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lostfirefly · 16 days

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Life Must Have It's Mysteries (Ch.10)

Honestly, I thought this chapter would be the last, but in order not to make it too long, I divided it into two parts. Chapter 11 will be the final, I promise :) And when I came up with the idea about the scepter, I didn’t know that there was a legend that would be mentioned in this part. Everything worked out well, hah!

English is not my native language, errors may occur. As always, feel free to share your thoughts :) Masterlist is here.

Description: Buggy saved Catherine. What will happen next? Will they find what they are looking for? Let's find out!

Warnings: Fun, fluff, arguing, adventure, inappropriate jokes, swearing (as always). Shitty shit again:)

Words: 4488

Taglist: @gingernut1314, @operationroots, @hey-august, @rorywritesjunk, @yujo-nishimura (I hope you still like it!)

The title is taken from “Life Must Have It's Mysteries” by Hans Zimmer (OST Inferno).

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Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9

✎﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏

“Cotton candy, you knocked me down.”

Catherine clung to Buggy with her arms wrapped around his neck, lying on him, resting the top of her head under his chin.

“Cathie-pie…” He stroked her back.

“Shut up for a minute. I was just sitting in a cage preparing to die. I thought I'd never hug you again.” Catherine grunted with her eyes closed. “Also, let me come to my senses after the flood of your Buggy-love.” She tickled his neck with a finger.

“What? What are you talking about? It wasn't Buggy-love. It was a dramatic moment. I'm a gentleman. I thought you were about to die, so I thought I'd cheer you up.” Buggy answered nervously, giggling.

“Liar!” She inhaled heavily. “When you're nervous, you smell like nutmeg.”

“Are you seriously comparing me to a fucking nut just now? Why can't you tell me something else? Oh, Buggy, you saved me. You're such a sexy man. I want you right here.” He tried to guffaw to hide his worries.

“You're such a fool. See, you love me so much, even though you'll never admit that you saved me even from the evil gods.” Catherine raised her body and stayed sitting on him. “Okay. We need to fi~. Why are you smiling, clown?”

“You're on top of me." Buggy giggled idiotically and put his hands on her tailbone. "I have to admit, I like the position in which you are sitting now. Perfect!”

“You're disgusting, you know that?” Catherine slapped his hands. “Focus, please. We need to figure out where to go next.”

“I saw a narrow passage there. Behind that game thing.” Buggy nodded his head towards the corner and started stroking her back.

“Really? Okay! Let's check!” Catherine, put his hands away, ruffled Buggy’s hair and sat on the floor, crossing her legs in front of her. She pulled out a map and a notebook and started to review the route. Catherine felt Buggy take her hand, rested his head on her back first, then buried his face in her hair, and then placed his chin on her shoulder.

“What happened, my blue-haired love?” She looked at him out of the corner of her eye.

Buggy shifted his gaze to her. “I just.. I almost lo~... Ah, never mind.”

Catherine ran a hand through his hair. “It's okay. I'm okay thanks to you.” She gently moved her fingertips along his cheek. “See? I'm here.” Catherine turned her head slightly and looked into his sad eyes. “Your makeup is smudging. When we go home, you'll need to touch it up.”

Buggy kept his eyes on her. “Cotton candy,” he cleared his throat, “What if.. If I.. never mind.”

Catherine put her hand on his forehead. “Someone got too nervous, right?” She laughed and ducked into her notebook. Buggy fell silent and watched her run her fingers over the sheets, muttering something to herself and stroking her pencil through the air. “See also. We were supposed to turn with you here - the north house. If I understand correctly.”

“Uh-huh.” He closed his eyes and hugged her with his other arm tighter.

“I don't know what's going through your head right now, clown, but stop thinking about it. I’m sure it's something embarrassing, right?” Catherine blushed. “Anyway, if there's a narrow passage at the north end of this room, we should go out through it, and we'll be in the north house. Shall we? In any case, we need to somehow get out of here.”

“Uh-huh.” Buggy exhaled heavily, opened his eyes and stood up, offering Catherine his hand.

“Thanks!” She arched her back and heard a crunch. “God, I'd kill for a hot bath and a nice glass of wine right now.”

Catherine put everything in her bag and pulled out a flashlight. Buggy pulled her towards the passage. She ran her flashlight around the room where they were, saw the game and the scattered sticks on the floor, and glanced at him. Catherine took a second to imagine what it was like for him to be here alone and squeezed his hand.

“Over there!” Buggy pointed with his hand. “When I was playing this damn game, I saw some kind of light, maybe we should go there?”

“Judging by the map and notes, yes. See! You did great!” Catherine stroked his head. She shined a flashlight into the passage. “It’s quite narrow, but we have to get through. You’re luckier, you can split into parts and safely fly to the other side.” She laughed.

“No way, cotton candy. I won’t leave you, otherwise you will remember this to me forever.” Buggy groaned and rolled his eyes.

Catherine exhaled heavily and climbed into the passage. She carefully examined the walls, looking for additional clues, periodically looking back at Buggy, checking if everything was okay.

“Oh, look, look!” She stopped abruptly, sharply swinging her hand back, and heard a honk. “What was it?” She looked down at her feet.

“Fuck, Catherine! Are you out of your mind?!” She heard Buggy grumbling behind her.

“What's happened?” Catherine turned to him.

“Fuck! You elbowed me in the nose! Who does this?”

“Oh my god! Are you okay?” She started examining his face. “I heard a honk. Where did the sound come from?” Catherine looked at the walls and floor. And she froze and slowly turned the flashlight on Buggy. “Is it you? Is it your nose made that sound?” She looked at him in amazement.

"Wow, that's funny, right? Haha, his nose honks. You can laught at me." Buggy made a face.

“What? What are you talking about? I never make fun of you in that way. Why didn't you tell me this?” She saw him blush with embarrassment. “Oh, my silly clown. I think it's cute. Don’t worry, okay?”

Catherine took a couple steps forward and felt a vibration under her feet. “What's that sound? Is that you too?”

“What? No! I don’t know. It’s like something is…” Buggy looked around.

“...shaking.” Catherine looked behind him and saw a crumbling wall. “You must be kidding me! The wall, Buggy! The fucking wall! What are we gonna do?”

“Damn! The main lesson I can give you is to run. Believe me, this advice works every time.” He started pushing her in the back, watching as the passage gradually became covered with sand. “Run! Run!”

Catherine threw her bag over her shoulder and ran forward, looking back at the crumbling wall and Buggy. They turned down the paths several times until they finally ran out into a poorly lit room.

“What was that?” Buggy, bent over with his hands on his knees, tried to catch his breath.

“I don't know.” Catherine pulled out a flashlight and shined it on the passageway. “Fuck, it's been fucked up!”

“Fuck it!” He raised his head to her.

“Are you o~?” Catherine took two steps toward it and felt the floor vibrate lightly again. “What was that?”

“I have no idea.” Buggy straightened up.

Sand began to fall from the walls.

“What the fuck is that?” Catherine yelled in panic. “Are we walking into some kind of Egyptian trap?”

“Are you asking me?” Buggy tried to shout over the noise of the sand, which began to fall off the walls and cover the floor at an increasing rate. “What are we gonna do? Is there some kind of riddle or phrase to stop all this fucking shit?”

“Am I a wizard to you? Sorry, I don't have any phrases “please, don’t kill us fucking sand” for stopping this shit. Fuck! The sand is almost ankle-deep. The room is filling up too quickly. A little more and the sand would be up to our knees.” Catherine shined her flashlight on everything, trying to find a way out. “We have to g~... Oh god, what else is it?”

A cracking sound began to erupt beneath Catherine's feet. The floor started vibrating and splitting, failing beneath the sand piece by piece. They tried to cling to the pieces of the floor that had not fallen, but their hands slipped and they both flew down. As soon as the sand has settled a little, Catherine opened her eyes, lying belly down on pieces of the floor with a dash of sand.

“Thank God, the fucking sand seems to have cushioned the fall. Fuck! My ears popped.” She coughed, squinting, brushing dust off her face and hair. “Are you alive?” She waved her head in different directions and slapped her ears a couple of times.

There was silence in response.

“Buggy?” Catherine sat up on her knees and looked around. “Buggy?!” She shook her head again and looked ahead. “Water? Where in the pyramid did the water come from?”

She looked up from where the floor had fallen and then looked down. The trail of the collapsed floor led to a body of water. Fear gripped her heart.

“Fuck!” Catherine threw off her bag and sneakers and ran forward. She looked closely into the water and saw a drowning Buggy.

“Fucking devil fruit!” She jumped into the water and started swimming with all her might towards Buggy, who was going deeper and deeper to the bottom. Catherine felt short of breath and had to dive back out. “Fuck! Focus, Catherine!” She took in more air and dove into the water again. She squinted in the water, trying to find him. The air began to run out again. She had to surface.

“Where is he?” Catherine turned her head around and put her hand under the water. “The current. The current is weak, but it goes to the... To the right.”

Catherine held her breath once more and dived and swam a little to the right. She saw Buggy and with all her might she buried herself up to his body. The air started to run out, but Catherine made two more wide paddles and managed to grab him by the collar of his sweatshirt and pull him to her. She paddled with one hand and helped herself with her legs with the last of her strength, and finally managed to pull herself out of the water. Catherine took a deep breath, lay on her back, put Buggy on her chest and swam to shore. She pulled him to shore, rolled him over onto his side, and he coughed immediately.

“You're alive! Thank God!” She jabbed at his shoulder.

“Was it cool?” Buggy asked in a hoarse voice, clearing his throat and rolling over onto his back.

“What?” Catherine looked up at him with wet eyes, not realizing whether it was tears or water dripping from her hair.

“Did I sink cool?” He tried to laugh and coughed once more.

“Idiot!!” Catherine flopped onto her back next to Buggy, bending her legs, and took his hand. “Are you okay?”

“Yes. Thank you. You saved me, my Cathie-pie. You?” Buggy glanced at her.

“I'm okay. 1:1, huh?” She smiled and squeezed his hand. “I thought this adventure would be easier. Sometimes it feels like we're in some stupid author's book. Oh, let's tear down the walls and let it all fall apart. Oh, let's let the floor fall under them. Couldn't come up with any more clichés, huh?” Catherine shouted loudly and coughed.

“Where are we?” He looked at the ceiling, then at her.

“I don't know.” Catherine sat down on her knees and looked around. “I think it's some kind of... Why are you smiling, clown?”

“Sorry, but you're just all wet and your clothes… your body...” Buggy giggled idiotically.

“Oh my god! You're disgusting!” She rolled her eyes. “Where do you get the strength to think like that? You were practically dead!”

“But I'm not dead!” Buggy sat down on his buttocks and wrung his ponytail from the water.

Catherine looked up at him, sitting there with wet clothes and water running down his face. She exhaled and narrowed her eyes. “I hate you!”

“Geeez! What did I do?!” He looked at her with a blank look.

“Oh, you know yourself.” She muttered. “Where does the water come from here? There are opinions that rivers used to run near the pyramids, but a lot of time has passed since then. We're in some unknown part, apparently.” Catherine got to her feet and looked around. “I have no idea where we are. We're definitely not where the map was pointing. W-Wait! What's in there?” She narrowed her eyes, jumped up from her seat and ran forward.

“Fuck, Catherine!” Buggy yelled, standing up abruptly and sent his hand after her that tried to grab her by the scruff of the neck.

A hand yanked her and Catherine fell to the ground. “What the fuck, Buggy! Don't do that again!”

Buggy came closer to her, reattaching his hand. “First of all, Catherine Mitchell, I've told you repeatedly not to run headlong into the middle of nowhere. Why did you do this again? Second, you forgot something.” He held out her bag and sneakers.

“Go to hell! See? There's a passageway over there!” She pointed her finger at the wall, putting on her shoes. “I'm not sure, but I think we should follow that way. There's not much of an option, either.”

“Well, let's go check it out.” He said dryly, giving her a hand and helping her up.

“Thanks!” Catherine stood on her tiptoes and took a quick look at his face, head, and shoulders.

“What?” He replied gruffly, glancing at her with a look of incomprehension.

“Nothing. Just wanted to see if you were okay. Why are you so mad?” She slowly removed her hands from his shoulders.

“I'm not mad.” Buggy took the flashlight from her bag and mumbled. “It's good that the spare one didn't break.”

“Yes, you are mad. You call me by my last name on two occasions. When we in our bed-- You know. And you're too-- You know. When you're really-- You know.” Catherine blushed. “And when you're really, really mad at me. And since the first option is out, you're angry.” Catherine crossed her arms.

“You did.. You.. Fuck it. I should have left you in that damn cage.” Buggy yelled and walked towards the narrow.

“What? Fucking clown, wait! What's wrong again?” Catherine barked, ran after him and grabbed his hand.

“Hey, don't yell at me!”

“You're the one who's yelling. Are you mad that I forgot my fucking sneakers? Lord, I would buy new ones later. I’m sorry, okay?” She lightly pushed him on the chest with her palms.

Buggy looked at Catherine’s round eyes and suddenly laughed. He put his arm around her shoulders and held her close to him for a second. “Sneakers. Forget it. Just be careful, okay?”

“I didn’t understand the reason for your anger, but okay.” Catherine mumbled into his chest. “By the way, you're so hot when you're angry.” She watched as he broke into a satisfied smile. “Oh, god. I knew you'd be attracted to this, pervert!” She narrowed her eyes. “Well, let's go?”

“Let's go, my little shit.”

They reached the passage and turned on their flashlights. Catherine shined the light down the passage and looked around the walls. “Granite blocks? Granite and limestone. I've never seen anything like that. But it looks solid, I hope nothing collapses. I wouldn't want to end up buried here.”

They walked slowly along the narrow passage, Catherine carefully examined the walls with drawings. They went out into a large room, which was poorly illuminated by rays of light. Various birds and hieroglyphs were painted on the walls, the ceiling was decorated with stars. In the center of the hall stood a huge black granite sarcophagus, near which stood two statues of two jackals with large ears.

“Fuck me! Cotton candy, tell me we found something interesting.” Buggy examined the walls and shined his flashlight on Catherine. She stood there with her eyes wide open and her jaw dropped, barely holding back a smile. “Judging by the look on your face, I'm right. So where are we?”

“I have no idea, but this is super cool!” She squealed quietly, clenched her hands into fists, and rushed towards the sarcophagus. Catherine shone on every inch of the walls.

“Cathie-pie, there’s something painted on the walls here. Again, hieroglyphs and your favorite men with fucking bird heads.” Buggy stood against the wall and squinted at the drawings.

“Where? Where?” Catherine jumped up, ran to the wall and, pushing Buggy aside, began to look at the drawings. “How strange! These drawings contain year by year records of the height of the annual flood, details of festivals held that year, and other important annual events such as wars and constructions.”

“Hey! And here are some other people drawn, and some kind of flat fish with a spear.” Buggy squatted and pointed at the drawing with a flashlight.

“Where? Where?” Catherine happily ran up to Buggy and climbed onto his back, poking her head over his shoulder. “It's not a flatfish with a spear, idiot. It's a catfish with a spear.”

“Sorry, I somehow skipped fish science class.” He chuckled.

“Quiet!” She covered his mouth with her hand and began to mumble something, periodically kicking her legs. “Can't be!” She jumped off his back and ran to the sarcophagus. “You must be joking! Quickly, come here. Shine a light on this sarcophagus!”

Buggy approached Catherine and began to shine a flashlight on the sarcophagus while she was running around.

“Oh my God! Come here!” She called him with her hand. She stood bent over the sarcophagus and moved her hand over the drawing. He walked up to her and stared at the drawing. “Look! Do you see this drawing? A man in a crown.”

“Yeah.” Buggy shrugged. "Is this some famous dead dude again?"

“My blue-haired love, this is Narmer.” Catherine looked at him, breaking into a smile.

“I have no idea who is that, but you're smiling so much that it's clearly someone cool, right?” He pointed the flashlight at the sarcophagus, and at her satisfied face.

“He is considered the first pharaoh of Egypt, but his body was never found. Oh my God! Oh my God!” She grabbed her head. “Do you see these drawings? This's his palette. It was partially found and is now kept in one of the museums. But the second half was never found. This palette depicts the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt into the “Kingdom of the Two Lands” under the divine king. This is thing was used in the ritual of mixing and applying the King's eye makeup. Like yours. And it was arranged in three easily read registers on the back and four on the front. See? Two images of Hathor, benevolently looking down on the scene, showing the status of Narmer as an equal, his central placement in this image, his size relative to other figures in this image, his mace, his crown, the servant behind him holding his sandals, Horus, the hawk god, presenting Narmer with a representation of Lower Egypt.”

Buggy looked at her, blinking. “Cotton candy, you say a lot of strange words. What does this even mean?”

“I think we're where we need to be. Wait!” She stared at the ceiling, squinting and took out the scepter. “Look! Do you see? The outline of the scepter matches the pattern on the ceiling.”

“How do you do this, woman? You know, you definitely should have gotten out of your library more often.”

“Fuck you! I just loved hanging out in the library a lot while you were having fun in the bars.” She stroked his back. “We need to look for the same features on the sarcophagus. Come on, help me! I can't cope without you!”

They began to study the sarcophagus from both sides, examining every millimeter. Buggy leaned over the lid and squinted.

