#the second one feels very law firm “about us” page
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linkedin profile pic energy
#raphael#raphael bg3#bg3#baldur's gate 3#bg3 spoilers#i mean there are no spoilers but it's from the patch 5 epilogue so#i edited professional headshots in the past and i could not stop thinking about it when i watched these scenes#and so here we are#the first one is your standard professional headshot/profile pic fare#the second one feels very law firm “about us” page#and the third one is giving advice column vibes. “ask raphael” “ask the devil you know” kinda shit#mine#my screenshots
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> Inspect the library. Maybe the books here have useful information.
You've already gone through most of the books in the castle. If there's anything you might have missed, it has to be here. Besides, when will you ever get a second chance at this?
You inspect the library. With a figertip, you draw a sharp line through its grey mantle. The dust on the shelves is thick enough for skiing. The only sign of cleaning being a small dimple through its surface, presumably from someone performing the same kind of assessment you just did, but enough time ago that their own clean line had raced to catch up with the median dust level.
There is no way for you to proceed with your investigations without leaving traces here. You just hope that the kind of occupant that doesn't pay notice to this level of dust wouldn't notice if it suddenly went away, either.
You start pulling books out of the shelves. They're... logs, it seems. Both in the sense that they're heavy as bricks, as in the sense that they're registers. Law changes, regulations, Royal mandates. The years, too, keep varying wildly: 1898, 1967, 2018.
"That can't be right," you mumble to yourself, "That's half a millennia ago. How are they still in these conditions?"
Halfway through a shorthand discussion on "Magical energy distribution in the farther regions", you find what appears to be a rough map of the entire underground world. Seems like the cave does expand westward, just like the King mentioned.
You hesitate—then carefully tear the page out of the book and shove it in your bag. Could be useful.
You pull out another book. You stare at the cover. Your eyes are beginning to sting after straining so hard to read at firelight, but you're pretty sure you read the title right.
"Practical Techniques In Home Cooking". Author name illegible. It feels well loved, even as you hold it. The spine is cracked where it isn't downright ripped, and a few loose pages threaten to escape and rustle to the floor as you carefully open it.
The inside of the book is as consumed with use as its outside. Thousands of hand annotations in firm, neat pencil writing frame what, to the book's credit, indeed seem to be cooking techniques for home use. Occasionally, the author proposes a recipe. It's in these pages that the amateur co-author's corrections thicken, webbing through the original text like a spider, correcting proportions and specifying cooking times.
The co-author seems to have very strong opinions about "the dangers of non-magical fires in the kitchen".
Despite your situation, you can't put the book down. This isn't useful, per se, but it is... different. Different from anything you've seen so far, from the moment you stumbled into this cave. It feels genuine, domestic. It feels, well...
Human. Something in your heart stirs.
To your surprise, a series of crayon drawings render the next recipe almost unreadable. They're goofy, colorful, and rudimentary in the way that only young children's art can be. You smile as you turn another page. And that's when you see it. Tucked neatly into the book.
It's a photograph. A thumb half covers the lenses, but the rest is clear. Two figures smile toothily at the camera, covered in cocoa powder and flour: one is a monster, small and white furred like powdered sugar, and it points at the photographer, maybe warning them about the camera.
The other is human.
You stop breathing. You squint at the photograph, looking closer for control panels or screws, or antennae—anything that would tell you the person in the picture is actually some kind of monster—but find nothing. It's just... a kid. Perhaps a few years younger than you, all puffy cheeks and scraggly hair, their index finger dipped in chocolate batter. Their smile is missing a tooth.
You turn the photograph over. In the back, you once again recognize the neat handwriting of the co-author: "My little helpers, 2019"
You exhale, somewhat unsteadily, as something glows brighter in your chest.
Other humans. There were other humans in the underground. And maybe, if other humans came here, other humans made it out, too. Maybe—you let yourself hope—maybe there is a way out.
You look down at the photograph once again, just to marvel at your discovery.
"How did you even get here," you whisper, tracing the borders with a finger.
A chill runs down your spine.
"pretty sure that's my line, buddy."
You drop the book and turn, clutching your bag. Its broken-off pages spill onto the floor like an avalanche.
The skeleton leans his back against the door, smiling placidly at you. He's in his shirtsleeves, the sleeves themselves rolled up to the elbow, and he seems to have changed his dress pants for a pair of loose gym shorts. He tips a mug at you.
You didn't hear him unlock the door. You didn't hear anything.
Staring at the pinpricks of light in his eyesockets, you realize this is the first time you've seen him without sunglasses.
You also realize he's wearing pink slippers.
"heya," he says.
-->
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Sweet Caroline (Matt Murdock x fem!Reader)
Author’s Note: Hey everyone! Work has been super busy lately, but I got ahead of schedule this week and I listen to music at work and everything kind of fell together and I wrote this. It's not the best I mean TBH it's probably very crappy, I know that, but it's cute and sweet. I hope you enjoy! :)
Summary: The rivalry between Boston and New York is deep-seated and long-standing, but you're proud of where you come from—just smart enough to not announce it from the rooftops in Hell's Kitchen, or to your friends. Turns out, no matter what—through years of friendship, marriage, and everything that follows—there will always be the rivalry to some degree.
Suggested Listening: Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond
Warnings: Fluff, Boston vs. NYC rivalry, not proof read at all, really
Other Characters: Foggy Nelson, Karen Page
Word Count: 1,046
Moving from Boston to New York City is a cardinal sin. It doesn’t matter that it was for law school: “You couldn’t get in to Harvard? Suffolk?” “Oh, too good for Boston, now, are ya?” The kind of comments go one and on, especially once you made the decision to stay, having met your two best friends and deciding to open up a law firm with them. You can just imagine the similar sort of comments you'd get in Manhattan if people heard that you're from Boston. Therefore, you keep that part of your background on a strictly need-to-know basis, only free to wear your Boston attire and drink your Dunks in the comfort of your own apartment. The first nice spring day in the city means that your Bostonian nature is out in full force in your home—some windows cracked, a pot of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee brewing, and your favorite hand-me-down Red Sox t-shirt you’ve had for years comfortably situated onto your body.
Your freeze when you register a knock on the door.
“Knock, knock!” you hear Foggy call through the old wood. “We’ve got pizza and case files!”
“Just a second!” you call, putting down your mug of coffee and making your way over to let them in.
“Traitor!” Foggy shouts almost immediately.
“What?” Matt asks, his face scrunched in utter confusion.
“Oh, Fog, c’mon,” you say with a roll of your eyes. “You’re being dramatic.”
“I am being no such thing!” Foggy defends. “This is a proportionate reaction for the situation!”
“I think you’re both forgetting that one party in attendance is blind,” Matt chimes. “Can someone please fill in the details?”
“(Y/N)—if that’s even her real name—is wearing a Boston Red Sox shirt.”
“I will not accept Bostonian slander in my apartment, so if you boys—.”
“Wait, wait, wait!” Matt rushes, putting a hand on your closing door. “You’re from Boston?”
“Yes.”
“Why’d you never mention it?”
“Never came up.”
“Lie,” Foggy interjects. “The day we met, we asked where you were from.”
“You said the city,” Matt adds. “We understood that as New York City.”
“That was a misinterpretation on your part. Boston is a city, and I did grow up there,” you clarify. “Hence, I’m from the city. You are at fault for not inquiring further.”
“It feels like I don’t even know you,” Foggy sighs.
“Okay, goodbye, drama kings,” you say, trying to close the door once more, only for both of your friends to slip in.
“Seriously, why’d you never just tell us?” Matt asks.
“You act like I told you I had a secret family or I was Daredevil or something!” Foggy has to help steady Matt—Matt's clumsiness is starting to get more concerning. “I didn’t tell you because I knew how you’d react as through and through New Yorkers. I’ve heard everything in the book about Boston while I’ve been here. I didn’t want to hear it from my friends, too.”
“(Y/N),” Matt says, the tips of his ears bright pink. “We don’t mean it like that.”
“Then how do you mean it? How else and I supposed to take it?”
“You blend so will with New York,” Foggy says.
“Now I’m insulted.”
“No—it’s just that you’re a natural, really. That’s why we’re shocked. That, and you don’t speak like—.”
“—like I want to park the car in Harvard Yard?” you question with an exaggerated accent, making them both laugh, albeit nervously.
“Yeah, something like that.”
“Well, sorry to disappoint.” You pick up your mug of coffee from the counter, taking a sip. “What case files did you bring?”
“Sweetheart, she smells so good,” Matt hums in delight as you both rest with your newborn in the hospital room.
“I know, Matty,” you smile. "Or are you forgetting that pregnancy made me have super senses, too?”
“Yeah, but that’s nature at work.”
“Mm,” you hum, taking another sniff of her head. “She smells so new.”
“Is it weird we’re this enamored with sniffing our newborn?”
“No. We made her. We have the right to sniff.”
As you continue to fawn over your daughter, you hear a gentle knock on the door. You notice Foggy and Karen peeking their heads through the crevice, gifts and balloons in hand.
“Is now a good time?” Karen asks.
“Well, you are interrupting our baby-sniffing time, but I guess an exception can be made for you two,” you say.
“I’m gonna ignore the baby-sniffing comment because I’m too excited to meet my niece,” Foggy beams as they enter the room and get closer. “Oh, wow. That’s a cute baby. I mean, of course she is, look at the gene pool she got to swim in.”
“She’s precious,” Karen whispers in awe. “Great job, guys. More so to you, (Y/N).”
“Thanks,” you breathe, resting your head against Matt’s.
“Does she have a name yet? Or is she still Baby Girl Murdock for now?”
“Well, Matt had a suggestion,” you start.
“Caroline,” he finishes, smiling sweetly at your daughter.
“Aww. Caroline Murdock. It’s so pretty,” Karen hums. “She looks like a Caroline.”
“Caroline?” Foggy asks. “Like . . . Sweet Caroline?”
“Foggy, how long has it been since you found out that I’m from Boston and you’re still on this?” you chuckle.
“No, it’s not that! It’s nice. It’s a real show of love for a New Yorker to name their kid after the anthem of the enemy city.”
You look down at your daughter, the picture of relaxation as she rests in your arms.
“Sweet Caroline, bum, bum bum,” you begin to sing. “Good times never seemed so good—.”
“So good! So good! So good!” Matt adds on.
“Traitor,” Foggy smirks.
“You’re gonna be my little cute Boston fan, aren’t you?” you say softly.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Matt tries.
“You don’t even like sports!”
“It’s the principle of the thing! And you don’t like sports, either.”
“It’s the principe of the thing,” you mock.
“Yeah, but I love her.”
“I do, too.”
“So, Caroline? Is it official?” Karen asks.
“How about Caroline Josie Murdock?” you offer. “She does need a middle name, after all.”
“It’s perfect,” Matt hums, kissing your temple.
“A perfect marriage of Boston and New York,” Foggy smiles. “Just like her parents.”
Permanent Taglist: @majesticavenger @steampowerednightvaler @themusingsofmany @just-the-hiddles @toozmanykids @dangertoozmanykids101 @clints-worldavengers @theburningbookshop @itwasthereaminuteago @peter1ismybrother@hellskitchens-whore @dpaccione @catnip987
#matt murdock#Matt Murdock fanfic#Matt Murdock fanfiction#Matt Murdock x reader#Matt Murdock x fem!reader#Matt Murdock fluff#Matt Murdock x reader fluff#Matt Murdock x fem!reader fluff#daredevil#daredevil fanfic#daredevil fanfiction#daredevil fluff#daredevil x fem!reader fluff#daredevil x fem!reader#daredevil netflix#daredevil disney+#marvel#marvel fanfic#marvel fanfiction#marvel fluff
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Anchor all your thoughts to the bottom
| No Warnings Apply | 1/1 | Hurt/Comfort | 06/09/2022 (MM/DD/YYYY)
CW: Implied/Referenced Character Death, Panic Attacks, Self-Loathing
“In preparation for their farewell tour, Robaire has been attending meeting after meeting. It just so happens that this one revealed something that he wasn't ready to hear.
So he hides in the janitor's closet.”
THIS IS A FOLLOW UP TO IF THE WORLD ENDS TOMORROW (WOULD YOU FIND ME?)
Links: AO3 | Full Fic Below Cut
Every time Robaire got new information about the plane crash, he lost Aaron T. all over again.
The first time he lost him was on the helicopter ride to the hospital. It was all a blur. Unbeknownst to him, his heart injury had been starting to act up again, so medically, he had a reason to not remember it very vividly, but it was more than that. On some level, he knew he couldn't process it properly on that helicopter.
But he remembered feeling cold. Every atom in his body was ice. He remembered knowing that Aaron T. was gone, he remembered crying, but for the life of him, he couldn't remember feeling anything other than the wind, the rain, Aaron Z. next to him, and the cold.
The second time he lost him was in his hospital room, when Dustin told him the lawyers were suspecting foul play. His anger was white-hot, so visceral that he couldn't dispel it. It festered, burning him from the inside out until it ran out of oxygen.
Someone had crashed their plane on purpose. This wasn't a freak accident. It was on purpose.
But all the same, it was still an accident in some way. Out of all the people on the plane, it was an accident that Aaron T. was killed. Somehow, that made it slightly easier to deal with.
The third time Robaire lost Aaron T. was at one of the many meetings he attended after the crash.
The group had made the collective decision to do one last tour, which in it of itself meant he was incredibly busy. It was easy to jump right back into work, even after six months of hiatus. Even though everything about the agency was a reminder of what he had lost, he found it comforting. Sometimes, he could swear he heard a familiar laugh as he walked down the hall, just barely too slippery to be real, but enough. It was enough.
This meeting was the hardest one he'd had to attend. It wasn't even necessary for him to be there, but he made it a point to attend anyway. Anything involving the group, or the crash, he wanted to know.
He sat in between two members of the agency's public affairs team. They were meeting with a law firm to discuss what legal action could be taken against the person who was responsible for the crash.
"They already have several lawsuits against them," one of the lawyers explained, "but you have grounds to sue them for much more."
Robaire doodled idly in his notebook. He'd abandoned taking notes about half an hour ago.
"I assumed the circumstances around the crash would permit that, but how much are you thinking?"
"It can be hard to quantify emotional damages for something of this scale, but in similar cases, those affected could expect to sue for ten million, plus the cost of medical bills, therapy, and any damaged property."
Robaire resisted the urge to scoff. Ten million couldn't begin to cover his emotional damages.
"It's important to be aware," the second lawyer added, "that this amount is only possible due to the targeted nature of the crash. If the assailant had been targeting anyone else, the settlement would end up being much less."
He froze, the lead on his pencil snapping as his grip tightened.
What had they just said? The targeted nature?
"I'm sorry," he used his most diplomatic voice, "I'm not familiar with all the details of the case. Could you explain what you mean by targeted?"
His heart picked up the pace.
"My apologies," the lawyer said, "I shouldn't have assumed everyone was on the same page. There is ample evidence that suggests the assailant meddled with the plane's control system during the duration of the flight. After identifying the assailant, a home search revealed that they had been active on an internet forum discussing your flight information, and plans to interfere with the plane granted you, and the other targeted individuals were on it."
He blinked.
His manager spoke up. "The other targeted individuals were the other members of 4*Town, just to maintain full transparency."
Someone had done this on purpose. Someone had done this on purpose, to them. Someone did this on purpose because they wanted to hurt him, and his members.
He needed to get out of that room.
"I'm sorry." He got up. "Can I take five?"
"Take the day." His manager nodded to him. "Seriously Robaire, get some rest."
"Thank you." He dipped out.
He stood with his back to the door, eyes scanning to see if there was anyone else in the hallway.
How was he supposed to exist after news like that? His mind raced, his body already starting to shut down. He needed to get out of the hall. He needed to go somewhere to calm down.
He walked faster than he'd ever walked before, picking a direction and just going. The walls of the agency blurred together.
For a moment, just a moment, he was back on the island. He was sitting in the rain, waiting for everything to be okay again. Even then, he knew it wasn't possible.
There were okay moments, but it was not okay. He was not okay. None of them were okay.
Somebody did this to them on purpose.
He slipped into a janitor's closet, shutting the door behind him and stumbling over a bucket. He fell into the racks of cleaning products, sending him into a clumsy descent to the floor.
Once down, he curled his legs in, compressing himself into the smallest shape he could make.
He was panicking, he knew he was, and he needed to get it under control. He tried breathing deep, but it was like someone was squeezing his lungs.
Was this... was this his fault? It couldn't be, right?
The person who crashed their plane hated them, didn't that make this kind of his fault? He was their leader, he attended meetings, he had a huge say in how the group promoted, did he fail?
He knew having haters was normal, but regular haters don't crash planes. Somewhere, somehow, he'd fucked up so badly that somebody wanted to hurt them and they lost Aaron T. because of it. They lost Aaron T. because of him.
God, there were other people on that plane. Other people died in that crash. Children died in that crash.
His hands balled into fists. Everything was so heavy. He could feel the physical weight of it pressing him further into the floor. It weighed on his chest, breaking down the muscles around his collar bones as they throbbed with a phantom pain. His head hung low, the muscles in his face and neck contorting in that "just about to cry'' way. He tried to pull his legs in tighter, hoping that it would relieve some of the pressure.
He was all too aware of the space between his legs and his chest. That hollowness, even on an anatomical level, was a cavity that couldn't be filled.
It hurt. It physically hurt. Electricity spiked through his body, and he let out a heaving sob.
He did this.
This was his fault.
Aaron T. was gone, and it was his fault.
…
He really didn't want to be alone.
Through the haze of his thoughts, he pulled out his phone, toying with the upper half as he tried to figure out what he wanted to say.
With an agonising twist, he realised he knew exactly who he wanted to call.
Even though his therapist had advised against it, he had Aaron T.'s number saved in his new phone. He opted to dial it in himself anyway.
He clutched his phone like a lifeline, holding it to his ear as it dialled.
And it dialled.
And it dialled.
And then-
"Hi! You've reached Aaron, wait, wait! Robbie, come say hi."
"What? Who are you talking to?"
"I'm setting my voicemail message."
"That's supposed to be short and professional."
"Doesn't matter, I always answer, nobody's gonna hear it."
He heard himself sigh. "Hi Aaron's phone."
"Please leave a message after the-"
The beep.
He wished his old phone wasn't somewhere at the bottom of the ocean. He would kill to listen to his saved voicemails just one more time.
He wanted to call again, but he knew, somewhere in the back of his mind, that it probably wasn't a good idea.
His phone dinged, and he flipped it open again, opening the texts between him and Aaron Z.
Aaron Z: You okay?
What in the psychic-
Robaire: Uhhhh
Robaire: Why do you ask?
Aaron Z: Idk, I just got the urge to check on you
He was going to text back, but apparently fifteen seconds was too long for Aaron Z. to wait, because a call came through. He answered.
"Hello?" He tried to make it sound like he wasn't crying.
"Ro?"
"What's up?"
"Are you crying?"
Mission failed. He took in a gasping breath in an attempt to calm down.
"No."
"Yes you are, what happened? Are you still at the meeting?"
"No."
Aaron Z. sighed. "Ro."
"Can you just talk?"
"What?"
"Just like," he paused, unsure exactly what he was asking for, "talk. About things."
"What kinds of things?"
"Anything."
It was something Aaron T. used to do for him. He tried not to feel guilty for asking. He deserved to feel every ounce of pain he was in, but he was too weak to take it.
And he was so, so tired.
"I think we should go to Cedar Point."
There was a silence, one Robaire couldn't fill.
Aaron Z. continued. "Did you know that the tallest roller coaster in the world is there? Top Thrill Dragster, it's like four hundred feet or something, brand new, opened in May. We should go, give it a whirl."
He took in a shaky breath.
"I read that in a magazine. Did you know I read magazines now? I subscribed to like, seven of them. Taeyoung kept getting excited when we got mail, so I just kept ordering more. I think he's trying to cook a recipe from one of them right now. Sorry in advance if our kitchen is a mess when you get home."
Oh god, Taeyoung in the kitchen could go one of two ways. If he was alone, he was usually fine, but if…
Right. He didn't have to worry about that anymore.
"Speaking of mail, we got a whole bunch today. Jesse's working on getting through everything. It's mostly bills and, you know, ads for shit. Nothing super interesting, it's just weird that we got so much today."
Huh. Weird.
"Look man, I'm one hundred percent here for you, but it sounds like you're hurt."
"No."
"Are you hurt?"
"No."
"Where are you?"
"Janitor's closet."
"I'm coming. Stay on the phone."
He shook with full body chills. Each breath was laboured and thin. He sucked them in through his teeth.
"Ro?"
"Huh?"
"You'll stay on the phone?"
"Yeah."
"Okay. I'll be there in ten."
Was he having a nervous breakdown in the janitor's closet? Was this the grand finale of the shit year he'd had? September 16th 2003, the day Robaire finally fell victim to whatever that plane crash was meant to do.
That was the new worst part. It wasn't that he'd lost things. It wasn't that he'd lost Aaron T. It was that all of that had happened, and the assailant won. They got what they wanted. Robaire had failed to protect the members from that.
It really was his fault.
What good had he been on the island? The most he gave them was a bedtime story.
And now he was asking for Aaron Z. to come help him again. Like he hadn't done enough.
"Don't come," he said suddenly, startling himself so much that he flinched.
"Why not?"
"I don't need help."
"You're a terrible liar."
"I'm sorry." He covered his mouth, shutting his eyes as a fresh wave of full body pain tore through him. "I'm so sorry."
"You're okay."
"No-"
"I mean, you're not, but-"
"No, Z., don't come. Don't help."
"I'm gonna walk you through what I'm hearing, because I want you to understand why I can't just, not come find you."
"Aaron-"
"You're crying. You can hardly get through a sentence without gasping. You're in a janitor's closet. That doesn't send the message: I don't need help."
"I'm sorry."
"No, Ro-"
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry for making you feel like you have to-"
"You are not a burden to me Robaire. You're not forcing me to do anything."
"You just said-"
"I can't leave you alone because I care about you, that's the only reason."
"Stop being nice to me!"
Everything was heavy.
Things were heavy on the island too. He remembered waking up on the beach, feeling the weight of the world pinning him to the sand. That feeling could barely compare to what he was feeling presently.
He tried to stifle his sobbing, using his hand to muffle it.
Aaron Z.'s voice was gentle. "What's going on?"
"It's my fault Aaron." The words sat in his mouth.
"What is your fault?"
"Everything, the crash, T., everything we've been through."
"Did you crash the plane?"
He faltered. "No."
"Then this isn't your fault."
"But-"
The door opened. Light poured in, exposing every inch of him. Aaron Z.'s silhouette stood, looking down at him. He looked ethereal, with the hallway light illuminating the edges of his outline.
He shut the door behind him, pushing aside some of the cleaning products that Robaire had knocked over as he sat next to him. With a careful prod, he realised Z. wanted him to rest his head in his lap. He obliged.
"This isn't your fault," he said softly, rubbing his shoulder with a comforting thumb.
He mumbled, "Yes it is."
"Ro-"
"It was targeted. Somebody crashed the plane because we were on it."
"Holy shit."
"Yeah, so, my fault."
"How is that your fault?"
"How isn't it? I'm your leader."
"I'm not following."
He tried to explain, but the words died on his tongue. Instead, he winced, another wave of panic-induced pain rippling through him.
Aaron Z. hoisted him up, using his arms to support his back. He pulled Robaire into a hug.
"You're not responsible for what that person did. Hell, you could have made a public statement saying 'please try to kill us in a plane crash,' and it still wouldn't be your fault. The person who did this was sick, and deranged, and that's not on you."
"You don't understand."
"Help me to."
"I..."
The spikes of pain were becoming more frequent. He inhaled through his teeth, his arms tightening around Aaron as he searched for something to hold onto.
He was scaring him. He knew he was. He could feel it in the tenseness of Aaron's shoulders.
"It has to be my fault. Why would it hurt so bad if it wasn't?"
"Bad shit happens. Life-ruining shit. Shit that couldn't have been predicted, or prepared for, or controlled, and that's what makes it hard, but when you can blame yourself? It means something has a reason. It means something is logical. It means that, even though everything is shit, and there's nothing you could do about it, something is fair, but that doesn't mean it's true. You can't carry that with you Ro, you didn't do anything to deserve it. The guilt will kill you."
"But-"
"I lost my best friend in seventh grade." Aaron Z. admitted. "She got sick, she uh, was sick for three years, and then she died. The moment I found out she was sick, I started to grieve her, and even after three years of grieving, and preparing, when I got back from my seventh grade camping trip and found out she was gone? I felt so guilty."
"Z."
"You can't give it a reason, you can't make it make sense, because even if it's more bearable to blame yourself, you'll heal around it. It'll be a ticking bomb, waiting to explode, and when it does, you'll have to start all over again, and it'll hurt so much more."
He pulled himself out of the hug, resorting to leaning back against the metal racks.
"Healing feels like leaving him behind."
"In a way, it is."
He breathed out a chuckle. "You know what's funny?"
Aaron Z. hummed.
"Remember Toronto '02?"
"How could I forget?"
"When you woke up the next day, and Jesse ordered room service, did you know I was awake for that?"
"I thought so, but they insisted I should let you sleep."
"I remember just, listening to you all laugh, and chat, and I was afraid. I always knew that you guys were my everything, but I'd just nearly lost you, and that was terrifying. I was terrified that one day, something would happen, and we wouldn't be whole anymore, and now that it happened? I mean, what am I supposed to do?"
"Blind steps forward."
"And if I fall?"
"We'll catch you."
"But what if something happens to you?"
"Then someone else will. Or you'll catch yourself. You've got good instincts."
He scoffed. "Your way of comforting people is really strange."
"I have no interest in lying to make you feel better."
"Thanks. Really, thank you."
He could hear the smile in his voice. "You're pretty great Ro."
"I'm sorry you lost your best friend. Twice."
"I'm sorry we all did."
Robaire sighed, using his shirt to dry his face. Somehow, despite the painful drum of his heart, he could breathe a little bit easier. That was something.
"I feel like I should say something to lighten the mood." Robaire admitted.
"Do you want a lighter mood?"
"No, I kinda want to find where the janitor keeps the bleach, and drink it."
"Oh...?"
"I think I need a lighter mood."
"Well, now that you're open to it, mind letting me know which janitor's closet you're in next time? There's one on every floor."
He gave Aaron a playful shove. "How am I supposed to mope if I'm in the first closet you check?"
"That was not moping, that was like, a colossal panic attack."
"We should go to Cedar Point. Ride that roller coaster."
"Really?"
"Wow, Aaron Z. is excited about a vacation? Who would have thought?"
"I love coasters."
"I would kill to hear you scream on one."
He laughed. "Not gonna happen, they don't scare me."
"We'll take the tour bus, yeah? Make it a road trip?"
"It's in Ohio, we'd have to drive across the country."
"Really? Huh. Maybe I'll stop by Toronto while we're over there."
"What am I supposed to do while you're visiting home?"
"I don't know, you could stop by the temple? I wonder if they finished raising money for the Sky Dome."
"Ah, yes, I'm sure that would go well." Aaron pitched his voice up slightly, using a very poor British accent. "Hi, I don't know if you remember me, but I was performing the night you turned into a massive red panda and broke the Sky Dome, mind if I come in for tea?"
"The temple is open for visitors you idiot, you could bring Tae and Jesse along if you're so concerned, and why are you suddenly British?
"Aren't Canadians more hospitable to British people? Don't you share a monarch or something?"
"Good god, you are painfully American."
"Are we just gonna, I don't know, drive for a week, ride some coasters, and then drive for another week? Or are we making stops?"
"We'll make a proper plan once we're out of the janitor's closet."
"You ready to head out?"
"No."
Aaron Z. gave him a look. He turned away.
"But we should head out."
"I don't mind waiting here until you're ready."
"I won't ever be ready, but you know, blind steps."
Aaron Z. pushed himself up, offering Robaire a hand. He took it. His legs were unsteady, and he was still shaking, but with their hands clasped he was lighter. It wasn't by much, but he was lighter.
He scooted around him, reaching for the handle to the door, but he still hesitated to open it. He looked over his shoulder. Aaron Z. gave him a small nod.
The handle clicked as he pushed it down, and when he opened the door, he was met with the blinding light of the hallway, so incredibly vivid and present after sitting in a dark room for so long, and before his eyes could adjust?
He stepped.
#ahahaha#this one was hard#I'm writing fluff next dw#fluff where everyone is alive HSFGJDSF#not much else to say here!#4 town#4 town aaron z#4 town robaire#4town#4town fanfic#4town fic#4*town#4*town fanfic#4*town fanfiction#4*town robaire#4*town aaron z
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The 6-Second Trick For Electric vehicle
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What is grief, if not love persevering?
Anon asked: heyyy! i love your writing sm💕 can you write angst please? make it hurt☹
Masterlist.
Summary: in which Harry is a single Dad due to losing his wife five years ago just shortly after their little love was born. Y/N has been there through it all. Harry has a rough night filled with whiskey and tears for his late wife.
A/N: this one is full of Angst and light hearted jokes to not get you too sad … sorry in advance, it’s a real tear jerker. Enjoy!!
Warnings: Angst, mentions of death, talks of alcohol and drug abuse, talks of depression and very low mental health, curse words.
