#words; ben raleigh

[infernalodie]

𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐚 𝐓𝐫𝐞𝐞 || 𝐁𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐞 𝐄𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡

“𝘋𝘰 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘢 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦? 𝘓𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘺 𝘦𝘭𝘴𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘣𝘦 𝘢 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘨𝘪𝘳𝘭? 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘣𝘦 𝘢 𝘸𝘪𝘻𝘢𝘳𝘥, 𝘰𝘳 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘣𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘕𝘈𝘚𝘈, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘸𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘵𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘳𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘴 𝘔𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘥𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘐 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘨𝘨𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘐 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘴𝘯𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘺 𝘍𝘶𝘤𝘬 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵, 𝘐 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘢 𝘣𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘺“

Inspo: Raleigh Ritchie - Time in a Tree Billie Eilish - The 30th

Pairing: Billie Eilish x Black!Male!reader

Summary: You had a cycle of trauma in life Billie was the one left to suffer with your loss.

Warnings: Angst only and attempted suicide!

Words 1722

DN IF YOU’RE SENSITIVE TO WARNINGS ABOVE!

Billie had been stuck thinking in the closed-off space of her green room. Her brother and parents have given her space to cry her eyes out before her show. Phone open scrolling through photos of you and her from months prior. Tears wetted the screen and smeared as she mindlessly continued to swipe her thumb across.

A soft smile on her lips seeing pictures of you smiling. She hated how well you faked a smile. How good you were with hiding so much behind smiles. You were amazing at lying to her about you being okay. But she was allowed to be angry at what you did. She could be angry that you had been selfish enough to leave her as you have. A broken part of her that she never expected to meet ever again.

It’d been 16 hours since she got the news. Since she saw news outlets showing your car wrapped around a telephone pole. She could still remember when she drove past the location but never stopped because she had been able to figure it all out when she got home. Finding pictures of you and her circulating the internet with her fans making tributes to you and mourning your loss. Giving Billie their blessing’s in an attempt to ease the pain and weight off your shoulders.

But in some way, Billie had suspected this for a while. She remembers the first time she came home and found you in the bathroom, door locked with the sound heard inside.

“Y/n?” Billie’s closed fist knocked on the door, a slight urgency in her body surging in rapid flows. “Y/n, honey, can you answer me?”

Still, there was nothing. And the longer she stayed there, waiting for you to respond to her, her fears grew tenfold. So, with anxiety, she slammed her shoulder into the door. Soon enough, she burst through the door to find you sprawled out on the floor. A bottle of pills in your hand and body deathly grey.

She still remembers how her vocal cords felt after screaming your and Finneas’ name that night. Thankfully, you survived, but she had checked you into rehab. You couldn’t look her in the eyes out of shame, but she continued to tell you that she loved you. For a time, she felt her darkest thoughts grab at her, and if it wasn’t for music she might’ve not been here. So, she understood to a certain extent of what you were going through.

“I’m scared, Billie.” Your soft voice filled the vehicle that had been filled with Ben Howard, at your personal request. The girl glanced away from the open road and to you, finding you staring out the window. Sun shining brightly on your oiled chocolate skin beautifully.

Although, she could see the tears brimming in your eyes. Confirming that you had confessed your fears. She knew you hated the idea of separation as you’d dealt with it a lot of your life. But she had to remind herself that this was for your own good. That this would help you get better and allow the two of you to follow through on the plans the both of you made.

Nonetheless, she was also afraid of what might happen. She hasn’t ever been this far from you and for this long, ever. You two have been joined to the hip since childhood and only became an item two years ago. So, this was as new to her as it was to you.

“So am I.” Billie looked over at you seeing you inhale shakily and exhale, sinking into the seat. Dread spreads throughout your body.

But here she was now, thinking back on times when you were happy. Maybe even just a bit okay. Looking at videos that she would be doing something dumb and then show you lost in your thoughts. She wished she saw the signs ahead of time. Discover how you would stare into open space for unknown periods of time. Or how you would eye the bottle of liquor and just contemplate downing the entire thing.

She hates herself for not seeing the signs, but she found a large part of her blaming it on your family. How they’d abandoned you at such a young age with your aunt. Not finding strength in themselves to take up the responsibility of raising you and saving you from a tragic future. Your aunt tried her best, but the damage was already done.

Closing her phone, Billie stared at the engagement ring cuffed around her finger. Twisting the gold ring repetitively as her legs bounced constantly. Her bottom lip caught between her teeth with tears running down her cheeks. She wiped desperately, trying to not ruin her makeup, but the tears erased were only replaced with new ones.

A knock sounded at the door and Billie looked up to see Finneas. “Hey, do you still wanna do the show?”

Billie didn’t respond at first, trying to regain her bearings as she blinked rapidly. “Uh, y-yeah.” She paused for a moment, feeling that familiar sting behind her eyes as she hesitantly looked up at her brother. “Can we play one of his songs?”

Finneas felt his own eyes sting at the crack in his sister’s voice. The thing was, the O'Connell’s were like a second family for you. And with having you guys planning on getting engaged and starting a family, they were practically your family. So, Finneas had some amazing times with you creating music and just hanging around. He had been your brother for such a short time, but he wouldn’t take that time for granted.

So, you brought his sister into a hug and nodded. “I was thinking the same thing.”

They stared there for a while before they both exited the green room and departed down their own paths. Billie got onto the platform that she request not launch her and instead steadily raise her before she sat down. Hearing one of the mics above her turn on, letting her know it was her brother.

The crowd was screaming in excitement, but Finneas made his way down to the front of the stage. “Guys, I need to say something really quick!” He stated, the crowd toning down to a simmering level of volume. “Yesterday night, we lost someone important to us, but most important to Billie. At 11:13 PM last night - Los Angeles time - Y/n Eilish died.”

The lift Billie sat on slowly began to lift as she listened to her brother. “Now, I’ve seen a ton of people giving us their prayers, but tonight, I’m going to need you to keep it calm tonight, alright?” He said. “But when it's time for those crazy tracks, I want you all to tear the roof off this place. This performance is for Y/n.”

In response, the crowd screamed in agreement, before growing louder with Billie finally appeared. A small forced smile on her lips as she waved. She was so used to knowing that you were either in front of the stage, watching her perform or even side stage. But knowing you weren’t there felt weird. It felt like a whole new experience to a performance she hadn’t ever tried. So, she was undeniably nervous.

“Um, I was thinking about not doing the show tonight,” she confessed into the mic as the crowd cheered, which understandably frustrated her. “Guys, can I please get some silence?”

A few moments later, the stadium was primarily quiet and she smiled. “Thank you - But I wasn’t planning on performing tonight, but I knew my fiance would’ve wanted me to. So, if you see me cry, just ignore me.” Looking back at her brother, he nodded. “But Y/n had been making an album after he got out of rehab and we were given the rights of the music after his passing, so we’re going to play a song of his in tribute.”

There was the twinkling of distorted keys from a piano and even the faintest sound of birds that filled the air. “I guess rules are there to break. But I make mistakes like they were handed on a plate.”

For a long time and likely even now, Billie thinks you’d still blame yourself for your parents not being there. It was a cruel punishment you had placed on yourself that Billie tried to help you relieve. But whatever she tried to do, nothing worked. You had been swallowed by this guilt to the point that it was practically impossible for her to pull you out. And after listening to the song - and the entire album - she thinks a lot of it was about your past and your present. But the shining problem being your depression and parents.

“When I try to leave sometimes, I'm standing in the way I'm on the edge of crying all the time, ‘cause I can't human right.” Billie tried to put on a smile, and hide the tears. But hearing your voice project through the speakers, broke her down. Causing her to sing along tearfully, choking on sobs.

“I've seen things that I never should have seen. Said too many things I didn't mean. Hurt myself too many times to count. I need to let it out, and just release.” The crowd was filled with phone flashlights waving methodically back and forth. Billie stared out at the ocean of light with a warm feeling in her heart. Wondering if you were seeing what she was seeing up in heaven. “Been lying to myself too long. Been trying by myself too long I can't relax, I'm too distracted I can't hack it, hmm.”

A warm feeling overcomes her. Almost like a pair of arms wrapping around her and holding her comfortably. She didn’t shake it, she let it continue to envelop her as she cried. “I'm needy, greedy. Love me, feed me. Let's be a family. It'll take a village to make a man of me. So why couldn't you love me? It's all I need.”

The song soon came to a simmering level where the crowd cheered and chanted your name. Billie could only watch with a tearful look. Hoping that you were able to see that you mattered and for however long, Billie would still love you.

#billie eilish fanfiction #billie eilish imagine #billie eilish fluff #billie eilish angst #billie eilish x male!reader #billie eilish x y/n #billie eilish x reader #billie eilish #x male!reader #billie eilish x male reader #billie eilish x black!male!reader #billie eilish x black reader #billie eilish x black!reader #poc reader #x poc reader

[writinglittlebeasts]

find the word tag game

i was tagged by @flowerprose to find the words myth, scale, grasp, and vicious somewhere in my wips! i was worried about this one, but i seem to have used all of these words in active stories lol

myth from kill my heroes

"What makes you think that I've been killing your little heroes?" Eliot asks mildly.  "The last one tripped down a ravine into the camp of a band of thieving bards, and now his finger bones are drumsticks," Quentin tells him, though Eliot already knows very well.  "That's unfortunate, little God, but I am not the god of musicians, nor thieves." Eliot drinks. "Nor fools."  Quentin flushes more deeply, lips pulling into a thin line. "The one before that was hidden in a barrel which washed off of a ship in a storm and was carried on the back of a whale to the edge of the world and thrown off, the entire time pecked by sea birds."  Eliot raises an eyebrow, and he hides his smirk behind his cup. "And am I the god of coincidence or of storms?"  "You are the god of suspicious occurrences," Quentin replies flatly. "A swarm of insects flew away with my hero's mythical weapon, which cost her her life. A river otter killed my hero because there was a splinter in its paw. A tree fell on my hero's carriage before they had even left their town! I'm near calling you the god of petty indulgences!"  "That doesn't sound like me at all." Eliot shakes his head. 

scale from there's always one more round

Claire makes a reluctant sound of agreement. "Is the military life as invigorating as Chris makes it out to be? How rewarded do you feel on a scale of one to ten?" "If 'invigorating' means 'identifying empty fields by the type of grass growing in them,' a solid ten. I'm taking pop quizzes, and Umbrella is quaking in their boots."

grasp from a wolf's tooth for revenge

The shape before her undulates, its form rumbling with a growl, with a heavy breath that hits her face, and then rubber shoe soles squeal across the floor and stomp, stomp before Raleigh’s wordless cry bubbles wetly out of him. He drops onto the floor and Jacqueline abandons silence, screaming. In her scramble back and away she trips over her own feet, falling as the werewolf sags towards her and grasps her calf. Its hot palm seems to sear her bare leg, and she gasps before she screams again, kicking out while she’s dragged towards the beast over the floor. It’s breath is again fanning out across her skin, her chest and shoulders and her neck and face, its open mouth still making that droning, omnipresent growl. 

vicious from stress and your workplace (gore warning xo)

There's a sound that bounces off the stone in such a way that it feels like it's everywhere at once. Ben starts to move to it subconsciously, shifting on his feet and leaning in, out, stepping back, as he begs.  "C'mon! Don't be an asshole, okay? You need this!"  Ben raises the parking card in his hand and, like a vicious shadow, a black-clad hand breaks through the wall just behind him.  As Ben's hand swipes forward-- as he ducks his head and shoulders away from the awful sound of rending concrete --so, too, does the hand at his back, and it lands.  Now Leon can see that it's far larger than a human hand. When it rips Ben off of the ground by the face its fingers almost obscure him entirely, but Leon can see the way Ben's eye bulges before his skull is crushed. The fear in it.

and i will tag (no pressure) @pheita @words-after-midnight @at-thezenith @liv-is to find the words cabinet, pool, found, and admire

#or #find the word tag #fic stuff #awtfr #I HAVE TWO MORE OF THESE IN MY DRAFTS AAAAAAAAAAAAA #gore /

[harlowhockeystick]

Hey! For the valentines prompts, maybe 11 with Freddie Andersen please? 😊

valentines blurb event

"it really sucks, being stood up on valentines day"

contains: angst, gn!reader, cuss words

another long night in raleigh, north carolina for you and your employees. you either got lovesick couples, feeding each other spaghetti and breadsticks while getting tipsy on the most expensive wine you have, or you have the lonely people sitting at the bar, also eating breadsticks but getting tipsy on scotch and whiskey instead.

your upscale restaurant kept quiet while reservations went in and out since opening. while you usually manned the bar area along with one of your managers, ben, tonight you helped wait tables and take food where it needed to go. it was true, what they say about the restaurant business on valentines day. it's never empty, and it's quite sad. you could always count on every table being occupied at some point during the night, but you could also count on there being a sad, somber tone over the room.

"alright sir, what can i get started for you?" you asked, walking up to a table in the corner where there sat a man dressed in a dark colored suit, an expensive looking watch on his wrist, and his bright red hair combed neatly.

"i'll just start off with water, i'll wait until the other party arrives to order." he responded. shortly you came back with the water, noticing that his date had still yet to arrive. you could see where this was going.

they always say i'll wait til they arrive but they usually, nine times out of ten, never come. it's sad, honestly. you never understood why people stood their dates up. you made sure to keep an eye on him, as you went about, taking other people's orders and cleaning up tables, getting it ready for the next couple.

ten minutes went by, and he was still alone. he was playing on his phone, probably checking to see if his date had texted him. he set his phone down and you saw the somber look on his face, and you knew you had to do the right thing.

walking over to his table he looked up at you and gave you a thin lipped grin, one that you've seen too many times tonight. "is your other party arriving soon?" you asked, holding your ticket book in your hand. he shook his head and dipped his head, taking another sip of water before looking back up. you felt bad for him.

"no, probably not. i mean i haven't gotten a text or anything but, i'll bet on her not showing." he replied. his voice was low and grumbly, nearly sounding like he was sick to the stomach.

"i'll tell you what," you started, picking up the coasters and setting them in your back pocket, taking his glass of water in your hand. "whatever you want is on the house, you can have a seat at the bar."

he got up reluctantly, following you to have a seat at the bar. he sat at the very end, close to where the exit was. he prayed to God that nobody saw his pitiful spot over on the other side of the building and snapped a picture, putting it on social media for everyone to see and make fun of. that would be his luck.

"are you sure your manager, or owner wouldn't mind?" he asked you as you poured him another glass over water and handed him a menu. you smiled, standing in front of him from across the bar.

"i am the owner, and i don't mind at all. it sucks, being stood up on valentines day. it's the least i could do." both of you chuckled as he opened the menu, scanning over all of his options. "have you ever been here before...?" you asked, insuiting for him to give you his name.

"freddie, and i actually haven't. i'm kinda, new in town." he answered.

"well i am glad you're here. and i would recommend the sirloin steak, if you're a steak person. glen back there can grill a steak like nobody's business. do you want something besides water to drink?"

he grinned, handing you the menu and shaking his head. "no, i'll take the steak to-go. i actually have a long day ahead of me tomorrow, so i probably need to get home at a decent hour. as much as i'd love to continue to talk with you, though."

his words made your cheeks heat up and a light smile come to your lips. you turn around and show him your smile, "i'll go put your order in. what sides would you like, freddie?"

"surprise me."

you leave freddie at the bar for a while, as you go and tend to some other tables that need it. taking orders to where they need to go, giving tips to the employees who you think deserve them, and ushering people to where they need to go.

by the time his order is ready you pause before taking it to him. you tear out a piece of paper from your book and write down your name and number with a heart. a deep breath, you take the bag of food with some extra breadsticks to where he is sitting. "here you go, freddie. all for you, on the house."

he smiles, standing up and taking the sack of food from your hands. though he is nearly towering over you, he doesn't make you feel small or nervous. he actually calms you, strange.

"thank you, it means a lot." right before he walks out he turns back, "i didn't catch your name," you giggle- you feel like you're in a movie. and maybe you are, maybe somewhere someone has a hidden camera filming it all.

"it's in the bag, with my number." he chuckles, giving you a head nod before walking out the door.

#j's valentines blurbs #j's writing #frederik andersen #frederik andersen imagine #frederik andersen x reader #freddie andersen imagine #freddie andersen x reader #nhl imagine #hockey imagine #scheduled

[unknown-songs]

BLACK LIVES MATTER

A list with black artists who have a song in the Unknown Songs That Should Be Known-playlist (Can be a black artist in a band or just solo-artist) (no specific genre)

Bull’s Eye - Blacknuss, Prince Prime - Funk Aftershow - Joe Fox - Alternative Hip-hop Strangers in the Night - Ben L’Oncle Soul - Soul Explore - Mack Wilds - R&B Something To Do - IGBO - Funk

Down With The Trumpets - Rizzle Kicks - Pop Dans ta ville - Dub Inc. - Reggae Dance or Die - Brooklyn Funk Essentials - Funk FACELESS - The PLAYlist, Glenn Lewis - R&B Tell Me Father - Jeangu Macrooy - Soul

Southern Boy - John The Conquerer - Blues Hard Rock Savannah Grass - Kes - Dancehall Dr. Funk - The Main Squeeze - Funk Seems I’m Never Tired of Loving You - Lizz Wright - Jazz Out of My Hands - TheColorGrey, Oddisee - Hip-Hop/Pop

Raised Up in Arkansas - Michael Burks - Blues Black Times - Sean Kuti, Egypt 80, Carlos Santana - Afrobeat Cornerstone - Benjamin Clementine - Indie Shine On - R.I.O., Madcon - Electronic Pop Bass On The Line - Bernie Worrell - Funk

When We Love - Jhené Aiko - R&B Need Your Love - Curtis Harding - Soul Too Dry to Cry - Willis Earl Beal - Folk Your House - Steel Pulse - Reggae Power - Moon Boots, Black Gatsby - Deep House

Vinyl Is My Bible - Brother Strut - Funk Diamond - Izzy Biu - R&B Elusive - blackwave., David Ngyah - Hip-hop Don’t Ever Let Nobody Drag Your Spirit Down - Heritage Blues Orchestra - Blues Sastanàqqàm - Tinariwen - Psychedelic Rock

Disco To Go - Brides of Funkenstein - Funk/Soul Circles - Durand Jones & The Indications - Retro Pop Cheesin’ - Cautious Clay, Remi Wolf, sophie meiers - R&B Changes - Charles Bradley - Soul The Sweetest Sin - RAEVE - House

Gyae Su - Pat Thomas, Kwashibu Area Band - Funk What Am I to Do - Ezra Collective, Loyle Carner - Hip-hop Get Your Groove On - Cedric Burnside - Blues Old Enough To Know Better - Steffen Morrisson - Soul Wassiye - Habib Koité - Khassonke musique

Dance Floor - Zapp - Funk Wake Up - Brass Against, Sophia Urista - Brass Hard-Rock BIG LOVE - Black Eyed Peas - Pop The Greatest - Raleigh Ritchie - R&B DYSFUNCTIONAL - KAYTRANADA, VanJess - Soul