“Cathie-pie, there's something here.” He looked at the ceiling and the lid of the sarcophagus. “Is this what we're looking for?”

“Where? Where?” Catherine ran up to him, looked at the ceiling carefully, and then again at the lid. “Yes! Do you see? You’re smart!! I always knew it.” She smiled, noticing how he blushed. She ran the flashlight over the lid. “Look! Here is a path of stars drawn somewhere towards the wall of the sarcophagus.”

They both ran their lanterns along the path and sat down on their knees.

“See?! There are stars in the form of the Ursa Major and small holes.” Catherine leaned the scepter against the drawings. “The thickness doesn't fit.” She held the scepter in her hands.

“Let me see.” Buggy took the scepter in his hands and began to turn it in different directions, examining it carefully. He turned it part of the scepter, heard a click and a blue tip protruded from the end of it. “What kind of crap is this?” He asked loudly, his eyes widened.

“What did you do?!” Catherine looked at him with round eyes.

“How do I know? I turned something, and it clicked, and this fucking blue thing came out.” Buggy shrugged.

Catherine whispered. “The scepter belonged to the one who could cut mountains... Oh, God! Oh, God!” She grabbed her heart and fell on her buttocks. “Can’t be!”

“Catherine! What's wrong?” Buggy grabbed her hand and looked into her eyes with worry. “Are you okay?”

She silently looked at him and blinked her eyes.

“My little pie, say something!” He shook her shoulder.

“It's not just a fucking scepter. It's a spear. The Spear of Amset.” Catherine carefully took the scepter from his hands. “Don’t take me for crazy, okay? Amset was considered one of the most forgotten gods. The Spear of Heaven was one of the items of the first pharaohs, given by the lord of the stars Amset. It was believed that the spear could only be given out by the council of priests in the temple, but no one knew where this temple was located. And Narmer made a deal with Amset to hide his untold wealth underground.”

“Apparently, something went wrong in their deal and this god Am.. whatever his name is.. killed this.. Nar.. whatever his name is.”

Catherine laughed. “No, actually, Narmer was just trampled by hippos.” She looked at the tip of the spear. “Look! Its thickness fits these holes. Remember what you did last time? Folded the constellations. Try to do the same now, only poking into these holes in the order in which the stars appear.”

Buggy took the spear from her hands. “But I warn you, it’s quite possible that I won’t be able to handle it.”

Catherine knelt down next to him and placed her hand on his back, slowly beginning to stroke him. Buggy reddened again and began poking the tip of his spear into the holes in the right order. They heard a loud bang and looked around.

“This is the lid of the sarcophagus! Open it! Open it!” Сatherine happily jumped on the spot.

Buggy began to push the lid back with force. “Damn. Heavy!” He paused for a few seconds to catch his breath. Sweat and water dripped from his bandana, face, and hands. “Ok. I’m ready.” He pushed the lid again. “A little more. A little more. There!”

He pulled back the lid of the sarcophagus and Catherine quickly looked into it. “There is no body! How is this possible? There are some fucking rags here!” She lay down on the edge, her body hanging inside the sarcophagus, while her legs dangled above. “Look! There's some kind of wooden box there! Or something like that. Get it, please!”

Buggy separated his hand, sent it for the box and brought it back. “Do you think this is what we are looking for?” He looked at her and smiled slightly.

“Oh, my blue-haired love, I’m more than sure! And if we find it, I promise you a hot night tonight!” She happily jumped around him, rubbing her hands. “Open up! Open up!”

“Alright! Make us rich, fucking pharaoh!” Buggy opened the lid and his smile immediately disappeared from his face. “It's empty here!”

“What?” Catherine stopped abruptly. “How? Why?”

“Empty.” He turned the box towards her. “See? Apparently, someone got ahead of us.”

“Can't be!” Catherine jumped into the sarcophagus and began rummaging around.

“Cathie-pie! What are you doing? Get out!”

“No! But how? Why? No! I was sure…” She threw rags in different directions.

“Maybe we’re not in the right place? Don't forget, we fell from another level.” Buggy leaned his elbows on the sarcophagus.

“If we weren't in the right place, the spear wouldn't have worked. I need to look at this fucking scepter. Wh.. Where is it?” She fell over the wall of the sarcophagus. “Are you kidding me? It’s gone! Did you take it? Did it crumble or what?”

“Fuck it!” Buggy waved his hand and helped Catherine out.

“Nothing! That's all I found. It's some stupid thing with letters.” Catherine twirled a small box in her hands.

“Forget it, little pie.” He walked to the wall and sat down on the floor.

“But it shouldn’t be like this!” She stomped her foot. “We couldn’t find anything the first time. So what? Nothing again?”

“Welcome to my world, cotton candy!” Buggy showed two thumbs up. “Just accept the fact that you're in a relationship with the biggest pathetic loser in the world and apparently my bad luck karma has rubbed off on you. Sorry.” He laughed. “Fuck! To come this way so far and for what? For the sake of some fucking empty box and rags in the sargophagus!” He leaned his head on the wall and closed his eyes.

Catherine looked at the sadly sitting Buggy, who was clearly counting on a different outcome, walked up to him and plopped down on his lap. She wrapped one arm around his neck and stroked his head with the other. “You're not a loser. Stop saying such terrible things about yourself.”

Buggy laid his head on her shoulder and wrapped his hand around her waist. Catherine immediately kissed him on the top of his head.

“Well, we had fun, didn't we? I liked our adventure more than the first. Just you and me. I wouldn't change anything about our trip.” She was twirling a small metal container with rings in her hands and started stroking his head. “Okay, let’s think about how we can get out of here. And I wonder, can this thing b~” She looked closely at the wall behind Buggy, then looked at the box. “Behind your back…” She gently patted him on the head. “Behind your back, Buggy!”

“What?” He opened his eyes and glanced at the wall.

“Pictures on the slabs behind you! These are riddles!” She pointed at the wall and then looked at the box in her hands. "Fuck! It's not a box. It's a cryptex.”

22 notes · View notes

mamichigo · 1 year

Text

Cyno has been watching the scene unfold for quite awhile now, though he's no less confused than he was five minutes ago. Alhaitham, unaware of his gaze, continues to chat with the two little kids hanging off his frame. Ah, make that three. There's a girl, smaller than the other two boys, valiantly attempting to climb up Alhaitham's leg.

"What's this word?" One of the older kids asks, peering over Alhaitham's shoulder with two little arms wrapped around his neck.

Alhaitham pauses his reading, eyes scanning back to the word the boy just pointed at.

"'Bewildering', it means confusing or difficult to understand."

"Oh, oh, I get it!" The other boy exclaims. "That's just like you! Mister, you're be...be..."

"Bewildering."

"Be will daring!"

"Hm. Your pronunciation is a little off, but your effort to break the word down to more familiar sounds is admirable," Alhaitham nods solemnly.

"Yeah, I didn't get any of that, Mister."

The two boys laugh as if Alhaitham just told them the greatest joke known to men. The little girl, clueless as to what's happening around her, breaks into a toothy grin and claps at them.

It's bizarre to watch. Alhaitham doesn't get along with most people, and Cyno never pictured him to be patient with kids. And yet, here he is: somehow, he hasn't even made a sarcastic quip this entire time.

(If Paimon saw him now, she'd surely have a few words for him.)

"What's going on here?" Cyno finally asks, curiosity winning over him.

Alhaitham doesn't seem surprised to see him.

"They were looking for Candace," he says. "I'm just a convenient substitute. Are your meetings done?"

"For the time being. We've only just started to formulate a plan on how to make the passage between the desert and the rainforest safer, but..." He sighs. "It's only the start, there's still a lot to be done. Oh, and Candace stayed behind to talk to Dehya. I'm afraid she'll be awhile."

The children (who had been not-so-subtly paying attention to their conversation) all deflate in unison. Alhaitham raises his eyebrows at the boys.

"You heard the General Mahamatra. It seems you'll have to find something else to do for the rest of the day."

The two of them grumble as they jump off of Alhaitham's shoulders and stalk to a corner to whisper amongst themselves. Cyno tunes them out as a gesture of goodwill. He doesn't need to scare the villagers any more than he already does.

"And this one?" Cyno crouches by the little girl, smiling when she beams up at him.

"Too young to speak much, as far as I can tell. It seems she was attracted by the commotion the boys were making."

"I'll help you find her caretakers later." Cyno gently sits by her side, allowing the girl to tug at his hair. "Sorry I've made you come all this way with me."

"I don't mind. For now, I'm the closest thing the Akademiya has to a representative, excluding the Dendron Archon herself. I'm sure you understand it's a little too soon for her to be the face of the rainforest around here."

Cyno nods absentmindedly. He scrunches up his nose when a strong tug stings at his scalp. Is he supposed to let her continue, or chastise her for hurting him? Is it even okay to chastise someone else's kid? He's not sure. For now, he settles for prying her fingers off his hair.

"Everything alright?" Alhaitham asks, smiling with amusement. "It looks like you're in quite the heated battle, General."

"If you can tell, then give me a hand."

"Me?" Alhaitham held a hand to his chest. "I wouldn't know the first thing about helping with children."

"I can't tell whether you're lying or not sometimes," Cyno huffs. "I'd hand off this one to you, but it looks like you're already in demand."

He raises his chin towards the two boys, currently waving to get Alhaitham's attention.

"Are you going?"

Alhaitham hums. "Do you think I should go?"

"What kind of question is that?"

"Well, I don't have any particular reason to go, and I still would like to finish my book. But if the General says I should go, then I will."

The girl coos at him and pats his cheeks. She could probably see him blush. Somehow, it's a lot more embarrassing to be seen like this by a child, so Cyno resolutely looks away.

"You should go play with them and lose at whatever game they've come up with," he jokes, hoping to disperse the charged air between them.

Alhaitham seems to ponder his words for a moment before closing his book and crouching by Cyno.

"I've recently found out there's very little I wouldn't do to make you happy," he declares, as monotone as one would talk about the weather.

"Testing the limits of that hypothesis is a good enough pastime, at the very least. I'm off then."

He gently lays a hand on Cyno's head, then pinches the little girl's cheek. Cyno watches him walk away, mouth agape.

And as Alhaitham "loses" in a race against two kids, Cyno looks down at his little partner, grinning despite himself.

"He really is be will daring, don't you think?"

She happily gurgles her agreement.

#cyno #alhaitham #cytham #haino #genshin impact #drabbles #my writing

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tracingpatternswrites · 2 months

Note

Edinburgh 🥰 thrust 😏 dark 🙃

My love!! Such fun words! The last snippet turned into a really long one but only because it's unpublished and I'm weak for that interaction.

Edinburgh - (unsurprisingly) Wilder than Mountain Thyme

“And Prongs is rich,” Sirius said with a grin, throwing his arms out as he started moving and Remus found himself falling into step with him as they made their way towards the Ravenclaw Road exit. “Filthily so, if we’re honest, only child and all. I mean, I’m rich too, but I have to share it with my blood traitor for a brother which means Prongs is buying.” Sirius was smirking as Remus stared at him, grey eyes glittering and Remus found his own mouth curling upwards. “You’re full of shite,” he muttered, taking a drag from his cigarette, and Sirius laughed again. “Often,” he agreed easily, taking the lead as they stepped into Muggle Edinburgh, turning around to walk backwards down Robertson’s Close with a wink. “It doesn’t mean I’m not filthily rich though.”

Thrust - (lmao this is a word used a lot) The wolf submits

He flashes him a smirk that sends something hot coil inside of Remus and then Sirius is shifting back, sinking down and pressing back against Remus’ erection. He grinds down, almost too hard, the soft leather torturous against his straining cock and the wolf howls again. He wants to fuck Sirius, wants to thrust into him, claim him, shoot inside of him and mark him as his. Sirius has his head thrown back, long and slender neck exposed, Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows thickly and Remus wants to bite him. Sirius rolls his hips down against him, sending licks of heat chasing through him and the growl that tears from his throat is wolfish. It causes Sirius to open his eyes again, looking down at him, but Remus can’t focus on anything but the urge to wreck the man on top of him. He jerks violently against the magic, growling somewhere deep in his throat but Sirius laughs, a liquid sound that breaks against overheated skin.

Dark - Unpublished Teddy playing matchmaker-snippet

The café they had picked was in the lanes and had a bright red door with rainbow flags decorating the windows and walls. It was the name that had drown Remus in though, Baskerville’s Hound written in bold letters over the painting of a big, black dog. The place itself was cosy enough, paintings decorating the walls together with black and white photographs of Brighton and random people. The walls were painted in a dark blue and the furniture was all mismatched and clearly second hand, but still in good shape. Teddy returned without drinks, pulling out the chair opposite Remus and slumping down on it, shrugging at Remus raised a questioning eyebrow at him. “They’ll bring it out,” he said, slouching back on his chair. “Any chance you got a change on that twenty?” “Sorry,” Teddy grinned at him, pushing a hand through his hair, which was currently a bright orange. Remus had long since accepted that Teddy opted to change his hair colour as often as other people changed clothes, and he enjoyed seeing him explore. “Consider it a contribution towards your only child’s education.” “Ah, yes, never mind the 9K tuition fee,” Remus deadpanned. “It’s the change on the coffee that’s going to make the real difference.” “I’ll need pocket money.” The corner of Remus’ mouth twitched, “You need money for beer, you mean.” Teddy threw his arms out, “It’s Uni life, Da.” Remus snorted just as the barista approached the table, clearing his throat. “A latte with a dash of cinnamon and…whatever this monstrosity is,” the barista said, and Remus tore his gaze away from his son to the man standing next to their table. Remus found himself doing a double-take at the sight of him. He didn’t know why he’d expected a student, but this man looked to be roughly his age. He was tall, muscular, with tattooed arms and wearing a simple white tee shirt underneath a light apron with a large black dog printed on the front of it. There was the hint of a stubble over his very chiselled jaw, high cheekbones and long, black hair pulled back in a ponytail. It was his eyes, however, that caught Remus’ attention. They were a light sort of silver, seemingly drawing in the light around them. They were dancing with something that looked like amusement as Teddy sat up excitedly. “That’s mine,” Teddy said eagerly, reaching for the tall glass topped with a hefty dollop of whipped cream. “Cheers, mate.” “I take it you’re the sensible one then,” the man said, the corner of his mouth twitching as he turned his gaze on Remus, placing the mug in front of him with a little wink. “Enjoy.” Remus couldn’t help looking as the man walked away, at his faded jeans and heavy boots. “Earth to Da!” Teddy’s voice pulled him out of his thoughts and Remus flinched, accidently burning his hand as his coffee sloshed over the rim of the mug. “Fuck,” he hissed, grabbing a napkin to wipe up his spill and when he looked back up, Teddy was watching him with a mischievous sort of twinkle in his eyes.

Send a random word to my inbox and I'll post a line/passage containing that word from a released or unreleased fic!

#word excerpt fic game #tasha tag

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somebodysumbuddy · 2 years

Text

Monstertober, Day 6

Following @snejkha ‘s Monstober prompt list.

Day 6: kitsune, d20 roll; limb

Content warning: no gory description but mentions missing/removed limb and some blood.

You were out on a walk when you heard a cry. It was half between a baby’s cry and the yelp of a pained animal. You stopped unsure whether to go towards it or turn and make your way safely back home. Even a hurt animal was a dangerous one. It only took until another cry from the animal, this one stronger and longer. The high pitched squeal raised the hair on the back of your neck. The tail end of the let off in a panting sort of laugh and you identified it immediately. It was a fox. You still hesitated a couple of seconds before purposefully heading towards the pond, away from your intended trail.

More of the fox’s cries lead you right to where they lay, close to the muddy bank of the pond. It seemed to have dragged it’s self away from the water’s edge, its body was caked in rust colored mud. You made your way closer as carefully and quietly as you could. It didn’t wouldn’t have mattered anyhow, the creature was desperately focused on licking itself clean, only lifting their head to intermittently let loose a n ear-splitting scream. You were only two feet away, practically bent over it when you were able to make out why.

It’s head was tucked against their left shoulder as they aggressively licked at where their arm should be. Instead only a couple inches of their limb remained. They were licking at the violently fresh wound. You bit down on your tongue to keep from grasping in shock. Tears left your eyes the fox once again cried out in pain. It had to be agonizing. You didn’t know how recent this injury was but if they carried on like this they would only succeed in rubbing it raw until they bled out.

You moved around it, trying to put yourself within it’s line of sight without getting any closer. When they finally spotted you another cry left them before it turned into a growl. They tried to jump back, forgetting the lost limb. A flurry of desperate movement ignited as it tried to stand again and again jumping back every time it’s chest hit the ground.

Horrified you scurried back a couple steps, a sob caught in your throat at the sight of them repeatedly landing on the raw flesh. “Stop stop stop! Please stop I just want to help you please stop, you’re hurting yourself worse!” You wanted to scream but the pleads left you in soft tones, trying not to frighten the animal more.

A tinge of shock went through you as they froze at your words, looking up at your from their position on the ground. Their eyes flicked over your face before locking eyes with you. You remembered a passage from your school days, about how different shifters were native to different regions. Foxes were one of the groups discussed. Hope sparked in you.

