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angelofrainfrogs · 10 months

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Spend the Night: Ch. 6

~Coauthored by @zeitghest~

Fandom(s): Five Nights At Freddy’s: Security Breach

Description: The familiar melody of Grandfather’s Clock chimes through the echoing halls of the Pizzaplex…

Charlie wakes up in her Puppet’s vessel yet again with one goal in mind: to stop William Afton’s reign of terror for good. She enlists the help of Glamrock Freddy, the emphatic leader of the newest iteration of the Fazbear Band. But there seems to be more to this bear than meets the eye—and the same goes for the mysteriously familiar kid the duo find tinkering with animatronics down in Parts & Service.

With some help from friends new and old, Charlie’s journey into the bowels of the Pizzaplex will unravel mysteries none of them ever expected.

Rating: T

Read on Ao3

Prepare for the horrors This night will keep repeating over and over And over, until you make it to the end They hide 'round the corners You better peel your eyes and keep looking over Your shoulder 'cause you'll never be alone again

~Never Be Alone by Shadrow~

“Michael?” Gregory questioned, utterly confused. Had he stopped paying attention at some point? Why was this jerk messing with Freddy so badly? And why did Charlie know him? “Who the hell is Michael?”

The bear simply stared at the wall for a moment, slack-jawed as the two beings wrestled internally. Then someone got the upper hand, and the animatronic perked up to exclaim:

“I'm Michael! Oh my god, Charlie, I—” The bear flinched, clutching the sides of his head and speaking through clenched teeth. “Fuck, this AI is so strong—he really fights... I've been trying to—”

A sharp shake of Freddy's head cut the voice off in an instant. He blinked a few times before standing up straight, gaze swiveling between his companions.

“I... do not fully understand what is happening,” Freddy admitted slowly, frowning in confusion. “But we can discuss this after Gregory is in that security office. Now please hurry and open the door before this thing tries to come through again!”

He was right; it wasn’t a good idea to argue out in the open. Besides, Charlie had no doubts about who was inhabiting the Glamrock bear—that was absolutely Michael Afton’s inherited Brighton accent just as Charlie fondly remembered it. It’d been his soul all along!

With that realization, Puppet had no problem leaving Gregory with the possessed bear. She nodded, patting Gregory’s head reassuringly before crouching low and latching onto the vent. There was no time to waste as she inelegantly removed the vent cover and squeezed on through. The harder part was fitting the cover back and making sure it stayed before she made a beeline for the security office.

Gregory wasn’t positive he felt comfortable knowing that Freddy was slowly being put in second place by this… virus? Glitch?

Placing his hands firmly on the bear’s face, he looked into his protector’s eyes. “Who am I talking to right now?”

“Do not worry, superstar—it is Freddy,” he reassured with a smile. Regardless of what was going on with him personally, he needed Gregory to know that he was safe. “I am sorry about this. Something is happening that I have never experienced before, and my programming does not have any protocols to deal with it.” His gaze softened and he slowly reached a paw up to card through Gregory's hair, gently so as not to scare him away. “But for now, I can assure you that whatever this ‘Michael’ is, it only wants to protect you—just as I do.”

Not that this was any excuse for the thing trying to take over his body, but at least it might reassure the boy somewhat. And to that end, it now that Gregory was definitely not going in the vents the voice decided to back off for the time being. Freddy knew it wouldn't stay down for long, but perhaps it sensed the kid’s distress as well and smartly opted to let the bear comfort him.

Just cuddle into Freddy’s shoulder and shut your eyes, Gregory thought to himself. Things he didn’t quite understand were at play here. Tonight the strange mystery of the Pizzaplex thickened in its secrets. Hugs may not get rid of every problem, but that wouldn’t stop Gregory from trying his damndest to make it so.

Freddy appreciated the hug as well—more than Gregory would ever know. The embrace gave them both silent reassurance that as long as they were together and safe, everything was going to be alright.

It had to be.

***

As Charlie crawled through the vents, her mind raced with the possibilities. Did Michael know what was going on? If he never passed from this earthly plane, were there others who still tethered themselves to this dreadful place?

Her old friend had come back to her yet again. And for what?

She’d been under the assumption this whole ordeal had dealt him a great toll of emotional and physical damage. The fire severed Michael’s connection to his rotten husk of a body, and Charlie hadn’t wanted to curse him with a Gift. Not after everything he'd already been through.

So why return?

Maybe he didn’t even have a choice, like me, she thought as she busted through the second vent covering, slithering onto the office tiles. It wasn’t long before the door to the Arcade opened, inviting the pair inside the security room.

As soon as the door opened Freddy rushed himself and Gregory to the office, smacking both locks for good measure. He wasn't going to leave the doors shut the entire time like they tried previously, but at least for the moment they all needed assurance that nothing else could get in. To Freddy's relief this office did seem to have a bit more power than the last one.

“Here, Gregory—please eat something,” Freddy said after setting the boy in one of the swivel chairs. His chest cavity opened and he took the bags out, handing everything to Gregory. Then, Freddy turned his gaze to Charlie. “...I feel there are some things that you and I need to discuss, Charlie.”

Just forget whoever Michael is and eat the grilled chicken, Gregory told himself. With his meal before him and eyes wider than dinner plates he tucked into the sandwich and soda, strategically saving his dessert for last.

“Thanks, Freddy!” he remarked before completely losing interest in anything that wasn’t food or his new toy. Preoccupied with savoring his meal, Gregory spun in the office chair and happily munched away, the plushie tucked right up against his hip.

Charlie came closer to the animatronic bear, thin fingers laced together in front of her in a rather guilty pose. She knew this virus by name—was apparent friends with it, too. They both had questions that could be exchanged.

“Here, to the back of the room,” she murmured, the shock still hitting her in waves as she took Freddy gently by the arm and guided him away.

“I am sorry about all of this,” Freddy apologized as they settled in a corner that had the least chance of Gregory overhearing them. He felt weirdly guilty about this whole thing, as if this was somehow all his fault. Logically, he knew this wasn't the case—he still didn't understand what was actually happening, so how could he be responsible for it?

Yet, the regret was slowly eating away at him... though he reasoned it was likely “Michael’s” doing.

“As you clearly saw, I am experiencing a major malfunction,” Freddy tried to explain as best he could. “The voice that came out of my mouth belongs to a virus that is trying to take control of my systems. I do not know how or why I was infected, but I can confirm that it does not mean Gregory any harm—if it did, I would never have endangered either of you by keeping it hidden.”

His gaze was measured and serious, locked onto Charlie’s pinprick eyes.

“It appeared earlier this evening and has only gotten stronger as the night has progressed. I... I do not know what its end goal is, though I fear it is trying to completely take over. It was only able to speak in my head until right after we left the charging pod. Ah—” Freddy blinked a few times as he recalled what happened then; it seemed like so long ago. “—but you were shut down during that time, so you did not hear.”

Charlie felt bad that Freddy was embarrassed about Michael causing these outbursts. She couldn’t blame him for feeling the way he did, patting his arm in consolation.

“Freddy you don’t need to apologize. It’s okay. I’m sorry to say I’ve…” Charlie paused, seeming hesitant—or just unsure of how to properly explain it. “I’ve been keeping secrets from you both. I know Michael. He’s my oldest, dearest friend. You can trust him.”

Her answer was all well and good, but it left a glaring question: how on Earth would she know a virus to begin with? This led to the first part of Charlie’s wild explanation.

“Michael isn’t a computer program. He’s a boy. Well, more like a man—an old, old man,” she went on, wondering if Michael was even aware of how badly she was burning him. She rubbed the back of her cloth-covered head. “He must not’ve had anywhere else to go, so he hitched a ride with you…”

“I'm not that old...,” Michael murmured, though still in Freddy's mind for now. The bear flinched, now weirdly sensitive to the virus—or, not-virus?

“I do not understand what you are saying,” Freddy admitted with a shake of his head. “I am experiencing a malfunction unlike anything that could be considered errant coding or a simple software issue. There is something inside my core programming that should not be there—and that can only be a virus.” He spared a glance at Gregory, who was still happily in his own little world, then lowered his voice even further. “Despite how our AI might make it seem to others, we are just machines.”

To explain something like this delicately wouldn’t be easy, especially to a being with logical processors for brains. Freddy’s confusion was understandable, as Charlie’s statement of facts was lacking so far.

“Well! I guess you could, uh… You could say Mike’s a ghost.” Charlie let the statement hang there a moment, glancing away from the bear. “I wanted to tell you eventually, but… I’m like Michael! A spirit with nowhere to go.”

She refused to look at Freddy. She hadn’t said it out loud in so long that the personality of the Puppet had become Charlie. Charlie was the Puppet, and vice-versa—they’d spent so long together that they began and ended with one another. Here Michael and Freddy’s merge was too new, and Freddy definitely wanted to keep his autonomy with his superior AI.

“I didn’t want to say it around Gregory,” Charlie whispered, hoping the bear would believe her.

Freddy simply stared at her for a good, long while, his gaze fixed and unblinking.

“A... ghost,” he echoed eventually, sounding wholly unconvinced. “According to the knowledge in my databank, ghosts are not one hundred percent proven to exist. And even if they did... what are you suggesting? That I am—” He thought for a moment, pulling up the correct terminology. “—possessed?! That you are possessed?!”

“That's the simplified version, yeah,” Michael chimed in with a resigned sigh. “Never thought I’d be in this position, and I can't say I'm happy about it, but at least—”

“Oh, will you be quiet?!” Freddy exclaimed loudly, the sound echoing through the enclosed space. He looked to Gregory again, who was now staring right back at him. The bear grimaced, muttering to Charlie: “...Ah. This is quite hard for me to process, but I suppose it would explain the distinct personality of this 'Michael,' if true...”

Gregory blinked at Freddy with a mouthful of food. He didn’t seem like the kind of AI to lose their cool in such a way. If Gregory learned anything from the foster home, when two “adults” were arguing it was best not to get into the middle of it. He kept silent, head bending down as if his sandwich was the most interesting thing in the world before distracting himself with the security feed blinking to life on the monitors.

“This is… really hard for me to talk about,” Charlie let Freddy know, unable to meet his gaze with her own empty eye sockets. “When I was human, my father was the co-owner of the original Fazbear dinner. Then, one day, I met with a terrible fate…”

It was too vivid. William had lashed out in a sudden rage, and Charlie spent so long blaming herself for something that seemed like an accident at first… Though she soon learned that the Afton patriarch was much more disturbed than anyone could’ve ever predicted, and perhaps his fit of rage hadn't been so unprompted after all.

“My robot, the Puppet, found me outside. She was supposed to protect me, and something… something happened out there—something that bonded us together,” Charlie tried to explain to the best of her knowledge, sparing Freddy the gory details. “Michael must’ve latched onto you the same way, of his own free will. I definitely didn't help him...”

There was still so much fight in that broken man.

Freddy pressed a hand to his temple, feeling the animatronic equivalent of a headache coming on. This was… a lot. So much information to process out of scope of the robot’s preprogrammed understanding. His normal logic didn’t work in this scenario, and it honestly scared him.

But… even so, there was no reason for Charlie to lie about such a wild claim. Freddy knew there was a vast wealth of knowledge not in his databanks—maybe all this talk of ghosts was just part of that missing information?

“She’s right,” Michael spoke when Freddy failed to respond. His voice was soft, placating, and tired. He sounded like a man who’d been through hell and back again. “There are so many things going on that you have no idea about, Freddy, and I’m sorry I roped you into them. I didn’t mean to latch onto you specifically, it was just… God, it's still so fuzzy. All I know is that I didn't have many options at the moment and you were the best bet.”

“It… Michael… he says he did not mean to latch onto me specifically,” Freddy slowly parroted aloud, no longer wanting to keep the man’s thoughts to himself. “He had few options of who to cling to… there are things going on that I do not understand—wait.”

Freddy’s gaze snapped to the Puppet. Fazbear Entertainment made a point to upload as little of their sordid history as possible into their Glamrocks, only proving them with names of the founders and their children. Freddy didn’t even have reference pictures for anyone but William Afton and Henry Emily, but it was that second name that struck a chord.

Henry Emily… he had two kids—a son, Samuel, and a daughter named Charlotte.

“Yes, that’s it!” Michael cheered. He couldn’t exactly read Freddy’s thoughts, but he could sense the bear’s growing enlightenment. “Here, let me try something.”

After a moment of focused silence, an image formed in Freddy’s mind—warped and unclear at first, but it soon revealed a smiling, teenage girl wearing the fashion of decades past. Michael let out a tired huff. “It’s one of my memories; did it work? Again, learning as I go here.”

In response, Freddy’s face twisted in sympathetic confusion. “Oh, Charlie… you are… just a child?”

Charlie no longer thought of herself as a child. Yet it was clear from tonight and the comfort from the Daycare that she still felt like one. Her soul was young and carefree, weighed down with trauma and burdens too heavy for anyone to rightly bear. Though she knew that if she didn’t save those souls, no one else could.

How old was she when she passed away? It was a while ago, and the exact age was hard to recall. After a moment’s thought, she found the answer.

“I was… sixteen, yes.” Charlie replied with the garnered maturity that taking care of others had brought her. Freddy’s distress made her sigh. “I didn’t want to upset you, Freddy... You really are a sweet bear.”

She would leave it at that for now. But onto the worst detail of all—one that Charlie had especially dreaded telling her latest ally.

“The real virus—the one that’s controlling your friends—that’s the true threat. And if it’s the same reason we’re awake, it has to do with our shared aggressor: William Afton.” She even feared saying his name. If Charlie had a stomach, its contents would have turned from the pain and confusion the memory that simple moniker wrought.

Michael’s soul—yes, Freddy could admit that now—flinched violently at the name. Despite this immediate reaction, a vengeful, bubbling anger was quick to take over, making the docile animatronic wince.

“That… that is impossible,” Freddy murmured with a frown. He didn’t sound confident in his words, however. “William Afton disappeared decades ago—no one knows what happened to him. At this point, he is presumed to be… dead.” He hung his head in acceptance. “Ah.”

And there was the kicker: if Charlie and Michael were indeed ghosts of humans that perished years ago, who was Freddy to assume that William wasn’t in a similar situation?

But then… why was he doing this? What did happen to him? To Charlie… to Michael…

And what was going to happen to Gregory and his animatronic friends if they didn’t stop this virus soon?

All these heavy questions remained a mystery to Charlie. William had avoided her like the plague the moment he found out she was inhabiting Puppet. It was the only shaky piece of evidence Charlie had that William was remotely capable of shame or regret, yet it wasn’t anywhere near enough to sate her anger.

“I wish I knew why he even started doing this,” Charlie murmured, admitting her lack of in-depth knowledge even after all these years. Maybe that’s why she’d come back, for a sense of closure. “William was never the same since—”

Charlie stopped herself, remembering present company. It’d been decades, but she knew that Michael never forgave himself for the accident. Poor Evan. The lack of any sign of the old Freddy suit wandering the Pizzaplex likely meant that Evan was yet to return. It’d been Charlie’s goal this whole time to recreate their happiest days in hope that the pain and confusion would pass… yet the victims never ceased and Charlie’s work was never complete.

“I’ve stopped asking myself why. We have to prevent it before anything bad happens to Gregory.” She gave a little sigh then looked into Freddy’s eyes, finally coming to her first question for the bear. “Have you noticed anything strange happening in the Pizzaplex before tonight?”

Freddy was so preoccupied with trying to process and catalog information, it took him a moment to register that Charlie asked him a question. The sudden wave of crippling guilt from Michael didn’t help either, though the only thing the ghost offered was a mumbled: “Sorry, I’m… I’m sorry; I’ll explain later.”

“Anything strange?” Freddy repeated slowly, frowning in thought. “Well, the others have been a bit off at night, though nothing to the extent of the way they have acted towards Gregory this evening. Otherwise—” He paused, mouth slightly open as he recalled the confusion of a few months ago.

“Oh… Yes, one incident stands out: approximately four months ago, Bonnie went missing. It happened overnight and staff has never given us a satisfactory explanation. All I know is that I saw Bonnie leave his room shortly after 12 am, and when he failed to return the next morning there was a search for him.”

The bear’s frown deepened as he regurgitated all the details he could.

“I… I was not allowed to actively search, nor were the other animatronics. The human staff were responsible for that, though I feel they were… inefficient. After only a few days, they announced Bonnie’s replacement in the band was Monty—he used to be just a walk around character—and the following morning we played our first show without him.” Freddy let out a heavy sigh. “I feel as though this is when everything started going wrong—at least from my recollection.”

Charlie touched her face, rubbing it as if to self-soothe and relieve stress.

“Of course the bunny went missing…,” she sighed. Taking a second to calm down, she glanced back at Freddy, trying to look through him this time. “Mike? Did you hear that?”

Puppet wondered if he’d been thinking the same thing and her: that the rabbit character’s mysterious disappearance only made sense with the return of William. It was beginning to look like he needed a new vessel to possess; surely at old springlock suit was nothing but a pile of ash now. Yet that didn’t explain—

“And that bunny lady; what do you guys think of her?” Charlie asked, hand poised and propping up her chin.

“I sure did hear that,” Michael chimed in, snagging hold of Freddy’s voice box while the bear was distracted. Freddy’s eyes widened at the sudden highjack and he touched his mouth with a tentative paw.

“Oops—sorry Freddy, I should’ve asked first,” Michael apologized, now back to just a voice in his mind. He gave a wry, hollow sort laugh. “Still not good with the whole body-sharing thing...”

“For once, we are in agreement,” Freddy mumbled, then to Charlie he replied: “There is no ‘bunny lady’ in the Pizzaplex. The only active rabbit character was Bonnie, though as I just mentioned he has been missing for months.”

“But…” Charlie glanced away. Was she remembering things wrong? When she finally had the wherewithal to respond, she sounded adamant. “You were right there. You didn’t see the lady in the white, patchwork suit?”

It’d been the reason for her short circuit, too. This raised further questions that Charlie wasn’t sure they were equipped to handle.

“I did not,” Freddy confirmed with a shake of his head. “Although I will keep an eye out for one in the future.”

That didn’t sound like a character Fazbear Entertainment would instate, especially without any prior warning or marketing. But perhaps Charlie saw something before Freddy found her in the ball pit? He’d never figured out how she’d gotten there, anyway…

“I… have a small proposition,” the bear said after a moment, his voice uncharacteristically tired. “While I accept the information you are telling me, it is difficult for me to process many of these concepts. Now that I am assured Michael is not a threat… I am willing to let him have control for a short while so I can spend some time internally cataloguing everything I have learned.”

“Really?!” Michael sounded genuinely surprised. “Wow, you are advanced! Man, if I could actually get out of here and check out your AI—”

“Let us not think of that right now,” Freddy replied quickly. The last thing he wanted was the ghost messing with him more than he already was. The bear looked to Charlie again, offering a small smile. “Is that alright with you? The only caveat is we need to tell Gregory something first—although I have already been crafting an explanation that saves him many, ah… unfortunate details, so I can handle that before I step back.”

While it wasn’t exactly her fault for the sad backstory of their lives, Charlie felt guilty for overwhelming the kind-hearted bear.

“I understand Freddy. If you could talk to him before you take a break, that’d be awesome!” she encouraged.

As she turned to check on Gregory, he’d long-since scarfed down his sandwich and was working on demolishing the pack of Chica’s Cupcakes. Thankfully, the kid sat mostly unaware of the morbidity his situation involved.

Freddy nodded, then moved to Gregory’s side. His expression instantly softened as he looked at the boy—no matter what outlandish knowledge Freddy learned, Gregory was most important. Keeping the boy safe and sound was his only true goal right now.

“It looks like you are enjoying your meal, superstar!” the bear said with a chuckle, noting a glob of pink icing around Gregory’s mouth. “When you finish, I would like to speak to you about something.” He saw a look of guilt start to cross Gregory’s face and quickly added: “You are not in trouble; Charlie and I just need to explain what is going on with Michael, alright?”

Gregory’s tongue flicked to the corner of his mouth, catching the sugary paste and savoring its taste before swallowing it down.

“You mean the guy that lives in your head…?” he asked. This Michael was an enigma to Gregory right then, and he wasn’t sure if he could trust the glitch in Freddy’s AI. Discarding the empty plastic container his cupcakes came in, Gregory gave Freddy his now undivided attention.

“That is the one,” Freddy replied with a strained smile. “I can reassure you that Michael is not a virus, and is therefore not a threat.” The bear crouched, wanting to be more eye-level with Gregory so the boy didn’t feel like he was being talked down to. Freddy guessed he was antsy enough that the “adults” were having discussions without him, and didn’t want to make him feel worse.

“Think of it this way: you know how each animatronic has their own personality? Well, those are not stored in our bodies, but in our code,” Freddy continued. “If someone really wanted to, they could shut this body down and upload my personality into, say… a Chica model instead. It is a strange concept, but it is simply how we robots work!”

He hoped this was doing the trick; he wanted to make it as easy as possible for Gregory to accept that Michael was sticking around for the time being. “Though Michael is not quite the same as the animatronics, he is in a similar situation: essentially, his personality has been uploaded into my body and now we are sharing it. However, we are still distinct entities—I am still Freddy, and he is still Michael. Does that make sense?”

Gregory had nothing else to liken the situation to. Two consciousness’s sharing the same body… How something like this happened went beyond his computer knowledge, though the lack of knowing didn’t necessarily scare him.

“If you think Michael’s cool, then I trust it,” Gregory rationalized. After all, Freddy had been making all the right calls to keep them safe so far—he doubted the bear would suddenly decide to turn against him now. Freddy would still be Gregory’s favorite even if he had some stranger’s personality floating around inside his brain. Jumping off the creaking swivel chair to stretch his legs, Gregory offered him a smile. “I don’t see you any differently! Don’t worry, Freddy.”

“I appreciate you taking this so well, superstar,” Freddy said, gently patting Gregory’s shoulder. “Now, I am a bit tired, so I am going to take a brief rest and let Michael talk for a bit. However, I will be right here and listening the entire time, so if you need me for anything just call for me and I will come right back.”

He smiled expectantly, wanting a final okay from Gregory before letting the ghost take over.

Gregory fidgeted with the bandages wrapped delicately on his fingers as Freddy explained the current plan. Sure, Gregory wanted Freddy to rest, but he wasn’t 100% ready to meet this Michael… Regardless, he put on a brave face as he leaned forward and hugged Freddy’s neck.

“Alright… Feel better soon,” the boy said, giving him a hearty squeeze.

“Thank you,” the bear replied, squeezing him right back. Once Gregory released him Freddy stared straight ahead, preparing for whatever was about to happen. He didn't exactly know how a ghost took control of an animatronic, so he simply told the spirit: “Whenever you are ready, Michael.”

For a moment, nothing changed. Then Freddy's face went slack, not unlike what happened with the other Glamrocks upon sight of Gregory. However, he quickly perked up again before anyone could grow concerned, blinking rapidly and swiveling his head to and fro as he looked around the room.

“Did I... do it?” Michael's voice came through loud and clear, Freddy's mouth syncing to the words. Michael stared down at the blue-clawed paws in wonder, then let out a shout of excitement. He turned to Puppet lingering nearby and practically fell on her in a clumsy attempt at a hug—he didn't quite have the hang of moving the animatronic yet. “Hi, Charlie! Oh my god, I missed you so much!”

Before Charlie had even turned to face her old friend, she was sandwiched between a large metal body and the floor tiles. The surprise only startled her momentarily before Michael maneuvered Freddy’s arms to hug her.

“Michael! I can’t believe you waited this long to join the fun!” she exclaimed, sarcastic and chiding, though her sincere longing for her old friend was apparent. The gears in her joints could be heard working overtime as she squeezed Mike tight. “I have so much to tell you!”

Her mask was completely hidden as she nuzzled her head against him. How long had it been since she’d spoken to him when they were both in their right minds?

Gregory stood by and watched the happy reunion, his mouth twitching into a smile while he took his seat back in front of the security tape feeds.

“You and me both!” Michael said with a laugh. It took some effort on his part, but eventually he was able to make Freddy's body get off Charlie in favor of sitting on the floor, legs stretched out as he leaned back against the security desk.

“This thing is so weird to control...,” he murmured, looking down at his new metal body. Then he perked up with a gasp, the blue eyes bright and vibrant with life. “Oh, now that I can finally talk—my memory's kind of fuzzy, but I think I'm the one that salvaged you! I've been in Freddy for a while, just... dormant. There’s a big chunk missing, but I do remember waking up earlier tonight knowing something was wrong.”

He paused to grimace, not needing or wanting to discuss him right now.

Charlie’s hand flew to her head, amazed at Michael’s forethought. Whether he wanted to save the Puppet for sentimental reasons or because he knew that they would need Charlie, she pushed his shoulder out of joy. “Where did you find me?! I thought I burned up with the old diner!”

She’d been looking for everyone for such a long time. Cassidy was nowhere to be found, and Evan likewise—not one soul did Charlie see past the darkness. Perhaps they didn’t pass on yet, like Charlie had initially assumed... Maybe they were just powered down somewhere like she’d been, far out of her spectral reach.

“Um...” Michael thought hard, but something seemed to be clouding his memory. He couldn't quite remember the path he'd taken to get there, but he knew he'd found Charlie somewhere the animatronics probably shouldn't be able to go. “I'm... not entirely sure. You were in the diner, I know that—I was there, too. For... for the fire.”

Despite Henry's poetic thought process, Michael hadn't been a completely willing participant as his uncle claimed. Of course he wanted to move on, but he couldn't do so until he was absolutely sure that his father was well and truly gone. Unfortunately, the husk that was left of his body had succumbed to the flames before Michael could confirm this and, well... here he was again. The fact that Charlie's soul remained too only proved that William wasn't dead for good either.

“Anyway,” Michael continued, shaking his head. “Let's not dwell on that right now. Long story short, I found you, and now we're both here.” He spared a glance at the boy in the chair, raising Freddy's mouth in a small smile. “And so is Gregory, apparently. Hi, Gregory—sorry I hijacked your bear friend. I promise it wasn't intentional. Nice to meet you, regardless.”

