#also a sort of mean sounding premise
Note
Since you posted about GPT-2's AI-identification software, I thought I'd ask you about something that's been haunting me for a while. You may have seen a viral twitter post with pictures of a script, labeled something like "I forced an AI to watch 1000 hours of lawyer commercials and this is what it wrote." The person has since done others and even compiled a book. The thing is - the text, to me, absolutely does not in any way read like it was written by an ML program. With jokes like "it's full of lemons, the justice fruit that only lawyers may touch" and "the phone digits appear. It's your social security number," it reads a lot more like a human pretending to be an AI than it does like actual AI writing. Do you have any input? I'd be curious to hear.
You're correct - as far as I know, the author has never used actual machine learning to generate any of those jokes. The first ones came out when AI wasn't even remotely capable of writing that coherently. I wrote a thread about it that ended up in a Know Your Meme article: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-forced-a-bot
#not ai#but it sure confused a lot of people in 2018#also a sort of mean sounding premise#although there is a bit of poetry in a human stealing an ai's job
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SIXTY-FOUR EQUALS SIXTY-FIVE!
RANPO EDOGAWA ⋮ BUNGO STRAY DOGS
premise. ranpo loves to give you all sorts of little riddles, but this one might have you stumped the most out of all of them.
story notes! fem!reader. fluff! reader works as part of the ADA office staff. animated dividers by @/cafekitsune!
love, misa ‹3 if you know what the title is referencing, ily! also, reblogs, comments and interactions are vrie appreciated!
“. . . Pardon?”
Ranpo looks to you with a pointedly smug grin playing on his face, hands relaxedly folded behind his head as he leans back in the ADA office’s chair. It creaks beneath him as he plants his feet atop the mahogany desk and swivels around slowly, a sign that you should probably get the seat oiled soon.
“It’s simple, is it not?” He asks and you slowly shake your head no, mouth slightly agape when he starts to sigh, repeating his prior statement.
“Sixty-four equals sixty-five, and that’s that!”
You blink a few times, hoping that the information sinks in a little more inside of your beain just long enough that you can even begin to process whatever he means.
The words play back in your mind like an old VHS tape, abruptly coming to a halt when you can’t fall into a proper, conclusive or logical answer that would make sense in any normal situation.
“That’s . . . false,” you begin to argue, albeit a bit unsurely as you have no idea what to even say in the moment. Your mouth moves faster than your brain as you tell him the only logical thing you can think of.
“If sixty-four equalled sixty-five than it would be sixty-five and not sixty-four.”
Ranpo lets out a laugh, only telling you that “You’re wrong,” and for a second you look around the ADA office wondering if there were any cameras filming the two of you. You find that the other office clerks are merely seated at their own desks though, watching the spectacle between you and Ranpo go down, and a little amused at your bewilderment.
You’d think that for a man who is labelled as the greatest detective in all of Yokohama (and quite possibly the entire world once you took into account his inherent genius and lack of an ability), that much would make sende for someone like him.
Surely he couldn’t have said a more incorrect statement than that with such confidence in himself.
But no, of course not.
It’s Ranpo you’re dealing with, and he says a lot of odd little phrases and sayings just to mess with your head sometimes. It started since your first day with the ADA, it’s been years now and he’s still going too.
He doesn’t show any signs of stopping soon either.
(“You just look so funny with your face all scrunched up in thought!” He once told you after a particularly difficult riddle that had you stumped for hours on end until the end of the work day, afterwhich you realized the answer was unfathomably easy once he had revealed it to you.
Nobody else in the ADA could’ve gotten it though, so it saved you at least some of your dignity.)
You assume that this must be another one of those cryptic riddles he’s thrown your way, maybe a test to see if you’ve somehow managed to improve from last time. An inkling of hope swells inside your chest, hoping that today is the day you finally manage to answer correctly to one of Ranpo’s mysterious riddles.
Setting down the bowl of candies in your hands on his desk, you stand in thought for a moment, scouring your brain for anything that could relate to the riddle as Ranpo delightedly digs into the newfound treats, appearing blissful to the mental agony he loves to put you through sometimes.
The little dish clinks against his fingernails as he searches through the pile of sweets for his favourites at the bottom, the sound of the plastic unwrapping in tune with the beat of the ticking in your brain while you think over his words from earlier.
He gave no set up, no punch line, no nothing at all. There wasn’t any indistinguishable context to the riddle-like words that you could recall, it was only—
“Sixty-four equals sixty-five . . .” Ranpo hears you mutter underneath your breath, and his lips curl up in delight as he munches on a decadent chocolate truffle, filled with sticky caramel and generous bits of toffee.
The caramel sticks to his teeth, with the toffee clinging to the sides of his tongue and the roof of his mouth as he chews away at the treat, patiently watching while you continue to talk to yourself, still thinking over his words from earlier.
“Could it be a math riddle? No, that’s not possible though if we’re going by technical math terms and rules . . . Maybe something to do with physics? But how could anything simultaneously be sixty-four and sixty-five?”
Ranpo’s mischievous grin only continues to grow as you remain oblivious to his watchful eyes, and his gaze scans over your features, wordlessly taking in your appearance.
Your knitted brows, the way you subconsciously pout your lips whenever you’re in deep thought, your crossed arms, all while unknowingly talking to yourself as you piece together the clues.
Ranpo sees it all as clear as day. And he finds it unbelievably cute.
“Maybe it’s about hex codes from the colour wheel, since one colour can look different depending on the background it’s placed over. It could have less to do with the numbers themselves than the meaning or history behind them—”
“Are you done yet?” You’re brought back to reality by the sound of Ranpo’s voice interrupting your thoughts, head perking up as you’re met with the sight of his nougat stuffed cheeks. All puffed out and full of sugar as he holds back a laugh once he sees how quickly your face softened from it’s previously hardened features.
“You were taking forever to solve that one! And it’s really not that hard to begin with!”
“Speak for yourself,” you scoff, taking one of the chocolates from the bowl and unwrapping it for yourself. The plastic crinkles beneath your fingertips, you stuff the wrapper in your pocket before popping it into your mouth.
The caramel sauce encased in the hard chocolate shell explodes when you crunch down on it, a sweet little victory to make up for the quizzical hurdles you’re put through on a regular basis, courtesy of the man sitting right across from you.
“You’re Yokohama’s greatest detective, it’s obvious that these sorts of riddles come naturally to you,” you wholeheartedly confess, savouring the light cocoa and sweet, subtly coconut flavours that coat your tongue. “I’m not like you, Ranpo. Nobody in the ADA is, what takes us twelve weeks to solve you can answer in twelve seconds.”
“Awee, really?” He giggles, swiping more of the little candies from the bowl on his desk. He seems to have missed the original point entirely by now, as he motions for you to continue, “Go on, tell me more about how great I am!”
You resist the urge to roll your eyes at him, maybe you shouldn’t have gassed him up so much during your little acknowledgement speech. Though with the cases he’s solved in his repertoire, you really can’t argue against that title of his.
“No, you’ve had enough of that from Kunikida and Atsushi just this morning alone.”
A small pout graces Ranpo’s lips as you sigh, ignoring the kicked puppy eyes he gives you while walking back to your desk, continuing to mutter underneath your breath the same words that will probably leave you stumped for the next few days on end.
“Sixty-four equals sixty-five?”
Ranpo cranes his head as he eats away at the rest of his candy stash, watching you immediately turn to one of your co-workers from his own work space to ask them the same question Ranpo gave you, inquiring about any clues they might have as to the answer.
“No, there’s gotta be an answer,” he overhears when your colleague shrugs their shoulders, simply telling you that whatever Ranpo says is probably just a load of gibberish meant to mess with your mind.
“Just— just give me anything you can think of, okay? I’ll solve one of his riddles one day.”
The sight has Ranpo smiling behind the back of his hand, eyes crinkling at the corners with glowing cheeks when you sees you bring out one of your notepads from the desk drawer’s, clicking your pen as you begin to write down any guesses you might have to tell him later.
Truth be told, unlike the rest of the spontaneous mind games Ranpo pulls on you— this one has no actual meaningful answer. At least, not one that you’d understand at the moment if he were to tell you it’s solution.
But despite that looming factor always casting it’s dark shadow onto you, the thought of Ranpo giving you a riddle truly impossible to solve has never really crossed your mind.
Otherwise, you would very easily give up solving them after just a moment of contemplation.
Ranpo’s noticed though that you tend to wallow on them for days at a time unless he comes clean and tells you the answer in it’s entirety, letting his silly and easily misconstrued words stew inside your head during your lunch breaks and slow times at the ADA where you’ll maybe sometimes bound up to him excitedly with a guess as to what you think the answer is.
It’s charming how much thought you put into your solutions, and admittedly you’ve gotten quite close a few times to figuring them out all on your own. Ranpo’s always impressed with whatever you come up with, even if it’s outlandishly ridiculous or nowhere even close to the actual answer itself.
It’s really your explanations and logic behind them that he likes, with some of the ideas you bring up for splutions are those that he hasn’t even thought of beforehand until you ask him if they’re right.
(Sometimes he wants to cut your little game short and just give you the win for once if your guess is creative enough.
But where’s the fun in that?)
He’ll give you more of these up until the day you leave the ADA (though he hopes that’s not anytime soon) if it means he gets to see that delightful little confused but hopeful expression you make while deep in thought.
Your persistence in finding out the answer on your own until you’ve been truly worn out by him is also admirable.
Because while you’re always just a bit confused by all the different riddles, puzzles and play-on-words he hounds on you each day, he finds that you’ve yet to actually reject his proposal to solving them, never even considering walking away from his absurdity unlike with most people he knows if he asked them the same.
He prays it’ll stay that way too.
Otherwise, who else would he have to fawn over in secret?
Ranpo deduces that while you may be clever (anyone who works at the ADA is, it’s basically a requirement when working with ability users such as them), he’s always just a few steps ahead of you.
It’s not an insult towards you on his end in any way either. Your way of thinking is totally different from his own, but he reasons out that he can make arrangements to improving your logical deduction abilities once he finally figures out how to convey his feelings for you.
Properly, and not through a series of complex paradoxes and logic puzzles.
The most complex riddle of them all though that the ADA office staff asks themselves each day while witnessing the two of you has to be:
Whose logical reasoning is really being tested here again? Yours, or Ranpo’s?
The ADA believes that Ranpo should use less of his time giving you intrinsically methodical puzzles and focus more of his energy on realizing his blooming, lovesick crush.
works © amamisa 2024. no copying or stealing, please!
#bungo stray dogs#bungo stray dogs x reader#ranpo edogawa#ranpo x reader#ranpo edogawa x reader#ranpo edogawa fluff#ranpo fluff#bungo stray dogs ranpo#bsd ranpo#bsd fluff#bsd x reader#bsd x you#bsd fanfic#bsd scenarios#bsd x female reader#signed by misa ৻ꪆ
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Reincarnated as the Male Lead's Tragic Love Interest Prior to the Events of the Game
Summary:
Title explains it all.
Alternatively, an overworked employee, also known as you, gets isekaied into their favorite dating sim. Unfortunately, your favorite character isn't acting as he should.
Pairings: Neuvillette/ Reader (Gender Neutral)
Warnings: Minor Character Death, Yandere
This situation is as familiar to you as the back of your hand. It is unsurprising. After all, before your untimely demise, you were working on a manhwa with a similar premise to this. When you awaken in the opulent room, dressed in finery that you would ordinarily never be able to afford, you already know what has happened. Now the only question was, what kind of story had you been transmigrated into?
You rise on shaky legs and make your way to the mirror to the other side of the bed you had awakened in. The short walk had winded you already. It seems you were not the picture of health you hoped to be. Well, you weren’t exactly a paragon of healthy living in your old life. Nevertheless, as you approach the mirror and you take in your appearance, you find that you are still yourself. This relieves you somewhat but at the same time, it did not seem to answer any questions you held. You still had no idea what sort of story you had found yourself in. As you ponder over the possibilities, recalling the different summaries of manhwas and webnovels you read in your life you hear the door open. You turn to the sound.
In walks a man with such an ethereal, seemingly unearthly beauty. You know him very well - one of the characters you had adored so much in your past life as a weary, overworked typesetter. This is the Chief Justice Neuvillette, a man who held enormous political power within the realm of this fantasy world that you had been reborn in. Just his presence already answered some of the questions in your mind.
You had been reborn into Teyvat, the setting for an extremely popular dating sim. You recall fond memories of yourself playing the game late into the night after a tough day at work. Neuvillette had been one of the romanceable love interests that the game had to offer. His route had been a delight to play through and you considered him as your favorite character. You internally thanked all the deities that you could think of as he rushed towards you and wrapped you in a tender embrace. You swore you could feel his tears soak into your hair.
This reaction of his could only mean one thing.
In the game, there was no rival for the player character to steal Neuvillette from. This was because according to the game’s setting, Neuvillette had just lost his beloved betrothed. It would have been up to the player character to help him heal from his grief as he allowed himself to fall in love once more. Neuvillette loved his betrothed dearly and with the way he was reacting to you, the way he was holding you then that probably meant you were his betrothed, right?
When he’s done embracing you, he cups your face in his hand. He holds you gently, lovingly.
“It’s really you,” he breathes, the beginnings of tears prick at the corner of his eyes.
He wouldn’t have known what to do if that really was the end of you. He had already been consumed by his thoughts of what he would do. The undeath that he would have to endure if you really had passed. You looked so close to death, ashen and trembling.
But you were looking better now and to Neuvillette that was nothing short of a miracle. He would not question it anymore. Still, he kept a careful watch over you. It was all for your good, he rationalized. You were not permitted to leave the manor without his permission. And for the poor overworked you, in your past life, that was a-okay.
Nevertheless, there was still something disquieting about the way he regarded you. There was something dark and unknowable about him, as deep and as fathomless as the ocean. When he looked at you, you didn’t feel like just his lover.
Neuvillette looked at you as if you were his only reason for living and he would take very good care of you. He would make sure that you were very well-taken care of in this life.
“Love, I’d like your leave to go out to town today,” you told him one fine afternoon, “the maids told me there was a lovely new pâtisserie that opened up recently. I’d like to see it for myself.”
Neuvillette had put aside his work, as he always did when he met with you. Anything he was dealing with at the moment paled in importance to you. He closes the gap between the two of you quickly as he rounds upon you, “could they not simply fetch the pastry for you, love?”
“They could but I suppose, I just wanted to see it for myself. It’s been a while since I’ve ventured outside the estate.”
“We walked around the gardens recently, has that not been satisfactory?”
“No!” You say a bit too quickly, not wanting to hurt his feelings and based on the knit of his brows, you were getting close. “I love walking with you! I love spending time with you. I simply want to be allowed to experience things for myself. I - I’ve missed out on much due to my illness and I would like to make up for lost time.”
You take his hands in yours to try and assuage his fears. You do not know that this will not do you any good. You explained yourself well, you assured him. Surely, he would be reasonable!
“I see…” Neuvillette murmurs and a small smile blooms on his face as he considers you, as he cups your face in his hands. “Of course, you can go. I would not begrudge you anything, my beloved.”
You were enjoying your little day off, accompanied by your maid, you visited the pâtisserie and gorged yourself on all manners of wonderful and delectable treats. You were beginning to feel more and more at ease in this strange new world. Perhaps this was heaven, your reward for enduring all that you did in your first life.
You should have known better.
You and your maid had been headed home. It was supposed to be nothing more than the conclusion to a wonderful day spent. Instead, it had turned into nothing short of a horror movie. As you rounded the corner, so close to getting back to the estate, you felt yourself being grabbed by someone.
Their touch was violent, so unlike your gentle betrothed. You try to fight and you do your best to fight but your attempts to struggle are silenced when you watch one of the ruffians take their knife and slide it cleanly across your maid’s throat.
Your maid, she had been the one who cared for you since you arrived. She’d been the one to suggest this whole escapade… and now… Her eyes are blown out in fear, fear for you, fear for herself. Her body splays out against the cobbled path, her blood painting stone.
And you are frozen. The scent of her blood hits you with the weight of your own impending mortality. It reminds you of that night that had started it all. When you scented your own blood, felt it waft through your nostrils.
You should have known better.
You are being carted off. The ruffians are chiding each other, then they’re consoling each other over their accident, it would just mean they could up their ransom for you… An accident? Her death was nothing more than an accident to them?
You can feel yourself go away, hide within yourself as they cart you away but they don’t manage to get far.
You are without comprehension for a little while, all that replays in your head was the memory of your own death, before you were carted off to this place. But then you begin to register the scent of more blood, can feel the warmth of it seep into your clothes and crust against your skin.
Then.
His touch.
So familiar, so warm.
His voice.
So sad but not just sad, worried, relieved too. He sounded just like that when you first met.
Then you see him.
Neuvillette.
There is blood on him. Did he take care of the ruffians? You don’t really care because all you know is that you must get to him.
Oh, he must have been so worried. He must have been so worried he would lose you again. But he got there in time to save you. What a relief. You push away the thoughts of your own suspicion, chalk it up to nothing more than some sort of trauma response.
You cling onto him just as he hugs you back, in that familiar embrace. This time, he holds you like he’s keeping you from falling apart.
He always knew what to do.
Forgive me .
He thinks as he holds you. You were trembling. His poor beloved. That piece of scum’s blood was still warm and it stained the two of you but he tried to pay it no heed as he continued to comfort you.
His only regret was that you had been so frightened but soon, you would understand that this was all for your own good. So that you would see just how dangerous it was for you to leave whenever you pleased. As Chief Justice, he had plenty of enemies after all. Now you would learn that only he could protect you, only he would be capable of keeping you safe and maybe this would lessen your desire to leave the estate. It could just be the two of you.
It was by his own weakness that he had to resort to these measures. Because, if anything happened to you at all… He would surely lose himself.
He feels the first flecks of the rain as a downpour begins to fall over the two of you. It washes away the blood and everything else.
If he were to lose you, he would drown the world in his grief, that he knew very well.
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ok fine, wyllstarion rec list
the demons bade me write this. i have a lot of Thoughts and Feelings and a fabulous bookmarks list. come with me....and you'll be.......in a world of pure wyllstarion nation
note that this is like. an intermediate/advanced, 201-level list. i am trusting you, and assume you've already read asidian's body of work. you've read nothing is safe. you're reading Nothing Like the Sun &etc. Really anything that appears on the first two pages when sorting by bookmarks/kudos is disqualified due to pre-recognized excellence. (you could, however, go read them again)
are you back? good. now read:
"We Happy Few" - @geometea. listen to me. listen. i am looking deeply into your eyes. read this fucking fic. it's hard to shill without spoiling anything, BUT: wyll is a still-pacted grand duke. he used to have a bunch of unresolved romantic tension with astarion and now hasn't spoken to him for 15 years. now take that premise and add body horror, beautiful ominous surreal images, and SURPRISE BIG EMOTIONS. just trust me on this one, guys
"Crossed Blades" - @rebelontherocks. this is a...i think i have to call this a cozy sex romp. wyll and astarion are married, wyll is a busy duke, astarion needs more enrichment, astarion invents a very silly sex game by roleplaying teenage-wyll's smut books. wyll is So Deeply Into It. i love this fic for its characterization, its banter, and its commitment to paralleling character psychology to what sounds like an absolutely wild in-universe smut series (that is sketched with an impressive amount of detail and care tbh??).