—
Five years.
It’s been five years since the passing of Myla Styles, the woman who granted Harry a wish he always wanted, the woman who loved him beyond all the galaxies and the woman who never saw any wrong in anyone, not even the worst of people, she always used to say “deep down, their heart is just aching” and Harry always admired that about her, she always looked on the positive side of life.
She held that same attitude as he held her hand in the hospital room, her fragile and pale body laying on the white bed as she peered up at him, oxygen tube in her nostrils and too many machines to count hooked up to her body, she was a shell of a woman, but she still had a heart of gold, the same hear Harry fell in love with when they were sixteen years of age. He hated seeing her this way, especially when their nearly one week old baby was resting in his other arm, fast asleep as her Mum clung to every bit of life she had left, but not once did her smile fade.
It all happened so fast, one day she was pushing life into the world and eight days later her life was being taken out of this world. There was complications with birth, the doctors and nurses finding undiagnosed ovarian cancer in her ovaries when they had to send her in for an emergency c section. Myla confessed she felt off, her body didn’t feel right, but she knew if something was seriously wrong, she wouldn’t risk the life of her baby getting treatment, she would rather her baby live over her. Doctors and nurses tried their best, trying to refer her to new hospitals to get stronger chemo if she wanted, but Myla refused, she told them to let her go, she was tired and she couldn’t stick around long enough to see if these treatments would work — she knew she was dying but Harry refused to believe it.
The day she left, was the day Harry felt like his whole world stopped, like the curtains were shut and he was left in a dark room with no way out. He promised Myla he would do his best to take care of their love, who they named Honey. He was dealing with the loss, Honey taking his mind off it a little and giving him reasons to pull himself from bed even on the days when he wanted to lay around and wallow in his own darkness — she pulled him out of those days, but two months later it all came crashing down on top of him.
He slipped into a wrong mind set, immediately knowing that Honey had to be taken away from him because he was living in fear he would hurt her, one day he woke up and he looked at her and just cried, he held her and he felt nothing, he didn’t even sympathise with her when she would cry for food, he felt nothing towards Honey and this scared him, terribly. Anne, his Mum took Honey in, letting Harry to relax and blow off some steam and get some help, his and Myla’s family all agreeing and saying he needed help and it wasn’t something to be ashamed about — he just lost his wife, they can’t lose him either.
Harry took the wrong route of clearing his mind and getting help, he found his therapy at the end of a bottle and a line of cocaine. He slipped into an endless spiral of week long benders and debts for drug money along with risking losing his home due to him quitting his high up job at his Fathers Law firm, he completely crashed and burned, he couldn’t live without her, he couldn’t stop his mind racing and the only way for it all to stop, and let him feel numb — was when he was drunk and high, passing out in every room of his home and in his garden, the neighbours finding him sometimes in their yard in a mess. They were the ones who got him help, they called up his family and they all rushed him off in an ambulance to get him sober and conscious again. Here is where he made the decision to sign himself into rehab, accepting the help the hospital offered and a few months later, he was out and clean, he stayed with his Mum until Honey turned one and that was the year Harry found his smile again, found his life and purpose again.
Looking back now, he doesn’t know how he ever made himself believe it was Honeys fault Myla was no longer here, he doesn’t know how he’s even alive because of all the drugs and alcohol he ingested every single night for three months solid, but he knows why everything turned around, it was his Angel looking down on him, guiding him and kicking him in the ass to get up and look after their little love, just like she asked him to do before she left, always look after himself and Honey.
It’s been five years since her passing, Harry is doing better than ever, he started working for his Dad’s company again and now he’s the president of the law firm, alongside his Dad who is the CEO, Harry being second in command and then being the CEO when his Dad retires from the firm. They kept their family home, even if it was just the two of them, they loved the home and it still felt like Myla was living here, her makeup still tucked away in her unused vanity in Harrys bedroom and her favourite paintings still hung up around the home. Harry even hired a nanny, she has been working for him for two years now, she’s even working alongside Harry in his office being his receptionist during the day and she’s Honeys afternoon and night nanny when she’s done in work and Honey is home from school.
Y/N is Honeys nanny, she takes care of the little lady and feeds her daily, even taking her to the playground and to the movies when Honey asked her could she go. She would do anything for Honey and Honey loved her endlessly, she loved the way she would allow her to eat sneaky chocolate bars after dinner every now and then and how she would always play dollies with her, kneeling down on the floor of the den and playing with the small girl until they were both in fits of laughter. Harry also adored Y/N, her passion for her job at the law firm along with her passion for looking after Honey is something he admires, she never once complains about being exhausted even though he can tell when she is, she didn’t have to think twice when Harry offered her the job as Honeys nanny, she knew the little one from her being in the office every now and then, and Honey was instantly drawn to her, the way she was so kind and the way she cared for Honey.
Tonight is a hard night for Harry, it’s Myla’s death anniversary and he’s been having a bad day, his mind racing and his heart breaking all over again, but this time he’s stronger, he’s able to power through until he could be alone and just let his emotions go, have a glass of whiskey and just cry a little flipping through old photo albums — he does this every year on her anniversary. Honey is tucked up in bed and he’s sat alone in the den on the sofa, the photo albums on his lap and his hand clutching a small glass of whiskey as he sips on it flipping through many photos from their wedding and from when they were teens and drunk in love in high school — so many memories can be attached to one person, and Harry knew one day they would be memories, but he didn’t know it would be so soon.
“Honey is fast asleep, left her door cracked open so she can shout if she- Harry? Are you okay?” Y/N stops suddenly, her eyes landing on her boss who was hunched over a photo album on the sofa, curtains drawn and the only light coming from a lamp beside a framed wedding photo of him and Myla on the table by the sofa.
“Yeah, thanks for putting her to sleep” Harry says weakly, not turning around which alarms Y/N, she’s seen him like this last year, she let him be as she was only new to it, but this year she’s determined to sit with him all night if he needs — he needs to have some company.
“That’s you?” She asks sitting next to him, Harry not moving or telling her to leave, he accepts her company as she looks down at the photo his eyes are laid upon — two teenagers at a party.
“Yeah, m’hair was a curly mess” he says with a low laugh, looking over the photo of a seventeen year old version of himself, smiling cheekily clutching a red solo cup and Myla wrapped under his other arm holding him around his waist, both their smiles wide and cheeky and their cheeks flushed pink from the alcohol in their bodies.
“I think it looks cute, pitty it’s not as curly now” she says with a light laugh, watching as his ring clad fingers turn the page, taking a sip from his whiskey as he goes.
“This was our prom, she made me wear a pink fucking bow tie — absolutely hated it” he laughs, the crinkles by his eyes evident as Y/N laughs along, looking down at the curly headed teenager in a black suit, white shirt and a bright pink bow tie, matching Myla’s floor length dress next to him, a shawl over her shoulders matching as the corsage around her wrist match the pink of her dress also.
“She hated that dress a year later, she was packing up for college and I was helping her when she found it, immediately burst out laughing” he says laughing loudly, remembering back at the memory he has, Y/N beside him happy at how joyful he sounds speaking of the memories.
“Oh here we go, Frat boy Harry!” Y/N says with a loud laugh, pointing down at a shirtless twenty year old Harry, backwards cap on his head and “Myla’s Bitch!” Wrote on his stomach in paint, two beer bottles in his hands and Myla on his shoulders cheering with her hands up in a red bikini, matching his swimming trunks and baseball cap.
“Some of the best years of m’life, raging parties and no more curfews, we were two hormonal teens absolutely smitten for one another” he says shaking his head with a laugh, his eyes bright as he flicks them over the photos ranging from Harry dancing, Myla being pushed into the pool by him and Harry passed out with a mustache drawn on him with Myla next to him holding the marker with a bright smile mid laughter.
The book is filled with their college days, to their graduation day from college, their photo in their first apartment, Harry on his first day of work and Myla on hers. They took photos of small things, but at the time they meant the world to them, they were milestones in their lives and they never wanted to forget them. Harry is forever grateful that Myla had an obsession with photography, otherwise he wouldn’t have these to look back on and hopefully show Honey one day what her Mum was like, even if she’s drunk and half naked in some of them at college parties.
Harry and Y/N are in fits of laughter, tears falling from their faces as Harry explains every single memory behind each photo, one photo containing a memory of Myla at her bachelorette party, Harry coming out as a stripper and giving her a lap dance as she slaps his ass and throws money all over her husband — that one will definitely not be shown to Honey. Harry is like a whole different person when he speaks about her, his laugh becomes louder and his eyes become brighter, he even ditched his whiskey after one glass to speak about his late wife, Y/N looking at him with pure amazement and proudness of how far he’s come, how he pulled himself from a hard time and carried on life for the sake of his baby girl. He’s truly inspirational in her eyes.
“It should be easier than this by now, right? Like I shouldn’t be still grieving” he says when their laughs and stories come to a stop, their eyes hooded with sleep and faces hurting from laughing.
“What is grief, if not love persevering? You were both childhood sweethearts, you’ve loved her since you can remember and you always will, she’s your whole world, of course you’ll still grieve her, you still love her, and that’s okay” Y/N blurts out, her words quick as she blabs on while Harry watches her, a smile on his face as she explains and accepts his feelings.
“Never knew you were Shakespeare” is all he says, she rolls her eyes laughing, slapping his bicep a little as he shuts the album, tucking it away in the drawer again before turning his focus back onto Y/N beside him.
“Seriously though, never tell yourself you’ve been grieving for too long, it’s okay to grieve and cry yourself to sleep some nights, I get that, I do. You lost a person who made you who you are, but don’t forget, you still have a little one that will need you to be the person who makes her who she is”
Harry thinks she’s amazing, she’s smart and she’s so empathetic towards everyone and anyone. She has a heart of gold and she will never let anyone explain hers or anyone else’s feelings for them, she always allows people to express who they are, heck, one night she brought Harry to a gym after hours, explaining how her brother is a trainer there and he gave her the keys on the condition that she does his laundry for a month, she let Harry rage out and punch the shit out of a punching bag one night because he was so upset. She cheered him on and he was smiling as he was punching towards the end, she helped him release the emotions that built up and would of lead him back down a dark path.
She’s been an Angel sent from above, he knows Myla sent her to him because of how much they’re alike, Harry knows for sure they were sisters in a past life, their kind hearts and understanding natures alike but they have their differences, Myla was very out spoken and loved to party but Y/N is reserved and would rather stay inside with a hot chocolate and her crosswords while watching TV, but that’s another thing that Harry finds fascinating about her, she’s younger than him by eight years, when he was her age he was partying.
“Thank you Y/N, I needed this tonight” he says with a smile, her own smile on her face as she nods leaning over to rub her hand over his in a comforting manner, the pair looking at one another as they soak in their presences.
“It’s getting late, I should go” she says realising it’s nearly midnight, Harry and her need to be in work tomorrow morning and Harry has to wake up to get his little lady ready for school also. He gets a bit saddened when she says this, he secretly wants to hear more of her own college years and her own prom much like he told her earlier.
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll see you tomorrow” he says with a smile, watching as she gathers up her bag and throws it over her shoulder, car keys now in her hand as she smiles at him once more before heading for the den door. She pauses and looks back at him, his eyes meeting hers as they hold contact for a few seconds before she speaks up.
“See you tomorrow, Harry”
#harry styles#harry styles imagine#harry styles smut#harry styles au#harry styles one shot#harry styles fandom#fan fic author#singledad!harry#dad!harry#anon <3#anon ask#harry styles angst#harry styles fluff#harry styles prompts#fan fiction#fan fic prompts#fan fic requests
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Remember Us - part 2
Double feature this week. Here we go with part 2. Rowan takes another step on the path of recovering his life.
Also, we get to meet the kids <3
------
When Aelin got home that night after her shift at the hospital, she was tired and not just from the long hours spent in OR. She was tired in her soul. Aelin had managed to keep her thoughts at bay while operating, but as soon as she was out they came back. It had been hard to fight the urge to go and see him again. He wanted space. That was clear so she just went home instead.
Once she crossed the threshold, laughter welcomed her. Her kids sounded happy.
She shed her coat and removed her shoes and followed the happy sounds.
Walking into the kitchen she found her mother cooking and Thomas helping her setting the table and little Freyja banging her plastic cutlery on her high chair. She was a shy girl but would become alive and loud when she was hungry. Just like her mum.
“Mama!” Shouted her daughter as she spotted her.
“Mum,” Thomas echoed his sister and ran to her, hugging Aelin at her knees “hi my darling, how are you?” She kneeled at his height and ruffled his blonde hair.
“Helping grandma cook.”
“Food.” Shouted Freyja who got agitated trying to get the attention of her mother. Aelin went to her daughter and lifted the wee girl in her arms “hi my love,” and she snuggled her head against her mother’s chest.
“Hi mum,” said Aelin to Evalin. The woman stirred something in the pan and turned to her daughter “welcome back, darling.” She said and her gaze turned worried at her daughter’s tired expression.
Aelin shook her head, knowing what her mother was about to say “later,” she added. She did not want to talk about Rowan in front of the kids.
“Come on Tom, sit at the table. Dinner is ready.” On his grandma’s orders the boy climbed on his chair and started eating his meal.
Aelin joined them a moment later, all changed in house clothes and sat at her daughter’s side.
Thomas was three and had just started learning how to use a fork properly. They would cut the food for him and he would try to use the utensil. Rowan had been teaching him. A pang of sadness hit her and pushed back the tears, now it was not the time. She would feed Freyja who was only eighteen months old.
“Did you help grandma cook?”
The boy nodded while taking a bite from his fork and gave her a big smile. His green eyes lighting up with joy. Eyes just like his father’s.
“Aelin, let me feed Freyja. You have your dinner. You haven’t touched it yet.”
Aelin shook her head “I am fine. It can wait.”
Truth was… she felt nauseous and that feeling had nothing to do with being pregnant. It was fear. Terror of losing Rowan. Terror that he would never recover his memories and her kids would be left without a father and her without her soulmate. She almost lost him once. She would never forget the day she got the call from the hospital. Those horrible moments were forever etched in her memory.
Later on that night, once the kids were in bed Evalin joined her daughter on the sofa and brought her a chamomile tea.
“The kids are asleep. What’s troubling you?”
Aelin sighed and her hand went to her stomach “Rowan woke up.”
“Today?”
She nodded in confirmation and leaned her head on her mother’s shoulder “I had just left the OR when I got a page from his doctor. I went to his room and he was awake,” a loud sob broke from her lips “he does not remember me or the kids.”
Evalin pulled her daughter closer and hugged her knowing the pain she had been feeling for the past month “Yrene had told you it might happen.”
Aelin nodded slightly “I didn’t think it could hurt that much. He had no idea who I was. He doesn’t remember our kids.” Her sobs turned into proper crying “I am so scared, mum. So, so scared.”
“I know, darling.” Evalin kissed her daughter’s head “you will have to be strong a bit longer. Does the doctor think he will regain his memory?”
Aelin gave her a small nod “but it might take time and what if he realises that he doesn’t want us in his life anymore?”
“Rowan loves you and the kids madly. The road ahead might be bumpy but he will come back.” A ragged breath escaped from Aelin. She hoped her mother was right, because if she was not she doubted she would survive loosing him a second time.
*
Rowan woke up the next morning with an horrendous headache. He had a fitful sleep and his thoughts had been stuck all night on her. Aelin. His wife. At her side two small shadows representing their kids. In his mind he had this picture of him holding someone, the smell of lemon and verbena strong around him. But he was sure it was more a feeling than an actual memory. He had woken up all of a sudden and hadn’t been able to fall asleep properly since. His body recognised the other one.
A nurse brought breakfast and of one thing he was sure. He hated hospital food. Which led to another series of questions. What did he eat for breakfast? Was he a good cook? What was his favourite food?
Reluctantly he finished the food on his tray and decided to kill the boredom by watching tv. According to the news it was January and the meteorologist were warning all the citizens of Terrasen of a snowstorm warning.
He was so bored watching the news that he felt glad when Aelin knocked on the doorframe “Mind if I come in?”
He shook his head “is tv always this boring?”
Aelin chuckled and for a second she saw a glimpse of him. He always hated tv. The only reason they had one in the house was because she had pestered him about it “yeah. You find reading more interesting.”
He switched off the television and faced her “I am…” he sighed “yesterday… I was overwhelmed. It was… it still is too much.”
“I know,”said Aelin trying to suppress the instinct to touch him. Not until he was okay with it.
“Tell me something about me, about my life. Us… anything.” He started, eager to know more. He needed it “do I like breakfast?”
Aelin laughed “you do, and you are a great cook. On Saturdays you always make us pancakes and let Thomas help you flip them.” She smiled at the image. Thomas on his knees on a chair beside his dad.
“You are a healthy eater so you tend to scoff enormous quantities of fruit and veggies while complaining about my crazy dietary habits.”
She was dying to show him pictures of the kids but decided against it. One step at a time. Let him become familiar with the idea of being married first.
“You are a lawyer. A kickass one at that.” His green eyes were trained on her “you and Lorcan opened your own practice. After graduation you two got a job in a fancy company but eventually got tired of dealing with rich bastards and opened a firm that deals mostly with family law but also offers legal support to us common human beings.” She had been so proud of him. The big job had left him miserable and with very little time to live. He had been stressed and after two years he had realised that the huge salary was not worth it. Lorcan had followed him and together they had started their new adventure. They had started small snd simple, but slowly as they took in more cases they had to start hiring more people and the firm had gotten bigger and successful.
“You love hiking, nature in general and winter. We are both in love with theatre and on our first date you took me to a play.”
Rowan looked at her and that tug in his chest came back for a visit.
“We have been married for seven years and you proposed at my best friend’s wedding. We were dancing and you asked me what if we were the next ones to do that? Then you went on one knee and asked me to marry you.”
He kept listening, adding some more pieces of info to what he had gathered so far. And the more Aelin spoke the more that connection he had felt the day before grew stronger.
“What type of doctor are you?”
“I am the chief of paediatric neurosurgery and I work two floors above this.”
Rowan took a deep breath and asked a question that had been burning in him since she has appeared “do you have any photos of us, of the kids?”
Aelin felt like crying and extracted her mobile phone and scrolled through her huge quantity of photos “This is Thomas. He is three.”
Rowan looked at the boy and saw a blond mop of hair just as golden as his mother’s and two striking green eyes just like his. In the photo the boy was laughing while he held him in his arms.
Aelin swiped and the image of a little girl appeared and he gasped. There was no doubt that she was his daughter. Her hair was silver as his and even her eyes were the exact copy.
“She is so much like you.” He noticed the smile appearing on Aelin’s face. While she talked about their life her face had lit up and in front of him he had the most stunning woman he had ever seen. Probably. He wasn’t sure but Aelin took his breath away.
“Are we happy? As a family?”
Aelin nodded without even thinking about it. They were, she had no doubts about it “Yes. We wanted a family, kids. It was our choice.”
Rowan nodded and wanted to believe her, needed to believe the passion and the love in her voice.
“I need time.” He said quietly, averting his gaze from hers for just a brief moment “This is a lot that I need to process. I will need time but I want to hear more.”
Aelin sobbed and grabbed her backpack and extracted another mobile phone “this is yours. It survived the crash because you used a military grade protecting cover. I just charged it. The password is 0305.” She gave him the mobile “it has photos, texts. Everything is still there, maybe it will help.”
Aelin looked at her watch and stood “I have to go, I have a surgery in two hours.”
Rowan nodded.
“You can text me if you want. My contact is under Fireheart.”
He looked at the phone and then at her “will you come back?”
Aelin took a step toward him and kissed his silver hair as she did the previous day and then nodded.
She waved at him and disappeared through the door.
He moved his attention to the phone and tried to figure out how to switch it on. Once he did it asked him a pin code and he entered the digits she had told him.
Once the phone was unlocked he was welcomed by a picture of him, Aelin and the kids on a beach. He had Freyja on his shoulders and was laughing as she patted his head. Aelin was holding Thomas potato sack style and the boy was grinning. With his fingers he traced her face and then went looking for the photo album. Before opening he hesitated. His life, his memories were there and he was scared.
There were picture of his wife. Plenty of them and she always had an amazing smile. Of one thing he was sure:Aelin took his breath away.
Photos of their kids and he spotted one of what he suspected was a newborn Freyja. He held the little bundle in his arms while Thomas was at his side staring at his sister. He saw happiness, he saw joy, but most of all he saw love. Deep love that bound the four of them. Aelin had not lied. They seemed happy. He found photos of what he assumed were friends but he could not tell who they were, he hadn’t covered that part yet. Accepting the idea of a wife and kids was hard enough. He was not ready yet to add more people. The mere idea made him feel dizzy.
He was getting tired again even if it was only morning, but he pushed through and found the app with the text messages and went to look at the ones from Aelin and he read the last one she sent him go and win your case and then tonight I will show you how proud I am of my sexy lawyer.
He scrolled back through the thread and read random texts between them until he went back a few months and saw a text with a picture attached.
You are away for work and I miss you. I went for my first proper check-up and I am proud to share with you the picture of the new member of our family. The image was greyish and grainy but the message was clear: Aelin was pregnant again.
He placed the phone on his lap and closed his eyes calming the sense of panic overwhelm him.
And with his eyes closed he tried to remember.
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Under the Whispering Door by T.J Klune Book Review
ARC kindly provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
TW: Death (mentioned, never graphically shown), passing on, emotional abuse (mentioned), suicide (mentioned), death of parent/s (mentioned), brain damage
In The House In The Cerulean Sea, Seanan McGuire wrote "This book is very close to perfect."
If only they read Under the Whispering Door.
This book is faultless. I cannot flaw it at all. I cannot even put into words just how much I loved this world, the story, the characters and the thoughtful ways T.J Klune wrote about passing on. The story made me contemplate so many things pertaining to life and death, it also made me smile, laugh and at times, it even got my eyes filling up with tears from the sheer emotion riveting off the pages.
Under the Whispering Door follows Wallace Price, a cold hearted partner of a very successful law firm. He has the world in his hands until, one day, his heart gives up and he finds himself at his own funeral where he is told he is dead. He gets taken to Charon's Crossing, a stop-over for ghosts like him to pass over into the next stage of their life.
We quickly meet Hugo, Nelson, Apollo and Mei, all characters who, like Wallace, I didn't necessarily like at the start. But also, similarly to Wallace, I ended up loving them at the end. I believe my connection or relationship to the characters mirrored Wallace's which I think was intentional to show the subtle changes in how Wallace viewed the world and situation around him. I loved how it also was done in such an unnoticeable way that I didn't even know my perceptions of the characters were changing. That in itself is a testament to the calibre of T.J Klune's writing.
Wallace was my favourite character. His characterisation jumped off the page from the very start. He was unique and fun to read about even when he was alive and grouchy. Some of his dialogue got me laughing out loud especially during the funeral scene. Poor Wallace, it was unfortunate that only five people showed up for the ceremony.
Nelson became my second favourite character (although to be fair, he tied with Hugo, Mei, Apollo, Cameron and Desdemona). I found him annoying at first but he quickly grew on me with his practical jokes and how he got everyone fooled (me included) when he first met Wallace in Charon's Crossing. With Mei, I wasn't sure I'd like her that much but she also grew on me too especially with her death metal music that "was enough to raise the dead." I loved seeing her backstory and her off-page relationship with her mother. I felt empathetic towards her and I think that scene only made me love her badass character even more.
Hugo had a really sad backstory that made me cry at times. Especially with Lea and Nancy. I'll leave that area spoiler free but if you're not crying by the end of that passage, you haven't read the book right. Cameron, although appearing only briefly in the book, was responsible for one of the most powerful scenes in Under the Whispering Door, I teared up and I loved how Klune incorporated flashbacks into his narrative. I was so impressed with the ending of Cameron's arc and I was happy he got what he wanted in the end. I hope he found who he was looking for.
The other element I found interesting was the way the story was told in general. The book covered a lot of heavy themes such as death, dying and passing on but never was it dark or difficult to read about. It was told both in philosophical ways yet with a lightheartedness and humour that helped make this book a feel-good read. But death wasn't just what this book was about. It was about family, living and making use of the time you have left. Making sure that you lived a life worth dying for.
Under the Whispering Door is a book that is as close to perfection as you can get. It's one of my favourites–if not, my favourite read of 2021 so far and I would recommend it highly to everyone. If you've read The House In the Cerulean Sea and enjoyed it, I think you'll like this just as or even more.
(note: I recommend you read The House in the Cerulean Sea before reading Under the Whispering Door, there are some minor references to THITCS but I reckon you can still enjoy the book without reading it).
ACTUAL RATING: 5 STARS
#book review#book reviewer#books#bookstagram#bookstagrammer#booklr#young adult#ya#bts#bangtan#tj klune#under the whispering door#house in the cerulean sea#romance#ya romance#romance books#wallace price#hugo freeman#book aesthetic#book photography#arcs#netgalley#tor teen#tor books#miraculous#miraculous tales of lady bug and cat noir#spring day#tea#the simpsons
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A lot like ‘Us’ (Part-43)
Word count: 4.1K
Pairing: Sam X Reader AU
Warnings: Angst, mentions of PTSD, heartbreak, feels, fluff, spoiler warnings in the tags (it’s no biggie, but in case anyone wants to still check out ;))
Series Summary: Y/N Y/L/N is eager and honestly, still in awe that she managed to get herself an acceptance from Stanford Law School. On the face of it, her life seems as put together, mysterious and independent as one might hope for. On the insides, she carries the burden of past that haunts her till date. Seemingly, she’d left it all behind; that is until she sets foot in the class of the Law School’s youngest, most promising professor.
A/N: This is one of the most crucial chapters for this series. I hope you guys like it cause it’s definitely a favourite of mine :)
The story employs two different timelines. The present timeline for the story takes place in 2014. Please let me know what you guys think :)
Beta: @deanssweetheart23. Shout out to my best girl. I owe so much to you, Athina. You’re my sunflower <3
A lot like ‘Us’ masterlist
The crack in the ceiling was wider than you thought it would be, staring at you from up there, like a river and its rivulets, but disconnected from the source, dried up before reaching the sea that was its destination. Just aimlessly stuck in the middle.
There was an urgent knock on the door. Wiping your eyes, you called, “yeah.”
Madison poked her head through the door. “Can I come in?”
“Umm yeah, sure.”
You sat up in the bed.
Madison came to sit by you on the mattress. You didn’t look up at her, afraid she would see your swollen eyes.
“I know you don’t like to share your problems with anyone,” said Madison. “But I’m here. Just in case you want to talk about what’s hurting you. I haven’t seen you out and about in a while, Y/N.”
Her voice was gentle.
“I can’t tell you what’s wrong because I don’t know what it is myself.”
“Is it about Sam?”
“It is and it isn’t.” Choosing not to elaborate, you drew into yourself against the headrest. This wasn’t about Sam. This was about you being unable to understand your own damn mind and it was hurting Sam- so much. The muteness of his eyes was haunting you… and then there was Max- the sweetest little soul in this world. Every time you thought about him, you wanted to all but break down. What was wrong with you? Because something had to be wrong if you couldn’t accept that boy with all your heart.
You didn’t deserve to be a mother. This was why you could never be one.
“Come down for a bit,” said Madison, tone sympathetic. “All the guys are downstairs at Pam’s. She said something about ‘welcome to the apartment’ free pizza ritual.”
“You go on. I don’t feel like it.”
She looked like she wanted to insist, then decided against it. “If you change your mind, don’t forget your sweater. It’s a chilly evening.”
After Madison left, you couldn’t bear to lay in the bed. The crack in the ceiling was twisting your heart. Outside, the sky was darkening quickly, earlier than it should have.
Walking into the kitchen, you filled the coffee pot with water. Just as you were about to place it onto the machine, the doorbell rang. You knew in your gut who it was, just the way one knows what's coming when the sea starts to recede.
Sam looked distraught. Gone was the carefully concealed blank look from the day before. Today, he had abandoned all attempts to hide his emotions. He wasn’t dressed for work either. Just jeans and plaid, with a bunch of papers rolled in his hands.
Without a word you stepped aside to let him in. Sam sat down on the sofa, looking about himself as if hoping that someone or something would save him from what was about to happen. Again, you simply knew.
“I messed up bigtime, didn’t I?” You whispered, taking a seat opposite him.
Sam, who was decidedly staring at the floor, shook his head. “You didn’t mess up anything, Y/N. You-” His voice broke and he visibly made an effort to speak again. “You tried harder than anyone should’ve had to… and God, this is going to kill me.”
“What is…?”
Sam braced himself. “I love you, Y/N. You have to know that. I would gamble my life away without a second’s thought if it meant I could spend even some of it with you as truly yours. To have you in my arms and not think about whether it’s the right thing to do. But I can’t gamble away Max’s life like that. He’s suffered so much already. I can’t have him start believing with all his heart that you’ll be his mother only for you to compromise. Worse, if a few months down the line, you decide you don’t want to do this, he’ll be shattered. I can’t do that to my boy.”
A single tear rolled down your cheek.
“I know you love him. I’d have to be blind not to see that. But I don’t know if you can love him without a doubt in your mind. I don’t want you to have to adjust into a mother’s role for him, if you aren’t ready. I know you- the guilt of it won’t let you breathe. And asking you to do that just so I could live out my fantasy of a perfect family… won’t be fair to you or Max.”