See You Leave - RJD2, STS, Khari Mateen - Hip-hop Sing A Simple Song - Maceo Parker - Jazz/Funk Have Mercy - Eryn Allen Kane - Soul Homenage - Brownout - Latin Funk Can’t Sleep - Gary Clark Jr. - Blues Rock

Toast - Koffee - Dancehall Freedom - Ester Dean - R&B Iskaba - Wande Coal, DJ Tunez - Afropop High Road - Anthony Riley - Alternative Christian Sunny Days - Sabrina Starke - Soul

The Talking Fish - Ibibio Sound Machine - Funk Paralyzed - KWAYE - Indie Purple Heart Blvd - Sebastian Kole - Pop WORSHIP - The Knocks, MNEK - Deep House BMO - Ari Lennox - R&B

Promises - Myles Sanko - Soul .img - Brother Theodore - Funk Singing the Blues - Ruthie Foster, Meshell Ndegeocello - Blues Nobody Like You - Amartey, SBMG, The Livingtons - Hip-hop Starship - Afriquoi, Shabaka Hutchings, Moussa Dembele - Deep House

Lay My Troubles Down - Aaron Taylor - Funk  Bloodstream - Tokio Myers - Classic Sticky - Ravyn Lenae - R&B Why I Try - Jalen N’Gonda - Soul Motivation - Benjamin Booker - Folk

quand c’est - Stromae - Pop Let Me Down (Shy FX Remix) - Jorja Smith, Stormzy, SHY FX - Reggae Funny - Gerald Levert - R&B Salt in my Wounds - Shemekia Copeland - Blues Our Love - Samm Henshaw - Soul

Make You Feel That Way - Blackalicious - Jazz Hip-hop Knock Me Out - Vintage Trouble - Funk Take the Time - Ronald Bruner, Jr., Thundercat - Alternative Thru The Night - Phonte, Eric Roberson - R&B Keep Marchin’ - Raphael Saadiq - Soul

Shake Me In Your Arms - Taj Mahal, Keb’ Mo’ - Blues Meet Me In The Middle - Jodie Abascus - Pop Raise Hell - Sir the Baptist, ChurchPpl - Gospel Pop Mogoya - Oumou Sangaré - Wassoulou Where’s Yesterday - Slakah The Beatchild - Hip-hop

Lose My Cool - Amber Mark - R&B New Funk - Big Sam’s Funky Nation - Funk I Got Love - Nate Dogg - Hip-hop Nothing’s Real But Love - Rebecca Ferguson - Soul Crazy Race - The RH Factor - Jazz

Spies Are Watching Me - Voilaaa, Sir Jean - Funk The Leaders - Boka de Banjul - Afrobeat Fast Lane - Rationale - House Conundrum - Hak Baker - Folk Don’t Make It Harder On Me - Chloe x Halle - R&B

Plastic Hamburgers - Fantastic Negrito - Hardrock Beyond - Leon Bridges - Pop God Knows - Dornik - Soul Soleil de volt - Baloji - Afrofunk Do You Remember - Darryl Williams, Michael Lington - Jazz Get Back - McClenney - Alternative Three Words - Aaron Marcellus - Soul

Spotify playlist 

In memory of:

Aaron Bailey Adam Addie Mae Collins Ahmaud Arbery Aiyana Stanley Jones Akai Gurley Alberta Odell Jones Alexia Christian Alfonso Ferguson Alteria Woods Alton Sterling Amadou Diallo Amos Miller Anarcha Westcott Anton de Kom Anthony Hill Antonio Martin Antronie Scott Antwon Rose Jr. Arthur St. Clair Atatiana Jefferson Aubrey Pollard Aura Rosser Bennie Simons Berry Washington Bert Dennis Bettie Jones Betsey Billy Ray Davis Bobby Russ Botham Jean Brandon Jones Breffu Brendon Glenn Breonna Taylor Bud Johnson Bussa

Calin Roquemore Calvin McDowell Calvin Mike and his family Carl Cooper Carlos Carson Carlotta Lucumi Carol Denise McNair Carol Jenkins Carole Robertson Charles Curry Charles Ferguson Charles Lewis Charles Wright Charly Leundeu Keunang Chime Riley Christian Taylor Christopher Sheels Claude Neal Clementa Pickney Clifford Glover Clifton Walker Clinton Briggs Clinton R. Allen Cordella Stevenson Corey Carter Corey Jones Cynthia Marie Graham Hurd Cynthia Wesley

Daniel L. Simmons Danny Bryant Darius Randell Robinson Darius Tarver Darrien Hunt Darrius Stewart David Felix David Joseph David McAtee David Walker and his family Deandre Brunston Deborah Danner Delano Herman Middleton Demarcus Semer Demetrius DuBose Depayne Middleton-Doctor Dion Johnson Dominique Clayton Dontre Hamilton Dred Scott

Edmund Scott Ejaz Choudry Elbert Williams Eleanor Bumpurs Elias Clayton Elijah McClain Eliza Woods Elizabeth Lawrence Elliot Brooks Ellis Hudson Elmer Jackson Elmore Bolling Emantic Fitzgerald Bradford Jr. Emmett Till Eric Garner Eric Harris Eric Reason Ernest Lacy Ernest Thomas Ervin Jones Eugene Rice Eugene Williams Ethel Lee Lance Ezell Ford

Felix Kumi Frank Livingston Frank Morris Frank Smart Frazier B. Baker Fred Hampton Fred Rochelle Fred Temple Freddie Carlos Gray Jr.

George Floyd George Grant George Junius Stinney Jr. George Meadows George Waddell George Washington Lee Gregory Gunn

Harriette Vyda Simms Moore Harry Tyson Moore Hazel “Hayes” Turner Henry Ezekial Smith Henry Lowery Henry Ruffin Henry Scott Hosea W. Allen

India Kager Isaac McGhie Isadore Banks Italia Marie Kelly

Jack Turner Jamar Clark Jamel Floyd James Byrd Jr. James Craig Anderson James Earl Chaney James Powell James Ramseur James Tolliver James T. Scott Janet Wilson Jason Harrison Javier Ambler J.C. Farmer Jemel Roberson Jerame Reid Jesse Thornton Jessie Jefferson Jim Eastman Joe Nathan Roberts John Cecil Jones John Crawford III John J. Gilbert John Ruffin John Taylor Johnny Robinson Jonathan Ferrell Jonathan Sanders Jordan Edwards Joseph Mann Julia Baker Julius Jones July Perry Junior Prosper

Kalief Browder Karvas Gamble Jr. Keith Childress, Jr. Kelly Gist Kelso Benjamin Cochrane Kendrick Johnson Kenneth Chamberlain Sr. Kenny Long Kevin Hicks Kevin Matthews Kiwane Albert Carrington

Lacy Mitchell Lamar Smith Laquan McDonald Laura Nelson Laura Wood L.B. Reed L.D. Nelson Lemuel Penn Lemuel Walters Leonard Deadwyler Leroy Foley Levi Harrington Lila Bella Carter Lloyd Clay Louis Allen Lucy

M.A. Santa Cruz Maceo Snipes Malcom X Malice Green Malissa Williams Manuel Ellis Marcus Deon Smith Marcus Foster Marielle Franco Mark Clark Maria Martin Lee Anderson Martin Luther King Jr. Matthew Avery Mary Dennis Mary Turner Matthew Ajibade May Noyes Mckenzie Adams Medgar Wiley Evers Michael Brown Michael Donald Michael Griffith Michael Lee Marshall Michael Lorenzo Dean Michael Noel Michael Sabbie Michael Stewart Michelle Cusseaux Miles Hall Moses Green Mya Hall Myra Thompson

Nathaniel Harris Pickett Jr. Natasha McKenna Nicey Brown Nicholas Heyward Jr.

O’Day Short family Orion Anderson Oscar Grant III Otis Newsom

Pamela Turner Paterson Brown Jr. Patrick Dorismond Philando Castile Phillip Pannell Phillip White Phinizee Summerour

Quaco

Ramarley Graham Randy Nelson Raymond Couser Raymond Gunn Regis Korchinski-Paquet Rekia Boyd Renisha McBride Riah Milton Robert Hicks Robert Mallard Robert Truett Rodney King Roe Nathan Roberts Roger Malcolm and his wife Roger Owensby Jr. Ronell Foster Roy Cyril Brooks Rumain Brisbon Ryan Matthew Smith

Sam Carter Sam McFadden Samuel DuBose Samuel Ephesians Hammond Jr. Samuel Hammond Jr. Samuel Leamon Younge Jr. Sandra Bland Sean Bell Shali Tilson Sharonda Coleman-Singleton Shukri Abdi Simon Schuman Slab Pitts Stella Young Stephon Clark Susie Jackson

T.A. Allen Tamir Rice Tamla Horsford Tanisha Anderson Timothy Caughman Timothy Hood Timothy Russell Timothy Stansbury Jr. Timothy Thomas Terrence Crutcher Terrill Thomas Tom Jones Tom Moss Tony McDade Tony Terrell Robinson Jr. Trayvon Martin Troy Hodge Troy Robinson Tula Tyler Gerth Tyre King Tywanza Sanders

Victor Duffy Jr. Victor White III

Walter Lamar Scott Wayne Arnold Jones Wesley Thomas Wilbert Cohen Wilbur Bundley Will Brown Will Head Will Stanley Will Stewart Will Thompson Willie James Howard Willie Johnson Willie McCoy Willie Palmer Willie Turks William Brooks William Butler William Daniels William Fambro William Green William L. Chapman II William Miller William Pittman Wyatt Outlaw

Yusef Kirriem Hawkins

The victims of LaLaurie (1830s) The black victims of the Opelousas massacre (1868) The black victims of the Thibodaux massacre (1887) The black victims of the Wilmington insurrection (1898) The black victims of the Johnson-Jeffries riots (1910) The black victims of the Red summer (1919) The black victims of the Elaine massacre (1919) The black victims of the Ocoee massacre (1920) The victims of the MOVE bombing (1985)

All the people who died during the Atlantic slave trade, be it due to abuse or disease.

All the unnamed victims of mass-incarceration, who were put into jail without the committing of a crime and died while in jail or died after due to mental illness. 

All the unnamed victims of racial violence and discrimination. 

...

My apologies for all the people missing on this list. Feel free to add more names and stories. 

Listen, learn and read about discrimination, racism and black history: (feel free to add more)  Documentaries: 13th (Netflix) The Innocence Files (Netflix) Who Killed Malcolm X? (Netflix) Time: The Kalief Browder Story (Netflix) I Am Not Your Negro

YouTube videos: We Cannot Stay Silent about George Floyd Waarom ook Nederlanders de straat op gaan tegen racisme (Dutch) Wit is ook een kleur (Dutch) (documentaire)

Books: Biased by Jennifer Eberhardt Don’t Touch My Hair by Emma Dabiri Freedom Is A Constant Struggle by Angela Davis How To Be An Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad So You Want To Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo They Can’t Kill Us All by Wesley Lowery White Fragility by Robin Deangelo Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge Woman, Race and Class by Angela Davis

Websites: https://lynchinginamerica.eji.org/report/ https://museumandmemorial.eji.org/ https://archive.org/details/thirtyyearsoflyn00nati/page/n11/mode/2up https://lab.nos.nl/projects/slavernij/index-english.html https://blacklivesmatter.com/ https://www.zinnedproject.org/

#black lives matter #blm #racism #george floyd #breonna taylor #mlk #black history

[winebleeds]

@komunion​​   sent    ❛           ❓ but for all four 😳             ❜

⤑   ASK A SPENCER ABOUT YOUR MUSE

i hate you

RALEIGH

does my muse trust yours?   sure. does my muse dislike yours?  no. would my muse kill someone for yours?  no. would my muse kill your muse?  no. would my muse save yours?  yep! does my muse find your muse attractive?  no. is my muse disgusted by yours?  no. would my muse go on a date with your muse?  no. would my muse kiss yours?   no. would my muse betray yours?   no my muse’s favorite thing about yours is his interest in star wars the thing my muse dislikes about yours is he can sound a little too blunt. and he had that scary stare.

ELIZABETH

does my muse trust yours?   it took awhile, but he’s technically the most trusted person for her now. which... says a lot.  does my muse dislike yours?  at times, when he’s being annoying would my muse kill someone for yours?  no. would my muse kill your muse?  no. would my muse save yours?  yeah. does my muse find your muse attractive?  sadly, very. is my muse disgusted by yours?  sometimes. mainly when his fridge is empty or tries to suck her fingers. :/ would my muse go on a date with your muse?  no. of course not. their 185th trip to the theater isn’t a date. her seeing his family more & more often isn’t a serious dating relationship. not them loosely mentioning marriage when intoxicated means they are NOT dating. would my muse kiss yours?   yeah. she’ll do it right now, in the denny’s parking lot. (ง'̀-'́)ง would my muse betray yours?   no, not after what they been through. my muse’s favorite thing about yours is his ass. she can’t really name it at this point? it’s the way he looks at her or the way he looks away when too overwhelmed. it’s his attempts of making coffee even if still too weak or him being amuse at her constantly cleaning.  but perhaps it’s his patience, of her, of them, whenever their lowest points arise. yeah, she’s very much in love & they need to get a room.  the thing my muse dislikes about yours is his self-loathing. at least, that’s how she translated the grief & reservation of him that has become even more evidence lately.

BEN JAMIE

does my muse trust yours?   no. does my muse dislike yours?  yes & no... it’s complicated. it’s mainly no. would my muse kill someone for yours?  no. would my muse kill your muse?  no. or not on purpose. would my muse save yours?  no. or not on purpose. does my muse find your muse attractive?  yes. nah, no, never, not that ugly face. is my muse disgusted by yours?  yes. would my muse go on a date with your muse?  no. would my muse kiss yours?   no. or not on purpose. would my muse betray yours?   yes. my muse’s favorite thing about yours is he’s weaker than him the thing my muse dislikes about yours is thinking he’s a smartmouth.  (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง  (ง'̀-'́)ง

MADDIE

does my muse trust yours?   sure! well, deep down, she’s suspicious of him. does my muse dislike yours?  nope! would my muse kill someone for yours?  no. would my muse kill your muse?  no... actually, maybe, if he hurts liz. would my muse save yours?  yep! does my muse find your muse attractive?  no. is my muse disgusted by yours?  mainly when ben & liz get too mushy when drunk. would my muse go on a date with your muse?  no. maybe a double date with him & liz... even if liz will say it’s not a date on her end. would my muse kiss yours?   no. gross. would my muse betray yours?   yeah, if she finds out something, she’ll rat it out to liz. my muse’s favorite thing about yours is that he seems to make liz happy most of the time... but MAINLY he works at the record store. the thing my muse dislikes about yours is his lack of words. she can take it with liz but does he & liz actually talk?? sometimes she can’t understand his mumbles either... oh, and he did scare him with that whole knowing jamie is a thing. but those are issues with liz too. she just sums him up as ‘weird’ tbh.

#mads? being protective about liz? yeah :/ #( v. answered ) #( e. ben steele ) #( r. ben steele ) #( j. ben 2 ) #( m. ben steele )

[wkemeup]

Guiding Light (10)

summary: It was supposed to be a simple mission. Get the intel and go home. Until everything goes wrong and you’re taken captive by Hydra and now, Bucky can’t breathe without you. Not until he brings you home. If he even can. pairing: bucky x reader chapter word count: 10.6k (oops) warnings: angst™, PTSD symptoms (dissociative episode), FLUFF?? 🖤series masterlist // series playlist

Someone asked you a question but you couldn’t quite hear it over the buzzing in your ears.

Bucky’s hand gripped tightly in yours was the only constant keeping you from spinning. A soft squeeze every few seconds, reminding you that you weren’t dreaming, that this wasn’t some kind of sick ploy by Hydra to keep you compliant or submissive. It reminded you that it was really Bucky under your touch, Bucky who’s gentle reassuring smiles flash in your direction and Bucky who’s thumb traced over the back of your hand when he noticed the beep of the heart monitor tick faster for even a second too long.

You swallowed thickly, keeping your eyes trained on the end of your cot because there were too many people in the room, more people than you’d been around in months, and while they were all people you loved, it was taking all of your energy to keep steady breaths.

A squeeze in your hand and you turned to your right. Bucky offered you a reassuring smile, gentle and kind, and the blue of his eyes eased the tension in your chest. You nodded, drawing in a deep breath as you turned back to the team.

“Sorry, what did you say?”

Tony tucked his hands into his pockets, shrugging off your apology. He exchanged a glance with Steve cautiously before he spoke again. “Because of the, um, circumstances of the last video, we’ll need to ask you some questions to confirm you are who you say you are.”

Bucky narrowed his eyes, glaring at Tony. Clearly, that wasn’t how he worded it the first time. “Cho already cleared her, Stark, and she’s barely even been conscious for a few hours. We don’t have to put her through that again.”

Tony clenched his jaw. He was about as happy about asking the questions as Bucky was hearing it. “Helen only cleared her physically. Shifters can be incredibly deceptive. They can take on scars and superficial markings, but they don’t replicate memories. We haven’t had a chance to talk to her until now and it’s the only way to prove she’s our Y/n.”

Bucky shook his head gritting his teeth and you watched as anger fumed from the red in his cheeks.

“I’m not going to interrogate her, Barnes,” Tony pressed, offering you a tight smile, “we just have to be sure. After what happened... you of all people should want that.”

Bucky’s eyes snapped up to Tony and he nearly jumped up from his seat next to your bed to lunge at Tony if it wasn’t for your gentle tug on his hand. He turned back to you, slowly, and you nodded at him, curving the edges of your lips to a smile despite the ache in your cheeks.

You couldn’t help but wonder what Tony meant by that, what had happened to Bucky in the months he believed you to be dead, but you pushed it from your mind. A steady breath in and you straightened your spine.

“I'll do it,” you said, willing your voice less nervous than you felt. “I don’t mind.”

Tony smiled in relief. He gripped at the plastic railing at the end of the cot before he glanced back up at you. “They’ll be personal questions. Stuff only you would know.”

“Okay,” you responded and Bucky’s hand squeezed yours. You didn’t notice the beep of the heart monitor increase.

To your surprise, Tony stepped back against the wall, and it was Natasha that stepped forward. She brushed past Tony, giving Steve a subtle nod as he touched her shoulder encouragingly, before she took a seat on the edge of the bed. One leg handing off the side and the other tucked up under her lap, she exhaled a heavy breath.

She hadn’t let herself believe it was you, you realized. Her face was too cold, too numbed. Your best friend who had been nothing but impenetrably strong in all the years you’d known her and she was crumbling behind deteriorating walls and cracks in her defenses.

“Our first mission together,” she started, voice low, calculating, “you trusted me when no one else did; when the others were calling me a soviet spy behind my back and speculating about the red in my ledger. Why?”

You bit your lower lip between your teeth, thinking back to the mission in Boston, where you stood with her on the corner of Bay State and Raleigh, waiting for your mark to emerge from a brownstone apartment overlooking the Charles River. She was uneasy, putting too much distance between you because she had spent years as a single operative and wasn’t used to working on a team, wasn’t used to the prospect of trust.