He held out a hand, leaning forward so Gregory could shake if he wanted. Although, he wouldn't be offended if the boy was still wary—this was a lot to take in for a kid.

Charlie supposed that his memories would come in time. She found more about her previous life came back to her the longer she dwelled on it in death. She was just elated that her dearest friend returned to her—and that she’d regained enough control of her blind rage to see him for who he truly was instead of an unfortunate echo of his father.

Even if their situation was less than favorable, they’d be hard-pressed to find better company than those in this room together.

Charlie leaned into Michael, looking to gauge Gregory’s approach of the old ghost. The boy seemed a little shy but grasped Freddy’s hand nonetheless, likely in a sign of good faith. It was followed by Gregory’s next unprompted question.

“Why are you British?” he asked, excellently put for a twelve year old.

“No—” Charlie had done poorly at holding in a laugh as she gently reminded him: “—Gregory, we don’t just ask why people are British…”

Michael chuckled as well, though his was a bit subdued.

“One of my pare—uh… creators came from across the pond, so I picked up my accent from them; crazy how stuff like that can stick with you,” he explained simply, then flashed a grin. “You're quite a spunky kid, you know that? Charlie and Freddy are lucky to have you around.”

Gregory was stuck with them for the night whether he liked it or not, so Michael figured it would be best to let him know he wasn't a burden. He hadn't actually dealt with kids in quite a while due to his nightshift jobs and... other circumstances... but it this one was strangely easy to talk to.

And also very weird, too—despite his physical similarity to Evan, their personalities were completely different. Michael couldn't imagine his brother in such a high-stress situation and was glad that Gregory seemed to be taking things in stride.

Spunky? Gregory had become slightly bashful at the compliment. He pulled his hand away and shoved it inside his pocket with a smile. Gregory rarely received praise for his attitude, and it felt nice to be seen for once. Evan may have been one to crack under pressure, certainly, but Gregory’s whole life was pressure he’d already bent beneath. Though that timid smile and lack of eye contact did echo faint memories of Michael’s brother…

“Thanks Michael. Uh… Any friend of Charlie’s is my friend, too,” he relented, causing Charlie to relax on the floor at the interaction.

“Ditto,” Michael responded. He had the strongest urge to pull Gregory in for a hug, but he knew that would likely freak him out. Instead he turned to Puppet, his voice quiet. “You know, Charlie, I saw you in the old diner—before the fire, I mean. When I realized it was you I tried to reach out, but... I don't think you recognized me. Can't say I blame you.”

The bear's face grimaced, then his expression changed almost comically fast to one of wide-eyed fear. “Hey, you… you didn't see anyone else from the wreckage wandering around here, did you?”

Michael paused, taking a deep breath. He didn't want to scare Gregory with his clear nervousness, but he needed to know if that thing was also back. However, he realized there was a chance Charlie wasn’t aware of the other entities in the old diner either—or at least, that she hadn't actively conversed with them. The amalgamation was on an entirely different level than a wayward lost child's soul.

“Actually, let me backtrack—when you were stuck down there, did you talk to any of the other animatronics crawling around in the vents?” Michael cleared his throat, miming the gesture despite Freddy’s lack of lungs. “Specifically... one calling itself 'Ennard?'”

Charlie realized she had to help Michael through a stint of broken memories. He left her with something to mull over, so she attempted to fill him in as succinctly as she could.

“Ennard? Yeah, sounds vaguely familiar… That one had a whole lot of problems,” she recalled. Ennard had taken apart and put themselves back together more times than Charlie could count even in the short time she’d known them. She remembered specifically they were never satisfied with their shape or capabilities. They had an odd name, and an even stranger disposition.

“I haven’t run into anyone else from the restaurant, though. Not even Lefty…” Charlie pulled a sad sigh at that. Lefty had been a good friend—a dependable suit of armor that doubled as her confidant for those final moments. “Candy Cadet looked fine when I saw him, too! But he wasn’t online. I tried shaking him awake. Even tried using a burned quarter to get some candy. He totally stole my money!”

She pulled a face, then watched Gregory fish out the same trick quarter he’d used for his field trip in the arcade.

“Duh. You gotta use one of these if you don’t wanna lose your cash,” Gregory interjected, swinging the coin back and forth on its tether.

“Oh thank god,” Michael mumbled at Charlie's claim that she hadn't seen the amalgamation running around. Then he gave a loud, almost barking sort of laugh. “Ennard had way more problems than you even know... I'll tell you about it later when we're not in mixed company.”

Freddy's body gave a visible shiver, indicating that whatever Michael had to say about the strange animatronic, it definitely wasn't good.

“Anyway—neat trick, Gregory!” Michael addressed the boy, grinning at his ingenuity. “You know, I used to—er, I knew someone who did the same exact thing!”

Charlie patted at Michael’s shoulder, trying to quell the sudden anxiousness that she could see him battling with. When he admitted to Gregory that he’d known people skilled at cheating the money-laundering arcade set-up, she felt her inner soul smile at the memories. Sitting back with her arms crossed behind her head, she watched as Gregory scooted closer on his chair.

“How else do you get free sodas?” the kid asked. It was a tough world out there when everything costs money. Sadly no one at the Pizzaplex would give him a job when he’d first snuck in and asked.

Though the question was rhetorical, Michael decided to use his insider knowledge of literally growing up inside these establishments to help the kid out. Besides, it would further distract him from thoughts of weird clown masks and way too many wires...

“Hmm... well, the easiest way is to know a staff member who’s got the code that’ll make the vending machine spit out a drink—they use it to test that the machine is working after a jam,” Michael explained, ready and excited to teach Gregory how to best work the system. “Although I don't think that'll work for you, since the closest you've got is Freddy and I have a feeling he's not going to agree to something like that. Or, well... actually, I don't know.”

It was strange—this time it felt like one of the animatronic's fleeting thoughts popped up in the back of Michael's brain, the gist of it being that “hacking” the vending machine was such a minor infraction, it was easy to look past if it was done to help Gregory. Michael chuckled, then said: “Well, well, seems like we'll be table to teach ol' Freddy how to rebel a little bit after all. Gregory, try asking him to get you a free soda next time you pass a machine—see what happens.”

“Woah—that’s so cool...,” Gregory murmured, genuinely blown away that something in this place hated its surroundings enough to disregard any and all rules.

Mike knew more about Fazbear Entertainment than the others. Why he had such a niche understanding of how to steal from this place wasn't important—what was important was milking everything he knew for survival. And possibly, when all of this was over and done, Gregory could come back and rob the place blind with the help of the rogue AI known only as Michael.

“You wouldn't happen to know any other tricks, would you?” Gregory asked with a Cheshire grin, impish and ready to learn more of the secrets he knew Michael was holding back.

Charlie remembered well those hot summer days they’d forgotten bags of change in their rooms. Mike, being the oldest Afton, had been asked to help his dad at the diner so young—of course he’d been aware of those maintenance codes! Whenever their fathers weren't looking, Charlie would watch in silent awe as Michael worked the system around them to their benefit.

“You could teach him how to cheat at Ski-Ball next,” she suggested with a giggle.

“Oh my god, Ski-Ball!” Michael laughed heartily at the memories.

He’d figured out early on how to make the balls reset endlessly without feeding the machine quarter after quarter. He let out a wistful sigh, recalling the time he’d shown Charlie how to throw the ball at the perfect angle to fall in the highest-scoring hole—and when that failed, Michael simply walked up the ramp until he could throw it at close range. They’d done that for hours until his father caught them and chided them for wasting all the tickets… though he’d given them a choice of any prize from the counter for their efforts when Henry wasn’t looking—they had reached a high score, after all.

William had been nicer, then. The world had been nicer.

With a sudden pang of deep-seated guilt, Michael couldn’t believe things had gone so wrong.

“I’ll teach you some cool stuff soon, Gregory, okay? But enough about me for now—what about you?” Michael tilted the bear’s head curiously as he tried to distract himself from sinking into his regret. “Clearly you snuck in, but I don’t think you actually told us why you’re here after hours. Though, I certainly can’t blame you for wanting to explore everything you couldn’t get to during the day. This place is massive…”

Gregory knew this would come eventually. Sooner or later they’d ask him exactly what dire situation had brought him to this place. Gregory's back slid down the lumbar rest on his chair, slouching now as he thought on how to word it all. There was no need to worry his new friends any more than they already were.

“Oh, y’know...,” he began, nonchalantly reaching for the can of carbonated drink on the desk. He took an easy sip, forcing the bubbles down with a quick cough before continuing.

“I wanted a job! They told me I was too young. So, I figured if they wouldn't give me money, they could give me a free pizza,” he explained, looking away. “And some new shoes... A-And a place to sleep...”

Gregory wasn't dumb. He knew people were looking for him—or at least, they’d be looking eventually.

…Maybe.

“I'm not trying to go back home though,” Gregory made sure to say, flicking the metal tab at the top of his soda can balefully.

Michael narrowed his eyes at this. It was certainly not the answer he expected.

This kid was a runaway? Like, a real runaway, not trying to return to his parents at all? This only piqued his interest more, though Michael knew he had to careful about his response. Purely based on Gregory's demeanor, it was clear this topic was obviously sensitive and not one he liked to discuss.

“A job, huh?” Michael repeated with a nod. “Gotcha. Unfortunately, they don’t give jobs to kids under sixteen unless you’re good friends with upper management. Nepotism at its finest…”

He sighed and shook his head. Mike wanted more information though… And so did Freddy, whose counterpart to Michael’s verbal chatter in the back of his head was a low, mechanical hum. The AI was definitely attentive and listening in.

“But you’re not trying to go home? Any chance you’d tell us why?” Michael pressed, his tone calm and empathetic. He completely understood having a bad home life, more than Gregory would ever realize—and because of this, he also understood how hard it was for a kid to talk about. “And if you don’t want to talk to me, maybe you could tell Charlie or Freddy? I can bring that bear back anytime; he’s ready and waiting right in here.”

Michael tapped Freddy’s temple. He didn’t really want to give up autonomy yet, but he would if it meant Gregory was more willing to reveal his situation. The kid hadn't reengaged eye contact yet, still set on bending and ripping off the metallic tab to his soda can.

“Heh...” He laughed once, humorless and with his expression unchanging from that of ennui. There was no use in avoiding it. What would be the point in lying to these guys? They’d already spent so long proving that they’d keep him safe.

“So... I live at a foster home. My real parents aren't around anymore.” Gregory spoke simply, taking on the demeanor of someone much older than he really was. Content to kick up his feet on the desk, he discarded the pull tab, hearing it click on the ground before continuing. “They're not great parents… Actually, they’re super bad ones. They don't care if I get hurt, or if I don't eat. They don't care about any of their foster children. So I came to the last place I was happy...”

Though after everything that happened tonight, Gregory didn't know if those happy memories were going to be tainted by attempted child-maiming. As he spoke, his eyes flicked back to the camera feeds, worried that one of the crazed animatronics or even the night guard herself would appear around a corner.

“Oh, Gregory… I’m sorry,” Michael responded softly, too focused on Gregory’s words to notice his wariness towards the camera feeds. That certainly explained the kid’s avoidant behavior when it came to discussing anything about himself. There was a hardening behind Freddy’s bright eyes as Michael looked to the floor. “I understand, trust me; I… used to know someone with shitty a parent, too—ow! What, Freddy?!”

The bear had suddenly snapped in Michael’s ear, making a high-pitched ringing sound.

“Watch your language,” Freddy’s voice chided. “And please return control to me; I have come to terms with the situation.”

Michael sighed heavily.

“Okay, Freddy wants out—sorry for cursing. Don’t repeat bad words, kid.” Michael winked. “At least, not within Freddy’s earshot—okay, okay! Stop! God, stupid profanity filter…” Michael huffed, turning to the Puppet. “I’ll talk to you again soon, Charlie—it’s been far too long.”

He smiled and gave her a pat on one spindly leg. Then, the bear’s face went lax for a few seconds before coming back to life, looking around until it settled on Gregory. “Hello, superstar; I am back!”

While it was hard to speak about, telling someone about his abhorrent home life felt good to get off of his chest. Gregory would make sure to thank Michael the next time they could speak directly. As he patted Charlie's leg, one could see how she didn't want to let her friend go just yet. Unfortunately, she had to—Freddy needed his body back eventually, after all. To be a backseat passenger in your own head must feel odd.

Charlie was already thinking about a solution to their unique issue. Surely if she could move the souls of children, she wouldn't have an issue moving Michael's soul to a new vessel… She gently touched his hand, helping ease the transition as Freddy assumed charge once more. Gregory laughed at Michael's fumbling curses, his smile finally bursting through again as Freddy returned to them.

“Welcome back, Freddy! Feeling better?” Charlie asked curiously.

“Very much so,” the bear replied with a smile of his own, getting to his feet. He held his arms out to Gregory for a hug, a kindness in his eyes far greater than a simple robot should be able to express. “Thank you for sharing, Gregory; we will figure out a solution to your predicament of where to live. Do not worry.”

What that solution would actually be, Freddy didn’t yet know. He was just certain that Gregory could not return to that foster home, no matter what. Even staying in the Pizzaplex would be better—at least he’d have access to food, shelter, and two beings that cared for him (three counting Michael).

But… that wasn’t possible. It’s not like Freddy could simply adopt a human child. Plus, it was far too dangerous with the current virus situation. He’d have to think of something else before the night was out.

As Gregory reached over and pulled himself against Freddy to hug the big guy properly, Charlie slunk up to sit on the counter.

“We're going to make sure you get taken care of, okay, Gregory?” she added, rubbing the poor boy’s back as he sighed against his robot guardian.

It was rough for Gregory to admit he'd rather stay here. The feeling of danger was already familiar to him, even as his last smidgeon of self-preservation told Gregory this place would get him killed one day. He was too young to be around for the initial missing children's reports way back in the 80s, but he was aware that the franchise had mixed reviews from the public. There was always a sense of unease to Fazbear Entertainment that Gregory couldn't ignore.

And, for some reason, perhaps a part of him was drawn to it as well...

“I wanna stay here with you guys...,” he admitted, unable to let go of Freddy now that he’d shown true vulnerability.

Freddy looked sidelong at Charlie at this declaration. Even if the bear wasn’t aware of all the gruesome details, from context clues and Michael’s spiking anxiety he knew that staying here wasn’t safe for the boy. Even so, they didn’t really have much of a choice until 6am.

“We will stay with you as long as we are able to,” Freddy promised, and he meant every word. He hugged Gregory closer, running gentle claws through his hair. As he idly glanced behind Charlie at the monitor, his eyes widened in shock. There, only a few rooms away and heading right for them was the night guard. “Oh goodness, we were not paying enough attention—Vanessa is nearby!”

“She can’t get in with the doors locked, though,” Michael pointed out, then groaned in frustration when Freddy’s gaze shifted to the power meter. They’d forgotten to release the doors to lessen the power drain, and now there was barely a full bar left. “…Typical."

***

Previous Chapter ~~ Next Chapter

Looking for more? Check out the Chapter Masterlist on Tumblr! Or check out the entire Wires that Bind Us Series on ao3!

#fnaf #five nights at freddy's #fnaf sb #fnaf security breach #fnaf au #glamrock freddy #charlie emily #marionette fnaf #puppet fnaf #gregory #michael afton #fanfic #fanfiction #ao3 #angelofrainfrogs #zeitghest #spend the night #the wires that bind us au

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3 Types of Counterfeit Dreams & How to Discern the Difference

Jesus warned that the last days would be marked by counterfeit christs, false prophets, and lying signs and wonders (Matthew 24:24; Mark 13:22).

One way the enemy deceives is through counterfeit dreams and visions.

Defining the Counterfeit Dream

In her book Dreams and Visions: Understanding and Interpreting God’s Messages to You, Jane Hamon describes the essence of the false dream:

“A false dream or vision is one that attempts to establish ungodly principles or deception concerning biblical truth in the mind of the dreamer or in those to whom the dreamer tells the dream.”

In essence, the false dream has the same purpose as the false prophet. The end result is to lead people away from God and toward the enemy.

Examples of Counterfeit Dreams

1. Nightmares

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What about nightmares? Let me first say that not every nightmare is from the enemy. God can also use an unpleasant dream to get our attention. As mentioned earlier, King Abimelech had a scary dream from the Lord that he was a “dead man” for taking the wife of Abraham into his harem (Genesis 20:3). Pilate’s wife also had a nightmare about Jesus, claiming that she had “suffered many things” about Jesus in her dream (Matthew 27:19). Sometimes prophetic dreams and visions may resemble nightmares. The prophet Daniel also experienced this kind of terror as he was resting on his bed in Babylon when he saw four great beasts coming out of the sea (Daniel 7:1-8). Daniel admitted that he was actually grieved in his spirit by the night visions and that he was actually troubled by them similar to Pilate’s wife concerning Jesus. Daniel’s “nightmares” actually turned out to be prophetic insights about future kingdoms that would arise on earth (see Daniel 7:1-28).

For instance, many Christians testify to having dreams of being chased by someone and being terrified. Dreams like these are not always demonically inspired. The Lord could be giving you the dream to expose fear in your life. It could be a dream about your own condition. For example, a dream could be given to show dreamers that they are running away from their responsibilities. I have had dreams like this and have actually “turned the tables” on the person pursuing me by chasing my pursuer. God wants us to get to the point where we as believers never back down—rather, we are led by His Spirit.

Nightmares can also serve as a signal that the dreamer is carrying around unresolved issues in their soul (mind, will, and emotions). Or the Lord may be allowing us to dream about a traumatic experience buried deeply in our subconscious. If as a believer you are having constant nightmares, please see a Christian, Spirit-filled counselor or deliverance minister. We are called as believers to bear one another’s burdens. Never be ashamed to ask for help.

If satan can give false visions to people and start world religions, then he has no problem manipulating what we see in our sleep at night or deceiving us or filling us with fear. The devil was able to show Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and their glory (Matthew 4:8). Most Bible scholars believe that the devil showed Jesus these kingdoms in a supernatural vision.

Some nightmares occur because we have actually allowed the enemy to gain a foothold through our physical senses. For instance, some believers love to watch explicit films loaded with violence, fear, and sexuality. They don’t realize, however, that these “entertaining” films attract demonic spirits to them. Viewing a violent scene in a movie that shows a person being murdered by a psychopath is not a good idea just before bedtime. You may attract spirits of hate, murder, and fear leading to a demonically-inspired nightmare where you dream of some evil person attacking you with a machete.

2. Deceptive Dreams

When people think of the devil, images sometimes come to mind of a red guy with horns, a bifurcated tail, and a pitchfork. This, however, is not how the Bible describes satan. The Bible describes him as an “angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14). He comes to deceive us as someone that seems harmless. In the past, the enemy will give dreams and visions from “angels” to give counterfeit revelation to people, like Muhammad and Joseph Smith.

An interesting example of satan’s treacherous nature is found in the book of Jeremiah where the prophet writes a letter to the exiles, informing them that they were to prepare to be in Babylon for seventy years. Jeremiah’s prophecy contradicted the false prophets who were preparing the Jews for a short stay in Babylon and a quick return to their homeland in Jerusalem. Spend time to read Jeremiah 29:4-9.

An important aspect of Jeremiah’s prophecy is the warning he gave in verse 8: “Do not let your prophets and your diviners deceive you, nor listen to your dreams which you cause to be dreamed.” In essence, the perversity and disobedience of the people of Judah caused the false prophets to have false dreams. Because their hearts were not right before God, the people’s own sinful ways brought more deception. The result was tragic, especially for those who prophesied falsely and for the people who were led into deeper deception (Jeremiah 28:15-17; 29:15-32). Though his name was not mentioned in the story of Jeremiah, satan was the cause of the false dreams and lies from the false prophets.

3. Dark, Discouraging Dreams

I have debated myself as to what to label dreams from the enemy that make us wake up feeling like we have no hope. Some people label these dreams as dark or discouraging dreams. In his book Decoding Your Spiritual Dreams: Keys for Christian Dream Interpretation, Bryan Carraway provides helpful insights on satan’s purpose for dark dreams and also teaches dreamers how to discern a dark dream from a God-inspired spiritual dream:

Satan has many purposes for dark dreams. He sends them primarily to torment, confuse, and deceive. The forces of the dark kingdom can send dreams to both Christians and non-Christians…. Dreams from the enemy are always dark or deceptive in some way. Many people report that dreams from the enemy come in darker, muted colors, or entirely in black and white. Dark dreams usually leave one with no hope, no way of escape, and amidst the depressing themes, there seems to be no positive aspect at all—no offer of redemption. Dreams from the Lord don’t have that quality. Spiritual dreams can sometimes deal with very dark themes (spiritual warfare, the tactics of the enemy, divine judgment, etc.) but, in spiritual dreams, there is a redeeming message or some avenue of hope portrayed in the dream. God is a God of mercy, and even in harsh spiritual dreams, we see His divine attributes of grace, mercy, or love contained somewhere within.

Closing Advice About the Counterfeit

Some people in the Body of Christ spend most of their time focusing on the counterfeit. Unfortunately, in their efforts to discern the false prophets, false words, or false dreams, they have not spent enough time familiarizing themselves with the genuine. Like tellers at banks, we can discern the fake if we spend most of our time with the genuine. Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me” (John 10:27 NKJV). If we spend enough time in the presence of God and in His Word, we will get to know the nature of God better. We will also be able to hear His voice in our dreams and have our senses developed to the point where we can discern good from evil (Hebrews 5:14).

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scxrlettwxtches · 3 years

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a life with you | hwang hyunjin

genre: assassin au, epilogue(?), inspired by @chaninfused “row, row, row your boat” universe

description: when you have doubts about your future with hyunjin, the assassin is more than happy to reassure you that all he wanted was to be with you.

word count: 2.8k+

a/n: i am officially a month late and terribly sorry, furat dear. TT happy (very belated) birthday to you! thank you so much for screaming with me about hyunjin, rrryb, and everything else in between. most of all, thank you for being such a dear friend. <3 i really hope you enjoy!

For the first time since Hyunjin became your friend, your confidante, and then your darling, doubts about your relationship began to fester into gnarly thorns, sitting in the deep recesses of your heart.

It didn't have anything to do with your love for Hyunjin. On the contrary, your love for the man was stronger than ever, built upon a bond of trust and deep care for one another. Hyunjin had stood by your side through the highs and the lows, just as you had watched him discover what it means to love someone, watched him discover that he himself was capable of being loved.

No, your doubt stemmed from an instinctual fear that the two of you were simply not compatible because you would never be able to assimilate into the lifestyle he grew up in.

You thought you could do it, at first. After all, what's so hard about being well off? What's so hard about being able to splurge a little extra money on your clothes, your food, your overall lifestyle?

You quickly learned that noble life wasn't quite as simple as that.

For one thing, it was overwhelming to the highest degree. Ever since you agreed to attend the banquet with Hyunjin as his significant other, you'd been thrust into an endless cycle of dress fittings, shoe fittings, and practically any other type of fitting that exists. The party itself was also an overstimulation of all your senses; there was so much to see, so much to comprehend and hear and say that it all just got a bit too much for poor you.

So that was why you were here alone, standing on an empty balcony to find some fresh air, some quiet, and some peace. The wind felt nice against your skin in comparison to the stuffy rooms and banquet halls, and you couldn't help but wonder guiltily if you could head home by yourself. You didn't want to bother Hyunjin, of course, who was born noble and was probably enjoying himself.

“Oh, thank goodness, I've finally found you!”

As if the stars had heard you, Hyunjin stepped out into the balcony, his expression wrought with relief as he made his way towards you, taking your hands in his.

As you gazed upon him, those long lashes, those soft lips, and above all, those gentle eyes that held nothing but love, affection, and concern as he studied your face, you found yourself once again falling deeper in love with him, as if that was even possible.

“Why did you abandon me in there?” The assassin almost whined, and you fought back a smile as you rubbed your thumbs against the back of his hands.

“I just needed some air, and you seemed preoccupied,” you explained, ducking your head slightly as Hyunjin shrugged off his long coat and wrapped it around your shoulders.

“But you didn't need to escape so quickly without telling me,” he argued like a petulant child when his eyes suddenly flashed with a sharpness that you hadn't seen in a while, “Unless...did something happen?”

Damn Hwang Hyunjin and his ridiculously fine-tuned awareness.

You shook your head, running your hand up and down his arm, “Nothing happened,” you smiled soothingly.

��But you look unhappy,” he insisted, cupping your cheek with his gentle hands, worry filling his dark brown irises, “My darling, please tell me what is wrong.”

Inside, Hyunjin was panicking. He knew you better than he knew himself, and he knew the look of uncertainty on your face when he saw it. Were you beginning to have second thoughts about him? Was being with him becoming more of a burden than a blessing to you? Was the constant little weight in his coat pocket something that he’ll have to throw away soon?

Logically, Hyunjin was almost sure that any of those possibilities weren't true. You loved him, and you loved him dearly. The two of you have been through thick and thin together, and he knew your love for him was as deep as the darkest oceans and as pure as the sunrise sky. But yet, the coil of doubt could not totally recede from his mind. After all, you were always so much more than he could ever dare ask for.

“Hyunjin,” you spoke softly, your smile so knowing that the assassin felt more at ease just at the sound of your voice, “Relax.”

“So something is wrong, my love?”

You sighed, cursing at Hyunjin’s endearingly insistent nature. Hyunjin was a fixer at heart. Whatever was bothering him, whatever was bothering the people he loved, he was proactive about finding a solution. He’d go to the ends of the earth to find one if need be, which was what he did for your precious daughter all that time ago.

But this, this wasn’t a problem that you were sure he could fix.

“I don’t know if this is going to work, Hyunjin.”

Hyunjin had never experienced such physical heartache until this very moment. His eyes widened with alarm, a terror that he could hardly keep clamped down, but ever the gentleman, he waited for you to finish before interjecting.

