#one hundred and ten chapters later | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

loveshotzz · 8 months

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All I Really Want Is You

older!neighbor!widower! steve x fem!reader epilogue - a slow burn series of blurbs

Heaven Knows You Better ~ epilogue

summary: A glimpse into the future.

wc: 1.7k

warnings: none, just pure fluff 🧡 a slight mention of drinking a margarita.

authors note: I know you’re tired of hearing me say it, but thank you 🧡 writing this story and sharing it with you will always hold a special place in my heart.

🌆 <- chapter ten

The Masterlist / The Playlist / The Tune:

Three summers later - Beginning of May

The sun hangs bright in the deep blue sky, the air a little crisp from the last bit of the chill still leftover from spring. The heat of summer is just barely on the cusp of breaking through, you can feel it in the way the city starts to come alive again. The red ‘TEAM ALS’ banner blows in the wind as your shoes and Bandit’s paws cross the white finish line. The clapping of strangers on the side lines fills your ears, tugging a smile onto your slightly chapped lips, before you turn around to look at your fiancé.

Steve can’t help his grin back, the whites of his teeth showing when your smile stretches wider at the sight of him. The bottoms of his black running shorts flap in the breeze, revealing more skin at the tops of his thighs that still lights a match deep inside your gut. You don’t think you’ll ever be immune to him. The white socks on his feet are pulled up to his shins, the color of his On Clouds matching the banner above you. The polyester of his dark gray Nike running sweater fits tight across his chest, the zipper on its high neck being tugged by a set of golden blond puppy paws.

“I told you Molly wasn’t gonna make it all the way,” he huffs, a laugh threatening to bubble past his lips when the rambunctious labrador starts licking his stubble covered cheek, pushing up the bill of his black Nike baseball cap.

God, you’ll never not want to kiss him.

“She made it more than half way, give her some credit Steve.” You roll your eyes and he’s proud to say that’s the third one he’s earned today. The first being in your barely unpacked kitchen when he snuck up from behind to blow a raspberry on your neck while making coffee in the morning.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You weren’t the one who had to carry the extra ten pounds the last two miles, were you?” He reminds you with a smirk, setting the wiggling puppy down now that she’s regained most of her strength back.

Bandit whines for Steve’s affections, pawing at him when he’s eye level, getting the scratch behind both ears he wanted. The German shepherd wasn’t the only one wanting his attention, and it takes everything inside you not to pout yourself when he stands back up and doesn’t immediately kiss you. Despite the chill, there’s still a sheen of sweat that coats his permanently sun kissed skin, the spice of his cologne becoming more pronounced because of it.

“Thank you for doing this with me baby,” the teasing edge to Steve’s voice is gone, replaced with something softer - made even sweeter as he pulls you closer by waist, his nose bumping with yours when you stand on your tippy toes hooking your free arm around his neck. Your fingers twitch to be in his hair, you hate his hats.

“I’ll do them all with you,” you whisper because it’s just for him, it’s always just for him. His cheeks dust pink like he knows it and his hold on you tightens.

“I can’t wait to marry you,” the words come out soft against your lips, his eyes meeting yours from down the bridge of his nose.

“Three months.”

The reminder makes him close the space that’s left, smiling into the kiss. It still feels like a hundred butterfly’s wings flutter against your rib cage when your lips slot together like they were never meant to be apart. It’s hard to get lost in him the way you want to with hundreds of people around and two dogs that can’t seem to stop their play fighting, tugging harshly on their leashes at your feet. That doesn’t keep Steve from tracing your bottom lip with his tongue when the tips of your fingers find the flyaway hairs sticking out of the bottom of his cap. You giggle against his lips and he can’t find it in himself to be disappointed when you pull away, like he knows you both should because of it.

“Careful, might have to take you downtown right now if you don’t stop,” he teases, biting his bottom lip to stop from kissing you again.

“I don’t think Eddie would ever forgive you for taking away his opportunity to finally be your best man.” Running your hands down his chest, you can feel his groan vibrate under your palms.

“Don’t remind me.” Steve lets you go, finally taking his hat off to reveal a dirty golden mess on top of his head, long fingers running through it.

Bandit whines, nudging Steve’s knee with his snout before rubbing the side of his face against his leg, ignoring the way the puppy jumps and paws at his side.

“I think someone wants to switch.” You grin at the way Steve’s face softens for his favorite boy, offering you Molly’s leash in exchange without a word.

“Someone missed daddy, huh?” Steve asks in the kind of baby voice you know he picked up from you, but the reference to himself still has you clenching like your second date.

Bandit barks in response, tail wagging a mile a minute as you untangle the unruly puppy from around him. You give up quickly on letting her walk, picking her up just like Steve had, the wiggling weight of her in your arms has you biting your tongue about how heavy she really is.

“I think we’ve earned a margarita when we get home, right molly?” Hinting at Steve with a smirk tugging at your lips when you kiss the puppies restless snout - it's his turn to roll his eyes.

“Honey, we still need to pack. We leave for New York tomorrow at like nine A.M.” He runs another hand through his hair before putting his hat back on his head and you have to resist pulling it off as you both make your way through the crowd.

“Okay, we can pack and then a margarita… although packing might be a lot more fun after one. Just a thought.” You shrug with fake nonchalance, finally getting a grip on Molly in your arms.

“After we pack and drop off the dogs at Nancy’s.” Steve chuckles, moving to the other side of you so his free hand can find the small of your back, the blunt ends of his nails scratching against the soft fabric of your oversized sweater. He could never go too long, he always had to be touching you.

“Deal.” Grinning, pleased with your promised drink, you push up on your toes to plant a sloppy kiss on his cheek, heart swelling at the pink that dusts tips of his ears because of it.

9:15pm 🌃

The first sounds of cicadas buzz low in your ears, another reminder that summer was just around the corner while the two of you sit on the porch swing. Steve had set up on the small deck in your backyard. It wasn’t big like the ones in the suburbs but it was just enough for Bandit and Molly to stretch their legs without a leash. The citronella candle that you swore to Steve would work, burns lemon and lavender into the matching dusk sky, still too early in the season to prove yourself right. The stars are still half hidden by the big tree in the corner of your yard that has started to sag from the humidity. Though a lingering chill still nips in the breeze and it has Steve pulling you deeper into his side. The pine of his body wash from the shower you took together just before this mixes in the perfect blend to make your eyes heavy and your heart full.

“You think Nancy’s going to be okay with both of them for five days?” Your question comes out quiet in the calm, your cheek pressed to the cotton of his white shirt. The hard muscles underneath twitching from the warmth of your breath. The ice in your half drank margarita clinks against the glass when your wrist starts to get lazy.

“I think we’re going to have a very well behaved puppy when we get back,” Steve chuckles before relieving you of your hold, setting your cup down next to his on the deck.

You giggle to yourself at the thought, humming in agreement, when he takes the opportunity to really cuddle you now. A big arm wrapping around you while his hand finds yours so he can do his favorite thing. His chin hits the top of your head, and the tips of his fingers tickle while he twirls the diamond ring around your knuckle. You can feel the way his cheeks pull up against your hair, his lips a ghost against the crown of your head, always losing himself in the fact that you said ‘yes.’

“Did you pack the Cubs shirts I got for Gwenny?” Steve asks like he’s trying to think back to the mess of a packing session the two of you had in between stolen kisses and heated touches that always led to more.

“That was the first thing you packed, handsome.” You squeeze his hand, the smirk on your face widening at how obsessed of an uncle he was for the newest addition to the Munson family.

“Oh yeah, I remember now. They are under my dress slacks,” he mumbles, while the pad of his thumb rubs small circles under your ribs where his fingers curl around your side.

Cuddling deeper into his chest a comfortable silence falls between you, the cicadas buzz louder, mixing with the sounds of the city and you wish you could always stay like this, wrapped up in him and the glow of the moon that leaks through the shaking leaves on the tree above you. The silver band he twirls around on your finger makes you realize this is what he’s asking for. A forever of moments just like this one tonight, of first, of lasts, of fingers intertwined, soft touches, stolen kisses and whispered sweet words in the moonlight that feel even sweeter when he says them again in the sunshine.

This is what forever looked like with Steve Harrington, and you always want to be his tough girl.

beta’d by @superblysubpar

dividers by @chechelia

#my writing #all i really want us you series #steve harrington #steve harrington x you #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x y/n #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington smut #steve harrington fluff #steve x you #steve harrington fanfiction #steve harrington series #steve harrington slow burn #steve harrington fic #steve harrington imagines

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incorrectbatfam · 1 year

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i just read the wayne family adventures chapter that released yesterday and i'm in need of some steph and damian headcanons

They've gotten into the most arguments over who gets to drive the Batmobile

Damian: "I'll drive"

Steph: "You're twelve"

Damian: "And yet I still drive better than you"

Bruce sides with Steph and ten minutes later Damian is gripping for dear life as she goes twenty miles over the speed limit

Steph sends a multiple-paragraph story about her mission abroad with pictures, emojis, and a hundred exclamation points, only for Damian to reply, "k"

Having food around is legitimately stressful because Damian is a growing boy who will eat everything. Steph gets up to grab a drink with her muffin and comes back to a wrapper and crumbs

He offers to pack her lunch when Alfred's hands are too full. Steph takes him up on it, thinking Alfred already made something. She doesn't check her lunchbox until later, when she finds a brick of tofu and Tupperware full of grapes

Steph reminisces about an old TV show and for the rest of the day Damian copies everything she says in an old person voice

Then Damian asks what a Walkman is and it's Steph's turn to pinch his cheeks and talk in a baby voice

Steph: "Robin's the worst"

Goon: "Yeah, he is"

Steph: "You take that back!"

He sold her high school essays online and gave her a 10% cut of the profit

Damian gets a rat and Steph names it Remy, knowing he hasn't seen Ratatouille yet

She uses his head as an armrest

Steph and her friends go out to celebrate finals being over. Damian follows them to the restaurant and keeps sending milk to their table every five minutes

Damian rickrolls her through her AirPods

Steph has a special type of anger set aside for when Damian jams the carnival port-a-potty shut while she's in it

Damian gives her a misshapen rock and says, "It's the egg that hatched you"

Steph: "This is my little brother, Damian"

Damian: "We're not siblings"

Steph: "…As I was saying, this is my little brother, Damian"

She sticks a picture of Damian on the icebox to guarantee it stays cold

*After a big meal* Damian: "I cannot eat another bite"

Steph: "Same. Wanna get ice cream?"

Damian: "I'll drive"

Steph: "Like hell you are"

Damian: "Then I call shotgun"

Steph: "Bold of you to assume we're inviting the others"

Damian has a creative writing assignment for English and Steph offers to look it over, but instead of giving him feedback, she gaslights him into thinking he plagiarized Game of Thrones

However weird the Rogues may be, Damian can guarantee there's something in Steph's camera roll that's even weirder

Jason teaches Damian to swear and Steph un-teaches him by playing the bleeping sound effect every time he does

Steph rents half her storage garage to Damian to store the canoe he found. They're still trying to figure out what to do with it

Damian: "I have to infiltrate a horse ranch and I need you to communicate with your equine brethren"

Damian asks Steph to come to Career Day. She's confused at first because at the time she's a student working a part-time retail job, but shows up anyway. When it's his turn, he brings her up to the front and says, "This is my sister, Stephanie. She doesn't have a degree yet, gets paid minimum wage for a job I can do with my hands tied, and is the only one in my family who doesn't know what she's doing." Steph starts to get annoyed, but then Damian says, "I brought her today because she doesn't let her lack of direction hold her down. She has taught me that it's okay if you don't have a destination and life happens on your own terms, not someone else's."

Steph comes to the Manor one day to find everyone crowded around Damian's door. Dick explains that the person Damian asked to the 8th grade dance ditched him last minute and no one's been able to coax him out—not even Alfred with cookies. Steph goes in and after a while, he tells her about the work he put in (for a middle schooler, aka an ironed shirt and reservations at a place rhyming with Bolive Darden) only for it be a setup to make fun of him. Steph asks when the reservation is and he says it's in twenty minutes. She says she only needs ten and emerges in her old homecoming dress. Then they grab dinner before skipping the dance altogether to go bowling and destroy some unsuspecting 9-year-olds at laser tag.

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mediumgayitalian · 2 months

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previous chapter

———

The sunlight disorients him.

Usually, he wakes to a blaring alarm. If he has no alarm set, nothing planned for the day, he wakes when he cannot physically stand the taste of his own breath anymore, stumbling out of bed and ambling like a zombie for the nearest toothbrush. (On rare, rare occasions, he wakes to humming – low, drawling, lilting, floating around his darkened room, brightening it. He dreams about those mornings.)

He cannot remember the last time he woke to gentle sun.

Stretching, he takes a minute to catalogue the space as he wakes up, noticing the light curtains over wide windows, small TV tucked in between two double beds, and a desk, larger than he would have expected, taking up the far right corner.

Will is nowhere to be found.

“Jogging, mebbe,” Nico mumbles to himself; tiny, forgotten accent slipping out before he can stop it. Gingerly, he peels off the blankets and pads to the bathroom. Will’s blue-capped toothbrush sits next to the sink, quelling Nico’s ridiculous anxiety that Will, actually, has never been here at all, and Nico dreamed this whole thing up. He smiles slightly at the dorky stickers plastered all over the handle, colour mostly worn away, and the watch forgotten next to the soap dispenser.

He hears a heavy door open and shut, pausing to make out quiet footsteps over the running water. Quickly rinsing the suds off his face, he towels off and steps back out into the hotel room, watching his friend.

Will has his back turned, hunched over the desk. He wears a hoodie, blue with big white clouds all over it – his favourite – and, of course, horrible cargo shorts. Nico counts seven pockets, and that’s just what he can see from the back. There is a book shoved in two of them, keys hanging out of a third, and an apple bulging from the pocket near his hip.

“Morning.”

Will jumps, whirling around.

“You scared the shit outta me!”

“Sorry,” Nico says, not sorry. He’s grinning. “Were you out for a run?”

“I was out for a run hours ago, yes. It’s, like, ten-thirty, dude. You’ve been sleeping for eight hundred years.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” They’ve had this argument more times than he can physically count, he refuses to have it again when he doesn’t have the upper hand. He’ll bring it up again when Will’s sleepy again at nine o’clock. “Where were you?”

Will steps to the side, revealing three separate heaping plates of food on the desk, piled high with eggs, toast, a muffin, bacon, and, of course, an entire plate devoted to fruit. Nico descends upon it like a swarm of seagulls upon a terrorized child’s ice cream cone – with fury, insatiable hunger, and endless hubris. He makes sure to ignore the fruit.

Five minutes later, he’s satiated enough to turn a percentage of his attention away from the food. He spins the desk chair halfway to face Will, instead, curled up on the bed with one knee pulled to his chest, watching him fondly.

“How many times did you almost drop this on the way up?” he asks around a mouthful of bacon.

Will’s smile drops, eyes narrowing. “Shut up.”

“Four floors, and there’s a good chance you took the stairs to keep the elevators for ‘someone who needs them more’, so –”

“I hate you.”

“– I’m guessing one time per flight of stairs? Oh, wait, there are three plates, definitely more –”

“I’m never doing anything nice for you ever again.”

“– and you have a new band-aid on your knee, so you definitely tripped and dropped it at least once.” He pops the last of the bacon in his mouth, smiling wickedly. “Twice? Three times? If you don’t tell me I’m going to assume six and move on.”

Will’s glare intensifies. He mumbles something.

“Hm?”

He mumbles again. Nico doesn’t even pretend not to be delighted. He knows the smile on his face is wide enough to make him look deranged, he simply doesn’t care. Opportunities to press Will’s buttons this beautiful do not show up every day. He must treasure them.

“Didn’t catch that.”

“Hadtogoback.”

“Gonna have to speak up, bud.”

“I had to go back!” Will explodes, hands thrown in the air. “I fuckin’ – I dropped the stupid plates, the first time, so I had to fuckin’ – clean it up and – two stupid trips, you jerk, you better appreciate this –”

Nico almost bites through his lip. “You dropped it?”

“I didn’t mean to!” Will says defensively. “I was concentrating really hard but –”

Nico loses it.

“– my shoe got caught on the last step and I didn’t have any hands to catch myself.” He scowls. “Three people saw.”

He can’t breathe. There are genuine, actual tears streaming down his face, burn in his eyes almost as bad as the burn in his lungs, the ache in his belly. He wraps his shaking arms around himself in an attempt to hold himself together, laughing so hard he feels like his muscles might actually rip themselves off his bones. Every time he tries to calm down, he pictures Will, in his dorky flip-flops, egg in his hair, half a muffin crushed on his cheek, bright red, sprawled on the ground, food everywhere. If he could think of literally anything else, he’d be worried about his heart straight-up failing.

“I hate you. Actually.”

“I’m – oh my God,” he wheezes. He manages, finally, to get an actual breath in, desperately trying to think of literally anything else to calm down. Fucking – bumper to bumper traffic. Bedbugs. His father’s frowning face. That always works. “Holy shit, Will.”

“I should’ve just woken your ungrateful ass up.”

“Probably.” He flicks a grape at him, smiling. Will catches it in his mouth, rolling his eyes but smiling back. “Glad you didn’t.”

“Whatever.”

Nico finishes the rest of his breakfast in relative peace, managing to turn away if his mouth threatens to betray the tentative truce they’ve negotiated. He even eats one entire peach when Will starts pelting him with tiny hotel soap bottles and listing side effects of cholesterol-induced heart disease.

The second he finishes the last bite, Will orders him to clear off the desk. Nico mutters about bossiness and how Will is most definitely not in charge of him, doing as he asks. When he comes back – took him a hot second to shove the paper plates into a small enough ball to fit in the garbage can – Will has dragged the desk over to the bed, sitting criss-cross next to it, examining one of the many papers he has covering it.

“So,” he says, gesturing next to him. Nico dutifully sits, peering at the various maps and markings. “We gotta plan part two.”

“Didn’t we already do this?” Nico asks. “Back at Dunkin’s?”

“Not this far. I wanted to Preserve the Spontaneous Road Trip Spirit.” Nico can hear the capitalization.

“So, planning, then.”

“Yes, exactly.”

Nico smiles. “Brief me, captain.”

Will jumps right in, pointing and gesturing and every once and a while catching Nico’s eye to ask, right? Sound good?

Nico just watches him.

The midday sun shines directly in his face, catching and reflecting on his pale eyelashes, making his eyes go squinty. His excitement is obvious, in his chattering, his waving hands, his bouncing curls; every part of him moving. Even his stupid cargo shorts look endearing, every other pocket bulging, filled absentmindedly with slips of paper or pens or bandaids or granola bars. Nico watches him and feels he might burst.

“You’re not listening,” Will accuses.

Nico jumps back into focus. “Yes I am.”

“What’d I just say?”

“‘You’re not listening’.”

WIll cracks a smile. “You’re not funny.”

“Run over that again,” Nico answers, and grins devilishly when Will does. Not funny his ass.

He listens, though, through Will’s second explanation. It’s not too hard – Will’s always been organised. The wide penciled circle around their location in Atlanta, outlining the area they can drive before their next fuel stop, is pretty wide. But the options are limited, in Nico’s opinion – while he’s sure there is indeed something to do in South Carolina, there’s nothing to do for him, specifically. He’s cool with skipping it.

“There is one place we can go,” Will says. His voice has gone oddly quiet, and after at minute he glances over at Nico, like he’s waiting for his permission.

“Your road trip, dude,” he murmurs, nudging their shoulders together. “I’ll even go to South Carolina if you want to, but no promises that I won’t complain about it.”

That, thankfully, draws a huff out of him, some of the tenseness fading from his frame.

“South Carolina is beautiful, you know.”

“Says the boy who is currently visiting his third state ever.”

“...Touché.” He taps his pencil on the map, pink eraser thunking somewhere in the Bermuda triangle. “I was thinking – we could try Nashville? Music Row, or Broadway?”

Nico groans. “Oh, of course you wanna go hang out with all the goddamn hillbillies, you fuckin’ country boy –”

“It’s good music!”

Nico groans louder. Secretly, though, he watches his friend out of the corner of his eye, watches as his shoulders slump, relieved, and he knows he’ll spend as long as he needs in lasso-slingin’ Tennessee, following Will in and out of – barns and ranches and cowboy boot shops, probably. Are saloons still a thing?

He has a feeling that there is more to Will’s hesitance than a fear about being judged for his Marty Robbins obsession. If Tennessee is where he’s gonna get answers – well. He’ll brave the goddamn sea of cowboy hats.

A knock at the door startles them both. A voice calls hesitantly through the door: “Mr. di Angelo?”

“Wrong door, probably,” Will whispers after a moment. He looks to Nico. “Right?”

There’s another knock. “Mr. di Angelo?”

“Yeah.” Nico rolls of the bed, landing on the floor with a grunt. “Another room with a Mr. di Angelo.”

He creeps towards the door, keeping low as if whoever’s outside can see him. After a moment, the bed creaks, and Will’s quiet footsteps pad behind him.

“You think it’s room service?” Will whispers, plastered to the opposite side of the door. Even ducking, his hair brushes the edge of the peephole.

Nico shoves his head down, pinching him when he squawks. “Be quiet, tall person, I need to see.”

“Get a stepstool then, jerk! Stop using my neck as a lever!”

“What part of be quiet are you missing! God!”

“Mr. di Angelo, please open the door.”

The voice on the other side of the door sounds amused. Face flaming, Nico shoves Will somewhere behind him, still bitching, and swings open the door.

“Good afternoon,” says the man in the hallway. He’s dressed very smartly in a tailored black suit, nametag reading Eric. “Are you Mr. di Angelo?”

Nico clears his throat, trying to stand taller. “That’s me.”

“Good. I’m with Hotel Administration. We received a fax for you this morning?” He hands Nico a manilla folder. “First page says confidential, so we put it in the envelope. We tried to call this morning but didn’t get any response.”

Vaguely, Nico remembers a ringing phone. He also remembers yanking the plug out of the wall in sleep-deprived rage.

Oops.

Ignoring Will’s snickering, Nico thanks the man, closing the door and sitting on the nearest bed. Will scooches over to make room for him, tossing and catching a pillow. Nico leans back against the headboard, crossing his leg over Will’s.

“What’s in the envelope?”

“Checking now.”

The envelope is the cheap kind you get in a box of fifty; speckled brown, thin, machine-cut. It’s not sealed and so Nico flips it open easily, sliding out a small stack of papers. The first is a huge CONFIDENTIAL, printed diagonally across otherwise blank paper. The second is a bank statement.

Nico shoots upright.

“What? Nico, what’s –”

“Mr. di Angelo, we regret to lose your business,’” Nico recites in a shaking voice, “‘but appreciate your time with us and wish you all the best with your future banking.’”

Frantically, he scans the document again. Successful cancellation. Expedited closure date. Transferred affairs to –

– parent account.

“–co? Nico? Can you please tell me what’s going on?”

The air pushes out of Nico’s lungs like a crushed balloon. “Fuck.”

“Nico.” Warm hands press on his bloodless cheeks, fingers sliding in his hair. “Nico, look at me.”

He gasps. Will squeezes gently, eyes dark and stern and kind, thumbs callus-rough and dragging across his cheekbones.

“Good. Again. There you go, you got it.”

Nico grabs his wrists when he tries to pull away. Will takes the hint, sliding his hands under Nico’s free one and knocking their shoulders together.

“What’s wrong, Nico?”

Instead of answering, Nico sets the papers on the bed between them. Will squints, and for a second Nico prays that he’s wrong, that he’s mixed up the words. That it doesn’t say what it knows it does.

Then Will inhales, quick and sharp, and the hope is dashed.

“Your card…”

“Next page,” Nico says softly.

Niccolò,

The papers rustle as Will flips them, and this one he takes much longer to read.

Vorrei sapere che ho fermato un caso di frode alla radice.

