment of the self as Bad, b) rejection on the part of the community that provides for literally all of your needs, c) the looming threat of a scary malevolent thing controlling you. This is a very threatening scenario for someone with no clear sense of identity or a very negative one, who doesn't know how to regulate themselves, and is also hypersensitive to threat. The very notion of this will be further deregulating for this person, and because it also contains a strong component of perceived social judgment, that they are also hypersensitive to and prone to interpreting in the worst light possible in a way a mentally healthy person wouldn't, it will reinforce the abovedescribed pattern where they must suppress it all and no one must know.

Does the Jedi philosophy on emotions and the Dark side have more nuance than "If you are not regulating yourself well enough, you become succeptible to a malevolent corruptive influence that turns you EEEVIL and the antithesis of all we stand for that few if any people recover from"? Yes. Is the Jedi philosophy right on uncontrolled emotions being a road that leads to hell? Fuck yes! I overall agree with the Jedi philosophy, actually. Will a traumatized child that is put in a state of fight or flight by the very notion and probably had little in the way of formal education be able to pick up on the nuance and properly consider it in a calm and rational way and then also adopt and internalize it on an emotional level? Fuck no.

(2) Another reason your community cannot provide therapy is because, well, have you noticed how I talk a lot about how therapists "scaffold you" and "tailor their approach to your experience"? This is because when you're a therapist, it's a job. Which means that you are putting all your personal needs and preferences aside for the time being and focusing on what the patient needs, interacting and communicating in a way that best facilitates their recovery and not in the way you would genuinely like to communicate. This is why therapists get paid. It's a people-oriented job.

Even if the patient lashes out in a way that is hurtful or offensive, you must react in a way that best serves them, not in a way that mends your feelings or personal dignity. You can't just change the subject if what they're talking about bores you, you can't zone out or decide that hey, their personality is actually kinda annoying and makes me feel bad and I don't want to be friends with them.

This is the whole point of why therapy is different from simply, you know, having a friend - any other relationship is a two-way street and it's shitty and abusive to expect the other person to completely adapt their behavior to your needs and your personal growth. But if you're already set in a dysfunctional pattern, it will often be a self-perpetuating cycle: you get scared and then you get angry and unpleasant to be around and then they leave you and this hurts you and with the next person you are even more scared and even more angry and even more unpleasant... etc. If people with deeply seated issues could just be fixed by having meaningful relationships and practicing mindfulness, we'd be living in paradise!

What a therapist does is construct their interactions with you in a way that slowly leads you to change your behavioral patterns by basically some combination of selecting what kind of stimuli you're exposed to and then giving you the tools to interpret your reactions to them (and the way they do that depends on the modality/school), which means that the relationship is completely one sided and their needs and personal preferences are 100% not in the picture, which is why you're paying them. To expect someone to do it for free and all the time (and this is another reason why you're not supposed to have personal relationships with your patients - you're supposed to provide consistency and behaving one way in therapy and another way outside of it is confusing and disorienting for the patient) is not really good for the person that you are expecting it from.

So it would be really really shitty to expect someone like, say, Obi-Wan, with his own needs and his own personality and perhaps his own emotional baggage (because he's, say, processing the loss of a loved one) to play the part of a therapist for Anakin, because a therapist is fundamentally a different thing than a loved one, brother, father, friend, community member.

Now, if the Jedi Order had some kind of a designated therapist Jedi or similar spiritual advisor who didn't live with or was personally close to the other Jedi that Anakin knows and that Anakin went to regularly (for actual therapy), it would be a way different thing - but correct me if I'm wrong when I say that I don't think they do, in canon? But that still doesn't make "being part of Jedi culture" actively therapeutic.

Does this mean that the Jedi culture isn't wise and beautiful? Fuck no. I think that the Jedi culture is absolutely wise and beautiful. Does this mean that the Jedi deserved to be genocided or are in any way at fault for the fact that they were? They did not and are not and if you think differently kindly fuck off.

But the notion that just... existing within a culture is equivalent to DBT or any other sort of therapy is completely wrong and I felt the need to dispute it.