“I know you were so eager to introduce me into this world, to give me luxury that I didn’t experience before, but truthfully, I don’t enjoy this lifestyle,” you confessed, gesturing to the ballroom where the party was still ongoing, where the lords and ladies chatted and drank the night away, “It’s stifling for me, Hyunjin. But this is your life, and I don’t want to take that away from you--”

You found your answer in the searing kiss that closed the gap between his lips and yours. Hyunjin’s kisses were passionate, palettes of red and orange that swept you off your feet time and time again, but they weren’t all consuming. His fire was warm, homely, loving, and you quickly found yourself wondering why you had any doubts in the first place.

“Is that what was worrying you?” He murmured, pulling away with bright eyes as he brushed the hair away from your face, “That I wouldn't want to leave this life for you?”

“Oh, I didn't doubt that you'd leave if that was what I truly wanted,” you assured him, your hands resting against his chest as he listened intently to every word you said, “And that worried me. I don't want to make you choose between me and your life here.”

Hyunjin shook his head, brushing your cheek with his gentle, yet calloused fingers, “You've got it all wrong, my darling,” he whispered, pressing his forehead against yours for a short moment before pulling away, “Come with me?”

Confused, excited and only slightly worried, you followed him wordlessly, placing your safety in his hands without question, as you've always done. Hyunjin led you back inside the estate, but not back towards the party that you were so obviously trying to avoid. Instead, he took you somewhere the music seemed to blend into the peaceful silence and where the mindless chatter faded into nothingness.

"Am I even allowed to be here?" You were pretty sure you had no need to whisper, but you still found yourself doing it.

“I'm allowed, so you're allowed by association,” Hyunjin said with a smile, brushing a strand of your hair away from your face as he laced your fingers together, tugging you down the hallway until he stopped at a particular room.

“Miss?” He bowed dramatically, making you giggle as he opened the door, pulling you in.

You looked around the space, a quaint little thing with a small office desk and a simple bed, but everything was clearly expensive and high quality. Even though most of the design and decor was quite minimal, there were little touches like the choice of wooden, the scent of the candle, the distinct stuffed animal that you remembered was once Nari’s. It all just screamed Hyunjin.

“Is this your room?” You asked with a soft laugh, brushing your fingers against the wooden surface of his drawer before picking up the small stuffed bear.

“Yes. I didn't need much space, and I'm not here often, so I just took one of the smaller guest rooms,” Hyunjin chuckled before turning and seeing you with the familiar stuffed animal in your hands. His expression morphed into one of nostalgic happiness at the memory of someone that meant the world to him and pain at the reminder of his own failure, “Oh, that was one of Nari's stuffies.”

“I remember,” you found yourself smiling sadly, lost in the memories as you squeezed the stuffed animal gently.

Hyunjin walked over, eyes distant as he gently placed his hand on it's head, “Wherever I used to watch over Nari while you ran errands, she always wanted me to play with this stuffed animal in particular,” he chuckled softly, “I always want to have a part of her in my life, so I held onto it. I hope that's alright with you.”

Your eyes watered as you gazed up at the man who you loved unconditionally. Such a gentle soul, a person who'd treasure all that were close to him, a man who had such a natural instinct to nurture and care for others.

“Of course, it's alright,” you smiled, placing the stuffed animal down, “I-it's more than alright. She always loved it when you came around to see her.”

Hyunjin chuckled, wiping the corner of your eye with a delicate swipe of his finger before gently guiding you to his desk, “Close your eyes, my darling.”

“Why?” You raised a suspicious eyebrow as your hip leaned against the desk and Hyunjin stood before you.

“Because!” His lips curled into a pout, “I have a surprise for you.”

“You better not have bought me another shawl, darling. I don't mind that the last one got a small tear in it,” you berated him preemptively, worried that Hyunjin had fallen back into his habit of overly indulging you for the sake of making you happy.

Hyunjin’s eyes sparkled, and you wondered briefly if he was the only person who seemed to enjoy being nagged at, “Just close your eyes, darling. Please?”

Oh, he wasn’t playing fair anymore, not as he flashed those irresistible puppy eyes, and you could do little more than let your eyes flutter shut. You felt his hands take yours, guiding you to open your hands with your palm facing upward. Giddy with anxiety, your confusion was palpable as you felt a featherlight weight fall into your hands.

“Alright, open.”

When you opened your eyes, you could barely hide your puzzled expression as you inspected the piece of paper that Hyunjin placed in your hands. Unfolding it, you scanned through the contents to get to the chase and then--

The paper fell to the ground as you let out an audible gasp, whipping your head up to glance at your lover. It was his sheepish, excited and slightly anxious expression that truly made it real to you.

“Was that a good gasp or a bad gasp?” He asked, trying to lighten the mood.

“It’s…” you swallowed, still trying to sort through the plethora of emotions that were clouding your mind, “it’s real.”

Hyunjin couldn’t fight his smile, realizing that he’d made you speechless for one of the first times in his life, “It is, darling.”

“B-but, it’s right in that secluded area outside of town, the place that I always--” you spun around to face Hyunjin, utterly dumbfounded, “How did you know?”

The assassin laughed, picking up the deed which you had rather unceremoniously dropped on the floor, “We were taking the carriage back to your bakery once, and I noticed the way you looked at the cottages in that area. Plus, you mentioned once that you’d want to live a simple and secluded life, and this location fit your description quite perfectly. It’s nothing really--”

Your lips pressed against his as you shut him up with a sweet kiss, cupping his cheeks and holding him close, “I love you,” you murmured without an ounce of hesitation as you pulled away from Hyunjin, cheeks flushed and eyes bright.

Hyunjin looked dazed, utterly lovestruck as he gazed into your eyes, pulling you towards him as he sat on the edge of his desk, “Do you like it?” He asked softly, playing with your fingers and making you smile. Oh, Hyunjin, always so eager to please, so eager to do things right for you, to make your life easier. You wondered how you ever deserved such a lover.

“I do,” you smiled softly, looking down at your hands.

“It’s a small cottage, but it has enough space for us and...more...if that situation ever arises,” Hyunjin’s ears seemed to redden, and your heart skipped a beat as you realized what he was so gently insinuating.

“I love it,” you whispered, watching as your fingers laced together.

Hyunjin’s eyes brightened, “You do?”

“I do,” you smiled at his eagerness, “Do you? Do you want this life? I won’t fault you at all if you do not--”

“Oh, my darling,” Hyunjin murmured, gazing into your eyes as you drowned in his loving gaze, his bottomless affections for you that gave you the butterflies even after so long, “When will you realize that I want nothing more than to live a quiet, simple life with you? When will you realize that some of my most treasured moments were with you and Nari in your cramped little bakery? All I've ever wanted was to find a nice, quaint little location that wasn't too far from the town, and for us to grow old there together…”

Your eyes welled with unshed tears as you brought his hand to your lips, kissing it gingerly, “That’s all I want, too,” you confessed, “I want to live quietly and happily with you, put our suffering behind us…”

Hyunjin was silent for a moment before he tugged you towards him, “If that’s what we both want,” he trailed off, red dusting his cheeks as he looked down, “would you like to get married?”

It wasn’t a sudden proposal. Hyunjin and you had vaguely mulled over the idea for months now, especially since it was becoming increasingly clearer that the two of you loved no one but each other. But to hear those direct words falling from his lips, with no lighthearted quips or jabs to deflect the sincerity of it, it utterly floored you.

The assassin took your silence for doubt, and he looked back up at you with shining eyes, “I know you had bad experiences with your past marriage. My line of work isn’t exactly stable either. But, Y/N, I’ll spend my life showing you that a future with me will be worth your while. Would you,” he swallowed nervously, “would you let me do just that, my darling?”

“Oh, darling,” you murmured, reaching forward and cupping his cheek with your hand. He leaned into it almost desperately, “You have nothing to prove, nothing to show. We’re equals in this relationship,” you smiled, standing on your tiptoes and gently pecking him on the nose, “And yes, I’d love to marry you, Hyunjin.”

The childlike sparkle in his eyes made you giggle as you watched him physically process your words. Slight confusion, then disbelief, then awe.

“Really?! Oh, my love, I’m so happy!” Hyunjin lifted you in his arms, spinning you around as you laughed, wrapping your arms around his neck. When he placed you down, he fumbled around in his back pocket, eyes wide, “I-I can’t believe I forgot this! We were having such a soft moment and the question just slipped out of my mouth--”

Giggles burst from your lips as Hyunjin finally managed to pull out a black velvet box, revealing a small, simple, yet priceless diamond ring. It was so undeniably Hyunjin to get so caught up in proposing that he’d forget to present the engagement ring to you, and you found the two of you chuckling about it up until he gingerly slipping the silver band onto your third finger.

“Oh, I do have a request from Jisung, who wants to be present at the wedding,” Hyunjin said when the two of you were finally curled up in his bed, embracing each other’s warmth.

“I’d be happy to invite him,” you chuckled, looking down at your finger and at the glimmering stone that now rested on it, “It’s beautiful, by the way. The ring.”

Hyunjin smiled, leaning down to press a kiss to your hair, “I passed a jewelry shop when I was running some errands for your bakery, and it just reminded me so much of you,” he said, brushing his fingers across is, “Elegant and beautiful.”

“Such a flatterer,” you complained to hide the heat in your cheeks.

“Oh, no no. There will be much more of that now that we’re engaged,” Hyunjin teased, tickling your waist, “I hope you’re prepared.”

And you were prepared, alright. All of the trials, tribulations, and the joys of marriage, you were ready for all of it as long as Hyunjin was by your side.

fin.

#i hope you liked it furat! :>#happy belated birthday!#stray kids scenarios #stray kids imagines #hwang hyunjin scenarios #hwang hyunjin imagine #hwang hyunjin oneshot #my fics

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moonagedaydreamohyeah · 3 years

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Hi!! Welcome back! I saw you'retaking prompts, so I hope it's okay for me to send a lil one 🥺 I have this idea where Bucky has nightmares constantly, and they get so bad he can't wake up. So after a couple of weeks, he's barely holding on, Steve tries something though. And now wherever he has a nightmare, he grabs his hand, to soothe him while telling him various memories of them, their wedding, their childhood. It works, Bucky calms down eventually and then wakes up. Telling Steve his dream shifted at a certain point and stopped being scary. I had this idea but I truly cannot write at all, if you choose to do it (it's totally fine if you don't though) I know you'll do a great job! Tysm

Hii Nonnie! Thank you soo so much for your prompt, I’m sorry it took so long! Here it is though, it turned out pretty long but I hope you like it!!🙏🌼💗

Trigger warnings for some angst and trauma related stuff and a close-to panic attack - I promise it gets fluffy before long☺️

_____________________________________________

The first thing Steve registered as he slowly became aware of his surroundings was the darkness of their room, suggesting that it was nowhere close to being morning yet.

He slowly blinked his eyes open and as he reached his hand out he came in contact with heated and sweat-clammy skin at the same time as he heard the tell-tale whimpering sounds from beside him, which instantly alerted to the cause of him having woken up in the first place.

As he sat up and turned the lamp at his bedside on, Steve looked at the distressed face of his boyfriend, at the way that his hands are opening and closing around the sheet in tight fists as if battling through a pain that was only a memory, but probably felt just as fresh and real as the approaching dawn.

Running a hand tiredly over his face, Steve suspected the bone deep exhaustion which is the product of almost two weeks of sleepless nights, for the fact that he didn’t realise what was happening the moment he stirred into wakefulness.

Steve took a deep breath in a lost effort to gather himself for what appeared to be another sleepless night with Bucky reliving the worst moments of his life while Steve sat helplessly beside him, unable to wake him up from the horror he was reliving and bring him back to reality.

When this specific brand of night terrors had first started, Steve had gone through any and all means that he and Bucky could come up with to wake him up, finding that not one of them was enough to tear Bucky from the deep sleep he was caught up in and the painful memories that came with it.

It wasn’t like nightmares were any kind of new experience for either of them, which of course couldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. They had both experienced stuff that would bring anyone nightmares, and Bucky’s mind especially only had to dig through what seemed like a bottomless pile of more than 70 years incomparable trauma and replay it, whenever it wanted to procure night terrors of the kind that would have most people opt for never sleeping again, if it meant they didn’t have to relive it - which is what Bucky would have preferred too, if it wasn’t for his therapist having put him on a strict sleeping schedule and medication to ensure that he would actually sleep within those set times, in a sympathetic voice ensuring him that the only road to recovery was through.

Usually the other would be there to wake up whomever of them were unlucky enough to run into a nightmare bad enough to wake the other up, and they would be able to hold each other until they could talk it out and eventually go back to sleep, until they were ready to go back to sleep.

They even had a ritual set up for the really bad ones. They would put on a pot of coffee and have a cup each, indulging in plenty of cream and sugar and drink them while watching an episode or two of Steven Universe on the TV.

As none of that was something they’d gotten to enjoy before waking up in the 21’st century, due to rationing and what not, that usually brought them had suffered right back to reality, reminding them that they had both escaped the pain of the past, and were now back together in the somewhat peaceful life they had managed to create for themselves in this new time and place.

But since these particular nightmares had started, none of that had been of use anymore. No matter what Steve tried, Bucky simply wouldn’t wake up and all Steve could do was sit helplessly by his side while the whimpers and cries for help rose in volume,

That didn’t stop Steve from trying though. Reaching out to try and shake Bucky out of it, Steve tried to keep the desperation out of his voice as he spoke.

“Bucky, baby, come on wake up. You’re dreaming sweetheart, you aren’t there anymore, you’re right here with me, all you gotta do is wake up.”

As he’d come to expect though, it was no use. If anything, the nightmare only seemed to be intensifying, if the full body shiver and increasingly loud whimpers of pain was anything to go by. Steve could feel his voice wavering as he shook him a little harder while he tried to speak over the devastating sounds coming from his love.

“Bucky, please. C’mon, baby, wake up. Sweetheart.”

It was when Bucky, still not showing any signs of waking up, let out a loud, high pitched cry of ‘please, no, no more, no more please, it hurts!’ that Steve suddenly couldn’t take it anymore. His breath hitched as the sob he’d been trying to hold back suddenly tore from his throat and without thinking, he was throwing the covers off and leaping out of their shared bed and into the living room where he braced himself on the back of the couch and took in gasping breaths as he tried to control the sobs that kept coming.

As his breathing only picked up the pace, Steve felt himself steer into what would no doubt become a full blown panic attack if he didn’t get a hold of himself. He slid down to sit the floor and placed his between his knees while back and forth to eight in his in a last ditch effort to slow his breathing; ‘breathe in for eight, and then out for eight’ he recited in his head.

Finally feeling his breathing start to even out, he remembered something that Mary-Ann, Bucky’s therapist, had stressed in one of their shared sessions;

‘You can’t cure another person’s pain or trauma, and the minute you catch yourself trying or beating yourself up over not being successful in doing so, you’re only making the situation worse by creating more pain for yourself along side with the pain your loved one is already in. Working through this stuff is only something you can do for yourself. The best you can do is be by their side to support them through it and try to diminish the strain of negative thoughts and other practical stuff that takes energy away from the effort that it takes to get better.’

Bucky and Steve both had trauma to work through, and figuring out to best help each other without putting too much strain on themselves and taking on the other’s struggles as well, had been a difficult balance to achieve when they had first been brought back to each other. But through therapy and conversations they had managed to get into a pretty good rhythm when it came to balancing their relationship and everyday life which all the baggage they each brought into it, by being there for each other in the best way possible.

That didn’t mean it wasn’t still hard sometimes, and these nightmares had taken a serious toll on both of them, so it wasn’t any wonder that Steve was at his limit. Had it only taken out on the nights, that would have been a different thing. But Bucky had been restless and tired in the day too, often staring off into the distance seemingly caught up in his own head. Steve, having been kept up by Bucky’s nightmares, had slowly felt the weight of Bucky’s struggles and the overall gloomy mood in their shared home, become to much to bear with his sparring energy resources.

Reminding himself once again of Mary-Ann’s words, Steve tried to shake off the feeling of inadequacy as he slowly got up from the floor. ‘The only way to get past this is through,’ he thought decisively, ‘and we will get through it.’

Even though Steve suddenly couldn’t bear to not be by Bucky’s side for one more moment, he opted to take a quick detour into the kitchen to get himself a glass of water, before he braces himself and returned to the bedroom.

By now whatever Bucky was reliving had sent him into a state of thrashing around on the sheets, throwing the covers halfway off to reveal his sweat soaked shirt, accompanied the sound of pleading, painful sounding whimpers that bordered on sobs.

Sitting himself back on the bed, Steve used one hand to grab a firm hold of Bucky’s that was now clutching the sheet hard enough that it was a wonder he hadn’t torn a hole in it yet, and started rubbing soothing circles over the back while he smoothed Bucky’s hair away from his sweaty face. Steve took a deep breath to collect himself before he started talking in a soothing voice.

“It’s okay, Buck, I’m here. I’m not going anywhere sweetheart” He didn’t know if he was still talking to Bucky or mostly trying to convince himself, when he continued, “I can’t take the pain away, but I can at least be here by your side through it, huh? Just like your Mary-Ann told us: that’s all I can do, and I’ll do it sweetheart, I’ll stay right here. I’m sorry I had to leave for a little while, but I promise I’m here now, okay? Just like you were always right there for me.”

Thinking back to the first of those awful winters when Steve had been so sick that not one doctor dared reassure his ma that he would be sure to pull through, Steve continued in that same, low voice, mostly just thinking out loud by now. He almost didn’t notice that Bucky’s whimpers had toned down a little bit and the thrashing was starting to calm down again into those god awful full body shivers.

“I guess I know how you felt now, going though those winters back then, huh? Oh god, how awful that must have been for you, baby, I get that now, don’t I? Sitting there, unable to do a damn thing but always reassuring me that I would get through even when everyone else doubted it. You always stayed, and I swear baby, that must’ve been what got me through at least the half of it.” Steve had to breath in deep again to keep the emotion out of his voice.

“Remember that first winter? We can’t have been that old, maybe nine or ten I think..” Steve mused, caught up in the memories. “Yeah, that must’ve been it. I remember ‘cause we had been playing all day out in the rain and we didn’t even notice how cold it was. Your ma gave us such an earful when we came home, soaked through and teeth chattering. I remember her going at us while we stood in the bathroom, naked as the day we were born and shivering, while she got the bath ready. She had that voice on, the one she used when we’d been exceptionally stupid”, Steve scoffed quietly. “‘You boys, I swear,’ she would always say, ‘it’s barely forty degrees outside and you run around in the rain like that; you’ll get sick, that’s for sure. You boys don’t think we have better things to spent all our hot water on?’ and I remember her voice soften when she told us, ‘you gotta take better care of yourselves, especially you Steve, with how skinny you are.’ I think she was probably more worried than mad though. God, I miss your ma sometimes. She was such a wonderful woman. Always had a thing or two to say about the shenanigans we got up to, but you could always tell she wasn’t really all that mad. She was right too, of course. I spent the entire winter in bed, doing my best to cough up half a lung while you sat by my side with that determined look on your face, like you were prepared to fight off death himself if he ever even thought of bothering to show up.”

By now Bucky was visibly calming down, the only signs of distress being the furrow of his brow and the occasional clenching and unclenching of the fist that Steve wasn’t holding onto, so Steve kept talking in the hope that that was what was finally doing the trick.

“And you never let me go out after that, without being practically bunched up in a hundred layers, even if it meant you had to freeze your balls off.” Steve chuckled to himself, suddenly recalling a very fond memory. “Oh, and then when it finally got hot outside again and we were out playing - we were with that girl, what was her name again..” Steve thought back, trying to remember. “- Laurel? Loraine? You know, the one with the pretty curls you were always pulling at when her family sat in front of us in church and no one was looking. Anyway, you found that penny on the ground and decided you were gonna buy us ice cream cones, but of course one penny turned out to only be enough for one. And I remember the look on her face when you said I should have it, god, she was so disappointed. But I had lost weight from being sick all winter and I was even skinnier than usual, and you were all like ‘look at him, he needs fattening up, it’s only fair, here you go Stevie, you have it’ and you wouldn’t hear any complaints about it.”

Steve was brought back from his reminiscing by Bucky rolling over onto his back and letting out a small sigh, any signs of the nightmare having disappeared from his features. Steve was flooded with relief as he smiled down at him and continued softly. “It was all there, right in front of my face, even back then, wasn’t it? I can’t believe I spent all those years being jealous of all the ladies who were always keen on dancing with you when we went out. You only ever had eyes for me, huh?”

Steve startled at the sound of Bucky’s sleep rough mumble. “‘Course, you punk”

Squeezing his hand, Steve checked to make sure he had heard right. “Bucky? Hey, you awake honey?”

Bucky squeezed back, letting out a grumbled “Mmh.. wha’s going on, why’re you up?” but he seemed to quickly rise from his sleepy state at Steve’s choked “oh thank god”

“Hey, Steve what’s wrong, huh? Look at me, what happened? You have a nightmare or somethin’”? Bucky asked, wiping away a single tear of pure relief that had apparently escaped and was trailing down Steve’s left cheek. His look of worry turned into one of realisation though, when it dawned on him. “Oh shit, it was me having a nightmare again huh? It happened again, didn’t it? Aww I’m sorry Stevie.”

“No no, please don’t apologise,” Steve hurried to reassure him. “It’s not your fault Buck. I’m just so relieved you’re back with me. It’s just hard, you know? Seeing you in that much pain and not being able to do a thing about it,” Steve sniffled.

“Yeah, I know Stevie, I know.” Bucky expression briefly shifted to one of confusion. “How’d you wake me up? I thought we’d practically tried everything by now.”

“I didn’t, at first,” Steve said, “I just starting talking to you and then when it seemed to calm you down a bit I kinda just kept going with like, talking about memories that came up, you know from back when we were kids.”

“Oh yeah.” Bucky furrowed his brows in thought. “I don’t really remember what the nightmare was about, only that it was awful and then the dream sort of.. shifted. Something about my ma giving us an earful and then something about ice cream cones and brown curls?” Bucky’s face shifted, as if he’d remembered something funny. “God, you remember that time I found that penny? And that girl, Loraine I think, she got so mad when I bought you ice cream instead of her,” Bucky chuckled.

“Yeah, that’s the story I was telling,” Steve smiled. “To be fair, that was kind of dick move, Barnes. Ain’t no way to treat a lady.”

“Hey! You were so skinny! You clearly needed it more than her!” Bucky defended himself. “And by the way, it wasn’t exactly her I was trying to impress.” Bucky said, waggling his eyebrows.

Steve snorted. “Yeah, alright, you’re a real charmer.”

“Don’t you know it,” Bucky said. Smiling more softly, he leaned in so his forehead was resting against Steve’s. “I’m really sorry for waking you up honey. It sucks that you have to be here through all that Stevie, I know it ain’t easy on you.”

“Nah,” Steve answered. “I’m right where I want to be. Till the end of the line and all that, remember? Not planning to go anywhere”

“Yeah,” Bucky sighed softly, and then in an almost whisper, sounding suddenly vulnerable, “I love you so much, Stevie.”

Sensing that Bucky was finally feeling some of the raw emotion that was left over from the nightmare he’d just endured, now that he knew that Steve was okay, Steve lifted up to plant a lingering kiss on his forehead. Rubbing a hand soothingly up and down Bucky’s back, he noted that his t-shirt was still soaked from sweat. “Me too, Buck. Me too. Hey, why don’t I go make a pot of coffee and turn the TV on and you come join me once you’ve cleaned up a little?”

“Yeah,” Bucky sighed, burying himself a bit closer into Steve’s embrace before pulling away and offering a grateful smile. “That sounds good.”

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ladyeliot · 3 years

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I’ll fix it

Pairing: Tony Stark x Avenger Female Reader.

Summary: Everything changed the day Tony Stark felt your body fall apart in his hands, from then on a struggle to try to bring you back to him began.

Warnings: Angst, Mentions of death. Time travel.

Word count: 6283

A/N: Avengers Endgame. Some of the dialogue is taken from the film. Sorry for my spelling and grammatical mistakes, English is not my native language, I am learning.

Reader’s abilities: Master Martial Artist, experienced in espionage, talented Hacker.

There was a turning point in Tony Stark’s life, that moment when everything changed, when like ashes you scattered through space, when your body disappeared leaving motes of your essence in his hands.

The battle to save humanity was lost the moment the time stone, protected by Doctor Strange, found its way into Thanos’ Gauntlet, leaving only a single chance to deal with a successful end to the final battle. All of you present had led the fight with acuity, but there was little you could do, you knew that as you fell one by one. Your bodies lay in the ruins of the once superpowered planet, waiting for someone with the will to continue fighting death, Tony was the last one standing until Thanos managed to strip him of his own Iron Man suit, stabbing him in the side with the sword Tony had created with his nanonites. Something snapped inside you, causing the relentless pain in your joints to fade and you managed to get up, before the wizard offered him the last stone and Quill unsuccessfully tried to stop him before Thanos vanished.

“Tony,” you whispered awkwardly reaching out to him, wrapping your arms around his body.

The exhaustion was such that you both let yourselves fall and ended up sitting in the ashes of that place. You brought your faces close together, facing each other, letting them rest, feeling your connection again. The bruises showed what you had suffered, open wounds that allowed blood to spread freely over every part of your face. You had just lost too much, it was a break between before and after, but the one thing you couldn’t bear to lose was him. Tony covered his cut with the last of his remaining nanonites, expressing an inward groan of relief, allowing himself to think again about what had happened.

“Why would you do that?” he muttered pleadingly, looking at Strange, who stood a few feet away from you.

“We are in the endgame now.”

That had a meaning, only Vision’s name came to mind, he was the only one who could stop that, the one who possessed the last stone, the mind stone.

Little by little, the reunion of those present was the only thing that eased the pain, you were all there, none of you had suffered worse consequences. The silence of the planet made your skin crawl, warning that this could happen to the earth if the snapping were to happen. You and Tony stumbled to your feet, watching as Peter came to you.

“Something’s happening,” your gaze connected with Mantis who had just said those words.

You had never felt so much fear inside you, until you saw how his body seemed to extrapolate and turn into ashes that disappeared moments later. The mental and bodily blockade came over everyone present, the terror professing itself through their features. Tony’s fingers clung to your right arm, barely moving from where Mantis was before he vanished.

