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atinylittlepain · 6 months

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Chapter One

90s!steve harrington x f!oc

series masterlist

series playlist

He got out, hopped one state over, and planned on continuing an anonymous existence of cold beds and numbers scribbled on forearms. One small problem in that plan, or maybe one big problem.

warnings | 18+ smut, angst, columbus OH deserves a TW in and of itself (i love it so)

a/n | I am so excited to be sharing the first chapter of this series. A very special thanks must be given to @pr0ximamidnight who lets me scream about these characters all the time, and who also made the absolutely amazing artwork for this fic! As always, I'd love to hear what you think of this one, drop me a line :)

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“You coming tonight?”

“Who’s playing?”

“Up and coming, you haven’t heard of them.”

“Oh, so they’re shit then?”

“Don’t be a snob, Steven. Even your beloved Elliott Smith started out as a nobody. Hell, he still is a nobody.”

“You told Art that I’d cover the front tonight, didn’t you?” The silence is enough of an answer. Steve sighs.

“Eddie.”

“Come on, Steve. Money is money, I don’t see why you’re complaining when I was gracious enough to get you a little more of it.” His so very gracious roommate is already halfway out the door, a grin and shrug that tells Steve there will be no squirming out of this. Great.

It’s not that he doesn’t enjoy a trip to the Newport Club, especially not when it’s free and all he has to do is check tickets and let girls feel him up a little on the way into the music hall. But it’s Wednesday, and he has work tomorrow, and he’s feeling a little more pitiful than usual since their AC unit busted out and has yet to be fixed. Their landlord told them he would be getting to it about two weeks ago, and Steve is starting to wilt around the edges in the close grip of the heat and humidity. So no, he’s not really feeling a gig at the moment. But yes, money is money, and he doesn’t have much time to whine to himself about it when he’s already running late to his shift at Katzinger’s.

Columbus has been good to him, something he is reminded of every morning when he bikes across town to get to the deli. Urban enough to be anonymous, but still cheap enough for him to pay rent with the patchwork jobs he does. And not Hawkins, so it’s already miles ahead just because of that.

“I got lox no schmear for Tiffany. There you go, sweetheart, have a nice day.” Tiffany left her phone number at the bottom of her receipt for him, a little heart too. Yet another way Columbus has treated him well, the bevy of OSU students that seem to like what Steve has going on. Eddie calls it his “soft-prozac look,” whatever the hell that means. Certainly different from his polo shirts and varsity jacket days, but a whole lot else has changed since then.

Things are easy, simple, and he likes it that way. Making sandwiches and smiling at coeds until three, a new Tiffany every week, no strings, no stress. And the music scene at the fringes of campus. While his roommate prefers a sound with a little more edge, Steve prefers the softer, sadder stuff, and there’s plenty of it getting passed around on burned CDs and in the dim, dank bars downtown. That’s how he first started picking up gigs at the Newport Club. Art took one look at him, the remnant strength from the days of the king, and stuck him out front with a scowl and a folded wad of cash. Not to mention the perk that once the crowd is packed in, he gets to lean in the doorway and turn his good ear to the music.

…

She’s running late. Actually, she was running late twenty minutes ago. Now it’s just laughable. And somewhere in the slow slump of afternoon into evening, it has started raining. So there’s that, the hem of her skirt sticking and sweating around her ankles, skin turned tacky in the humid air. But she’s a little too focused on digging her ticket out of the bottom of her bag as she does a sort of jump-walk toward the club.

Who was it again? A friend of a friend’s boyfriend who had an extra ticket to this new band’s gig. She can’t even remember the name. Probably something precious and pretentious like toaster aneurysm.

Shit, not good, not even the remnants of a crowd still waiting outside the venue, just some guy with his arms folded over his chest, leaning in the doorway with one doc marten crossed over the other. His eyebrow cocks, a crack of his gum rolled with his jaw when she approaches. She can hear the dull thrum of a bass coming from inside, already started.

“Hi, I’m here for the show, here’s my–”

“The show started fifteen minutes ago, sweetheart.” It’s a little stunning, not snappy, but entirely bored in the way he says it, sighing and slumping back against the wall, a flick of his chin to toss his thick flop of hair out of his eyes.

“Okay, so? Just take my ticket and let me in.” Not in the mood, not that she ever is, for this bullshit tough guy act. Said tough guy squints at her, tongue poking in his cheek like really, this is a grave inconvenience to him, when he could have already taken her ticket and let her in and gotten back to his brooding hunch.

“What’s your name?”

“I don’t see how that’s relevant.”

“I’m Steve.”

“Good for you, Steve.” Great, he thought that was funny, a huff of a laugh and half a smile, perfect teeth and frustratingly perfect dimple. She was going for bitchy, actually. When he finally uncrosses his arms from over his chest, hooking his knuckles into the pockets of his pants, she gets a better look at his t-shirt. He must have shrunk it in the wash, or maybe it’s intentional, the way it fits so snug that the muscles in his arms bulge over the sleeves, the I heart metal logo stretched to burst across his chest. Elliott Smith fan, so at least he’s got that going for him.

“Are you really not gonna let me in?”

“Are you really not gonna tell me your name?”

“It’s Ruth, okay?

“That’s an old-fashioned name.”

“So is Steve.” By now, the band has already gotten through two more songs since she got here, and she’s starting to think she’s going to have to resign herself to listening to scraps through the propped open door. For his part, Steve seems perfectly content with the situation, his chin tilted toward the sound as he pulls a menthol out of his back pocket and lights it up. For her part, Ruth is just annoyed enough to reach out and swipe the cigarette from his fingers before it makes it to his mouth, taking a smug inhale as he lets out a petulant whine of hey.

“If you’re gonna keep me out here, the least you can do is offer some refreshments.” To be fair, the more she hears of the music dripping out from the club, the less interested she is in joining the crowd, some kind of post-punk shoegaze dirge-fest from the sound of it. And no, it definitely doesn’t have anything to do with the long line of his throat when he lets smoke seep out in a hiss, head tilted back to keep his exhale from washing over her face. No, nothing to do with that, and nothing to do with the way the tendons in his forearms jump, all spilled shadow when he offers her back the cigarette. No, definitely nothing to do with that either.

“Are you a student?”

“No, are you?”

“No, so what do you do then?”

“I work at the library.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Hmm. What about you?”

“I work at Katz, you know? Over in german village?”

“Yeah, everyone knows Katz. I like Brown Bag better though, they’ve got that tofu cream cheese.”

“Who the hell likes tofu cream cheese? Are you vegan or something?” Rapid fire, somewhere in the volley she has mirrored his posture, her shoulder brushing against his as she rests back against the wall, fingers flickering back and forth, trying to sip down the last few drags of their shared cigarette.

“No, I just like the taste better. Regular cream cheese gives me the heebies.” He hums, the dip and bob of his throat catching the warm shock of the streetlights. She lets herself watch him for a beat, the quick flit of her eyes away from his when he looks right back at her. Back and forth like that, she collects up every freckle she can find, the two on the side of his neck, on his cheek. Pretty boy at rest. The music is mere afterthought.

…

He’s glad he decided to be difficult tonight. The truth is, he really isn’t supposed to let people in after the set starts, something about code violations and fire hazards. But usually, he’ll nod along a few stragglers hurrying into the club, no big deal. Chalk it up to the heat, to no AC, to whatever, Steve was not feeling so generous tonight, and he’s never been so grateful for his snappy streak as he is right now.

“What size shoe did you say you are?” He’s not entirely sure how things unraveled to this. Him, with his shoeless, socked foot hovering just above the sidewalk, and her, holding her sneaker in one hand, with his doc marten on her foot, giving a few experimental shuffles in it, the hem of her skirt swirling around her shins with it.

“Men’s twelve, probably too big for you, honey.” Her nose scrunches, mouth screwing to the side like she can’t possibly stand being called that. He tucks that away in his mind through the constant din of the concert going on inside.

“Hmm, I think I could make it work if I doubled up my socks.”

“You gonna steal my shoes, is that your angle?”

“Well, I do need a refund for my ticket since someone wouldn’t let me in.” He scoffs, dipping his chin to hide behind his hair, just a little, buying time to think of something clever to say back to her.

“Judging by that noise, I think I did you a favor actually.” Ruth grins, and as if on cue, a particularly discordant warble of guitar whines through the door, both of them wincing at it.

“Maybe you’re right. How much longer you think they got?” She wobbles to the side as she toes out of his boot, and Steve moves before he can think, one hand to her waist, one cupping her elbow. Up close like this, he can see the way her eyeliner has smudged at the edges, a stray speck of it on the arc of her cheek. But it’s catch and release, a laugh light in her chest as she pulls away to put her own shoe back on.

“I’d say they’re wrapping up. We could, you know, get out of here if you wanted to.” Fun, right? That’s what this is. The flirt and flair of it, a game they both seem to be intent on.

“Where are we going, Steve?” She tilts her head, sing-songing his name.

Steve is good at this, the logistics of it all. Hers or his. His, they decide, because hers is further away. And mercy, Eddie has been shacking up with the produce stocker from the natural grocery store over in Bexley, so they don’t have to worry about being quiet when they stumble through the door to his apartment.

Graceless, groaning into her mouth when his hip hits the corner of the kitchen counter, and then a different noise entirely skittering up the back of his throat when Ruth’s palm finds the hurt and rubs it out with quick heat up under the hem of his t-shirt.

Here’s the thing, most of the time, he prefers to keep his shirt on. It’s not that anyone has been rude or repulsed by the scars that splay over his skin. Something much worse. A pitying thing, a pitiful thing. The drop of their brow and a pulled frown and oh my gosh, what happened to you? Yeah, he’d prefer to keep his shirt on most of the time. But right now, he wants a little more. A little more sense, a little more touch, a little more of her palms on bare skin. So it’s more feel than thought when he tugs his shirt off over his head, shivering down with it when she noses down his neck to drop her lips to the top of his shoulder. Bruise-colored kisses, he doesn’t resist the urge to thumb away the smear of her dark lipstick in the corner of her mouth. She chases after his touch, a kiss to the pad of his thumb before her grin turns sharp with the nick of her teeth.

…

Pretty boy is pretty all over. Freckles all over, she maps them with her mouth, a slow sneak down his stomach to the waist band of his briefs. And he’s got a bedframe too, bonus. Yeah, pretty all over, flushed-pink tip when she slides his briefs down his thighs, just enough for the thick weight of him to smear pearling pleasure over the coarse hair trailing down his clenched stomach. She’s no better though, thighs clenching together in useless friction where she’s kneeling between his legs, cotton underwear that used to say Wednesday on the front and a bra that’s just as old. She really hadn’t been expecting something like this, though Steve doesn’t seem to mind, lips parted in a ghost of a swollen smile, eyes hazy with want.

“Can I?”

“You can do whatever you want, honey, fuck.” She has to temper her grin when she takes him into her mouth, pleasant pain and pressure in the hinge of her jaw because Steve certainly has something to brag about. Impossible to take all of him, she settles for laving her tongue over the vein running the underside of his cock, spit-slick palm curling around the rest. Pretty boy pretty all over making pretty sounds too. Huffs of breath that turn into groans when she swallows around him, muscle jumping under her palm that’s pressed over his stomach, her nails grazing in an implicit command. Take what you are given, pretty boy. And he does, perfectly, preening under her touch, little pants of fuck, s’good, really good that shiver straight down her spine and into her pelvis. She only realizes that her hand that isn’t working the base of him has dipped down into her panties when Steve lets out a ragged shit, that’s hot, lashes dropped down to his cheeks with the way he’s staring at her. And then it’s all quiet c’mere, c’mere, honey, insistent hand at her jaw coaxing her up, clashing teeth when they both misjudge the first kiss, and then a sigh when they get the second one right.

“You have condoms, right?”

“Yeah, I got it, just let me–” She doesn’t exactly make it easy, mouthing at his neck as he leans over to rifle through his nightstand, jostling her in his lap with a frustrated huff that she doesn’t like the sound of.

“Fuck.”

“Are you, like, out?” He settles back against his headboard with a sigh, an answer in and of itself.

“I bet my roommate has some though. Gimme a sec, I’ll be right back.” Quite the show, his bare ass shuffling out of his room. She lays back on the mattress, maybe wishful thinking in taking off the rest of her clothes, though Steve is quick to return with a grin and a foil packet pinched between two fingers.

“You sitting pretty like that for me, honey?” A little wolfish, animal and annoying in how smug he smiles as he climbs onto the end of the bed, catching her knee before she can close her legs, palm smoothing down the inside of her thigh.

“Don’t look so pleased with yourself, Steven.”

“Steven, huh?” He tilts his head, almost absent-minded, his eyes hooded and heavy, dropped to the crux of her hips. She can’t help her quiet gasp when he drags his thumb through her swollen cunt, pad of his finger notching at her entrance, teasing, testing, before smearing back up to her clit in a lazy arc.

“Fuck, that’s pretty. Are you ready for me?” Cocky, but also clear care. She leans up on an elbow, puling him down by his nape before her stupid heart can kick up too much at the sentiment. His hair tickles against her sternum, forehead pressed there so he can look down at his fumbling with the condom wrapper, clearly distracted, maybe by the way she’s trailing her foot up and down the back of his leg, dark nail polish against tan skin.

It’s a stretch, of course. Perfect ache in her hips, all she can manage is an uh-huh high in her throat when he asks her if she’s alright. And then deeper, taking more of him, all of him until it’s Steve letting out the pathetic sounds, something like a whimper that she laps up, tongue flickering behind his teeth.

The rest is a slow, spiraling, slump. It’s obscenely warm in his room, humid too, so pretty soon sweat starts to pearl and pool. In clavicles, in dips and bend of muscle, skin sticking to skin with salt and sighs, almost smothering with how Steve drapes over her. He moves good, smooth and strong like he knows what he’s doing, though it eventually devolves into a deep grind more than anything else, both of them chasing down pleasure. He smells like that clove gum he was chewing, the menthol too, and like he spent the day out sweltering in the midsummer heat. She can’t help but dip her nose down into the center of his sternum, breathing him in as her nails dig and slip against his shoulder blades. Though soon he’s coaxing her, lemme see, honey, there you are, pretty eyes.

Embarrassing really, that’s what snaps and snarls her into and over the edge. His eyes, blown out black, steady and certain on her. She comes so hard that she starts to shiver in the heat.

