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neoheros · 4 years

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sneaking out headcanons feat. gym 3 squad ♡ — also this is all gonna be set in an au before or without the quarantine, so don’t leave your house please!! social distancing is important and people are dying!!

kuroo tetsuro

listen LISTEN

sneaking out is terrible and you should never do it because it’s dangerous and risky

and you as the woke and understanding gen z that you are definitely respected that

but , BUT , BUUUUT !

the minute your boyfriend snapped you a photo of him in his car with him rubbing his tired eyes captioned “couldn’t sleep, dreamt of u”

your morals were OUT THE WINDOW and now it was your turn >:// !!!

kuroo: i know it’s 4 am but what’re the chances you’d hop out for a quick trip to chick-fil-a 👉👈

you, purposely taking two minutes to reply: why are you still awake

kuroo, who knows you like the back of his hand: babe don’t lie to me, it’s embarrassing for the both of us x

so you agree !! because it was kuroo, the love of your life, the man you’d simp for, and he’s paying for food so hell fricken yeah

you throw on a hoodie, lock your doors, fluff up the bed to make it look like someone was sleeping in it just in case and you gently make your way towards your window

due to personal reasons, you want to pass away

you suddenly remember why you hated sneaking out and boy — the food kuroo was buying you better be worth it

the only way you were actually gonna get down from your two story house that idiotically doesn’t have a roof ledge was if you grab onto the tv satellite that latched by the sill

from your window you see kuroo’s car parked by the trash cans near your house and he’s got his windshield down signaling at you

mfer pulled out his phone from his pocket and waved as he zooms closer to your figure and he SMILED ?

you were in a dilemma?? and he had the audacity???? the fricken audacity???

kuroo, snapping you the vid he took: babe please you’re so cute you look like a tiny gremlin

you: had me in the first half, not gonna lie

it was a MOMENT for you !! but you just say what the hell and go for it anyways because you only live once apparently and sneaking out with your boyfriend at 4 am was better than sleeping

you grab onto the satellite ridge and you pray for mercy that it doesn’t make a sound or loosen up because if anyone found out you were doing this it was definitely kuroo’s ass on the line

while you’re struggling to get down, kuroo’s just in the car ??? laughing his ass off at your current state and you swear that he’s still taking photos

you get down on the cement safely and instead of him pulling up closer to your drive way naaaah he makes you walk to where he was at 😤

you, getting in the car: if i dump you by the end of tonight, just know that the only reason why i didn’t do it sooner is because i wanted food

kuroo, putting on your seatbelt: we’ll get back together in the morning, i’m not worried

so the two of you make your way to chick-fil-a, get food via drivethru and eat in the parking lot with the doors open and the windows down

he still looks very tired and before you even realize it it’s already 6 in the morning

you catch him yawn every few minutes and he always reassures you that he didn’t mind staying up this late :(

he’s baby

kuroo: lets get you home, are you gonna dump me yet?

you, kissing his cheek: no, i kinda love you

kuroo, less sleepy with a lazy smile on his face: aha simp

tsukishima kei

bro if you think he’s a goody two shoes boy who won’t ask you to sneak out at like 2 in the morning , you are so wrong

canonically, he is the most devious and logical character in the entire anime and if he wants to go out with you before the crack of dawn — he fricken will !!

he’s gonna be so sly about it too, nah, he gon make you think it’s your idea to sneak out

tsukki, texting you a tiktok of homemade shrimp rotini at 2:35 am: look what yamaguchi sent me

yamaguchi, who fell asleep three hours ago and absolutely is not in any state to send tiktoks:

so you’re there like ??????

bruv you were just tryna scroll through your twitter feed in peace, why the hell would he send you that like that’s so uncool

because now you were sleep deprived and hungry

you, close to tears: does your house in hell have a pool or

tsukishima, unnerved: i don’t like the concept of swimming

he’s gonna go on about how he didn’t realize what he did and how he’s kinda sorry for waking your hunger but you weren’t born yesterday !! you smelled BS !!

so you facetime him, ready to go off on how unsorry he is and you can already imagine the shit eating grin he must’ve had on

he answers after three rings and he’s in a MFING yellow hoodie with the dinosaur print in the middle, his hair neatly tucked and you just know that he’s got his keys on his fingertips

you, defeated: i’ve been played

tsukishima, heading out the front door: i deny all accusations

you’re not even upset though because this was a perfect opportunity to try the stability of your roof ledge and tbh? who wasn’t unreasonably hungry at 3 am

turns out climbing out your window was harder than you thought and you may or may not have gotten two new bruises on your wrist just by trying

safe to assume that you fell on your ass and since the universe has a particular hatred towards you, your boyfriend arrived at the perfect time to witness all of it

tsukishima: how are you gonna kiss me when you’re too busy kissing the ground

you, tears on your cheeks: if i wanted a bully instead of a boyfriend i would’ve SAID SO

when you get in his car, the first thing he does is ask if you’re okay though and he’s checking your wrists and hands for any scratches or bleeding because 🥺

tsukki: you’re such a clumsy idiot what the hell

tsukki, kicking down the pavement when you’re not paying attention: 💢🪓

you guys end up going to numerous places because most of the drivethrus in town were already closed

you see him get tired behind the steering wheel and you almost have the urge to offer to drive but you didn’t really feel like crashing his car any day soon so

you: lets just head to starbucks hm? get some coffee?

tsukishima, feeling bad because he knows you wanted to get food: we don’t have to

you, in love with him: if you say no i will willingly walk all the way to starbucks by myself , what , you think i won’t do it

so you guys go there and order a couple double shot espressos with a side of scones and muffins and the entire time you’re just trying not to shiver because name one starbucks you’ve been to that hasn’t been unreasonably cold huh i dare you

he notices this and he gives you his hoodie and ITS JUST THE SOFTEST THING OKAY BECAUSE HE’S COLD TOO BUT HE JUST WANTS YOU WARM

you: i knew it, you love me too huh 😌

tsukishima: unfortunately so

akaashi keiji

AKAASHI IS LEGALLY THE BEST BOYFRIEND IN THE WORLD !!

like he cannot be a bad boyfriend ?? it’s impossible for him to be so ?????? he’s just built that way ????

he’s the ultimate mixture of respect and self love , god was just like “let’s make this one perfect !!”

he’s DRIPPING in love each other juice and he eats kindness for breakfast so ha !

he physically cannot say no to you because he flat out adores you

( except when he feels like you’re wrong or being irrational to which he’ll politely correct you and educate you because that’s on what? that’s on having a healthy relationship ♡ )

so when you hit him up at 5:23 in the morning after a series of tiktoks that he has yet to see and react to you about, he’s kinda alarmed

but then again he’s also not ?? because let’s face it, at this point, he’s used to you spamming his inbox

the last thing you sent him two minutes ago was a text saying “bro just imagine this: you and me at a maccas drivethru with two oreo flurry’s and a box of 20 piece chicken nuggets — immaculate”

and you didn’t really expect him to reply?

it was five am and you were absolutely shit talking but when you saw his face time status go online you were just like ?????

akaashi, snapping you a pic of him under his covers with very tired eyes: it’s 5:27 am

you, sending him back a photo of you and the 2000 piece puzzle you spent the last two hours doing: that’s not a no 💅

he doesn’t reply and you’re not really upset by it because he probably just fell asleep and that was really cute to you so !!

but then two minutes later he’s facetiming you and you JUMP at the sudden ringing

he’s all tired and his voice is groggy and tight but he’s still smiling as he says “i’ll see you in ten”

YOU ARE !!!! PUMPED !!!!!

you won the boyfriend lottery , holy hell

now the only thing keeping you from seeing your man and the mcdonald’s sign was the eleven foot gap between your window and the solid concrete

you’d usually take the stairs but you just know that your mom would absolutely murder you for trying to sneak out when you should be asleep 💆‍♀️

it was either climbing out by clawing through the pipes or not being able to give akaashi a hug and you were not gonna let that second one happen

akaashi, after reading your two paragraph rant on how unnatural it was for your window to be that high: please be careful

you, haven’t slept in 32 hours: screw careful ! i embody elegance !!

in which elegance was screaming every time your pipes squeaked because dear mercy you did not want to die yet

akaashi, who just pulled up your drive way and is now seeing you almost fall to the ground:

you, on the verge of tears: please catch me

AND he does 🥺

it was a close call and he barely even made it to you when you chose to let go but HE DID ANYWAYS

you kinda fell on him rather than landing smoothly in his arms but that’s okay you were just glad you didn’t die

when you both get in his car, he just takes a hot sec to dust you off and ask if you’re okay and he’s so concerned please tell him you’re fine

he’s such a baby please i can’t believe this shit

the two of you end up in a mcdonald’s parking lot with doja cat blaring on the radio and you guys do your best to hold back your laughter as you eat

it was pretty cold and the sun was rising but honestly you couldn’t find the urge to care since the moment just felt so surreal

you: i’m sorry for waking you btw 🥺

akaashi, showing you his new lock screen which is the picture he took of you when he first saw you climb out the window:

you: i’m less sorry

bokuto koutaro

BOYFRIEND OF THE MFING YEAR

i accept no arguments, go cry about it

i literally don’t care what anyone has to say, bokuto is the only man ever ? he’s so deserving of every right on earth i’ll cry

the way that this is the third night in a row he’s stayed up til 4 am and he’s not even alarmed about it

like at this point he’s just accepted that he is nocturnal and that’s that on that !

before he actually had the idea to ask you to sneak out for him, he debated whether or not it was worth it

you needed sleep and you barely got any so when he knew you were resting he absolutely refused to message you :(

but then he also thought about how you would love to have a large dunkin iced coffee right now

and he was already getting ready for his morning fix so why not just ask harmlessly?

if you weren’t going to respond then he’d be okay with that because he knew that you were resting well

but if you were going to answer his consecutive texts with a positive reply then HE IS 🥺 over the moon

you, barely awake: can we get a venti triple shot latté instead , my caffeine tolerance is SHOT

bokuto, snapping you back within a minute: babe you are delusional if you think i’m gonna let you drink that

so it’s 5 am and your parents are in the other room asleep but you know that their jobs start pretty early so you had to get a move on

your room wasn’t that high from the ground to be honest, so you weren’t really worried about falling off

what you were worried about was how dizzy and out of depth the melatonin gummies made you because in order to fall asleep you took 3 and now that you basically forced yourself out of a self induced coma, your body was on the verge of passing away

bokuto tells you that he doesn’t mind if you’re not up for the trip and he’d just bring you back your coffee BUT NAH

you’re not a quitter 🤬 you miss your boyfriend and you are gonna do whatever it takes to spend some quality morning time with him !!!!!

so you throw on a proper outfit, make your way through your window and gently do your best to refrain from yelping every time your hand would slip from the railing that’s keeping your balance

bokuto, pulling up seeing you on your roof: you’re so strong 🥺👉👈

you, barely alive: all for you baby ❤️

he helps you get down from where you stood and he had the prettiest smile on earth i SWEAR when you immediately sank in his cold chest

he apologizes for making you sneak out like that BUT NUH UH YOU DO NOT LET HIM

he is a gift !!! and you knew how tired he must’ve been too since he kept yawning but he still took the time and energy to pick you up 🥺

he fastens your seatbelt in the car and puts the windows up because he knew that the air would get in your face and you didn’t like that

he even brought you a spare hoodie of his because he remembered how much you swooned over this particular fabric

bokuto: we’ll get you some coffee but you can sleep while i drive, ok babe?

you, trying not to cry: are you single because i really want to kiss you

bokuto, kissing your cheek: i’m dating someone i’m sorry

3K notes · View notes

tamagochiie · 3 years

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when the rumbling came; erwin smith

pairing. Erwin Smith x Fem!reader

synopsis. You were tired of work, of people, and of life treating you poorly. You quickly came to the conclusion that if you were going to end your life, now would probably be a good time as any.

word count. 3.36k

tags + warnings. TRIGGER WARNING! depression, attempted to attempt suicide, reader being completely dead inside (metaphorically), modern!au, office!au (just a pinch), angst, comfort/fluff,

notes. I don’t romanticize depression or suicide. Writing is my way of coping and dealing with everything that’s going on right now; don’t worry, I’m okay, really I am. So, this one shot is more or less self indulgent. Please, if you you’re going through some hardships don’t hesitate to reach out for help. My inbox is also free, and I’m always willing to listen.

You had alway built yourself in a firm foundation made of rocks, that nothing could ever shake you and even if it did, you’d snap back like an elastic band. But very recently, very, very recently, you’ve been living on a faultline and for a while now there’d be tremors - nothing strong enough to shake you, though.

But your foundation soon turned into sand as the weeks came by and stress came to you in waves. The little tremors eventually turned into big ones. You found yourself swaying, crumbling, and now you were barely reaching the end of the week without falling to your knees and weeping, your pleas for mercy hung in the air, right in your face as if it were mocking you.

The home you had built for yourself had fallen into rubble and nothing could protect you.

Nothing could save you from all the wind and rain, and quite frankly, you weren’t entirely sure if you wanted to be saved. Being saved meant continuing on, meant trudging through the fight and you had no more fight left in you.

So there you sat, on the very edge of the roof of your office building with your feet dangling. Night life in the city glimmered and glowed, completely ignorant to you suffering. But it looked nice and you found yourself thankful because at least life was kind enough to give you one last “good” view before you did the deed.

I’d just have to scoot and I’d be on my way to the pavement, you thought idly.

You weren’t even scared, and maybe that’s what scared you, that you were completely okay with ending it here. That you didn’t even bat an eye when the idea came into your head while you bought yourself a sandwich during your lunch break.

It kinda felt easy like solving 1+1.

So maybe it was your calmness that scared you. Maybe it's the fact that once you had made up your mind, you had been set as if you were picking out clothes for the next day kind of set.

You swung your feet, feeling yourself scooch closer to the edge and your heart didn’t even race - not even a flutter.

You craned your neck back to look at the sky, not a single star in sight. You heavily sighed and played with your hands while you teared up and eventually cried. All the burdens you carried, the responsibilities you shouldered, and the insecurities you kept close to your heart flooded out of you in one single, painstaking sob.

Your chest heaved and your voice cracked as you screamed into a void, knowing you’d never be heard over all the honking and clamouring from the city beneath you.

“I dunno who's listening,” You croak to the night, your throat dry from all the crying, “but if I’m not supposed to die tonight, can you give me a sign...or something? Like, send someone out here to do a handstand or something. If - If there’s like, any sliver of hope I have left or whatever...If I’m not supposed to end here, then just do that because I really dunno if I’m supposed to hang on anymore...”

You never prayed a single prayer in your life, maybe just once when you were wavering in your ability to attain such a fine job as this, or when both your parents fell ill and you were left alone to fend for yourself. But other than that, you more or less suffered silently, cried to yourself when you needed to, and pulled yourself out of trouble.

It was late into the night, so the prayer was already silly to begin with. Everyone had gone home and you made sure of it because you hid in the bathroom until the lights turned off and the floor of your office was completely silent.

And the more you thought about it, as you imagined yourself hiding in that bathroom like a dumbass, you felt your cheeks flush in embarrassment.

Well, it wasn’t like you were going to be alive to bear it into tomorrow morning anyway.

You flinched at the sudden sound of the fire exit creaking open, the metal scratching against the pavement. You turned your head and squinted at the shadows and the little light provided by the exit sign.

“Hello?” You called out to the shadows and flinched when you saw it move, heedlessly pulling yourself away from the edge as you leaned back to take a closer look.

You gasped lowly as a familiar, rather burly figure emerged from the darkness. It was your boss, Mr. Smith, who had his eyes widen in surprise, as if he was shocked to have actually found someone on the roof.

He narrowed his gaze on you and wore a tight lip as he studied you intently. He stayed near the fire exit, hand in the pocket of his clean cut slacks while the other hung by his side.

You had sworn everyone had gone home.

Not everyone, you supposed.

“Can I help you?” You asked through your sniffling, but Mr. Smith kept quiet; the silence grew to be quite awkward the longer he stood there.

After a few beats, he stepped forward, rolling up the sleeves of his button up shirt before he ran his fingers through his hair. A tremulous breath escaped his lips as he spun on the heels of his shoes, facing the wall.

You cocked your head, blinking owlishly at him. And in one, fluid motion, with little to no effort, he bent down to lean onto his hands and kicked his feet up to the air, leaning against the wall for support.

He did a handstand.

What?

You would be laughing if you weren’t in the state you were in.

Mr. Smith was still looking directly at you as he stood on his hands, his clothes bunched up beneath his chin while his face burned red from the sudden rush of blood to his head.

All you could do was leave your mouth hanging open, blinking at him in bewilderment.

With a faint grunt, Mr. Smith brought his feet back to the ground and pushed himself off his hands. He brushed his hands together to dust away the dirt before he looked back to you as he ran his hands down the creases of his vest.

“Before you say anything,” He spoke, his voice deep and velvety, “I have absolutely no idea why I did that, but there was a little voice in my head that told me to.”

You licked your lips and stayed quiet, still taking in what had just happened.

“But my question is,” He began, “are you okay?”

“Do I look like I’m okay?” You spat, but you bit your tongue and cleared your throat when you realized who you were talking to. “Sorry,” You quietly muttered, twisting yourself back to look at the building in front of you.

You listened as the footsteps behind you drew closer, ultimately coming to a quiet halt.

“Mind if I join you?” He dipped his head down to look at you and you glanced at him in the corner of your eye, shrugging your shoulders.

Mr. Smith took the spot beside you and swung his feet over the ledge, mirroring the way you sat before digging his hand back into his pocket to pull out a packet of cigarettes.

“You got a lighter?” He asked, sticking a cigarette between his lips. You shook your head, amazed at his nonchalant demeanor. “That’s okay, I’ve got one.”

You watched him with a puzzled look as he lit his cigarette and blew a smoke.

It was pretty obvious what you were trying to do; your eyes were red and looked sore, your cheeks stained with tears, and not to mention you were setting on the ledge of a build without your shoes on.

How was he so calm?

“I’ve seen you around the office,” He recalled, blowing a few more smokes before he turned to you, “you look like a hard worker.”

“Depends on how you define ‘hard worker’,” You mumbled. Mr. Smith brought the cigarette in front of you as if signaling you to take it. You do. “I’m more of a half-assed worker that’s just ebbing and flowing bullshit just to get the job done so I can go home and wallow in self-pity in silence.”

He chuckled. It sounded sweet.

“So why are you sitting on the ledge?”

You drew out a smoke.

“I don’t wanna live anymore.” You deadpanned. “I hate my life and I hate that it’s fucked me in the ass -” You blew another smoke before passing it back to Mr. Smith, your body a lot more calmer and your mind unfiltered, “ - without even my consent.”

“I don’t blame you,” He said earnestly, and it shocked you. The golden boy who strolled up and down the office floors with his chest out, head held high, and a smile that made every woman’s knees go weak was agreeing with you. His eyes looked like it held all the hope and promise in the world, yet he was agreeing with you.“But are you sure you wanna do that? What if life gets better?”

You snickered though no trace of amusement on your face.

“I’ve been living on ‘what ifs’, Mr. Smith,” You pointed out plainly, “I’m not about to keep going. What’s the point of living on ‘what ifs’ when nothing happens? At the end of the day, I’m just an idiot that keeps thinking, ‘What if today’s better?’, ‘What if there’s a new flavor of ice cream that’s been released and it turns out to be my favorite?’ -- it’s stupid.”

“What if your boss gives you a raise?” He smirked at you playfully but you only rolled your eyes. “What? It was worth a try.”

“Your try was shit.”

“What about if you tried a different approach?”

“Look, Mr. Smith,” You sighed in annoyance and snatched the cigarette from his hand and propped it between your lips, “I don’t have a lot of fight left in me, okay? I’ve tried, I failed. That’s it. So, would you just leave me to do what I need to do? Please?”

“If you wanted to kill yourself, you would’ve done it by now.”

You threw him a sour look, offended that he didn’t think you could do it.

But why would you be upset about that?

“You don’t know me.” You muttered.

“I know well enough that if you wanted to call quits, you wouldn’t have sat here for nearly an hour, praying for a sign.”

“You heard?”

He nodded.

“You lied!” You raised your voice and without giving it much thought, you punched him in the arm. “You said you didn’t know why you came up here!”

“Oh, I didn’t,” He calmly argued. “Not completely, anyway. I saw you go up when I was on my way out. When I noticed you didn’t take your things, not even your phone, I had a gut feeling it was something bad.”

“I waited for a little while,” He explained, “I thought that maybe you wanted some fresh air, but the longer I waited, the more worried I got. So I went up the steps just to check on you, and your voice...did you know your voice carries well in the stairwell? I heard your voice, small and completely detached from life. Even then, you were asking for help, and how could I refuse?”

“Do you make it a point to get into other people’s business?”

“Only when they’re trying to take their life.”

“And now what?” You sounded detached and uninterested, and he didn’t blame you for it. He never spoke to you outside of meetings or work, not even once. Of course his words wouldn’t have any impact. “Are you gonna tell me not to go through with it, talk me down or something? You gonna tell me ‘If you can’t live for yourself, then live for me’? That kinda dumb shit?”

He shook his head, a faint pout on his lips. Despite your mocking tone, Mr. Smith remained calm and didn’t take it personally. Though you kinda wish he did, so he could leave you alone.

“No, nothing like that....” Mr. Smith weighed his options, choosing his next words and his next approach carefully.

He’s been here before and he falls into shallow thought, remembering all the things he didn’t do and see if he could do it now.

“I - I’ve been both on both ends of the situation, I just -” Mr. Smith sighed heavily, as he rubbed his hands together, “- I didn’t do anything last time, so - so when I saw you I thought maybe I could somehow make up for it.”

“That kinda sounds shitty,” You pointed out.

It was indeed a shitty thing that you were somehow being used to clear a conscience, but you understood where his heart was at. It was nice that he was trying - it was nice that someone had noticed.

But that’s all that it was for you: it was just nice.

“I’m just so fucking tired,” You admitted, your eyes stinging with fresh tears. You tilted your head back to keep it from spilling, but like all of your attempts at anything, you failed. “I’m so fucking tired of being tired, and nothing’s going right. I’ve tried different approaches, changing my mindset. I even did all these stupid Pinterest self-help boards, but that didn’t help either. I’m desperately grasping for straws and I’ve finally decided to just...stop.”

You rolled your head, looking at your boss with lifeless eyes and it terrified him. He didn’t know what to say - not then and most certainly not now. But what does anyone say to a person who’s given up all hope and interest in living?

You seemed to have made up your mind and Mr. Smith worried that he’d have another life in his hands. He didn’t want that and he found himself growing desperate.

He liked you, whether it be a co-worker or something else, he liked seeing you around the office. You were smart and though you looked soft spoken, you most certainly weren’t. You never ceased to amaze him with the things you submitted, so he truly wondered why you felt so inadequate.

Mr. Smith couldn’t help but blame himself for not paying attention.

“I say don’t die,” He said rather confidentiality, and you furrowed your brows at this. He was becoming persistent in his meddling. “I say wait it out another day or week, and then if you really wanna, fine. I’ll even leave the emergency exit unlocked for you.”

You widened your eyes, your mouth parted but not a single sound came out.

“Why should I wait when I can do it right now?”

“Because of the ‘what ifs’.”

You grunted.

“I already told you --”

“Yes, but what if I tried to help you?”

“I’m not going to be your charity case, Mr. Smith,” You chastised. “I’d rather die than be your charity case.”

“You won’t be,” He said rather calmly. A small smile crept across his lips and his eyes twinkled against the faint glow of the city lights. “You’ll be my friend and I, too, need a friend.”

“Mr. Smith --”

“Call me Erwin.”

You cleared your throat. You felt embarrassed to say the least. You opened your mouth and found it weird when you spoke his name. You didn’t like it, but it was something you could get used to.

“Why would you wanna be my friend?”

“Because life’s fucked me in the ass without my consent, too.” It was weird hearing something so crass coming from the poster boy of perfection and all things pure. You almost thought you’d completely lost it and had imagined he ever said it. “And I heard that suffering with someone makes the experience a little less painful and a little more bearable. So, won’t you be my friend and suffer with me?”

Mr. Smith noticed your hesitance, even more so when he held his left hand out for you to take. It felt formal like he was trying to close a business deal or something. It was a bit weird.

“You’re not gonna be my reason for living,” You said, letting his hand awkwardly hang in the air. But he didn’t bother to retract it. “I’m not looking for a savior.”

“You’re looking for your strength and so am I, so let’s just look together and see what we find, mm?”

You looked at him, studied him. Why did he care so much, and why did you want to know?

After all, you did ask for a sign, yet here you were being stubborn and pretending as if you hadn’t seen it at all. You didn’t believe in miracles or spectacular alignments of the universe, but when you took his hand, you felt a warmth of reassurance - a sense of peace.