You all looked around anxiously, hoping to find some answer to the event that had just occurred, but you only saw Drax turning to ashes, joint by joint disappearing.

“Quill?” Drax looked at him as little by little his friend’s body parts dissolved.

“Steady, Quill,” with those words Tony increased the pressure of his fingers on your arm, showing his own insecurity.

“Aw, man,” Quill whispered before melting into the wind.

It had happened, no one could have stopped him, Thanos had gotten the five infinity stones and had done the snap. No one present had any idea how it had happened, but it was clear, your worst fears had been realised.

“Tony,” Strange muttered, causing the few of you present to focus your gaze on him. “There was no other way.”

And so it was that another one turned to ashes. But it wasn’t over yet.

“Mr. Stark?” Tony and you noticed that Peter was starting to wobble, your gazes were horrified at him. “I don’t feel so good…”

“You are all right,” Tony’s words sounded confident, but hid the fear he felt inside.

“I don’t know what’s – I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t–” Peter managed to reach you, falling into Tony’s arms, who wrapped his arms around him and pinned him to the ground. “I don’t wanna go, I don’t wanna go, Mr. Stark, please. Please, I don’t wanna go. I don’t wanna go…” his voice was broken with sobs. “I’m sorry.”

You walked away from the scene, holding your hands to your face as you watched your partner’s body disappear, leaving a void in its place. So, in that moment you realised that your terror was based on the loss of your loved ones, of your family that they had become, you were not afraid of disappearing, you were afraid of them disappearing. You staggered a few steps away, unable to come to terms with what you were witnessing at that very moment, although you didn’t have time either, as a faint tingling sensation appeared in your lower extremities.

“Tony…” a faint tone came from within you, but his reaction was immediate.

“No,” he said, standing up.

You’d never seen him look at you like that before, it broke you to contemplate his watery eyes and fully dilated pupils, expressing desperation, being unable to do anything about it to stop it.

“I…” your voice trailed off.

“I got you, I got you,” his voice was broken, but rigid. “I- I promise I’ll fix this, I’ll fix this.”

You could feel his arms around your body with intensity, the warmth of his body reaching yours, but it was only an instant before you stopped feeling everything and disintegrated into ashes in his hands.

The secular emptiness came a few seconds later to Tony, it was the moment when he understood what had happened and what it meant. He belonged to that 50% of the population that had a second chance, but you were that 50% that had turned to dust from one instant to the next. A feeling indescribable to his mind invaded every inch of his body, he was lost, looking around him, hoping that it was all a nightmare from which he could wake up, but it was clear that he was living in real life, because you were not the only one who disappeared. Completely shattered, he walked through the ruins looking for an answer, some sign to hold on to, to tell him what to do, but it never came.

Time became his enemy, what happened made him realise that every step without you is a moment of his life lost. First it was days, then weeks, then months, then years, he spent a long period of time working against the clock, looking for a way to solve what happened, to come back to you. Thousands of ideas were discarded without coming to a definitive conclusion that could counteract the effects of the snap. Tony knew that if he gave up it would mean losing you forever, the life you had imagined so many times, which you never got to because of the countless missions and obstacles along the way. You were almost on the verge of touching it with your fingers once, after all that happened in Sokovia and the signing of agreements you opted to embrace the simple life, but Thanos and the stones came along and shattered your lives.

Tony had converted the cabin he built for you and didn’t have time to show you, into his own lair. He spent the hours locked away, barely sleeping, at least for the first four years, then he declined, until one day, the light seemed to brighten and his old companions appeared, offering him one last chance to get what he was looking for.

“Now, we know what it sounds like…” Scott was leaning against the wooden porch.

“Tony, after everything you’ve seen, is anything really impossible?” Steve looked at him with concern, Tony’s appearance had deteriorated over the years. He looked exhausted and full of unresolved doubts.

“I must say I sometimes miss this foolish optimism,” he grimaced, a grimace resembling a smile. “Quantum fluctuation messes with the Planck Scale, which then triggers the Deutsch Proposition. Can we agree on that?” his tone rose. “In Layman’s terms, it means you’re not coming home.” he paused. “What do you think I’ve been doing for these five years? Do you think I haven’t thought about it already?”

“I came back,” Scott interjected.

“No, you accidentally survived,” Tony cut him off. “It’s a billion to one cosmic fluke. And now you wanna pull off a…. What do you call it?”

“A time heist?” said Scott smiling nonchalantly.

“Yeah, a time heist. Of course,” Tony frowned putting his index finger to his lips. “Why didn’t we think of this before? Oh, because it’s laughable? Because it’s a pipedream?”

“When did you give up?” cut Steve off with rudeness in his tone of voice. “When did you give up? When did you give her up?”

Those were the words that made Tony rise from his seat, tilt his face to one side and force his facial expression.

“You have no idea,” she approached him, pointing her index finger at him. “Where have you been for these five years? Creating an armada of joint therapy groups? Has that helped?”

“Tony…” Natasha interjected, but he barely paid attention.

“While you were out here with your army of crybabies I was out here, day after night trying to find a solution to undo this mess we’ve created,” Tony paused, clenched his jaw and sighed deeply. “So don’t come to me now and say I’ve given it all up for lost.”

It was clear that Steve knew how to set Tony’s mind in motion, he knew where it hurt and how he could reignite their old friendship, it only took him naming you for him when the group left to pick up on every loose end he had created over those last few years.

It was hours of thought processes, of proposing to himself the quantum possibilities that could work, but more importantly the consequences, what could happen and what number of percentages existed to bring you all back. It didn’t take him long to come up with a way out, completely illogical to anyone except those who were as crazy as he was. So it was that after all this time he arrived at the New Avengers facility.

“Why the long face?” the car stopped in front of Steve. “Let me guess, it turned him into a baby.”

“Among other things,” Steve shoved his hands into his trousers pockets and looked straight ahead. “What are you doing here?”

“Not giving her up,” Tony shrugged and got out of the car, introducing himself to Steve, who smiled. “Mind you, I don’t plan to participate in any of your open tears.”

That opened a process of slow reconstruction of the events of the past years. It opened wounds, showed the aftermath, but also reunited all the Avengers who had managed to survive Thanos’ snap. The important thing is that there were enough Pym particles for a round trip for everyone present. But the important thing was to find out where the stones were located depending on the time.

They were fortunate, or rather lucky, that three of the stones met at one point in their own history in New York City, precisely during the Chitauri invasion. That was bound to cause a bitter memory for Tony, but it suddenly changed when he found out what it meant, he would go back there, he would do that mission, and you would be there. You were there when in 2012 the Avengers faced the invasion in New York, it was your first mission, when you were all recruited, when you met for the first time.

“Okay, we have a plan,” Steve reported after he had organised the teams. All eyes were focused on a screen showing the stones and their location. “Six stones, three teams, one shot.”

It was clear that what they were about to face was something completely new, none of them had had time to perhaps acquire the necessary skills to tackle this new job, new mission. It was back to the past, at least they had the advantage of knowing what the future held, of knowing what would be in store for them if they failed to succeed in their tasks.

“Five years ago, we lost.” Steve began a speech to his colleagues positioned in circles on the starting platform. “All of us. We lost friends… We lost family… We lost a part of ourselves,” Steve and Tony’s eyes met. “Today, we have a chance to take it all back.” he paused slightly. “You know your teams, you know your missions. Get the stones, get them back. One round trip each. No mistakes. No do-overs. Most of us are going somewhere we know. But it doesn’t mean we should know what to expect. Be careful. Look out for each other. This is the fight of our lives. And we’re gonna win,” silence filled the room.“Whatever it takes. Good luck.”

After those words, which were encouraging for all the events that were to follow, a space loop embraced each of them, transporting them through time and space, rendering their matter insignificant. Their bodies separated between space cavities transporting them to the right time.

Tony, along with Bruce, Steve and Scott, appeared in an alleyway in New York City in 2012. The smell of dust and molten iron wafted into their nasal cavities. Everything around him was in ruins, the great skyscrapers looked like they were part of a film of the earth’s extinction, it reminded him of some of his worst fears, but it didn’t distract him because he knew how it was going to end.

“We all have our tasks,” Steve informed them, looking around at an overturned car. “Two stones on the outskirts, one in the centre. Keep a low profile,” he shifted his gaze to Tony, who nodded, raising his hands. “Keep an eye on the time.”

Given the orders the group made a point of dispersing, but Steve held Tony’s arm for a second, focusing his gaze on him.

“Are you going to be all right?” His blue eyes showed concern, including his voice as well.

“Of course,” he shrugged nonchalantly. “I’ve been through this once, I can do it again.”

With that said, Tony attached the Iron Man suit to his body and disappeared from the scene. Although his statement exuded self-assurance, he seemed to crumble a little when he reached the top of the Chrysler Building, finding himself in front of Stark Tower. His android vision allowed him to take in the scene taking place on the top floor of his old Tower. There stood the group of Avengers, surrounding Loki, holding him back, he knew that moment as if he had lived it only yesterday, but what almost made his heart stop was to find your figure there. The thrusters of his suit brought him closer to the Tower, accessing the interior through one of the open windows and keeping himself hidden behind some sculptures.

The suit disappeared from his body, becoming Tony Stark again, it was almost unheard of for him, there you were, as if time had never passed. His steps were slow, but he seemed to be completely lost, watching your every move, as if he had no job to do, and his only mission was to watch you. He could not escape the hundreds of memories that came back to him, he even felt guilty about numerous things he had said, done, or not said and done.

“Alright, who gets the wand?” you said holding up Loki’s sceptre.

Your words at that moment came to 2023 Tony with a wide smile, to hear your voice so close to him again and not through any electronic device made a lump form in his throat.

“Are you all right, dude?” Scott cut the moment short.

Tony realised at that very moment that Scott had been on his right shoulder the entire time, a fact that brought all his senses back into focus on the scene he was reliving. The lift opened, ushering in the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, who were actually Hydra, but none of you knew it at the time.

“All right, you’re up, little buddy. There’s our stone,” Tony whispered to Scott.

“All right,” Scott took up position on his partner’s shoulder. “Flick me.”

There Scott’s mission began, and he made his way to the Tony of the past to join him. The scene on the top floor of Stark Tower continued as if nothing strange was going on.

“You got it?” you asked the past Tony, watching as he put the tesseract into the briefcase.

“Yep,” he replied, closing the case and looking at you with a half smile.

“By the way, how about that drink afterwards Miss Y/L/N?”

“Interesting that you can think of a drink Mr. Stark,” you said crossing your arms over your chest.

“Oh, when I buy someone a drink I’m not just thinking about drinking,” he winked at you to which you narrowed your eyes and headed towards the lift with the other companions. “Is that a yes?”

“Well I try,” muttered the Tony of the present to himself, who inevitably couldn’t hold back a smile as he saw with his own eyes that moment and your way of rejecting it, for it was the beginning of too many things. So, as you all disappeared down the lift he too made his way to his new assigned position.

“ Okay, Cap, I got our scepter in the elevator just passing the 80th floor,” he informed Steve over the intercom. “I’ll head down the hall.”

Steve had his mission, to get the sceptre by pretending to be a Hydra agent in front of those who really were and were now guarding the briefcase. Meanwhile, Tony took over one of the security uniforms of the Shield agents, to impersonate one of them and get the briefcase that had the tesseract inside that was now in the possession of the former Tony.

The avengers arrived at the lobby, Scott in thumb size’, that’s what Tony liked to call him, had to get inside the reactor of his victim to produce a small shock, and so everyone would focus their gaze on the old Tony, while the one from 2023 got hold of the briefcase, but things didn’t go as planned.

“I’m looking forward to going to Shawarma Palace,” Tony was standing next to you, “We could take it as our first date, what do you think?”

“Interesting,” you said, barely looking at him but with a slight smile on your face, “It’ll be great to say that genius billionaire Tony Stark asked me out for shawarma on our first date.”

“You forgot about philanthropist and Playboy,” he added, raising an eyebrow.“So that’s… Oh, Mr. Secretary!”

The conversation with Shield’s superior began, it was the ideal time where Scott had the opportunity to carry out his mission, for the tesseract was disappearing at that moment, and it would be tricky to access it again.

“All right, move it, Stuart Little. Things are getting dicey up here. Let’s go,” Tony informed Scott over the intercom.

It looked like everything was going down the drain, as Scott was in trouble for giving him a cardiac arrhythmia, however, everyone was stunned when at that moment Tony’s body stopped, and then began to convulse and fall to the ground. Your expression suddenly changed, as did the others.

“Tony?” you asked, dropping down beside Tony, worried about what was happening to him.

“Medics!” exclaimed the Tony Stark of 2023, taking in the scene. “You guys, some help!”

“Talk to me,” you said grabbing his face, which was completely flushed since he couldn’t breathe.

“Aw, she’s worried,” the present Tony muttered to himself.

“Is that the machine in your chest?” Thor, who was standing next to him, asked.

Meanwhile Scott, who had emerged from the reactor in the chest of the Tony of the past, pushed hard on the briefcase so that the Tony of the future could take it in his hands and go in search of a way out, but in that instant the Hulk suddenly appeared knocking Tony down, opening the briefcase, making the tesseract fly out and land at the feet of Loki who took it in his hands and disappeared.

“Come on Tony breathe,” you said looking at Thor hoping he would do something about it.

“I’ll try something, but I don’t know if it will work,” Thor brought his hammer to Tony’s chest, specifically the reactor and offered him a small shock, bringing the air back into his lungs. “Yes!”

“Whew, that worked a treat,” he said between gasps, looking at both of us. “Dude, that was crazy,” he thought. “The case.”

“Uhh, the case is…” Thor looked around.

“Where is the case?” you asked getting up trying to intercept him with your gaze.

“Where is Loki?” exclaimed Thor. “Loki!”

Meanwhile, ten meters away from the scene, the Tony from the future was completely knocked to the ground, after the Hulk knocked him down.

“Oh, we blew it,” Tony said without barely getting up, listening to all the conversation you had a few feet away.

The Tony of the future got up and opted to walk through the door leading to the stairs before anyone noticed him, for due to the Hulk’s untimely and shocking appearance, there were hardly any people left in the hall, apart from the Avengers and the Shield agents, of which he was undercover. However, as he was walking down a long corridor on the third floor, something stopped him.

“Excuse me agent,” your voice appeared as if it were an apparition behind him, causing him to stop his steps. “I must ask you to stay in the hall, we need to question everyone present in case we find evidence of what just happened.”

This was completely new, Tony hadn’t experienced it, he didn’t know what was going to happen or how he would best act on this occasion, but he knew that if he turned around you would most likely recognise him, as the black helmet and goggles barely covered his face, leaving the lower part of his face uncovered. At the same time, you kept a SIG Sauer P226 in your hand just at hip level, waiting at all times to watch the reactions of the man in front of you.

“Of course,” said Tony, changing his tone of voice slightly, making it deeper than usual, but still he just kept his position, his back to you.

“Could you turn around and come with me?” you asked with a frown, brushing your fingers over the gun and feeling a bad feeling inside you, for there was something that didn’t sit right with you.

Tony took a deep breath and lowered his face, there were a thousand ideas running through his mind right now, he didn’t know which one was worse than the last, so he connected several pieces and took one that would produce some personal gain, for worse than they were already, perhaps, things couldn’t get any worse.

“Are you sure?”

Slowly Tony’s body turned 180 degrees to face you. His features were obvious, his brown eyes accompanied by honey-coloured flecks, his beard so neatly trimmed, and those full lips, all 100% Tony Stark. But it was obvious to you that this was a trap, Loki had disappeared and you were aware of his every ability to deceive, after all he was the master of mischief. You didn’t stop for a moment to take the gun in your hands and point it firmly in his face, you had a clean shot.

“Loki…” you whispered frowning and squinting one eye to improve your aim.

“Not exactly,” Tony held up his hands retreating back a step, but showing no nervousness at all at the situation. “God, how I resent you mistaking me for him.”

It was at that precise moment, when he had you two metres away pointing a gun to his head, that he realised how long those five years had been, five years without being able to look at your face, without hearing your voice, without your caresses, without your kisses… for which he would die in those moments of your gunshot. He found himself with his hands raised, his body totally paralysed and his lips half-open, in love with you. You were not really the woman he had left behind, it was 2012 and many of your features were changed, but it was you.

“Where is the tesseract?” you asked, bringing him back to his senses. “What have you done with it?”

“That’s what I want to know,” he replied casually and slowly lowered his hands, knowing that bullet wasn’t going to be fired at him.

Tony’s mind worked fast, he was quick in his thoughts and in his actions, although sometimes that could get him into serious trouble because of the consequences of his actions, so he had no idea what he was doing at that moment, because his whole body was begging him to have a meeting with you and so he did. Now it was time to figure out where to go with the situation, but Tony was not a great planner, he flowed with time.

“By the way, did you get rid of that damn FBI agent yet? What was his name?” Tony knew how to test you to make you realise he wasn’t Loki. “Ah yes, Agent Chatter, god, how I hated him. I would have loved to see you spill champagne all over his scalp.”

“How do you… How do you know that?” your voice sounded gruff, but quizzical at the same time, even though you had no intention of conversing with him you were curious as to how the hell he had found out that information, as Tony was the only one who called Matthew ‘Agent Chatter’.

“You told me,” he said taking a step towards you, closing the distance, causing you to back away. “I told you, I’m not Loki.”

“I’ve never told anyone what happened with Matthew,” your breath hitched as you realised you didn’t understand what was going on.

“Well, you haven’t really told me yet,” he narrowed his eyes and cocked his head to one side.

You remained thoughtful for a couple of seconds. “I know exactly what you’re doing,” you tightened your grip on the gun, your hands beginning to sweat. “Your mind games aren’t going to work on me.

The moment was complex to explain, Tony had hundreds of possibilities to offer you in that moment and for you to discover that it wasn’t Loki in front of you, he knew how he could deal with the situation, but he wanted you to be the one to figure it out for yourself. He was playing with fire, he knew better than anyone how space-time worked, but he had an ace up his sleeve, an ace that Steve was carrying at that moment and he would use it later.

Tony slowly brought his hands to his face, causing you to fix your aim again with his moments, you feared what he might do next, for anything was to be expected with Loki, but Tony merely removed his helmet and goggles, dropping them to the ground exposing his full face to you.

A strange feeling came over your body, it was obviously a familiar face, you had spent numerous hours with Tony Stark in the previous weeks, but it wasn’t really your Tony standing before you. The features looked aged, more wrinkles were in the key parts of his face, grey hair was showing through his hair and also in his beard. Concentrating on analysing each of his features made you soften your grip on the gun.

"It’s me,” he murmured, making another attempt to move towards you, and succeeded, bringing the barrel of the gun down on his chest, clattering against his reactor. He gingerly reached out his arm, reaching up to your face and brushing aside a lock of your hair. “I can’t explain too much, but…”

“Tony?” a new voice joined your encounter, snapping you out of your abstraction. “What are you doing?”

Again you put distance between you and Tony, wary of what had just happened and rather guilty for letting yourself be bamboozled by Loki. You looked at the Captain who was coming from the far end of that long hallway and was just now standing metres away from you.

“It’s not Tony, Captain, it’s one of Loki’s tricks,” you explained without looking away from Tony who was looking at Steve a little guilty about the situation that had been created. “Captain, warn the others, inform them that we have Loki on the third floor of the west wing.”

“I. Am. Not. Loki,” Tony qualified each of his words somewhat irritated that you still believed it was Loki. “Can you tell her Cap?”

“Tony, what the hell are you doing?” Steve used a gruff tone, now the one who sounded irritated was him, as he was unaware of where Tony’s plans were headed.

“Shit,” Tony whispered turning his gaze towards him.“When they put that serum in your veins they offered you the gift of inopportunity, didn’t they?”

For you everything was much more confusing, your quick analysis of the situation and the two figures that stood before you had many gaps of information. You knew those guys, you had spent more hours of your life with them than with your family, you had studied them, you had analysed them and really that Steve and Tony that were before you were not the same guys, and there was only one Loki, both could not be Loki, at least within your logic, although with Loki anything goes. But what you realised was that the captain was holding the sceptre, why was the captain holding the sceptre right now?

“I’m sorry Tony, but we have to go,” he repeated firmly, which brought you back to reality.

“I don’t think either of you are going anywhere,” you quickly pulled a new pistol from the back of your suit, two guns for two people standing in front of you.

That elicited a sigh of disgust from Steve, who raised his hands, raising the sceptre in one hand and the shield in the other, halting his stride in his tracks.

“What was your bright idea Tony?” he asked seriously.

“I don’t know Cap, you know I like to improvise,” he shrugged his shoulders without taking his eyes off you, raising his hands and giving you a wide and warm smile, which didn’t affect you at all.

“Great, so improvise if you don’t want me to,” Steve sentenced him without moving from his position.

“She’s mine,” Tony slowly brought his hand to his chest, where he offered himself a couple of taps and the armour ran over every millimetre of him, covering his limbs.

Was Loki really capable of that? Confusion engulfed you, it had all your senses alert, your mind asking a hundred questions you couldn’t answer. But if it’s not any of them Loki who are they?

Tony looked at Steve’s sceptre, that was the only key way out he could think of, but since he had laid all his cards on the table, he wasn’t going to leave without doing one thing first, so he started to close the gap with you.

“If you take one more step…” you began to say, backing down the long corridor of Stark Tower.

“Honey, surely my 2012 self would punch me if he knew his 2023 self was going to do what I’m about to do,” he started to approach you which made you stand on guard, “since I’d take all the credit away from him, because he won’t do it for another two years or so, but…” between the words and his approach you blocked and pulled the trigger of the gun pointed at him, causing the bullet to hit and fall to the ground. “Hey! That hurt, well, not physically, but you just hurt my feelings.”

“Don’t come any closer…” you muttered, aiming both pistols at Iron Man’s armour.

Your gesture was profoundly in vain, as your footsteps stopped and Tony was close enough to grab the pistols tightly and wrestle them out of your hands, throwing them into the distance, unable for you to avoid. At that exact moment, Iron Man’s suit disappeared, allowing you to look at him again, much closer than the first time. You didn’t know if it was a mind game, but you could almost feel a strange connection between your gazes, the way he looked at you as if he wanted to tell you something, as if he was hiding a long way in them.

“God, I’d almost forgotten what your face…” Tony’s words were inconclusive, but he voiced a smile at the end of them.

What? you wanted to ask out loud, it was so strange, so incomprehensible to you that you were almost terrified at that moment. His eyes looked at you as if they had known you all your life, as if you had lived too many moments together to remember them all, and you just wanted to ask him about it, but you did not. Tony’s arm was around your waist before you could even react and he pulled you close to him, his lips firmly against yours. For Tony it was one of the best sensations of his life, every limb seemed to fill with energy, his skin bristled, he placed his other hand on your back preventing you from fleeing if you had any intention of doing so. He felt your body scent envelop him again after so many years away from you and it brought a lump to his throat. He didn’t want to separate from you, he couldn’t separate from you, he was terrified inside, he could hardly move his lips, for he feared you would run away if he did.

On your part it was something completely unexpected that you didn’t know how to carry out, it seemed that your common sense was lost somewhere, as if it had extrapolated from your body and didn’t act. Your eyes remained open for the first few seconds, observing the nothingness, but when you felt his second hand on your back to bring you closer to him, they closed very slowly, as if you expected to receive an answer from this act to your numerous doubts. You held still, with no intention of separating yourself from him. You wouldn’t deny that you hadn’t thought about what it would be like to kiss Tony Stark, but that wasn’t the Tony Stark you knew.

It was time that decided when to end it, Tony’s face was the one that put distance, but his minus was still glued to your back. He leaned his forehead against yours, exposing his ragged breath against your face.

“Who are you?” you whispered against his lips without opening your eyes yet.

Tony pulled back a few inches, opened his eyes and brought his hands to your face analysing every facial feature before him, running his thumb over your cheeks and lips.

“I promise I’ll fix it,” he whispered feeling himself. “It’ll be all right.”

“What… What will be alright?” your hesitation felt present in your words, it was incomprehensible what he was saying.

“I…” began Tony.

As if the breath stopped in your lungs, you took one last exhale before everything went dark and you hips surrendered in Tony’s arms. The tip of the sceptre had grazed your body causing you to enter a deep sleep from which when you awoke you would possibly think that everything you had experienced was a dream, or that it was really Loki who was playing with you.

“It would have been rather more gentlemanly of you to let me do it,” Tony looked at Steve spitefully as he held your body in his hands.

A fearful sigh escaped Tony’s lips as he carefully laid your body on the floor and ran his palm over his face, facing a voice that told him he couldn’t leave.

“Tony, we can’t leave any loose ends,” Steve whispered as he watched Tony continue to hold you in his arms. “I know how much you want to get back to her. So the sooner we get this over with, the sooner you’ll be reunited,” Steve rested his hand on Tony’s shoulder. “By the way, where do you have the tesseract?”

“Interesting question…”

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catt-nuevenor · 3 years

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Hello 😍 , ros reaction to very sick and in pain mc?( you say there's angst so I want a sample if you don't mind of course 😘).

Okay, this is going to be a heavy one, though I shall try to avoid lingering on the symptoms. I'm sure most of you are here for the angst and fluff, not a crash course in Historical Epidemics.

But do take this as your warning, if you have dealt with severe illness recently, experiencing it as patient, or carer, or bystander, please do consider carefully reading through the react. I want everyone to enjoy their time on this blog, not to unnecessarily relive traumas.

I've selected Sweating Sickness as the malady in question. Mostly due to it's prevalence in rural communities, its rapid onset and culmination (you live or you succumb after typically one day of the onset of symptoms), its questioned transmissibility between humans (some modern theories think it was an exterior infection that could not be passed on through contact alone), and it's lack of grotesque symptoms.

So, context: The MC has come down with Sweating Sickness, the RO has been tasked with attending them through the night by Erda. By this stage the RO and MC are a exclusive couple. The Child is being kept away for their own safety.

I HIGHLY recommend you head over to the reacts page to read this. There you can enter your own names and pronouns for the characters.