…

“Mmf.” It isn’t enough to rouse him, still slumped on his stomach with his face pressed into his pillow. But it does feel good, light scratches across his shoulder blades, then trailing up the nape of his neck and into his hair. He sighs, content in his tangle of sheets.

“I know you’re awake.” He can’t help it, smile spreading, one eye squinting open to find Ruth looking right at him, kneeling alongside the bed.

“Why’re you dressed?”

“I need to go home before my shift. I smell like a swamp.”

“Sorry, AC is busted.”

“Yeah, I guessed as much.” He squints sitting up, washed down in the early morning light, already missing the feel of her hand tangled in his hair.

“Can I get your number?” For once, he’d like to do this again. Ruth smiles, settling into her hip as she looks down at him.

“You got a pen?” He does, tucked into a notebook that he keeps in the bottom drawer of his nightstand, not even worried about how uncool he looks fumbling for it and a scrap of paper to give to her. Purple nail polish, he notes, so dark the color is only a suggestion. He watches the flicker of it as she passes back the pen and paper to him.

“Thanks for a nice night, pretty boy.” Still sleep-shaken, but with it enough for her words to send a flush of heat up his neck.

“Yeah, Ruth, I had a good time too. So I’ll call you?” Already halfway out his bedroom door, she still smiles over her shoulder.

“Uh-huh, you do that.”

It’s early enough that he can linger in the scent of her in his sheets, pressing his face hard into the mattress before finally willing himself to get up. By the time he shuffles out into the living room with one and a half boots on, Eddie is back and crunching through a burnt piece of toast in front of the microwave.

“Hey, who was that spooky-looking chick that slinked– slunk? Whatever, left earlier this morning?”

“Her name is Ruth.” All that he offers up, pointedly focusing on pouring himself a cup of coffee. Eddie scoffs, crumbs scattering.

“Okay, and? Flavor of the week, or what?”

“Mmm.”

“No, you’re telling me Morticia is gonna turn an honest man out of you?” Steve’s turn to scoff this time, choosing to take a long pull of coffee rather than indulging Eddie with a real answer.

“You get her number?”

“Yeah.”

“You gonna call her?”

“Jesus, Ed, yes, lay off.”

“Oh, now I know you really like this one. You’re only bitchy about the ones you really like.”

“Fuck off. How’s Herb, or whatever his name is.”

“Don’t be so gauche, Steven, and for the record, his name is Leif.”

“Right.”

“Anyways, Harrington Doctrine, yeah?”

“Yeah, man, exactly.”

Now normally, according to the Harrington Doctrine, Steve should wait a full forty-eight hours, minimum, before even thinking about calling her. He does not follow the Harrington Doctrine. In fact, he barely makes it through the rest of the day without picking up a phone. When he gets home from his shift at the deli, however, he paces himself. Takes a shower first, checks the answering machine, willing away a little more time, anything to temper his apparent want. But when he does finally dial up the number on the scrap of paper he kept tucked in his notebook, he is sorely disappointed by the answer he gets on the other end.

“Brown Bag deli, how may I help you?” First, shock, reasoning to himself that he must have punched it in wrong. He tries again, careful in each button pressed.

“Brown Bag deli, how may I help–” He slams the phone back into its receiver this time, just as Eddie walks through the front door, home from his shift at the tattoo shop where he apprentices.

“Damn, tell that phone how you really feel.”

“She gave me a fake number.”

“What? Who?”

“Mort– Ruth. I can’t believe this, she seriously gave me a fake number.” With all the tact that he usually has, Eddie plucks the scrap of paper from Steve’s hand, a grumbled lemme see as he dials the number. At first, a lift off of hope in his chest when Eddie stays on the line, brow furrowed.

“Hi, yeah, do you guys still do that portobello melt thing? Can I get that without tomatoes? Yeah, to– hey.” Steve only half pays attention to Eddie’s protest when he takes the phone and clicks it back in the receiver, something heavy settling sick in his stomach.

“She really gave me a fake number. What the fuck?”

“Sorry, man, I guess no Addam’s Family Values for you.”

…

He doesn’t usually get like this. Lord knows, Steve has taken his fair share of rejection. So why this one is stinging harder, lingering longer, especially when he barely knew the girl, is beyond him.

Maybe the boldness of her rejection. A brazen, brash no. The humiliation of unassuming hope, small flames are so quick to be smothered. Or maybe the way he feels like a fool, plain and simple, for thinking there was something more happening when there so apparently wasn’t. Fun, he tells himself. She had been in it for fun. And she got her fun, and got out. And is that not one of his favorite moves in the book? Plenty of fun of his own, after all.

But what is maybe the worst part, he can’t stop thinking about it, about her. Nearly filled up the rest of his notebook with what he can remember, nearly a whole month’s worth of remembering now. Piecemeal, by this point, the line of her nose, the curve of her brow, half a smile. What he can always recall clearly, the patterned print of flowers that was on her skirt. He scribbles it everywhere, in the margins of old receipts, in sharpie on parchment paper, slow days at the deli getting passed somewhere hazy in his mind.

He has a headache by the time he gets back to his apartment most afternoons, opting for a few advil and closed blinds over any of the phone numbers that continue to get tucked into his hands.

“How much longer are you gonna do this?”

“Mmm.”

“Steve.”

“What?” He doesn’t have to look to know exactly how Eddie is standing right now. In the doorway to his bedroom with his arms crossed and his hip cocked to the side, his version of concern.

“It’s been a fucking month, man. Greener pastures, fish in the sea, et cetera et cetera. You haven’t even gone to any shows since the double-M, for Christ’s sake.”

“Double-M?”

“Morticia meltdown.” Steve sighs, more interested in another swatch of flowers that he’s filling a blank page in his notebook with. Mercy, before Eddie can continue to needle him, the phone rings. He only catches scraps of what is said, but his ears prick when he hears Eddie let out a quiet oh.

“Steven, my liege, my lad, it’s for you!” Great, probably Art calling to find out where the hell he’s been. Still, he gets up, only paying an ounce of attention to Eddie’s shit-eating grin when he takes the phone from him.

“Hello?”

“Hi, is this Steve?” Still only half-way paying attention, snapping his fingers in Eddie’s direction when he starts rifling through a box of cereal that Steve bought, looking for the dinky plastic toy inside, no doubt.

“Uh, yeah, who is this?” He snaps his fingers again when Eddie keeps digging through the cereal box, mouthing the words stop it when his roommate still persists in his hunt. Steve’s going to have to buy new cereal.

“It’s— it’s Ruth? Um, from the Newport, remember?” It’s a strange feeling, first his stomach sinking, a tight fist in his throat too, and most embarrassingly of all, that flip in his chest, that kick of hope, even now, stupid.

“Oh, oh, yeah, I remember. How did– how’d you get this number?”

“I asked Art for it, figured he’d have your info. Listen, Steve, I need to apologize for what I did. That was just– fucking childish of me, and I hope you know that it had way more to do with my own fucked-upness than it did with anything about you.”

“Yeah, it’s okay, you know, but it was pretty fucked up.” Stupid, how that hope floats to the top of his throat, because maybe apology means trying again. Maybe he’d like to try again.

“There’s something else I have to tell you.”

“Okay?” She sighs, a crackled sound over the line that makes his brow pinch.

“Look, there’s no nice way to say this, so I’m just gonna spit it out.” At this point, Eddie has crept closer, hand still buried in the cereal box, eyes wide and rapt at what is probably a stricken expression on Steve’s face.

“I’m pregnant, Steve.” What does hope turn into? A dizzying feeling, dumb and dull and done. His ears ring with it.

“I– you’re– you– what?”

“I’m pregnant. And before you do that guy thing of asking if it’s yours, I’m pretty damn sure that it is.” Somewhere in the slow unraveling of this, he has pressed one palm to the wall, whole body slumping toward it, head dropped between his shoulder blades to try to make as much of everything else quiet so he can focus on this.

“Okay, um, okay. Do you wanna– you know– because it’s your body and if you wanna— you should–”

“I’ve decided I’m keeping it.” The way his heart seizes, stops for a beat, and then trips back over itself into rhythm scares him, palm finding his chest like he could rub that feeling out and away.

“Right, that’s– yeah. Do you, like, need help, or–”

“No, I don’t need your help. I just– it seemed like the right thing to do to tell you, so that’s what I’m doing. But, yeah, I don’t, like, expect anything from you.” Steve scrunches his eyes shut, hard, trying to tamp down the heat starting to rise behind them, a foreign feeling, a falling feeling.

“Yeah, okay, thank you for telling me, Ruth.” Because what else could he say? It’s like he hears the words coming out of his mouth from somewhere just over his shoulder. And there’s more that he’d like to say, the right things to say, but Ruth is already beating him to it.

“So, yeah, I guess that’s all. Take care of yourself, Steve.” Already hanging up, and that sounds permanent. That sounds like no intention of ever seeing him again. The phone hangs by its chord, swinging limp a few inches above the ground.

“Steve, what the fuck was that?” One long exhale for him, shitshitshitshit. Eddie sets down the cereal box and takes him by the shoulders, squared off and trying to catch his vacant, glazed stare.

“I– we– she–”

“Did you use protection?” He blinks, nods, relieved that Eddie has already gotten explanation enough from eavesdropping on the call.

“Yeah, fuck, yes. I took a condom from your stash, it was a brand new box.” Something strange passes over Eddie’s expression, blanching and jaw slackening.

“Steve, which box of condoms did you open?”

“What do you mean which box? The one in your closet, on the top shelf.” Eddie’s hands drop from his shoulders, brows shot straight up his forehead.

“Oh jesus christ.”

“Jesus christ? What– Ed, what the fuck does that mean?” Steve gets no reply, Eddie already scuttling into his room, followed by the distant sound of rummaging, and then a low curse.

“So here’s the thing, Stevie, these condoms–” Eddie comes back out of his room brandishing said box of condoms, the box that Steve had opened that night with Ruth. He has a smile that slants sheepish on his face, and Steve is already starting to feel sick.

“Yeah, these condoms are from eighty-nine.”

“As in– as in nineteen-eighty-nine?”

“That would be correct, yes.” Eddie has already taken a few tentative steps backward, putting the kitchen counter between him and Steve. But Steve is too struck dumb to even consider anything like vengeance on his roommate, dragging both his hands through his hair and tugging hard until it hurts.

“Who– why– what the fuck are you doing with five-year-old condoms?”

“Ha, well, you see, I figured after a decade or two maybe they’d be worth something, you know? Like a collector’s item.” Wordless, Steve shuffles over to Eddie and takes the box of condoms from his hands, something like a laugh that sounds so sharp Eddie winces at the sound.

“Ed, a signed poster is a collector’s item. This is a box of condoms– this is– this is junk.”

“Well it’s junk now, Steven, since someone opened it.”

“Oh no, uh-uh, you don’t get to be pissy about this, not when there’s literally a girl who’s pregnant because you’re such a fucking hoarder.”

“Uh, excuse me, I’m not the one who didn’t check the expiration date when they went fumbling around for a condom.”

“I didn’t think I needed to worry about five-year-old condoms, fuck!” The volume of his voice surprises even him, silence falling heavy and hard in the echo of it. Steve rests his hands on the counter, letting his shoulders shrug up to his ears, slumping down into his bones. Eddie rests a cautious hand on his arm.

“What’re you gonna do?”

“I don’t know, Ed. I really don’t know.”

#steve harrington fluff #steve harrington stranger things #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington smut #steve harrington #steve harrington fic #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington fandom #steve harrington angst #steve harrington au

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vivelarevolution13 · 1 month

Text

moving like a river of trouble crossing

Rating: M | Word count: 10,260 | Tags: Set in the lead up to and right at the end of CATWS, Character Study, PTSD, Grief/Mourning, Dissociation, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug (And A Friend), Wait No Not That One, Going Down Memory Lane, SHIELD Has Shitty Therapists, Horrible People Still Acting Like People, Captain America Politics, Natasha's Love Language Is Surveillance, Folks Trained For Violence Engaging In You Guessed It: Violence | Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanoff, implied Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers/Brock Rumlow (non-explicit, but still reasonably fucked up by virtue of Rumlow being Rumlow)

(belated) fic for @catws-anniversary, day 2. Thank you so much for putting it together, guys! | march 27th theme: steve rogers | prompts: guilt, "it kind of feels personal" | part of a WIP to be published on AO3

and because I apparently can't help myself with the music-fic thing, playlist for this here

Good morning Captain Rogers. It is 05:15 AM, EST. Up 'n' at 'em. Good morning, Captain Rogers. It is 04:41 AM, EST. Would you like me to set the blinds to a lower density? Don't you nuh-uh at me, sunshine - get your lazy ass out of bed. You're gonna be late. Good morning, Captain Rogers. I understand you are under some duress right now, but please do not be alarmed. It is 2:32 am, EST. The year is 2012. You are in New York City. You are safe. Please try to take a breath. Would you like me to call anyone?

Good morning, Steve. Good morning. You're gonna be late. You awake? You awake yet?

Sure. Sure, he's awake.

That afternoon he packs his bag, the single duffle that fits all of his earthly possessions. He tries to ignore the vaguely smug tone of Fury's voice when he tells him they already have an apartment set up for him in DC: ten minutes from HQ, real convenient, and has he ever been to see Lincoln Memorial? He'll love it, it's a nice spot for a walk, especially in the summers, or so Fury's been told.

Steve's been to DC, but he's never beeen to the memorial, never seen much of the city outside the confines of the hotel the USO booked for them. He thinks he can count the grand total of places he's gotten to see up close on his right hand, and half of them were in the European Theatre. The other half he's running from now.

He's sure it'll be grand, he tells Fury. Beats the smell of moldy brick in the heat and a patchwork city manifesting ghosts out the corner of his eye, he doesn't say. ii.

They get him a therapist as a part of his onboarding at SHIELD. It’s due diligence, they say, in the aftermath of New York – someone to help him transition into his new role. But it’s been almost nine months now, and Steve’s learning their language, the words that get caught up in between all the red tape: saying assistance when they mean overwatch.

“This is supposed to be a safe space, not an interrogation,” the woman says at the start of her first evaluation, meeting all of his unease with a reassuring smile, and something about the misplaced quality of it puts him on a knife’s edge.

He only pieces it together the second time he’s called in to meet with her, when he's a bit more clear-headed and a whole lot more impatient than during their initial encounter. It only takes a few perfunctory exchanges before he starts registering the image as a whole: the painstakingly nonthreatening, gentle demeanor, the conservative clothes she’s wearing; the pale complexion and the sharp features and the unmistakable lilt to her voice, soft and rolling and decidedly more old country than east coast.