He flattened the papers in his hand on the table before you. One word glared out of it, strong and bold- Divorce.
He took a ragged breath, then spoke in a fragile voice. “It’s still your decision to make- whether you want to sign these papers or not. If you do, we’ll walk out of your life this time. I haven’t committed beyond this semester to Stanford- another month. Take that time and decide what you really want.”
None of it was surprising you. Not his words, not his actions. Just like that tsunami, you had seen this coming the moment you didn’t respond to Max’s call. Still, the words weren’t sinking in. They were floating in the space between you and him.
“I promised to wait for you… I promised to give you all the time you needed,” he whispered. “That was a selfish promise. There’s nothing else for me now except that wait… but I can’t drag Max along.”
You mutely watched him draw out a pen from his pocket and start flipping through the pages, signing them as he went. The hard matt shadow of the pen scratched at the illusion like quality of the situation. The on and off gold glint pushed at the awareness further. You knew that pen. You knew that it was partly made up of obsidian and you knew the inscription on it- It’s not time to worry yet - Atticus Finch
Sam closed the papers shut and put the pen back in his pocket. You saw him swallow hard and raise one hand towards you in yearning, longing, before rigidly bringing it back to himself. He might have said something more, softly, eyes roving your face, but the words didn’t register, just the utter helplessness in his voice. With one last look, he got up from the chair and left.
The door banging on the frame made you flinch.
It’s not time to worry yet.
It’s not time to worry yet.
We’ll walk out of your life this time.
Drops were beginning to fall on the balcony outside, getting bigger, hitting faster, water dripping down on your carpet through the open window. You sat there, looking at the papers in front of you, not making a move to close the shutters.
The shrill ringing of your phone made you jump up once more. Mechanically, still in a daze, you answered the call.
“Hello. Is this Ms. Y/N Y/L/N?”
A pause.
“Hello?”
You answered. “Yes, speaking.”
The voice said, more relaxed. “I’m Melanie Hawthorn from Acton Griswold. This is regarding your application for the position of a paralegal at our firm. We are very pleased to offer you the said position. Please get in touch with the HR to set up a meeting to discuss the terms of employment. An email with the details is being sent to you shortly. Will you be able to provide me with a tentative date?”
“Ms. Y/L/N?”
“Uh… anytime this week is okay.”
“Thank you. We’ll be in touch.”
*Click*
It’s not time to worry yet.
We’ll walk out of your life this time.
Next second, you grabbed the papers on the table and then you were running, not caring that you were dressed only in your shorts and camisole, not caring that you were bare foot or that it was raining outside- only that with each passing second, Sam was walking away from you.
How many times had you done this to him? Ran away as he watched you go. Once? Twice? Thrice? And yet, here you were unable to bear a single step he took in the other direction. For once in your life you weren’t running away, you were running towards.
Taking the steps two at a time, you ran, almost tripping on the last one, as you passed the safety of the awning and into the thundering rain, your feet slipped on the shabby pavers of the meadow. From here, you could see Sam, slowly walking past the statue, his shoulders were slumped, feet dragging, soaked through and through.
Splashing water with each step, you closed the distance between the two of you. Sam turned around at the last minute. His face made you falter. That was the look of a man who was being burned alive at the stakes. He looked at you and broke down- not tears, but sobs wracking his body. Sam collapsed on the parapet of the statue. The only other time you had seen him lose it completely was in the hospital, telling his brother how he couldn’t face you and tell you that you could never be a mother again. Only you could bring him down on his knees like this- then and now.
Sam put his face in his hands, sobbing into them- lost and broken.
You stood over him, motionless.
“I know why you did it.” The words fell off your lips like cracks of thunder. Maybe low and muted, but with the same devastating power. “I know why you really drafted the papers.”
In your room upstairs, Sam’s defeated eyes had narrated a different story than his words. The words made sense, his reasoning perfectly logical- he wanted to protect his son from a woman who wouldn’t commit to being his mother. Except, you knew Sam. In the past few months, you had re-learned the workings of his soul. He would only pull something this drastic if he firmly believed it to be the only way to do right by both Max and you. No matter if it was at his own expense. The divorce papers weren’t an ultimatum, or a deadline as they appeared to be. They were Sam’s way of offering you an out from this situation with your dignity intact. He was shifting the blame of the failed marriage on himself, ready to face Max’s disappointment and anger, only so you wouldn’t have to live through the guilt of your choice.
Max would see it in black and white. His father had decided to divorce you, just like his father had forbidden him from seeing you after the play-date. Max would yell and curse and be livid, but just like before, he would accept Sam’s decision and eventually forgive him for it. But if Max found out that you were the one unwilling to become his mother, he might never forgive you. With his last act, Sam was sparing you the pain of betraying Max, the pain of seeing the accusal in his eyes. How much exactly did Sam love you? Because this amount of love was unfathomable. It should’ve destroyed his mind!
No one should have to make such a sheer sacrifice for being the good one. No one should have to suffer so much, so quietly. Especially not Sam.
“All these years that we’ve known each other, you’ve never let me thank you,” you said, only determination keeping your voice steady. “Not when you opened doors, or pulled chairs in restaurants, not when you held my hair as I threw up in the toilet at three in the morning because of sickness. You used to tell me we were married and it was your job to look after your wife. You said you weren’t doing me a favour and I stopped thanking you.”
Sam looked up finally, the rain making his tears invisible, but not his anguish.
“Then I saw you here… I can’t possibly tell you how it felt, seeing you in the class. Bumping into you in the corridor and knowing you still use the cologne I gifted, knowing you remembered the taste of my cookies. I was terrified of returning your coat back to you, scared that you’d outright banish me from your life. You brought me home when I was drunk, you pulled me out of the water when I could’ve died and held me through a night of torture. And you didn’t let me thank you for it. It wasn’t a favour, you said. It was your job.”
“But you did me one favour today, Sam Winchester,” you said, getting down on your knee on the coarse ground and holding up the drenched papers to him. “By giving me this, you did me the biggest favour of my life.”
Sam’s face was a mask of shock. You reached out and placed your hand against his cheek. “You showed me exactly what I stood to lose.”
The rain was falling mercilessly now, hitting your skin like shards, running down your bare arms in rivulets.
“Chirp wasn’t the name of our baby… it was the name we gave to our hopes and dreams of the future. I felt that dream die inside me, Sam. I felt him go… and I swear if it wasn’t for you, I would have died that day with him. And that fear… of ever feeling like that again, it kept me under for so long. I was barely there… you kept more of me alive than I did, myself, through that cologne, the pictures… that pen! And you gave me the biggest joy I’ve ever known- that little boy.”
Silent tears glided down Sam’s eyes, still indistinct in the rain. He looked so vulnerable, as if the smallest of winds could shatter him.
“I was scared that I might lose him, Sam. Just like… our first baby. I couldn’t save him, and if anything ever happened to…” you shook your head, refusing to complete that thought. “I would die. Not even you could bring me back then…” Taking in a deep breath you continued. “By handing me the divorce papers, you just reminded me that if you leave with him, I can never lay a claim on Max. I’ll lose him either way… I’ll lose my little Chirp all over again, and I can’t do that. He’s my boy.”
Taking his face in both your hands, you gave him a little shake. “Max is my boy, you understand? He’s my little Chirp.”
“You… You’ll come back?” Sam spoke at last. The disbelief in his voice was painful.
Letting go off his face, you grabbed the wet papers in both your hands and tore them into four pieces. “I’ve been thinking I was jinxed all these years. I was so convinced that I never let your love sway me. But now I can see it’s not true. Because no one who’s jinxed would find someone like you! And I found you twice. I don’t need a damn month to figure this out. I know what I want. I want you! I want us.”
He shook his head, refusing to believe. Afraid to hope again.
You grabbed his face, forced him to look at you again. “I just got a call that I’ve been hired at Acton Griswold. You know what’s the first thing I wanted to do? The only thing I wanted to do? Was to run to you! Just like seven years ago, barefoot in the rain. You make me feel eighteen again.”
You looked him deep in his anguished eyes. “I love you, Sam Winchester. I don’t know how you can’t see that. It’s in the whisper of my every breath, the subtext to my every word. And we… we’re still a lot like us, aren’t we? No, we’re better. We have Max now. We’re a family. Please… Please believe me.”
Sam slipped on the ground next you, on his knees and pulled you to him, crushing your lips against his. His strong arms corded against your back, slipping and sliding against the wet silk of your tank top. It had turned transparent, clinging to your body.
“I believe you,” he whispered desperately against your lips. “God, I believe you.”
You tangled your fingers in his wet hair, kissing him like your life depended on it, the worry, uncertainties, ebbing away from your body, a fierce, wild joy replacing it.
“Say it, say it again, please,” Sam begged in a coarse, broken voice, but it wasn't hopeless anymore. It was ringing with the same ferocity that you felt.
“I love you, Sam. I love you so much.”
He made an animalistic sound and grabbed you by the hips, pulling you impossibly close, his lips fast and urgent against yours.
Someone whistled loudly from behind.
Breaking off the kiss, you turned in the circle of Sam’s arms to see Kevin standing under the stilted awning of the building with a shit eating grin on his face. Others were slowly coming out from Pam’s apartment.
You ignored him, threw your arms around Sam once more and began kissing him. He didn’t let go of you either… not until a shiver ripped through your body. As the high of the adrenalin came down, you suddenly began to feel the cold. Sam tightened his grip on you.
“Oye! Get a room, you two!” Meg shouted. “C’mon, now! Keep it PG 13.”
“Don’t let go,” you pleaded.
“Not a chance,” said Sam. He put a hand under your knee and in one fluid motion hefted you into his arms, not breaking off the kiss.
More cat calls and hoots followed in the background. You could hear Jack howling with laughter, as Sam walked back towards the building carrying you.
“Oh, enough staring at those two,” Kevin said. “C’mon, get out there in the rain. You know the rules. Everyone who loses the bet has to get wet. That’s all of you bitches except Maddie and me. Out now!”
He’d won the bet after all.
Pam blew a raspberry at him and climbed down the steps just as Sam passed her.
“Ah, the sweet, sweet taste of vindication,” Kevin gloated.
“Ah, the acrid, acrid stench of snobbery,” Meg hissed, following Pam. “Don’t go back to the flat anytime soon, Maddie.”
You were hardly paying any attention, as Sam walked you up all the way to your flat. Once inside, you barely made it to the bathroom, before he had you pinned against the wall, lips still urgent, hands roving under your wet camisole. The sight of his closed eyes, the wetness of the rain and tears still clinging to his lashes was like a slow fire inside of you, burning low but not easing- the sweetest of torments. His fingers found the buckle of your bra and you felt him fumble with it, then hesitate.
You grabbed his hand behind your back and held it there. “Don’t stop. Please…”
“Y/N…” He groaned, the need acute to the point of a primal hunger in his eyes. You could see yourself in his lust-blown, dark irises- barely recognising that girl or the hoarseness of her voice as she begged. “Please.”
That was all Sam needed as he grabbed the edge of your top and tore it apart into shreds. At the same time you pushed back his shirt, and then tugged at the hem of his t-shirt, pulling it over his head. Sam didn’t waste another minute before pulling you back into a kiss. He tasted like the wildness of the rain and the bitterness of coffee.
You reached out behind you to unbuckle the bra and let it fall to the ground. Sam shuddered when you leaned into him next. skin touching to skin- wet and slick. “Y/N…”
He hoisted you on top of the bathroom counter. His hand slid down from your shoulders, over your breast, the thumb skating right across it and then further below into your shorts. You looked at him in the moment- a short second, an eternity- saying everything you ever wanted to without a word, listening to everything he wanted to say without a word.
“I need you…” you whispered, head rolling back, chest heaving with loud, ragged breaths, as his pants fell to the floor in a heap of wet denim. He hooked his thumb into the waistband of your shorts and underwear, and tugged them down your legs in one motion.
He put his forehead against yours, catching a breath, bracing himself. This was it. Moulding his lips against your, and biting down on the bottom lip, he pushed inside.
A whimper left your lips, the corners of your eyes starting to sting again. He was as essential to your existence as breath itself was to living.
It was hard and fast and desperate- your teeth scraping against his ears and jaw, fingers digging into his back, and biting his shoulders to muffle the screams. You didn’t say anything coherent except wanting him to go harder and faster… and being ecstatic when he did. You lost count of the number of times you called out his name- in yearning, in commands, in pleas and in prayers till you were both a tangle of bodies on the floor of the bathroom, coming down from the high together.
The rain splattered on the glass panes and you held on to him… letting go now would be a sin. You didn’t know how long you stayed there. Eventually Sam lifted you again, walking you into the shower. Still together, the shower barely lasted five minutes. Once on the bed, he would have let you rest, but you didn’t have it in you to be separated from him now. It would cause physical pain.
So, you drew him back upon yourself. This time it was slow… lazy, languid... relearning the patterns and shapes of each other. You memorised the exact curve of his lips, the hardness of his abs, running your fingers through the soft smattering of hair on his chest.
As for Sam? He was treating you like a mirage that could disappear any given instance now. It broke your heart that the slight wildness in his eyes wasn’t giving way to his usual calmth. The vulnerability of his every move made you want to weld yourself to him, body and soul, so he would never feel this way again- as if he was living on borrowed luck, that anytime now this could be snatched away from him.
You must have told him you loved him several times in the course of the hour, and yet, each time you said it, you felt his heart jump up in his chest under your fingers. Sam. Your Sam.
It must’ve been hours later, when you heard the main door of the flat open and close. Your room was submerged in darkness, neither of you willing to move away first.
With a sigh, you raised yourself on your elbow to turn on the light, it bathed Sam in a warm glow. Bending down, you kissed the tip of his pointed nose, and then his eyelids, one by one.
“Max?” You said.
Sam cleared his throat before speaking. “He’s staying over at Jody’s.”
You frowned.
“I wasn’t expecting to be in any shape to look after him tonight,” he explained. “It would’ve been me and a bottle of scotch. Couldn’t have him see that.”
You kissed the hollow under his neck this time. “Will you do something for me?”
“Anything,” he promised.
“Don’t tell Max. I want to be the one to tell him.”
His galaxy eyes melted. “Of course. Whatever you want.”
“So you can stay tonight?”
“If you want me to.”
It occurred to you that this wasn’t a one time thing. This was the rest of your life now. Sam was your husband. You had the right to keep him here with you for today and everyday. No more sneaking around, no more doubts. Just you, him and your little boy.
A surprised giggle bubbled up your lips and soon turned out into full laughter, tears rolling along the sides of your eyes.
“Something funny, Mrs. Winchester?” Sam asked, amused, his eyes soft.
You shook your head, burying your face in his chest. “Nothing. I love you.”
His heart skipped a beat again. You felt lips ghost over your hair.
“I love you, too, Darling. More than life.”
*****************************
A/N 2: Sometimes one hard push is necessary to make people realise just what they might lose out on. I’ve edited and re-edited this chapter so many times, I’ve lost the count. It was the make it or break it chapter. It had to be worth it.
Hope you guys liked it as much I do <3
Please do let me know if you liked this part. Reblogs and comments are very much appreciated.
Adding the Gif credit here cause it won’t let me link it before the cut
Only two more chapters to go! :’)
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#Sam winchester x reader#sam winchester fanfiction#sam winchester reader insert#sam x reader fluff#sam fluff#lawyer!sam#professor!sam#lawyer!sam x reader#professor!sam x reader#dad!sam#spn fanfiction#supernatural fanfiction#anawrites#anawritesspn#Ana writes ALLU#allu 43#spn smut#or at least as close as I'll ever get to it#q
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Welcome to my dorm Pt. 2
Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!Reader
Description: Spencer surprises you one weekend and you finally have your first date.
Warnings: Heated makeout/Implied sex, Mentions of kidnapping
Word Count: 3.5
Part 1 -- Part 3 -- Part 4
Ever since the BAU closed Hayley’s case both you and Spencer had been calling and texting non-stop. You, however, weren’t sure how to label your relationship with the genius. You couldn’t deny your feelings for him. The butterflies in your stomach whenever phone dings with a text from him. The smile ever so present on your face whenever you talked to him. The longing you felt whenever you hung up the phone and the worry that takes over your whole body when he is on a case. You hadn’t even had your first official date since he kept getting called away and you weren’t even completely sure that dating you was his intention.
It was one hundred percent his intention to date you. You hadn’t voiced your doubts to him but he senses your hesitance whenever you brought up the topic of him visiting. When the team arrived at Quantico after a hard case one late Friday evening, Hotch announced that they should all take the weekend off, and just make sure to have their consults done by Tuesday. Spencer was quick to pick up the files from his desk and shove them inside his worn out messenger bag. He muttered goodbye to his co-workers before speed walking to the elevator. He fumbled for his car keys and hurried out of the building toward his car. Once inside he didn’t even think about texting you before making the drive to your university because it had already been a month since you first met and he wanted to see you and make your relationship official. An hour and a half later he parked his car by your dorm, checking the time on his watch.
9:30
. . .
You were on your shift at the bar. It was packed as it always was on Friday night. You glanced around at the drunk college students and let out a small laugh. You stood in front of Haley who was at the bar for the first time since her kidnapping. You were strongly against her being here but according to her therapist she had to go back eventually to fully deal with what happened to her. You didn’t allow her to drink any alcohol though, and shooed anyone who tried to sit next to her. You were preparing the drinks for a group of law students who just failed an exam when you saw someone approach Haley. You quickly set their drinks on the counter with tight lipped smile and walked over to your friend, fully prepared to shoo the man away, however you weren’t expecting to see a certain curly haired FBI agent sit next to her. You hesitated before the biggest smile took over your face, you tried to ignore the butterflies going crazy in your stomach. You wanted to kiss him hug him but the counter between the both of you made that difficult. Haley tensed after sensing the presence next to her but after turning her head and seeing the face of the man who uncuffed her from the ceiling she instantly relaxed.
“Spencer.” You said at the same time Haley exclaimed, “Agent Reid.” Both greetings were equally surprised.
Spencer smiled at you and you thought you would melt that very second. Your brain caught up to the situation and you instantly turned your attention to Haley.
“You okay?” She knew what the question meant. Do you feel comfortable with him sitting there? You knew Spencer would understand and would gladly move to another seat but it wasn’t necessary as Haley gave a firm nod and then a verbal confirmation. Spencer eyed the interaction between the two before you noticed his confusion. “It’s her first time back here since...” you trailed of.
“Oh.” Spencer looked back to Haley who was in an intense staring contest with the counter top. “I’m sorry. I know I should have called but Hotch gave us the weekend off last minute and I knew if I didn’t take it, it would just be another month before I got to see you.”
You shook your head dismissing his apology. “It’s okay. My shift finishes at midnight though so you can wait it out and then I normally get some food and eat it back in my dorm so we can totally catch up there.”
“Perfect.”
“In the mean time can I offer you anything to drink?” You reached under the counter, grabbing a glass and waited for his order.
“Well I’m not on the clock anymore so just give me whatever you do best I guess.” You grinned and started to work on your specialty drink. After you were done you placed the drink in front of him and he took it with a smile. The rest of the evening consisted of you serving drinks and talking to both him and Haley whenever you weren’t being called or flirted with by drunk frat boys. When you were busy, you were quite surprised to find Haley and Spencer making easy conversation, at some point her asking him if he could walk her to the bathroom and wait outside the door for her. At the end of the night the two of you walked Haley home before making your way to a pizza parlor that is open 24 hours, ordering a large pepperoni pizza and drinks before walking back to your dorm.
Spencer held the food as you turned the key and pushed the door open. He kicked the door closed and set everything down on your desk.
“Do you mind if I change? I mean it really is nothing you haven’t seen before.” He snorted as he remembered meeting you for the first time. He nodded and you turned around quickly slipping your black t-shirt off and trading it for an oversized sweatshirt promoting your old high school. You slipped out of your dark jeans and pulled up a pair of loose sleep shorts. You turned back around to find Spencer looking anywhere but at you. “I’m decent Spencer you can look at me now.” He blushed a deep shade of pink and you let out a low laugh. You took of your contacts and slipped on your glasses. You sat on your bed and patted the space next to you. Spencer made his way over handing you a plate with a slice of pizza before sitting down.
You ate and talked until about three in the morning when you asked Spencer if he wanted to change.
“I mean I have my go-bag in the car but I was just planning on staying at a motel.”
You rolled your eyes. “Nonsense. It’s three a.m. Spencer you’re staying here, so go grab your bag so you can change.” After a few minutes of arguing back and forth, Spencer eventually agreed and went downstairs to his car. You started picking up the trash throwing the empty box of pizza on a trash bin at the end of the hall because you did not want your room to smell like pizza all night. By the time Spencer came back you were already sitting down on your bed with your laptop in front of you as you scrolled through your downloaded movies, ignoring the fact that you should probably go to sleep.
“Do I just change here?” Spencer questioned and avoided eye contact.
“Oh come on we’re both adults. Stop being so weird about it.” He laughed at your teasing and started unbuttoning his shirt. Instead of averting your gaze like he did when you changed, you couldn’t help but stare as his fingers worked down the buttons. He quickly put on an old Cal-Tech t-shirt over his chest, not giving you much time to appreciate him. You looked away when he started un doing his belt because you don’t think you could survive seeing him sliding his pants down his legs. He sat next to you after he was done and when you looked up to meet his eyes you were surprised to see thick frames placed lightly on his face. My god how is it possible for him to look even more attractive, you thought.
“You use contacts?” It was a statement more than a question.
“Yeah.” Your eyes stared into his and he let his gaze fall to your lips before he caught himself and cleared his throat. “So what are we watching?”
His stare made you nervous so you fixed your eyes to your computer screen and started talking. “I’m not sure. I mean I’ve watched all of these but quite frankly I’m not feeling any of them tonight. The reason I have them all downloaded is because they’re my favorites so it’s weird that I don’t want to watch them. I watch them all the time. Too much I think. They just put me in a better mood. But what do you want to watch because your opinion is just as important as mine and I don’t want you to think that we have to watch what I want. I can even download your favorite right now if you wa-“ your rambling was cut off by Spencer turning your head and pressing his lips against yours. You froze before you realized what was happening. You closed your eyes and returned the kiss, your hand going to his hair and his tightening his hold on your jaw. He pulled away and opened his mouth, no doubt wanting to say something, but you were quick to pull him back kissing him hungrily. One of his hands went to your waist pulling you into his lap so you were straddling him. When he pulled away a few seconds later you let him in order to catch your breath.
“Or we could just forget about the movie,” he breathed out.
“We can definitely do that.” You pulled him back into the kiss, reaching behind you to slap the laptop closed. Your hands returned to his hair and you gave it a light pull as you rolled your hips down against his. He let out a groan and responded by biting down on your lip. He flipped you over and hovered over you as he trailed wet kisses down your neck.
“So does this mean we’re officially dating?” You questioned as he sucked lightly on your collarbone.
“I sure hope so,” he answered with a smile.
. . .
The next morning found the both of you in your dorm room, the glow of the late morning sun lighting up the space. Spencer was sitting on your bed, going over the file that he had taken from the office to finish over the weekend with a cup of coffee in his hand. You were sitting at your desk, your own cup of coffee placed on the desktop with a pen in your hand and your text book in front of you. You scribbled notes on your notebook before turning the page. You were both working in silence, content in each other’s company, when you were interrupted buy a knock on the door. You stood up, quite obviously annoyed, and pushed your glasses up your nose. It was times like this when you hated being an RA because the kids on your floor expected you to solve every problem they had.
The person who knocked was a doe eyed freshman named Callie. The moment you opened the door Callie started talking about whatever she was complaning about on that particular morning.
“Y/n I think someone brought someone back to the dorms last night . Because I could hear moaning and i know it’s allowed but at the beginning of the year they said if we bring someone to be considerate of others and in my opinion it was definitely Crystal becau-“ she stopped talking when she noticed your wide eyes and red face and that is when she took the time to look you over. You were wearing Spencer’s Cal-Tech t-shirt and your shorts and there was a very obvious hickey on your neck. She looked over your shoulder and saw Spencer sitting on the bed, working shirtless with a pair of sweats hanging dangerously low on his hips. “Oh my god.” Callie looked like a deer caught in the headlights, you were pretty sure you looked the same. “I am so sorry. I’m just-- going to uh- go.” With that she took off toward her room, no doubt to tell her roommates what she had just witnessed. You closed the door and turned to look at Spencer, still processing what had just happened.
“They heard us.” Spencer couldn’t take it anymore and burst out laughing, as you looked and sounded absolutely mortified. “Stop! It’s not funny!”
He reached out and took hold of your arm, pulling you to him. “Come on it’s a little funny.”
“Maybe for you but I take care of these kids and they just heard their RA having sex.” Your back was against his bare chest and he traced patterns on your leg.
“Like you said last night. We’re both adults so we deal with this accordingly.” You could practically hear the smirk in his voice.
“Oh and what is that?” You turned your head to look at him. He gave you a cheeky smile.
“I sneak out and you pretend you don’t know what they’re talking about.” You started laughing and he placed a light kiss on your neck.
“Okay the situation is kinda funny.” He grinned against your neck and you turned in his lap,catching his lips with yours. You tasted the overly sweet coffee you both drank this morning and you couldn’t help but smile. Yeah, you thought, I can definitely get used to this. You pulled away from him and got up from the bed, his hands chasing after you, trying to pull you back. “I’m going to go shower and get ready. You finish your consult.”
“Yes ma’am.” You laughed at the small pout that adorned his beautiful face. You gathered your things but before you walked out of the room, you gave him a peck on the lips. The lovestruck smile on his face made your knees weak.
When you walked back inside after your shower, you found him sitting on your desk chair, already dressed and with the bed made. He stood up, took your hand and led you back out the door.
. . .
The two of you spent the day walking around town. You gave him a tour which basically consisted of you taking him to all of your favorite places. At some point you ended up at the local bowling alley. You pulled him in even though he protested the whole time that he wasn’t any good. When you made your way up to the counter, he scrunched his face up in disgust at the shoes placed in front of him. Since you were basically forcing him to play he made it clear that he was not going to wear the shoes they provided and he suggested that you do the same. He went off about all the germs accumulated and spraying them with disinfectant after every use wasn’t enough. He absolutely refused to even touch them. You reluctantly agreed with a roll of your eyes and both of you ended up playing in your socks which caused you to slip and fall more than once.
You quickly realized that Spencer was not joking when he said he was horrible at bowling. You were beating him by a fair amount of points since you spent most of your free time here with your friends, there weren’t really many places for young adults to hang out in. You suggested that he get the kids bumpers so his ball wouldn’t keep rolling off the side and he just mocked you before rolling his ball. It slipped off to the side and you just gave him a knowing look.
“Shut up.” He mumbled before sitting down.
“Isn’t there some sort of physics equation with momentum or something to get you the perfect shot?” You questioned. You slipped your fingers in the bowling ball, taking a deep breath before jogging up to the lane. Your right foot crossed behind your left ankle as you let go. The ball rolled in a perfectly straight line and knocked all the pins down. You turned around and raised your eyebrows at him.
He rolled his eyes at your obvious taunt. “Well there probably is.” He trailed off, his eyes glazing over. He started mumbling incoherently under his breath. He picked up the ball and took very measured steps before letting go. Unlike all the other times, his ball didn’t roll off to the side, instead it rolled in a perfectly straight line and knocked all the pins. Your eyes widened in shock, not having expected it to actually work, before you started cheering, jumping up and down. You rushed over to him and jumped into his open arms. He was smiling widely and a loud laugh left his lips. The other people in the bowling alley looked over to you, some jealous at the obvious chemistry between the two and others smiling fondly, memories of their own love stories coming to mind. You both knew you were making an unnecessary scene but you couldn’t care less. Spencer spun you around as you chanted “You did it!” over and over again.
Spencer was shocked at how happy he felt. He hadn’t felt this happy in a long time and he wasn’t expecting to feel this way with someone he only met a month ago. He was falling for you and he was falling fast. He can’t recall ever feeling this strongly for someone before. He never wanted to see you sad and every time you smiled he felt as if his heart was bursting open. In his line of work he is surrounded by the darkest aspects of humanity but when he is with you, all of that just seems to fade away and the only thing that mattered was the beautiful young woman standing in front of him, lighting up his world.
After a few more rounds you ended up winning, obviously, but you still felt like Spencer was the real winner. You suggested he invite his co-workers and beat them with his new fancy equation to hit the pins every time. He only laughed at that but you could tell that he was seriously considering it. You went to have lunch at a local diner before you took him to your favorite coffee shop. You remember him telling you in one of your phone calls how he never really liked iced coffee and you were determined to change that, since it was your favorite type of coffee. You ordered your usual and handed him his cup after they finished preparing it. He took one sip and his eyes widened.
“Wow!”
“I know!” He chucked at your excitement before taking your hand in his and walking out of the shop. You walked around for the rest of your day making casual conversation and sipping on your coffee. At some point his phone rang and he cursed. You frowned because he once told you that when his phone rang it normally always meant that he was getting called into work. You didn’t want him to get called in, as selfish as it sounded, you wanted him all to yourself. He reluctantly let go of your hand before answering the phone.
“Hey JJ are we getting called in?” Since you were standing so close to him you could faintly hear the woman’s voice on the other end.