Reacts Page

MC felt so small in their arms. Quivering like the last leaf on the bough, their hands clutched desperately over P's.

"I'm right here." They soothed, holding their bodies together, rocking them both steadily back and forth. "I'm not going anywhere."

MC whimpered. "Please... please..."

Burying the agonised expression of their face in the burning skin of MC's shoulder, P tried as best they could to suppress the sob that threatened them.

"I'm here." They repeated, their voice wavering as a convulsion made the soul in their arms jerk and writhe.

They called for them. Their voice so fragile, yet so desperate for comfort it tore into P's soul.

"I'm here. MC, my darling, I'm right here."

But their darling couldn't hear them. No matter how often they said it, no matter how they might plead, might beg to be heard through the terrible delirium that brutalised them, MC never seemed to hear a word.

When they started to weep, P could not stem the tide of their own tears.

It would be over by the morning. In either the best of ways, or the ways in which P could not bear to think of, this horror would be over by sunrise. Erda had wanted to stay with them, but with another four cases of the same terrible malady spread throughout the town, she was forced to leave them in P's care.

The bitterness of the word made them want to vomit.

Care.

What care could they provide in the face of this? Nothing they did seemed in any way to help, nothing alleviated their suffering. Their own helplessness disgusted them.

"Be with them." The old woman had said. "So long as you are there, they won't have to face the worst of it alone."

P clutched their quaking frame as close to their own body as they could. Even if MC could hear them, perhaps they could still feel that they were there.

"You're not alone." They whispered, kissing the sweat slicked skin with pale lips that shook. "I'm here darling, and I'll stay here... until the end."

L was the wrong person for this.

They just were.

No ifs, no buts.

Anybody, ANYBODY, would have been better than them.

"Be with them." The old woman had said. "So long as you are there, they won't have to face the worst of it alone."

Sure, L groaned silently, pressing their tear stained cheeks into their hands. Easy for the top Cunningwoman in the county to say.

It had been awful.

The screams still rang in their ears. MC's screams. Those terrible, torn wails that ripped their sound from them. And what had L done? They hid.

L hid behind fractured smiles and broken promises that it would all be over soon. Just a little more, just a little longer.

"Just hold on."

"You just need to get through tonight."

"It'll all be better tomorrow, just stay with me, okay?"

They muffled their cry of frustration as best they could, biting into their own palm to suffocate the emotional torment with the physical sting.

Just!?

There was no just about it. This wasn't just a sniffle, or just a bit of bad food. This could kill them.

Is that what Erda meant when she said 'the worst of it'?

L was there so MC wouldn't be alone when they died?

"L?"

The blankets shifted a little as MC shifted in their fractured sleep, curling closer into the warmth of L's stomach, weakly nuzzling at the spot just above their belly button.

MC had succumbed to the exhaustion of their body a few hours after the delirium had peaked. Collapsing into L, slumping, boneless, and limp until their heavy head came to rest upon their trembling lap.

Fresh tears scoured their cheeks as MC whimpered softly, tormented by fevered horrors L couldn't protect them from. Gentling their movements, parting their fingers, they tentatively reached down and traced their fingertips over their partner's burning cheek.

"Please..." They whispered, heart fluttering as MC turned weakly into their touch. There were so many things they wanted to ask, so many things they would readily beg for.

But MC couldn't hear them. Anything L could say felt pointless when the one person they wanted to hear, was so out of reach.

Instead, bending low to lightly touch their foreheads together, L only said a single word.

"Please."

It was always going to be bad. A knew this. They knew what Sweating Sickness did to people, they knew how it made the sufferer twist and writhe, how it turned the sensation of their own skin into the prickle of a thousand barbed needles, how it either passed or killed the victim in a day.

All of this and more he'd learnt from Erda's books, page after page of symptoms and remedies, always underlined with the brutal truth that no amount of craft could cure everyone. They should have been ready for this.

All the theoretical knowledge in the world could never have prepared them for what it was to see MC like this. Erda had offered to tend to them in their place, they could go and support the other families in town laid low.

No. As much as it shattered his, to watch them at the mercies of a pestilence without pity, A knew they had to stay with MC.

The first few hours passed as they knew they would, with confusion, pain, and a deep aching weariness which made MC's limbs lead. They settled on the bed, A's arms cradling their lover's body as the waves of crashing chills rolled over them. The discomfort could be eased, the warmth of their embrace could chase away the worst of the cold, and speaking softly, A could still whisper sweetly into MC's ear, keeping the spectres of delirium away.

There was no comfort to be given when the true onslaught began. A could only hold them, and try to keep their own desperate sobs from choking them. Nothing could have prepared them for their helplessness.

It lasted for most of the night, until MC's body collapsed in upon itself and they succumbed to a deep yet fitful sleep.

A watched the rise and fall of their chest desperately, their pulse leaping every time a breath came too slowly, or sped into breathless wheezing gasps. They counted, every time MC whimpered, every time their features contorted into terror, every time they seemed to blindly reach out for the comfort of A's waiting embrace.

For every terrible suffering, A would find a way to show MC how much they adored them, once they woke, once they were well again.

It was an utterly foolish thing to promise. Erda would have scolded them. Or perhaps she would smile in sombre understanding.

A placed their hand over MC's heart, felt the irregular beat pulsing beneath their fingertips.

"I won't let you die." They whispered. "I promise, I won't let you die."

K could understand their protests. They knew nothing of sickness. Had the affliction been one that could be nursed, they may have stepped aside to let Erda or A attend MC. It was not. So, K stayed with their efenhlytta.

It was strange at first. As they watched MC's sanity began to slip. The odd word as they spoke, an erratic flick of their gaze to the empty air beside them. Then their words faltered, sticking to their tongue thickly as MC's hands began to tremble.

"Sorry." Their efenhlytta gasped when K moved to embrace them. "It's... I can feel..."

With sharp jerks they stabbed their fingers into the already sweating skin, moving rapidly in attempt to explain the sensation.

K had no context for the irritation, but they knew pain. Every living creature knew pain.

MC's skin began to swelter, the heat rising up from a ravenous flame that seemed devoted to their destruction. Perhaps in this one regard K could help where all others could not.

On a slow outward breath they let the warmth of their own blood ease away, letting the cool tide return in it's wake. The unnatural chill took the bite from the fever, and though MC still lashed out, driven to fight the demons of the fever, they were not made to suffer their terrible fire.

"I forbid you to die." K said, while their efenhlytta thrashed once again in their supple embrace.

It was clear MC couldn't hear them, but K wasn't really talking to the part of them that could listen. What they addressed was deeper, behind the consciousness that fronted MC's being.

"Do you hear me?" They hissed, fixing their ice blue eyes on a single point in seemingly empty air.

"I forbid you to die."

Extra material:

Just in case folks were interested in historical context, below I’ve linked my source material for a contempary description of the sickness.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/42686/42686-h/42686-h.htm

pg.241 C.Creighton 1891 "A History of Epidemics in Britain"

Dr Forrestier 1485

"...This sickness cometh with a grete swetyng and stynkyng, with rednesse of the face and of all the body, and a contynual thurst, with a grete hete and hedache because of the fumes and venoms.....pricking the brains,... some appear red and yellow, as we have seen many, and in two grete ladies that we saw, the which were sick in all their bodies and they felt grete pricking in their bodies. And some had black spots, as it appeared in our frere (?) Alban, a noble leech on whose soul God have mercy!”

Modern English Translation:

"This sickness comes with a great sweating and stinking, with redness of the face and of all the body, and a continual thirst, with a great heat and headache because due to the fumes and venoms... with a prickling sensation seeming to come from inside the skull... some appear red and yellow in pallor, we witnessed such in two noble ladies, both of whom were severely sick and who also felt great pricking in their bodies. Some of the infected had black spots across their skin, as it appeared in our fair Alban, a noble leech on whose soul God have mercy!"

#MyrkMire #reacts #interactive fiction #hosted games #choice of games

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imkylotrash · 3 years

Text

Returning Home

Pairing: Saul Silva x reader

Request: Can you please do an imagine where Saul is married to someone younger than him who's a fairy who grew up on earth and when Andreas comes back they find out that he was an ex from a couple of years ago who went by a different name cause he was supposedly dead. Anonymous

Tagging: @grey-girl @intoanothermind @artsyle @baueoud @glowingatdawn @anreeixcobra @kingunder221b @lflores2008 @alexiapayne12 @quuenofblacks @quarterback-5 @estelmei @bitchwhytho @music-of-melody

“I’ve never told anyone this before,” he whispers having just admitted to his deepest secret. The one thing that could completely ruin him. You gently stroke his cheek to let him know that you understand. How he managed to keep this a secret for 16 years is something you can’t wrap your head around though. If it were you, you’d need to tell someone.

“Are you going to tell Sky?” you ask trying to see his facial expression despite lying in the dark. It’s midnight meaning you should be sleeping but you’ve never been good at just sleeping. Two years into the marriage and you still stay up until the AM’s just talking and enjoying each other. You never expected for him to admit to killing Andreas though. You feel bad for Sky but you understand why Saul did what he did even if it didn’t change anything in the end.

“I think I have to,” he replies inching closer placing a hand on your lower back. It’s taking a lot for Saul to talk about this but you think it’s good for him. For far too long, he’s been the soldier never letting anything get to him and always staying neutral despite his own beliefs. It sounds to you as if he’s never really fully forgiven himself for what happened that day.

“He’ll forgive you eventually. You didn’t take the decision lightly,” you say praying that you’re telling the truth. You know how much it’ll hurt Saul to lose Sky after having raised him as his own. And in the end, it’ll hurt Sky too. He’s already lost so much, he doesn’t deserve to lose more.

“One can only hope.” You don’t tell him that hope normally leads to disappointment because no good will come from that. But you can’t help but worry if Sky will be able to understand. It’s a lot to ask of a teenager. Hell, it’s a lot to ask of anyone. Logic never seems to make an appearance when it comes to family. You don’t sleep much that night instead lying awake thinking about what Saul had disclosed. You didn’t blame him for what happened but it made you feel a little queasy still. You couldn’t imagine killing your best friend even if it were for the greater good.

“Have you slept at all?” Saul asks when he wakes up. You’ve just gotten out the shower grabbing some clean clothes. As much as you try to keep up the next few days passes in a blur as you’re nearing exams and the students are getting worried. The situation with the Burned Ones also worsens making it stressful on you and Saul too. You’re the most experienced hunters when it comes to Burned Ones but it also means that you live each day wondering if you’ll see each other again. The soldier in you tells you that this is normal doing what you do but your heart hates it. Your heart hates it so much that sometimes you wonder if it’ll be able to bear it. The school attack scares you because the barrier was supposed to always be there and now it isn’t. When you hear that the woman Rosalind is back from Farah, you get a very bad feeling in your stomach. All the drama is enough to convince you and Saul that you need a vacation once the school is safe and it’s time for summer vacation. You decide to head to Earth where you have a few priorities after having lived there for most of your childhood and teenage years. Your parents had been very much against the politic aspect of being a fairy so they had migrated to Earth instead opting for completely normal lives.

“Explain to me again why it’s good business to invest in 3 different houses?” he asks always wanting the explanation but never actually understanding it. In the Otherworld you have one plot of land and you don’t go buying a vacation home. When you return to school, you’re shocked to learn that Rosalind has taken over. You know Farah would never step down voluntarily and you fear for what has happened to her. But the man standing next to Rosalind is the face that draws your attention.

“John?” you exclaim. Your voice lures him in as he looks for the source. When he locks eyes with you, pure terror settles in your bones. Saul is still holding your hand completely in shock.

“Andreas?” Confusion takes over when you hear Saul call him Andreas. And you know you’re not mistaken.

“I hope you’re ready for another year of teaching,” Rosalind smiles satisfactory making you ponder just how quickly you could choke her with water. A flick of the wrist and you could manipulate the dewy drops on the grass to fill her throat and keep her from ever breathing again. But you’re outnumbered. Even if you managed to, there’s still be Beatrix and John who you still have no clue why Saul called Andreas. That’s definitely not Andreas.

“Of course,” Saul says gripping onto your hand tightly. It’s time to play games if you want to survive.

“We most definitely are, headmaster.” You give her a little nod which she returns. It’s a struggle to keep your mind empty but too much is going on for you to risk Rosalind taking a peak.

“If you don’t mind, I’d love a good shower. We’ve been travelling for quite some time now.” Rosalind nods already distracted by something behind you. It gives you a moment to look over at Saul who’s white as a sheet. He doesn’t seem to be present and while you don’t know what has caused this reaction, you do know that you need to get him inside and away from prying eyes. So, you do just that. Behind you the Winx girls are arriving laughing and joking. That’s what caught Rosalind’s attention.

“Y/N?” You look up to find John’s eyes transfixed on you. Then he smiles giving you the creeps.

“It’s good to see you.” You ignore him dragging Saul with you. He’s slowly returning to the present making it much easier to walk.

“I thought I killed him,” he whispers not paying much attention to you.

“What are you talking about? How do you even know John?” you ask locking the door to your room to make sure no one enters without the two of you being prepared.

“John? I’m talking about Andreas.” You’re really trying to put two and two together but right now it adds up to 5 and you have no idea how.

“The man next to Rosalind is John. I used to know him when I lived on Earth,” You don’t use the word date but your blushing cheeks give it away for you.

“His name is Andreas and he’s Sky’s father.” You bolt over to the dresser searching for any photo album. It’s never occurred to you that you haven’t seen a photo of Andreas. It doesn’t take too long to find a picture of him and Saul together laughing. Andreas is John, John is Andreas.

“He must’ve used an alias to keep people from finding out he was alive,” you say staring at the photo suddenly feeling sick. You’d always wondered why he just disappeared all of a sudden back when you were dating. One day you came home to find a goodbye note and you never heard from him again. But it made sense now. Maybe his identity had been compromised, maybe he left to prepare for whatever was going on now. So many things about him made sense now; the always looking over his shoulder, never giving too many details about himself, not wanting his photo taken. He wanted to prevent prove of your life together.

“We have to find out what they want. We have to talk to Sky.” You both hurry out to find Sky but it’s too late. He’s already talking to Andreas. The chance of the little boy not siding with his returned father is minimal meaning you and Saul will have to figure this out on your own.

“I’m not sure what he’s doing here especially with Rosalind, but it can’t be good, Y/N.” You agree knowing that it’ll be up to you and Saul to figure out this mess. You can only hope that it won’t get messy but it seems pointless to hope something won’t happen when you already know this won’t be pretty.

#saul silva blurb #saul silva x reader #saul silva gif #saul silva imagine #saul silva #winx saul silva #fate the winx saga #fate the winx club #fate winx club #winx saga #winx club #fate winx #fate

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animatedarchives · 4 years

Text

LIFELINE

— 𝐊𝐎𝐙𝐔𝐌𝐄 𝐊𝐄𝐍𝐌𝐀

author’s note: so i had this dream a few days ago and i wrote this self-indulgent comfort fic. if you’ve experienced this before, i’m so sorry for the hurt you’ve been through and i’m here if you need to talk :) i hope you like it <3

genre: BiG aNgsT, comfort fluff wew

warnings: toxic relationship (mental abuse, manipulation, guilt tripping etc.), slightly coarse language

word count: 2.1k words

“Argh, I missed again!” you whined, the water gun gently hitting your thigh as you swung your arms down in defeat. You only had one last chance to knock all 5 metal cans over, and you knew you’d never make it. You sighed as you glanced at the life-sized teddy bear you’d been playing for, reluctantly giving up the idea of ever being able to hug its plushy form. Kenma watched you silently, gazing at you the same way you were looking at the bear: with intense longing.

“Here, let me,” he said gently, reaching for the water gun in your hand. His fingers briefly brushed yours and your breath hitched, turning away slightly so he couldn’t see the blush creeping onto your face. You had both been friends for the longest time, but you knew it was more than that. Although neither of you had explicitly confessed, there was a silent understanding that you both harboured feelings for one another, but were too shy to do anything about it.

You watched sheepishly as he brought the gun up against his shoulder, looking into the crosshairs. His eyes fixed themselves on his target, pupils narrowing into cat-like slits. You loved seeing the competitive side of Kenma. The resolve in his eyes, the fierce air of determination and the silent power he held was so different from his usual nonchalant self, you couldn’t help but be allured.

Finally, he pulled the trigger, releasing five precise spurts of water. You barely had time to process what happened as you heard the metal cans clattering to the ground. His muscles relaxed and he smiled with satisfaction, his usual laid-back self returning while you stood there in utter disbelief.

“Kenma, that was amazing!” you exclaimed, turning to face him. He watched as your eyes sparkled, a soft chuckle leaving his lips. It was a sight that warmed his heart, and something he missed so dearly. Reluctantly tearing his eyes from yours, he turned back to the stall owner to claim his prize.

“I’ll take the bear, please. The big one in the back,” he said, pointing to the one you wanted. You squealed in delight as Kenma retrieved the toy and handed it to you. Bursting with child-like joy, you pressed your face into its large squishy head as you hugged it, your body swinging from side to side. Kenma watched you amusedly, unable to wipe the smile off his face. He loved seeing you like this, the brightness you emanated rivaling that of the sun. Your genuine joy was one of the little things that truly made him happy, and it was blissful moments like this that he wished you could live in forever.

Beaming, you bowed at the stall owner to thank him, eager to explore the rest of the carnival. However, as you turned around, your eyes landed on someone in the distance and your heart seemed to stop. Gone was the excitement bouncing within you, now replaced with an unsettling heaviness. The light in your eyes was being sucked away, dissipating into nothingness. Sensing the air around you shift, Kenma looked at you concernedly, then followed your line of sight. And there stood the person he hated the most, the one who had caused you so much hurt and emotional turmoil for two years: your ex-boyfriend.

“Well well well, look who it is,” he smiled smugly as he sauntered towards you. His eyes flickered to Kenma, who stood behind you, and he laughed bitterly. “Moved on to another boy already? You always were such a slut,” he spat. Kenma tensed up behind you, clenching his jaw and balling his fists. He was never the type to be violent, but your ex’s disgusting remarks made him want to punch that sick smirk right off his face.

“P-please go away,” you whimpered. Your voice was strangled and your chest tightened as the overwhelming scent of your ex’s cursed cologne invaded your nose.

“Awww, but why? You wouldn’t want to break my heart again now, would you?” he pouted in mock sadness.

This was what you dealt with for two years: him taking advantage of your kind heart and twisting it for his own entertainment. He criticised every little thing that you did, from what you wore to who you hung out with. He convinced you that it was your fault you upset him, that it was you who failed to please. You began to question every decision you made, doubting your ability to make the “right ones” and eventually resorting to asking for his permission instead. He had you choking on a leash, but you were too nice, too forgiving, to acknowledge his manipulative ways. You were losing yourself and eventually became an empty shell of the cheerful girl you once were, no longer taking pleasure in the things you loved. It had been six full months since you came to your senses and broke up with him, trying so hard to regain the light you had lost, with Kenma encouraging you every step of the way. It had taken so much time and effort to recover from the toxic relationship. Yet at the mere sight of him returning into your life, everything came undone in an instant.

“What’s the matter, darling? Cat got your tongue?” he hummed. You opened your mouth to protest, but no words came out. You desperately tried to move, to do something to show he no longer held that power over you. But your mind was plagued, and your body remained frozen in the presence of your abuser.

“Oh darling, there’s no need to be scared,” he said, cocking his head to the side. He took a step forward and you couldn’t help but tremble in fear. Dark memories from the past you tried to bury resurfaced as his menacing gaze bore into you. You shrank back in terror and your back hit Kenma’s chest, causing your hold on the huge teddy bear to loosen. The impact pulled Kenma out of his heated thoughts, his eyes clearing to reveal the pointed daggers within them. He gently wrapped an arm around your waist and twisted your bodies so that he was between you and your attacker.

“That’s enough,” Kenma’s words cut through the toxic atmosphere. The change in his demeanour was subtle but terrifying. His voice remained quiet, but now held an edge that was sharper than a sword. His gaze pierced through your attacker, cutting him down to the bone.

Your ex scoffed, unintimidated by Kenma’s physical build. “No, she knows exactly what she did,” he hissed, looking straight into your eyes. “You love to toy with people don’t you darling? Go on, say it. Admit it, you bitch!”

You don’t recall the mistake you made; you only knew that you’d made one. A baseless sense of guilt consumed your mind, and all you could think of was how horrible of a person you were as you looked down at the ground in shame. The lack of words leaving your mouth angered him further. He took a step towards you, but stopped short as Kenma suddenly grabbed his forearm.

“I said,” his grip tightened as anger boiled inside of him.

“That’s enough.”

Kenma looked at him through the strands of hair that fell across his face. He was like a feline crouching behind the tall, dry grass, eyes fierce and unblinking as he stared down his prey. His unrelenting gaze made even your ex shudder, his mind going blank as Kenma seethed silently.

“Leave.”

Kenma’s voice was practically a growl at this point, the finality in his voice apparent. His golden orbs glowed like a predator’s, daring your ex to challenge him. Although no one said it, it was obvious Kenma owned the court and held the game in the palm of his hands.

Knowing he was beat, your ex yanked his arm out of Kenma’s iron grip and scoffed. “Whatever. You’re worthless, anyway,” he sneered at you before walking away. You didn’t know what you did, but you felt like you deserved it. That’s all you ever were anyway: just another piece of garbage.

With the threat no longer present, Kenma eased up and turned to you, significantly concerned for your mental and emotional wellbeing. “Are you alright?” he asked, unable to hide the urgency in his voice.

“I- I think so,” you stuttered. But you weren’t. You knew you weren’t. You were slipping again, back into your old submissive mindset as your head spun with your ex’s lies. And Kenma could see it, the thought of your incited self-hatred causing his knuckles to turn white.

“You deserve so much more than him, Y/N,” he said. You smiled weakly at his words but couldn’t bring yourself to agree.

“I don’t know… Maybe he’s right,” trying to keep your smile, only to fail miserably. “Maybe I really am worthless… Maybe I’m just an awful human being… Maybe…” you thought aloud, voice breaking as you started to believe his words. This experience took you back, remembering how your ex would constantly poison your conscience, leaving you to cry into your pillow every night as your thoughts consumed you alive.

“Y/N, stop,” he said, reaching for your arm. You flinched involuntarily, the action causing Kenma’s heart to break. “Y/N, look at me. Please,” he begged. You slowly lifted your head to meet his gaze, a thin film of moisture forming over your eyes as you slipped further into darkness.

“You are the kindest, sweetest soul I have ever met. You are beautiful and gorgeous, made perfectly as you are. You are the furthest thing from a bad person. He’s a liar, a manipulator and a toxic person overall. He’s the bad one. He’s the one that doesn’t deserve you,” he said, desperate for you to see reason.

You looked into his eyes sadly, searching for something to hold on to, to stop you from spiraling down deeper into your thoughts. And then you found it. Something that was different between him and your ex. Something that was always there but Kenma tried to hide. It was his unwavering love for you.

Something finally clicked and a spark was ignited between you two, causing your heart to beat faster. You could barely understand what was happening, too many things going on in your head at once. But one thing was certain. You knew the person in front of you was genuine.

Trustworthy.

Safe.

“Kenma… I…” your words lost their sound as your faces inched closer. Your eyes drifted down to his soft, thin lips. Your mind was screaming at you, saying that you didn’t deserve his affection and that you were completely unlovable. But your heart argued back, eager to prove them wrong as it reached out for the one it knew it could call home.

You watched earnestly, breath caught in your throat as his lips got closer and closer to your own. Finally, your eyes fluttered shut, your sight unneeded as you savoured the flavour of his sweet lips against yours. The bear you were holding was long forgotten as your fingers unfurled and dropped it to the floor. Your heart was now set on a new prize, your hands moving up his arms and clenching the fabric of his jacket underneath them.

Your reciprocation to his actions made him brave; he kissed you harder, more intensely, as he rested his palms firmly on the curve of your waist. It was an area tainted by the hands of your previous boyfriend, but Kenma’s touch was so pure, so gentle, and so loving, that all you could do was melt into his hold.

Your lips parted all too soon and he rested his forehead against yours, quietly gasping for air. The jarring voices in your head quietened and eventually disappeared as Kenma’s delicate fingers intertwined themselves with yours.

“I’ve been wanting to do that for a while,” he chuckled, his warm breath adding to the heat on your cheeks. “I love you, Y/N. Every single piece of you. You are absolutely perfect in every way imaginable and I don’t ever want you to believe otherwise.”

You gave a genuine smile as you grasped onto the lifeline of hope Kenma was throwing out to you in the sea of darkness. You wrapped your arms around his torso and buried your face into his shoulder.

“Thank you. I love you too, Kenma.”

Your muffled whispers against his clothes put a gentle smile on his face, his heart soaring as you returned his affection. Kissing the side of your head, he embraced you tighter, wanting to show you how deeply you could be loved.

Breathing in his comforting scent, you came to a realisation.

It wasn’t the bear you longed to hug the most that day.

It was Kenma.

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msoogabooga · 3 years

Text

Closure • (Remus Lupin x Reader)

Warnings: None

Description: You reconnect with your former Hogwarts-years lover in the most unexpected way.

A/N: Slight angst, ends on a good note.

Walking around the corridors of the Hogwarts castle with an injured hand wasn’t your ideal way of spending your night. It had all happened just as you were getting ready for bed. Gathering all your graded papers, you decided to store them in your trunk, as you usually do every night. Unfortunately for you, the lid of the trunk came crashing right back down out of nowhere and landing straight onto your hand. It took every inch of your body to not scream out a slew of unforgivable words in order to maintain the peace of the castle. Still you couldn’t help but kick the trunk in frustration and snatch your hand away. With a throbbing hand you searched frantically for something to soothe it. Nothing was readily available and you didn’t feel like waking up poor Madam Pomfrey for a bruised hand. So you resorted to the only man you know to be awake at this hour: Remus J. Lupin.