It would feel almost perverse, he thinks from a distance, if it wasn’t already painfully transparent and tactically inept to boot: this attempt at the same trick that didn’t work in their favor the first time around. He supposes he can’t blame them for trying to fill in the gaps between what they could scrounge up from paper and old photographs with something predictable and comforting, something expected of his background and what is now probably regarded as an antiquated time period.

He also knows that going off of little information when dealing with a potential threat is dangerous. What’s even more so, he thinks as he nods politely along to the lady's explanation of their work together, is believing you know more than you do, and that’s the easiest mistake to exploit.

Here's a fact probably still recorded somewhere on a faded death certificate: Sarah Rogers never lived long enough to get gray in her hair like that.

Here’s another, probably only still recorded in his memory and nowhere else: his mother had been fiercely caring, yes, and compassionate to a fault, but her kindness had never translated to docility, and it sure as hell had never translated to softspoken dishonesty.

So when the shrink bearing a near-painful resemblance to her starts asking incisive questions enshrouded in unoffensive words and indulgent tones, Steve packs his entire reality into a series of half-truths without batting an eye and doesn’t feel an ounce of guilt.

Yes, he’s eating. Yes, he’s sleeping well. No, he’s not on edge – sure, it gets hard, sometimes, but exercise helps, meditation, music. Going out into the world, meeting new people. Trying new things. Yes, he’s ready to be back in the field. No, not so much so that he’s itching for it. Yes ma’am, he’s doing fine, just fine, thank you for asking. iii.

“I heard Hannah’s single,” Romanoff's saying, and it’s not the first time his brain is latching onto the fact that she’s keeping pace with him without losing too much breath, without any discomfort in the cool air that's just starting to roll in as fall bleeds into the city, painting it in darkening evenings and dimming colors. “You know, from forensics? Glasses, leggy, science-y type. Blonde – you like blondes, right?”

“I’m starting to think you only have one thing on your mind,” Steve pants, pushes harder ahead until his calves start burning, just to see if she'll allow herself to follow. Keep moving, keep moving. You awake yet? “Gotta admit, it’s making it kinda hard to enjoy all this quality time we spend together.”

“What, you’re going to stop inviting me on runs? Aw, Rogers. Break a girl’s heart, why don’t you.”

“It’s not really an invitation if you just show up without me letting you know where I’m going, you know.”

She shrugs. “I needed to burn some energy, and you’re not exactly the most unpredictable person in this city.” Her ponytail whips over his shoulder as she follows his sharp right turn around the War Memorial and passes him towards Constitution Gardens, too close and competitive. “Brunette, then? There’s a girl in operations, real tough, good with a gun – at least your propensity for that type has been well documented, but I guess you didn't really have enough time to enjoy it, y'know, all the way –”

Steve knows she’s talking about Peggy, he does. It doesn’t help the hard-wired alarm bells going off in the back of his head any. He digs his heels in, skids to a stuttering halt over the wet pavement, and somewhere in the back of his consciousness he’s quietly pleased that it catches Romanoff off guard a little.

“What, too far?” she jokes, but her eyes are quick over his face; cataloguing the boundaries, the places she can still push.

He's sure it's well-meaning, as much as a blatant handler can get. But some habits are just harder to shake than others. That, he's intimately familiar with.

“If I say yes, will you stop? Or at least stop tailing me?”

“I don’t tail you. That’s below my paygrade,” she says, mouth quirking up at the corner like that’s all the punchline she needs as she types something into her smartphone. “I’ll text you her number. She likes spicy food and old movies.”

“Sure, fine. Great.”

“It is. You'll see.” The phone disappears back into one of the many hidden pockets of her skin-tight leggings. The marvels of modern technology, Steve thinks. Natasha quirks a challenging brow. “Now can we start the actual run finally or have you reached your limit, grandpa?”

He's all but ready to chicken out of the date all week, fighting the urge to cancel at the last minute, but he figures the girl doesn't deserve his bad manners just because he feels like spiting Romanoff when she tries to play his puppetmaster.

In the end it goes...surprisingly well. As Romanoff described, Lina’s beautiful and sharp and a little closed off, tough as nails and maybe even more rigid in her approach than him, but once they get over the initial hurdle of awkwardness and expectations the conversation flows with relative ease. They swap the basics, they talk interests and habits and what moving to DC's like, fun little stories from growing up; he tells her about the butcher on his block when he was a kid that kept a rooster in the backyard, and she tells him about the kid on her floor at community college that set the dorm on fire trying to boil an egg. They talk SHIELD and her work training the new recruits and there’s a spark in her eye as she dives into giving him a breakdown of what he should look into, BJJ and MMA and gyms around town that would be discreet enough to take him in.

“SHIELD’s got plenty of hand-to-hand experts,” she says in a pensive tone over the dessert, “but it can get a little…”

Steve chuckles around his spoonful of the sticky rice, the sweetness of the mango across the back of his palate soothing the previous burn of the spice. Turns out he likes Thai food, too. Who would’ve thought. “Intense?”

“Testosterone-riddled, I was gonna say,” Lina grins, conspiratory. “And paranoid. Not the best scene if you just want to learn,” and he nods along because it’s true, and because it’s a relief to have someone else say it for him.

So it’s nice, and sweet, and ultimately entirely impersonal. He walks her to her door and she gives him a kiss on the cheek, and when she explains how she’s not really looking for anything right now her dark eyes are warm and honest but not overly apologetic. It’s a gesture he’s grateful for.

“Besides, not to be blunt, but you don’t seem all that…” She trails off, waving her hand.

He winces. “Interested? I am, really, but...” And that’s just it, isn’t it. He’s interested; she’s wonderful, just his type, seems to like him well enough. But.

“Look, I get it. We’ve all been there. Can’t really avoid it in this business.” She shrugs as if to say what can you do, smiles up at him knowingly. “Wrong place, wrong time, right?”

And Steve thinks, yeah. Yeah, something like that. iv.

“–piece of shit, every time, wet sand all up in the fuckin’ thing. Goddamn Kandahar all over again,” Rumlow’s muttering, agitated and half to himself, and Steve doesn’t ask about the last part, just dumps his own gear on the rack and drops down onto the bench. They might be friendly, but they’re not friends – Rumlow doesn’t owe him his history. “I get sent to the fuckin’ desert in this weather one more time, I’m gonna start missing New York winters.”

The jet’s engines hum at his back, adrenaline leaving his body in slow pulls as he watches Rumlow work, notes the intermittent scarring over his hands as they strip the jammed gun down like it’s muscle memory, quick and capable. There's not a spot on him that seems unmarred, really - the scars are a continous, scattered motif up to his face, moving faint in the dim light of the jet.

Loved being in the ring, he'd said once with a wry grin, as far back as I can remember. Might've gotten the shit kicked out of me more than was strictly necessary, though. Accounts for me ending up here, in any case.

He’s drawn this exact scene, it occurs to Steve before he can push it away; down to the boxer's shoulders, down to the complaining, and more than once.

“You from the city?” he offers, an easy distraction that Rumlow seems grateful for.

“Yeah. Yeah, born and raised right off of Arthur Ave.”

“No shit?”

“Yep. Good old Belmont.” He looks up, gaze turning sharp at whatever he catches on Steve’s face before he can look away. “Wouldn’t think you’d know where that is. You ever even been past Central Park?”

Steve gets a flash of washed-out color and brilliant light, of Art and Charlie and the rest of them from the Y dragging him up to Harlem; thinks of the queens with their elaborate glamour and loud, unapologetic laughter and that last wet spring before the cops started shutting everything down, of stumbling tipsy towards the A down 155th Street with empty pockets and Jeanie giggling into his shoulder about some honey-eyed daddy that gave her a sweet kiss goodnight. A well-insulated secret, a fleeting memory of feeling like he could swallow the world whole.

It’s not what Rumlow’s talking about, he knows. He nods anyway.

“Loved that neighborhood. My folks moved us out to Staten when I was in high school, though,” and Steve must make an involuntary face at that because Rumlow chuckles and says, “Alright, tough guy. Not all of us had the privilege of living within two blocks of Prospect Park.”

“Neither did I, but it sure beat Staten," Steve snorts. "And it wasn’t even as much of a privilege, back then.”

“Yeah, I think you’ll notice a lot of things’ve changed.” He tilts his head, scratches contemplative at his stubbled chin. Steve wonders if he’s projecting the bitterness in Rumlow’s voice. “A lotta things’ve gone to shit in that place. Food’s still way better than fuckin’ DC, though. Not nearly enough Italians over here.”

“Yeah. All that white marble and not a single decent, roach-infested deli. Real shithole. Should put that on the tourist brochures,” Steve says after a moment, testing the waters. It gets another laugh out of Rumlow, low and maybe a little surprised, and the sound settles like molten lead in Steve’s stomach, grounding. v.

One morning in November he gets a phone call from a Washington Post journalist asking for his statement on the newly planned Captain America exhibit, and then in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it feat of persuasion it’s three days later and he’s somehow been roped into a grand opening ceremony, a speech and a press conference at the Smithsonian.

It lasts for-fucking-ever.

By the time he's back in his neighborhood his ears are ringing with leftover noise and applause, his cheeks sore from a constant smile that'd felt more like a slashed tire than a friendly gesture even as he was forcing it. He'd reverted back to the Best Foot Forward, Always mentality of the bonds circuit quick enough - but at least back then it felt like it had a marginal purpose, no matter how flimsy or false. Back then it didn't drain him this much, he doesn't think, no matter how frustrating. Best Foot Forward these days feels more like sleepwalking his way off a cliff than anything else.

The second he's through the door he shrugs out of the tie and starched shirt chafing at his neck, tries not to think about how he still would've preferred all the commotion and the pretense to the unfamiliar silence of the otherwise big apartment building. Tries to give the feeling resurfacing in him now that he's got attention enough for it a name other than unbearable.

Here's the thing: pain, Steve knows on an intimate level, is something you get used to. It's not to say you forget it exists completely: you just subsume it, you learn to expect it. It’s less about it becoming a habit and more that it becomes a part of you when you’re not looking: fills up all the empty crevices it can find and creates a mold, and that’s the shape you start to take if you live with it long enough. The problem with that is that the longer it goes on, the less space in you there is for other things.

He was five the first time he got really sick. It'd started simple enough – the winter of ’23 came early and sudden, and New Year’s Eve found him in bed with a fever that earned the dreaded prefix scarlet soon enough when the spread of dotted red started taking up more and more space on his body. He'd spent two weeks feeling like someone's dangling him off the edge of the unknown, and much longer than that after with his mother's watchful eyes following him from the window whenever he left the house, like she couldn't force herself to look away.

But he made it. Despite all indications, little Stevie Rogers didn't die, and it was a miracle with a capital M. All he had to do is make peace with having a somewhat faulty heart as a keepsake of his survival and maybe never playing for the Dodgers, which is not to say it stopped him from trying.

But then next year it was the whooping cough so bad it cracked a rib, then his left ear giving out on him after a prolonged sinus infection, then the asthma he barely even noticed amidst everything else until it layed him out flat midway through a game of stickball bad enough it landed him in the hospital. The minor league dreams dissolved fairly quickly after that.

In ’25 he missed more school than he attended. The kids from down the block came round to call on him less and less, and it wasn't too long before they forgot completely and it was just him and a handful of toy soldiers left, with names like Joe and Jack and occasionally if he allowed himself, Steve. Their neighbors started smiling at him more. The grocer started handing him a fistful of candy under the counter every time they came in, looking at his mother in a way that said sorry for your loss and that Steve hated with a passion, least of all because he couldn't even enjoy the pity because hello, here comes diabetes. Then it was the pernicious goddamn anemia and months and months of the liver-fucking-everything diet followed closely by its sworn enemy the ulcers, and then the growing pains, and then the bad back, and then the bum joints –

Here’s the thing about pain: the longer you carry it, the more you forget you’re doing it in the first place. You ignore it because it’s the only way to survive it, because what the hell else are you supposed to do? And that’s when you start thinking you have it under control. You start to think you’ll be ready when it comes for you again.

Here’s the other thing about pain: you’re never ready. It comes as a surprise each time. He wasn’t ready in ‘30 when the neighborhood suddenly started reeking of despair and death and he wasn’t ready in ’36 when his ma went and he wasn’t ready in ’44 when he got shot in the neck and thought oh, so it can still hurt like this. I can still bleed.

Then '45 rolled around and a new thought followed, a miserable dot at the end of a sentence: maybe bleeding out would've hurt less. At least it would've made us even.

None of that experience and understanding stops him feeling it now, again, still, like an interrupted line from that first fever chill to here, standing in the middle of his living room with a glossy brochure full of dead faces in his hand and an exhaustion so deep it roots him to the spot.

And then there’s the anger, of course: equally familiar but much more muted, less expressive than it used to be, dancing around the edges of everything else. He looks back down at the crumpled pamphlet, to where the folded-unfolded-refolded creases cut through the title:

Captain America’s team: the top tier of the World War II effort and a leading example of integration!

As if they were somehow Captain America's or even the US army’s to begin with; as if it was encouraged and Steve didn’t have to stand around in moldy tents arguing his brand-new, star-spangled ass off with Major Whatshisname and Colonel Whoever-the-fuck for days on end just to keep them eating in the same mess hall and sleeping in the same barracks. Nothing about any of the ugly parts, about the blood and the bureaucracy and the bullshit. Nothing about any of them, either - no mention of Dernier's politics or Gabe's professorship or Morita's writing. Not a single inch of space left for their families or their own stories except as a footnote in Steve's own, a way to make it picture perfect.

Nothing about Bucky other than the barebone facts: he was Steve's friend, he was a good soldier, he died. The meat and blood and soul of the person, left out; the fact of whose fault it ultimately was, conveniently gone.

And that name – the Howling fucking Commandos. The bunch of them would’ve busted a rib laughing at it, laid out all grandiose like that. For one, it’s still as ridiculous as it was back then – sounds more action novel than historical account and distinctly less bureaucratic and arbitrary than the Specialized 107th, which is what they were strictly called in the paperwork. Personally, Steve always thought that out of the variety of nicknames they’ve been awarded, the Invaders was by far the most fitting. Truer to wartime, to what it was they really did, and far more threatening if it ever reached the other side of the line. Then again, from what he’s gathered so far, it seems like America’s done far more than its fair share of invading since. It definitely accounts for the 180 degree change in branding.