One of the agents had forgotten to turn off his com and a snide joke about her past echoed through the speakers, enough to make her cringe, and you hadn’t even taken an extra breath before you’d ripped the agent a new one from where you stood halfway across the city, listing his own mistakes in the field and reminding him swiftly that Natasha Romanoff displayed more bravery in the choice to defect to SHIELD after what she’d been through than he had in his entire career. He shut up after that.

You smiled softly, remembering the cool breeze and the sound of traffic and chatter passing by, as she hesitantly asked why you trusted her so much.

“It was Barton,” you replied, confident, the conversation you had with her clearly coming back to you. “He made a call, chose to stake his career at SHIELD on it because he knew there was more to you than what he’d been told, that you had the potential to be more, greater, than what the red room made you. A call like that? It wasn’t one I planned on disregarding lightly and once we met, you gave me no reason to prove him wrong.”

Natasha grinned at you, almost in a laugh, like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She brushed the tears from her eyes.

“I think I said something to that effect,” you shrugged, lips pulling up in a tight laugh as Nat squeezed your free hand. She turned back to Tony with a nod, her signal of approval, and you felt Bucky’s grip tighten on your hand for a brief moment. You met his eye and he smiled softly at you, proud.

“Guess I'm up,” Sam said as he stepped forward. He stood at the edge of the bed with his arms crossed over his chest. You looked up at him, feeling a little more confident now that you’d passed Nat’s test and she was standing in the corner, giving you a short thumbs up and a reassuring smile when you glanced in her direction.

Through narrowed eyes, hardened features, he studied you for a moment before he spoke and you felt a sudden rush of nerves up your spine. You’d never been on the receiving end of anything other than light hearted jokes and cheesy smiles from Sam, so seeing him like this, wearing a scowl and a clench in his jaw, unnerved you.

He leaned in, eyeing you up before he asked in a slow, deep voice, “What’s my favorite ice cream flavor?”

Tony rolled his eyes as Sam’s lips curved up into a huge smile. Bright and bold and covering half his face, you couldn’t help but laugh.

“Hey, listen, only Y/n would know, right? She’s in charge of ice cream nights. We’re all aware of that, yes?” Sam defended himself, sending you a wink.

“Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey,” you replied easily without skipping a beat, “with chocolate syrup and m&m’s sprinkled on top.”

“It’s like he’s a twelve year old boy,” Tony scoffed, but Sam ignored him; all smiles and giving you a nod of approval.

“She’s clear in my book,” Sam stated walking back to his corner of the room and nestling against the wall. You watched him with a grin on your face, feeling light and at ease for the first time in months. He winked again and you only smiled wider.

But then Steve came forward. He wore a stern expression, one of a solemn nature too, and it wiped the smile from your face quickly.

“Three years ago, you were on a reconnaissance mission in Guatemala,” Steve began, giving no time for short introductions or greetings. He needed to get this over with you realized quickly, so you nodded, following his timeline. “I contacted you through the secure line with a code phrase that signaled you to return home at your first availability. What was the code word?”

You blinked a few times, mouth agape. Your mind was a blank slate.

“Steve,” Bucky warned, “those codes change every mission. No one should be expected to remember that.”

“Y/n would,” Steve argued, staring at you and you felt unsettled under his gaze.

You tried to rack your brain, thinking back to the details of the mission the best you could. You had been tailing a Russian operative for weeks by the time you got the call from Steve, that much you remembered. He was a guy by the name of Alexi Chekov, a soviet agent sent to make a deal with an organized crime syndicate in Villa Nueva.

“It was, um,” you started, hoping the answer would fall from your lips as you went, but still nothing. Steve exchanged a worried look with Tony and Bucky gritted at his teeth.

“This can’t be necessary, Steve,” Bucky urged as he noticed the way your eyes were darting at the foot of your bed, hand gripping his tightly, the steady beep of your heart rate upon the monitor increasing. “We know it’s her. Just look at her!”

“All due respect, Buck, but we all watched our friend get shot in the head on live television,” Steve snapped, a surprising kind of anger in his voice. “As much as I want this to be real, and it feels pretty damn real, so did that video. I have to be sure that this isn’t the trick. I know for a fact that only our Y/n would know this so I... I need her to remember, Buck. I need this confirmation. You’ve got to understand that.”

Bucky held Steve’s gaze, challenging one another, until you spoke up again.

“Just give me a minute,” you requested softly, tugging on Bucky’s hand until he met your eye and you nodded at him, letting him know you were okay. You turned to Steve. “I’ll remember. My memories are just... messy right now. I need a minute.”

Steve nodded, stepping back to give you space.

As you thought back, you closed your eyes, trying to picture the mountains, the striking greenery, the heat and humidity on your skin. Sweat dripping off your shoulders and thick warm air in your lungs. You were never meant to engage with Chekov, only to observe, and you had been watching him from a table outside of a small café as he talked with a man at the end of a long alleyway.

Your phone buzzed in your pocket and it almost startled you because that phone never went off without urgent need. Keeping your eyes trained on Chekov, you had pulled the phone from your pocket, a single, secure line reflected on the caller ID, the only number with access to this phone and you answered. Steve’s voice on the other end and he spoke a single word.

What was it?

It wasn’t Pelican. That was the return home code from your mission in Paris with Barton.

Couldn’t be Delta or Binghamton. Those were too recent.

He’d used Cambridge, Havana, and Moscato when you’d been on missions with Bucky.

You groaned, teeth clenching as you searched through the back of your mind, and you could feel Bucky’s grip on your hand tighten. Your heart rate must have sky rocketed because he was starting to argue with Steve again, telling him to back off, to give you space.

“No, I can do this,” you insisted sternly, eyes still closed, and Bucky silenced immediately.

Your memories were distorted, that much you knew. The pieces of how you ended up back at the Avengers compound were lost on you so it was safe to assume Hydra had done something to mess with your memories. It effected your long term, too, it seemed.

But you were determined, needed to prove that you were exactly who you said you were because these people were your family and you needed them to trust you, needed to be able to trust them too, implicitly, because you’d been through too much already to have to survive it alone.

You let out a steady breath, putting yourself back at that café in Villa Nueva. The bitter taste of coffee on your tongue. The smell of fresh meats and spices in the air, and your stomach was growling, but there was no time for that as you watched Chekov exchange a handshake with the unknown man. Your memory brought you back to the phone call, the buzz in your pocket that made your heart jump, and you answered.

The codes all had meaning. They weren’t just made up words Steve would pick randomly out of a dictionary. He’d sit down with you before missions and make sure it was something you’d remember, something that would bring you home without hesitation. So, what was happening at home before you left?

Bucky.

Bucky was being pardoned by the president for crimes he’d committed under Hydra’s control. He was coming to live at the compound, a compromise set by the attorney general, but you’d be gone before he arrived. Steve had been worried about him, nervous about how the team would take to him and if he’d forgive himself for the first encounter he had with most of them while he'd been the soldier.

It always came back to Bucky.

A breath of relief, and you opened your eyes.

“Sergeant,” you answered, the code word coming back to you, and Steve exhaled a long held breath. He nodded, a smile tugging at his cheeks.

“I knew it,” he sighed as he allowed the stiffness in his shoulders to fall. “It's so good to have you home, Y/n.”

A tension quickly faded from the room.

“Tony, I think it’s your turn,” you offered, feeling a little more in control of your memories, but he held his hands up.

“I’ve got all the proof I need, kid.”

You turned to Bucky to find him smiling at you, proud, lips curved so subtly but enough for the blue in his eyes to soften to a gentle hue, something that made your stomach weak.

“What about you, Buck? I could list every song on the playlist I made you or tell you the first book I forced you read or the path around the compound we used to run or--”

“You’ve convinced me, doll,” Bucky interjected gently, his hand brushing over yours and tracing delicate patterns on your skin, “from the second I saw you. I’m good. You don’t have to prove anything to me.”

He brought your hand to his lips, kissed at your broken knuckles, and you watched him with awe. He'd never done something like that before, certainly not around others, not with that kind of ease and grace like he didn’t have even an ounce of hesitation. A tear slipped past your eye before you realized it, and Nat rushed forward, brushing it away and wrapping her arms around you in a tight embrace, though she was careful of the various scars on your body.

Steve and Sam laughed in the corner of the room while Tony observed from his quiet spot at the end of the bed. Bucky’s hand not leaving yours for even an instant. You had your family back and you couldn’t bring yourself to care about the gaps in your memories or the hell you’d endured in the last seven months.

***

Dr. Cho cleared you to leave the med bay a week later. Your body was stronger than they anticipated, displayed evidence that you’d been training and well fed in recent months, though you still couldn’t remember much of that.

It was harder than you thought to reacclimate to the compound. To get back to your normal life.

You found yourself unable to sleep on the soft surface of your bed, opting for the floor and sometimes finding yourself waking up to Bucky’s soft snores in the morning, realizing he had found his way from his own room to your floor at some point in the night. He was never far away, his hand only inches from yours like he had held it in his own in the middle of the night.

You had a hard time stomaching any of the food the team tried to prepare for you, even your old favorites, finding them too sweet, too potent; that in contrast to the stale bread you’d survived on for months, anything else was overwhelming to your senses. Natasha started making her homemade bread again and you started to reintroduce foods by adding a tablespoon of jam, or a slice of turkey breast, until eventually you could eat a sandwich without heaving it up an hour later.

The worst though, were the moments when you forgot where you were. When you woke up in the dead of night, screaming and shaking, believing you were back in that cell until Bucky rushed in, throwing on the lights, and holding you until you believed he was real. He’d whisper reassurances in your ear and hold you so tight against his chest, the compression alone was enough to pull your mind away from its haze. It never took him long to reach you and you started to wonder if he was sleeping on the floor outside your room. You’d found a pillow there one morning but lost the courage to ask him about it.

Some days, when you weren’t expecting it, you’d flinch violently away from any kind of touch, even when it came from Bucky, and he’d retreat with wide, fearful eyes. Embarrassment and shame would seep through you and he’d look down at his hand like he wanted to set it on fire for making you feel so afraid, if even for a moment.

Healing wasn’t easy and trauma wasn’t something you’d overcome in a week. Your memory was still in pieces and you couldn’t push past the lingering anxiety in the back of your chest, warning you that this wasn’t over, that you weren’t as safe as everyone thought.

***

Two months later and you were spending daily sessions in Dr. Cho’s office, attempting to piece your memory back together. While you had started to eat better, started to sleep through the night and in a bed, started to seek touch instead of run from it, you hadn’t made an ounce of progress with your memories.

They came in through blurry images, detached and unconnected, and you couldn’t stitch them together no matter how hard you tried. With no memories of an escape and only fragmented glimpses of the events following the final video recorded in your cell, you couldn’t help the useless feeling that burned in your chest every time Dr. Cho asked you a question about your captivity.

Bucky stayed out by the door as you asked him to, every session, acting as your protector and ready to ease you away from the distress the sessions caused you, because the not remembering was the worst of it. The idea that Hydra might have done things to you, things you couldn’t remember, was more terrifying than the few pieces you still had vivid images of.

Starving. The chair bolted at the center of the room. A man with a thick, angry scar down his face that carved through his clouded eye. A blonde woman with a camera. A lumpy mattress with sharp springs poking at you. The woman who wore your face. Blood stained red and dark upon the concrete. A second hostage, someone you had talked with, someone you felt a deep, unsettling grief for.

It was all your memory allowed for.

She had you writing in journals, hoping that it would bring something back to you, but no matter how many books you filled, you couldn’t seem to uncover anything from after the video shown in Times Square and even your time before that felt fragmented and distorted. It was chaos inside your head. 

“Why don’t we end here for today,” Dr. Cho said softly and you realized she must have asked you another question. You glanced up at her from your stare on the wall and she was watching you under worried eyes, offering you a tight smile though you could see the lingering tension behind it.

“I’m sorry,” you mumbled quickly, but Dr. Cho shook her head.

“No, no it’s alright, Y/n,” she replied, genuine, “it’ll come back. We just need to give it time. Try and let yourself heal in the meantime. These memories... they’ll be distressing when they return. You’ll want to be prepared when they do.”

You nodded slowly, feeling a little uneasy. Dr. Cho knocked on the door and Bucky stepped inside.

He smiled at you encouragingly, as he always did, and never asked about what you talked about in this room, knowing you’d tell him if you needed to and just thankful you were talking about it with someone, even if it wasn’t him. But your smile didn’t come as easy today and his hand snuck into yours and squeezed it, giving you a moment before he led you from the room.

He was so observant, so perceptive to your distress, and you wondered when he had learned to be so attuned to you; if it happened before you were taken or if he had committed to memory the second you returned. Regardless, as Dr. Cho left the room, he helped you back to your feet, even if you didn’t necessarily need the support.

“So, what do you want to do?” Bucky asked with a gentle smile as he led you out into the hallway, allowing your hand to slip away awkwardly. “We could make food and watch a movie? We never finished the series about that wizard kid you liked.”

How he managed to spark the light back into you after feeling trapped in darkness was beyond you.

“Harry Potter,” you confirmed with a laugh, nudging his shoulder as you walked beside him. His hand swayed at his hips and his knuckles brushed yours. You longed to pull his hand into yours again, but couldn’t find the courage, didn’t know if moments like that were reserved for hospital beds and I-almost-lost-you scares, not for walking down the hall in the open like you were.

“Right, Harry Potter,” he repeated, nodding in the memory. “We could try and get your muscles moving again? Maybe go to the gym but take it real easy? I know sitting around was hard for me after...”

He bit his lip, the smile faded from his face. He glanced over at you, nervous, but you met him with a soft, reassuring smile. He was offering you suggestions, giving you choices, in the way you had done for him when he first started getting used to the compound, from coming off the run and his imprisonment with Hydra. He understood that you weren’t used to having choices, that asking you something too broad would send you into overdrive. There were too many possibilities.

So, he offered you easy options. Movie or gym. Quick and easy. Simple. It gave you back a sense of control.

“The gym sounds nice, actually,” you replied, stretching your arm over your chest.

Bucky nodded, the smile returning to his face in a breath of relief. He paused at a doorway and you realized you had made it back to your room.

“I’m gonna run and change and I’ll meet you there?” he asked carefully.

You knew he was trying to give you space, to let you do things on your own, but it was hard for him, hard to be away from you for even a second because he might fall into a trap that convinced himself you weren’t really here and this had all been a dream. But he knew you needed to learn your independence again, so he was working on it. If you were honest, so were you.

You nodded in agreement and watched as Bucky quickly paced down the rest of the short hall and disappeared behind his bedroom door. It physically ached to be apart from him, like every time his back was to you the pain was being dragged away from him that day came rushing back. You tried to remind yourself that you’d see him again in a few minutes, that you wouldn’t be alone for long. It only seemed to ease you for a short while, but that was typically all you needed before he was by your side again.

With a heavy sigh, you pushed your way inside your room.

It wasn’t the first time you'd been in your bedroom since you’d been back, but it still disoriented you every time. It was odd, being back in this space, and having a drawer full of clothes to choose from. The fabric was soft under your fingertips and smelled of laundry detergent and florals. It was almost too sweet, the scent of it. It burned in your nose after spending so much time covered in filth and blood.

You changed quickly, throwing on a pair of leggings and a tank top to keep cool, and grabbed your sneakers from the space by the door. You froze as you picked them up, realizing they hadn’t moved since you’d tossed them off carelessly before your last mission with the team, the mission you were taken by Hydra.

A steady breath in and you tried to control the sudden surge of your heart rate. You focused on the feel of your clothes, the compression of the leggings, the cool air condition fanning down from the vent above, until you felt at ease again. You slipped the sneakers on and jogged your way to the gym, unable to be on your own any longer.

When you stepped into the gym, Bucky was leaning against the padded wall, waiting patiently for you. You waved at him as you jogged your way over, but his smile fell quickly to a frown as he pushed himself off the wall. Narrowing your eyes on him, you were about to ask what was wrong until you noticed the trail of his gaze over your arms.

Faded scars running against your skin like pieces of a mosaic, some sharp and short, others long and jagged, but far more than you ever had before Hydra. You realized suddenly that you’d been in nothing but long sleeves since you’d returned and Bucky hadn’t been exposed to the extent of your torture; torture you never talked about while he was in the room, even the small pieces you remembered, because you knew he’d commit it to memory and find a way to blame himself. He hadn’t even seen the full extent of the scars when you were unconscious in the med bay.

His hand slowly reached out, trembling, and it just barely graze the deepest cut on your left forearm, before he pulled away sharply. He couldn’t meet your eye.

“Bucky, I’m okay,” you urged, reaching towards him but he was too far out of your grasp, “they’ve healed. They don’t hurt anymore.”

“But they happened,” he countered, his voice low and aching.

“They did,” you replied, “and it was horrible and awful, the same way the scars on your shoulder are for you.”

You leaned forward, carefully allowing your fingers to brush over his hands, pulling them against your own and intertwining them together. He let out a heavy exhale. Slowly, he looked up until you were met with stunning blue.

“I’m here, Buck. I survived it. I’m okay.”

He nodded apprehensively, a clench in his jaw, and you knew it was hard for him, but again, he was trying. He forced out a smile for you the best he could.

“Alright, doll.”

You let go of his hands, stepping away nervously and tying your hair up away from your face. Turning back to face the gym, your eyes wandered across the wide variety of equipment and machines until you landed on the ring and an overwhelming rush of warmth and home filled your chest.

“Let’s spar.”

Bucky shook his head, hands raised. “Hold on now. I was kinda expecting we’d walk on the treadmill or sit on a bike at the lowest possible resistance.”

“You asked me what I want to do and this is it,” you argued playfully, backing up and moving closer to the ring as Bucky followed you. “Dr. Cho said my body is healthier than we think it is. Come on, Buck. It’ll make me feel normal, like I’m--” you huffed, looking around the room and feeling a sudden unpleasant twist in your gut, “like I’m not some broken, fucked up POW that’s gonna fall apart at any second.”

The words fell from you before you could stop them and Bucky furrowed his brow, thrown by the sudden self-deprecation that was so unlike the woman he knew.

“You’re not, Y/n,” he said sternly, heartbreak in his face, “and you never once thought that of me, so please don’t think it of yourself.”

“So, spar with me,” you asked again, quieter this time, “please, Buck. I promise to tell you if it’s too much. I just really need to feel like I can do something like I used to before, before what happened, and this, this is something I’m good at. Please.”

After a while of contemplation and a clear war in his head, Bucky conceded. He never could say no to you, so he tossed you the roll of tape and instructed you to wrap your hands. You did so with a smile on your face.

Once you were done, you climbed up into the ring, sliding between the ropes and jumping on the platform to warm your muscles. It was with the same excited energy you carried the last time you sparred with him, and Bucky wrestled between the fond memory and the horror that followed.

As he followed behind, hands taped, and stretching his arms in preparation, he shot you a serious look. “Don’t push yourself, you hear me?”

“Cross my heart, Sergeant,” you replied cheekily and for a moment Bucky forgot about the scars on your arms and the nightmare of the last few months. You were so you and he was thankful beyond words.

You rushed at him hard, determined with something to prove, and got a solid five hooks in before he could touch you. It was unusual for your sparring together. Even when he was holding back the full force of his hits, he always got in a few in between yours. It was a dance.