Remus Lupin was not a man to get much sleep. Back when you both were students at Hogwarts, you always remember him sitting in the common room in the dead of night. Usually it would be to finish a lengthy essay or get some more study time worked in. But sometimes you two would sit together near the fireplace and talk about the most insightful topics. The nights would end with you falling asleep on him and magically waking up back in your own bed. The days when you two dated were the most comforting and enjoyable you’ve ever felt. He was the perfect boyfriend. Everyday he would serve you a glass of pumpkin juice with a peck on the cheek. During classes he would pass you notes that often contained several compliments and an occasional sneaky answer. Days would be filled in with study sessions, sitting by the lake, and lots of cuddling. He trusted you with everything. Including the long kept secret that terrorized him the most, that he was a werewolf. You were everything to him.

You never wanted to end the relationship. It was the last thing you wanted to do. But the comforting days of teenagers at Hogwarts turned into a stressful time as adults. You had become an Auror right out of Hogwarts while Remus struggled to find a stable job. Being a werewolf didn’t come with its negative effects, after all. You would sometimes go days without seeing him depending on how much time was needed on an investigation. When you did see him, you were always so exhausted and sleep deprived. Eventually all this stress kept piling up to the point where you both decided it was best to part ways. No hard feelings were left but you didn’t hear much from him after that.

Just a few years later, you resigned your job as being an Auror. Though it was an exciting couple of years, it was best to just take some time for yourself and find a more peaceful job. When you heard of the Muggle Studies teaching position open at Hogwarts, you knew this was your opportunity. You knew all about muggles, as you grew up around them, therefore it was an easy job to secure. What you didn’t realize, however, was that one of your colleagues was the same man you left years ago. Catching his gaze at the Great Hall feast in the beginning of the year brought all of the memories back to you once more.

Which brings us back to this moment. You scurry your way to his quarters in hopes of obtaining a treatment for your hand and perhaps some closure from the man you once loved. You mumble apologies to the portraits you had awoken until you finally reach his door. Though hesitant at first, you finally muster up the courage to knock 3 times. It doesn’t take long for an answer as you look at a disheveled Remus Lupin standing at the front of the door wearing some worn out pajamas. Clearly, he didn’t expect you to be the one knocking at his door in the middle of the night as he continues staring you down for a moment. Eventually, he clears his throat and addresses you.

“Oh.” Remus speaks. “Professor, what a surprise. I didn’t- I wasn’t expecting any guests at this hour. May I help you?”

“You got anything for this.” You say, lifting your bruised hand up.

“Oh of course, do come in.”

He opens up the door wider for you and you make your way inside his quarters. It was a cozy little place. All his bags were on the floor and a few garments were thrown onto the bed. He mumbles an apology for the mess and goes to one of his drawers. Pulling out a small blue water packet, he performs a freezing spell on it to turn it into ice. He gestures to you to come over. You and him plop on the edge of the bed. He takes your hand into his own, ever so gently, careful not to hurt you even more. You wince as he begins to apply pressure to it with the ice.

“Just hold still.” He says, calmly. “I promise this will make it feel better.”

You nod and bite your tongue as he applies more pressure. His hands are coarse and rough now as opposed to a few years ago. Clearly, these past few years haven’t treated him well. His hands keep the ice steady as he gently brushes your palm.

“How have you been?” You say out of nowhere. You couldn’t bear the silence any longer.

“Rough.” He admits. “Full moon yesterday and well… you know.”

“Oh right, sorry. I didn’t notice.”

“No worries.”

You remain silent as he removes the ice pack for a moment to examine your hand. He pushes his thumb against the bruised area slightly and you wince once more. He looks up at you with concerned eyes. You give a slight smile, assuring him you are alright. He takes the ice pack and applies it to your hand once more.

“Yes, just leave it on for a few hours.” He says, letting you hold onto the ice pack now. “It should help numb the pain. Other than that your hand appears to be fine. Just some minor bruising. You’re free to go get some rest now.”

As you stand up from the bed, he catches your shoulder. You gasp a little in surprise and slowly come to sit once again with him.

“But that’s not the reason you came here, is it?” Remus asks, almost reading your mind. It was true. This visit was more than a mere injury treatment.

“I just… wanted to see you again.” You admit. “I know we didn’t get the closure we needed. I kind of just wanted that, if you don’t mind.”

“Oh not at all.” He says with a sigh. “Ever since I first saw you during the feast, I wanted to have this conversation with you.”

“Well then. Here we are. You’re not mad at me, are you?”

“Why would I be? This decision was made by the both of us.”

“I know I know. I just feel so guilty. I didn’t get to see you that much near the end of our relationship and I often wondered if you thought I didn’t care about you.”

“You were busy. I understood that. Never did it cross my mind that you didn’t care. I knew you did. And so did I.”

You let out a small relieved smile. “It’s just so hilariously sad now.”

“What is?” He says, shifting himself closer to you.

“Now I have all the time in the world but no one to spend it with.”

He gives a sad smile. “Oh the ironies of life. Would you like some tea?”

“Please.” Remus gets up and heads to the small kitchen attached to his room. You get up and follow him, leaving the ice pack on the bed. “Make sure to add only two spoons-”

“Two spoons of sugar.” Remus finishes for you. He gives a slight smile. “Don’t worry, I remember.” You feel your face blush slightly at this. That man never misses a beat, you’re sure of it. He sets the kettle and leans against the counter, running a hand through his hair.

“Was it bad?” You ask. Remus raises an eyebrow. “The full moon I mean.” You clarify.

“Oh no, not terribly at least. A few minor scratches and bruises. Nothing I haven’t already experienced before.”

“And here I am complaining about a bruised hand.” You laugh. Remus, however, gives you a concerned look as he walks over to you. He carefully takes both of your hands into his.

“Please don’t feel bad about asking me for help.” He says looking straight into your eyes. “You know I will always help you no matter how small it is. Always.” As you stare into his basil-green eyes you can’t help but feel your face heat up again. Something about his stare always drove you mad. Clearly it hasn’t stopped anytime soon. He appears to be moving closer to you before the whistle of the kettle makes him jump a bit. He quickly runs to it and prepares the cups.

As he pours the green tea into an elegant cup, you can’t help but try to explain everything going through your mind. “I wanted to reach out to you. I did. I just didn’t know how. I’m just so relieved that now I get the chance to.”

“So did I.” Remus confesses as he hands you a cup. You take the cup of warm liquid and take a sip from it. Delicious, of course. He always made the best tea. “I just figured you wanted to be left alone. I wouldn’t blame you. Being an Auror is a difficult career. Therefore I went against my own personal emotions considering I still… well, it would be inappropriate to say now.” He takes a gulp from his own cup.

“No please, tell me Remus.” You plead. He stares at you once more and sighs before setting his cup on the table.

“Considering I was still in love with you.” Your heart is racing now. You set your own cup on the table.

“You were?” You ask, stunned. “And now?”

“Nothing has changed. Even after all these years. I still thought of you and hoped you were doing well. Everyday.”

“Oh, Remus.” You cup his face with both hands, bruised hand and everything. Your thumb rubs against his cheek as you slowly move his hair away from his face. He brings his hands to cover yours and gives you the most comforting look.

“Don’t you worry about me now.” He reassures you. “I’ll cope.”

“You don’t have to.” You finally fill in the gap between the two of you and press your lips gently against his. He doesn’t react to this at first, just stands there in confusion. Slowly, however, he brings his hands to your hair and gently combs through it, falling into your kiss. He never once retracts from you. Only crashing back onto your lips over and over. It was the most sincere and wonderful kiss you’ve ever had.

When he finally breaks it, he still holds onto your waist, giving you the biggest smile. His eyes were a different story, however. They were drained and half open. Clearly he was exhausted.

“You’re tired, Remus.”

“A tad. Never of you though.” He places a kiss on your forehead.

“I should really let you sleep.”

“You know you can stay the night.” He says to you in a half whisper. “Only if you’d like. I’d be more than willing to have you here.”

You laugh, running a hand through his sandy locks. “Of course.”

You both climb into his bed, completely exhausted from a long night. Before you get a chance to say something he clutches you close to him. You smile and ease into his embrace. He rests his chin on your head and has his arms wrapped tightly around you. Kissing your head, he sleepily mumbles something into your hair that you couldn’t quite catch.

“What was that, dear?” You ask.

“I’ve missed you.” He mumbles before crashing into a deep sleep.

#harry potter #remus lupin #lupin x reader #remus x reader #remus lupin x reader #remus lupin fic #remus lupin fanfiction #remus lupin fluff #remus lupin angst

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kylorengarbagedump · 4 years

Text

Not a Scratch (NSFW)

Read on AO3.

Summary: You knew he would come back. You knew. So you kept the crystal around your neck. A pendant. A reminder. It was why you weren’t surprised when the call came in over the transceiver--garbled and urgent, but intelligible:

“This is Rey. I have Ben. We’re on our way back--need medics on ready!”

It hadn’t mattered, the 8 years of distance, of longing, of memory. Ben Solo was back.

Words: 6800 (fucking... why)

Warnings: Just a lot of feelings.

Characters: Ben Solo/Kylo RenxReader

A/N: A long overdue gift for one of my closest, enduring friends, @faestae. There are few words I can say that illustrate what our friendship has meant to me, so I hope that this, a try-hard attempt at a love letter, says enough.

That being said, I desperately needed to save Ben Solo, as I've needed to do since 2015. So, here's the actual canon ending to TROS--isn't it weird how that works?

I hope that y'all enjoyed this. I really enjoyed writing Ben's conflict and confusion. I love him, no matter his name. And I love y'all, too. Thank you! <3

“Promise me.”

Ben Solo’s hands cover the kyber crystal in yours as a plea, his eyes clouded with restrained terror. His bottom lip, pillowy and pink, quivers, and he shakes his head, anxiety rolling from him in waves. Weaving your fingers through his own, you tug him close, seeking out his gaze. He avoids you, jaw straining.

“It’s going to be okay, Ben.”

“How do you know that?” he replies. “You don’t understand. I’ve heard what they say.” Tension builds again in his shoulders, and like a dog, he wags it away. “Promise me you won’t wait for me.”

“Your family loves you,” you say, and he stands, ripping his grip from yours. You follow, reaching for his arm. “Nothing is going to happen. It’s going to be okay!”

“Stop saying that!” he snaps, fire flickering in his pupils. He’s heaving, his sight glossy. You always forget how massive he is. He holds you in his stare, chest filling with air. There’s a pause--you think he might apologize--but he turns away, releasing a sigh. “Go. Go home. Forget about me.”

Heart cracking, you fold your arms. Your throat is tight. “You know I could never do that.”

“Well,” he says, “start trying.” He stands there a moment, mind churning with something you’re not sure you want to know. “Go.”

“Ben--”

Ben murmurs your name. It’s disarming. “Please.”

Chewing your lip to keep it from trembling, you leave, gripping the crystal. You don’t look back.

The memory was worn from use, now, muddled in places, exact details blurred to approximations, sentences rounded to paraphrases. Sleepless nights, you would caress its frayed edges, holding it like gauze over the wound in your heart, waiting for the ache to cease--yet each morning, like stitches popping, the wound would bleed anew, redder with each reminder of his presence.

If you had been smart, you would have made that promise and kept it. If you had been smart, you would have stayed away from the Resistance and Leia Organa. If you had been smart, you would have done as he had asked--banished his existence to a corner of your brain where recollections went to rot, let it wither into decay.

But you’d done none of those things. Desperate to keep a connection, you’d maintained a relationship with his mother, in the hopes that one day, he’d come back to you, that you’d prove to him that you hadn’t been foolish to wait for him as he’d believed.

Then came the news of the Jedi Academy.

Then came the news of Kylo Ren.

You followed Leia Organa into war. You became a part of the Resistance. You were one of the few breathing members left. And even as you witnessed him crumble the movement to its knees, you shielded that memory from bitterness, clutching at its most poignant wrinkles, coiled around the strongest, clearest tether to that night.

The kyber crystal.

No matter how desperate with hatred Ben had become, that tether grounded you to what you knew of Ben Solo--a boy on the precipice of his manhood, a boy consumed with expectations and swallowed like sunlight by the black, wretched shadow of fear. It had chased him, you knew, for years. Even after it had snagged him with its claws, drawn him deep into the mire of resignation, you nurtured a seedling of hope, sustained almost entirely on the nourishment of the feeling of the crystal in your hands.

You knew he would come back. You knew. So you kept the crystal around your neck. A pendant. A reminder.

It was why you weren’t surprised when the call came in over the transceiver--garbled and urgent, but intelligible:

“This is Rey. I have Ben. We’re on our way back--need medics on ready!”

Scrambling, you charged into action, shouting out to your comrades, “Hey! Rey’s coming back! Injured parties on board!” You careened through the base, calling out to whoever would listen, leaping over supplies, tripping over wires, tumbling into groups trying to sneak a meal. “Injured parties en route! All medics on deck! Rey’s coming!”

Your blood flew through your veins at lightspeed, the possibilities spinning like roulette in your mind. Ben was coming back--Ben. Not Kylo Ren, but Ben Solo, your Ben, and you would be able to see him, touch him, hold him again after 8 long, awful years. Your hidden memory burbled to life with renewed color--you could see the line of his nose, the waves of his hair, the breadth of his shoulders as if they were in front of you, now.

The excitement was tempered by the realization of Rey’s request--medics. Fear and joy fought for dominance when you pictured his body torn with wounds, soaked with blood, heavy with pain. Breath shuddering in your lungs, you searched for a place to sit, to wait. Your desire was to be the first to see him off the ship, to leap into his arms, to grasp at his face and smother it with your affection. But you knew that this was his mother’s place, not yours. If Ben was gravely injured, then to try to be with him would only complicate the issue. This was to say nothing about the impact of his choices--what everyone else on the base might think.

An interesting man you’d chosen to love.

Despite your resolve to sequester yourself in your tent during his arrival, the noise of Rey’s ship landing was too difficult to resist. You poked out your head, watching a swarm of Resistance fighters surround the vessel. The reality of his arrival sent your heart into your throat, hands fidgeting as you scanned every new movement for evidence of his presence, willing your eyes to believe what they were about to see. The hatch opened, and out stepped Rey--bloody, dirty, but still bearing a gleaming grin. She fell into the arms of her cheering friends, and you grew more impatient, craning your neck to see him appear behind her.

Silence cast over the celebratory din before you saw him, as if his presence destroyed the idea of joy on base--his hair was long and dark, curls blown out from sweat. He looked even larger than you had remembered, his wide frame padded with the muscle of an experienced warrior, and his face… It was just as beautiful as you remembered--full lips under hazel eyes, a long nose--but so tired. And nervous.

The urge rose to call out to him.

“Ben…”

You clamped your hand over your mouth, horrified--until you realized it hadn’t been you who had spoken.

The crowd parted for Leia Organa as she strode to the front, meeting her son at the threshold, where he stood transfixed, an effigy crafted from terror. Your tongue dried when you observed Ben take one step forward, and another, before crumbling to his knees, face buried in his fists, shoulders swelling with emotion you were too far to hear. Leia crossed to her son, pressing his head to her chest, stroking his hair. Quiet words passed her lips, and his body wracked, trembling in her embrace.

Pulse pounding, you retreated to your tent. Quakes rumbled through you, your palms slick with perspiration, breath rattling as if your ribs had come loose. Thoughts raced through your mind faster than you could identify them, tears welling and slipping over your cheeks. You laughed, despite yourself, grinding the heels of your palms into your eyes. The moment you’d spent the past 8 years preparing for had arrived--and you couldn’t even bring yourself to see him. Being a spectator to his icy reception, his collapse into his mother’s arms, had been more sobering than you’d anticipated. You realized that after all he’d been through, who was to say he’d even still care about you?

Who was to say he even remembered your name?

The mask you’d so carefully carved over the past near-decade shattered, and you sobbed, a long, broken gasp of air pulled into your lungs. It was cold in your throat, pins poking you from the inside as you wept, years of denial wilting, parting for torrents of doubt. Your last conversation with Ben had ended with him begging for you to forget him--he’d gone on to renounce his name, become Supreme Leader of the First Order. He’d murdered his own father. How, after any of this, could you think his mind hadn’t oh-so-ceremoniously murdered you, too?

Whining, you fell into your bed and tugged a blanket over your shoulders, concealing your necklace with a fist, as if you could will it to disappear. You’d been stupid, so stupid. You’d loved Ben, but the man that exited that ship was not the same Ben you’d loved. And he might not ever be. A chill settled over your stomach while you pulled the cover tighter, like it was a barrier protecting you from reality, like you could stave off falling into a canyon of despair.

You remained there, the crushing awakening of foolishness ceding to an empty rot, eyes boring through the far flap of your tent. Outside, restless chattering bloomed as time moved forward, groups of your relieved comrades downing spirits for the first time in what seemed like millenia. Raucous peals of laughter erupted from positions near and far, a group in the distance taking to singing after a few hours of drinks had passed. You heard it all, trapped in your fetal position, cursing yourself for your ignorance.

At least you had the manners not to invite anyone to your pity party.

Daylight dimmed, and your legs grew restless, your chest bubbling with anxiety. You sighed, rolling out of your bed, dragging your fingers over your face. It felt swollen, tight, your cheeks sticky with the remnants of your tears. As much as you wanted it, to remain like a statue in the tent, an observer to the victory of the Resistance, would be impossible. You’d fought for this, too--to hide out of, what, embarrassment? Shame? It didn’t seem right. At some point, you would have to face him. Might as well get it over with now.

It was likely Ben had been taken to the medic tent, but you couldn’t imagine where he’d gone after that, if he had been all right. Maybe he’d gone to stay with his mother. Quelling the tremor in your lungs with a deep breath, you trudged out into the camp, wandering along to Leia Organa’s tent. Gaggles of Resistance members cheered with raised spirits when you passed, but your brain was numb to their joy, still shackled to the memory of Ben Solo. Freedom hadn’t been awarded to you, yet.

Celebration on base had reached a loud, rolling plateau, and as you moved deeper into base, you spotted unfamiliar ships littered across the landscape, the doors open, the lights on. News was spreading, apparently, and everyone was invited to the party. Another claw of anxiety tugged at your heart--perhaps Leia and Ben would be too flocked with visitors to entertain you. Perhaps you’d arrive and appear even more foolish than you’d felt when you’d seen him walk off the ship. Perhaps there were dozens of people he’d wanted to see, names foreign and unknown to you, and perhaps you should’ve just stayed in your tent like you’d had the inclination to do instead of getting up and walking through this fucking crowd to get to another fucking crowd and--

Leia’s tent was marked by two lanterns outside the entrance--but not a soul in sight outside its boundaries. In fact, it looked as if there’d been a deliberate effort to leave a radius of empty space around her encampment, like an invisible barricade of solitude had been erected. In the cacophony, Leia Organa’s space was unblemished refuge, an oasis of peace that you desperately craved. Yet it stalled you--to break this unofficial blessing seemed wrong. You didn’t want to be the weird girl hanging outside the General’s tent. But the crystal was heavy around your neck. Weirdness be damned.

You crept through the encroaching shadows, hoping to avoid curious eyes while you drew closer to the entrance flap. Before you could push it open, your ears caught the rumbled hush of speech, and your pulse quickened. It was wrong to eavesdrop. And yet…

“It will take time. You knew that when you stepped off that ship.”

That was Leia’s voice--soft, warm. A long pause hung in the air.

“I don’t know why I did. They’re right to hate me.” The next words were pushed between teeth. “I am a monster.”

Your stomach constricted, a punch to your gut. Ben. Hearing him speak had you doubled over, sweat staining your neck, muscles locked in shock. Now, even if you’d wanted to move, you couldn’t.

“I know my son,” Leia said. “And he is no monster.”

“Your son murdered his own father.”

“I know.”

“Your husband.”

“I know.”

“Then how can you…” A hitch of breath, a crackle of noise, like a cry caught in his throat. “How can I…”

Rustling inside the tent, the sound of stifled sobs. Shushing. “This won’t be easy, Ben. It won’t. But you’ve made it this far.” More rustling. “And you’re not alone.”

A snort of dismissal. “Aren’t I?”

“You’re not,” Leia said. “And I won’t let you think you are. You have me. Rey.” She didn’t say your name. Your heart thumped. “The first steps of any journey are the most difficult.”

There was a long, resigned sigh. A stuttered breath. Another pause. “Yes,” Ben croaked. “You’re right.” He sniffed, clearing his throat. “You’re right.”

“Aren’t I always?” said Leia. “Now come on. I haven’t seen you eat a thing.”

Shuffling inside the tent, and you choked on your own spit as your insides flipped. Leia hadn’t mentioned you. Maybe she already knew he didn’t remember you. Relief and horror flooded you at once, your fingers twisting around your necklace. More than anything, you wanted to rush into the tent, throw your arms around him, show him he truly wasn’t alone--but instead you stood there, a shell, paralyzed by what you’d heard.

It was true that he was not the same man you had loved. Before, when Ben had spoken, you’d felt his dread, his unease, it had gripped you with its claws. Now, even through his pain, you sensed resolve, a tide of confidence splashing in his mind.

“Do you…” It was Ben again, voice like a quiet ocean. “There was a girl. Before I left.” He sniffled again, and your lids widened. A girl. “I gave her a kyber crystal. Do you...” He sighed. Your breathing stopped, fist sheathing the crystal. “Do you know what happened to her?”

Leia spat out your name, incredulous. “Of course I know what happened to her. She’s here.”

Heat flashed through you. Your neck was drenched, for sure. You hoped against hope your armpits had been spared. Ben remembered you. He remembered.

“Here?”

“On base,” she said. “She joined the Resistance.”

You could hear the smile in her voice. Meanwhile, your throat was drier than the sands of Jakku. Given a few more minutes of this, your body might turn to sand, too--just disintegrate right there, a pile of dust at the perimeter of Leia’s tent. Silence settled for a moment.

“She’s here.” It was a statement of disbelief.

She chuckled. “Did you really think she would just forget you?”

“Mom…” Noise inside the tent again. “I…”

The tent flap opened, and you yelped, leaping back. There, light shimmering like an aura around his massive silhouette, stood Ben Solo.

Up close, he was even more beautiful. His dark, amber eyes were still wet, already full mouth swollen from weeping. He met your stare, jaw dropped. Air had been stolen from both of you, if the lack of breathing on either side was an indicator. Inside your ribs, something fluttered, and you hoped it wasn’t an oncoming heart attack--but if it was, you’d die happy. Ben’s gaze searched you, drawing over every centimeter of your figure, mapping you to the image in his memory, that, seeing him now, you’d known he’d kept. Just like you’d kept yours.

“Uhm…” Finally, you inhaled. “Hey.”

A long, slow breath spread in Ben’s chest. His eyes refused to leave yours. “Tell me where you’re staying.”

You swallowed. “What?”

He blinked, clearing his throat. “I--... No, sorry.” Looking over his shoulder, he shrugged, gesturing to you. “I’m going to--”

“Just get out of here, already!” Leia chided. You could hear the mirth in her tone.

Ben nodded, and you turned, leading him with quick strides to your own tent. He stayed on your heels, perhaps hoping that his attachment to you would serve as camouflage. It worked, mostly--between the waxing excitement in the camp, the setting of the sun, and the effort to hide your faces, only few lingering stares caught you escaping through the crowds with the former Kylo Ren.

It hadn’t mattered, the 8 years of distance, of longing, of memory. You felt Ben behind you now as if he’d never left, his presence fitting into the ache you’d dug your fingers into, wrenched open, kept gaping. In this moment of rediscovery, wordlessness filled the space between you, not out of emptiness, but out of fullness--too much, too many words; they coalesced into a fog that surrounded you, dizzied you, excited you. Ben Solo was back.

Ben Solo was back.

Lips pinched together, you peeled back the entrance to your tent, and he ducked in. Heat branded you, like he was fire, scorching you when you drew too near. Ben sat on your bed--afraid to burn, you took the chair across from him, feeling ten times tinier when you sank into the seat, shoulders curling over your torso, hands hiding between your knees. Both of you stared in silence.

His gaze was more intense than you remembered--there was an urgency within the depths of his irises, like a panther, crouched in the darkness, ready to pounce. His body was wound with that same urgency, coiled within him, even as he sat on your bed, looking entirely familiar. It was as if Ben was trapped beyond water’s surface, the death throes of Kylo Ren echoing across his skin, shattering his image with each ripple. Fingers biting your knees, you remembered to breathe.

“I didn’t know you’d be here,” he said. “You…” His lips twitched. “It’s good. To see you.”

A sniffle escaped, the tears already welling. Internally, you cursed. Shouldn’t you be a little harder to impress? “I just…” You smiled, despite yourself. “I’m so glad you’re back, Ben.”

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s…” He met your stare, glanced away. “Yeah.”

You watched his attention wander across the floor of your room, drawn to the ceiling by the hosts of doodles, notes, Resistance memorabilia you’d pinned in artistic menageries, a feeble attempt to make it feel like home. You’d never been successful in that venture. No matter how many trinkets you’d collected over the years, nothing had done the trick to make your bed feel more familiar. Ben’s eyes rested on you again.

Nothing until now, anyway.

“You came to the Resistance.” His head tilted. “When?”

“Well…” Your expression tightened. “Not long after you, uh, told me to go home and forget about you.”

Ben huffed. “You were never very good at listening to me.”

You offered him a little shrug. “Isn’t that what you liked about me, Solo?”

He peered at you, a hint of intrigue at the corners of his eyes. “It is.” A pause while he considered you. “What do you know about what I’ve--”

“Everything,” you replied quickly. You knew it all, and wanted to discuss none of it. Not now. He was here, he was within your reach. You wanted to relish this moment. “I know all of it.”

A sigh left him. “All right,” he said. “You know all of it.”

“I do.” You raised your hands in submission. “And none of it scares me.”

“None of it.”

You shook your head. “Nope.”

His brow twitched. He looked to his feet, quiet.

For years, you’d imagined his return, pictured this moment in varied shades. In your daydreams, you’d always wrapped him up in an embrace, pulled him into a deep kiss, ran your fingers through his hair, like years hadn’t elapsed between the last time you’d even linked hands. That seemed wrong, now--but you didn’t want it to be. How bold you could be in your mind. You nearly slapped yourself in frustration. Almost a decade of pretending, and you were just going to sit and watch him guess how to talk to you? No. Hell no.