Suddenly, with a high pitch yelp from your lips, Mr. Smith quickly moved his left hand and wrapped it over you and pulled you down with him as he threw himself back onto the pavement behind you. His right hand cushioned your blow and he winced in pain when he caught you.

You found yourself tightly gripping onto the material of his sleeve when you took a peak to check on Mr. Smith. He was looking down at you, a nervous smile plastered across his face.

You shoved him off, muttering to yourself as you patted yourself down.

“That was uncalled for.” You grumbled.

“How would I know? You would’ve changed your mind for all I know.”

“I took your hand!” You chided. “That was basically me saying, ‘Okay, I’ll be your friend’! What if you had thrown yourself forward instead!”

“But I didn’t.” He replied calmly, a smile, one that irked you completely, pulled the corners of his lips.

“Yeah, but what if you had?”

“But I didn’t.”

He stood up from the floor and patted the dust and dirt of his pants before reaching down to help you up from the ground.

“Thank you for being my friend,” Mr. Smith grinned. “I promise you won’t regret it.”

You rolled your eyes as he kept his hold around your hand, shaking it.

“Your promises don’t mean much to me.”

It had been months since your moment on the rooftop with Erwin. Though he had been keen, inviting you out for lunch, for dinner, and spared some time for small talk in passing, you were still walking on eggshells, especially because you worried that it might’ve looked unprofessional.

But really, no one cared as much as you did. Everyone had just assumed Erwin was just being kind. But still, it gave you more stress than it did comfort you, and though you had spat a few unkind words his way, he never left.

He always came back with a bright smile and offerings, whether it were candies or actual food.

Eventually, you eased in and you were no longer agitated. You found yourself looking forward to Erwin’s occasional visits to your desk or when he’d ask you out for some coffee.

At the end of every day Erwin would never miss a beat and would ask you how you were doing, and it never felt performative or forced. He was warm and genuine, and he’d share his burdens with you, too.

And you found yourself realizing that he was right, that struggling with someone made things a little less painful and a little more bearable. That despite the struggle, knowing someone so patient and understanding, would be there to catch you.

“Hey,” You spoke over the rim of your freshly brewed tea as you sat across the little round table of the coffee shop. Erwin’s eyes flicked up at you as he took a bite of his muffin. “Thanks,”

He raised a brow and cocked his head to the side, “What for?” He asked, his words muffled by his stuffed mouth.

“Thanks for being my friend.”

He smiled, a few crumbs falling from his lips and onto his plate.

“Thank you for being mine.”

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dex-xe · 3 years

Note

Yo I hope ur still vibing in these hard times! It would be epic if you could write caphrey fluff for any of 9, 12, 16, 25 or 40, but anything caphrey would be fab tbh coz they're v underrated :))

Captain & Humphrey Fluff #16: “Can you please just hold me?”

Captain & Humphrey Fluff #9: “You took all the pillows so I’m using you as one.”

Captain & Humphrey Fluff #12: “Could you say that again?” “Were you not listening?” “No I was, I just like hearing your voice.”

Captain & Humphrey Fluff #25: “Your hair is really soft.”

Captain & Humphrey Fluff #40: “Why are you scared of loving?”

(Was it necessary for me to combine literally all of these into one whole fic?? Nope. Did I decide to make it difficult for myself and do it anyway?? Yes of course I did!! Anyway,, hope you enjoy this one!!)

Prompt list

Inbox

Rain cascaded down the windows of the TV room illuminated by the light from the flickering television that Alison had left on for the Captain. It was time for his daily alone time, watching war documentaries and relaxing.

He settled back into the sofa, finally allowing his military-grade posture to drop and relaxing into a cosy evening by himself with his beloved documentaries.

“Hello!” The Captain was snapped from his show as a voice rang out around the silent Button House. “Hello! Is someone there?” The shouting wasn’t too far from the Captain, outside the window probably as it was muffled by the storm.

The Captain sprang up and crossed towards the window, leaning out into the pouring rain to try and catch a glimpse of whoever was calling out to him. Droplets of water coursed through the Captain’s body; he’d rather liked the rain during his life, the feeling of water running from his hairline down his face, the cold comfort of shivering in his boots only to enter the warmth of a fireside glow. But in death, it was almost painful, like pins and needles striking in little pinpricks across his skin.

“Hello?” He called into the night.

“Captain!” A voice the Captain recognised to be Humphrey shouted from above him. The Captain spun around and leant backwards outside the window to reach up blindly trying to catch hold of wherever Humphrey might be, cloaked by the rain and the night.

“Left a bit!” Humphrey said. The Captain flailed his hands across the roof ledge above him. “Bit more!” He finally felt the solid mass of Humphrey’s head in contrast to the faded texture of the living world. Grabbing hold of Humphrey by the hair, the Captain yanked Humphrey back inside the house, both of them crashing through the window and onto the TV room floor.

“Good lord, Humphrey!” The Captain said, getting up to dust himself off. “How long have you been out there?”

“Four days, I think. Robin threw me up there while playing football with Julian, I’m not convinced he entirely understood the rules.” Humphrey joked.

“Blimey, did you not think to shout earlier, man?” The Captain picked Humphrey up off the floor where he had landed by the sofa.

“I did, usually Julian puts the volume far too loud for anyone to hear my weak little voice screaming for help!”

“Well, you’re in now.” It had taken the Captain a while to get used to Humphrey’s headlessness, but after 75 years he was now more than comfortable to hold him while talking. “Do you want me to take you somewhere? Your bedroom, perhaps?” The Captain offered.

“I’ve given up on having a bedroom, Cap. If I get taken there, it’ll be weeks until anyone finds me again.” Humphrey smiled, masking any sadness that tinged his words. “I’ll stay here and watch your show with you, if you don’t mind?”

“Oh- of course, yeah. Fine,” The Captain said. “Where- where would you like me to sit you?”

“Can you please just hold me? Been a while, you know.” Humphrey said, without an inch of discomfort - an emotion that was coursing through the Captain.

“Oh.”

“You don’t have to, but just stick me on your lap or something. Would be nice.” Humphrey smiled and blinked up unwavering at the stoic Captain.

“Why?” The Captain asked. Humphrey rolled his eyes at the naivety.

“Because you took all the pillows so I’m using you as one,” Humphrey joked, nodding towards the preprepared nest of cushions the Captain had tucked himself into - like a child feeling sorry for himself on a sick day. The Captain glanced between the soft and welcoming refuge of the sofa and the table by his side, debating where to place his friend.

He eventually gave in to the look in Humphrey’s eyes and settled himself back into the cushions, placing Humphrey carefully on his thighs. His hands came to rest awkwardly either side of his lap, making a point not to go anywhere near Humphrey again.

“So, what’s this show about then?” Humphrey asked. The Captain huffed and pointing at the screen, black and white footage of tanks rolling across deserts. Humphrey laughed. “Point taken! Tell me about the tanks, then. I know you want to.”

“Well, this one is the A.15 Mark IV Crusader, one of the most popular models of the time.” The Captain began. “It is a rather good mover, can be shifted about with incredible ease but actually rather light-armoured and under-armed. Very vulnerable to attack once it’s in the firing line.”

Humphrey hummed in acknowledgement.

“It is crucial in the war effort, absolutely vital in the fight against Fritz. 1941 - the North Africa Front, they’re refitted for desert conditions. Quite exotic out there, you know.” The Captain nodded wisely, reminiscing about the stories he’d heard from the front.

“Could you say that again?” Humphrey asked quietly.

“Were you not listening?”

“No I was, I just like hearing your voice.” The Captain spluttered as Humphrey spoke, straightening up at the compliment.

“You don’t want to listen to this old walrus blabber on for hours,” the Captain said.

“Take the compliment, Captain.” Humphrey scolded. “It’s not a weakness to take love.”

“Whatever are you talking about?” The Captain mumbled, his gaze never leaving the familiar images of his tanks.

“Why are you so scared of loving, hey?” Humphrey chuckled.

“A soldier isn’t afraid of anything.”

“Apart from his own emotions, apparently.” The Captain shifted uncomfortably, oppressed by the weight of Humphrey’s questioning as well as the literal weight of him resting on his lap, pinning him into the chair. “I’m perfectly happy showing my love for friends, you should try it sometime.”

“Anyway, it’s not love, is it.” The Captain stated. “Paying somebody compliments.”

“Can be,” Humphrey said. “If you want it to be, huh? Anything can be: giving little compliments, talking about how you feel, listening to others, touching. All are good, Cap. Go on try a little, 75 years can’t be good for you.”

After a moment of awkward hesitation, the Captain raised his hands from beside him, floundering around Humphrey’s head and clenching and unclenching his fists. Slowly reaching forward and keeping his eyes transfixed on the screen, he threaded his calloused fingers into Humphrey’s long, fluffy hair and brushed across his scalp, relaxing into the feel of it.

“Your hair is really soft,” he said quietly.

“Thank you,” Humphrey whispered, smiling at the Captain’s tiny step forward in allowing just a touch of emotion out.

#bbc ghosts #pls work today tags???#ficbymax #caphrey

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orbitariums · 3 years

Text

𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐦 | 𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐮𝐩 | 𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐯𝐞 𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐬 (𝟏𝟓)

part 14

hey y’all!! missed yall again ♡ hope y’all luvvv this chapter <3

also, thinking of making a new taglist for this soooo just reply to this post or send me an inbox if u wanna stay on this current taglist & lmk if u aren’t on it and want to be added!!

playlist

word count: 7.7k

warnings: age gap, smut

𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐦 | 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐟𝐢𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐧: 𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐮𝐩 | 𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐯𝐞 𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐬

You practically ran up to the edge of the cliff, only slowing down partially because Steve was yelling at you from behind. You couldn’t help it though, you were obsessed with the scenery already, and being able to see it from this point of view was probably the best part of hiking for you every time. You hadn’t gone for a while, not since you’d been home in Cali, and Steve surprised you this morning by telling you to get into some comfortable clothes you could easily move in. Half your wardrobe was that since you were always outside, so the request was easy to fill. You honestly hadn’t even been expecting it when Steve drove all the way to this beautiful woodsy hiking location upstate.

It was quiet, and there weren’t many other hikers on the trail, so it felt like you were alone together. You talked amongst yourselves, the low chatter of your voices complimenting the sounds of various birds flitting by and the crunch of the dirt and grass beneath your sneakers.

You walked at a slow pace, taking it all in. Your time with Steve was coming to a close, and you found yourself wanting to take more and more time to remember each and every single moment as clearly as you could. In your mind, you documented the warm, comforting breeze of the ever present summer on your skin, the low, rich timbre of Steve’s voice. You noted each and every bird sound you heard, promising to come back someday and bird watch at this very same location. Most of all, you made sure to sink into the warmth of Steve’s body bristling against yours every once in a while when you got closer on a narrow part of the path. You were committed to being in the moment and being mindful.

“Slow down, slow down!” Steve called from behind, and you just glanced at him over your shoulder with a well intentioned laugh, then looked back at the sky ahead of you.

You raised your hands up in the air, stretching your palms up to the sky and hooted, cheering about nothing in particular. Every smile, every laugh, every moment you tilted your face up to the vast, azur blue sky and let the sun beam down on your face, was genuine and triumphant.

“It’s fucking beautiful out here, Steve!” you exclaimed, puffing your chest out like you were trying to enclose the crisp, balmy air in your heart.

You were practically hysterical. You belonged in spaces like these, outside where you could share your thoughts with the trees or the water, or not think at all. You always felt your best when you were at the beach or on a hiking trail with your friends, finally able to let go of life’s vice grip on you. You were so much happier these days, in a constant state of healing, and the results were truly showing out.

“I’m glad you like it,” Steve chuckled at your excitement, kicking at the dirt beneath his feet.

“Come on, babe,” you beckoned him over, wanting him to bask in this moment with you.

He trudged over, and when he was close enough to reach out to, you lugged him over as much as you could. Although he was like a stone, his eyes still widened with worry when you nearly toppled over carelessly, despite the fact that you were on the ledge of a cliff.

“Slow down, doll, you’re gonna kill us both,” Steve huffed out a dry laugh, still smiling all the while.

You smiled smugly, glancing over at him with big doll eyes,

“You’d save me, though, I know you can.”

Steve just pulled you under his armpit, keeping you close. In the odd chance that you did fall in this moment, you’d probably be smiling all the way down, forgetting the agony that would be sure to come, all because you were with him. Maybe it was just the fresh air making you a little delusional, but you’d let yourself be delusional just for a moment.

“Let’s make sure no saving will be necessary, hmm?” Steve hummed, and you grinned, nuzzling your face up into his neck.

“Fair enough,” you sighed with a restless smile. “Seriously, thank you for taking me out here. It’s beautiful.”

Beautiful was an understatement. It was funny, you spent so much time outside but you couldn’t ever describe how much nature touched you. You didn’t have the words to describe the way the lush trees at the bottom seemed to sway with the wind, or the way the animals swooped from treetops and went along their merry ways, all while cohabitating peacefully, or the way the landscape looked from all the way up here.

Steve just pulled you closer, and you stood there in complete silence and stillness for a while, just watching as the sky drifted above you. Steve was glad you were the happiest he’d seen you, it seemed as though even though your days together were coming to a close, you were growing happier by the minute. You didn’t think your goodbye would be teary-eyed, because after this wonderful experience, you knew you’d both be sure to see each other again. You weren’t at all in the same place in your lives, that was for sure. You were just getting out of college and making a real life for yourself, meanwhile Steve was out saving the world and doing things you could only dream of doing. You weren’t comparing the two, but it was simply the truth. Neither of you were in the same place, but being here together now made you feel more united than ever. If it took a while to come to a place where you could always be together, then so be it. Right now, you’d just enjoy this moment while it lasted, without haste to plan for the future, because you both had full faith that things would work out.

“It’s funny, this is my first time going hiking. Like, on purpose. I’ve trekked through Sokovia and I’ve had to find my way out of multiple jungles and mazes before they blew up, but I’ve never just enjoyed it like this. On purpose,” Steve said after a while, and you grinned up at him, pleased that you were giving him more and more options to expand his personal hobbies and live outside of his work.

“I get the feeling that even though you’ve seen everything… there’s a lot you haven’t seen,” you noted, and Steve nodded.

That was exactly what he was trying to say. He’d done more than most people could ever dream of doing, he’d escaped danger in the nick of time a thousand times over, he’d saved lives, and yet, all the while, he hadn’t really lived himself. He learned a lot from his job and from the team he felt so grateful to be around on a regular basis, but amidst all the chaos of his daily routine, he’d forgotten to live. Sure, he had movie nights with his team and sometimes went out to eat with them, but there was so much more than that. So much that he hadn’t seen yet. You were showing him that there was, and he was showing you that there was space to trust and love. You shared a mutual core, full of life lessons and valuable exchanges.

“Yeah. Exactly that.”

You squeezed his hip as you started to turn around, facing away from the edge of the cliff and back to the trail, which you were almost finished hiking.

“Come on. Let’s go get something to eat.”

| | |

Steve was leaning against the arch of the open bathroom door, his head cocked in intrigue and admiration as he watched you do your makeup. You were finishing up, putting clear lip gloss on over the brown lip liner you’d used, a classic, 90s combo. You were gazing into the mirror, hardly acknowledging his presence for the purpose of perfecting your look, meanwhile, Steve was enthralled by you, despite the silence. You were also wearing a wine-colored minidress that clung to every inch and curve of your body, accentuating your best assets, which didn’t help with Steve’s staring problem at the moment.

You had your elbows resting on either side of the sink and you were leaning in, smoothing your lips together and puckering them the very minute you finished, adjusting your position in front of the mirror to get a better look at yourself. Finally, you paid Steve some attention, and glanced over at him.

“You ready?” you asked nonchalantly.

“The question is, are you?” Steve asked, raising his eyebrows.

You rolled your eyes playfully in response.

“You should be used to this by now, you know,” you sang, and Steve grinned, wrapping an arm around your bare shoulders as you came close.

“I know, I know. I kind of live for it, it’s so fun watching you do your makeup.”

“Want me to try doing yours someday?” you quipped excitedly.

“I’m not against it,” Steve chuckled.

Tonight you were going to a fancy restaurant for dinner, like, fancy fancy. The kind of fancy that even Steve wasn’t accustomed to. Steve had money, but he wasn’t a very sophisticated guy, he preferred to be more casual. You on the other hand, would probably fit right in. Your regal energy and poised way of carrying yourself made it that much easier. But, you were still fresh out of college, and you weren’t a rich girl by any means. So of course you got excited when you got to get all dolled up to do something very nice.

You and Steve sat at a table near the back, the restaurant lighting dim and dark, a candle flickering between the two of you as the sun set outside. You toyed with the rim of your wine glass, taking careful sips so you didn’t mess your lip gloss up. To Steve’s lament, you would only let him kiss you on the cheek, because you didn’t want to ruin your finely crafted lip gloss.

As nice as it all was, both you and Steve couldn’t help but be reminded of the fact that you’d be leaving soon, and that your days together were coming to a close. You were both levelheaded enough not to get too sad about the fact, but it was admittedly bittersweet. But you decided you’d at least make light of it, and smiled smugly at Steve,

“What are you gonna do when I’m gone, lover boy?”

Steve glanced up at you, that charming smile teasing his lips as his blue eyes gazed into yours.

“Miss you.”

You tilted your head to the side as if you were challenging him,

“You gonna call me every night?”

“Whenever possible,” Steve replied warmly, and you continued,

“Gonna send me flowers still?”

“Of course,” Steve affirmed.

You giggled to yourself, thinking of your last question,

“Are you gonna watch my cam show?”

Steve laughed, shaking his head,

“Who would I be if I didn’t support my girl?”

You grinned fully, reaching over to squeeze Steve’s cheek,

“You’re so precious.”

“Uh,” Steve cleared his throat. “I actually wanted to ask you something.”

“Yeah?” you furrowed your brows, interested in what he had to say.

He seemed nervous, wringing his hands together slightly before placing them on his lap and under the table so you wouldn’t worry about him. He had been thinking about this for a while now, and he’d already talked to you about it, but even after the discussion you had, he’d still been grappling with whether or not he should go through with this. He didn’t want it to feel like he was moving too fast or putting undue pressure on you, because he knew how important it was for you to live in the moment. Because of you he found himself questioning a lot of what he thought was true or moral. You had a good head screwed on your shoulders and you were still much more relaxed than Steve, not as focused on tradition or expectations. But he still found himself wanting to settle things down officially with you.

Looking into your caring eyes, he knew he wasn’t making a mistake, that despite all the trials and tribulations of your relationship together in the past, he’d regret it if he never got to know you. He could’ve never imagined being in this position, but by the look in your eyes, which were glittering and shining with pure, contagious joy whenever you saw him, he knew this wasn’t something he wanted to miss out on. He was about to forget himself and sink into how beautiful you were, as if he didn’t have other things at hand, but he remembered himself at the perfect time.

“I-I’m not always so great with words, so bear with me,” Steve started.

“Steve,” you giggled cheerily. “Spit it out babe, it’s okay.”

Your reassurance seemed to resurrect him and he chuckled, shaking his head and rubbing his temples. Then he looked up again, taking your hand and gazing into your eyes, never ceasing eye contact.

“YN. I really like you, alright? And this is something so new and so odd for the both of us. I mean, I don’t know anyone who’s had what we have and I know a lot of weird people - not that this is weird, but-”

You chuckled, scoffing,

“Well it’s definitely not normal.”

You reached across the table, squeezing Steve’s hand. He grinned, chuckling back and nodded, continuing,

“Yeah. Definitely. And, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. About labels and what we talked about, and I know you’re not looking to rush into anything too soon because of how you’ve been treated in the past but…” here, Steve almost got emotional, thinking of how special you were to him, unable to believe that you’d been treated so poorly in the past— all he wanted was to show you just how you made him feel. “But I just want to treat you right, and make you happy because well, you make me happy. And it’s… it’s been a long time since I’ve felt this way. And I’m sure that for you and me both, these feelings are rare. And I can treat you the same regardless of whether or not we put a label on it, but, selfishly I want you, fully… all to myself. So, let’s make it official. Will you be my girlfriend, YN?”

Few moments felt as good as this one, and you’d remember this moment for years to come. Few questions rung so pleasant to your ears. And when you heard those words leave Steve’s lips, you knew you had never been more certain that you wanted to be with someone. All relationships started out in the honeymoon phase, but when it came to Steve, you didn’t feel like things would change drastically after this phase. And sure, you were just meeting, in real life, that is. In reality, you had known Steve for a few months, and you’d been getting closer for a long time now. So, you probably would’ve said yes to Steve even if he asked you on the second day you were together.

But your respect for Steve rose way up because he’d actually taken his time, had a conversation with you about it, and made up his mind. The fact that he had put all this thought into it was a testament to Steve’s character, which made you giggle because despite his stoic demeanor he was kind of a nervous wreck, and the strength of the connection you had. But you didn’t even have time to think about how wonderful this all was. All you knew was that you wanted to say yes.

“Yes, I’ll be your girlfriend,” you bit down on your lip, just barely restraining a cheeky smile before you leaned in and kissed him again. The kiss was sweet, interrupted by laughter and your smiles against each others’ lips. “Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.”

You kissed him again and again, you kissed him so much that you barely had any lip gloss on when you managed to stop yourself to catch breath. When you pulled away, Steve had this kind of awestruck look on his face, his lips wet with your lip gloss, wanting more of your lips like you hadn’t just given him your all.

You snickered at the sight of his glossy lips, almost arrogantly noting,

“It’s a good look on you. My lip gloss.”

Steve grinned sheepishly, looking down at the table, relieved. He didn’t really have any reason to be worried, that was just in his nature. His heart had never felt so warm, he’d never felt so satisfied. You’d always been his, but now he had you, truly and officially.

“Were you nervous to ask me this?” you asked, still holding his hand from across the table.

Steve breathed out a laugh,

“God, yeah. I was just hoping you wouldn’t feel pressured. I know how important your mental health journey has been for you, I didn’t want to make it feel like we have to put a label on anything before you’re ready—”

“Steve, if I weren’t ready to be your girlfriend, I probably would’ve stayed my ass at home in Cali,” you chortled, making him blush, because he sort of knew he was overthinking it. “But really though, I wouldn’t be upset even if you didn’t ask me. What we have sort of obliterates the whole boyfriend and girlfriend niche, yeah? It’s kinda like… next level, don’t you think? I mean, how many people can say they’re in our situation? Like, this exact situation. This is like, long distance relationships made epic.”

“Good point,” Steve nodded, agreeing— what you had was probably eons more powerful than the typical “boyfriend and girlfriend” situation.

“It’s just, kind of a plus, you know?” you cocked your head to the side, shrugging. A mischievous, contagious smile spread to your lips. “I get to call myself Captain America’s girlfriend. Bitches write fanfiction about that.”

What? How could anyone blame you for getting cocky about who your official boyfriend was? You didn’t care for competition, but you’d selfishly admit that it was an ego booster to know that you had a man like him all to yourself, and that he wanted you all for him.

“You think you’re the lucky one, look at me. I got you,” Steve’s eyes slowly scanned your face, meeting your eyes again with a wistful smile.

“My girlfriend, YN,” he said out loud. He just wanted to try it out, and it sounded so right to the both of you.

“I like that,” you cooed.

“Me too,” Steve kissed your nose. “Oh, I almost forgot.”

He dug out a slip of paper from his pocket and handed it to you, watching you unravel it.

“Just a little something I drew, meant to give it to you as part of this whole ‘making it official’ ordeal,” he put quotes in the air. “A little gift.”

“Steve,” you pouted. “You’re way too nice to me.”

“Well, you’re my girl. I can’t be mean, can I?” Steve’s lip quirked up in a quizzical smile.

“Mm-mm,” you shook your head. “Not unless I tell you to.”

Steve couldn’t even decipher what you meant by that fast enough because you had squealed, your mouth flinging to your hand.

“Steve, Steve, holy shit. Is this what I think it is?” you sat up, alert, facing him.

“Just a little sketch, it’s not the best but I can—”

“Steve, shut up! You’re literally fuckin’ amazing, are you kidding me? This is… amazing.”

What it was was a drawing. Not just of anything, but of a logo he’d created for you. Specifically, what would soon be the logo for your online clothing brand. It had only just kicked off the ground and you were hopeful for its future. So Steve drawing something like this, no matter how average he thought it was or how little time it took him was something so heartfelt to you. This was something you’d hold on to even more than the flowers, even more than the hotel rooms and private jets, even more than the fancy five star restaurant dinners.

Because if there was anything Steve was proving to you time and time again, it was that he was the right one for you. You wanted to be with someone who would encourage your dreams, give you that push, and acknowledge that you had your own life outside of your relationship. And even though it was something minor at the forefront, when you really got down to it it was something so personal.