“Let me help you, please, I live a couple minutes away, I promise you’ll be safe.” You spoke low and clear keeping eye contact. When they finally made to drag themselves towards you you rushed closer, bending to pick up the little animal in your arms. Their cry of pain was deafening, so close to your ear. You almost ran back to your house, holding the fox on it’s back like a baby, trying to keep from causing them more pain.

Setting them down on the kitchen table, you leaned over and unlatched a small chest already sitting on the counter. You paused a moment as you drew out a vial of opium. You didn’t know what the proportional dose would be. If you asked them to shift, if they even could shift, it could cause irreversible nerve damage. You would start small, only one drop. You approached the panting fox, holding up the vial. “This needs to go under your tongue.”

Hoping that would provide them some relief from pain you quickly got to work pulling disinfectants, herbs, salves and clean linens onto the nearby counter before setting a pot of water to boil. After washing your hands thoroughly, you turned back to the fox, noting it looked a touch calmer.

“Alright, lets begin.”

After patching them up, and giving them another drop for the pain you searched your small house until you found an appropriate sized basket. With a pillow on the bottom you draped towel over it before helping the drowsy, battered fox inside. You softly pet their head with a single finger as they drifted to sleep.

It took two weeks before you mentioned that it might be safe enough for him- he had made it every obvious he was male- to try and shift. You didn’t know what to expect but you were excited to be able to fully converse with your friend. You had made due with very specific yes(bark) or no(whine) questions, and had even gotten alarmingly good at deciphering his long winded cackle and scream filled rants, but you would be grateful to have real answers to your questions.

You recommended they lay on the bed since the shift could leave them disoriented. Following along as they hopped over to your bedroom, you gave them a quick warning before picking them up and placing them right in the middle.

He was very familiar with it, he had only slept in the basket three nights, after that he had screamed his insistence that he also wanted to sleep on the bed. They slept curled up on the opposite pillow every night, though recently you’d wake with him coiled tightly right under your chin.

Now you gave him some privacy under the guise of needing to clean up after dinner. After a handful of minutes filled with silence you made your way back to your bedroom, entering with a soft ‘hello’. A man lay on the bed, he had pulled on the shorts and shirt he’d picked out on your past trip to the market. You’d taken him in the basket and had to evade everyone’s questions about your ‘new pet’.

He sat up as you got closer. He was striking and beautiful with sharp features and a flawless complexation. Your eyes were drawn to the top of his head where two familiar ears perched. He was holding what was left of his left arm, feeling all around it before dropping his hand and sighing deeply. Then, holding your gaze he slowly smiled. You returned his smile with your own at the sight of his teeth with still clearly visible canines.

“Hi. Thank you.” His voice was deep and smooth.

“You’re welcome, I’m glad I heard you by the pond.” He nodded solemnly before his face broke out into a wide grin.

“I would like to request to be carried in a basket everywhere we go.”

“Everywhere we go?” You repeated for clarification. “How long is there going to be a ‘we’?”

“Forever long. I won’t leave your side until I repay every kindness you’ve shown me.”

#monstertober #monsterlover #monsterfucker #kitsune #monstober #I'm at my friends house with negative reception. I don't know if this will post

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keicordelle · 6 months

Text

Many Kinds of Magic

Fandom: FFXIV Rating: E Pairing: Estimeric Word Count: 6.2k Tags: Established Relationship, Snowball Fight, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, Body Image, Body Worship, Explicit Sexual Content, Explicit Consent, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Dirty Talk, POV First Person, POV Aymeric de Borel

Summary: There are as many kinds of magic as there are moments - from the childhood whimsy of a snowball launched at the back of your friend's head, to the quiet reverence of soothing your lover's insecurities with whispered words of worship, and Aymeric and Estinien delight in each and every one they get to spend together. After all, the only thing better than an afternoon spent hurling snowballs at your best friend and lover is getting to warm him up in front of a fire afterwards - even if it means asking a nosy friend for the use of his quarters.

The gentle snow fell not in flakes but in great wet blobs, splatting against my head and shoulders. I shook clumps from my hair, reaching to brush wetness from my ears before it could melt and worm its way into my skin. The cold seemed less bitter than usual, surrounded by thick drifts of white as we made our way back from the Observatory, the biting winds so common to Coerthas calm for once. Even so, my cheeks were pink with the cold, and tips of my ears and the ends of my fingers prickling with frigid heat.

The snow brought with it a hush that muted even our own footsteps, making the world seem close and quiet in the way of early holiday mornings and evening church sermons. The very air seemed filled with a magic and reverence so thick you could touch it, and despite all the hardships that lay both behind and before us, for the moment at least, it soothed my soul with its unheard resonance.

"Estinien, I-"

Thwack!

Impact against the back of my head left me momentarily stunned, wetness seeping from my hair down into my collar, its cold trails down my neck making me shiver. Brushing snow from my hair, I twisted to find Estinien not at my side, like I'd thought he was, but several paces back, guilty look on his face and still in a throwing stance.

"Sorry. I was aiming for your back," he said with an apologetic wince, and I couldn't help but burst out laughing, the joyous sound breaking the quiet stillness. Estinien relaxed from his crouch, the harsh lines of his face easing into a childlike mirth that sent a wholesome warmth skittering through my heart.

"You'll pay for that!" I warned him, stooping to scoop up a handful of snow and form it into a snowball of my own. His eyes widened in delight, and the laugh that escaped him was nothing short of a giggle as I wound up and hurled it at him. He raised his arms to ward off the blow, the ball splattering harmlessly against his forearms to pelt his face and chest with cold wetness.

I was scooping up more snow before he had a chance to react, my second strike slamming into his hip, and even from twenty fulms away I could see the glitter in his eyes, laugh lines carving a kinder visage than the stoic grimace he so often bore. The deep rumble of his joy twined with my own gleeful laughter, a harmony that made my soul dance, and there was a magic in that, too, in the playfulness of two souls in this brief reprieve from the passage of time, free from whatever troubles lay before and behind us for just this one moment.

The splatter of snow against my shoulder heralded Estinien's reprisal, and the shriek that escaped me seemed to teleport me twenty years back in time, the squeal of a boy frolicking with his friend in the winter rime. I darted to the side and his next throw went wide as I dodged through the mounting drifts at my feet and the fat flakes that floated around us, scooping up handfuls of snow as I went. We hurled barely-formed snowballs and playful taunts at each other, slipping across the slick ground until we came crashing down together into the snow, breathless as much from laughter as from our bout, my cheeks sore not just from the cold but from the strength of my smile. Wetness seeped into my clothes and dripped into my boots, but I paid it no mind, the sodden chill and the numbness in my fingers merely trophies of our merriment.

We rolled together through the powder, tussling and shoving snow down each other's clothes until I managed to pin him beneath me, shivers wracking us both and our chests heaving as we fought to catch our breath. Melted snow drenched our hair and dripped from my chin to splash against Estinien's cheek, the flakes that still fell around us providing the same lazy backdrop that protected us from the real world. My eyes slid to his parted lips, thin and pale and curled up in the corners, and before I had quite made up my mind to move, I found myself leaning in to kiss them. They were just as cold as they looked, the brush of his nose against my cheek drawing a shudder from me, but a little chill was not enough to detract from the feeling of his mouth moving on mine, his hands rising to fist in the back of my jacket and hold me to him.

Read the rest on Ao3!

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#ffxiv #estimeric #estinien wyrmblood #aymeric de borel #ffxiv fanfiction #fluff and smut #estinien #aymeric #ff14 #final fantasy xiv #ffxiv smut #my writing #steel and crystal #~K

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ameasureofseperation · 11 months

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Echo heads down to the Glitterheim. It's been a long couple of years, more than a decade now, since this space was a lightning-blasted wasteland. It isn't the wild fungus-rich forgotten grotto it once was either. Now it is a meeting place, a loose barrier of sorts, between the Citadel proper, and the Undermountain. The portion of the Stone Tooth now home to the refugees and immigrants from the Underdark proper.

Barnabas would have come with him, but seeing as this was not an official kingly task, he elected to stay behind. He knows his presence in the Undermountain makes most of the people down there nervous. Even now, even still.

Nervous is still a lot better than bloodthirsty. So Echo’s not going to push any buttons about it today.

Echo, himself, comes and goes freely between the Citadel and the Undermountain. It helps that he speaks the languages and is also the main negotiator of trade deals and commerce. But he’s not here on an official duty today either.

Echo hums to himself as he winds through the passages. He nods and waves to people he knows, friends and acquaintances. It’s not long until he comes to his destination, a smaller forge, nestled between several houses carved back into the stone.

He knocks on the door and lets himself in.

“G’morning Arnan,” Echo calls back towards the forge.

A few moments pass before he gets a response. He hears something being quenched and then Arnan’s quiet footsteps. He comes to the front and nods to Echo.

“Hello. Why are you here?” He asks in his gruff way.

“Nothing official,” Echo assures him, “I’m here on personal business.”

“Oh?” Arnan asks, one of his eyebrows goes up a bit.

“Uh-huh. I’m here to visit my friend and share a bit of personal news. Are you busy?”

Arnan looks back at the forge, “Not so much that I cannot take a break. What is your news? Is something wrong?”

“Oh, no, not at all, it’s good news.” Echo grins. “I want to introduce you to someone.”

Arnan’s other eyebrow goes up. “Okay. Are they waiting outside?” Arnan leans over to look out towards the front of the forge.

Echo laughs, “No.”

Echo sits and gestures for Arnan to do the same. He humors him and kneels down to rest on the reinforced stand at the front of the forge room. It doesn’t even creak under the weight of his many mechanical limbs. Echo moves the pack he was wearing on his back to his front and carefully undoes the top cover.

Arnan blinks as Echo reveals a baby, swaddled in what he now can see was a bjorn of sorts, not a pack. The baby’s hair is green, but it is not- surprisingly- a goblin child. It’s a young dwarf, with a smattering of green across its cheeks and ears. And its ears are somewhat pointed at the tips.

The baby stirs as Echo unbundles it from the bjorn. It blinks up at Echo and gives him a sweet smile as it grabs for his ears. Echo giggles and leans in, letting the baby play with his earrings.

“This little gentleman is Bjard,” Echo says as he peppers the baby’s cheeks with kisses. “Bjard, say hello to your Uncle Arnan.”

Echo gracefully raises to his feet, even with the baby still clinging to parts of his face. He steps closer to Arnan and manages to turn enough that the baby, young Bjard, notices him.

Arnan stares down at the small dwarf babe. Bjard stares up at him, his eyes catching and reflecting the shine from Arnan’s metallic plates. He reaches out one pudgy hand towards him.

“Uncle Arnan?” Arnan asks.

“Aye,” Echo grins up at his nervous expression. “I’m not mean enough to try and make you a godfather or anything. But Uncle will suit just fine.”

Echo leans in and blows a raspberry into Bjard’s neck and cheek, causing him to squeal with laughter.

“Would you like to hold him?” Echo asks.

Arnan gives him a blank look. “...I do not wish to scare him.”

“You’re not scared of little ol’ Arnan, are you, Bjard?” Echo asks the babe. The babe babbles at him and leans further forward, his hands reaching for Arnan’s closest plating of metal. “See?”

Arnan sighs, “For a moment, then.”

Echo hands the babe over, and Arnan cradles him as best he can with his most hand-like attachment. Little Bjard seems fascinated by his metal limbs, and intent on drooling over much of them. Echo beams up at him.

“I had a dozen or so Uncles and Aunts growing up in the circus. Figures that my son will have about the same, if not more.” Echo muses.

Arnan blinks down at him.

“Your s- your son?”

“Aye,” Echo grins.

“Your son …and your husband’s son?”

“Aye,” Echo is still grinning.

“I am holding the son of the king of the mountain,” Arnan states, his panic rising. “You just handed me the prince?!”

“Aye,” Echo reaches up and brushes at the babe’s hair, “And you’re doing marvelous. He really seems to love how shiny you are.”

“Echo!” Arnan knows he’s being too loud, and now Bjard is giving him a slightly concerned look.

Echo takes pity on him and takes the babe back out of his arms. Bjard nestles in against Echo like it’s second nature to him, but his eyes are still tracking Arnan’s metal limbs.

“I trust you,” Echo tells him bluntly. “And Barnabas does too. He knows I came here to introduce you two. All of Bjard’s other Uncles and Aunts have already gotten to meet him.”

Arnan glares down at him. “I did not even know you had had a child.”

“Yeah, Barnabas wants to hold off on announcing him properly and publicly until his naming day. Which is… his fifth birthday?” Echo scrunches up his face, “Yeah, fifth birthday. It’s a royal tradition of some sort.”

Arnan sits there and thinks about that. It is a lot to process. Bjard reaches for him again and Echo steps closer so that he can still hold the babe while he runs his hands up and down Arnan’s metal plating.

“You want me to be an Uncle to a shield dwarf prince.” Arnan states outloud. He feels half mad just for putting it into words.

“Yes,” Echo tells him simply. “I think you’d make a fine Uncle. And besides, he may well become the ruler of this mountain someday. Should he not grow up feeling a kinship to those that live here?”

“Should he feel a kinship towards those that are monsters to nearly everyone else?”

“He’s part goblin, Arnan,” Echo tells him with a harsh tone, “There are many who would call him a monster for that.”

Arnan looks down at the small dwarf, who is smiling and babbling as he traces odd shapes along the metal plating of his limbs. Even when he had raised his voice earlier, the babe had not once looked at him with fear.

“Perhaps,” Arnan says very, very quietly, “I could give this Uncle thing a try.”

Echo beams at him and wisely does not say anything more.

#Writing #Ficlet #Echo #Arnan #Bjard #DnD #D&D #Duergar #Goblin #Dwoblin #not canon

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chryzure-archive · 2 years

Text

something amiss

ALT TITLE: azure is moving around like a little cat :3

AUTHOR’S NOTE: hehe. i’m ready to tear out your guys’ hearts now :) the beginning of the end.

———

Azure was staring down the well.

Dizzying and dark, he couldn’t see the bottom. He was halfway convinced there wasn’t really a bottom, but he also knew that wasn’t very realistic.

Whatever was at the bottom, he reasoned, was probably covered in muck and slime—the water long dried-up, but still deep enough to feel the way rain sank through the ground and made the earth muddy. The stones stacked deep enough to filter out the worst of the grime, but continued disuse only accounted for more than enough to fall in from the trees overhead—enough pine needles and pine cones and leaves fell in to make the filtering system obsolete. Truthfully, there were more interesting things to study while awaiting Alice and Chrysi’s arrival—as Oz was doing, studying the birds in the trees—but still.

Azure still stared down.

The base of his neck began to ache from the way he craned his head forward.

“What’re you looking at down there, anyway?” Oz called from his perch on the dilapidated fence.

From the corner of his eye, Azure saw Oz tilt his head back, tracing the flight of a bird that he couldn’t see from his own vantage point.

He smiled ruefully. “Nothing much, I suppose.” But despite saying that, he stared harder into the dank blackness. “It’s just a little slimy.”

“Ew,” Oz said helpfully.

“I’ve seen worse.”

“I believe that.” He leaned further back, far enough for Azure to begin to worry he’d fall right off that fence, head hitting the ground first, then somersaulting painfully. But he didn’t fall, and Oz went silent.

Satisfied that the danger had passed without any help from Azure, he settled back into the study of the well without distraction. It was mesmerizing, like a tightly wound spiral shooting off into infinity. The rustle from the trees turned into white noise, until Azure forgot about the passage of time.

Fortunately, his charge did not suffer from such divorce from time. He was far too attuned to boredom to forget about the ticking hand on the clock.

“Well,” Oz began, but the sound of sticks snapping and leaves rustling made him trail off before he could truly begin.

Azure, too, froze, straining his ears, hope rising traitorously in his chest.

One more snapping stick, followed by a familiar voice yelping and a very leafy sounding landing. A musical laugh lilted in response.

“Nice job, clumsy,” teased Chrysi in the distance.

“Took them long enough,” Azure muttered.

Oz didn’t say anything.

He frowned back into the well absently. Oz must’ve been in one of his more pensive moods. Perhaps Azure hadn’t been very helpful with the breaking of the boredom.

“Alrighty!” Chrysi’s triumphant voice rang out, breaking into the clearing like the stray sunbeam through Northern England’s frequent-and-heavy grey clouds. “Sorry about that—Alice lost the charcoal—”

“I did not!” Alice cried. “She’s lying! She dropped it by the house and she didn’t realize it until we were halfway here, so we had to march all the way back—”

“I think you’re the lying one,” Chrysi said mildly. “How could I have dropped it when you were the one…”

She trailed off, and in the wake of her voice, nothing but the rustling of wind through the leaves remained.

It was the sound—or lack thereof—of his girlfriend that finally shook Azure out of his well-studying stupor.

He glanced up, eyebrows raised in an invitation for her to continue.

Chrysi replied only with a strange, pale-faced look, made even more ghost-like from her white hair and the grey light valiantly fighting its way through the canopy. Azure would’ve defined her expression as bewildered, if not for the way her mouth had tightened and her eyes darted over him.

After three years of close quarters, and two of those years spent dating, Azure imagined himself as somewhat fluent in Chrysi’s body language. He knew that he knew her half-smile meant mischief, her fiddling with her rings meant thoughtfulness, and her stillness meant danger.