“Ben,” you said, “I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you so, so much.”

He tensed, then relaxed in another long sigh. He whispered your name. “You’ve… To see you here…” A tiny smile twisted the corners of his mouth. “I’ve missed you, too.”

You smiled, wiping away more unbidden tears. Warmth glowed between you, now, cutting through like shears to the well-worn path that time had overgrown. Shifting, you inched forward in your chair.

“Are you okay?” You gestured toward him, waving your hand around. “I know they called for medics when you arrived.”

He cocked his head again, and sat up, wagging his shirt, as if to demonstrate he was free of serious injury. “I seem to be in one piece.”

You spied a hole in his shirt, and you frowned. “What’s that?”

Ben glanced at you, thoughtful. Then he dropped the shirt, and it fell against his body, framing a peep of his naked torso. “You’ve never seen a lightsaber wound before?”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Rey stabbed me,” he said matter-of-factly, like this was what you’d expected him to blurt out. “It’s fine, though. She healed it.”

You blinked. “I’m sorry…” You shook your head. “What?”

“It still burns. It’s eating me from the inside.” A pause, Ben’s gaze leveling you with violent severity, your stomach sinking into your gut--and then he grinned. “I’m kidding.” He poked himself through the hole. “You never know what the Force is truly capable of until your own lightsaber is sticking out of your stomach.”

“Stars, Ben!” You smirked against your will, fighting the laugh that wanted to burst through. “You’re such an ass.”

He shrugged, a sly look still pulling at his face. “Really, it’s fine,” he said. “See for yourself.”

Raising a brow, you went to stand, anxiety strapping your limbs to the seat. “Oh, um, I don’t know,” you replied. “I mean, I don’t want to be rude.”

“It’s fine.” His voice was lower, harsher. “You could never be rude to me.”

Blush eked over your cheeks. “If you say so, Solo.”

You stood and crossed to him, breath shallow, and sat gingerly next to him, scanning his figure. Never had you imagined Ben could be even bigger than he’d been in your memories--yet here he was, looming over you without standing, crowding your bed and your clarity with equal effectiveness. You looked between his face and the hole in his top, and he nodded. Jaw clenched, you reached out and poked it.

Two thoughts flashed through your mind when your flesh connected. The first was surprise--he was right, the alleged wound was completely healed; there wasn’t even a scar. The second, almost immediately after, came paired with a rabid streak of desire. Holy--he’s… firm. Swallowing, you met his eyes. They were dark.

“Ben,” you breathed. “That’s… incredible.”

Your finger hadn’t left his torso. Staying linked to his stare, you shifted closer, pressing your entire hand against his abdomen, palm splaying over the wall of tight muscle, skimming it like water over rocks. When you met the hem of his top, your digits crept underneath, brushing across his skin. His stomach twitched, but his eyes remained trained on yours--breathing now optional. Electricity sparked at your fingertips, stealing your rationality, and you caressed him, tumbling into the warmth, the solid strength of his body, your blood racing, urging you to discover more. Your hand snaked up to his chest, grazing the smooth expanse of flesh, catching the hammering of his heart beneath his sternum, his hardened nipples, and back down, resting on his lean belly. He stiffened when your digits kissed the trail of hair that led lower. He was hot. Or you were hot. You couldn’t tell, anymore.

Ben’s chin quivered. “Not a scratch on me.”

“No…” You couldn’t stop staring at his fucking mouth. “Not a single one…”

Trapped in hesitation, both of your eyes locked again--and you saw it there, misty in his gaze, his ache, his desire, his agony--and you both snapped, crashing like gravity into the other.

Ben seized your face, his plush lips working over yours, forcing a groan from you when his fingers threaded through your hair. He cradled you, binding you to him, tugging your closer as his tongue slipped into your mouth, a moan following. You melted like wax in his grip, molding to him as if you’d been carved from his memory, one hand traveling along the lines of his abdomen, the other plunging into his own hair. The waves whispered like silk over your skin, and you shivered, mewling into him, your tongue swirling around his. Bolder, now, your hand skated across his frame to feel his powerful shoulders, and he tensed again, another moan leaving him.

Scraping your nails over his scalp, you eased closer, until your thighs touched, and in the motion, your palm drifted low, sweeping over the insistent, hard bulge in his pants. Ben gasped, folding over, lids wide with shock, cheeks flushed. You blinked, frozen, and he glanced at his erection, then at you. The knot in his throat bobbed.

“Ben...”

Exhaling, he nodded.

You reached down, working at his pants, monitoring the anticipation rising in his face. After a moment of rustling, it sprang free--long, thick, and heavy, just as you’d remembered. Lust flooded you, your thighs pressing together, your cunt throbbing while you stared. It had been years since you’d done this, and judging by his anxious lip-bite, it had been just as long for Ben, too. Throat tight, you held his gaze, ghosting the tips of your digits along his shaft.

He choked, cock bobbing with yearning--his lid twitched while he observed you observing him, his hands curling in and out of fists. A shaky breath exited your lungs, and you teased him again, toying your fingers along the head, smearing drops of his pre-cum, and back down, memorizing the tiny veins. Ben’s own breath quaked, lids fluttering, and your core thrummed again. You wrapped your hand around his dick, feeling how hard, how needy he was, and stroked him.

Like molasses, he collapsed, sinking into his seat, body yielding to the pleasure pulsating through his nerves. He watched you, jaw slack, as you pumped his cock, thumb collecting pre-cum and glazing his length with it. Breath rolled through him, steady, his legs spreading, fists finally unwinding, hands resting at his sides. Ben was hot--his heat ached in your fist, his pulse jumped through your digits, the heartbeat of his cock echoing to your pussy.

You jerked him faster, squeezing his shaft, and he shuddered with a moan, hips bucking to fuck into your grip. More pre-cum leaked from his tip, coating your hand, and you worked it along his dick, earning another moan, another tremble of pleasure. His eyes fought to stay on you. You twisted your wrist, changing pace, heart leaping when his head fell back, hair tumbling onto his brow.

“Fuck,” he murmured, “fuck…”

He was throbbing hard, now, writhing, breath coming faster, sweat glistening on his cheeks. Despite how badly you wanted to fuck him, you just as badly wanted to watch him cum, wanted to see him cover himself with his seed, wanted to watch him lose himself in the ecstasy only you could provide him.

Your name spilled from his mouth in a gasp, and he spasmed, snatching your wrist. His cock twitched in fury, ripped like thread from its release, and he sucked in a deep breath, pushing up on his palms and pulling you into another kiss. Humming in delight, you kissed him back, returning your hands to his hair--but he pulled them away, pinning them to your sides, growling as he dragged his teeth along your jaw.

Ben then busied himself with your clothes, nibbling lower, to your neck, while he peeled your jacket from your shoulders and tore your shirt toward your head. His touch was a match, embers exploding over your skin, stoking your appetite to strip for him. You wriggled free of your top, and Ben went to kiss you again, pausing when he saw the pendant around your neck, exposed now. Wonder glittered in his gaze, large fingers tilting it in fascination.

“You still have this.” He studied it, appraising each facet.

You nodded. “It’s never left my neck.”

He said nothing, rotating it between his thumb and forefinger. His level of focus brought fresh blood to your cheeks; you thought to move, but didn’t, suspended under his scrutiny. Longing, need, fervor, all paused as Ben wrestled with the concept of your devotion.

“I…” His stare fell, over your breasts, to your stomach, raking over your legs, and back up, greed growling behind his pupils. “I want you.”

You grinned. “You have me.” Your hand covered his as it fiddled with your crystal. “I... I want to keep this on.”

“Of course you do,” he replied, smirking. “No reason to break your streak, now.”

Giggling, you kissed him again--his hands slid behind your back, fussing with your bra before tossing it aside. He pawed at your exposed breasts, kneading the soft flesh, mouth falling to suckle at your throat. When you whimpered in pleasure, he groaned, easing you onto your back, thumbs flicking at your nipples before smoothing over your stomach and grappling with your bottoms. His hair tickled your jaw while he nipped at your neck, and you wrestled with his top, hands gliding over the strong planes of his back as you yanked it toward you. Ben grumbled, reluctant to release you, but seemed to agree that his clothing was impeding your mutual goal. His shirt came free, tossed aside, followed by your shoes and panties. The vulnerability made you squirm--not just yours, but his, too.

Ben’s body was even more perfect than you’d pictured when you’d traced it with your fingers. Every part of him was weaponized, down to the bits of exposed thigh you caught from his half-shucked pants. You swallowed, realizing the extent, the breadth of his power--how easily he could crush you, how effortlessly he’d done it to others--the vestiges of Kylo Ren evident in the taut landscape of his torso, the veins in his forearms, the cobwebs of white scars on his flesh.

But in his eyes, you saw only Ben Solo, a man possessed by your naked figure flushed with passion for him. Your pussy clenched--you became aware of how wet you were, and your face burned.

Silent, he guided a large hand up the side of your hip, his tender touch earning another throb of your cunt. Digits sketched around your nipples before he squeezed your tits again, reveling in your gratified response.

“You like that,” he murmured.

Nodding, your thighs ground together, the longing between your legs becoming too furious to silence. Ben smirked. Without a word, five fingers skimmed over your belly, brushing over your mound, and you cracked, moaning. In response, his dick pulsed, almost hitting his stomach with its demand. As if to invite him, you spread your legs, allowing him a full view of your wet, swollen pussy--and Ben’s breath hitched, hand gripping his length and jerking it slowly.

Being so close to him again was simultaneously familiar and bizarre, like you were getting intimate with a stranger who just happened to know all the quirks and triggers of your body, like a person you’d known only from your dreams had rolled into your bed, ready to enact your fantasies. But Ben Solo was not only real, he wasn’t a stranger. He was yours.

“Ben,” you breathed. “Please…”

Shushing you, he lowered himself on top of you, skin swathing skin, warmth encompassing you, and he guided his cock between your folds, slicking it on your juices before positioning himself at your core. You circled your arms around him, holding back tears when he pushed in, breaking you open with slow, gentle thrusts, his face falling into the crook of your neck, air sucking through his teeth. Muscles from your toes to your head vibrated with ecstasy, nerves singing with joy.

Ben groaned into you when he slipped fully into you, then pulling back out, relishing the drag of your walls on his throbbing length. Grunting, he wrapped you in an embrace, tugging you against him while he slid in again, a choked moan of disbelief caught in his throat. He kissed your neck once, then twice, hips pumping out and in, his pace powerful and gradual, as if he couldn’t help basking in the tight heat of your cunt. Tremors still quaked in your bones, and you wrapped your legs around him, needing him nearer, your lids closing, allowing the tears to slide down your hot cheeks.

He whispered your name in your ear, kissing your throat again, plunging steadily into you. “You feel so good,” he said, “so wet for me…”

If he was intent on liquifying you, it was working. Your limbs were gelatin, without motion, no purpose except to stay curled around this man. Ben’s cock fucked you open, sank deep into your pussy, his tempo quickening. You sniffled, nuzzling against him, content to stay like this forever, maybe die like this, if need be--you couldn’t ever remember feeling this whole, this safe. And as you thought it, another sniffle. But not from you. From Ben.

Whimpering, he rammed into you, speed erratic, like he was trying to drive his entire body into yours, pulling you into his chest, the kyber crystal cutting into your sternum. Your nails rasped across his back, clinging to him when he slid out. Another frantic thrust, and you squeaked, cunt clamping down on his dick, more tears spilling. He echoed you, silencing a sob in your neck, shuddering as he fucked you harder, faster.

“I’m sorry,” he groaned, “I’m so sorry…”

You hushed him, hands diving into his hair, fruitlessly trying to turn his face toward you. He was unyielding, wound around you like wire.

“I’m sorry I left,” he said, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry for all of it--”

“Ben, it’s okay--”

“It’s not!” He gasped, catching his breath, littering your throat and cheek with kisses. “I don’t deserve you, I don’t deserve this--”

You squealed when he speared a spot deep inside you. “I forgive you,” you said, “it’s okay--”

“Stop saying that…” he mumbled. “You don’t--you don’t understand…”

“Shh…”

He had slowed by this point, long, languid thrusts pushing into you. “You don’t understand what I want,” he whispered. “I’m a monster.”

Your heart skipped. “You can tell me, Ben…”

Ben hid his nose in the crook of your neck, face wet, breath like smoke. He hadn’t stopped fucking you through his cries, only clutched you tighter, keeping you real in his hands.

“I want...” He sniffled. And then, into your ear, barely escaping his throat: “Let me choke you.”

It was so abrupt, you laughed. “What?” you said, more as a statement than a question. “Is that all?”

He trembled in your arms. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

You rolled your eyes, kissing his temple. “I know that, Ben,” you said. “I know you would never hurt me.”

He paused, seated inside of you, and pried himself from your shoulder, examining you in doubt. His chin still quivered.

“I mean it,” you said, pushing a lock of hair from his forehead. “I want all of you. Then, and now.” You kissed his nose. “I know Ben Solo. He is not a monster.”

The doubt fell from his face, followed by the anguish, the shame--and filtering in its place was pure, voracious hunger.

“You mean it.”

“I do,” you said. “I want it.”

He pushed up on his palms, hovering over you like a predator. Heart thrashing, you bit your lip, resisting the urge to clench around him. Before his fall, Ben had been passionate, desperate, even rough--but never like this. Never feral. Never animalistic. Never…

Leaning forward, he brushed his mouth over your ear.

“We’ll see how you feel when I’m done with you, princess.”

Never so hot.

Fire flooded your veins, and you whined, the noise cut by his hand pressing down on your throat, squeezing with enough pressure to make you gasp. He smirked, rocking his hips to remind you of the thick length still inside you.

“I’m going to make you cum hard on this cock,” he purred. “Is that what you want?”

You nodded, grasping at his wrist.

“Good…”

Ben growled, and slammed into you, forcing a wail from your lungs, silenced by the grip on your neck. He rammed you with his dick again, and again, jolting your bones, until he was pounding you, hips smacking into yours, a snarl of pleasure escaping him.

“You feel incredible,” he said. “There hasn’t been a day where I haven’t thought about fucking your little pussy…” He moved faster, throwing his head back in bliss. “Fuck, I’ve dreamed about cumming inside you…”

“Ben,” you wheezed, overwhelmed with lust. “Ben, please…”

He returned to your ear, nipping it. “You need to cum, princess?”

A deluge of lust, now, drenching you, drowning you. “Yes,” you squeaked out, “yes, please!”

Both hands crushed your throat, Ben’s eyes wild, his hair mussed, and he kept his pace, pumping deep into your slick, hot cunt with ease. His digits twitched--there it was, whirling around your clit, the Force, how you’d missed it--and you were flying, euphoria engulfing you, so fucking close, limbs jerking with pleasure, ready to cinch around his cock.

“Ben…” The pressure on your neck was snug. “Ben, fuck--”

“Fuck yes,” he hissed, spitting out your name, “fuck, yes--” He growled, the Force spinning like a buzzer around your nub, and you snapped, falling apart under him. “That’s right, cum--cum for me, princess…”

White rapture blinded you when you came, straining against the choke, pulsing and milking his cock. Ben squeezed your throat with his climax, keening as his orgasm ravaged him, his hips stuttering, dick spilling jets of cum inside your cunt. He fucked you through it, frenzied in his release, until it slowed, the only sounds left the sloppy noise of his final thrusts.

A low, long groan left him, and he released you, toppling at your side, chasing his breath. You rolled over, staring at him, trying to catch up with your lungs, too. A sheen of sweat encased you both, sticking your skin together, grazing like raw nerves--but you cared little. Next to you was the man you’d loved for almost a decade, the man for whom you’d waited through war, the man who had held your heart and kept it safe, even in the depths of his darkness.

“I love you, Ben,” you said, cupping his cheek. “All of you.”

Ben stared at the ceiling of your tent, chest still heaving. He said nothing, then glanced at your kyber crystal, fogged with sex. “I know.”

You chuckled, snuggling closer to him, and he wrapped an arm around you, pressing you flush against his frame. Lethargy hung on your lids, and you struggled to stay conscious, the murky noises of the Resistance’s victory celebration leaking into your tent. Seconds lingered into minutes, his eyes still fixed on the crystal, memorizing its reflections of your flesh. A wriggle of his fingers, and it rose from your neck, twisting in the air.

He laid there with your head nestled into his shoulder, twirling it with the Force. Back and forth, back and forth, a twinkling lullaby. Back and forth, back and forth, until, finally, you fell asleep.

#kylo ren smut #ben solo smut #kylo ren x reader #ben solo x reader #kylo ren imagine #ben solo imagine #kylo ren #ben solo #not a scratch #nerd whinings #fanfiction problems #another fix-it fic #because I'll never stop salting #EVER

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stillbandofbrothersthirsty · 3 years

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1, H, and hit me with some of that lynn d. "buck" compton ❤️

This song is so sad and angsty but I couldn’t bear to give Buck more sadness so enjoy my version of fluff ;)

“Buck, hey,” Emilia reached up to cradle his cheek in her palm, “hey, talk to me. What’s going on?” He gave no response, he only continued to stare at her with that glassy-eyed look she had become all too familiar with.

This happened most evenings since he had returned to England. The friend Emilia had sent off to war had returned a totally different man. Recently, his night terrors had become so bad that Emilia had become accustomed to the knock on her door after midnight.

It would be easy for anyone who saw Buck sneaking into her room to assume that something compromising was occurring. But it wasn’t like that. They didn’t strip each other's layers, but melted into each other, creating more. The only muffled sounds were her gentle murmurs of comforting words. He would let the tears fall and she would use her thumb to wipe them away as internally clutched pieces of her own heart together.

“It’s okay,” she’d whisper as she pulled him into her chest. She leaned against the pillows and stroked his head.

In the morning, they would go their separate ways. She would attend to her official patients and Buck would participate in rehabilitation. It helped that the days were growing warmer in England. Emilia knew very few details of what Buck had experienced in Bastogne, but she knew him well enough to recognize the warmer days treated him better.

The two had met not long after D-Day when Buck had returned to England a hero among his men. He was such an imposing figure that exuded charm and confidence. If she were honest Emilia had found Buck incredibly attractive. But he had a girlfriend and Emilia was more than happy to just be his friend. Buck's energy was unmatched. He had this special talent of making those around him feel like the most important person in the room.

Emilia had never felt more confident than walking down a road with her hand tucked into the crook of his large arm. She felt brave knowing that he had her back. He had such immense respect from the other men that it transferred over to her by association and that made her feel safe in a way she had never experienced before. Buck was her hero come to life.

But in the end, the war got the better of Buck. And their relationship changed. Buck was still strong, just in a different way now. Emilia was no longer his pretty sidekick but a lifeline he needed to get through the days.

Some nights he needed to be held, but on better nights he just needed to not be alone. Emilia was happy to assist him with either.

“Come with me to California,” Buck said unexpectedly one night. Emilia’s hand froze in his hair where she had been dragging her fingertips through the short curls.

“Don’t be silly,” she said, even though something clutched in her chest.

“You’re always complaining about the cold here,” Buck said in a low voice.

Emilia sighed, “it’s a nice thought, Buck.” He rolled his head back to look at her, “I’m serious.”

Emilia’s stomach flipped as she made direct contact with those ice blue ice-blue eyes. In a look, all of her thoughts left her mind. Simultaneously, Buck’s breath caught in his throat. He had never seen her like this before. Nothing was different, not a single thing had changed and yet she seemed different to him. He had spoken without thinking but now looking up at her he realized it was exactly what he wanted, what he needed. He needed her to come to California with him.

“We’ll see,” Emilia finally said in a dismissive tone. She began drawing her fingers through his white-blonde curls again. Buck grabbed her wrist to stop her. He brought her hand down over his chest.

“Promise me you’ll think about it?” he said earnestly.

Emilia bit her lip and nodded, “I promise.” Buck raised an eyebrow. “I promise I’ll think about it!” she assured him.

Satisfied, Buck nestled back down into the cradle of her embrace, “good,” he murmured.

That was the beginning to their end, the end of their friendship at least. It was as if the invitation to return to California with him had eliminated all boundaries that had previously been founded. Each night little touches were achieved, touches that were far too intimate to be considered comfort between friends. And as the nights passed, Emilia felt Buck's strength return to him. The version of who he was before was gone forever but from the ashes of that shell of a human, a new man was emerging.

“Have you thought about California at all?” Buck asked one night. They lay next to each other in bed, his arms wrapped around her for a change. His cheek pressed against hers. There was a metallic smell about him, like fresh snow. It was clean and pleasing and Emilia felt that old familiar sense of security return to her.

“I’ve thought about it a little,” she admitted. It was true she had thought about it. But not in any real sense- the logistics were not simple. In her fantasies it was easy. California was only sunshine and meeting his family was nothing but pleasant. But in reality, there was citizenship to be approved, jobs to be acquired, and a place to live to be found. Would they be living together? Or would she have to make her own way in the world with Buck as nothing more than a friend?

“And?” Buck asked. She considered his question as he nuzzled against her cheek. She shrugged, a pointed expression that took some effort with his heavy arms wrapped so lovingly around her. “Think you’ll come?” he pressed.

“I don’t know, Buck,” Emilia finally admitted. He didn’t miss the crack in her voice.

He propped himself up, “hey,” the tone of his voice had changed to one of concern, “what’s wrong?”

Emilia rolled over in bed to face him, “I just don’t know how it’ll work. Logistically I mean…” she trailed off. Buck settled down on the bed beside her.

“What do you mean?”

  “I mean, my life is here, Buck. I have a job, a house..”

She appreciated that he seemed to consider her concerns seriously. He didn’t immediately jump in with solutions but in the darkness, she could feel his eyes consider her carefully.

“It’s a lot to ask you to leave behind,” he admitted in a quiet voice, “and I’ll understand if you say no. But I really want you to come, and I’ll make sure you’re provided for.”

That only confused Emilia more: provided for? She needed him to clarify. She reached down into the very depths of herself to find the courage to ask, “as a friend or… as more than a friend?”

 Time seemed frozen, unmoving as she waited for his answer. After what felt like minutes, his hand between them came up to her face. He gently pinched her chin between his thumb and forefinger. “Emilia,” Buck whispered, “you have been the constant and lasting good in my life. I never want to be away from you. I love you.”

Tears welled in Emilia’s eyes, taking her by surprise. She tried to swallow but her throat was thick with emotion. All she could do was stare back into his eyes, navy in the darkness, that were set upon her with so much intensity. “I love you more than I love a friend,” Buck said in a voice that was stronger and more confident than she had heard in ages. “If you’ll have me, I want you forever.” Emilia could only nod she was so overcome with joy. Buck pulled her closer into his arms and then they were holding each other, not out of desperation or grief but in love, equally clutching each other and the hope their future together held.

#band of brothers #one shot #request game #buck compton #friends to lovers

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vanderlindemorgans · 3 years

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dark blue tennessee

Pairing: Agent Whiskey x Reader

Rating: Teen

Word Count: 4.8k

Summary: It was one thing being without him while he was alive. It was another to lose him all together

Warnings: Major character death, grief-induced alcoholism, descriptions of blood and injuries, vague allusions to suicide. None of this is beta read so please don’t shoot me for any grammatical errors!

None of this seemed real to you. None of it felt real. It would have brought you some comfort if it wasn’t - that way you could reason with yourself that this was all the result of some horrific nightmare, that’d you’d wake up with a small gasp in his arms, safe and away from whatever dark terror had enveloped your mind. You weren’t one to usually have nightmares but when you did he would always be there, his embrace warm and tight, a single hand running through your hair in a soft pattern, and his unmistakable southern drawl whispering into your ear.

This wasn’t a dream however. No matter how wrong it felt, how surreal and horrific the whole situation was, it was all real. Perched on the edge of a barstool, you glanced over at the almost empty bottle of whiskey beside you. You thought it would take the pain away, dull your senses and let you pretend for two seconds that he wasn’t really gone, but if anything, the whiskey made it worse. Everything reminded you of him, day in and day out, every morning you woke up and all you could notice was that he wasn’t there. His clothes were, his Stetson perched on a hook on the back of your bedroom door, his stupid belt buckle that you’d always mocked him for...but not him. You couldn’t bear to box away any of it. It may bring you pain to see all these items laid out, as if they were expecting their owner to return someday, but shoving it all in the back of a closet seemed so...disrespectful to you. It would be almost the same as forgetting him in your mind, and you refused to.

It had been only two weeks since you first received that fateful call, the one that you prayed to high heavens you would never hear. Thank god you were home when you got the call - if you’d been out with your friends, or heaven forbid at work you don’t know what you would have done. It was a moment that you often replayed over in your mind, if for nothing more than the torture of reminding yourself of the day you had broke like glass shattered on a white cloth.

Trailing the pad of your finger over the edge of your glass, you tossed your head back as you downed yet another glass of liquor. Every detail of that memory stuck out to you, even the most insignificant things that no one else would ever mention. You’d taken the day off work, already feeling shitty straight up from the moment the day had begun. You’d been making something to eat, just some toast because you couldn’t be bothered with anything else, and right when you were searching the fridge for a jar of jam you had heard the phone ring.

Without a second thought you’d scooped it up in your hands and answered it, thinking it would be one of your friends calling to try to get you to come out with them to some bar or something that night. You hadn’t guessed it would be anything important. “Hello?”.

“Hi, am I speaking to Y/N?”. You furrowed your brow at the response, not immediately recognising the voice. You considered hanging up for a brief moment but something in you told you to stay on the line.

“You are. I’m sorry, who is this?”.

“My name is Ginger Ale. I’m a colleague of your partner, Jack Daniels. I’m very sorry to have to inform you this way, but he’s perished in a horrible incident”.

Everything around you seemed to collapse in that moment. The whole world might as well have fallen away around you the minute you heard those words. It was a curious thing, the death of a loved one. It often comes so suddenly, and so unexpected that you feel like you’re climbing the stairs to your room in the dark, thinking there’s just one more step than there actually is, and feeling yourself plummet down into the abyss below. It was nothing like you’d ever experienced before - you might as well have been falling deep into the shadowy chasm right at the moment. Your grip on the phone tightened as you struggled to find the words, or any words really, to say in response as tears started to gather around the corners of your eyes. “W-what? What do you mean...he’s…” you trembled, stumbling on your feet as you fell against the wall in a daze, the world somehow seeming both screaming loud and quiet all at once.