"Comfort" - @acephalouscreature. short and sweet. wyll is injured and everyone expects astarion to take care of him. luckily, astarion has a dastardly plan to fake feelings for wyll by thinking about his feelings for wyll. you sure fooled them, astarion!! also featuring: astarion trying to figure out how to comfort someone by thinking about horses
"False Compare" - @jellyfishline. i'd recommend checking out their work generally, but i fell in love with this one first. wyll writes a sonnet! astarion is mean about it until he isn't! deeply in-character with an emphasis on how each of them communicates affection. gorgeous prose
"how to escape the torment nexus" - @ushauz. this series is incredibly unique, set in a fucked-up bad end where wyll is a lemure, astarion is still on the run from cazador, and almost everyone else is dead. where this really shines imo is wyll's POV: he's been through literal hell, doesn't remember his life, and is wading through his unconscious attachment to astarion like a foreign language. (side note also read Heart of Stone for a great lae'zel character piece)
"An Acorn in the Moonlight" - @anonyhex. this is one of the first wyllstarion fics i ever read and it has a special place in my heart!! it's particularly cathartic to read for Wyll reasons, including him actually getting to Have Emotions about what Ulder put him through. and they are so sweet with each other!!
"temporal displacement" - @purplecatghostposts. ok this came out like. yesterday but listen, i LOVE outsider pov of an astarion who's learned to show affection somewhat, seen from the eyes of someone who doesn't know his history and has no reason to suspect All Of That. and when that "outsider" is a dying 20-year-old wyll who just saw astarion step out of a time portal. well.
"nothing to make a song about" - themortal. for when you want something meaty and casefic-adjacent, set in a post-canon where wyll is the blade and not the duke (for once). contains bonding on the road, getting romantically snowed in together, and Symbolic Fetch-Quests.
i am also watching closely: "One of Those Prince-Types" by @lesbianralzarek and "sigh no more" by @tomorrowsrain. both are one chapter in and promise to be meaty, with execution that already feels very very promising
SPECIAL MENTION TO "Like Death (or Birth)" by The_Dancing_Walrus, which has some fraught implied background wyllstarion and is just generally completely baller. astarion kind-of sort-of accidentally adopts yenna, who got fucked up by her time as a potential sacrifice to bhaal. it works! i promise it works
#wyllstarion#bg3#astarion#wyll ravengard#bloodpact#leading you gently by the hand through wyllstarion nation#fic rec
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Heavenly Seven
This fic will cover my Fumbling, Tickly, Giggling Sex square on my 2nd @jacklesversebingo card.
Summary: Will a silly night out turn into what Y/N has always wanted?
Warnings/Explicit 18+: Smut. Sex/making out with strangers mentioned. Kissing. Brief fingering. Oral (f. receiving). Protected PinV sex. Sort of public sex (but not really). Slight overstimulation. Pining. Fluff.
Pairings: Jensen x Reader
Word Count: 4,973
A/N: Here is the next request for my second @jacklesversebingo card. It's been a while since I've been able to get to one of these fantastic requests, so I apologize for the wait. This was a fun one from an anon:
I have an ask for the Fumbly, ticklely giggly sex’ square if you would be interested. I like the idea of Jensen or Dean being friends with reader and they are both dating other people. They go to maybe a sex type club as a joke when they are a bit tipsy on a night out, where you can go into separate rooms with strangers in the dark so you can’t see each other and it’s a bit like 7 minutes in heaven adult version. They set it up with their respective others to meet in a certain room but for some reason they get switched and the reader and Jensen/Dean don’t know they are in the room together and start making out and only then realise they have each other in there but take advantage of the fact that they can do it cause they have secret feelings for each other they never admitted and they do take advantage of it!!! 😜🥵 it’s fumbling in the dark and they both think the other doesn’t know but they both secretly do. Maybe their giggling gives each other away but they still go through with it. Does that make sense?
I veered a little bit away from your request lovely anon. It also has more plot that I originally planned on. Lol! But I hope it still gives you what you were looking for. ❤️
A/N 2: This is a slightly younger version of Jensen (I'm figuring somewhere around 30 and in this AU world he isn't famous yet, and he did attend college at UT. He's still an actor though. Also, as always of course, this is a multiverse, single version of Jensen and this is a complete work of fiction.
The beautiful divider below was created by @talesmaniac89
“Okay, everyone! Here are the rules!”
Jensen was talking to his new girlfriend and I elbowed him in the ribs.
“Hey, pay attention to the rules or you won't know how to play. And in this place I feel like that could get very awkward.”
Jensen smiled at me grimly. “Yeah, sorry.”
I shook my head as his latest girlfriend, Stacey, crossed her arms over her chest, definitely pouting about something.
I knew they were already having problems. They’d decided to come to this club as a way to spice up their romance. But their relationship was barely two months old. If it already needed resuscitation, I didn't really hold out much hope for it.
Jensen had begged me to come with them so he’d have someone else to commiserate with if things got too weird. I agreed and brought Ethan along which annoyed Jensen, but I mean, I was sort of dating him.
The club we were in was called 7 Minutes or More. The premise was pretty much the adult version of 7 minutes in heaven. Except instead of a closet, the club offered fully appointed rooms with king sized beds, and a mini bar for…after. If it went that far.
If you came as part of a couple you had to sign waivers saying that you were there by your own choice, and that the club wouldn’t be held responsible for any “relationship fallout” from what went down while you were there. Ethan hadn’t liked that part, but I shrugged and told him not to worry about it. I was already regretting asking him to come.
The guy running things at the club wore a neon pink feather boa and had a deep, rich voice that sounded like he belonged on the radio or maybe advertising luxury cars. He held up his hand again to try and get everyone’s attention, finally managing to quiet the hesitant participants.
“Okay, thanks everyone for coming to 7 Minutes,” he paused dramatically, “or more.” He said in a seductive kind of voice while he wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. There were quite a few nervous giggles as he continued with a wide grin.
“My name is Eduardo the Extraordinary!” He said with a flourish of his boa. People laughed and he grinned. “Okay, so maybe back home in Pasedena, I’m just plain old Eddie Lakelin, but that’s boring as fuck, so…”
Everyone laughed again and I started to feel a bit more at ease.
“Now, some of you are here in couples, which, you know, good for you for venturing out of your comfort zone. And to help you along in that regard, we take steps to make sure everyone is shuffled well, and that you won’t end up with the one who brought you! If, however, something gets mixed up and you find yourself accidentally paired with your partner, please let one of our lovely ladies know,” he indicated the five or six women standing behind him, “and we’ll reshuffle your keys and give you new partners.”
All four of us exchanged looks. The friend of Stacey’s that had suggested the club had told her that when you got there you simply chose what room number you wanted, and then you were paired up with whoever else chose the same number. So our stealthy plan to stay together had been for Ethan and I to each pick number four and Jensen and Stacey were going to pick number eight.
But apparently the club went out of their way to put strangers together. I figured that really was more in keeping with the whole, 7 Minutes in Heaven theme. This changed things a bit though. We all chatted quickly, trying to decide if we were all cool with making out with some other person for seven minutes. Stacey was all for it, Jensen and I were on the fence, and Ethan was a no, full stop.
“I don’t want you making out with some other weirdo.”
“So you’re saying you’re the only weirdo she can make out with?” Jensen asked and I elbowed him again.
He’d made no secret of the fact that he couldn’t stand Ethan. He said he was whiny (which he was) and selfish (ditto) and that he didn’t deserve me. Which was very sweet, but I waved off his concerns.
“Look, I’m not saying he’s gonna be my life partner, okay? But he’s fine. Besides, it beats being alone.” I argued.
“Does it?” He’d asked and I shrugged. I didn’t add what I was thinking.
Not every guy is gonna be you, Jensen.
Jensen and I had been best friends for ten years, ever since I was a Freshman at UT and he saved me at a frat party - my very first frat party. He was a Junior, and a couple hours into the party he’d shown up at my side out of nowhere and pulled my drink out of my hand. He smiled at me and pulled me into a dance.
I was fairly drunk and pretty confused. He told me he wasn’t a hundred percent sure, but he thought the guy beside me (who I didn’t know) had slipped something into my drink. We finished the dance and he asked if I wanted him and his girlfriend to walk me home - which I agreed to and thanked him for.
Even as out of it as I was, though, I distinctly remember being bitterly heartbroken that he had a girlfriend.
But six months later when they broke up, I was dating Asshole Football Player #1. Within a month Jensen started dating a girl from his acting class, and broke up two weeks later, but then quickly got back together. During their second go around I broke up with Asshole #1 and started dating Asshole Football Player #2. A month later Jensen and the actress broke up for good. But I stayed with Asshole #2 through the rest of college - until two days before graduation when I found out he was cheating on me.
And had been for a long time.
Jensen was already in LA by then, but I called him to pour out my broken heart and he listened to me bawl and then jumped in his car. It was a twenty hour drive from LA.
He made it in sixteen, getting there in time to hug me in my cap and gown, clap loudly with my parents when I was handed my diploma, sit through a slightly tortuous dinner with my parents and my extended family, and then take me out to get drunk.
He was my best friend and I knew I was his. But for me things went much deeper. I had been attracted to him from the first moment I laid eyes on him, and sometimes it physically hurt to be near him, to hug him, or cuddle up next to him. But I also wasn’t willing to give up those moments, so I suffered through them.
I had no idea if, at any point in our friendship, he’d ever felt the same. Our timing was complete shit, we kept missing our windows to even try. I’d never attempted to say anything to him (though what would I even say?) because either he was in a relationship or I was, so the moment was never right.
Not that he’d ever indicated he wanted to try, but sometimes there were moments where I felt like, maybe? Maybe he did? But I could never be sure. Suffice it to say we had a very complicated relationship. At least on my end.
And now we were here together, dating people neither one of us really wanted to be dating, deciding on whether or not we wanted to try making out with strangers.
I looked at Jensen and a thought struck my mind. What if I ended up with him? What if he ended up with me? What if we were paired together?
“I wanna do it!” I blurted out. Ethan looked furious
“No.” He said in an angry whisper.
I thought about trying to smooth his ruffled feathers, cajole him into trying, but in the end I just decided it was just too much work.
“I’m doing it.” I said instead.
“And I’m telling you, I won't allow it.” Ethan growled out at me, getting into my face. "I won't put up with it."
I rolled my eyes, truly just done with his alpha male bullshit. “Then don’t. Bye.” I said and waved him away.
Ethan’s light brown eyes were rage-filled slits as he stared at me. I felt Jensen step up behind me, and knew he’d have my back. Ethan must have realized it too, cause he huffed out a childish whine and took off.
Eduardo the Extraordinary saw Ethan storm away and gave a theatrical grimace and then pretended to whisper conspiratorially to me.
“Probably better off without him, sweetie.”
More nervous laughter surrounded me and I felt a little embarrassed. But I also felt as though a big weight had been lifted off of me.
Hmm, I thought, probably a sign I really am better off without him.
Jensen pulled me into a sideways hug and kissed the top of my head. I closed my eyes and sighed. It was exactly these moments that I loved and hated all at once.
“Wanna bow out, darlin’?” He asked quietly, and as always his deep voice and soft drawl made me melt.
I shook my head, still holding on to the small possibility that I could finally get my seven minutes in heaven with Jensen. A voice was telling me that that was a stupid, dangerous wish - but I ignored it.
“No, I’m good.” I shrugged and laughed lightly. “What the hell? Maybe I’ll meet the man of my dreams here.” I looked up at Jensen and tried hard not to let my expression tell him, “It’s you, you idiot! Kiss me!”
Eduardo continued with the rules.
“So the way the game is played is, you'll all be given seven minutes with your anonymous partner. At the end of seven minutes there will be a soft buzzer. If you're finished, just leave. But if you both want to stay another seven minutes, you can have another seven minutes. If after 14 minutes total neither of you wants to come out, then we'll stop buzzing you guys and you can just have the rest of the hour to...get acquainted some more. There are light switches just inside the door, if at any point you want to turn the lights on. But we encourage you to at least try the first seven minutes in the dark. It's fun!!”
“We really all just wanna have a good time,” Eduardo reiterated, “so let's do that!”
There was another round of applause and cheering and Eduardo raised his arms in celebration.
“Now,” he called out over the applause,”you're all gonna leave now and be called back in, randomly one by one, and we'll show you to your door. If you're the first in the room, just wait patiently. Your partner will get there shortly and then your first seven minutes will begin.”
***
I waited in the lobby with everyone and there was a giddy kind of awkwardness in the air as we all just stood there waiting to be called. Out of the three of us, I went in first and as I looked back at Jensen he gave me a smile, but it was a slightly strange smile and I couldn't decipher it.
I re-entered the room we just left and approached Eduardo. He smiled at me warmly.
“Alright, it’s the little mama who said ‘bye-bye’ to the man-child.” He said with a laugh.
I smiled shyly, still slightly embarrassed by it the scene we made. “Not to worry sweetie,” he said, patting my hand, “because I know JUST who to pair you with.”
He winked at me and handed me a key with the number six on it. “Enjoy!”
“Thanks.” I said quietly, my stomach nervous.
Can I really do this, I thought? It was so unlike me, I was pretty vanilla when it came to sex and dating. So making out with a random stranger in the dark was way out of my comfort zone. But it was a fun kind of nervousness, like feeling the rollercoaster climbing upwards to that first drop. And in the back of my mind was the secret hope that the man in the dark was going to feel a little bit familiar to me.
It was hard to tell how long I waited before the door opened and someone stepped inside. The room beyond the door had been darkened so that it was almost impossible even to make out a silhouette.
The door closed and I could feel my heart beating fast and hard. I could sense someone approaching and I bit my lip as a familiar scent hit my nose. I was sure that it was Jensen’s cologne. I’d cuddled into his sweaters enough times that I knew it well. But it wasn’t impossible that another guy wore the same kind of cologne.
But it made all the butterflies come alive in my stomach. I held out my hand in his direction so that he would know he reached me. My hand brushed against his torso and I squeaked and then tried to stifle my giggle, trying to abide with the ‘stay quiet’ part of the game.
The man who was possibly Jensen took hold of my hand and brought it to his lips to kiss the fingertips. I gasped lightly at the feel of the man’s full, soft lips. More proof that the man standing in front of me might just be my best friend. The hours I’d spent pining after those lips…I sighed.
I knew them well.
He brought his hand forward, probably trying to find my cheek, but he overshot his reach and ended up sort of punching me lightly in the forehead.
I let out a small “oomph” and he let out a moan of contrition. I giggled again, and heard his answering chuckle, and I was suddenly sure that it was Jensen. It smelled like him, felt like him, and sounded like him.
It has to be him, right? I thought to myself as he shifted his hand so it was running down my cheek.
I remembered Eduardo’s wink and wondered if his years of matchmaking strangers had given him a sixth sense about my feelings for Jensen. Could he have been so kind as to put us together?
Long fingers gripped the side of my neck and pulled me closer to him. I could feel the heat radiating from the hard body he pressed against me and I let out an involuntary sigh. He ran his thumb over my mouth. He may have just been trying to locate it in the dark, but I took the chance to pull the tip of it into my mouth and suck gently.
A harsh grunt issued from the invisible man making my blood run hot in my veins, and it was a sound I’d imagined a million times, a sound I’d heard in so many fantasies, and I felt it shoot straight to my core.
When I let go of his thumb he wasted no time in dragging me tight against him and landing his mouth on mine. He seemed to have no trouble finding it, slotting his mouth around mine and sucking on my top lip before pushing his tongue inside and swallowing the soft moan I couldn’t contain.
I reached my arms up to loop around his neck just as he brought both his hands to cup my cheeks. His hands bumped my arms and knocked them away. We broke the kiss, laughing too much to continue. After a moment he reached out to grab my arms and wrap them around his neck. Then he slid his hands around my waist and squeezed me as he bent to kiss me again.
His mouth was heaven, no - it was sin. Heavenly sin. He slid his lips over my jawbone and down my neck to suck on the pulse point there and I pushed one hand into his short hair, and gripped the front of his t-shirt with the other. I wanted to feel the warm skin beneath the cotton, but I didn’t want to push him too far too fast by slipping my hand under his clothes.
Suddenly the buzzer sounded and we both jumped slightly. I couldn’t believe seven minutes had passed already. We both hesitated. I was desperate for him to stay, but I wasn’t sure what to say to make it happen. In the end we both said nothing, simply melting back into each other without words.
He took hold of my hands and led me forward while he walked backwards until he hit the bed and fell, pulling me down on top of him. There was more giggling from the two of us as we rolled together so that he laid along my right side. He reached for my waistband and his fingertips skimmed along my skin just under the hem of my t-shirt, hesitating slightly in question. I nodded enthusiastically, hoping he could sense it even if he couldn’t see it and I pushed his hand farther up under my shirt so that his knuckles brushed the underside of my breast.
He groaned and cupped me through my bra, squeezing gently and making me arch into his big hand and whimper. He grunted at the noise and then used both hands to push up my shirt and wrench down the cups of my bra. He cradled my breast in his hand and dipped his head to pull my nipple into his mouth and suck on it hard. As his lips tightened around the aching bud I spoke without thinking.
“Fuck, Jensen.”
I had moaned his name out in my restless dreams so many times that at first I didn’t realize what I’d done. In the dark, everything felt like a dream anyway, like I’d fallen into one of my fantasies. But as his mouth stilled and he pulled away slightly I was kicking myself.
Way to go, you’ve just ruined everything! I was yelling at myself.
But before I could spiral too far down the rabbit hole the second buzzer went off. Jensen pulled me up to sitting and he pressed his mouth softly to mine, readjusting my bra and shirt.
“Y/N.” He sighed gently. “Thank god. I knew it had to be you. I know your laugh so well and the way you sigh, I’ve heard it in my dreams a thousand times. It had to be you. No one else makes me hard like this.” He slid my hand over to feel the stiff ridge behind his zipper as he slipped his mouth down to suck on a spot just behind my ear that made me shiver.
“Wait, you knew it was me?” I asked breathlessly.
“Yeah, and I just hoped to God I was right.”
“What do you mean? Since when are you interested in me like that? You’ve never said anything.”
“Me?” He said as he pulled away from me. “What about you?” He gave an exasperated laugh before standing up. “Can…can I turn on the lights? I really wanna see your face.”
“Okay.” I said softly, worried that the harsh light might ruin what we’d created between us in the quiet dark.
But when Jensen flicked on the light, only a soft, golden glow washed over us, romantic and appealing. He stood near the door and seeing him standing there, tall and solid and so fucking sexy, it made me want to jump up and devour him.
“Goddam.” He said roughly as he looked at me, and my stomach fluttered at the look of heat and arousal that suffused his face.
I bit my lip and he seemed to take that as hesitancy on my part. He cleared his throat and looked down at the ground. “We can be done now, if you want. I mean, we can…walk out of here and try to pretend this never happened. If you want.”
I felt my stomach plummet. “Is that what you want?”
“Fuck no.”
His reaction made me laugh. “Good.”
But then I frowned slightly. “Though maybe we should stop. I mean at least until…you know…I mean...Stacey.”
“Finished.” He said, shaking his head. “I broke up with her before we left the lobby to come in here.”
My eyes got round and my heart squeezed tight. “Are you serious?”
He nodded and smiled softly. “Yeah, I just finally realized that I was being a dumbass. Cause I was standing there next to this woman that I didn’t even really like, and hoping and praying to end up in a room with my best friend. You know, so I could make out with her.”
I laughed again and he came to sit beside me on the bed. He reached up to run his knuckles over my cheek. “I’ve wanted you for so long, sweetheart, but you were always dating asshole after asshole.”
I spluttered a bit. “Well, you were too!”
“Only cause you were!”