“No, actually I was wondering if you could come and babysit Henry tonight. Will and I wanted to go out and I cannot find a babysitter on such short notice.” You could hear the desperation in “JJ’s” voice and you felt bad for her. She probably never got free time with who you assumed was her husband between work and her child.
“Actually I can’t tonight. I’m out of town.” He placed the arm holding the iced coffee around your shoulders and pulled you even closer.
“Oh.” JJ was surprised. You knew Spencer didn’t get out much, but you couldn’t help but find her unmasked shock amusing. “Did you go visit your mom?”
“No. Umm I came to visit a friend.” He squeezed your shoulder with his wrist. Probably to make sure you knew he didn’t consider you just a friend. “I’m sorry I can’t be of any more help. You know I love watching over Henry but maybe you could drop him off with Garcia.” You heard the woman hum in agreement at his suggestion before thanking Spencer and hanging up.
“Sorry that was my friend JJ. Henry’s my godson and I’m normally their go-to whenever they can’t find a babysitter.”
You shook your head, assuring him that he didn’t need to apologize. “It’s fine. I’m just glad you weren’t being called away.”
“Me too.” He turned your head and brought you into a deep kiss.
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the tape
tw: a sex tape is filmed and released without consent.
Damen didn’t expect to wake up on Wednesday morning to the headline: Famous Football Player Caught in Tantalising SEX SCANDAL, Scroll for Video — but, well. He sort of knew it was a possibility.
Julius had been a sweet little thing at Ernesta, the club Damen and his teammates frequented after a game or a training session or anything, really. Damen had caught sight of Julius’ blonde hair under the strobe lights, and had made his way over, tipsy and light, and just horny enough that he could last a full conversation with minimal wandering hands.
Julius had been a ‘huge fan’ and pretty enough that Damen neglected his one rule: which was to never hook up with fans. They’d made it to Damen’s penthouse within half an hour, and Julius must have set up his phone to record them when Damen went to the bathroom after the first round.
It had honestly been the most average sex of Damen’s life — which was the only reason why he had been upset that Julius had leaked the tape at all. Damen hadn’t even tried very hard to make Julius cum, and he’d still been mostly hard throughout it all, his own release unsatisfactory.
When he tried to explain this to Laurent later that day, during lunch at their favourite brunch place, Laurent’s face twitched. He looked furious, and then upset, and then both those expressions slowly absolved, until his expression was a flat, distant thing that unsettled Damen.
In fact, it unsettled Damen so much, he began talking, without quite meaning to, “I just wish he’d told me he was going to film a whole tape, you know? That way I could have busted better moves. Or, made suggestions with the lighting or something. Look here — my entire body is blurry, so it’s like, what’s the point? What the fuck are we supposed to be looking at?”
From his phone, Julius’ breathless voice panted, “Yes, harder, oh you’re so good for me.”
It wasn’t loud enough to be heard by the other patrons in the cafe, but Laurent put his knife and fork down and hissed, “Will. You. Put. That. Away.”
Damen did, swallowing. For the first time since he had read the article, seen the tape, and responded to the dozen or so text messages from friends about the tape, he felt embarrassment.
Laurent wasn’t looking at him anymore. His eyes slid away, to the busy road outside, his mouth turned.
Damen turned back to his food. Neither of them said anything else for the rest of their meal.
*
Damen genuinely didn’t mind the release of the tape. Julius had wanted his fifteen minutes of fame; Damen had wanted a lay — it was a win-win situation.
No one else cared too much about it either; his teammates made sly jokes about it in the locker room, Makedon slapped him on the back with a shake of his head, and even Kastor let it slide.
But there was one thing that did bother Damen — and it was that the love of his life, the man of his dreams, his soulmate, Laurent, was ignoring him.
Laurent had been downright hostile any time someone mentioned it; he’d eviscerated Nikandros verbally during dinner when Nikandros had made a joke about it, and he refused to look Damen in the eye.
That was the worst part, thought Damen. Laurent was now skittish around him, like the thought of being around Damen too much nauseated him.
He’d always known Laurent was reserved when it came to sex. He made jokes about it, talked about it as much as a healthy, twenty-seven-year-old man did, but it was never on a personal scale. When it came to Laurent’s own sex life, he was always tight lipped, even though sometimes Damen wanted to know, purely on a masochistic level. It honestly killed Damen when Laurent came in last summer to review his legal contract, briefcase in hand, and a bright red hickey on the white spot beneath his ear. It was the first time Damen had thought he might kill someone — rather violently, too.
So, that was one of the reasons Damen used to justify Laurent’s behaviour. He was probably embarrassed about seeing… so much of his best friend. Damen wouldn’t have minded seeing Laurent naked, but that was only because he had been in love with Laurent for the last four years now.
The second reason was that Laurent was so disgusted by Damen he didn’t want to be friends anymore.
Damen didn’t like thinking about the second reason — so he didn’t.
*
A week after the tape, Damen invited Laurent over to dinner, at his family home. Theomedes was obsessed with Laurent, which Damen understood wholeheartedly; he was constantly wondering why more people didn’t fall in love with Laurent three seconds into meeting him.
At first, it had seemed like Laurent might refuse. He was doing that a lot lately: skipping plans, cancelling so last-minute Damen couldn’t cajole him to reconsider, or in most cases, just flat out saying no.
It seemed like today, the latter would be the possibility, so Damen said, panicked, “Please. I’ll make your favourite dessert.”
Laurent perked a little at that. “Really?”
“Yes!” Damen said, perhaps a little too aggressively, but it had Laurent nodding, a quick, stilted movement.
Damen ruined the first three batches of chocolate mousse, but the fourth was decent, and the fifth was a bit better than that, so he went with it.
Laurent arrived at seven sharp, straight from work. He had his favourite suit on, the charcoal wool suit that made everyone realise that Laurent was about ninety percent leg, and he was wearing the bright, spotty tie Theomedes had gifted Laurent about three Christmases ago.
He was so beautiful, Damen’s chest hurt. “Hi,” he said breathlessly, unexpectedly shy.
Laurent’s gaze was unimpressed. His mouth did something strange; it compressed in on itself, until it sat in a straight line, and his eyes hovered over Damen’s shoulder.
“You have something on your face,” he said.
Damen tried a smile. “Well, get it off for me then, sweetheart.”
He leant forward, very desperate suddenly for Laurent's touch, which in the past, Laurent had been very generous about.
Laurent shoved the wine bottle he was holding into Damen’s stomach. Damen stepped back with a surprised oof, fumbling to catch it, and Laurent made his way past him, into the kitchen to talk to Theomedes.
Damen stared after him, at a complete loss.
He sulked in the bathroom for a while, and only came out when he was sure he could no longer avoid his father’s calls anymore.
Laurent wasn’t looking at him when Damen returned, but he didn’t shuffle away as Damen took his usual seat beside him.
Dinner was so pleasant, Damen almost forgot about how strange Laurent had been acting. Even Laurent had loosened, and he gave his first proper smile to Damen in a whole week when he tasted the mousse. It was a small smile, but Damen was going to remember it for the rest of his life, since they were so rare now, apparently.
Of course, just as Laurent had completely relaxed, Theomedes said, “Do you think we’d have a case if Damen were to sue the tabloids and the man in the tape?”
Laurent stiffened so much it was like he’d been propped up by invisible string. His shoulders tensed and pulled back, and his back was so straight Damen was sure he could run a smooth line down it.
Haltingly, Laurent said, “I — don’t. I’m not quite sure.”
“Why not?” Theomedes said.
Damen said, “Dad. I’m not going to sue. He was just a dumb kid.”
Laurent seemed to stiffen further at that.
Theomedes frowned. “But surely —”
“I’ll ask someone at the firm for you, sir,” Laurent said, in a polite, contrite tone that wasn’t like him at all. “I only deal with sports law so I — I’d have to ask.”
That settled Theomedes. Damen relaxed a little too, until Laurent pushed away his dessert, despite having more than half of it left.
It was such a depressing thing to see, Damen couldn’t finish the rest of his either.
*
With how jumpy Laurent was, Damen expected him to leave straight after their plates were cleared, but Laurent lingered, drinking his wine, and talking to Theomedes about the Lions chances of winning this season.
Damen barely listened. He was upset, and his stomach had been rolling tumultuously for the last hour.
He excused himself to his bedroom and sat on his small, single bed for a few moments, feeling sorry for himself.
When that didn’t make him feel better, Damen went to his desk and pulled out a well-read book. Book was perhaps an overstatement; it was a small collection of poetry Laurent had written for him a year after they met. He had handed it to Damen after his birthday party, when everyone had left, and they could have some privacy.
“You don’t have to read it,” Laurent had said, bashful, when Damen had paused in stunned silence. That was when Damen knew — and over the years that feeling had only solidified.
The binding hadn’t been the best, so Damen had rebound it himself. Along the way he’d marked a lot of the poems too. The love poems were a source of both serenity and torture, since Damen daydreamed that Laurent had written about making love in moonlit sheets about him, but.
He was surprised when there was a hesitant knock on his door. Laurent peeked his head through, and then he was stepping inside, wine glass topped up and his tie loosened.
Damen’s heart lurched.
“What are you doing?” Laurent asked, and the wine must have made him forget that he was mad at Damen, because he sounded curious, joyful.
Damen gestured to the curling cover of Laurent’s book. Laurent flushed heavily, the colour vining his cheeks and neck and ears.
“You kept that?”
“Of course I did,” Damen said, affronted.
“They’re terrible,” Laurent said, shaking his head, still red. “I don’t think I’ve even read enough poetry to justify writing so many.”
“They’re wonderful. See.” Damen flicked through the pages and showed Laurent all his markings, scribbling along the columns of Laurent’s poetry.
Laurent watched with hungry eyes. But he said, “Oh, Damen,” with so much sadness, Damen went, instinctively, to touch his shoulder.
“Hey,” he said, unsure.
Laurent stepped away from his grip, but he sat on the edge of the bed, facing Damen.
“What is it?” Damen asked, because Laurent’s face was pale, haunted.
“Nothing,” Laurent said, attempting a small smile.
Damen tried to return it but couldn’t.
They sat in awkward silence for a while — which was foreign, between them. Damen talked enough for four people at a time, and Laurent, though he said otherwise, liked that.
Eventually, Damen said, “You’re coming to Nikandros’ party on Saturday, yeah?”
“Oh,” Laurent said, surprised. He blinked. “This Saturday?”
“Yeah,” Damen said, his stomach knotting when he realised Laurent was most probably going to say no.
It was worse than that. “Ah, shit, I’d completely forgotten…” Laurent trailed off. “I didn’t realise when I — I have plans.”
“What plans?” Damen frowned, because Laurent had approximately three friends, including him, and they were all going to Nikandros’.
Laurent flushed again, a finger tracing the rim of his glass. “Armand from work — do you remember? I mentioned him a few times at — anyway. He. He asked me on a date and I said yes.”
“Oh,” Damen said, so flatly he didn’t think he had even made it sound like a word.
“Yes,” Laurent said, flushing even more, not looking at Damen’s eyes. “We’re going to Charls. You’ve been there, haven’t you? Is it any good?”
“Hmm,” said Damen.
“Oh,” said Laurent, awkwardly. “That’s good.”
He left ten minutes after that. Damen smashed a penholder.
*
The days leading up to Nikandros’ party were the worst of Damen’s life. It wasn’t as though Laurent hadn’t dated anyone for the last few years, but the fact that he was going on a date with Armand, rich, successful, handsome Armand, who cracked dry jokes and said things like, My supervisor would kill me if I said this but did you know… He was just so boring. Laurent could do way better.
Nikandros’ party was, thankfully, a wonderful distraction. It was as raucous as ever, and the cacophony of noises prevented Damen from thinking too much. Damen drank, he danced, and he thought of flirting with Naos’ sister, but decided against it.
He was on the alfresco, smoking, trying to ignore the couple in the corner who were three seconds away from having sex, when Laurent opened the sliding doors.
Damen was so surprised, he almost dropped his cigarette. Then he tried not to get his hopes up. He was either so drunk he was hallucinating, even though it had never happened before, or Laurent had ditched Charls to bring himself and Armand here.
Laurent was drunk, or at least getting there. When he saw Damen, he smiled wide, his teeth showing.
Damen swallowed, eyes following Laurent as he made his way over. Laurent surprised him even more; he sat close to Damen, until their thighs touched and rested his head on Damen’s shoulder.
“Hey,” said Damen, his heart racing, confused and hopeful all at once.
Laurent propped his chin on Damen’s shoulder. “Hello,” he said softly.
Damen’s mouth was dry. Laurent plucked Damen’s cigarette from his fingers and placed it in his own mouth.
Damen asked, “Armand?”
Laurent exhaled. “He was a dick. And not in the nice, sexy way.”
“There’s a nice, sexy way?” Damen said, amused and relieved.
“There can be,” Laurent said, handing the cigarette back to Damen.
They shared Damen’s cigarette for a while, fingers brushing up against each other. Laurent was still on his shoulder, and this was so achingly familiar, Damen had been afraid he’d lost it forever.
A few moments later, Damen asked, “Was he a jerk to you, Laurent?”
“Not really,” Laurent said.
“Good,” said Damen.
Laurent propped his chin on Damen’s shoulder again. “What would you do if I said yes?”
Damen said, too seriously, “I’d kill him.”
Laurent’s breath caught. His eyes searched Damen’s face, and Damen tried valiantly to keep his expression as neutral as he could.
Laurent pulled back. His eyes flickered to the ground, then to Damen, and then away. “I should probably go. I have a huge headache.”
“Okay,” said Damen.
Laurent squeezed his hand quickly, then dropped it. He made to leave the alfresco, his movements unhurried, a little disjointed.
At the doors, he paused. Damen saw him hesitate, and then Laurent turned around and asked, “Are you free tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” said Damen, even though he had promised Kastor they’d have lunch together.
Laurent nodded. “Good. Come over for dinner. I’ll make lasagna.”
“Sure,” said Damen, now smiling so wide his cheeks hurt.
Laurent smiled too. “See you,” he said, before he stepped through the doors, into the crowd.
Damen watched him go, his heart settled and his smile only widening.
#captive prince#damen x laurent#im very sorry anon i know this is MONTHS late#and i barely mentioned their careers lol#thank you for reading anyway!!#my writing#my fic
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Going Back the Way We’ve Come
World: modern au, lawyers au
Ship: Zoyalai
Word Count: 7785
AO3
Zoya set her briefcase on her desk, taking a moment to remove her coat and glance at the paperwork that’s been left there by her secretary, Genya, before speaking.
"The sign outside says Zoya Nazyalensky, so unless you’re my long lost twin, I suggest you leave," she said, investigating a folder that had been tossed onto her desk. Zoya picked it up, paging through it for a moment.
"Would you really let a long lost twin into your office, Nazyalensky?" Lantsov’s irritatingly smooth voice responded. Zoya lowered the folder enough to glare at him.
"No, but if you were, I would have liked to see you in my office. Gauge the competition."
Lantsov’s brows went up in easy surprise, but he made no move to leave, one leg thrown over the other, as if more comfortable here on her couch than anywhere else. And now she was left wondering why Genya let him into her office at all, when she was usually so careful about who goes in and out. Perhaps she thought Zoya might have grown tolerant of her insufferable co-worker.
Saints, was she wrong.
"So, what is it you want?" she asked, dropping the folder onto her desk and making a mental note to remind Genya not to accept cases without her explicit approval.
"Just the pleasure of being greeted with your scowl at 7 am" he cocked his head at her, a grin spreading over his face. "That’s the one!"
Zoya rolled her eyes, "you’re here to waste my time then? Lantsov, some of us have actual work to attend to."
He snorted, "the Sobol case? Please, if you needed time to solve that one you wouldn’t be at this firm."
Zoya crossed her arms, leaning back against her desk so he could feel the full force of her glare, "how do you know about that one?"
She’d only just gone through the file herself, and Lantsov can’t have arrived more than five minutes ago.
He glanced at his watch once before standing up and straightening the jacket of his suit, that ever-present grin still on his face, "because I’m the one who rejected it."
Great. Now she was getting Lantsov’s reject cases? This would not do at all.
"And you came to boast about a much better one, I take it?" she tried not to sound too resentful.
"There’s always something to boast about—in this case, the pool going about which of us will make senior partner."
This caught Zoya’s attention, and she straightened, her eyes going wide. She had suspected for some time that a senior partner would be chosen soon. She hadn't expected to have any competition, though. But it seemed he’d only come to drop a bomb and see how she responded to it, because his hazel eyes swept her with a calculated look, turned almost amused.
Zoya had wanted this position ever since she’d come to the firm—because it meant she wasn’t a replaceable part in the firm. It confirmed that she was the greatest. Nikolai Lantsov would not be the one to take that from her.
"how do you even hear about these things?" she asked, narrowing her eyes at him.
"I have my ways," Lantsov said with a shrug, glancing again at his watch again before starting towards the door. She had wanted him gone since he'd appeared but now she wanted to smack him for leaving without giving her more details.
He paused at the door, turning to give her another self-assured grin, his words punctuated with a wink, "It’ll be a pleasure to beat you again, Nazyalensky."
His head disappeared seconds before the briefcase hit the office door.
Here’s how Zoya remembers it.
She had just been hired as an associate to the firm, fresh out of law school—first in her year, naturally. Juris had been her mentor, had been the one to shape her into who she was now, the greatest lawyer in the country.
That is, until the young attorney from the Lantsov firm was the opposing counsel during her very first case—and her first loss.
The one thing Juris was sure to remind Zoya of was this: never underestimate your opponent.
But once she’d discovered that her first case would be against Nikolai Lantsov, ivy league graduate, and spoiled rich boy working for his dad, Zoya hadn’t let the possibility of loss even cross her mind.
Which had been her first mistake.
Her second, the one she would spend so long regretting, was thinking that justice was ever served in the courtroom.
Her client had been innocent, which somehow hurt even more than Zoya’s pride when the evidence started stacking up against her. But Nikolai Lantsov had arrived ten minutes late and wooed both judge and jury to his favor even before he began presenting his evidence.
Which had also been the first time Zoya had witnessed his shift. It was the moment those sparkly eyes turned from arrogant to clever. He had called on his witnesses. And then on her’s. And then on her client. And then he’d grilled each of them until he twisted a new, elaborate story into their view.
And by the time it was Zoya’s turn to defend her client, their minds had been made. She had lost before she had the chance to even begin.
To make matters worse, once the gavel had banged, sentencing her client to eight years in prison, Nikolai Lantsov had strolled up to stand beside a struck Zoya, eyes gleaming with amusement.
"Am I your first?" he almost sounded excited, "You never forget your first."
He would have been right, even if she had never had the misfortune of seeing him again. But three months later, a new attorney had transferred to their firm, and the second Zoya had met those hazel eyes again, she knew she would spend every moment of her life making up for that loss.
"Why was this on my desk?"
Zoya dropped the stack of folders onto Genya’s desk, right on top of her phone, which was open on a video call to what appeared to be a mess of brown hair with glasses just visible underneath. David.
Genya sighed dramatically, fluttering her lashes at Zoya prettily, "I know you aren’t the smart one around, Zo, but use context clues."
"No, why are there eight cases I know even you could win on my desk, Genya." she replied, folding her arms and glaring at the red-head, who was now busy digging out her phone from beneath the piles of paper. Then something occurred to Zoya, "wait, is this because of the pool? Are you trying to up my wins with kiddy cases so I’ll get it?"
Genya dropped her phone, eyes going wide, "you know about that?"
"About the pool? Of course, I do, Lantsov told me."
"He… he just told you?" Genya’s penciled brows drew together in either shock or surprise, or some mix of the two.
Zoya quirked a brow, "don’t change the topic, Safin. Get me some real cases and stop letting Lantsov into my office."
Genya blinked twice before plastering on a smile, "of course, Your Highness."
Zoya didn’t miss the few choice words muttered to David as she walked away.
The only issue Zoya had with clients was that they were a nuisance.
But then so was half of humanity, and at least these paid her for her wasted time.
In this case, though, she just wished they would arrive at the set time. Zoya had been waiting at the cafe for nearly an hour, a now-empty cup of coffee in hand. She clicked her phone on to check the time. An hour and ten minutes.
Maybe I’ll just put him out of his misery and let him join his dead wife, she considered. Zoya thought she would make an excellent criminal—she, at least, would never get caught.
"Shall we order?"
Zoya’s gaze snapped up and met a pair of hazel eyes. The Saints had chosen hell for her today, she knew, as he settled in the chair across from her.
"Lantsov, disappear, I’m working," she said, picking up her phone and making a good show of being very, very busy. She could feel his calculating gaze on her but refused to acknowledge it. She texted Genya.
Z: who’s winning?
G: me, at any given point.
G: but if you mean the pool, it’s even.
Z: hm. who’s your money on?
G: technically both ;)
Z: I’m your boss, Safin
G: wtvr. give Nikolai a kiss for me ( ˘ ³˘)♥
Zoya rolled her eyes. Genya could be nearly as insufferable as Lantsov on some days. Lantsov, who currently had his head propped up on his hands, pouting in her direction. Zoya huffed—did he even realize how messy he looked then? His golden hair looked like he’d run a hand through it a dozen or so times that morning, and he was in a blue short-sleeve button-down and jeans. It occurred to Zoya that she’d never actually seen Nikolai outside of work. Never in anything less than a twelve hundred dollar suit. He looked good.
"Who’s making the great Zoya Nazyalensky blush?" came his teasing voice, intruding on her thoughts. Was it her imagination or was there an edge to even his casual tone?
She shook her head, setting aside her phone and forcing all thoughts of messy golden hair out of her head.
"None of your business," she snapped, "and you need to leave before my client shows up."
"Why’s that?" he asked, cocking his head to the side like a lost puppy.
"Because I need plausible deniability when I strangle him for being this late."
He surprised her with a hearty laugh. Then he was sitting upright, leaning across the table as if to whisper a grave secret, "well isn’t it great that you could have me as your defense attorney?"
Zoya almost smiled, but the words tugged at something in her memory, making something in her chest tighten. "Who else would defend a guilty person with such conviction?"
Nikolai looked taken aback, a flash of hurt crossing his features, but Zoya had already stood up, making up her mind to leave and grabbing her briefcase.
"I have things to do," she said, not glancing at him as she plucked her phone from the table and turned to leave. She knew without looking back that he hadn’t moved long after she’d left him.
Back at the firm, Zoya made everyone aware of her presence with the rhythmic clicking of her heels. Mainly Genya, as she stopped in front of her desk, located just beside Zoya’s enclosed office, and dropped a few forms in front of her.
"Fill those out for me, and call back Antonov- since he didn’t bother to show up today, I’ll be working late. Which means you’ll be working late. And find me some coffee before I end up on trial for murdering someone in this building."
Genya glanced at the forms in front of her, toying with a strand of hair, "oh, he called and rescheduled for tomorrow. Said he had some business to attend to."
Zoya had reached her office door and paused in front of it, turning to glare fully at Genya, "and you didn’t think to mention that?"
She shrugged innocently, "slipped my mind."
"Two coffees, Safin." she managed to grind out, "and quit telling Lantsov where to find me."
She ignored Genya’s protest, marching into her office with even more anger on her mind than there was before. Zoya tossed aside her belongings, slumping onto the couch across her desk.
She had less than two weeks to prove herself worthy to become senior partner, or Nikolai Lantsov would become her boss. Somehow even losing to him hadn’t felt as horrible as the idea of working for him. Worse than that, she knew he was a good attorney. She’d attended dozens of his court cases, hidden in the back rows, as well as spoken to old clients. And he had already had that position at his old firm, the same one he’d left to work here instead only three years prior.
Zoya wanted to believe she was the only one for the role, but Lantsov was a competition like nothing she'd dealt with before. The single person she couldn’t decide how to feel about until today.
You never forget your first.
Saints, he was right.
By the time the words on her screen began to blur together, it was past midnight, and Zoya was still inside her office, still trying to scrape together a good defense for a client that couldn't even provide decent evidence. She sighed, tearing off her glasses and rubbing at her tired eyes.
Saints, when had she last slept a full night?
Coffee. I need coffee.
There was probably some at the cafeteria, she considered, ready to call out for Genya. But through the glass walls of her office, she could see the dark corridor, and Genya's empty seat. She'd forgotten that she'd sent Safin home early.
Zoya sighed, forcing her legs to stand. She slipped on an extra pair of sneakers she kept in her office rather than her heels. It was far too late for that, and besides, no one would be around to hear her.
The cafeteria was just down the hall to the left, and Zoya was almost never there. She preferred having her food in her office, or going out to eat. And Genya provided everything else. She really deserves a raise , Zoya considered, making her way down the dark hall.
The lights were dim and Zoya didn't bother turning them on, making out the vague shape of the cabinets and a refrigerator, the coffee machine was located just beside the old microwave that had been there since she'd first come to the firm. Someone must have made coffee hours ago, the machine was half full and the glass was cool to the touch. Zoya sighed, feeling for a mug and pouring it inside, too tired to make more.
She sipped at her cold coffee, which did little to prevent her eyes from dragging downward, her mind from straying.
Right now, she needed to find at least two witnesses that would be willing to account for her client. Only, Antonov had not exactly been well-liked, and his pitiful relationship with his wife seemed to be common knowledge. While hate can't by any means be considered proof of his guilt in her murder, it certainly made for good motive.
Especially if somebody needed him out of the scene .
A sudden crash sounded, almost making Zoya drop her mug, heart pounding in her chest. She frowned, setting it down and slowly walking closer to the source. But the halls were empty, and what little she could see was just a bunch of abandoned cubicles where the associates worked. The only other office on this floor was…
She crossed the hall, turning right just as another crash sounded, this time shattering into a million little pieces.
With Nikolai Lantsov standing over them.
Zoya watched for a moment as he pressed his hands together around his nose, shut his eyes tight.
Saints .
His office was a mess. His normally disorganized desk had been sweeped clear, all the junk he kept there now littering the floor around him. Papers and files, an open briefcase, a broken vase all around him. She watched him run a hand through his hair in frustration, his shoulders heaving with nearly palpable rage.
And she'd forgotten glass walls worked both ways.
He froze when he first caught sight of her, but Zoya must've had on a similarly shocked expression as well. For a second neither of them moved, and then she crossed the hall to his office and opened the door, not sure what she was doing there, but certain that he should not be left alone right now.
The mess was far worse up close, and Nikolai Lantsov seemed to be the worst of it. His normally perfect attire was torn, his shirt wrinkled and the buttons only half done. His tie seemed to have suffered the fit of anger, now left abandoned on the ground. And the source of the first crash appeared to be his shoe, since only one currently covered his foot, the other lost somewhere in the mess.
He swallowed, his throat bobbing, "I thought everyone had left."
Zoya raised both brows at him, "so you thought you'd ransack your own office? Just for sport?"
Nikolai sighed, his eyes taking in the room for the first time. " Saints ," he breathed, but made no move to pick anything up.
Zoya shrugged, turning to dust some glass off the very nice set of couches in his office and taking a seat.
"I'm not here to help you clean," she informed him.
The ghost of his usual smile twitched at his lips, "no? Then why are you here?"
Zoya paused, not quite sure how to respond. Because you're supposed to be perfect. Because if you aren't then what on earth am I?
She shrugged, "just be glad for the company, Lantsov."
He nodded, allowing it, and then chose to sit on the single couch beside her, not bothering to check for any shards before slumping into it.
She watched perfect Nikolai Lantsov, son of Alexander Lantsov, golden boy, mock trial champion, and ivy league graduate completely fall apart. And somehow she got no relief from it. Somehow, it didn't make her feel any better than before.
"So, who's winning?" She asked. His eyes snapped to her, wide and haunted. There were dark smudges under his eyes that she hadn't noticed that morning.
"What?" He managed, still looking shaken.
"Senior partner. Any news on that? I'm guessing everyone is betting on you, since you're the office favorite." She said. He looked tired. Lost. But they weren't even friends, barely co-workers that couldn't stand to be around each other. Surely he didn't want to discuss whatever this was with her .
So why did she want him to?
Realization dawned on him and a wave of something akin to guilt washed over his features.
"Oh, Nazyalensky." He muttered, shaking his head. He didn't elaborate further.
Zoya was not going to ask. They didn't ask each other these things. She didn't ask who he'd gone out with or why he'd left his father's firm. He didn't ask about where she'd come from or why she never went home in the summer. Asking wasn't their thing.
And yet. "Any particular reason you took it out on the office?"
Nikolai slumped further into his chair, his messy golden hair catching the dim light of his office, making his features seem almost ghostly. She'd never seen him like this, and it was partly scary, but also partly relieving. As though this were some revelation that he was, in fact, human.
"I won't tell you it's going to be okay, Lantsov. I'm a criminal attorney, I've seen the shit this world pulls people through. I've seen how many don't make it out. But right now, I'm here, so you can either wallow alone in your misery, or be glad of the fact that I bothered to ask to begin with."
He blinked at her with some surprise, and then huffed a laugh. "Alright then," he said, nodding to himself, "I just found out my father's going on trial. And I've been tasked to be the attorney against him."
Whatever sharp words Zoya had been preparing abandoned her in an instant. She frowned, "I wasn't aware you were a big fan of the guy."