He backed up until he met the ropes and you swung around him again, pushing him down on the mat quickly. Too quickly. You stood above him, hands planted on your hips and you frowned.

“You’re holding back,” you scolded, offering him a hand to help him back up. “You didn’t even get in a single hit.”

He shrugged, brushing off his pants. “I don’t want to--”

“--hurt me. Yeah, I know,” you finished dejectedly, stepping forward to brush you hand over the cool plates of his left arm, “but if I wanted to hit a punching bag, I would.”

He chuckled at that and the tension started to fade from his muscles. “Okay, okay. Let’s go.”

He nodded, trying to psych himself up and give in to your request. You started to pace around the ring, circling him like prey, and for once, he was the one to charge first.

You blocked his first hit with your forearm, shoving it aside as you dipped under his arm, kicking him from behind enough for him to stumble a few paces forward. He turned back to you with a newfound smile on his face just as you knew he would and you rushed at him again. It was so familiar, this dance, circling one another and finding solace in the closeness. A laugh even escaped him as you got him on his knees for a second before he jumped back up.

In the ring, you felt normal again, like maybe the last few months had been a dream and you’d never left Bucky’s side at all. For a moment, you’d never been held in that cold, dark cell. You’d never been tortured by the same organization that rendered the love of your life into something outside of himself, something dark and twisted and empty. You’d never been forced to face the possibility that you would die without ever seeing Bucky again.

It was seamless. It was exactly where you were supposed to be. Focusing on Bucky’s breaths and the way he bounced around the ring so light on his feet with a smile that made your stomach ache.

In the moment of your distraction, Bucky clipped your shoulder harder than you were expecting and it sent you spiraling to the ground. You landed on the mat like you’d fallen from three stories above, hard and without time to catch yourself. The air was pushed violently from your lungs.

Suddenly, hands were ghosting over your arms, worried voice littered with concern and panic, but you couldn’t quite hear it, couldn’t feel the soft touch of fingertips upon your skin.

You were cold suddenly, freezing, and darkness blurred your vision. You didn’t move from the ground, eyes staring far off to the wall even as Bucky desperately tried to get your attention. He was shouting, arms waving frantically to someone beyond the doors of the gym, and you could only vaguely register footsteps sprinting towards you.

Red hair dipped into your vision, blurred and distant. It was there; you could see it, but it felt like you were miles away, like you were watching it all play out on a movie screen. You were underwater.

“What the hell happened?” a voice barked, feminine. Red hair swung over shoulders as she faced someone sitting next to you.

“I don’t-- I don’t know,” a man replied, scared. A cool surface brushed along your shoulder, hard like metal. “We were sparring and she just—I must have hit too hard and--”

“What the hell were you thinking, Buck?” a deeper voice questioned, one of authority, arms folded over his chest. Short blonde hair. “What made you think she was ready for this?”

“She just wanted to feel normal, Steve! What was I supposed to do?” he argued back, though his hands were shaking as they ran delicately along your arms, “Deny her? Treat her like she’s made of glass, like she could just lose it at any second, the way you all did to me?!”

“Well look how that turned out, Buck!”

You were lying on concrete. No, on a mattress with exposed springs. Blood stained on the floor not far from you. You started shaking, tears in your eyes and someone was pulling you off the mat, wrapped into strong arms, one colder and harder than the other. He was whispering in your ear words you couldn’t quite make out, but it was soothing, relaxing. A hand brushed over your forehead, wiping away the sweat and the hair from your eyes. Your heartrate started to come down and the haze faded from your vision and your mind.

“I’ll call for Helen,” Nat said, and you realized suddenly that you recognized her voice. She was pulling out her phone, sending a worried glance in Steve’s direction though his eyes were carefully trained on Bucky.

Bucky.

It was his arms wrapped around you, the warmth of his breath gently exhaling against your neck as he held you, his voice that had been shaken and scared as it called out for help.

“M’okay,” you muttered, coming back to the surface, shifting slightly in Bucky’s arms.

You felt his breath hitch at your movement, the collective sighs of relief from your friends as they stood at the edge of the ring. The panic on their faces, the fear in Bucky’s eyes as looked down at you, searching to make sure you were alright, set an anxious twist in your stomach.

You clenched your jaw, maneuvering yourself away from his embrace and he let you go without question, though his hands lingered as long as you’d let him before you tugged yourself away completely. You wrapped your arms around yourself, embarrassed and ashamed.

“I’m sorry.”

“No, honey, don’t apologize,” Nat urged delicately, sinking down to her knees so she sat at your eye level, her hand taking yours in her own. “It’s not your fault.”

“It’s mine,” Bucky nodded, voice flat, detached.

“It’s not yours either, James,” Natasha said sternly, flashing a warning look in Steve’s direction before he could say anything. She took a deep breath, squeezing your hand and you found you couldn’t take your eyes off of Bucky. “We all know where the blame belongs and it’s with Hydra. There will be setbacks in recovery, Y/n. There always are. But you’ve come further than you’ve fallen back. You have to remember that.”

You took in her words, knowing there was truth in it. Bucky still couldn’t meet your eye.

***

It took another three weeks before Bucky even agreed to step foot in the gym with you again. Helen had told you that it was normal, expected almost, to have flashbacks like that after what you'd been through. Unprepared for the hit on your shoulder, it threw you into a dissociative state and rendered you outside of yourself, your body’s instinctive defense mechanism, to protect you from what it believed was about to come.

But you were safe, you were with Bucky, with your family, in a fortress surrounded by SHEILD agents and superheroes. The trick was convincing your body of that, too.

“Bucky, I can handle it,” you repeated after he’d only shaken his head at you, unwilling to listen to your requests to spar again.

“You said that last time and look what happened,” he sighed, fingers darting through his hair anxiously. “I set that off in you, Y/n. I triggered it. I was the one who made you feel like that, and I won’t do it again.”

You exhaled a heavy breath, so desperate to feel normal again but knowing that he was right, that you couldn’t throw yourself back into your old routine like nothing had happened. You needed smaller steps.

“Okay,” you conceded and Bucky’s shoulders visibly relaxed. “Walk with me?”

He smiled at that, nodding, and let you take his hand in yours as you led him to the outside path around the compound; the same one you used to run together.

Weeks later, the walks turned into infrequent intervals with light jogs. Then, after you regained more strength in your legs and craved blood pumping through your veins, you started to run the entire path with Bucky at your side; laughing and sprinting the final stretch, teasing him about how slow he’d become until you heard the perfect sound of his own laugh as he caught up behind you.

He started to help you reacclimate to the punching bags, something that couldn’t hit you back, and brought Nat in to work with you on shadow boxing, though neither of them would step foot with you in the ring.

Two months since the incident in the ring and you’d spent multiple times a week in Dr. Cho’s office, working through how to handle episodes like that when they came up and sorting through the mess of memories in your head. You were more in control, felt like you had ownership of your mind and your body in a way you had tried so hard to believe when you stepped into the ring with Bucky the first time since you returned. You had wanted to believe it so badly then. You were certain now.

“Hey Buck,” you called his name gently, quietly, and he stilled his movements against the punching back instantly. He turned to you with a smile on his face, just barely there but enough to make your heart swell, hair damp with sweat clinging to the sides of his face and still looking like a dream.

You hesitated for a moment, worried he would say no, and fidgeted in your stance. You wrung your hands together as you met his eye.

“Will you spar with me?”

He clenched his jaw, smile fading.

“I’m ready now,” you insisted, voice stronger because you meant it, “I can handle it, Buck. You know I can. It’s been two months since I was last in the ring and I—I feel like I’m going stir crazy here. This is my life. It’s what I’m trained to do and I have to get back in eventually and I promise, Buck, I promise I’m ready for it now. You can talk to Dr. Cho if you need to but she’ll agree and --”

“Okay.”

“-- if you won’t do it, I’ll find someone who—what?” you froze, watching the way Bucky pushed out a nervous smile.

“Okay, sweetheart,” he said again, the gentle kind of smile on his face that was so incredible subtle and lit up the entire room all at once. “You’re ready. I can see that. You’ve been ready for the last week I think, but I wanted to wait until you said something. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not excited about the possibility it could happen again, but we’ll start slow, right?”

“Right, yes, of course,” you agreed, smile aching in your cheeks as you nodded. “I’m a little surprised you’re okay with this.”

“Yeah, well, you never treated me like I was going to break,” Bucky explained, stepping forward and picking up the tape from the side of the ring. He drew out a long extension before he cut it off, gesturing for your hands and starting to wrap them himself. It sent chills up your spine. “I want to return the favor. You say you’re ready? Okay. You’re ready. Besides, if anyone is going to get back in that ring with you, I want it to be me. Let’s me keep an eye on you.”

You smiled at him as he finished wrapping your hands, a soft blush in your cheeks.

His own hands already wrapped from hitting the punching bag, he led you to the ring, lifting up the ropes for you to duck under. He followed close behind and though he was hesitant as he brushed his hands on the thighs of his pants, watching you under cautious eyes, he trusted you implicitly. He believed you when you said you were ready. It gave you back the control you’d been missing for months.

“Slow, remember?” he advised, holding his hands up into position.

You nodded, doing the same and unable to wipe the smile from your face.

It started out in easy, cautious movements; like you were marking choreography. Starting to find the rhythm again with each other and never hitting at full swing. He reminded you what it was like to have to watch your opponent from all angles and how to anticipate movement before it strikes. You tapped his cheek with your closed fist, almost like a kiss, and he smiled with a nod of approval as you pulled it away. Everything was in slow motion.

A few days later and you worked up to increasing the paces of your movements; still never hitting at full strength and not enough to get a line of sweat to drip off your brow, but closer to the real thing. Bucky had asked Dr. Cho to come in and observe after your approval and she watched from the sidelines, nodding and studying your reactions when Bucky’s hand swung at you, albeit in a slow enough pace you could have stepped aside easily, but quick enough for it to resemble the sparring that used to take place in the ring. She nodded, giving you a thumbs up and you beamed in Bucky’s direction. He had a kind of hopefulness in his eyes you hadn’t seen in long time.

A month later and you stood at the edge of the ring, sweat dampening your hair and pooling in beads down your arms and neck. You grinned, adrenaline coursing through you to feel the rush again, to know that Bucky trusted you so completely to step back into the ring again with you after what happened, to be willing to spar with you at your full strength.

He’d gotten in a few hits and while his eyes burned wide and fearful of what might happen, you had only grinned, sending a wink before you took the opportunity to jump him. You kicked off from the post in the corner of the ring, lunging onto his shoulders and using the full force of your body weight as you swung around and slammed him to the mat in the momentum.

Your body on top of his, holding him down, and he groaned as his face scrunched up in a grimace from the impact.

“That’s new,” he grunted, barely opening his eyes from the glare of the florescent light above, but you cast a shadow over him, your face just inches from his as you started to laugh.

“Spent a lot of time watching Nat and Steve spar while I was sidelined,” you replied with a smirk, hands still gripping his wrists pressed down onto the mat by his face, held in a form of surrender.

“Should have figured you’d get a move like that from Romanoff,” Bucky chuckled. He made no effort to move out from under you.

“Feels good to be back in the ring,” you sighed, unable to wipe the smile from your face, a relief you couldn’t quite explain. “After all that happened, it just... it’s nice to know I can still take you down, Barnes.”

“Of course, you can. Never doubted that for a second,” he replied softly, the teasing fading away to something sincere, something that made your stomach twist into knots. “I am just... constantly amazed by you, Y/n. Everything you do, everything you’ve survived. You’re the strongest person I know.”

Your lips parted in a gentle kind of shock, watching as a lingering sadness masked over the pain filled shades of blue. A world of emotion settled in his eyes and an eternity could have passed by in that moment, the world spinning on without you because the only thing that mattered was soft blue, worry lines in his forehead, and the small freckle above his left eye.

The two of you never really talked about those months you were gone. You didn’t want to darken the moments you had with him by bringing up the hell you’d been put through or asking him what happened to him while you were gone. He never confronted you about it, either, but you could tell how much he wanted to.

It was a weight that sat between you, the knowledge of how he had lost pieces of himself when you were gone and how you had come to fully accept you would die in that cell.

Without thinking much of it, just wanting to feel more of him, you released his right wrist, trailing your hand up his arm, over his shoulder, until you cupped the side of his face, thumb brushing over cheekbone. He was so beautiful, so stunning and irrevocably broken, like you were, but he was everything; shattered and mangled pieces strung together with string and tape and still somehow the most perfect man you’d ever known.

Bucky just watched you intently as you gazed down at him, mesmerized in the feeling of the bristles of hair on his jawline and the smooth contrast of his cheekbone.

“I missed you,” you whispered suddenly, the words falling with ease. Even though it had been months since you’ve been home, the ache of being without him for so long still sat buried deep in your chest.

Bucky’s breath was warm against your face and you could feel the sharp inhale in his chest against you. He swallowed, licking at his lips, knowing exactly what you meant, because he always did.

“I missed you, too, sweetheart, more than you could ever know." He tried to push out a smile that fell too quickly as his eyes began to gloss over. “I… I didn’t know how to keep going without you.”

Heart feeling like it had just cracked straight through the middle, an aching pain and a twist in your stomach, you whispered his name with the sweet melody of a prayer and he exhaled a world of pain just to hear his name upon your voice.

His hand snaked up against your hair, pushing away the sparse flyaways in your face. The way he watched you, studied you, like you were something to be treasured, adored, like you were displayed in the Louvre itself, had your heart pounding in your chest, pressed against his. Short, careful breaths as his fingers raked gentle into your scalp, the tender look in his eye, and with a rush of courage, you leaned in.

His lips were unlike anything you'd imagined; somehow pillowy soft and rough at the same time, calloused and velvet. Hesitant at first and just barely touching one another, just feeling the warmth of his breath and the graze of his lips. He was gentle in his movements as he pressed up to kiss you, ushering your head to the side to kiss between your lips, angling you above him. Your hand released his left wrist, allowing it to find its way to your waist. Metal caressing up your side, smooth, steady motions leaving goosebumps in their wake, and you sighed against his mouth.

It was more, better, than you imagined it would be because it was Bucky, and there was never a moment with him that left you unsatisfied. It only took a few seconds before you caught taste of one another and once you did, you couldn’t slow down, couldn’t get enough.

It was months and years of pining, of holding each other in cover of the night and teasing smiles and checking in more than you needed to because not knowing whether or not he was okay on a mission unsettled you unlike anything else. It was too long of being at arm's length, too long of fear of the unknown, too long of being separated against your will and dreaming of him to keep you sane.

Bucky planted his foot on the ground, shifting until you rolled onto your back as he hovered above you. The weight of his body on yours and you kissed at him hungrily, deeply, wrapping a leg around his waist and pushing your heel against him, ushering him to where you so desperately needed him. The grind against you was sinful, perfect, heavenly and you let out a moan that nearly stopped Bucky in his tracks.

He kissed along your jawline, whispering sweet praises in your ear, words of “sweetheart” and “beautiful” chanting like a prayer, and you couldn’t get enough of his voice, of the feel of his hands on you, of his lips pressing and drinking yours in, and you reached for the hem of his shirt. Fingers brushing against his waist line and he flinched slightly, not from the fear of it, but because yours hands were on his skin and anticipation burned through every nerve in his body. Fingers curled under the fabric and began to inch it upwards when suddenly, the loud slam of the gym doors against the wall echoed through the rafters.  

Bucky scrambled off of you, jumping up to his feet and adjusting his shirt quickly as he glanced down at the entrance. You were still on the mat, a little disoriented and hazy as you looked up at him to find him clenching his jaw nervously, a red swell of his lips and a slight mess of his hair. He still managed to look like a dream.

You pulled yourself to your feet, standing beside him as Nat and Sam walked into the gym talking to one another, swinging their bags by their sides.

“Oh hey,” Nat called, taking notice of you and Bucky. As she walked closer, her eyes narrowed, flashing quickly between the pair of you and it didn’t take a specially trained to know what happened. Your cheeks burned red. She pursed her lips into a smirk. “Having fun?”

You parted your lips to answer, but nothing came out. Glancing over at Bucky, and he was raking his hands through his hair, shaking his head because he knew Nat caught them. She was too observant not to. Sam, on the other hand, remained oblivious.

“Anyway,” Nat grinned, turning to you, “I was hoping I could steal Y/n for a bit. We haven’t really had a chance to talk and I miss my best friend.”

A warm smile pulled at your lips and you nodded. As Sam stepped forward to throw himself into the ring with Bucky, guilt hit you hard in the chest at the idea of walking away from Bucky, even for a few hours, after what just happened. There was so much to tell him, so many questions you had; like if this changed things and if he wanted more and if he’d let you kiss him like that again.

You glanced over at Bucky, apologies swimming in your eyes, but you were only met with curved lips and soft eyes. He ushered you towards Nat and helped you swing under the ropes and slide down the platform. The relief was instant.

“Have fun for me,” he asked sincerely, gesturing over at Sam who was cracking his knuckles, “since I’m apparently stuck with this idiot.”

You laughed, leaning into Nat’s shoulder as she swung her arm around you and started to gently tug you towards the doors. You went with her, turning over your shoulder to watch as Bucky started to walk back into the ring, his back to you, and you felt a surge of panic.

“Bucky, wait!”

He froze, jogging back towards the ropes as you met him at the bottom of the platform. He kneeled down to your eye level, gripping on the post for balance and concern filtering through his features.

“We’ll, um, we’ll talk later?” you asked nervously and Bucky’s lips curved up into a content smile. You weren’t used to being the nervous one when it came to him.

“Of course, sweetheart,” he replied breathily, his hand snaking behind the nape of your neck and carefully tugging you towards him to press his lips to your forehead. Warm and soft and gone far too soon, you didn’t mind at all that Sam had raised an eyebrow behind Bucky’s shoulder with a satisfied smirk. Bucky waited until you nodded at him, letting him know you were okay for him to go, before he stood back to his feet.

Nat was just over your shoulder by the time Bucky bumped fists with Sam at the center of the ring, ready to fight. Her hand slid into yours, knowingly, because Natasha Romanoff never let anything slip past her.

***

“Stop! He did not!” you burst into laughter, tears in your eyes as Nat finished telling you about how Sam had managed to crash one of Tony’s seriously expensive cars because Clint had convinced him it was the standard SHIELD issued surveillance vehicle. His reconnaissance mission had escalated to a full city car chase and it didn’t end well for the Maserati.

Nat nodded, grinning ear to ear as she tossed another bite of popcorn into her mouth.

Your stomach was aching from the laughter and from the snacks, but as you sat on the floor of Nat’s room, backs leaning against the wall, just finding space to be completely and entirely unbridged, you found you didn’t mind the twist in your stomach muscles. It was welcomed.

“Where was--” you laughed, trying to catch your breath, “Where was I? How do I not remember this?”

You brushed a tear from you eye just as Nat’s smile slowly fell. She swallowed thickly, pulling his legs up to her chest and turning to you with a solemn look on her face, giving you the answer that made the laughter die in your chest.

“Oh.”

“I’m sorry,” she started, but you held up your hand.

“No, no, it’s okay, Nat,” you replied sincerely, grabbed her hand and giving it a gentle squeeze. “I’m here now, right? I’m good.”