We both took a big breath to continue the argument, and then let them out in another whoosh of laughter.
“God, we’re so stupid. Do you realize how much time we’ve wasted?” He asked as he plucked my bottom lip with his thumb.
I shook my head. “Then let's not waste anymore.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.” He said with a grin.
His eyes softened as he leaned down to kiss me; his lips were barely a whisper against mine, teasing them, brushing so softly that I whined my complaint.
“Jensen. Please kiss me for real. I've waited so long for you.”
He nodded as he breathed against my lips. “Me too, darlin’, me too.”
He lifted me up, moving me so that I was straddling his lap. He pushed his hands into my hair and held my head in place so he could lick open my lips and plunge his tongue inside. He kissed me thoroughly, tasting every inch of my mouth and then sucking on my bottom lip.
He only broke off our heated kisses so he could pull my t-shirt over my head. He tossed it aside and exhaled slowly, reverently running his fingers across the tops of my breasts. He reached around and easily unhooked my bra and tossed it on top of my shirt on the floor.
He shifted us on the bed, laying me beneath him, and rose to his knees to pull his t-shirt off. I licked my lips as I looked at his beautiful, naturally muscled torso. I'd seen him without his shirt before - at the beach, or when he’d play “skins” during a shirts and skins pick up game. But this was the first time I was allowed to reach out and touch him like I’d wanted to every time.
I traced my fingers down his ribcage and over his flat stomach. His muscles contracted at my touch and it was probably the hottest fucking thing I'd ever seen.
He lowered himself down so he was on his hands and knees hovering above me. He kissed me again, aggressively, moaning down my throat and then leaning on his elbows so he could suck my left nipple into his mouth, before grasping it with his teeth and tugging hard.
I arched off the bed and dragged my nails across his wide shoulders.
“Unf, fuck!” He growled harshly as he moved his mouth down my body, trailing hot, wet kisses across my skin. When he reached my waistband, he looked up at me with a question in his eyes.
I nodded. “Yes.” was all I could say. I was desperate to feel him closer, to pull him inside me.
He unbuttoned my jeans and pulled the zipper down before grabbing them, along with my panties, and peeling them down my legs until I was naked under his scorching hot gaze. He was so unbearably beautiful as he contemplated all of me, his expression ravenous and aching.
It was more than I ever could have imagined and it made me reach for him and push down his jeans and underwear too, letting him kick them off while I got my first look at his thick, marbled cock. It left me drooling and I groaned harshly as he wrapped his fist around it and pumped himself lazily a few times.
Then he lowered himself to lay between my legs, his face level with my dripping cunt.
“Christ sweetheart, you're mouth-watering.” He murmured seconds before he began his oral torture. He began slowly, small kitten licks and nibbles to my pulsing clit, followed by long, undulating swipes with his wide, talented tongue.
He built the pressure gradually, torturously, until I was almost weeping with want, thrusting my hips against his sinful, sensual mouth and begging him to take me over the edge.
His hair stood on end from my fingers gripping it and pulling it. He let me tug and yank all I wanted, but it never made him change the course he wanted to take. If he wanted to slow down and suck ever so softly on my clit, no amount of hair-pulling from me was going to change that.
I was shaking with need, making animalistic noises that had never come out of my mouth before. Then he speared me with his tongue and pushed two fingers inside my pussy to press perfectly against my sweet spot. I screamed and climaxed harder than I ever had before.
But it was just the beginning.
Every time my orgasm started to wane, Jensen would just start working me up all over again. I'd desperately pant out that I couldn't possibly come again, but he'd promise me I could do one more. He always got his way, and a few minutes later I'd be screaming again and gushing over his chin.
Finally he kissed his way back up my body, nibbling on my pulse point as he reached into the drawer in the small bedside table and chuckled.
He pulled out a condom and ripped it open with his teeth. “They have thought of everything haven't they?”
I sighed deeply, knowing that I would be eternally grateful to this place for giving me this beautiful man at last. He rolled the condom on and then rested on his elbows as he slid slowly into my swollen, pulsing cunt.
His teeth were bared as he bottomed out, the veins on his neck bulging slightly.
“Fuck, fuck.” Was all he managed to mumble as he buried his face in the side of my neck.
I ran my hands over his perfectly muscled back and felt as though I was floating away. He filled me so tightly, so completely that it was the first time I truly understood the idea of sex being two people joining as one. This was what lovemaking and sex was supposed to feel like: overwhelming pleasure and endless, boundless connection.
It brought tears to my eyes and I whispered in his ear, my voice barely a whisper.
“I love you, Jensen.”
He pushed up so he could meet my gaze. He saw my tears and gently kissed each of my eyelids before brushing his lips over mine.
“I love you too, Y/N.” He smiled and it felt like the sun on my face. “I’ve loved you forever.”
“Me too.” I said, voice slightly choked. “And I will keep on loving you forever.”
“Me too.”
He kissed me again, and then we began to move together, our bodies moving in a perfect give and take, push and pull. I ran my fingers over his taut, warm skin, and he pushed his blunt fingertips against mine, dimpling my flesh and finding every sensitive spot to lavish with attention.
He slid his thumb down to press against my clit as he watched himself move in and out of my body. I clutched at his forearms and he pulled me up so I was straddling his thighs and riding his cock. His arm curled around my waist and he helped rise and fall on his cock as we both chased our highs. He was tugging at my nipples and sucking on my tongue and then he pumped his hips deep and hard one more time and everything exploded around me again.
I'd lost count of the number of orgasms he'd pulled out of my pliant and boneless body.
But this time I felt him fall with me. I heard him shout out a short, deep cry of bliss before he turned his head and bit into my neck gently, to quiet himself. His hips spasmed, bucking into me a few more times, slamming me against him and making my whole body quiver.
Finally we tumbled down to the messy sheets and clung to each other as we tried to catch our breath.
Jensen pulled off the condom and tossed it in the trash before pushing my sweaty hair off my forehead and placing a kiss there. I wrapped my leg over his hip and began licking and sucking at the salty skin along his collarbone.
A thought occurred to me as our breathing eventually returned to normal.
“They're gonna kick us out of here right away.”
Jensen looked at the clock on the wall and shook his head. “N’ah! We still got like seven minutes.” He grinned at me wickedly. “And I can do a lot to this incredible body of yours in seven minutes.”
“Prove it!” I challenged as I began tickling his side and then giggling breathlessly as he grabbed hold of my wandering hands and slammed them onto the mattress on either side of my head.
He kissed me breathless again and then spoke deep and luscious in my ear. “You asked for it, sweetheart.”
Jensen RPF and Any/All Characters:
@lyarr24
@lacilou
@deans-spinster-witch
@globetrotter28
@suckitands33
@akshi8278
@evznackles
@jackles010378
@impala67rollingthroughtown
@krazykelly
@candy-coated-misery0731
@envyaurora95
@spnwoman
@deans-baby-momma
Any/All Fics Regardless of Character or Fandom:
@kazsrm67
@slut-for-evans-stan
@sexyvixen7
@nancymcl
@waywardcheshire
Everything Incl. Fan Edits:
@k-slla
@leigh70
@eevvvaa
@kickingitwithkirk
@foxyjwls007
@notinthislife50
@roseblue373
@mishkatelwarriorgoddess
@avanatural
@mrsjenniferwinchester
@all-alone-he-turns-to-stone
@deangirl96
@hobby27
#jensen ackles#jensen ackles rpf#jensen x reader#jensen ackles smut#jacklesversebingo23#jensen ackles fluff
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WIBTA for declining a game someone gifted me with intent to play together?
This probably sounds a bit trivial, but these sorts of situations make me incredibly anxious and I could really use some outside perspectives.
I (24NB) have a small online friend group that was originally created so we could play games together. Over the years since it was first created, some people have come and gone for a variety of reasons (some pretty normal, others not so much), but the overall gist of the group remains: we’re just here to be chill and play games.
The group tends to hyperfixate on games together for a bit, then move on to another when the mood strikes, and sometimes we just have some periods of dead time where everyone does their own thing, etc. Sometimes when the collective hyperfixation strikes, I have absolutely zero idea what the game they’re on is about, and I’m content to just watch my friends get along and have a good time. I don’t mind not participating, and I rarely have the money to spend on games anyway. Additionally, unless the information is presented in a way that *really* catches my interest, I just kind of… don’t care to play it? I tend to experience emotions in black and white, so if I’m not incredibly excited by the premise, I lack interest altogether.
Here’s where I get tripped up: sometimes, my friends will gift me one of these games. I understand they have good intentions, but I don’t really understand the idea behind giving something to someone when they haven’t really expressed any interest in it beyond acknowledging it exists? It’s happened multiple times, and I get so anxious that they’re going to think I’m ungrateful or guilt trip me for not wanting to play (this has happened with someone who used to be in the group, though none of the remaining people have a history of doing it) that I don’t say anything to avoid the issue. But avoiding the issue just makes me feel guilty for not communicating that there is one. There is also the potential that if I tried the game, I would enjoy it, or if I watched someone play, I’d take interest, but once the game is gifted to me, I get this sense that it’s no longer an invitation, but an expectation? I’m not really sure if that makes sense, maybe someone can relate to it, I just know it makes me feel a lot of unpleasant things.
All of this context is to say: I received a new gifted game tonight, a game which I kind of intentionally dodged the conversation on because I was worried someone WOULD gift it to me. WIBTA if I declined the gift, even though I know my friends are well-meaning and want to spend time with me, because of my anxiety surrounding gifts?
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The "movie about a movie that kills you" is a surprisingly robust genre of horror. There's a wide range of approaches, but one key factor is the question of how good the deadly film in a film is, on its own. Some approaches are keeping the faux film entirely unseen, use brief clips, or make it real short.
Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made goes in for a high risk approach and delivers a complete finished film, ostensibly made in the 70s and never released, framed by brief opening and closing info bites to set the stage of it.
Somehow this thing was completely off my radar, which means I was taken fully off guard as an ominous warning about the content in white text on black appeared on screen, giving a thirty second count down to leave if I wanted.
Wonderful showmanship and canny filmmaking that got me right in the mood to enjoy what followed. While I wouldn't call it a scary movie, I found it almost delightful in the atmospheric dread and devotion to its aesthetic of low budget 70s films. Nothing in it feels like a curse on its own, but it does feel like the sort of movie that could easily prompt psychological distress for anyone under psychotropic influences, pre-existing emotional vulnerability, or prone to delusional states. Not through anything supernatural, more because it works hard to keep the viewer in constant doubt over what is and is not real for the characters in the film. Combined with the framing device of it being a movie somehow able to influence the real world of the viewer, and the use of fractionally visible flashes of occult symbols on the screen, it generates an intense feeling of unreality which for me was an almost drug-like high and an immersive pleasure.
The premise of Antrum is simply a brother and sister decide to dig a hole to hell, and the movie plays out around this event by surrounding it with disturbing sounds and imagery, as well as real world dangers that weave the protagonists between the supernatural and mundane while keeping them in a state of terror and madness that grows until it becomes unrelenting.
In a certain sense it also feels cursed, like the kind of film where there are elements that feel very transgressive - in particular the opening scene which to my mind evoked Un Chien Andalou - not the infamous eyeball slicing scene, but the use of rotting animals. The few and very basic visual effects remind me as well of the early Survival Research Laboratory devices engineered by Mark Pauline.
However, the core question for me is also always what is the movie about besides the plot. If I had to identify some rough themes, I would say it's trying to explore the idea of understanding death and violence through the eyes of children who do not yet have the psychological tools for processing such matters, but who have been left on their own to do so regardless.
Many of the unusual elements in the movie can relate to death rituals poorly understood, starting from the very premise of digging a hole into the earth. And the same act is surrounded by strange rituals unclear in their origin, ideas which might be logical drawn from watching words recited over a grave without having a connection of purpose. Their encounters with other people are fully without possibility of communication as none of them speak the same language, and these mundane threats feel at times akin to a satanic Alice in Wonderland, rituals and violence whose meaning cannot be understood by the protagonists.
Likewise the supernatural is full of unprocessed images of death. Demons with black skin who look like mummified corpses. River crossings and empty chains dragging through leaves. It's as if death itself has manifested through the ambient world, surrounding the two children and refusing to let them leave its circle.
In combination with the intriguing use of sigils inscribed throughout, it creates a movie that is for me a joy to watch. An absolutely perfect Halloween spook for next year, but your mileage may vary between finding it full of pretentious nonsense or maybe the scariest film you'll ever watch. It can really come off either way, and I'm honestly not quite sure why my reaction was actual joy in the watching. Not to undercut the severity of the subject matter, but I just can't stop thinking about how happy I was to watch the movie at work mechanically, to enjoy the well oiled pieces fitting together, and then all topped off with the delicious extra treat of the framing device. Surely worth 90 minutes of your life.
#antrum#unreality#definitely big content warnings about animal death and injury#also children in danger and possible child deaths#not many jump scares though if any#also tbh i genuinely think it has the potential to bring on a delusion because it is very committed to the bit#there's no part where its like haha jk this isn't a real documentary about a movie its all fake#the framing device is used to wrap everything up in a way that never breaks the immersion#so if you're in a really suggestive state there's a nonzero chance you may believe the movie is going to kill you for real
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Hi fight writer! Longtime follower, I always enjoy seeing your work and the situations people put their characters in. X3 Could I ask you to look over an element of character backstory for me, to see how realistic it is?
Character is an itinerant-knight sort of fellow, fantasy setting, elven. He's missing a chunk of his ear on one side, having lost it in a fight -- but not in the usual way of getting it sliced. It's the reason he swears by using a helmet and will not let any of his students go ahead into battle without head protection. The premise I had was that somebody gave him a blow to the side of the head and the helmet he was wearing crumpled from the force, pinning the ear between skull and metal. When the helmet was peeled off, a chunk of the ear came with it, or was basically so pinched off and dead that it had to be amputated anyway. (It also gave him a whopper of a concussion, of course. ^^;) But if he hadn't been wearing the helmet? It wouldn't have just been the ear, it would have been the whole top of his head. Wear your helmets, kids.
Do you think the helmet would have had to be damaged in some way beforehand for this to happen? Or be of shoddy make? Or would the opponent have to be supernaturally strong? Thank you!
So, this question has been sitting in the inbox for a bit, and part of that is that I've had difficulty parsing the question. There's a few reasons for this, but a major element is how much of the above comment isn't part of the question.
I get that most of this is a setup for a simple, “what do you think of my idea?' and those are questions we generally avoid, simply because, “thumbs up, it works.” Or, if there are serious problems, it feels like punching down.
So, in answer, “it's fine.” You don't even really need to justify it with other factors. Someone swinging a hammer at your head can result in your head protection failing. I think we can safely scratch off the supernatural strength option, simply because that's more likely to turn the character's head into an improvised golf ball, rather than taking out an ear. This is a weirdly specific injury, but it's also the kind of injury that could, potentially, happen on the battlefield.
Ironically, the weakest part to this concept is just that a combat veteran wouldn't automatically value head protection unless they'd suffered a disfiguring injury which would have been dramatically worse if they weren't wearing a helmet.
Helmets get into a weird place for a lot of writers. A lot of visual media hates putting characters in helmets (even when they really should be wearing one), because it hides the character's face. There is a legitimate concern here (specifically in visual media), because if multiple characters are wearing uniform helmets, they will become visually interchangeable, so skipping the helmet is about keeping the characters more recognizable. This creates a situation where, in a lot of cases, a helmet is treated like an alternate haircut option, completely glazing over the part where it's extremely important safety equipment.
To a certain extent, the treatment of helmets as cosmetics also extends to the entirety of a character's armor. You see this anytime you have partially armored characters going into battle. In some cases, there may be legitimate reasons for omitting specific armor pieces, and not having the resources to be fully armored is always a real possibility, but skipping the head or torso armor are extremely questionable decisions.
The, “pinched off,” comment always struck me as a bit strange. It sounds like the ear was held away from the skull, with part of the helm inserted between the ear and skull, rather than held up against the head. This would be a bad idea, and a structural weakness, though depending on the exact physiology of your elves, it might not be possible for them to pin their ears against their skull. In which case their armor would need to be specifically designed around their physiology. That might mean a much broader helmet structure. For example similar to something like large flared guard on Japanese helmets, or even the ACH. Depending on the overall tech level, it's possible that the best solution would to simply have ear holes in the helmet, though this could result in a situation where ears could be cut off on rare occasions.
I suppose there'd also be some consideration for rigidity and how uncomfortable it would be to bind down their ears under a helmet. So there might be some kind of structural cutout to accommodate their ears, but again, you really wouldn't want your ears being encased in metal away from the head. Even in the worst case, with horizontal ear tips, you'd probably see helmet designs that fit over the ear, possibly even leaving the underside exposed for better hearing, rather than full metal encasement.
Ironically, having just brought up the ACH, the one place where fully encased ears wouldn't surprise me is with electronic headsets. Though, again, that's more likely to be plastic and softer materials, and would likely fit over the ear and seal against the scalp, rather than just encasing the ear itself.
Also, he'd be partially deaf in that ear. This is not, “deaf by human standards,” but impaired hearing by elven standards. Unless their ears really are just magical, and the tips are performative, it's extremely likely that their ear structure would result in improved hearing, and that's something he would lack if most of the external ear had been destroyed.
-Starke
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#writing reference#writing advice#writing tips#writing fantasy#howtofightwrite#Starke answers#Starke does not have an ear collection
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⋆｡˚ 「 Status: Online 」 ⋆｡˚
◉ Sinopsis; Loona's s/o is a popular YouTuber/streamer
◉ A/n- apologies for the wait, but I hope you enjoy!
── ˙•˚∘✮🌙ᯓ🪐˙•˚∘ ──
Being a popular online personality comes with its ups and downs. Adhering to regular posting and streaming schedules can be exhausting, but having Loona around always makes things much more bearable.
Loona will often appear in the background of your streams, and the chat is always quick to point her out. It’s almost turned into a kind of game at this point, a sort of “where’s Waldo” but specifically for your streams/youtube videos
Speaking of, Loona is usually willing to be featured in your videos, whether its a Let’s Play, or Couple’s React. Also enjoys just popping in, so there are videos where Loona is present in the second half, just because she decided to sit in with you in the middle of filming.
Avoids On-Camera PDA, but will (in some cases) allow it. She's mostly private with her affection so kissing or even hugging you on camera in front of people isn't something she's very comfortable with.
will become more affectionate if you have fancams/edits or people simping for you in the chat/comments- and by affectionate, I mean lowkey aggressive. nothing horrible, but you can expect to hear some playful threats directed at any simps you've got.
When Loona does appear in your videos, she’s a fan favorite; her dry sense of humor and vulgarity are surprisingly popular. She also doesn’t scare easy, which provides a comedic juxtaposition to your reactions if/when you’re playing horror games
Long editing sessions are a drag, but you can always expect Loona to make them more interesting. She’ll sit beside you, occasionally offering suggestions for what might make the video look or sound better. Having an extra set of eyes and ears definitely makes the process faster (though don’t expect much help when it comes to spotting mistakes- Loona isn’t one for small details- she’ll leave that to you)
definitely brings snacks and drinks for when you have to pull all-nighters
big fan of the "you cringe/laugh, you drink" premise, so she suggests that as a small series on your channel/stream
Absolutely makes fun of your ad transitions (if you happen to be sponsored) sits behind you and does that "blah blah" motion with her hand while you do ad-reads
Loona doesn't get paid much, but she absolutely saves up to try and get you new equipment for your filming set-up (if anyone asks her about it though, she refuses to admit that she cares so much)
── ˙•˚∘✮ 🔭๋࣭ᯓ🌙˙•˚∘ ──
#helluva boss#helluva boss x reader#helluva boss headcanon#loona helluva boss#helluva boss loona#loona headcanons#loona x reader#romantic headcanons#romantic x reader#writings.onthe.wall
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sending your crush a survey form hcs part 4
second years x reader (separate)
-> kalim, jamil, silver
general tags: gn reader, fluff + attempt at humor, sfw, not beta read, mix of text and images (for images, alt text/image description available)
other parts in this series
character: KALIM AL-ASIM
premise/trope: sending your best friend a crush form. it's mutual but everybody... sort of just assumed that the two of you were already dating already
HOW HE (AND JAMIL) REACTS WHEN YOU SEND THE FORM LINK
Kalim's amused by many things, music one of the more significant interests he has. So, when he learned that he could customize the ringtones and notification sounds he has for all of his friends, he spends a lot of time assigning a tune for each person in his life.