Nikolai laughed, "no, but I'm not exactly thrilled to be the one to try and put him behind bars. Especially not if he has Vasya represent him— the man can't work his way around a car, but he's a snake in court. I'm not even sure I can win a case like this, even if my clients are the victims."
Zoya nodded, her mind trying to make connections. She'd heard of the case against the Lantsov firm, women stepping forward about sexual harassment in the workplace. She hadn't realized who it was, or how Nikolai would somehow be dragged into it.
"You're an idiot, you know." She informed him.
Nikolai blanched, looking at her with confusion. Zoya gave him a one-shouldered shrug, "you're the best attorney here, Lantsov, as much as I hate to admit it. You've beaten me , and I thought I was the best. So quit worrying about your own competence and concern yourself with how awkward Christmas is going to be from now on."
He laughed with surprise, his hazel eyes almost returning to their normal gleam.
"Nazyalensky, I-"
"No, those were not compliments. You're the best until I make senior partner or you somehow become unlucky enough to oppose me in court again, which I doubt will happen in the near future. I haven't lost a single case in the full five years I've been practicing," she caught his gaze and leaned forward so her last words were very clear. "And that record won't change."
Nikolai considered her, his eyes flicking over her face. She wasn't sure when the space between them had become so little, just that they were closer now. Just that her heart was beating faster now.
"Well," he said softly, close enough that his words brushed against her cheek, making her lashes flutter, "imagine how it feels knowing I was the only one to beat you."
She let her lips curve into a smirk, and whispered, "don’t get used to it."
Then she was standing, forcing her gaze away from him and marching out of the office. It was probably time to go home by then, but with the way her heart was beating and the heat in her cheeks, the only thing Zoya wanted to do was keep her mind off of Lantsov, and on anything else.
Witnesses were a pain in the ass. They were all so saint-forsaken weak when it came to testifying. She saw the way Nikolai dealt with them, the one time they’d had to work together for a case. He played every part they needed— flirtatious attorney, gentle soul, rich golfing guy, drinks-on-me, and somehow they all worked.
Zoya had exactly one method of dealing with people in general: scaring the shit out of them.
And that worked, too.
"That’s the court date. I will see you on that day, won’t I Mrs. Krupin? Without a subpoena order this time."
The woman bobbed her head in understanding, and Zoya tried not to roll her eyes until she had turned around fully and began walking away. She needed this case out of the way so she could sleep. Or focus on other things.
Like last night. Like Nikolai Lantsov.
She shoved aside the thought, but her steps had barely gotten her out of the park when her phone rang. Of all the people…
"Make it quick, make it short." she answered swiftly.
"That’s no way to speak to your favorite co-worker," said Nikolai on the other end, but even she could tell his humor was strained.
"Oh, sorry Alina I didn’t realize this was you,"
"Very funny," said Nikolai dryly. "Listen, would you mind meeting me real quick? I could use some advice about yesterday's dilemma."
Zoya stopped walking, figuring a taxi wasn’t worth hailing if she was just going to turn back to the firm. She sighed, "and why would I choose to help you instead of take a well-deserved nap?"
"Coffee on me?"
Zoya considered this. "And cake."
She could practically hear his smile, "and cake."
"What do you mean Friday?" Zoya nearly dropped her cup in surprise.
Nikolai winced, "I may have let this gather dust on my desk for a few weeks when I saw my father’s name on it. I had no idea what the file actually contained."
Zoya stared at him, trying to figure out how someone so well put together could also be so stupid. And have such stupidly nice hair.
"I’m going to try very hard not to strangle you right now, Lantsov." she said, shaking her head.
Nikolai pushed the plate with a slice of half-eaten chocolate cake towards her with a grin, "that’s what the cake is for."
She sighed, dipping her fork back for another bite. He was very lucky this place made the best cake.
"Okay, well give me some good news. Have you talked to anyone from the firm yet?" she asked.
Nikolai sighed, leaning back in his chair and making a good show of appearing very comfortable, and totally at ease. "I can’t do that."
Zoya froze, "you can’t what?"
"I can’t go to the office—legally, I can’t even step foot inside."
Zoya watched him, searching for signs to discredit this fact. But Nikolai was a perfect actor, she’d discovered as much on their very first trial. He could be completely terrified and still smile and crack a joke.
Not last night. Not with me.
"What about the people? Have Isaak find you their numbers, maybe if you ask them to meet you—"
"I tried that," said Nikolai, "and that led to a much bigger problem."
"Which is?" Zoya was almost afraid to ask.
"None of them want to testify. They’re willing to give anonymous statements, but that’s as far as they can be pushed." he sighed, a crease forming between his brows. "They’re scared of him, Zoya, far too scared to actually do anything. And anyone who wasn’t directly harmed by the man is too afraid of losing their jobs to say anything helpful. In every way, it’s a losing case, and it’ll be on my head."
Zoya tapped her fingers restlessly against the table, watching him.
"Why’d you leave?" she asked finally.
"What do you mean?" he asked, frowning.
"Why did you leave your father’s firm. You had a good position there, you were definitely making more money, and I know you aren’t some schoolboy desperate for independence. So, why?"
Nikolai sighed, straightening in his seat. He ran a hand through his hair, a gesture she was growing to appreciate, and also take note of. He was nervous.
His hazel eyes focused on her, and there was something of a secret behind the natural gleam. "I was fired."
Whatever Zoya had been expecting, that had certainly not been it.
"What?"
"Yeah," he said, his gaze roving over the cafe around them, words dropping lower, "about a month after my case against you, something happened with one of the secretaries. With what I know now, it must have been a similar situation, but I had no clue back then. Still, something smelled off, and I had to know. I just had to."
Zoya couldn’t stop herself from leaning forward as he grew more intent, animating his words with his hands.
"My honest guess was that my dad had dropped her salary, or had bullied her out of the job—you never had the displeasure of meeting him, but it wasn’t uncommon. Only, he wouldn’t tell me, and Vasya seemed aware of whatever it was, but it was all so far under wraps the most I got out was her name. We got into it, me and my father, and I did what every reasonable attorney does when faced with matters regarding the law. I threatened to sue."
He swallowed, throat bobbing. "I never got the chance to. Not long after, I had transferred to your firm," a smile twitched at his lips, "hard to forget the last time someone really gave you a run for your money."
"In case you forgot, I lost that day," Zoya said, but it was the first time she’d recounted the memory without copious amounts of rage.
"That didn’t make you any less of a good opponent," he said, his bright eyes swearing his words were true. Zoya hoped the heat in her cheeks was from the sun.
Then something seemed to click in Nikolai’s mind, and she could practically see he cogs in his brain working, "oh, Saints,"
Zoya frowned as he rushed to stand, snatching his briefcase from the chair, a wide grin spreading over his features.
"Nikolai, what is it?"
"Two good things just happened, Zoya," he announced proudly, "the first? I figured out exactly how I’m going to win."
Zoya crossed her arms, looking him over once. She raised a brow.
"And the second?"
Nikolai gave her his most charming grin, as though he knew the words would earn him a sharp glare and wanted to revel in saying them. "You finally called me by my first name."
G: did you find her? How'd it go?
Zoya frowned as she approached Genya's desk at the same time she received a cryptic message from her secretary.
"Who am I meant to find?" She asked.
Genya glanced up from her phone long enough to frown, "what?"
"This," Zoya spun her own screen so the other woman could read it, and watched Genya's eyes go wide.
"Oh, that's not meant for you," she said. "It's something a friend and I were planning, just ignore it."
Zoya raised an unamused brow, "okay, plan it later because we need to get a court order by the end of the day, and I'm going to need you to do that for me, Gen."
"It's always 'Gen' when you need something," she said sadly, "never 'Gen, I've come to confess my undying love and devotion for you', always such a disappointment, Zoya."
Zoya looked back at her, exasperating, "you're married! "
"That's not the point."
Zoya rolled her eyes, a hint of a smile touching her lips as she entered her office. For once, there was no stack of papers awaiting her on the desk. Just a single envelope.
Zoya scanned it's contents once, releasing an exasperated sigh. The court order had apparently been sent, courtesy of Genya Safin, who hadn't bothered to mention the fact. Saints.
And it was for Friday morning, the same day as Nikolai's court date. Which meant she could either attend her own case and win, or blow it off to support him.
He doesn't need me there.
But she'd been the only one to see Nikolai's state the night she'd found him destroying his office. He would never let anyone see him crack like that. And for some reason, Zoya Nazyalensky was finding it harder and harder not to care about it.
About him.
It was nine o'clock in the morning and Zoya Nazyalensky was running in heels.
It was a task she had mastered in college, when the overload of classes she had taken overlapped in time and happened to be full campuses apart, but she had grown rusty over the years, and her toes were already screaming in pain by the time she reached the hall.
Zoya had not lost a single case since she'd gone against Nikolai Lantsov, and she wasn't going to lose one because of Nikolai Lantsov.
So when she'd strongly recommended that her client go for a change in counsel, had convinced him he'd lose the case with her as his defendant, it hadn't hurt Zoya's record nearly as much as her pride.
Her heels clicked loudly in the empty hall when she entered, the building distantly familiar to her mind, though she couldn't place it just then.
She found the door she was looking for, once again struck by a sense of deja vu that she absolutely had no time for. And then she was slipping inside as noiselessly as possible.
The hall was fuller than most cases she'd been privy to attend—but then Alexander Lantsov wasn't most people. Zoya sat in the last row on the left, where Nikolai was visible leaning back against the table, seemingly at ease to everyone else. Only Zoya noticed his stiff soldiers and the way his gaze kept flicking back to his father.
"-is that all?" The judge was saying. Zoya realized there was someone currently giving a statement, though Nikolai's broad shoulders were positioned so she couldn't see the person themselves.
"No further questions, your honor," came a smooth voice that made her gaze snap to the right. Vasily Lantsov. He was shorter than Nikolai, and far less attractive, with paler hair and a weak chin, his suit buttons struggling against the curve of his stomach.
But he was also grinning as though he knew he had already won. Saints.
"If Mr Lantsov would like to call any other witnesses…" continued Vasily, his eyes scanning the rows of seats behind Nikolai. Most of them were men, many of which she didn't think had anything to do with Nikolai's side to begin with. She frowned. "Unless of course, there are none? I believe we were promised an abundance of evidence, plenty of victim accounts, and yet… none appear to be present."
This was the part where she expected the judge to side with Nikolai, or to at least tell off Vasily for speaking out of place. But he must have thought the same thing everyone in that room was thinking, the same thing Zoya was thinking.
Nikolai Lantsov had no other victims to call on.
Nikolai straightened, beginning to pace towards the jury, "you're absolutely right, I have brought no one else. But, your honor, I believe any evidence, if it can be tracked to the appropriate person, with a time and date stamp, would be just as honest, would it not?"
The judge considered Nikolai for a moment, the lines of his face drawing into a scowl, "how so?"
"Say, if I had accounts from every single victim, their own story and a way that connects it to them, would that be considered reasonable evidence, accepted by the court?"
He spoke like he knew the answer. Zoya tracked him with her eyes. He was watching the judge intently as the man thought of this new statement. "Yes, it can be considered reasonable."
"Objection-" began Vasily, the voice of whom was quickly turning Zoya's mood sour. No wonder Nikolai doesn't talk about him much.
"Overruled," the judge said, folding his hands over his stomach to watch the proceedings. He must have seen Nikolai in action before, just as Zoya had, because they both anticipated a performance.
"I'd like to call on the same witness, Your Honor. She has all the evidence you need with her."
Zoya frowned. No clever remarks, no finding holes in the system. Her gaze followed Nikolai back to the seat where a witness was seated. Only this time, she was in clear view, and there was no way Zoya could mistaken her for anyone else.
Not with that red hair, those amber eyes she saw every single morning.
Genya Safin raised her chin as everyone's attention settled on her. The most I got was her name.
Oh, Saints.
Genya didn't even flinch as she picked up her phone and settled it on the desk in front of her.
"Miss Safin," said Nikolai, "please recount to the jury what evidence you've gathered."
Zoya noticed the way her fingers shook slightly as she opened her phone. "As I said, I worked closely with Mr. Lantsov, but I had many friends in the workplace. I was the one people went to when they had trouble, when they needed help, or when they were looking to have a good time. I knew everyone because it was my job to know. I spoke to everyone because I had to."
She let out a shuddering breath, but when she spoke again, her voice was steady, and strong. "And I never delete a thing."
Then she set down her phone so the speaker was directed at the microphone, and began playing a recording. It seemed to be an audio message, a woman's broken voice speaking. "Genya, I know you've been through this too. I heard the stories, please, please. Tell me what to do. How do I fix this? I'm scared, Gen. Help me, please."
The recording ended, and then she played another, and another. Some of them were messages she read out, others full two-sided phone calls she'd recorded. And each of them a new voice confirming Alexander Lantsov's guilt.
And by the end of it the change in the room was clear. Vasily's face was white as a sheet, Alexander looking just as shaken as his son. The jury had various reactions from horror to anger to some with tears streaming down their faces. And Nikolai Lantsov stood ramrod straight, not daring to look left, his entire posture stiff.
"Is there anything you'd like to add before we adjourn?" Asked the judge. The words were meant for Nikolai, but he only glanced once at Genya. She nodded, and when she spoke again, her voice was loud and clear, her eyes glaring daggers at Alexander Lantsov.
"You told me once I was ruined. But I am not ruined, I am ruination." She narrowed her eyes at him. "And I hope you rot in hell for what you've done."
Zoya didn't get a chance to see Genya once the hall was cleared up, and Nikolai seemed to disappear just as quickly. It wasn't until hours later that she found the latter wandering around the park a few streets away from their firm, still dressed in that morning's suit, his countenance just as shaken as it had been earlier.
"What, no celebratory drinks for the win?" Asked Zoya as she approached him. Nikolai looked up with surprise, his features relaxing into a smile when he saw that it was her.
"The drinks part I'll admit is tempting, but I don't see much of a celebration to be had." He admitted.
"Don't tell me you're feeling guilty about this morning," she said, eyeing him warily.
Surprise crossed his features, "saints, no, I'm glad to be rid of the man. Granted, my mother won't so much as look in my direction, but…" he shook his head.
"Out with it, Lantsov," she said, crossing her arms over her chest.
He sighed, "it could have been sooner. It should have. If I hadn't left the firm so quickly, if I hadn't let him force me out…"
Zoya swept him from head to toe with a sharp look, "self-pity doesn't suit you, Nikolai, so drop it."
"That's not-"
"Yes, it is. And I don't want to hear it. You did a good thing back there, you can stop dwelling on the past and start working towards something bigger. Like making senior partner."
He straightened, "what are you talking about?"
Zoya forced herself not to avert her gaze from the intense look in his eyes. "My client asked for a change in defense. I lost someone for the firm on the same day you cracked a big case, Nikolai, it doesn't take a genius to connect those dots."
Realization dawned on his face, then to her surprise, a smile spread across his lips. "Tell you what, meet me back here in two hours—and trust me, it's worth it."
For the second time in her life, Zoya Nazyalensky was waiting on Nikolai Lantsov.
He arrived fashionably late, back in something more casual, jeans and a dark collared shirt. Zoya raised a brow, "it's even more surprising when you're late now that I know you own a watch."
But he didn't wait for Zoya to make her way through the list of snarky comments she'd been preparing, a grin already on his face. It was dark out, and it was definitely getting to be too chilly for the skirt she had on.
"You make quite the sight outside of work, Nazyalensky," he said, looking her over appreciatively.
Zoya rolled her eyes, "I hope you didn't drag me out here for more of your fruitless flirting, Lantsov, because I'll just walk away now."
A smile spread over his features.
"Believe me, you don't want to just yet,"
Without warning, he reached out and grabbed her wrist, pulling her along with him as he turned back down the street towards…
Zoya frowned, "where are we going?"
He didn't answer until they were standing directly in front of it. The same hall they'd been at that morning, the one she'd felt was familiar. It was a plain building with steps leading up to it and large glass doors currently closed.
For reasons unbeknownst to her, Nikolai dropped her hand. Zoya tried not to be disappointed.
"Believe it or not, I have seen the city before so it'll take more than that to impress me," said Zoya with a raised brow.
His grin never faltered, "I brought you here for two reasons, Nazyalensky. Let me at least get to the first without you threatening to murder me once, will you?"
"I'll do my best," she said with a sweet smile. But she had to admit her curiosity was piqued.
"First, I figured out why you hate me."
If he didn't look so certain of his statement, Zoya might have laughed. And to her own surprise, she found that her automatic response had been to rebuke it immediately. How could I possibly hate you, you idiot.
"Did you find my secret list of reasons to hate Nikolai Lantsov?" She asked dryly.
"No," he nodded back at the building. "Recognized it, didn't you? This was where we held our first trial. The one you lost. See, I thought you were angry because you lost, but you weren't, were you?"
She swallowed, her own words echoing back to her from only a few weeks ago, who else would defend a guilty person with such conviction?
"You were angry because you thought she was innocent."
Zoya folded her arms over her chest. She had expected something ridiculous, but this had exceeded even those thoughts. Yet something in her wanted to listen. Wanted to hear what he had to say. Because maybe, just maybe, he was right.
"Which is exactly why I brought these," he announced, teaching into his pocket to retrieve a few folded papers, reaching them out to her with a pleased expression on his face. But Zoya caught the bit of nervousness in his eyes as she took the papers from him.
"I was there at the trial, Nikolai. I've seen all the evidence."
"This one's not for the court," he said, "this one's for you."
It was a list. A list of names she was surprised to find she recognized, and beside them, various amounts of money. Transactions.
"Nikolai, what is this?" She asked quietly, rereading each name with disbelief.
"Backup," he admitted, "something I never ended up using because my claim was strong enough without it. But there's the list of witnesses you called, and the amount of money they'd been paid off to give their statements for your client."
Something like relief, but far more intense, exploded in Zoya's chest. Eight years in prison, and she'd been counting them down, certain she'd made a mistake. How many pro bono cases had she taken just to make up for that loss? She'd come to serve the justice system, and had been so sure it had tricked her somehow.
"I never would have taken my client's case if I'd known he was in the wrong." Nikolai's words were quiet, his bright hazel eyes intense and honest.
Saints, they were beautiful. He was beautiful.
"And the second thing?" She managed, forcing her thoughts away from how the moon's light caught Nikolai's features at just the right angle, the way his golden hair was mussed just right. The urge she had to thread her fingers through it.
"Ah, that," he said, and now there was definitely a hint of nervousness in his voice. Maybe more than a bit. Were his ears going pink?
"Nikolai, what is it?" Zoya asked with a frown.
"I might have… lied about the senior partner competition. And the pool."
Her brows raised in surprise, "you made up a bet to make me feel better about losing?"
"No, the bet was definitely real. And the fact that Juris is searching for a senior partner is also true," Nikolai swallowed, glancing away. "But he already found one. He told me as much. You're getting it, Zoya, the position has been yours for months now, he's just waiting for the other partners to sign on before asking you."
Zoya gaped at Nikolai. Everything she had worked for ever since she'd started working at the firm had been this—the chance to become more than just a small piece in the elaborate clockwork of the workplace. She wanted more, had always wanted more. And now…
"What do you mean the bet was real?" She asked, eyeing him with distrust.
Nikolai ran a hand through his hair, a telltale sign that he was nervous. "The bet was about you and me. About how long it would take me to convince you to go out with me."
Zoya stared at him for a long moment, "why would anyone bet on that?"
Now, he looked less nervous and more… exasperated. "Come on, Nazyalensky. The entire office figured it out, I didn't think it would take the best attorney in our firm so long to catch on."
Oh. Oh.
Zoya was left too struck to speak for a moment. But this was Nikolai. Stupid, stupid Nikolai, the one who'd become her first nemesis and her competition. The same one she'd fought to win against in every single mock trial, and still debated with on every little thing.
Saints above, it was Nikolai. Always, always Nikolai.
"You idiot," she said softly.
His brows drew together in confusion, but whatever he was about to say was silenced when she grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him to her, catching his lips with hers.
Nikolai froze for a moment before his mind seemed to catch up with his body, and then one hand came up to cup her face, the other tangling in her hair as he pulled her closer to him, as though he were afraid she'd disappear if he just let go, his lips writing a promise onto hers.
All thoughts seemed to abandon her as they broke apart, Zoya feeling slightly dizzy from the kiss and Nikolai's expression dazed.
"Zoya…" he began, a crease appearing between his brows.
"What?" She asked in the space between their breaths.
"I owe Genya so much money," he admitted. Zoya rolled her eyes, effectively shutting him up by pulling him back to her, his lips expertly parting around hers as she linked her arms around his neck, determined to keep him close.
She knew she now owed Genya a decent some of money too, but Nikolai didn't need to know about that.
#my writing*#m:fics#sh:zoyalai#zoyalai#zoya nazyalensky#nikolai lantsov#grishaverse#king of scars#rule of wolves#lit:tnd#tndfic#usersana#userhannas#usersai#useramma#tuserkaelyn#zoyalai-network
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Landslide: Chapter Three
Word Count: 7.2k
Summary: Reader revisits the life that she and Javier once shared together. Javier seeks to escape his father’s haunting words.
Warning(s): Angst, Alcohol Use/Drunkenness
A/N: So it’s only been three days since I posted Ch2, but here you go anyways. I put my heart and soul into this chapter, and I just hope that you guys are really able to connect with it and feel something when you read it. It’s a lot of angst, but this is a really important chapter, and a bit of a turning point for Javier and Reader. Thank you all so, so much for the lovely responses that I have gotten for this series. It really means the world to me. I reread the comments all the time because I just can’t believe that you all are enjoying this so much. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you 💙 And a special thank you to both @aerynwrites and @bestintheparsec for reading this chapter over before I published it. The amount of stupid mistakes you guys caught for me is astounding. Thank heavens I’ve got you or this would be some serious clownery 😂❤️ I love you both endlessly!
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Chapter One, Chapter Two
(Gif by @pascvl, originally from this post) Please let me know if you’d rather me not use the gif. I’ll remove it immediately! No questions asked.
You shake your head as your mother brings over another box of old junk to sort through. “Mom, promise me you’ll never hoard things like this again,” you tease, chuckling softly and rolling your eyes. You then take a seat next to her on the floor of the attic, ready to help her sort through the items.
“Now you just listen,” she starts, “Some of this stuff can make us a few bucks in the community yard sale.”
“You’re gonna need your own entire estate sale to get rid of all this,” you reply, pulling out the heavy case at the top of the box. It immediately catches your eye, and you laugh as you realize what it is. “I think everything in here is mine,” you tell her, beginning to unzip the aged leather case.
Your mother searches the surface of the cardboard box, looking up at you again when she finds what she’s looking for. “Ah, yes!,” she confirms, “This is some of the stuff we boxed up after you left for San Antonio, when you were working as a secretary for that law firm.”
You open the case, smiling when you see the old typewriter it holds. Dust covers every inch of the little machine, and you giggle softly as you press down on a few of the keys, causing the strikers to shoot up, though there’s no paper for them to mark. “I remember when I got this. It was the first one I had for myself. Dad was so happy I wasn’t using his all the time.” You zip up the case and set it aside. The task of cleaning things out for the yard sale has been forgotten.
“Oh, yes. He would gripe at me all the time, telling me you needed to quit using all of his paper and ink,” your mother tells you, laughing right along with you. She reaches into the box next, pulling out a rather large photo album. She puts it on the floor between you, and you feel a light blush come to your cheeks as she starts to go through all of the pictures she has from your childhood. You remember well that she always had her camera out. She never wanted to miss the opportunity to capture a memory, no matter how silly it might have seemed in the moment.
The two of you go on that way for some time, flipping through the pages of the album. You listen to her as she tells you the stories behind many of the pictures, from times that you were too young to remember. It’s nice, being able to indulge in more lighthearted nostalgia–certainly a welcome change from the more painful memories that you’ve been forced to relive in the last couple of weeks.
Once you’ve gone through the photo album, you continue to pull random things from the box. More long-forgotten trinkets from your teen and college years. It’s nearly an hour later that you make it to the bottom, where you find one last treasure. It’s a shoebox, though as you lift it, you’re not sure what it contains. It’s only when you bring it closer to you that you can read the words on the lid.
Javier - Mi Corazón
You stare at those three words for what feels like a lifetime. They’re written in your elegant handwriting with a thick black marker. You lightly trace the flourished “J” of his name with your finger. You remember the day you put it all together, and you know already a bit of what you’ll find when you open the box.
Your breath hitches in your throat, and at your silence your mother leans closer. She frowns when she too reads what’s on the box. “Give that here, love. I’ll put it away. I’m sorry. I forgot I packed it away in here with everything else,” she says quickly, her tone soft and sorrowful. But you only tighten your hold on the box as she tries to take it from you.
“No,” you tell her, “I want to look at it.” Logically, you know that you’ll only cause yourself more pain by looking through the memories of what your life used to look like with Javier, but you can’t stop yourself. You’ve spent ten years keeping any memory of him locked away. And now that he’s back, there’s nothing you can do to stop the flood as that once young, hopeful life comes rushing back to you.
“Well,” your mother sighs softly, “if you’re sure.” You can tell that she doesn’t like the idea. Since the day Javier left, she and your father have been a little more detached than you ever were. They’ve never blamed the Peñas or sought to shame them. But where you’ve only grown closer to the family, your parents have drifted apart.
You nod. “I am,” you murmur.
—
The shoebox feels much heavier than it truly is as you step into your apartment with it. After dropping your keys on the coffee table in the living room, you go straight back to your bedroom. You close the door behind you, though you know that there won’t be anyone to walk in on you as you willingly subject yourself to more pain.
You gingerly place the box on your desk, staring at it for a few moments as you second guess yourself. It would be so much easier to tuck it somewhere deep into your closet where you won’t find it again, not unless you really want to. You could bury those memories, ones that should be sweet but have been soured by time and circumstance. You could bury your love. You could bury the painful reminders of the man you would have followed to the ends of the earth.
You sit down in the chair and make your choice.
You open the box.
A soft gasp escapes your lips as you look inside, and immediately you feel your chest swell with an emotion that sits somewhere between nostalgia and regret. You can’t place it exactly. Taking a deep breath, you gently lift the first thing from the box. Dried petals crinkle between your fingers as you hold up your corsage from senior prom.
Your mother laughs softly as she walks over to you and Javier. He’s tried his best, but he just can’t get the ribbon tied around your wrist the right way. You giggle as your mother gently takes over, though as she ties the ribbon, your eyes never stray from Javi’s. You can see a light blush creeping up his neck, and you shake your head minutely. “It’s alright,” you mouth to him.
When your mother finally steps away, Javi takes your hand again, pulling you closer to him so that more pictures can be taken. You both hate the fussing, but know that it’s better to just endure it for the sake of your parents. Your mothers, especially, are excited to see the two of you off to the dance.
“Alright. Alright. That’s enough pestering the two of them. Let them go and enjoy their night,” Chucho finally says, and you let out a soft laugh. You can always trust him to come to the rescue.
“Thanks, Pops,” you say. Javier releases you then, giving you a moment to say a quick goodbye to your parents. Once you’ve given your mother a hug and your father a quick kiss on the cheek, you wave to Javi’s parents, then take his hand again. He leads you over to his father’s truck, which he’d so graciously agreed to let you borrow for the night.
Javi walks over to the passenger side with you, helping you up into the cab and making sure that your dress doesn’t get caught as the door is shut. He joins you inside of the truck shortly after, and you move a little closer to him on the bench seat.
“Sorry I couldn’t get the stupid corsage on,” he says, chuckling softly at himself. He lifts your arm, looking at the ribbon that your mother tied and shaking his head. After a moment though, his eyes meet yours again, his gaze soft. Without breaking eye contact, he brings your hand to his lips, pressing a gentle kiss to your knuckles. “You look beautiful tonight, querida,” he murmurs shyly.
You smile softly at him, reaching out to straighten his bow tie. “You’re looking pretty dashing yourself, Javi,” you reply.
He rolls his eyes. “I’m glad you think so. I think this looks ridiculous. There’s a reason I don’t dress like this unless I have to,” he says, though he’s grinning as he speaks.
You press a quick kiss to his lips. “It’s just one night,” you tell him, “Now let’s go before we’re late.”
You let out a soft breath as you think about the rest of that night. The two of you hadn’t spent very long at the dance at all, opting instead to jump back into Chucho’s truck and drive somewhere more quiet. Rather than trying to enjoy yourselves in a dark, sweaty gymnasium filled with your classmates, Javier had driven to the top of a hill not far outside of town. With a perfect view of the softly illuminated town below you, the two of you slow danced for hours to one of the cassette tapes you’d found in the glovebox.
With a mirthless laugh, you wonder if the cassette tape is still there.
Setting the corsage aside, you look back into the box, pulling out a stolen menu from the diner just a couple of blocks from your childhood home. It was a place that you and Javier had frequented, especially during the late hours of the night when you didn’t have anything better to do than drink cheap milkshakes and steal french fries from each other’s plates.
You curse under your breath as Javier foils your plans again, scribbling a quick “X” into the top right corner of the grid, keeping you from winning what was easily the eighth game of tic-tac-toe you’d played in the last twenty minutes. “Damn you, Javi,” you say, tossing the pencil at him, though there’s a grin on your lips as you look across the booth at him.