But this expression—this one was new to Azure. He didn’t have any entry similar to it in his dictionary.

He frowned. “Chrys?”

She jolted at the sound of his voice, as if it were the only thing that could break through her daze. Azure didn’t think it was too self-important to say that it probably was the only reliable thing to break Chrysi out of any and all of her dazes.

“Sorry,” she said, but it sounded rushed and more like the memory of the word than anything else. “I…” Her silvery brows drew together. Her freckled cheeks were pale. “Sorry.” She studied the well with a frown—almost accusatory, as if it had wronged her, in a strange way. “Can you step away from there?”

Azure’s brow furrowed still further. “Why?”

But it was Oz that answered instead, right at Azure’s elbow: “You’ll make a mess of yourself and those nice clothes.”

Azure startled—nearly elbowing the boy right in the nose on instinct. He managed to swallow the urge down.

Oz didn’t so much as flinch. He blinked up at Azure innocently. His smile curved up in a deceptive curl—the glint in his green eyes certainly told Azure that Oz was not above subjecting Azure to the same pine-needle-ridden fate that Chrysi seemed to want to avoid.

Whatever he saw in Azure’s befuddled expression satisfied him, and he turned his attention back to Chrysi. His mouth shifted to a sly slant, a little too cruel for his face.

“Wouldn’t he, Miss Chrysi?” he inquired, in an overtly delicate tone.

Chrysi stared at Oz for a moment too long, in Azure’s estimation, her mouth rigid and inflexible. It was strange, but for a moment, Azure thought he saw her eyes harden, paling with gold.

A bizarre, unmoored feeling tugged at the earth beneath his feet. Azure wondered absently if he might soon discover how dangerous it would be to stand next to a well when he was unbalanced.

But he regained his footing before it came to that, and Chrysi’s eyes looked normal—so normal, in fact, that Azure was certain he imagined it.

“Yes,” Chrysi said—but her voice sounded like it was echoing from far away, swallowed up by fog, and Azure’s unbalanced feeling returned, “they certainly can.” She pivoted away from Oz—from Azure, as well—and held her hand out to Alice. “Come on. We have gravestones to study.”

Azure frowned at her, but the only hint he got of her thoughts was the tense line of her shoulders. Everything else was cloaked with long white curls and an oversized flannel she’d stolen from his side of the closet that morning.

As if she could sense his gaze on her, she glanced over her shoulder. Azure only caught a sliver of the expression on her face, but it was more than enough to stir up his confusion like a beehive.

A tight furrow to her brows, and her eyes squeezed so tight that he worried she suffered from one of her migraines.

Azure opened his mouth, intending to further prod her on her reaction, but Oz tugged on his sleeve.

His eyes snapped down to see Oz smiling up at him, slightly puzzled. Oz granted him a careless shrug.

“One of those days, huh?” he said, lighthearted. “Nothing like gravestone rubbings to lighten the mood.”

Then he was following after Alice and Chrysi, humming to himself absently.

Azure frowned, then glanced up at the sky. The clouds choked out all light from the sun.

Something told him that one of those days wasn’t about to lighten anytime soon.

—

ii.

It took about three days before Azure came to the conclusion that Chrysi was acting oddly. Shorter than it took Alice, but longer than it took Oz.

The three of them didn’t say anything to each other, but there was something silently understood between the three of them—Chrysi was trailing off in conversation too frequently, and she’d begun skipping her meals. When she mentioned something had happened, Azure remembered the events occurring earlier in the day than what Chrysi reported to him.

Needless to say, he was worried.

Chrysi had retired for the evening (much earlier than normal, looking gaunt and pale, and it didn’t help ease his concern) when Azure went looking for Filly. If there were anybody likely to know more about what occurred in Chrysi’s inner world than he, it would be her.

She liked reading in between her housekeeping and cooking (and, Azure quickly found, between staring at a certain groundskeeper longingly), so he made a beeline for the only room in the house he was likely to find anyone.

He knocked on the library door lightly. “Filly?”

Azure got no response.

He pushed the door open and, recalling Chrysi’s complaints of how silently he moved, he made sure to let the door thump against the wall.

Still no response.

Azure frowned. He delved deeper into the library.

The overhead lights had all been shut off in favor of the various desk lamps. It was the sort of lighting that was supposed to make a room look much more welcoming—but despite all the lamps’ best efforts, the library still looked lonely and drafty.

There was no helping it. It reeked with the same abandonment and disuse as the rest of the manor.

And even still, it was the best room in the house—even after all of Chrysi’s attempts to make the rest of the manor homey. By the time she finished cleaning the rest of the manor to match the library, it wound up dusty and empty-souled all over again.

But it was hard to make a room full of stories and books seem quite as soulless.

He found Filly curled up in one of the old armchairs, with its faded floral print (roses, though Azure didn’t think it aligned quite so well with his employer’s sense of aesthetics), biting absently at her lower lip as her eyes feverishly scanned a book in her hands. He knew he needed to get his prescription checked—he’d been meaning to get around to it—but from what he recalled of Filly, she was likely wading waist-deep in a reread of The Last Unicorn.

Azure hesitated by a bookshelf. Clearly, his attempts to be noisy upon entry failed him.

For good measure, he lightly rapped his knuckles against the flat edge of the bookshelf.

Despite the ample warning, Filly yelped and Azure flinched with her. She jerked up from her seat so forcefully that the book almost went flying. She scrambled for it with flailing hands. When she caught it, she crushed it to her chest with a sigh.

Azure grimaced. “Sorry. I tried to knock first, if that’s any consolation.”

Filly let out a shaking breath. Her eyes were still screwed shut behind her glasses, her brows knitted together. “It is not, but the effort is appreciated.”

He bit down on a sigh. Azure truly didn’t know what to do anymore. Everything he tried to do to improve his silence failed miserably.

Once Filly had caught her breath, she flashed Azure a curious look. The book (aged as it was, Azure wondered if it was a copy from the seventies—Oswald seemed the type to hold onto any copy of book that passed through his hands) was closed with the same reverence as a prayer.

“What’s up?” she inquired. A glint in her stone-blue eyes told Azure that she already suspected his reason for coming to her, but she didn’t seem to want to jump to conclusions.

Lips tightening, Azure found himself at an unexpected loss for words.

There were so many within him—most incoherent, his concern for Chrysi their only throughline, and many of them mixed with his native tongue. To try and wrangle them into submission took him a moment.

When he found something in the semblance of clarity, Azure merely asked, “Have you noticed anything wrong with Chrysi lately?”

The look Filly flashed at him was all too knowing.

“Probably the same sort of thing wrong as you’ve noticed,” she said wryly. Her eyes gleamed a moment, mirroring Azure’s own concern back at him through her lenses. “But I can’t tell you I have any idea why. I would’ve thought you’d know.”

It wasn’t funny in the slightest, but it made Azure let out a dreary, mirthless laugh. He raised his hands in some semblance of a shrug, then abandoned it halfway through. His arms fell limply to his side. “No. I have no clue.”

And it made him feel hopelessly useless.

Now it was Filly’s turn to grimace. She straightened in her seat, taking a moment to place the novel on the coffee table to her side.

“Maybe it has something to do with the change in the weather?”

She wasn’t looking at him, but Azure still shot her an arched-brow look. A rueful smile spread across her face, a preemptive response to what Azure was bound to say.

He knew he didn’t have to say it, but he didn’t know what else to do: “Do you truly believe that?”

This granted him a sardonic half-smile.

“Of course not.” Filly sighed and ruffled her hair in front of her face. All the half-formed humor drained from her in an instant. “I’m just trying to find any reason in her actions. But…” She spread her hands wide, her eyes opening just as widely, searching for the unsearchable. It was a helpless action, made worse by the empty, false rictus of a smile on her face. “…I doubt we’ll truly understand any of what Chrysi’s going through until she tells us.”

Azure nodded once, even though he hated the truthfulness of that statement. He fought to keep the overwhelmed uselessness from his face.

He hated this. He despised it. Azure liked to always have a strategy, and he often had many at once—but with Chrysi, the only strategy was to wait until she crawled into his arms and told him everything she had locked up inside.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “She’s always been unreadable,” he mused, his heart sinking low.

Filly smiled sadly. Absently, she traced the spine of the book. “That’s what makes her so Chrysi, at the end of the day.”

A flicker of warmth played with his concern like a fox in the woods. Reluctantly, he let himself loosen his body and he leaned hard against the bookshelf, like it could support the weight of everything he wished Chrysi would confide in him. “Yes. I suppose it does.”

They both sat in silence, only the occasional chirp of crickets outside to dispel the creaking of the old, drafty manor. Evening had well and truly come to cloak itself over Baskerville Manor.

Azure knew his silent, brooding presence wasn’t putting Filly at ease—she kept reaching for the book, fingering the edges of the cover, absently fanning the pages, all while her gaze studiously avoided his—but he still hadn’t gathered the strength to allow Chrysi her silent misery. It choked him even from here, the way he couldn’t help her.

Yet he peeled himself away from the bookshelf with an energy he wasn’t quite sure he found.

“Thanks,” he said to Filly. When she glanced up at him with a dubious look, he shrugged in a melancholy sort of way. “At least I know I am not crazy, being worried over Chrysi.”

“I doubt you could ever be considered crazy for worrying over Chrysi.” She leaned forward, pitching her voice low as if imparting a secret. “She’s always getting into trouble.”

He breathed a half-note of a laugh. Yes, maybe that was it—something new that Chrysi found herself digging too deep into. “That she is.”

“Filly?”

The intrusion of a new voice startled Azure. For a moment, he thought it was Oz, coming to ask

him how to properly say a new number in French.

But both Azure and Filly craned their heads to see Pleck standing rather uncertainly in the doorway, his eyes straining against the new evening-dim in the library. Even the lamps couldn’t battle the darkness back.

Filly took pity on him. Her excitement to see Pleck finally brought a sparkle to her eye—a sparkle that Azure knew the topic of Chrysi’s impending depression didn’t exactly inspire.

“I’m back here,” she called.

Pleck’s face brightened as well. He drifted into the room as if tugged on a thread to Filly’s voice, a warmth spreading over his expression.

When he saw her, he grinned. “There you are. I’ve been looking all over for you!”

Azure suddenly felt horrifically out of place between the two of them. This was a budding relationship if ever he’d seen one, and even in the best of circumstances, such relationships were best left to bloom on their own.

And, as he thought of his Chryseis curled up in their bed upstairs, he certainly hadn’t granted this new relationship the best of circumstances at the moment. He would quickly remedy that.

“I’ll leave the two of you to it,” he said, inclining his head slightly.

Pleck jumped, then whipped around to Azure with comically-wide eyes. For a moment, Azure thought he would lose his balance and collapse in his shock.

But at the last moment, Pleck rightened himself. A sheepish glow replaced that excitement of his.

“Sorry, Azure. I didn’t see you there.”

“I’ve got a tendency to blend into the shadows,” Azure said dryly. He turned to Filly, one last time. “Thank you, again. I’m glad you’re Chrysi’s friend.”

Filly blinked at him owlishly, then smiled. “Of course. I’m glad she’s got someone like you to keep an eye on her.”

“I never take a day off,” Azure agreed. He indicated Pleck with a nod. “Drive safe, Filly. Enough for the both of you.”

The two blushed a deep red.

Azure withheld from raising a brow at the two of them. They were horrible at subtlety—he knew damn well that Filly had driven Pleck to the manor that morning, and that they were likely both going to go back and visit some local café in an attempt to give themselves more time with each other. It was precisely what Azure himself had done with Chrysi.

“I will,” Filly managed to choke out, her voice strained.

“Good.” Azure allowed himself a tiny smile.

With that, he walked back into the settling manor, with its creaks and groans, and made his way to his shared room with Chrysi.

Pointedly avoiding the shadows—Azure shivered, recalling a spiders’ nest he’d once stepped in on accident, with such clarity that he swore he felt the thousands of tiny, skittering legs over his bare skin—he slipped up the grand, wide staircase. He erred to the bannister edge, though he did not rest a hand on it. He trusted in his own balance—the only reason he chose to walk along the edge was due to an unshakable feeling he’d had instilled in him as a child. To walk in the center of the grand staircase felt partway scandalous, now that he himself was now the hired help, as opposed to the master of the house.

Though—and perhaps this was most important—Azure knew the second, more truthful reason for this trek of his.

In the evenings, the centermost section of the stairs grew bitterly cold.

This fact made Alice, in particular, quite anxious. After Azure had drifted to the center on one of his trips up the stairs, she’d been quick to lunge for him, dragging him to the banister edge with biting nails and surprising strength.

After that, nigh subconsciously, Azure resolved that the bannister edge was… safest.

A bizarre thought, that.

Particularly because it would be quite easy to push someone over the railing, he thought, a touch gruesomely.

Azure frowned at the shadows, as if they had some sort of response for him.

But, like all shadows, they remained silent.

He’d been watching too many horror movies with Chrysi lately.

Azure shook himself from his macabre wonderings. It was easy to get swallowed up by a house like this, but he knew better. He’d fought with clawing fingertips and invisible cries to get out of being swallowed by a house much bigger, and much, much more dangerous than this—he would not get sucked in again.

He made it to the landing.

Quietly, Azure poked his head into the children’s rooms—Oz’s the second room on the right, and Alice the third on the left. It was a cursory check-in, more habit than anything. Azure trusted the children with a little more responsibility than he imagined any of their previous caretakers had. He could tell from the first night, when Alice had slunk into the library’s shadows with a wary gleam in her eyes and Oz had turned the pages in his copy of Holy Knight quieter and quieter, in hopes that Azure would not notice and demand they get ready for bed right then and there. Chrysi, in turn, had watched Azure knowingly, her eyes reading so much more in him than he’d expected.

It was a pleasant surprise for all four of them that they were all inclined to wind down until much later at night, where the kids wandered off to sleep (yawning and rubbing their eyes, close on each other’s heels) and Chrysi and Azure would watch them get ready between their own routines.

Tonight, however, Azure found that Alice and Oz had retired for the evening just as early as Chrysi had.

Sometimes, they all seemed connected. When Chrysi was out of sorts, the two little ones would be as well. It was a silent hypothesis, but Azure wondered if that might be that Chrysi seemed more an elder sister to the two than simply an au pair. There was something familial in the way she treated them, the way she would sometimes keep watch over Alice after she woke her up in the middle of the night because of a nightmare, or the way she would wrangle Oz into a new book series just so she could discuss it with someone.

A dull ache began to pulse in his chest again. It had been a rough couple days for all three of them, he thought, and he didn’t quite know why. Oz had seemed particularly quiet about it—another piece of evidence that Oz was like a sibling to Chrysi, for how else could he be so attuned to Chrysi’s emotions?—and Alice was lost between the two of them being out of sorts.

Azure sighed and hoped that tonight would be restful for the little ones. They were turning into zombies at this rate.

He padded silently over the landing and slipped into his and Chrysi’s room.

It was brighter here than on the landing, courtesy of Chrysi’s artificial night sky nightlight. That was what she claimed she missed most of her hometown—having more clear days than rainy. Azure, himself, was also acutely aware of the creeping grey, dreary effects from days so choked in clouds. He also knew that Chrysi didn’t think that a vitamin D supplement did much to counteract her seasonal depression.

Last anniversary, he’d opted to take Chrysi to Spain, if only so she could see the sun again. She’d liked it—and she certainly let Azure know, with all the kisses she’d stolen and from the way her face lit up with laughter—but he knew that homesick gleam in her eyes. He felt it too, the desire to return to Paris.

But neither he nor Chrysi could muster the energy, nor time, to make the trip back to their respective homes.

He studied Chrysi closer than he had Oz and Alice.

She lay curled up under their large comforter, but despite the chill outside, Azure could see she wore only a thin tank top.

“You have a lot of faith in my body heat,” Azure said, voice pitched low.

Chrysi didn’t shift.

He felt foolish, though there was no reason to. If she was not awake, then there was no one to hear his ridiculous quip. There was no one to judge him—besides Chrysi’s horror movie posters.

Azure shot a glance at one such poster, as if daring it to speak.

It, fortunately, did not.

The weight of the day began to press over his limbs. Exhaustion swept over him.

Azure was quick—contacts removed first and placed in their lens case, then washing up and brushing his teeth. Within minutes, he was already in his pajamas, moving through the room with easy familiarity, despite the additionally blurred landscape.

All the while, the shape of Chrysi beneath the comforter did not move an inch.

Azure slipped in beside her, curling around her small frame.

Though he’d assumed her to be asleep, Chrysi tensed at his touch.

Azure lifted his head, his eyes taking in her blurred shape.

“Chrys?” he whispered.

She did not answer him, but her breathing quivered, just a bit.

His heart ached for her though he did not know what it was that tormented Chrysi so.

His hand slid over Chrysi’s waist, anchoring himself to her in whatever way he could.

Azure thought he may have imagined it, the hitch in her breath, the way it sounded a bit like a stifled sob. But even if he had, he didn’t care. He burrowed closer to Chrysi anyway, in an attempt to comfort her.

That half-hitched sob-noise didn’t reoccur. But she didn’t move. Not even to melt closer to him.

Azure frowned.