Turns out it’s still all about selling comic books and war bonds. And Steve, too caught up in his own sorry wallowing, is just going along with it.

Jesus, he thinks, the tone of it coated in a wry, familiar voice nestled in the back of his brain but much harsher than it ever was in reality, drop the philosophy for one goddamn minute. Anybody ever tell you idle hands are the Devil's playthings? Get moving, Rogers. Trade the speeches in for something useful.

So he does: chucks the paper into the empty white fruit bowl collecting dust on the countertop, turns the TV on to a random channel to break the silence. He doesn’t recognize the title of the movie playing but it’s soothing, the background awash with static and the accents just familiar enough to make for pleasant white noise. He heats up his leftovers, sprawls out on the couch and gets to reading the reports Fury had unloaded on him, tuning in every so often to the witty back-and-forth dialogue. It’s maybe half an hour of squinting at indecipherable bureaucratic jargon before he finally gives up, lifts his head to rub the sleep from his eyes.

One of the men on screen – Nick, Steve thinks, or maybe that one’s Mikey, he hasn’t been following along all that well, to the work or the film – is trying to dissuade the other from visiting his mother’s grave in the dead of night.

It’s 1 in the morning.

That makes it nicer.

It doesn’t make it anything, Nick. A grave is a grave. There’s not a religion in the world that says a person’s soul is buried with them in their grave, the man argues, and it’s like whiplash pulling him out of the serene lull, the memory of a name over a plot in Greenwood he’d never gone to visit, and he thinks, a little disoriented – of course there’d be no soul in that patch of land. The grave itself is empty.

They’d given him reports in the beginning, too: a neat stack of papers, most of them stamped DECEASED in glaring red letters, and the single mocking MISSING IN ACTION. At the very end there’d been a laughably short list of contacts; among them a phone number and address for one Rebecca Barnes-Proctor.

God help us all, he can imagine the voice of George Barnes saying even now, jokingly abject, our Becca’s married a Proddie.

But there had been briefings, then, and the shitshow over Manhattan, and in between all of that the days where he couldn’t even find the will to leave his apartment block, let alone go to Brooklyn. Over and over, he’d given himself the same excuses as with Peggy – it would be too much, too soon, too selfish to usurp her life like that.

Of course, the truth of it all was much simpler. All too cowardly, too, in a way that has the guilt blooming with a vengence somewhere in the pit of his stomach: he didn’t have the guts to look Bucky’s baby sister in the eye, no matter her age, and say, I’m sorry you didn’t get a body to bury. I’m sorry the one time he needed it I didn’t do the job he spent his whole life doing for me. I’m sorry I left him behind when it should have been me down there in the first place.

He watches the two men stumble around in the muddy dark of the graveyard and yell and bicker in a way that strikes Steve as bitterly melancholy, the familiarity of it unmooring.

Mike, y’know what? Now that I’m here, I don’t know what to do, Nick finally admits at the foot of the tombstone, wild-eyed and devolving into a rambling laugh, and ain’t that a kicker. Welcome to the club.

It’s very hard to talk to a dead person, we have nothing in common. Hi, ma.

Nick, you’re making me forget the kaddish, Mike chides with mounting frustration as Nick keeps giggling and it’s not funny, it’s really not, the whole premise of it deeply morbid, but Steve finds himself laughing right along with Nick’s hysterical hiccups, his childlike plea of I don’t wanna die, ma.

You don’t get a choice in the matter, his own mother had told him when he was maybe 8 or 9, faced with the concept of death the first time when Mrs. Kowalski from 4C got sick, if that’s the way the chips fall, then that’s God’s will. But what matters is the middle, what you choose to do with it. Do you understand?

He didn’t, really, not back then, and ten years later when they’d lowered her into the ground all he could think was: what is the point of it, anyway, of all those right choices, if all that happens is you end up dying alone?

Steve hadn’t been, of course. For all of the isolation he’d felt during those last few months of his mother’s illness, he’d never been really alone. There’d been the Barnes’ and the old ladies from church and even some of the folks Sarah had helped treat at the hospital coming by and Bucky, Jesus Christ; Bucky crying at the funeral and saying kaddish for months like Sarah was his own and letting Steve rage and lash out until all the fight had drained out of him, his arms like a vice around Steve’s shaky frame.

And there’s the actual goddamned truth, he thinks, bone-weary. The only truth that matters, the one that’ll never get written on any museum walls: Steve was only ever as strong as the people propping him up.

I think that’s the reason we’re such good friends, Nick is saying to Mike when he tunes back in, and Steve’s not laughing anymore, hasn’t been ever since his throat had gone tight a long few minutes ago, because we remember each other from when we were kids. Things that happened when we were kids that no one else knows about but us. It’s in our heads. That’s how we know they really happened.

What are you talking about? I know what really happened when I was a kid.

Yeah, but no one else does, Nick says, painfully earnest. I mean, everyone we knew as kids is dead.

He shuts the TV off with a soft click, waits a long while before the heartbeat pounding in his ears has settled. Thinks about what it really means, then, to embody the final resting place of all your ghosts.

Maudlin, Bucky’s voice echoes in his head again, fills out the crevices of the silent apartment like a slow bleed. Always gotta be so maudlin, Rogers, like you’re Scarlett O-fucking-Hara. Just get up. Get up, Steve, c'mon.

“Yeah,” Steve sniffs, wipes a rough hand over his eyes; laughs again because it’s a damn joke, all of it, and he can afford to lose the plot in the privacy of his own home. “Yeah, fuck you too, asshole. Go haunt somebody else.” vi.

"Heard you had an eventful weekend," Rumlow comments when they all pile into the locker room the following week, a little roughed up and beat and stinking of iron and sweat but otherwise in decent spirits. "Seemed like a good time, all those pretty girls throwing themselves at you to shake their babies and kiss their hands or whatever."

"Shows how much you know. The pretty ladies were all balding men over the age of 50," Steve says, only half-joking, shrugging into his civvies with a wince. There's a cut on his side where he fell a little too close to a protruding piece of rebar that's already reopened twice by the time they've gotten off the jet, but despite the sharp sting of it he's feeling better than he did just a mere twelve hours ago.

Idle hands turns out to be true enough. Wryly, he thinks he might owe sending an apology up to Sister Andrea, although he figures anyone that enjoyed using a ruler on little kids that much wouldn't have ended up in Heaven, anyway.

"But sure, it was alright. A little too much attention all at once, if I'm being honest."

"Oh yeah?" Rumlow huffs. "Big talk coming from someone who dresses like you do. I hope you didn't show up there wearing that."

Steve frowns down at the faded jeans, the fitted grey shirt – one of many pairs that came with the closet in his apartment. It rubbed him the wrong way, at first, but it's easier in the end; not having all that wide array of choice dumped over his head all the time. "What's wrong with my clothes?"

"Nothing. I just get worried they're gonna start cutting off blood flow at some point, y'know," Rumlow grins, his teeth very white in the bright fluorescent lights. "God forbid we go to a bar one of these days, I'd have to mind every creep from here to Dupont tryna get a peek down your shirt."

"Fuck off," Steve huffs, feeling heat flush down into his neck despite himself. Yeah, blood flow really isn't the problem. He gestures at Rumlow's own undershirt, all slick black and skin-tight, motion packed in. "Look who's talkin'."

"Yeah, but I don't dress like this out there. This is all for you guys," he yawns with a stretch, all exaggerated bravado. "I got one of those, y'know - work-life balances. Out there I clean up nice. You, I imagine you sleep in that shit."

Steve snorts. "You'll be happy to know I clean up just fine. Got the one suit and everything."

"Is that right? They get you decked out in some bespoke threads for the parade, Cap?" He chuckles at the face Steve makes when the word bespoke fully registers. "See if I believe that without any evidence."

Steve digs out his phone reluctantly. He does have pictures, is the thing, woke up the next morning feeling like a sack of potatoes tossed from a great height just to see his phone light up with an email from SHIELD's HR with an attachment sent over for approval - like he was a celebrity ending up in a tabloid, he thinks again with distate, like he should care much either way what he looked like. He thumbs through his email to the one labeled FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION, and shoves it over at Rumlow before he drops onto the bench to sort out the rest of his pack.

"Looking good, you weren't kidding. And the mural's all heroic," Rumlow comments lightly as he scrolls through. "Wait, don't tell me - the little mustachioed, scruffy looking one is the frogeater, yeah?"

Steve laugh comes easier this time. "The little mustachioed, scruffy looking one would've kicked your ass six ways from Sunday if he'd heard you call him that. Yeah, that's Dernier. Gabe, next to him," he lists, trying not to think about how it comes across that he's memorized the order, "Dum Dum - he didn't like that nickname, either - Bucky, Monty, and Morita."

"Sure were big on callin' each other everything other than your names, huh?" The joke is followed by a stretch of quiet, and when Steve looks back up Rumlow's frowning at the phone a little, a flicker of uncertainty over his face that Steve doesn't get to figure out before it's gone. His face smoothes out into a mostly neutral expression, an undercurrent of something unnerved and white-hot, and Steve can't help himself.

"What?"

Rumlow passes him the phone back with a shrug. "Nothing, just - haven't seen those pictures since I was in high school," he says, a little distant like the memory's faded to oblivion since, and hell if Steve'll ever stop finding it strange that all of them ended up in dusty old school books, long obsolete. "Long time ago, now. Guess I just remembered all of you being much older, is all."

He leans back against the wall of lockers, pensive, watches Steve fumble with the zipper of his hoodie where it keeps sticking for a minute. "You must miss it, though. The good old days. Your people."

Steve clears his throat, yanks at the cheap piece of plastic again. The fit and cut, he might've gotten used to - but he'll never get over the waste; just how quickly everything falls right apart in the future. "Yeah, well. Like you said, it was a long time ago."

"It was, wasn't it. Longer for some than others, though," he says cryptically, and Steve really has nothing to say to that that won't land him right back where he was two days ago. He doesn't have to, in the end, because Rumlow throws a curt nod at his front, and it takes a second too long for him to interpret what his zeroed-in expression means, to register the dotting of blood through the thin fabric of his shirt. "You're bleeding all over the place again."

"It's fine. Don't feel it much," Steve says. Something's different. What's different? Wake up.

"Sure. Never do, do you," he says, gesturing to the hoodie with a thoughtful expression that's inching away from the easy banter. "That shit's gonna stain, though."

"I was gonna throw it out anyway."

It should be enough, and in any other situation it would be. Any other situation he'd shrug it off with more conviction, Rumlow'd call him a tough guy with just the right amount of mockery, and the tension would pass. Except that Rumlow had to lead them into uncharted territory and Steve hadn't been quick enough to notice before he was flailing, too exposed.

Except that instead of a quip what he gets is Rumlow's stepping into his space, the casual slouch of his shoulders replaced with something more deliberate when he reaches for where Steve's hand is still holding onto where the teeth of the zipper have gotten all gnarled. In a heartbeat Steve's back to square one: keenly aware of the proximity and every inch of his body in the cramped space; back to that first day in the elevator with Rumlow's dark eyes turned on him with a questioning look and a twist to his mouth that said it's a pleasure, Cap but meant I've been here long enough - you don't impress me any more than any other kid I've seen this place chew up and spit back out.

It'd been enough to get his spine straightening of its own accord back then, too; the sheer challenge of it, pushing at the boundaries of hierarchy. It makes him want to pull away now, want to put the usual distance between them, to get the hell out of this stuffy locker room. Makes him want to push forward until he meets something immovable and solid. Want. want, want - too much and for things that were unreachable. That's always been his problem, hasn't it?

The sound of the zipper is too loud in the mostly empty space when it gets yanked loose, pulled up and over the slow spread of the stain, and Steve realizes with a start that he didn't notice the chatter die down as the few stragglers left the room. Realizes that he hasn't moved a muscle in a good minute, like a butterfly with its wing pinned.

Rumlow's touch lingers, just the barest pressure under his Adam's apple, and Steve's breath catches. Rumlow makes a considering noise.

He snapped a guy's neck with those hands not two hours ago: a thoughtless, instinctive thing in the middle of the ambush that was waiting for them. It's not that Steve's forgotten it; Steve's aware of it to the point of failure. It's just that it got bound up with everything else, the easy reliance and the ribbing bordering on rough and the adrenaline under his skin like a necessity.

Wake up.

Rumlow's eyes on him are sharp, a little curious. Less surprised than they ought to be.

Wake up, get moving, get out of sight. We've been here before.

Steve swallows. "Thanks."

"Sure." Rumlow steps back to hoist his bag over his shoulder and the moment breaks as quick as it came on, the whole uninterruped line of him lax and easy again, surface friendly. "Now you won't scare the guys at the front desk."

And then he's off down the hallway, leaving Steve to lean on the cool metal of the wall and do everything but think about the sudden feeling of being off balance, a little too tight in his skin in a way that only half has to do with the too-quick beat of his blood, the lingering smell of Rumlow's cologne.

vii.

Funnily enough, the Christmas gala almost slips his mind – an extraordinary accomplishment, considering that he spends most of December thinking up viable excuses not to go, dodging Romanoff’s questions and sideways looks with the agility of a man running for his life.

“We can hang out with the civilians. Break the record of how many weapons contractors you can piss off in one night,” she says one brisk and sunny afternoon when she manages to drag him out to a coffee shop barely across from SHIELD, the steam from her tea swirling up in billows to fog her opaque sunglasses. “It’ll be fun.”

“I don’t know any civilians,” he says, deliberately obtuse. It’s a joke; he can’t help that it’s also mostly true.

“What about Kate?”

It’s not a surprise anymore, really, that she knows everything about his life, that she has no problem making that clear to him when she wants to. He’s fine with it, he has to keep reminding himself. Maybe it’s a control thing, like when she acts like she’s not holding back when they spar, a holdover from some other life. Maybe this is the closest they get to trust, and it doesn’t matter. Much like the tails that he pretends not to clock, the check-ins and evaluations and this whole neatly preordained life someone else's drawn up for him – it comes with the package, and what difference does it make, anyway? It’s simpler like this. He can do his job, and if thinking that he’s a situation she has a handle on makes Romanoff feel better, then that’s fine, too.

“What about her?”

“You talk to her yet?”

“I talk to her all the time,” he points out. Natasha cocks her head, the rest of her expression as obscure as her shaded eyes.

“It’s for a charity. The gala.” She keeps switching lanes. Trying to get him to stumble, he thinks.