“Ahh, I haven’t really drawn for real in quite some time, I just wanted you to have that. You can use it, for your clothing brand if you want,” Steve shrugged, all bashful like usual.

“If I want? I’m literally gonna flaunt this everywhere. Hello, my boyfriend made it? No one will know, but I will, and that’s what matters.” You leaned in, kissing his lips and folding the paper again so you could put it in your pocket. “Thank you, baby. For… literally everything. Thank you.”

“Thank you.”

“Steve, take the thanks. You deserve it. Thank you.”

Steve grinned lazily,

“You’re welcome.”

You just gazed at him, your eyes inadvertently glazing over with tears. You were really sitting in front of the man of your dreams, and this time around you had no doubts about it. The old you would’ve been so resistant to love again. Steve made loving again so easy for you. And you couldn’t forget how you’d pushed yourself to love yourself again, because that made things like this a whole lot easier. But, rather than turn this into another mushy moment, your feelings were so overwhelming that you were feeling things everywhere. Everywhere. And who were you to prohibit your primal needs?

You stood up suddenly, brushing your hands against your dress, which once again caught Steve’s attention as you stood up. His eyes were already raking over you by the time you approached him on his side of the table, outstretching a hand to him, saying nothing until he took it and stood up beside you.

“Come on,” was all you uttered, glancing back at him only once as you led him further to the back of the restaurant, casually navigating your way to the restroom, unconcerned with anything in the moment that didn’t have to do with him.

“Where are we—” you swung the restroom door open and dragged him inside, locking it with finesse, “going…”

Without responding, you furiously pressed your lips against Steve’s, pushing up against him and getting him hard in an instant. Your palms smushed into his cheeks and you moaned into his mouth, delirious with the need for him. Steve was shocked, but not at all against it, he had just never seen you act so impulsively before. And the same could be said for him— once you put your soft lips against his, all common sense seemed to dissipate from his mind. He was just as into it, his hands grazing all around your body like he was looking for something and you were the only way he could find it, squeezing every part of you he could squeeze through this dress. He rocked his hips into you, grunting into your lips as he felt his cock throb against the fabric separating the two of you.

He pulled away, panting, his forehead creased in concentration as he cursed under his breath.

“Fuck. Turn around baby,” he spun you around so you were facing the mirror and your body was up against the sink before you even had the chance to move yourself.

You gasped when you felt cool air against your ass before you even expected it, and you moaned instinctively. Steve left love marks on your ass, gentle and kind, before he made his way to your pussy, on his knees and standing behind you leaned your body against the bathroom sink. You were lucky this was a fancy bathroom that neither of you minded getting down and dirty in— the mirrors had golden frames and the counter was sparkling clean, made out of marble just like the floor which Steve was kneeling on. He inched his face closer to your center and licked a fat strip up your pussy, causing you to moan out carelessly.

He focused on tasting you, closing his eyes and truly enjoying the moment. All that could be heard aside from the movement outside of the restroom were your moans and the sound of his tongue fucking deep into your wet pussy, slick, filthy noises coming from your heat.

“You taste so good, baby,” he moaned against your pussy, his words sending a shock through your body, making you squeeze around his tongue.

You were panting now, your moans short and high pitched, glancing back at him every now and then, then back at your fucked out face in the mirror. You arched your back when he hit a certain spot, twirling his tongue around inside you and kneading your ass with his hands.

“Oh,” you cried out, reaching out behind you and grabbing tufts of his hair, pushing his head and face deeper into your pussy and keeping it there with a strong hold. Steve’s moans were muffled, he was overwhelmed by your sweet scent and the way you were forcing his face down. He only pulled away when he felt your pussy start to pulsate around his tongue, leaving you to whine in dissatisfaction while he stood directly behind you, pressing himself against your ass.

“Steve,” you complained, pouting at him.

“I know, I know. I just— I have to fuck you, is that okay, doll? Can I fuck you?” he practically cooed into your ear from behind, lips tickling against the nape of your neck, then sneaking around to press chaste kisses on your cheek.

You bit down on your lip and nodded vigorously, humming in approval,

“Mm hm.”

“Good girl,” he praised you, making you throb around nothing while he pulled his pants down, his dick springing out of his boxers, and steadied himself at your entrance, kissing all against your neck in the process and leaving love bites that made you yelp out. He grinned against you, whispering in your ear as he trailed his hand along the front of your dress, tugging down so your boobs nearly fell out of the dress.

“You look so pretty tonight, baby. Look at you,” Steve nodded at the mirror in front of you and you whined, trying to buck your hips back into him because you just wanted him inside of you. “Fucking hell. Wearing that dress… your makeup looks perfect.”

He cupped your face, admiring it from behind in the mirror for a second, then he continued,

“My girl.”

He finally slid into you, his cock already throbbing inside of you. You cried out and gasped at the feeling of being stretched out just the way you liked, by the only man you wanted.

“Fuck, Steve!” you moaned his name loudly, immediately starting to rock your ass back into his hips, feeling him all the way inside of you, spreading you out each time you took him completely.

You grabbed at his arm from behind you, his hands steadying on your waist and pushing your ass back down onto him so you could take him all the way each time. You panted, feeling like you were being seared open by his thick cock in the best way imaginable. When you looked at yourself in the mirror, you took notice of how fucked out you looked, the force of Steve’s thrusts making your body bump against the sink, your mouth was open in an o-shape, your vision blurred because of how often your eyes kept rolling back into your head. Steve was focused on his cock disappearing in and out of you, his eyes on your ass, bringing down a broad hand to your ass and grasping your flesh in his hands.

“Steve,” you gasped, looking back at him. You took some time to catch your breath, Steve glancing up at you momentarily. “R-remember when I said you can’t be mean unless I tell you to?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, his hand coming up to stroke the small of your back, just wanting to feel your smooth skin.

“Be mean to me, baby,” you pleaded, giving him those eyes that set him off every time.

That was all it took for Steve to start slamming into you shamelessly, wrecking your pussy each time he pounded into you. He grasped onto your arms suddenly, holding them behind your back with one hand while the other lay to rest just above your ass. You cried out at the painful, pleasing sensation of Steve absolutely pounding you, and he chuckled deviously,

“Shh, doll. Wouldn’t want anyone to hear you screaming for me. Or would you?”

Pursing your lips forcefully to keep from making any noise, you shook your head strongly, but you couldn’t help the whimper that escaped from the back of your throat when he hit your g-spot. Steve shook his head, looking up at himself in the mirror,

“Mm-mm, wouldn’t want that.”

Trying desperately to keep quiet, you strained your neck to try and look back at him and what he was doing. But he shook his head, leaning down to grab your face and force your head the other way.

“Don’t look at me,” he commanded, his voice dark and deep. “Look at yourself.”

You looked up, orgasmic tears forming in your eyes as you did so, catching sight of yourself in the mirror getting fucked to the heavens, arms stretched behind your back, breasts bouncing each time Steve fucked into you. The look on Steve’s face was beyond you— he was almost sneering at the sight of the two of you in the mirror, the smug look on his face intensifying each time you had to stifle a moan or stop yourself from screaming his name. You’d never seen him like this before, and you were so glad you’d pulled it out of him in the little amount of time you had left together.

“Fuck,” Steve groaned when you felt you squeeze around him, his voice becoming breathier and lower, almost accusatory of your pleasure, “you like this, don’t you?”

You whimpered in response, nodding your head violently, and Steve grunted, slamming his hips up into you and bringing a hand down to play with your clit as if praising your response. His own voice became more and more unhinged, his thrusts growing sloppier and less focused, his eyes zeroing in on your expression in the mirror,

“You love getting fucked like this, don’t you? Wh-where anyone could hear… f-fuck, doll, I can feel you squeezing my fu… fucking cock. Come for me, YN.”

That was all it took, an ear splitting moan falling from your lips as you practically convulsed, coming on Steve’s cock, not bothering to stop rocking your hips back. Soon after you came, Steve’s dirty talk became nothing more than unintelligible blabbering, and he came hard inside of you. Breathing deeply, he slid lazily in and out of you just a few more times, fucking all his cum back into you. He pulled out, and you fell against the sink with a sigh. You both cleaned up, and Steve smiled at you before you both left the restroom.

“Thank you,” you said stupidly, still delirious from how hard he’d fucked you.

Steve chuckled, shaking his head playfully and putting an arm around you to stabilize you,

“No problem. Come on, let’s pay and get you home.”

That night, you slept better than ever, your boyfriend Steve holding you in his arms.

| | |

Once you woke up the next day, Steve decided to take you to this nice brunch place, flipping on his hat and glasses since it was a little crowded, but not anything too worrisome. Besides, you had made it this far without Steve being recognized, and you realized that in New York, nobody was really paying attention to anyone.

Last night had been fantastic, in so many ways. You and Steve had made it far enough to actually become official, to call each other boyfriend and girlfriend. And although you knew the distance between you would be hard to deal with at times, you knew Steve would find a way to make it work. He never had you second guessing or doubting important decisions, because you knew that out of anyone you’d ever been romantically involved with, he had his shit together the most. He was actually focused on treating you well, and he had all the resources and the common sense to do just that. So, the distance didn’t quite scare you, in fact, it was probably less of an issue for you two than other long distance couples. Hell, you’d made it far enough without actually meeting.

As per usual, Steve opened your car door, then held your hand all the way inside the restaurant. You’d eat and then go home and find some random hobby to do with each other, like board games or finally finishing the Harry Potter movies, or just staying in and cuddling the whole night. You got seated at a table in the back and talked about nothing in particular while you waited for the waiter to come around.

You had your hand on top of Steve’s, squeezing it absentmindedly while you scrolled through your phone, reading text messages from your friends back at home. You knew Steve wasn’t a huge fan of your phone, but it wasn’t a habit that you pulled it out while you were meant to be hanging out together. Besides, you had a whole digital life that you had to keep up with for your own sake, consisting of your cam career and your online shop. It’d be silly if you tried to disconnect completely.

“Hi, good to see you today, my name is Richard, I’ll be serving you today! Can I get you guys started with some drinks?” Richard asked, cupping his hands together with an expectant smile.

“Waters for the both of us,” Steve nodded, and you added on, glancing at the waiter quickly.

“Lemonade for me too, please,” you added on.

“Awesome, I’ll be right…” Richard the waiter trailed off and you both glanced up at him, but he had paused, staring at Steve, his face contorted in slight confusion. Steve offered him a small, almost pitying smile, and you couldn’t help but huff, humored. Richard cocked his head and tapped his pen against his notepad before shaking his head slightly, snapping out of it. “Sorry, it’s just… you look so familiar.”

You and Steve exchanged a glance, both of your eyes whipping to meet each other, before you broke away and looked back at Richard. You were both slightly unnerved by the comment. In a way, it was so nonchalant, a casual remark. But Steve wasn’t just any other guy who you’d say that to. Chances were, this guy was about to recognize just who Steve was. You almost wanted to cover for him, but you feared that doing that would make things too obvious. You’d let Steve handle this, although you could see the hint of nerves in the smile that appeared on his face as he shrugged quite convincingly,

“I couldn’t tell you why, honestly.”

Richard chuckled, huffing,

“It’s just, I swear I’ve seen you before, are you like— have you come here before?”

Steve just laughed, but you could sense his discomfort, and you squeezed his hand a little harder,

“Sometimes. You might’ve seen me.”

Richard nodded with a decided hum, then shrugged,

“Yeah, that’s probably it.”

Steve’s shoulders visibly slumped in relief, and you smiled quietly.

“Well, I’ll be right back with those drinks,” Richard, turning around.

Once he was completely out of sight, Steve sighed heavily, leaning in to you at the table.

“I think we should go,” was all he said, and you frowned slightly,

“We just got here…”

“I know, but that guy… listen, we haven’t paid for anything. Let’s just go. I’ll make it up to you, I promise. I just don’t think—”

“Okay,” you cut him off, smiling calmly.

Things were going so well, you didn’t want Steve to feel like you wouldn’t listen to him when it was important. You also didn’t want him to worry too much. You could see that he was trying to refrain from sounding as nervous as he was because he didn’t want to upset you, so, out of respect, you decided you wouldn’t push him any further. This was the first time either of you had to worry that someone had noticed Steve, and although it could truly just be a fluke totally unrelated to his actual identity, neither of you wanted to take that risk. So, you just agreed with him.

Steve got up gingerly, and nodded at you to do the same.

“Come on,” Steve said, lacing his fingers between yours, a sense of relief rushing through you.

For a moment there, you feared that his anxiety might get the best of him and that he wouldn’t pay any attention to you, but he had proved you wrong. He gave your hand a squeeze as the two of you ducked out of the restaurant as nonchalantly as you could. When you were finally outside on the sidewalk, you both walked back to Steve’s car, not looking back.

The car ride home was silent other than the music Steve put on to distract himself from his thoughts. He truly was trying to remain stable rather than let his nerves get the best of him. He hadn’t quite let his guard down, but he also didn’t feel as if he’d be recognized. He was getting too comfortable— no, he was just doing what was right, taking you out and taking care of you. He wouldn’t let himself sink into blaming himself or anyone else.

You were both far past that, far from fear and holding yourselves back from what you truly wanted, which was to be together and feel like you could do that without inhibitions. You both understood the conditions under which you’d be meeting in person, and you understood that Steve needed to keep this under wraps for the sake of privacy and safety. You had grown enough not to let these conditions hinder you, you wouldn’t start now just because of a little hiccup.

“Steve,” came your voice, distracting him from the loop of thoughts replaying in his brain as you both walked into the apartment.

“Hm?” he turned to face you, and you grabbed his hand gently, a small, reassuring smile on your lips.

You led him to the living room couch and you both sat down, facing each other.

“Let’s talk about it, okay? You’ll feel better if you just talk to me about it instead of letting it bother you in silence,” you directed, and he took in a deep breath before sitting back and nodding understandingly.

You wanted to at least solve the problem before it spiraled into a bigger one, and if it meant you had to sit on the couch and talk about it, then so be it. You’d rather a hard discussion than any issues.

“It’s not that I’m paranoid, it’s just… I don’t want anything to be ruined because of me. You know, I’ve been enforcing all these rules and… I just care about our privacy and safety the most.”

“You do know that I’d never blame you for anything, right? You do know that?” you asked him, tilting your head as you waited for him to make eye contact with you and answer you honestly.

He did eventually, nodding and cracking a small grin,

“I know. I… I don’t want it to seem like one small thing would ruin my mood, I don’t want you to think I’m as scared as I used to be.”

“I don’t think you are though, Stevie,” you said softly as you stroked his cheek, your long acrylic nails gently running along his skin.

He seemed to calm down immediately from your touch, his facial expression softening, but you could tell he was still upset with himself. You grinned to yourself. You liked being able to make Steve feel better with just a trivial touch. You knew your presence actually meant something to him, and that sentiment meant everything to you. You knew he just wanted to keep you safe, especially considering the circumstances of your relationship, but you didn’t want him getting too worked up. You could handle yourself and Steve knew that, but having him next to you in situations like this was just a plus— after all, there was a reason why the guy only approached you once he’d seen Steve had left.

“It’s okay, Steve. Really. I get it, it’s unexpected and worrisome. Neither of us really were prepared for that. I think you handled it amazingly. Don’t think this diminishes all the progress we made, alright?” you let your hand slip down to his, and gave it a squeeze. “Because it doesn’t. Okay?”

“Okay,” Steve chuckled, and you could tell by the smile in his laugh that he was resigning.

He was truly enjoying spending time with you like a normal couple would. He wasn’t peeking over his shoulder, he was just being careful. But he knew the risks he was taking. And he knew he’d just have to roll with the punches, that he couldn’t let one moment change everything for the worse. You were practically reading Steve’s mind, because based on his reaction, you knew exactly how he felt, and you already had all the words you’d need to console him.

You held his hand tight, as if to remind him that he needn’t be so hard on himself or be afraid that you doubted him in any way. As if to remind him you weren’t going anywhere. He couldn’t deny that your touch made a considerable impact on his mood, as well as your presence. Just your presence seemed to radiate whatever he needed in the moment, and at that moment, it was calm.

“Don’t feel worried that you made the wrong decision by bringing us here today. I had the best time. This small inconvenience doesn’t fuck up the fact that I just had an amazing day with you, okay?”

Steve nodded slowly, though you could tell it took a lot for him to take the blame off himself. You weren’t sure that he was fully convinced, but at least he seemed a little less out of it.

“I’m glad you understand, YN. But I have to take responsibility. I’m not going to become all paranoid again, but I just think it’d be best to lay low for a minute and recover. I really do want to show you everything, I just-”

“Steve, calm down,” you tittered, shaking your head. “I don’t need to see everything. I came here to see you, not tour New York. As long as I’m with you, I don’t care. We could go out every day or we could stay in. I know you’d make the effort either way. Besides, we only have so much time left together, and I feel like you’ve shown me the entire world.”

It was true— Steve had proven to you that he cared time and time again, whether it was through flying you out or taking you out without you having to ask. It was the little things. The way he poured just the right amount of sugar in your coffee in the morning, helped you zip up your dresses in the morning, let you blast your music in the car. He seemed to think he needed to prove himself, and you wanted to show him that he had already done that, and more.

Steve chuckled, and you squeezed his thigh, kissing his cheek. He turned to face you, leaning in to kiss you on the lips this time. You shifted closer to him, leaning in until you were close enough to rest your palms on his cheek, climbing into his lap and deepening the kiss. Slow, passionate, and quiet, you sat there kissing each other. You kissed each other like you were trying to savor the taste of one another’s lips, like you were trying to remember it for the rest of your lives. You kissed like you were sharing secrets.

It was only a matter of time before you were taking off your shirt and kissing him harder, grinding against him and riding him slow on the couch in the bright daylight. You were gentle and slow, it was more like you were making love than just fucking. And by the time you were done, passed out and sweaty on the couch hours later, all your worries had been fucked away.

| | |

Tomorrow was your last day with Steve. You’d be flying back home to California the next day, and saying goodbye. But not just yet. You had all the time in the world to say goodbye, but today you were both devoted to spending a beautiful, eventful day together. Steve had stuff planned for you, and you had stuff planned for Steve. You had mutually agreed to skip all the crying and pouting, and just be happy for the experience instead. So when you woke up that morning next to Steve, who was still asleep, you were giddy to start the day.

Absentmindedly, you picked up your phone on the end table beside you. It was positively buzzing with notifications, and you were a bit thrown off by the sheer amount of them. You furrowed your eyebrows as you skimmed through the notifications from the bottom to the top— you had a bunch of missed calls from your parents, more Snapchat notifications on your regular snap than ever, and a plethora of texts.

You wondered if something had happened, chewing slightly on your bottom lip. Was everything okay at home? Did you post something meant for your cam site on your Instagram? A hundred various circumstances fled through your mind, but none of the situations you had made up could’ve prepared you for when you opened a text from Aaliyah with a picture attached. It read:

- Attachment: 1 image

- BITCH, THIS IS LITERALLY YOU!!!

#girls on film #steve rogers #steve rogers fic #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers smut #smut #marvel #marvel smut #marvel fic #marvel imagine #x reader #reader insert #captain america #captain america x reader #captain america smut #captain america fic #captain america imagine

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mooncustafer · 3 years

Text

Recover, Regroup, Roadtrip

Agent Dale Cooper disappeared in March 1989. The case is still open. Agent Dale Cooper disappeared in October 2016. The case is still open.

for @laughingpinecone /

/ @countdowntotwinpeaks‘ WONDERFULXSTRANGE 2021

“Diane, I am uncertain of the date and time, or indeed if such concepts have any meaning in this place. Nor do I have my recorder, but I find verbalizing my thoughts helps me to resist the confusion and lethargy. As for addressing my words to you, even though you’ll never hear them— well, old habits die hard.”

It pleased Wally Brando on a profound level to discover that a few pay-phones remained in Philadelphia, that reaching out was not yet the prerogative only of those who could afford a landline or a mobile. He could also have checked his email on a terminal at one of the city’s Public Libraries, and indeed, made a note to do so within the day so that he might catch up on the news of parents and former school friends. The pay phone was also blessed with both the yellow and the white pages, and the number he sought appeared under “F.” Getting transferred to Dr. Albert Rosenfield was a more complex quest, but he was persistent as well as polite, and after a few minutes he was able to speak to Dr. Rosenfield’s voice mail, if not the man himself.

He introduced himself with salutations, and was about the explain the nature of his request when a beep signalled that the allotted time had run out.

“To listen to your message, press one. To re-record your message, press two,” said the voice of the machine.

Silently cursing his volubility, Wally pressed two. This time he simplified the introduction, and asked if Dr. Rosenfield would be good enough to meet him that evening at the Morimoto Japanese restaurant not far from the FBI offices, to discuss a matter of deep concern connected, he believed, with the little town of Twin Peaks. When the beep came this time, he listened to his message and then, satisfied, hung up. The restaurant he’d named was slightly above his means, but he was meeting a friend of his godfather, and wanted to do justice to the occasion, even if the reason for it was one of peculiar anxiety to himself.

“Diane, I have tried so many times to escape— on the last attempt I really did get out into the world, but my plans, I fear, had dire repercussions for you, and to no end— my course still led me back to the Black Lodge. Some flaw in my own nature keeps trapping me in this loop; perhaps it’s what they sometimes call Saṃsāra.”

It was Agent Tammy Preston’s custom, when scraping the internet for information relevant to one or more recent cases, to check her email inbox every seven minutes— to do so every five minutes would disrupt the flow of her work, but ten-minute gaps might let something important go unanswered for too long. Just now the inbox was due another glance, and switching tabs she saw that two minutes earlier Director Bryson had replied to Tammy’s email of that morning with an invitation to come by her desk at her earliest possible convenience.

Tammy locked her screen, paused ‘Soft Fuzzy Man’ on her playlist and removed her headphones. Picking up the folder marked Missing Persons, 1989– Palmer, she slipped back into her pumps and made for Bryson’s office. The door was open but Tammy stopped at the threshold and rapped on the wall.

“Come in,” said Director Bryson, looking up from a folder. Bossa nova music played softly in the background as Tammy entered and pulled up a chair. It sometimes puzzled Tammy that apart from herself and Director Gordon Cole, no one in this particular division of the FBI seemed to have any interest in music recorded after 1979. (The first few times she’d heard ‘Du Hast’ pounding through the walls of Cole’s office, she’d wondered if this taste for metal was the result, or perhaps the cause, of his hearing loss; but after he’d joked to an unamused Agent Rosenfield about how these were difficult times and difficult times called for Dave Brubeck, she’d looked up the reference in case it was a coded message, and then the next day had overheard Gordon whistling ‘Mister Sandman,’ a song she knew primarily from an internet meme, at which point she concluded that the ear wants what it wants, regardless of demographic.)

“You told me you’d found some serious inconsistencies in the records surrounding Twin Peaks and the Palmer case?”

Tammy nodded, hesitated:

“I believe there may be inconsistencies as well in my own perceptions of the case.”

“Well now, that I find a little harder to believe.” Bryson smiled, but then her voice grew serious: “I’ve looked over the notes you made, and it confirms my own doubts about events.”

“Worse yet— the fact that I truly left the Lodge and then returned to it, will enable the beings that inhabit this place to take another twenty-five year turn in my likeness, unleashing even more evil on the world. The only thing stalling them is the doppelgänger I had MIKE make for the Jones family, but I don’t know if he’s still under the White Lodge’s protection.”

After all these months it still surprised Harry Truman there was so little physical pain, and so much boredom, to dying. Oh there’d been pain at the beginning, when he’d started treatment and had had to stop drinking; the memory of detoxing still made him shudder. But now he only felt a tiredness too huge for sleep to make any dent in it; and since he couldn’t sleep all the time, there were a great many hours during which all he could do was lie in the hospice bed or sit in one of the hospice chairs, and think.

At this point dying didn’t even sound so bad— it wasn’t like the past three decades had been all that great. He imagined going to sleep, just filling up a big bowl of silence and darkness and sinking into it, and then he felt bad for thinking that because Frank had already lost enough people without Harry lighting out too. Anyways, with the things he’d seen over the years he’d be a damn fool to think there was anything peaceful about death and whatever came after. So he’d lie awake trying to find some other topic to ponder, and that’s generally when the boredom set in.

Right now, courtesy of the nap he’d had in the afternoon after today’s treatment had left him especially exhausted, he was lying awake in the wee small hours. 3:52 am, said the clock on his bedside table beside the stack of paperbacks Frank had brought him on his visits— Harry wasn’t afraid of e-readers the way Lucy was of cellular phones, but he found the smell of paper comforting. It reminded him of the Bookhouse. The hospice tended to smell of disinfectants and sweat and soup. The food actually wasn’t as bad as the food at the hospital in Twin Peaks used to be, not that any food could be as bad as the hospital food in Twin Peaks used to be, but it made no difference to Harry, whose appetite had been gone for months. Frank always brought a slice of Norma’s pie too, carefully sealed in an old cookie tin to keep it fresh, but Harry could never manage more than a couple of bites, and they didn’t always stay down.