It's why he immediately jumps up and searches for his phone when he hears the song he specifically chose for you.
Jamil gets it for him the second he recognizes the song playing because he's heard it so much it's ingrained in his memory.
(Kalim does not mute his phone unless specifically asked to. Usually for emergency purposes but Jamil doubts messaging you 24/7 qualifies as such).
Jamil checks the message briefly to make sure you're not getting hacked (it said you sent over a link and, well, there's been an increase in MagiCam accounts getting hacked lately...)
Jamil wishes he never checked it. When he gives Kalim his phone, he wants to walk away immediately. He does NOT want to be on the receiving end of the gushing, no way, absolutely not.
Even if it is a little cute, like some kind of fairy tale that he might have liked in his youth, he just wants to have some peace, and peace did not include Kalim yapping about how lovely and cool and amazing he thought you were.
Kalim's talking about how much he loves you and Jamil's immediate instinct is to sigh and ask why he won't tell you instead. You're his significant other or some other label anyway, right?
Kalim blinks in confusion, his fingers pausing the sticker spam he was inevitably doing.
"We're not dating though?" Kalim says. Jamil pops a blood vessel. "I wish we were! We could go on all sorts of cool dates, we could go visit my family, and then..."
Jamil tells him they literally already do that. They go on cool dates all the time. His family knows who you are (partially his fault, he let them know who Kalim spends all his time with these days, but obviously Kalim's fault for talking about you, too).
Jamil exits the room and tells Kalim to read the questions properly. He also says congratulations in advance.
Kalim's not dumb by any means, so when he realizes what the form is all about he's cheering and giggling to himself, like he wants to get his flying carpet to take a quick ride while, simultaneously, go get his drum kit so he could play his sudden excitement out.
His answers are equally excitable as your questions. Though it's mostly just vibes, he does get some really sweet answers out there about how much he likes you.
HOW HE ANSWERS THE QUESTIONS
AFTER HE ANSWERS THE FORM
Your relationship had been a long time coming... At least, that was how you and Kalim saw it. The two of you were so intertwined in each other's lives that spending your futures together just made sense.
For everyone else, they had thought the relationship was already there in the first place, so imagine their surprise when Kalim announces that there was going to be a party, a party to celebrate his new relationship, with you as the guest of honor.
They call Jamil a traitor for not telling them you and Kalim hadn't actually been dating all this time. Jamil wants to explain that even he didn't know, but he decides it's more fun to pretend he was the outlier who knew the truth all along.
He's planning a celebration for you, actively participating in the creation and setting up process because it's important to him that you would enjoy. He's taking into account what food and drinks you enjoy, how much people you want to attend and who should be in attendance, the music you want playing, even the colors of the decorations.
Initially, he wanted the party to be a surprise but he can't resist calling you. He wants this to be a perfect gift for you! He has to make sure you like each and every thing, so he calls you every few minutes to ask about even the tiniest of details.
It also probably helps that he just... really likes talking and listening to you.
Speaking of talking... While he keeps many of the specifics to himself, he's also talking about how nice and great and cute you are for confessing to him that way. It becomes the talk of the dorm, and Jamil won't be surprised if it becomes the modern day love story of their homeland.
Kalim's the one who seeks you out too, picking you up from wherever you said you were to bring you back to the dorm. He's so excited that he's (finally!) your partner!
The two of you spend a few minutes gushing about each other, and then he says,
"Alright, let's go!" He pulls you along with him, grasping your hand in his. "Let's celebrate the start of our love together!"
character: JAMIL VIPER
premise/trope: sending your boyfriend, who you miss very much and is very busy, a crush form to remind him that your feelings have not waned one bit
HOW HE REACTS WHEN YOU SEND THE FORM LINK
You're wonderful to him, really, so you have the decency to send the link a little later into the evening, around the time you know he'd have less chores to do, more academics in turn. It's a time you know he'll allow himself to check his phone, and you know your message will go read.
You tell him you don't have to open the link immediately, to only do it when he's free.
Jamil sees the form file name and title and, well, he thinks it's time for him to wrap up his evening immediately. If he's to abide by your request, that is, to answer the form when he missed you... That would mean answering as soon as possible.
JAMIL : I don't know how to react. Should I call you corny or sweet for pulling a stunt like this?
He tells you that, but the reality is that his body has already decided how to react for him. His face feels too warm for comfort (which says a lot, considering he's rather used to the heat already).
He's hiding his face with his hood on the way to his room, and even when he's in the privacy of his quarters he can't help but want to cover up his face a little longer.
Conflicted between immediately getting back to you (at least, sending in his answers before you go to sleep) and preparing for bed, he ultimately decides to save the best for last, getting his heart to calm down as he undoes his hair and takes off his jewelry.
When he reads through the questions, he goes from being ready to pass out to doing leg kicks in bed and burying his face in his pillow (because he changed from his uniform, therefore no more hood).
Jamil answers the questions a little bluntly (with some quips aimed towards you here and there), but since it's something private, something he's sure you won't share with anyone else, he's comfortable giving you the affection you seek (and which he, too, misses giving and receiving).
(He also, just, has a thing for imagining you as flustered as you make him, so he likes to flirt a little bit. Oops 😊😁🤭)
HOW HE ANSWERS THE QUESTIONS
AFTER HE ANSWERS THE FORM
Morning come, everybody notices that Jamil is in SUCH a good mood, so good he can't even hide it.
It's surprising that he's acknowledging anyone at all considering, upon closer inspection, Jamil's eyebags looked... well, noticeable. Especially since he hadn't put on any makeup yet.
Kalim's usually the mood maker in Scarabia, but Jamil's genuine smiles are infectious, and soon enough everyone else is smiling, too, even so early in the morning.
Though they do wish he would talk to them a little bit more instead of spending his time on his phone (another rarity), but overall they're just happy that Jamil is happy.
(They all consider making some kind of prayer or offering to the Sevens now. Whatever or whoever is making their vice dorm leader having a wonderful morning, may it continue to do so forever)
As for Jamil... He knows he spent a good amount of time talking to you last night, but upon waking his natural instinct is to greet you immediately.
You're his treasure, his love, so if he goes to sleep thinking of you instead of dreading the morning come, and wakes thinking of you instead of the pile of work he'll inevitably face, who can really blame him for being visibly content?
JAMIL : I know I said I'd be too busy this week to commit to a date, but I don't think I can wait that long to see you.
JAMIL : I'll find an excuse for Kalim, so...
JAMIL : Shall we go on a date tonight?
character: SILVER
premise/trope: sending Silver the form should have been relatively uneventful... if not for his well-meaning but nosy family
HOW HE (and the rest of Diasomnia) REACTS WHEN YOU SEND THE FORM LINK
The thing is... Silver's asleep when you send the link. That's not your fault of course, nor is it is. However, the two of you just have the most unfortunate timing. Maybe you shouldn't have sent multiple follow up messages, then it would not have alerted anyone else.
Silver's phone has multiple beeps and, well, his fae companions are a little more sensitive to sound than others. It's inevitable that they'd either be annoyed or intrigued by the constant notifications.
Sebek just wanted to mute it, really! However, the screen lights up when he puts it in front of his face, and he sees your name, and he instinctively says it out loud, and then it's all over.
Lilia and Malleus are taking peeks at the small device as well, trying to make sense of the cut-off previews of each message you sent.
Sebek is... trying to be a good person so he's doing that thing where he covers his face with his hand, but leaves a gap between his fingers for him to read the texts.
They want to wake up Silver because SILVER'S LOVE LIFE IS ON THE LINE WHAT IF YOU DELETE YOUR MESSAGES AND DECIDE YOU REGRET YOUR (admittedly unique) CONFESSION.
Lilia's talking about taking one for the team and he activates the face recognition unlock on Silver's phone. He's not going to look through what you sent or anything (yet) but he does send you a text to let you know that Silver's still asleep and to not worry about why he's not responding.
Well, that stops the message influx.
Ironically, it's the silence that wakes Silver up, and he's immediately suspicious when he sees three fae crowd over his cellphone.
When he finds out you've been sending texts he's very apologetic to have kept you waiting, and when he realizes just what you sent he's extra apologetic... and flustered. Not only did you send him such a thing, but his father, Malleus, and Sebek all got a glimpse of it, too.
SILVER : I'm sorry for taking so long. I feel asleep again.
SILVER : I have control of my phone now, in case you were worried about... the others being overly curious again.
SILVER : I'll answer what you sent and get back to you as quickly as I can.
Silver's answers are serious and straight to the point, but not to the point that it lacks affection. Rather, he manages to weave in his perception and feelings for you rather seamlessly.
HOW HE ANSWERS THE QUESTIONS
AFTER HE ANSWERS THE FORM
He just meant to let the trio outside his room (he knows they're there, they are not being very discrete) know that he was going to meet up with you for a little bit, maybe talk about the next steps of any relationship you could cultivate in person.
However, they're bombarding him with apologies for snooping (he's already forgiven them, honestly) and questions about whether he's finally having his first romance.
Even Sebek, once he says his piece about making sure to allocate enough time for training and academics, gets pretty into it.
Silver clarifies that he's going to meet up with you specifically to discuss what the two of you should do with your mutual feelings, and then they're talking about what courtship offering he could give and what attire he should wear and what song he could perform ad he loves them, really, but it's a little bit too much.
He lets them know he'll leave as he is and that he'll be back for dinner. Lilia jokes that he should cook something special for the occasion and to bring you along to dine with them.
He runs before he can be pressured into agreeing. Malleus and Sebek look like they want to join him instead of facing Lilia's cooking.
You're talking to a bird when he sees you. The sight makes Silver smile.
"The birds have a great eye. Those colors suit you," Silver says. He makes sure the stem has no thorns before he tucks it between your ear. "Perhaps the forest critters have taken a liking to you, too."
masterlist | end notes
[ 1 ] Compared to the previous crush forms (aside from Floyd's), these ones sort of have the theme of getting people involved in the process. I feel like if I were to make or receive one, I would be sharing them or letting my friends take a look, so it felt realistic enough to have some characters actually tell people about the form and not just keep it to themselves
[ 2 ] I don't think I have to say this, but don't violate people's privacy with their phone in real life HAHAHAHA this is for plot purposes only
< special tags >
@merotwst here bestie ito na yung tag mo HAHAHAHA surry napatagal ng post hihi
If anyone wants to be tagged for when a specific character's form gets posted feel free to let me know :> I can tag you too
#twst x reader#twst silver x reader#silver x reader#jamil viper x reader#kalim al asim x reader#twst headcanons#twst hcs#twisted wonderland x reader#nathya twst writing#twst#twisted wonderland#twst imagines#twst silver#jamil viper#kalim al asim
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been sitting on this for awhile because its a bit controversial, but its one of the main reasons i was pushed into the frankenstein fandom space so i figured it was high time to talk about it
ive noticed that theres this general opinion, both among scholars and present in more fandom-y spaces, that victor is somehow effeminate for what are ultimately symptoms of disability (fainting spells, being bedridden, hysteria, etc) as if being physically or mentally ill is something that is inherently feminine. i have read articles published by academics that victor’s sickness is proof of his “femininity,” which is why he wants to take on the traditional part of a woman, that is, childbirth (via creature)
even in general, and not on an academic level, it emerges in jokes or memes all over the place — people poking at victor for being weak, or sick, or a gay little UWU bean sub, because aw hes fainting all the time XD and he’s sooo dramatic! as if these things were somehow both his choice, and somehow innately feminine
so, not only is there this weird link people are attempting to draw between disability and femininity, but also queerness (particularly, ive noticed, being a “bottom” or “sub” — but thats a whole separate can of worms) and femininity. as if being either of these things is inherently girly or cutesy and thus worthy of being made fun of
there comes a point (particularly when these interpretations leak into broader understandings of something via pop culture), where, for lack of a better word, it comes off as fetishizing or romanticizing queerness and/or queer relationships
and while this may seem relatively harmless on the surface and comes off as just thoughtless jokes made in bad taste, it IS serious. not just within the context of frankenstein, but the general premise of the severity that even subconscious reinforcement of detrimental and stereotypical ideas should be treated with. its a slippery slope from jokes to notions that affect you and how you see the world
this is obviously part of a broader problem with the way disability, gender, identity and etc is thought about and taught, which results in people harboring all sorts of these types of underlying prejudices. its just that victor happens to be a particularly good example, wherein he is a feminized man that is ascribed as “weak,” and the attribute “weak” is ascribed to someone who has been historically analyzed as both disabled and queer. this has been reinforced for decades, and i feel like this treatment of his character in this way is so blatantly obvious and runs rampant while it goes nearly entirely unchecked — and also in the case of frankenstein discourse, its often a quadruple whammy (ableism, misogyny, transphobia, homophobia)
and the worst part is that it is so often completely unintentional, and the bulk of this sort of content are well-meaning jokes. i genuinely don’t think people do this in bad faith or out of malice, but spreading these concepts even in formats that appear to be harmless (jokes, memes) just contribute to and continue to spread these ideas and stereotypes. its frustrating because its hard to point out and bring attention to without coming off as nitpicky or overly sensitive because this sort of thing is just so SUBTLE, and these beliefs are so gradually learned and then reinforced on a subconscious level
i could go on but for risk of sounding redundant ill digress, however to be clear this is not me saying you cant view victor as transfem, or disabled, or queer (i do!), or to view him as feminine, or etc, but that you should look at the reasons for WHY you think so, and how you or others treat the subject when talking about it.
#rob.txt#frankenstein#frankenstein the modern prometheus#victor frankenstein#gothic lit#if this warrants any tws let me know#analysis#ish
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Would you mind. Explaining what the heck the locked tomb (is this the name?) is about. You post a lot of it and I know ✨ nothing ✨ but it sounds kinda interesting??? Into dumping is ok if you feel like lol
I would LOVE to explain what The Locked Tomb is and you DID get the name right and it IS interesting!
So, it's a book series written by Tamsyn Muir and three of the anticipated four books have been released so far. I say "anticipated four books" because it was originally a trilogy but then the last book was split up. I don't think any of us would mind if that happened again and it turned into a five book series. But I digress.
These books are notoriously hard to describe because they sort of encompass or transcend genres. It's a sci-fi fantasty horror murder mystery romcom situation. Plus, there's a LOT going on - I've often described them as an "intellectual escape room." There's so much happening that you don't realize is happening until it all comes together. Going back to the beginning after you've finished them is an entirely different experience than your first read because you can see how it was all laid out from the start - sometimes even in plain sight - and things take on completely different meanings. Also, each book is very different from the others. I adore all of these qualities.
So here's the gist of the premise for the first book:
Gideon Nav, orphan of mysterious origins, has been raised on the Ninth House as an indentured servant and trained as a swordswoman. The Ninth House has become isolated from the rest of the empire and its very existence is threatened by the dwindling population and lack of resources. Gideon is one of only two survivors of her generation, the other children having succumbed to a lethal illness when she was an infant. The other survivor is Harrowhark Nonagesimus, the Reverend Daughter of the Ninth, and the two have been at each other's throats their entire lives. Harrow's parents' deaths have been hidden from the rest of the Ninth (save for Gideon and a few of the Reverend Family's attendants) and Harrow has been secretly ruling in their stead for the past seven years, doing her best to keep the Ninth from falling into ruin. Harrow is a prodigious necromancer, specializing in working with bones.
The Ninth receives a message from the Emperor requesting that each House send their heir and cavalier primary (a.k.a swordsman/bodyguard) to his home at the First House, where they are to attempt to piece together the process to becoming a Lyctor, one of his immortal Saints. Unfortunately, Harrow's cavalier has skipped town. Gideon begrudgingly accepts a deal meaning that she will pose as Harrow's cavalier in exchange for freedom from servitude.
Upon arriving at the First House, the two meet the other Houses' heirs and their cavaliers and are informed that they will have to figure out the secret to Lyctorhood on their own, and that there will absolutely no communication with the outside empire. It's not long before someone turns up dead... and then another...
What immediately hooked me on the first book was the voice and tone; Gideon is a delightfully snarky narrator. Despite the humor, these books do not pull any punches with regard to emotional depth. Love and grief are at the center of everything these books do, circled by sacrifice and duty and gender and colonialism and religion.
This review is actually one of my favorite things to send to people to pitch them the books. It does a fantastic job of conveying both the premise and the tone of Gideon the Ninth. I also wrote a "pitch your fandom" piece that @wilfriede recorded and recently released. You can find both the audio and the transcript at this link.
I hope that gives you a sense of the series, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to ramble about the series that permanently altered my brain chemistry! If you ever get around to reading them, I would love to hear your thoughts :)
#happy to answer any follow up questions if you have them as well :)#tlt#the locked tomb#gideon the ninth#ask#crashed-wing
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i can't stay quiet about this anymore. for weeks now i've thought, noo i won't write about knights of the zodiac on my blog. nobody cares. BUT it is the weirdest fucking movie i've ever seen and i need to tell you about it.
knights of the zodiac is an american made live action adaptation of the anime/manga saint seiya. before this film, i'd never even heard of it, but that doesn't matter, because i watched an interview with mackenyu (who plays seiya) who said that the director told him not to bother watching the anime or reading the manga, because he wanted this movie to be its own thing. you know, which is always a great way to bring in your core audience.
with that said, i'm viewing this film entirely on its own merit, with no context of the source material. so saint seiya fans may not want to read this.
the movie came out this past may. i was excited about it for no other reason than mackenyu starring in an american action movie. i'm honestly a little surprised people weren't more jazzed about that. there aren't a lot of japanese actors starring in big budget american action movies.
other cast members include sean bean (who, spoiler alert, dies), famke janssen, and mark dacascos. in case you don't recognize those names, they are, respectively, boromir/ned stark, jean grey from x-men, and the iron chef. if nothing else, i think it's worth watching for the utterly bizarre casting.
the premise, sort of: mackenyu, who appears to be contractually obligated to play angsty younger brother characters (i think this is the 7th thing i've seen him in where he is an angsty younger brother), has an older sister who is missing. he's a poor orphan boy who gets by on winning cage fights. or something. so boromir finds him and tells him he's destined to be athena's bodyguard, and he gets on board with this alarmingly fast, but not after antagonizing athena (who is not yet athena) and throwing out some snarky one-liners. he trains in the middle of nowhere with a masked lady who repeatedly kicks his ass, and he never changes clothes the entire time. there's other stuff too but it's secondary to the absolute batshittery of this movie.
i saw it on premiere night, which was also the premiere night of the new guardians of the galaxy movie. again, A+ move by the promotional team. so there i was on a saturday at 7pm. prime movie going time. and my best friend and i were the only ones in the theater.
although i had no real expectations for this movie beyond Mackenyu Hits Things And Is Sad, i believed one of two things would happen: it would be as terrible as it sounded, or it would actually be phenomenal. but no, it was neither bad, nor good, but a secret third thing: it scratched a deep and rabid part of my id.
and by that i mean, it appeared to be a very high budget love letter to glaringly submissive men.
here's my letterboxd review that i wrote in the brief hypomanic episode succeeding my initial viewing:
okay so first and most importantly, this scene made me actually scream:
it's a joke line, sure, but 1) he definitely means it, and 2) he immediately calls her "princess," which if you've ever read my fic, you'll know that that's a one-hit KO for me.