After a minute, he holds it out, shaking his head.

Un criminale ha rubato la tua carta di credito, e l’ha usata per comprare una stanza d’albergo in Georgia. Qualche spacciatore, non ci sono dubbi.

“It’s a little formal, I can’t –”

Ho disattivato la carta, naturalmente. Ti darò quella nuova appena ti vedrò.

Nico takes the scanned letter. Vaguely, he registers Will’s hands brushing up his arms as they move two wrap around his face again, this time forcing his jaw to unclench.

“Power play,” Nico snarls. His clenched fingers wrinkle the pulpy paper. “He knows exactly where I am. If he wanted to drag me home, he could drag me by the fucking –”

“But instead he’s forcing you to call him,” Will says softly. “Oh, Nico, I’m so sorry.”

The hands drop from his face again. It knocks the cloudiness right out of Nico’s head, and he snaps up, frowning at Will’s crooking fingers, the bitten lips. He won’t meet Nico’s eyes.

“Why are you sorry my father’s being a haughty jackass who suddenly cares what I do with my time?”

“And his money.” Will picks up the bank statement, reading over it again, and again, like it might change. Like Nico’s credit card will magically become un-cancelled, like they will suddenly become un-stranded. “This whole stupid thing is my fault. I never should have dragged you into it, Neeks, I’m so –”

“If you apologise again I’m going to push you off the bed.”

“– sorry.”

“Will.” Nico snatches back the statement, shaking his head. He waits until blue eyes meet his then smiles, as reassuringly as he can with such a pit in his stomach. “My father is –” He sighs. “It’s not about the money. You know he doesn’t care about the money.”

Will shrugs. It’s true – Nico has made dumber purchases. When he was twelve, he bought a trampoline, just to see if his father would say anything. Fifteen, marble statue. Sixteen, a car.

Then he stopped trying.

“How far can we go, on the gas we have? How many miles?”

Will shrugs. “Three and a half hours? Four, if we push it?”

“And on a full tank of gas?”

“Almost six.”

“And then we’re stuck.”

“And then we’re stuck, yeah. Unless you got Greyhound money hidden somewhere.”

Nico sighs, dragging a hand down his face. “That’s what he wants, Will. He doesn’t care about the – about the stupid money. He wants me. He wants me to ask, rather, to pick up a phone and beg him to come get us ‘cause we have no other options. He wants me to admit I need his help.”

The first time he ran away, he’d had to avoid every cop car. He knew he was being looked for, he saw his own face plastered on news screens. It had only been a matter of time. The second attempt was – easier. Much easier. He’d hardly even had to hide his face. By the third time, he’d waited a week, waited almost a month, before he was cold and hungry and walked to the nearest social services building himself. The car ride home, the humiliation so potent he could taste the bitterness of it, had made the cold, rainy nights with nothing but the same ratty hoodie he’d worn when he left worth it. He swore he’d never subject himself to that again.

And yet here he is.

Out of options.

“You know what? No.” In a swift, unstoppable movement, Will snatches the stack of papers, ripping them into four pieces faster than Nico can reach an arm out to stop him. “We’re not doing this.”

“Will – what –”

He throws himself off the bed, stomping over to his backpack. A folded pair of socks goes flying over his shoulder, a book hits the ground with a heavy thunk. His muttering grows louder, cursing interspersed between every word.

“What are you –”

“We are not dealing with this right now.” With a frustrated finally, Will yanks a bag of something out of his backpack, stomping back towards the bed. He throws a Ziploc bag onto the duvet, and it bounces once, twice, three times before splitting open and spilling quarters everywhere.

“What the hell is –”

“You already payed for the room, right?”

Nico snaps his jaw shut. “Yes.”

“And it’s Saturday.”

“I – it is, yeah.”

“Not a business day.”

“No.”

“Well.” Will nods. “Bank’s closed. Hotel can’t process anything, and they have no reason to suspect your card, which worked just fine last night, is gonna bounce. We’ve got a day of breathing room, at least, and I don’t want to think about it.”

He holds up a hand when Nico starts to argue, grim set to his mouth giving way to something a little sharper, a little more dangerous.

“We might not be old enough to gamble, but when you’re in Atlanta, you do as the Atlantians do.” He meets Nico’s eye, grinning. “You still any good Street Fighters?”

———

next chapter

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mybutcheredtongue · 3 months

Text

I'll Love You 'til the Grass Around My Gravestone is Deceased

harry potter timeline sirius black x fem!reader

CHAPTER TEN (see full series list here)

1993

"Now, the mean temperature on Venus is four-hundred and sixty-two degrees celsius, making it hotter than Mercury, despite it being further from the Sun. Can anyone tell me why?"

Your third-years look around the room at each other uncertainly. You have them sitting down at desks as you teach some theory to them.

"Is it just...'cause it is?" Ron guesses, and Harry snorts beside him, earning a dirty look off Ron.

"A perfectly vague answer, Mr Weasley," you reply. "You should consider becoming a politician."

You glance expectedly at Hermione, who has fallen asleep, head held up by her right hand. Lavender Brown pokes her and Hermione wakes with a start, blurting out, "G — greenhouse effect!"

You nod, turning back to your whiteboard. "Yes...the greenhouse effect. There's an incredibly high concentration of carbon dioxide in Venus' atmosphere, which produces the greenhouse effect. All the heat gets trapped in the atmosphere, like a blanket, and makes it unbearably hot." You glance back at Hermione again, adding, "Ms Granger, please see me after class."

You continue on and later, when the class ends and the last of the students are filtering out, Hermione approaches your desk nervously.

"Professor, please, I didn't mean to fall asleep! Please don't be angry I didn't — "

"Hermione," you say gently, gesturing to the seat in front of your desk. "Sit, please. I'm not angry with you at all, relax."

Hermione relaxes slightly, taking the seat in front of you.

"How many classes are you taking, Hermione?"

She bites her lip. "Thirteen, Professor."

You're quite taken aback at this. "Thirteen?"

"Y — yes, Professor."

You sigh. "Hermione, your workload is far too much for a young girl to handle. Far too much for anyone to handle! It's not good for you — how are you even getting to all these classes on time?"

"My — um, my timetable was fixed by Professor McGonagall..."

You shake your head. "Please, Hermione. All this is clearly taking a toll on your health. Why, the last essay you turned into me was about Arithmancy."

Hermione's eyes go wide. "Oh, no! That means I gave Professor Vector my Astronomy one, oh my goodness — she's going to be so mad with me."

"I'll talk to her," you say reassuringly. "For now, Hermione, I want to see you go straight back to your dorm and sleep. And you are not to attend your next Astronomy class."

"But, Professor — "

"Hermione," you say sternly. "I don't want to see you in my next class. You won't miss anything important, I promise. I want you to use that time to rest, please. Now, straight to bed with you."

"Professor..."

"Goodnight, Ms Granger," you say and she reluctantly stands. "And if you ever need anything, don't hesitate to tell me. Anything at all. I'd be happy to help."

Hermione gives you a small, tired smile. "Thank you, Professor."

"Goodnight."

✧⁠*⁠。✧⁠*⁠。

On a Saturday, when most of the students have gone to Hogsmeade, you sit in Remus' office, drinking tea and snacking on a few cupcakes Bitsy made you.

"How's the potion treating you?" You ask casually, taking a bite out of another sweet cupcake.

Remus grimaces, eyeing the empty goblet on the corner of his desk. "It's rancid. But it works, so I shan't complain."

"What's even in it?"

"Well, Wolfsbane, of course..moonseed, dittany — "

You gag. "Gross."

He hums. "Exactly."

"Lupin! I want a word!" Comes the voice of Snape from Remus' fireplace suddenly, along with his angry face. "And bring her with you!"

You glance at Remus in confusion and he just shrugs, before you both step into the fireplace and clamber out of the other end in Snape's office. You brush ash off your jumper, scowling at Snape and then noticing Harry.

"You called, Severus?" Remus says mildly.

"I certainly did," Snape says, face contorted in fury as he returns to his desk. "I have just asked Potter to empty his pockets. He was carrying this."

He points at a piece of parchment in front of him, laid flat on the desk. Inked upon it, were four sentences:

Mr Moony presents his compliments to Professor Snape, and begs him to keep his abnormally large nose out of other people's business.

Mr Prongs agrees with Mr Moony, and would like to add that Professor Snape is an ugly git.

Mr Padfoot would like to register his astonishment that an idiot like that ever became a Professor.

Mr Wormtail bids Professor Snape good day, and advises him to wash his hair, the slimeball.

Well, fuck.

You do your best not to laugh and keep your expression as blank as possible. Those boys, no matter what, will always find a way to send Snape an 'up yours' in some shape or form.

"Well?" says Snape, scowling.

You stare at the parchment, mind running. "This seems to be a very...childish slip of parchment."

"Childish?" Snape repeats. "This parchment is plainly full of Dark Magic. This is supposed to be your area of expertise, Lupin. Where do you imagine Potter got such a thing?"

Remus sends you the tiniest, near-imperceptible glance and you look straight ahead, boring holes into the parchment.

"Full of Dark Magic?" he says mildly. "Do you really think so, Severus? It looks to me as though it is merely a piece of parchment that insults anybody who tries to read it. Childish, but surely not dangerous? I imagine Harry got it from a joke-shop — "

"Indeed?" Snape's jaw is rigid with anger. "You don't think a joke-shop could supply him with such a thing? You don't think it more likely that he got it directly from the manufacturers?"

You cough lightly. "Hardly. Harry, surely you wouldn't be too keen to take something from someone named Wormtail, would you?"

"No," Harry says quickly.

"You see, Severus?" says Remus. "It looks like a Zonko's product to me — "

As if he was waiting for his moment outside the door the entire time, Ron Weasley bursts through Snape's door, red-faced and breathless.

"I — gave — Harry — that — stuff," he wheezes. "Bought — it — in — Zonko's — ages — ago..."

"Well!" Remus says cheerfully, clapping his hands together and giving you a happy grin. "That seems to clear that up! Severus, I'll take this back, shall I?" He grabs the map, folding it up and tucking it inside his robes. "Harry, Ron, come with me. I need a word about my vampire essay."

"Oh, I also need to discuss your star charts!" You blurt out, smiling at the two young boys.

"Excuse us, Severus," Remus says, and the four of you leave the office and walk in silence all the way back into the Entrance Hall before speaking.

Harry glances nervously between the two of you, starting, "I — "

"I don't want to hear explanations," Remus says shortly. He glances around the empty Entrance Hall, lowering his voice. "I happen to know that this map was confiscated by Mr Filch many years ago. Yes, I know it's a map," he says, and you take in Harry and Ron's amazed faces.

"I don't want to know how it fell into your possession," he continues. "I am, however, astounded that you didn't hand it in. Particularly after what happened the last time a student left information about the castle lying around. And I can't let you have it back, Harry."

"Why did Snape think I'd got it from the manufacturers?" Harry questions.

Remus hesitates. "Because — um..."

"They're a bunch of gits who'd have loved to put you in danger," you finish.

Remus frowns at you and you shrug.

"Do you know them?" Harry says, seeming impressed.

"We've met," Remus tells him curtly. He's got that extremely serious Remus expression on his face that he used to get during exam season, when he'd act like he wanted to study but really he didn't.

"Don't expect us to cover for you again, Harry," he says sternly. "I cannot make you take Sirius Black seriously."

If it wasn't for his grave tone, you would laugh at that.

"But I would have thought that what you have heard when the Dementors draw near you would have had more of an effect on you. Your parents gave their lives to keep you alive, Harry. A poor way to repay them — gambling their sacrifice for a bag of magic tricks."

You're surprised at his last words, but can barely comment on them because he's spun on his heel and headed in the opposite direction. You catch up to him as he enters his office, throwing the map down on his desk with a sigh.

"Jeez, Moony, that was a bit harsh," you mutter and he nods grimly.

"I know, I know...but it's the only way to make him realise the severity of this situation."

You stare idly at the folded parchment on his desk. "So, what, Harry nicked the map from Filch's?"

"I suppose so," Remus answers. "We are lucky to have caught it."

"And, Merlin, that charm...Snape looked like he wanted to rip your head off."

"I'm aware. I...I don't remember writing that," he says abashedly.

You chuckle. "It was brilliant. Absolutely bloody brilliant."

⁠✧⁠*⁠。✧⁠*⁠。

It's not long before the Quidditch Cup Final arrives, and the tensions are high in the castle between Gryffindor and Slytherin. There's been more than one occasion where you've had to break up scraps between students, deducting a few points from each house.

The match falls on a beautifully sunny day and you sit in the stands, watching the Gryffindor team elatedly dance around in celebration, hoisting the Cup into the air enthusiastically. They're all smiles and happy faces and it warms your heart to see.

It reminds you of the time Gryffindor won the Quidditch Cup during your sixth year at Hogwarts.

♡*⁠。♡*⁠。

You clutch the megaphone in your hand tightly, leaning forward to watch the match.

1997

"GRYFFINDOR'S RYDER IN POSSESSION AND SHE'S GONE!" you cry. "SHE'S BOMBED THROUGH THE AIR AND OH, HERE COMES LEVINSON FOR THE CHALLENGE...PASS TO BURNS, BURNS SHOOTS...SCORE! TEN-ZERO TO GRYFFINDOR!"

The Gryffindor side of the stands erupts into cheers and Burns grins proudly. You spot James Potter ambling around the air on his broomstick, his eyes dancing around the pitch in search of the Golden Snitch. Slytherin's Seeker, Regulus Black, is watching James closely, waiting for any slight movement to indicate that he's seen it.

"SLYTHERIN IN POSSESSION AND IT'S MALFOY..." you gag dramatically, earning a glare from Professor McGonagall beside you. "MALFOY PASSES TO LEVINSON...LEVINSON TO PHILLIPS, PHILLIPS JUST BARELY DODGES A WELL-PLACED BLUDGER FROM GRYFFINDOR'S BLACK...he's quite handsome too — "

"Focus on the game!"

"Right, yeah — got it, Professor!" you grin at her and she sighs. You glance down at Sirius, who sends a wink in your direction and you blow a kiss back.

Then, movement on the side of the pitch catches your eye: Slytherin Captain, Lynx Phillips, has just punched Gryffindor Captain, Ryan Carr, who launches his Beater's Bat right back at him, clocking him in the jaw. Madam Hooch blows her whistle furiously and zooms over to them, an enraged look on her face.

"PENALTY, PROFESSOR! THAT'S A PENALTY RIGHT THERE!"

"Penalty to Gryffindor for an unprovoked attack on their Beater! Penalty to Slytherin for an attack on their chaser!"

Ryder flies up to the Slytherin goal to take a shot.

"COME ON, RINA...YES! SHE SCORES! TWENTY-ZERO TO GRYFFINDOR!"

Next, Levinson comes to take the Slytherin penalty, scowling at Gryffindor's Keeper, Fleming.

"FLEMING'LL SAVE THIS ONE, NO DOUBT...WELL, OKAY, MALFOY CLEARLY SABOTAGED THAT ONE. TWENTY-TEN TO GRYFFINDOR!"

Time passes, scores ticking up on both sides. Everyone is on the edge of their seats, waiting in anticipation for each blow.

"HERE GOES PHILLIPS WITH THE QUAFFLE...HIT BY GRYFFINDOR BEATER SIRIUS BLACK ONCE AGAIN! YAXLEY DROPS THE QUAFFLE AND IT'S INTERCEPTED BY RYDER AND SHE'S GONE — WAIT, WHERE THE FUCK DID SHE GO? I'M AFTER LOSING HER — AND SHE SCORES! ONE-HUNDRED- EIGHTY TO GRYFFINDOR!"

"Language!"

"YEAH, SORRY, PROFESSOR...BUT IT LOOKS LIKE GRYFFINDOR SEEKER, JAMES POTTER, HAS SPOTTED THE SNITCH! SLYTHERIN'S BLACK IS TRAILING CLOSE BEHIND..."

James bolts through the air, heading towards the Gryffindor goals where he's spotted the Snitch. Regulus is barely an inch behind him, hot in his heels.

"FASTER, JAMES, HE'S RIGHT BEHIND YOU!"

Finally, James is upon the Snitch and he clasps it in his right hand and raises it triumphantly. The crowd explodes. Gryffindor flags are waved like mad and McGonagall cheers excitedly beside you.

"WOO! JAMES POTTER HAS CAUGHT THE SNITCH, ENDING THE GAME TWO-HUNDRED AND FIFTY TO NINETY AND WINNING GRYFFINDOR THE QUIDDITCH CUP!"

The Gryffindors collide with each other mid-air, and you watch as Sirius and James throw their arms around each other, landing quickly and jumping up and down elatedly. You quickly drop the megaphone, jumping out of your seat and running down the stairs towards the pitch. You sprint out along with all the other Gryffindor supporters.

Everyone is cheering and shouting in the middle of the pitch and you stop just beside Sirius. He notices you and beams, his handsome face lighting up, and he detangles himself from James to throw his arms around you. You kiss him and he lifts you up to spin you around, making you giggle in delight. Eventually he sets you down.

"You were brilliant!" You exclaim. "You did so well, Siri — "

He kisses you again, and you can feel him smile against your lips. You pull away and grin at each other, before finally you let go of him and hug James.

"Not too bad, Potter!" You say with a laugh, ruffling his hair good-naturedly.

"We won the Cup!" He shouts happily, unable to quench the huge grin stretching his face.

"We won the Cup!" You repeat, grinning just as enthusiastically back at him.

You hug everyone in sight, giving Remus, Peter, Alice, and Lily especially tight ones and by the end of it you're bouncing on your toes in happiness.

It can't get any better than this, can it?

♡*⁠。♡*⁠。

Exam season starts and there's a hush around the castle. You watch as your third-years filter into the Astronomy Tower looking especially nervous. Hermione Granger has her eyes closed and is reciting the names of Saturn's moons to herself — somehow managing to remember all one-hundred and forty-six. You're amazed at that really, but feel bad because she only needed to know one.

"Okay, everyone. Please take a seat and start filling out the papers in front of you. There's four questions on it. When you've finished, go to a telescope and I'll give you three constellations to chart. Best of luck everyone!"

The students sit down at the desks, and start filling out the papers in front of them. After a minute, Ron Weasley is already scratching his head at the first question; Hermione Granger has already managed to reach the end of the parchment; and Harry Potter is just blankly staring at it.

Later, Hermione springs out of her chair and you ask her for three constellations, which she charts very neatly and accurately.

It's not long before their time is up and they all leave the Tower, and you're stuck with a stack of parchment to work through.

⁠✧⁠*⁠。✧⁠*⁠。

->-> read chapter eleven here!

→ all kinds of interaction are appreciated ♡

+ thank you especially to my new taglist loves:

@wholelottalove05 @izuoyarmin

#sirius black x reader #sirius black #sirius black x you #angst #fanfiction #angst with a happy ending #the marauders #harry potter #hp #fanfic #marauders #hp fandom #hp fanfic

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everysongineverykey · 2 years

Text

the closing scene of a marvel-produced deltarune movie

kris: i guess in the end... the REAL power... was friendship all along

(silence for like ten seconds)

noelle: uh.... that was.... REALLY corny🤣🤣🤣

susie: yeah dude cmon. what is this, some kinda dumb teen movie or something? (audience bursts out laughing at this charmingly self-aware joke)

ralsei: kris... even I'M not that corny. but... you have a point. group hug!!

(everyone scooches away from ralsei because group hugs are #lame)

kris: uh... wow. and you call ME corny.

berdly: well, corniness aside, i think we can all agree that i was the real reason we got out with our lives. although i'll admit i may have caused problems on the way by... distracting the ladies (winks at susie and noelle, he likes both of them in this movie and has had zero character development except for one tense moment in act 3 where he almost sacrificed himself for the greater good but then was saved at the last minute)

(silence, noelle and susie exchange a glance)

kris: ...uh... so, ANYWAY, you guys wanna go get pEzza?

(everyone nods excitedly, they walk off into the sunset without berdly because he is the designated incel character and must be hated by everyone)

noelle: why's it called pEzza anyway... that's so #weird lol...

susie: right?? what is this, some kids' game or something? (cue more audience laughter at this hilarious meta joke) anyway noelle... you wanna... share a pEzza with me?

noelle: o-oh! s-sure, susie! ahaha! and i-if you want, we could go to qc's later on... i-if you want to, i mean!

susie: ... yeah. i'd love to. (winks at her, audience cheers at this groundbreaking, incredibly daring lgbtq rep, the two have barely interacted this entire movie and the ferris wheel sequence in the chapter 2 movie was "cut for time" in favor of kris eating a banana in the rouxls battle and evolving into kris neo [this is a funny reference to their spinoff series "DREAMER" in which they joked briefly about this very thing])

kris, to ralsei: wow... look at THOSE lovebirds (other characters are saying susie and noelle are in love, and thus they are, and we should root for their romance)

ralsei: yeah... hey, there's something you never told me...

kris: what?

ralsei: are you a boy or a girl?

(pause as kris looks at him, they open their mouth to answer, and then the credits roll before they say anything in a hilarious and groundbreaking show of nonbinary representation after making their ambiguous gender the butt of hundreds of jokes over the course of the series. the movie receives a million oscars and chris pratt is elected king of hollywood for his performances as kris and spamton)

#deltarune #i'm going to hell for this

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dean-winchester-is-a-warrior · 11 days

Text

The Dangers of Hope Epilogue

Series Summary: When Y/N shows up at Camp Chitaqua with her little girl in tow, her bloodshot eyes leave no doubt that she's infected. Or is she? Everything Dean has come to know for certain over the last five hellish years, is about to be challenged.

Pairings/Characters in the series: Endverse!Dean x Reader, Emma (OFC), Castiel, Sam Winchester, Lucifer, Michael, Zachariah, Risa, Johnston (OMC), Patrick (OMC), Theresa (OFC), other survivors and soldiers.

Series Explicit 18 +/Warnings: Show level violence, some gore, angst, smut, fluff all the usual for a series of mine. ❤️ Endverse!Dean (that's a warning for his anger and callousness as well as his extreme hotness. 😁) Each chapter will have their own specific warnings.

Chapter Warnings: None.

Word Count: 5,849

A/N: So, I've had this idea for quite a while. Basically since I watched The Last of Us. I loved Pedro in the role of Joel, but I kept thinking how incredible Jensen would have been. Which then made me think of how amazing he was as Endverse!Dean which then led me to this idea. Lol! I've stolen the premise of Ellie's storyline from TLOU, but made her a grown up, a reader insert, and a love interest for Dean.

If you've never seen TLOU, don't worry - you don't need to have seen it to understand this story. 😊

I've taken some liberties with the Endverse in my story, changed a few things from canon, but kept lots of things too.

I sincerely hope you enjoy the story. It will be ten chapters and I will do my very best to post one chapter every weekend. ❤️

A/N 2: So this is it, the epilogue, the end. I'm so sad to say goodbye to this series. I've really loved writing it, even if it kicked my ass a couple of times. I know I've said this already, but it definitely bears repeating - I'm so unbelievably grateful for the love and support you've all shown this series. Thanks so much - and I hope you enjoy this little peak into Dean and Y/N's lives a decade later. This ended up about twice as long as I'd planned. Lol! Enjoy! ❤️

Main Master List || Series Master List || Tag Lists

The dividers below were created by @saradika

Spring, 10 Years Later

The rumbling engine of the Impala was silenced as Dean pulled into the garage and parked Baby in her spot. The camp had eight cars now, so they'd had to expand the garage two summers before. The cars got shuffled around all the time, but Baby always kept her spot on the end. Everyone knew it was her spot.

The late afternoon sun shone in through the garage windows as Dean removed the keys from the ignition and pushed them back into his black, denim jacket pocket.

Sam was sitting beside him and shot him a questioning look when Dean didn't immediately jump out. “Dean?”

Dean nodded and then looked over at his little brother. “Do you think I did the right thing?”