Being awake in the middle of the night in a hospice wasn’t as bad as being awake in the middle of the night when you were alone at home— the occasional voices or footsteps from the corridors beyond were reminders that whatever might be happening to Harry, life went on for the staff; and the lights from the city outside showed that life went on for others outside the hospice walls. When he’d first arrived, those city lights had made it hard to sleep, but now they substituted for the starry sky above Twin Peaks. There were fewer birds to watch in the city, though sparrows, pigeons or a starling sometimes lit on the ledge outside his window and peered in at him, or maybe at their own reflections. The frequent rain pattering against the glass— well, that sounded the same here as it did in a cabin.

Frank had called to tell him about Margaret Lanterman. Harry sometimes wondered if he should have stayed in Twin Peaks and died in his own home like her, instead of lingering in this hospice like the doomed heroine of some nineteenth-century novel. Or like Annie Blackburn. Or Audrey Horne.

The rain was spattering now against Harry’s window, bending the light from the Japanese stone lantern in the pocket-sized garden below. Harry couldn’t remember what the hospice building looked like from the outside, but he guessed it was similar in style to the mid-century one next door where the day-patients came for their treatments. A flash silhouetted the roofline; five seconds later came the thunder-crack. Harry settled back and closed his eyes.

Sleep pulled him into dreams of an espresso machine, like the one in the coffee place down in the lobby next to the gift shop for visitors. This machine filled a whole room, metal pipes feeding back on themselves like some kind of espressouroboros, neither steam nor coffee escaping from the grotesque contraption. Agent Cooper stood wearily before it with two empty coffee-cups. Harry was just wondering who the second cup was for, when Coop looked up and met his eyes:

“What year is this?!”

Harry sat up in bed, listened intently for two full minutes, but he didn’t hear Coop’s voice again. He sighed. Sometimes the mind pulls imaginary sounds out of the background noise. False pattern recognition or something— Coop would have known a word for it. Harry had little hope left they’d ever find Cooper, or if they did, that he’d still be the man he’d known. Yet he’d carried on, more (he told himself) out of habit than any real hope. He’d kept in touch with Agent Rosenfield, even when it meant letting him know about the cancer— not that Albert would blab the secret to anyone in Twin Peaks.

“Hello?”

“Good, you’re still alive.” Albert’s personality hadn’t mellowed with the years, exactly, but familiarity had worn the edges off his jibes.

“Shut up, Albert. So what have you found?” Albert’s calls generally came every three months, but never at nine in the morning, and he’d last spoken to Harry only two weeks back. Something important must have happened.

“Actually, Sheriff Truman, I’m the one coming to you for information.”

“If you hadn’t noticed, it’s not easy to do investigations from a hospital bed. What can I tell you that you can’t get from other sources?”

“I need you to summarize the Laura Palmer case back in 1989, and the actions of Agent Cooper in Twin Peaks at that time.”

“Albert, is this one of your damn cognitive tests? You already know—”

“We’re both too tired to argue, just humor me.”

“How detailed do you want?”

“An outline will suffice.”

Harry took a deep breath and briefly listed the finding of Laura’s body, and the living but dazed and injured Ronnette, and the arrival of Agent Dale Cooper to lead the investigation. He skimmed over the crimes of Jacques Reneault and some of the other peripheral drama that had occurred in the town around that time, noted that Leland Palmer had murdered his own daughter, albeit while not fully himself, and was beginning to recount Cooper’s temporary suspension and Windom Earle’s campaign of terror, when Albert interrupted:

“You’ve still got the unofficial version, then.”

“Unofficial?”

“According to FBI records and your colleagues at the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Office, Laura Palmer is an unsolved missing-person case.”

Harry began to feel sick.

“Goddammit, Albert, you did the autopsy. I punched you and you fell across her body. You found a broken poker chip in her stomach—” Albert broke in:

“I hadn’t disclosed that detail to anybody I’ve questioned about this.” His voice was a little shaky. “Listen, Harry,” he continued. “Last Friday I was contacted by a young man wearing motorcycle leathers and talking like Jack Kerouac on quaaludes.”

“Wally.”

“Naturally I supposed him to be from your iodine-deficient neck of the woods even before he introduced himself as your godson and the offspring of those lieutenants of yours. He told me he’d come because he wasn’t sure where else to turn. Apparently he keeps in touch with his parents as he rides across the continent, but in their most recent conversation he’d noticed their memories of certain events had become confused. I was about to tell him I wasn’t the least bit surprised, when he added that he’d checked with other townsfolk, including your brother, and they all seemed to have had the same— how’d he put it? ‘The walls of their memory painted over like a childhood bedroom converted to a study.’”

”That sounds like Wally, all right.”

”Eventually he got round to explaining why he’d come to me. The message that had prompted him to call home was from Lucy; she said she’d shot a suspect who was attacking your brother Frank. She’d also mentioned some FBI agents arriving a few minutes later.”

Harry swallowed. He tried to imagine Lucy shooting anyone:

“Frank never said anything about this.”

“And when Wally called home, Andy and Lucy not only denied it had happened, they had no idea what he was talking about, not that I’d guess that to be an unusual state of affairs. Anyway, after I sent your godson away, I began to have contradictory memories myself of what Cooper had told me about the case. I remembered the poker chip after waking in the middle of the night from the worst dreams I’d had since medical school. I’ve been telling myself it was a false memory, maybe a composite of all the young female murder victims I’ve had to examine in my career, but I told myself I’d make one more phone call, just to check. And now you confirm it. Also, in my recall you knocked me across Leo Johnson’s body. Thanks for the correction. Are you still there?”

“Yes,” Harry answered, glad he was already sitting on his bed.

“Now that that’s established,” said Albert’s voice on the other end of the phone: “here’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question: when do you remember Agent Cooper disappearing?”

“March 1989.” Harry tried to keep his voice steady, as though he was giving evidence in court. He briefly explained about the Black Lodge and Coop’s reappearance and unsettling behaviour and how he’d checked himself out of the hospital and was never heard from again. There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. “Are you still there, Albert?”

“According to FBI records and, up until two days ago, my own memories: Coop disappeared this past October while driving to Odessa, Texas for a case. The last record of him was a credit-card charge at a motel just outside the city.”

“What was he investigating in Odessa?”

“Missing person. I’ve tried looking into that case, but it seems to be a dead end, especially since Coop never seems to have arrived at the diner where the man he was looking for had allegedly been running drugs.”

“Sounds like the kind of establishment where nobody’d admit anything. Maybe Coop did get to the diner.”

“Gee, you’ve cracked it Sheriff, we would never have thought of that. The diner was old-school, but not so old-school they didn’t have a security camera trained on the front counter. We went over three days worth of footage. I admit we can’t be sure he didn’t slip in through the back for some reason; but you knew Coop— can you honestly picture him entering a diner and not ordering a coffee?”

“Not the Coop I knew, but— I already told you he was acting pretty erratically just before he took off.”

Harry heard Albert sigh.

“I’ve been checking with a few of my colleagues who were involved in the original Palmer investigation. I think Gordon knows something, but being Gordon he’s saying nothing, and as loudly as possible. Denise— Director Bryson, now— remembers the unofficial version, and according to her so does Agent Preston— oh right, you never met Agent Tammy Preston, the poker-faced glamazon computer hacker— I’m not sure she was even born yet in 1989, but she was on a case in Twin Peaks in October 2016, and during the course of the subsequent paperwork, she started noticing a lot of records and statements didn’t match up, and then she realized her own memories didn’t match up. Which brings up another problem with trying to reason this out by conventional methods: something in that Salem’s Pacific-Northwest Lot of yours is rewriting memories, documents, maybe the facts themselves. But so far it’s predominantly affected the people who were on the spot this past October.” Albert’s voice rasped a little from the long phone call, and he paused to clear his throat. “Unfortunately, that also means the people most likely to remember the original version of events are people who weren’t in the Sheriff’s Office during the incident that seems to have triggered the change. At the risk of sounding like one of those bullshit shows on the History Channel, we may never know exactly what happened that night.”

“Wait, what even was the case that brought you all back in 2016?”

“That’s the problem— I’m one of the people who was there, and I only have vague and disconnected memories of a British man with a gardening glove, the chorus of Guys and Dolls, Agent Cooper leaving the room with Diane, his secretary who quit the FBI decades ago, and Gordon, and only Gordon coming back.” Albert paused again. “It goes against my personal feelings and medical opinions, but would you be willing to let me visit you in person? I’ve some vacation time and enough frequent-flyer miles that the trip will probably cost less than the long-distance charges if we continue this conversation.”

Harry opened the drawer of his bedside table and took out the key to Coop’s old hotel room:

“Yeah, come by.”

“Diane, I am currently alone. I realize that statement implies that I’m not always alone here, and indeed I sometimes have a companion, who I still think of as Laura Palmer, though I don’t know if that’s her identity anymore; I’d hoped, after my last attempt, that Laura would no longer be in this place at all. She comes and goes, or perhaps we both come and go and our orbits occasionally intersect. I’ve tried to find some pattern to it, but with no reliable way to measure time, I’ve had little success.

The last time we met she told me about a room she hadn’t seen before, all white walls, in which a dark-haired woman was contemplating a mirror with a puzzled look. I can’t help but feel this parallels my own situation.”

“Frank sent me this last month. But when I thanked him the next time he called, he didn’t seem to know what I was talking about.” Albert hesitated before taking the room key:

“Great Northern Hotel,” he read, turning it over. “Twin Peaks. Isn’t the front desk going to want this back?”

“Unless I miss my guess, it’s from 1989 when Coop was staying there.”

Albert’s ears stuck out more noticeably, or perhaps it was his face that was thinner. He’d spent the first part of his visit scrutinizing Harry and questioning him about his case and what the doctors were doing for it, until Harry told him to quit it or he’d run out of time to discuss Coop’s disappearance before visiting hours ended, and anyway weren’t Albert’s patients usually dead to begin with?

The trouble with the subsequent discussion was that it went in a circle— the people who’d been present for the 2016 Unknown Event had uncertain memories of what had actually happened; and the people who clearly recalled the 1989 Palmer case as a murder hadn’t been present for the Unknown Event. The one thing that seemed likely was that there was some connection between the 1989 case and the 2016 case, particularly since both had been followed by the unsolved disappearance of one Agent Dale Cooper.

“I hate to say it, Albert, but I’ve given up hope on ever finding Coop.”

“What’s hope got to do with it?” Albert asked. His tone was not sarcastic.

“Diane, I’ve decided that, if only to keep my mind occupied, I will go looking for the white room and the woman with the mirror. I’d feel happier if I had a ball of twine or some breadcrumbs to leave as a trail back to the waiting room, but I’m coming to terms with the idea that’s there’s no advantage to remaining or returning here— it’s not as if I need food or drink in this place, and I cannot be any more lost than I already am.

So far, I believe I’ve walked down five identical red-curtained hallways, and turned left five times. It therefore seems likely that I’m following a counterclockwise, roughly spiral path, although I’m uncertain if I’m proceeding inwards or outwards.”

“If this search is going to require juggling two sets of memories, then I’d better come along so you don’t get brainwashed again.”

“Sheriff Truman, if you haven’t noticed by now, you’re in a cancer hospice.”

“I just finished a round of treatments, I’ve got a couple of weeks free.” Albert snorted and Harry added: “You can monitor my health while we’re on the road.”

“I’m already thinking of your health. You’re immunocompromised, travel is too risky.”

“We’re crossing a few state lines, not going to the other side of the world.”

Albert pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Fine. I’m driving. Which also means I get to choose the music.”

In fact, they went most of the way by plane, after Albert weighed the odds and decided five hours in a tube of recycled air would still be easier on Harry than a two-day road trip. Some of the passengers threw suspicious looks at Harry’s N95 mask, but they’d cleared it in advance with the airline, and Harry had briefly removed it when he went through TSA, and Albert was prepared to flash his FBI badge, but the flight crew were understanding.

They picked up a car at Midland International. Someone, presumably an employee of the car-rental company, had left a bundle of tourist-attraction pamphlets on the front passenger seat.

“According to these, Odessa has replicas of the Globe Theatre and Stonehenge,” Harry observed once he’d got himself settled.

“Why?” Albert asked.

“Got me there. The pamphlets don’t explain the motivation.”

Albert reached up and pulled down the car’s sunshade on Harry’s side, though the Sheriff insisted his cowboy hat was protection enough for his pale scalp:

“We’re not in the northwest where it rains every fifteen minutes,” he muttered, “and I’ve been looking up the side effects of your meds— you sunburn easily now.” Albert’s driving skirted the city, and they did not pass the Globe or Stonehenge.

The Pearblossom Motel, last recorded location of Agent Cooper, proved to be closed down. They’d noticed the papered-over windows as they pulled up, the sign unlit, not even to say NO VACANCY, but Albert got out to knock anyway. Harry watched him from the car; eventually he clambered out and slowly walked over to join him.

Albert was peering through a spot where the paper had torn away behind the window-glass. He stepped aside for Harry, and the sheriff took a look into the motel’s dim interior. He saw an ordinary, rather old-fashioned registration office, wood-grain panelling on the walls along with a few faded posters for local attractions. Rows of keys still hung on a board behind the desk, and a daily calendar read October 15, presumably the date the motel had closed, or the approximate date— Harry could imagine a concierge might not bother to keep tearing off the pages if they knew it was their last week on the job.

“I now realize that despite everything, I’ve still been harbouring hopes of finding my way back to the waiting room, hence my continual choosing of left-hand turns, as if attempting to mathematically navigate a maze. I must make a true leap of faith if intuition is to guide me, so I’ve closed my eyes and spun around several times in this corridor, first clockwise and then counterclockwise.

Now that I no longer can tell which direction I’ve come from… Diane, can you hear that? Of course you can’t, I don’t really have my tape recorder. I’m going to fall silent and listen for a bit.”

There seemed little else of interest at the motel (Harry, feeling a bit silly, had even tried the Great Northern’s room key on all the doors), so they turned back towards Odessa to look for the diner Cooper had been investigating. The motel was only a mile behind when they saw, ahead of them, a tall woman walking along the highway, her fire-engine-red hair, black t-shirt and pencil skirt out of place in a locale that was rural to the point of emptiness. Albert swore under his breath.

“This can’t be a coincidence,” he told Harry. “Roll down your window, I’m pulling over.” But the woman only threw a glance at the car as it slowed, flipped them the bird, and kept walking, though she stepped gingerly and Harry noticed she was barefoot on the asphalt. Albert leant across him and stuck his head out the window:

“Diane!”

“Fuck off, guys. I’m not Diane, and whoever she is I bet she’d tell you the same.” Harry gently pushed Albert back and leant out the window himself:

“Sorry, ma’am, mistaken identity. Are you all right though? I see you’ve mislaid your shoes.”

“Looks like somebody ran off with them,” the woman answered, her tone mocking despite the tired set of her shoulders. “I haven’t been up to anything illegal, officer. Just a bit of fooling around.”

“We can give you a ride into town,” Harry offered. “If it helps, you’ll be alone in the back seat— means you can get the drop on us if you start to feel nervous.”

The woman narrowed her eyes at the offer, then abruptly barked out a laugh and opened the back door of the car, took a seat and folded her long legs in after her. “Only because I need a lift,” she insisted, rubbing her bare feet. “I knew office romances were a bad idea, but he didn’t have to be a dick about it. Nothing to do now but go home and drown my sorrows in Hallowe’en candy.”

“You’ve still got candy left over from Hallowe’en?” In the mirror above the dashboard, Harry saw Albert raise an eyebrow and the woman in the back seat frowned, insulted:

“No! I may not have a maternal bone in my body, but I’m not going to give the trick-or-treaters candy that’s a year old.”

“Ma’am,” Harry asked, thinking about the calendar back in the Pearblossom Motel office, “what date d’you think it is?”

“Mid-October,” she began. Harry saw her reach into her purse with her black-and-white nails and pull out a mobile phone. Her eyes widened at the date: “No, it’s March. The fuck?—” She ran a hand through her scarlet hair. Harry wondered if it was dyed or a wig. Perhaps she was bald too. “Must be losing it. I was so sure it was October. And it’s not like I’ve could’ve been wandering around this desert for five months.” She tapped her phone screen. “5,230 messages?!” She looked frightened now, raising her head to meet their gaze in the mirror. “Where the hell have I been? And you guys— you’re feds, aren’t you?”

“No,” Harry began.

“I am,” said Albert. “He’s not.”

“Well, can you tell me what’s going on? Or is it classified? God, it’s not aliens, is it? I always assumed alien conspiracies were bullshit to cover up real conspiracies.”

“It’s probably not aliens,” Harry answered, unable to keep doubt from his voice as he remembered Major Briggs, “but I afraid it’s not going to sound any less weird.”

“To start with, we’re in the area investigating a colleague who disappeared in October,” began Albert, “and then you turn up, apparently amnesiac since that date.”

“And with my messages unchecked since then.”

“Yes, but there’s another detail— you look exactly like a former colleague of mine who was close to our missing man. That’s why I called you Diane when I slowed down.”

“I need a smoke.”

“No.”

“Albert,” Harry interrupted, “I’ve already got cancer, what’s the worst that can happen?”

“Do you want me to answer that in detail?”

“No I don’t.” Harry turned to look over his shoulder at the woman in the back: “Just roll down your window first.”

“We’ll pull over and she can step away from the car,” said Albert.

He stopped on a shoulder, and their passenger got out and lit a cigarette. Examining the packet, she called to them:

“Three left. That’s fewer than I remember having on me in October, but not by much.” Albert, meanwhile, had pulled a shopping bag from the back seat:

“You should eat something,” he said to Harry, producing a sealed cup of applesauce and a box of plastic spoons. Between rounds of treatment, Harry’s nausea receded, but his appetite was still pretty weak. “There’s saltine crackers, too.” Harry chuckled in spite of himself as he tore the foil off the applesauce:

“This all makes me feel like I’m home from school with the ‘flu.”

“You’ll have to watch Roadrunner cartoons on your own phone, I’m not paying for the data,” Albert snapped.

“I’m surprised we even get reception out here.” The red-haired woman had strolled back to the car with her cigarette, though she took care to stay downwind from Harry’s rolled-down window. “Guys, is it just me or is this highway really deserted— like, Rod-Serling-voiceover deserted?”

“We were just thinking Roadrunner cartoons.”

“Can’t be, there’s no weird rocks.” She flicked ash onto the pavement, “Though it does feel like if someone painted a tunnel entrance on a wall around here, you might be able to drive into it. If you weren’t a coyote.” She took another drag and glanced at the power lines humming above their heads. “Maybe it’s the hum from those wires that’s giving us brain cancer— oh sorry, dude.” She broke off and looked at Harry in apology.

“It’s all right, ma’am,” he said when he’d finished swallowing his mouthful of applesauce. “I’ve got leukaemia, not brain cancer. And the sound from those lines is unpleasant. Like the whine of mosquitoes in the woods.” As he spoke the hum intensified, becoming a loud crackle. Albert glanced up as a shadow fell over the three travellers and their car.

In the sky a dark, nebulous shape twisted, circled, formed a comma or an apostrophe, and dove towards them.

The first few grackles, out of thousands, came down on the roof and hood of the car. Harry could see one pecking at the windscreen and glaring at him with hard yellow eyes. He suddenly remembered Coop had been afraid of birds; until now, he’d never been able to imagine why. He turned and pushed open the back door as the woman dove inside the vehicle. Around them, the flock blotted out the landscape.

“Hope they don’t scratch up the finish,” Albert shouted over the sound of wing-beats, “or I’m not getting my deposit back.”

“Is this nesting season? I mean, are the grackles round here normally this—”

“Oh fuck, one got in!” came a yell from the back seat. Eardrums ringing, Harry turned to see a small black shape ricocheting around the car’s interior as the woman flailed her long, bare arms. The grackle made for the gap between Albert’s seat and headrest.

And got stuck, its beak not quite touching the back of Albert’s neck.

Harry reached for the little feathered body, thinking of how to pin the wings against the bird’s sides to avoid injury to it or the surrounding humans, but the moment his fingers touched it, it crumbled. At the same time the din outside the car ceased.

“That— that’s not natural.” Their passenger was covering her mouth with her hand. Even Albert looked shocked. Harry stared at the palmful of ash that was all that was left of the grackle.

“Let me get a sample bag,” Albert muttered. He pulled out a small clear plastic bag, and held it out while Harry poured the remains in. Then he handed him a packet of wet wipes. “You all right, Diane?” The woman in the back seat did not correct him on the name this time.

“Couple of scratches,” she said, examining her right arm. Albert passed her a mini first-aid kit. Got to give him his dues, he prepares for everything, thought Harry, adjusting the brim of his cowboy hat.

“Y’know,” he said, “This could be a good sign. In that it’s any kind of sign. There’s nothing worse than working in the dark, waiting for some hint you’re getting warmer or colder— that’s the kind of thing makes you wonder if the thing you’re looking for is even out there at all. But this—”

“Someone tipped their hand, you mean, when they tried throwing a Hitchcock movie in our faces,” Albert cut in. “But what exactly did we do to worry them?” His glance, and Harry’s, moved to the dashboard mirror’s reflection of their passenger.

“You think the birds were after me, or wanted to break up our merry band?” She raised an eyebrow. “Trouble is I know a token effort when I see one.”

“Or a warning.”

“We found the Pearblossom Motel;” Harry thought he saw the woman flinch at the name. “And then left it, to head for Odessa.”

“Are you suggesting we drive around in circles and see if they attack again?” Albert muttered.

“I think that’d be a little unfair to our passenger.” Harry turned to her: “Ma’am, I believe Albert when he says he knows you; but I also believe you when you say you don’t remember him. We can drop you anywhere you like— your call.”

“Give me a few minutes, fellas. Given all the weird shit I’ve just been through, I’ve got to think about whether I’m safer away from you two, or sticking close by. Plus I’ve got messages to check.” She took her phone out again. Without taking his eyes off the road, Albert pulled his own phone from his suit jacket, passing it to Harry:

“You’d better check mine. Maybe Tammy’s got some news—she’s been looking up everyone connected with events in Twin Peaks, but not living in the area. She even emailed some couple in Japan, though I’m still not sure what they’ve got to do with this.”

Harry peered at Albert’s phone screen, occasionally commenting if something looked to be of interest:

“Gordon’s sent a grudging OK, tells you to be careful. Also tells you to look after me. I’d always imagined he’d type in uppercase— didn’t realize it was him at first. Hm. Do you know a coroner?”

“I know lots of coroners, we get together for an annual poker tournament and lucky draw. And when I say draw…”

“Do you know a Dr. Talbot in Buckhorn?” Harry interrupted. “Autopsied a headless body last September that turned out to be Major— wait, he— is this one of those revised timeline things?”

“Not exactly.” Albert brought Harry up to date as best he could on Major Briggs’ disappearance and decades-later reappearance. “I certainly remember meeting Constance,” he added, after a pause, and cleared his throat again. “According to Tammy, I made a favourable impression on her, which is… unusual among my acquaintances, even those who share my profession. So what does she have to say?”

“Something about a wedding ring and Schrödinger’s Cat?” Harry looked at the message again. “She says Tammy spoke to her, and was going to contact you too… a gold ring they found on Briggs… sorry, in Briggs… keeps disappearing from her office’s records and the FBI’s evidence files, then coming back again?”

Albert frowned in thought as he drove: “Does it have anything engraved on it?” Harry tapped a message on the phone screen, CC-ing Constance and Tammy.

Outside the car, suburbs, or at least car dealerships and big-box stores, were beginning to sprout up along the highway.

Albert’s phone pinged and Harry read the message from Constance:

“Yes, scribbled it down last time I could find the record. This ring any (wedding) bells? TO DOUGIE, WITH LOVE, JANEY-E”

“Janey-E,” said Diane from the back seat, and Harry heard her drop her phone. Turning around he saw her wringing her hands, the nails now robin’s-egg blue. “Albert,” she gasped, “Oh, Albert, I was almost lost again.”

“I believe the change in method may have led to a breakthrough: I haven’t found any rooms leading off of the corridor I’m following, but the decor has gradually changed from black-and-white flooring and red curtains, to dark brown linoleum flooring and institutional green walls hung with large relief maps of different parts of the world. The maps appear to have been manufactured some time between 1954 and 1965, as they show North and South Vietnam as separate nations. I’m just passing the continent of Antarctica, now, and… oh. I think there might be…

Diane, I found the white room, and when I call it that, I’m not simply echoing Laura’s name for it. It was like a cross between a sanatorium and a snow cave, if a snow cave had furniture. There was a bed with white blankets and a white metal frame like a hospital bed. Audrey was sitting on one end of it, wrapped in a white bathrobe and looking at a round mirror that stood on a little white table. She turned as I entered, and her face was older, drawn and, for a moment, frightened. Then she looked at me again and relaxed, saying ‘Oh, it’s really you.’ I fear she must have met one of my nastier doppelgängers at some point.”