(putting this under a cut because it's already long)
you see how athena is framed above seiya? that is one of approximately 1000 shots where this occurs. to every male character. at one point, mackenyu perches gingerly on the back of athena's motorcycle. in fact the only male character who attempts to be dominant aggressive and toxically masculine becomes the punching bag of the film.
in the beginning, seiya is in a cage match where people are getting angry at him for "dancing," which means he doesn't fight so much as avoids getting hit and looks pretty doing it. a solid third of the movie involves a very large lady beating the crap out of him. the premise of the film is getting him to devote his entire life to a goddess and obey protect her at all costs.
i'm probably the only one who watched this movie and was like, hmm is this kink coded? am i insane for seeing this? usually when i think of kink coding i think of quentin tarantino's foot fetish, these long gaudy shots of women's feet hanging out of car windows. it's in the imagery and shot composition and power dynamics.
here, the imagery is a lot of kneeling men, the shot compositions repeatedly place the men lower than the women, and the power dynamics are simply that the women have all the power, and the men have a little, as a treat. jean grey is a straight-up femdom, leather and all.
by the end of the climax, seiya is naked, having been stripped of his (magical and very powerful) armor as pre-athena becomes athena and uh, blasts his clothes off in the process. there's probably something to be said there about, you know, literally stripping him of his power.
i think what i find particularly remarkable about this is that the repeated feminization of the male lead is treated as a good thing. a self-actualizing thing. it's the process through which he accepts himself and his destiny. that's the reason i say it's a love letter--i've known a lot of submissive men and many of them really struggle to accept that part of themselves. i had a friend once who was so ashamed of himself--not just that he was submissive, but that submission was an integral part of his identity--that he had a breakdown in my car over it. so i think it's nice seeing a vaguely positive portrayal of finding oneself through (textually) devotion and (subtextually) submission.
god help me, seiya spends the entire film being irritating and bratty. this movie is my personal kryptonite.
don't get me wrong, it's a terrible movie. the writing is awful, the direction is awful, and if it gets a second film, i'll be shocked. it received a 1.9 (out of 5) on letterboxd and a 4.4 (out of 10) on imdb.
but i've also always been a lover of the star wars prequels (and oh boy there's a lot to be said there about submissive men) and so my patience for bad writing is infinite in the face of interesting things happening on a character level. in a world of disneyfied stock plots and bloated marvel franchises, i appreciate when a movie tries to do something different, even if it doesn't do it very well.
anyway, i can't in good conscience recommend it, but i for one plan to watch it at least a hundred more times.
#i would love to tag this so i can find it later but i really don't want it to show up in the official tag#so uhh#film meta
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┊┊┊✧ ⁺ ⁺╚══ A Perfect Circle ╝
Premise: When you like the guy who likes the guy that likes you, things get a little out of hand, when a triangle becomes a circle not just one gets hurt.
Word Count: 2266
Note/warning: in this series I'm going for a bit of punk Yamaguchi, even if it isn't cannon is just my personal favorite, lol. Also he's bi here, so you've been warned, while this is not full blown yaoi or anything of the sort it does have mention of feelings for the same sex. Nothing hardcore, reader is female.
Chapter 1: Midnight Kisses
•───────•°•❀•°•───────•
College wasn’t easy, your time off was basically non-existent, if you had any it was mostly to complete your assignments or study for a test, that of course plus the time you had to spend in your part-time at a local coffee shop.
So when your classmate, friend and crush, asked you for help doing his hair, you had to call in sick and forgo sleeping the night before to finish an assignment just so you could hang out with him at his dorm, of course, he doesn’t know any of this.
Yamaguchi Tadashi sits beside you every Thursday in finance class.
For a while, that was all there was to say about him being in your life, however, his shy demeanor and cool appearance managed to captivate your heart from day one.
The transition from classmates to friends was fairly painless, he was funny and smart, you enjoyed his company a lot and he did as well, you were caring, helpful and smarter than him, meaning you could help him study. Great foundations for a friendship, if it wasn’t for his stupidly good looking face and those cute freckles that don’t even let you go a night without dreaming of them.
Thinking of confessing was pretty much not an option though, as when you became friends you got to learn he’s had an all time one sided crush on his best friend since high school and that friend happened to be his own roommate.
And a guy.
While it did break your heart for a while, you noticed he did like girls after all, he was open minded and gender was not one of his concerns when choosing a partner. So it wasn’t all lost, at least not for you, one sided crushes get old, and if the right person for you comes to your life they can turn to dust. Or that’s what you told yourself at least, to find motivation.
Yamaguchi had invited you over to his dorm a couple of times already and you met this other guy before, while you could appreciate his good looks and how tall he was, he didn’t seem at all like the most lovable guy out there, they barely had a conversation and it was mostly one sided as well, just like their entire relationship. It did make you feel bad for him, but it also made your heart shine with hope. He didn’t seem so hard to defeat and Yamaguchi certainly deserved better than that.
You arrived earlier than expected to his apartment, ended up taking a taxi afraid of being late and Yamaguchi was still on his way back from school; his roommate opening the door for you.
“Um, hi! I’m Yamaguchi-kun’s friend, is he back already? I’m supposed to help him with something today.” the tall blonde just moved to the side of the door letting you into their shared small home.
“He’ll be home soon, stuck in traffic.” he just nodded towards the couch motioning for you to just sit there and wait like a good girl, quietly. But where’s the fun in that?
“Tsukishima-san right?” unwillingly he just nodded once more, unplugging the kettle from the wall.
“Tea?”
“Thank you, that would be lovely.” Tsukki wasn’t used to this type of sunny smiles, while he does have women chasing his every step, he manages to kick them all away as fast as possible; none of them ever caught his eye nor made him want to even chat with them.
But this time was different. He’s heard a lot about you from Yamaguchi and he feels like he already knows you, as weird as that sounds, he didn’t feel uncomfortable around you and that was definitely new.
“I have some fancy fruit tea my mom brought the other day, would you like to try that or green tea is fine?” why was he even bringing this out? He hasn’t even thought of this damn tea for weeks, but now he was suddenly very aware of all the snacks around the house that girls might enjoy.
“Oh I love fruity tea!” a small smile crept over his face, one that could creep someone out if seen up close, but thankfully you didn’t notice.
“It’s a berry one…is that fine?”
“Yeah that’s lovely, thank you! You’re nicer than I thought you were.” chuckling, you nervously played with the tips of your hair, while you knew you’d be safe with him, this was pretty much the first time you talked to one another and were completely alone in the house just the two of you at the moment.
“Oh? Nah, you got it right, I’m not nice…” sighing, Tsukki shook his head while preparing your tea, then he brought out a tin with cute looking cookies which were not his in the slightest, yet he set a few on a small plate and handed it over to you along with a steaming mug of delicious smelling goodness.
“I mean…just look at those cookies and fancy tea! If you weren’t nice you would have left me here on my own and stay in your room eating all this goodness by yourself.” you were so delightful, he didn’t even think it was possible for a girl to be this nice to be around. No obnoxious questions or loud laughter, no flirting. Your smiles seemed real, you were truly enjoying his treats and company, no insults were needed, he could get used to this even if that on its own was a terrifying thought.
“Alright you got me, just don’t tell anyone…would hurt my reputation...” he laughed quietly and this made you smile even more. He wasn’t as bad as you thought and that was an understatement, he was actually nice and you didn’t mind one bit sharing some of your time with him.
A little under thirty minutes passed before Yamaguchi finally arrived home. He came in panting heavily, his face red with excertion as he kicked his shoes off and ran inside. “(Y/N)?”
“Yams! I’m here in your kitchen!” confused, he walked over to where your voiced echoed from, and was welcomed by a rare sight, Tsukki was sitting next to you on the other stool, both of you holding a mug in between your hands and eating some cookies while talking about turtles. Why turtles though? What did he miss? Was Tsukki smiling just now? He had so many questions.
“Are those…my cookies…?” he let out a loud gasp, an evil looking smirk covering Tsukki’s face immediately. “Can’t give her just tea, you know…I don’t own cute food….” he wasn’t mad at him for giving away his cookies, not at all, in fact he was enjoying how cute you looked with that bunny shaped cookie pressed to your rosy lips, a great use of the cookies he won at the convenience store lottery. What threw him off a bit was that Tsukki had just taken them without asking first, is something he’s never done before at least not with things like that.
“I’m leaving, have practice.” he got up from the stool, though not without giving you a soft smile and a nod before doing so, a rare sight indeed.
“Yeah….um (Y/N) is staying for the night. I think I told you already, but that’s fine right?” a part of him wished he’d get angry, jealous even, he wanted him to look his way, to feel threatened by the lovely girl spending the night with him; and he unexpectedly did look jealous, quite a lot I would say, but not for the same reason he wanted to.
“Yeah it’s fine, I left the air mattress on the couch so she can sleep better there.” when Yamaguchi looked towards the couch the front door could be heard being closed shut as Tsukki left the apartment, startling you, yet what startled Yamaguchi wasn’t the loud bang but the fact that Tsukki hadn’t just pulled out the air mattress for you, but also set up two pillows, sheets and a fluffy blanket, his fluffy warm beloved blanket, one not even Yamaguchi has gotten to touch before. Just what on earth did he miss?
Deciding on ignoring his friend’s confusing behavior he went back to you who immediately fed him a bunny cookie as to distract him from the entire ordeal, which earned a smile and a giggle from him.
“Thanks, I needed that. Sorry I came home so late I tried getting here faster but the traffic was awful..”
“Don’t worry, I didn’t have to wait for long and that tea was lovely~
So what did you need my help with?”
Yamaguchi’s hair has been getting longer and he wanted to do something fun with it before he had to cut it all off for his internship next year, “Oh yeah! Can you help me bleach the underside of my hair? I suck at it…”
“Sure! Just bleach? Or are you going to color it too?” Yamaguchi truly enjoyed the simplicity of this conversation. It was always like this with you, everything was so warm and cozy, lots of laughs and lingering looks, it felt different for some reason, like the entire opposite of the way how Tsukki is with him, he felt wanted.
“Just bleach for now. I think it’ll look cool. I also have been browsing online for tattoo artists, wanted your opinion with that too.” It’s been in his mind lately how he wanted to do something liberating, something that would mark a milestone, the day he decides to move on from Tsukki, to finally confront reality and be with someone who truly appreciates him and wants to be by his side, romantically, hopefully that person would be you.
“Oh show me, show me! Do you have an idea of what you want already?” scooting closer to him, you looked like a cute little girl trying to look at his screen, it was endearing, made him want to squish your face and made his heart skip a beat or two at the closeness.
“Just some lettering…though still not sure what I want it to say…maybe on my wrist, something I could cover if I wear long sleeves.”
“Oh this one looks nice!” the picture featured stylized lettering with butterflies on top of some letters of the word to accentuate the fancy turns and swishes, making it look like a fairytale title in some book. “Shall we get matching tattoos? It’s such a pretty style!”
This made Yamaguchi blush, his heart fluttering, while he hated the idea of matching tattoos within couples, it was such a pure hearted request it made him smile at the thought of sharing something like this with you.
“You mean like the very same phrase or like you have one half and I have the other?”
“I was thinking of the first one but I must admit the second one sounds even more cute.” you were blushing too, both of you were sporting a lovely pinkish skin tone, as you both smiled at each other like fools.
“Then lets do it! How about the lyrics of a song we both like? Would be more meaningful and only us two would know what is it about.” this was exciting, you honestly didn’t think he’d say yes, that’s usually reserved for couples, but you weren’t going to complain, is what you wanted after all.
You spent the entire night listening to your favorite bands and taking notes on phrases you both would find meaningful or interesting, eating some pizza and laughing at each other’s silliness until both ended up falling asleep on top of each other on the couch after his hair was done.
Yamaguchi opened his eyes first and noticed how you were dozing off on his shoulder. Your hand was fisting the side of his shirt while you nuzzled his arm like a cute tiny kitten. Made him want to kiss you, and that wasn’t normal for him. Since he remembers he’s only liked Tsukki, only wanted to kiss him, only wanted him. But you were making his heart burst every few seconds and you made him feel excited about the littlest things, life was brighter, happier, it was something he didn’t want to loose next semester if you end up in different classes. He wanted to move on with his life, to bring you as much happiness as you brought for him.
Unconsciously, he leaned closer and closer until your faces were only inches away, his nose pressed to yours, as he glanced down at you with a loving gaze.
His nose tickled yours and made you stir, though having him this close meant this was certainly a dream right? Why else would he be at a kissing distance? For sure a dream, so why not enjoy it…?...closing the short distance, you pressed your lips to his and he kissed you back right away without hesitating. It was a soft kiss, loving, tender, yet quite intense; lips molding with each other, hands gripping clothing and hair, cute mewls and little moans leaving each other’s lips every few seconds. In all truth you have no idea how long this kiss was, but as soon as the kitchen clock announced midnight, a loud horrified gasp and the front door slamming shut could be heard, Tsukki had come back from practice a bit latter than expected tonight and had witnessed the tail end of the passionate encounter.
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Masterlist Next Chapter
#haikyuu!!#haikyuu fluff#haikyuu x y/n#haikyuu x reader#haikyuu x you#haikyuu x f!reader#love triangle#yamaguchi tadashi#yamaguchi x reader#haikyuu yamaguchi#yamaguchi fluff#yamaguchi x y/n#tsukishima kei#tsukishima x reader#haikyuu tsukishima#tsukkiyama#fluff#haikyu x reader#haikyuu tsukki#hq tsukki#tsukki x reader
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hey all! i just wanted to take a minute to stand on my little soap box and tell you about a manga i picked up last december. it has gotten much more attention since then, but i'd still like to throw my thoughts into the mix.
on the surface, the summer hikaru died explores a pretty common horror trope: what if a person you loved changed into something unrecognizable? do you reject them, or try to connect to the person that they have become? of course, this fear is twisted into something more threatening in a supernatural horror format. what if they literally died and came back as something else that could potentially harm you and your family?
we follow two teenage boys: yoshiki and his best friend (and one sided crush) hikaru, who goes missing in the mountains for a week and miraculously reappears unscathed. he looks the same as ever, but yoshiki can tell that what came back is no longer the hikaru that he once knew. now, yoshiki must come to grips with the fact that something sinister has taken over his friend’s body - and that it has a strong attachment to him.
that's the basic premise, but this manga is still ongoing and there are plenty of different directions it could take. if you haven't read it yet, it's worth experiencing firsthand. beyond the body horror are themes of grief and repressed homosexuality, as well as subtext to read into. i'm not going to be spoiling any explicit plot details, but i'd encourage you to stop reading this and go check it out if a bl manga with gorgeous art, toxic but engaging romance, and body horror sounds appealing to you.
the first thing you'll notice about this manga is that *chef's kiss* gorgeous art! it is uncanny, as you would expect, but it is drawn with so much care. the heavily detailed background art and visual horror create a rather oppressive atmosphere. the author also really excels at conveying character emotions through facial expressions, and there's a lot of very subtle bits of information that you can pick up from them.
being a body horror manga, this aspect is of course given extra care. when it gets supernatural, it takes on an oddly surreal quality. i'd even say that the transformations of hikaru take on an air of eroticism. that sounds out of place, but the author understands that the line between fear and attraction is thin. there is one scene in particular that would be very sexual if not for the absolute nightmare scenario unfolding before my eyes.
one of my favorite things about this manga is the confidence the author has in the reader. yoshiki having had feelings towards' the previous hikaru is never outright stated, it's just assumed that the reader will pick up on it. the village yoshiki lives in views homosexuality as some kind of curse, and the insecurity this creates in him is shown very subtly. the camera's gaze and the little things he says all convey this, like his apparent guilt over staring at hikaru shown through the shadow on his face. his fear of and attraction to hikaru's transformations also conveys this idea. he's also coping with grief in an unhealthy manner, and this is shown through the almost experimental way he's sometimes drawn. but yoshiki is not the only important character, and hikaru also has some depth. his character is harder to parse, but there's more to him lurking below the surface. he's more delicate than his outgoing demeanor would suggest. hell, it's understandable - being a literal monster means his position in yoshiki's life is extremely tenuous. our two main characters form a codependent relationship based on a fear of being alone, something very human and compelling in a messy sort of way.
something that i do not see being brought up quite as much is how tshd uses horror elements to discuss the fears around coming out and dealing with same-sex attraction. so much of hikaru’s internal struggle is such a wonderful metaphor. many of the moments between him and yoshiki serve as a dual narrative - the surface-level narrative but also this very delicate story about two boys from a rural village who realize they have feelings for one another. the whole story in fact is one giant metaphor for dealing with the anxiety losing who you thought you were and embracing concrete truths about sexuality and love.
overall it left me with some very strong first impressions. it is both an excellent horror manga and a nuanced exploration of loss and sexuality. i also find it very refreshing that their relationship isn’t built on any sort of deception or lies, and that yoshiki is aware that he’s an imposter, just not the extent of what exactly he is or what is happening in the town.
#the summer hikaru died#hikaru ga shinda natsu#hgsn#tshd#txt#manga#shounen ai#bl manga#manga recommendation#lgbtq#gay#horror#romance#certainly brings a new meaning to 'exploring each others bodies'#when im in a who loses his head first competition and my oponent is a gay white haired dude 😨
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time after time [6]
series summary: After what starts out as a fairly normal mission, you find yourself stuck in a time loop. Which would already be bad enough in itself if it didn’t also mean having to watch Bucky die over and over again.
pairing: bucky barnes x f!reader
word count: 12.8k
chapter warnings: maybe reacquaint yourselves with the story premise, it's been a hot minute; characters refusing to be honest with themselves and each other; violence against side characters, minor injury descriptions; strange is still annoying
a/n: this is quite possibly the scariest fic update i've ever made. a lot has happened since the last chapter was posted, and i won't bore you with all of it. suffice it to say, i missed sharing this story. thank you for being patient with me.
series masterlist | main masterlist | read on ao3
six: butterfly effect
Working with Sam and Bucky was different than working with Natasha and Steve had been.
At the Compound, it had felt terrifyingly easy to find your place, to slip into the new role they granted you as if you were always meant to fill it. You’d felt that way before, and it hadn’t turned out quite so well. Maybe that was why you used to dread the end.
Now, however, for the first time in a while, you constantly had to prove yourself in order to not be left back in that dark place they’d found you in, alone and trying to make sense of any of it. And you liked that. The challenge was something you could live with, something you could enjoy more than the ever chilling anxiousness that things were simply too good to be true.
So when Sam called you on for a follow-up mission shortly after the first one, you jumped at the chance.
It didn’t matter that you barely talked about anything but work, even when you were hanging out in your spare time; in fact, you much preferred that to digging up the past. You even learned to find a wicked sort of enjoyment in provoking Bucky’s initial dislike of you to the point of where he would barely speak to you at all unless it was to snap at you.
You weren’t sure what you wanted him to do, but it was fun to watch the time bomb tick.