Sam sighed. He'd already answered this question from his brother, in various forms, three or four times.

The Deerling Survivors Camp, a small camp located almost seventy miles away, had sent a message to Dean a week earlier, requesting a face-to-face meeting. Dean had asked Sam to come along and they'd stayed overnight at the fledgling camp. The pseudo-leader there, just a young kid who’d been thrust into the role, had asked them to let Deerling join Camp Chitaqua, and after seeing the shape of the camp, Dean had agreed on the spot.

Years earlier the four smaller camps surrounding Chitaqua had joined them, expanding the camp by miles and miles and raising the population by more than two hundred people. It had been a big decision, and Dean had consulted with the council for a couple days before agreeing to the expansion.

It was a very good decision in the end, since they now had enough land to plant six, four acre farm plots. They made sure to rotate crops, leaving one field fallow every season and using it for grazing pasture. But all that fertile land meant that the campers all had plenty of fresh vegetables. Their expanded size also allowed them to enlarge their barn, so they could now house and care for four cows and a bull, two horses, dozens of chickens, a rooster, two pigs, and eight sheep.

They'd bartered and traded with other camps for most of their animals or found them wandering around alone and unclaimed. But they bought their sheep from a farmer living in what used to be Iowa. A lot of farmers had started over there, scratching out a new life from the soil, now that the world had started turning once again.

Seven years ago they'd finally succeeded in producing a vaccine. It had taken a lot of hard work. For three years, every single person that worked on it did so with nothing more than a promise of a better tomorrow.

It had taken another two plus years to get the word and the vaccine out to people, but now most of the population was vaccinated. The vaccine had also been carried overseas. They couldn't be sure how things were going across the pond because communication was still very limited. But they'd heard rumors that it was going well.

Some infrastructure was up and running again; they had electricity in some places, and some cities had running water again. There were even some places that had phone lines connected - in and around the bigger cities where people were beginning to congregate.

Things seemed to be progressing quickly out west in the former California, where they'd reportedly started broadcasting some form of Television again. Not very many people had TVs anymore to watch, but it seemed comforting to people just to know something resembling their former lives was returning.

Not everything was perfect, of course. There was no centralized government, or structured, widespread laws. Most areas had variations of camps like Chitaqua with leaders in charge, or occasionally small, internally elected governments that ran the camp. Lawlessness still existed in a lot of places, but it was being beaten further back every day as groups banded together.

There were also still some areas that were uninhabitable because massive groups of Croats still roamed there. The researchers that had created the vaccine were working on a cure for those who’d already been infected, but thus far they’d proved unsuccessful. Croat attacks still happened sometimes, but the vaccine meant that people just had to deal with the bite itself, making sure it was healing properly - something that was becoming easier as medical stations were springing up in and around larger populations as well, as doctors went back to healing people as they’d been trained to do.

Chitaqua had a physician, Dr. Turner, who lived in the camp. The Medical Tent was no more and instead the doctor’s office and their cache of medical supplies were now housed in a big log structure that had been tiled inside to keep it as clean and sanitary as possible. Patrick was happy to be rid of guard duties these days, working alongside Dr. Turner to watch over the health and well-being of the campers.

There weren’t many tents left nowadays either. They had a bunch stored away in case the camp ended up with a big influx of new campers and temporary housing was needed. But most people lived in log cabins of varying sizes, dotted over the two and a half square miles of the camp. There were well over five hundred people in the camp now, since amalgamating the four other camps. They also had a reputation for being a prosperous, strong community, so people tended to migrate there as well - which continued to add to their numbers.

Now, after the meeting with the Deerling camp, they’d be adding another ninety-six people to their ranks, inflating their population to nearly seven hundred people. Dean was worried about the fact that he’d made the decision to absorb the smaller camp without consulting the council this time.

The council was a group made up of eight other people besides Dean. Sam and Y/N were on it, as well as Brandy, Risa, Dr. Turner, and three other campers who were there representing the hunters, the farmers and the builders.

Day-to day decisions were still handled by Dean, but he relied on the council for other bigger decisions - taking their thoughts, ideas and opinions into account before he ultimately made a decision. Agreeing to take in another flock of people and develop another thirty acres of land was definitely one of those big decisions he’d normally take to the council, which was why, Sam knew, Dean had been second guessing his unilateral decision to say yes to Deerling’s request.

Sam shook his head at his brother as he answered Dean’s worry again. “Dean, you acted out of generosity, the council will understand. I can vouch for the fact that those campers need a lot of help very quickly. Those kids were starving, you could see that.”

Dean nodded. “Yeah, I know, but I just brought the camp more strain on resources with no benefits.”

Sam shrugged. “Well, there’s the land.”

Dean scoffed. “Yeah, unfarmable land that’s separated from us by almost eighty miles. And Brisbane camp sits between us and Deerling, and they already think we’re trying to take them over. Joining with a group on the other side of them is gonna make them even more suspicious and possibly turn them unfriendly.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “I should have consulted the council.”

“Dean, there’s no way the council would have opted to just let a bunch of kids and sick people die. They’re definitely going to agree with your decision, and this way you’ve simply ensured that we can get food and medicine out to them by tomorrow instead of making them wait days for it. Trust me, you made the right decision.”

Dean grunted his response, still unsure.

Sam slapped the back of his hand against Dean’s shoulder. “Now, I’m gonna go talk with the Doc about getting supplies together and coming out there with me tomorrow. Will you talk with Brandy later about food?”

Dean nodded. “Yeah.” A smile finally lit his face. “And then I’m goin’ home.”

Sam smiled and opened his door to climb out of the Impala. “Good plan. Give Y/N and the kids a kiss for me.”

Dean climbed out too and slammed his door behind him. He called Sam back as his brother began to walk away.

“We should also figure out a time and day to have a sit down with the new leader from Brisbane, talk with her about our intentions regarding Deerling. She’s tough, but she seems more approachable and level-headed than their last leader. Maybe we can convince her we’re not looking to take anything over.”

Sam nodded. “That’s a good idea.”

Dean frowned. “What’s her name again?”

“Eileen Leahy.”

Dean noticed his brother’s cheeks turn pink and he immediately turned back into an annoying big brother, his grin wide.

“Right, right, you met with her alone last time. She’s cute, huh? Something we should know? Maybe you should invite her over to our place for dinner next week. We can have our little sit down conversation then. What do you think?”

Sam had already turned and started walking away. “You’re an idiot!” He called back over his shoulder. But Dean made a mental note to tell Y/N all about it later.

With Y/N firmly in mind he started out across the camp. Their cabin was situated on top of a low hill in the Southwest section of the camp, not all that far from where their old red tent used to sit.

They’d built their cabin when they came back to Chitaqua eight years ago after helping to set up the research facility. The vaccine was still a year away, but they’d done all they could do and they were ecstatic that after two years of traveling back and forth from camp, gathering doctors, researchers and searching for other psychic kids, (they’d only found two others) and after Y/N had given gallons of her blood to science, they could finally come home for good.

Not long after returning home, Y/N realized she was pregnant and Dean became obsessed with building them a beautiful home. It was around that time that the camps had all joined together and building homes for everyone became a priority of the camp.

The builders grew in numbers as they took on apprentices and taught them the trade so that more people in the camp could join in the work. It took almost four years of constant building, but eventually all five hundred plus campers had permanent homes.

Gotta pull the tents out for the Deerling folks, Dean thought as he walked, his mind immediately occupied with figuring out the logistics of where the new campers could stay, and how they could join in the life of the camp, once they were all healthy.

He stopped by Food Storage and spoke with Brandy as Sam had requested. And just as his brother had suspected, when he explained the situation, Brandy was one council member who was very glad he’d made the decision he had. He felt more sure now that the others would feel the same.

As Dean wound his way through camp he got stopped quite a few times, people wanting to talk with him about one concern or another. He generally pointed them in the direction of the person or group in the camp that could help them. But he also got stopped by friends wanting to say hi and talk for a moment or two.

He was happy to talk, but anxious to get home to Y/N.

He looked out towards the large school building where Y/N still taught every day. The new building had been built on the site where the main cabin had been burned down. It was even bigger than the old cabin, with six rooms for the seven teachers that worked there now.

Y/N was also the principal of the school for all intents and purposes; she and the other teachers taught over two hundred kids from ages five to sixteen. Theresa had finished school and immediately joined the staff as a teacher, working with Y/N every day and loving it. Brandy was so proud.

But Dean wasn’t surprised to see the building empty now, however; he knew it was a day off. He picked up his pace, weaving through the buildings that resided where the old tents had taken up space.

They’d greatly expanded the food storage, and had an entirely different rations system now that fresh vegetables, fruit, fish and game made up the vast majority of their diet. Brandy was still in charge and was constantly innovating to make things easier and to stretch their food as far as they could in order to feed everyone.

The former tent area also housed three large storage sheds, a small building that worked as an office/meeting space for whatever group needed to use it, and a small mill where they processed the wheat they grew - that process had included a steep learning curve, but they’d eventually made it work.

There was also a small, open area where a kind of market had popped up organically as the campers traded amongst themselves for things like homemade jewelry, homemade clothes, and other non-essentials.

He walked behind the buildings and began climbing the gently rising path that led to their cabin at the top of the hill. About halfway home he heard loud barking and looked up to see their seven year old Bernese-Husky cross, Clifford, bounding towards him, the way he usually did when any of the family came home.

“Hey, boy.” Dean said softly, scratching him behind the ears. “Miss me?”

Clifford barked happily in answer and ran ahead and then back to where Dean stood, obviously urging him on towards home. Dean laughed and sped up, chasing after the big dog who sometimes still acted like a puppy.

As the path through the trees ended, opening up into their wide front yard, Dean sighed deeply. “Home sweet home.” He murmured.

Even though he'd been away less than two days, he was still so happy to be home. He felt the peace that filled him up every time he stepped around the last bend in the path and caught sight of their home in the distance.

The way smoke curled lazily from the chimney and the scent of something delicious wafted through the half open Dutch door, never failed to make him ache to get his arms around his wife and bask in her light. Dean shook his head at his sentimental thoughts, but hurried his pace to get inside.

As he drew closer however, something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye and he turned his head to see his son walking East, coming out from behind the house. Dean figured he was heading over to his friend Freddie's, and he was about to continue on into the cabin, but then he noticed what his eight-year-old was holding in his hand.

“Gabriel Eric Winchester!”

Dean's voice bellowed out, freezing the young boy where he stood. Dean strode towards him, anger clear on his face. To the boy's credit, even when he turned and saw his father's anger, he still walked forward slowly, until he was standing directly in front of him.

The gun he held, however, was tucked just behind his back, as though he was hoping Dean hadn't noticed it.

Dean held his hand out. “Give that to me this second.”

Gabe's face fell and he brought the gun forward reluctantly, dropping it onto Dean's palm.

Dean immediately checked to make sure the small, .38 caliber, Smith and Wesson revolver was unloaded and when he saw it was, he held it in his fist, directly in front of Gabe's eyes.

“What the hell do you think you're doing with this?”

His son's eyes were wide and they got watery quickly.

He shrugged. “I was just gonna bring it to Freddie's. Josh said he could teach us to shoot.” He said, referring to his friend’s older brother. “Just cans on a fence.” He was quick to reassure Dean.

“And did you ask your mother if you could remove a gun from the weapons chest?” Dean asked, already well aware of the answer.

Gabe shook his head. “No.” He said quietly.

“How did you get it?” Dean asked brusquely.

Gabriel’s voice was still soft as he admitted what he’d done. “I grabbed it yesterday when mom took out a rifle to scare away some raccoons that were trying to get into the compost. Josh said he could teach us if we had guns. So when I saw it last night I just…” He trailed off as he looked up at Dean's face.

“So what you're telling me,” Dean said quietly, “is that while your mother's back was turned you STOLE a gun and planned to use it without asking either of us for permission.”

Gabe's tears spilled down his cheek at his father's disappointed tone and accurate words. He nodded and then sniffed.

“I'm sorry.” He said thickly.

Dean crouched down so he could look his son in the eye. “Gabe, a gun is not a toy. I thought you knew this. It's not something to mess around with or use on a whim. It is a weapon. It's incredibly dangerous. If you'd gone off and started shooting, even just at cans, you could have seriously hurt or killed yourself or your friends. Do you understand me?”

Gabe nodded but bit his lip. “But you carry a gun.” He said, pointing to the ever present gun strapped to Dean’s thigh. “And you started using guns when you were even younger than me. I heard you talking about it to mom before. And I…” He sniffled again. “I just wanted to be like you.”

Dean sighed and shook his head. “Oh, buddy, I want you to be so much more than me. Your mom and I, we've worked really hard to make things better for you guys, to make the world safer so that when you grow up, hopefully you won’t have to walk around with a gun strapped to you at all times. It’s my job to protect the people in this camp. That’s why I carry a gun, and why I sometimes carry a rifle. But that’s not your job. Your job is to just be a little boy.”

Dean saw Gabriel pout a bit about being called a little boy. He smiled gently and squeezed his son’s shoulders. “Trust me, buddy, you should enjoy being a kid, don’t try to grow up too quickly.”

Gabe nodded begrudgingly and Dean pulled his son in for a hug. After a moment, he pulled back from him and stood up straight again, before nodding towards the cabin. “Go to your room now until supper, and when you come out, you’ll owe your mother an apology for going behind her back. Also, nothing but school and home for a week, do you understand?”

Gabe looked like he wanted to argue, but thought better of it when Dean gave him a stern look. “Yes, sir.” He said in acceptance and turned to run into the cabin.

“Gabriel!” Dean called. When his son turned back, the tear tracks on his grubby cheeks still visible, Dean spoke quietly but with conviction. “I love you and that’s why I know you can do better.”

Gabe’s face lost some of its forlorn look and he gave Dean a slightly awkward smile, lightly banging his fist against the side of his leg. “Love you too, Dad.” He said quickly before bolting for the house.

Dean shook his head and slipped the gun into his inside jacket pocket. He’d have to have a few more conversations with his son about gun safety and responsibility, but he was confident he could drill the dangers into him.

He walked up the stairs to the front door, more than ready to see Y/N and his girls. When he walked inside, however, he could hear voices coming from behind the kitchen door, and they didn’t sound very happy.

He pushed open the swinging door and saw Y/N and Emma inside. Y/N’s face lit up. “Dean!” She said happily as she saw him and crossed to the door to pull him down for a kiss.

“Ew.” Emma said.

It was the standard reaction from all of their kids when they kissed in front of them. Emma had a hand over her eyes as Dean finished the kiss and looked over to where she stood by the sideboard that held all their plates, cups and glasses.

“You can look now, kiddo, we’re all finished.” Dean told her with a grin. “For the moment.”

Emma rolled her eyes and made Dean chuckle. Y/N frowned up at him. “Did I hear you yelling at Gabe?”

Dean nodded. “Yeah, gotta talk to you about that, but you guys sounded angry when I came in. Anything wrong?”

Y/N looked at Emma and shrugged. “I’ve been telling Emma that she needs to invite her new friend for dinner.”

Dean’s brow wrinkled as he looked at Emma. “You don’t want to bring your friend over for dinner?”

Emma looked at Y/N with frustration, clearly annoyed that she’d told Dean anything.

Dean tried again. “What’s going on kiddo, since when don’t you want us to meet your friends? Who is it, by the way? Didn’t realize any new kids had started at the school.”

Y/N shook her head. “Jeffrey’s not a new student, he’s just a new…friend.” She said meaningfully.

Dean caught on and his face immediately dissolved into a scowl. “Oh.” He said without enthusiasm, crossing his arms over his chest.

“See?” Emma barked out, pointing at Dean, but talking to Y/N. “I told you this is how he’d be!!”

“What?” Dean asked defensively. “What are you talking about?”

Emma folded her arms, her posture and scowl mirroring Dean’s. “You get like this every time I bring a boy home, even when he’s absolutely just a friend. You scare the shit out of them!”

“Emma!” Y/N said, reprimanding her for her language..

But Dean just scoffed. “I don’t know what you mean. How do I scare them?”

Emma glared at him. “You interrogate them, Daddy, you know you do.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Come on, if they’re too freaked out to answer a few simple questions then-”

“Simple questions?” Emma interrupted with a humorless laugh. “When I invited Timothy Sutherland over here you forced him to sit down and answer a thousand questions about his family, his background, where he grew up, what his plans were when we finished school. He ran out of here and never looked back.”

Dean threw his arms out. “Do you really wanna date a loser like that anyway? Who can’t even answer a couple questions?”

“Ugh!” Emma stomped her foot and stormed out the back door.

Silence reigned for a moment when Emma left before Y/N turned towards Dean, giving him a tilted smile. “So, welcome home!” She said in a would-be cheerful voice..

Dean sighed as he pulled her back into his arms and kissed the top of her head. They enjoyed the simple peace of each other’s embrace for a few minutes before Y/N spoke.

“What happened with Gabe?” She asked.

“He stole a gun and was gonna go shoot cans with Josh and Freddie Young.”

“What?” Y/N shouted, pulling back to look into Dean’s face.

He nodded. “Yeah, but don’t worry, I handled it. He’s in his room till supper and he’s grounded for a week. And I talked to him about how dangerous guns were. I have more conversations planned around the subject for the near future.”

Y/N shook her head before laying it back on Dean’s chest. “Good lord.”

After a couple minutes Y/N pulled away and poured them each a cup of coffee. They settled beside each other at the wooden table and instinctively linked fingers.

Dean took a sip of coffee and sighed. “I don’t really interrogate all her boyfriends, do I?”

Y/N pursed her lips. “Well, she’s never actually had a real boyfriend. And I don’t think that's because boys don’t want to date her. She’s smart and kind, beautiful and well-liked. So…” She shrugged. “It seems probable that the boys who like her are just too intimidated by her father - you know, the legend who fought monsters, Croats, angels, and WON - the soldier that leads the camp, wears a gun, and asks scary questions, all while donning a very good mean-face.”

Dean exhaled loudly, but before he could respond, their youngest child came bouncing into the room. She was just six years old, and looked so much like Emma at that age that it sometimes caught Dean off guard.

But she was definitely her own little bundle of energy. Having never known hunger or hardship, she was all bright smiles and busy excitement. It seemed as though she’d been born smiling and simply hadn't stopped. Very little bothered her, and she was absolutely spoiled by the entire family, including their found family members in the camp.

Everyone loved Hope.

“Daddy, you’re home!” Hope shouted as she jumped into his lap.

“Oof.” He grunted as she landed hard on some sensitive places. “Hey sweetheart!” He said, slightly out of breath.

“I missed you. Mommy said you might not come home until tomorrow, but I said that you would come home quick because you like to be home and you don’t like to stay away. Right?”

He nodded, trying to keep up with her racing words. “Yeah, baby, I love to be home.”

Before his sentence was ended Hope was on to her next thought. “I saw Emmie running out the back door and I tried to talk to her, but she looked mad. She was sitting on the tree swing in the back and I wanted a turn, so I told her to push me, but she just helped me on the swing and then she left to walk through the front yard and leave. And when I tried to follow her, she told me not to leave the yard and to go inside and see you cause you were back. So, I did.” She paused for breath before asking, “Why was Emmie mad?”

Y/N answered. “It’s nothing sweet pea. Why don’t you help me make supper? You can shuck the corn.”

Hope clapped her hands. “Yes, I want to pull all the strings off.”

Y/N held her daughter’s hand as she hopped off of Dean’s lap, and then leaned forward to kiss Dean slowly.

“Ew.” Hope said, shielding her eyes as her sister had.

Y/N smiled against Dean’s lips and whispered to him. “Go talk to your daughter.”

Dean nodded and stood up, bending to kiss Hope’s shiny chestnut curls on the crown of her head. “Hey, promise me something short one.” He said, continuing when she looked up at him. “Promise you’ll take a really long time to grow up, okay?”

She smiled at him, cheeks round and rosy. “Okay, daddy.”

He winked at Y/N who smiled indulgently. “She promises.”

***

Dean instinctively knew where he’d find his oldest child. She coped with stress and frustration the same way he did, the way he’d taught her to.

He walked through the door of the garage and sure enough, there was Emma, wearing old, blue coveralls that were too big for her, and bent over the hood of the little Chevy hatchback that sat next to the Impala. He knew she heard him come in, but she didn’t say anything, just kept working.

Dean hopped up on Baby’s hood and waited for her to be ready to talk. Eventually, she caved and looked over at him, her face slightly shuttered and a little hard to read. “Hi.” She said simply.

He smiled at her. “Hey kiddo.” He nodded at the open hood she was under. “How are things looking? Still need a new oil pan?”

Emma shook her head. “No, I replaced that last week. Risa found me one in the back of the storage shed.”

“Good.” Dean said. They were both quiet as Emma leaned back in and continued working.

After a moment she cleared her throat. “Looks like I’m gonna need new brake pads though. Think we could go to Lowry’s and see what he’s got.” She asked, referring to a guy in Brisbane who collected car parts and often traded with them.

“Sure. I’ll be busy for the next day or so. But we can go after that. One day after school?” He asked.

Emma nodded and stood up, wiping her hands on the rag she had stuffed in her pocket. She was quiet as she slammed the hood closed and then stepped out of the coveralls and hung them up on the hook beside the door.

She wandered over to Baby and hoisted herself up beside Dean on the hood. After a moment she leaned her head onto his shoulder. “I’m sorry I yelled at you, Dad. I’m glad you’re home.”

Dean lifted his arm so she could snuggle closer, and then wrapped it tightly around her shoulders, squeezing her into his side.

“No, you don’t have to apologize, baby. Apparently I’ve been unconsciously scaring away the tons of boys who would otherwise be beating down our door. Though, if I’m being completely truthful, it probably wasn’t entirely unconscious. Cause I just know not a one of them is gonna be good enough for you.”

Emma chuckled. “I don’t think it’s tons of boys, Daddy. And I’m not interested in a bunch of boys. I’m interested in Jeffery. And I really do want you to meet him. I think if you give him a chance you’d like him. He’s really sweet and funny and just…” She sighed. “I just like him.”

Dean squeezed her again and felt his chest constrict with love and bittersweet memories, remembering how she used to crawl into his lap and let him read her to sleep. Those days were long gone, but she was still that little girl to him and she probably always would be. But he knew she was growing up and he needed to loosen his grip, at least a little.

So he sighed now and nodded. “Okay, kiddo. If you like him, I’m sure I’ll like him too. So, invite him over for dinner one evening and I swear to keep my questions to a minimum and be perfectly cordial.”

Emma laughed. “I don’t know if cordial is ever a word I’d use to describe you, Dad. Let’s just try to leave out the death stares.”

***

That evening after dinner, it was Gabe and Hope’s turn to do dishes. Gabriel washed and Hope dried with some assistance from Dean. As they were finishing up, Keisha and Julianne showed up on their doorstep asking if Emma was free to go for a walk around camp.

Y/N nodded when Emma looked to her for permission. “That’s fine. Be home before dark. Oh, here.” She said to the twins, grabbing a bag and passing it to them. “Take these home to your mom, it's the dress patterns she loaned me.”

Keisha went to take it, but Y/N pulled it back. “On second thought, nevermind. I’ll bring it to her tomorrow afternoon. Gives me a reason to visit and gossip.”

The girls all laughed and then waved as they headed out the door. Dean had to smile as they walked away, their high pitched voices and giggles floating back to them on a breeze. Some things hadn’t changed and he was grateful.

Gabe went to his room to read, since he was housebound for the next while. Hope played with some well loved and worn out dolls for a little bit before they took her to her room and put her to bed. They tucked Gabe in not long after, and then took their coffee cups out onto their little front porch and sat in one of the big Adirondack chairs that Dean and Sam had built three years ago.

Y/N settled happily into Dean’s lap, her hands cupped around her warm mug. The late spring air was soft and warm, and the sounds of the camp drifted up the hill towards them. They listened contentedly for a little while as Clifford came out of the house and flopped down on Dean’s feet.