At Diane’s request, they stopped to eat at a fast-food chain before approaching the diner Coop had been investigating in at least one timeline.

“I’m hungry, but I’d be too nervous to eat at the place where Dale might have… well, if they’re a front for something, then the food’s either spectacular or terrible, and I’m not feeling lucky right now. I want to be someplace as bland and mundane as possible for a while, so I can regroup.”

“Well this place has a twenty-minute limit.” Albert jerked his thumb at the sign.

“That’ll do.” Diane curled up beside Harry in the booth as Albert went up to the counter to place their orders. She still wore her pencil skirt, but on on of their stops she’d purchased tennis shoes and a couple of fresh t-shirts— the one she was wearing at the moment read NOT TODAY in flowery letters. “Now he’s got two of us to worry about,” she said under her breath. Harry decided to reply:

“Someone needs to worry about him.” Diane nodded, and Harry offered his hand: “Sorry, we never did the proper introductions did we? Harry S. Truman.”

“I know.” Her expression relaxed slightly. “I see why he likes you.”

“Not sure Albert likes anybody, exactly—”

“That’s not who I was talking about.”

Albert returned with a eye-searingly-orange plastic tray:

“Mushroom burger, cheeseburger, buttered biscuit for you, Harry, because they can’t just serve toast like a real restaurant and those things they claim are bagels are made out of lies.”

“Don’t worry Albert, I’ll survive a biscuit.” Harry picked up one half of the baked item and took a bite. It wasn’t too bad, actually.

“Diane, the ring that jogged your memory—”

“My half-sister and her husband. Don’t ask me how they’d be mixed up in this though, Janey-E’s aggressively normal.”

“And her husband?”

“Never actually met him. Janey-E and I don’t talk much,” she explained. “But from her comments he’s… passively normal. Works for an insurance company, drinks too much sometimes, the whole man-in-the-gray-flannel-suit thing.”

“I’ve been talking with Audrey, or the version of her that existed in the white room. You’ll notice I use the past tense. Still sitting on the bed, she raised a finger and pointed to the mirror in front of her, saying:

‘The other me— she ran away from home, like she thought Laura had done. I’m amazed she survived her first year in the big city, but look:’

Diane, I saw Audrey searching records online, tailing suspects, testifying in civil and sometimes criminal courts. It’s a life that can make a cynic of the kindest soul, but there are situations the police don’t or can’t investigate, and those were— are, I suppose— Audrey’s bread and butter, in that mirror world. And they seem to pay well enough she can afford to do some pro bono cases.

‘I wish I were out there,’ she said, and the mirror clouded and shifted. She patted the bedspread, and I sat down beside her. ‘You know how,’ she began, ‘when you’re a kid, and you’re reading your favourite book, and a little after the halfway point, you start to think ‘I’m getting near the end of the book?’ And really, you’re not— there are pages and pages left of scenes and pictures. You’re always surprised just how much more there is. But it’s not enough to shake the feeling it’s putting off the inevitable. Dawdling before bedtime.’ She stood up suddenly, bent and kissed me on the brow. ‘Say hello to the other me, if you ever run into her.’ And then she was gone, Diane. Not in flame or fadeout, just gone.”

I look up, and Laura is beside me.

The diner, when they found it, was not what Harry’d pictured. Instead of a lonely Edward Hopper tableau, or a grimy spoon where toughs whispered to each other along the lunch counter and cast knowing glances in the direction of the men’s room, “Wispy Dreams Cafe” was a blandly cheerful donut shop, the logo rather obviously altered from that of a national chain.

“Looks like they’re under new management.” Diane observed as they got out of the car. “Or else they got tired of paying for the franchise?” The three of them made their way across the parking lot the cafe shared with the landscaping company next door. Inside, the sound of chattering customers and a hum from the coffee machine both soothed and overwhelmed. Harry steadied himself against a gleaming, cream-colored formica counter. The woman on the other side— not a fresh-faced high-school senior or a kindly-faced matron, just a woman with her hair in a ponytail and circles under her eyes, doing her best to smile— threw him a glance and Harry nodded.

“I’m ok. Albert, Diane, what do you two want?”

A couple of minutes later, they sat by the window, feigning interest in their donuts and coffee.

“Well, we’re living the cop cliché,” whispered Albert. “So, what do you think? Soulless suburban hangout, or den of villainy?”

Harry gingerly sipped the brew in his cardboard cup and eyed the other customers. You couldn’t say the place wasn’t busy; the woman at the counter had already served a family of four in the time it had taken Harry, Albert and Diane to seat themselves with their coffees, and another customer had just come in the door.

“That counter’s been installed recently. Deep-fat fryer’s been replaced too.”

“And they don’t know how to use it yet. You could wax skis with these donuts. That’s hardly a crime, though.” Diane looked around at the blue and yellow walls painted with large trompe l’oeil sprinkles. “Doesn’t seem to be anything else funny about the place— I hate to say it but this place might be legit.”

Harry watched the new customer lean in to the counter. Harry couldn’t quite make out what he was saying— presumably the man was placing his order, but it seemed to be taking a while and there was something tense in the woman’s expression. Beside him he heard Diane swear under her breath, and faster than he could turn his head, his peripheral vision took in that she was getting up. She strode towards the counter and Harry had a glimpse of the angry red scratch on her arm as he struggled to his feet.

Diane was leaning on the counter now, trying to insert herself between the customer and the worker.

“What did you just say to her?” she was asking.

“Look, I come in here all the time, we joke around. What makes you think it’s your fucking business?”

“What seems to be the trouble?” Harry loomed up behind the customer— he might have only half his usual strength but he was still a good six inches taller than the other man. Behind him, he guessed, Albert was approaching. Harry knew the agent was unwilling to use physical force and not exactly skilled at defusing situations through diplomacy, so he turned his gaze on the customer with all the quiet confidence he’d used as Sheriff. In his ear Diane hissed:

“It’s nothing to do with the case, this asshole’s just creeping on the staff.” She must’ve locked eyes with the man too, for he was staring at her now, his bland pink features shifting expression from anger to terrified fascination.

Rather an unimpressive face, thought Harry, and then, what’s Diane doing? He turned to look at her sharp, smiling profile, and saw a tear slide from her eye.

“No,” she said loudly and abruptly, and blinked hard. “Do you want us to escort him out?” she asked the woman behind the counter; but the man was already out the door and running for his car.

“Diane,” Harry whispered.

“Diane,” whispered Albert. Diane was passing one hand across her eyes.

“I could have fried him. Just now. Something wanted me to; but I just wanted him to back off.” She beamed at them as Albert held out an arm for her to steady herself. “I think I’m back to normal. Well, normal for me.”

“Are we the only two left here now?”

“I’m not even here anymore.”

“I don’t know how to get back to the waiting room.”

“It doesn’t matter, the coffee’s cold.”

Somehow, the white room has become even more featureless, despite that being both a logical and a grammatical impossibility. Only the bed, the table and Audrey’s mirror remain. A moment in the glass catches my eye, and I look to see— oh Diane, I’m so glad you escaped! I see you travelling with Albert, and… oh, Harry…

…the cafe’s fluorescent lights flickered as the background hum, noticeable since their arrival, now rose to an ear-splitting volume then died away just as suddenly. As the three of them looked on, an old-fashioned hospital bed, its steel frame painted white, materialized between the counter and the booths, replacing two unoccupied tables. At one end of it sat Agent Dale Cooper, fully dressed in his suit and tie, a look on his face of mild surprise that turned to the familiar joy as his gaze met theirs. Coop had grown older like the rest of them, sharper angles in his face, but he looked hale and well, and his eyes did not have the cruel gleam that chilled Harry’s memories of their last meeting.

“Harry,” he said, as though a quarter-century hadn’t passed. In response Harry silently doffed his cowboy hat, revealing his pallor, his naked scalp. Coop’s smiled wavered a little. “I’m sorry I was gone so long,” he whispered, and rose from the white bed. In the background, the cafe staff and patrons continued to chat and serve and drink and eat coffee and donuts as if nothing out of the ordinary was going on right in front of them. Albert made a hesitant noise in his throat and Coop raised his hand in that just a moment gesture he always used to make, and in that moment Harry knew his friend really was back from wherever he’d been all those years.

“Apologies for being brusque,” Coop said, “but there’s a family in Las Vegas who I’ve reason to believe are in danger right now—”

“Janey-E?” Diane asked.

“Right on the button. For personal reasons which I’ll explain later, I can’t get in touch with them myself. The Mitchell brothers might be able to help, but I don’t know how much they’ll be able to recall of our last meeting.”

“Tammy and Constance are already on it.”

“Good,” Coop looked relieved, and Harry stepped forward, shaking a little in spite of himself, and as if the motion had at last given him permission, Coop sailed forward and embraced him— very gently, as if he feared Harry might break. He’s gauging by touch how much weight I’ve lost, thought Harry, but it’s all right. He’d forgotten how warm Coop was. He became aware of Albert and Diane joining in, arms circling his shoulders and Coop’s. If I died right here and now, it’d be all right.

But this embrace was not an epitaph, or an epilogue. Outside, somewhere else in the city, was an imitation of an ancient stone monument; and a copy of an old theatre where real audiences watched real actors. Somewhere the forces that had sent the dark cloud of grackles prepared another attack, and somewhere Tammy Preston was moving to protect Janey-E and Dougie Jones. Elsewhere Audrey Horne walked the mean streets and was not herself mean. This was an interlude, but let them have it for a while.

A couple of patrons turned their heads to smile at the reunion going in their midst.

#wonderfulxstrange #@laughingpineapple #twin peaks #@laughingpinecone

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ghostxofxartemis · 3 years

Note

May I have John/Ashely at a party for the Kissing Prompts, please? If you're still taking them?

Of course you may! I always love writing these two cinnamon buns!

Available on AO3 | From this prompt here... inbox always open just let me know it’s from this list.

The After Party

Ashley's arm was wrapped around Shepard's waist, as much for supporting him as it was to be in close proximity to him; his arm was wrapped around her shoulder. The last month and few weeks had been long and agonizing. The recovery from surgery, the physical therapy, the psychological exams he wanted to scoff at, all had been so taxing on John. He was a man of action, he couldn't sit long enough without feeling agitated. He needed to move. And hospitals had a way of making sure you did just the opposite.

Now, as they walked back to the Normandy, a huge grin on his face, he was happy. The war was over, his girlfriend, his crew… family were all okay, and here he was, taking command of his ship once more. The thought excited him. There was just something about being out there in space, helping and protecting others he found so rewarding. He ran his hand against the hatch door.

"Skipper?"

"Hmmm?" He looked at Ashley, their smiles met, but there was concern in her eyes.

"Thought I lost you there for a moment. You okay?"

John's smile widened. "Everything is perfect’" he said as he brushed his lips against Ashley's forehead. He really meant it.

“I could use a drink. I do believe there is a freshly stocked bar down on the crew deck.” A coy smile tugged at Ashley’s lips which only caused John to laugh as they walked to the elevator lift.

“I do believe we have a score to settle. I mean… I did save the Galaxy, so that gives me a few points towards being the best human Spectre… but if you do want me to drink you under the table tonight…” He half-smirked. Ashley rolled her eyes, elbowing him in the ribs.

“Ow.” He complained slightly, as he rubbed his ribs with his hand. Ashley snorted as she pressed the button to deck three.

“Oh suck it up, princess, you’re fine.” Ashley rolled her eyes.

“You didn’t…?” He wasn’t sure he had heard right.

“Oh! I did!” Ashley gently shoved him out of the lift and towards the lounge.

The door whooshed opened as they neared it, Shepard was immediately greeted by the crew who had gathered and already started drinking. He was surprised to see even Jack and Miranda had made their way in here.

James raised his glass, “Hey hey, the man of the hour is here!”

Traynor was the first one to get up from where she sat on the ledge of the couch to come give Shepard a hug. “Welcome back, Commander!”

“It’s good to be back,” Shepard said as he let go.

Cortez was standing at the bar; he popped open the champagne bottle pouring it in glasses.

Miranda was the first one to take up a glass. Amused, Shepard chuckled as he and Ashley approached the counter to take a glass themselves. Miranda was usually the last person to loosen up.

“Still trying to be normal?” He smirked.

“Starting to get the hang of it,” Miranda mumbled with a sheepish look as she reached for Jack’s hand and intertwined their fingers. Shepard arched an eyebrow, his smirk now turning into a full grin. Boy, did he ever call it. Though, he never had expected for them to act on their feelings.

Jack punched him in the shoulder. “Shut up, Shepard!”

“Should start a dating service, Shepard. The Normandy seems to be a hookup site rather than an Alliance vessel,” Tali said as she sat on the bar tool. She grabbed the tripled filtered Turian brandy and poured herself a glass.

“You’ll be the first to know, Tali,” Shepard quipped as he reached for a glass of champagne.

“I’m good,” she said as she gulped down her drink through her ‘induction port’.

“Never mind that. Cortez, line up some shots will you. Reaper metal asses have been sent back to whatever black hole they came from. Time to fucking party!” Jack demanded.

~n~

The bar was littered with all types of different glasses. Shepard had lost count of how many shots and drinks he had, but one thing he was certain about, he felt a lot better than most of the crew. Courtesy of Cerberus upgrades. He could definitely confirm they were still intact and fully functioning. Catalyst be damned for lying to him.

Ashley had met him drink for drink until she felt like the contents were coming back up rather than staying down, so she admitted defeat to their challenge, which she didn’t take too lightly.

A couple of the crew members were snoring away on the couch, some had called it a night and headed to the crew quarters. While others still danced away to the blaring music in the middle of the lounge, others were playing poker at the table, or gathered around the bar for more shots.

It had been a good night. It was certainly nice to see everyone let their hair down, so to speak, knowing that there wasn’t a battle waiting for them the next day. For the first time in over three years Shepard actually felt relaxed.

Shepard was in the middle of taking his shot when Ashley came up behind him, wrapping her arms around his broad shoulders.

“Ash, you want one?” Cortez asked her.

“Nope. I think we can all say Shepard can drink me under the table.” She shook her head, her eyes a little wild, unfocused. She was slightly unsteady on her feet. Shepard chuckled.

“For that, he can give me a dance though,” she wiggled her brows.

“Ash…”

“Just one. Come on.” She tugged at his arm, and he acquiesced following her into the middle of the room.

Ashley wrapped her arms around his neck, his around her waist.

“I don’t really care for the dance. I just wanted you for a moment,” Ashley whispered in his ear.

“Impatient are we?” He chuckled as he leaned in closer to her.

“Just a little,” she admitted as she started closing the distance.

“Is that what I’ll get to look forward to everyday?” Shepard quipped.

“Maybe.”

“I don’t think I mind at all,” Shepard said as he closed the distance between them, planting his lips on hers as they gave in to each other. His hands travelled up her waist to eventually rest on each side of her face to keep her from pulling away. He wanted to keep feeling her soft lips against his for as long as he could. Knowing he had to behave in front of the crew drove him crazy. So many things he wanted to do right now.

Ahsley’s lips parted his as she bit down on his lower lip, pulling it between her teeth before she pulled away.

“I don’t think I mind either, sir,” she said coyly, as her eyes showed all the intent behind her words, before closing the distance once more.

Pulling away, Ashley took his arm and winked at him as she led him out of the lounge.

John smirked, he guessed he wasn’t the only one after all with such thoughts in mind.

#Shepley #John Shepard #Ashley Williams #Post-war fluff #Post-Reaper War #recovery from extensive injuries #party to celebrate victory #finally getting the happily ever after they deserve #bardofheartdive

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walkingchemicalfire · 4 years

Text

The Stray: Luca

Taking another stab at @whumpmasinjuly Day 12 prompt: “do it”

A/N: My brain just would not let this scene go. This story will be connected to the overarching storyline for “The Stray” but I want a different title in order to split Lyra’s timeline from Luca’s. If you have any ideas that you’d like to share, feel free to drop them into my inbox! For now though, Luca is the subtitle

CW: death, gore, blood, death threats, kind of suicidal ideation (that’s where the “do it” comes into play), dehumanizing talk, wetting in fear, use of needles, guns, knife, and a electrified snare pole

The first thing Luca did after the first bitch took a shot at him, was laugh. Oh humans, such imbeciles. Taking a shot at a werewolf was ballsy enough, but to not even use a silver bullet? Fucking moronic. So Luca just had to laugh when the completely human made (read: useless) bullet sailed over his shoulder and gouged a hole into a nearby tree. He spared it one glance before erupting into a deep belly laugh. The sound boomed through the surrounding forest and he was almost positive the human locked up from fear, if the bitter scent was anything to go by.

Luca descended onto all fours as his wolf broke free seamlessly. He had the scent on lock and tore through the dense forest in a adrenaline fueled rage. On the outreaches of his singular focus, he noticed that all the other creatures in the wood were madly dashing out of his path. Much wiser than the two-legged wretches in his sights. These weak, stupid, shitty cowards could never stand a chance against his might. What could they possibly have hoped for when they provoked him? A swift death surely, one that he would gladly grant them. Although it would be much bloodier than they were imagining.

Luca pounded into the small clearing where the scent trail ended. There were five of the motherfuckers. The bitch that took the shot hadn’t even risen from her prone position in the dirt, her rifle still pointed in the direction of where he had been walking. Luca watched with satisfaction as this one turned her head and immediately the blood drained from her face. She opened her mouth to scream but the sound never passed her lips. Instead, the last thing she saw was the dark depths of Luca’s gullet.

Luca crushed the skull in his jaws, removing it from the body with a quick yank and a twist. He tossed it over the short cliff ledge the now headless body was slumped atop. The explosion of blood in his mouth and the scent of it filling his nostrils heightened his senses to new levels. The wolf reveled in the hot liquid dripping from his maw. It invigorated him. Sent sparks of heat zipping through his veins. Igniting the hottest fires along his nerves.

The next moments passed in a blur of decimation. A flurry of pulverized flesh, shattered bone, and more blood than Luca could swallow. His entire front, from jaw to claws, was sticky with it. His fur was matted with it as well, and yet he could not find it in himself to care. All that he wanted was to rid his territory of these dipshit creatures.

Speaking of, the final bastard was making a desperate scramble to retreat. He was on his butt, crawling backwards while facing the massive wolf currently stalking toward him. Luca took in the human’s unadulterated terror with gleaming eyes. This scent was unparalleled in the overwhelming sense of panic and...the of foul smell ammonia. The wolf’s nostrils twitched at the burning stench of human piss. The wolf felt amusement at the realization. The human should be terrified of him. Perhaps it would teach him to stay away from him and his Pack.

Luca was never one to play with his prey, but this was much too inviting. The piss soaked human had backed himself into a tree. Panic took an even tighter hold over him as he realized he was trapped and facing his imminent doom. Luca was enraptured by his chest moving up and down in desperate heaves for his final breaths. He could just hear the blood rushing through his veins, the heart pounding in an almost continuous gallop. Luca licked his chops, savoring the anticipation of having that heart in his stomach.

He came to a halt before this poor excuse for a hunter of his kind, prepared to make his end quick with a slash to the jugular. He had just raised his paw to make the swipe when he felt the knife pierce his side. At first it felt like a normal knife, like the one he had practiced with back home and, more than once, had slashed himself with accidentally. But when the searing burn of silver made itself known, Luca knew he was in a bind.

“AAWWWOOOOAAHHHHH!!!” Luca’s howl morphed into a cry of anguish as he Changed to protect his wolf from the majority of the unbearable torment. He could already feel the silver digging its way through his connection. He wanted to mourn the loss, but he still had his anger to sate.

“You motherfuckin’ shitstain! This how ya fight? Stabbing us with silver ‘stead of facin’ your end with dignity?” Luca hurled the words at the human still backed against the tree before him. This one seemed to get some sort of sense back and he made a mad dash to his feet, only to face plant two seconds later. Luca barked a laugh at the idiot’s desperation. The sound broke off into a gasp as the knife shifted inside him. The human did a strange mix of stumbling and running, like his brain and legs did not agreeing on what speed was appropriate for the situation, and ducked into the surrounding woods.

Luca snorted at the retreat and a slight breeze provided him just enough assistance to catch the new odors of humans. There are way too many for him to overpower in his injured state so he resorted to a new goal: ride it out and slaughter them when the silver had run its course.

The Change had left him on his knees and it’s as good as a position as he can hope for with the knife still lodged under his ribs. He called out to the assholes hiding behind the trees all around him. “Come on out, fucking dickless shitheads! There’s a goddamn silver knife in my side so I ain’t Changin’ for a while. You’re safe, I promise.” And that assurance is as empty as all the bodies splayed out over the clearing.

It certainly got him what he wanted though. The humans move as a group, all with firearms at the ready, surrounding him on all fronts. Luca smiles gleefully when one to his left gets too close. He gnashed his teeth in their direction, beyond pleased when they stumble over their own feet and nearly fall. They make it too easy for him to thrive off their terror.

“Tell y’all what, if you lower your weapons and clear outta my territory, then I won’t gut you like your brothers in the dirt around you.” He remembered the first kill being a female and tacks on, “Hmm, and sister. Which I have to say, pretty shitty of your kind to have women fight your battles.”

“That’s quite enough, dog.” One of the humans breaks off from the circled group and stands in front him. This one has their hands tucked behind their back and is more or less in a relaxed posture. There are no defining outward traits for Luca to determine if this one is male or female. It’s then that he notices his senses are becoming too dull to even pick up a scent on the human.

He mentally shook himself and returned his focus to what vulgar term was just used. “What the hell did you jus’ call me?” He growls out.

“Dog. Spelled D-O-G. Of the Canidae family in the Animalia kingdom. The first animals to be domesticated by humans. Known as a lower species to, as you referenced a moment ago, our kind. Often found in the wild as unhinged, blood thirsty, carnivores that require correction to subdue.” The human paused to gesture between Luca and the lifeless bodies nearby. “You certainly fit the bill a few minutes ago.”

Luca snarled in response. He knew that was not the wisest response in proving that he is not an animal, but the silver was putting him down for the count at a rapid pace and all his remaining energy was going towards keeping himself upright. He has to face off this enemy before he can get away, he just doesn’t know if he’ll have the chance to get far enough.

The Leader scoffed softly and nods to one of the others in the circle to Luca’s right. Before he can even think to look over to see what’s coming, something goes over his head and encircles his neck. It’s a thick band of wire and Luca jerked in outrage and shock, the accompanying adrenaline rush providing enough clarity for him to ignore the sharp twinge as the knife was jostled. He moves in a twisting motion but the wired band is already too tight around his throat. There is no burn like the knife so he raked his nails over it, trying to find a gap he can use to his advantage. When none are found, he yanked his head to the side so the human who was tightening this wire would be thrown off balance. It worked, but he was also caught off guard as the human dropped a heavy pole that is connected to the contraption around his neck. The wire remained secure and he grunted as it pinched his skin.

Luca heard the distinct sound of a gun being cocked above him. He looked up at the Leader to find they had a pistol leveled at his head.

Luca snorted and leveled his own glare at the human. “I sure hope ya got a silver one in the chamber there, motherfucker. Else I’m gonna tear your bleedin’ heart outa your goddamn chest and make you eat it.”

The Leader’s eye twitched just slightly, but it was enough incentive for Luca to shift forward and press his forehead to the barrel of the gun.

He never breaks eye contact with Leader. “Do it.”

The Leader pushed back and brings their finger over the trigger. Luca smiles at their hesitancy, making sure to show all his teeth that will make quick work out Leader’s throat, even without his wolf’s fangs.

The shot never comes. Instead, fire burns him from the inside out, branching out from his neck until all his muscles are spasming uncontrollably. He realizes in a daze that this is almost worse than the silver. The current continued surging through him until he could barely breathe.

Somehow he ended up face first in the dirt. He smelled fresh blood and it’s so close he can taste the tang of it. All his senses are under a trance. It felt like he’d been put in a vacuum and everything is being overrun by the ringing in his ears. He feels a prick of something near his neck and, belatedly realizing it was a needle, tried to extricate himself from the tight seal of the vacuum in his head. It does not release him and he groans as his vision darkens further and a sweep of cold rushes through his veins.

“They’re all dead when I break out of this.” Luca vows as he fades out.

Tag Team: @whump-tr0pes @sableflynn @whumpywhumper @0idril0 @cursedscribbles @mymoon199 @endless-whump

**Since this is a new OC, please let me know if you only want to be tagged on Lyra’s story**

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byanyan · 6 months

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gonna... set down a soft little inbox call. ♡ for a glittery little problem to pop up in ur ask.