It wasn’t as easy to get under the new cap’s skin.
"You’re making us sound like we’re partners in a law firm," Sam said, a smile clearly audible in his voice even though his eyes didn’t betray it. Bucky didn’t even dignify you with a clench of his jaw.
"What?" you said, crossing your legs. "Every newspaper in the city calls you 'Wilson and Barnes'. Don’t you ever read the articles about yourselves?"
"Unlike some people, I don’t have all the time in the world," Sam said, leaning back on the couch with his eyes closed.
"Pity. The Bulletin called you the 'nation’s new dynamic duo' last week." You looked at Bucky, your eyebrows raised in amusement. "You’ve officially been downgraded to a sidekick, Barnes."
He answered with an empty glare of his own. "And what does that make you?" he said, but not like a question.
"Nothing at all," you still grinned. "Everything is right in the universe."
The reporters had yet to pick up on your addition to the team, which was proof enough that your powers still sufficed to fly under the radar. Combined with the fact that you were actually regularly talking to people again—and people who weren’t your therapist or your customers no less—, things almost felt like they were settling into a new kind of normal. Still somewhat weird, and still a struggle each day, but somewhat hopeful, nevertheless.
You’d almost forgotten what that could feel like.
“Right. You’d prefer people not knowing about your creepy powers.”
"Aww." You tilted your head to the side happily. "You think I’m creepy."
Bucky scoffed into his mug, refusing to look at you like he always did, and then he strolled off again.
In truth, you couldn’t blame him all that much. You’d lived with your powers all your life and still found them unsettling sometimes, particularly when they got away from you and left you trapped in a universe that refused to move.
That was none of his business, though.
Besides, Bucky had taken to moving around so quietly you could never tell he was there until he’d cough and you’d flinch, usually dropping whatever you were holding in your hands. You’d already cracked your phone screen twice.
Not that he’d know, or care if he did. It gave you great satisfaction to erase his amused smirk from existence.
"Give it time," Sam said without moving. "He doesn’t like new people."
"Neither do I," you murmured, and he snorted. "What?"
"Pretend with me all you want, but maybe do a bit of introspection there."
You crossed your arms with a pout. "You sound like my therapist."
"Mhm," Sam hummed, opening one eye to look at you. "You owe me fifty bucks for that."
"Fuck you."
"Oh, would you look at that, the price just went up."
He chuckled as you flipped him off and went to look for the coffee pot.
Of course, your way got blocked. The downsides of not hating having people around.
Bucky was leaning against the counter, considering you. "You go to therapy?"
"You should try it some time," you said distractedly, reaching around him to get your favorite mug. Bucky recoiled like he was afraid you’d burn him. You shook your head in annoyance. "Helps with the stink eye."
"Is that what they told you?"
"They told me I needed to process my grief, but I decided to focus on some more achievable goals." You took a sip of your coffee, sighing in comfort. "We came up with a compromise."
Bucky scoffed, pushing his hands into the pockets of his jacket. He still hadn’t taken his gloves off around you.
"Sounds like a way to drag it out," he said.
You frowned into your cup. "It’s not a race, Barnes. There’s no finish line for this shit."
Something odd went over his face, but he went back to avoiding your gaze when you tried to make it out. You knew him well enough by then to get the hint, and so you left him alone.
What was it to you if he didn’t want to warm up to you. That had no bearing on the fact that overall, your situation wasn’t all too bad anymore.
It was something, you supposed as you curled up in your spot on the couch with your book later that day, slipping in and out of time to keep your company a little longer because deep down, you knew you were sick of being alone.
It was weird and different, yes, but it was still something anyway. Something to do with your afternoons again.
A reason to get up in the morning.
*****
"What are you talking about?" Bucky asks quietly, carefully, but he makes no attempt to pull back from your embrace. It allows you to take another shuddering breath, inhaling his scent until it makes you dizzy.
The fact that you probably won’t be this close to him again any time soon makes you press into his chest even harder, hard enough to feel his heart flutter against your forehead, the shock of the situation making it pick up speed.
For a split second, you slip into a sort of vacuum, your thoughts quieting as he keeps mumbling to you, and in that blissful moment, your situation doesn’t seem quite so dire anymore, more like a bad dream. You’re safe now, aren’t you? How could you not be?
But then you blink back into reality again when Bucky sits you down on the closed lid of your toilet and slowly makes you let go of his shirt, kneeling down in front of you. The blue of his eyes is devastating, even though you have to keep blinking to keep him in focus.
You don’t want to have to do this, you realize once your gasps for air start calming again. You’re not sure if you can bear it.
But nothing in this loop has been about what you wanted.
And so your resolve is made, with your heart sinking until it’s hidden away deep, deep inside of your chest. You ball your hands into fists to keep your fingers from twitching.
Two or three times he watches you inhale, start to say something, halt before you can, almost choking on it. Like your body is refusing to go through with it.
"How do you know when I’m lying?" you finally ask, and your voice sounds oddly clear in your small bathroom.
Bucky’s face goes from concern to confusion, his frown deepening. You want to smoothe it away with your thumb.
You close your eyes so maybe the temptation goes away.
"What?" he asks, and he still sounds so damn gentle.
"I’ve never been able to lie to you," you say. "What’s my tell?"
You can feel him move away from you and the ache of it makes you look again. His shirt and his hands are covered in his own blood, and you’re sure there’s some fucking metaphor in the way it stains the golden inlets of his vibranium arm crimson but for the most part, you can’t unsee the damn irony of it all.
Because you’ve pissed him off now.
"You scared the shit out of me, Y/N. And Sam, too." There’s the sharpness in his voice you know all too well. You haven’t heard it in a while. "What the hell is going on?"
"I’m trapped in a time loop," you say, squeezing your fists more tightly. "I’ve been reliving this day for weeks, my powers aren’t working, I’m the only one who can stop time from completely collapsing, I can’t do that without my powers, and you’re gonna die later today. Am I lying?"
It’s maybe the worst way you’ve ever told him, because watching Bucky’s face change is almost too much. This is exactly why you’re doing it, though; as long as you’re going through this loop with a giant guilty knot in your stomach, you’re not going to make any progress. And you need to put an end to all of it.
So you meet his gaze, almost unwavering, and you don’t blink.
His shock bursts free as an incredulous laugh. "What?"
"I’m stuck," you say again, slower, nodding at his hands, his blood, continuing to push, "and you keep dying."
Bucky looks down, then, before his gaze falls back onto you and he sits back on his heels. The pause lasts for way too long, heavy and smelling of iron, and you’re pretty sure you’re suffocating. He only says one word, and it sounds so defeated. "How?"
You swallow heavily. "You got shot on a mission," you say, but he shakes his head, the fire returning to his eyes.
"No. How did you get stuck?"
"I …" You blink, because you’re not prepared for this question, because you can never predict what he’s going to say, because he keeps doing that to you, because somehow, and not like you’ve expected, you feel like you’ve been here before.
How did it happen? That’s not … Okay.
"It was an accident," you finally say, helplessly, defensively.
There’s a flicker of something in Bucky’s eyes. "What happened?"
"You died. You died that first time and I didn’t—I couldn’t …" You swallow the sob that threatens to shake your voice again. Damnit, you’re supposed to push him away.
He moves his arm, then hesitates, as if he wants to reach out to you but changes his mind at the very last moment.
Right. He doesn’t normally do that.
Except he has.
He has held your hand and pulled you closer and written on your arm and let you lean on him with the full weight of your body, as if to him, you weighed nothing at all. He’s been offering to carry your load so many times, and he doesn’t remember a single one of them.
"Please don’t look at me like that," you say tonelessly, watching Bucky retreat.
"Like what?"
"Like I’m gonna fall apart at any moment. And yes," you add when his mouth opens, "I—I know I just did, I’m aware of the irony, but this is exactly why I can’t keep telling you, I don’t—I can’t stand it." You press your wrists against your temples, ignoring the buzz of the whirling time symbols against your skin, the stinging in your eyes. "You shouldn’t even—I mean, are you even the slightest bit worried about yourself? Because I feel like I’m the only one here, and I should’ve just—"
You stop yourself, shaking your head. Your hands are very clammy all of a sudden, and when you tug at your rings just to do something, one of them slips off your finger and clangs against the tiles as if to punctuate the silence.
When you reach down, you move your wrist in a way that makes you hiss in pain and flinch back. Bucky’s eyes flit between your own and your hand, his frown deepening in a strangely soft way. "Did you break it?" he asks quietly.
"I’m fine," you mumble, and he looks at you disapprovingly. "You’d grabbed my hand just before …"
His jaw twitches as the blame settles in again, and you would do fucking anything to finally make him understand that none of this is his fault. That you should be in pain for what you’re putting him through.
"It should’ve been me," you tell him, because it’s true.
Even earlier in the week, you would’ve taken great delight in seeing Bucky Barnes’ face fall at something you’d said. Hell, you’d have probably enjoyed it on Thursday, because there used to be this easy sort of gratification that came from riling him up, from catching him off guard.
Seeing it now, though?
It makes your fingers twitch.
"Don’t say that. Not even as a joke."
"I’m not joking." You can feel your pulse in your ears. "They aimed a shot at me, and you pushed me out of the way, and you died. So by all accounts, if your instincts weren’t so damn noble all the time, it should’ve been me, and if I weren’t such a fucking coward, I’d have gone back and switched places with you weeks ago."
The thought terrifies you, even though it’s true. No part of you wants to go through the things Bucky is, but if someone gave you the choice between either one of you right now, you wouldn’t even have to think about it.
Maybe that’s the most terrifying thought of them all. You would die for him. Once, twice, however many times are necessary if that meant that he’s safe.
"I’d like to see you try," Bucky says, and something slams into your chest as an old familiar shiver runs down your spine.
There’s a pained edge to his gaze, contemplative and heartbreaking and …
"You’re doing it again," you say, your voice barely above a whisper.
"What am I doing?" His hand brushes your knee, and your skin is left searing.
You swallow heavily. "Being noble."
Bucky chuckles softly, and his eyes leave yours for just a moment. "Don’t exactly feel like that."
He’s beautiful.
It’s a new thought, despite everything. Even when you’ve noticed it before, you’d roll your eyes at the fact and move on, because this was Bucky. So what if his face was delectably handsome?
But it seems like you haven’t known it at all, because right now, you feel the knowledge of it, of him, surge through you with all its facets. You can’t even begin to put it into words, because where would you start? How do you explain what he makes you feel when he hasn’t been there himself, not in any way that matters or sticks? And if it’s never happened at all, if time keeps unraveling like this, how can it even be real?
So it’s pure instinct that makes you move, like someone would pinch themselves to ensure they’re not asleep, even though you’re very aware that this isn’t just a dream. You need to confirm that Bucky is real, though.
The air stands still when your fingertips trace along his cheekbone, leaving a delicate flush behind in their trail, barely touching and yet …
And yet.
His breath hitches when they dip lower, almost reaching the place you’ve watched dimple when he laughs, but he doesn’t move away. He doesn’t laugh, either.
There’s a scraping sound at the closed bathroom door, followed by a short knock. You flinch backwards.
"I’m leaving the first aid kit on the bed," Sam calls from the other side. "Just … holler if you need me."
"Thanks, Sam," Bucky says coarsely, and you can hear steps receding. The scratching continues, though. That damn cat.
Finally, he breaks eye contact, clearing his throat.
"Do you want me to help you clean up?"
You shake your head. You’re not sure you could stomach more of this. "I’m good, don’t … Don’t worry about it."
Bucky drags a hand through his hair, muttering something to himself you can’t quite make out. Slowly, he gets to his feet again.
"We need to come up with a plan," he says, and you want to cry except … you’re tired. Tired and sick of this.
"I need to come up with a plan," you correct him. "We have been trying to do this as a team for weeks, and it doesn’t change anything except waste time and …" And hurt. "I can’t do it anymore, Buck."
There must be something in your voice that thaws his defiant glare a little. "So what’s the plan?"
And with a sigh, you fill him in on everything that’s been going on with Strange and your powers. Again. One last time.
You have to do this alone.
Bucky ignores your insistence that you can manage just fine and sets your wrist while you talk. Alpine, now free to roam wherever she pleases again, has decided the bathroom isn’t quite that interesting after a short look inside, and is now taking a nap in the spot of sunshine next to your bed.
"New deal," he says once you’re done, once he’s thought about it all, and you raise your eyebrows. "Don’t do anything stupid."
"You know me," you smile, checking the makeshift dressing around your hand. The green symbols are hidden by the layers of gauze.
Bucky doesn’t bite. "I’m serious, just—don’t."
"How would you know?"
"I wouldn’t," he says, snapping the first aid kit shut so vehemently Alpine’s tail twitches. "But I trust you."
Your head whips up at his words, even though his back is still turned to you. He doesn’t see your face as your heart is jostled into a new rhythm, so violently and unexpectedly that you lift your hand without thinking, pinkie outstretched.
"Promise."
He smiles when he notices, and you wish you could take a picture to carry with you through the rest of this nightmare.
That day, he dies with your stupid nickname on his lips, twisted into something that looks strangely close to that earlier smile. This one doesn’t have time to reach his eyes, though.
***
There’s been a change in the weather.
Not literally, no; of course not literally. Fuck, you long for a single cloud, a raindrop, a damn hailstorm to break the streak of endless perfectly sunny days that don’t fit your mood in the slightest.
But there’s a tinge to the sky that makes your stomach turn. It’s not very obvious to anyone who hasn’t looked at the exact same sunset for weeks on end, just a single strip of color across a storybook horizon. It looks like a crack.
"Do you see that?" you ask warily when you notice it for the first time, ominous and yet almost completely hidden by the trees and the buildings. Just dancing around the edge of your vision like another mockery.
"What?" Sam asks, eyes not leaving the path ahead.
"That … thing in the sky. What is that?"
Bucky stops and squints at where you’re pointing. "It’s called a cloud," he says dryly.
"With that color?" you murmur, but continue walking when he stops to turn to you, your wrist tingling. His stare is searing your neck, but you ignore that, too.
The best course of action, you’ve learned, is to shut your brain off as soon as you get out of the quinjet and just go through the motions, trying to ride out the mission like you’ve done dozens of times before. There’s a sort of autopilot you’ve fallen into after a couple of days, and it’s the only thing keeping you somewhat sane. Most days, it means it’s all over quickly, and you can’t help but feel glad about that.
You’ve given up trying to change your own actions to get him through the day.
But this …
It’s something new, and in all this monotony, that thought is both frightening and exciting. It distracts you enough to get you off script.
"Lovely interior design," Sam mumbles like he always does.
"Remember how this was supposed to be a day off?" You kick one of the pebbles in your path with a sigh. "What happened to 'don’t worry, Y/N, after training the day is all yours'?"
"Occupational hazard," Sam says, checking his map for the thousandth time.
"You know what I mean."
"Don’t you have tomorrow off?" Bucky says over the intercom.
Tomorrow. "Right." It comes out somewhat strained, your fingernails digging into the palm of your hand. "And why do you know that?"
Sam shakes his head and there’s a brief crackle of static in your ear. For a fraction of a second, you nearly dare to hope Bucky will give you an answer, even though you have no clue what it would be.
"They’re heading your way now," he says instead, "so get a move on."
And just like that, you’re back on track.
Quickly clearing your throat of the lump that has formed there, you say tonelessly, "I probably only have one reset left. Two, if we’re lucky and you two aren’t being stupid again."
It’s taken you a while to get used to it. To the constant lying.
You’ve worn fingerless gloves on missions before, so that’s not raised any questions from the others yet, and your rings stay hidden away. You’ve been more reluctant to take them off since the one you lost on your bathroom floor vanished into thin air.
The other thing you’ve picked up on while endlessly repeating this day is that Bucky is less likely to catch you in a lie if he can’t see your face.
So you’ve made an effort of spending as little time as possible with him.
It’s surprisingly easy to stay in your room for the majority of the day, because he doesn’t remember it ever being any other way. Even today’s little exchange will be lost to the loop soon enough, just like that little pause he made, just like the bullet through his heart.
Still, when you wake up with a start on Friday, July 4th, you look at the sky first. Its perfect blue doesn’t soothe the sinking feeling in your stomach at all.
You’ve been waiting for something to change for weeks, and now that it’s here, you don’t like it at all.
"What did you expect?" Strange says with an infuriating composure once you’ve nervously recounted your experience. "I told you, time isn’t supposed to get stuck in this way. Of course your reality was going to act up sooner or later."
"I really feel like you should be more concerned about this," you mutter, letting a ball of green energy pass from your left hand to the right. It’s about the size of a quarter now.
"Honestly," Strange answers, "I thought something like this would have happened a while ago." He taps his fingers together. "Again. Slower."
"So what am I supposed to do then, just ignore it?" The green ball pulses with your indignation, turns around itself once and then sinks into your palm again.
"In all likelihood, it’s a one time glitch. If everything is back to normal today, I wouldn’t worry about it."
Your thumb rubs across the empty space on your finger. "Easy for you to say if you’re not the one who’s stuck in an endless hellscape."
"Aren’t I?"
You both roll your eyes at each other, but then you bite the inside of your cheek again, unable to shake the feeling of a whole new shade of dread. "What if it’s not just a one time glitch?"
The corners of Strange’s cloak roll up on themselves, and he doesn’t meet your eye when he says, "We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it."
It’s still early when you return to the present, too early for Bucky to be back from wherever he’s always going, so you decide to venture out of your room again, stretching your tired limbs. You’re pretty sure at this point that waking up on the floor is never going to feel fun.
Sam is in the kitchen as always, reading something on his laptop. He’s still sitting down, which means that it’s even earlier than you expected. You miss these early parts of the day, the calm before the storm.
If today were only made up of these few hours, you suppose, it might not be half so bad.
You pull up a chair next to him and lean a cheek against your hand. "What’re you doing?"
"Research." Sam sighs, rubbing his temples. "Remember that ULTIMATUM group?"
"Never heard of them," you say with a small yawn. "Is that an acronym? What does it stand for?"
Sam gives you a glare and your mouth twitches slightly.
"Anyway," he continues, turning his laptop so you can see the article he’s reading. "They’ve been more active again lately. Acquired a couple thousand dollars’ worth of lab equipment through one of their contacts and then went underground again."
Of course, you know all this. You’ve been over it again and again, back when you were all still trading information like it could save Bucky’s life. Like there was a deeper meaning behind any of this damn loop other than the fact that you, and you alone, fucked up.
Useless.
You close the mental door on those thoughts and take a deep breath. You hate to admit it, but all of this sitting around with your thoughts bullshit you’ve been doing has actually helped you to clear your head somewhat—if only to make it through the parts of the day you can’t avoid.
"And now what?" you ask, pretending to just have reacquainted yourself with the topic.
"Now," Sam says, taking his laptop with him as he stands up and strolls over to the kitchen island, "I’m waiting for Torres to get back to me so we can decide our next steps once we’re all recovered." He gives you a meaningful look and you scowl.
Then, slowly, his words register in your brain, and you stare at his back as he stretches and then moves to make some coffee, wordlessly taking one of your mugs out of the cupboard as well as his own.
"You don’t seem too worried," you say hesitantly.
Sam shrugs. "Until we have a proper lead, there’s not much we can do. And I doubt they’ll be doing any actual damage any time soon. They’re a lot more covert than the Flag Smashers ever were."
"Right," you say, more to yourself than in response.
"Try that again, less convincing?"
"I don’t know," you mutter, slowly following him to lean against the fridge. "Just … what if Torres did find something? Should I be getting ready?"