They talked about the kids and they talked about the Deerling camp; they talked about Sam, and Y/N admonished Dean for teasing him about Eileen.

“Be nice.” She scolded. “I hope he will bring her to dinner. If he likes her, I mean.”

They talked about anything and everything, and as the sun began to set, Emma came up the path and smiled as she saw her parents cuddled together in one chair. As much as she rolled her eyes and hid her face when they started getting kissy, she loved how much they loved each other. And she knew she’d never settle for anything less than what they had together.

She told them goodnight and went inside, Clifford rising slowly to follow her and sleep at the end of her bed as he did every night.

Soon the fireflies were buzzing loudly and the camp was getting quiet, so Dean stood up with Y/N still in his arms, leaving their coffee cups to sit on the porch until morning. She laughed as her husband carried her effortlessly into their bedroom.

He set her on her feet and locked the door before he buried his hands in her hair and pulled her to him, crushing her lips beneath his own. Y/N moaned softly and immediately pulled off his flannel shirt and yanked his t-shirt over his head so she could spread her hands across the wide expanse of his still beautifully muscled torso.

“God I missed you.” She breathed, even though it had only been one night. “I hate when you go away.”

He smiled against her skin as he stripped her down to her bra and panties. “Missed you too, sweetheart. Promise not to go anywhere ever again.”

Y/N laughed at his impossible promise as he lifted her so she could wrap her legs around his waist. He continued kissing her as he crossed the room and lowered her to the bed. She wouldn’t let go of him and pulled him down on top of her.

Dean chuckled at her hold on him and then mouthed his way down her body, licking and nipping at her skin. Ten years later she still had the ability to make him instantly hard and aching for her.

They spent most of the night making up for the one they’d been apart. In the darkest part of the night they found light and life in each other’s arms and fell asleep knowing tomorrow would dawn bright and busy - filled with responsibilities, joy, love and most of all…

…hope.

Jensen RPF and Any/All Characters: @lyarr24 @lacilou @deans-spinster-witch @globetrotter28 @suckitands33 @alwaystiredandconfused @evznackles @jackles010378 @impala67rollingthroughtown @krazykelly @candy-coated-misery0731 @envyaurora95 @spnwoman @deans-baby-momma

Dean Fics Only: @roonthelittlespoon920 @slamminmine @zepskies @safiyas-world

Any/All Fics Regardless of Character or Fandom: @kazsrm67 @slut-for-evans-stan @sexyvixen7 @nancymcl @hobby27 @waywardcheshire

Everything Incl. Fan Edits: @k-slla @leigh70 @eevvvaa @kickingitwithkirk @foxyjwls007 @notinthislife50 @roseblue373 @mishkatelwarriorgoddess @avanatural @mrsjenniferwinchester @all-alone-he-turns-to-stone @deangirl96

#endverse!dean #endverse!dean x reader #dean x reader #dean winchester fluff #dean winchester smut #endverse!dean fan fic series #endverse

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farfromstrange · 2 months

Text

Do No Harm

CHAPTER TEN: Damned If I Do, Damned If I Don’t

Masterlist | Series Masterlist

Pairing: Matt Murdock x F!Reader

Summary: Matt thinks back to your date that afternoon, and Foggy and Karen can't help but tease him about you. When a stranger comes to the office with the promise of money and a case, Matt gets suspicious. Later that night, when he can't stand it anymore, he calls you for comfort and answers.

Warnings for this chapter: Angst, Matt's self-deprecating thoughts, hurt/comfort, flirting, slight fluff, suggestive themes

Word Count: 4.7k

A/n: I'm so sorry that this took so long! The past few days have been so busy, and then I forgot I promised to post this on Friday. But you're getting it now!

Read Chapter 10: Damned If I Do, Damned If I Don’t here on AO3

Matt can’t stop smiling.

You smell of nature and yourself. He doesn’t pay much attention to the layers of artificial scents most products contain because to him, your natural scent is all that matters, and he knows how to tune out everything else that isn’t one-hundred percent yours. It is a fact you are so blissfully unaware of. How could you know? You have no idea just how heightened his senses are. To him, your scent is as distinctive as your heartbeat. It’s stuck to the tiny hairs in his nose; every time he takes a deep breath, he can smell you.

From the moment you stepped off the bus that afternoon, he could smell the salt on your skin, the antibacterial soap you use, and the particularly sensitive body lotion that makes your skin soft to the touch. You slathered your hands with an excessive amount of moisturizer, but it was in no way obnoxious. Matt enjoyed how the earthy tones suited you compared to the medicinal moisturizer you wear at the hospital. He enjoyed it so much, in fact, that he now can’t stop thinking about it. Even with cracked knuckles, your hands are the most delicate.

He should have kissed you. The way your heartbeat was speeding up when you bid your goodbyes told him that you would have wanted him to, but he was afraid of crossing that line. He isn’t playing a fair game, after all. You only know half of him. Anything beyond the stoic lawyer he presents on the outside could put you in danger, and he is afraid of losing you. God knows what would happen if he allowed you any closer.

Matt is drawn to you. He doesn’t want to be, but he can’t help the way he feels whenever he is around you. You offer a reprieve from the chaos that surrounds him. The world grows quiet for a moment when you’re around, and he finally has something beautiful to focus on.

The world isn’t beautiful. It’s ugly and vile, and most human beings make his experience excruciatingly painful. You take away the agony and instead replace it with a sense of giddiness that fills him with a gentle warmth. You consume him. As much as he wants to, and as much as he knows he should, he can’t stay away from you.

Foggy told him that he deserves to be happy; he has yet to realize that. Every time he tries to allow himself to feel joy, the fire in his heart moves into the shadow of a mountain of guilt, and it threatens to run out of oxygen.

You are a lot more reserved than he first expected, and when you told him the truth about your childhood, it broke him. It broke him to hear how much pain you are in. You were radiating waves of trauma, and they hit him all at once. He may relate to you, in a way, but still, he can’t fathom how bad it must have been, growing up with no one to take care of you while you had to take care of everyone else.

Something Matt is grappling with is the fact that your heartbeat was so erratic at times he feared it might break your ribs. He wasn’t misinterpreting the signs. He couldn’t have. And you weren’t lying, he is sure of that. Perhaps you were keeping something from him. If that’s the case, what does that mean for the two of you? He can’t expect you to trust him—he has no right to expect anything from anyone, especially not from someone he barely knows—but he has learned that when someone tries to hide the truth, it is worse than an unpopular opinion he might disagree on.

He wants to hold your hand again. He wants to be close to you. He wants to smell your skin, feel it under his calloused fingertips, and he wants to hear the sweet sound of your voice serenading him. If he could hold you, just for a minute, he’s sure his problems will fade away. The world will go quiet, and he can focus on you. The urge to keep you safe consumes him, but he doesn’t know what he wants to protect you from.

Matt only knows that he wants you, all of you, and it kills him that he can’t have you. To know all of you, he has to share all of him with you, and he would much rather crucify himself than drag you down with him.

As his thoughts turn dark, his smile fades. He was foolish to believe that the warmth of the sun wouldn’t be overshadowed by black clouds waiting to rain hell down on him. And Matt begins to wonder once again, if he deserves to be happy, why did God put the devil in him?

“Dude, you’re whipped!” Foggy says from the doorway to Matt’s office, leaning against it with his hands in the pockets of his jeans.

Matt raises his eyebrows. He wasn’t paying attention. When he walked in with a big grin on his face an hour ago, Foggy cheekily asked him how lunch was, and Matt only replied with, “Satisfying.”

He wants to keep you to himself. You shouldn’t become subject to his friend’s desperate need to find Matt’s one true love. Foggy doesn’t know you. It was one date that might not even go anywhere, not if Matt keeps sabotaging himself. You deserve better. He knows that. You deserve someone who treats you like the goddess you are; someone who doesn’t lie to you and can give you what you need. He isn’t sure if he can be that person. The last thing he wants is to hurt you.

“Sorry?” Matt tilts his head away from the window. The city is particularly loud this afternoon.

“Your doctor friend,” Foggy clarifies. “Your lunch date.” The grin in his voice is audible. A teasing grin. “She’s got you whipped.”

“Oh, I… I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His fingers start sliding over the documents in front of him, a breathless chuckle passing from his lips.

He cocks an eyebrow. “Mhm. Is that why you’re blushing?”

“I don’t blush,” Matt counters. Though he can’t deny that the blood rushes to his cheeks whenever he thinks of you. The way you smell. The way your heartbeat sounds in his ears. It is addictive. You are addictive—a drug—and that makes the guilt grow larger than life because as bad as he is for you, he knows staying away from you is a losing game.

“Sure,” says Foggy. He doesn’t believe him, not one bit. “Do I need to dust off the old tux? You know, I’d make a dashing best man.”

Matt forces a chuckle. “It was just coffee.”

“It always starts with just coffee. Before you know it, you’re having dinner, and then you’re taking her to bed before asking her to marry you.”

He throws his head back, groaning in pure exasperation. The chair creaks. “I don’t know what to tell you,” he says. “We had coffee, she walked me back to the office, and that’s it. No time for a tux yet. If you really wanna wear it, attend a ball or something.”

“Okay, first of all, she walked you back to the office?!” Foggy opens his arms. “That’s not a small thing, Matt. Only someone who wants to spend time with you walks you back to the office on her day off.”

Matt rolls his eyes behind his glasses. He would much rather continue marinating in his self-misery than fantasize about things that may not ever happen. It hurts too much. What he wants and what he believes he can have are at war.

“And second of all, Foggy says, “we’re living in the twenty-first century; balls are not a regular occurrence anymore, and I don’t have friends in higher places that could get me into one.”

Sensing an opportunity, Matt’s lips curl into a smirk. “You could ask Marci. Landman & Zack sometimes attend banquets, you know that.”

Foggy seems taken aback for a second. His heartbeat stutters. “Why Marci?” the panic in his voice is hilarious, in a way.

“Oh, so you can tease me about my relationships,” Matt retorts, “but I can’t tease you about your ex?”

“That’s different, okay?”

“Oh, how’s that different?”

“Your potential future girlfriend and my ex who is working for the same million-dollar law firm we left behind to chase the dream of independence are two different things that do not correlate!”

He’s speechless. Matt repeats his friend’s words in his mind a few times before he admits, “Yeah, no, I can’t… I can’t argue with that.”

Foggy sighs. “Thank you.”

The door to the bathroom closes, and Karen returns to her desk. Her heels click against the linoleum floors in a steady rhythm. Her steps are always light and careful. Matt could recognize them anywhere.

“Hey–” he tips his chin at the sound of Foggy’s voice again. “If things work out between you and Miss McDreamy, you won’t need a dog anymore because she can help you take out the trash.”

Karen catches that, and she laughs. “Are you comparing Matt’s girlfriend to a dog now?” she quips.

Matt is quick to cut in. “She’s not my girlfriend!” he says.

She appears in the doorway next to Foggy, placing her hands on her hips as she stands there. “Really? I thought people skipped first base and went straight to getting shared tombstones after the first date these days.”

Foggy’s laugh resembles a howl. “Can you imagine Matt sharing a tombstone with someone who holds a doctorate? People would be talking about them like, here lies Hell’s Kitchen’s greatest trauma surgeon…and Matt Murdock.”

Her fist collides with his shoulder, but she can’t stop herself from laughing regardless. Matt sighs. “Very funny,” he deadpans. It’s not that he can’t take a joke; he’s simply not in the mood for it right now.

The letters blur under his fingers. His jaw clenches when a car backfires somewhere down the block, and someone else honks four times in a row before yelling at a passerby to get out of his way.

“Seriously,” Foggy asks, “What do you have against dogs?”

“I think dogs are great,” says Karen.

“I don’t need a dog,” Matt states. He tries to regulate his breathing, tearing his focus away from the noise that surrounds him. “And I don’t need anyone to help me take out the trash. Not a dog and certainly not a girlfriend.” He chuckles forcedly at the last part.

Imagining you helping him do the things that are supposed to be easy makes him recoil. Even with heightened senses, he is still blind. Taking out the trash is harder than it should be when he doesn’t focus, and even then he could easily miss a step. It has happened a few times before, but he would never admit it.

He can use his clumsiness as an excuse for the cuts, bumps, and bruises he suffers every night on the streets of Hell’s Kitchen at the hands of criminals, but if he were to take a tumble down or up the stairs again, he would have to find a different excuse. There is nothing bad about needing help—about just not being able to do certain things—but Matt has never been good at accepting help, let alone asking for it.

A knock on the door interrupts the conversation. Matt raises his eyebrows. Foggy and Karen exchange a look of surprise.

The heartbeat belongs to a healthy male, but he doesn’t recognize the presence standing in front of their office door. Could it be…a client? The thought never even crossed their minds.

“Is that—” Foggy leaves the question hanging in the air.

Matt rises from his chair, pursing his lips as he nods. “Karen?” he asks.

She realizes that he is asking her to open the door, and her heart skips a beat. “Right,” she stammers. “Okay.”

He follows the two of them out of his office, his hands guiding him along the familiar space. The door clicks as it opens, and Karen nervously greets the stranger on the other side.

“Hi,” the voice says, deep with a hint of mischief he hides under the disguise of kindness.

The hairs on Matt’s arm stand up, reaching toward the sky. His stomach drops. Something shifts in the air when he smells the expensive cologne and the laundry detergent on the man’s suit. He carries himself with a kind of confidence that puts everyone around him in his shadow, and that is terrifying.

Matt instantly knows that they should not trust him.

The man passes the threshold and steps into their office, his eyes trailing around. Karen takes a step back. Foggy straightens his shoulders. He must look as intimidating as he sounds and smells. A rich man who radiates power like a bonfire.

“Do you take walk-ins?” he asks then.

Matt can feel Foggy’s eyes on him. He shrugs, his reaction barely visible. If he said no, he wouldn’t know how to explain it to them.

In hindsight, they should have kept the door closed.

He doesn’t tell them his name, he only hands them a check and tells them that he works for an independent contractor. Judging by Foggy’s reaction, the numbers on the check are higher than any of them are used to. But all of this money for a surprise at the police station?

If he hadn’t found him suspicious before, the alarms are certainly blaring now. Foggy is blinded by the money, and Karen seems torn, but Matt knows that they shouldn’t trust this man. Especially not for blood money.

He follows him out, only enough space between them so he won’t be caught. The stranger gets into a car, and he starts to realize that this man might be caught up in more than he thought.

The lines between the lawyer and the devil start to blur. Matt reaches into his suit jacket. The pain in his rib cage burns slowly through his flesh as the skin parts. His shirt is drenched in a deep maroon where the Russians drilled a knife into him a few nights ago. The blood coats his fingertips, that’s how he knows.

He has no choice. He and Foggy need to take the case they were presented with. If he wants to understand what’s happening, he needs to dive into the cold water. He needs to make a decision he despises with his whole being. It pains him physically to even think about doing it, but clearly, he has no other choice. He’s backed into a corner.

When he returns from the precinct that night with a guilty client demanding a jury trial and a check with money from a stranger he still doesn’t know the name of and that he told Karen not to deposit, the silence brings along an unbearable weight on his shoulders.

Stress can lead any addict into a relapse. The phone line rings. Matt sent Foggy and Karen home, telling them that they should rather recoup in the morning when they’re all rested. It has been a long day. His friends only hesitantly left him behind after he had to promise to call it a night soon. An hour later, he’s still sitting at his desk. The city is calling for him, but he can’t bring himself to move. Instead of going home, instead of going out, he is now looking for a fix—after telling himself all afternoon that it would be for the best if he didn’t because you deserve better.

“This is Dr. Clarke, who am I speaking with?” you answer.

His veins open to a release of dopamine. He relaxes into his chair. He could listen to you talk forever and never grow tired of the sound of your voice.

“Hello?” you ask again.

Matt clears his throat. “Um, hi,” he says. “It’s–it’s me. Matthew.”

“Matt! Hi. Hold on a second.” You’re not alone. Voices overlap in the background, and your clothes rustle as you try to find a quiet spot to hide.

He runs a hand through his hair. “Am I interrupting something?”

“No! No, not at all. I’m at the ER. Working, I mean,” you clarify, and the way you stumble over your words is so endearing to him. “MVC downtown. They needed all hands on deck, so I came in. It was a fucking mess.”

Your voice is laced with exhaustion, but you don’t sound too stressed, so he figures that the worst must be over. It’s like part of him knew to get his fix now. Not earlier or later but now. Your heartbeat is faint through the speaker.

“I, uh, didn’t expect to hear from you so soon.”

“You want me to hang up?” Matt asks.

“No.” He can hear you smirk. “Just wondering if you missed me.”

He leans forward on his elbows. “What if I did?”

Maybe if he thinks really hard, he can imagine you standing in front of him instead of miles away.

“I’d tell you I missed you too,” you murmur. “But only if you admit it first.”

“In that case, I’m saying it. I missed you,” he says.

“Good, ‘cause I missed you too.”

He fidgets with the brim of his glasses. They’re resting on his desk, his hazel eyes unfocused yet directed toward the empty space before him.

It’s a curse how enigmatic you are. You’re a magnet, similar yet the polar opposite of him, and it involuntarily draws him closer to you. Matt feels a strange flutter in his heart whenever he is near you. Even now, over the phone, the butterflies betray him. Rationally, this is a bad idea. Rationally, he should hang up. Right now though, rationality has no place in his mind.

He can’t lie; he did miss you. But that isn’t entirely the reason why he called you.

His tired eyes flutter shut. The sound of your breathing in his ear wraps around him like a gentle embrace. “How’re you holding up?” he dares to ask.

“My feet hurt, my head hurts, and I’m starving. Other than that, I’m okay,” you say. “How’s it going with you? It’s pretty late for you to be calling, isn’t it?”

“Depends on how you look at it.”

“Don’t be a smart-ass.”

He laughs. “Sorry.”

You seem to relish in the sound for a moment. His laughter dies down, and with it, your smile fades. “What’s really going on?” you ask.

Matt can’t keep anything from you. You’re perceptive, even more so than him.

“We caught a case today,” he says. “A bad one.”

“Oh.”

He imagines that your features soften with the sound of your voice. If he could get his hands on your face, he could paint a picture of what you look like, but you’re too far away, and he shouldn’t touch something he is sure he will break if he does.

You break through the fog, trying to rescue him from his mind. “Wanna talk about it?” you offer, but it’s useless.

“I wish I could, but I’d be breaking attorney-client confidentiality.”

“Ah, Lawyer Version HIPAA. I see.”

He pats the file he and Foggy took back with them after meeting with Healy, a clear account of the events that conspired at the bowling alley.

After going blind, his mind has grown increasingly more animate. When he thinks about what might have happened—what their client might have done—he can smell the copper of the other man’s blood in the air, the stench of sweat stuck to the inside of bowling shoes, and the substance they use to oil the bowling balls. He can smell plastic and junk food, and the linoleum of the floorboards. The way he sees it, their client is guilty, and even he knows it, but to understand what is happening around them, Matt needed to take the bait when it was presented to them.

Matt runs a hand over the stubble on his chin. “You could answer a question for me though,” he swiftly changes the subject.

You answer without missing a beat, “Shoot.”

“How much force would it take to crush a human skull with a bowling ball?”

His question renders you speechless. For a brief moment, he only hears the steady thudding of your heartbeat against your ribcage, and a soft smile finds its way on his lips. You’re smart, and you’re witty, but when it comes to him, you tend to lose control of the steering wheel.

He threw a bowling ball right at the pins you meticulously sorted in your mind, dispersing them. Now, you’re grappling with the words on your tongue.

“A bowling ball,” you repeat. “I’m sorry, what?”

You seem to shiver again when he chuckles. “I need your expert medical opinion,” Matt states. “Off the record, of course.”

“On how to crush a human skull with a bowling ball?”

“Not really the how but the kinda force it requires.”.

“Well,” you try to gather yourself, “I didn’t exactly study the physics of smashing a human skull with a bowling ball. They don’t cover that in med school.”

“Not even physics?” he questions.

“To a certain extent. I don’t remember that much…”

He senses a conjunction. “But?”

“Based on bike-helmet studies, it takes between 520 to 1,100 pounds,” you tell him. “That’s roughly twice as much as human hands can muster. Add to that the weight of a bowling ball, which takes away human force but adds artificial weight in the form of a foreign object to the skull, the person doing the beating would have to hit quite a few times to actually crush it.”

“So a 5’10” man of average build–” Matt prompts.

You shrug, your scrubs brushing against the speaker of your phone. “If his testosterone and adrenaline were high enough, it could have taken him a few seconds, especially if there were no signs of hesitation, but that’s just a technical assumption. In practicality, a lot of factors play into how long it takes to break the bone.”

“Could it have been self-defense?”

“If you want my opinion, it requires a lot of strength to do that kind of damage, which means it is more likely for it to have been a premeditated crime or a very sick person in a bloodthirsty rage. But that’s not my area of expertise,” you add.

“I know,” Matt assures you. He exhales. The answer isn’t completely useless, but it hardly solves anything either. “Thank you, anyway,” he says.

“Anything to help make sure justice is served.” You’re smiling again.

A scoff rumbles through his chest. “I wish it were that easy.”

“You sound a bit…sad,” you point out.

“It’s—I don’t know, it’s complicated. I don’t want to be a bother.”

You cut him off, “You’re not a bother.”

“Liv,” he says, your name a mere breath rolling off his tongue.

If he told you that he’s not sad, he’s miserable, but not because of the case; he’s miserable because of how much he wants you—how much he needs you—and he is lying to you, so his thoughts are eating him alive like little demons, and it is them in a bloodthirsty rage, not the man who crushed another man’s skull with a bowling ball. He can’t tell you that he feels as though God is out to get him. Even a sliver of the truth could hurt you, and he refuses to put you in that position.

But then you put him on the spot again, without even realizing it, and he has no other choice but to cave.

“I may not be a psychiatrist, but I’ve been told that I have a very good shoulder to cry on,” you say. “Maybe we could grab dinner on Friday and you can, um, decide for yourself?”

That is mighty bold of you.

Matt processes your offer slower than an old, used car would drive on the highway. “Dinner?” he stammers.

“Dinner,” you agree.

He has two options: go for it or say no. He has to be honest with himself though; he can’t deny you anything.

His mouth opens and closes before he finally answers, “Dinner sounds good, yeah.”

“Alright,” you sound surprised yourself. “Dinner then!”

He smiles, but the decision leaves a bitter aftertaste on his tongue. “Dinner then.”

“Maybe you should put down the gravel now and go home.”

“If you promise to put down the stethoscope and the scalpel and do the same.”

“Yes, sir.” You start moving on the other end of the line. “I’m already on my way to the locker room.”

Matt doesn’t intend to say it, but it slips his lips anyway. “Good girl,” he says.

He doesn’t have to be near you to be painfully aware of your reaction. You freeze, and with you, the blood in your veins. Your brain backfires when it tries to form a coherent train of thought, and it is loud enough for Matt to hear.

A few seconds tick by without as much as a breath from you. “Okay,” you murmur, breaking the loaded silence. You’re trying to gather your bearings and make sense of the shift in the atmosphere.

He wishes he could melt into the ground. Taking it back won’t work. He already said it. But there is nothing wrong with calling you a good girl, right? It is the truth.

To him, you are good. Beautiful, even. And you are more than anything he could have ever asked for. You’re ethereal. You deserve to know that, but he is starting to think that you may have misinterpreted his intentions.

“I didn’t mean–” he begins to explain himself, but you interrupt him.

“I know,” you say.

You clear your throat, though Matt doesn’t miss the slight edge to your voice. It’s not nerves, per se. Your voice is thick with something else, and it sends a shiver down the sensitive skin of his spine.

Do you wish he meant it the way your mind made you believe he did?

His fingers dig into the edge of his worn-down wooden desk. “So, I’ll, uh, see you Friday?” he asks, his voice hovering just barely above a hopeful whisper.