#I'm not gonna send u meme prompts I'm gonna write u a thing #gonna try to keep it limited to one paragraph but we all know my tendency to get carried away #I want to do SOMETHING but drafts aren't agreeing w me rn #this is always a fun backup plan #will try to get them out tonight but we'll see - might be tomorrow #━━ ˟ ⊰ ✰ inbox call ⋮ please keep me down from the ledges.

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homieno · 4 years

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PSA for everyone

I know with everything that’s going on right now we are all feeling very stressed and a lot of us are feeling quite lonely. I haven’t seen anyone talking about it but i feel it’s important to acknowledge that this pandemic is going to cause a spike in suicide and suicide attempts. And just a downfall in mental health in general! This is a service post and I’m reminding and urging everyone to stay safe and not let the depression win. Though we are separated, we are all in this together.

TIPS FOR STAYING BUSY

-Crafts! I work at michaels and since this outbreak has started we’ve been super busy, everyone is buying craft supplies for themselves and their children and it’s a very valid thing to prioritize! So keep yourself busy by learning a new skill or craft, or practicing one you already know! You’re isolated remember so it doesn’t have to be good! it’s for yourself

- Reading! I’m assuming the Fic content is going to skyrocket soon with everyone being stuck at home so we should be able to keep ourselves endlessly busy with that but also real books! There is something so comforting about holding a psychical copy in your hand and getting lost. Romanticize it; curl up with your favourite blanket, a candle and a cup of tea (or coffee or water) and get lost in a story. Get lost in another life that isn’t this one right now.

I really like to use a site called ambientmixer when I’m reading or writing. It lets you pick a place in the world and it plays the background noises making it seem like you’re in that place! I usually put on the hogwarts library or coffeeshop and it’s very subtle

-And on that note as well! Writing!! Write stuff down, write about anything. It doesn’t have to be good, it doesn’t have to be an entirely well structured plot line, it doesn’t have to be posted. Write for yourself, do things for yourself in this time. It’s easy to get overwhelmed at a blank page but just remember you have all the time in the world right now.

-Learn something new; a new language, a new skill, anything! Try and dedicate a little time to it each day, and make sure it’s something that makes you happy. Love Space? Try and learn some things about stars and galaxies. Love mythology? There are infinite online resources and stories. We’re all going to come out of this as much more interesting people this way.

-Clean clean clean. Hey, it’s still spring right? That’s the ultimate time to do a big deep clean and this way it doesn’t have to be an entire day committed to cleaning your entire house. I know for me knowing i have so much to do in such little time makes me tired just at the thought of it. So take this opportunity and space things out, as little or as much as you want. But I think this is very important because a big trigger for a lot of mental and emotional stress is the environment we live in and it’s more important than ever to have a calm space.

Here’s a link by another tumblr user about cleaning when it seems overwhelming

-Redecorate! We all know the feeling of when we were kids and we’d move our room around and feel like a new person. And quite honestly we all need that feeling in our lives every once in a while.

-Start a new series, or rewatch an old loved series. While it’s important that we don’t spend our entire time on the couch let’s also be real, we are the netflix and chill generation and we’re just lying to ourselves if we don’t think we’re gonna spend a day or 5 binging TV. So pull up your streaming site, pick a good show, grab some snacks and come back to this post in 2-5 business days.

-Meditate. I find that people often associate meditation with spirituality and higher power stuff, which yes in spiritual practice meditation is very important but that’s mostly for it’s ability to calm and center people. It’s going to be very easy to find yourself overwhelmed and anxious when you’re alone with your thoughts 24/7 and meditation can be really beneficial. It’s very simple too and not as daunting as you might think! You can find a quiet space and sit or lay down, it can be done on your bed if you’d like! And you can play some soft music (without lyrics or something soft like a coffee house playlist), or listen to a podcast even, this can be done in silence also! You don’t have to do anything other than stay still and try and focus your thoughts. To stop them from becoming entirely overwhelming. There’s so many good videos for breathing exercises and some really good guided meditations as well if you’d like to be told exactly what to do. The purpose of this is just to ground yourself and give yourself some time to be calm and have control of your thoughts.

Here are some links to videos:

Now I can give you all these tips and ideas for staying sane but we also need to face the fact that when you’re struggling with mental illness as so many of us are it’s impossible to just ignore those thoughts and feelings. It’s very important that we reach out before things get too hard. I’d also like to say that if you’re feeling depressed or anxious and you need to talk you don’t have to be planning on attempting suicide or hurting yourself. Help lines and crisis lines are for anybody and I know you may be feeling like your issues are bad enough to reach out but they are! and you should reach out before they get worse! My DM’s are also always open to people who need to talk, I am not a professional but I’ve been there myself and I know sometimes it can help to just dump all of your problems into someones inbox, let that be mine.

Here are some Crisis and help lines that can help save a life:

Crisis Service Canada 1-833-456-4566 and you click on the link for more information and the instructions for Texting a crisis line

National Suicide prevention Hotline 1-800-273-8255 (United States)

Europe Hotlines

Crisis Textline UK

AGAIN! These crisis lines are not just for suicidal people, it is important to reach out if you are feeling mentally ill and you need help. You do not need to be standing on a ledge in order to ask for help.

Stay connected with your loved ones during this time and try not to isolate yourself more than you already are. Text and call your friends, connect with new people online (but be safe)

Do happy things!

Write your best friend daily letters and give it to them at the end of this whole thing and let that be something to look forward to, create something for someone else and let that be a drive to make it through this.

Everybody please do everything you can to stay safe during this hard time and do not be afraid to reach out! Your feelings are always valid and you are not being needy or annoying for wanting to talk to people all the time and wanting attention! Those feelings are valid! You are not being dramatic if you’re feeling super depressed or anxious! Your feelings are always Valid! I love you all and I’m so sorry this is something we are going through.

This virus is an attack on our Physical health but just as importantly it is very much so affecting our mental health!

Please feel free to add things in order to provide more resources and help for everyone!

#covid19 #corona #self care #psa #signal boost #tip #cleaning #crafts #art #helpline #suicide #mental health #mental illness #depression #eating disorder

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angryteapot · 5 years

Text

Hard to Say

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader

Summary: What happens when you tell Steve, your adorkably loving boyfriend, that you’re bored? He takes you on a midnight adventure and gives you the Universe.

Warnings: So much sappy fluff you may very well barf.

Word Count: 2532

A/N: My (slightly late) entry for @imhereforbvcky & @justsomebucky ‘s Cap² Challenge! Prompt is bolded. There was a few ways this could have gone, but @delicatelyherdreams told me to go in this disgustingly sweet direction. Thanks for always being amazing and going over my unedited fluff garbage! <3

To be added to the taglist, send me an ask or dm! My inbox is always open if you want to chat or rant! <3

“Steve.”

“Hmm?” He raised his eyebrows and hummed in response, still not looking up at you, completely engrossed in his sketchbook.

You wiggled your socked feet, which were tucked under his thigh as you both sat on the sofa - him on one end and you stretched out, leaning against the armrest with a book and a mug of hot chocolate.

“Y/N,” he laughed, “Give me a minute to finish this shading then, I promise, you’ll have my full attention.”

You harrumphed and muttered a petulant “fine” as you slumped back and let your eyes roam his concentrated face. When Steve was concentrated on his sketching, his eyebrows drew together, nose slightly scrunched, lower lip protruding adorably. You couldn’t help the small, adoring smile that painted your lips.

You’d been in a happily committed relationship with Steve for the better part of four years, with two years of friendship prior to that, and yet each time you looked at him it was like falling in love all over again.

You were still studying his profile when he finally turned to you with a wide smile, reaching his arms up to stretch. Amidst a satisfied groan he said, “Okay sweetheart, you have my full attention. What was it you wanted to tell me?”

Your mind blanked as his shirt rode up slightly from his stretching, exposing his toned stomach.

“Uhhh…”

He smirked and cocked one eyebrow. “Am I distracting you?”

“No…” you shook your head to focus and smiled sweetly. “Stevie?”

“Oh boy. Whenever you use that nickname, with that tone and smile, it usually means trouble.”

You adored this man. “No you goof, not this time. I’m just so bored! I don’t really have the energy to start a prank war, so I need you to distract me - not in that way, you perv!”

“Aw honey, you wound me,” his salacious grin had turned into a mock pout.

Rolling your eyes, you scooted yourself over until you were tucked under his arm, staring up at him with puppy dog eyes. “C’mon Stevie, take me somewhere magical.”

“Y/N, it’s…” he glanced at the clock across the room, “It’s past ten, there’s nothing open but bars and food pl-”

You stared at him as he trailed off, a thoughtful look on his face before he grinned and continued, “Y’know what? I know the perfect place.”

“No bars or crowded places? I don’t know if I’m up for that tonight,” you looked down at your socked feet and over-sized sweater (the one you stole from Bucky), and decided that you most definitely did not want to change into actual clothes.

“Just you and me, sweetheart. I promise there will be nobody else but us, and you don’t even have to change if you don’t want to… On second thought, you might want to put on some sweats, it’ll be a little chilly.”

“You have yourself a deal Rogers, gimme seven-ish minutes and I’ll meet you… where?” You hopped up with a kiss to his cheek, excited and already on your way to grab some sweats.

“Make it fifteen, I have to grab a few things. Meet me in the hangar, okay?”

“You got it!”

> > > Thirty Minutes Later > > > >

True to his word, Steve had been waiting for you by one of the jets fifteen minutes later. Your arms were laden with a few essentials for your mystery adventure, and you were bouncing with excitement as you both boarded the jet.

Steve had immediately gone to the cockpit and punched in the coordinates to the mystery location and set it on autopilot. After the jet was in the air, he'd smiled and said he'd be right back, disappearing into the small room that usually housed a cot and medical supplies for emergencies.

“Steve. Steve. Where are we going? I brought my blanket. And a thermos with hot chocolate," you called out to him from around the opaque glass. “If you tell me where we’re going, I’ll share with you.”

Silence.

“Steve. Stevie. Stévano. Stevína. Ste- hey!”

You laughed as he stalked out of the little room, his glare playfully disgruntled by your name-calling.

"So… where we goin'?" Your cheeky grin was contagious, and Steve smiled softly at you before responding.

"Somewhere special. But it's a surprise, so you're not allowed to see. Is it okay if I blindfold you when we get closer?"

You were wrapped in his arms, a kiss pressed to the crown of your head as the question was asked. You looked up at him in bewilderment, "Blindfold? Wow, who knew Cap was so kinky?"

The teasing glint in your eye and the exaggerated wink you gave had him rolling his own eyes.

"No uniform, so Cap has left the building, you're stuck with plain ol' Steve. And the blindfold is to keep it a surprise, but I could possibly be persuaded to use it in… other situations."

You laughed out, "You're incorrigible. But uh, about that Cap thing…"

He blanched. "You didn't. Please Y/N, tell me you didn't."

"I did indeed, my dear Captain. I'm in my pajamas and you're in sweats and a t-shirt, it's time to even the playing field."

Turning around with a flourish, you reached into your bag and pulled out the set of novelty Captain America pajamas, thrusting them into his chest and pointing to the changing area.

"Step to, Captain!"

"Yes ma'am," he pouted as he walked around the partition to reluctantly change into the offending outfit.

A few minutes later, he emerged covered in gaudy red white and blue, a poorly-drawn replica of his shield covering the chest. You couldn't contain your laughter as you saw that his long legs had turned the pants into high-waters.

"You're lucky I love you," Steve pouted as he crossed his arms, wincing when a ripping sound filled the air.

"I am indeed lucky you love me, thank you for humoring me, my dear Captain," you hugged him and leaned up to kiss his pouty lips.

> > > > > > >

You had been in the air for several hours, which made you incredibly curious as to where Steve was taking you. The time was filled with card games and banter, even some light dozing on your part as Steve rubbed your shoulders. Said dozing was interrupted, a small snort of surprise leaving you, when the console beeped and F.R.I.D.A.Y. announced, "Five minutes to the destination, Captain Rogers."

"Thank you F.R.I.D.A.Y.," he acknowledged. He turned to you and nuzzled your cheek, whispering, "Time for the blindfold, sweetheart."

You acquiesced and let him slip it over your eyes, trusting him to guide you to whatever the surprise was.

Minutes passed, and you felt him stand behind you, torso pressed against your back as his hands gripped your shoulders.

A shiver ran down your spine as he whispered in your ear, "Do you trust me to guide you?"

"I'd trust you to the end of the Universe."

He told you to walk forward, maneuvering around obstacles with gentle nudges to your shoulder. He pulled you to a stop, telling you that there were steps in front of you, ten of them to be exact. He helped you up them, closely following as his hand rested on the small of your back to help you up.

It was a good thing that he was taller than you, because he was on the step below you but you could feel him reach up to unlatch the door.

"Are we going to the top of the jet?"

"Yes ma’am we are. F.R.I.D.A.Y., are we in position?"

"You better not be planning to push me off, Rogers. F.R.I.D.A.Y. will avenge me if you do."

He only chuckled, listening to the AI's response. "Yes, Captain Rogers. Would you like me to land?"

"No, keep it hovering, and turn on stealth mode please."

"Of course, sir."

"Stealth mode?" you inquired.

He shushed you and guided you through the hatch.

"Okay, you ready for this, sweetheart?"

You kept close to him; you didn't think he'd let you fall off the edge of the jet, but you weren't about to take any chances since you didn't know how high the jet was hovering.

"As ready as I'll ever be, Rogers."

He gently lifted the blindfold, kissing your eyelids and smoothing your hair down.

"Oh," you gasped in wonder, eyes filled with stars. Not in the cliché sense, but in the literal sense - the stars were so vibrant and plentiful above you, even the Milky Way was splashed beautifully across the sky.

You looked over the edge of the jet, still clinging to Steve, to see a million reflected stars beneath you as well. With the jet in stealth mode, it seemed as if you were floating in the air, completely immersed in stars and magic.

"Steve it's beautiful. Where are we?"

Pulling you away from the ledge, he hugged you from behind, lulling the both of you into a gentle sway, "Bolivia. I was looking online for the best stargazing locations, and came across these salt flats. I looked up pictures and I knew that I just had to bring you here."

You turned around in his arms, wrapping your own around his waist and looking up at him adoringly. "You're such a sap."

He just smiled and held you tighter, "Dance with me?"

You guessed those were the magic words, because suddenly soft music permeated the air. You started dancing in time to the slow beat, trusting Steve to keep you away from the invisible edges of the jet.

You danced slowly for quite a while until it morphed into a mellow swing dance, Steve expertly swinging and lifting you, your eyes cast up to the stars and laughing freely. After dancing awhile longer, you both carefully made your way to sit at the edge of the jet, feet hanging over.

> > > > > > >

You held hands and sat in peaceful silence, just gazing up at the breathtaking night sky. Steve fidgets a bit, squeezing your hand until you looked over to him. In the dark, lit only by the brilliant stars overhead, his beautiful eyes look iridescent.

"I love you," the earnestness in Steve's tone as he told you this was something new.

"A horrible decision, really," you quipped. It was a thing with you: never saying those three words back.

Of course you loved him and he knew that but actually saying it terrified you; it would make everything that much more real. Even after all those years of happiness, you were waiting for the other shoe to drop. You were Avengers, true happiness could never be in the cards for long. You vainly hoped that never saying those three particular words would keep away the inevitable heartbreak.

"I will give you everything in my pocket if, just for tonight, you hold my hand and say that you love me."

His words shocked you, lip wobbling with the fresh anxiety that was crawling up your throat.

"Your Captain America pajama pockets?" You tried to joke, deflect, but his eyes spoke volumes of just how much he needed to hear those up.

Time to pony up Y/N, you thought to yourself. You loved Steve with everything you had, and he deserved to hear those words. Sure, you said it in obscure ways, or showed him with thoughtful actions, but you could tell he desperately wanted to hear those specific three words.

Shifting to face him better, you gripped his hands and tried, "I-" Your voice wavered, and you took a breath, steeling yourself before trying again. You looked him in the eye and announced with conviction, "I love you, Steve Rogers."

His eyes widened, truly not expecting the next onslaught or words and emotions.

"Oh god, I love you so much Steve," tears welled up in your eyes but didn’t fall as you flung yourself into his chest and babbled, "I love you so much, I just couldn't bring myself to say those words. But I adore you, you mean the world to me and I would follow you to the end of the Universe."

Steve was elated, rubbing your arms soothingly and peppering kisses to your forehead, eyelids, cheeks, finally meeting your lips in a passionate kiss.

You felt him squirm out of your hands, confused until you pulled back and saw what he was holding.

"I did promise you everything that was in my pockets sweetheart," his smile was sweet and nervous, "Will you stay by my side forever and make me the happiest being in the Universe?"

"Are you-" eyes wide, hands drifting up to cover your gasp.

"Y/N will you do me the honor of being my wife?"

The ring was beautiful, but nothing shone brighter than his hopeful smile.

"Yes, of course I will, you stupid jerk. God, you just had to propose while we're both in ridiculous pajamas, and my hair's a mess, and my eyebags are probably taking over my face, but it's beautiful and so stupidly perfect, I love y - mph!"

Steve laughed and interrupted your rambling with an elated kiss, pulling you away from the edge to lay half on top of him as he hugged you tightly.

You stayed that way, briefly getting up to grab the blanket, before laying with him on the jet roof. You both drifted off in each others' arms, woken mere hours later with a flash of light. You both slowly woke, sitting up to watch the world turn into a kaleidoscope of breathtaking colors as the sun finally rose.

You looked at your ring, mesmerized at how beautifully it sparkled in the new sunlight. You looked up to Steve and saw him smiling dopily, your own expression probably mirroring his.

> > > > > > >

You got up hand in hand and started the journey back home, eager to share the news. And to sleep in your soft bed rather than the hard surface of the jet. A few hours in the air and you suddenly blurted, "Was that planned the whole time?"

Sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck, Steve turned from the cockpit and said, "Not exactly. I mean, I've been carrying that ring for a while, but it never seemed like the right time. But last night, with the stars, and you looked so happy and beautiful. We were both in ridiculous pajamas, no plan, just a spontaneous trip. You were laughing, and there was starlight in your hair, and I just knew then that it was the perfect moment."

You walked over and half-heartedly punched him in the arm, face-planting into his chest as the joyful tears finally fell. "God, you're so stupid and sappy, I love you so much you idiot."

"I feel lovingly insulted, but I'm going to kiss you anyways."

"You better," you sniffled as he placed a finger under your chin and tilted your face up to meet his lips.

To some people it might have been a weird, imperfect proposal, but it meant the world to you. And if the other shoe did indeed drop, you would have Steve by your side to fight whatever came your way.

#cap2challenge #steve rogers x reader #steve roger x you #captain america x reader #captain america x you #reader insert #fluff #steve rogers fanfiction #captain america fanfiction #stargazing #established relationship

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nev3rfound · 5 years

Text

walking mystery : p.p

brief summary: being loose friends with Peter and finding out he’s spiderman after an unfortunate incident

requested? yessss by the absolute babe @tearsforhan word count: 1.9k warnings? none

* requests are open if you have any ideas, feel free to drop ‘em in my inbox or message me. *

Walking down the hallway with MJ I could barely focus on what she was saying as the impending thoughts about tonight remained heavy on my mind.

The wave of her hand in my face snaps me out of my deep thoughts. “Are you in there?” She asks with a small laugh and I let out a loud sigh, glancing her way. “Oh, is it today?”

I simply nod, unaware my growing frown until Ned and Peter walk towards us. “Hey, guys.” I mumble, barely lifting my head to look at either of them. “I’ll talk to you later.” I glance up to MJ before walking past Peter without saying another word.

All day it’s been refusing to leave the centre of my thoughts. I’ve been told it should be fine, it won’t be as bad as it’s made out to be, but he’s still family nonetheless.

Sighing I shrug my bag onto my shoulder and head out of the classroom. “Y/n?” Hearing my name being called I turn around, forcing a small smile as Peter runs towards me. “I thought it was you.” He smiles gently as he begins to walk alongside me. “MJ told me about your Dad, I’m, I’m really sorry.” He speaks softly, not forcing the same sentence I’ve heard fifty times in the past few days from strangers.

“Thanks, Peter.” I glance up and his eyes are already on mine. His smile is gentle, warm, unlike my cold gaze that refuses to thaw. “I should get going if I want to make it in time for visiting hours.” Glancing down at my watch I force myself to pick up the pace, leaving Peter behind before he can say anything else.

Sitting in the corridor the smell of chemicals fills my nostrils, burning the hairs that coat them as Nurses walk by with straight faces, tiredness evident under their eyes.

I glance behind me as the blinds remain closed, hiding him or protecting me. Which it could be I’m unsure at this point, but I don’t doubt it is to protect me from seeing the truth, the reality that this is.

The door opens and I quickly rise to my feet, brushing my hands down as the Doctor stands before me with that same sympathetic smile. I nod, knowing exactly what it means by this point. “I’m sorry Y/n.” He says with a straight face as he holds his arm out for me to walk alongside him.

“Is he at least getting better?” I ask as I turn my head, looking back at the closed-off room I’ve only entered once the entire time he’s been here.

“It’s hard to say.” Doctor Simmons explains, the same response he is obliged to provide me with. It’s not discouraging, it’s not hopeful but it gives something that isn’t impeding his inevitable death.

As we reach the end of his ward I thank him before wrapping my coat tighter around my body. “Go careful, Y/n.” He calls out as I sanitise my hands as I leave the building, not realising how bitter it actually would be this late.

Wandering the streets, only a few blocks away from my house there is a section that I would usually avoid by all means. However, with unexpected flooding in my normal route home, I’m left with no choice.

I keep my head down, refusing to nudge my eyes any higher than within line of my boots. Around me, I can hear voices rising, near me. But I try to walk a bit faster, shut them all out in the hope I’m merely imagining it.

And then I see myself flying towards the gravel.

Lifting my head I grunt as I can feel pieces of gravel having scraped my cheek. I glance up to see three figures laughing down at me. “Look, she’s a baby!” One yells and the others begin to laugh more manically now.

I try with all my might to rise to my feet, but one of them places their foot forcefully on my chest, trapping me under his weight. “Come on, baby. Fight.” Another spits the words out and I struggle, hitting his leg with my fists but it’s no use.

“Hey guys, I mean this is hardly fair you know?” The man with his foot on my chest lifts it up as the three of them look at each other, unsure where the voice came from.

Quickly I scramble backwards, still shaken from the incident.

In front of me, I see a blur of blue and red as the three men start to panic and move in different directions.

The entire scene plays out in seconds. The first man has his legs tied together as he falls flat on his face, swearing loudly. The second is running away until a web covers his entire body and lifts him to hang from the lampost.

And then I see the third running towards me, a flash of metal causing me to scream and shut my eyes. Yet, the pain doesn’t strike, the cold blade never reaches me.

Hesitantly opening one eye I see the man in front of me with wide eyes as his mouth and hands are covered in webs. He looks up and I do too.

As my head is tilted up I see the one person considered a local hero by some, and by others a vigilante. “I told you it wasn’t fair. I mean, three against one.” He lets out a laugh and I squint as I look at the masked figure, almost recognising his voice. “You guys didn’t stand a chance.”

A smile plays on my lips as he jumps down, landing a few feet away from me as he walks over to the man with the knife, taking it from his grasp. “Now, what’d you think you’d do with this?” He plays with the weapon in his fingertips before throwing it in the air, causing the man to shut his eyes tightly.

Spiderman shoots a web up as it lands by the man's feet, encapsulated in a web. “I’d think twice before contemplating attacking anyone again buddy.” Spiderman slaps the man's cheek lightly before turning around and nearing me.

He kneels down in front of me as I stare into his mask knowing tears are streaming down my cheeks. “Hey, can I help you up?” His voice is soft and I nod as he takes my hands in his, slowly lifting me up as I shake.

“Can you get me out of here?” My words are weak, broken as I look up at the mask, wishing the person beneath could give me a reassuring smile.

“Of course, just, just hold on tight, yeah?” He squeaks out his words, making me laugh lightly. “You have a beautiful laugh.”

Without responding I hold on tightly to him as he lifts his arm, shooting a web until I feel weightless leaving the scene I was in behind.

Closing my eyes I can feel the wind in my hair, the breeze spiralling through as I let out a laugh, exhilaration playing through my body. “Oh my god.” I yell as I hear Spiderman laugh as he nears a building, aiming towards it until we come to a gentle landing.

“You can erm, you can let go.” He says softly as I open my eyes, seeing I’m still holding onto him as if my life depends on it.

I remove my arms from him as I move away and see the lights of the city below us in the corner of my eye. “Oh wow.” I mumble as I feel him move towards me, standing next to me as we stand silently, appreciating the view of the city never sleeps, never-ending for anyone. “I wanted to say thank you, for, for what you did back there.” Lifting my head I brush my hair behind my ear, unsure how to talk to the masked figure considered a hero.