“Yeah, Ms. Potts said.” Two can play at that game. “You want a date so bad, why don't you pester Barton this much about it?”

“Clint doesn’t need pestering. It’d be good publicity if you showed, you know.”

He scoffs; there it is. “For what, the charity or Stark Industries?”

“So it is about Stark, then.”

He takes a sip of his coffee, over-sweetened and dark. 100% pure Colombian arabica, apparently, and with the price tag to reflect it. The acidic taste sticks at the roof of his mouth. “I don’t have a problem with Tony.”

He doesn’t. Stark’s a good man, he thinks, despite having inherited all of Howard’s arrogance and none of his approachability. Whatever tension was there in the beginning had dissipated, though, the second Tony plummeted thousands of feet from the sky after having, for all intents and purposes, blown himself up to save all their sorry necks. They’d broken bread, shaken hands, parted ways.

For the best, probably. Good man or not, Tony has a singular way of getting under his skin.

And then there’s also the fact that being in Manhattan just doesn’t feel right, not with the destruction still settling over everything like a cloud of noxious dust, the fenced off craters and leftover vigils scattered every few blocks like an improvised graveyard. Good morning, Captain Rogers. It is 4:47 AM EST. It is a new day. Do you see it? Do you see it yet? Are you awake?

It’s not new, this sense of loss: looking at the city and feeling grief, compounded.

“Not what I said.”

“What are you saying, then?”

“I’m saying SHIELD throws shitty office parties.” Natasha frowns and chugs half the scalding cup in one go before pushing up from the table, checking her phone. “I have to go,” she says, gives him a long look that he can’t really decipher, unusually lingering and far too serious by Natasha's standard. “Come to New York, Steve. Or at least think about it.”

viii.

He goes to see Peggy again, because of course he does. She greets him at the door with her most pleasant, polite smile this time, the kind reserved for strangers – Time for my medicine again, is it, darling? – but it’s alright, he understands. They’ve explained it to him, the good and bad days, how there’s rarely any constant. He’s grateful, anyway: just so grateful to have her around, as much as he can. Which is why he doesn’t flinch when she cries, when she calls for him like it’s been another seventy years, why he holds her brittle hand in his until she gets hazy around the eyes again and he feels a nurse’s gentle tap on his shoulder, hears her suggest that he come another time.

He takes the Harley out on the highway and drives aimlessly for the rest of the evening and well into the night, down and out and then back again until the traffic has thinned out to semis and the rare leftover commuter. He watches the speedometer kick up to 80, 90, a 100, the bike struggling, feels the rumble of the engine all the way up his spine when it skids unbalanced over the odd ice patch and thinks, grateful, grateful, grateful.

ix.

“You’re up late.”

“Hey.” Most of the building’s emptied out by now – he’d thought he’d find some privacy in the abandoned atmosphere of the holidays, and instead here Rumlow is when he was meant to be three states over, strolling through his periphery looking like he’s got nothing but time on his hands. “Thought you left with everybody else.”

“Nah. Had some business to take care of.” He settles against the wall opposite Steve, watches him shake out a one-two-three pattern that has the chain of the bag groaning. “Thought you’d be at Stark’s fancy party and putting that suit to good, promotional use.”

He never gets a chance to think about it, it turns out, getting called in two days before Christmas and ending up sending Ms. Potts – Pepper, please, call me Pepper – an overly apologetic, last-minute message excusing himself from the night. It’s a good call, in the end. The last thing he needs tonight is to be stuck in a room full of obscenely drunk, obscenely rich people expecting him to gush over the hors d’oeuvres and play at appearances.

He feels as though what he’s doing right now isn’t much different, though. It takes a whole lot of effort and posturing to dredge up a wry smile for Rumlow, anyway. “Well, it’s been busy here. Couldn’t fit it into my packed schedule.”

Rumlow snorts. He gets that expression on his face, sometimes, that same brand of amusement that makes Steve second-guess whether he’s actually in on the joke or just the punchline of it, that gets him hot under the collar in all the wrong ways. The punching bag chooses this moment to finally release its desperate grip on the physical realm, flying off the chain with one last pitiful creak and sending sand spraying across the floor. Rumlow’s eyes track the movement with unabashed fascination.

He walks over to the neat row of bags Steve’s lined up and picks one up with relative ease, a casual show of strength. “So you gonna talk about it,” he pipes back up, handing Steve the replacement, “or do I have to keep standing around here until you’ve run the rest of ‘em into the ground?”

“Talk about what?”

“Whatever’s got you shredding through these poor fuckin’ things at 11 pm on Christmas Eve.”

He wants to point out that he could be asking the same question – that there really is no reason for Rumlow to be here this late when he’s still technically on medical, to be in his usual tac clothes and looking as wired as Steve’s feeling. You ever take a day off? he considers asking, but that’d be prodding. What’s worse, it’d be hypocritical.

“Nothing, you know how it is – mission ran long. Had some leftover energy.”

“Yeah, Rollins mentioned you guys ran into some kinks.”

It’s not exactly the word Steve would use to describe the shitshow of that morning, utter failure avoided by a narrow margin because it was an old school lab, Christ, still had extracurriculars on the weekends and everything, and they just charged in half-blind.

It’s rigged, naturally. The room blows as he’s getting the janitor out, tears the face of the building open towards the sharp drop below, and all Steve can think is what a stupid, avoidable way to die. The electrical fire smell lingers for a long time after the explosion, the patter of the wet snow through the blown roof nowhere near enough to put the flames out.

They’re told to avoid detailing the collateral in the report, after: SHIELD had no way of knowing the complete situation beforehand, they say, short and brooking no argument, and Steve’s getting real damn tired of hearing that. By the time they wrap up cleanup he’s shivery and exhausted and when he finally dozes off on the long flight back with his ear to the monotonous drone of the engine, it’s to vague, uneasy bursts of the taste of ash in the mouth and many small, cold hands dragging him deep into the frozen ground.

Absurdly, the first thing he thinks of when he startles awake is Dugan’s thick mustache chained solid with frost, lips blue with the cold and grumbling under his breath.

"Gee, you're looking awful familiar there, Dum," Gabe'd say, biting off the ends of his sentences with the chatter of his own teeth. "Made this snowman that looked just like you when I was a kid - all white and lumpy with a great big bush over his lip. 'Cept his carrot nose was half as long and he never ran his fuckin' mouth this much."

And despite the cold and the misery, Dugan would elbow him and Gabe'd elbow back, obstinate. And Bucky'd laugh, Bucky'd call them all a bunch of fucking morons, and do they really want their last to be the Germans hearing them squabbling like two bitter old biddies out on the steps of the church for the whole neighborhood to see? Think of the image of our troops, golly gee. God forbid.

He strips out of his wet suit at the compound by rote and doesn’t think about the numbing cold of December among towering trees, of snow burning his fingers raw, clinging to his lashes. He runs until his lungs burn and it’s nothing like that thin, strangling air of the mountain range, nothing like warm skin sticking to icy metal, muscles all locked up and tears hot like bile in the back of his throat and the wind screaming in his ears, and –

Winters are warmer now, somebody’d told him at some point. Something about northern lights and the ozone in the Earth’s atmosphere.

“Kinks, right.”

He smooths out the edges of the tape that’s come loose over his knuckles, tries to tuck it in where he’s spotted red through the fabric. Suddenly he’s all too aware of the seconds lumbering on in silence, the eerie, empty quiet of the building; Rumlow looking at him with a single-minded intensity that makes the back of his neck prickle with heat, gets him on edge in a way he doesn't want to parse, doesn't have the energy to hide from.

It'd be no use, anyway; sometimes he thinks Rumlow can smell it on him, blood in the water.

“Alright, then.”

He aims a perfunctory jab at the bag and lets it swing back to catch it mid-air, brand-new vinyl creaking under his fingers, and considers ignoring the man altogether. He's not feeling generous with his words tonight. “Alright what?”

When he turns back around Rumlow’s ditching his holstered gun on the bench. Steve didn't even notice he was armed. “You said you got some energy to burn – so let’s go a few rounds.”

“I’m good, thanks.”

“Come on,” and it’s his voice in the end, if he’s being honest with himself, that makes Steve fold; the cajoling tone and those long, tightly rolled vowels that curl and hook into the sheltered space behind his ribs. “C’mon, man, it’s been a while. I could stand to let off some steam, too.”

Come on, do it for me, Bucky had said in dozens of different iterations over the years and then only once after when it had meant something, only once when he was really asking, back up against the hard bark of the tree with his hands dangling between his legs like a man who had no more use for them. You gotta promise me, Steve, he’d tried, low and worn thin, and Steve didn’t, couldn’t find the words to that wouldn’t be a complete lie and a betrayal. Instead he’d leaned harder into his side, hand at the back of his neck, and wanted and wanted and wished like hell, not for the first time, that he could drain the misery and exhaustion out of Bucky’s body at every point of contact.

Come on, Rumlow says, and Steve goes, Pavlovian.

He rewraps his hands in silence, waits for the other man to tape up before he steps into the ring.

“Y’know, it could’ve been worse,” he says, circling Steve, tone casual, “No casualties is better than what we get most days. So you might as well stop with all this self-flagellation bullshit, Cap. It’s no good.”

“You wanna keep talking,” Steve goads him because it’s worked in the past, because it really has been a long day, “or do you wanna fight?”

They start off slow, Rumlow testing the waters and Steve pulling his punches by habit by now. He manages to land a few hits that don’t really scratch the surface, doesn’t pull back in time to avoid Rumlow’s hook. His blood rushes at the first, second, third collision, zings up his spine and sharpens everything out, bright Technicolor; it’s good, doesn’t even hurt, he’d almost forgotten –

It gets real brutal real quick, after that.

“C’mon. What, you gettin’ bored already?” Rumlow says the third time he gets past his guard, an edge of something mean and frustrated in it. He strikes out again just to skirt off Steve’s belated block, more provocation than actual intent. “Jesus, you fallin' asleep on me? Fight the fuck back, old man.”

“Look who’s talkin’,” Steve gets out, putting distance between them. “Ain’t you supposed to be passed out drunk on eggnog in Staten Island right now?”

“You ever stop running your mouth? No wonder you were the neighborhood punching bag, kid.”

“I weighed a 100 pounds soaking wet, I had to compensate. What’s your excuse?”

He’s slow this time, too. Rumlow’s not someone who signals. The kick to the plexus sends Steve stumbling back and something pops, loud. He coughs once, twice; shakes it off.

“Aw, there he is. You’re alright,” Rumlow says, deceptively sweet, dismissive. “You’re just fine. Come on, Cap. You gonna quit being a pussy or what?"

Here’s the thing: he’s not sure he likes Rumlow all that much, really, can’t read him all the way to be able to say for sure; isn't sure that he wants to. They don’t know each other, not in a way that counts – it’s only been a handful of times that they’ve even worked on the same team in the time Steve’s been in DC, even less they've gotten to have anything that counts as a real conversation outside the single locker room incident, but he’s been leading men long enough that he can pick up on the patterns. He can see the way Rumlow commands respect among STRIKE, knows the type, besides: collected and confident and purposeful, committed to the cause to the point of failure. Violent, too, sure, shooting for the head when Steve’d still be asking questions; a little too rough around the edges, sometimes, yes, but so what – Steve’s seen his fair share of that. Steve’s lived it, felt it on his own skin, inside and out, been in it for three whole years. So what. He’s not about to run away screaming.

It isn’t even the first time they’ve done this, beaten the shit out of each other after hours in the deserted facility. It’s not the first time he’s seeing Rumlow in this light, eyes dark and focused; liking it a little too much, maybe, liking riling Steve up and drawing blood. A natural progression to all the things about him Steve maybe didn't want to notice and all the things that had his full attention since the second they met.

It’s fine – Steve figures, this body can take it. It’s what it was made for, anyway. Steve figures better here than out there, and out there Rumlow’s all brutal efficiency and casual competence and Steve trusts him to have his back, get the job done, which is the only part that matters. Steve trusts him, is the thing, and that carries more weight likeability ever could.

Rumlow’s fist connects with his jaw and he feels it rattle up into his teeth, the dull pain like a live current through his body, whiting everything else out: you awake, Steve? You awake yet? Is it enough, to still be able to bleed?

So sure, maybe it’s the violence that gets him. Maybe it’s that Rumlow fights just dirty enough and doesn’t pull his punches with Steve, grins at him sharp when he spits blood from his busted lip and squares back up. Maybe it’s just that he’s not afraid to touch him or look at him wrong. Everyone else seems to be.

He blinks sweat out of his eyes and creeps in close, lands a few swings in quick succession that have Rumlow easing off, head snapping to the side.

“Yeah. That’s it, there you go. C’mon,” he laughs, pushes damp hair out of his face in a well-worn afterthought of a move, and Steve –

Steve has to remind himself, is the thing. Every goddamn day of the week he has to keep reminding himself of where he is. Eventually, he thinks, it might stick – but God, he’s sick and tired of it.

They don’t even look alike. For one, Rumlow’s much older than Bucky ever got to be. Has the scars and the experience and the too-mean edge to his voice to prove it.

But in the end, when he's got Steve face down on the floor, breath hot down his neck, it turns out it doesn't really matter all that much.

He bucks anyway, if for no other reason just to prove a point to himself, just to feel his bones grind together. You're still moving, you're still just going forward, heart pumping like it's gonna burst with it. Rumlow twists his arm further up his back, grip iron tight. “I said stay down.”

“Yeah, fuck you,” Steve pants into the mat. “Pretty sure this ain’t within kickboxing rules.”

“Pretty sure there was no talk of rules in the first place. I keep tellin’ you, don’t I, you gotta get that or else people’ll think you’ve gone soft. Someone might take advantage.”

“You ever quit talkin’ shit?” Steve throws back at him.

“Nah.” Rumlow shifts, the weight of him heavy and hot, too close. Steve can’t catch his breath. Rumlow’s knee is still pressing into his back and he can already feel a bruise spreading at the bottom of his ribs that’ll be gone in the morning. He doesn’t even feel it all that much. He never even – “See, I don’t think you’d want that.”

Steve could break the hold with ease. He could throw Rumlow off and still walk away with most of his dignity intact. Steve could do a lot of things.

He’s fucking tired, is the thing. He’s in his body and buzzing hard out of his head and it hurts, Christ, it hurts so bad, has for such a long time now, and it doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter one bit.

Keep moving, keep moving. Maybe he doesn't want to. Maybe it's alright if it's not him, anyway; a river of trouble, cross currents, carrying him along.