Can you hear how hard he is trying not to sound too sultry? Are you aware of what you are doing to him, even though it is a bad idea for him to even be close to you? You make him want to claw up the walls of his office and eat them. It’s scary, the things he would do for you—to you—but at the same time it fills him with intense exhilaration.

You swallow. Your tongue darts out to wet your bottom lip. “Friday, yes. I’m, uh, looking forward to seeing you again,” you reply.

If he could only take your voice and imprint it on his mind for all eternity, he would do so without hesitation.

The wood starts to splinter under his fingernails. “Me too.” Matt withdraws his hand.

You bid him goodnight, and that is the last thing you say to him before you hang up.

Silence engulfs him. The prospect of seeing you again settles over him like a warm blanket, but it only lasts for a few minutes before the comfort disappears, and he is left freezing again. Without you. Alone.

Matt tries to tell himself that Friday will be the last time, but that night, he finds himself on the rooftop across Metro General, black fabric dangling from his hand as he listens to the distinctive sound of your footsteps exiting the emergency room. You say good night to the nurses, wishing them a peaceful rest of their shift, and then you’re heading out to catch your Uber.

You took a shower, he can smell it. And you changed your scrubs for the same outfit you wore when you met this afternoon. He follows you with a tilt of his head until you’re safely inside the car, and once he’s sure that the night won’t catch up with you, he pulls the mask over his head.

He told himself Friday would be the last time, but as long as the streets aren’t safe, he can’t stay away from you. It is an awful excuse to keep lying to you, he is well aware of that, but you have drawn him in like like no other, and he would be damned if he let you go.

Tag List: @shiorimakibawrites @allllium @siampie @auroraslibrary @roseallisonparker @abucketofweird @thatonegamefish @capylore @kniselle @sumo-b98 @peachstarliight @danzer8705 @kakamixo @littlehappyperson @atemydadforbreakfast @stevenknightmarc @zheezs14 @shouldbestudying41 @kiwwia-wiwwia @writtenbyred @echo-ethe

#matt murdock #matt murdock x reader #matt murdock x female reader #matt murdock x you #matt murdock angst #matt murdock fluff #daredevil #daredevil x reader #reader insert #charlie cox #do no harm

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hungermakesmonsters · 2 months

Text

Catch Me If You Can

Chapter Nineteen

Plot summary : When your friend interviews for a position at Anvil, you have a chance encounter with Billy Russo. He takes you for coffee and, by the time you’re done, Billy decides he’s anything but done with you.

Pairing : Billy Russo x Reader

Story Rating : R

Chapter Rating : R - some smut

Warnings : [This is a fic for 18+ only, minors DNI] There's some smutty behaviour and vague descriptions of a panic attack. And lots of angst. Please check the warnings on each chapter if you choose to follow this story.

Word Count : ~3.9k

A/N : Five weeks after the heartbreak of the last part (sorry again for that). As always thanks so much everyone who's reading every week and all the new people, you're all awesome!

Chapter Nineteen

The next week passed as something of a blur.

After leaving Anvil, Karen had taken you back to her apartment and, after listening to you sob for an immeasurable amount of time, she led you to her guest room. And that was pretty much where you stayed for days. Your phone rang and buzzed; he tried to call hundreds of times, sent countless messages before Karen took your phone and blocked his number because, despite how much he’d hurt you, you couldn’t bring yourself to do it.

A couple of days later he turned up at Karen’s door - she didn’t let him in and you didn’t speak to him, you just heard them arguing while you fought back tears.

You hated him for how broken he’d managed to make you feel, how pathetic and weak you felt because you’d been stupid enough to believe that he could ever feel anything for you. But, as much as you hated him, there was a part of you that still loved him; a part of you that would always love him, a part of you that was worried about him, about how he was handling all of this.

After the first week, you managed to pull yourself together enough to go back to work, knowing that you needed to start earning back the money that you’d given to the PI. You stayed with Karen a little while longer before she told you that you could go home, that Billy understood that you didn’t want to see him and he wouldn’t bother you anymore. That didn’t stop you from changing your phone number though.

The welcome home you received from Tammy was awkward at best but, to her credit, she tried to make you feel better. And, soon enough, you fell back into your old rhythm of working all day and spending your evenings alone in front of the TV. After three weeks, it almost felt like the last few months had never happened and that Billy Russo had been nothing more than a fever dream.

Eventually, things got easier; you didn’t cry yourself to sleep every night and didn’t wake yourself reaching for his body beside you. It still hurt to think about him - you were certain that it would always hurt - but it became easier to not think about him at all.

Until it came to pick the photos that you wanted to print for your show.

You’d wanted to just cancel the whole thing, but you knew you needed whatever money you could make from it. And there he was, one of the best candid shots you had, catching him as his lips were pulling into a smile - he’d been laughing at something Karen had said during his interview all those months ago. You didn’t want to use the picture but you couldn’t not, not when it was technically one of the best photographs you’d taken recently. Karen had given you a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder and, somehow, you managed to not break down.

Your brother had asked you to go to Connecticut to stay with him for a while and, without Billy as a reason to say no, you found yourself agreeing. A fresh start was just what you needed, but first you needed money, and that meant using that photo, even though it broke your heart every time you looked at it.

By the time the show rolled around, it had been almost five weeks since you’d last seen Billy so, really, you weren’t expecting what came next.

Things had been going well, the first hour of the show had been good, everyone seemed to like your work and, for the first time in weeks, you felt almost good about yourself, like things were finally starting to get better.

And that’s when you saw him.

Your heart stuttered in your chest at the sight of him, standing in front of a photo of himself, his back to you. His shoulder ticked upwards and, from nowhere, you felt that pang of sorrow in your gut, remembering how his shoulder had been hurt. But there was something else about him, something that felt off. He seemed almost slouched, he looked defeated already before anything had even been said.

Karen appeared at your side, her eyes quickly finding him.

“I’m sorry, I already told him to leave,” she tried to explain, keeping her voice low, obviously trying to avoid causing a scene, “I can get Frank to come get him so you don’t have to deal with him -”

“No,” you caught yourself saying, shaking your head, “it’s - it’s fine, Karen.”

“You don’t have to talk to him,” she offered softly.

“I think I do. I need this to be over.”

She looked at you for a moment and, obviously, she still had plenty she wanted to say to you but, for whatever reason, she decided not to. She just gave a nod. “I’m here if you need me.”

You hoped that you wouldn’t need her, you hoped that the small amount of peace you’d managed to cultivate over the last five weeks would be enough to face him and finally draw a line under everything that had happened so you could both move on. Moving slowly, you approached him and stopped beside him.

He gave you a cursory glance before letting his gaze drift back to the photograph.

“You’re the only person who’s ever made me smile like that,” he told you, already sounding defeated, like he wasn’t there to fight you, or fight for you.

“Maybe you’d be able to smile more if you weren’t always expecting the worst from people,” you answered softly, finding yourself looking at the picture, at the lit-up and carefree expression on his face. It made your heart ache to know he was hurting now, even if he did mostly bring it on himself.

“Yeah, that’s what people keep telling me,” Billy sighed.

A silence fell and you both let it linger, neither seeming to know what to say to the other. It felt like there was an insurmountable chasm between the two of you, instead of just three feet. You had thought that you would have more to say to him, you thought you’d vent your anger and frustration, and tell him all the things you couldn’t quite say the last time you’d spoken but, now, you just felt empty. It felt pointless. Billy had left a hole in your life and you weren’t sure you’d ever recover from it.

“I’m sorry,” he finally muttered. “I know it doesn’t mean anything now and it doesn’t fix what I broke, but I - I shouldn’t’ve jumped to conclusions, I should’ve talked to you first.”

“Is that all you wanted to say?”

“No,” he hesitated awkwardly, finally forcing himself to look at you, “I thought you should know that I read the file...”

It should have surprised you half as much as it did - you’d left him with a file containing decades worth of information on you, of course he looked through it. But, still, the thought made you feel light headed. Even now, when he no longer meant anything to you, you didn’t want Billy to know about your past.

“I need some air,” you muttered, turning and heading towards the fire escape. Billy waited for a moment before deciding to follow.

You pushed the heavy door open and stepped out onto the metal balcony, shivering the moment the cold air hit your skin. Billy followed after, letting the door close behind him and, suddenly, everything felt so quiet. You looked down at the street below and, then, looked up at the ominous clouds - anything to avoid looking at Billy.

“I would have helped pay off the PI if you’d told me,” he finally broke the silence.

“I told you, there are things about my past that I didn’t want you to know,” you pulled your arms across your chest as you turned back to finally face him, trying to ward off the cold.

“You didn’t have to tell me about any of it. I still would have helped.” He told you with that oh-so familiar stubborn tone. “There’s nothing in that file that changes how I feel about you.”

(Feel. Present tense.)

You shook your head.

“It’s not that simple, Billy. That file doesn’t tell the whole story and even if it did, I didn’t want you to know.” As much as you might have wanted to, you couldn’t keep the frustration from slipping into your tone. But, still, you were taken aback - you’d always assumed he’d want nothing to do with you if he found out anything from your past.

“I’ll never ask. You never have to tell me, I -”

“Billy -” you tried to interrupt him, tried to stop that train of thought before he got too carried away, but it was already too late.

“Just tell me how to fix this. I’ll do anything.”

“I don’t think you can fix this.” You told him and your stomach knotted when you saw a flicker of pain on his face.

“So you won’t even let me try?”

“I think it’ll hurt too much if you do.”

Another silence fell and you watched as Billy struggled, obviously fighting with himself, trying not to say the wrong thing and ruin this. You hated seeing him like that; you’d never seen him look so uncertain and unsettled.

“You’re not the only one in pain,” he finally muttered, “what you said, about me being able to turn my emotions off, that - I can’t do that, not with you. Not with us. Not having you in my life hurts too much; I can’t sleep, can’t eat. I keep playing that moment over and over, wishing I’d done things differently...”

“I don’t want to make you feel like that but -”

“I know I fucked up, I know I promised you that I wouldn’t but -” for a second he looked like he was really struggling to get his thoughts in order and force the words from his lips, “- but you don’t know about my past and the shit I’ve been through either. It’s hard for me to trust people.”

You realised that he was right; you didn’t know much about his past, not really, and you’d never really asked. Beyond the snippets that he’d told you about his childhood and his mother, and what little you knew about his relationship with Krista, you never really tried to find out anything about him. Honestly, you’d always just assumed that he was like you, that he wanted to keep his past in the past.

But, looking at him now, maybe that wasn’t the case.

“Maybe that’s why this would never work,” you sighed.

“Don’t say that,” his eyes found yours and he looked at you like it was the only thing he was certain of, “just because this isn’t easy doesn’t mean we should just give up.”

“You did give up, you thought I -”

“I was wrong, and I’m so fucking sorry, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop fighting for you.” He dared to take a step closer to you.

The way he was looking at you caused a shiver to run up your spine. You could see the desperation in his eyes and, a part of you, still wanted nothing more than to reach for him, to just give into the moment. But you had too much self-respect for that. (Or maybe it was fear, maybe you were just scared of taking him back and him hurting you again?)

“You said you loved me,” his voice turned softer and the space between you seemed to shrink even more.

“I shouldn’t have told you like that.”

“You didn’t mean it?” His voice threatened to break.

It would be easy to lie, to say you hadn’t meant a word, but you couldn’t bring yourself to hurt him like that. You stayed silent for a few seconds, letting the question and your indecision hang in the air between you.

“Of course I meant it, I just - I shouldn’t have blurted it out like that,” you sighed heavily, “I was hurting and I said it because I wanted to hurt you back.”

“It did hurt,” he confessed quietly, “but it hurts more knowing that you feel like that and don’t even want to see me.”

“Billy -” you tried, but there were no words. There was nothing that you could tell him to change any of it or make either of you feel better, it felt too late for any of that.

“I can’t let this be over,” he told you, and the silence that followed felt deafening. The air between you seemed to crack with the sort of tension that you wanted nothing more than to ignore and push aside. Despite everything you’d told him, something inside you wanted him to fight for you, wanted him to prove you wrong and show you that he could love you despite what he now thought he knew about your past.

When you didn’t immediately tell him no, when you didn’t tell him that things were over, you allowed him hope that prompted him to move.

Before you knew what he was doing, Billy had cleared the small distance between you, kissing you so suddenly that all you could think to do was respond. You got caught up in the moment, fingers tugging at his hair, pulling him against you. It felt so good, so right to be in his arms again, that you barely noticed him lifting you, sitting you on the cold railing. Your legs parted instinctively, letting him press closer still as the kiss turned hungry and desperate, and you could feel how the moment was already affecting him.

You didn’t even realise that he’d undone his zipper until you felt his cold fingers slide beneath your dress and up your thighs, pulling your panties to the side. Every shred of common sense you possessed told you to stop, to tell Billy to stop, but when you felt his cock start to nudge its way inside you, all you could do was moan against his lips and grip his shoulders as he filled you inch by inch.

Of course, you knew it was wrong to give him any hope that he could repair your relationship - just one more inch, you told yourself, then you’d tell him to stop - but it wasn’t long until every throbbing inch of him was buried inside you. And it felt good. It felt better than it should. Even the ache of your walls stretching to accommodate him after so long without him felt amazing. You’d missed the feeling almost as much as you’d missed him.

“Billy -” you uttered breathlessly against his lips, not getting the chance to say much more before his tongue slipped between your lips again. You let him kiss you, let him slowly draw back his hips before pitching forwards again and drawing another moan from you, your walls slickening around him, coating his cock and letting him move with ease. “Billy,” you tried again, tugging his hair, trying to make him look at you while your pussy continued to tremble as he moved, “Billy, we can’t -”

“Yes we can,” he kept moving, the wet heat of your body betraying you. Your mind wanted to say no, but your body and the way it moved against him said yes. “Tell me you don’t want this.”

He kissed you again and, this time, it was almost enough to break your resolve, the steady thrust of his hips filling you with his cock so deeply that you almost lost your mind. Moaning against his lips, your back arched, legs wrapping around his hips as you took him deeper. Yes, you wanted to moan, fuck me harder.

“Billy, stop -” you managed to gasp, finally coming to your senses.

Billy stopped immediately and you felt his body tense beneath your hands. He didn’t pull out or put you down but, similarly, you didn’t release your hold on him. You could still feel him throbbing, just as unfulfilled as you were.

“Tell me you don’t want this,” he repeated, his forehead pressed against yours, lips lingering so close that every word he spoke caused them to brush against yours. “Tell me you haven’t missed me.”

Of course he wanted to try and talk while he was still inside you and all you could think about was how you were practically dripping all over his cock. It wasn’t fair - it almost made you want him to finish before having the difficult conversation with you, but you knew that if he came inside you, or if he made you come, you’d never be able to turn him away.

“Of course I missed you, Billy,” you sighed, “but you hurt me, and fucking you isn’t going to fix that.”

“Then tell me what is,” he asked in an anguished tone that you’d never heard from him before.

“Put me down.”

Finally, he relented, pulling out and lowering you back to the ground, leaving your body aching and empty, unfulfilled and wanting. He turned from you to fix his clothes and you did the same, waiting for him to turn back, but the moment never came.

“You said you loved me,” his awkward and broken tone said it all, betraying his agony, and your heart sank, knowing that you’d just let things become a hundred times worse.

“I do, but what you did was -”

“You think I don’t know how fucked up it was?” His breath caught uncomfortably and you saw him shudder as his fingers ran through his hair. There was shame in his voice as he continued; “when Frank told me he caught you paying the PI, I felt like I was dying, it hurt so much. I thought you were -”

Another ragged breath escaped him and his hands moved to grip the railing.

“I told you that I couldn’t do this if you didn’t trust me,” you told him, trying to fill the awkward silence.

“I know and I’m so sorry,” his voice turned strained, like he was struggling to speak, and not just because of how upset he was.

You’d seen this before, that night in his bedroom. Panic, anxiety; he was struggling. But, as much as you wanted to reach for him, to hold him until it passed, you knew he wouldn’t want that and that it wouldn’t get you anywhere.

All you knew for certain was that you couldn’t keep doing this.

“Tomorrow at noon, meet me at the coffee shop you took me to the day we met,” you offered as calmly as you could manage. “We can talk then. I can’t promise that things will go back to how they were, but we can at least talk, okay?”

“Really?” He still kept his back to you.

“Really,” you told him, knowing you needed to leave before you dared to reach for him. “I need to go back inside, are you gonna be alright?”

“I’m fine,” he forced the words in one shuddered breath.

“You’re not fine, Billy. And, I think maybe that’s something we need to talk about tomorrow too.” He didn’t answer but you heard him force another breath. “Just... go home and take care of yourself, okay?”

Billy grumbled something that you didn’t quite catch, but you knew you couldn’t stay any longer; for his good and your own. But, still, against your better judgement, you reached for him, softly placing a hand on his shoulder and giving it a gentle squeeze. For a split-second, you were sure that you felt him relax, but the moment you let go, that awkward tension filled his body again.

Between that moment and pulling open the door, you changed your mind about leaving him at least a hundred times, hating leaving him like that, not knowing how long the episode would take to pass or if it would pass at all. But Billy wasn’t the only one who was hurting, and all the pain and emptiness that you’d spent weeks trying to overcome came flooding back, leaving you feeling more broken and miserable than ever.

The door closed behind you, separating you and Billy, and leaving you feeling just as alone as you’d felt after leaving Anvil that day. You froze, torn between going back to Billy and walking away, filled with an aching and a longing that only he could cause, and stuck with a terrible realisation; you still loved him, you were still in love with him, and no amount of pain or heartbreak would ever change that.

“Are you alright?” You didn’t notice Karen at your side until she spoke and you struggled to think of a way to answer her. Her eyes drifted to the door. “Is he out there? What did he say to you? Did he upset you? Do you want me to -”

“No,” you finally managed to force the word, “it’s fine he just - he needs a minute and then he’s gonna leave.”

As shaken as you were by everything that had happened, you didn’t want Karen marching onto the fire escape and making Billy feel worse.

“What did he say to you?” She asked, placing a hand on your elbow and slowly leading you away from the door and towards the bathroom so you could pull yourself together in private.

“He said he wants to fix things and that he’s sorry.”

“Did you tell him about Connecticut?” She asked as the bathroom door swung closed behind you both.

You let out a sigh, leaning against the sink and looking at yourself in the mirror for a moment. It hadn’t even crossed your mind to tell him that you were planning to leave New York and, once Karen had mentioned it, you felt sick. You’d agreed to meet him for coffee tomorrow, you’d given him a reason to hope, and that had been needlessly cruel of you.

“No, I didn’t...” you reluctantly admitted.

“You need to tell him,” Karen told you with an enviable certainty, “I know he hurt you, but it’s not fair to let him think he has a chance to fix things when you’re leaving.”

“I know, I just...” you shook your head, “what if I’m wrong about him? What if leaving is the wrong thing to do?”

“Only you can decide that. Billy is - he’s complicated and I don’t think that’s ever going to change. I can’t tell you what to do, but I know you shouldn’t stay unless you’re certain.”

“You’re right,” though your tone gave away how much you hated it, “I can’t keep expecting him to change for me.” You took a few deep breaths and returned your attention to the mirror, taking a moment to fix your hair. “I guess I should get back out there and try to sell some pictures.”

“Atta girl,” Karen smiled, “you get back to selling and I’ll go see what’s left behind the bar for us.”

When you stepped out of the bathroom, your eyes moved the fire exit for a second, wondering if he was still out there, but you quickly pushed the thought away; you’d see him tomorrow and, this time, you’d tell him that you were leaving and that it was over between you. The thought made your chest ache, but that ache was bearable, unlike the pain he’d caused you.

Forcing a smile to your lips, you started doing the rounds, talking to anyone and everyone who wanted to know about your work, distracting yourself from thoughts of Billy and tomorrow.

Chapter Twenty

END NOTES : I can't say anything because I don't want to spoil anything that's going to happen. But, if anyone is interested, this fic is now about 80k long and there's only (maybe) five chapters left (which is to say I have five planned but whether or not some of those will need breaking up into smaller chapters idk).

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this part and that it caused less emotional whiplash than the last one (sorry again for that). Thanks for reading, and thanks as always for the likes, comments and reblogs. And, if you're new to this story, hello and thanks for giving it a look! <3

If you want adding/removing from the tag list let me know (I know it’s not working for everyone - if it’s not working and you don’t want to miss a chapter, I post every Friday around 7:30pm gmt)

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sarahowritesostucky · 3 months

Text

📖Make it Stick: Pt. 2 The Princess

Rating: Explicit

Chapter Rating: Explicit

Pairing: Bucky x ofc x Steve

Word Count: 4331

Tags: dark!fic, mob/mafia au, mob!Bucky, mob!Steve, dubcon/noncon, sexual coercion, half-sibling incest, m/f/m, non-con drug use, mentions of torture (non graphic), double penetration, forced tattooing, forced orgasms, enemies to lovers

Summary: When his babygirl—his sweet pea, little one, puppy ... half-sister—is recaptured after her latest attempt at running away, Bucky makes a power play in front of the entire Bratva to remind her exactly who she belongs to.

Dark and smutty content below the break. Consume responsibly.

Wait! I haven't read part 1 yet!

Brighton Beach has always belonged to the Mob.

Decades ago, it’d been the Odessa Ukrainians who reigned supreme, but Bucky’s father was a weak man, and once he’d died and Bucky had taken over leadership of the Rusă-Română Bratva at nineteen, things had changed.

In the ensuing eighteen years, he’s not only seen to it that his faction rises to the top, he’s also been ruthless enough to ensure that their dominance is never challenged, his position as the Dragon of Hydra firmly cemented.

The Dragon’s Den is one of many businesses under his direct control. It’s a popular club in its own right, located on a busy strip of similar nightlife lining the two hundred block of Neptune Ave., and acting as the unofficial epicenter of Hydra operations.

Extra bouncers have been placed outside tonight to weed out the undesirables, but even with the modified guest list due to the night’s more … illicit activities, it’s still as packed as ever. The downstairs is filled with bodies, booze, and music in no time.

At first glance, it really could be any other night, but look a little further, and the incongruencies are readily apparent. Bucky’s had everything set up in the back, a space no more than ten feet by ten. It’s just a corner, not some stage or grandiose point of focus. It’s not like they have the lights all trained on them or anything dramatic like that. Viewing isn’t mandatory by any means. … But what he’s doing is also right there for anyone who wants to look over and see. And he’s under no illusion that every single soul present doesn't know what’s going on—either because they’re watching it, or because they’re making sure to pointedly not watch it. Tongues have been wagging ever since they'd tied up Gleb and dragged Lena out.

He starts with Gleb, putting all his “tools” within view of the poor bastard but not using much more than his fists and his words. He gets a gut punch in, breaks a finger or two. Kid stuff. Bucky’s never been overly enthusiastic about torture, but you don’t hold control over any faction of organized crime if you can’t at least make yourself comfortable with it. Bucky can appreciate it for what it is, and for the nastier stuff he’s got his specialists. Besides, sheer terror and anticipation can be just as crucial to putting on a good show as anything else. Gleb’s been a crying, sniveling mess since three minutes in, so Bucky’s halfway disgusted and halfway satisfied. Mostly, he’s just discouraged that his little one has been letting such a weak man stick his prick in her. Ugh.

He takes his time, stepping away to have a drink or to chat with someone every once in a while. Bucky usually enjoys his Friday nights lounging and socializing amongst his friends and associates, after all, and he’s not about to sacrifice his entire evening to Gleb.

The Den is Bucky’s home away from home. He even has private quarters above—an amenity he’s taken frequent advantage of after many a night spent overindulging. In his youth, when he’d been new to power and Polina had been nothing but an irrelevant child of his father’s second wife, the luxury accommodations had hosted Bucky’s escapades with dozens of the most beautiful women that Brooklyn had to offer.