He shrugs his shoulders. “It was nothing, Y/n. I know it’s been a rough day.” He states and before I can fully process his words I turn to look at him.

“How’d you know my name?” I quickly ask. “And how’d you know it’s been a rough day?” Panic rises in my tone as I back away from the masked man.

Frantically my eyes search for an escape, but nothing is obvious. “Wait, please?” His voice rises with fear as he holds his hands up defensively. “I, I can explain, I just,” Spiderman begins to stutter as I cross my arms.

“Well, go on then.” I ask as his shoulders fall forwards, similarly to how Peters can when he’s stressed in class.

I wait as Spiderman paces up and down the building ledge. “I, erm. Oh man,” He mutters to himself as I hear him incoherently phrasing things in hopes of one sounding sane enough. “The thing is, I erm, we actually know each other.” His voice softens to a familiar tone, one that is comforting but my mind refuses to tell me who it is.

“You, you sound like someone. I just,” Groaning loudly I rest my hands on my face and as I pull them away I see blood covering my cheek. “oh crap.” I mumble, unsure if the man behind the mask is panicking at this site like I am or remains unphased. “I know you can’t take me to a hospital because you’re Spiderman,” Laughing to myself I realise how stupid that sentence sounds aloud. “but is there somewhere I can get patched up? Can you, can you take me home?”

“Of course, Y/n.” He replies before moving closer and this time I bury my head into his chest, ignoring the sound of the wind and focusing on his beating heart.

It was almost as if he knew where to go, that my directions were almost unnecessary to the stranger.

He lands on my balcony as I open the doors to my bedroom and fumble for my first aid kit. “Do you, do you need any help?” He asks and I glance up, forgetting he was stood there.

A small laugh escapes my lips as I shake my head. “I, I should be okay, but thank you Spiderman,” I say quietly and as I glance down I notice a cut on his forearm, blood dripping through his suit. “you’re, you’re bleeding,” I motion down and he looks down, grabbing it tightly.

“Just a scratch.” He mutters before turning around. “Stay safe, Y/n.” He says before disappearing back into the night, leaving me with the events of the past hour playing on repeat.

Yawning loudly I can feel eyes on me as I walk, MJ doing her best to glare them down. “You got into a fight?” She asks, disbelief in her tone as I shake my head.

“I’d hardly call it a fight.” I say and I hear a small gasp as Ned stands in front of us both.

“Wow, first Peter and now you?” He mutters and I look over to MJ, confusion on her face resembling mine.

“What happened to Peter, Ned?” I ask, trying to disguise the fear in my voice but I know they can still sense it.

He shakes his head, letting out a deep sigh. “He’s got this big cut on his arm, says he slipped on a knife.” MJ chuckles and Ned just looks at me with such focus.

“Weird.” MJ states and I nod in agreement.

“Where’s Peter?” I ask and Ned points to the Biology room with a small smile. “I’ll be back in a bit.” I mumble as I pass both of them in need of confirming the fact I already know to be true.

Peter Parker saved my life, and he also happens to be Spiderman.

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thefemalethatwrites · 6 years

Text

Alive (Dick Grayson x Reader)

Request: No.

Prompt: You were another one of Batman’s sidekicks before the Joker killed you. Everyone believed you to be dead. Not anymore.