It’s just easier, in the end, to trust someone on his team. That’s all there is to it. It's easier, it is, it's getting there at least, Steve keeps telling himself as he lets Rumlow take him apart in more ways than one.

Eventually, he thinks, he might even believe it.

He meets Sam Wilson on a humid day in late May when the sun's barely made its way up, the sky an overripe color and all of his bruises already healing or healed or tucked neatly all the way back under the surface. Like many things with him these days, it starts off as muscle memory; then a shot in the dark, then relief when it works.

It still takes all of his willpower not to physically retreat when he's hit with the familiar, tired refrain:

You must miss the good old days, huh?

But then Sam cuts straight through the middle of it: Sam calls his bluff, quick as hell but with kind, serious eyes and an outstreched hand, and by the time the sleek black car rolls up to the curb with a roar Steve's got another title in his little book of the future and a chest that feels slightly lighter than it did when he jolted awake at 3 in the morning.

Romanoff pulls them back out onto the street without a word, and he doesn't even mind the knowing look she casts his way all that much. Just looks out the open window, the spring air whipping past as the speedometer ticks up 40, 50, 60, and thinks about whether the farmer's market will be open when they get back in: having some fruit in that goddamned fruit bowl might be nice for a change.

(epilogue)

When all is said and done, he thinks he really should have seen it coming. There was no talk of rules, and it's Steve's own damn fault for not listening. When the dust settles and the Potomac still reeks of a gasoline fire, when Steve's switched back onto battlefield efficiency despite the nightmares creeping into his subconscious with a vengance, it really shouldn't feel personal.

Except for the memory of Rumlow's slick grin in the too-bright, too-close space of the elevator, except for the phantom feeling that he can still sometimes smell scorched skin on his stomach; except for the way Bucky's horrified expression is burnt into the backs of Steve's eyelids like a brand, like a scar that won't heal fully.

Except that it's nothing but personal, in all the ways that matter.

Sam looks at him in question when he pauses in the middle of breakfast, eyes glued to the closest thing that passes for a modern TV in a roadside diner in Bumfuck, Iowa. Hospital breakout, the breaking news states, three dead, seven injured, dangerous fugitive on the loose. Be advised. Do not engage. Do not engage.

Yeah. Too fucking late for that now, isn't it.

"You alright?"

That's a loaded question, he thinks. I'm not sure what that really means and I don't know if I have for a while, he thinks.

You awake, Steve? You awake? You see it yet?

"Fine," he says, and digs back into the cold, gummy pancakes. "You think they got any blueberries in this place?"

Sam's face cracks into a smile, dubious and slow and then all at once. Sure, if you say so. Sure, I see what you're doing, but I'll trust your lead. Prop me up, I've got you right back. "Man, I don't think they even have hot water, but. Gimme five minutes and a Captain America name drop, I'm sure we can figure something out."

#this got very long jesus christ #I overthought it so now I'm just hoping it fits the event and the prompts??? anyway #so unbeta'd. my apologies and also enjoy! I hope!#catws10 #catws anniversary #steve rogers #brock rumlow #natasha romanoff #don't wanna tag sam because he only shows up for a blink of an eye but. he shows up and also I love him<3 #idk if it’s actually an M rating but. just to be safe #cw: violence #(but only barely)#gaslighting #by sheer virtue of the bastard involved #stevebucky #steve rogers/brock rumlow #I don't know the tag for that and I kind of don't want to know #this was really interesting and challenging and ultimately very painful to write ngl #my fic

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cosplayinamerica · 10 months

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Merengue from #AnimalCrossings Cosplayer: @BlueClarice Photo: @angeladalton_author Con: #AwesomeCon

I’ve always enjoyed dressing up. When I was a kid I would refuse to go anywhere without wearing a tiara which eventually evolved in me not going anywhere without my detective hat. But then one day when I was 14 I decided to dress up as a character from my favorite anime at the time and I’d like to say I jumped head first into #cosplaying then but I didn’t. I was scared to be open about liking to dress up.

Even though I went to many conventions in my younger years it wasn’t until my 20s that I started to cosplay more consistently with more elaborate costumes. There were many moments where I thought I might actually be good at this and one key moment was my first #cosplaycompetition. It took me a year to work up the courage to even enter.

I created my first ever suit which was covered in hand sewn zippers and I went in not expecting to win anything. So I was completely surprised when I had entered as beginner and won as intermediate. I’ve been cosplaying competitively ever since because it helps push myself further to create bigger and more complex costumes and meet some amazing people.

As soon as I saw @Sunset Dragon’s version of Merengue from Animal Crossings, I immediately knew I had to make it and make it look like real strawberry cake!

This was my first time ever making a dress and was the hardest cosplay to figure out how to make. I had to do a lot of research to figure out how people traditionally make fake cakes. They use sponges for the cake and spackling or modeling clay for frosting but I had two problems I couldn’t find a sponge large enough for a skirt and clay could potentially chip and be too heavy.

I solved this by using a roll of memory foam for the skirt and hand sculpted wool for the frosting. I did a lot of hand sewing, dying, beading, and needle felting for this cosplay. I even crochet a matching strawberry bag with a strawberry chain and created strawberry cake hair clips.

My most proud cosplay is my Jolyne Kujo cosplay! I think it’s my best sewn cosplay to date because it is patchwork that I literally hand stitched together to look like it was strung together by her stand. I’m also really proud of the wig because I turned a white straight wig into a blue and green afro with box braids! I especially love the braided butterfly detail. I also will forever love this cosplay because it got me my biggest win yet. I won Blerdcon’s Craftmanship contest 2022 and became their first black cosplayer of the year for my hard work.

The only thing I’d like to add is that I’m just getting started. I can’t wait to create and show the world all the crazy designs I have in my head.

#animal crossings #cosplay #cosplay interviews

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inaris-mage-of-storms · 10 months

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Melancholy, the doctor called it when Jimmy talked Scott into allowing an exam after the third time he refused to get out of bed. Not an uncommon affliction, he said. Prisoners with longer sentences were especially prone to it, he said. Not difficult to treat, he said, so long as Jimmy was careful with him.

Careful with him, like Scott was some fragile trinket that would shatter without the right care. Gods, he hated doctors.

(The doctor wasn't wrong though, was he? Something inside Scott had broken, and he hated that he didn't know what it was or how to fix it. He prided himself on being crafty in both senses of the word. He could mend anything - except, apparently, himself.)

Thankfully, Jimmy didn't seem inclined to treat Scott any differently than he had been, except for worried glances when he thought Scott wasn't looking and quiet anxious chirps in his throat that he didn't seem to notice. Some days Scott felt fine and some days he didn't, but on the days he didn't, the smile on Jimmy's face alone was worth the effort to try. Even if on some of those days he couldn't make it any farther than the sofa and Jimmy's arms, he tried.

Careful with him. Scott didn't need Jimmy to be careful with him. He just needed him to be around, and he was, and Scott loved him for it.

"How are you feeling today?" asked Jimmy over breakfast on a morning when Scott's mind felt clearer than it had in weeks.

"Hm?" Scott glanced up from his cinnamon roll, one finger in his mouth, and tried not to smirk as Jimmy's expression betrayed how easily his train of thought was derailed watching Scott suck the icing off it.

"Uh. I, um." Jimmy's ears were red, and oh, what Scott wouldn't give to know the details of what Jimmy was thinking about. "I was wondering if you felt up to a little trip today, is all."

"Sure. Where did you have in mind?" Scott leisurely tore another bite off his cinnamon roll, enjoying the way Jimmy's eyes tracked the movement of his hand to his mouth.

Jimmy exhaled shakily; it was quiet, but Scott was watching him too closely to miss it. Jimmy looked away with a hand on the back of his neck, trying to regain his composure. "Well, it's a bit of a surprise, really. Also I have something for you before we go."

"Ooh, a surprise and a present? Careful, pretty bird, or I might just think you're courting me," teased Scott, and laughed when a sharp whistle escaped Jimmy.

When they had finished breakfast and cleaning up, Jimmy made Scott wait in the living room while he went to fetch whatever it was he wanted to give him. Scott smiled at the way Jimmy's wings trembled in excitement, until Jimmy returned and Scott saw what he held in his hands.

"They might be a little dusty, being in storage so long, but everything should be there," said Jimmy, setting the items in Scott's lap. Scott stared at the colorful fedora, lifting it up and running his fingers over the brim. Its white feather was missing, but otherwise it was in perfect shape. So was the travel bag underneath it, and the neatly-folded coat with its patchwork colors that matched the hat, and the pair of boots Jimmy set on the floor next to him.

Scott set his hat on his head and pulled on his boots, then stood and pulled on his coat. It fit more loosely than it was meant to, even after three months of being able to eat whatever he wanted whenever he wanted, but it was his. He pulled it tighter around him, then looked at Jimmy with misty eyes.

Jimmy gave him a soft smile. "It suits you," he said quietly. "Well - I mean of course it would, it's yours after all. You look like a - a dashing adventurer with rakish charm!"

Scott laughed, and Jimmy beamed. "Thank you for these. I didn't think I would ever see them again." Jimmy sat down, and Scott wanted to kiss him, but he settled for a peck on the cheek as he took a seat and leaned against the canary. Jimmy put an arm around him, and they sat there together while Scott pulled items out of his bag one by one and gazed at them in wonder.

Even his iridescent dagger was there, and after a moment of hesitation and an uncertain look at Jimmy, Scott slid the sheath onto his belt. "Are you sure this is okay?" he asked, needing to be certain even though he knew Jimmy would have said something already if it wasn't.

"Of course," said Jimmy. "I trust you." He nudged Scott into standing up, then took his hand the moment they were both on their feet. "Come on, then, time for your surprise."

Scott followed him out of the house and through the city, marveling at how much more like himself he felt in his own clothes with his own bag at his side. Jimmy still glanced his way whenever he thought Scott wasn't looking, but this time the looks he gave him were warm and happy instead of worried. While they walked Scott wondered what Jimmy wanted to show him. He couldn't imagine what could possibly compare to getting his belongings back, until they reached the upper levels and stepped through the door of a building built directly into the side of the cavern.

What made Scott stop and stare wasn't what was immediately inside the doors. Just inside was only storage of some kind, crates and barrels whose contents Scott could only guess at, though the gardening tools hanging from pegs on the wall made him wonder. Then they stepped through a second set of doors, and Scott tightened his grip on Jimmy's hand as he gaped at the sight.

Sunlight streamed down from a glass-covered opening at the top of the cave. The air was warm, and instead of stone under his feet there was soft soil and new grass. A waterfall tumbled down one cliff face into a small pool. And the flowers. Flowers of every color filled the little grotto, some growing directly from the ground and some in planters. If he looked closely Scott could see where pipes brought in warmth and water, but other than that and the wooden door behind them, the cave looked for all the world like a little slice of summer made manifest.

He stepped forward and looked around in amazement, brushing his fingers over leaves and delicate petals. "Do you like it?" asked Jimmy. "It's for you. You can come here whenever you want, and if there's anything not to your liking I can have it redone or rearranged or - "

"It's perfect," said Scott in a strangled voice. "It's...I love it. It's beautiful."

"Oh, good," said Jimmy with relief, and Scott turned around to face him. Jimmy took his hand again, and the way he looked framed by flowers with sunlight shining in his golden hair left Scott breathless. He leaned closer to his canary before he even realized it, then stopped himself before he could go too far.

"Gods, I want to kiss you right now," he whispered instead, and his heart ached with longing.

"Then kiss me," murmured Jimmy.

Scott stared at him, and he had never been more tempted to make a mistake in his life. "What about Fwhip?"

Confusion flitted across Jimmy's face, followed by realization, and he laughed. "Oh! I guess you wouldn't know, would you?" Scott furrowed his brow, his own emotions still stuck on confusion, and Jimmy pressed his forehead against Scott's. "Fwhip and I have a... let's call it an understanding. He won't mind."

"You're sure?" asked Scott, heart pounding.

"I'm sure," said Jimmy. "I love him, you know that. But I love you, too. Is that okay?"

Hesitantly, eagerly, Scott's answer was to press his lips to Jimmy's. Jimmy wrapped his arms around him, returning the kiss, and for the first time in four years, Scott felt free.

}{ first }{ prev }{ next }{

#empiresshipping #flower husbands #canary in the gold mine au #file: storm writes things

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sleepingdeath-light · 11 months

Text

squirrel hybrid friend hcs ; barnaby

requested by ; 🐝🍯 anon (11/05/23)

fandom(s) ; welcome home

fandom masterlist(s) ; here

character(s) ; barnaby b beagle

outline ; “Heyyyy it’s 🐝🍯 anon again! Hello!!!

:) I have come.. WITH ANOTHER REQUEST.

Hear me out.

Barnaby who’s best friends with a reader who’s a squirrel hybrid -w- nothing is different about the reader (as in they don’t really do squirrel things) they just have squirrel ears and a tail (and maybe they have this little area in the neighborhood where the neighbors let them plant acorn trees and stuff because squirrel reader just really likes acorns)

I wonder how that friendship dynamic would work out since dogs are especially known to chase squirrels and all that :0 what’s your take on it?!