Sam frowns. "Are you not telling me something again?"
You try to shake the thought, pulling your arms around you. "Forget it."
You don’t, though.
It keeps bugging you, because that day like any other day, he knocks on your door at 4:32 on the dot, and you go on that mission anyway. And even though this has been happening for weeks, you’re just starting to suspect that you are, in fact, still not getting the whole picture.
***
Catching a glimpse of Sam’s phone turns out to be more difficult than you first thought.
You’re still trying to get the timing exactly right a couple of days later, and you miscalculate enough to catch Bucky on his way upstairs.
"Hey," he says, his shoulders tense when he looks at you. There’s a restlessness to him that he’s not quick enough to hide; or maybe you’ve just grown more perceptive when it comes to him.
"Hi," you say, crossing your hands behind your back. "Where’ve you been?"
He shrugs. "For a walk."
You already know he won’t elaborate if you try poking, so you don’t. "Was it good?"
"Lotta people." He hesitates when you continue to not meet his eye, and then he says, "Do you want to talk about it?"
You swallow, ignoring the tingling sensation on your wrist. "Not particularly. Do you?"
Bucky’s jaw twitches. "Nah."
Somehow, you feel like that’s also a lie. Once again, you’re left wondering.
The silence between you stretches as you continue to not quite look at each other, until you finally clear your throat, nodding at the front door. "I’m getting coffee, do you want something?"
Honestly, it’s just an excuse as to why you need to leave before he notices something off again somehow, but Bucky tilts his head in amusement.
"Didn’t you just get some this morning?"
"So? I like coffee."
"Really. I never knew."
"Screw you."
You can hear him huff behind you, but thankfully the door falls shut before you can do anything stupid. Like turning around to face him, for example.
You miss his eyes.
Why won’t you look at me?
When the elevator doors open, you almost yelp into your delivery guy’s face. He stumbles a half-step backwards, somehow managing to keep a hold of the boxes precariously balanced on his arm while he’s reading something on his phone.
"Oh my god," he lets out, "I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I was just …"
"Early." You blink.
"Sorry?"
"Nothing," you say, frowning only a little. "Wait, let me get that."
You quickly sign for the delivery and open the door with your keycard, holding it open for him. You’re not exactly afraid of burglars these days, and besides; you know this guy by now.
"If you could just go straight ahead and to the right, that’s where the kitchen is."
"Sure thing," he shrugs. "Thanks—"
His mouth snaps shut and he blushes a little as if he wanted to say something else but thought better of it.
You’ve introduced him to Sam enough times you know he’s going to be fine, so you just smile and wave him in.
When you step out on the street, you instinctually look up at the sky. It’s outrageously blue, blatantly perfect for an endless Friday, and even when you squint, you can’t make out any irregularities.
It’s a tiny relief, but a relief nontheless.
Lucy is leaning against the wall just out of sight of the storefront, an unlit cigarette dangling between her lips as she rummages through her pockets. Her colorful makeup has begun to melt off in the sweltering heat, making the red-white-and-blue stars on her cheeks bleed into each other to look somewhat purplish.
"Are you off or on break?" you call over.
She lifts her head, the glare vanishing when she recognizes you. "Counting the seconds," she says. "Don’t you have anything better to do?"
You sidestep a couple of pedestrians hurrying to cross the street and join her. "Not really."
"I hate you." She finally fishes a lighter out of her back pocket, sighing contentedly as she takes her first drag. "I swear, this day just won’t pass."
Fine. Maybe your chuckle is a little shrill. "I’m sorry."
Lucy waves you off with a gesture crude enough to make a young dad with a stroller send the two of you a dirty look. "You without your shadow today?" she asks, inspecting her nails.
You blink. "My shadow."
"You know. Your friend who’s been in here eight thousand times and still gets confused when he orders." A cloud of smoke vanishes into thin air. "Kind of the lingering type, isn’t he?"
"He’s old," you say, because for some reason nothing else comes to mind.
"Not that old."
"No," you agree, "not that old."
For a moment, you’re afraid she’s going to ask you to pass her number along to him, and you’re already scrambling to find an answer somewhere in the depths of your brain, coming up empty. That’s the problem with being able to unhave entire conversations; you don’t usually really have to deal with reactions if you don’t want to.
Without your powers, though, you’re stuck, and it’s making you wish you hadn’t come here at all.
Instead of any of that, she pulls a flyer out of her other pocket. "Sorin and Cass are doing a gig in Brooklyn next week, do you wanna come with? They’re still terrible, but they got a new bassist who seems alright."
You take the flyer, staring at it. "I didn’t know they’re in a band," you admit.
The truth is, you’ve never paid that much close attention to the people you work with. Maybe that’s been a mistake.
Lucy shrugs. "You’re always doing your own thing." It stings, even though you’re pretty sure she doesn’t mean for it to. "It’d be fun if you came, though."
"I’ll think about it," you say, and your smile is a little unsure, but genuine.
So is hers.
"If you don’t want to hang with us all night, you can bring some friends, too." Her emphasis hangs in the air between you like a dare.
You snort. "I feel like this isn’t quite their scene."
"You feel like or you know?"
"Isn’t that the same thing?"
"No." She puts her cigarette out on the wall behind her. "Knowledge is based on experience. On memories. Your feelings don’t sit in your head. And so they don’t make sense and they’re not necessarily true." She winks.
"You’re weirdly smart," you say, shaking your head.
"I know. It’s a curse." Lucy sighs. "Anyway, think about it. I gotta get back to hell."
"You know," you say with a grin, "I could really do with a frappuccino right about now."
"You know what you could do?" she answers in her sweetest customer service voice, pointing you down the street. "Get in a trash can."
Damnit. You might actually grow to like Lucy.
She taps her fingers against her temple and then shuffles back inside, a hot rush of air blowing out of the AC as the door opens. You fold the flyer up to fit into your back pocket, hoping you’ll make it to that concert one day, and then you walk on, aimless again for the moment.
***
Time passes while it’s standing still.
The problem is, at least for the moment, that by all appearances you’ve reverted back to square one. Going through your day as though any of this is even remotely normal, counting the hours and minutes to reenter the astral plane and feel some semblance of control again.
It’s been nice, really, if you’re ignoring the constant underlying feeling of dread.
Which you’re getting better at.
You wake up with a start to the sun in your face and FRIDAY blasting The All-American Rejects at full volume.
Rinse and repeat.
You wake up with a start to the sun in your face and FRIDAY blasting The All-American Rejects at full volume.
Even on days when you’re sure you’re making progress with your powers, every reset makes it just a little harder to keep dragging yourself onwards.
You wake up with a start to the sun in your face and FRIDAY blasting The All-American Rejects at full volume.
"You look like shit."
Your head rolls to the side slowly, allowing yourself a glance while Bucky is still distracted with his arm. Concentration makes his brows knit, and something warm spreads in your chest.
"I’m so tired," you say, voice barely above a whisper.
He doesn’t look at you, but you’re grateful for it for once. Your eyes are stinging a little.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
Yes. Yes. Yes.
"Not particularly."
"Do you want to talk about something else?"
You almost smile. "Like what?"
Bucky shrugs with one shoulder. "Like the fact that you just planted Sam into the mat head-first and yet made a face like you killed a puppy?"
Sometimes you wonder how he still manages to slip in without you noticing, no matter how many times he does it.
"Did I?"
"Did you kill a puppy? I’d hope not."
Your body’s been getting stronger, anticipating Sam’s every move. At this point, it’s not so much training as it is an exercise in muscle memory; but how would he know that?
It still isn’t enough. It’s never enough.
You pitiful, selfish, useless bastard.
"You’re doing it again," Bucky says and you blink.
"Doing what?"
"I don’t know, but I don’t like it."
Something inside you twinges uncomfortably and you wrap your arms around your knees, pulling them into your chest. "That might just be me, period."
Bucky huffs. "Take the towel on the right," he says. "I already used the other one."
So you do.
And then you wake up with a start to the sun in your face and FRIDAY blasting The All-American Rejects at full volume, and then you wake up with a start to the sun in your face and FRIDAY blasting The All-American Rejects at full volume, and then you wake up with blah, blah, blah.
"I can’t do this anymore."
Strange watches you, but you don’t get up from where you’re lying, blankly staring at the ceiling, feeling like your chest is about to explode.
You don’t want to feel like something is tearing you apart every single time, even though you know it’s not permanent. There’s always the tiniest glimmer of hope that this will all be over soon.
Or maybe it’s dread.
"Maybe you can’t," Strange answers.
You blink, sitting upright. "What?"
"Maybe you are actually incapable of cleaning up your own mess. You’ve never had any training before, after all. Maybe you’re too weak."
Useless. Not good enough. Waste of time.
"If this is reverse psychology, it’s not working," you say through gritted teeth, pressing your eyes shut so tightly they don’t burn anymore.
Strange ignores you. "Maybe you’re going to be stuck in this loop forever. If that’s the case, there’s no point to keep trying either. Maybe we should just call it a day."
You can feel your breaths coming in shorter.
"Maybe you’re just going to keep failing to save anyone for the rest of your life."
"Stop it!"
An explosion of power goes through your body, bouncing off the walls and bathing the room in a ghostly green light. You cough and curl into yourself as you watch it billow, still echoing the words back at you, "too weak", "stuck in this loop forever". Your bones are heavy with exhaustion.
Strange crouches down next to you and a cup of fragrant tea draws itself up to the side of your face.
"You’re drawing the bulk of your power from pain. From a desire to fix things that you think you alone are responsible for when the truth is that each and every one of us is constantly creating reality."
"Fuck you," you mumble. When you sit up, your head is still swimming.
"You cannot keep this up."
"If I’m such a lost case, then why do you bother?"
"I’m trying to tell you that you’re not." He points at the walls, still covered by that greenish fog. "This is the strongest display of your powers I’ve seen from you yet, and it only happened because you were lashing out. Pain is not a sustainable source of energy. Imagine what you could do if you could be in control."
Do as I tell you.
"There’s no way to control my powers on a larger scale. It’s impossible."
"You keep telling me that, and yet you keep coming back. Why?"
You push yourself up to your elbows, wiping at your face. "Because I have to hope, right?"
"And there it is."
You take a sip of your tea and some feeling returns to your translucent fingers. Strange’s cloak draws itself around your shoulders.
The wizard himself stays quiet for another minute or two, before he asks, "Why do you think I’m talking to you right now? Helping you, even, nevermind your constant whining and your insistence that this won’t work, after you’ve spent your whole life running away from anything resembling actual responsibilities."
"I didn’t—"
"Answer the question."
"Because I created a time loop?" you guess.
"But you already know that this loop is just one point on the timeline. A single day, repeated endlessly, but going exactly like it was always supposed to, once resolved. So, without the time stone and my privileges as the Sorcerer Supreme, and with your protections still in place, how would I have found you?"
He knew exactly where and when to look for you. But he’s right, that shouldn’t even have been possible unless …
"I came to you," you realize. "Or, I will, once I get out of this." The relief that washes over you makes you want to sob. "So there is a way out?"
"Of course there is," he says, surprisingly gently. "Time isn’t supposed to get stuck."
You sit with that for a minute, hiding your face in your hands as Strange stays silent. Finally, you take a deep breath and look at him again with newly sharp focus.
"So why don’t you just tell me how to do it?"
He raises an eyebrow. "You know that’s not how it works."
"Yes. It is. It’s literally what I do all the time."
"What you do is leaving realities you don’t like by turning backwards."
"That’s not true."
"Just because your motivations aren’t entirely selfish doesn’t mean you’re right."
You’re so damn exhausted. The frustration of this whole thing is really starting to scratch at your sanity, and there’s an ache in your chest as you stare at your own sleeping face, biting the inside of your cheek, thinking.
Strange snaps his fingers to get your attention back.
"I’m not a mind reader," he says. "Out with it."
"I want to see him," you say, getting up. The cloak flaps around you in a very satisfying way. "Bucky. It’s early this morning, right? Just before the loop starts again. That means he’s upstairs."
"And what’s seeing him going to do?"
You ignore him and walk towards the door, reaching for the handle. Your hand goes right through it. You try it several more times, to no avail.
"Heaven help me," Strange mutters behind you.
Shutting your eyes, you take a deep breath. The circle of green tingles around your wrist.
Then, you walk through the closed door.
You fully expect to crash into the wood head first, but instead you feel the door moving through your noncorporeal form, and then you’re standing on the other side.
With a startled hum, you turn left, not waiting to see if you’re being followed.
You only hesitate in front of Bucky’s bedroom door. You’ve never actually been inside his room before; well, not since he’s moved in. It feels odd to consider entering without him actually being aware of it.
Then again, there’s quite a few things at this point that he’s unaware of.
Before you can make up your mind, the door swings open just a little, and you automatically take a step back. Alpine sleepily slinks through the gap and trots off in the direction you came from, probably to sit in the kitchen and mope until FRIDAY activates the food dispenser again. On the stairs, she passes Strange who raises an eyebrow at you.
"Changed your mind?"
You glance into the room.
At first, you can’t find him. The bedding looks untouched, and there’s a brief flurry of panic that makes you step inside before you can keep questioning yourself.
Bucky is lying on the floor next to the bed, his hands balled tightly into an old throw blanket. It’s haphazardly draped across his torso, like he’s been trying to wriggle free during the night. He grimaces in his sleep.
Try the floor.
You can’t help but wonder when he’s last tried the bed.
"Can he hear us?" you ask quietly, not needing to look over your shoulder as you sink to the floor next to Bucky.
"No," Strange says. "Not until you put in a lot more work."
"Would he remember if I did?"
"I don’t know."
You do look back at him, then. "You know, considering your position you don’t know a whole lot of things."
You concentrate on your own hand until you’re starting to feel cool metal underneath your fingertips, ignoring the throbbing of your head. Carefully, you touch the crease between his brows, smoothing it out tenderly.
Bucky sighs a little in his sleep, but doesn’t stir. Doesn’t stop quietly murmuring in his dreams.
"You feel better?" Strange asks.
"Not really." You’ve already reached out to him without it having any repercussions too many times. "But that wasn’t the point."
"What was?"
"Just …"
Comfort. He brings you comfort, even when he doesn’t know it. It’s the same reason you keep waiting for him to arrive in the gym in the mornings, even though you could probably hurry up and miss him.
Even if the loop never ends, it’s still good to see that it’s bringing him back like it’s supposed to.
How incredibly selfish, you think as you continue looking at Bucky and letting a quiet, hesitant wash of calm come over you.
And then, all of a sudden, his eyes open.
You flinch backwards, but even though you’re almost face to face, he seems to stare right through you, his breaths heavy.
"Did I do something?" you say quietly.
"No," Strange answers. "This is just when he wakes up."
You watch as Bucky drags a hand over his face and then gets up with a determined tick in his jaw, grabbing a notebook from the nightstand. He scribbles something down, hastily, like it’s threatening to get away from him if he doesn’t hurry. You don’t have to read it to know it has something to do with what he’s seen in his sleep.
When the words stop flowing, he sits on the edge of the bed for a minute longer, but the tension doesn’t leave his shoulders. Finally, he rolls his left arm a few times before pulling on a shirt and his running shoes.
He always goes for a run in the morning. You’ve made fun of him for it before, but you hadn’t put together that while Strange was trying to get you to clear your own head through sitting still, Bucky might be doing the exact opposite to get the same result.
The door clicks shut.
"Are we done with the spying, then?" Strange says.
"No need to get weird about it," you mumble and take his outstretched hand.
***
Something changes once you know that your situation actually has an end date, even though Strange either cannot or will not tell you how many more loops you’re going to have to go through until then. Even so, there’s a new assurance to your every step again, a determination grown from the knowledge that all this isn’t for nothing. That there is an out.
You can cling to that.
"What would you do if you were stuck in a time loop?" you ask, letting your legs dangle over the ledge of the roof.
"Ew, no," Lucy replies, shaking the few remaining ice cubes in her cup emphatically. "My shift was long enough as is, and I’ve been looking forward to my Sunday off all week."
"Fair point," you concede.
It’s early afternoon then, and you’ve found a quiet spot on the top of the Tower. If Lucy was at all confused why you’d shown up at the store right when she clocked out and asked her to hang out, she’s not showing it. Over the past couple of loops, you’ve learned that she really likes to go with the flow, and you appreciate that.
"If it’s not today, though," she continues, like she’s thinking aloud. "Imagine the books you could read. You could try out all that stuff that you say you want to do, and then you never have the time to actually do them."
It’s a good thought, but a lack of time has never really been an issue for you. "Nothing you do would really stick, though."
She squints against the sun. "You realize that’s a pro, right? No consequences whatsoever. I could cut my bangs again and they’d be gone the next day."
"You used to have bangs?"
"Never, and I’m willing to state that in a court of law."
You smile and lean back on your elbows. "If something good happened, that’d be gone, too, though. You don’t get to keep that, either."
"Yeah," Lucy says thoughtfully. "I’d still remember it though, right? It still happened. I could make it happen again."
"Maybe." Your thumb scratches the empty space on your pinkie. Even though you’ve turned your entire bathroom upside down, your ring is still gone, like it just up and disappeared from this reality. You can’t help but wonder if that rift in the sky from a few todays ago has anything to do with that.
"What about you?"
"Hm?"
Lucy takes another slurping sip from her almost empty cup. "What would you do in a time loop?"
You can’t help but laugh. "I’d try to keep making the good things happen, I guess."
"Sounds like a lot of work."
It is.
"Are you out of your damn mind?" someone shouts behind you. "It’s in the fricking nineties today and you’re baking?"
"Technically, we are baking," you say, nodding at Lucy and leaning back further so you can look at Sam upside down. "And we’re baking for you."
"Hi, cap," Lucy says, pulling her sunglasses off.
"Hey." Sam crosses his arms and fixes you with a very cap-like glare. "Why are you baking for me."
"Y/N said it’s for your birthday."
"My—" He cuts himself off, rubbing his temples. "My birthday’s in September."
"Whoops," you say, your grin just believable enough. "My bad, cap."
"You’re not funny," Sam says, "I hope you know that."
You know.
Of course, today isn’t actually his birthday, not even if time were allowed to pass normally. It is day forty-fucking-nine of the loop, though, which makes it your fiftieth time living through this crap and frankly, you all deserve some damn pie.
It’s not going to make a difference in the long run, of course, and yet you can’t help but feel like keeping count of those little markers of time helps to hold your head above water. Making the good things happen, even if they don’t change a thing and no one but you is going to remember.
So you simply say, "It’s turtle pie," because you know that it’s Sam’s favorite. "Hey, what’s the time?"
"Oh, it better be," he says, holding his phone up for you to read and then marching out of your field of vision.
Sadly, you’re just about a minute early.
"He could’ve stayed," Lucy says when you let out a frustrated huff.
"He has that thing at the Garden," you tell her distractedly, taking a mental note to stall Sam a little longer next time.
"There you are."
You flinch at the sound of Bucky’s voice, barely daring to move your head when he sits next to you, his back to the brink.
He never comes up here. That’s the whole point.
"Hi?" you say carefully, and a grin tugs at his mouth.
"Not you," he says, nodding to the ground in front of him.
You turn around fully to find Alpine taking a nap just a few feet behind you, her snowy tail wrapped around a flower pot.
You let out a relieved breath and ignore the small sting in your chest. Of course he’s not up here because of you. Why would he be?
"Gee, thanks," you murmur, quietly shifting around so your hands are hidden underneath your legs. "You sure know how to charm the ladies."