Relationships: Dick Grayson x Reader

Warnings: Mentions of death/torture, Cursing, fighting

Word Count: 5466

A/N: The song used is Alive by Sia. Feel free to request by inboxing me your request. Also THANK YOU so much for 200 Followers. Enjoy!

~~~

(Y/N)’s POV

“Alright Al, I’m here. Stop rushing around like a headless chicken” I greet as I went behind the bar placing my bag and coat back there,

“Thank god, I thought I was going to die!” Al exclaimed,

“Drama king” I retort as I served a group of girls, after we got the swarm of customers served we leaned against the counter,

“I’m going out for a smoke” Al said before a group of officers came in laughing, making him groan,

“Go, I’ve got this” I say, he smiled

“I owe you” He claimed,

“You definitely owe me for pulling me out of takeaway night!” I respond, “Alright officers what can I get for you?” I asked as they came up to me,

“Drinks on you Dick!” They all laughed as they went to find a booth, ‘Dick’ sighed

“Pints for you all?” I questioned, he nodded

“Please” He smiled,

“Any brand specific?” I asked as I got six-pint glasses out, he shook his head, so I pulled the pints, “15.50” I say as I placed the last pint in front of him, he handed over a twenty and I gave him the change, “Would you like a hand carrying them over to your booth, Officer…Grayson?” I asked as I read his name-tag, he nodded as he picked up three and I picked up three following him to the table,

“Couldn’t handle carrying them yourself Dick?” One of them chuckled,

“I offered to help” I snap back as I set the pints on the table before making my way back behind the bar, but I was pulled off to one-side,

“(Y/N), I thought you didn’t work Fridays?” Gabe asked as he wrapped an arm around my waist, I glared at him

“Well, Louis bailed so I’m covering him” I say, his hand ‘slipped’ lower on to my ass causing me to remove his drink from his hand and flip him on to his back on the floor, “Touch me or any other girl like that again in this bar and I’ll make sure that every bone in your hand is broken, understood?” I growled, he nodded so I pulled him to his feet again and gave him his drink before heading behind bar.

“Please don’t hurt my customers” Al whined, I rolled my eyes

“Tell your customers not to inappropriately touch your employees” I say as his phone began ringing,

“Hello?” He answered going behind bar,

“Officer Grayson, what can I do for you?” I asked as he approached the bar,

“I need a decent conversation” He answered,

“And you think I can hold one?” I questioned, he shrugged

“I guess we’ll both find out” He smirked,

“I guess we will, so what’s your name?” I asked,

“Richard Grayson, but I have everyone call me Dick” He introduced,

“Wait, you were the kid of the flying Grayson’s, weren’t you? I’m sorry if that brings up any bad memories” I say, he nodded “Oh my god. I loved your act every time I got taken to the circus” I smiled, he gave a small one back,

“What about your name?” He asked,

“(Y/N)” I answered,

“No last name?” He said raising an eyebrow,

“I prefer to keep my identity on the low around here. My parents were one of the Gotham family’s” I responded,

“Were?” He asked, I nodded

“Yeah, shot dead in their limo. Not that it bothered me too much, they were never there for me” I shrugged, he hummed taking a gulp of his alcohol,

“You remind me of an old friend of mine” He stated,

“Do I now?” I questioned raising an eyebrow, he nodded “Tell me about her, or him” I demanded,

“Well, like you they love my family’s act in the circus, her parents were one of the ‘Gotham Family’s, so when her parent’s died Bruce adopted her and we grew very close, and coincidence her name was also (Y/N)” He explained, my eyes widened

“Why have I got a bad feeling that something happened to her” I say, he sighed

“You wouldn’t be wrong. Turns out she was the vigilante; Siren, and she was kidnapped, tortured and eventually hung with barbed wire by the Joker” He explained, my hand went to my neck feeling the scar, underneath the turtle neck I was wearing,

“Damnit!” Al snapped as he stormed out of the back,

“What’s up?” I asked standing up properly,

“The singer that we hired tonight is running ten minutes late, and the crowd’s beginning to get rowdy” He explained,

“(Y/N) can sing” Ed, a regular customer, offered

“No I can’t. Shut up” I hissed, he chuckled

“(Y/N), all you’d have to do is sing one song. I’ll give you a week break” Al said as he got on his knees and begged, I sighed

“One song. And if you even think about calling me in on that break I’ll kill you” I say, he got on to his feet and hugged me

“You’re a lifesaver!” He exclaimed,

“So you’ve said plenty of times in the past” I say as I made my way to the stage,

“Alright, listen up. I’m singing one song to cover for the actual singer tonight, since they’re running late and some of you are getting a little rowdy” I announced into the microphone, they all cheered and clapped making me smile as I noticed Dick leaning against the wall and nodding his head, I took a deep breath.

I was born in a thunderstorm I grew up overnight I played alone I played on my own I survived Hey I wanted everything I never had Like the love that comes with light I wore envy and I hated that But I survived I had a one-way ticket to a place where all the demons go Where the wind don't change And nothing in the ground can ever grow No hope, just lies And you're taught to cry into your pillow But I survived I'm still breathing [4x] I'm alive [4x] I found solace in the strangest place Way in the back of my mind I saw my life in a stranger's face And it was mine I had a one-way ticket to a place where all the demons go Where the wind don't change And nothing in the ground can ever grow No hope, just lies And you're taught to cry into your pillow But I survived I'm still breathing [4x] I'm alive [4x] You took it all, but I'm still breathing [8x] I have made every single mistake That you could ever possibly make I took and I took and I took what you gave But you never noticed that I was in pain I knew what I wanted; I went out and got it Did all the things that you said that I wouldn't I told you that I would never be forgotten And all in spite of you And I'm still breathing I'm still breathing I'm still breathing I'm still breathing I'm alive (You took it all, but I'm still breathing) (You took it all, but I'm still breathing) I'm alive (You took it all, but I'm still breathing) (You took it all, but I'm still breathing) I'm alive (You took it all, but I'm still breathing) (You took it all, but I'm still breathing) I'm alive I'm alive [4x]

I finished the song to be greeted by cheers, whistles and clapping making me smile, I did a small bow before leaving the stage and heading back behind the bar,

“I told you, you could sing” Ed smirked,

“Sing?! (Y/N)! You should get a contract! That was amazing!” Al yelled as he shook me,

“Yeah, yeah whatever” I say swatting him away from me, Dick sat back down again,

“You’re definitely like her” He commented,

“She also sung?” I questioned,

“Yep” he answered, and it fell silent between us, he finished his drink

“Well, I best be off. Work tomorrow” He announced standing up,

“It’s nice meeting you, Dick” I smiled,

“You too (Y/N). How about you take this, and text/call me and hopefully, I’ll get to know you more and maybe trust me with your last name” He winked as he handed me a card, I chuckled

“Maybe you will” I reply as he headed out of the bar.

“Ooo, (Y/N) might eventually get a boyfriend” Ed teased, I stuck my tongue out at him,

“For your information I’ve had boyfriends previously” I replied,

“But none of them have been good” He retorted,

“You’ve got a point” I smiled,

“(Y/N), you can head home. Thank you for everything” Al said, I grabbed my bag and coat from the back putting them on,

“I’ll have next week as the break” I say,

“Got it” He said,

“Bye guys!” I say as I headed out, “No way was that Dick. God he’s altered” I muttered, as I turned down my street only to be dragged into a back-alley and pinned against the wall,

“Your purse, now!” The mugger yelled as he pointed a steak-knife at me, I raised an eyebrow at him before disarming and kicking him away

“I’m going to take a guess and say you’re new to the whole mugging thing” I mocked as I inspected the steak-knife, a figure dropped down in front of me making me sigh,

“I guess you don’t need my help after all miss” Nightwing said,

“I’ve lived in Gotham a while. I’ll let you take that” I say as I handed the steak-knife over to him, he cuffed the mugger to a pipe

“The police are on their way. Could I offer walking you home?” He asked,

“If you insist” I answered, he smiled and extended his arm out to me, I chuckled as I took it and we walked down to my apartment building, “This is my stop” I say mentioning the building,

“Which window?” he questioned,

“The top right one on the back of the building, why?” I asked,

“Hold tight” he smirked wrapping an arm around my waist and grappled on top of the building, we landed on the small ledge outside my bedroom window, I opened it and climbed in, as he sat on the ledge,

“Thanks Dick” I smirked, his face dropped

“Who? I don’t-”

“Don’t try that on me. I can tell it’s you from your hair plus the smell of the pint I gave you” I say folding my arms, he sighed and removed his mask and faced me,

“How the hell did you figure that out so quick?” he questioned, I shrugged

“Perhaps I should’ve become an inspector instead of a bartender” I chuckled,

“Perhaps” He repeated, it fell silent between us as he placed his mask back on, “Well, I best be off. Next time, don’t mock a criminal” He warned,

“I’ll try my hardest” I chuckled making him smile before he disappeared, I closed my window and curtains.

***

Dick’s POV

“What’s got you in a jolly mood?” Jason asked as I approached him on the rooftop,

“(Y/N) and I went on a coffee date” I replied,

“Wow, a coffee date such a big step” He mocked, I rolled my eyes “Tell me golden boy, have you told her about your regular hook-ups with Kori?” He questioned,

“Hook-ups with Kori?” I say raising an eyebrow,

“Enough chit-chat, we’ve got company” He said before grappling off the roof, I followed his pursuit as we chased a figure across the rooftops, they came to an abrupt stop and turned to face us,

“Why are you chasing me? We’re on the same team” She said folding her arms,

“Really? What do you go by then?” I interrogated,

“Siren” She stated making me seize up,

“Didn’t you hear about the story of the last siren?” Jason scoffed, she chuckled before pulling down the neck of her suit showing a scar,

“I lived it” She said pulling it back up,

“Who are you?!” Jason yelled aiming his pistol at her, she sighed removing the mask making my eyes widened

“(Y/N)?” I muttered,

“Hello again Dick. Yes, I’m your dead-friend that you’ve been telling me about” She stated putting the mask back on.

“How?” I whispered,

“Nyssa Al Ghul, Lazarus pit, you should understand since another victim is working alongside yourself” She explained mentioning Jason,

“What do you know about me?!” he growled and pinned her against a chimney pointing the pistol at her head, she quickly disarmed him and flipped him on to his front, pushing his face into the roof with her foot,

“Jason Peter Todd, street-rat, adopted by Bruce Wayne, aka Batman, became the second Robin before you were brutally murdered by the Joker, to which you were brought back by Talia Al Ghul and went hell-bent on getting back at Bruce and Tim, since he ‘replaced’ you. Did I miss anything?” She stated,

“No” he groaned, she got off him and dropped his pistol in his hands,

“A moment” She said before dropping off the building.

(Y/N)’s POV

I dropped off the roof and landed on top of a criminal that was chasing a young girl, I removed the gun from the back of his pants and slammed his face into a dumpster rendering him unconscious, then sending the GPs to Commissioner Gordon, I put the gun in the back of my belt and approached the young girl, to which she cowered away into the corner,

“Hey, it’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you, you’re safe now” I say, she seemed to still be weary of me, “Look, I’m just like you…see” I smiled as I removed my mask, she returned a small one and approached me, “Would you like to try it on?” I asked, she nodded, and I put it on her, “There, the one and only Siren” I say making her smile widened, “Now, could you tell me why that man was after you?” I asked,

“He said he was a friend of the Red Hood, and that he was going to take me to meet him” She explained,

“Are you a big fan of the Red Hood?” I asked as I removed my mask from her and put it on myself, she nodded “Hey Red, fancy dropping down to say hello?” I call up to the roof, seconds later he and Dick dropped down making the girls jaw drop.

“Oh my god, it’s really you” She smiled as she stared up at Jason, he chuckled and crouched down to her and began talking with her,

“Think the two of you can take her home?” I asked Dick and Jason as the police sirens were closing in, they both nodded and the young girl ran over to me giving me a hug,

“Thank you” She whispered, I patted her back,

“Don’t get into trouble” I say as she pulled away and took Jason and Dick’s hand as they walked her home, I grabbed a hold of the criminal as Gordon pulled up and got out, “Commissioner, it’s been a while” I greeted as I handed the criminal and his gun over,

“Siren? I thought you were dead” He responded,

“Hell got bored of me” I shrug, he chuckled

“It’s good to have you back kid” He smiled patting my shoulder, I nodded

“I’ll see you around” I say before grappling on to a roof and disappearing from his view, I was making my way back to my apartment when Dick landed in front of me, “What?” I asked,

“You’re coming back to the Batcave” He demanded grabbing my hand,

“And what makes you think I want to?” I scoffed pulling my hand from his grip.

“So, Bruce knows you’re not a threat” He answered,

“I can handle Bruce on my own” I growled,

“Stop being stubborn and come on” He snap pulling me with him once again, we arrived in the cave and was approached by Bruce in his suit,

“Who are you?” He questioned, I rolled my eyes before giving him a right hook followed by a roundhouse kick making him land on his back,

“That’s for not saving me” I growled,

“Bruce this is Siren, (Y/N) (L/N)” Dick introduced,

“(Y/N)?” Bruce muttered as he got up, only to be met with a left hook,

“And that’s for not keeping your promise” I spat,

“(Y/N) can you stop hitting him and take off your mask” Dick said, I did as he said,

“Miss (Y/N)” Alfred said gaining my attention, I jogged over to him and gave him a hug

“Hello Alfred” I greeted,

“How are you alive?” Bruce questioned, I sighed rolling my eyes

“Nyssa Al Ghul dug my body up and put me in the Lazarus pit” I say turning to face him, I noticed that he was struggling to comprehend that I was telling the truth, I sighed and pulled down the neck of my suit revealing the scar that was left from the barbed wire, his eyes widened before he hugged me making me tense up.

***

“(Y/N)!” Jason yelled as he entered the cave, only to be greeted by a throwing knife, “Sh*t!” He yelled as he dodged it, then pulled it out of the wall and came over to me,

“Jay, sorry about that” I sighed as I went over to the punch bag,

“What’s wrong?” He asked as he held the bag still as I punched the crap out of it,

“Nothing, why would you think anything’s wrong?” I responded, he gave me a deadpan look,

“You’re a dear friend of mine, I can tell something’s bothering you” He sighed, I groaned and stopped punching,

“Right, so if Dick’s asking me out on all these dates does that mean he likes me?” I asked,

“Yeah” He answered,

“Then why the hell is he f*cking that Tamaranian slut?!” I yelled punching through the bag, I let out a frustrated sigh as I pulled my hand out of the bag, I grabbed my bottle and took a gulp of water,

“Hey Jaybird, (Y/N)” Dick greeted only to be met with a bottle to the face, “Ow!” He exclaimed,

“You’re lucky it wasn’t a knife” Jason commented before Bruce, Tim, Damian and Alfred came into the cave and headed towards the computer, “(Y/N), Dick, you’re going after Crane” Bruce announced,

“Bruce, not a good idea” Jason said as I headed to change into my suit, Bruce ignored Jason and commanded the others. We arrived at the warehouse where Crane was developing a new fear toxin,

“Have I done something to annoy you?” Dick asked,

“How about we leave the personal life behind while we deal with this” I snap glaring at him,

“Not if it’s going to affect this encounter” He replied,

“It’s not, now let’s stop him, so I can get home” I sighed before jumping through a window,

“Siren, Nightwing. Just in time” Crane greeted,

“In time for what?” Dick questioned,

“To see the experiment of my new toxin” He chuckled,

“Yeah, maybe next time. How about you be a good Scarecrow, so we can cuff you and return you to Arkham” I offered,

“Why don’t you come cuff me?” he retorted,

“Now, why do I feel like you’re tricking me?” I question, seconds later his goons surrounded us making Dick and myself stand back-to-back,

“You take the ones on the right, I’ll take the ones on the left?” He offered,

“No, you take these. I’ll handle Crane” I ordered before jumping over the goons and kicking Crane around the face sending him to the floor, I hummed “I expected more of a fight” I sighed as I approached his form,

“I’m not done” He said as he quickly injected me with his toxin,

“Siren!” Dick yelled as I fell to my knees, Crane back-handed me on to the floor, I stood up

“Impossible, everyone has a fear” Crane claimed as he back away from me,

“I’ve died, there’s nothing left for me to fear!” I snap as I slammed his head into a wall repetitively,

“Hey! Enough!” Dick yelled as he pulled me off Crane, earning a punch in the face from me,

“Ow!” He exclaimed,

“Next time you ask me on a date, don’t f*ck Kori afterwards” I growled pulling out of his grip,

“That’s what your annoyed at?” He scoffed,

“You can handle this” I say mentioning all the unconscious forms before leaving, “Hey Alfred, has anything else popped up?” I asked through the com,

“No-Ah wait, the Joker’s been spotted” Alfred replied,

“Address” I asked as I hopped on my motorcycle,

“Siren, he’s mine” Jason growled,

“I’ll be sure to leave you something” I replied as I revved my engine and set off to the location, I arrived and heard the psychotic laughter inside the building,

“I’m here, how far you out Hood?” I asked through the com,

“A mile” He answered,

“Join when you arrive” I ordered before entering the building,

“Joker!” I yelled announcing my presence,

“Ah, word has got around that Siren was back” He said as he approached me, “But what I want to know is are you the original?” He asked walking around me, I pulled the neck down showing off the scar “You are! Oh, how I’ve missed you!” He cheered before I punched him in the face,

“I’m going to enjoy this” I say,

“But you don’t kill” He stated,

“I don’t but I’ve got a friend that does” I say as I grabbed Harley Quinn’s bat that was swinging for my head, “Harleen” I greeted as I kicked her in the stomach into the Joker, knocking them both to the ground,

“It’s Harley! Ya brat!” She growled, I chuckled before Jason crashed through a window and landed next to me,

“Hey, so glad you could drop in” I smiled,

“Y’know me, couldn’t miss this for the world” He replied as a load of henchmen came into the room allowing Harley and the Joker to hide behind them,

“Shall we?” I asked as we stood back-to-back,

“We shall” He said twirling his pistols in his hands,

“Remember; no killing, I’d rather skip B-man’s rant after this” I say,

“Fine” He groaned before we began taking down the henchmen. I knock the last henchmen down and looked over to Jason to find Harley on the floor unconscious at the side of him as he held his pistol to the Joker’s head, my eyes widened before I picked up one of the henchmen’s pistols and shooting the pistol from Jason’s hand then shot him in the leg as I headed over to them,

“Aw sweetie, you saved me” Joker smiled,

“Shut up” I growled as I smashed him in the face with the pistol rendering him unconscious,

“You shot me!” Jason yelled, I rolled my eyes

“Alfred, alert Commissioner Gordon of our location, we’ve got the Joker and Harley waiting for him” I say through the com,

“He’s on his way Miss” He replied,

“You shot me!” Jason repeated,

“I told you no killing!” I yelled,

“He deserves to die! After everything he’s done! He killed us!” He argued standing up,

“I don’t care! You killing him will not change the fact that we’re dead! So, stop seeking revenge! And get on with your life!” I snapped, he just stared at me, “I suggest you get back to the cave, I’ll wait for Gordon” I ordered, he left the building and moments later I saw the flashing lights of the cars, the doors opened, and multiple officers came in cuffing the henchmen, Joker and Harley and taking them out,

“So, you do this all by yourself kid?” Gordon asked as he approached me,

“No, I had help” I answered,

“Fair enough. You should get your head looked at” He said, I touched my forehead to find blood,

“I don’t remember getting hit. Anyway, until next time” I say before hopping on my motorcycle and returning to the cave, I got in and changed out of my suit,

“You shot Todd” Damian stated as I made my way over to the medical section to find Alfred treating Jason’s leg,

“I did, there a problem with that?” I asked as I searched the cabinets to treat my head,

“No” Damian answered,

“Yes” Bruce answered, I rolled my eyes and faced him

“And what would that be?” I asked,

“You put him in danger” Bruce stated,

“I stopped him from killing the Joker! You should be thanking me!” I yelled as I began to feel light-headed

“You fought against Crane alone! There was a reason that I sent you with Dick! You got injected with the toxin!” He yelled,

“The toxin doesn’t affect me! I fear nothing! I’ve died and been through hell! And you sending me with Dick was just to ensure that I didn’t do anything stupid! Because you’re still treating me as the child that died on your watch!” I screamed as I supported myself against the table.

“I’m treating you like a child because you’re acting like one!” He retorted,

“You’re the one that’s acting like a child Bruce” I state before returning to my search to treat my head, he punched the cabinet next to my head

“Master Bruce!” Alfred yelled before I kicked Bruce over the table on to the floor, I jumped over the table and stood on his neck,

“(L/N), that’s enough” Damian demanded as Bruce’s face began to turn blue due to the lack of oxygen, I rolled my eyes getting off his throat and kicking him in the face,

“Don’t test me Bruce. The pit brought me back with an urge to kill, don’t make me give in to it” I warned,

“Miss (Y/N), sit down so we can treat your head” Alfred said, I did as he said as Bruce got up from the floor and stared at me,

“What?” I growled,

“I’m sorry” He apologised before disappearing upstairs into the manor.

***

“Oh, come on (Y/N), working with me isn’t that bad, is it?” Louis asked as he came over to me,

“Louis, I’ve got a lot of anger in me, so if I seem like I’m snapping at you or ‘brooding’ it’s me restraining myself from kicking some random low-life’s ass” I say,

“Ah, it’s that officer boy. What’s he done?” Louis asked as he handed me a shot,

“You know we can’t drink behind the bar, right?” I ask, he shrugged

“One shot’s not going to get you drunk” He said as he took his shot, I took mine and sighed “So, that officer boy” Louis said to encourage me,

“Officer boy is Dick Grayson, an old friend and crush. Anyway, he’s asked me out on dates which you know about, but he’s been f*cking his ex” I explained, his jaw dropped

“How dare he!” He exclaimed making me chuckle,

“My thoughts exactly” I comment,

“Please tell me you haven’t gone out with him after finding out” He pleaded,

“Ignored his messages, calls, emails, his attempts to talk to me on the street and him even dropping by my apartment” I list, he high-fived me,

“That’s my girl” He smiled, I glanced at the clock

“You wanna ring the bell for last orders?” I asked,

“Nah, get that anger out with the bell” He chuckled, I shook my head and rang the bell,

“Last orders!” I announced, the front door was kicked in and Two-faced came in with his goons,

“Looks like we’re just in time, boys!” Dent yelled, I pulled Louis down behind the bar as they began to shoot up the place,

“You cannot say a word to anyone about what I’m about to do” I hissed, he raised an eyebrow in confusion as I stripped out of my outfit revealing my suit, I put my mask on

“You’re the Siren?” he whispered, I smirked

“Stay down” I say before jumping over the bar knocking two of the goons down,

“Ah, Siren! Shall we see your fate? Heads you live, tails you die” Dent said before flipping his coin, I threw a chair at Dent knocking him over and caught the coin,

“Well, would you look at that, I get to live” I taunted pocketing the coin,

“Get her” Dent ordered, I chuckled as I easily knocked his goons out,

“I thought you always listened to the coin, Dent? Shall we test your fate?” I asked as I took out the coin, “Go on place your bets” I say,

“Heads; I get to leave here, and you can’t track me. Tails; I allow, you to cuff me and I go back to Arkham” He said,

“Interesting, I like it” I smirked before flipping the coin, I caught it “Anyone want to take a guess?” I call out,

“Tails” Someone said, I turned around and saw Dick in his Nightwing suit, I rolled my eyes and looked at the coin,

“You’re correct” I state, Dent groaned as he held out his arms I smiled and cuffed him, “You can have your coin back” I say placing it in the suit pocket, the police came and took Dent and his goons out, “Alright everyone, I heard that last calls were a while ago. So, out you pop” I announce, the customers left, and Louis popped his head above the bar, “You’re alright to come out Louis” I chuckled,

“You sure? I don’t want my brains blown out” He said as he stood up,

“Yes, I’m sure” I sighed,

“Does he know?” He asked mentioning Dick, I nodded “Wait, so this is why you’ve been missing out on drinking after shutting? I’m hurt, (Y/N)” He said,

“You told him?!” Dick yelled,

“Well, I couldn’t wait for you or any of the others to show up to take Dent down, if you were. Plus, I trust him” I snap,

“You can’t go around telling everyone who you are!” Dick argued, I growled before punching him across the face, “Punching me is not going to solve anything” He stated rubbing his jaw,

“I was hoping that it’d rid me of the anger I still have left” I spat as I sat on a bar stool, Louis gave me a glass of bourbon which I down, “Right, I’m going to change back to civilian clothes be back in five” I say as I went behind the bar into the back, I came back out to find Louis putting his coat on, “You’re leaving me?” I asked as I grabbed a bourbon bottle,

“Sorry, Kieran’s outside waiting” He smiled,

“Have fun” I smirked,

“We’re not like that!” He stated going red in the face,

“And I’m dead. See you tomorrow, Louis” I smiled,

“Sure” He sighed,

“Hey, you should bring him to meet your bar-family” I offered,

“Not in the slightly chance!” He yelled as he left, I chuckled

“You want a drink?” I asked Dick,

“I’m working” He stated, I rolled my eyes

“It’s two in the morning. You wouldn’t have stuck around if you were working” I say, he sighed

“Fine, is there anything I can change into?” He asked, I went into the back and brought out some grey sweat-pants and a black jumper,

“Just put them over the top and remove the mask” I say throwing them at him and sat down,

“So, how come Al’s not here?” He asked as he sat down next to me, “Al’s in hospital and as the other manager I get the honours of locking up” I explained as I slid him a drink.

“Listen about Kori. I’ve told her that we’re over and all, but the message isn’t getting through to her” He explained, I scoffed

“And that explains the reason that you’ve f*cked her countless times over the course of you taking me out because…” I trailed off,

“(Y/N), we dated for two years, you can’t expect feelings like that to disappear immediately” He claimed, I raised an eyebrow as I took a gulp from the bourbon bottle,

“Immediately? Jason told me that the relationship between the two of you was an on-and-off kind and during your splits you were dating Barbara, but I don’t see you f*cking her” I say getting up,

“(Y/N), wait” Dick said grabbing my arm, I pulled it out of his grip,

“Why don’t you just back to Kori? You obviously still love her! I can’t believe I let myself fall for you! Again!” I snapped as I went to lock the door leading to the smokers area, but he grabbed me and turned me around, kissing me, I was quick to return it wrapping my arms around the back of his neck, we broke a part,

“Again?” He questioned, I nodded

“Yeah, I had a thing for you back when you were Robin” I admit, he smiled before pulling me back into a kiss.

#nightwing #nightwing x reader #dc #DC comics #fanfiction #batman #red hood #Red Robin #robin

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j0sgomez-blog · 5 years

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Todd Arndt backpacking the Grand Canyon’s Thunder River-Deer Creek Loop.

By Michael Lanza

This is, in a way, a story about addiction. Or a love affair. Or both. Because those are the best metaphors I can come up with for how the Grand Canyon consistently lures me back when I’m thinking about spring and fall hiking and backpacking trips. It is that rare kind of natural environment that exists on a scale of its own, like Alaska or the Himalaya. There’s something soul-stirring and hypnotic about its infinite vistas, the deceptive scale of the canyon walls and stone towers, and the way the foreground and background continually expand and shrink as you ascend and descend elevation gradients of a vertical mile or more—all of which validates enduring the wilting heat and trails that sometimes seem better suited to bighorn sheep than to bipedal primates.

I’m going to show you, in words and photos, why one or more of these Big Ditch backpacking trips deserves top priority as you’re planning for spring or fall trips.

Whenever I’m looking for a long, remote, incredibly beautiful, wilderness backpacking trip in the Southwest, the Grand Canyon seems to consistently emerge on top. Even though it lies a day’s journey from my home, I’ve been there numerous times, including four backpacking trips and long dayhikes in the past three years. And I have plans to return again both next spring and fall. It seems the more I go there, the more I want—or need—to go back, in spite of how hard it is (and maybe that’s one of the reasons I keep going back).

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David Ports near Skeleton Point on the Grand Canyon’s South Kaibab Trail.

Perhaps John Wesley Powell, who led the first expedition down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon in 1869, put it best when he wrote: “The wonders of the Grand Canyon cannot be adequately represented in symbols of speech nor by speech itself… You cannot see the Grand Canyon in one view, as if it were a changeless spectacle from which a curtain might be lifted, but to see it you have to toil from month to month through its labyrinths.”

Okay, most of us don’t have months free. No worries: Each of the five trips described below can be hiked within a week. Each description has links to full feature stories about those trips at The Big Outside, which include many photos and my expert tips on planning and pulling them off—including how to acquire one of these hard-to-get permits. (Many of those stories require a paid subscription to The Big Outside, which you can get for as little as $5.)

Any of these hikes will thrill and amaze you, I guarantee it—and just may inspire in you an urge to go back again, and again, and, yup, again.

I’d love to hear if you’ve done any of these trips or want to suggest others in the Grand Canyon. Please share your thoughts in the comments section at the bottom of this story.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside, which has made several top outdoors blog lists. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Subscribe now to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Please follow my adventures on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube.

Hikers on the South Kaibab Trail in the Grand Canyon.

Grand Canyon Rim to Rim

If there’s an archetypal Grand Canyon hike, this baby is it. Crossing the canyon via the North Kaibab Trail combined with either the South Kaibab (one of prettiest of the 20 best national park dayhikes) or the Bright Angel Trail delivers the goods on epic scenery. You get views from both rims all the way down to the Colorado River, the canyon-spanning vistas of the South Kaibab, the Bright Angel’s huge panoramas and desert oases, a walk through the narrow, sheer-walled gorge of lower Bright Angel Creek, waterfalls, and airy sections where the North Kaibab was blasted from cliff faces.

Although most GC trails are quite rugged, these three so-called “corridor” trails, while quite strenuous for their vertical relief, have better footing, more reliable water availability at regular intervals, and much less of the loose terrain, quad-pounding ledge drops, and scary exposure of other canyon footpaths.

Penny Beach hiking the North Kaibab Trail, Grand Canyon.

A one-way canyon traverse, typically backpacked in three days (in either direction), is 21 miles with 4,780 feet of descent and 5,761 feet of ascent via the South Kaibab and North Kaibab trails, or 23.5 miles with 4,380 feet of descent and 5,761 feet of ascent via the Bright Angel and North Kaibab. Shuttles are available between the rims, and you can also double the trip by backpacking across and back.

Another excellent—and popular—itinerary, especially among first-timers here, is to forego the long ascent to the North Rim, and instead hike 16.5 miles rim to river to rim: down the South Kaibab and up the Bright Angel. Many backpackers take two or three days, with one night at Bright Angel Campground on the Colorado River and a possible second night at Indian Garden Campground along the Bright Angel Trail to break up the long climb back up from the river.

Do this trip smartly and safely. Get my expert e-guide to backpacking the Grand Canyon rim to rim or my expert e-guide to dayhiking the Grand Canyon rim to rim.

Penny Beach hiking the upper South Kaibab Trail, Grand Canyon.

A permit for backpacking the corridor trails on any itinerary in spring or fall is one of the hardest backcountry permits to get in the entire National Park System, with upwards of three-quarters of applications denied; apply for one on the first day the park starts accepting applications for your trip dates. Plus, growing numbers of uber-bit hikers and runners knock off a rim-to-rim (r2r) or a complete rim-to-rim-to-rim—across and back—(r2r2r) in a day. Consequently, in peak weather of mid-spring and mid-autumn, don’t expect the solitude you can find on some other canyon backpacking trips.

But if you want to take one of the most unique and spectacular treks in the world, without attempting any of the other significantly harder routes, this is the one.

See my “Photo Gallery: Hiking the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim” and my feature story “A Grand Ambition, or April Fools? Dayhiking the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim to Rim,” and all of my stories about South Rim hikes and Ask Me posts about the Grand Canyon at The Big Outside.

See my hard-earned advice on scoring a backcountry permit in popular parks like the Grand Canyon in my

“10 Tips For Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit.”

David Ports hiking the Tonto Trail through Monument Creek Canyon, Grand Canyon.

Hermits Rest to Bright Angel

Outside the three corridor trails, the 25-mile hike from Hermits Rest to the Bright Angel Trailhead may be the park’s most popular, for many good reasons. Although it does not go all the way to the Colorado River—unless you take any of a few side trails off this route that descend to the river (each adding several miles round-trip)—this linkup of the Hermit, Tonto, and Bright Angel trails nonetheless offers an experience similar to a rim-to-river-to-rim hike that’s in many ways easier.

The Tonto Trail at Horn Creek in the Grand Canyon.

The rigorous Hermit Trail—the hardest section of this hike—snakes through one of the dramatic tributary canyons of the Colorado River, below colorful, striated cliffs of the canyon’s Supai and Redwall layers. You’ll follow a 13-mile stretch of the Tonto Trail across the gently rolling Tonto Plateau, where prickly-pear cacti and other wildflowers bloom and the views span from the rims to the river. That stretch of the Tonto crosses five major tributary canyons of the Colorado River, including passing directly below the tall, slender rock spire and soaring burgundy cliffs in the canyon of Monument Creek, and the mind-boggling heights and three-dimensionality of the Inferno.

One more advantage of this hike: There are three reliable water sources along or a short distance off this route.

See my story “One Extraordinary Day: A 25-Mile Dayhike in the Grand Canyon” about dayhiking Hermits Rest to Bright Angel Trailhead (a route I’ve also backpacked).

Want to read any story linked here? Get full access to ALL stories at The Big Outside, plus a FREE e-guide. Subscribe now!

Jeff Wilhelm backpacking the Grand Canyon’s Tonto East Trail.

Grandview Point to South Kaibab

Like Hermits Rest to Bright Angel, the 29-mile hike from Grandview Point to the South Kaibab Trailhead provides backpackers with a full-immersion experience in the Big Ditch without as much elevation gain and loss as going all the way to the Colorado River. (In fact, this trip offers just one optional side hike to the river—down the South Kaibab Trail.)

My son, Nate, backpacking the Grand Canyon’s Tonto East Trail.

Descending the South Kaibab Trail as the light of early morning streams across the Grand Canyon is one of the most sublime hiking experiences in America, if not the world. And the Grandview Trail offers constantly changing perspectives of the canyon spreading out before you. This hike also traverses a long stretch of the scenic Tonto Plateau, with views reaching to the South and North rims and the river, crossing a handful of tributary canyons like Grapevine Creek, which itself is staggeringly deep and broad. All along this route, some of the canyon’s most distinctive formations, like the towering Zoroaster Temple, seem to grow and shrink as you approach and move away from them.

You can combine this hike with the Hermits Rest to Bright Angel hike (above), or partly overlap the two—going from Hermits Rest to South Kaibab or Grandview Point to Bright Angel. There are four water sources along this route, but only one is perennial (Grapevine Creek), so it’s better done in spring, when the other three creeks usually have water.

See my feature story “Dropping Into the Grand Canyon: A Four-Day Hike From Grandview Point to the South Kaibab Trail” at The Big Outside.

I can help you plan these or any trips you read about at my blog. Find out more here.

Jeff Wilhelm on the Deer Creek Trail in the Grand Canyon.

Thunder River-Deer Creek Loop

Accessible for shorter spring and fall seasons than most backpacking trips off the South Rim, the remote, 25-mile Thunder River-Deer Creek Loop off the Grand Canyon’s North Rim has become a prized destination for in-the-know backpackers and river-rafting parties taking side hikes, primarily for an unusual abundance of a rare element in the canyon: water.

Deer Creek Falls in the Grand Canyon.

The two fast-moving, perennial creeks and one river (in addition to the Colorado River) that backpackers hike along on this trip pour over some of the Grand Canyon’s prettiest waterfalls, course through spectacular narrows, and nurture oases of trees and vegetation. Your first sighting from above of the Thunder River can seem like a mirage, seeing it burst in a—yes—thunderous waterfall from the face of a cliff.

Although the upper parts of this loop are dry and nearly devoid of shade—they can be brutally hot—the vistas reach to the South Rim and for miles up and down the canyon, revealing its majestic breadth and depth.

This isn’t a trip for beginner backpackers or Grand Canyon first-timers: You’ll descend a vertical mile to the Colorado and climb back up again, on often-rugged trails, in heat that can push the edges of human tolerance. But backpackers ready to rise to the challenge will explore one of the most unique corners of the Grand Canyon.

See my feature story “Backpacking the Grand Canyon’s Thunder River-Deer Creek Loop.”

Hike all of the “10 Best Backpacking Trips in the Southwest.”

John Dorn in Elves Chasm on the Grand Canyon’s Royal Arch Loop.

Royal Arch Loop

I’ve saved the hardest hike on this list for last. Experienced, hard-core Grand Canyon backpackers ready to up their game will love the challenge and solitude of the very rugged, 34.5-mile Royal Arch Loop.

More remote and inaccessible than most backpacking trips off the South Rim, this trek from the South Bass Trailhead on the South Rim to the Colorado River and back up features just about every characteristic that makes backpacking in the Grand Canyon unique: sweeping views, intimate side canyons with lush hanging gardens nurtured by a vibrant stream, a high solitude quotient, and one drop-dead gorgeous campsite after another—including one of the best in the entire canyon, below Royal Arch (one of my 25 all-time favorite backcountry campsites).

Read about how climate change is affecting the Grand Canyon and other parks in my book Before They’re Gone—A Family’s Year-Long Quest to Explore America’s Most Endangered National Parks.

This hike isn’t for backpackers whose image of their own skills, experience, and nerve doesn’t sync with reality. The park’s website says it is “considered by many to be the most difficult of the established south side hikes” and it “offers about a million ways to get into serious trouble in a remote part of the Grand Canyon”—including very difficult, off-trail scrambling where you may sometimes have to lower backpacks, and one mandatory, 20-foot rappel.

A datura in Royal Arch Canyon in the Grand Canyon.

But if you’re ready for this caliber of adventure, I think you’ll consider it one of your best backpacking trips ever—and certainly one of the premier multi-day adventures in the Grand Canyon.

See my story “Not Quite Impassable: Backpacking the Grand Canyon’s Royal Arch Loop” and all of my stories about Grand Canyon National Park at The Big Outside.

Tell me what you think.

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crankpendletonplays-blog · 7 years

Text

Numb-Jughead Jones

Pairing: Jughead x Reader

Description:

Protective jughead x reader where shes a csa victim and self harms as a coping mechanism & he finds out and comforts her when she's triggered by something & expresses his feelings for her? if youre uncomfortable with this feel free to change it/say no but could you do a jughead imagine where he and reader are besties but she hides her depression because she knows about his home situation. he knows something is up and somehow catches her hurting herself one day and gets angry but explains hes mad because he cares about her and she kept it from him when he coulda tried to help and ends with them as a couple somehow? Fluffy angst? Love your writing so much, and thanks for considering Hey! Just a small request for JugheadxReader where the reader self harms and he comforts them :) thank you! Had all of these in my inbox so I thought I’d combine them and make them one big imagine! Hope you guys enjoy this!! Warnings: Self-Inflicted harm, mentions of self-inflicted harm, mentions of mentality disorders, violence, mentions of rape/sexual assault, pg-13, Mentions of suicide, suicidal thoughts.

------------------------------------------------------------------------ If there’s one thing I’ve come to terms with in my 16 years of living, it’s that the older you get, the more this façade you’ve built of the world as a child slowly crumbles at your feet, until everything is gray. I mean, you see color, obviously. The sun is yellow, the sky is blue, the grass is green, nothing new there. It’s more like, everything feels gray. The leaves aren’t as vibrant as they used to be, the perfect white picket fences suddenly look chipped and decayed, almost like it had been that way all along, and everything was wearing a mask. You also learn that everybody around you wears a mask as well. Nobody is as happy or as great as they claim to be anymore, and some hide it well compared to others. I was one of those people.

My childhood had been pretty normal up until middle school. That’s when everything kind of went to shit. My dad left my family, my grandma died, and my cousin died in a drunk driving accident all in one year. I was also bullied at school a lot, and ended up being jumped by a group of kids when I was walking home alone in eighth grade. I laid in the alley way for what felt like hours, just staring up at the sky while all the kids beat me and did unspeakable things to my body until I couldn’t even feel it anymore. They eventually left me for dead until by some miracle, Jason Blossom had been walking home from his football practice and found me. My older brother was friends with him, and he was considered a part of my family. He went to Riverdale, the same high school that awaited me that next summer after I left middle school.

I still don’t know how Jason managed to do it, but he had carried me five miles to the town’s hospital, where my mom and brother had been waiting. My mom burst in to tears when she saw me covered in blood and grime in the older boy’s arms. I remembered her asking me simple questions, like who the president was, and what year it was. I didn’t even have the energy to answer her. I was numb.

That was the day the sun turned gray for me.

Of course, there was a whole legal battle. My mom tried to press charges and get everybody involved arrested, but the only thing they had were a few witnesses, and a few items two of the people had dropped. The most we could do was get a restraining order on the worst of them, but it didn’t help much. My older brother made me write down every single name, and I made him promise not to hurt any of them. He obviously didn’t, because the next day he, Jason, and my best friend Jughead came back to the hospital with bruises and cuts, and when I asked they told me not to worry about it.

A month later I was attacked again by one of the boys in the exact same alley way. He caught me alone walking home again, late in the evening. I tried to scream and yell, but no words left my mouth as I did my best to get him away from me. The feeling of your clothes being torn of your body and unfamiliar hands touching you in the most horrific ways is by far the second worst feeling in the world, the first being having your virginity ripped away from you at 14 years old by a horny high school boy who didn’t care about the consequences. It’s a feeling that makes you unable to feel anything at all except broken and numb.

I was diagnosed with PTSD, anxiety, and depression a year later, to follow with my insomnia. I was handed pill bottle after pill bottle, handed to doctor after doctor, took test after test, none of it mattered though. None of it could fix me. None of it could erase what the boy did to me, or how all he got was a slap on the wrist after leaving me half naked and cold in an alley way after leaving his semen all in between my legs

I started self-harming because I wanted to feel again. I wanted to hurt. I wanted to feel pain, I wanted to feel the sting of the blade on my skin, or the blood running down my arms, something, anything, but I couldn’t. I was just numb.

I was good at hiding it though. I was good at faking a smile, and making everyone think I was ok. I was good at pretending to be happy and avoiding the elephant in the room just like everyone else did.

Jughead and I had made a promise with each other a long time ago to not keep secrets from each other. I knew that. Of course I felt bad about lying to him, but I was keeping this from him for his sake, or, at least I tried to convince myself that this was my “logical explanation” for it. Jughead had too much on his plate to handle me as well. Hell, he had the fucking sheriff on his trail, accusing him of murdering the guy that saved my life,

My thighs burned as the fresh cuts rubbed against the short jean fabric, but I still didn’t feel pain. Of course, it physically hurt, but only my thigh. My chest was still numb in the place where my heart rested, beating and thumping against my ribs, but lacking any feeling. I was mentally numb from head to toe.

I paced up the bridge, heaving my body up until I was standing in the middle, looking out over the edge of Sweetwater river. I looked over the ledge, the water running and swirling through the creek calmly, the jagged rocks pointing up at me, almost beckoning me to pull myself up on to the concrete ledge and fall to their doom. If I couldn’t feel anything in life, maybe l could feel something in death.

I pulled myself up on the ledge, sitting and swinging my legs so they dangled over the water dangerously. I wasn’t scared. I don’t know if that surprised me or not.

I pulled out my phone, texting Jughead twice before shoving my phone back in my pocket.

“How do you stop somebody from making a bad decision?” “I’m at the bridge.”

I looked out at river for what felt like years, thinking about everything and nothing all at once. Would anyone even really care if I was dead? Do I even matter?

Of course people would care. My family would care, Jughead would care.

But for how long?

Would I even leave a dent, or a hole, or a mark on people’s lives if I was dead? Or I would just be another case of a tragic fucked up teen who didn’t get the help they needed in time?

Whatever, it didn’t matter.

None of it mattered anymore.

I couldn’t even feel it.

I sighed, pulling myself up so I was standing on the ledge. I took a deep breath, looking out at the water. I could almost hear Jughead’s voice in the back of my head, screaming at me to stop, begging and pleading me not to do this.

It was almost like he was here.

Wait. Was he?

I turned my head to look over my shoulder, seeing the boy sprint toward me wildly. Had we not been in this particular situation. I probably would have been laughing my ass of and making a snarky comment about how I had never seen him run before.

I froze.

Holy shit, he was running. He never runs.

I turned back around, looking down at the edge once more. I shuffled forward quickly so the only things left on the concrete were the backs of my high tops, before holding my arms out and beginning to lean forward.

Everything that happened next felt like those slow mo scenes in Matrix, where Keanu Reeves dodges bullets like a fucking badass, except this time, there were no bullets. Just me, falling to my death, and Jughead’s arms wrapping around my torso and pulling me off the ledge, the both of us stumbling and falling on to the cemented bridge.

For the first time in a long time, I felt things again.

I felt Jughead’s arm wrapped tightly around my waist. I felt his hand on my thigh, his fingers flat against the bright red cuts and faded scars that littered my skin there. I felt his head on my shoulder, and his hair against my neck.

And I felt fear.

I felt the fear of what I had just done, what I was getting ready to do. I felt the pain of the cuts and bruises on my body. I felt the pain of what those people had done to me and my body.

I turned in Jughead’s arms, my body wrapping itself around his instinctively. Both of our faces were wet when he shoved his lips on to mine, our tears mixing together as they feel freely down our faces. The pain, fear, and hurt that I had felt in those ten seconds were immediately replaced with new feelings.

Love.

Happiness.

Hope.

Faith.

For the first time in forever, I finally felt something. I wasn’t numb, or cold because I felt something bigger than that. I felt love.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, or at risk of suicide, please call the number 1-800-273-8255. This is not the end. You will never not matter. People do love you and you will leave a dent in their lives. Don’t give a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

#jughead jones #TRIGGER WARNING #riverdale #kj apa #archie andrews #betty cooper #lili reinhart #veronica lodge #cami mendes #cole sprouse #casey cott #kevin keller #madeleine petsch #ross butler #reggie mantle #Cheryl blossom #Josie and the pussycats #multifandom blog #multifandom imagines

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