“Lo siento, querida. But you know you’re not allowed to win,” he replies, catching the pencil against his chest and placing it back on the table. His smile is bright as ever as his eyes meet yours again.
You roll your eyes, picking up the pencil and pulling the menu closer to you. You write out a short note on it, then turn it around so Javi can read it.
You’re a pain in the ass, but I still love you.
Javi lets out a soft laugh, reaching over and taking the pencil from you. He writes something underneath your words, but shields it from your view with his forearm. Only when he’s done does he let you see.
The feeling is mutual, querida. There’s a little heart doodled next to it.
Your expression softens, and you feel your heart swell in your chest. You place both hands on the table, using them to brace yourself as you lean over the table. There’s a knowing look in Javi’s eyes, and he does the same, meeting you in the middle for a tender kiss. “Te quiero tanto, mi corazón,” he murmurs against your lips.
You close your eyes, leaning back further in the chair with the menu held firmly against your chest, close to your heart. A few moments pass where you don’t move, giving yourself some time to compose yourself before you keep going. That hadn’t been the first time he’d called you “mi corazón,” but to hear those words fall from his lips had always caused butterflies to erupt in your stomach. That’s why the same words had been scribed next to his name. He was your heart, too.
Shaking your head to yourself, you sit up again. The next thing you pull out is a dozen or so Polaroid pictures, all with varying dates and locations penned on the back. Most of them had been taken by your mother. She’d always insisted on taking pictures of the two of you whenever she could, and it only got worse after you’d gotten engaged. She’d told you that one day you’d be grateful that so many of these moments were documented. You’d believed her then, though now there’s a part of you that wishes there weren’t so many pictures to remind you of just how deeply integrated into your life that Javier had once been.
There’s one photo, however, that catches your eye as you flip through the small stack. Unlike the others, which are more staged, this one is candid. You’re standing in Javier’s dorm room at Texas A&I, and you immediately recognize it as the day that you and your mother had gone to help him move in. Though really, she’d only gone because you didn’t trust yourself to be able to drive back to Laredo on your own. You would only be a couple of hours away from Javier once you moved into your own dorm in San Antonio, but two hours seemed like days when you’d grown up right down the road from him.
“That’s the last box,” Chucho declares, folding down the cardboard to make it easier to dispose of. You take in a deep breath as it hits you. You’re about to go back home without Javier. You’d already spent the last few nights alone with him, saying your more official goodbyes, but they hadn’t felt real. Now you’re really leaving him.
You feel Javi snake his arms around your waist, pulling your back flush against his chest. He leans down, pressing a kiss to your shoulder, and the gentle contact causes tears to spring into your eyes. You hold on tightly to his arms, not wanting to let him go.
Then there’s a flash, and you look up to see your mother with the camera pointed at the two of you, the photo sliding out the bottom just a moment later. You shake your head at her. “Mama, please,” you chastise her, to which she shrugs, but smiles apologetically. You know she doesn’t mean any harm.
“We’ll give you two a few minutes,” Javier’s mother says. Alicia then takes her husband’s hand, and the two of them file out the door with your mother close behind them.
Javi chuckles lowly, pressing a kiss to the juncture of your neck and your shoulder now that the two of you aren’t being so closely watched. “You’re gonna be alright,” he whispers.
“I should have just applied here,” you murmur, frowning deeper. As an English major, you could have chosen to go to school just about anywhere.
“No. You liked visiting San Antonio. You’ll have fun there. I promise,” he tries to convince you. “And we’ll both be home for holidays and spring break,” he pauses to kiss your temple, “though I think a spring break trip with just the two of us sounds like a good time.”
You grin at the idea. “That would be nice,” you reply softly.
Javi loosens his grip on you, but only enough to turn you so that you face him. He brushes a few strands of hair from your face, tucking them back behind your ear. As your eyes meet his, they fill with tears, and there’s nothing you can do to stop them as they begin to slide down your cheeks.
“Don’t cry, querida. Please,” he whispers, cradling the back of your head as you bury your face in his chest. For his sake, you take a few deep breaths, pulling yourself back together.
Once your tears are mostly dry, you look up at him again. “Alright. Alright. I’m done,” you say, cracking the slightest smile.
Javi smiles back down at you, leaning in for another kiss. He stops just before his lips can capture yours. “It doesn’t matter how far away we are. It doesn’t change anything,” he murmurs.
“I love you, Javi,” you whisper, taking his face gently in your hands and closing the remaining distance between the two of you.
“I love you too, mi corazón.”
A single tear escapes you as you relive the tender moment, though you quickly wipe it away with the sleeve of your shirt. For just a moment, you think about shutting the box and leaving it alone–at least for the night. But you’ve already gotten yourself sucked in the current. The only thing you can do now is ride it out.
You continue looking through all the old memories, reliving the moments almost as vividly as the day they happened. There’s a keychain from the spring break trip that you and Javier did actually take. You find a cheesy birthday card, the cork from the bottle of wine he’d brought you the night he proposed. There’s even a couple of letters that he’d written to you during those college years filled with lofty promises about what your lives would look like once you graduated and got your careers started.
It’s as you read the letters that your emotions get the better of you, and your single tear gives way to a wave. More than once he’d described the day that the two of you would finally be married, and it tears you apart to know that he’d painted that picture so vividly in your mind, only to be the one to so cruelly destroy it at the last moment.
Just as you think you’ve made it to the end of memory lane, you find two more things left in the box, buried at the bottom. The first is a piece of cardstock. Time has yellowed the original white color, and when you turn it over, you feel your heart drop to your stomach.
It’s your wedding invitation.
They were a formality that your grandmother had insisted on, even though you and Javier had both agreed that it wasn’t necessary. The wedding was supposed to be a smaller, family affair, much in the way that Danny’s had been. There were a lot of the traditional details that you just hadn’t been worried about. The ceremony wasn’t your priority. It was being able to call Javier your husband that mattered the most. As long as you were able to say “I do” with Javier, you’d be the happiest woman in the world.
The last thing in the box is a small drawstring pouch. You can hear something metallic jingling inside. You pull the drawstring open and shake the contents into your waiting palm. Immediately, your fist closes around the three rings: your engagement ring, and the wedding bands meant for you and Javier.
A choked sob forces itself from your lips, and you hold your closed fist close to your chest, right over your heart. You don’t know why they were in the box or who put them there. You haven’t even seen the wedding bands since they were handed over for safekeeping before the wedding.
However, your last memory of your engagement ring is all too vivid.
You stand in the back room of the church, your mother standing with you. You’re both waiting for Chucho to tell you that Javier is ready, and that it’s time for you to walk down the aisle. Anxiety has taken up residence in your chest, and while you try to convince yourself that it’s only wedding jitters, you can’t help but feel like there’s something very wrong.
“Mama, what time is it?,” you ask quietly. It’s the only way you can keep your voice from shaking. It feels like there’s barbed wire wrapped around your throat. Speak any louder and you know you’ll be fighting off panicked tears.
She looks at the watch on her wrist, sighing softly. “It’s a quarter after three, honey,” she admits. The wedding was supposed to start at three. “Let me go see what’s going on, sweetheart. I’m sure it’s nothing. Probably just a lost boutonnière or a button that needs sewn back on. Take a deep breath. You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she tells you. You nod, taking a set on one of the benches.
As you wait, you start twisting your engagement ring around on your finger. It’s been a nervous tic since the day Javi put it on your finger, and even as the edges of the metal rub your skin raw, you can’t bring yourself to stop. Even as you try to breathe deeply, nothing helps assuage the panic that you feel. Surely someone would have given a warning if it were a simple issue. Surely they wouldn’t leave you so worried for something so trivial.
The passage of time is lost on you. There’s no clock in the room and in your panic, you can’t be sure how long your mother has been gone. But when you hear the knob on the door turn, you’re immediately on your feet, nearly tripping over your dress as you move across the room to whoever is coming in.
Tears blur your vision when you see the somber look on Chucho’s face, his eyes tinged red with tears of his own.
“What happened? Where is he?,” you ask desperately. Without waiting for an answer, you try to make your way past the older man, set on going to the other dressing room yourself to find Javier. But Chucho wraps his arms around you, preventing you from moving any farther.
He shakes his head. “He’s gone, mijita. I’m sorry.”
And just like that, your whole world comes crashing down on top of you. Burying you and the life you’d wanted to live so fiercely.
The first sob that claws its way from your throat sounds more like a scream, and you bury your face in Chucho’s shoulder, letting him take most of your weight as you all but collapse in his arms. “Where is he?,” you beg, “Pops, where did he go?”
Chucho is quiet, his voice thick with emotion as he speaks. “I don’t know, mijita. He left without telling anyone. No one saw where he went,” he tells you. He sniffs softly, tightening his hold on you.
“Why?,” you whimper, raising your head just enough to look Chucho in the eye. But seeing the look on his face only makes your chest throb. Your breaths come in sharp gasps as you wait for an answer, though you know that he doesn’t have one.
He just shakes his head.
“God, what did I do? What did I do,” you weep, your fists curling tightly around the edges of his suit jacket, and you bury your face in the crook of his neck. You can just barely hear him trying to shush you, to soothe you in any way that he can. You’re shaking violently with every cry that escapes you, and though you know you’re breaking Chucho’s heart, you can’t bring yourself to stop. You’ve never felt grief like this, so forceful and agonizing and real. You feel like you’ve been pulled underwater and your lungs are burning for air that they’ll never get. You know that they won’t
Javier was the air you breathed, and now he’s gone, leaving you to suffocate alone.
You sit there at your desk, unending waves of tears streaming down your cheeks. You’re not in the same fit of hysterics that you were on that day, but you still feel the same anguish, the same throbbing in your chest. It burns, a reminder that you haven’t truly lived or breathed since the day Javier left. Slowly, you uncurl your fingers from around the rings, wincing at the indentations in your palm from where you’d held them so tightly. You drop them onto your desk, not at all bothering with the pouch you’d found them in.
You stand from the chair, forcing your tears away as you stalk out of your room and towards the front door. You grab your jacket and your car keys, and then you’re gone.
There’s only one way to drown out the pain you feel.
—
Towards the edge of town, out past the railroad tracks, there’s a run down bar that Javier used to frequent when he was younger, before he took off for Columbia. As he pulls into the crowded parking lot, he’s not surprised to see that the building hasn’t changed a bit. The paint is still worn. The roof still needs patched, and even the busted window hasn’t been replaced, just patched over with plywood boards.
Before he even gets out of his dad’s truck, he can hear the roaring conversations of people trying to be heard over the rest of the background noise. He sighs, running his hand over his face before he gets out. This isn’t the most ideal situation. Javier would much prefer to be drinking in the comfort of his own home, but he knows that his father is getting suspicious about the amount of alcohol he’s been consuming for the past couple of weeks. He can deal with the noise for a few hours if it means he doesn’t have to sit through another one of Chucho’s heart-to-heart talks. There have been a few too many since he came back from Colombia.
He just hopes that no one bothers him. The last thing he needs is to have all of Laredo down his throat asking him about Colombia. He never wanted to be a hero. He doesn’t think of himself that way. How can he? After everything he’s done, all of the destruction he’s caused, how could he ever be considered a hero? If only they knew what kind of man Colombia had turned him into.
Javier opens the door, stepping out of the cab. He shuts and locks the door before walking into the bar. It’s hard to see through the thick haze of smoke that fills the room, and it doesn't help that the only dim lighting comes from the television and the neon lights on the walls. All that matters to him right now though, is that he’s able to drown out the echo of his father’s words in his head.
If it’s even possible, Javier’s sleeping habits have worsened. Where he once dreamed of the hurt in your eyes when he’d seen you in the market, he now only sees you being held in his father’s arms the moment you learned he’d run off. He can’t shake the haunted look in his father’s eyes as he’d finally revealed the details of that day. And all Javier feels is guilt. He’s being crushed under the weight of knowing just how deeply he’d hurt you.
He doesn’t even want to explain himself anymore. He knows that nothing he says will ever rid you of the scars he’s left on your heart. It’s something that he’ll never forgive himself for.
Javier takes a seat at the bar, and he’s surprised that there’s even a seat open, given just how crowded the room is. He remembers though, even when he was younger, the bar never really seemed to hit any sort of capacity. People kept coming, and somehow it all worked out. Like somehow the finite space of the building became infinite when lonely, broken people came seeking refuge.
Thankfully, there’s a glass of whiskey in front of him just moments later. Javier takes a sip of the dark amber liquid, closing his eyes as he feels the warm burn down his throat and into his chest. He’s glad to feel something there that isn’t the suffocating sense of grief and guilt he’s felt since the night of Danny’s wedding.
But he knows his father was right. About all of it. Even if he doesn’t want it to be true, Javier knows that he’s screwed up, and that he’s running back to Colombia just so he doesn’t have to face it. But it would be so much easier to just go back to work, back to dismantling cartels and incarcerating drug lords. He could bury himself in his work, in booze, in women.
Women that are not you.
And as he drains the first glass of whiskey and starts on the second, Javier realizes that there’s one more thing his father was right about: he’s not the man that he used to be.
He closes his eyes again, thinking about the simple way that life used to be before he took off. Before Escobar, everything was linear. He met you, fell in love with you, planned to marry you. You’d both gone to school and started your careers, ones that would take you far away from Laredo if that was what you’d wanted.
And God, did he want that. It was one thing that he had always talked about with you. You’d both grown up feeling caged in by the small-town atmosphere. College had been the most freeing experience. The feeling of independence and anonymity was so intoxicating that neither of you could get enough of it. You’d been so on board with his idea of escaping Laredo, no matter where the two of you ended up. “I’ll follow you anywhere, Javi,” you’d told him once.
You would have. He knows that beyond any doubt in his mind. Even to Colombia.
He opens his eyes again, discovering that his glass is empty again. His eyes search the room for the bartender, but something else catches his attention. Through the haze of smoke and sea of moving bodies, it’s hard for him to know for sure, but as he looks a little longer, he finds that he does indeed see what he thinks he sees.
You’re sitting at a small table in the back of the bar, nursing a glass of something he can’t quite make out in the inadequate lighting. But then you stop, like you can sense his eyes on you. You turn, your head toward the bar, your gaze moving slowly as you try to find the source of your unease.
Your eyes lock onto his, and in the low neon lights he can see that they’re glistening with unshed tears.
Javier feels his heart leap into his throat, and he watches as your entire body tenses. He drops his gaze, looking back down at the empty glass in front of him. Immediately his father’s words come back to him. He’s done seeking you out and forcing you into conversations that you don’t want to have.
But he looks up again when he sees quick, unsteady movement in your general direction. Javier doesn’t know how much you’ve had to drink, but one look at you as you walk to pay your tab tells him that you’re in no shape to drive yourself home. He stays still, waiting to see what the bartender does. If he’s any good at his job, he’ll make sure that you don’t walk out of the bar without a safe way to get home.
You walk away without a word from the bartender. And though there are plenty of other people around you, none of them seem to feel the need to stop you either.
“Fuck,” Javier mutters, knowing that he has to do something.
After slapping a few bills onto the counter, he stands from his barstool, nearly knocking it over with the force of his rapid movement. He then follows you out of the bar, calling out your name before you can reach your car. You stop, frozen in your tracks.
“What do you want, Javier? Haven’t you figured it out yet? I want nothing to do with you!,” you shout back at him, turning on your heels to face him. Your eyes are dark with anger, and he knows immediately that this isn’t going to go as smoothly as he might have dared to hope.
Javier takes a tentative step in your direction, swallowing thickly. He holds his palms up in mock surrender. “You’re not driving yourself home. I’m just making sure you get there safely. That’s all,” he tells you. You straighten up then, and he can practically see the gears turning in your head as you study him closely. In your anger, he can see that you’ve sobered up considerably, but he’s still not taking any chances, not with your well being and quite possibly your life.
You scoff, shaking your head. “Fuck off, Javier. I’m fine. I live right down the road,” you spit back.
“No. I’m not gonna fuck off. I don’t care if it means I have to call your mom myself. You’re not driving home,” he insists.
You take a step closer to him. “Why do you even care, hmm? You didn’t give a shit about what happened to me for ten fucking years, and now all of a sudden you wanna play the good guy who’s just looking out for me? Well that’s bullshit, Peña,” you bite.
“I–”
“No. Actually, you wanna talk about what happened so badly? Let’s do it. Right here,” you start. And even from a distance he can see you trembling. Whether it’s from the cool night air or the heat of your fury, he can’t tell for sure.
“We’re not doing this while you’re drunk,” he states firmly, crossing his arms over his chest.
You take another step forward. You’re only about ten feet from him now. “Oh no. Everything I think about you is crystal clear in my mind, Javier Peña,” you shoot back.
He takes a deep breath, knowing that there’s no escape from whatever you’re about to lay on him. But he knows that he deserves to hear every horrible thing you’ve thought about him in the last ten years. And even then, it won’t compare to what he’s done to you.
“What did I ever do to you?,” you shout at him. “What did I do to make you leave me like that? Didn’t you ever think that maybe I deserved an explanation? And I mean before you left, not ten years after the fact.” Javier stands there in silence, and he just hopes that the people inside the bar can’t hear you over the music and the chatter and the television. The last thing he needs is for this to turn into a spectacle.
“I didn’t know what to tell you,” he admits. It’s not enough.
“You left me without a word, Javier. No warning. Nothing. If it weren’t for your dad, I wouldn’t have ever known what happened to you. For so long I have tried to figure out what happened. Tried to figure out what I did,” you stop for a moment as your voice finally breaks. Javier feels a pang in his chest as your eyes well up with tears. He wonders how many you’ve shed because of him. How much pain will he cause you before this is all over?
“I loved you, Javi. I thought you loved me too, but–”
“I do love you, querida.” He says the words before he can stop himself. He can take your verbal lashing. He can listen to you tell him about all the terrible things he’s done and the consequences of those actions. But he can’t take this. Never this. Even if it makes sense for you to think he doesn’t love you, that he ever stopped, it’s not true.
“Don’t call me that,” is your only response to his words. “You don’t get to fucking call me that anymore. Because you let me believe that we were gonna spend the rest of our lives together. Our story was gonna be the one that I could tell, and then you were just gone,” you weep.
Javier takes a couple of tentative steps forward, so that you’re just within his reach. He wants nothing more than to be able to take you into his arms, to hold you close and comfort you the way that he used to. Every fiber of his being vibrates with the need to wipe your tears away and stay with you until you smile again. But he can’t. The only thing he can do is stand there and watch as you break right in front of him. He’s absolutely helpless.
“You were the love of my life. I gave you everything. I would have followed you anywhere, Javi. But you left me here,” you tell him, your breath coming in short gasps now.
He sighs softly. “I know. I’m so sorry,” he breathes.
You look up into his eyes with a new resolve, despite the effort you’ve already expended. “I hate you,” you declare resolutely.
Javier nods. “You should. That’s the least I deserve for what I’ve done,” he replies, and though his exterior appears unshaken by your words, his heart is breaking in his chest. To hear you say the words makes it all too real.
“I hate you,” you say again, a new wave of tears overtaking you. And then you close the remaining gap between the two of you, shoving at his chest as hard as you can, though in your current state it’s not enough to really move him. “I hate you, Javier,” you repeat, stumbling into him. He doesn’t hesitate to catch you, keeping you upright as your legs give out from under you.
And you keep repeating it, sobbing the words into his collarbone. Every declaration is punctuated by a weakly thrown punch to his chest and torso. He lets you. A sick, twisted part of him wishes that you had the strength to hurt him that way.
“I hate you,” you wail one last time, “but I don’t know how to love anyone else…”
Your hands fall uselessly to his shoulders, gripping onto the lapel of his leather jacket as you continue to cry into his chest. Something inside of Javier breaks as he feels you trembling in his arms. He can feel every bit of the pain that radiates from your body. It brings tears to his eyes and cuts off his breathing. He’s never felt agony this way, not even in Colombia.
Suddenly, Javier understands what his father felt like the day he left.
—
Javier carries you from the truck into your apartment, using the keys he found in your jacket pocket. You’re sleeping restlessly in his arms, soft choked cries escaping you every few minutes, but he’s just glad that he was able to get you home.
He wanders down the hall with you, finding the bedroom relatively easily given the small size of your apartment. He then lays you gently on your bed, frowning at the way your brows are knit together, deep worry lines marring your forehead. Javier has to resist the urge to smooth them out with his thumb. He knows better than to touch you right now, when you’re far less than aware of what’s going on.
Instead, he takes a seat next to you, making quick work of removing your shoes and your socks. He’ll leave you to sleep in your clothes, not wanting to wake you. Sighing, he pushes himself up, feeling exhaustion settling in on his shoulders. It’s been a long night even without considering his inability to sleep.
But as he stands, you stir, one hand blindly reaching at him. Javier looks to see that your eyes are just barely open as you finally manage to wrap your fingers loosely around his wrist.
“Don’t leave me, Javi. Please. Not again,” you whimper.
He knows that you don’t mean it, that they’re just words fueled by alcohol and exhaustion. But the plea still hits him square in the chest. If only he knew you wouldn’t want different when you woke up in the morning, he’d stay right next to you for the rest of the night.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he whispers. If you hear it, he can’t tell. Your eyes are closed again, your hand slowly slipping away from him.
Javier turns to leave, but as he moves to turn off your desk light, he sees the various things spread out on the wood surface. His chest constricts as he realizes what it is and where it came from. All of these memories of what your lives looked like before stare back at him. He lets out a shaky breath, hardly able to believe that you still have the keepsakes.
He gathers it all back up, placing it gently back in the box, and he carries it with him out to the living room, where he too can take the painful trip down memory lane. Javier sits heavily on your couch, placing the box on the coffee table and beginning to reminisce.
By the time he’s done, he understands why you’d ended up at the bar. If he weren’t so exhausted, he’d need another drink too.
As the clock on your wall gently chimes at three in the morning, Javier lays his head down on the arm of your couch. He aches so badly for sleep, that he can’t help but pass out right there.
It’s restless, but sleep nonetheless
—
You wake with a start as the first rays of light filter their way through your bedroom curtains. You look down at yourself, finding that you’re still in your clothes from the previous night. But you don’t know how you got home from the bar. You don’t know how you made it to your bed. You don’t know how your socks and shoes managed to lie neatly on the floor next to you. All you remember is–
Javi.
You stumble out of your bed, moving as fast as your aching, fatigued body can manage even though it makes your head throb. When you make it to the living room, the first place you look is the couch. He never liked leaving you alone on the nights you got drunk.
But he’s not there.
The only sign that Javier has been in the living room is the mess on the coffee table. He’d found the box on your desk. He’d gone through it and relived the same memories you had. You sink down on the couch, resting your elbows on your knees and pressing the heels of your palms into your eyes. Your words come flooding back to you and you let out a shaky sigh. You don’t know where to go from here.
You sit up straight again, noting the early hour, and decide to just crash on the couch for a few more hours. As you settle yourself onto the cushions, you feel something hard press into your back. You reach behind you, your fingers wrapping around the offending object. A groan escapes you as you bring your hand back into your eyeshot.
Javi’s aviators.
You place them on the table. You don’t have the strength to consider the idea of taking them back to him just yet. Instead, you close your eyes, letting the pull of exhaustion put you back under.
The last thing you’re consciously aware of before you fall asleep again is the faint scent of Javier’s cologne under your nose. A soft smile graces your lips, and in your sleep your burrow further into the cushion.
-
Spanish Translations
Mi Corazón - My Heart (Nickname)
“Lo siento, querida.” - “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
“Te quiero tanto, mi corazón.” - “I love you, my heart.”
Mijita - My Daughter (Nickname)
-
Chapter Four
-
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enough | one
even if everyone else leaves me, you’re enough for me, you’re my only one, stand by me forever, only you, just you...
summary : to survive as a single woman in the big city, you resort to letting rich men pay for your company, but never anticipated that your first client would be the boy you once loved, Jinyoung.
warnings : strong profanity, explicit dialogue, references to prostitution, mentions of gang activity, graphic sexual content, potentially triggering elements involving mental health, panic attacks, etc.
miniseries chapters : one / two / three / four / five / six / seven
“Sorry, Mom,” you apologized under your breath as you stepped into the warm, bustling hallway of the agency. The building may as well have been your second home at this point, considering you spent most of your free hours under its roof.
Your place of business lay hidden beneath a layer of secrecy, operating within the guise of an illustrious marketing firm. After all, prostitution was still very much illegal. But evading the law in such sparse times had become an undeniable artform for creatures of the underworld.
However, you had yet to jump from that hyperbolic bridge. Until today. Hence the apology to your mother.
Being an escort that didn’t have sex with her clients had allowed you to earn enough to survive. Men paid for your company, nothing more. They took you to candlelit dinners or upper class events, because in the world of preternaturally rich people, having a gorgeous slab of meat on one’s arm was a blatant demonstration of funds.
Also, if the society they ruled knew who they actually slept with, their careers would be over as quickly as they began.
When you first came to the big city from your humble hometown in the countryside, you swore to yourself you would never sell your body to make a living - no matter how comfortably you could thrive if you did. But keeping your head above water was no easy feat and you were thrust back into the bottomless pit of debt and insecurity.
Seoul had become more and more expensive around you and you could feel the sensation of water rising over your head, drowning you in the hopelessness of it all. Your hopes and plans for the future were costly and the bank refused to grant you any more loans.
Then, you were reminded that sex sells. You had the advantage of being a woman in a world of ravenous men. Your employer had always given you the option of stepping into darker circles when you needed more. You met every criteria on the checklist of powerful, wealthy suitors.
Who needed dignity anyway? It was but another luxury you could not afford.
“We have just the client for you,” explained Seokjin, predictably diplomatic when discussing every dirty detail of his illegal business arrangements.
You were more than grateful and certainly never faulted him for it. Seokjin was a remarkable boss, especially considering his line of work. He had spent more than his fair share of time on the streets from a young age and he grew to provide individuals a safer, more regulated way of earning money the only way they knew how.
“He’s new,” Seokjin added, breaking you from your reverie. “Never hired before. Specifically asked for a virgin.”
“I’m not a virgin, boss,” you deadpanned, inevitably daydreaming of the one man that had ever known how it felt to be between your thighs.
How many years had passed since you last saw him? Four or five, maybe. In your mind, you tried to play clueless with yourself, but truth be told, you knew the exact day you left him down to the very hour. The bitter memory was fresher in your imagination than recalling what you ate for dinner the night before.
Seokjin twirled a pen through his knuckles before resuming his notes. From what you knew, he preferred to document everything in excessive detail. That was the lawyer part of him. Knowing that your own employer had worked his way from streetwalker to successful attorney and business owner gave you a blossom of hope for your own future.
“I’m referencing your lack of sexual activity with any of your previous clients,” Seokjin clarified, his tone level. “You have served as a public escort, not private. Emotional, not sexual.”
You nodded your understanding, already missing the simpler days that would soon be forgotten to you. Though life had abandoned most of its simplicity since you moved to the big city. Weighted under the gravity of your decision, your thoughts drifted back to that fateful morning when everything changed forever.
The rain had poured from the blackening sky and you were relieved the drops would conceal your own tears. Thunder roared with a vengeance and drowned the shouts following you as you leapt into the truck that would bring you to the city.
Your boyfriend had been a step or two behind, slamming his hands on the door and begging you to stay with him at the top of his lungs. You watched him through the window, apologizing over and over in a pitiful chant. His yelling turned to pleading and desperation, and when the truck drove away, he chased behind it.
Eventually, you lost sight of him in the rainfall as you sobbed uncontrollably. You could only imagine how long he had spent running after you.
Seokjin called your name tenderly and you blinked back to your surroundings, shifting anxiously in your seat in an attempt to rouse yourself. Meeting his gaze, you made some off-handed comment about lack of sleep, but to a man whose entire survival had once completely relied on the sharpened skill of reading people, you were an open book.
“You don’t have to do this,” he lamented, sympathetic. “The women that choose this path, do so because they want to. Clearly, you do not.”
Your experience with sex was narrow, that much you were certain. Given you had been out of the metaphorical saddle for almost four years, you wondered if you were even remotely good at the act anymore. The only partner you had ever known was heavily biased, in your opinion.
You recalled how it felt to ride him, wincing at how hard he could grab your hips while he begged you to slow down just a little, afraid he would blow his load too early. Getting off on the heady feeling of power with how easily you could ruin him, you would giggle and quicken your pace, grinning with victory when you felt him shudder with release beneath you.
“No, I do,” you insisted, readjusting your position in the chair at your unclean thoughts and the way they made your pulse throb. “I do, honestly. You know I wouldn’t waste your time unless I was sure.”
Seokjin sighed, recognizing the signs of someone who had made up their mind. After a short pause, he diverted your attention and asked, “How is school?”
“Good, actually,” you chirped, delighted he would opt to change the subject to something less heavy. “The general requirements are all done which means I can spend more time focusing on my major.”
“You’ll make a great doctor,” Seokjin crooned, sincere. “I just know it.”
You smiled. The compliment and vote of confidence warmed your very soul.