But that lifestyle changed once Lena came of age eight years later.

Bucky hasn’t touched another woman—hasn’t wanted to touch another woman—in the decade since, his obsessive love for her often resisted but always returned, despite her token protests. It’s an open secret, considered fodder for gossip amongst the wives. Bucky doesn’t see why anybody should be shocked. He’s always wanted things that he knows are off limits. His little one included.

She’s finally back, and Bucky is more thrilled at that than he is about anything else. Of course Gleb’s betrayal can’t go unaddressed, but Bucky’s working him over more out of obligation than any true recreational interest. He’s got him tied to a pipe. The man is panting and breathing open-mouthed at this point, some of his blood on the plastic sheeting from the fist he’d taken to the nose to start off their evening together. He’s sweating through his undershirt like a pig.

Bucky himself has been naked from the waist up ever since Natasha returned to deliver the requested transfer sheet and blithely remarked that he was “seeping” through his shirt. Normally, aftercare would see her slathering him in ointment and taping bandages over the raw skin, but Nat’s pissed at him and she’s not offering, and he’s pissed at her for being pissed at him, so he’s not asking. He just chucks the shirt when it becomes a lost cause to the blood, plasma and sweat. Whatever. It's hot in here, anyways. And he knows Lena is looking her fill whenever he turns back on her to go focus on Gleb, which is even more satisfying.

It’s because of her that he hasn’t done anything too gruesome. As a rule, Bucky usually leaves the worst of his torturing to those who have a better taste for it (the widows). And while he fully intends to make Gleb hurt before he’s given his very own pair of cement shoes, Bucky still doesn’t want to do anything too traumatizing in front of his main audience.

He walks back over to where Steve has her. He’s been holding her still against his chest, Bucky’s own tie looped around her neck and gripped in Steve’s fist behind her back, his other hand wrapped around her waist to keep her still as she plays her part in the demonstration.

Bucky stands mere inches in front of her and sips his drink, letting his eyes rake over her form. “You haven’t been eating enough, sweet pea. We’ll have to fatten you back up.”

Her lip curls. “You’re such a fucking pervert.”

“Takes one to know one.” He leers at her even longer for the snark, letting his free hand trail lightly along the curve of one silk-covered breast. She’s small. Barefoot like this she barely comes up to his chin. But she’s got a fat ass and a bitty waist that’ve always made Bucky want to do bad things to her, even when they were younger. Lena is blonde like her mother had been, with pale skin and other Nordic traits that set her apart from the darker hues and Slavic features that most of Bucky’s family sport.

How could he ever have been expected to keep his hands off of something so tempting?

She’s beautifully disheveled right now: hair fallen loose from however she had it up before Belova tranqued her and Pietro stuffed her on a jet, body barely kept decent in some slip of a dress that Steve’s put her in, tears already making her mascara run in grey-black tracks down her cheeks. Bucky’s always had a kink for watching pretty girls cry. “You should smile,” he tells her, mocking her by sticking his lip out in a pout. “People’ll think you aren’t having fun. This is your party, after all.”

“What are we celebrating?” she says, her effort at sass somewhat hindered by the waver in her voice. She’s not as brave as she wants him to think she is, but the front she insists on putting up makes Bucky’s heart twinge in fondness. His stubborn puppy.

“We’re celebrating your glorious and long-awaited homecoming, of course,” he coos. “All these nice folks? They showed up just to welcome you back.” He leans in to kiss her cheek, lingering there to whisper right against her skin, “And I missed you too, sweet pea. You got no idea how much.” He feels her shiver before she hisses at him, like a cat. He pulls back and gives her an assessing frown. “You’re so uptight,” he scolds. “Never did know how to let go and have a good time. I’ve always had to help you relax, haven’t I?”

Her pale skin colors beautifully. It takes her a moment to recover, but when she does she tries to hit him where it hurts, simpering a snotty little, “Oh, I don’t know. I was having a pretty good time on your yacht.”

Anger sweeps through Bucky, white hot and thrilling. Little Polina Barnes thinks she’s good at pissing him off. She is, but she’s got no idea how much her brattiness turns him on, too. If she did, she might think twice about opening her smart mouth (and Bucky can’t have that, he’d be so bored). Aside from her new penchant for leaving the flipping country, he’s always kind of enjoyed the thrill of hunting her down and dragging her naughty butt home.

But Belize is taking it too far. His yacht is taking it too far. And letting another man touch her is way beyond too fucking far. Bucky needs to reel his Little one in.

He sets the rim of his glass to her lips, tutting when she only glares up at him. “Don’t be that way, Lena. C’mon, have some. I want to see you loosen up a little.” She just presses her lips tighter together, and Bucky feels his cock thicken in his pants as he imagines using it to pry that prissy mouth wide open. He gives her a knowing smile. “No? Hm.” He finishes off the drink himself and sets it aside. He grabs her face and thumbs roughly over her lower lip, smearing the matte red of her lipstick down onto her chin. “Have it your way, Puppy. Steven?” he says, not looking at the man holding her still. “You’ve got our party favors?”

“In my left pocket,” Steve says, not reaching for them himself because he’s holding Lena’s waist and the tie wrapped around her throat. He’s not choking her, but the pressure on her neck has another effect. Bucky knows a few dirty secrets about his Little one that he’s sure she wishes he didn’t, namely that having a firm grip around her neck gets her wet. Bucky smirks and keeps his eyes on hers as he takes the liberty of reaching around her body and slipping his hand into Steve’s pocket. His fingers find the small shapes and close around them.

“Here we go,” he murmurs, pulling his hand back and holding the items up for Lena to see, chuckling when her face goes slack in shock. Her cheeks darken in a fierce blush and she starts tugging against Steve’s hold with renewed effort. It gets her nowhere of course, and Bucky and Steve share a brief amused look from over her shoulder. Bucky steps closer and pins her between them, hands stroking over her shoulders. “You didn’t think I brought you here just to watch Gleb get his, did you sweetheart? Oh, no.” He shakes his head slowly. “Mm mn. You’re gonna get yours, too.” He puts his lips to her ear and looks in Steve’s eyes while he whispers, “How long do you think before you’re cumming in front of all these people?”

Her struggles intensify, and she tries to head butt Steve behind her, but of course she’s too short for it. She huffs when his grip only tightens and she runs out of steam. “Ugh!”

“Don’t fight it,” Steve tells her, and she sneers back at him.

“Still playing the loyal dog, Steven?”

“Eh, I prefer attack dog. But sure.” He winks at Bucky and bares his teeth in a fake snarl. Bucky laughs. He really does love Steve.

“Ugh! Lemme go, you pathetic dumbass!”

“Hey. Don’t you be mean to Steve. He’s only doing his job.” Bucky puts the smallest of the three party favors in his mouth, letting it sit on his tongue and gripping Lena’s jaw hard to force her to open up for him. He shoves his tongue in, delivering the pill against her will and moaning theatrically to make her even more outraged. He holds her mouth shut after, pinching her nose until she finally capitulates and swallows. Only then does he allow her to have air, tutting in mock sympathy as she regains her breath. “What’s the matter, puppy? What’s got you so worked up, hm? I know it’s not whatshisface back there. Is it just being back home?” He cradles her face and murmurs tenderly, “Did you really think I wouldn’t find you?”

Her face crumples and she sobs a little, the sound hardly audible in the room's loudness, but Bucky couldn’t possibly miss it when he’s this tuned in to her. He kisses her again, this time very gently, letting their lips rest together for a moment afterwards; and he can feel the way she has to fight the urge to lean into it, to seek more. She absolutely despises him, but she has an enduring need for him as well, and she’s never been very good at hiding it.

“Tell me you missed me,” he breathes, his own desire winning out over the game for just a moment. “Please. What’s it gonna hurt to admit it?

“I hate you.”

“Mm. I know, Love, I know.” He brushes his lips against hers. “But you missed me all the same. Missed this.” He lets his hand trail down between her legs, working up underneath the silk of her slip. She whimpers and begs tearfully,

“No! Bucky, don’t.”

"Don't?" His fingers trail over the seam of her panties and he hums knowingly. "Your fancy panties are getting wet, Sweetheart. Did you wear these for me, or for your loverboy back there?"

“People will see!” she hisses.

“So? Let them see. You think anyone's going to step forward and stop me? Hm? Think somebody in this room is going to tell their дракон that he can’t touch what’s his? Because it’s what? Indecent?” He chuckles, thoroughly enjoying her humiliation. “Mm mn. You know that’s not happening, Princess.”

“Don’t. Please. Just … not here. Take me upstairs.”

For a second, Bucky actually pulls back to look at her face. But then he sees what it is she’s uncomfortable about, her pained expression flicking over to Gleb’s bound form behind them. Bucky feels jealous rage shoot through him. He’s always been meaner when he’s jealous. “You don’t want him to see?” he grits, then forces himself to soften his tone. “Oh, no no no. You can’t hide it anymore, puppy. Not from him or anyone else. I know what you like,” he reminds, cruel and quiet. “You know just how well I know.”

He’d bugged her devices starting when she was fifteen. He knows every dirty thing she’s ever watched, from the time she first learned how to touch herself. And his Little one knows this because he’s told her. It’d been the most satisfying moment of his life, when he’d told her that he felt the same way and watched the shock and mortification bloom on her face. That was the day he’d finally made her his—though he’d forced her to admit every single one of her filthy little fantasies out loud before he laid her down and took her virginity.

“I know how you like to feel owned,” he whispers in her ear, thrilling at the hitches it elicits in her breathing. “How you like to feel watched while powerful men touch you. What better way to satisfy those urges than by being taken by the Dragon, right in front of all his men?”

“Please don’t. You can’t.”

“What can’t I do?” he purrs, and she cries softly,

“You can’t, please. Because they know …”

“They know what?” he coaxes, wanting her to say it. He peeks up and looks at Steve from over her shoulder. “Know that you’re my sister?” he whispers. Steve’s eyes darken and Bucky's mouth curls. “Well, that shouldn’t bother you either, puppy. You and I both know your affinity for all those naughty step-sibling videos.” She whines miserably and he hushes her. “Aw, don’t be embarrassed. It’s actually a really popular genre. Number … seven, on Pornhub?” He kisses her cheek. “Right up there with M/F/M threesomes.”

Adorably, her breath catches and she stiffens against Steve’s body, now even more aware of his hulking form behind her.

Bucky hums, pleased. “There’s no need to be ashamed.” He peels her panties to the side and slips the tip of one finger along her lips. She’s not exactly soaked, but she’s not completely dry, either. “Of course, actual brother-sister incest isn’t quite as popular, but we know there’s a niche market for everything, don’t we?” Lena makes an outraged little sound that goes straight to his dick. He leans back enough to watch her expression as he holds up the second of the party favors for her to see. It’s white and thin, less than two inches long, and shaped like an itty bitty torpedo. “Something else to help you loosen up,” he tells her gleefully. “Do you want to take a guess where this one goes?”

She makes an adorable ‘meep’ of a sound and clamps her legs closed over his hand. “Don’t.”

He laughs. “Aw, good guess, little sis’, but not quite.”

“Step-sister,” she corrects shakily. “Bucky ...”

He smiles as he tries to read her, confused and tentative at first, but then growing into something devious. “Oh, I see. You’re honestly embarrassed about that? That people know we grew up together, shared the same house? Mmm." He licks his lips. "That’s not all we shared.”

"Stop it."

He watches her, thrilling in a huge surge of lust mixed with something dark and nasty. “Wow,” he astounds, goading her. “Oh boy. Just think what you’d do if they all knew the truth.”

“Bucky please.”

“Steve knows, you know. I told him forever ago.” He watches her eyes go wide and her body stiffen against Steve’s.

“You … you told …”

“Oh, don’t worry, sweet pea. He thinks it’s hot, too.” Lena looks honestly too shocked for words, and Bucky leans down to give her an absolutely filthy kiss, slipping his tongue into her mouth and holding her jaw there for it while, between her legs, he drags the suppository through her moist folds. She squeaks, and he pulls back. He lets her see him handing it to Steve. “Will you do the honors, pal?”

“What?” Lena breathes, lost. The sweet, dumb thing.

Steve keeps hold of the tie wrapped around her neck, but he has to let go of her waist to get at her. Bucky’s able to grab her just as she starts to try and fight it. “Ah ah ah, hold still,” he coos, yanking her wrists down at her sides in an iron grip. He steps even closer, squeezing her between his body and Steve's to subdue her wiggling, pressing his thigh forward between her legs. She freezes when her fighting just puts more pressure on her clit, and Bucky hums, pleased. “Good. Be a good girl now, Lena. We don’t want this to hurt.”

She goes straight back to struggling, and Steve shoots him a peeved look from over her shoulder. Bucky growls and sticks his face in her hair, warning lowly, “You know: there’s a syringe of morphine waiting in the wings for your boy back there.” Lena stills again, and he hums, “That’s right. Now, if you want him to actually get it before I let the widows have at him, then you’d better stop fighting and take what’s coming to you.” She sobs at the corner he’s got her backed into, but she doesn’t go back to fighting them. Bucky keeps her in his firm grip so that Steve can get to work behind her. “And you were wrong, puppy: It doesn’t go in your pussy.”

It’s too late for her to react. By the time her eyes widen in realization, Steve’s hand is already at her backside.

Bucky grinds his thigh forward as her pupils expand from the feeling, the bundle of aphrodisiacs summarily pushed up inside her tight little pucker. “You keep that in, now,” he warns. “You should start feeling it in the next few minutes, then I’ll give you your real consequence.”

She sobs quietly. “I hate you.”

“Old hat, baby.” He steps away from her, leaving Steve to keep her in place. The promise of lessening Gleb’s upcoming pain seems to be motivating her to behave. Bucky walks back over to the pole where he's got the sad sack tied up. Just to scare the crap out of him, he spends a moment tracing all the different tools that’ve been laid out for their use.

“Please,” Gleb begs.

“Shshsh,” Bucky coos, stepping close and cradling his face, intimate. “You fucked my baby sister,” he says. “What did you think was going to happen when I got a hold of you, hm?” Gleb trembles in his bindings and Bucky reaches for the pliers—a classic. Gleb’s eyes all but bug out of his head. “Colectăm mereu,” Bucky purrs in Romanian, reminding him who he’s dealing with. “You stole from the Bratva, son. Now you have to pay the price.”

“Please. I-I’ll do anything!”

He punches him in the gut, then grabs him by the hair and hisses in his face, “You already did everything! Took what belonged to me. Not very smart.”

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

He punches him again. "I sure hope that pussy was worth it.” He smiles while Gleb is trying to regain his breath. “Eh, it probably was. I should know.” Gleb squints in disbelief, and Bucky feels another perverse thrill shoot through him. “What?" he laughs. "Don’t look at me like that. I thought you knew. She didn’t tell you she likes to fuck her brother?”

Gleb’s face screws up. “Stepbrother.”

“You know, I’m getting real tired of that misconception,” Bucky drawls, turning back around to get a look at his Little one’s face. Her head is tipped back against Steve’s shoulder, the drugs working into her system by now. Bucky grins. “I told you I’d get you to loosen up, didn’t I? Big brother knows how to make you relax.” He tosses the pliers aside and saunters slowly back over to her. "I just told Gleb about us,” he says. “But I think it’s about time we make a more public announcement, don’t you, sweet pea?”

Her eyes widen. “Bucky, no.”

He grins wolfishly and spins around. He calls out to get everyone’s attention, and in a few seconds everything has quieted, the room eerily devoid of chatter despite the continuing pulse of the club’s music. Bucky goes over to the bar and demands something to toast with, and a flute of champagne is produced with shocking speed. He turns back to the room. “Thank you all for coming out tonight to help me welcome our beloved Polina back home!”

Some people clap, perhaps expecting some long, heartfelt speech. But Bucky cuts to the chase and says, “I’m sure you all know about she and I.” He waits, amused and sipping the champagne. When the crowd shifts nervously, he waves his hand at them and scoffs. “I mean that’s common knowledge, right? Everybody’s tongues were wagging when my father dumped my mother to marry his whore.”

He gestures back to where Steve is holding Lena, supporting her increasingly drugged little body. “Sweet little Polina was only a few years old, back then. And my dad’s infidelity wasn’t her fault." He shrugs. "So I inherited a bratty little sister. I guess the fact that we were still both kids makes the whole thing even juicer, huh? I know you all talk about it: 'The Dragon likes to fuck his own step-sister'. How scandalous.”

He laughs and walks back over to Lena. He caresses her face, leaning in to give her a dirty kiss with plenty of tongue. The crowd murmurs louder. Bucky pulls back and looks out at the room. “The Bratva wives love a good scandal. Don’t you, ladies?” A few of the wives in the crowd look flustered at being called out. Bucky salutes them with his champagne glass. “Well you’re in for a real treat, my dears. Because little Lena back here isn’t just my step-sister. Oh no.”

(Bucky’s always liked putting on a show, so he’s unfazed when making the actual announcement makes his cock harden further in his pants.)

“You see, dear old Dad was fucking around with his pretty shlyukha for a few years before he finally married her, and you know he even knocked her up.” The room goes absolutely silent, and Bucky feels a sick thrill go through him. “That’s right,” he croons, looking back over his shoulder at the stricken expression on his Little one’s face. “This sweet pea isn’t just my step-sibling: she’s my father’s daughter.”

It takes a surprisingly short amount of time before the crowd goes back to chattering, everybody staring wide eyed—some with disgust, others with excitement over this incredible new thing they have to be outraged over. Bucky shouts at the bartender to hand out champagne to anyone who wants it. He toasts the room. “To Polina!” Only a few dozen people raise their glasses and murmur in response, too shocked to know what to do in light of this revelation. Bucky really doesn’t give a crap. This is just a display of his power, just another way to show them—and her—that he can do whatever the fuck he wants and nobody is going to do a thing to stop him. The room slowly returns to the bustle of before, and Bucky returns to stand in front of his girl. “See puppy?” he taunts, lifting the champagne flute to her mouth. “I told you nobody would care.”

It’s a lie. Everybody cares, of course. But his point has been made. He watches as she willingly drinks the champagne. “Good girl,” he praises, setting the empty glass aside. He cups Lena’s face and gives her a tender kiss. “Now, why don’t we give them a show, huh?”

“Bucky,” she whispers, a plea.

But he can see her body relaxing into Steve’s hold despite her mortification, the drugs softening her up just like Bucky’s been waiting for. He pulls the remaining party favor from his pocket and holds it up for her to see. “Don’t worry,” he coos. “Your punishment isn’t going to hurt nearly as bad as Gleb’s.”

He turns the base of the tiny pocket vibrator on and starts it buzzing. “Now, let’s get you really begging, why don’t we?”

Masterlist

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racefortheironthrone · 11 months

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BOE, the Messenger(s), and the Trillionaires

Introduction

I’ve been doing a re-read of the Locked Tomb - although technically it’s a re-listen, because I like the audiobooks - and I stumbled across a particular passage that hadn’t stuck in my memory before that made me rethink my understanding of the origin of Blood of Eden. Ever since Harrow the Ninth and especially since Nona the Ninth, there’s been this common interpretation that the BOE are descendants of the trillionaires who abandoned Earth and that’s why John is at war with them. I’m not so sure that’s true any more.

Here’s why. In Nona, when the whole business with Crown/Corona infiltrating the barracks kicks off, there’s an interesting exchange between Camilla and We Suffer about the Oversight Committee that includes this statement:

“Hect, what you must understand about Blood of Eden is that we own things in common, we share responsibilities and resources in common. She could have moved these resources at will...but I must make one move at a time. And above all, I must place the safety of...Blood of Eden’s continuity...even above the mission.” (Emphasis mine.)

This took me aback somewhat, because the emphasis on militant communal ownership doesn’t really fit with the idea of “descendants of trillionaires.” I suppose one could say that it’s been ten thousand years, cultures change and drift over time...except that, as I’ll get into later, the BOE seems very very insistent on cultural preservation, so it would be a bit out-of-character if they changed that stance on this one particular issue.

And that’s what made me think: what if the BOE aren’t the descendants of the trillionaires? What if they’re the descendants of the non-trillionaires on the FTL ships?

East of Eden: A Theory About What Happened After the FTL Ships Jumped

So here’s the question that’s been percolating in my mind: once you’re out in space, why keep listening to the trillionaires, especially about the vital question of who owns the precious resources brought from Eden and who gets to decide happens next? There would probably be some residual cultural deference to the visionary disruptors, but the traditional answers of property law backed up by the state or men with guns paid to enforce the orders of the capitalists kind of break down when you consider that:

In John’s chapters (and verses) in Nona, we get an account of what happened leading up to and during the Resurrection: according to John, the trillionaires pulled a con job on the planet with their FTL ships, pretending that a fleet of twelve ships, each carrying a few thousand people (made up of “hand-picked guys” and “two hundred nominated people”), was merely the first wave of a planetary evacuation. As Mercymorn and others worked out, there were no future waves, no plan to come back and pick up more, the trillionaires had liquidated their cash and financial assets in favor of buying up material resources they’d need in space, and everyone else was being left for dead.

These twelve ships (possibly minus one, it’s not clear whether John managed to destroy the one he grabbed before it jumped) and the 20-odd thousand people on them must be the ancestors of exo-humanity as it exists in the myriadic year. But we know that of those 20-odd thousand people, only a “half-dozen” were the trillionaires. Everyone else was staff they’d selected to do the work of planetary colonization, plus a tiny group of people chosen by the governments of Earth Eden.

other than 200 randos who are likely to be recruited from the ranks of elected officials and upper management bureaucracy rather than Special Forces, the forces of the state are not only light-years away but also just got eaten by John Gaius.

it’s a bit harder to pull off the Jay Gould method when you’ve turned all of your cash into raw materials, there’s nowhere to spend cash in space, and it doesn’t take long for men with guns in that scenario to decide that the resources belong to them actually, because they have the guns.

While we know that some form of a market economy exists on New Rho and the other exo-planets, there doesn’t seem to be any sign of an oligarchical ruling class based on ownership of capital. Rather, we see a state of anarchy where there is no hegemonic entity but duelling centers of power. This suggests to me that the trillionaires’ power did not last very long after human settlement outside the solar system, possibly due to a (potentially bloodless) revolution in which the only surviving members of humanity just decided not to listen to six old (white) men and took their shit in order to survive.

In that scenario, I could see it being the case that the collective memory of communal ownership of property in the midst of a crisis could linger among a certain sub-population and provide the origin for this aspect of BOE’s internal culture.

So where did BOE come from?

Well, in large part it emerged as an organic response to John Gaius’ imperialist campaign against exo-humanity. As I noted elsewhere, John’s revenge against those who abandoned Earth in her hour of need is essentially a re-enactment of colonialism - the Cohort shows up with their overwhelming military might, forces the local population into subjugation with unequal treaties, imposes its language and customs, destroys the natural environment in a drive for short-term resource extraction, and then forces people into an endless cycle of being resettled on reservations over and over again - which makes a certain sick sense, in that it’s probably the worst thing that a Kiwi of Maori heritage could think of doing to their enemies.

He even goes to the extent of modelling the Cohort uniforms on 19th century British Army uniforms with the colors reversed, and coming up with his own gloss on the Christianity that was imposed on indigenous populations in the name of “civilizing” them. This campaign is only mystifying to outside observers like Augustine and Coronabeth because they don’t have the cultural context to know what John’s up to (in no small part because he’s used his necromantic powers and political position in order to suppress all knowledge of that context).

And thus, it’s not that surprising that John’s imperialism provoked anti-colonial resistance: when his Empire made contact with exo-humanity, to the extent that anyone still remembered him, it was as the horrific necromantic cult leader who murdered the ten billion and destroyed Eden, and now he’s come to finish the job in the name of collective punishment for the sins of six dead men, and by the way he’s bringing death and the defilement of the dead and the destruction of everything you’ve ever built with him. There probably have been dozens and hundreds of resistance movements - some local, some planetary, some multi-planetary - that rose up and got crushed over thousands of years.