I also think that knowing how to recognize and practice good emotional regulation and knowing how to change someone's emotional regulation from terribly dysfunctional to good are two vastly different skill sets, and quite frankly the way the Jedi are structured means that they wouldn't have much need to learn the second one, because they hardly ever or never have to deal with raising traumatized children. They just exclude them by default. I suspect that not knowing how to deal with traumatized children and them consequently going dark is a large part of why they set that rule in the first place. The only reason they accepted Anakin was because of the Chosen One stuff and because Qui-Gon insisted.

Which doesn't make their teachings or their culture wrong, nor does it make the Jedi bad people. At all. (I actually think the Jedi culture is beautiful and leaves plenty of room for individuality and expression and plenty of my favourite characters are Jedi.) The Jedi can be 100% in the right about all their teachings (and probably are) and they can still be of little to no therapeutic value to Anakin. These two things can coexist.

Which means that listing "key focuses of DBT" doesn't tell you anything about how they go about facilitating said focuses in the patient or what kind of broader relationship structure is necessary to facilitate that, and that part is what really makes DBT special and adapted to people with really difficult to deal disorders like CPTSD or NPD. Not the key focuses, which are more or less similar for a bunch of different approaches, because they're kinda just common sense about what makes for good mental health.

Could the Jedi teachings be adapted to be better suited to someone like Anakin? Probably, with some mistakes along the way as they're learning (and actually admitting Anakin in the first place can be seen as the first step towards that). How you feel about the risk vs. reward ratio of that when the bad ending creates you a Sith lord is up to you to decide I guess.

#star wars #anakin skywalker #the jedi order

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popironrye · 6 months

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Since I have so many awesome mutuals, and I'm no longer afraid of branching out my tumblr to other interests I'm ready to share other stuff. <3

So, Hellsing Ultimate anyone?

Oh this is some good stuff. I'm about as neurotypical as a person can be, however as someone who indulges in fandom, more specifically a fanoc extraordinaire (kinda) I find myself going back to enjoy the shows or movies I did previously with the same level of intensity. No matter how old said property is.

For Hellsing, it's one of those things I actually have a lot of comfort in. I mean, it's a vampire anime where the vampires use guns. That's pretty awesome. But it's also one of those things where I created an oc who I care deeply for. Luciana is a character I put a lot of personal baggage into. I wouldn't call it 'trauma' for me personally, but there certainly is something there about my own personal relationship with religion and having to live up to others expectations.

I also just really love big beefy wolf bois, villain redemption arcs, and a relationship trope that's less so 'i can fix him' and more 'he will break me' but it's all to better them both in the long run; so there's that. XD

#fanart #my art #fan character #orignal character #oc x canon #hellsing #hellsing oc #the captain #the captain hellsing #hans gunsche

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thursdaywritings · 2 years

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Social Media Blues

Bucky Barnes x Daughter!Reader

A/N: hello y’all this is like my first ever fic so pls do not judge me too harshly </3

Request: hi could you do bucky barnes x daughter!reader where he accidentally finds out that she is gay and maybe different pronouns? like he finds her social media and it kind of outs her i don’t know haha. maybe some angst but then fluff at the end?? ty and happy holidays!

Warnings; being outed & not being accepted, homophobia, but fluff at the end dw

Word Count; 2.1k

Coming out was never something you had an immense urge to do, you were content being closeted. Growing up as a lesbian in the 40s was rough, even decades later the fear and trauma you faced towered over you, eating you alive daily.

As you adjusted to the 21st century, you were set up with social media accounts. Most public, but you had private accounts for the closest of your circle. Which is where you met your girlfriend of eight months, nine next Tuesday, but who’s counting? You had finally gotten together after months of commenting jokingly flirtatious words on each other's Instagram posts. It wasn’t a surprise to your mutual friends when you got together, lightheartedly rolling their eyes as they commented various forms of “finally!” on your private relationship debut. But, it would be a surprise to everyone else in your life. Most importantly, your father Bucky Barnes, and your not-by-blood uncle, Steve Rogers. Thinking about it too much made your stomach like, clench up, and the feelings of spinning nausea wash over you.

It was now the middle of June. Wincing as you turned on the blinding light of your phone while laying in bed late into the night because let’s be real here, you had no clue what “dark mode” is. Opening your photo gallery, smiling as you swipe through the abundance of images taken of your girlfriend & you at yesterday’s sunset date. On a whim, you decide to change your profile picture to an almost, silhouette-esque photo of you & your girlfriend kissing. Noticing the new pronoun feature, you decide to add those as well. You could feel your heartbeat race as you hit the “done” button and excitedly spam your girlfriend with the news, falling asleep with a smile on your face minutes later.