She nodded, though it was hesitant. “Are you?”

You thought about it for a moment. It was an easy response, convincing people you were okay. You'd had a long history of saying you were okay even when you weren’t, only because it was easier to brush it aside, to not have to talk about it, until it eventually festered and boiled and you woke screaming and crying in the dead of night.

You had gaps in your memory, trauma you still didn’t know you endured, and only of a glimpse of the hell you’d been put through for seven months, but it was behind you. You were home. You were safe. You were surrounded by the most advanced technology in the world and Fury had every agent available tracking down the man with the scar you described for their sketch artist. There was no shoe to be dropped, you had to believe that, otherwise you’d go insane. You had everything you needed, survived the worst of it.

And you had Bucky.

“I think I’m getting there,” you said, nodding with a relief in your tone that had Nat’s smile returning.

“You’re gonna talk to Barnes, right?” she grinned, nudging your shoulder until you were laughing again.

“I knew you saw that!”

“Don’t need to see it in action to know what you two were up to,” she teased. “Your face was the color of my hair and Barnes couldn’t meet my eye. It doesn’t take a spy to figure it out.”

You covered your face with your hands as Nat leaned her head on your shoulder, laughing. It was the lightest you’d felt since you’d been back, like you were teenagers again with so much too look forward to, naïve and care-free. After a while when the laughs died down again, Natasha was still leaning on your shoulder, playing with your hand.

“I like you and Barnes together,” she said quietly, a steady observation, one she’d had for years since you were sneaking him off to the city on adventures and back when he was accompanying you innocently on morning runs. “You’re good for each other. You helped bring him back from something dark when he first came to us and it’s obvious how much he cares for you.”

You nodded, trying to distract yourself in the tingle of Nat’s fingers as she drew pictures on your palm. “Was he okay?”

She paused. “What do you mean?”

“When I was... gone,” you muttered out and Nat sat up to look at you properly as you tried to find your words. You ran your fingers through your hair in a nervous tick. “I don’t remember a whole lot after the last video but I... I remember they showed me footage of you guys of when it aired. I saw Bucky react to it; kneeling in the street and just... screaming.”

Nat let out a heavy breath as she scooted closer to you, sitting hip to hip, and this time, it was you that leaned against her. She brushed her hand through your hair, trying to ease you as tears welled in your eyes.

“He... He really struggled, Y/n,” she replied after a prolonged silence. “Even before that video, he wasn’t himself, kept teetering back and forth between his depression and the winter soldier.”

You clenched your jaw and a tear rolled down your cheek. Nat squeezed your hand.

“After you di--” Nat sucked in a harsh breath, recollecting herself, “after we thought you died, he just lost it; stopped eating, stopped sleeping. Until one day he just up and disappeared. Steve told us he was traveling but we all knew was he was really up to. Took me a while but I finally caught up with him in Brussels a few months later and he was taking out Hydra agents on some hitlist he made up.”

“He what?” you gaped, sitting up as wide eyes met Nat’s, heart painful in your chest. She nodded carefully.

“I don’t know if you ever realized how much you meant to him, Y/n,” she continued solemnly. “He hit rock bottom for a while; gave into the winter soldier because it was easier than letting himself grieve. Took us a while to bring him home again but he started to come around. He was starting to heal again but... he was a wreck, Y/n. Hell, we all were, but James... he said some things to Steve that really scared us.”

You narrowed your eyes, heart already threatening to jump straight from your chest. “What are you talking about? What did he say?”

“That’s something you have to ask him about,” she sighed, offering you a pained smile. It didn’t meet her eyes. “My point, is that he wasn’t anywhere near okay, Y/n. He won’t let you see that because he’s trying to be strong for you. After what you’d been through, his pain, our pain, is nothing in comparison...”

“I’m not in the business of sizing up traumas, Nat,” you said sincerely and she nodded.

“I know,” she replied, snuggling up against you. “I just want to make sure you know you don’t have to be afraid with him. He cares for you, Y/n. There's no situation where he’d ever turn you away.”

You brushed the tears from your tears, curling up against the soft scent of vanilla in Natasha’s hair and hooking your arm with hers. There was nothing left to say, nothing that could change what happened over the last seven months and the heartbreak and suffering you’d both endured. But sitting here, leaning on your best friend while reruns of your favorite sitcom played from your laptop, it was all a little less painful. You’d find a way to chip it away, piece by piece, until it was a distant memory and you’d need your family to do that.

You’d need Bucky.

“I should go talk to him,” you said after a while, your voice rough as it came out.

Nat squeezed your hand, smiling softly as she pulled away from you. She brushed her fingers through your hair, taming it along your shoulders and rubbing gently under your eyes to wipe it clear of tears.

“I’m sure he’s still up, listening for you to get back to your room okay,” Nat teased playfully, drawing a smile from you like she intended. She pulled you tight against her side, wrapping an arm around your shoulders in a warm embrace. “I’d say good luck, but you clearly don’t need it.”

You laughed through the nerves in your stomach and pushed yourself to your feet. A short wave goodbye as Nat settled in with her bowl of popcorn, the next episode of the series you’d been watching on auto play and she gave you a wink as you closed the door behind you.

There was nothing to be afraid of. It was only Bucky. Sweet, kind, incredibly selfless Bucky whose lips had grazed yours just hours ago and yet your heart was in your throat. Anxiety and panic twisting and turning in your stomach with every step as you declined the stairs two flights to the floor you shared with Bucky.

Thousands of possibilities ran through your mind, wondering if he’d regret what happened on the ring or if he’d run from you or push you away. You wondered if he felt this way all along, like you had, if he longed for you the way you so desperately longed for him. You wondered if maybe all the pain and suffering you’d endured led you to this moment, just you so could be here, standing outside of his bedroom with only the thin layer of wood separating his quietly pacing steps beyond the door.

A heavy exhale, gathering what remained of your courage, and then, you knocked.  

----

listen guys its about time I gave you something other than never ending angst 😉

tags 🧠@buckygrantbarnes / @mywinterwolf / @breatheeagainnnn / @jewelofwinter / @panic-naran / @fairislesheets / @kaliforniacoastalteens / @captain-hammer-of-asgard / @daydreamsquad / @deanssweetheart / @maybesomedaytho / @montypythonsholysnail / @saharzek / @jillybeaner13 / @chubby-dumplin / @searchingforbucky / @alohafromhell1 / @tabalugax / @shesalatesh / @whyamidoingthistomyselfhelp / @aliensbecameourstyle / @bucksgoat / @serpensortiaaa / @trash-rats-unite / @hungry-pasta / @nervosaa / @lbuck121/ @get0verit / @obama-mia / @imsoft-barnes / @this-broken-band-girl / @michelehansel / @itz-kira / @forever157 / @grey-water-colors / @sebastianstan-posts / @sarcastic-and-cool / @no-clue-whats-happenin / @capsgrl / @happyeyesandsunshine / @slithredn / @13sunken-ships13 / @thefandomplace / @wxstedhexrt /  @jennmurawski13 / @galaxkay / @moonlessnight14/ @kittybritty7 / @sweetheartbarnes / @pancakefancake / @vitamingrant / @musiclover1263 / @pies-wands-and-more

#bucky barnes #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x you #marvel #bucky barnes x female reader #guiding light #tw: ptsd

[labyrinthof-fan-fiction]

Laughing on the Outside (Crying on the Inside)

Bucky X Fem!Reader

A/N: Hi, me again, with another fic inspired by a song from my Vera Lynn Playlist….. I’m sorry. Should I be considering these Song fics? Does it count if I’m not directly quoting the lyrics through the whole thing….? But I love it. Dinah Shore’s ‘Laughing on the Outside (Crying on the Inside) is our new muse. Recorded in 1946, made it to #3 on the Billboard Charts. Written by Bernie Wayne, Lyrics by Ben Raleigh.

Summary: You and Bucky had broken up a while ago, but who should you come across at a dance club, the night before he ships off to war?

Warnings: Angst, again. Alcohol consumption, minor swears. 

Disclaimer: I do not own Bucky, Steve, any of the Marvel Universe. I do not own ‘Laughing on the Outside (Crying on the Inside).’

Word Count: 2,920

James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes was the happiest man on Earth, at least to most of the people who saw him. There were only two people who could see through is mask, his best friend, Steve Rogers and you. But now there was only one, Steve. You had left him, for good reasons too. He was an arrogant prick, at times. And you had called him on it, he snapped. You  left him, something he never thought would happen. The ring he had stored in the top drawer of his dresser was proof of that.

To the whole world he was a carefree young man. Dancing and romancing all the women he could find. Each night there was a new dame on his arm. Women wanted to be with him, men wanted to be him, and he just wanted you. Steve had walked in on him holding your picture with tears streaming down his face. It had been months since you walked away.

“She’s gone, Steve. She’s not coming back.” Bucky muttered. “And I’m still in love with her.” His thumb brushing gently over the cheek of your photo.

“Buck….” Steve began, but he wasn’t sure how to proceed. He knew Bucky loved you, and he was still confused on why the two of you broke up. Bucky never gave him the specifics. And you had kept your distance from him to the point that he was sure you were avoiding him.

Bucky wiped the tears from his eyes, placed your photo back into his wallet, and turned to the blonde man in front of him. “How ‘bout we go out tonight?”

“If you’re sure…” Steve said warily.

“Yeah, yeah, it’ll be fine.” Bucky answered, running a hand through his short hair. A smile splitting his face, not quite making it to his storm cloud grey eyes. Steve was wondering if the blue would ever return to his best friend eyes. Bucky went through the door first, Steve paused, his eyes falling on the unmistakeable black velvet box on top of Bucky’s dresser. He was frozen for a second, surely, that wasn’t….. He shook his head. Buck would have told him if he was going to propose, wouldn’t he?

He scampered after his dark haired friend, who had already made his way into the street. A suave air surrounded Bucky, but Steve could feel the falsity of it. Even when Bucky ended the night with a girl wrapped in his arms, smile on his face as he walked her home, Steve trailing behind with the girl’s reluctant friend. When they bid the girls goodnight Steve could feel the shift in his friend. The carefree attitude melted away and he was left with a sulky Bucky.

More months passed and Bucky was out with a new woman each day and night. Sometimes there were even more than one on his arm. Steve was concerned for his friend. While the rest of the world saw him having the time of his life, “Just as a young man should.” One of Bucky’s neighbors said. Steve hoped they remembered that sentiment as he lugged his much larger, very drunk, best friend back to his apartment.

“Dammit, Buck,” Steve said as his friend leaned against the wall of his apartment building, swaying from the amount of alcohol in his system. Steve cursed his smaller stature, he would have thrown Bucky into his room if he had been able.

A chuckle escaped Bucky’s lips, “Dammit is right, Stevie.” He hiccuped. “Dammit, Barnes. Dammit, dammit, dammit.”

Steve let a sigh escape his lips. He didn’t want to discount the feelings Bucky was having, but damn did he wish that his friend had a healthier way of dealing. “What’s going on Buck?”

“It’s her birthday, you know what I was going to do for her birthday?” Bucky asked, his hand going into his pocket. “I was going to give her this.” He pulled the black velvet box out. He opened it and Steve could see the diamond sparkling in the moonlight. “I was going to ask her to spend her life with me.” Tears started streaming from his eyes. A sob broke through his lips.

Steve’s heart clenched as he watched his friend sink to the ground, cradling the engagement ring to his chest. Full bodied sobs echoing in the alley. Steve sat next to Bucky, remaining silent.

“I’ll love her until I die, Stevie.” He said, his head resting against the wall as he stared up at the sky. “No one else will compare.”

“I know, Buck, I know.” Steve said, he knew that Bucky meant every word he said. If only he could get him to say them to you. But he doubted that was possible. First off, you had been avoiding him. Second, he had heard you had a new beau. He hadn’t brought it upon himself to tell the man next to him just yet. He didn’t know if he could, he feared that if he did it would break his best friend.

Bucky sighed and wiped the tears from his eyes, placing the ring in his pocket. “We can’t sleep out here.” He pulled himself up shakily, Steve quickly standing and throwing Bucky’s arm over his shoulders to give him something to lean on. Steve managed to help his friend into bed, Bucky rolled over and looked at Steve. “Do you think she loves me still?”

Steve paused, he had almost made it out the door. “I don’t know, Buck. You’d have to ask her.”

A dry chuckle fell from Bucky’s lips, “Yeah.” Steve heard soft snores from his friend and made his exit, not before he heard your name fall from Bucky’s lips.

A year had passed since the break up and Bucky was out on the town. He was feeling like no one could stop him, he was on top of the world. Confidence oozed from his pores as he walked down the street. Steve had been busy today, so Bucky decided to take a walk around the block. He waved at a few dames he came across, opened some doors, charmed an uptown girl. He stopped in his tracks when he rounded the corner and he came face to face with you.

“Watch where you’re……going.” You snapped, slowing down when you saw who was in front of you. “James…..”

“Y/N.” He said softly, before a grin fell across his face. “What are you doing in this neck of the woods?”

You were taken aback by his smile, “You know I work here.”

He glanced around, “I guess you do, I forgot. Been a while.”

“It has.” You said softly, taking in the sight of the man in front of you. He seemed happy, or at least he wanted you to believe he was happy. But you knew better. It’s not your responsibility anymore, you made sure of that. You reminded yourself.

“Well, it was nice seeing you. Take care.” He said, giving you a nod continuing on down the street. You could hear him whistling down the street. You felt a small pang in your chest as you watched his retreating form, a small part of you wishing that he would turn around, but he never did.

As he walked away he felt his eyes stinging, but tears refused to fall. His heart felt like it was weeping. But he whistled as he walked, trying to distract himself from the tearing of the feeble repairs he had made to his broken heart.

Two more years passed before you found each other again. You were at your favorite dance hall. It was packed with men in uniforms, looking for a dame to dance the night away with, before they were sent to war. You were more than happy to spin around the dance hall, it took your mind off of him. At least, it did until a man who reminded you of him took you out onto the floor. A flash of dark hair or grey eyes were enough for you to imagine you were in his arms again. You found yourself wondering if he was going to war, was he there already, was he alive? You stopped yourself, you couldn’t think about that right now. The man whose arms you were in didn’t need you staining his uniform with your tears over another.

Bucky straightened the tie on his new uniform. It felt odd to him, standing in front of his mirror, looking at this version of himself. Sure, this was what he had wanted, but it still didn’t feel like him. He glanced down at the drawer in his dresser, the ring box still there. He opened the drawer and pulled the ring out of the box and tucking it into his breast pocket. He knew most of the boys took tokens of their girls with them. He didn’t have you anymore, but he could pretend, he thought as he placed his hand over the ring.

“Buck, c’mon. I’m not getting any younger.” Steve called, “If we want to go dancing you need to get out of your room and stop staring at yourself. Damn narcissistic bastard.”

“Comin’.” Bucky called to him as he made his way to the door, placing his hat upon his head. Time to dance the night away and pretend it was you in his arms.

Steve and Bucky entered the dancehall, Steve quickly felt uneasy. Something in his bones made him want to flee. Bucky’s eyes swept the hall, looking for his target. He stopped when he saw you in the corner, alone against the wall. This couldn’t be right, there was no way you were here. He pinched his wrist, he wasn’t asleep. This wasn’t a dream, but did it feel like a dream to see you standing there.

Steve followed Bucky’s eyes and realized why his best friend had frozen. “Bucky…”

“I’m not going to go die without telling her I’m still in love with her.” Bucky cut Steve off, the ring in his pocket feeling heavy.

Steve stepped in front of him, he may be smaller, but he was far superior in the stubbornness department, that was if you asked him. “Buck, think about this before you do something stupid.”

“Steve,” Bucky began, looking down at his friend in front of him. “I might not come home. And damn it all, I’m going to tell her everything. It might not change anything, but I will go over there knowing that she knows.” He pushed aside his friend and made his way over to your corner. Your back was to him, intently watching the band. He removed his hat and put it in one hand. “Hello, doll.”

You turned quickly, fearing that if you were too slow that voice, that man would disappear. But he remained behind you, nervously tapping his fingers on the hat in his hands. A smile came across your face.

“Is there room on your dance card for me?” He asked sheepishly.

“Always.” You answered, his eyes lighting up, he placed his hat on the table next to you and offered his hand. You took it in yours and allowed him to lead you onto the dance floor. His hand pulled yours to his shoulder, his other arm wrapping around your waist, pulling you close to him. You wrapped your empty arm around his neck. You felt his heartbeat pounding in his chest. You instinctively put your hand in his hair, massaging his scalp.

You felt a warm puff of air on your cheek. “Doll….” He murmured low into your ear. Your knees grew weak and you were glad for the grip he held on your waist.

“Darling. I’m so sorry.” You whispered. You could feel the tears falling from your eyes. He burrowed his face into your neck, breathing in your scent. “I’m so, so sorry.”

He remained silent for a moment. You stiffened, wondering what he would do, how he would react. His hand at your waist moved in circles along the small of your back. “I’m sorry too.”

You remained in each others embrace, lucky the band had chosen to do a slow set. “I still love you, doll. I always have.” Bucky stated abruptly, breaking the silence. “I had to tell you before I go. I don’t know what’s going to happen over there, but I needed you to know…”

You cut him off by pulling away from his embrace, causing a panicked look to come across his face. You ignored this and pulled him closer to you, pressing your lips to his. The world around the two of you faded away as you deepened the kiss, his left hand remaining on your waist, his right threading itself in your hair.

You broke apart for a moment to allow each other air before his lips crashed back into yours. You let out a small hum as he pressed even closer, you doubted that even air could be between the two of you. He pulled away, breathless and stared into your eyes. He didn’t press you for a response to his confessions, he didn’t ask for an explanation, he just stared into your eyes.

Neither of you said a word, continuing to remain in each others arms for the rest of the night. Last call was announced and Bucky held his arm out to you. “Let me walk you home, just one last time.”

You accepted the arm, noticing Steve out of the corner of your eye. A small smile was on his face.

The walk home was quiet, but comfortable. You had so much you wanted to say, but no words fell from your lips. When you made it to your doorstep you turned to the man in front of you. When you had broken up a boy was in front you. Impulsive and headstrong. Here was a man. Here is the man you love.

He glanced nervously between you and the door. Right now the only thought in your minds was the very really possibility that this would be the last time you saw each other. Your rational side begged you to think things through, but you threw caution to the wind. You could not send him to war without letting him know how you felt.

“I’m still in love with you.” You blurted out, at the same time he said, “I love you.”

You both chuckled. Bucky placed a hand on your cheek. “Some way, some how, I’m going to make it back to you, doll. I swear it.”

You leant into his hand, “Don’t make promises you don’t know you can keep.”

“Come hell or high water, I won’t spend anymore time away from you. I will not spend any more time pretending that I am not hopelessly in love with you.” He took his hand from his cheek and pulled out the ring. “I have carried this for years, holding onto the hope that I would give it to you. It is going to stay in my pocket until I get the chance to properly give it to you, when all this is over. I swear to you, that I will come back. I will marry you and will love you until my dying day.”