You glance back at Lucy, but she’s looking at her phone, her eyes once again indecipherable behind the large sunglasses.
Bucky raises an eyebrow. "Think you could handle my charm, Y/L/N?"
He might has well have doused you in a bucket of ice water. You’re suddenly very aware of every single cell in your body, and you don’t like the challenge sparkling in his eyes.
So you do what you always do and you block it out. Dismiss and distract.
"Does Alpine seem weird to you?"
He tilts his head, his jaw tight. "Weird how?"
"I don’t know," you say, staring at her. "She’s just been acting … odd, lately. Today, I mean."
And following you around in a way you’re pretty sure she’s never done before. Not before the loop, at least.
Bucky sighs. "Did you make her scratch you again? Because I’ve told you before that I’m not getting rid of her for enforcing her boundaries."
"First of all, I never make her scratch me, she does that well enough on her own."
"That’s victim blaming," Lucy says without looking up. Bucky snorts and you almost roll your eyes.
"Second of all, she’s up to something. I know it."
"Oh, yes," Bucky says dryly just as Alpine makes a small noise in her dreams, her nose twitching. "That’s the embodiment of evil right there."
"I don’t trust her," you mutter.
"And yet the cat’s the weird one."
"I hate you," you mumble, standing up. "I’m gonna go check on the pie."
"There’s pie?" Bucky says.
"Not for you!"
You turn at the door to see Lucy leaning in to show Bucky something on her phone; the frown has disappeared from his face, his shoulders relaxed. If he’d pull off his glove right now, it’d almost be like sitting in a park.
That’s good, you tell yourself as the door slams shut behind you with a bit too much gusto. Reminds you that there’s nothing special about you in particular, which is much needed, really.
Can’t wait to punch that one out of your system later.
Again and again and again and a—
"Whoa, whoa, you alright?"
You blink. Riff slumps to the ground in front of you, body limp.
Bucky stares at you in concern, his hand still on your shoulder. His lip has split open and there’s the usual bruise already forming on his cheekbone. You can’t help it. Your gaze is drawn down, your breathing shallow.
You screw your eyes shut to snap yourself out of it, but when you open them again, Bucky hasn’t moved an inch.
"Never better," you whisper, and for a split second, you almost believe it yourself.
Liar, liar, liar.
***
At least, you suppose, reality seems considerably less broken these days. No more cracks in the sky.
You get your wake-up call when you wake up with a start to the sun in your face and FRIDAY …
"… FRIDAY?" you say into the silence of your room, your heart pounding wildly. This cannot be happening. Not now.
Not yet.
He got shot again yesterday.
A pleasant jingling sound rings out. "Good morning, Ms. Y/L/N."
You look at the clock on the wall. Ten to eight, just like every morning. "What day is it?"
"Today is Friday, July 4th."
You can taste bile in your mouth despite your relief. There’s an impatient thrum to the symbols around your wrist, like a noose that’s tightening.
What did you expect?
"Rise and shine, McFly! Time to get your ass kicked!"
"Didn’t you set FRIDAY to wake me?" you ask Sam as you’re climbing the stairs, nerves on edge.
He looks at you weirdly. "I did. You’re up, aren’t you?"
You bite the inside of your cheek. "Didn’t sleep well."
That much, at least, is still true. Full nights of sleep are a long distant memory from before constant back-to-back repetitions. The only time your body shuts off is when you manage to sleep for a little bit in between your astral visits and the mission call.
"I hope you don’t think that’s an excuse," Sam says, bumping your shoulder, and you manage a tired grin.
"You wish."
Today, you let him win, even though your ankle makes an odd crack when you land on the mat. You’ll take care of it later.
"You look like shit."
Grief and relief, you’ve learned, both taste like salt and iron, but the latter is so much easier to swallow.
"That makes two of us," you say, sitting up slowly. "How was your run?"
"Good," Bucky says, putting the cloth away and stretching his fingers out. They catch a ray of sunlight. "What’s wrong with you?"
Not this again.
"Later, okay?" you answer, because that’s not a lie. "Let’s just … not, right now?"
"Alright," he says.
And, oh, you want to tell him again. Because he doesn’t press it. Because you miss having someone to share things with. Because you miss telling him the whole truth. Because you’re scared, and tired, and sick of losing him.
But those are egotistic thoughts, and so you keep them all to yourself and take the towel on the right.
There’s one good thing about this today. You make it to the living room just in time to finally catch a glimpse of Sam’s phone right when it pings with Torres’ message.
I can check it out on Monday if you’d like.
That’s it. No urgency, weirdly proper spelling, not even an exclamation mark.
In other words, you’re not sure what you expected but you’re no closer to answers than before.
"What does it matter?" Strange sighs when you tell him all of this with a frown.
"It matters," you reply, "because if we hadn’t gone on the mission, Bucky wouldn’t have died that first time and none of this would’ve happened."
"So what?" he says. "It’s already done."
"But if I could prevent it—"
"It already happened."
"I can make it not happen."
"You and what powers?" Strange says sharply. "Even if you did that, it wouldn’t stop the loop."
"How do you know that?"
"Because you’ve already seen first-hand that it’s bound to you and your powers, not to whatever you do or don’t do during the day. Karma is a fairy tale for those who don’t want to take responsibility for their actions."
"Do you really still think this is me not taking responsibility?" There’s a green flare that goes through you, hot and seething and making goosebumps crawl down your arms.
Strange smiles at the sight. "Let’s find out."
He extends his arms and slowly opens his fists until orange symbols dance across his shaky fingers. The band around your wrist prickles at the weight of his magic flooding the air.
Strange’s cloak nudges you towards the center of the room and your heart gives a heavy thud. "What, right now?"
"Would you prefer being stuck for a couple weeks more?"
"Of course not it’s just—I don’t feel ready."
"No one ever feels ready until they try."
And maybe it’s because it reminds you of something Steve once said, but it makes you step up, falling into the stance you’ve practiced over and over again. You breathe in deeply and close your eyes.
The pull comes easier now. Your powers have just been resting, nestled somewhere deep inside your bones like glowing embers, waiting for you to call upon them.
When you look at your open palm, the green wisps of your powers have curled up to the size of a ping-pong ball. You take another steadying breath and let it glide to the tips of your fingers, carefully letting it balance itself out for a second before moving your other hand.
"Good," you can hear Strange say quietly.
Slowly, carefully, you let the threads untangle until they’re just about to touch the green band circling around your wrist. You can feel the electric tingle of it, the soft beat of each passing second contained within, and you push past it.
You’ve done this before, so you’re not surprised when you feel the energy drain from your body almost immediately. Up until now, though, it’s just been trial and error, not expecting anything to happen. This time, you have Strange’s magic feeding some of his strength into you as well, and so instead of hesitating, you press on, your heartbeat speeding up.
The band around your wrist does the same.
"Don’t lose your focus." Strange’s voice sounds very far away, almost warped.
Very funny, you might have said, but you’re too busy watching it all unfold.
The whirring inside of your head grows louder as the circlet of time keeps rotating with accelerating speed, faster and faster until your eyes start tearing up and there’s something that looks almost like a crack.
You gasp quietly. At first, you think you might have just imagined it, but then the split starts growing, the symbols growing farther and farther apart as the band itself keeps spinning. Your pulse is beating in your ears. Your wrist feels like it’s being set on fire.
There are voices, then, quiet and fast, like you’re watching a sped up movie, music and noises and chatter and birdsong and a whooshing sound like something flipping right past you. Then, something like distant shots.
I’m getting Bucky out of this, you think as the green band continues rotating until suddenly, there is a shockwave of green light that takes up your entire field of vision.
You close your stinging eyes, keeping your feet firmly planted on the floor as your powers rush through you once more and then, with a shudder, settle down again, exhausted. The glare subsides. Something like a trickle of sweat runs down your noncorporeal neck.
"Did it work?" you ask, your voice rough, not daring to look for yourself. There’s no answer, though. "Doc?"
Slowly, your eyes readjust to the gloomy darkness of your room in the astral realm. The only source of light is the glowing green band continuing to circle around your wrist, the rifts stabilizing again like it’s clicking back into place.
You swear under your breath and turn around to ask what went wrong, but Strange is no longer standing beside you.
You’re all alone.
***
Three, two, one—
"Iced grande extra whip caramel macchia—shit!"
You catch the plastic cup before it drops onto the suit of the business man standing in line in front of you. "Here you go, sir."
He grabs his drink with a grunt and hurries back outside. One of these days, you might ask him why he’s in such a hurry, but it’s not today.
You’ve grown to adore the noise of the pre-noon rush. The cacophany of the whirring machines, the AC and the people is just loud enough to make your head calm down a little. Besides, being alone in a crowd has never been easier than when you know for a fact they are not going to remember you.
The drinks are starting to pile up at the hand-out, and because you feel bad for your colleagues, you start handing them out to people. You’ve been here a lot, after all.
"Tall hazelnut latte for Misty!"
Plus, it helps to keep your mind from wandering back to everything that’s going wrong.
Strange still hasn’t returned.
The astral dimension feels different when you return the day after your experiment, like someone’s been pulling invisible strings to make everything just slightly more disordered and dark.
It’s cold, too. You watch your body shiver in her sleep as you wrap your arms around yourself. The books are still there, shimmering slightly with the magic they contain.
"Doc?" you call out, and the vibrations of this place hum it back at you. There’s no answer.
The book at the top of the pile is still opened to a page, as if it’d just been left a moment ago, and you pick it up. The words glide around like they are looking to jump back into an inkpot, and you have to squint to make out any of them.
Incursion, the section header reads. Result of a contraction in a universe’s timeline. Can cause premature disintegration or collapse of any one reality within the multiverse.
"Just great," you say, slapping the book shut again. "I get it, alright? You can come out now."
But there’s no sound apart from your own heartbeat.
Your noncorporeal head is swimming with pressure as you pass through the closed door and into the hallway. The walls seem larger than usual, the stairs warping ever so slightly underneath your feet so that you can’t look at them for too long without feeling seasick.
Upstairs, the air doesn’t feel quite as heavy. The silence follows you, though, lingering in the grayish morning shadows like the remnants of a nightmare.
Bucky still mumbles in his.
You can’t make out what he is saying, and you wouldn’t have understood the words, anyway, but there’s sweat on his brow again. His fingers are tightly clutching the thin throw blanket like it’s shielding him from whatever he’s seeing in his dreams.
You take a step closer to him, desperate to do something, anything, when you notice movement out of the corner of your eye.
Alpine is perched on top of the bed, complacently tucked into herself on one of the fluffed up white pillows like it’s really her room, not Bucky’s.
And she’s staring right at you.
You take a step to the side, then another. Alpine tilts her head, her large eyes fixed on you. They follow your gestures as you wave your hand.
A quick glance tells you that Bucky is still sleeping. You take a deep breath and conjure up a small dot of bright green light, letting it dance across your fingertips. Alpine uncurls herself in interest, her tail twitching.
"You can see me," you whisper, and the little spec of your power disappears.
The cat meows in disappointment.
Carefully, you move closer to the bed, reaching out your translucent hand until you place it on Alpine’s head.
She rubs against your palm.
You chuckle incredulously, scratching behind her ears. "You little devil."
Alpine seems particularly pleased with herself. She starts purring.
This is simply bizarre, you think as you continue petting her soft fur. You’re expecting a sarcastic comment from behind your shoulder any minute now, but it doesn’t come.
So, you lower yourself down on the floor next to Bucky, the tips of your fingers not quite grazing his arm as you swallow heavily.
And then you wait until he gets up.
It’s possible, you think as you watch him leave and then make yourself wake up too, that Strange is simply messing with you for the hell of it. You don’t like the timing of this, though. Your day still continues on and on and on, like it always does, but it seems just a little too pointed that this would happen right after you had your first hopes of getting out of here in a long time.
It doesn’t help that the reality glitches have decided to return with a vengeance.
Every day is still July 4th. You wake up with a start, you train, you get coffee, you fight over lunch, you take your astral visit, you go on that damn mission. It’s the details that start to get … fuzzy.
In the beginning, every single thing around you was the exact same every single day. Now, though, there are sometimes details that are just wrong. A different mug left on the drying rack. A mess all over the tables in the lab. Weird noises all over the Tower.
You don’t know what to make of any of it, and so in general, you follow Strange’s rule of thumb and simply ignore the things that are wrong one day and then right the next—which, thankfully, is all of them. You just go with it, telling yourself that this is simply reality malfunctioning a little, like a machine that needs oiling.
Weirdly enough, that doesn’t reassure you in the slightest.
But what else can you do?
You lose a few hours here and there, time seemingly speeding up at random sometimes now. One morning, Bucky isn’t in the gym like he usually is, and you work yourself up over it so much you nearly have a panic attack. In the end, you almost crash into him outside of his room, and a rush of reassurance floods through you with such force you can’t even look at him.
That time, Sam is there when Bucky gets shot, and it’s his cry that follows you into the next day. Your hands are clean this time, and somehow that feels worse.
Everyone’s back to their usual stuff again, and that’s that.
Another time, you’ve barely rolled out of bed and into your bathroom—"Rise and shine, McFly!"—when you’re suddenly jolted forwards and you wake up with a start to the sun in your face and FRIDAY blasting The All-American Rejects at full volume. Your stomach feels like it’s still turning, nauseous, as if you’d sat up too fast.
That feeling still leaves a bad taste in your mouth, sticking to the back of your mind like the blood you haven’t even had time to wash off.
The thing that demands most of your attention, though, is the pile of books waiting for you in the astral realm. Since you don’t have any control over the loop itself, you pour all of your energy into trying to understand the theory behind your powers. It’s giving you a constant headache, and it takes a lot longer than you would like to admit, but at least you feel like you’re doing something that’ll last.
Nothing else will.
There’s one last lonely cup sat on the counter next to your own, which signals that the rush is over for now. You can see Lucy wiping her forehead as you wave your goodbye, picking up both drinks on your way out and handing one of them to the guy just hurrying back downstairs.
"Here you go," you say without stopping, glancing at your phone. You haven’t stayed this late before.
"What the—" you hear behind you, just before the doors glide open and you’re greeted by the sound of traffic and a hot breeze of air.
If you’re lucky, you can make it back to your room without anyone seeing you. You’ve moved on to a particularly hefty tome about relativity, and you’d like to—
"Hey! Miss? Hold on a second!"
You look over your shoulder to see the delivery guy has run after you, cup still in his hand. His bike is leaned against a lamp post nearby, his cap dangling off one of the handles.
You found out a couple of weeks ago that he takes his break just after dropping off your order, but you don’t usually make eye contact anymore.
Now, he holds out his cup accusingly. "That’s my drink."
You smile. "Good for you."
"No. No, that’s not—I mean—how did you know it was my drink?"
And because nothing really matters and you really want to go home, you say, "It has your name on it, doesn’t it?"
You expect him to look at you with wide eyes, just like people normally do when you know things you’re not supposed to. His mouth will drop open, speechless, his frown will deepen, and you can wink at him and continue on your way so he can spend the next couple of hours wondering what just happened.
The cup falls out of his hand, but somehow he manages to catch it before it hits the sidewalk. When he looks up at you again, and his expression is unlike anything you’ve seen coming.
"But that’s not …" he says quietly. "Do you remember me?"
And then it’s you who’s speechless, because the shock on Peter Parker’s face is more than you bargained for.
*****
"Honestly, I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this," you said quietly, looking over the rim of your glass at the crowd.
"You complaining?" you heard Sam’s voice say over the little earpiece you were wearing.
"Not at all."
Apparently, people connected to terrorist organizations threw incredibly fancy parties.
You hadn’t felt this glamorous in a while, if ever, dressed up to the nines in a dark green jumpsuit with an incredibly flattering cut that you’d never had a reason to wear before. Despite your initial doubts about this whole thing, you felt great, for the first time in way too long.
"Are you gonna move any time soon?"
Well. Mostly.
At least Barnes cleaned up nice, you supposed; it almost made up for his grouchy demeanor.
With a sigh, you downed the rest of your drink and got back to work. You let the crowd swallow you up, seemingly on your way to the restrooms, and then you stopped it all to slip upstairs unnoticed by prying eyes and cameras.
You didn’t hold it for very long; you had to rattle some doors, after all, and despite your espresso martini, it was still hard to tell if you could manage several redos back to back. After all, you’d only been back in the game for a couple of weeks.
It took you a few tries to find the right office, and locating the files was comparatively easy with what you already had access to. There it was, proof that ULTIMATUM had managed to secure most of the Flag Smashers’ previous supporters as well as some high brow weapon dealers.
While you copied everything onto a flashdrive, your eyes caught one of the designs. You frowned.
Even though you couldn’t pinpoint what it was, exactly, something about it seemed just slightly too highbrow for an organization of the international bad egg committee that was supposedly still mostly underground. Your gaze started drifting through the rest of the office, noting the usual boring books and glass awards in the bookshelves on the far wall. You pulled open one of the desk drawers.
"You almost done in here?"
"Fuck!" You slammed the drawer shut again, getting your pinkie stuck in the process. "Damnit, where did you come from?"
Bucky pointed over his shoulder.
"Fuck me," you murmured, your eyes stinging at the pain.
Bucky looked nonplussed. "Can’t you just undo it?"
"Great input, thank you." The flashdrive beeped softly and you shut everything down again. At least you were definitely sober now. "What are you, anyway, my babysitter?"
"Wouldn’t have to be if you could check in on time," he answered, checking the corridors, then nodding for you to follow.
"Time’s a social construct," you murmured, but followed him, the flashdrive hidden in your fist.
You didn’t even make it to the staircase.
"Didn’t I tell you?" a voice said right before several triggers clicked and you both froze. "I knew I’d recognized that arm. And who do you have with you here, Winter Soldier?"
No one, you thought, and then you yanked time backwards so forcefully you stumbled into the desk, your heart still racing. The copy sat at 57%.
You felt almost seasick with the rewind, but there wasn’t any time. "Keep going upstairs," you said into your earpiece.
"What?" Bucky said.
"I’m fine. Don’t come get me. Just keep going," you gritted through your teeth, trying to calm your breaths. 70%.
"Exit plan C, then," Sam said.
Bucky didn’t answer. You looked at your hands. There was a slight tremor to them, but nothing too bad. If you could get the nausea under control, you could probably make it past the cameras one more time.
You should’ve eaten more.
As soon as the flashdrive was done, you ripped it out and forced everything to a halt again. Your palms were sweaty as you hurried out of the office and in the direction of the staircase, your lungs burning. This didn’t feel like a good sign.
You stumbled over your damn heels and the noise returned for that moment you lost your concentration.
Not good enough.
Sweat pearled on your forehead as you and the universe held your breath again. You could feel your hold slipping with every second that wasn’t allowed to pass. Time was impatient with you.
A small crowd had assembled at the bottom of the stairs. As you closed in on them, you felt a jolt go through you and suddenly found yourself surrounded by people as time attempted to right itself again. Your nails dug into the skin of your palm so hard you could feel yourself draw blood.
It went quiet again and you moved through them, almost blindly. Everything seemed to be spinning.
Behind your shoulder, you could hear several people talking, interrupted only by the world stopping around them every now and then.
"—d’you—see that—"
"—could’ve—sworn there—”
And with time stumbling and flailing around in confusion, you made it out of the building and into the waiting cab.
chapter seven
thank you for reading!! you can follow my library blog @intrepidacious-fics for update notifications 💚
#bucky barnes x reader#bucky barnes fic#bucky barnes x you#bucky x reader#bucky barnes fanfiction#bucky barnes series#marvel fanfic#mcu fanfic#time after time
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