With sadness lilting across his mouth, he placed a gentle kiss to Chrysi’s bare shoulder. It was a silent prayer, and perhaps a forgotten one, but it was the only thing Azure had to bless her.

She still didn’t move.

Azure reluctantly allowed himself to drift off to sleep, arm locked around her waist in an attempt to keep her close and safe.

As he drifted off, however, he could only think of how small and cold her body was.

—

iii.

Chrysi had been running scales on the piano absently, waiting for Alice to return with her music theory book, when she asked, “Azure, do you believe in ghosts?”

Azure slipped his bookmark into the crease of his book and looked up.

From what he saw of Chrysi’s room—and what he knew of her interest in the horror genre—he knew what Chrysi’s answer was to this question. Sometimes she’d insist on sprinkling a line of salt crystals along her windowsill, making sure to sweep away the old scatter from before, and Azure once found a notebook full of symbols he hadn’t realized Chrysi knew.

Leaning back on the study couch, he studied her thoughtfully. He toyed with the edges of his book. “I haven’t really thought about it before.”

Her eyes were shrouded. Azure couldn’t discern what that meant. “Not once?” she asked, and there was a hint of monotone crisping the edges of her words, like a leaf in the autumn.

“Well, probably once. You can’t get to the age of twenty-six and not have thought about it.” Azure listed his head to the side. What was his answer? “I guess I would say so.”

“You guess?”

He didn’t know what the tone of her voice meant.

Azure glanced at her, a hint of a frown curling the edges of his mouth downward. “We’re both witches by blood and one of our closest friends is a Fate. I don’t think it would be absurd to jump to the conclusion that ghosts exist.” He glanced up at the painted portraits on the walls about the room, at the thick grey dust on their surfaces.

Besides, he thought, mostly to himself, there are a lot of souls out there. Hard to believe they all simply disappear or move on.

But that was a personal belief of Azure’s. One that his father did not endorse in the slightest.

“Jump to the conclusion?” Chrysi echoed. She hit a discordant note, then another tinkling fall of music followed after it. “So in all your specialty witch studies, you never once found anything on ghosts?”

With the way this was going, Azure didn’t know what the proper answer was anymore. A headache began to form, pulsing at the base of his head. “My father didn’t want me to study that. Said I wouldn’t have any use for it—and he made it very clear that I was very special and could learn any type of magic.”

It was an unhappy memory, and a sick feeling curled in his stomach as he thought of it.

Azure had run off to England and become a live-in tutor for very good reason. He wanted to shove it in his father’s face, sure, but the pressure of being the best of the best amongst the rest of the witches—with his ex-girlfriend hanging off his arm—was more than too much for him.

For a moment, Chrysi didn’t say anything. She plunked out a simple tune, almost like one of those American ragtime pieces. He remembered the first time she’d played him Maple Leaf Rag and the way he’d fallen in love with her all over again—fallen in love with her and her music that would’ve infuriated his father and the lightheartedness with which she smiled, sharp canines and all.

When she spoke, she gracefully switched topics: “You would really consider Jacks one of our closest friends?”

Azure pulled a face. “Can you think of any other friends that are better than him?”

She flashed him a significant look, then flashed that same significant look out the door. “The kids we’re teaching, to begin with.”

He straightened. “Oh. Yes.”

Amusement sparkled in Chrysi’s eyes, but a darkness hidden deep inside the red of her iris counteracted the bright gold. “I can keep going. Would you like me to?”

“I think I get the point.”

At this point, Alice came scampering back in, a beat-up copy of Alfred’s Essentials of Music Theory clutched in her hand. Azure was pretty sure he could see the name Oswald Baskerville emblazoned in the top right corner, even though he needed to get a new prescription and Chrysi kept teasing him for confusing Pleck’s bag of garden mulch with a runaway dog. A stubborn clump of dust clung to one of Alice’s thin braids. Smaller bits of grey fluff decorated the rest of her dark hair, looking like dingy snowflakes nestling in after a walk in a blizzard.

He smiled at her entrance. He knew that Alice had somehow forgotten the book under her bed, and she’d searched desperately for it, for fear of Chrysi canceling a piano lesson if she didn’t have it.

“Hey, Alice,” he greeted, flashing a raised brow at Chrysi (who furrowed a brow right back at him), “do you believe in ghosts?”

Chrysi stiffened.

Azure shot Chrysi a strange look—nearly missing Alice’s own blanching face.

“Um,” Alice said. She twisted the piano book in her hands, folding the edges. Eyes darting to Chrysi and then back again to Azure, she seemed at a loss for words. “I’m… not sure?”

“That’s alright, Alice,” Azure said kindly. “You don’t have to be sure, nor do you have to be embarrassed if you do believe in them. You can trust us.”

Once more, he glanced at Chrysi. His smile faltered at the expression on her face—so serious, her brows knitted together and her mouth in a straight, inflexible line. Thoroughly troubled, though Azure didn’t know why. Her eyes were fixed directly on Alice, almost as though daring the girl to say anything else.

A flicker of unease twisted his stomach.

He returned his gaze to Alice, to find her staring down at her music theory book intently. Dark eyelashes edged her wide eyes.

“No,” Alice said in a voice that would’ve been sedated, if not for the tight string making her words go high-pitched, “I don’t believe in ghosts. At all.”

Azure tilted his head.

It was a blatant lie, and everyone in the room knew it. The way Alice’s voice shook gave it away just as much as her rapid heel-turn had.

Alice’s shoulders raised higher.

“Nothing can last that long,” she reasoned. Somehow, her words were even more harried.

Chrysi stopped plunking at the piano keys. She’d completely turned her attention to Alice by the time Azure glanced back at her, but now her expression was completely inscrutable. It was like she’d taken an eraser to the hidden tension of before and wiped it completely clean.

When she spoke, it was with a jarring casualness, at odds with the rigid lines of her form.

“Ghosts are ephemeral, no matter your definition of them. Doesn’t stop the world from turning.” Chrysi tilted her head, eyes fixed on the portrait stationed right above the piano. Her expression, if it were even possible, became even more unreadable. “Even though, sometimes, it certainly feels like it.”

Alice didn’t look up.

Azure, in her stead, followed Chrysi’s gaze.

This portrait had just as thick a coating of dust on it as the others, but the blazing red eyes and sly smile of the woman were unmarked by time. She, like Alice, had straight dark hair and a wicked humor about her.

Lacie Baskerville. Alice’s deceased mother. Someone that nobody in the house remembered—not even her own daughter.

Again, Azure gave Chrysi an odd look.

But now she had a smile on her face and all the tension had melted from her body.

“Come on, Alice,” she said brightly. “This piano is only going to get more out of tune unless we bang the keys back into shape.”

Whatever questions Azure had for Chrysi faded into the music from their lessons.

#w.mine #s.chryzure #my head hurts so badly that if you were to hit me hard enough it would jst ooze #i’m sorry to submit you guys to that statement. juno has been hearing it all day

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5sosfanfictioncatalogue · 1 year

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Songfic Masterlist

part two

amnesia, on ice (ao3) - galacticsugar luke/calum M, 7k

Summary: Being drunk and missing Luke isn’t any better than being sober and missing Luke. Calum thought it might be, which is the only reason he decided to go out with Michael and all his artsy friends tonight. He thought maybe after a few drinks, he’d be able to stop thinking about Luke for more than a few seconds at a time, but in fact, it’s only made it worse.

feels like this could be forever right now (ao3) - bellawritess luke/calum, michael/calum T, 2k

Summary: If time was ever going to freeze, Luke thinks to himself, he’d want it to freeze right now, in this moment. If it were up to him to stop all the clocks and pretend that the passage of time was a myth, he’d do it in a heartbeat; if he could pick one night to last forever, he’d pick this one.

in winter you froze, and i thawed you out (ao3) - prettyluke (parting_ways) luke/ashton N/R, 7k

Summary: Luke is crumbling like fresh snow, and Ashton is desperate to keep him together.

Next Contestant - @daydadahlias (cornflowerblue (daydadahlias)) luke/calum E, 10k

Summary: Calum doesn't mind when people flirt with him at work. But Luke definitely does.

Ocean Avenue (ao3) - CliffordAffliction calum/ashton M, 20k

Summary: Cashton adventures based off of the song Ocean Avenue by Yellowcard

putting overtime on your body (ao3) - cashcakeplz luke/calum N/R, 4k

Summary: “C’mon, Daddy.” Luke said again, placing little kisses on Calum’s neck, pushing forward so he was seated on Calum’s lap, his lace-covered ass grinding against his bulge. “You can work from home.”

Or the one where Calum gets a new job, and Luke desperately needs his Daddy's attention, so he decides to send a few naughty pictures to make his Daddy angry.

Shamelessly based off of Fifth Harmony's "Work from Home"

sickeningly sweet like honey (ao3) - merlypops michael/calum E, 5k

Summary: “Car?” Calum suggested mildly and Michael laughed despite himself as he entwined his fingers with his husband’s, towing the dark-haired man back towards the car park. “This feels just like being a teenager again,” Michael grinned, eyes still dark with lust as he squeezed Calum’s hand tighter. “We haven’t had sex in a car since we were nineteen.”

Calum and Michael have anniversary car sex, and are sickeningly in love with each other.

Based on “For Him.” by Troye Sivan.

sidekick (ao3) - galacticsugar luke/calum M, 5k

Summary: Calum doesn’t question the smooth footprints, because he knows the bottom of Luke’s shoes like he knows the back of his own hand. He questions something else, though, when they get to Luke’s car, parked two spaces closer to the theater than Calum’s, and Luke looks over his shoulder. Calum starts to raise his hand to wave goodbye, planning to keep walking and get his cold feet into his car as soon as possible, but then the breeze ruffles Luke’s hair across his eyes and everything stops.

stained hearts (ao3) - galacticsugar luke/calum M, 28k

Summary: “I’m not really looking for a serious relationship right now.”

Okay. That’s okay. Good, even. Get to know each other before they get in too deep.

“But I liked spending time with you and I liked having sex with you and I’d like to do it again.” Luke squeezes Calum’s hand, pulling Calum’s gaze to his face. He’s smiling softly, eyes illuminated by the sun, starbursts in his pupils and shadows of his curls in perfect spirals on his shoulders. “If you want.”

Casual. Sure. Calum can do casual.

“I want.”

still running (back) to you (ao3) - jbhmalum ot4 T, 5k

Summary: “I don’t believe in soulmates,” Ashton says, crushing Luke’s heart until his next words restore it. “I still want to believe you three are mine.”

Mine. Luke mouths the word to himself, feeling a smile rise to his face. Ashton’s soulmates. Ashton’s, plain and simple. Luke wants them to be that.

3 times the boys are Luke's muses, and 1 time he tells them

Stray Heart (ao3) - PhxbicHood michael/ashton E, 2k

Summary: Michael has been living his life for the past year in a shell. He goes out every night and comes home with a different guy. His friends make him promise not to go out anymore because they are scared for him, but he decides one more time can't hurt anything. That is until he meets an overconfident boy with curly hair and a contagious smile and soon finds himself curious to get to know him. In just one night, he finds this boy knocking down all of his defenses and he can't do anything about it. Who knows, maybe he was just what Michael was looking for.

Or the one where Michael is looking for comfort in a one night stand and Ashton is everything and more.

the 1 (ao3) - The_Lady michael/luke G, 588

Summary: Luke persists and resists the temptation to ask him; if one thing had been different, would everything be different today?

there's just no getting through (without you) (ao3) - KingDabriah michael/ashton G, 2k

Summary: "Every day, I thank whoever's up there that I'm the person who gets to bring you flowers," He said softly, not really meaning to, but it kind of slipped out. It's not his fault, because how is anyone supposed to think straight when Michael Clifford is staring up at you like that, like you hung the stars, when really all you did was buy him some flowers, like you usually do every month or so.

or, Ashton buys Michael flowers. Based on Grapejuice by Harry Styles

toast what could have been (my dearly departed) (ao3) - azsthztxc michael/luke T, 4k

Summary: Every masterpiece I’d write again.

Luke has never found it in himself to regret what they had. That as terrible of an ending that they got, there’s very little Luke would change.

You’ll always be my porcelain.

On better days, Luke can admit there’s no really getting over Michael and that’s okay. That loving people isn’t a bad thing, as much as it hurts.

I crossed my heart, but I stuttered, too.

They both had a role in the end of it all and, really, there are worst ending they could have had. Maybe he’ll think about how Michael’s doing and wonder if there was anything he could’ve done different. But, in the end, there’s nothing to change.

So truth or dare: was I good to you?

tracing constellations (ao3) - galacticsugar luke/calum E, 15k

Summary: Luke’s eyes seem to be spinning when he arches an eyebrow at Calum and playfully says, “Really? You asking me to come home with you?” against Calum’s ear.

"Yes, really,” Calum says, blinking in confusion. “The fuck have we been doing tonight if it doesn’t end with you in my bed?”

undeniable you (ao3) - allsassnoclass (brightblackholes) michael/ashton T, 4k

Summary: Before getting out of bed each morning, Ashton gives himself a moment to drink in the sight of Michael beside him.

#5sosfanfictioncatalogue #5 seconds of summer #5sos #songfic #songfic masterlist #masterlists

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gothicwidowsworld · 2 years

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Crash and burn L.H

The past few years had been a blur, Life didn’t have a pause button. Life didn’t care if you were prepared or not. Blink and you’d miss it. Being surrounded by memories printed on glossy paper only made the passage of time more obvious. From the questionable fashion choices to nights out with friends Y/N would bashfully admit she barely remembered, her and Lewis’ whole lives were on these small rectangles. Fleeting moments captured and frozen in time.

“What are you doing Princess?” The Mercedes Driver asked tiredly, the tan man quiet as he sluggishly made his way to their shared bed. The young woman in question had sloped off during his workout, the overwhelming feeling of being a distraction panicking her. Lewis had his routines when it came to Race Season prep but recently his preseason procedure had intensified. Lewis was going to come back fighting in 2022 and Y/N didn’t want to get in his way. Humming in greeting the y/h/c woman smiled softly placing the picture in her hands aside. “I thought I’d go through our photo’s… I saw this lady on tiktok make a really beautiful photo album and I thought why not, we have more than enough pictures.” Y/N explained gesturing to the now empty shoe box and the snapshots surrounding her. “Jeez what was I thinking?” the Brit groaned before chuckling to himself, spotting and picking up a photograph from 2013. Lewis was far more confident when it came to expressing himself compared to previous years. But the Late noughties and mid 2010’s haunted him at times. “What do you mean? You looked handsome?” Y/N asked, her head tilted slightly in confusion. “You can’t even see what I’m looking at Baby.” Lewis scoffed playfully, holding the photograph a little more out of the girl's eye line. Shuffling forward to see the picture Y/N laughed. “Oh… yeah maybe not your best look.” The y/e/c eyed young woman admitted carefully.

Putting the image aside Lewis tried to look at the open book, it was still a work in progress Y/N had carefully planned the pages out. Her neat scrawl roughly dating each picture, some had a small quote or explanation attached. “I got very lucky with you didn’t I?” The tan driver mumbled resting his head on the y/s/c woman’s shoulder. Lewis had always been appreciative of Y/N L/N’s presence in his life. Over the years people had come and gone but she was always there, through the ups and downs. “What do you mean?” Y/N whispered, reaching a hand up to stroke the man’s styled hair, her movements were small and slow but soothing nonetheless. In fact her actions made the F1 Driver relax, his eyebrows unfurrowing. “Just that. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” Lewis replied quietly, sighing in satisfaction. “Probably crash and burn.” Y/N teased waiting for Lewis to playfully disagree but instead a warm silence fell over the pair. “Don’t think I could even get in the car without you let alone crash and burn.” the man admitted, placing a soft kiss on the crook of Y/N’s neck.

“Trying to butter me up Hamilton?” the y/h/c woman whispered, moving carefully to continue her project. “Nah just stating the obvious.” The 7 time World Champion said firmly already missing the female's familiar body. “Huh well thanks for that now are you going to help or?” Y/N asked, raising an eyebrow at the man sitting on the other side of the bed. “Sure but if I look awful in a picture we’re burning it.” Lewis joked, laughing at the young woman’s widening eyes. “Don’t ruin my photo album Hamilton.” Y/N exclaimed, pointing an accusing finger towards the older man. Rolling his warm chocolate eyes, Lewis began sorting through the photo’s closest to him. Picking one up the Driver turned to ask the girl what order they were putting the memories in, only for his small pile to be interrupted by a bull dog called Roscoe. The usually docile dog clearly not happy at the lack of attention he was receiving from his preoccupied parents.

#gothicwidow #imagines #au imagines #x reader #Lewis hamilton imagines #lewis hamilton x reader #f1 imagines #f1 x reader #formula one x reader #formula one imagines

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writemekpop · 2 years

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Never Have I Ever | Na Jaemin

Pairing: Na Jaemin x Reader

Summary: Jaemin accidentally reveals he's a virgin... your friends Jeno and Haechan dare you to have sex with him.

Genre: F2L, Idol trainee!Y/n, Idolverse

Word Count: 2k

Warnings: Virginity loss, special guests naughty boys Jeno and Haechan

“CHUG, CHUG, CHUG, CHUG!” you chanted as Jeno downed the bottle of beer.