You were stunned into silence, you didn’t know what to say, so you pulled him in for another kiss. This one more urgent than those on the dance floor. Bucky pulled away, you stared into his eyes, the grey seemed to be breaking away into pale blue, much like the sky after a storm. You could feel the weight of Bucky’s promise in the air, but you would worry about that when, if the time came. You threaded your fingers through his and opened your door, dragging the new soldier in behind you. “Stay with me.” You murmured.

Bucky knew he could not refuse you, as you lead him to your bedroom. “Doll…..we don’t have to.” He started, stopping in the doorway.

“Buck, please hold me tonight. Like you used to.”

He nodded, stripping down to his undershirt and boxers as you changed from your dancing dress to a nightgown. Bucky pulled the covers back on your bed and burrowed under them, opening his arms for you to settle into. You placed your head on his chest as his arms wrapped around you. You felt his heartbeat begin to slow as gentle snores fell from his lips lulling you to sleep. You woke the next morning in his arms, his grip tightening before he was pulled from sleep. He placed a sleepy kiss to your forehead. “I have to go.” He murmured, tracing patterns on your back.

“I know.” You answered, tears falling onto his chest.

He shifted underneath you, and you knew this was your cue to move, you pulled yourself from his arms as he released you. He rolled from the bed and dressed himself in his uniform. When you were both dressed you stood at your door.

“I love you.” You whispered, putting a hand over his heart. “Please come back to me.”

He placed his hand on top of yours. “I promise.” He placed a gentle kiss to your lips before turning to the door and leaving. You watched his broad frame fade from view. Both of you oblivious to the fact that he would break his promise to come home to you. But neither of you ever broke your promise to love the other until your last breath.

#james buchanan barnes #james bucky barnes #bucky barnes #bucky barnes imagine #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #I can't stop writing for this man #I'm so sorry trekkies who followed me for spock #I promise I'll come back to him #but bucky is in the forefront of my mind right now #i will make it back to trek

[omgjasminesimone]

Side Masterlist 3

Open Heart:

Girlfriend (Lahela Siblings, Bryce x MC)

Costume Party (Bryce x MC)

Work Woes (Lahela Siblings, Bryce x MC)

Soulmates (Bryce x MC)

Grandmother’s Ring (Bryce x MC)

Ride or Die:

Baby (Logan x MC)

82 Writing Prompts:

Imtura x MC (Distant), Bryce x MC (Allergic Reaction), Edward x MC (Home), Imtura x MC (Ballroom), Bryce x MC (Uno), Bryce x MC (Hospice), Logan x MC (Do You Ever Miss Us), Tyril x MC (Marry You), Rafael x MC (His Clothes), Rafael x MC (The Future), Hunter x MC & Edward x MC (Married), Edward x MC (Sparring), Colt x MC (Enemies to Lovers), Mona x MC (Home), Olivia x Drake (Flirt or Fight), Bryce x MC (Don’t Hang Up), Logan x MC (Nap), Logan x MC (Hair Cut), Logan x MC (Counting the Minutes), Logan x MC (Spring Break), Edward x MC (Spirits), Mal x MC (Come With Me), Ethan x MC (McDreamy), Colt x MC (Not a Date), Colt x MC (Adderall), Logan x MC (Pictagram), Logan x MC (Making Up), Colt x MC (Ridiculous), Colt x MC (Open House), Bryce x MC (Ignoring), Bryce x MC (All You Can Eat)

50 Travel Prompts:

Edward x MC (Take off), Logan x MC (Nana’s Birthday), Raleigh x MC (Ambien), Bryce x MC (Cruise), Imtura x MC (Highway to Hell), Logan x MC (Pullover), Colt x MC (AAA), Logan x MC (Semi Formal), Raleigh x MC (TSA), Bryce x MC (Subway Soulmate), Edward x MC (Visit), Mona x MC (Jail House Visit), Bryce x MC (Road Trip), Logan x MC (Missing Luggage), Bryce x MC vs Rafael x MC (Overweight Bag), Rafael x MC (Dash to the Airport)

10 Things I Hate About You OTP Asks:

Logan x MC, Bryce x MC, Colt x MC, Edward x MC, Raleigh x MC, Rafael x MC, Ethan x MC, Tom x MC, Mona x MC

Random AU Prompts:

Bryce x MC (Officer Valentine), Logan x MC (High School Basketball Star), Griffin x MC (College Basketball Star), Bryce x MC (Camp Counselors), Logan x MC (Library), Raleigh x MC (Bartender), Bryce x MC (Divorce Lawyer), Bryce x MC (Halftime), Rafael x MC (Officer Aveiro)

55 More Random Dialogue Prompts:

Imtura x MC (Know You’re Awake),  Logan x MC (Mugging), Edward x MC (Pretty in the Morning), Colt x MC (Serious), Bryce x MC (Words in My Mouth), Logan x MC (Conspiracy), Logan x MC (Second Base), Logan x MC (Working on It), Bryce x MC (Mean Drunk), Colt x MC (Seduction), Edward x MC (Reckless),  Colt x MC (Tense), Edward x MC (Fancy Meeting You), Hunter x MC (Up with the Baby), Logan x MC (Your Dad Hates Me), Ben x MC (Video game), Bryce x MC (FBI), Logan x MC (The Bachelor), Bryce x MC (Photo Album), Kayden x MC (Careful), Colt x MC (Lie), Logan x MC (Model), Edward x MC (Stay), Tyril x MC (Hat Lunch), Ben x MC (Youtube), Edward x MC (Can’t Take Anymore), Raleigh x MC (Sex Sells), Logan x MC (BTS Concert), Rafael x MC (Forgiving), Mona x MC (Where Were You), Hunter x MC (Not Asking Permission), Bryce x MC (Netflix Password), Bryce x MC (Regret), Adrian x MC (Eat the Rich), Rafael x MC (Too Late), Adrian x MC (Not an Emergency), Logan x MC (Hospital Gown), Bryce x MC (Professional Boundaries), Mona x MC (Not Undeserving), Bryce x MC (Amazing Opportunity)

#masterlist #choices fanfiction #due to quarantine side masterlist 2 already has more than 100 links #so now side masterlist 3

[flowerforaheart]

Every number including a six please 😇😇😇

6. Fearless - Louis Tomlinson

16. Defenceless - Louis Tomlinson

26. Black and white - Niall Horan

36. Two of us - Louis Tomlinson

46. A little bit yours - JP Saxe

56. You should be sad - Halsey

60. 3am - Halsey

61. Dynamite - BTS

62. Ever since New York - Harry Styles

63. Squares - Raleigh Ritchie

64. Cross your mind - Niall Horan

65. Kill my mind - Louis Tomlinson

66. Allemaal door jou - Bart Peeters

67. Worries - Raleigh Ritchie

68. Everywhere - Niall Horan

69. Mikrokosmos - BTS

76. Shadow - Raleigh Ritchie

86. Words fail - Ben Platt (from the Dear Evan Hansen sound track)

96. Ça fait mal - Aya Nakamura

THERE

#every number including a six she says #i almost jumped straight from 56 to 66 but i caught myself #anyway the diversity here is astounding #good lord #anyway #ily anna <3 #plastichouseplants #answered

[blackkudos]

Diane Nash

Diane Judith Nash (born May 15, 1938) is an American civil rights activist, and a leader and strategist of the student wing of the Civil Rights Movement.

Nash's campaigns were among the most successful of the era. Her efforts included the first successful civil rights campaign to integrate lunch counters (Nashville); the Freedom Riders, who desegregated interstate travel; co-founding the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC); and co-initiating the Alabama Voting Rights Project and working on the Selma Voting Rights Movement. This helped gain Congressional passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which authorized the federal government to oversee and enforce state practices to ensure that African Americans and other minorities were not prevented from registering and voting.

Early life

Nash was born in 1938 and raised in Chicago by her father Leon Nash and her mother Dorothy Bolton Nash in a middle-class Catholic area. Her father was a veteran of World War II. Her mother worked as a keypunch operator during the war, leaving Nash in the care of her grandmother, Carrie Bolton, until age 7. Bolton was a cultured woman, known for her refinement and manners.

After the war, Nash's parents' marriage ended. Dorothy married again to John Baker, a waiter on the railroad dining cars owned by the Pullman Company. Baker was a member of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, one of the most powerful black unions in the nation. As Dorothy no longer worked outside the house, Diane saw less of her grandmother Carrie Bolton, but she continued as an important influence in Nash's life. Bolton was committed to making sure her granddaughter understood her worth and value, and didn't discuss race often, believing that racial prejudice was something that was taught to younger generations by their elders. Her grandmother's words and actions instilled Diane with confidence and a strong sense of self-worth, while also creating a bit of a sheltered environment that left her vulnerable to the severity of racism in the outside world as she grew older.

Education

Nash attended Catholic schools,. She also was the runner-up in a regional beauty pageant leading to the competition for Miss Illinois.

After finishing Hyde Park High School in Chicago, Diane Nash went to Washington, D.C., to attend Howard University, a historically black college (HBCU). After a year, she transferred to Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she majored in English. Nash acknowledged that she looked forward to personal growth during her time in college and wanted to explore the challenging issues of the time. In Nashville, she was first exposed to the full force of Jim Crow laws and customs and their effect on the lives of Blacks. Nash recounted her experience at the Tennessee State Fair when she had to use the "Colored Women" restroom, signifying the first time she had ever seen and been impacted by segregation signage. Outraged by the realities of segregation, Nash began to show signs of leadership and soon became a full-time activist.

Nash's family members were surprised when she joined the Civil Rights Movement. Her grandmother was quoted as saying, "Diane, you've gotten in with the wrong bunch;" she did not know that Diane was the chairwoman of organizing the nonviolent protests at her university. Her family was not familiar with the idea of working for civil rights, and it took her family time to fully recognize her position as a key player in the Civil Rights Movement. Eventually, her mother fundraised for the Freedom Riders. Nash said in a PBS Tavis Smiley interview, "My mother ended up going to fundraisers in Chicago that were raising money to send to the students in the South and actually, over years, she went to an elevated train bus station one day at 6:00 a.m. to hand out leaflets protesting the war." Her mother was influenced by Nash's sense of empowerment.

Nashville Student Movement

At Fisk, Nash searched for a way to challenge segregation. Nash began attending nonviolent civil disobedience workshops led by James Lawson. While in India, James Lawson had studied Mahatma Gandhi's techniques of nonviolent direct action and passive resistance used in his political movement. By the end of her first semester at Fisk, Nash had become one of Lawson's most devoted disciples. Although originally a reluctant participant in nonviolence, Nash emerged as a leader due to her well-spoken, composed manner when speaking to the authorities and to the press. In 1960 at age 22, she became the leader of the Nashville sit-ins, which lasted from February to May. Lawson's workshops included simulations in order to prepare the students to handle verbal and physical harassment that they would ultimately face during the sit-ins. In preparation, the students would venture out to segregated stores and restaurants, doing nothing more than speaking with the manager when they were refused service. Lawson graded their interactions in each simulation and sit-in, reminding them to have love and compassion for their harassers. This movement was unique for the time in that it was led by and composed primarily of college students and young people. The Nashville sit-ins spread to 69 cities across the United States.

Though protests would continue in Nashville and across the South, Diane Nash and three other students were first successfully served at the Post House Restaurant on March 17, 1960. Students continued the sit-ins at segregated lunch counters for months, accepting arrest in line with nonviolent principles. Nash, with John Lewis, led the protesters in a policy of refusing to pay bail. In February 1961, Nash served jail time in solidarity with the "Rock Hill Nine" — nine students imprisoned after a lunch counter sit-in. They were all sentenced to pay a $50 fine for sitting at a whites-only lunch counter. Chosen as spokesperson, Nash said to the judge, "We feel that if we pay these fines we would be contributing to and supporting the injustice and immoral practices that have been performed in the arrest and conviction of the defendants."

When Nash asked Nashville's mayor, Ben West, on the steps of City Hall, "Do you feel it is wrong to discriminate against a person solely on the basis of their race or color?", the mayor admitted that he did. Three weeks later, the lunch counters of Nashville were serving blacks. Reflecting on this event, Nash said, "I have a lot of respect for the way he responded. He didn't have to respond the way he did. He said that he felt it was wrong for citizens of Nashville to be discriminated against at the lunch counters solely on the basis of the color of their skin. That was the turning point. That day was very important."

While participating in the Nashville sit-in, Diane Nash first met fellow protester James Bevel, whom she would later marry. They had two children together, a son and a daughter. The couple divorced after seven years of marriage and Nash never remarried.

In August 1961, Diane Nash participated in a picket line to protest a local supermarket's refusal to hire blacks. When local white youths started egging the picket line and punching various people, police intervened. They arrested 15 people, only five of whom were the white attackers. All but one of the blacks who were jailed accepted the $5 bail and were freed. But Nash stayed. The 21-year-old activist had insisted on her arrest with the other blacks, and once in jail, refused bail.

SNCC and SCLC

In spring 1960, nearly two hundred students involved with the nationwide sit-in movement arrived in Raleigh, North Carolina, for an organizing conference. There, the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference), at Ella Baker's request, sponsored the students' meeting on April 15. Martin Luther King envisioned a simple SCLC student league, but Baker herself advised the youth to remain autonomous and follow their own principles. Accordingly, in April 1960 Nash was one of the leading founders of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC - pronounced "snick"), independent of any adult organizations, and quit school to lead its direct action wing. In the coming years, organizations such as CORE and SCLC would try to recruit SNCC as their own student wing, with SNCC always resisting the invitations. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee would go on to be involved with some of the most important campaigns of the civil rights era, adding a fresh and active youth voice to the movement.

In early 1961, Nash and ten fellow students were put under arrest in Rock Hill, South Carolina, for protesting segregation. Once jailed, they would not accept the chance for bail. These dramatic events began to bring light to the fight for racial justice that was beginning to emerge. It also highlighted the idea of "jail, no bail", which was utilized by many other civil rights activists as the fight for rights progressed.

Originally fearful of jail, Nash was arrested dozens of times for her activities. She spent 30 days in a South Carolina jail after protesting segregation in Rock Hill, in February 1961. In 1962, although she was four months pregnant with her daughter Sherri, she faced a two-year prison sentence in Mississippi for contributing to the delinquency of minors whom she had encouraged to become Freedom Riders and ride on the buses. Despite her pregnancy, she was ready to serve her time with the possibility of her daughter's being born in jail. Nash took the weight of this possibility seriously, spending two days praying and meditating before coming to a decision and penning an open letter. "I believe that if I go to jail now, it may help hasten that day when my child and all children will be free — not only on the day of their birth but for all their lives." She was sentenced to 10 days in jail in Jackson, Mississippi, "where she spent her time there washing her only set of clothing in the sink during the day and listening to cockroaches skitter overhead at night".

Nash would go on to serve many roles for the SCLC from 1961 through 1965 while it was under Martin Luther King Jr. Though years later, Nash is clear about how she saw herself in relation to King, stating "I never considered Dr. King my leader. I always considered myself at his side and I considered him at my side. I was going to do what the spirit told me to do. So If I had a leader, that was my leader." She later cut ties with the SCLC, questioning their leadership structure, including their male- and clergy-dominated ranks. She would also split from SNCC in 1965 when their directives changed under Stokley Carmichael's leadership, taking particular issue with the organization's departure from the founding pillar of nonviolence.

Freedom Riders

"We will not stop. There is only one outcome," stated Diane Nash, referring to the 1961 CORE Freedom Riders. Designed to challenge state segregation of interstate buses and facilities, the project was suspended by CORE after a bus was firebombed and several riders were severely injured in attacks by a mob in Birmingham, Alabama. Nash called on Fisk University and other college students to fill buses to keep the Freedom Rides going. They traveled to the South to challenge the states. The Nashville students, encouraged by Nash, promptly decided to finish the trip that had been suspended at Birmingham. New Orleans Congress of Racial Equality, the Nashville students, and Nash were committed, ready, and willing. "It was clear to me that if we allowed the Freedom Ride to stop at that point, just after so much violence had been inflicted, the message would have been sent that all you have to do to stop a nonviolent campaign is inflict massive violence," says Nash. Nash took over responsibility for the Freedom Rides and worked to recruit Riders, act as media spokesperson, and garner the support of the government and other Movement leaders. Coordinating from Nashville, she led the Freedom Riders from Birmingham, Alabama to Jackson, Mississippi, where CORE Field Secretary Tom Gaither coordinated a massive program on the ground.

After the severe attacks, CORE's Executive Director James Farmer Jr. a veteran of CORE's original 1947 Freedom Rides, was hesitant to continue them. Nash talked with the students of the Nashville Student Movement and argued that, "We can't let them stop us with violence. If we do, the movement is dead." Nash remained adamant that they not send a message to the public that civil rights efforts could be stopped with violence. As the violence escalated and bus drivers began to refuse service to the Riders due to the dangers, Attorney General Robert Kennedy became involved and worked to keep the Rides going. Kennedy called the Alabama governor and the Greyhound bus company to implore them to allow the Rides to continue. Kennedy insisted that his special assistant John Seigenthaler travel to Alabama to get directly involved in the matter. Seigenthaler informed the reluctant Alabama governor that it was the government's duty to protect these citizens during the Freedom Rides. Nash spoke with Seigenthaler on the phone, and Seigenthaler warned her that the Freedom Rides could result in death and violence for participants. She responded, "We know someone will be killed, but we cannot let violence overcome nonviolence." Nash explained to Seigenthaler that she and other students had already signed their wills. John Lewis, who had just returned from the Freedom Ride, agreed to continue it, as did other students. A contingent of activists from New Orleans CORE also participated. They continued the action to a successful conclusion six months later.

When Nash was bringing a batch of students to Birmingham to continue the Ride, she telephoned Birmingham activist Fred Shuttlesworth to inform him. He responded to her sternly: "Young lady, do you know that the Freedom Riders were almost killed here?" Nash assured him that she did and that that would not stop her from continuing the ride. After gathering the final list of Riders, she placed a phone call to Shuttlesworth. They knew their phone line had been tapped by local police, so they worked out a set of coded messages related to, of all things, poultry. For instance, "roosters" were substituted for male Freedom Riders, "hens" for female Riders and so on. When Nash called Shuttlesworth again on Wednesday morning to tell him "The chickens are boxed," he knew that the Freedom Riders were on their way.

On May 20, 1961, the Riders left Birmingham for Montgomery with the promise of protection from the federal government, including police escorts and planes flying overhead. After about 40 miles, all signs of protection disappeared, and the Riders were subjected to a violent, angry mob armed with makeshift weapons such as pipes and bricks. Both white and black Riders were injured by the mob, including special assistant John Seigenthaler who exited his car to help one of the female Riders who was being beaten. When all the other Riders had left the bus terminal, five of the female Riders phoned Shuttlesworth, who relayed their whereabouts to Nash. Others called Nash directly, to inform her of the chaotic situation that had occurred. Fearing that all the riders were subject to arrest, Nash advised them to stay out of sight from the police, but this was compromised by Wilbur and Hermann, who had called the police after fleeing from the terminal area.