Seokjin wasn’t obligated to smooth your feathers. He was your employer, but he also served as a confidant and friend to those who needed him. You were the type of girl that never should have darkened his doorway, but life forced your hand and rather than accept defeat, you clawed a path over every obstacle you faced. Seokjin admired you for that and recognized you as someone that reminded him of his own tenacity.
Noticing you had relaxed, Seokjin gave you a reassuring simper before returning to business, informing, “There will be a function tonight. Lots of powerful people will be mingling and your new client will be present. I can have you added to the guest list and you can meet him, but only if you feel ready.”
You appreciated the fact your first meeting with the client would be in a crowd full of people. A man willing to pay for his own personal sex toy must have been a low-down dirty bastard, you surmised. Frankly, you were terrified to meet him, expecting he would see you as an object to possess and not a human being capable of pain.
The saving grace was you had unshakable faith in Seokjin. He screened every client personally and had a zero tolerance policy toward any form of abuse. Plus, he employed some of the most no-nonsense bodyguards you had ever seen. Your personal favorite was Hoseok. He was number three on your speed dial and your emergency contact on all medical forms at the university.
“Just like that?” you questioned, skimming over the document Seokjin pushed toward you. It was puzzling to you - how easy sacrificing a part of your soul would be. You naively expected some bells and whistles.
Seokjin hummed an affirmation and responded, “There’s absolutely no commitment to do anything physical with him tonight. He will be made aware as well. You have to agree to a contract of consent with him established by this agency because money is involved, similar to the ones you have had before. Tonight, you simply meet him, get to know him. Then, in the morning, you give us your answer as to if you wish to proceed.”
Signing your name on the page, agreeing to an initial evaluation with a potential client and swearing not to engage in any sexual activity with him until a contract had been signed, you acknowledged, “I understand. Thank you.”
Your employer accepted the document and slid the page into your file, tucking the folder away into his locked drawer. With that business concluded, Seokjin laced his fingers together over his desk and mentioned with a smile, “The event tonight is formal. I suggest you buy a new dress. Use the company card. We will add it to his bill.”
You chortled and stood to leave, shaking his hand and saying, “Pleasure working with you, boss.”
Seokjin rose and squeezed your fingers. “As usual, the pleasure is all mine.”
Making the long, arduous trek to your little apartment, you kept your head lowered, eyes on your shoes and every labored step you took. You wondered how many days from now you would be heading home in a walk of shame. Tears threatened behind your eyes, but none appeared. Your reserves were empty from the amount of crying you had done over the past few weeks.
Not long after you departed the agency, you came to a stop before a large stone building with a courtyard set in the center. Surrounded by well-trimmed hedges, students glided in and out.
The medical school you hoped to attend within a year or two was a massive, daunting building, but you had seen the inside during a quick tour and knew the place to be modern and professional and - in your humble opinion - warm and welcoming. Excitement gathered in your chest at the sight and for a moment, you remembered the determination you kept stored deep down and tapped into the current for the remainder of the day.
Your father was a farmer. Your mother was also a farmer. All of your neighbors within a ten mile radius were - big surprise - farmers. You were born and raised in a little town surrounded by nature and you were taught to cultivate the land from a young age.
But your heart was in a hospital and had been since the first time you were able to speak to your physician during a routine annual check. You told him you wanted to treat the sick and to your surprise, he encouraged your dream with a smile.
From that moment on, your mother rebuked you for wanting to abandon the family tradition of agriculture, as she called it. People like you and her were never meant to aspire to anything greater than the hand life dealt them, she said.
Your father, on the other hand, secretly fueled your plans at every turn. For your tenth birthday, he bought you a stethoscope which became the most sentimental item you owned. It was one of the few things that had survived your journey to the city when you ran away.
The town you came from left much to be desired. Once a simple place for hard-working residents, machines and modern advancements turned an entire way of life on its edge. Soon, your home became a breeding ground for gangs, using the rural, poverty-stricken lands for a perfect nest to hide from the law and conduct their devious affairs. Name any contraband and it was run through your streets; guns, drugs, and even women. Anything and everything was available for the right price.
Not much time passed before everyone came to recognize a simple principal: you either got in the gang or the gang got you.
You couldn’t abide by that and you would rather leave than accept it. Your heart yearned for the simple life of those that came before you; the straight and narrow path of working hard with your hands while earning your education. Without any options, you ran and turned away from your home, never looking back. And to your dismay, the big city was even more ruthless.
But you couldn’t go back. It wasn’t a matter of pride... it was the boy you left behind. You couldn’t come home and see the devastation left in your wake. Even your own family had broken all contact with you when they discovered you sold your body as an escort for wealthy men. No matter how many times you tried to convince your parents you weren’t sleeping with these people, they didn’t believe you. And you couldn’t blame them.
They didn’t know you anymore.
What you quickly learned was the city was no different from your little town except the stakes were higher. You had much farther to fall. The players in such a dangerous game were ruthless and influential and walked in plain sight without fear of consequences. You had heard the other girls chatter about the clients they regularly entertained and how deep they were in when it came to the illegal way of life.
You had most certainly jumped from the frying pan and into the open fire.
These same men meandered through the room you entered that evening, themed with gold and maroon for the elegant fundraiser. A few took long, lingering glances at you, shameless with their intentions as their eyes hovered far too long on your ample curves. You paid them no mind and made your way to the bar.
The gown you wore for your first meeting with the potential client was sultry purple. “A statement of royalty,” the dressmaker had exclaimed when you tried it on. Of course, she would say nearly anything while trying to entice you to spend a lump sum on one of her pieces. Given the money wasn’t coming out of your own account, you had no qualms when it was time to swipe the company credit card.
Hell, this man would more than likely be fucking you in the near future. He could splurge for a dress.
The thought made you overthink, as you often did, and you sipped your wine while you sat at the bar. From what your forthcoming coworkers told you, selling your body to the right man was a gold mine that surpassed security and landed in excess. Most spoke of riding a man so good the reward was a luxury car or a penthouse apartment overlooking the city.
You tried not to be disgusted, but it was a rebellion against everything you had been taught about respecting your body. You never thought you would reach this point in your life - putting a price on your own head to survive.
“Hello, beautiful,” greeted a husky voice at your side, an older man offering you a glass of bubbling champagne.
Jolting from your internal monologues, you turned and bowed your head politely, speaking your greetings shyly. A shudder of remorse tore through you. Would this be your future? To be owned by a man who had accrued enough wealth to feel he was entitled to your body as he pleased?
Briefly, you remembered the boy who had stolen away your heart. The boy who was patient and gentle with you at every turn. The same boy who was always tempted to fight any man who didn’t give you the respect he felt you deserved. Damn it, you knew he would hate you for what you were about to do.
“Don’t ever let another man touch you,” he had whispered in your ear once while taking you against a wall.
Soaked to the bone from an impromptu dive in the neighborhood lake that quickly devolved into a tangled mess of limbs, your boyfriend lost any and all patience when you begged him to soothe the ache between your thighs from his hot, wet kisses. You cried out his name softly as he held your hips and bounced you up and down to meet his thrusts, filling you with his cock and making stars appear behind your eyes.
“I won’t,” you swore against his neck, gasping for breath and locking your ankles around his waist.
He nipped at your jaw then, groaning in the back of his throat at the scorching heat of you around him, and growled possessively, “Because you’re mine.”
Fire gathered behind your cheeks, clouding your head, and you blinked rather rapidly as you tumbled out of the memory. God, you had almost forgotten how good he felt, skin against skin. No man would ever make you feel that way again, not that you had even given one the opportunity. You had tasted paradise and no one else could ever hope to compare.
Reminding yourself to pay attention, you focused your gaze on the visitor offering you a drink, realizing rather quickly he was not your prospective client when he failed to utter your designated alias. Clad in a fitted suit, the man introduced himself by his position and holdings and then proceeded to flirt borderline aggressively. The moment you could cut in between his words, you graciously told him you were expecting someone. Offended that you dared dismiss his entitled ass, he rose from your side and stormed off, taking the untouched glass of champagne with him.
You exhaled to release your irritation, drumming your manicured nails on the counter and resting your head on your free hand. The longer you waited, the more you wallowed in indecision. Could you really go through with this?
Suddenly, your phone rang and you pulled the vibrating device from your clutch. Your brow furrowed when you didn’t recognize the number, but you answered anyway with a rushed, “Hello?”
“Did that bastard really take the drink with him?”
You chuckled at the annoyance in the stranger’s voice and glanced around to see if any of the men at the fundraiser could be holding a phone to his ear.
Finding no one on their mobile, you nodded and replied coolly, “Yes, he did, but I prefer my wine anyway.”
“Is that so?” the stranger rumbled. “Hand your phone to the bartender for me.”
You narrowed your eyes in surprise before calling the pleasant server behind the bar over. Giving him your phone, adding that you were as clueless as he was, the server chuckled at the caller and echoed after a moment, “Your tab? Got it.”
You took your phone back from his outstretched hand and purred, “Very generous of you, sir.”
The caller chuckled and persisted, “Anything you get goes on my tab and I took the liberty of ordering you a White Russian, if you don’t mind.”
“We have made the jump from wine to liquor so soon, have we?” you joked, thanking the bartender when he made the drink and slid the glass your way. “May I ask, why a White Russian?”
The caller took a sip of his own drink as he leaned leisurely against a pillar and mused, “You look like the type of girl to nurse one while you scan around the room for me.”
You giggled, amused. “Well, you’re in luck. They are my favorite.”
“Imagine that,” he sang, but you failed to hear the lack of surprise in his reply. “Take your time with it. You need to be coherent for this conversation.”
The assertiveness in his voice snared your attention, because there was something strikingly familiar about it. With a smirk, you rebuffed, “Are you implying I am a lightweight?”
The client chuckled ever so subtly and replied, “I would never insult your alcohol tolerance, but yes, you do strike me as one.”
“It seems you are right again for the most part,” you admitted, giving the room another glance over for participants on their phones and finding none. “If I start singing Fall Out Boy at the top of my lungs, I’ve officially reached my limit.”
This time, he openly laughed.
The sound registered deep within you, because this delayed sense of familiarity was growing stronger.
“Alright, pretty lady,” the caller asserted, steering the conversation with a firm hand though he sounded rather young and carefree to your ear. “What is your game?”
You shrugged nonchalantly and returned, “I’m not playing any games.”
Abandoning his hiding place alongside the pillar, the stranger was quick to interject, “You most definitely are and I’m more than ready to play with you.”
You wanted to be ashamed at how effective his banter was thus far. You found yourself biting your lip and resituating on your bar stool. The rush of flirtation was pleasant, foreign to you after so long. Personally, you greatly enjoyed verbal sparring and rarely could someone hold their own against you.
Glancing at your glimmering fingernails, you sighed as if in deep contemplation, “Life is merely a game in the grand scheme of things. Isn’t it?”
He hummed an agreement before offering, “As are relationships between people.”
“I agree.”
“I like to hear you agree with me,” he confessed lowly, voice dropping an octave.
To which you replied, “You are easy to agree with, sir.”
Then, he quickly veered back to his easy-going and flirtatious manner to whisper, “I’m still trying to get a read if you’re submissive or if you just try to appear that way because you think it’s what I want.”
You swallowed nervously, viscerally reminded of the situation you were in. Harmless flirting had been fun, but now you remembered why you were here in the first place - to be someone’s plaything. To be used and used until nothing was left of you.
At your conflicted pause, the caller coaxed, “I’ve spooked you, little one.”
You came back to your senses and stuttered over your words, “No, I, uh...”
“Take a breath and sip your drink.”
You obeyed without a second thought, welcoming the liquor and swallowing a mouthful. Your conscience was too strong for this, but the duality of him had you snared like a wild animal lured into a false sense of security. He balanced adeptly between hot and cold, reeling you into a disarming sensation of safety before trapping you in his clutches. Because all the while, you knew he was a dangerous man and yet he made you brush aside your instinctual fear of him.
“Well, well, well, you are a bit submissive,” the stranger taunted, obviously pleased at how mindlessly you had heeded his order with no resistance or snark. “But you’re skittish.”
“Am I?” you sassed skeptically, glancing around with narrowed eyes. “Are you an expert on me now?”
He tsked his tongue and muttered, “And there’s that little streak of fire. I like it.”
You flushed. Your mind raced at the thought of your potential client. He had a way with words and he clearly enjoyed the banter. It seemed he wasn’t intent on just bending you over a surface and having his way with you.
He wanted to play.
Rising from the bar, you tucked your clutch to the inside of your arm and carried your drink, still holding the mobile to your ear. As you glided across the marble floor, you scanned the room for men on their phones, ready to hunt.
“You know what they say about playing with fire,” you smarted, words hushed.
He chuckled and sounded as if he were also in motion, potentially avoiding your gaze. With a smirk, he asked, “Are you going to burn me?”
“I might,” you replied boldly. “But I get the feeling you would like it.”
“You’re right about that. How the tables have turned. Are you reading me?”
You snickered, licking your bottom lip before sipping your drink. After swallowing the alcohol, you exhaled and asked cautiously, “Can I be honest with you?”
He nodded, slinking behind a pillar, and spoke almost sternly, “If anything between us goes beyond tonight, I want you to be honest with me always.”
That response surprised you and you didn’t bother to hide it. For all his potential danger, he didn’t instill in you a feeling of maliciousness. You were becoming less and less afraid of him. “I appreciate that,” you finally told him.
“Hit me.”
Stopping in your tracks, you turned on your heels, surveying the upper decks in the massive gallery, and inquired, “Why do this?”
He growled, “Why pay a woman to fuck me?”
His blunt words sent a shiver through your body. This man didn’t carry much fear, that you could tell. You were intimidated by your potential client already and you hadn’t even laid eyes on him. Pinching your lips, you hummed, “Mm.”
“My job mostly. I can’t have a normal relationship in my line of work. And I’m not the type who should try,” he explained without hesitation. There was nothing dishonest or remotely offensive in the way he spoke to you, which made you wonder what kind of position your client held that would lean him toward this inclination.
But you remembered something he said previously and turned his words back on him when you remarked, “You’ve already brought up submission. I think you like the power balance this would give you.”
There was a pause. Then, he exhaled, “You’re right again.”
You smiled victoriously, taking a sip of your drink, and resumed walking across the room.
The caller chugged some of his own alcohol; you could hear the ice cubes clinking against the glass. “I know you’ve never done this before. I specifically asked for that,” he began, sounding piqued with interest.
“Yes,” you murmured, shivering at where this line of question might go, but knowing you had opened the door in the first place.
“Why are you doing this?”
Flinching, you felt your heart clench. For a moment, your mind showed you that hated memory - of the only boy you ever loved chasing you down as you scrambled into the truck. He beat both hands on the door and screamed those exact words to you at the top of his lungs.
Shaking your head to snap out of your thoughts, you played cool and echoed, “Why am I agreeing to let someone fuck me for money?”
He was entirely unaffected by your language as he said, “Yes.”
Frowning at the mental image of bills piling on your coffee table at home, you answered, “Because these are hard times.”
That was a valid enough reason for him apparently. “I hear that,” he rasped.
Pensively, you nibbled on your bottom lip as you walked through the sea of patrons, tasting the slightest remnants of the White Russian on your tongue. Accepting defeat when you still found none of the men on their phones, you asked demurely, “Any more questions, sir?”
Playfully, he chuckled and teased, “No, I just wanna flirt with you some more.”
You scoffed with a roll of your eyes and said, “I’m listening.”
“I’m watching the way you move,” he sang, drifting from his perch. “You’re beautiful.”
Spinning in a quick circle, with a simple statement you were reinvigorated to find your client and called with curiosity, “Where are you?”
Amused, he easily ignored you and continued, “You’ve passed through a crowd of people and everyone has moved out of your way. Did you even notice that?”
Glancing around to see a small empty radius around your presence, you whispered in disbelief, “No.”
It was time for him to take control. Monitoring your movements from above, the caller couldn’t help but lick his lips at the sight of you, at the way the violet gown hugged your curves and displayed your beauty in all of its glory.
Finishing his drink, he continued, “You walk with confidence. You’re assertive and commanding.”
Something was nagging at you, tugging on your instincts as you meandered through the crowd. Your mind had already solved this mystery, had already put the pieces of the puzzle together, but you were in too much denial to accept the signs.
The client moved to another shadow, noting your gaze kept passing over the gallery above, and taunted, “If I were any other man and I saw such a stunning goddess coming toward me, I would fall to my knees and worship her.”
“What a silver tongue,” you droned, feigning indifference. As a waiter passed by, you discarded your now empty glass on their tray.
“My tongue is ready to do things to you, sweetheart.”
You stopped, biting your lip again, and persisted, “You said, if you were any other man. Are you implying you wouldn’t bow down and worship me?”
He swallowed the last mouthful of his drink and chuckled, “You don’t fool me. I know what you are.”
Hesitating, you resisted the urge to be offended, but the feeling seeped its way into your voice when you asked, “What I am?”
Licking his lips like a predator on the prowl and moving in for the kill, he elaborated, “You’re a rare breed.”
Approaching the stairs to the overhead gallery, you tapped your fingers on the bronze railing and ordered, “Keep talking.”
“The world has made you strong and hard. You demand respect because no one has given it to you. Even when you’re afraid, you can convince everyone else in the room that you are fearless.”
Brow furrowed, you questioned, “And that’s rare?”
“You, my dear, are no lion. You are a lamb.”
You stopped, blinking in surprise. A glimpse of his face flashed in your mind and for a moment, the world began to spin around you.
He resorted to a guttural snarl as he continued, “You may try to convince the world you are the untouched goddess who needs no god, but behind closed doors you wanna scream and beg for Daddy to fuck you harder.”
Saliva had gathered in your mouth. You knew your client when he spoke in that tone, a tone you once knew so intimately. The years had made his voice deeper, more mature and roughened by the cruelty of life experiences.
But you angrily cursed at yourself for not recognizing him until now.
At your lack of a reply, the stranger pressed coyly, “Am I close?”
A memory tore across your mind of the man who once called you the love of his life, the way he held your face and told you he would never leave you. You remembered how raw and firm his voice had been when he promised to fight every battle that needed to be fought to keep you safe.
Hands shaking, your voice broke when you choked, “Jinyoung?”
For the first time since the call began, there was only silence on his side of the line.
The absence of an answer served as confirmation and you furiously shouted into the phone, “Jinyoung!”
“Took you long enough.”
Before you could utter another word, the call went dead.
next chapter →
a/n : this story was previously Lacuna on my old blog, minheoney. I’m really excited to finally finish it! This fic was my baby for so long and I’m ridiculously happy to give it a new home :)
Hey there, beautiful! If you enjoyed this, please leave a like or reblog or follow me! Or maybe buy me a coffee so I can keep writing? Or check out my masterlist here for more stories! Thanks for reading :) - Katya
This work is fictional and for entertainment purposes only, but is licensed and protected under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives 4.0 international license. Any instances of plagiarism will be dealt with accordingly. Do not re-post or translate without my permission.
{ copyright 2018-2020 © ahgaseda // all rights reserved }
#got7 fanfiction#got7#park jinyoung#got7 smut#jinyoung smut#got7 fanfic#got7 fic#jinyoung fic#park jinyoung smut#got7 scenario#got7 reaction#got7 imagine#jinyoung imagine
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something borrowed - chapter one
After one drink too many at her 30th-birthday celebration, Jo unexpectedly falls into bed with her longtime crush and best friend, Alex -- who happens to be engaged to her best friend, Izzie. Ramifications of the liaison threaten to destroy the women's lifelong friendship, while Jackson, Jo's confidant, harbors a potentially explosive secret of his own.
—
Or the one where everyone is a little messy but you still root for them anyway.
June 2010
“Oh! Wow, I had no idea! This is amazing.” The small brunette whispers to herself as she paces the dark littered sidewalk of ninth street in the East Village, the wind briskly wafting through her freshly curled hair as her high-heeled clad feet clicked against the gravel. “No, that sounds so obvious,” She continues to mumble to herself, using a manicured finger to flick away the bang which had stuck to the lip-gloss which painted her plump pink lips. With a deep sigh, she threw her hands back to her sides, shaking them furiously as she felt the familiar clammy feeling begin to settle in her palms due to her nervousness.
As her entire body began to heat up, she was thankful that it was the little black dress that had caught her eye earlier that evening whilst she was examining her wardrobe in search of something to wear. It wasn’t a dress she had chosen for herself; short little pieces of clothing had never been her thing—her style was usually casual, ripped jeans and relaxed t-shirts. But her best friend, Izzie Stevens, had picked it out specifically for her during a shopping trip back when they were college freshman. It was Izzie’s style; figure hugging, clinging to every curve and a deep square neckline which showed off her perky assets.
She didn’t believe she had any of that, never had. Her shoulders were a little wider than her hips, her legs much shorter, barely standing at five foot four and her chest substantially lacked what Izzie’s had. With luscious blonde hair which flowed down her back, blinding white teeth and skin smoother than butter, Izzie really was perfect. Izzie was always the lucky one, always had been—since they were in fifth grade. Her skin tanned more quickly, her hair feathered more easily, and she didn't need braces. Her cartwheels were superior, as were her front handsprings (she couldn't do a handspring at all). She had double-pierced ears and the trendiest clothing from her rich and caring parents.
But at least Jo would always be a few months younger than Izzie, six months, and four days to be exact. Izzie, as obsessed with clear and smooth skin as she was, constantly worried about growing old and the aging effects that was brought with old age. Izzie’s age was the one thing that Jo didn’t quite mind never catching up to.
“Oh my god!” Jo plasters a fake wide grin on her face and throws her hands into the air in mock surprise, white teeth illuminating the small corner of the street she continued to pace up and down. She brings her dainty hands to her chest and widens her eyes as not to blink, willing herself not to blink in an effort to fake cry. Something which she was usually very skilled at. But not tonight it seemed.
With a groan, Jo gives up, “I suck!” She shouts into the empty street before sitting down onto the concrete steps which lead up to the apartment building, she was currently having a small breakdown outside of. Huffing, she removes the black heel from her right foot, resting for a moment in hopes she’ll finally calm down.
The feeling Jo currently had reminded her of New Year's Eve when the countdown is coming and she’s not quite sure whether to grab my camera or just live in the moment. New Year’s Eve never goes how you plan. Then you’re left feeling enormously let down and think to yourself that the night would have been more fun if it didn't mean quite so much, if you weren't forced to analyse where you’ve been and where you’re going.
Like New Year's Eve, tonight is an ending and a beginning. She didn't like endings and beginnings. She would always prefer to churn about in the middle. The worst thing about this particular end (of her youth) and beginning (of middle age) is that for the first time in her life, Jo realises that she has no idea where she’s going. Her wants are simple: a job that she enjoys and a guy whom she loves. And on the eve of her thirtieth birthday, Jo had come to the realisation that she wasn’t anywhere near getting what she wanted.
First, she’s an attorney at a large New York firm. By definition this means that she’s miserable. Being a lawyer just isn't what she thought it was cracked up to be—it's nothing like L.A. Law, the show that caused applications to law schools to skyrocket in the early nineties. She works excruciating hours for a mean-spirited, anal-retentive partner, doing mostly tedious tasks, and that sort of hatred for what you do for a living begins to chip away at you. So, Jo had memorised the mantra of the law-firm associate: I hate my job and will quit soon. Just as soon as I pay off my loans. Just as soon as I make next year's bonus. Just as soon as I think of something else to do that will pay the rent. Or find someone who will pay it for me.
Which brings Jo to her second point: she feels desperately alone in a city of millions.
Whilst visually she knows for a fact she’s not alone, because if she were then she wouldn’t currently be stressing out about how to fake shock to all of her friends once she enters the club in which her ‘surprise’ birthday party is being hosted in five minutes. She had friends to summer within the Hamptons, friends to meet on a Thursday night after work for a drink or two or three, friends to gossip with and rant to. And she had Izzie, her best friend from home, who is all of the above.
For a while, friends were all she needed—when you’re in your twenties, settling down with the man of your dreams can wait. There’s still so much living to do when you’re twenty-three and then twenty-seven, but by the time you’re twenty-nine … the cold empty side of your double bed begins to get a little old.
“Right.” Jackson Avery’s voice booms from the now open door which leads to his apartment, shaking Jo from her thoughts of loneliness, “I’m ready, you good?” He asks with a smirk when he notices her perched on his steps, face bored and disinterested.
Big doe eyes, decorated with mascara and dark eyeshadow, glance up at him as her lips turn into a pout involuntarily. “I don’t wanna’ go,” she knows he thinks she sounds like a toddler, she can tell by the way he chuckles and continues to look down at her with raised eyebrows, “I don’t want to be thirty.”
Jackson jogs down the few steps, straightening the lapels of his suit jacket as he does so, until he’s standing directly in front of the small woman. “Come on,” he extends a handout to her, hoping she’ll take it without much of a fight. Jo only pushes her bottom lip out further as she places her foot back into the uncomfortable heel and places her hand into his, groaning as Jackson pulls her up with force. “If it makes you feel any better then honestly, you don’t look a day over twenty-five.”
Jo scoffs, letting him lead her towards the club only two streets away from his place, “right.”
She had met Jackson in college, during orientation their freshman year. Whilst they weren’t fast friends, both of them were rather reserved. After a while they began to grow closer; during study sessions and group projects—they always seemed to be on the same page. It wasn’t until they finished college and realised that they were only living a few blocks from one another that they really started to spend time outside of class together, Jackson was always available for a morning coffee or an afternoon stroll during a stressful day.
Izzie had always been adamant that Jackson was crushing hard on Jo, but she never saw it. When it came to men, Izzie had a one-track mind—according to the blonde, no male and female could ever just be friends. She believed this so strongly that she took it upon herself to try and set the pair up during every night out at the bar or weekend lunch. Something which got old and obnoxious on Izzie’s part fast. Due to this, Jo had chosen to keep her friendships with the two fairly separate. Except for the times it was unavoidable, like birthdays and engagement parties and whatnot. Like tonight.
They arrive at the club far too quickly for Jo’s liking, she comes to a stand still once they’re outside, dragging Jackson back by the clasp of their hands as she firmly stays put. He sighs, his eyes subtly giving her the once over now Jo’s directly stood in the bright lights of the nightclub’s neon sign. Jo doesn’t notice, pays no mind to the man in front of her as she thinks about what’s on the other side of that door.
“What’s up?” He asks, frowning with concern, “you love an excuse to get drunk—your thirtieth birthday is as good an excuse as any,”
Jo takes a deep breath, “I told you, I’m getting old.”
“Keep going with that and I’m going to get offended,” he steps closer to her with a smirk, eyes gazing down at hers, “you remember I turned thirty, like, ten months ago, right?”
At Jackson’s comment, a sincere smile finally spreads across Jo’s glossy lips, “barely, I woke up passed out in your bed with a pink wig on and roller skates hanging off my feet.” Jackson’s smirk turns into full-fledged laughter as he recalls the memory.
“If we’re lucky then maybe tonight will end similar.”
Jo’s eyes glimmer as she teases, “no way, I’m thirty tomorrow—it’s socially unacceptable for me to wake up in some random guys bed.”
Jacksons face turns into a mock frown, “random?” As they both continue to laugh with one another, Jo shoves a dainty hand into his chest and walks past him with a bump to his shoulder. Her heels click towards the large black door with the shiny brass handle, pulling it open as she throws an eye roll at him and finally gets over her nerves and steps into the room her friends had piled into to celebrate her birth.
She wasn’t alone, she knows that—she felt that when she stood with Jackson, laughing and smiling so effortlessly.
But she was lonely.
One hour later, once everyone has gotten over how atrociously Jo’s fake shock was, the party is in full swing. People were dancing and laughing and singing along to the sound of Jo and Izzie’s nineties playlist as it blared through the speakers.
She never enjoyed being the centre of attention, which is why she specifically asked Izzie months ago not to throw her any kind of party—before Jackson informed Jo that actually, Izzie had ignored her completely, Jo’s plan was to enjoy a chilled night at their favourite bar. Just Jo, Jackson, Stephanie, Izzie and Alex.
Alex. The one saving grace of this party—his face was the first she spotted when she walked through the club doors, the first voice she heard and the first person who brought a smile onto her face. He’d sent her a wink, one which reminded her of way back when they were barely twenty, and it sent butterflies swirling in her stomach. She won’t lie and say she wasn’t disappointed when Izzie ran through the crowd of people, arms swinging and lips screaming, to engulf Jo into a tight hug, spinning the shorter woman around, and cutting through the moment.
Jo’s current personal situation seems all the more dismal as she sat with her oldest and bestest friend in the corner booth of the club, the blonde had a glamorous PR job and was now freshly engaged. After all this time, Izzie is still the lucky one. Jo watches her, telling a story to the group which had gathered into the booth, including her fiancé.
Alex and Izzie were an exquisite couple, lean and tall with ridiculous good look and great jobs. They are among New York's beautiful people. The well-groomed couple registering for fine china and crystal on the sixth floor at Bloomingdale's. You hate their smugness but can't resist staring at them when you're on the same floor searching for a not-too-expensive gift for the umpteenth wedding you've been invited to without a date. You strain to glimpse her ring and are instantly sorry you did. She catches you staring and gives you a disdainful once-over. You wish you hadn't worn your tennis shoes to Bloomingdale's. She is probably thinking that the footwear may be part of your problem. You buy your Waterford vase and get the hell out of there.