Everyone cheered as he emptied the bottle. The final drops splashed on his red football jersey. It was a Friday night, and you, Haechan, Jeno and Jaemin were partying in the NCT Dream dorms.

“Alright, losers!” you called out. “Let’s play a little game called Never Have I Ever. If you’ve done the thing, you drink. Got it?”

“I- I don’t know…” Jaemin murmured. “I haven’t done much…”

“I haven’t done much,” you mocked, making everyone laugh.

But secretly, your heart was racing at Jaemin’s gangly body that suddenly wasn’t so gangly anymore, it was hard in all the right places and made your throat dry to look at.

He’d stopped wearing his glasses recently. I mean, it wasn’t like you monitored what he wore, obviously, but the change shocked you. It was good. Like damn good.

His chocolatey eyes weren’t hidden away anymore, and they smouldered even harder. It didn’t have anything to do with the fact that you said ‘glasses were for nerds’ last week, did it?

No. You were being idiotic. Jaemin didn’t keep track of every little thing you said – and anyway, you didn’t care what he thought.

“Okay, bitches,” you eyed each person in the circle. “Never have I ever… had sex.”

Everyone in the circle took a sip, but your eyes were fixed on Jaemin, who took a sip too. Suddenly, you felt a stupid stab of jealousy in your chest. Who the hell did he sleep with? Was it good?

“My first was Wendy. SM Halloween party, two years back,” Jeno said. “It was a rite of passage, ya know?”

Haechan frowned, his face turning red like an angry toddler’s. “Hey! Mine was that party too!”

You laughed. “No way! Wendy didn’t…”

“Sleep with both of us on the same night?” Jeno cried. “Damn!”

Jeno turned to Jaemin, his eyes narrowing. “You?”

Jaemin smiled sheepishly, hiding behind his black hair. You could feel your pulse jump.

“Um… I guess it just happened.”

Haechan crawled on his hands and knees towards Jaemin. “Aww, come on! Details, please?”

“It was… five years ago,” Jaemin said.

“With who?” Jeno asked.

“A girl.” Everyone laughed. “Called… Min…Soo.” Hurriedly, Jaemin added, “She was a staff.”

Haechan cocked his head to the side curiously. “A staff, huh? Where did it happen? How?”

You could see red spreading up Jaemin’s neck to his ears. “Uh… after a press conference. She took me to the bathroom and… we had sex.”

You frowned. “You lost your virginity in a toilet? With a stranger?”

Jaemin shrugged. “Yep.”

Haechan’s face grew serious. “Wait a second. Weren’t you fifteen then? You were a kid!”

Jaemin was shaking his head, looking like he wished he could disappear.

Jeno grabbed Jaemin’s hand. “I’m so sorry, mate. You lost your virginity to a paedo.”

Jaemin shook his head faster, his face now a burning red. “Um, no I didn’t! It… wasn’t like that!”

Haechan jumped up. “We can sue her! Don’t worry Jaemin, we’ll get justice for you!”

Jeno and Haechan high-fived in the air.

Suddenly, Jaemin stood up, his fists clenched. “We’re not suing anyone!” he yelled.

Everyone fell silent. You’d never seen the shy, kind Jaemin shout in your life.

Haechan hugged Jaemin, but Jaemin shook him off. “it’s okay,” Haechan murmured. “It can be anonymous. No one has to know.”

Jaemin shook his head again. “Ugh, no! We don’t have to sue anyone because… it never happened.”

Your heart jumped. “What do you mean?”

Jaemin was looking down now, awkwardly pulling at the sleeves of his red-and-black plaid shirt. “It never happened… I made the story up.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Why would you lie? Why would you possibly lie about your first time?”

Jaemin bit his lip, sitting softly down. That was when you realised.

Your mouth fell open. No way. No damn way! Everyone gasped.

Jaemin was a virgin.

You patted Jaemin’s arm awkwardly. “It’s okay, Jaemi. People shouldn’t lose their virginity till they’re ready.”

Jaemin groaned. “It’s not like that! Ugh, just let me explain!”

Haechan leaned forward and gave the furious Jaemin a hug, though you could see him straining not to laugh. “Honestly, mate. We won’t judge you. It’s okay.”

Jaemin’s face suddenly softened. “Really? You guys won’t make fun of me for being a virgin?”

There was a long pause.

Until Jeno burst out laughing, and said, “Nah! We’ll make fun of you till the day you die!”

You started laughing till your stomach hurt, rolling around on the floor crying.

Later that night, Haechan pulled you and Jaemin into his bedroom. You three sat cross-legged in a circle on his stripy carpet. Jaemin’s dark blue button-down pyjamas left little of his hard chest to the imagination. It made you all hot and bothered, and you hated it.

“Look. Me and Jeno have… a proposition… for the both of you,” Haechan said, grinning.

Jaemin huffed, crossing his arms. “If this is another virgin Mary joke, I swear to God…”

“Ha! Hilarious,” Haechan said. “But it’s not that. Look. Y/n is a girl, you’re a boy…”

Your cheeks started to burn. Surely, he wasn’t about to say what you thought he was about to say…

“We propose that Y/n has sex with you. You know, as a favour. Then you won’t be a virgin anymore-”

“Yes!” Jaemin said, almost before Haechan had finished speaking. He gulped. “I mean, I would definitely think about it. Sometime. If she was up for it.”

Your heart was leaping as you also cried out, “I would be fine with that!” Then, remembering you were the tough bad girl, added, “Let’s face it. Who else will sleep with him?”

But the idea of having Jaemin all to yourself… was a delicious one indeed.

He was giggling, rubbing his hands together with glee. “He bought it! What an idiot…”

---

As you and Jaemin were leaving the room, Haechan pulled you back.

You frowned. “Bought what?”

“Oh, come on.” Haechan said. “You weren’t actually going to have sex with Jaemin, right?”

You nodded. “I… guess not?”

“Me and Jeno thought, wouldn’t it be hilarious if you stood Jaemin up? Just imagine, he gets ready, all roses and candles … and you never show up!” Haechan smirked.

You nodded, even though the thought made you feel a little sick. Here was your chance! Finally, Jeno and Haechan were treating you like one of the cool kids, not like some random little girl trainee!

You would just have to push down whatever weird feelings you had for Jaemin and do this.

You bumped Haechan’s fist. “Let’s do it.”

---

Jaemin’s heart was racing as he paced around his little bedroom.

He couldn’t believe he was about to have sex with you. He’d been dreaming of this since the moment he laid eyes on you. It was crazy, the way he turned into a stuttering mess whenever you showed up. There was something about your death glares, your bold showing-off about having ‘nailed every guy in SM’ that drove him crazy.

After an hour of deliberating, he’d finally chosen some classic rock. It was half-way between the heavy metal that you liked and the acoustic ballads he liked. Were the candles too much? His room, with its blue-and-black tartan bedspread and mural of snowy mountains, was so hot it made him sweat. About fifty candles were perching on every possible surface.

---

You were standing outside the door to the NCT Dream dorms, fighting the urge to go inside. Why were you feeling bad for Jaemin? Ugh, you were meant to be the tough one!

No. You marched down the stairs, determined to go home and stand Jaemin up, as per the plan.

Then, suddenly, you thought of his coffee-brown eyes filling with angry tears. No. You couldn’t hurt Jaemin like this.

You ran back into the Dream dorm, and pushed open Jaemin’s door without knocking.

As soon as you entered, Jaemin jumped up.

Your heart swelled as you saw Jaemin, chewing his thumbnail the way he always did when he was nervous, surrounded by enough candles to set the place on fire. He did this… for you?

“H-hey,” Jaemin said.

You’d planned to tell him about Haechan and Jeno’s plan, and walk out. I’m not here to have sex with you, you little nerd.

But the words just wouldn’t come out.

Jaemin began to stutter, “Are the candles too much? I mean, I can blow them out if you want… I’m wearing cologne. Oh god, I don’t even know what cologne is. You said something about liking a man who smells like a man? I don’t really know what that means, I-“

And without thinking, you pulled his face towards you and kissed him.

Jaemin’s lips were pillowy soft against yours. You could hear his trembling, fast breaths. As your hands roamed over his body, you discovered lean muscle. Sparks flashed down the backs of your thighs. What were you doing? You didn’t even like Jaemin like that! Or did you?

You felt your fingers unbuttoning his plaid shirt, your feet walking him to the bed and pushing him down onto it. You couldn’t believe what you were doing. All you could feel was this hunger for more, for Jaemin.

Jaemin gasped as you pulled his shirt off his shoulders. Suddenly, he stopped you with one hand. You hovered over him. A smile curved over your face as you saw his stunned expression, flushed with want, his lips looking oh-so-kissable.

“I forgot to… put my contacts on,” he said, his voice husky. Jaemin couldn’t quite believe you were smiling. He didn’t think he’d ever seen you smile non-sarcastically before.

You gently pulled his square black glasses off and put them on. “I kinda like these.”

Laughing, Jaemin pulled you in and kissed you.

---

Afterwards, you lay on Jaemin’s chest under the covers, smiling dreamily. This was so unlike you. You weren’t a cuddling girl. You were a I’ve-got-an-early-start-tomorrow-so-I-gotta-go-don’t-call-me kind of girl. You felt this strange, fuzzy warmth in your chest. What was happening to you?

Jaemin thought this was quite possibly the best moment of his life. Even better than the sex. And that was good. Damn, so that was what all the fuss was about.

“Was that… fun for you?” Jaemin asked. You could feel his heart thumping as you rested your head on his chest.

“Yes! Um… I think I like you,” you blurted out. “You don’t have to say anything back, I just… wanted you to know.” Your cheeks were burning, but it felt better getting it out. You felt lighter.

“I… think I like you, too,” Jaemin replied.

Your heart soared.

Just then, you heard a strange scuffling sound from inside the wardrobe. You both exchanged a confused glance. Pulling the covers over your chest, you sat up. If there was a rat hiding in there, you were going to scream.

Suddenly, two grown men tumbled out of the wardrobe – Jeno and Haechan!

Everybody – Jaemin, you, Haechan and Jeno – screamed at once.

Once the shock had worn off, Haechan started babbling, “We weren’t expecting you to actually do it!”

Jeno added, “Haha! You two lovebirds!”

And then Jeno and Haechan started very immaturely pretending to make out.

Jaemin’s face was slowly turning red as he fumbled angrily for his glasses. “Y-you were here the whole time? Guys!”

Haechan smirked. “Don’t get so worked up… it wasn’t even that much fun to watch.”

Jeno punched his shoulder, “Didn’t seem like it when you shoved me out of the way for a better look!”

Haechan and Jeno continued arguing till you cleared your throat.

Everyone fell silent.

“Um…” you said. “I’m naked here! Get out, douchebags!”

Haechan smiled as he pulled Jeno out with him. “There’s our Y/n…”

“Yep”, Jaemin added. “There’s my Y/n.”

—

MASTERLIST

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wkemeup · 4 years

Text

Eclipse

summary: When a mission leaves you empty and broken, Bucky is determined to heal the wounds that linger deeper than the cuts on the surface. pairing: bucky x reader word count: 8.4k warnings: canon level violence, hurt!reader, PTSD, dissociative episode, nightmares, a rapid switch from sweet/fluffy to pain, angst with a happy ending

An eclipse finds its home in the darkness Thriving as it suffocates the sun and shadows her light In its passage she lays in wait Waiting— for the moon to give way and grant her morning

Bucky thinks he’s found heaven when he lays with you under the cover of thin, linen sheets; the soft, white of the fabric touching over curves and edges of exposed bodies, peaks and dips, like snowcaps nestled upon the crest of mountaintops. Lying flushed with heat, hearts beating a little faster, breaths a little labored, Bucky reaches out and traces the lines of your face.

The tip of his finger brushes over your nose, slips down along your jaw, touches the sun kissed stream of light against your cheek as it seeps in through the sheet thrown over your heads. You giggle as he pulls you in for a kiss, chaste and sweet, his hand curling into the hairs at the nape of your neck and he tugs you closer. It’s the most beautiful sound in the world, the way you laugh to his lips, muffled in his kiss but still uncontained.

Hidden under sheets, shared breaths between you in your own little world, Bucky decides he will be content if he stays here forever.

“I won’t be gone long, you know,” you tell him as you press lightly on his chest, just enough to get draw his attention away from the trail of kisses along your cheekbone and down your jawline. He pouts playfully at you, but you soothe your hand along his shoulder, recognizing the shift in energy as his eyes flicker a shade of hesitancy. “I’ll can handle myself.”

“It’s not that,” he replies quietly, voice soft, barely a whisper, as his smile begins to fall. It’s subtle, but you notice.

“Then what?”

Bucky shrugs, swallowing back the anxiety that begins to pool deep into his stomach every time you leave on assignment. But he pushes out a smile, one you do not question, and he leans in to kiss the button of your nose.

“I’ll just miss you, is all.”

You grin and it lights up wide across your face. The cast of sunshine behind you as it filters in through the sheets tossed over your body drapes down like a halo, an illumination of an angel, and Bucky commits the image to memory. Stored to a safe place in the back of his mind for the dark nights alone in this room. He’ll find you those moments, even when you’re miles away.

“You’re a sap, Bucky Barnes,” you laugh, ruffling his hair as you toss the sheet up from over your faces and take in a deep breath of fresh air. It’s brighter in the room than you realized and you squint your eyes, tucking your face to the crook of Bucky’s neck to shield yourself from the sun.

“Only for you, sweetheart.” He tries to ignore the bright red flicker of the clock beside you as he crawls out from under the safety of the bedsheets, the fantasy fractured by the reminder of your impending assignment; four weeks in a classified location, entirely on your own.

A smile presses tight to his lips as you steal a glance back at him full of bright eyes and sunshine.

He does his best to swallow the anxiety though it churns like blades through his stomach.

***

Bucky paces back and forth in his room, stealing looks at his phone as it sits face up on the bedside table. He taps the screen every few seconds, as soon as it dares to fade to black, so he can see your face again; the picture of you laughing behind an ice cream bar melting down your hand. A shimmering red bow and mouse ears on the top of your head from your trip to Disney last spring. He can still smell the melted vanilla and hardened chocolate when he looks at it and he tries hard to focus on the memory, but he knows it’s an excuse to make sure he doesn’t miss your call.

Tap.

Still nothing.

You’ve been gone over a week now and though he does his best to busy himself with time spent sparring with Sam in the gym, running out along the lake behind the compound, cleaning the kitchen until the stench of bleach burns up to the floor above him, you’re still at the forefront of his mind.

He knows you’re safe. He knows that you can protect yourself and that you were capable of solo missions long before Bucky came crash-landing into your life, but it doesn’t stop him from worrying. It doesn’t stop the incessant twitching in his hands as he curls them to fists, doesn’t stop the frantic pacing and the wear he drives into the carpet, doesn’t stop the panic that skips the beat of his heart when it’s two minutes past check-in and you haven’t called.

“Stop it,” he grumbles to himself, “she’s fine. Stop worrying. She’s fine.”

Another glance back at the phone. Tap-tap on the screen until it lights up with your smile. Nothing.

Three minutes past check-in.

He has half a mind to track down Fury himself when suddenly, the phone rings.

A ringtone you’d changed early in your relationship - a synthetic, almost electric, instrumental of Can’t Take My Eyes Off You right when the music starts to pick up and the trumpets are blaring and it throws him straight into overdrive.

Bucky lunges it at, hands fumbling for the phone but it falls to the floor in his hurry. He hits his shoulder against the edge of the nightstand with a loud thump and collapses down to the carpet as the phone bounces down under the bed.

“God-fuckin’-- ugh!”

He grips tight to the phone by the chime of ‘I love you, baby!’ and quickly brings it to his ear. He’s out of breath but he stills himself, takes a moment before he says anything and he hopes his voice is calmer than the rush in his chest.

“Hi.”

You snicker on the other end of the line and he knows in an instant he’s been busted. “Thought I told you not to wait by the phone, Buck.”

“I wasn’t.” A full faced lie. He grimaces as it comes out.

“Sure, you weren’t,” you drawl, a laugh tucked sweetly into the hum of your voice.

Bucky can hear floorboards squeaking faintly through the speaker between your breaths. Old wood, the whistle of the wind in the distance; a motel built in the early sixties with poor insulation and cracking foundations. He wonders where you are or if the image of you pacing amongst faded shades of burnt orange and green curtains, of once brightly colored comforters and pealing wallpaper only exists in his imagination.

“You okay?” he asks first because he needs the confirmation. Despite hearing the even tones in your breath, the sweet laughter in your voice, he needs to hear you say it.

“Always am, honey,” you respond lightly and Bucky lets himself take in a deep breath before you add, “I miss you though. It’s awfully cold here and I could really use a super soldier to keep me warm.”

It makes him smile; the first one that pushes up into his cheeks without force since you left. God, he misses you.

“Don’t go calling Steve now, okay?” he teases, the anxiety draining from his body in gentle waves, cast out by the flow of ocean water through his bloodstream in the sound of your voice and the image of your smile as you tug your lower lip between your teeth.

“Never. I prefer my men one-armed and dangerous.”