On May 21, 1961, Martin Luther King Jr. arrived at the First Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. King had caused tension between himself and the Freedom Riders, Nash included, due to his refusal to participate in the Rides. Diane Nash was present at the First Baptist Church that night and is credited with playing a key role in getting King to come and speak in support of the Freedom Riders. More than 1,500 citizens were trapped inside the church overnight as violence raged outside. Martial law had to be declared by Alabama Governor John Patterson to finally bring an end to the mob. Gov. Patterson had been highly criticized by many within the movement for his unwillingness to support and protect the Riders. This was the first time he and the state of Alabama had moved to protect the movement. King preached to the crowd inside the church while teargas seeped in from outside, telling them that they would "remain calm" and "continue to stand up for what we know is right."

In 1963 President John F. Kennedy appointed Nash to a national committee to promote civil rights legislation. Eventually his proposed bill was passed as the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Alabama Project and the Selma Voting Rights Movement

Shocked by the 1963 church bombing in Birmingham that killed four young girls, Nash and James Bevel committed to raising a nonviolent army in Alabama. Their goal was the vote for every black adult in Alabama, a radical proposition at the time. Alabama and other southern states had effectively excluded blacks from the political system since disenfranchising them at the turn of the century. After funerals for the girls in Birmingham, Nash confronted SCLC leadership with their proposal. She was rebuffed, but continued to advocate this "revolutionary" nonviolent blueprint.

Together with SCLC, Nash and Bevel eventually implemented the Selma to Montgomery marches, a series of protests for voting rights in Alabama in early 1965. They were initiated and organized by James Bevel, who was running SCLC's Selma Voting Rights Movement. Marchers crossed the Pettus Bridge on their way to the state capital of Montgomery, but after they left the city limits, they were attacked by county police and Alabama state troopers armed with clubs and tear gas, determined to break up the peaceful march. John Lewis, who had knelt to pray, had his skull fractured. The images were broadcast over national television, shocking the nation. Soon after this, President Lyndon Johnson publicly announced that it was "wrong--deadly wrong--to deny any of your fellow Americans the right to vote in this country." The initiative culminated in passage by Congress of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which authorized the federal government to oversee and enforce the constitutional right to vote, with mechanisms to assess state compliance and require changes to enable registration and voting.

In 1965, SCLC gave its highest award, the Rosa Parks Award, to Diane Nash and James Bevel for their leadership in initiating and organizing the Alabama Project and the Selma Voting Rights Movement.

Later recognition

During the civil rights era and shortly after, many of the male leaders received most of the recognition for its successes. As the civil rights era has been studied by historians, Nash's contributions have been more fully recognized.

In 1995 historian David Halberstam described Nash as "…bright, focused, utterly fearless, with an unerring instinct for the correct tactical move at each increment of the crisis; as a leader, her instincts had been flawless, and she was the kind of person who pushed those around her to be at their best, or be gone from the movement."

Nash is featured in the award-winning documentary film series Eyes on the Prize (1987) and the 2000 series A Force More Powerful about the history of nonviolent conflict. She is also featured in the PBS American Experience documentary on the Freedom Riders, based on the history of the same name. Nash is also credited with her work in David Halberstam's book about the Nashville Student Movement, The Children, as well as Diane Nash: The Fire of the Civil Rights Movement.

In addition, she has received the Distinguished American Award from the John F. Kennedy Library and Foundation (2003), the LBJ Award for Leadership in Civil Rights from the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum (2004),

Nash has continued to believe in the power of nonviolent action to solve conflicts. In an interview with Theresa Anderson she said,

Violence needs to be addressed. I think the Civil Rights Movement has demonstrated how to resolve human conflicts. I think it's crazy when two countries have problems with each other and one says 'Let's bomb them, kill them, go fight.' If we have a problem with another country I would like to see consideration instead of an automatic tendency to go to war. Let's hear their side, consider our side, and look at what is logical and reasonable. Let's look at what serves the best interests of the people and see if we can negotiate solutions, more sane solutions.

Later life

After the Civil Rights Movement, Nash moved back to Chicago where she worked in the fields of education and real estate, continuing as an advocate and championing causes such as fair housing and anti-war efforts. She still lives in Chicago, only a few miles away from her son Douglass Bevel, with whom she remains very close.

In 2013, Nash expressed her support for Barack Obama, while also sharing her reluctance for his continuing involvement in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. While encouraged by the positive implications associated with electing the first Black President of the United States, Nash still believes that the true changes in American society will come from its citizens, not government officials.

Although she attended the Selma 50th anniversary celebrations in March 2015, Nash was noticeably absent from the re-staging of the 1965 Selma march. When asked about her refusal to participate in the historic event, Nash cited the attendance of former president George W. Bush. Nash, who has dedicated her life to pursuits of peace and nonviolence, declared that Bush "stands for just the opposite: For violence and war and stolen elections, and his administration…had people tortured."

Decades after she played a critical role in the Civil Rights Movement, Diane Nash remains committed to the principles of nonviolence that have guided her throughout her life. Although she was a key architect in many of the Movement's most successful efforts, she remains humble upon reflection. "It took many thousands of people to make the changes that we made, people whose names we'll never know. They'll never get credit for the sacrifices they've made, but I remember them."

In popular culture

Nash is portrayed by Tessa Thompson in the 2014 film Selma.

Nash is also portrayed in The Boondocks episode "Freedom Ride or Die".

#05/15

[cfsinners]

   Impatient was one of many words to describe the early-bird librarian, decked in clothing so professional that she looked like a lawyer was another. The cafe was dim at this time in the morning, albeit busy enough for a town of working people. So busy that it was taking ten minutes to get her coffee, and apparently longer for the coroner to walk through the door.    She had heard that Wednesday’s were the days that he treated himself to coffee. And after the news about a murder, who better to ask than the man who had to be in charge of the corpse? It felt like years till the waitress underwent her call for attention, a wave sent her way. The coffee didn’t matter as much in the end.    “Can you tell me what kind of coffee Roman White likes?” She asked, prepared for the waitress’s confused answer as well as questioning nature. The “why do you need to know” satisfied Charity’s projection and as always, she had an answer laid out as though it was a floor-plan for some massive building of hers. A dry smile burned into her face, slipping from view with each word she’d continued. “Anything for a story, sweetie. Now could I get an order of that and finally get that black coffee I asked for ten minutes ago? Please? Thank you.” 

@ben-raleigh

#&&. ben ⇁ ( the reporter ) #&&. interactions ! #i told you it would be shitty #the rest willbe bettwr tbo #complete with a gif chosen half assep #aslee #p

[winebleeds]

@bnjmin​   sent    ❛               drunkenly approaches elizabeth claiming they are married.                   ❜

⤑   DETAILED ACTION PROMPT

INT. JAMIE’S STUDIO APARTMENT - MIDMORNING

MADDIE sits at the small kitchen table, placing her spoon in the oatmeal. as she chews, she looks up at JAMIE. his upper half leans against the kitchen counter, facing her, popping a grape into his mouth. there’s a contrast between maddie’s pajamas and uncombed hair to jamie’s fitness attire experiencing more of the morning. once maddie stops chewing, her voice signals energy rising in her.

MADDIE: hey jamie.

JAMIE: (perks up) yeah? (puts another grape in his mouth.)

MADDIE: i think we’re gonna have a brother-in-law.

JAMIE: hm!?

he nearly spits out a second grape, face squinches at feeling the edge of the counter pressing into his middle. he coughs the clear his throat after swallowing the grape. he sits up to look further down at an amused maddie.)

JAMIE: (bewilderedly)  you haven’t even dated this guy for a couple months yet and he already proposed to you. not saying that’s-

MADDIE: (interrupting, doesn’t seem bother by the miscommunication) not me, silly! didn’t you hear the we. as in, the both of us will have a brother-in-law.

JAMIE: (blinks, confused.)

MADDIE: lizzie and ben said they were married again last night. (taps her finger to her head) i think the idea is in their noggin’

JJAMIE: oh. (pops another grape in his mouth, relaxing yet unamused with the conversation.)

MADDIE: (motions jamie to sit next to her) come ‘ere. i got proof this time.

JAMIE: (fighting the urge to roll his eyes, he grabs the plate of grapes as he makes his way to the seat next to maddie.)

maddie takes out her phone. her thumb glides around the screen, displaying the dimmed video.

                                                                       CUT TO: CONTENT OF MADDIE’S PHONE

ELIZABETH sits at her office desk. her chair and her body faces between her desk and where maddie is recording the moment on the bed. elizabeth’s elbow rests on the armrest, flickering her wrist around as she mumbles about engine jargon. the slurred words on a niche topic appears to humor maddie behind the phone.

but the attention of the phone jerks when BEN’s shoulder corners the screen. the len moves to ben laying next to chair, on the floor. a hand extends to touch elizabeth. unlike maddie, the physical contact and odd position doesn’t bother her, continuing her rant, her head looking down at her desk instead of ben.

MADDIE: (interrupting to point out the scene) uh, isn’t this weird?

elizabeth perks at maddie’s question. eyes stare at maddie, as though maddie is silently telling her where to look. elizabeth looks at the floor where ben resides. elizabeth shrugs.

BEN: (incoherent mumble, especially to...)

                                                                        CUT TO: JAMIE’S APARTMENT

JAMIE: (through elizabeth merging words) i couldn’t hear that. can you repeat it?

maddie nods, pausing the video to raise the volume. jamie leans down with his unscarred ear hovering by the phone. after rewinding by a couple seconds.

                                                                         CUT TO: MADDIE’S PHONE

MADDIE: (interrupting to point out the scene) uh, isn’t this weird?

elizabeth perks at maddie’s question. eyes stare at maddie, as though maddie is silently telling her where to look. elizabeth looks at the floor where ben resides. elizabeth shrugs.

BEN: (still an incoherent mumble, but the phrase ‘we’re married’ is evident)

ELIZABETH: (short laugh) yeah. knew he was weird since astronerd. (looks down at ben, tapping her toe on his forehead.) doing okay, husband?

                                                                         CUT TO: JAMIE’S APARTMENT

maddie cuts off the phone midspeech that came from her voice two nights ago. she lays the phone on the table.

JAMIE: wait, wait. she calls him astronerd?

MADDIE: yeah. 

JAMIE: (huff of mirth, knowing that’s an insult he gave elizabeth & raleigh when they were younger. and now it’s used for a stranger for jamie that elizabeth is...) but i thought they weren’t dating? didn’t you tell me that?

MADDIE: (sighs) yeah, they say they’re not dating when sober. but i know they’re not married yet either. no rings or anything. like, i don’t think lizzie would hide that from me.

JAMIE: who the fuck knows with her. (pauses.) think i should meet the maybe-not-maybe future weirdo of a brother-in-law? (eats another grape.)

MADDIE: (smiling, glad jamie took this with better ease, picking up her phone again with one hand & stealing a grape from jamie’s plate with the other.) we’ll see.

#icb that one tik tok you showed me got me to writing this. #and there's too much dialogue for regular writing so screenplay formatting wwooo. #bnjmin #( j. answered ) #( m. answered ) #( e. ben steele ) #( m. ben steele )

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #230

“this is where i wanna grow old, so i’m just praying i don’t make parole.”

Has a movie ever made you cry? Yeup. Do you smile open-mouthed or closed-mouthed? Usually open. I look higher with my mouth closed, lol. What gaming systems do you own? A PS2, Wii, gaming laptop, DS Lite, and a GameBoy Advance. Do you know anyone else with your last name other than family? Not off the top of my head. Is your favorite band still together? Yeah. Any movies your looking forward to seeing? I want to see both Joker and IT: Chapter II. Where do you see most of your concerts? Only been to one, which was in Raleigh. Have you ever had escargot? No, I NEVER will. Do you like chocolate popsicles? Hell yeah. Do you save seats for your friends in class? I don't have real friends at college yet, just like a couple acquaintances. Back in high school and younger, I did occasionally with my purse or something. Depended on where we were. How many people do you know with red hair? I don't care enough to count, honestly. Three off the very top of my head. Have you ever wondered what you look like when you’re sleeping? Yeah. Are your parents proud of you? I mean they say so, but I doubt it a lot. Would you ever be your schools mascot who wears that costume? NO. Those sound so gross and hot. Have you ever had a pet fish? Multiple. What age did you start staying home alone? Idr. Would you rather see the Great Wall of China or Big Ben? Big Ben appeals to me more, but the Great Wall would probably impress me more. Can you do a handstand? Nope. What’s a brand of shoe you like, but wouldn’t buy a pair? I like studded and spiked high heels like, A LOT. Are you reading any books right now? Not currently. Sara sent me the first Wings of Fire book because I'm interested in reading it, I just normally read at school when I have no work to do, and for a looooong while now I have always been busy doing schoolwork while I wait in the library for Mom to finish her classes. Any plans for tomorrow? No. Who did you last take a picture with? My kitty. How do you like your chicken? Breaded, typically. Like as nuggets and such. What’s your favorite fast food restaurant? Sonic. What song are you listening to? I've been binging the "I Don't Wanna Be Free" song from AHWM since it came out man. It's not even biased, Mark's voice has just gotten so fucking GOOD and I'm so proud and in love- Do you have any bruises? No. What’s the last thing you googled? How to make a rounded border of a square in Photoshop bc I forgot while making stuff for Sara. How often do you use a real dictionary? Never. They're pretty much obsolete. When you were little did your mom ever sing to you? Yeah. What’s the reason you last laughed really hard? Um idr. Who do you sit with at lunch? I don't go to the school cafe, so. How long have your parents been together? They were together like... I wanna say 18 years? Somewhere around 20. What’s your favorite kind of Gatorade? EW none. Out of all your friends, whose house have you stayed at the most? I really don't have any current friends whose houses I've gone to. So Sara, if you count her. Who is one person you couldn’t imagine life without? My mom. The idea of her dying is fucking terrifying beyond possible words for me. What’s your favorite Disney movie? The Lion King. Are you camera shy? Yes bc I hate my body. Just let me be behind it. Are you politically correct? It really depends on what the subject is. We've become too politically "correct" if you ask me. I'd honestly say I'm mostly not. Eh, idk. Again, it depends. Speaking of politics, do they tend to overexcite you? Quite the opposite, they bore the hell out of me. Are your parents Democratic, Republican, or neither? I'm quite sure Dad is a Republican, but I'm really not sure; Mom, meanwhile, I think she leans more towards Democrat, but fits the "Independent" title well. My stepmother is ANNOYINGLY far-right. I almost regret adding her on FB. What’s the worst household chore? When you don't have a dishwasher, hand-washing dishes. I fucking hate it. Do you get along better with boys or girls, and why? I only say girls because I'm afraid of men. I can befriend a man perfectly fine, just I am going to be VERY paranoid and anxious in the early stages of knowing him. Do you love dreaming? Honestly, I'd almost prefer not to dream, I think. I barely remember mine anyways, and I like the feeling of waking up after a DEEP sleep. Maaaany of my dreams/nightmares involve Jason anyway, so I'd just rather not deal with 'em. Do you have any conditions that you need medication for? I refuse to come off my bipolarity medications. They're the reason I'm not a suicidal tragedy anymore. I could survive without my anxiety meds, but I'd sure prefer not to. What’s a recurring theme in dreams? (I often dream about rollercoasters.) Most of my nightmares/terrors involve me getting into an altercation of some sort, and I'm always unable to defend myself. Should everybody have affordable health insurance? Fuck yes they should. You shouldn't have to go fucking bankrupt to stay alive, goddamn. This subject gets me heated as hell. Creation or evolution? Evolution. Do you have terrible memory? My memory is so incredibly bad I've had borderline anxiety attacks that I have early-onset dementia lmfao. What do you think is the most peaceful religion? I'm not knowledgeable enough on this, but off the top of my head, Buddhism? If you’re feeling frightened, what thoughts tend to comfort you? I am such a baby. It helps me in a lot of situations if my mom is with me. What year were you born in? 1996. What is the best decade for music? '80s, maybe. Or 2000s. Are you prejudiced against anybody? (Other races, gays, etc.) No. Are you a licensed driver? No, but I have my permit. I'm too scared and inexperienced to get my license because I'm too hesitant to drive enough. Do you have any regrets? Yeah. Is there anything you wish you could say to someone right now? I'm going to wish I could tell Jason I'm sorry 'til the day I die, probably. There's things I wanna tell Megan, Hannia... a few people. What time do you normally wake up? If I don't have my 8 AM class, it can range from like, 6-9 AM. Is there anyone not in life anymore, that you wish still was? Plenty of people. What’s your favorite type of bird? Barn owls. How many friends do you have on Facebook? 112. Have you ever gotten back together with an ex? No. How far away is the closest store to your house and what is it? Uhhhh. The actual town-town I live in is like three minutes away or so, so there's a large amount. I guess the closest is... a dollar store, probably? When was the last time you made out with somebody? A long time ago. What TV show(s) have you been watching currently? None. How many apps do you have on your phone? Just six, but I can't even update one because my phone has such little memory. What pet names do you use with your significant other? Besides the normal ones like "hunny" and stuff, "pretty woman" and then (THEY'RE JOKES/REFERENCES OK) "Bubblebutt" and "Candyass" lmfao. Do you have to wear a name badge where you work? N/A Do you have a dress code or have to wear a uniform where you work? N/A Have you ever dated a smoker? If not, would you? For less than a day. I wouldn't date one now, no. What is your mother’s first name? Donna. Do you share a middle name with any of your siblings? More like I share it with every white female on Earth. Have there ever been any bushfires/wildfires in your area? Small ones. How would you label your sexual orientation? Bisexual. Have you ever been a member in a band? No. What’s your favorite kind of accent? English. Do you have separate emails for personal and business? No. Well, I have a separate school email. Have you ever missed a flight? Yes. None of us anticipated the airport would take so long. Are you someone who always needs a coffee before you can function? No. Have you ever seen a lunar eclipse? Yes!! Do you know your significant other’s passwords? No, and I don't need to. I have a respect for privacy. What’s your favorite type of salad? Just lettuce with dressing, really. Cucumbers in there is okay, though. Lobster dip or crab dip? Ew. Do you shop at Goodwill? No. Do you make grocery lists? I don't do the grocery shopping, so. When is your next doctor’s appointment? I see my psychiatrist uhhh next week I think, then my main doctor is referring me to a dietitian per my request as of a couple days ago. Do you own a pair of feather earrings? No. Elephants or lions? Visually, lions, but as animals themselves, elephants. What color do you want to dye your hair next? Silver. Do you decorate for Easter? Not anymore, really. We don't decorate for almost anything at this point. Do you have a car? I don't have a license, so why even. Are you the same size you were ten years ago? Bitch I fuckin WISH. Do people mistake you for a teenager? No. Do you know what you want to do for your next birthday? Get a tattoo and have that gd heavenly drink Sara's dad made me once that Changed My Life. Do you know anyone who’s started a business and been successful? I have an old real photographer friend. Strawberry or watermelon? Strawberries. I'm actually not a big fan of watermelon; it's typically too bland to me. If it's sweet, then hell yeah. What new hobby are you thinking of starting? What's a "hobby." Were you ever a team captain of anything? No. Something I find boring is… TV, usually. If I could give my mother an award it would be for… Her dedication and hard work that's probably unmatched. The most memorable costume I’ve worn is… Idr. My personal hero is… Mark. M-A-R-K. Mark. Markiplier. Fischfuck. Have you heard of Mark Fischbach? An author whose work changed my life is… None. Are you happy with yourself on the outside? (explain) No, but just because I'm overweight. Otherwise, I guess I'd be. Are you happy with yourself on the inside? (explain) Mostly, at least. There're things I hate, things I want to change, all that. Do you take responsibility for your actions? Yes. Do you treat yourself well? Eh. Is there something nobody knows about you (& what)? Yeah, and I'd prefer for it to stay that way. If in a relationship, do you feel you could "do better"? No. Feel like I don't deserve her half the time. Do you have any mental disorders? lol Have you ever stolen from a friend or family member? Wow, no. Money or love? Love. Have you done anything to make someone dislike you (& what)? Not on purpose. Multiple things. Mostly making ridiculous opinions I've had in the past known. Would/did you cheat on someone for revenge? Or if they wouldn’t find out? No and no. Would you rather be remembered for something bad or forgotten? Forgotten. Do you boss around your friends, or give in to what they want to do? The latter by far. Do you donate or volunteer as much as you could? I don't have money to donate. I don't have transportation or time for volunteering. Do you believe in a god (& why or why not)? Yeah, 'cuz the Big Bang Theory just doesn't make sense to me. Compacted nothing exploding into everything. But by this point in my life, I really don't care if there is or isn't. Are you spoiled? No. How do you ease anxiety? Deep breathing, music, talking to Mom or Sara... Do you avoid physically unattractive people, even before knowing them? Oh my god. Does your family have a secret? No. If single, would you knowingly be who someone cheats on someone else with? NO. NO. THE GUILT WOULD BE FUCKING ASTRONOMICAL. Choose one living person you’d like to meet. hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm oh y'know I don't have a clue it's not like I love one (1) male homosapien- Are you over-protective of anyone? Maybe Sara. I'm not sure if it reaches the "over" level. What do you think of the name Xiomara (zeo-marah)? Cool as hell, man. Who did you receive your latest notification from? On Facebook? Uhhhhh *checks* my childhood babysitter liked something. How do you know the last person you were in a car with? I came out of her lmao so I mean- Do you support PETA? They are WAY too extreme. Do you honestly hate anyone? My old doctor that fucking destroyed my body. Do you go to church? No. Have you ever been depressed? I've had chronic depression since the 7th grade, so- Or are you a generally happy person? I'm usually just content. Do you think you are a good friend? Yeah. Usually. What is your usual username on sites? "Ozzkat" (rarely with a "0" if it's somehow taken) almost everywhere. Celeb crush? HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM Non celeb crush? My girlfriend. /v\ Bad habit you are trying to fix? Procrastinating on homework las;djfa;weiraweawer Would you rather go to school or have a job? I'd rather have a goddamn job that I can actually do and enjoy. What is your major? Organismal biology. Favorite cookie? Chocolate chip. Favorite flavor? Strawberry, chocolate... depends on what we're talkin' about. Candles or incense? INCENSE. Would you ever have an abortion? Probably if I was raped. Idk. What do you want for your birthday from your bf or gf? It'd be amazing if she could be here. Favorite flavor of milk? Chocolate. Something you like to do alone? Watch YouTube, draw, write. Something you like doing with friends? Vidya games, go out to see a movie or bowl or something, just hang out and chat. Thick or thin blanket? T H I C C Do you walk around barefoot in your house? Who wears shoes in their house????? tf??????????? u ok?????????????? Do you have a ring on your ring finger? No. Do you know how to type home row? Yeah, that's how I type.