So what makes BOE different from all other resistance movements?

The Messenger(s)

I want to go back a few thousand years and talk about what happened when the FTL ships managed to escape the solar system. While interplanetary colonization would always be an incredibly stressful experience even without a revolution, the fact that all of this was happening in the wake of John nuking Earth and killing the ten billion, then devouring the solar system, and their narrow escape from his wrothful grasp would have added an entirely different level of terror to the event - but also a new sense of responsibility.

Because - regardless of whether people on the FTL ships knew about the trillionaires’ supposed plan to abandon humanity on Earth or believed John’s accusations - they were now the sole survivors of humanity, the carriers of all culture and history. The ao3 author Griselda_Gimpel has a really good series of fics imagining the development of exo-humanity from the FTL ships onwards, and in one scene they mention the enormous sense of cultural loss that people on those ships would have felt when they realized that the internet was gone forever.

And this got me thinking: what if some nerds on those ships had that kind of profound reaction and decided to preserve as much of Earth’s heritage as possible? How would you do that with limited access to computer storage and humanity potentially scattering across multiple planets, and knowledge being lost forever with the march of time as the original settler generation died off and was replaced by new generations born outside the solar system? I think the answer is:

Oral tradition. See, one of the things that fans of the series have been talking about for a while is the implications of the myriadic duration of the Empire, what that would have done to language and culture in the Nine Houses and among BOE, how is it that people can still be speaking the same language or reading the same writing as from the time of the Resurrection, let alone remember memes and cultural references from the 21st century? This is a fair reaction from a Western perspective - after all, ten thousand years ago would be roughly 8000 BCE or smack dab in the Early Neolithic. Surely it would have been impossible for the memory of Earth to have survived that long.

But, as people have said, Tamsyn Muir is writing a very Kiwi series. And one of the things that is very distinctive about the culture of Aotearoa is the oral traditions of the Maori and Pasifika cultures more generally. While Maori oral histories go back to the 13th century CE when Aotearoa was settled, Australian Aboriginal oral tradition goes back as far as potentially 30,000-40,000 years. Oral tradition is not perfectly reliable, it undergoes drift and change over time, it can experience loss and disruption (from colonization, for example), but it can endure across millennia.

My theory is that these nerds on the FTL ships or their descendants dedicated themselves to the mission of cultural preservation through oral tradition, and thus the Messengers were born. And at some point, the Messengers met up with Blood of Eden and explained that John Gaius’ colonial campaign wasn’t just an unjustified act of aggression and imperialism, but an act of cultural genocide stretching back 10,000 years:

“I charge you with...the utter disintegration of institutions political and social, languages, cultures, religions, all niceties and personal liberties of the nations, by use of-”

“...they’re dead words--a human chain reaching back ten thousand years...how did they feel?” (Harrow the Ninth)

Somewhere around this point, then, BOE took as its mission the preservation of the Messengers, which is why they are given BOE bodyguards, why discharging a weapon in their presence is grounds for execution, and why they are both deeply respected and honored by BOE but kept away from sensitive missions and not necessarily kept in the loop on critical intel.

Why AIM is “They”

This part of my theory suggested an explanation for why AIM is called “they” by Blood of Eden, and why Palamedes Sextus sensed a necromantic implant when they “stumbled” into AIM at the school. We know that the Sixth House has been in contact with Blood of Eden for a very long time, and that Cassiopeia was not only responsible for the Sixth’s “break clause” but also was BOE’s “Source Gram.”

My theory is that Cassiopeia and the Sixth, being a bunch of librarian nerds obsessed with the preservation of cultural knowledge, would never have been entirely comfortable with taking John Gaius’ word for what happened during the Resurrection and what life was like on pre-Resurrection Earth. The natural place to look for an alternate source of documentation would be exo-humanity, and I think she/they went looking clandestinely and came across the Messengers and BOE. Somehow, they avoided killing each other and came to a modus vivendi.

I think part of this modus vivendi was an offer by Cassiopeia/the Sixth to provide the Messengers with an improved means of preserving their oral tradition: namely, a necromantic implant that would preserve the ghosts of dead Messengers and let them communicate with their successors, ensuring that the oral tradition could be passed down perfectly from generation to generation. After all, not only are the Sixth House spirit magicians, but they are specialist psychometricians who know better than anyone else how to pull information about and from the past from material objects, and it was Doctor Sex who gave Palamedes the idea for preserving revenant spirits after death by giving them a physical anchor.

Hence, AIM is they because they are a collective “human chain” of all the Messengers who came before them - they have the voices of hundreds of cultural preservations in their heads, telling them of all that was lost with the fall of Eden. No wonder they want to play school teacher and be “she” for a while.

Conclusion

TLDR: BOE aren’t trillionaires, they’re commie terrorists with a fetish for cultural preservation. So I guess this makes the whole war a case of leftist infighting, considered in the long run?

#the locked tomb #blood of eden #boe #aim #the messenger #the angel #ntn #ntn spoilers #nona the ninth #pash #our lady of the passion #the sixth house #cassiopeia #tlt

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asongofstarkandtargaryen · 2 months

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ASOS : Daenerys and her children

On her very first pov chapter of this book Dany refers her dragons as her children. What is more, she recalls maegi's prophecy of being unable to give birth to children and that strengthens her view on her dragons as her kids ( please note that she also refers to them as her children in previous book but since I'm focusing on Asos I won't include those quotes)

They are my children, she told herself, and if the maegi spoke truly, they are the only children I am even like to have

Asos, Daenerys I

She feels lonely because the prophecy makes her believe that House Targaryen will end up with her but she finds solace on her dragons:

House Targaryen will end up with me. That made her sad. " You must me my children" she told her dragons, " my three fierce children. Arstan says that dragons live longer than men, so you will go on after I am dead ".

Asos, Daenerys IV

However on the same chapter we start to see glimpses that the dragons aren't the only ones Dany considers her children. We witness Dany taking responsibility of the people who followed her after the sack of Astapor. That's what a just leader should do but the way Dany talks about her subjects (who are useless in the upcoming battles and will only delay her army, mind you) is so protective of them, and almost has a motherly tone:

The raggled-taggle host of freemen dwarfed her own, but they were more a burden than a benefit. Perhaps one in a hundred had a donkey, a camel, or an ox; most carried weapons looted from some slaver's armory, but only one in ten was strong enough to fight, and none was trained. [...] Yet Dany could not bring herself to abandon them as Ser Jorah and her bloodriders urged. I told them they were free. I cannot tell them now they are not free to join me.

Asos, Daenerys IV

At the end of this chapter, after Yunkai is liberated we have the iconic "Mhysa" scene. And Dany calls her new people, her children.

"They will not hurt me", she told him "They are my children, Jorah".

Asos, Daenerys IV

So, after this chapter the dragons aren't considered her only children anymore. Her people also occupy that place in her heart.

Which is why she's hunted by the image of the dead slave kids, the slavers crucified as a warning to make her not go to Meeren. The slavers knew that Dany is above all a rescuer of the weak and knew that this horrific action would affect her - and it did. Dany can't stop thinking about those poor children and at the same time she wanted to look an every crucify child and memorize them all.

Because to her those children facing this horrible end wasn't just a casualty of the war between her and the slavers. It was more personal, as those slave kids would also become her children once she liberated their city and would be under her protection. So ofc, her fury against of those who hurt them is gonna be huge. It's the fury of a mother or "mhysa" if you prefer it.

When she arrives at Meeren she also makes it clear that she wants a victory without endangering her beloved children ( aka the people who follow her). It's a paradox bc most leaders sacrifice their followers to gain more territories. But for Dany the good of her people is her first priority:

"No" she said. " I will not march my people off to die". My children. "There must be some way into this city"

Asos, Dany V

What angers her the most is that inside Meeren the slavers have luxurious feasts while her people - her children as once again calls them- are hungry. And that's something that she's not gonna let pass.

As she camps outside Meeren some of her people are calling her "Mother" once again and she doesn't dislike the familiarity they show her, on the contrary she enjoys it.

Some of the freedmen called her " Mother," while others begged for boons or favors[...] Many of the freedmen believed there was good fortune in her touch. If it helps give them courage, let them touch me, she thought.

Asos, Daenerys V

Later on, as she performa justice to the slavers but doing to them what they did to the poor slave kids we see her falter. Because Dany has a tender heart and she doesn't enjoy inflicting pain not even to the ones who deserve it. To strengthen her resolve she brings the poor children on her mind and does what she must do to honor their tragic memory.

Dany put the glass aside, frowning. It was just. It was. I did it for the children.

Asos, Daenerys VI

#daenerys targaryen #house targaryen #a post of ice and fire #valyrianscrolls #asoiaf meta #Daenerys meta #a storm of swords #daenerys ASOS

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theredofoctober · 3 months

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MANNA- CHAPTER TEN: RABBIT

Dark!Hannibal Lecter x Reader x Dark!Will Graham AU fic

TW for eating disorders, noncon, abuse, drugging, Daddy kink, implied child abuse, self harm, fatphobia, body dysmorphia

This is chronologically the tenth chapter in the series.

Read beneath the cut...

Napalm is the slow fire of waking from a terrible dream, blind, gasping, burnt. The pain, though delusive, is made actual by the action of nerves.

Only a hand at your shoulder, vigorous in its attentions, hauls you up from the putrescence of slumber into the light-dark of four in the morning. You find Hannibal's shape through lashes gummed with sleep's adhesive.

His face is as impassive as a star, but his hair, ever coiffed, is displaced from the friction of his pillow.

“You were screaming,” he says, as you sit, stunned, in his arms. “What were you dreaming about? Do you remember?”

“No,” you say, although the scenes remain briefly in your vision, doubling like silk screen prints upon the walls.

Hannibal fills up a glass with fresh water and bids you to drink, his eyes pensive, unconvinced.

Only the notion that he may suggest you share his bed or else intrude upon yours impels you to honesty.

“I dreamt that I was trapped in one of the Silicone Lover’s dolls. That he was trying to squeeze me inside, and I wouldn’t fit. He said, ‘You’ve gotten so big since I last saw you. I’d better do something about that.’

“Then he started cutting me up with kitchen scissors, and I couldn’t stop him.”

You pause, choking on a breath, a verbal stagger.

Dr Lecter offers you the water again, which you take in both hands and drain to its end.

“Take your time,” says Hannibal. “When you’re ready, go on.”

Lying will fail you before the all-seeing eye, so it is with a flat honesty that you say, “It wasn’t what the Lover did in my dream that scared me. It was what he said to me. Because he was right.”

You reach down to pull the quilt up across your stomach, which Hannibal, with a subtle gesture, prevents.

“To agree with such a statement there must be some basis of comparison for you,” he says. “You knew the person standing in as the Lover in your dream. Can you name him?”

Hannibal could guess it, from the little you’ve told him of your unclean past, but if memory conjures the name from the gully of silence he does not say so.

Instead, he comments, “I think it’s unwise for you to sleep again until your mind is settled. Perhaps we may take advantage of the hour to continue your therapy, in an informal fashion.”

He sits in a chair by your bed, producing a notepad and pen from a pocket of his dressing gown.

You see that he will not move.

"What if I don’t talk?” you ask, softly. “What if I say I'd rather take the punishment?"

Hannibal's slender lips upturn.

"I wouldn't be inclined to take such a claim seriously.”

In sullen defeat you flounce back against the pillows.

Dr Lecter takes his cue.

“I’m curious about the friendships you’ve formed throughout your life. Have there been any notable examples?”

“Not many,” you answer, looking at the raw edges of your fingernails. “I was kind of the weird kid. It was like looking through a dusty museum window at everybody passing by, not really knowing how to get out there and talk to people. Like I was too old and too young at the same time.

“I got bullied, kind of. Nothing worth talking about. Just dumb kid stuff.”

“Even persecution of a childish nature bears painful resonance in later life,” Hannibal comments. “Moreover, isolation from one's peers may disrupt development in those vital years.”

You think of dolorous hours patrolling a fallow playground alone, three hundred children staring through you with adult hostility.

“I did make one friend,” you say. “First year of high school. Amy Glass. She was a weird kid, too.”

Hannibal scratches deftly on his notepad.

"Describe how you met."

Closing your eyes, you find your way back through the forests of the past to a corridor whose tiled floor squeaks under your shoes. You smell textbook paper and saccharine body spray. The sweat of young bodies, and the stale cafeteria fare you’d never tasted throughout your time there.

“Between classes Amy would sit in a window listening to music, or reading,” you say. “Stephen King, usually. Sometimes Ann Rice. She seemed to be up there all the time. I don’t think she was getting shit from the other kids or anything; she just preferred hanging out on her own.

“I wished I was like that, not caring. I wished I was her, period.”

“In what way?” asks Dr Lecter, and in the hallway of your mind a slender figure appears, brown of skin and eyes, blue hair cut roughly to the chin, its roots seeping in atop it like a stain.

Amy.

“A lot of ways,” you say. “Before I really knew her, it was about how she looked. She had piercings— ears, lip, nose, eyebrow. Teachers would tell her to take them out, then the second she was out of their eye-line she’d put them right back in. And even back then she had these awful stick and poke tattoos of bats and crosses she covered up with band aids for classes.

“She did all of them herself with a safety pin. God knows how she didn’t get an infection or anything.

“Then there was the fact I knew we liked some of the same music because of the patches on her bag, and her t-shirts and stuff. Nothing you’d approve of,” you add, as interest touches the face of your listener. “Jesus, I can’t even imagine playing stuff like that in this house. Anyway, I didn’t want to just be like, ‘hey, you like that band, too’. It would have been too weird. Stalkery, maybe?”

“Music isn’t such a terrible way to form a connection,” says Hannibal, amused. “I was once approached in friendship through a shared taste in cheese.”

Picturing his restrained derision you cannot help but laugh.

“Oh, god,” you say. “What were they thinking?”

“It was a naive assumption of commonalities. Besides, my commitment to professionalism would never have allowed us to be as close as he would have hoped.”

You give a little start of affront.

“You’ve made friends with other clients.”

Dr Lecter’s smile remains.

“Only with those whom I feel my presence benefits.”

“Benefits you, you mean,” you say, pettishly. “Whoever it was, you just didn’t like him that much. That’s why you turned him down. Or maybe he was too like you.”

Without appearing offended, Hannibal turns a page in his notebook.

“I'm unconcerned with debating my personal relationships, little one. Let’s return to Amy. Who initiated the friendship between you?”

“Amy,” you say. “It was after this councillor was trying to get something out of me, and I didn’t want to talk. I walked out that room feeling so... heavy, and grimy, and embarrassed. Then there was Amy, heading to the same office I just walked out of. She looked at me, scrunched her face up, and said, ‘Wish me luck.’ Next time I saw her I made the same face back and asked, ‘how was it?’

“‘The worst, just like always,’ she said. ‘Where’d she get her certificate, anyway? Clown school?’

“I burst out laughing. ‘She’s so bad, right?’

“And that was it. Friends. We went everywhere together. Amy really liked me. I don’t know why. I think maybe she thought I was sort of mysterious and interesting rather than just depressed, probably because I didn’t want to talk about what was going on with me.

“She told me everything about her. How her dad didn’t believe in mental health issues even though he was just like she was, and how her mom just ignored everything, hoping it’d just... go away. But I didn’t tell Amy even one little thing about me, really. Not one.”

Guilt you’ve never truly confronted falls like a petal from a late summer bloom, cloying the dark with its flavour.

“Did Amy ever indicate that she’d recognised your particular illness?” prompts Hannibal, and you shrug glumly.

“A couple of times. I ignored every hint. Changed the subject. Acted like it wasn’t a thing when it obviously was. I knew that she knew. That was the dynamic. She was softer, around me. She got it. She got me.”

Suddenly your breath feels very high in your chest, catching on a rib.

“I can’t help but notice your use of the past tense,” says Dr Lecter. “Might I assume that you are no longer friends?”

“We grew apart after school,” you mutter. “I think she would have liked it if I stayed in touch, but then sometimes I wonder if that’s just wishful thinking, and maybe she didn’t care all that much when we drifted apart and stopping talking.

“I have her on Facebook. That’s all, really. She was never a social media person anyway, but still. I could have tried harder. I don’t know why I didn’t.”

Hannibal allows the silence between you to ferment before he speaks again.

“Looking back, what do you think prevented you from maintaining contact?”

“I felt like after school was over she’d find other friends, and I’d just end up being left behind. So I got out of there before I had to see it happen.”

"You abandoned a friendship on the basis of a prophecy that might never have come to fruition."

"It would have,” you insist. “All my life I've had senses about things. Like, if I get a feeling something will or won't happen, I'm always right. Like I was right about you."

Swanlike, Dr Lecter’s hands move across his notebook, tactfully punctuating a note.

"It's common for sufferers of complex post-traumatic stress disorder to misinterpret their hypervigilance as psychic premonition. A heightened awareness of your surroundings and the behaviours of people in your vicinity develops in order to predict danger before it occurs. Pattern recognition is more mathematical than clairvoyant."

"What about my dreams?" you ask, sharply. “Are they math, too?”

"You've had other nightmares?” asks Hannibal, and leans forward, poised to digest you answer.

Canny, you hoard the matter like a serpent its glittering lair.

Hannibal accepts his defeat with grace.

Gathering up his notebook and the empty glass, he says, "That's enough therapy for now, particularly so early in the morning. I'll make you some tea, and you may return to sleep. Peacefully, this time, I hope."

Later, there is a meal that sits, sinking in a bath of bronze on Dr Lecter’s dining table, so much of it that you’re gorged merely from the arithmetic of its makeup.

“Arroz de Cabidela,” says Hannibal, as he pulls out his own chair. “A Portuguese dish made with rice, chicken, or rabbit cooked in its own blood. Today I’ve chosen rabbit. Have you ever eaten it before?”

It occurs to you that he expects you to be disturbed by the notion, but you are not. Meat is meat, all of it equally cruel. That life must end for the furthering of your existence has driven you to veganism many a time.

Little chance of sustaining such a diet now that you sleep in the devil’s slaughterhouse.

“No,” you say. “I’ve never tried rabbit. I heard it’s really... gamey.”

Your palate is scarcely educated enough to comprehend the statement. Still, it is apparently accurate, for Hannibal makes a low hum of agreement.

“It has similarities to poultry, in flavour, though it’s rather lean and dry. The blood stew adds a richness you’ll find complimentary, however.”

The scent is certainly inviting, but you are so committed to rejecting whatever is served to you that you feel lightheaded, succumbing to the altitude of starving heights.

“Couldn’t you have given me a smaller portion?” you ask, piteously. “I don’t mean to be rude, but it’s so... much.”

Hannibal glances from your plate to his own, his visage neutral.

“I’ve served you a great deal less than I’ve given myself,” he says. “That said, I’m sure we can settle our differences. I’m not unyielding, if I can see some effort is being made.”

You look him in the eye, hoping you appear more bold than frightened.

“Dr Lecter, you make me all these courses, and they’re crazy even for a normal person. I feel like you do it on purpose. And afterwards my stomach hurts.”

“That’s normal, after a period of fasting. Your body will adjust. Now, please eat.”

You don’t. The cut on your plate makes you think of the Lover’s dolls, how even at your slightest you wouldn’t have fit into such a shell. How, changed as you must be through Hannibal’s cooking, you would ooze over every edge.

“I could use the feeding tube, if you’re unwilling,” says Dr Lecter, rising from his chair to stand at your back. “It would be relatively easy for me to administer. But I’d hate to sour an otherwise pleasant meal with brute force.”

He cups your throat in his smooth hand, and you envision how lovingly he’d coil about you in restraint, guiding the pipe down through you as you choked and flinched in his grasp.

“I’ll eat a quarter,” you say. “That’s it. Then... then nothing else until tomorrow. I won’t sneak out of bed, and I won’t do anything that breaks the rules. Please, Dr Lecter. Uh... Daddy?”

Your confusion between roles endears you to him, as does your breathless, eager willingness to beg.

“Should I allow you to barter?” Hannibal muses, still caressing the wand of your stiff neck. “It’s a symptom of your illness, after all.”

“Just let me choose how much and I’ll try anything you offer me.”

Dr Lecter releases a small breath of laughter.

“I wouldn’t like you to eat your words, little one.”

Gnashing your teeth, you say, “I won’t. I can do it. Please let me. You’re supposed to dote on me, aren’t you?”

You feel Hannibal’s lips against your hair in a kiss of paternal indulgence.

“Always so spirited,” he says. “Very well. I cannot deny my little beauty her request.”

What beauty does he refer to? You’ve only recognised it in the mine shafts of furthest hunger, mistaking a shadow for some precious stone.

Yet clearly you are not so low quality as you believe if both men have fucked you so freely over other women, whom they could conceivably draw into the net of the house.

Then again, there is no accounting for the tastes of madmen, and mad they both are, even Hannibal in his gelid divinity.

From the topiary of his language and flippant games you are beginning to see that you interest him in your very opposition to his being. Were you to succumb completely you would not be so worthy: all men bow to Hannibal, after all, seduced and deceived until they’d lick his fingers like lambs for the milk of his approval.

You, like Will, resist and evade enough of his passes to set yourself apart from the flock.

You may yet throw a halter over the head of the horned man, if only in as much as he allows himself to be reigned.

Quartering your meal as neatly as you're able, you glance up at Dr Lecter, afraid that, by some caprice, he’ll break his code and force you to eat down to the bare plate. But he merely stands by, retaining his honour, and as you look at him you picture his mild hands breaking the neck of the rabbit to drain as though for a ritual of blood.

Frequently through your days with Hannibal he immerses himself in hobbies and work about the house, cultivating a necessary solitude after the long hours of ingesting others’ anxious thoughts.

He reads, or writes music, sketches, telephones his friends and past lovers—of whom there are many—or else sets his pen to journals, having seen you safe to your locked room, where he need not prepare for misdemeanour.

In this way your residence in Hannibal’s home does not impede upon his individual pursuits, but rather compliments them, an accent of his sempiturnal glamour.

You are, after all, but one of his many pastimes. It is indulgence, then, when he insists on attending your evening bath.

As he kneels beside the tub to dampen a washcloth his intentions surface, another infringement upon the flesh.

“I don’t need you to help me,” you mumble, arms taut across your chest. “I’m not your baby.”

“Your inner child wails for the tenderness your illness has long obstructed,” says Hannibal, calmly. “Your independence would have you die like an infant abandoned to the forest. Let me carry you, at least in this small act of service.”

You look at him with eyes as dull as old blades and picture the futility of your struggle, his lithe arms holding you, kicking and airless, beneath the foam.

“Don’t you have your own daughter you can do all this with?” you ask; you’ve not yet needled him on his familial relations, and feel yourself more than entitled to know.

Hannibal begins to work the flannel over your naked form, paying no heed to your twitching affront.

“Abigail would have served the role admirably,” he says. “But it wasn’t to be. As for my own children, I have none.”

The revelation passes you without surprise. It’s only possible to imagine him having elegant, adult offspring, absent of the soiling indignities of rearing an infant.

“So you took me away for you and Will to raise,” you say. “Guessing he doesn’t have kids, either.”

The washcloth folds beneath the water, and you gaze studiously at the opposite wall so as not to think about the hand behind the fabric, how it has touched you in other ways, pleasantly, horridly.

“Will is also childless,” says Dr Lecter. “He has never known family, as you have. His mother left him when he was only an infant, and his father was a distant figure, though present. Now it seems that they’re estranged from one another. One can only imagine the loneliness Will has known in his life. Perhaps, with your assistance, this will change.”

Cloth, skin, hands, touch. Gentle and beguiling their trap, to distract from the permanence of this suggested triptych as fingers play against you underwater.

Unsteadily, you ask, “Is Will your boyfriend?”

Hannibal turns you an indecipherable look.

“Do you perceive our relationship to be romantic?”