Bucky laughs as he sinks down further onto the floor, the carpet rubbing against his tailbone though he doesn’t mind. He’s grinning, listening to the sound of your voice as you tell him about how much you’re craving popcorn and chocolate chip movie nights and he feels like you’re sitting right next to him. He can see the creases in your smile, the lines by your eyes, the faint markings of old scars on your skin. He hears your voice and it reminds him of home.

“It’s beautiful here, Buck,” you sigh and he wonders if you’re staring out a window to mountains or ocean or tundra. “I wish you could see it.”

“Where is ‘here’ again?”

You giggle and—God—it's the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard, even crackled and broken through the speakers of an old satellite phone miles away. “Nice try, baby.”

The timer on his watch starts to ding and his heart clenches.

“Time’s up, huh?” you whine playfully, but he can hear the disappointment in your voice. It’s never long enough, these three minutes that Steve allows for you, but he’ll take seconds if he can get them. Just long enough to calm his nerves, to give you the motivation to keep going on your own, without the possibility of the call being traced.

“Yeah,” Bucky sighs, clenching at his hand. He brushes closed knuckles against his forehead, presses deep into his temples because he can already feel the pit in his stomach forming again. “Stay safe, alright? Come home to me.”

He pictures your smile, the soft edges and the curve of your lips.

“Always do, don’t I?”

You do. He knows this.

But his mind is cruel and it wonders when the day will come when you won’t.

***

“I’ll raise a Kit-Kat,” Bucky concedes nearly two weeks later with a tired huff, tossing a chocolate bar to the center of the table to accompany a handful of M&M’s and mini-Twix. It knocks over Natasha’s carefully constructed tower of Milkyways and she shoots him a warning glare.

To his right, Sam snickers under his breath, a laugh too confident for a man with a dwindling stash of chocolate in front of him to the mountain sitting beside Natasha. He hides his face behind the fan of cards, but Bucky can still see the crease in his brow, the pinch of lines together at the center that tell him Sam is bluffing. Natasha is as stone cold as he would expect and he has no interest in challenging her resolve, so he decides to weed out Wilson first.

“When’s your girl getting back, Barnes? Think you might need her around to console you after I obliterate your snack drawer,” Sam taunts, changing the subject abruptly. Another tell of his.

“End of the week, I think,” Bucky replies with a shrug, playing it off casually because he knows Sam is trying to throw him off his game.

“As if you aren't counting down the seconds.” Natasha scoffs, a smirk pushing at pursed lips.

“You're an absolute goner for her, you know that don’t you?” Sam says as he pushes a few more M&M’s to the center. Brightly colored pile at the center and he plops one from his own stash into his mouth.

Bucky, meanwhile, chews on the inside of his cheek, avoiding Sam’s wandering eyes because he knows it’s true. You’ve only been together a little under a year, but he’s spent twice that loving you from a careful distance, just out of fingertip’s reach until he’d come back from a mission with one too many bullet wounds in his body and he couldn’t take the tension between you anymore.

He could still picture the smile on your face as he told you, the way your eyes lit up and you jumped into his arms; IV drips and wires to machines and all. The press of warm lips to his cheek, his temples, his nose, his mouth. Sun streaming in through the window and casting a halo behind your hair.

“Yeah, I know.”

“Atta boy.” Sam nudges Bucky’s arm, grinning wildly.

They turn to Natasha as she nods in approval before setting her cards down on the table with the kind of look in her eyes that tells Bucky the game was over before it even began. Royal Flush.

“Not again!” Sam whines, slumping down into his chair.

“It’s starting to feel cruel playing with the two of you.” Natasha reaches into the center and gathers the mountain of chocolate to drag it towards her towering pile. She starts to unravel a mini-Twix, keeping a taunting eye on Sam as he glares back at her. The chocolate passes behind parted lips and she bites down with a contented hum.

Sam rolls his eyes. “You owe us drinks, ma’am.” He gestures to his empty glass.

Natasha smirks, conceding easily as she stands to grab their glasses. She turns to Bucky. “You want a refill, Barnes?”

He shrugs. “Yeah, sure.”

As Natasha makes her way back to the kitchen, Sam sneaks a few M&M’s from her pile and quickly plops them into his mouth with a cautious glance over his shoulder. Bucky begins to shuffle the cards and he can feel the burn of Sam’s stare even before he opens his mouth.

“What do you want, Wilson?”

“When’s Y/n coming back? For real.”

Bucky glances up. Sam’s arms are stretched out along the backs of the empty chairs beside him. He’s relaxed into his position, chewing on the stolen chocolates as he raises an eyebrow.

“End of the week... like I said.”

Sam leans in closer. “That a question?”

“No,” Bucky retorts shortly, though Sam clearly isn’t buying it. He exhales a tense breath as he bridges the deck. “She’s supposed to call tonight. Longest stretch without a checkpoint since she left.”

Sam nods. “What about the three minute calls?”

“Last one was four days ago. Same day she checked in with Fury.”

“You worried?”

Bucky slices the deck. Shuffles it for the fifth time. Bridge. Repeat. “Course not. I’m sure she’s fine. I’m not worried at all.”

“You sure?” Sam chuckles, leaning back into his chair with another quick grab of a few stray green M&M’s.

“Fuck off, Wilson.”

That gets Sam laughing. He reaches across the table and snatches the cards out of Bucky’s hands before he can shuffle for a seventh time. He flashes Bucky a smile, dimples into his cheeks and all.

“I’m dealing this round.”

Bucky nods, letting the tension slip easily from his muscles. He pushes out a smile. “Yeah, okay.”

But then, a glass shatters behind him and Bucky jolts up to his feet.

“Nat? Are you--”

He freezes in an instant, tension burning through him like marble; the full force of a train straight to his chest and knocking the wind from his body, fracturing the stone to pieces around him.

Natasha stands just a few paces ahead of him, her hands clasped at her mouth in an array of shock and horror, glass shattered at her feet. Ice along wooden floors and the smell of vodka burning into the air.

Bucky almost doesn’t recognize you. There’s a slump in your shoulders, a far off look in your eye like you can’t quite focus on what’s in front of you, and a knife in your hand that won’t stop shaking.

But that’s not the worst of it.

You’re covered in blood. Deep red seeping into your hair, sticking thick and wet to your face and down your neck; trails of it along your cheeks like raindrops against a windowpane. It soaks into what remains of your suit, ripped and torn, exposed skin stained with grim and dirt. You look like something out of a horror movie.

“Oh God,” Sam mutters out, pulling Bucky from his trance.

He wants to sprint, wants to scream for help and sound every alarm he can find, but instead, Bucky only manages broken exhale as he slowly walks towards you. He moves with cautious steps, a hand out towards you defensively, like he’s approaching a frightened animal. It’s what you used to do when the line between him and the Soldier blurred, how you’d seek him out amongst the trauma and distortion and bring him back home.

“Y/n?” he calls gently and finds his voice rough in his throat.

You don’t respond, don’t even look at him as he stands within a foot of your reach. Nat and Sam are close behind, but they hold their distance.

“Sweetheart, what happened?” Bucky asks as evenly as he can manage, eyes glancing down over your body in search of injuries. There’s too much blood and he doesn’t know how much of it is your own. He wants to tug you into his arms, tell you that he’s got you, that you’re safe now, but for the first time since Shuri removed the triggers from his head, he’s afraid to touch you.

Your lips part, a few short blinks of your lashes, and you mumble out, “I came to find you.”

Your voice doesn’t sound like your own. It’s too flat, too void of emotion, and it rips Bucky right to his core. It’s a defense mechanism, he knows that. You’re still in there somewhere, he just needs to get you through this first.

“That’s good, sweetheart,” he tells you, trying his luck as he sets a hand on your back. You don’t flinch, but you don’t lean into him either. He shares a worried glance with Sam and Natasha before he turns back to you, pushing out a smile. “You did good.”

“How did she get all the way here from the Hanger without anyone stopping her?” Sam questions, eyes trailing over the mess of blood in your wake, footprints following you from the staircase by the elevator.

“She’s covered in blood and God knows what else,” Natasha whispers back. “They were probably afraid of what might happen if they did.”

Bucky can’t tear his eyes away from you, vision tunneling on the mess of blood rooted in your hair and the stains of red on your face, your chest, your hands. Natasha and Sam’s voices become muffled beside him as he slides his hand down your back and gently lays it over your grip, still shaking as you hold onto the heel of the knife as if your fist had molded to stone around it. The tremors stop as he holds your hand.

“It’s okay, honey,” he whispers, impossibly soft that not even Nat or Sam hear him, “I need you to give me the knife, alright? You’re safe now. I’ve got you.”

It takes a moment, but your grip on the knife slacks. It falls to Bucky’s palm and he gently guides it out of your reach and hands it over to Natasha. He doesn’t know what happened, but he knows what you’ve done for him when the Soldier has taken over his mind, when he didn’t feel like himself and needed reminded who he was, where the ground was solid under his feet.

He knows what he needs to do.

“Nat,” he starts, but she’s already a step ahead of him.

“I’ll go find Steve,” she says, like she can read his mind. “I’ll tell him what happened, see what he knows about her assignment that would have led to this.”

Bucky swallows back the bile in his throat and he nods. “Sam--”

“I’ll sweep the jet, see what I can find,” Sam replies quickly. He sets a hand on Bucky’s shoulder, gives it a slight squeeze, and pushed out a tight-lipped smile. He was your friend long before he was Bucky's. The determination reads in his eyes.

"Thank you,” Bucky whispers.

Sam and Natasha disappear down the hallway and then, Bucky is left alone with you. He’s suddenly made aware of how harsh your breathing sounds, like you’re gasping in air through a straw. You stare beyond his shoulders, though he can tell you’re not looking at anything at all. You’re existing. It’s all your mind can cope with.

“Love?” Bucky calls, willing his voice stronger than it is. “Can you come with me?”

You don’t respond. Bucky clenches his jaw and tries again.

“I’m going to take you to our room, alright?”

He thinks it’s better not to present you with choices. It never worked well with him when he got this like; too much stimulation. He knows you’ll resist him if you need to. He slips his hand along your back to guide you towards the bedroom and you take a step as he does.

You’re limping, he notices, as you cross the threshold into the bedroom. He tries to push his mind away from what caused such an injury, what could have possibly happened to result in the amount of blood drenched over you.

That’s Sam and Natasha’s job. Bucky’s only concern is you right now, in this moment, bringing you home, making you feel safe. He guides you to the bathroom.

“I’m going to start the water, okay?” Bucky tells you. You used to do the same for him, telling him what you were doing step by step in an effort to orient him. It grounded him back to his reality, brought him down from the plane of existence above his own head.

The room starts to fill with steam, enough to fog the mirrors, and Bucky tugs his shirt over his head. He removes his sweatpants, but he resolves to leave his boxers on.

“Sweetheart?”

You look in his direction and Bucky can’t help the wash of relief as it floods through him. You don’t smile and it’s almost as if you’re looking straight through him, but it’s something. Progress.

He extends a hand to you, waiting patiently. Though you do not take it, you step a take closer to him, then past him as you walk into the shower fully clothed in your tattered suit. Bucky steps in behind and closes the glass door.

There’s enough room inside that he can stand comfortably behind you as you approach the stream of water. You stare at it for a moment before you reach out and let the water fall over your hand. You watch as the water around the drain begins to turn a dark red.

“I’m going to wash this off. Is that okay, honey?” Bucky reaches steadily for the loofa behind you, though he pauses as he feels the texture of the sponge: exfoliating mesh. It’ll be too much for you in this state. He resolves for the body wash squeezed into his empty palm.

“You let me know if you need a break.”

Still, there’s no response.

Bucky pushes back the burning lump in his throat and gingerly reaches towards you. He places a soap lathered palm against your shoulder and finds your muscles so tense they could have been made of steel or the vibranium seared into his own arm. You stare at his chest as if you could see through to his heart, maybe beyond that to the shower wall behind him, as he begins to peel the dried blood and grim from your skin.

The water at his feet becomes muddied and red, the water slipping down your legs tainted by the aftermath of violence laid upon your body. He’s careful to only use his flesh hand as he washes you, something softer and kinder than the harsh touch of metal.

You start to relax the more he works, your rigid stance easing as the blood cleans from your body. Your suit is still plastered to your skin, ripped and torn and cut open, and Bucky knows he needs to get this off of you. There’s blood behind the fabric, seeped behind the open slashes.

He thinks of the softest clothes he has to dress you in when you’re clean and dry, something too big for your frame that smelled of fresh laundry or maybe the sweatshirt draped over the chair – the one you liked to wear when he was out on missions because it smelled like him. He just wants you to feel safe, to feel warm and protected.

But he needs to get you out of this suit first.

He reaches for the zipper at your chest and the next thing he knows, he’s pressed up against the shower wall, his head pulsing at the impact as you grip tight to his wrist. You’re panting, eyes unfocused at the center of his chest.

He lets you hold him there. He doesn’t try to resist though he knows with his strength he could easily overpower you.

“Sweetheart, it’s me. It’s Bucky,” he tries, his voice soft against the fall of water behind you. “I’m not going to hurt you, love.”

You don’t move, but your breaths start to come in a little more even. Your grip falters on his wrist though you don’t let go. His heart feels like it’s shattering inside his chest, stray shards embedding themselves into his stomach, his ribs, his lungs.

“Honey, look at me,” he pleads. “You’re safe now. You’re home. Let me take care of you.”

It takes a moment, but your eyes begin to trail up his collarbone, hesitant sweeps along his neck, his jaw, and then – his eyes. The hard resolve upon your features begins to crumble. Your lip quivers, your hand gripped tight around his wrist slacking in the tremors, tears burn into your eyes and Bucky doesn’t waste a moment before he gathers you into his arms, presses you tight to his chest and encases you against him.

It's like something finally clicks, a floodgate burst open, because you’re clutching onto him like a lifeline. He can feel the sob as it travels up your spine and shakes your body as you cry. He’s grateful for the mist of the shower that hide his own tears as he rubs gentle circles along your back, easing you the best he can. It’s torture seeing you like this and feeling so powerless to help.

He doesn’t know how long he stands there with you, but eventually, you stop crying. The exhaustion begins to take hold and your legs begin to shake under you, too weak to hold yourself up.

“I’m going to take your suit off, okay? You’ll be more comfortable without it,” Bucky says, gesturing to the zipper. You follow his gaze in understanding and then, you nod.

The suit already clings tight to your skin without the added pressure of the sticky residue of blood drenched into the fabric and the soak of water from the shower. He slides the zipper down to your navel and slowly peels what's left of the sleeves off your shoulders.

There’s cuts and slashes underneath, wounds where blades had cut through your suit and nicked your skin. They’re superficial, better than they could have been if not for the suit taking the brunt of the attack, but they’re still painful to look at.

Bucky helps you step out of the suit and he leaves it in the corner of the shower. He glances at your underwear and you slide it down your hips without question.

“Can I wash your hair, honey? Please?”

You nod and Bucky works quickly. You’re starting to shiver as the water loses its heat, so you stand a little closer to him, seeking out his warmth. It removes just an ounce of the boulder sitting upon his chest.

When he’s finished, the water at the drain is clear again. The fresh scars upon your body and the distant look in your eye the only evidence remaining of what happened.

Bucky reaches around you to turn off the water. He pulls a towel from the rack and begins to gently pat it over your skin until you’re dry. Then, he scrunches out as much of the water as he can from your hair, before he leaves the towel resting on your shoulders to soak up the rest.

“I’ll be right back,” he tells you as he finished drying himself off. “I’m going to go grab some clothes for you.”

He doesn’t even make it a step out of the bathroom before your hand is on his wrist again. He stills, looking back at you. Your eyes fall to the floor.

Bucky swallows back the burn in his throat as he nods. “Okay. Okay, honey. Can you come with me?”

You nod.

By the time you’re dressed in a fresh pair of his boxers and the t-shirt he slept in the previous night, you can hardly keep your eyes open. He wonders how long it’s been since you slept, if maybe it was since the evening he spoke to you four days prior. You sway on your feet as Bucky guides you to the bed.

He lays you down, pulls the covers up to your chest and quickly rushes around to the other side of the bed to crawl in beside you. You come into his arms, curling up against his chest, and Bucky tries to pretend for a moment that this is just another night, that you just returned from a successful mission and there’s a relief in holding you again.

But he can’t shake the crippling dread as it burns into his skin. Even as your breaths fall even and you slack into his arms, Bucky stares up at the ceiling, eyes brimming with tears. He doesn’t sleep at all.

***

A few hours later, the soft tap of a knock draws Bucky from his trance. He blinks a few times, realizing how long he’d been staring up at the ceiling before he lifts his head and finds Steve peering in through the doorway. There’s a solemn look on his face as his eyes flicker towards you.

Bucky gently slides out from under you, careful to place a pillow under your arm where you’d been laying upon his chest as not to wake you. The bed rises a little as he stands and he takes a moment to brush the hair from your eyes before he makes his way to the door. When he meets Steve in the hallway, he’s careful to leave the door to the bedroom open a crack, just in case.

“What did you find?” Bucky asks.

Steve sinks down onto the couch. A hand brushes over his face.

“That bad?” Bucky can already feel the nausea beginning to take hold.