“He was injured badly during his last mission - multiple gunshot wounds from a certain run in with a couple of gangsters. He was...he was barely alive when we brought him in” Ginger explained, trying her best to comfort you but you barely took any notice of her words as the same thought played over in your head. He’s gone. He’s dead. He’s fucking dead, and you could have stopped it. It’s all your fault.

“Aren’t you guys supposed to have that weird gel stuff that heals gunshot wounds? Surely...surely he could have been saved, right?” you asked frantically, your cheeks streaked with tears and flushed with grief. It took everything in you not to fall apart right then and there, dropping the phone to the floor and screaming out in sheer agony of the pain that was ripping through you.

“Not this time, sadly. I’m really sorry, Y/N”. There was a small pause on the other end of the line before Ginger spoke again, her tone indicating her hesitance at divulging such information to you. “He also insisted that we don’t bother, that he knew his time was up with this one. I was watching him on this mission - he went into it all quite recklessly, which isn’t completely new for him but…”.

“But?” you asked, prompting her to finish her sentence but she never did. A heavy silence hung between the both of you, punctured lightly by the sound of your heavy breath which you tried desperately to keep in check. Some small part of you was still in some sort of disbelief, wanting to fervently deny that any of this was happening. This is just a dream right? I’ll wake up back in bed, I’ll get up and call Jack, and he’ll be alive and well. None of this is real. It can’t be real...

“I want to see him. Please, just let me see him. Let me at least say goodbye”.

You hadn’t taken much notice of your surroundings on your way to Statesman Headquarters - everything might as well have been a blur to you from the moment you stepped through the doors to the second you walked off the platform of the elevator towards the medical wing. As soon as you spotted him all sense of decorum and logic was thrown out the window, any sense of composure melting away to nothing the very second his body came into view. Ginger had been beside you, probably as a general gesture to ensure you wouldn’t entirely lose it once you gained a single glimpse of him but alas, as soon as the elevator pulled to a stop and the doors pulled open to reveal a lifeless Agent Whiskey lain across the stretcher, everything you had ever known seemed to fall to pieces from under you. It was as if your entire world had collapsed, had stopped revolving the minute you laid eyes on his lifeless form. Without another seconds hesitation you rushed towards him, tears beginning to cascade down your cheeks as you bore witness to the unfortunate result of the tragedy that had struck.

It was as if the floodgates had opened right then and there - once you started crying, the tears just wouldn’t stop. With every ounce of your being you wished that somehow, by some godforsaken miracle, your touch would bring him back, that his eyes would magically flutter open and would greet you with those enchanting brown eyes that you had come to know every day of your life since the moment you had first met. That he would maybe, if only by the simple wish of your heart, say the one thing you were always angling to hear truthfully, in a way that you could put more than a simple faith in. As if you were a broken record, you couldn’t stop repeating his name over and over, like if by some divine intervention that alone would turn the clock back and have him lying next to you, his hand caressing your cheek and firing one of his signature flirty quips at you as you woke up in bed, catching a whiff of that ever-present scent of whiskey that mixed beautifully with his cologne. If only it were that simple. If only that were possible.

Instead you laid a hand against his cold forehead, now devoid of any warmth of life it once felt. Some would say that the dead looked almost peaceful in a way but you saw none of that: even in death Jack somehow looked anguished, like there was something left behind that he wanted to say but simply couldn’t go back to.

“I can’t feel you anymore…” you murmured, your voice wobbling violently. Leaning down towards him, you cradled his head between your palms, whispering his name softly and feeling your own tears decorate his cheeks. Ginger, or maybe somebody else, said something in the background that you couldn’t take any notice of, your mind fixated only on the man you loved and the unfortunate reality that presented itself to you now.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

The funeral had only been held a week afterwards. From a planning perspective, it was easy to organise his final affairs - for whatever reason you’d been named as the executor of his will, a fact that came as a shock to you once you had been served the information by the attorney. The two of you weren’t ever married, although you had attempted to float the idea once or twice, and his mother was still alive so it seemed odd to you that of all people to be left in charge of his estate Jack chose you. Emotionally, it had been a taxing revelation for you: on top of having to carry the stinging pain of finding out the man you loved had died, you had to be the one organising his affairs. You knew after leaving the medical wing of Statesmans Headquarters that day that you wanted nothing more than to let your own sorrow overcome you and let yourself fade out of existence, his voice haunting your every waking moment until you finally decided to let go entirely and throw yourself off the brink of insanity. That’s what you felt you deserved anyway.

His funeral had been the worst of it. You had silently prayed that maybe you would have numbed yourself out a bit. The most agonising part of it all were the hoards of people coming up to you asking how you were. It took everything in you to stop yourself from confessing everything. If they knew, they’d hate you. They’d blame you. The gossip would start, the theories and rumours flying high, the whispers you could hear in your head as if they were real. Somehow you’d pulled through, despite the inclination to break down at any given moment. But of course, that wasn’t the end. You’d buried him, now you had to face the mortifying reality of living without him.

With every passing day the memories became stronger. You never told any of them what had happened the last time you saw Jack - you couldn’t tell them. It had been eating at you from the inside ever since you picked up the phone that cursed day, tearing apart your mind and leaving nothing in its wake but heartbreaking grief and despair. It’s your fault. You’re the reason this happened. If you two hadn’t fought, if you hadn’t told him to fuck off on the phone that night, he wouldn’t have gone on that mission. You killed him. You’re a murderer.

All of these thoughts and more wormed their way between different glasses of whiskey, letting you lose track of both time and how many glasses you had. No matter how much you drank though it never dulled the grief nor the guilt that you’d been torturing yourself with from the moment you woke up every day to the moment you went to sleep. Actually, even in your sleep you couldn’t escape it, being plagued by nightmares and the like increasing in degrees of terror the longer they went on. It was why you now avoided any sort of conscious effort to sleep, only succumbing when you’d become so drunk that you had bent yourself over the back of the couch and cried as much as your body would let.

You swore to never let anyone know what had happened, that Jack and you had technically broken up a few days before his death. It already ate at you enough that you had to run over the memories in your mind, every last word you spat at him on repeat for your own infinite suffering. “It feels like wherever we go, she’s there. And she’s so beautiful, and perfect, and dead. I can’t compete with a ghost, Jack”. Scowling to yourself, you scooped up your glass and took yet another sip, feeling nothing but regret towards how everything played out. You didn’t regret what you said - on some level, you still felt it was true. You knew Jack would forever hold a candle for his ex-wife, but you’d grown tired of feeling like you were second place to a dead woman, as if the only reason he kept you around at all was to fill a void that could only truly be filled by the one person he could never have back. It had been selfish of you, in some way, but you’d deserved more. You loved Jack with everything you had, and you wanted him to feel the same way back, and although he swore he did you could plainly see that wasn’t the case.

“Darlin’, please, don’t be like this. You’re my only love and you know that. You’re being ridiculous about all this”

“Then why do you still wear your ring? Why do you get dismissive whenever I try to bring up moving in together, or marriage, or anything. It’s been two fucking years of this. You can do whatever you want, Jack but I’ll tell you one thing: you’ll be doing it alone. I’m out”.

“For fucks sake…” you cursed, slamming your glass back down on the table with a loud thud, your words slurred beyond all comprehension. A few drops of whiskey sloshed out of the glass onto the countertop, creating a small puddle on the marbled surface but you didn’t much care. What was the point in caring anyway?

You still had to pack up his home, a reminder that only contributed to your pain. You were supposed to have taken care of that before now, at least a week ago but you couldn’t bring yourself to enter his home. I’ll do it tomorrow...maybe. Yeah, tomorrow. Deciding firmly on that, you sipped the last of the liquor and stumbled off the seat of the barstool, the world spinning around you as you fumbled your way through the dim light of your apartment to where your bedroom was, throwing your intoxicated body amongst the heap of unmade bed sheets and burying yourself within them, crying until you passed out in a deep slumber.

Standing outside the door to Jack’s penthouse apartment, you stared forward with a muted expression upon your face, the key to his place gripped firmly between your fingers as if it would disappear from your hands at any moment. You’d been there for a good five minutes by then, meaning to break out of your state of catatonia to only be stopped again by yourself, kicking off a seemingly endless cycle in which you remained stuck in front of his door. You knew you had to go in there eventually: it wasn’t like everything of his would magically disappear if you just ignored it. It was still hard though, since you knew the moment you stepped through the door you’d be hit by the unmistakable scent of him. Almost like you were crossing a threshold of sorts, only with a feeling of emptiness on the other side instead of anything resembling happiness. Seeing his things would only remind you of how he wasn’t there among them, where he should be, which spiralled onto other thoughts, such as reminiscing on his gorgeous brown eyes and that honeyed southern accent you adored on him, and everything else that once made your heart spark with love. You felt your breath tremble as your knuckles turned white from holding the key with such might. This was a bad idea. You weren’t ready for this. Maybe you should just go home and call it a day.

No. You have to do this now. You might as well rip the bandaid off, lord knows you’ll have to do it eventually anyway.

Keeping your breath paced, you raised your shaking hand to the lock of the day, slowly inserting the key and twisting it until you heard the unmistakable click inside. Before you could talk yourself out of it, you pushed open the double doors and pulled yourself inside, your high heels clicking on the linoleum floors.

Everything was exactly how you’d last seen it, how Jack had last left it. Not that you expected any different of course. The only people who had probably been there in the past two weeks since his death were people from Statesman to collect various bits of the agency's technology and other gadgets Jack had left lying about. You never knew much about his life as part of the secret service: during your relationship Jack had preferred to stay off the subject of his job as much as possible. He even said himself that you shouldn’t have known about his double life in the first place but when it became too obvious that keeping it from you was going to hurt your relationship with him in the long term he’d sought permission from his boss to have you cleared on the most basic of intel. That never bothered you in the slightest - the least you knew about the agency, the better, a view Jack wholeheartedly agreed with you on. You didn’t know him as Agent Whiskey, top agent to Statesman Secret Service trained in espionage. You knew him as Jack Daniels, the cocky womanizer who chased anything in a skirt, the gentleman who had always managed to sweep you off your feet whenever he was around, and the man you had once dreamt of marrying before things went south.

All around you were familiar places and objects, things that brought back so many memories yet felt hollow and empty as you looked upon them now. If things were right, he’d be there too, perhaps in the kitchen preparing dinner for you, knowing that you couldn’t resist coming over again even if it was the third time that week. Or maybe he’d be on the couch, reclining back with a glass of whiskey and a book, turning his head back to take a gander at you, shooting one of his signature smirks and making a remark about how incredibly gorgeous you looked. Without him, the space felt sullen and void of life, the dust settling on every surface from remaining untouched for two whole weeks by then.

Taking a deep breath, you stepped forward and tried as best you could to sort out your thoughts, detaching it as much as you were able to from the memories being back in that apartment brought. His mother already came to you and asked to have a box of certain things belonging to Jack given to her. You knew she was already going through a hell of a rough time herself, her only son winding up dead. She never knew about his life as an agent, being fed a cover story by Statesmans team in order to maintain their secrecy. A bit of you felt jealous of her for that. She would never know the truth, whereas you had to live every day for the rest of your life knowing what happened, being made aware of your own part to play in his fate every hour, every minute, every second.

The rest of it, well, you had no idea what to do with it. You thought it would be best to box up as much of his personal items as you could, either to keep for yourself or to hand back to his family, and arrange to have the rest of the furniture sold or given away to a charity shop or something. Moving towards the living room, you began to scoop up the different framed photos you found around the apartment. Some were of him as a kid, either on a horse or in different shots with his family, already sporting that heart melting smile of his. A lot of them were of you and him on various dates - one you stopped to pour over was of the two of you at a diner in Brooklyn, you taking the photo and Jack taking a sneaky swipe of your sundae in the background while you were distracted. You remembered that day so well: he’d just come back from a particularly rough mission in Russia, one that he’d had to stake out for weeks, so it was the first time you’d seen each other in about a month. You looked at how happy you were in that picture, the sight of such joy bringing tears to the corners of your eyes. What you wouldn’t give to have those days back, the easier times, before the distance, the fights, the feelings of being second place to a ghost and of course, his own tragic death at the end of it all.

At last you made your way to his bedroom, clutching onto the stack of photo frames as if they were a lifeline. You fought with everything in you the urge to just drop everything and crash down onto his bed, cradling one of his shirts in your hands to try to get a whiff of him, pretending that he was still there for only a few seconds. Rather, you walked over towards his bedside table and set the stack of frames down, crouching to your knees and biting back the teardrops threatening to fall from your eyes. It’s ok. You don’t have to do it all in one go. Just gather together some of his personal stuff, and then you can leave.

Opening the drawer, your eyes flitted between the various trinkets and things he’d accumulated, searching to see if there were anything personal that his family might want back when your gaze was instantly drawn to a stark white letter shoved towards the back of the drawer. Scooping it up in your hands, you furrowed your brow as you inspected it further, only to have your breath catch in your throat once you saw your name written in his unmistakable cursive on the front.

Immediately you stood yourself up from the floor, your mind rushing into overdrive while you stared at the letter in your palms, hesitantly trailing your fingers up to the top of the envelope to tear it open. Out of all the things to find in Jack’s drawer, you definitely weren’t expecting this. You had no clue what it could be, when it was written or even if you should read it at all. Should you just put it back in the drawer and pretend you never found it? Though you supposed it was a bit too late for that, on account of you practically ripping the top of it open. With a hint of uncertainty, you reached into the envelope and lifted the letter out onto your lap, opening it to reveal its contents.

The first thing you noticed was the date in the top right corner - April 22, two weeks ago, a day before he went on that mission and met an unkind fate. That alone was enough to make your heart stop, so when your eyes travelled down the page to read the rest of the letter, you might as well have dropped dead right then and there from the sheer pain that was struck through your heart.

I was a damn fool for letting you get away. You and I both know that my dearly departed wife will always hold a special place in my heart, and I know you understand that. I didn’t want to admit it until now but I had been becoming distant - every time you brought up marriage, or anything more I’d get scared. Scared of...well, a lot of different things. Of repeating the same tragedy with you, in some way. Some part of me was worried marrying you would be dishonoring my late wife’s memory as well. It’s no wonder you walked out when you did. I don’t blame you for your choice, but please allow me to say my piece at least. You never were second to anyone, sweetheart. As much as I will always love Lily, my heart belongs to you here and now. Missing you like this is such sweet sorrow, won’t you come back to me? No matter whether or not you chose to forgive me, or even entertain the idea of givin’ me another chance, I just want you to know that I love you, honeybee. I’ll be waiting for you today, tomorrow, and forever, down in dark blue Tennessee.

- Jack

Every word you read was like another stab to the heart for you, the tears that you had fought so hard to keep in now pouring down your cheeks, small sobs escaping your throat as you collapsed back to the floor with a thud, your heart racing a million miles a minute. There it was, all written down in hasty cursive script - the apology that he never got to give, hidden away in the back of his bedside drawer like an afterthought. Knowing him he’d probably written it out and intended to give it to you before he left for his mission but decided against it for whatever reason. And that final sentence...Tennessee. He mentioned Tennessee. The place where you’d grown up, where you’d lived almost your entire life before moving to New York. The place where you’d met Jack all those years ago, down in a local bar. You’d been visiting your parents for the week, he’d been there meeting with an investor for Statesman. By some stroke of luck you two had crossed paths, hitting it off and becoming infatuated within mere moments, one thing leading to another until eventually you’d woken up in his bed the next morning. The way you’d initially thought it’d only wanted a one night stand but then became something more. It was all flooding back to you now, triggered by only a few sentences written down on a letter that was never sent. You didn’t know what to do, or what to think. The only thing you could do in that moment was lean your head back against the bed and choke on your own sobs, muttering his name over and over for what felt like forever, holding the now crumpled and tear stained letter in your hands.

The hours ticked by, though you took no notice, and when you do eventually move, it’s not to leave the apartment. Your eyes barely leave the ground when you walk, stumbling from room to room in search of a bottle of wine or something stronger to drown your own sorrows in, kicking off your shoes haphazardly and without much care. When you bump against the liquor cabinet, you can hear something fall and shatter off the top, and when you walk back through the shards of glass with the bottles in your hands, you don’t even wince when one pierces your foot. With thin streams of blood trickling from the cut on your sole, you’ll flick the top off the first bottle you reach for, letting the lukewarm liquid slip down your throat, spiralling you down deeper and deeper into a drunken stupor until finally, the moment comes where you can close your eyes and slip into that familiar void of darkness that you greeted with open arms, those last conscious thoughts being an apology of your own that no one ever got to hear. I’m sorry, Jack...

#agent whiskey #agent whiskey x reader #jack daniels #jack daniels x reader #Kingsman #kingsman fanfiction #Kingsman: the golden circle #Pedro Pascal

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waiting4inspiration · 4 years

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In the Dark XII: An Attack

Summary: With vampires terrorizing humans, you’re glad to participate in planning an attack to stop them. Your secret meeting with Bucky doesn’t go according to plan when a rogue vampire and a werewolf shows up.

Warnings: small angst, fluff, mentions of war, fighting, soul mates, vampire/ werewolf au, strong language

Word Count: 2,056

In the Dark Masterlist II Marvel Masterlist

It’s been a few weeks since Bucky gave you the locket and it hasn’t left your neck since. You snuck out every night to see Bucky, sharing the few things you both have learned or what had happened that day.

You share all the things about how you’re learning to be the new alpha of the pack because it’s Tony’s deal to you. So that you don’t have to marry Steve. And that only makes Bucky encourage you to go on. If it means that you don’t have to marry Steve.

Nat was the only one who noticed the locket, and she’s the only one in the pack that you will open it for.

You almost expect to see Stephen Strange again when you walk into the conference room after a meeting was called by the alphas of the two packs; Steve and Tony. But he wasn’t there. The meeting wasn’t about attacking the coven you’ve always been fighting against which happens to be Bucky’s coven. This time, it’s about a nest of rogue vampires - probably newly turned - terrorizing the human population.

It’s alright for werewolves and vampires to go into the human section of cities. But the moment they bring harm to a human, that clan has to be taken care of. And the human government seeks the help of the opposing species to get rid of the problem.

You take interest in this situation, determined to help find where the nest is located to help come up with a strategy to stop them from hurting other people. But, you’re not sure what you’ll do when the time to attack comes. You’re not sure if you could ever kill another vampire.

You don’t even remember the last time you had the urge to kill a vampire after you bonded with Bucky. Maybe you should research if having a vampire as a mate changes a few on your instincts.

“We could scout out the vampire neighborhood closest to where the attacks are happening,” you suggest, thinking out loud as you stare at a map of the city and notice that one part of the vampire territory comes close to the site of most of the attacks.

In the silence, you turn your head to look at Tony and Steve. Tony smiles at you, glad that you’re taking part in this situation instead of sitting back and letting others plan. Steve, on the other hand, seems a bit cautious about your suggestion and drops his gaze to the table in front of him. “It’s dangerous going into vampire territory when it’s New Moon. Vampires do well in the dark-”

“Then we’ll send a small group of the most experienced members. Three or four werewolves,” you cut him off. Glancing at Nat at your side to check whether or not your idea is a good one or not, you become more confident in your thought when you see a smile on her face. “We just have to find out where they’re staying and then we can make a plan to attack when we’re stronger.”

Who is this person talking? When did you learn to talk like this? Maybe it’s from the years of hearing Tony plan out attacks. Maybe you really are learning how to be an alpha.

“We can start in the human sector where the attacks happen,” Tony speaks, coming to your rescue and taking on your suggestion to further it into an attack plan.

Leaning back in your seat and quietly sighing to yourself in relief, you glance down to the locket around your neck and smile at the memory of Bucky putting it on your before you two parted ways again.

That only makes you wish that you could wake up at his side again instead of having to leave him each night.

Wanda places a newspaper in front of Bucky and points to the headline. “These idiots are making us look like monsters,” she snaps, making him turn his head up to her to give her an annoyed look because she’s interrupted his breakfast.

Even though he can live without eating food, it’s something vampires do to still keep in touch with their human side.

“It’s going to draw werewolves and they’re not only going to attack this bunch of newlings. They’re gonna attack us and every other vampire coven out there,” she rambles, sitting down in the chair opposite him to give him a stern glare. “We need to sort this out before the werewolves do.”

Bucky smirks at the authority in her voice, wondering how things might have been if she was the leader of this coven instead of him. “And what do you suggest we do, Wanda?” he questions, reaching out to take the newspaper so he can read the article.

She smiles, happy that she’s won him over without so much as a fight. “Well, I was going to suggest that we take them in and show them the right way. But we don’t have enough space for new recruits,” she mentions, leaning back in her seat and folding her arms over her chest as Bucky gives a hum. “I was thinking that maybe a talking to from the infamous Winter Soldier would scare them into complying with the law.”

Shifting in his spot, he hums to himself and places the newspaper down beside him. It’s been a while since he’s let go and just been a vampire, all because he doesn’t want you to see the side of him that’s made many people call him a monster. He doesn’t want you to see the vampire side. But, that voice in the back of his mind - that sounds a bit like Wanda - tells him that he can’t hold that back forever. You’re his soulmate. One day, you’re going to see him like that.

“I’ll go after them tomorrow morning,” he mutters, earning a pleased smile from Wanda as she stands, takes the newspaper and leaves him to carry on with his breakfast. “Wanda,” he calls, stopping her from walking farther and calling her back. “What do you think the chances are of buying a place somewhere in the human sector? As a vampire?”

He turns his head to look at her. And just as expected, he sees a confused look on his face. “A place for me and (Y/n).” That makes a smile grow on her face and she walks towards him as she flips through the newspaper to look for ads.

You sit on the park bench, in the dark of a new moon, waiting for your mate to come to you. You know he’ll come. He always will.

Staring down at the locket in your hands, you trace the engraving with a small smile on your face. But that smile quickly fades when you catch the scent of a vampire. And it’s not Bucky’s smell.

It makes you stand to your feet, your eyes flashing a golden color as you search your surroundings. You know very well that this park is in vampire territory, but the only vampire that’s really been here for over a month is Bucky. He’s told you that he makes sure that there isn’t a vampire when he comes here to you.

Hearing a rustle behind you, your turn around, bear your canines and growl at whoever is behind you.

But someone places a hand over your mouth and you relax to see that it’s Bucky. But the red color of his eyes and the way he places a finger to his lips to tell you to stay quiet tells you that there is a vampire out there that isn’t part of Bucky’s coven.

He silently tells you to follow him and you do with his hand tightly wrapped around yours.

Pulling you away from the park bench, walking in silence and glancing around frequently, Bucky gives your hand a comforting squeeze before he turns around to face you. “Are you alright? You okay?” he frantically asks, stroking your cheeks with his thumbs as you gently nod your head.

But before you can speak, a branch breaks behind you and your head snaps over your shoulder when you feel the presence of another werewolf. And Bucky senses it too.

Vampires and Werewolves in the park. It can only mean a fight’s going to break out and you and Bucky are going to get caught in it. “It’s the rogue vampires, isn’t it?” you whisper, looking back at Bucky as he glances off into the distance.

He nods, weaves his fingers through yours and steps forwards. Looking down at you, he turns your gaze up to him. “It’s not safe here. Come back to the coven with me.” He keeps his voice low as he touches his forehead to yours.

His offer sounds tempting and it’s what you’ve wanted to do for weeks. All you’ve wanted to do is be with Bucky. And if that means being in a building full of vampires instead of werewolves, then so be it.

Smiling at his words, you nuzzle his face and chuckle. “As much as I want to go back with you, I should probably get back to the compound in case something happens,” you whisper and Bucky nods in understanding.

Now’s the time to ask you what he’s been wanting for weeks. It’s not the perfect time, but it’s now or never.

“I want to ask you something.” You hum, urging him on as you tuck your lip in between your teeth. “I think we both need a neutral ground to have for ourselves. Somewhere that’s not vampire territory or werewolf territory,” he starts. You like where this is going. “What if-”

Before he can finish, you hear something behind the trees not far from you and you push Bucky behind you at the sound of a shot. A canister lands at your feet, something used to harm vampires with a type of smoke and to give werewolves an advantage. Your instincts kick in and you kick the canister before it starts to smoke away before turning to Bucky. You know, from the canister, who the werewolf is.

“Run!” you demand, pushing him forward and following him as you run away from the scene. But you know you won’t get far when you hear someone zooming overhead. It’s Sam, Steve’s friend and second in command. This only means that the mission to scout out the rogue vampires was a success and that’s led Sam and his team here.

You and Bucky run through the park, your attention more on Sam and Bucky’s more on a vampire that’s now joined the party. Bucky has to slow down a bit to run beside you and he constantly glances back to make sure you’re alright.

But you stop when you hear another vampire approaching from the other direction as well as more werewolves from your pack.

That’s when you know what you have to do.

Turning to Bucky, you place your hands on his chest and desperately grab his shirt. “Go. You have to go,” you beg, trying not to show the fear in your voice or how terrified you are that someone from your pack will catch him.

He shakes his head and grabs your face. “No. I’m not leaving you here with a rogue vampire-”

“It’s my pack I’m more worried about if you find you here, Bucky,” you whisper, reaching up to touch his face. “I will be fine. My pack’s here. They won’t let anything bad happen to me. But you need to go,” you plea.

His eyes squeeze shut and he has to stop himself from baring his fangs and losing it with the threat around you. He’s trying to push down his instincts to kill because he doesn’t want you to see him lose control. With another silent plea from you, he crashes his lips over yours for a deep, passionate kiss before he slips away with the wind. Like a true vampire.

But he doesn’t get far. Because a vampire was waiting in the dark for him to go before attacking you. And hearing you give a scream, he stops in his tracks and turns around to stare in the direction he had come from, too scared to go back and see if you’re alright. To see if you’re still alive.

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