3 am rolls around, your father & uncle heading up to the shared apartment floor after a grueling mission, snapping back into reality when the elevator dings. They go their separate ways with a small nod, and Bucky ever so softly opens your door to check in on you. The first night he got you back a couple of years ago, you could have sworn you heard the door open at least 30 times throughout the night. Seeing you safe & sleeping, he haphazardly unloads his baggage in his room and flops down on the couch. The soft buzz of the TV is the only sound to be heard that late, and he mindlessly flips through several different channels before sighing and giving up. He never used his phone much, as to him, there was no need besides the occasional text to you or Steve. Maybe even Sam, granted they weren’t in a petty fight. He taps on Instagram, furrowing his brows as he comes across an account in his recommended with a profile picture that looks strangely like you. His daughter. Kissing someone, another girl. A girl you had never brought around him, but with Bucky being Bucky, he knew who she was. His breath hitches as his eyes frantically scan the little information your account provides, nothin’ but a short bio, the profile picture, and what he learned to be pronouns. His face scrunches up in confusion as he realizes your pronouns aren’t well, typical.

He shuts his phone off and faces it flat down beside him on the couch. He runs his hands through his hair while trying to process all of this new information. How could his baby girl be a lesbian? I mean, he was the last guy to be homophobic, or anything of that sort, but being a man of the 40s he still had the occasional old thoughts. He had assumed you dead for decades before you were found, hoping you had married the guy of your dreams and had kids, maybe even grandkids. His teammates constantly teased him about how he was going to have to deal with boys takin’ ya out soon. This is not what he had hoped for, or thought, not at all.

He doesn’t sleep that night. Your alarm blares at 6 am, rolling over to slam it off. Begrudgingly, you make your way out of your room to the kitchen, finding Steve already eating breakfast at the bar. He looks up to give you a friendly smile before quickly getting back to his food. “Have you seen dad?” you question, as he was usually up way before 6. Swallowing quickly Steve answers “Uh. No, actually. We did get back, quite late though. Could still be sleepin’. Ya know how he is.” You really didn’t know what Steve meant, but you nod anyway and sit down as Steve is getting up. Checking the time, he gives you a quick side hug and heads to training after cleaning up.

Hearing the elevator close, Bucky makes his way out of his room, refusing to meet your concerned eyes for several minutes. “Hellloo? How was the mission?” you say for the second time. He looks up and mumbles a quick, incomprehensible response under his breath. Guess he wasn’t in a talking mood, you thought before rinsing your bowl under the sink. You could feel the thick tension in the room and you didn’t understand why. Deciding to get out of the tower for the day to escape it, you quietly turn to go towards your room. “Wait.”, the unmistakable voice of your father harshly states. “Sit down, please.” Nervously you slide a chair out across from him and sit waiting for whatever bomb he’s about to drop on you. Fumbling with his phone, he pulls up your not-so-secret profile and slides it over to you. “Can you..explain to me this?”

You gaze bewilderedly at the profile picture as if it was staring back just mocking you. Even though your eyes are clearly welling with thick tears, you try to play it cool, and frantically think of a B.S excuse along the lines of “Ohhhhh. That’s a like, really really old private account I made. Completely forgot about it. You know how like, the media and uh. Public get, just wanted a place I could not have to worry about all..that?” He looks up at you unimpressed. He’s old, not stupid.

“Are you..gay? What’s with the..kissing?” he manages to choke out in a repulsed tone. You stare down at the table, transfixed in studying the diverse patterns and grain in an attempt to focus on something, anything other than the fact that your life is crashing around you. You know there's no getting out of it, this wasn’t how you had planned this going at all. There was no plan in the first place. Tears are spilling down your face and yet, he’s still staring blankly at you. “I...I’m a lesbian. I’m sorry. I...I don’t know.” you mumble out in a haze, your head in your hands. Bucky pushes himself back, stumbling out of his chair to pace in endless circles around the kitchen. You watch him through your fingers as your heart sinks further and further down. Sobs wrack through your body as you desperately spew every built-up thought out “This..this is exactly why I didn’t tell you! I knew you would react like this. I knew it. I didn’t want to believe it, but you proved me right once again. Do you know how hard this has been for me..for years! Years, dad. I’m sorry. I tried so hard to “fix” myself so it wouldn’t come down to this, I never wanted you to find out.” He watched you quietly as you briskly walked away from the scene of the near murder, attempting to slow your exceedingly accelerated heartbeat.