“We recovered footage from her last know whereabouts – the safe house in Juno,” Steve says. He leans forward to rest his elbows upon his thighs, staring out into the empty space of the kitchen. He sighs. “She was ambushed, Buck. The feed cut out a few minutes into the fight.”

“Who were they?” Bucky chokes out. His throat is made of sandpaper.

“We don’t know,” Steve admits, pinching at the bridge of his nose. “Mercenaries, probably. Could have been hired in retaliation against SHEILD. Her mission was to identify the point of contact for an illegal arms distributor that was shipping assault rifles into Canada and carrying them over the border. She wasn’t supposed to see any action, Bucky. It was a surveillance op.”

Bucky doesn’t realize how tight his hands are clenched until he looks down to find puncture marks in the palm of his right hand from where his nails buried into his skin. He thinks of the woman who left him behind that morning, with sun kissed skin and a smile so sweet it made his heart melt, who has barely spoken in the hours since returning home, who’s bright eyes have dimmed into something empty and lost.

He’s missing something, he’s sure of it. Maybe if he could just see the footage for himself, identify the bad guys, track them down... maybe he’ll be able to fix this. He could bring you back, make you smile again. Killing those men who hurt you will be a small consolation prize for his efforts.

Bucky is determined as he stands. “I want to see it.”

“Absolutely not,” Steve shoots back. Bucky doesn’t even need to clarify before Steve puts an end to it. “What purpose will that serve, Buck? You don’t need to see the tape, okay? Just trust me on this. I’ve got everyone we have analyzing that video frame by frame. If there’s anything on it to lead us to those assholes, we’ll find it.”

“I have to do something, Steve. I can’t just sit here. Not with her like that...” Bucky glances back at the door to the bedroom. He can’t muster the energy to conjure the image of you standing before him drenched in blood that was not your own, a vacant look in your eyes as if you could see straight through him.

“She needs you here,” Steve argues, rising to his feet. “What do you think will happen when she wakes up and I’ve gotta tell her you’ve run off on some vengeance mission? That you’ve left her alone to face this by herself?”

“That’s not what I’m doing—”

“Yes, it is!” Steve clenches his jaw as his voice echoes into the hall. It’s quiet for a moment and they listen for the bed to squeak, for any sign that you’re awake, but they’re only met with silence, Steve relaxes again. He takes a step forward and places his hand on Bucky’s shoulder. It startles him for a moment, but he can feel the tension as it melts in his muscles. “Just be here for her, man. When there’s something to know, I’ll tell you.”

Bucky keeps his stare on the thin crack in the door, the moonlight peering in from the window and seeping out into the hallway. He listens for the even breaths as you sleep soundly for the first time in days and he knows Steve is right. He doesn’t know if he could leave you like this even if Steve handed him the direct files of every man who laid a hand on you.

“I should get back to her,” Bucky resolves, offering Steve as much of a grateful smile as he can manage. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes, but Steve understands.

***

It takes days before Bucky can get you to leave the bedroom. He’s only been able to get a few words out of you here and there, short answers to direct questions, and you can’t hold his eye for very long, but he takes it as improvement.

It’s the small steps.

He remembers you saying that when he was at his worst, when he could barely get himself out of bed, when he could hardly touch you without fear of breaking you in half, when the guilt tore and ate through him unchallenged.

So, every time you lift you head when he speaks, when you glance in his direction, when you nod in answer of a question, when you curl against his side and seek out his warmth – it matters. It’s more than what you were able to do the day before and that has meaning.

When you finally do venture out into the living room, Bucky is sure to keep a hand on you at all times. Whether it’s wrapped up tightly in your own, pressed gently to the small of your back, resting against your thigh, over your shoulders – it helps to ground you, remind you that he’s there. You start to drift off into yourself otherwise.

Meanwhile, everyone else is walking on eggshells around you.

Tony turns out of the room before he can even step foot into the kitchen when he sees the back of your head over the couch. Peter is constantly shoveling food into his mouth to keep from his usual rambling one-sided conversations. Steve is deceptively quiet, constantly glancing in your direction as if he’s just waiting for something to set you off. Even Natasha keeps her distance, which surprises him. She stays in the room but she keeps to the corners, observing, like Steve.

Sam, on the other hand, was never one for subtleties.

“Hey kiddo!” Sam throws himself onto the couch beside you, bowl of popcorn in his hand as it jumps up into the air before landing back safely in the bowl.

You flinch at the sudden intrusion next you and Bucky all but stares daggers into Sam for startling you. Bucky was trying to keep your environment as calm as possible as not to set you off into one of those dissociative states again. It could take hours just to get you to acknowledge his voice after that and Bucky can only take that so many times before he’ll simply crumble.

“You know what I’ve been dying to watch?” Sam says aloud, as if someone is listening to him. He shovels a handful of popcorn into his mouth. “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

“Sam, no.” Bucky warns as he pulls you closer to his side. That movie has far too much violence, even for an eighties film. He doesn’t know how you’ll react to it.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Sam shoots back. He settles into the couch beside you, grinning as he turns in your direction. “Come on, Y/n. It’s been ages since we’ve watched Indie. I know the first is your favorite anyway.”

Bucky is all but ready to clock Sam ten ways to Sunday when you mutter out a quiet, “okay” and Bucky stills completely. It's the first time you’ve even acknowledged anyone besides Bucky since you came home. He stares at Sam with wide eyes, but Sam doesn’t seem to be surprised at all.

Instead, Sam simply sinks into the cushions, turns on the movie he must have already lined up in the queue, and leans the bowl of popcorn in your direction.

Indiana Jones starts his first trek into the cave in search of the Golden Idol and you reach your hand into the bowl. A few bites of popcorn within the first minutes of the movie and it’s more than Bucky has been able to get you to eat without coercion in days. A whisper of a smile crosses your face as Sam almost chokes on the handful he shoved into his mouth.

Sam Wilson might be a massive pain in Bucky’s ass, but he’s a damn good friend. He’s the only one who hasn’t treated you like you’ve lost your mind. He gives you a sense of normalcy when the floor has been pulled out from under you.

For that, Bucky owes him everything.

***

Bucky finds out a week later that there are no bad guys to track down, no one to enact vengeance on for the trauma they’d put you through. There is a reason you came home covered in blood and grime with barely more than a few superficial scratches on your body.

You’d killed them all.

“Are you sure?” Bucky asks Steve, hands planted firmly on the conference table. The night sky is littered in cloud covered stars beyond the windows, crickets chirping in the distance. Bucky stares down at the mug shots of a dozen men now presumed dead.

“We’re sure.” Steve slowly reaches out to gather the images, sliding them back into the file and out of sight. “We’re still working on who sent them but it was probably the arms dealer she was sent to identify. Fury’s sending out a team in the morning to bring him in.”

“That’s... that’s good.” Bucky doesn’t have the strength for revenge anymore. He’s grown tired of carrying it in his chest, on his shoulders, weighing him down as if sinking him to the trenches of an ocean.

“How’s she doing?” Steve asks, gesturing towards the doorway as they begin to walk back to the elevator.

“Better,” Bucky replies honestly.

He’s even seen you crack a smile a few times watching movies with Sam in the living room, maybe even heard a breath of laughter when Sam dropped an entire bowl of popcorn and threw a fit about it.

You’re talking to Bucky more, asking questions, starting brief conversations outside of the necessary ‘yes’ and ‘no’s, humming to yourself as you shower with Bucky standing just a few feet away. It’s something. Small steps.

“She’s strong, Buck. She’ll get through this.”

Bucky takes a deep breath as the elevator doors chime open. He presses the button for his floor. “I know. I just hate seeing her like this in the meantime.” The elevator reaches his floor and he waits as the doors begin to part. “Thanks, Steve. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

Steve nods. “You got it, brother.”

Bucky makes his way down the hall from where he’d left you just a few hours earlier. You’d insisted that you’d be alright on your own while he met with Steve. Sam is still sitting on the couch watching Netflix just a few feet outside the bedroom, leaving a blanket of security in Bucky’s absence. He can hear Sam singing along to the theme song as he passes by.

There’s a ghost of a smile on his face as he approaches the living room, but a sudden, gut wrenching scream stills him in his tracks.

Sam jumps up from the couch, popcorn spilling to the carpet and Bucky stares back at the cracked door to the bedroom with wide eyes. He exchanges a glance with Sam and as another scream echoes out into the hall in a broken cry, the two of them rush into the room.

Bucky shoulders his way through the door, breaking the hinges on the top of the frame as he stumbles his way inside. You’re lying on your stomach, arms clutched under the pillow, sweat dampened sheets kicked off down by your feet. You’re whimpering, tear tracks into the pillowcase and your whole body is trembling.

“Y/n?” Bucky calls as gently as he can, his voice breaking in the effort. He moves closer to the bed, his hand hovering over your shoulder, almost afraid to touch you. “Sweetheart, wake up.”

You cry out again, face contorting in pain as you press your face into the pillow.

“I should get Cho,” Sam says behind him, starting to inch towards the door, but Bucky barely hears him as he runs into the hallway.

“Come on, honey,” Bucky tries again. He sinks down to his knees beside the bed. His heart is stammering in his chest. It’s pounding so loudly he’s sure the whole compound can hear it. He feels the tears burn in his eyes as you start to sob. “You’re safe. You’re alright, love. I’m here with you. I’m here, baby.”

Bucky lets his hand ghost over your shoulder and he barely has a chance to react before you jolt upright and there’s a sudden, stinging sensation across his chest. Your eyes are wide, chest heaving as you try to catch your breath. It takes a minute before Bucky sees the hilt of the knife gripped tight in your fist.

“Bucky?” you gasp. “What are you—Oh my God...”

The knife drops from your hold as your hands clasp against your mouth. It falls at Bucky’s knees. You’re trying to stifle a sob as it threatens to consume you whole and Bucky tries to reach out for you, but you scramble away from him, fearful eyes staring below his collarbone.

Slowly, Bucky follows your gaze to his chest. There he finds that his shirt is torn in a long, pristine cut. Blood begins to soak into the light grey of the fabric from the open wound underneath. The knife you’d held in your hand bares his blood upon the blade.

“What have I done?!” you cry, shaking your head as you scurry off of the bed and into the corner of the room. You sink to the floor and Bucky shakes himself of his stupor to rush towards you.

“I’m alright,” he tries to reassure you, though he knows it’s no use. “Baby, I’m fine. It’s nothing. It’ll heal in a few hours. I’m okay.”

“Oh God, Oh God! No... I didn’t-- I didn’t mean to--” Your words are barely distinguishable, slurring together in your slobs, and you can barely catch your breath. You shake your head, fresh tears streaming on your cheeks. “I’m sorry. I’m-- I’m so s-sorry. I didn’t-- I didn’t mean to.”

“I know,” Bucky coos. He can feel the itch of a tear as it passes his jawline. “Honey, I need you to breathe for me. Please, let me hold you. I’m okay. You didn’t hurt me.”

But your eyes are glued to the open sliver of his t-shirt, the blood as it soaks into the cotton, and the slash underneath. It only makes you cry more. Its uncontrollable, like you might pass out if you can’t allow yourself to take in enough air, and Bucky feels like he’s reaching out into a fucking void because there’s nothing he can do for you.

“Sergeant Barnes,” a stern voice calls suddenly from behind him. Helen Cho stands in the doorway with Sam just beyond her shoulder. She steps into the room, uncapping a syringe. “Hold her down.”

You’re in hysterics as Bucky pulls you into his arms. You don’t resist as you fall against his chest, but he can feel the unease with which you sit in your own body, like your skin is crawling and you’re caged inside of yourself. He knows the feeling well.

You barely notice as the needle punctures your neck, heavy head falling to rest against Bucky’s shoulder. He eases his left hand down your spine, hoping the chill of the metal will help soothe you as your breaths become more even and the sobs fall weak and far between.

“I’ve got you, honey,” he whispers. You start to close your eyes, giving into the sedative. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. Just rest, love. I’ve got you.”

No one relaxes until it’s clear you’re out cold. Sam lets out a heavy sigh from the doorway, slumping into the arch. Helen sinks onto the floor beside Bucky, tossing the syringe into the disposal bag before she rubs a tired hand over her face.

Bucky feels like he can hardly breathe. He waits until Helen and Sam retire to their own rooms before he allows the lump in his throat to consume him whole, before the tears on his face mirror the watermarked stains on his shirt. He doesn’t move from the floor until sunrise, unwilling to disturb your sleep.

***

“I don’t know why you haven’t left me yet.”

The words pass your lips and they puncture straight through Bucky’s chest - like a knife embedded through his skin, nicking over bone and tearing through flesh. He feels sick, a wave of nausea crashing through him as he turns to look at you.

Your eyes are swollen red, lips chewed raw. It only takes a flicker of your gaze to the long faded pink scar across his chest to know what’s on your mind.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Bucky says firmly.

You shake your head, unconvinced. “I could have killed you.”

“Don’t you go underestimating me, now,” Bucky teases, lighting his voice despite the burning ache he feels in his chest. He smiles at you but you can hardly meet his eye.

Your legs are swung over the bedside, hands wringing in your lap, reddening the skin. Your breaths are shaken, lower lip trembling, and he knows you’re trying to hold back tears. He can practically feel the lump building in your throat, suffocating you.

He sighs, sinking down to his knees in front of you. His hands reach out for your own and you flinch at his touch. It takes a moment before you can remind yourself who’s hands are holding you, who’s love you’re surrounded in, and you relax.

He thinks of the woman who taught him how to love again, who woke him from a decades long nightmare with the sweet touch of her hand and the adoration in her smile. He conjures the image of you he preserved before you left on your last mission, with sun kissed skin and laughter in your chest, as he stares up at the dark circles under your eyes, the frown upon your lips, the aching claws of shame draining you of the light you possessed.

“Sweetheart, look at me.” He tips a finger under your chin and guides you to meet his eye. He smiles, softening under your gaze.

“You hold so much space in your heart for compassion and forgiveness,” Bucky eased, stroking his thumbs gently along the backs of your hands. “You never hesitated once to absolve me of my sins as the Winter Soldier. It didn’t matter how may nights I woke up empty, not knowing where or who I was. It didn’t matter how much I thought I was a burden to you and the team, or whether I deemed myself worthy enough to be loved by you. You were patient with me, kind beyond what I ever believed I could deserve. Can you not reserve some of that for yourself, too?”

He watches the sob creep up your spine before it breaks. There’s little more either of you can say and he resides to holding you in his arms, caged protectively against his chest where not even the demons lurking in the back of your mind can find you.

He knows, eventually, you’ll be okay. You taught him that. Even when the tunnel was its darkest, when he could barely see beyond the tips of his fingers, and the sun was cast over in shadows -- you showed him that as long as he kept walking, he’d find the light again.

***

“Come on, Y/n, what is the matter with you?”

Bucky hears you grumbling to yourself in the kitchen. He wipes the trail of sweat off his face from his morning run as he approaches the island covered in stray dollops of pancake batter, bottles of maple syrup, and mixing bowls. He smiles as he leans against the counter, waiting for you to notice him.

“You weren’t supposed to be home yet,” you groan, catching Bucky out of the corner of your eye as you dump a plate full of burnt pancakes into the sink. Your hair a little out of sorts, a bead of sweat dripping down your temple. It’s almost endearing if it wasn’t for how fast your heart was beating. Bucky could hear it down the hall.

“Missed you.” He shrugs casually, testing a smirk and you started to smile in return; all shy and sweet and full of the woman he adores. He glances to the mess in the kitchen and the smoke piling on the ceiling. “What happened here?”

“Pancakes aren’t my strongest suit.”

Bucky laughs at that. “I can see that.”

You sigh, scratching at the back of your neck. “I just wanted to do something nice for you, Bucky.”

Bucky can feel his heart sinking but he holds the smile to his face. “You do a thousand nice things for me all the time. Just being here is enough for me, sweetheart.”

“You know what I mean,” you say under your breath, eyes falling to the floor by his feet. “After everything I put you through since that awful mission-”

“Hey, hey -- Don’t do that.” Bucky crosses the kitchen and places his hands gingerly on your cheeks, guiding your eyes back to his. “You didn’t do anything wrong; you hear me? You survived. You’re still surviving and I’m just... I’m so proud of you, Y/n.”

You part your lips to say more, to argue against him, but it dies on your tongue as Bucky smiles at you as if you hung the moon and the stars and every damn

“You don’t need to bring me coffee in the morning,” Bucky says before he presses a kiss to your forehead, “or bribe Stark into making new tech for my arm,” then a kiss to your nose, “or make me burnt pancakes to thank me for loving you through this.”

He pauses as he pulls back. You’re watching him with an expression somewhere between awe and relief, but it’s the warmth of your smile that does him in completely.

“We take care of each other, okay? That’s what we do,” Bucky says, leaning in to kiss your lips sweetly until he can feel the smile grow against his mouth. He pulls back, chuckling a bit under his breath. “Besides, I’m the last person who is going to be scared away by trauma.”

You laugh as you wrap your arms around his waist, pulling yourself closer to his chest. Engulfed in the sweet smell of maple and butter and batter, Bucky feels a wash of calm for the first time since you left on that mission.

He thinks you may have finally found your way home.

Thank you so much for reading! ❤️ If you enjoyed this fic, please consider supporting me at my ko-fi account ✨

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes #bucky barnes x y/n

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