A strange question, considering the violation with which you were inducted to their company. But not once did either man kiss or grasp the other— a technicality, certainly, yet one, it seems, that holds weight.

“Yes,” you say. “For you, anyway. I don’t know about Will. I know he thinks highly of you. He just sees me as something that’s in the way.”

You kick a foot testily, splashing water over the rim of the bath.

“What are you in the way of?” asks Hannibal, as he begins to lather your hair.

“Not sure. Your friendship, I guess.”

“Do you believe him when he implies that you're only an obstacle to him?”

Water pours over your head, and you close your eyes, enduring the sensation.

“He told me I’m unwanted,” you say.

“When you attempted to kill him?”

Fear bowls over you with a black suddenness.

“He told you?”

“I came to my own conclusions. You weren't quiet, either of you, that night."

You look at Hannibal, at the stag man of your dreams, and taste something like dirt, something like blood, at the back of your mouth.

“Had you seriously injured him or succeeded in your bid to end his life I would have been forced to conclude our treatment,” he says. “But you did not. I’m thankful to have been provided with a truth I hadn’t yet drawn from you: I know that you are not a killer, at least not at this present moment.”

In a strengthless whisper, you ask, “What do you mean?”

Hannibal draws a comb through your hair, unmoved by the conversation.

“As time changes the continents, people come apart through circumstance into new being. That shift may one day lead to the birth of murder’s country.”

A thought stings you like the cold: Will and Hannibal want you to be capable of killing, if not of them, then someone of lesser consequence, the hereditary illness emerging in the child.

That is the secret under this house, the whisper in the walls, its present haunting.

“I hope that never happens,” you mumble. “Never. No matter what you do.

“And yet the whetting of your blood thirst didn’t begin with Will and I,” says Dr Lecter, mildly. “Until you admit your liking of its flavour you will remain unsatisfied, little one.”

You do not ask how he knows you’ve thought of killing, once before, which you yourself had forgotten; having been in your home, the chill sanctum of your childhood bedroom, he may have learned, of you, a myriad, his interrogation merely a practice in contextualising his findings.

“I’d rather starve,” you say, at last, and sink your chin beneath the water.

Dr Lecter takes a razor from a nearby cabinet and begins to shave you with slow precision. He does not ask if you wish for it, only glides the razor across your underarms, groin, and each leg until you run silken beneath his hands.

That done, Hannibal rises, brushing unseen dust from his knees.

“I’ll bring you some fresh clothes,” he says, and leaves the room, a ghost departing the stage.

You look at the razor, entrapped in its plastic guard on the rim of the bath.

Had you a pair of scissors you might have cut the metal free to make a weapon, or else an escape into realms unknown to the living. Though its edge is still wickedness manifest, it would take a great deal of pressure to pursue death by this angle, though it would not be impossible.

It is not death you want to meet, however, but another, nameless coward.

You take the blade to your arm, and the pain is like eating, a sin that sates the freak of misery.

The bathwater turns like a devil’s baptism, and though they are but shallow cuts you feel suddenly faint. Lying back, you lay your arm against the porcelain, thinking murky thoughts of your mistake.

Hannibal returns carrying a muted lilac dress and pale stockings, stilling at the sight of you, of the water, red as autumn mud.

He sets down the clothing and kneels beside you again.

“Let me see.”

You let him take your arm and touch the crude little gashes softly.

“Shower, quickly. Then I’ll treat your wounds. Fortunately, they aren’t so deep.”

How gentle he is with you, this beast dressed as a man in his pressed shirt and waistcoat, guiding your numb form about with a soothing authority. You’d once yearned to be handled like this, to be absolved and set free of any and all expectation. That it comes from him is like being spit in the eye by the Fates, one after the other.

Clotho, Lachesis, Atropos: what have you done to so offend them?

It’s only after having bandaged your forearm and settled you, dummy-like, upon his bed, that Hannibal speaks again.

“What motivated you to do this?”

“You know.”

“Elaborate.”

You lie, face down, in the pillows. The cotton smells like him.

“To feel better,” you say. “Amy said it helped her, sometimes. Cleared her head.”

The mattress tilts slightly as Dr Lecter sits down beside you.

“You mirror her pain to feel closer to love lost. Has it helped you?”

“No. I feel stupid. I feel—”

Restless, you turn onto your side and feel a tear, compelled by gravity, mark your jaw.

“I feel like a kid,” you say. “It’s humiliating. I hate that I always feel this way. Don’t make me live like this.”

Dr Lecter presses a tissue into your hand, as much to save his bedclothes as to comfort you.

“Fighting the expression of necessary emotions will only stunt them further, little one. Will and I would dearly like to see you flourish. Amy would surely wish that for you, too.”

Cradling your wounded arm to your chest, you flick the used tissue to the floor with the other.

“Screw you,” you say. “Both of you. That’s what Amy would tell me to say to you, Dad.”

Hannibal stares at the tissue, and you sense the inward twitch of his irritation as he bends to pick it up from the ground.

“Your parents called again, this afternoon,” he says, offhandedly. “I informed them that you were struggling with your treatment. I advised that we continue your residence here a month longer than previously agreed.”

He casts you a pitying look, and you’re reminded of the futility of going to war with Hannibal Lecter.

“It seems that I made the prudent choice,” he says. “Don’t you agree?”

#hannibal lecter #hannibal lecter x reader #hannibal fic #yandere hannibal lecter #manna fic #tw eating disorders #tw fatphobia #tw self harm #dead dove do not eat #darkfic #hannibal darkfic

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stanningstanhd · 9 months

Text

THIS is The Most Beautiful Bucky Smut scene I have EVER read in my life.

I’ll link it below for you guys, but stop what you are doing right now and read this.

There are fics that deserve more recognition and then there are stories like the one I just read. I wanted to spread the word to everyone about the most amazing, beautiful, raw, stunning, and alluring sex scene of any Bucky Barnes fanfiction I’ve ever read. Putting Nicholas Sparks, that one fic Possessed, to SHAME.

Like, seriously.

Stop what you are doing right now, and listen to this rant I’m about to go on. This is a well deserved rant.

I recently came across this fic called Take It Back by @allandoflimbo . The fic itself is probably the most underrated piece of art I’ve ever come across on here. To the point where after I read it it blew my mind that some cheaters only had a few hundreds likes, no comments, and some chapters not even in the hundreds, because when I tell you this story is BEAUTIFUL. I mean it with all my heart and soul.

You’ve probably get told a lot by other people go read this fic you’ll love it go read that one and you probably save them for later, but this is a story you do not save for later.

I am telling you right now, if you are reading this post, go goddamn read this heart wrenching and beautiful piece of art. DO IT!

Back to my purpose with this post…this story has a love scene in it. A smut scene. Sex scene, or what ever you prefer to call it. It’s in the core part of this book and so beautifully and perfectly placed. Even reading it alone is just…the amount of emotions, conviction, and goosebumps that will unravel over your body is insane. There are smut scenes in fics that make you hot and bothered, and this one does make you feel that way, but it also does something else to you. You break and heal at once. You cry and smile, you whimper and you have to take deep breaths.

I’m going to quote some of it here for you guys so you have a general idea of what I’m talking about.

The moment leading to the kiss.

There’s slow burns, and then there’s tension of unbelievable thickness, paced out so well that Alandoflimbo captures perfectly. You can tell she poured her heart into leading up to the kiss. That when it finally happens, you feel the same exact emotions they both feel when it happens.

First it’s the dialogue.

“You know why.”

Perfect. Three little words and the reader knows what’s going to happen.

It’s so quiet that the only thing you two can hear is the sound of his breathing, your tiny feet walking, and the distant hum of the refrigerator. You see the muscles in his back tense when you get closer to him, the silence in the room becomes unbearably quiet. It was screaming at you both, it was the answer you both needed in your own way. The silent scream was the phrase he had said moments ago that still lingered in the air like a damn siren. Because you loved him.

…

You stretch out your fingers flat against his back, making him sigh. The moonlight peeks in through his large window as your hand drags slowly up his back. His breath hitches audibly at the feel of it. His eyes close together again as his right-hand falls against his leg. He rubs his hand there on his jeans. trying to get rid of the nervous sweat that had gathered on the edge of his palm. He can’t breathe.

There’s more, and so much much more before they kiss. And when they do it’s perfect.

And the smut scene…by god. BY FUCKING GOD.

Ten thousand words that would put Nicholas Sparks to shame. That’s right, ten thousand words.

Like I said, I’m still surprised at how unknown this story is because I’m not exaggerating when I say it is the best BuckyxReader fic out there. Please, please read it. This gem deserves all the attention in the world.

If you’re interested in just the sex scene, it’s in Chapter 17 “Our First Dance”. But I would recommend reading the full thing from the beginning if you can. I believe the author also put out a BuckyxOC Version if that’s more your thing.

This story is beautiful. Magnificent. Bravo @allandoflimbo , bravo.

The link

#bucky barnes #sebastian stan #marvel #MCU #fanfic #bucky smut #bucky fandom #winter soldier #50 shades of gray #wattpad #bucky x oc #bucky x reader

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shouldhavebeenpersephone · 9 months

Note

In GTN chapter 36, Cytherea says “None of you have learned how to die gracefully. I learned over 10,000 years ago"

Do you know/have a theory as to how Cyth could have learned anything pre-resurrection? She was not one of the original lyctors present for the resurrection and it was only 10,000 years ago. It could be hyperbole but I am suspicious of the “over 10,000 years”.

Thank you so much for the ask! I wanted to take my time with it, I hope you didn't mind the wait.

I actually had been chewing on this with my most recent GtN reread. Bear with me as I cut and paste all the pieces that form my thoughts on this - hopefully it's somewhat coherent to read.

Could "over 10000 years" be a hyperbole? Maybe. A lot of characters tell the 'truth' as far as they believe it to be so even if it's factually incorrect. I don't think, however, that Tamsyn would make Cytherea say it in this specific way if it was a hyperbole. In GtN chapter 35 where Palamedes confronts Cytherea we get the following lines, which are what feed my intuition about this:

"Don't lie to me, please."

Dulcinea said, "I have never lied to any of you."

Cytherea has no reason to lie, especially not after being confronted by Palamedes. She tells him herself - she has been giving pieces of the truth and using those to manipulate the narrative. Because of this and because it's much more fun if it isn't a hyperbole I see no point to dismiss it as an emotional inaccuracy.

So let's say she is over 10,000 years old. How does that work?

First thing I went looking for while trying to figure this out was the question of Cytherea's birth. On the fandom wiki, it states that Cytherea was born into the established Seventh. I have been combing through the books, and I cannot find anything in canon that truly confirms this. What we do know of the timeline and her age is the following from HtN chapter 9:

"When they first brought her to Canaan House, I thought there'd been some mistake. - She was just shy of thirty then, I recall. -

-Was she the first gen, or second?"

"Second," said God. "Early second. We were still experimenting with getting the Sixth installation up and running. Some of the Houses were empty."

Mercymorn spoke up: "No. We had it running by then. Because Valancy was with us, and Anastasia."

-"Yes, you're right. We were all there to meet her. All sixteen of us -

'Some of the houses were empty' is the important line here, because in NtN John 5:4 Harrow describes how the resurrection happened:

-You resurrected some of them. You wake up fewer still. You start out with a few thousand, then, later, some hundred thousand, then millions, but never more than millions. You teach them how to live all over again. You teach yourself. -

The houses are named in order of resurrection. The Seventh, then, comes after the Sixth, which should make it obvious that by the time Cytherea arrived the Sixth was already established - or the Seventh wouldn't have existed. Yet, for some reason, for John this is not as obvious. I have found what could be an explanation in HtN chapter 2:

He said, "No. I haven't truly resurrected anyone in ten thousand years. But at that time... I set many aside, for safety... and I've often felt bad about just keeping them as insurance. They've been asleep all this myriad, Harrow, -

The difference wouldn't be as obvious to John, because he didn't resurrect the houses one by one. He resurrected a chunk of the earth's population, kept them dormant, and piece by piece woke them up to populate the houses. Beyond the fact that Cytherea is never said to have been born on the Seventh in canon (again, to my knowledge - please correct me if I missed it), the following from HtN chapter 2 really seals the deal in my eyes that she was not born on the Seventh but rather woken up for the Seventh.

The emperor said gently, "She needs to go home, Harrow."

"That was never her home," he said.

You did not look. "And will the Seventh House accept her?"

I also considered John might feel Cytherea belongs at home with the other Lyctors and therefore denies that the Seventh is her home, but then remembered the following from the same chapter:

He said, "No Lyctor has ever returned home, once we understood the reprecussions... no Lyctor except one, who knew I would come to intercept her for that very reason."

He is talking about how Harrow cannot go home to the Ninth, and referring to Cytherea going home by returning to Canaan house located on earth. John also talks about the kind of people he resurrected in NtN John 5:4:

-We'll get them all back... some of them, anyway... or at least, the ones I want to bring back. Anyone I feel didn't do it. Anyone I feel had no part in it. Anyone I can look at the face of and forgive. -

Part of the same chapter I included above in combination with this one make me itchy almost. Harrow says 'You teach them how to live all over again.' That almost feels like it should be people who recently learned how to live. Like John only resurrected kids.

Think about it. He resurrects his loved ones and ones he can forgive. People who did not take part in the destruction of earth in his eyes. Who other than children could he really be talking about? Children, babies, who have no power to decide or influence to exert, who - even if they did have the power - do not have the capacity to understand the consequences of their actions. Whose memories will be easiest to erase because there is so little to begin with.

It then also makes sense why there were two generations of Lyctors. The population he woke up had to grow up into adults first. Why else would he have half a band of Lyctors trying to settle all of the Houses? If he was able to pick adults worthy of resurrection, he would have been able to pick adults capable of establishing his houses and becoming his hands and gestures.

One final point that drives this home is the following from the very beginning of GtN in chapter 7 when Teacher tells the Ninth about Dulcinea's condition:

"Dulcinea Septimus was not meant to live to twenty-five,"-

Dulcinea's hereditary disease is the same as Cytherea's. John did not know she was sick when she first was brought to Canaan house, which means that when he resurrected her, she must have been young enough to not be actively dying yet. Perhaps a toddler or a child who had been sick for some time - long enough to know what it feels like to slowly be dying.

So, all in all, my answer is that Cytherea was not born on the Seventh. I am not sure where the idea that the second generation was born on their planets of origin came from, but I honestly doubt any of them were born instead of woken. Cytherea claiming to have learned something 10,000 years ago would be a great way for Tamsyn to give us just enough to figure it out - this is, after all, the same author who gave us the big reveal of the second book in the first sentence of the first book of her series.

#Ash Answers #Ash does TLT Meta #the locked tomb spoilers #tlt spoilers #gideon the ninth spoilers #harrow the ninth spoilers #nona the ninth spoilers #the locked tomb #tlt #the locked tomb meta #tlt meta #the locked tomb theory #tlt theory

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lanitalay · 6 months

Text

Before I Say Goodnight

Chapter 4

a/n: sorry this is a bit late, Halloweekend got very busy. Enjoy!!

Other chapters

Warnings: none

Word count: 2k

“I suggest someone else take her back, she did not have a good time during the flight” Cassian says and flashes you a mischievous grin. His face drops when he sees the far away look in your eyes and the wet streaks on your cheeks “seriously though, can someone winnow her?” “I need to speak with Lucien so I can take her, but I have a few meetings until later in the afternoon” she looks to Mor “do you mind giving her a tour of the house and finding her a room in the meantime?” Mor adjusts her hair and says “of course, we can have a little girls day and get to know each other a bit. I’ll fill you in on all of our juicy gossip” she winks at you. You wipe your tears away and put on a poor excuse of a smile “that sounds great, I love to gossip”. You laugh, kind of, trying to ignore the pang in your chest. Memories of long gossip sessions with friends flashing through your mind. At coffee shops, during phone calls, at sleep-overs before you fall asleep. Amren gets up from her chair “I assume this meeting is over. I’ll see if I can find something in my personal library” and walks out. “Meeting adjourned '' Rhysand announces and the group stands to go their own ways. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, y/n” Feyre smiles and walks out of the room. Mor is waiting for you by the doorway “Come on, girl, there’s a lot to see”.

“I think this should be your room” Mor opens the door and lets you walk in first. The tour had been… a lot to take in. The house is huge and it’s beautiful but it has about a hundred floors and a million rooms. When you step through the door, you’re not shocked to see a beautifully decorated room with an incredible view to match. Velaris, the city of starlight, Mor had told you. “It’s close to the stairs, has its own bathing room and if you pull this back” she goes towards the curtains and reveals a glass door that blends in perfectly with the wall of windows “a balcony! I think no one has claimed this one because it is a little on the smaller side but if all goes well you’ll be on your way home soon” she smiles as you look around. This room is twice the size of my room back home. The bed looks divine, it is made with expensive looking linens, it has about ten decorative pillows that take up half of the mattress. You sit on it and lay back. Good god, I’m never leaving this bed. “This is the most extravagant bed and room I’ve ever seen, let alone stayed in” months of traveling on a budget had gotten you accustomed to thin mattresses at crowded hostels or questionable spare bedrooms from online listings. This was luxury. From what you had gathered last night, a High Lord is someone akin to a king and by the looks of this “house” Rhysand has the taste and wallet of true royalty. “I can’t disagree, it is beautiful” she sits next to you “so… I was serious about the gossip. There are some things you might want to know about the whole dynamic within the Court of Dreams” you can’t help the genuine smile that comes on “tell me everything”. “I knew there was something about you that I liked” she giggles “ok so since you’ve met Lucien I guess we can start with him and Elain. This is crazy, the poor male has terrible luck. Anyways Elain is Feyre’s sister and quick backstory, Feyre and her sisters were humans but for different reasons got turned Fae a while back. Elain and Nesta got dunked in the Cauldron and that turned them. The thing is that all of us were there when it happened and when Elain came out of the Cauldron, the mating bond snapped between her and Lucien-” Oh this is good. “Mating bond?” “Oh right, a mating bond is something that happens between two people destined by the Mother, as I was saying Lucien just says it in front of everyone and Elain is there like totally in shock. Flash forward to a few weeks later her mortal fiance hates Fae and wants nothing to do with her now and she wants nothing to do with Lucien and then Azriel kind of likes Elain now” she goes on to tell you about how Feyre and Rhysand met and Cassian and Nesta. You noticed that she didn’t tell you anything about her own drama but chose to not acknowledge it. It was comforting in a way that these magical beings had personal dramas and gossiped about it like you and your friends did “those stories are wild, Mor” she nods “we’ve been alive so long that we really have to work hard to keep things interesting” you snort and there's a knock on the door. “I’m sorry to interrupt but y/n, I’m ready to go when you are” Feyre says and you quickly get up from where you’ve made yourself comfortable on the bed. “Yeah, let’s go. Thanks for everything Mor” you quickly hug her and go towards Feyre. “How are we getting there?” you ask, not sure what to expect “I’ll winnow us, you’ll see” you walk until you reach the terrace where you had landed with Cassian earlier and look at her wearily “this place is warded against winnowing so I’ll fly us out until we pass the wards and then I’ll winnow to the Manor”. As she speaks, wings appear on her back and she holds out her hands for you “it’ll be quick. I promise” you gulp.

Feyre did not lie when she said it would be quick but left out that it would feel like the world is slipping from your grasp. You feel sick as she puts you down. You rest your hands on your knees in an attempt to steady yourself. “It takes a bit of getting used to” she lets you take a breath and you say “It beats going through TSA”. Feyre nods and when you’ve gathered yourself begins the short walk to the manor.

Packing up your belongings was incredibly underwhelming. You had folded the tunic you’d been using as pajamas and the dress Vassa had given you and stuffed it in your bag. Feyre and Lucien had gone to the library to talk about whatever it was they had to discuss. You had a feeling they were talking about you and if you posed a threat of some kind, feeling that the offer of staying in the House of Wind came from the Court of Dreams wanting to keep a close eye on you. You zip everything up and descend the stairs to find your hosts and thank them for everything. Walking to the kitchen you find Jurian making dinner “they really take advantage of your talents here”. He turns from where he is chopping up produce and lets out a chuckle “it’s the price I pay for pissing Vassa off”. “What did you do?” you ask but before he can answer a lovely feminine voice interjects “he was being an idiot as usual” Jurian rolls his eyes but does not defend himself. “On that note,” you try to diffuse the tension “I’ll be staying at the Night Court while they research how to get me back home, thank you so much for everything. I think I would’ve been dead days ago if it weren’t for you” Vassa pouts “I’ll be sad to see you go, it was such a relief to have some feminine energy around here, but I understand” she walks over and hugs you tightly “please come say goodbye once you’ve figured it all out” you hug her back. Jurian stays by his vegetables as he says “you have to eat dinner here though, I’m making enough for the four of us and Lucien brought pie for dessert”. Your chest warms. He really got the pie. “In that case Feyre, will have to wait” you beam.

After dinner and dessert with the exiles Feyre lets you know she’ll be waiting outside while you say your goodbyes. You hug Vassa and kiss Jurian on the cheek. Lucien offers to walk you to the door and you take the chance to say “thank you for the pie, it was delicious”. He offers you a half smile “you’ve had a rough few days, it’s the least I can do”. “Will you come visit?” you ask hoping the answer is yes. Everyone in the Night Court seems nice enough but Lucien, Jurian and Vassa have a special place in your heart. “I’m due to go there for a meeting in a few weeks. You’re always welcome to use your room here as well” nodding you hug him and without letting go say “I’m nervous”. He hugs you back “you’re in good hands, the House of Wind is safer and you’ll have everything you need”. You let go and walk out the door.

Feyre walks with you until you reach your room “Mor showed you the kitchen and the common areas?” you walk in and set your bag down. “Yes, she was very thorough with her tour” you felt heavy. Maybe it was the flying and winnowing or saying goodbye or the weight of your reality crashing down on you. “Alright, try to sleep, if you need anything ask the house and if there’s an emergency you can wake up Azriel, his room is across the hall”. You remember him from earlier, tall, wings and devastatingly handsome. Historically, you had never figured out how to act around attractive men and during the meeting it was incredibly difficult to focus on retelling your story. “Thank you, Feyre” she goes to walk out and says “I’ll let you know tomorrow when the priestesses begin their research so you can join them if you like”.

Wait, did she say ask the house if I need anything? You go to ask her but she’s gone. “House? Can I have water?” you ask to see if you had heard correctly. You are shocked when you see a tray with a jug of water and a glass appear on the bedside table. That is the best thing I’ve ever seen. You do your night routine: you bathe, brush your teeth and hair and put on your tunic. You pull the covers from the bed and get cozy. The house turns off the lights and the curtains are open, letting through the shine of the city and the stars. During the day it’s easier to ignore the ever growing helplessness. It feels like you’re drowning in it. Trapped in a glass coffin in between space and time. You feel your throat get tighter and your chest feels hollow and- Breathe. In. Out. In. Out. Count the stars, do something. Your mind screams. One, two, three, four, this isn’t working. You get an idea. Getting out of bed and walking towards your bag you pull out your phone. You haven’t used it since… well, since everything. It should be charged. Your heart skips when the screen lights up and you scroll to your photos as quickly as you can. Forty-five percent. You see a picture of your dog that your mom had sent you on your last day on Earth and tears well up. It hurts but it brings you comfort to know that they have each other. Committing the picture to memory, you shut it off and get in bed again. They have each other. They are not alone. Eventually sleep takes over. Mercifully, you have no dreams.

The house had closed the curtains after you fell asleep. When you woke up to a dark room you almost thought you had slept through an entire day. Sensing you had awoken, the curtains flew open and you see the sun above the city. It looks like it’s still early. You put on your dress and go have breakfast in the dining room. Azriel is the only one there. “Good morning” he greets. You fiddle with your dress, suddenly aware of the dirt that’s staining the hem and the way it falls off your shoulder. “Good morning”.

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