#survey #quiz #questions #bored #random

[dyingthing]

*  CHARACTER  SHEET  !

     —————   repost,    don’t  reblog  !

BASICS.

full name.   benjamin dean mitchell. nickname.   benji, ben. gender.   cis male. height.   six foot two inches. age.   forty two. zodiac.   gemini. spoken languages.   english. some broken, conversational spanish.

PHYSICAL  CHARACTERISTICS.

hair color.   mid-dark brown. eye color.   light blue. skin tone.   light, slightly tanned, with light freckles across his shoulders and on his back. body type.   mesomorph. athletic and well muscled, but not overly toned. accent.   tennessean. not overly thick but very present. thickens when tired, emotional, or in pain. voice.   low but clear, both in volume and pitch, gravelly. dominant hand.   left. posture.   rigid and straight. quite often closed off with arms crossed over his chest. tends to keep himself drawn up to full height. scars.   a small, faded scar above his right ear beneath the hairline from a fight in his teens. a two inch long scar on his upper left arm from when he was stabbed by someone he was trying to arrest. a small pit to the right of his breastbone where he was shot. an eight inch long scar wrapped around his right side across the top of his ribs from where they repaired his lung. an inch long scar between his third and fourth right ribs from the chest tube he was on. tattoos.   a ‘thin blue line’ flag on his left shoulder with ‘matthew 5:9’ beneath it.  391, david’s badge number, on his inner left wrist. birthmarks.   none. most noticeable features.   his eyes, as expressive as they are, and the way he carries himself.

CHILDHOOD.

place of birth.   raleigh, north carolina. hometown.   collierville, tennessee. birth weight.   seven pounds, four ounces. birth height.   eighteen inches.  (forty five centimeters). manner of birth.   natural birth. first words.   mama. dada. (jo swears the first one was mama. jacob swears dada. jo is correct.) siblings.   delilah price, adoptive sister (nine years younger). parents.   jacob and joanna mitchell (adoptive). elizabeth mitchell and alexander blake (biological). parental involvement.   when benji was born, his custody was immediately signed over to jacob mitchell (his biological maternal uncle) and his wife joanna. alexander blake never knew about him, and elizabeth waived all her parental rights. he was raised as jo and jacob’s son, and though he was told that he was adopted when he was eight, he considers nobody else to be his parents. elizabeth was known by benji as ‘aunt liz’ for the first few years of his life, then just ‘elizabeth’ once he learned the truth. their relationship is more one of distant relatives than mother and son, and he sees her once every few years. benji later tracked down alexander blake as an adult, but the man wanted nothing to do with him, and the two have no relationship.

ADULT  LIFE.

occupation.   police officer (formerly), detective (formerly), bounty hunter, private investigator. current residence.   officially, a small townhouse outside nashville, but he travels and drifts so much, he spends very little time there. close friends.   lilli greaves, who he met while in school for his degree and kept in close contact with afterwards. wyatt jessup, delilah's ex boyfriend turned close family friend. damien o'connell, the victim of one of his cases as a detective and later his brother in law. relationship status.  single. (verse dependent) financial status.   far more financially secure than he seems, given his drifting habits. benji saves a lot, and is smart with his money. he’s debt free and has a significant amount in savings.  driver’s license.   yes. drives a black pickup truck. criminal record.   none. vices.   alcohol (to the point of alcoholism), cigarettes, dangerous situations.

SEX  &  ROMANCE.

sexual orientation.   bisexual. no particular preference for either males or females. romantic orientation.   biromantic. preferred emotional role.   switch, leans toward submission. preferred sexual role.   switch, leans toward dominance. libido.   medium. turn ons.   titles (particularly ‘sir’), using pet names, teasing, giving praise, risk of being caught, ‘distracting’ his partners from what they’re doing, being choked (depending on the partner), being scratched, bitten, or otherwise marked. turn offs.   degrading, getting caught. love language(s).   acts of service, physical touch. relationship tendencies.   relationships are difficult for benji. while he’s usually quite aware and on top of his emotions (even if he doesn’t handle them well) he has some deep seated insecurity, almost exclusively tied to romantic relationships, that he struggles to handle and talk about. he tends to bottle up his less than pleasant emotions for the purpose of ‘protecting’ people from himself, which can create tension and later issues. on the flipside though, benji is devoted, he’s loyal to nearly a fault, is observant enough to know when something’s wrong with his partner, and though he struggles sometimes, does everything he can to show his partners how much he cares for them. benji had always planned for marriage and a family, but by the time he hits his forties, he’s resigned himself to that not happening.

MISCELLANEOUS.

character’s theme song(s).  son, by sleeping at last. the mask, by matt maeson. burning man, by dierks bentley ft. brothers osborne. hobbies to pass time.   reading, going for runs. mental illnesses.   comorbid post traumatic stress disorder, depression, alcoholism, suicidal ideation. physical illnesses.   prone to high blood pressure. reduced capacity in right lung. phobias.   aerophobia (planes) self confidence level.   before his trauma, in most areas of his life, benji was quite confident. he believed himself to be a good cop, a good son, a good brother, a good man in general. after, it’s an entirely different story. the only things he maintains his confidence in are his practical physical and mental abilities (and even those fluctuate). his self worth and confidence suffer a lot, but he’s gotten excellent at faking it. vulnerabilities.   a primary characteristic of benji’s is that his heart is bigger than his head. he gets (begrudgingly, quite often) extremely emotionally invested in people very quickly, and can be loyal to a fault. benji also has a tendency to seek (almost exclusively sexual) partners for the purpose of being ‘used’, and latching to that miniscule feeling of self worth. 

tagged by.   literally no one. stole the bitch. tagging.   you. do it, say i tagged you.

#⋅ character study ╱ for the world is hollow and i have touched the sky . ❜ #dash things tbt #some of this i gotta update on my about page whoops #[ i love my son ]

[ao3feed-rhink]

Wild Horses

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2vmHW90

by Okaymythicalmorning

Rhett and Link grew up in small town of Buies Creek, North Carolina in the late 60’s. Their young lives were changed dramatically one summer day when young Rhett stumbled upon a box of blues albums at a thrift shop his mother dragged him to. That evening he called his very best friend, Link, and urged him to come over and listen to the mythical sounds coming from his turntable. Years later, it was no surprise that their high school rock band, The Beasts, took heavy influence from acts like Muddy Waters, Son House, and Howlin’ Wolf; as well as contemporary bands like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. At first, the band was just for fun, but they quickly gained traction when they started playing the club scene in nearby Raleigh, North Carolina. Two years after they started the band the boys were contacted by Atlantic Records. Shortly after, their first album climbed the charts with multiple number one hits. The music brought them out to their current home in L.A. Today they are headlining their biggest American tour yet, but there’s one problem, Rhett is hopelessly in love with Link and Link has no idea. Rhett- Lead Guitar/Backup Vocals, Link- Lead Singer/Guitar, Ben- Drums, Gregg- Bass Guitar, Cole-Piano

Words: , Chapters: 1/10, Language: English

Fandoms: rhink - Fandom, Rhett & Link

Rating: Not Rated

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: F/M, M/M

Characters: Rhett McLaughlin, Link Neal

Relationships: Rhett McLaughlin/Link Neal, Rhett McLaughlin/Original Female Character(s), Rhett McLaughlin/Original Male Character(s)

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Fluff and Angst, Touring, Pining Rhett, Sad Rhett, Hook-Up, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Recreational Drug Use, Drug Abuse, femme link

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2vmHW90

#Rhink #ao3feed #fanfic

[crosbytoews]

hockey rpf fic rec

this is an assortment of all the hockey rpf i have bookmarked. it is organized by pairing. if any of this is not your thing that’s valid but i don’t wanna hear it 

these fics are posted on ao3 and most of them are locked so you will need an ao3 account to access them!

obviously i like everything on here but i bolded the urls of my absolute faves

JAMIE BENN/TYLER SEGUIN

Look at the wonderful mess that we made by sherlockelly

A name-on-wrist soulmate AU where being outed by a same-sex name is still newsworthy if you're in professional sports and is a very real concern for some NHL players. Despite the shifting attitudes, no one in the sport has ever come out publicly.

Tyler has always felt relieved that 'Jamie' could be a male or female name, it makes hiding his sexuality a lot easier. Jamie's not been so lucky.

Door to Door by Ferritin4

"Hey," Jamie says, pounding on the door. "Hey, open up!"

The dogs shut up.

"Hi, shit, sorry," says the stupidly fucking gorgeous man who opens the door in a tank top and boxers. "Shit, were the dogs loud? They get really excited when I come home."

"It’s three in the morning," Jamie says. On cue, a dog pokes its head around the corner to the entryway and bounces over to the — to this guy. It’s followed by another, browner dog, and Jamie has a moment of surrealist sleep-deprived horror where he imagines an infinite string of dogs forever bounding gleefully towards —

"I work two jobs. I’m Tyler," Tyler says, extending his hand. "Do you want to come in?"

Well, he’s not doing anything illegal, Jamie thinks, shaking it, because no criminal in the history of crime has ever willingly invited a cop into their house, and there is no one in the city of Dallas who hasn’t pegged Jamie as a cop within six seconds of meeting him.

Stating the Obvious by StormDancer

In which Tyler transfers to Dallas, makes some friends, and has emotions, none of which he's prepared to deal with.

Sidney Crosby/Evgeni Malkin

King and Lionheart by thehoyden

Sidney’s wedding day doesn’t go quite as he’d planned. When he’d bothered to imagine it at all, he’d thought of a nice June wedding in Nova Scotia, outdoors with the sun streaming down. He hadn’t imagined this hurried affair on the tarmac on a rainy and unseasonably cool day in early September, a month after his twenty-fifth birthday.

And Never Been Kissed by thehoyden

Sid didn’t introduce himself in the hallway, and he certainly doesn’t assume that people know who he is. So it would only be polite to thank Malkin again, this time more personally.

He could write him a letter. An email? No, a letter.

There Was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe by Shoshanah-ben-hohim

Amidst rising political tensions between Russia and NATO countries, the KHL and NHL failed to renew their labor agreement this summer. Due to the failed agreement and intense political pressure at home, the Russian NHL players do not return to the NHL.

By March, Geno has played almost a season in Russia, and accepts this is his new reality, no matter how much he misses Sid – until he finds the first child. This sets him and everyone he involves down a dangerous path of international intrigue.

Auston Matthews/Mitch Marner

as long as it's about me by Anonymous 

It takes about the length of their first practice for Toronto media to decide that him and Mitch are best friends. And, like, Auston’s been warned about the press in the city a million times, so he gets it. They want a story. He’d be fine with it, honestly, except for the small issue that Mitch Marner is the most annoying person on the entire planet.

I Never Thought He Wouldn't by MycroftexMachina

Mitch loves people. And usually people love him back. Usually.

we've got each other (and that's a lot) by LottieAnna

“I’m gonna be a groomsman,” Mitch says, then flops dramatically into the chair across from Auston, grabs Auston’s glass of whiskey, and takes a long sip. It burns as it goes down, and he makes a face. “Again.”

JONATHAN TOEWS/PATRICK KANE

don't taze me, bro by staraflur

He doesn’t think Zeus is supposed to have a sword, but their Zeus does. So now Jonny does, because of course he’s in charge. He looks, Patrick is drunk enough to acknowledge, far better than anyone has a right to in a grody old Halloween costume that’s probably soaked up the butt sweat of dozens, if not hundreds, of Theta-presidents past. Jonny wears it, Patrick gets the sword. Win-win.

AKA that time there was a frat AU (of course).

Same Time, Same Place by brutti_ma_buoni

It should be a one-off, an awkward airport first meeting that goes nowhere. But this one goes somewhere. Back to Jonny's, for a start.

It shouldn't go any further, a one-nighter with no strings, and plenty of reasons for Patrick not to go back there. But Patrick won't let it go.

It should be a disaster, a mismatch, a scandal, a shoddy secret regret. But... maybe not?

bring it if you really want it by staraflur

It starts like this:

Well, okay, Patrick has no idea how it actually starts. But as pertains to him (in other words, the important part), it goes a little something like so:

America, being a nation composed in large part of a melting pot of immigrants who may or may not have taken over land already owned by others using less-than-savory means, doesn’t have much of a magical national identity. Much less a magical continental identity. There’s no grand heritage going back thousands of years. Magical families home-schooled all their kids until, like, the 1800’s, and tough for the muggle-born, apparently. Hopefully you got noticed by someone who knew what to do with you before you got burned at the stake. Since you probably can’t control your powers, sport.

Call Me Royal Blue by cupstealer 

He’s always gotten his kicks giving Jonny shit, but never like this. He feels like the first person to combine ice cream and soda—A) in that he has combined two amazing things to make a more amazing thing, and B) in that Jonny is not having it.

Patrick and Jonny haven't been close friends in six years. Nothing a little friendly competition can't fix.

Random Pairings 

Jeff Skinner/Eric Staal

If Heaven’s Hypothetical by impertinence and shoemaster 

Jeff runs away from Toronto and finds himself homeless in Raleigh, where he accidentally starts serving eggs to Eric Staal.

Andrew Ladd/Ryan Kesler

Nothing Worth Knowing by beatperfume and shoemaster

Ryan Kesler hates Andrew Ladd on sight. College AU.

Erik Johnson/Gabriel Landeskog 

A Month of Sundays by Kelfin

Unlike some guys, who freak out when things get even a little bit gay, Erik is fine with this stuff. Erik's not even fazed when Gabe's attempts at flirting with him start to get semi-public, a fact that, by his own judgment, makes him at least five to seven times more tolerant than your average forward-thinking American.

Sidney Crosby/Claude Giroux 

The Battle of Pennsylvania by Robinjay

When they play at Worlds together, Claude Giroux firmly expects a fight to break out. At the very least, he expects derogatory remarks and barely contained fury. Instead of doing any of those things, Sidney Crosby just stares and Claude Giroux loses his damn mind.

In Hours Uncounted by remiges

Claude's grandparents take him to get his first name when he's ten—younger than most people start, but older than his grandparents when they'd had theirs done. His grandmother's skin is threaded red and gold with names, and Claude wants that, wants that sort of history for his own.

Sidney Crosby/Tyler Seguin

All New Kinds of Weather by concinnity and Pennyplainknits

Sidney Crosby, Tyler realizes, has just asked him about hooking up. Sidney fucking Crosby. Tyler blinks at Sid and takes a long drink of water. He has possibly never been as grateful for his slutty reputation as he is in this moment. Because, out of a whole room at least 30% of which would happily give Sid what he’d just, hesitantly, asked for, Sid chose him.

Also there are pancakes.

Alex Galchenyuk/Brendan Gallagher 

ain't never had a love like mine by bluejayys

Anna installs Grindr on his phone while he drives them back to his place, snickering as she fills out his profile.

“In your About Me section I said that you enjoy hockey, can speak three languages, and have been commended by fans for your excellent stick handling,” she says gleefully. Alex wonders when this became his life.

Brent Seabrook/Duncan Keith

Summerboys by stlkrchck

Brent Seabrook has no interest in working at Camp Quaquanantuck the summer before university. Unfortunately, his mom's signed him up, and he has to go. But between a cabin full of campers obsessed with Lady Gaga, a prank war with two other cabins, and his co-counselor Duncan Keith, Brent might just find himself enjoying the summer after all.

Tyson Barrie/Gabriel Landeskog 

Left-Handed Kisses by oflights

The one where Tyson's fooling around with Gabe, already way out of his league, and then finds out he's apparently fooling around with a prince. And he might be a little bit in love with him. It's pretty brutal.

#hockey rpf #fic rec #i made most of this one handed because my cat is in the way but please let me know if i fucked up with the links