(ALSO NEW FAVORITE FIC WRITER YIPPEEEEEE!!!!! Buzz buzz! 🐝)”

warning(s) ; none, just fluff!

your friendship was an unlikely one, that much was certain — one in direct opposition to your natural roles, to nature itself even

you’d met when he offered to help you hoist your belongings up to your treehouse — carrying chairs and beds and wardrobes with ease, his hulking form towering over your comparatively tiny silhouette

in any other situation you would have been terrified, hiding behind your tail as your ears flick back and you ready yourself to flee

but not here, not with him

this large blue canine with endearingly floppy ears and a big wet nose and a patchwork vest

this cerulean hound with the softest fur and the gentlest hands as he lifted you with ease and welcomed you to the neighbourhood with a smile that calmed you more than it should have

this silly not-so-little beagle with a fake spraying flower in his vest pocket and a collection of balls in his bag, which he juggled for you as you sat casually in your doorway — legs swinging freely off the edge of your porch

clapping and laughing and cheering and whooping as your neighbours joined it — making an event of it

filling the branches of your tree home and the expanse of your garden with laughter and joy: sewing and knitting and dancing and painting and singing and pranking and crafting and acting and everything else one could imagine

loud and boisterous but not enough to make your sensitive ears hurt

friendly and chipper and affectionate but not enough to push your boundaries — with barnaby standing beneath you and using your puffy tail as a wig as he acted out a character alongside sally and mimicked wally’s standard hairdo

by the end of the day your cheeks and sides were aching and your laughter had exhausted you thoroughly enough that you fell asleep the moment your head hit your pillows

but that was only the start of a wonderful, beautiful, bizarre friendship — and you wouldn’t have had it any other way

with a friend that woke you up every day by clumsily climbing up your tree and knocking on your window with his large paw — grinning goofily as he offered a ‘morning neighbour’ that was muffled by your window glass

with a friend who happily let you ride on his soft shoulders as you both went about your errands — you reading out your shared shopping and to-do lists whilst he responded with additions that got more and more ridiculous as he went on, only stopping when you were laughing so hard you were nearly falling off of him

with a friend who was never without a whoopee cushion or a fake flower or a buzzer or a screaming chicken or some other prank regalia

with a friend who was as fluent in dad jokes and puns as he was english — a veritable language of its own that came easier to him than thought itself

with a friend who came to you in autumn with pockets full of acorns for you to plant and store — slips stretched upwards into a cheery grin

with a friend who never fails to make you laugh so hard you nearly fold yourself in half no matter how bad of a day you’ve had

with a friend you felt grateful to have met; one mr barnaby b beagle

#sleepingdeath #🐝🍯 anon #gender neutral reader #fluff #fluff hcs #welcome home fluff #welcome home x reader #barnaby b beagle fluff #barnaby b beagle x reader

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tracingpatternswrites · 5 months

Text

The Patchwork of Us | Chapter 4

Can you tell that I'm struggling to stick to my "one chapter a week" schedule? Sorry not sorry.

Anyway, we're celebrating the fact that I've started on the final chapter by posting chapter 4.

Remus is answering some of Teddy's questions, and then he and Sirius has an important conversation. Are they finally starting to trust each other a little?

Read from the beginning on AO3.

Snippet below the cut:

It had been nearly three weeks since their visit to the play centre, and Remus was surprised to find that things were moving forward a little faster, and a lot better, since then. He had been worried that their exchange would put them back on square one, but it had rather been the opposite.

Maybe Sirius was feeling guilty about how he’d jumped to conclusions, maybe he was just in a good mood. Remus didn’t care either way, he wasn’t complaining. He had got more alone time with Teddy, and things between himself and Sirius felt less tense than earlier.

He couldn’t quite put his finger on why, but he felt as if Sirius was making more of an effort than he had been before. He wasn’t quite as rude and occasionally and he even took his time explaining things to Remus that he simply wouldn’t have bothered with before. It helped, because it made Remus feel more relaxed around both him and Teddy, and the more time he got to spend alone with him the more secure he felt in their relationship.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t nervous. Especially now that Sirius was on his way over with Teddy as the boy would spend a night at Remus’ place for the first time. He had been to visit before, short periods, rarely more than a couple of hours. This was different though, and Remus felt as if he was nothing but a tangle of nerves as there was a knock to the door.

“Hi,” he greeted nervously as he opened the door and found Sirius and Teddy on the other side. “Come on in.”

Teddy had a stuffed toy in the shape of a dog underneath one arm while Sirius was carrying his backpack. He saw Sirius’ gaze shift around the flat from where he was standing in the doorway, and Remus tried his best to clamp down on the little surge of embarrassment as he thought what this flat must look like in comparison to Sirius’ house.

Sirius never commented on it, but of course he was just as aware of it as Remus himself. There wasn’t anything inherently wrong with the flat, it just wasn’t very big. It was clean though, Remus was careful about that, and it was plenty of space for him when he was alone. It did feel crowded now though, with the spare bed he’d bought and already made in preparation for Teddy’s arrival.

“Oh cool !” Teddy darted past him towards the TV. “Did you get a PlayStation?”

“I did, yeah,” Remus admitted, glancing at Sirius, and he didn’t know why he was feeling as if he owed the other man an explanation. “I thought it could be fun.”

“I need to get going,” Sirius said, as if he couldn’t care less about the PlayStation, and he handed Remus the bag. “Will you be okay?”

“I think we’ll manage,” Remus said, glancing at Teddy who was already rummaging through the games he had bought.

“Great. Call if you need anything, alright?”

“Sure,” Remus nodded.

“Bye, Ted,” Sirius called out, the boy waving absently at him from the sofa, and Remus felt a little thrill of satisfaction at how at ease the boy seemed considering it was the first time he would spend the night. “Well, okay. You’ll drop him off tomorrow afternoon?”

“Yeah, around fourish.”

“Great, see you then. Bye.”

Remus closed the door behind Sirius, making his way over to where Ted had spread out the games in front of him.

“See anything you like?”

“Is this one fun?” he asked, pointing at one of the games and Remus shook his head.

“I don’t know, I haven’t tried it yet, but the guy in the shop recommended it. Wanna give it a go?”

“Yes,” Ted replied eagerly, shuffling forward.

“You’re probably better at setting that up than I am. Should I get us some snacks?”

“Okay,” Teddy said brightly, grabbing the remote as he turned the television on.

Remus was both relieved and a little surprised at how well the evening went. They played PlayStation for a bit before heading outside and Teddy got to pick their dinner for the evening. Remus had considered cooking but then he thought takeout would feel more like a treat, so they had gone to the chip shop at the end of the street.

After dinner they played some more video games before Teddy first phoned Sirius to say goodnight and then picked a movie to watch together. Remus was a little bit worried when bedtime came around but Teddy still seemed fine, even when they got as far as to turn off the light. Truth was that Remus thought he had fallen asleep until he suddenly spoke.

“Remus?”

“Yes?”

Silence stretched for a moment before Teddy spoke again, but Remus didn’t want to rush him.

“Do you have a mum and dad?”

The question took him a bit by surprise.

“I do, yeah.”

“Where are they?”

Continue on AO3.

#the patchwork of us #wolfstar #sirius black #remus lupin #teddy lupin #muggle au #hp fanfic #marauders fanfic #wolfstar fanfic #read on ao3 #self rec #my writing

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pleathewrites · 1 month

Text

bellow the fire into my deadened lungs

chapter 1 excerpt — shigadabi heart to heart + dabi's final move read full story here

December

For the past two weeks, Shigaraki hasn’t said anything about the League’s newest recruit. It makes Dabi's skin itch.

Shigaraki doesn’t trust Keigo. Dabi can tell by the way red bloodshot eyes constantly observe the — undercover — hero. He wonders if Shigaraki knows.

Even though Shigaraki thinks so, he and Dabi are not cut from the same cloth — his leader was raised, practically groomed, by the biggest villain of all time. He was told what to do and how to do it. Dabi was rarely raised, especially not after his mother was sent away. His life has been on the line his entire life, demanding him to learn when to trust his gut and how to keep himself alive.

Still, they both haven’t gotten this far by being naive.

When Keigo left for the night, “I should get going, have patrol tomorrow. Do you wanna… come over?” and Dabi shook his head no, Shigaraki had beckoned his lieutenant to his room with a silent tilt of his chin.

He hasn’t really let himself be alone with Keigo after introducing the hero to the League, to Shigaraki. Dabi doesn’t quite know what to do with Keigo’s newly found possessive attitude. It was so easy, in the privacy of Dabi’s apartment, away from both their realities and other people, tucked in his little cocoon of dreams and heat. Outside that, though, Dabi realizes how fucking complicated he’s made things by letting Keigo kiss him that first night. By continuing to kiss him all those following nights.

Which leads him here. In this great big mess.

They’re in Shigaraki’s new room. It’s big, bigger than any of the hideouts the League previously would hole up in, and it’s spacious, decorated with quality furniture — a king-sized bed and a black-and-gold-trimmed divan sofa.

Shigaraki had sat on his bed, and Dabi had a guilty suspicion that he wanted Dabi to sit next to him, so the patchwork man made sure to sit on the divan across from him, just to avoid any potential situations.

Shigaraki looks tired, more so than usual under these dim overhead lights. His eye bags are puffier than usual, the area surrounded by irritatedly-red scratch marks. Dabi knows his leader had recently taken a shower because his shaggy white hair is frizzier than usual, wild without a few days worth of oil and stress. His mouth looks ashen, lips probably dry from soap and forgetting to use the chapstick Compress had bought for him. Dabi can’t help but remember how they felt pressed against his own.

Being conventionally hideous himself, Dabi learned how to find beauty in destroyed things.

He thinks Shigaraki is beautiful. He thinks it’s a form of the kind of ‘beautiful’ that reflects in Keigo’s eyes when they lie in Dabi’s bed and the bird won’t stop staring.

Shigaraki’s voice is grating, though Dabi thinks it could be classified as having its own charm, “How do you know you can trust Hawks?”

‘Shit,’ Dabi forgot why he was here. He never really prepared an answer to this question. Very poor planning on his part, he knows.

He overlooks the truth of Keigo’s intentions and thinks about what he’s often thought about since Keigo started frequenting his apartment. About the kind of stories Keigo shares, his frustrations and his hurt, about the things Keigo has said that makes something in Dabi want to try and persuade the hero to join the League’s side for real.

He’s honest when he answers, “Just like he’s told the other members, he thinks this society’s shit. Corrupt. Seems like he has a bone to pick.” Shigaraki’s eyes roll and, ‘yeah,’ Dabi knows his answer was pretty bad. While trying to maintain his facade of nonchalance, Dabi hastily adds, “He did kill that hero. Best Jeanist,” He shrugs his stiff shoulders and hopes it looks normal, “That counts for something in my books.”

Shigaraki, of course, still thinks it's all a crock of shit.

“Are you serious, Dabi?” He sneers, “What does the Number Two Hero understand at all about us? About the way this society has treated us when he looks like that?”

Dabi gets it. He still gaslights, “Hey, now, Shiggy. Don’t judge a book by its cover, ‘n all that.”

Shigaraki starts to itch his neck, and Dabi feels so fucking guilty.

“You never take anything seriously. This is fuckin’ dangerous, and so fuckin’ stupid, and you’re just making jokes!”

Shigaraki is itching so hard that Dabi can hear it, the gritty scritch scritch scritch, from where he sits, two meters away.

Usually, the members know it’s best to just let their leader scratch whatever stresses out — but the pained grimace, and the actual fall of skin flakes, and the o verwhelming fucking guilt of basically helping the Number Two Hero infiltrate their sacred space makes Dabi move.

He grabs the small hotel lotion from Shigaraki’s dresser and sits next to the man, grabbing his wrist with a soft, “Stop.”

He thinks the shock of his actions is what causes Shigaraki to obey.

He squirts a small amount of lotion on his fingers, “D’you mind?”

Red eyes open in vulnerability, and Shigaraki looks mildly scared. Dabi mentally curses and is about to hand over the bottle of lotion to the leader, ‘probably more comfortable with doing it himself, what was I thinkin’, just touching him like that,’ before Shigaraki’s eyes soften back to their trademark squint, and he tilts his neck in offering.

Silently, Dabi uses the lotion-less hand to move Shigaraki’s curtain of hair out of the way to apply the cream to cracked skin.

Shigaraki lets out a soft hiss, and Dabi murmurs an apology. As he works the lotion into the skin, he says, “I know this is your thing, Handjob, but itchin’ yourself to death isn’t gonna win us the war.”

Shigaraki grumbles, “Fuck off. Letting in a traitor won’t help us win, either.”

Dabi chuckles lightly, “Don’t worry about the pigeon. I’ll keep him in check,” which is, at least, half a lie. A white lie, if Dabi wants to go as far as to lie to himself.

“What if he ruins us?” and the softness in Shigaraki's voice is not at all what Dabi expected. It’s almost a whisper, and it feels like there’s a double meaning weaved in there, and Dabi feels so fucking guilty.

Because if Keigo goes through with it, if he betrays Dabi, it won’t be the Number Two Hero that leads the League to their ruin, it will be Dabi.

The lotion is fully absorbed — has been for some time now. Dabi may have heated his fingers a bit to distract Shigaraki from any itching sensations, and he thinks it worked. The leader seems calm, so Dabi pulls his hand away.

“Take precautions,” Dabi finds himself saying, “Compress is dependable and doesn’t like to talk shop much anyways. Lunatic’s halfway in her own world, but she knows how to keep secrets. I don’t think she trusts new people that much, no matter how much she likes them. Same with the Lizard. He’s almost stupidly loyal to you. Two-Face, though, he likes to talk, so don’t tell him the really important stuff ahead of time. And don’t tell me.”

Shigaraki’s eyes narrow, “Really? The leader of my Vanguard Squad can’t keep his mouth shut?”

“Precautions, man,” Dabi shrugs honestly, “Who knows, maybe the Bird has a friend with a truth quirk and they jump me.”

Shigaraki nods, and Dabi hands out the bottle of lotion to him. He takes it, “This stuff smells like shitty flowers.”

“Better than itching all your skin off. Take it from me, y’wanna keep as much of it as you can.”

He winks, and Shigaraki crinkles his nose in disgust.

When Dabi thinks about it, Shigaraki makes sense for him, they make sense for each other. ‘What on Earth am I doing with Keigo?’ Keigo knows Dabi’s story, sure, and has a few horror stories of his own, but does he feel Dabi’s conviction with the same burning passion Shigaraki does?

Shigaraki looks at Dabi like he’s waiting for Dabi, like he wants to burn the world down with Dabi and be his partner in crime. Keigo looks at Dabi like he’s savoring Dabi, like he wants to take Dabi away from the world and be the hero that Touya spent countless nights waiting for.

It’s so confusing. What does Dabi want?

‘The death of one man,’ he tells himself, over and over again, until it erases every other thought.

The guilt makes him lose his mind a little, in the end.

So, Dabi let himself have one last Christmas. He lets himself go out with the memory of Toga’s attempt at caroling and Twice’s excitement at finally having a ‘family photo’ where he can reveal his face. Gives himself the mercy of seeing Shigaraki’s cheeks flush at the anonymous present of a soft grey-fleece pajama-set, and hearing Spinner’s cackles grow louder with each sip of eggnog.

At the last second of his death, Dabi will summon the soft memory of Keigo’s smile pressed against his lips when a mischievous red feather floated above their heads carrying mistletoe, the way his lined eyes lidded to the point Dabi could see all three of his eyelids and his warm taloned hand made a home at the scarless curve of Dabi’s waist, wishing him a, “Very Merry Christmas, Hot Stuff.”

He doesn’t say goodbye, only leaves with a soft, “Goodnight.”