The lighting dims and you have yourself still locked in your room, not being able to bare facing him again. It’s now 11 pm, laying half-asleep in your bed until you hear a faint knock at your door. “Just..go please.” The golden round doorknob jiggles and you groan in annoyance as it opens. “Don’t worry, it’s just me. Buck’s not around.” your favorite (and only) uncle softly says. You nod and feel the corner of your bed dip down as Steve sits down

“My opinion? I think he’s a total dick for all that. Don’t tell anyone I said that, but it’s true.” A faint smile tugged at the corners of your lips at the curse word Steve just dropped. “I didn’t really plan what I was going to say, but I’m proud-a ya, kid. This...It doesn’t change my opinions towards you, not even in the slightest. I’m sorry for what he did, you don’t deserve this.” he rants. “Thank you, Steve. It’s nice to know that Captain America has my back.” you tease. “‘Course’. Would really love to meet this girl of yours sometime though. Swing her around whenever you two are comfortable.” he smiles and pats your knee as he gets up to leave. The heavy sound of your door shutting once more rings through your ears, and you close your eyes once more.

Of course, as you are peacefully lulling off to sleep yet another soft rapping of knuckles on the doorframe sets off a hoard of butterflies in your stomach. The door partially cracks open once more, followed by the soft voice of your father “Could we talk?”. A wave of dread rushes over you, unknown if this was the end. The end of movie nights, ordering in greasy take out, directly against the suggestions of Steve. The end of shushing eachothers boisterous laughter when trying to hide after pranks. The end of your relationship, the one you just got back into your grasps. After a bout of silence, he feels compelled to enter regardless. He’s prepared a speech, but his mind goes blank as he examines your visibly frightened body language. His heart pangs, knowing he’s the one who put you in this position, something he promised to never do.

“You..you know I’m not good at these things. That’s..that’s...not an excuse.” he says, breaking the tranquilent silence. Shifting uncomfortably in your bed, you prop yourself up to get a proper view of him. Getting down on his knees at the side of your bed, he continues “I love you. I’m not mad at you, I could never be mad at you. The way I reacted, it was shitty. Selfish. I can’t imagine how hard it must have been for you…but all I could think about was myself. I know that’s not how I should have reacted at all, and I’m really sorry, doll. I was..scared? Worried?”

His own eyes now are filled with tears, as he lightly grips your bedsheets. “I know how..gay people were treated back then, even now.. and I didn’t want you to face that. I guess I thought that by trying to deny it, you would be safe. I’m sorry you felt like you couldn’t tell me, all I’ve ever wanted was your happiness.” Now sitting up, your face twists in deliberation, eyes flicking back and forth desperately scanning his face for any sign of dishonesty. You didn’t expect this, not in the slightest. Taking in his words, your mind is racing with every possible response, feeling overwhelmed. You gulp and nod, mumbling out a small “I- I understand. I mean..obviously I know how it was back then. It still affects me today. I know nowadays it’s a lot more accepted…but the guilt like, consumes me everyday. Especially with us being so much in the public eye, I didn’t well, want to embarrass anybody if it got out.”

“You could never embarrass me doll, especially with something like this. I mean, have you SEEN my reputation? Anyways, seriously, do you have a girl? Because really! Love to meet her sometime. What’s her name? How did you guys meet? She treat you right? You treat her right?” jokingly rapid firing questions at you as you giggle with each one. “Alright, I’ll let you get back to sleep. ‘Night.” he says softly, giving you a bear hug before exiting your room. For the first time in decades, you sleep like a feather, one of the biggest weights you were bearing finally hoisted off your shoulders.

#marvel #bucky barnes #steve rogers #bucky x daughter!reader #dad!bucky #bucky x teen!reader #steve rogers x teen!reader #lesbian!reader #teen!reader #daughter!reader #avengers #x reader #x teen!reader #bucky barnes x daughter!reader #lesbian #writing #send me requests

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