It takes about a week to get his affairs in order. He doesn’t have much, but the little he does is spread evenly amongst the League and Keigo — his first-ever switchblade to Toga, all of his favorite movies to Twice, his Stain-inspired works and poems to Spinner, his favorite medical-grade all-natural moisturizers to Shigaraki, and the secret stash of his most cherished childhood photos to Keigo. He likes to think the Bird would want to remember him in this way, too — not only a rotten and damaged man, but once a smiling and loving brother with fat cheeks and pinked skin.

He writes up a makeshift will to arrive at Giran’s doorstep after the announcement of his death, along with the tapes he pre-recorded revealing his identity and outlining all of Todoroki Enji’s crimes, with the inclusion of all the dirt he’s managed to scrape up on top heroes over the last decade and recently, with the oddly-eager bits of much-too-important information Keigo has been slipping into his hands since the hero found out his real name.

Dabi breathes slowly.

Today is the day.

“Todoroki Enji!” He calls out.

Dabi memorized the patrol schedule Keigo had given him a few months ago, and knows exactly which city Endeavor is going to be lurking around.

“Come ‘n face me, you fuckin’ coward!”

Blue fire surrounds the streets, and it’s enough warning to make every single citizen in the area run away, as far as they can. Terrified screams fill the area and it’s still not enough to draw the Number One Hero out.

The heat is already so suffocating.

Anger rips through him, and he uses it to make his location known, clapping his hand above him and shooting a giant line of blue fire towards the sky, a swirling vortex that would have made his father’s eyes gleam with pride a lifetime ago.

Red fire glints in the sky above him like a comet.

‘Finally.’

That red fire races down to swirl around the pillar Dabi has created, and he almost thinks it looks glorious.

A second later, the fire is gone and the ground rumbles under Dabi’s feet. He lets go of his own fire, and stares down his father.

“Have you come with another Nomu?” Enji asks, his flaming face practically radiating with familiar fury.

Dabi’s laugh is so manic, he feels at least three staples pop, “It’s just you ‘n me, old man.”

The skin of his hands scream in agony, but for the first time in his life, Dabi welcomes the pain, embraces the consequences his body sets upon him as he will be damned if he dies in self-hatred.

“I do not understand your goal here, Villain, but you will not succeed.”

Dabi hears the faint sounds of others approaching, and knows he cannot waste anymore time.

“Oh really?” Dabi moves forward, slowly, with the grace of a cat circling its prey, and Endeavor’s stance begins to shift, “Is the great Todoroki Enji going to kill me…” His grin stretches wider and blood starts to streak down his chin and drip from his neck, “Again?”

From the corner of his eye, two smaller bodies have joined Endeavor, slightly behind him, as if waiting for the hero’s que.

Endeavor’s expression minutely shifts, “Again?” and his tone becomes indignant, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but who are you to use my name so freely!”

Blue fire begins to lick up his arms, and Dabi registers his body start to shake, “Really… Even up this close — you can’t even recognize me? You did this to me!”

He’s in the air before he knows it, blue fire propelling his feet to push towards the hero at infinite speed, hands out and aiming for his father’s face.

His father catches his burning hands with his own, an obviously pained wince that gives Dabi a sick amount of joy. His fire has always been hotter than his father’s, and unlike Dabi, Enji has never had the training to handle it.

For the first time, it is Enji who cries out in pain.

A heinous laughter rips through Dabi’s throat, and he’s nose-to-nose with his father, his eyes so wide that the staples strain and blood trails his cheeks, “Aren’t you so proud of me, Daddy? Look how strong I’ve become!”

Dabi sees the exact moment Enji recognizes him. The horror across his face is both immensely euphoric and horribly painful.

“To...uya…?”

The smell of burning flesh fills his nose. His skin feels like it’s bubbling, blisters forming, and his seams are melting apart.

Blue eyes much like his own frantically move across Dabi’s face, desperately flicking from his eyes to his eyebrows to his forehead.

Dabi never got around to dying his white roots.

There is no red fire anymore, yet the large hands that grasp his own tighten.

“Touya.”

All of Dabi’s self control snaps, and blue fire erupts everywhere, completely engulfing father and son. Dabi is going to burn them to ash and send them straight to Hell.

read full story here

my other works

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ejunkiet · 1 year

Text

drawn to the blood

this is a gift for the incredible @belovedbow whose art of Vincent and Lovely never fails to inspire - go show them the love and appreciation they deserve <3

here is some early days vincent and lovely fluff, as they figure out a new normal.

redacted audios: vincent/lovely, rated teen.

tags: nightmares, communication and trust, domestic fluff, first dates.

READ ON AO3

“I wanted to ask…”

“Anything.” There’s a suggestive lilt to the word that makes their eyebrows raise, and he bites down on his lip to smother a smile. “You’re my favourite roommate, after all.”

Their dark eyes gleam as they place down their pen. “I’m your only roommate.”

drawn to the blood

“So, what else can you do?”

They’re lovely like this, sprawled out on their bed beside him, the wild tangle of their hair splayed in a dark halo across the pillow. Their eyes are on him, bright in the low lighting of their room. They’d dimmed the lights when they came in earlier, for “his eyes”, as they put it.

It’s not necessary. Artificial light doesn’t affect him, just like the absence of it doesn’t either. There’s enough magic in his veins to compensate, especially combined with his other senses.

Like this, he can see them perfectly.

A flicker of movement, and he’s hovering above them, their body warm and close beneath him. Their eyes are wide, breath shuddering, and like this, like this, he can breathe in the sweetness of their scent, the promise that lingers just beneath their skin.

Something to enjoy, for a moment, before pushing away with ease.

“Vincent?”

“A great many things.” His fangs are extending, even as much as he tries to resist the pull of it. The light in the room is failing - the lamps are off, and it’s only the light filtering through the curtains now, twilight descending on the city in an inescapable wave.

His magic surges under his skin with the setting of the sun, echoing the rising swells of his hunger. He can feel the rush of theirs beneath the skin, that crackling electrostatic hum, just as he can hear the thunder of their heartbeat.

Excitement, maybe. Or fear.

He has them caged beneath him. Their breath is escaping them in shallow pants, their hands against his chest, except he can’t tell if they’re pushing him away or pulling him closer.

“Vincent…”

His mouth hovers above their throat, and their pulse jumps beneath their skin. He’s so close now that he can almost taste them, that promise beneath their skin, the sweetness of their blood, and he’s hungry, so hungry.

Their breath hitches as his lips make contact, just a graze, and he can feel the thrum of their pulse at the edge of their jaw, the way their magic crests, overwhelming his senses-

“-incent!”

He wakes with a shuddering gasp. It’s still early: he can sense the heat of the sun on the other side of his blackout curtains, the muted light casting faint shadows in the gloom.

“Vincent?”

He startles, turning to find them in the doorway, their book bag still on their back. If he looks hard enough, he can see the scars on their throat, a lighter counterpoint to the patchwork of Lichtenberg figures that spider along their forearms.

“Lovely?”

“I heard you, you were-”

He can feel the shape of his fangs in his mouth, razor sharp, pricking his tongue. They can’t see him like this. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

Their lips twist, and even after so short a time, they’ve learned to read him so well. “Vincent-”

“Lovely.” Please is what he doesn’t say, but they understand him easily enough. “I will be fine.”

Their expression clears and they take a step back. It hurts. It shouldn’t hurt this much. “Okay.”

His heart in his throat, he watches them leave. Still, they hesitate before closing the door completely. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”

–

It takes a while for his breathing to stabilise, and for him to recenter himself. The hunger is there, ever-present, curling at the edges of his thoughts - but he’s already made plans to visit the clan’s departmental contact tomorrow, and he can last the additional day. He would.

When he’s finally settled enough, he ventures out of his room and into the kitchen.

They’re waiting for him there with a mug of freshly brewed tea, lemon and camomile, the one he usually finds himself gravitating towards during his mornings. The citrus is light and sweet on his tongue, and it does the trick, helping clear his thoughts.

“Thank you,” He says, and means it. Their lips quirk up in a smile as they glance up from the school books in front of them, hand hovering over a page of notes filled with their neat hand.

“Do you want to talk about it?” He can’t help his wince, or the way his grip tightens around the mug until his knuckles gleam white. “Want to talk about something else?”

Taking a breath, he slips into the seat next to them, a warmth kindling inside of his chest as their smile grows and they angle their whole body towards him. They look a little tired, but otherwise well, their eyes bright on his, curious.

He nods towards their schoolwork. “How was class?”

They release a breath, and he can see the strain in their features, the stress that tightens the skin around their eyes. “Challenging.”

“Anything I can help with?” His lips quirk into a smile. “I was always a good student.”

He was. It has been… a while, though. Some of his uncertainty must show on his face, as they laugh, their eyes sparkling as they look at him, chin resting against the palm of their hand.

“I’ll take whatever you can give me.” Their smile is lopsided, but genuine. “If you’re offering.”

He leans forward, tugging the nearest textbook closer as his other hand slips to the back of their chair. He can feel the heat of them, radiating through the fabric of their shirt, warm and familiar.

He offers them a gentle smile as they meet his gaze again. “I’m at your disposal.”

The rest of their evening passes in gentle conversation as he answers their questions as well as he can, filling in the gaps in their knowledge about the structure of magical society.

There is a lot that their teachers assume they know already, and he can understand their frustration. The academy itself had provided little to no resources to help them, and he’s even more grateful for the fact that he’d had William’s guidance. His mentor had been a patient teacher, even when Vincent wasn’t the best student.

He finds himself relaxing as they talk, the last of his lingering tension slipping away, and it’s not long before the textbooks are forgotten, their conversation moving on to other topics.

Later, when they’ve finished their tea, he gets up to make more. They’re watching him, leaning against the kitchen table as they wait for the kettle to boil, a contemplative expression on their face. They’d fallen quiet a short while ago, and while the silence is comfortable, it doesn’t take long for them to break it, and say what’s on their mind.

“Vincent. I wanted to ask…”

“Anything.” There’s a suggestive lilt to the word that makes their eyebrows raise, and he bites down on his lip to smother a smile. “You’re my favourite roommate, after all.”

Their dark eyes gleam as they place down their pen. “I’m your only roommate.”

Still they hesitate, worrying their lip between their teeth, their bright eyes flickering between his. “Can we go on a date?”

His gaze startles back to theirs. “Date?”

“Yeah. Date.” There’s a small smile teasing on their lips, and they’re amused - at his reaction he realises, and it makes sense, considering how blatantly he’d propositioned them before. “As in, dinner.”

He’s quiet for a moment, watching them. They hold his stare, a glint of steel in their gaze, bold and bright. They’re not afraid, even after everything that's happened to them.

He takes too long, and some of their confidence falters. “If… if you don’t want to, that’s okay.”

And, no. “I want to,” he says quickly, almost too fast, and their brow raises, some of that amusement returning. “I’d love to take you to dinner. I just didn't think you'd want…”

“A handsome, charming vampire who happens to be my roommate, to continue the seduction he started five months ago?”

“A vampire.”

Their smile flickers from view. They don’t talk about what happened to them, not in explicit terms, not since the aftermath of that night. There are professionals for that, and good ones - the counsellor provided by the academy doing their job at filling in the gaps about their new life, what all this means, better than he ever could.

And he… he’s a reminder of everything that happened to them. He can feel the shape of his fangs in his mouth, sharp as daggers, see the shape of the scars on their wrist, their neck.

“That’s never bothered me.”

His breath catches, and when he glances back up to meet their gaze, their eyes are already on his. Their fingers flex, their palm covering the bite mark on their wrist.

“I figured it out, you know. Even before this. It didn’t scare me away, then. I’m still here, now.”

A crooked smile lifts their lips. “Maybe that says a lot about me, and my self preservation instincts. But it brought me to you, and I’m glad for that.”

His throat clenches, and he swallows. He can’t find the words, but they don’t seem to need them, not at the moment. Taking another breath, they close the distance between them.

“I’m enjoying getting to know you. Spending time with you, sharing our evenings together…” Their eyes are soft. “And I want to know more. I want… more. If that’s okay with you.”

What else can he say to that but yes?

When he offers his hand, they take it. Their fingers are warm in his, and he can feel the magic in them, even like this, fizzing like a livewire beneath their skin.

Slowly, carefully, he draws their hand up, until he can press his mouth to their knuckles. It’s not quite a kiss, but it’s close. His breath brushes over their skin, and they shiver, their eyes on him dark, almost swallowed by their pupils - and they do want this, he realises. They want him, despite everything.

“I'd be honoured.” He's close enough that his lips brush against their skin, and their grip in his tightens. “I’ll do everything in my power to deserve it.”

He means more than just this. Their trust. Their care. Their affection.

Their eyes are soft, their other hand rising to cup his cheek, tracing the arch of it with their thumb. Under the gentleness of their touch he exhales, pushing away the lingering fear and self doubt. Focusing on the moment, on the reality of them here, with him.

It’s remarkably easy. Everything is easier with them.

And he wants to give them everything they’re looking for. His other hand finds their waist, pulling them in closer, until their bodies are flush together.

“Vincent.” Their tone is light, reprimanding. When he catches their gaze, they’re smiling, their expression fond, but they don’t pull away. Instead, they tug his hand closer, pressing a kiss against his knuckles, their eyes bright on his as they lace their fingers together.

“Lovely.” He adopts their tone, and their smile grows, until their eyes crease with it.

“That date. Can we start tonight? I’ve been craving pancakes.”

He laughs. “It’s nearly midnight.”

“There’s a Waffle House right next to the academy. Besides, I don’t have class until the afternoon tomorrow.” Their hand squeezes in his grip, and he can’t help but match their grin. “Come on. It’ll be my treat.”

“I guess you’ve convinced me.”

“Such a romantic.” They laugh as he glances back at them, wounded, before they lean up to press another kiss against his cheek. For something so sweet and chaste, it kindles a fire inside of him, heating him from the inside out.

They push away from the kitchen table, leaving their textbooks where they are - they’re the only one that really uses it, they usually eat together at the kitchen island - their hand in his acting as a tether, drawing him along. He follows willingly.

At the door of the garage, they turn to him, and there’s the devious creature he’s come to know over the last year, a sly smile teasing at the corners of their mouth.

“Why don’t we take the Ferrari?”

#redacted asmr #redacted audios #ej writes redacted #redacted vincent #redacted lovely #vincent/lovely #i love (heh) thinking about these two #and their dynamic. especially after adam #many thoughts!!#writing #redacted audio

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