“So, the lesson here is: if you ask for a Brazilian bikini wax, make sure you specify.” Izzie finishes her obscene tale, and the whole group laughs. Except for Alex, who shakes his head, as if to say, what a piece of work my fiancée is. “OK!” Izzie shouts obnoxiously, hands slapping together as she claps, “I’ll be right back, tequila shots for us all!”
Jo watches as she moves away from the group and towards the bar, leaning over the sticky surface to flirt with the young bartender, who she already told Jo she would ‘totally fuck’ if she was still single. As if Izzie would ever be single. She said once in high school, "I don't break up, I trade up." She kept her word on that, and she always did the dumping. Throughout our teenage years, college, and every day of our twenties, she has been attached to someone. Often, she has more than one guy hanging around, hoping.
It occurs to Jo that she could hook up with the bartender. She’s completely and totally unencumbered—hasn't even been on a date in nearly two months, it was an utter disaster and she decided she needed to give herself a break. But it doesn't seem like something one should do at age thirty. One-night stands are for girls in their twenties, and as of tomorrow morning she would no longer be in her twenties.
Plus, she thinks she’d had her fair share of one-night stands and after every single time she always found that she ended up thinking to herself that she was a relationship person. She preferred to know the person, nothing competed with the feeling of being familiar with someone’s body. Knowing exactly how to make them moan, their toes curl, and their skin tingle—that’s what she wanted. And there was the feeling of comfort, being so comfortable that there was no awkwardness and you never felt too shy to try something new. She missed that. She really really missed that.
She hadn’t experienced that since her last boyfriend, two years ago.
“You look great,” Alex whispers into her ear as the rest of the group continue to chatter, his hushed voice breaking Jo out of her sad sad thoughts.
Jo rolls her eyes, tilting her head so it falls against the side of his, “you have to say that I’m your fiancé’s best friend.” As comfortable as the position was, Jo lifts her head up quickly so she can turn to look Alex in the eyes—eyes which were wide, gazing down at her. His lips were parted, as if there was something he wanted to say but as he opens and closes his mouth repeatedly, Jo decides to relieve them of the thick tension and shakes her head with a small girlish girl.
“No, I don’t,” he finally adds, eyes continuing to watch her every movement. The way she picks up her full glass of vodka with dainty hands, the way her eyelashes flutter against her cheeks and her curls frame her face—small things he’s always noticed.
The tension is cut once Izzie returns with the shots, but Alex refuses his, so Izzie insists that Jo does the two. Before Jo knows it, the night starts to take on that blurry quality, when you cross over from being buzzed to drunk, losing track of time and the precise order of things. Apparently, Izzie had reached that point even sooner because she’s now dancing on the bar. Spinning and gyrating in a little red halter dress and three-inch heels.
"Stealing the show at your party," Stephanie, Jo’s closest friend from work, says under her breath. "She's shameless."
Jo giggles, not really caring—it was something she had come accustomed to. “She’s just a little drunk.” She’s not sure when she became the person who constantly made excused for Izzie’s behaviour, probably way back when they were fifteen … maybe twelve, who knows.
Everyone waits for her next move, which is to swivel her hips in perfect time to the music, bend over slowly, and then whip her body upright again, her long hair spilling every which way. Jo turns her head away from the woman up on the bar to glance at Alex, who in these moments can never quite decide whether to be amused or annoyed. To say that the man has patience is an understatement. Alex and Jo had that in common.
"Happy birthday, Jol!" Izzie yells. "Let's all raise a glass to Jo Wilson!" Which everyone does. Without taking their eyes off the blonde.
A minute later, Alex whisks her down from the bar, slings her over his shoulder, and deposits her on the floor next to Jo in one fluid motion. Clearly, this was something he had done before. "All right," he announces, glancing over to Jo apologetically. "I'm taking our little party-planner home."
Izzie plucks her drink off the bar and stamps her foot. "You're not the boss of me, Alex! Is he, Jo?" As she asserts her independence, she stumbles and sloshes her martini all over Alex's shoe. In usuall circumstances Jo would agree with Izzie—Alex wasn’t the boss of the woman. But at this very moment, as she continues to cause a scene with her temper tantrum, Jo had to agree with him.
Alex grimaces. "You're wasted, Iz. This isn't fun for anyone but you."
"Okay. Okay. I'll go... I'm feeling kind of sick anyway," she says, looking queasy.
"Are you going to be okay?" Jo asks, concern dripping from her voice despite the fact she felt incredibly drunk herself.
"I'll be fine. Don't you worry," she says, now playing the role of brave little sick girl.
Jo thanks her for the party, tells her that it was a total surprise—which is a lie, because she knew Izzie would capitalize on my thirtieth to buy a new outfit, throw a big bash, and invite as many of her friends as Jo’s own. Still, it was nice of her to have the party, and Jo’s finally glad that she did. Izzie’s the kind of friend who always makes things feel special. Izzie hugs Jo hard and tells her she'd do anything for her, and what would she do without Jo, her maid of honour, the sister she never had. She is gushing, as she always does when she drinks too much.
Alex cuts her off, "happy birthday, princess. We'll talk to you tomorrow." He gives Jo a kiss on the cheek as she grimaces at the old nickname he had coined all the way back when they were freshman in college. Before he exits, he turns back one last time, “you’ll be OK?”
"Thanks, Alex," Jo smiles. "I’ll be fine, good night."
Jo watches him usher Izzie outside, holding her elbow after she nearly trips on the curb. Oh, to have such a caretaker. To be able to drink with reckless abandon and know that there will be someone to get you home safely—so you didn’t end the night passed out on your male friend’s bed with absolutely no idea if anything happened between the pair of you.
Sometime later, Alex reappears in the bar—much to Jo’s drunken delight.
"Izzie lost her purse. She thinks she left it here.” He huffs with a roll of his eyes, “it's small, silver," he continues, using his hands to show them the size. "Have you seen it?""
“She lost her new Chanel bag?" Jo shakes her head and laughs, a little louder than she anticipated thanks to the alcohol coursing through her system, because it is just like Izzie to lose her things. Usually Jo would try her best to keep track of them for her, but as it was her birthday, she decided to go off duty—albeit unintentionally. Still, Jo helps Alex search for the purse, finally spotting it under a bar stool.
“Oh my god!” Jo hears Jackson’s mocking tone from behind her, “the Chanel purse, Jo!” She grabs the purse from the floor, accidentally knocking her head against the bar, before turning around to shove a laughing Jackson in the chest.
Alex grins, lifting a hand to ruffle her now slightly messy hair playfully, “what would I do without you?” He asks rhetorically, but there’s a glint in his eyes as he watches her glance up at the ceiling with a smug shrug, full of confidence.
As he turns to leave, Alex's friend Andrew, one of his groomsmen, convinces him to stay.
"C'mon, man. Hang out for a minute." With that, Alex calls Izzie at home and she slurs her consent, tells him to have fun without her. Although she is probably thinking that such a thing is not possible.
Gradually Jo’s friends peel away, Jackson included, saying their final happy birthdays. Alex and Jo outlast everyone, even Jackson. Something which wasn’t uncommon, it had become a regular occurrence since college. The pair sit at the bar making conversation with the young bartender from earlier who has an "Amy" tattoo and zero interest in the aging brunette lawyer.
It’s just after three when they decide that it's time to go. The night feels more like midsummer than spring, and the warm air infuses Jo with sudden hope: maybe this will be the summer she finds what she wants to do, where she’s going and all that crap.
Alex hails me a cab, but as it pulls over, he says, "how about one more bar?” His voice is hopeful and there’s that familiar crooked smirk on his lips, “one more drink?"
"Fine," Jo groans with a roll of her eyes, a smile on her face that tells Alex she’s joking—she’s more than happy to stop at one more bar with him. "Why not?" Jo grins as they both get into the can and he tells the cab driver to just drive, that he has to think about where to next.
They end up in Alphabet City at a bar on Seventh and Avenue B, aptly named 7B. It’s not an upbeat scene—7B is dingy and smoke-filled. They both like it anyway—it's not sleek and it's not a dive, it’s more up to their speed, more them.
Alex points to a booth, “sit down, this ones on me." Then he’s turning around, "what shall I get you, still partial to a vodka cranberry or beer?" He asks, that smirk still on his lips as he’s proud to think of how well he knows the woman in front of him.
Jo tells him she’ll have whatever he's having, and then she sits and waits for him in the dark red booth, patiently as the vodka and tequila and rum swills around her head. Jo watches as Alex says something to a girl who’s stood at the bar wearing army-green cargo pants and a tank top that says "Fallen Angel." Jo almost scoffs. Jo smiles and shakes her head, ignoring the familiar pang of jealousy running through her veins.
A moment later Alex slides in across from Jo in the old booth, pushing a beer her way. "Newcastle," he says before he smiles, crinkly lines appearing around his eyes. "You like?" Jo nods and smiles back at him.
From the corner of her eye, Jo see’s Fallen Angel turn on her bar stool and survey Alex, absorbing his chiselled features, wavy hair, full lips. Izzie complained once that Alex garners more stares and double takes than she does. Yet, unlike his female counterpart, Alex seems not to notice the attention. Fallen Angel now casts her eyes Jo’s way, likely wondering what Alex is doing with someone so average. Even if the little black dress did wonders for her usually non-existent cleavage, Jo didn’t see herself as anything special. She finds herself silently hoping that the girl thinks they're a couple. Tonight, nobody has to know that she is only a member of the wedding party.
“That’s the dress you wore to our celebratory drinks the night we took the bar.” Alex notices, tilting his beer in her direction.
“Oh wow,” Jo let’s out a breathy laugh, “you remember that?”
Alex smirks before letting out a sigh and shaking his head in almost disbelief, “Of course I do. You threw up all over my bathroom floor whilst wearing it.”
Jo’s jaw drops to the floor at the mention of the old memory, her eyes scanning over Alex as he sets his beer down and lets out a hearty laugh. “Noooo,” she drags the word out, cringing, “I was such a disaster.”
Alex scoffs, “no you were not, you were a college student.”
And for the third time that night, their eyes are glued to one another’s, both having so much to say but having no idea how to say it. But this is how it had always been with Alex, even when they could feel the tension between them—they were still nothing but completely comfortable with one another. Although, in this instance, her cheeks began to heat up.
Jo clears her throat, shaking her head, hoping the waft of her hair would cool down the heat that was rising at the back of her neck. “Do you remember that apartment,” she reminisces, “it barely fit the two of us.”
“How could I forget,” Alex mumbles with a grin, “I spent half the time I lived there sleeping on the floor ‘cause your place was always flooding.”
“I don’t know why you always let me crash in your bed.” Jo thinks out loud. He doesn’t answer, just shakes his head and takes another long swig of his beer, hoping the conversation will change. “You know, I had a huge thing for you back in college.” The words tumble from her lips, so fast he barely catches them but after a second he’s certain of what he’s heard. And she wants to say it’s the drink talking—the alcohol running through her system. But it’s not. And he knows its not. She can tell by the way he awkwardly bows his head, hiding his smile and shaking his head.
Eventually, the conversation changes and it’s as if she never made the slip up. But she did. But then Alex is talking about his job and their Hamptons share that begins in another week and a lot of things. It’s always been this way, easy and comfortable. But Izzie doesn’t come up and neither does their September wedding, not once.
After the pair finish their beers they move over to the jukebox, fill it with dollar bills, searching for good songs as they giggle and tease one another about their song choices. Jo pushes the code for "Thunder Road" twice because she knows it’s his favourite song.
"Yes, Springsteen's got to be at the top of the list. Ever seen him in concert?" Alex’s eyes glimmer, as they glance down to Jo—a tipsy smile gracing his lips.
"Nope," Jo answers with a laugh, “grew up homeless, remember. Concerts were a luxury I couldn’t afford." Jo almost tell him that Izzie offered to take her back in high school, well, Izzie would have been dragged along out of pity even though she much preferred groups like the Backstreet Boys. But Jo decides it’s best not to bring this up. Because then he’ll remember that it’s probably time to go home to Izzie and she doesn't want to be alone in her dwindling moments of twenty-somethingness.
Alex chuckles, never being one to skirt around Jo’s tough upbringing, it was actually one of the reasons they became such good friends. “You’ve had a zip code for over ten years now, I’m not letting that excuse slide anymore.”
Jo mocks shock, slapping a hand against the back of his upper arm, “not an excuse, jerk.”
Not too long later, it’s last call at 7B. They get a couple more beers and return to their booth.
Sometime later they are back in a cab once again, going north on First Avenue. "Two stops," Alex tells the cab driver, as they both live on opposite sides of Central Park. Alex is holding Izzie's Chanel purse, which looks small and out of place in his large hands. Jo glances over at the silver dial of his Rolex, a gift from Izzie. It is just shy of five o'clock. They sit almost silently for a stretch of ten or fifteen blocks, besides for a few comments mixed with tipsy laughter, both of them looking out of their respective side windows, until the cab hits a pothole and Jo finds herself lurched into the middle of the backseat, her bare leg grazing his.
Then suddenly, out of nowhere, Alex’s lips are on Jo’s. He’s kissing her. Or maybe she’s the one kissing him. But, somehow, no matter who was the one that initiated it, they’re kissing. And Jo’s mind has gone blank as she listens to the soft sound of their lips meeting again and again. Their tongues tangle, fighting for dominance which Alex eventually wins over and Jo can’t complain … because this is what she’s wanted for so so long.
Ever since freshman year.
At some point, Alex taps on the Plexiglas partition and tells the driver, between kisses, that it will just be one stop after all.
They arrive on the corner of seventy-third and third, near Jo’s apartment. Alex hands the driver a twenty and doesn’t bother to wait for change. They spill out of the taxi, kissing more on the sidewalk and then in front of Jose, Jo’s doorman. It makes her giggle and not because she’s still a little tipsy and high from the feeling of Alex’s lips on hers but because who would’ve thought—Hobo Jo has a doorman.
Their lips don’t part the whole way up in the elevator, their hands grabby and desperate as they try to fight the urge to rip off one another’s clothing. Alex has Jo pressed against the elevator wall, her hands moving to the back of his head.
Once their up, she fumbles with her key, turning it the wrong way in the lock as Alex keeps his arms around her waist, his soft lips nipping and biting against her neck and the side of her face. Finally, the door is open, and they’re no longer just kissing and touching. They’re in the middle of her studio, and he’s slowly pulling down the thin straps of her dress, kissing the soft skin where his hands graze—savouring the moment.
Just as Alex is about to pull down the tight dress the rest of the way. His hands stop their descent, placing them on either side of her head and forcing her to look at him. Her pink plump lips swollen, hair messy from him running his fingers through the long tendrils—she looked perfect, he’s never thought she looked more perfect than she did in this very moment.
“Are you drunk?" His voice is a whisper in the dark.
"No," Jo says. Because you always say no when you're drunk. And even though she is a little, she seems to have a lucid instant where she can consider this whole thing clearly. It strikes her that, in a sense, she can have both a momentous birthday night and the one thing she’s wanted for as long as she can remember.
One thought of Izzie is in her mind, but she’s being pushed to the back, overwhelmed by a force stronger than their friendship and her own conscience.
Within seconds, Alex’s lips are back on hers and he’s hurriedly removing her dress ad she makes quick work of snapping open the buttons of his crisp white shirt. Jo doesn’t even realise they’re moving backwards until he’s throwing her down onto the soft bed and Alex crawls on top of her. Jo’s eyes flutter closed, then open, then closed again as a swarm of pleasure sweeps over her as Alex’s hand continue to roam over her body.
“Me too.”
“Hmm?”
“I had a huge thing for you, too. Still do.”
And then, somehow, she’s having sex with her best friend's fiancé.
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Take It Back (Chapter 31)
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female Reader
Summary: About five years ago, a one night stand with Y/N tore Bucky’s life apart. It was also the night before his wedding. Now he’s married to her sister and she needs a place to stay.
Take It Back Full Masterpage |
Well, damn. Looks like we’ve found it.” - Nat
Outside the tower, the sky had turned into a midnight black.
If the windows were open, they would be able to identify that earthy smell of an approaching thunderstorm.
“I haven’t seen this thing in years. I can’t believe it was this easy to find.” Wanda mumbled, roughly pushing Scott aside to grab the computer mouse.
She clicked around the screen, quickly finding the print button.
Nobody waited for another second to get to work.
“So what exactly is your plan now?” Scott asks, looking between Wanda and Nat.
He leaned back on the chair, his arms crossed behind his head. His smirk further proved how proud he was of himself.
Nat shares a look with Wanda before Wanda’s eyes return to the computer screen, thinking. There’s a pinch between her eyebrows.
“Well, we have an idea. But we won’t know for sure until we print it out and look at it.” She explains.
Wanda walks around the desk, pushing Scott again, to make her way to the corner of the room and towards the printer.
Scott stands with a huff and stands next to next. Her arms were crossed as she eyed Loki down with an expectation from him.
Scott copied her stance, doing the same.
Loki looked between the two, obviously unamused.
“What?” He snaps.
Nat and Scott look at each other and then back at Loki.
“We’re waiting for you to tell us what happened,” Scott says.
“What you know.” Nat clarifies, darting an eye at Scott.
Specificity.
Scott shrugs, walking away to tend to his daughter.
Loki stared at her for a second longer before looking back over at Wanda.
It was obvious he wouldn’t be getting out of here tonight without any explanation.
He didn’t like the feeling of being interrogated.
His heart sped up drastically at the thought of sharing what he knew as he watches Wanda printing the will.
He wondered how they would react. He knows he didn’t when he found out.
The memories of that day hit him and he gazes down at the floor, biting his lip nervously until it cracks and bleeds.
He curses under his breath, loosening his black tie from around his collar.
“Fine,” he finally mumbles, “You want to know what I know? Just prepare yourself.”
The sting of his hurt lip mixed in with irritation.
There’s a beat of silence and Natasha looks him up and down. She looks away nervously for a second before looking back.
It was clear she feared the unknown, but none of them had any choice at this point. Enough was enough.
“What do you mean?” Nat asks worried, calmer.
Loki stands tall and moves up closer to her.
He doesn’t flinch an eye nor meet a beat, “Three’s a crowd, Romanoff.”
Seven Years Ago
The rain poured outside the tower like a heavy sheet of despair.
It hadn’t rained in almost fifteen days; mother nature decided that today would be the day to let it all go.
Finally.
The grays of the sky was heavily depressing as he stared out into it, and the over-air-conditioned building did nothing to help the chill on bare skin. It managed to cut through the thin fabric of his white dress shirt.
He knew he should put his suit jacket back on.
His foot kept tapping against the ground as he looked out into the window, thinking hard and trying to conjure any explanation as to why his future boss has been looking for his current girlfriend.
Loki raised his hand, taking a big bite of the Twix bar.
Something wasn’t right. He needed to find out what it was.
He was on a mission to unravel what mess he had just walked in on, what he had gotten himself into. He should’ve been smarter than to date Ashlyn’s sister.
Sure, he could be a dick, but he wasn’t an idiot. Something was very wrong.
Last night, he had told you that maybe Bucky had just run after you for an apology.
He laughs to himself, taking another bite of the chocolate.
He was a man. He knew Bucky had pushed you away for a reason.
The only reason a man in an already established relationship would walk in on something like that would be to take something back.
Loki knew Bucky was never very fond of him, but Bucky always at least showed him some professional respect in the work area.
He had nothing against him per-se.
But why? Why was Bucky Barnes running after you when he had someone at home?
There was only one explanation and he knew he had to find out.
He took one last bite of his chocolate bar before tossing it in the grey bin next to his neat desk.
He didn’t waste one moment before getting back to work.
He knew it had to start with a source. The only reason a man starts an affair is that he’s unsatisfied. It wasn’t rocket science.
Loki wondered if there was a prominent issue going on between Ashlyn and Bucky that no one had been aware of. Come to think of it, in normal interactions, they seemed perfectly fine.
Loki didn’t get to talk to her too much or get to know her, but from the few times he had interacted with Ashlyn, she seemed decent enough.
Nothing out of the ordinary.
She was always too busy spending too much time with Mr. Barnes for Loki to get to truly know her.
His brows furrow together.
Ashlyn and Mr. Barnes.
He quickly opens up his security system and logs in with his appropriate credentials.
It doesn’t take long for him to view all the cameras access that was available to him. Being the secret head of security to George had its perks.
Clicking and clicking, he finds all the footage from the last year, from the cameras. He thinks about how to narrow down his search.
He chooses the one just outside the hallway where he knew it was outside of George’s office.
Loki knew he was hoping for too much to get something out from hallway footage.
His eyes dart up towards his door before going through each one, starting with the earliest date closest to when Ashlyn first started, clicking around the time stamp, fast-forwarding…
Nothing.
He spends an extra half hour, looking and looking even further into other possible locations near the office, but nothing more than people leaving and entering George’s office.
He’s got his feet up on his desk and a hand running through his hair, his other foot he uses to swerve his chair from side to side.
He was pretty much giving up at this point when something finally catches his eye.
His head tilts to the side as he puts his leg down on the floor.
That’s interesting.
He pushes himself closer to his computer, rewinding the footage that he had quickly skimmed through.
He pauses it with a click to the space bar.
The timestamp had been about three months ago, nine forty-five PM.
The office was supposed to be closed, everyone already has gone except for a few handfuls that didn’t have a happy life at home.
He couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
There was Bucky’s girlfriend’s arms wrapped around George’s knees, her head very clearly bouncing back and forth from an area between his legs.
Loki felt sick as he paused it and pushed himself away from his desk.
He knew at that moment that he had witnessed a scandal.
He didn’t want to partake in this.
Quickly, he exited out the page and cleared his search history. His eyes dart to the door once more.
Loki leaves his office that afternoon a bit on edge.
He closes his door behind him nervously and way too aware of his surroundings. He knew he was being paranoid, but he felt he had every right to be.
This could be potential blackmail; the law could be involved.
As his co-workers pass him, he wonders if anyone else possibly knew. He wonders if they could read his mind’s eye and if they could see what he had seen just moments ago.
He wipes the sweat on his jeans and the Twix off the corner of his mouth, even though there’s nothing really there. Paranoid is all he is, it was all in his head.
He goes about his day, subconsciously looking over his shoulder. He thinks he sees George, but it’s his imagination.
He was seeing things that weren’t really there.
He hopes to not run into any of them for the rest of the day. Or anyone, for that matter.
He still hadn’t been able to process what he had witnessed.
He didn’t know what was the correct steps to take with the information he had.
He was thankful when his workday had passed.
At the end of the day, he never signed out of his computer so fast, shutting it off so quickly.
He grabs his phone off his desk, sticks it in his pocket, and prepares to leave for the night.
He’s halfway down his hall, he thinks he’s made it, just about made it, when a hand grabs him by his shoulder, making him still in place.
Loki turns around, and when he meets his eyes, he gulps- hard.
Loki looks like he’s just seen a ghost while George is smiling wide.
Too wide.
He knows he needs to act nonchalant, so he smiles back, or at least tries to.
“Mr. Barnes.” He greets him.
George tilts his head at him, “You’re in an awful rush, aren’t you?”
Loki swallows thickly.
He flicks the nails of his fingers with his thumb, “I have somewhere to be.”
George nods, understanding, even though he doesn’t by it.
He gives Loki a firm squeeze.
“Got an extra second?” He motions a corner of the hall with his head.
Loki contemplates saying no, he really does. But instead, he says:
“Sure.”
Loki expects Mr. Barnes to lead them into his office as they take their time walking.
He’s startled when Mr. Barnes stops just halfway, Loki almost waking right into him at the abrupt stop.
“Nah uh. Here is just fine.” George says.
They’re in the corner of where the hallway turns, it’s a spot where it’s hidden and no one could see unless they were to go into the supply closer that was just on his right.
Loki nods.
George moves up closer to him until Loki’s back is firmly against the wall. Shit.
“Don’t worry, son. I’m not going to fire you.” Loki is half relieved at that. George’s smile quickly falls off his face, replaced by a stern glare, “but we need to make things clear.”
Loki gapes.
“Alright.”
“Is there anything you want to say first? Anything at all?” Loki stares at him and then shakes his head, “You know I can monitor every cyber movement of every single one of my employees, right?”
Loki swallows again, looking away. He caves. “Look, Mr. Barnes, I wasn’t looking for anything specific, I just happened to run into it—“
“That doesn’t matter to me,” his response shocks Loki. That didn’t matter? “What I care about is what you’re going to do with this information.”
“I-I don’t know what you mean.”
George moves in closer and Loki feels trapped, “I mean, are you going to tell him? Are you going to play the martyr and tell your new little girlfriend? What are you going to do now that you know?”
Loki swallowed hard.
“Mr. Barnes.”
George gives him a wicked smile that makes Loki shiver.
“Here’s what you’re going to do,” his tone and volume lower drastically, “You won’t say anything to anyone, ever. I won’t let you ruin this. You don’t want to know what will happen to you if you do. It won’t just be your career that will be over. Do you understand me?”
Loki gives him a short nod.
“Yes, sir.”
There’s a glint in his boss’s eyes. One that Loki knows too well. It was mischievous and Mr. Barnes was…amused?
Loki scoffs.
“You knew there was a camera there,” George gives him a look that only confirms his suspicion, “If you wanted it to be private, you would’ve done it in your office. You did it on purpose. You wanted to be caught.”
George says nothing. He pulls away from the man and turns back the direction they come from.
Loki is left shocked as he stands there, unmoving.
It’s a few long seconds later when he’s turned back to where his boss had gone that George finally spins back around, calling his name.
Loki freezes.
“You’re a smart kid, Loki.” George says with a smile.
Present Time
“I can’t believe this. That’s why you left.” Nat says, running her hands through her hair. Loki nods. “Why would he want it recorded on purpose?”
“I don’t know,” he says, defeated, “But there you go, I told you everything I know.”
Everyone stands there for a moment, taking it all in.
“Do you think the footage is still there?” Nat finally asks.
Loki lets out a long sigh, “Possibly. But I’d be surprised no one else has found it.”
Nat shakes her head, “If someone did, it would’ve been made public by now."
“It would be in the hand of who’s currently in charge of the security for the building.” Loki says.
Nat looks over at Wanda who is still a the printer, “Do you know who that could be?”
“Bucky.” Wanda says like it’s nothing, “He took over after George died.”
Loki and Nat share a look.
This just kept getting worst.
“I- I always had these feelings, there were always away together on their meetings in Paris. It was always in Paris.” Loki says quietly, shaking his head to himself.
It was so many years later and he still didn’t believe it. He had just run, like a damn coward.
“Okay, Loki, I know this much to ask, but,” Nat takes a deep breath, “Do you think it’s possible to obtain international footage from when they were there? Or also trace back the footage you had seen?”
Loki thinks and then nods.
“Difficult. Illegal, but not impossible. I can try from my old work computer. The certificate on it should still be valid. I could hack it.”
Wanda walks over to them with the document in her hand.
Everyone looks at her, but she’s too busy looking at it, trying not to smile too hard.
“I knew it,” she scoffs, “I knew something was off when I had seen it. I don’t know how it could’ve been overlooked, maybe some really expensive lawyer, I don’t know, this is crazy, or she could be an idiot. I, Nat we were right—“
Wanda scurries over to the desk.
She places the will on top of it and motions for them to walk over with her finger.
She points down at a signed line once they are nearby.
“Do you see anything weird about this?” Wanda asks Loki specifically.
They both stare at it for a bit. Nat’s suspicions are confirmed and Loki looks lost.
“No. I’m not familiar with wills.” Loki says, not my area os expertise.” He continues to stare at it, trying to decipher it like if it were some kind of puzzle, “Wait,” Loki says, pushing Nat politely aside, “Her signature.”
“What about it?” Nat asks, looking at him.
“This can’t be right.” Loki mumbles.
“The state of New York clearly states that no will is valid when signed without a witness present and a witness signature,” Wanda explains.
“But there’s no other signature on here.” Loki mumbles. They both stare at him for a second longer. “There’s no other signature on here. But why?” Loki asks shaking his head and taking the will in his hand.
The three of them all look at each other.
The sink water runs cold water, but it was a ploy. He hadn’t used the bathroom, he needed to step away to think.
His fingers gripped onto the sides of the sink and his head hung between his shoulders in shame.
He had been so oblivious. He was disappointed at the woman that was now standing in her living room doing god knows what.
How could he be so blind? How could all of them have been so blind? It was as if now that he knew, it was clear as day.
It all made sense.
He was repulsed and shocked at the revelation.
He runs his fingers over the sides of the sink and the cabinet below it.
He was in a home; a home built for a family, a husband, and a wife.
His best friend had gone into this marriage thinking he was making the best decision regardless of how he felt.
Bucky had considered everyone’s feelings, especially Ashlyns.
Steve stuns himself at his change of heart.
You, for the longest time, you had been the object of his dreams; of his rich fantasies.
But it was like his eyes had been reopened and he now knew the issue went farther than merely what was between the three of you - him, Bucky, and you.
He needed to do something, and something quick.
He tries to think of anything that might’ve seemed out of the ordinary. There had to be a way.
His eyes dart around the bathroom, looking for a sign.
Bucky. You. This company…
He eyes the off-brand soap on the sink. He smiles to himself. Bucky, even having millions of dollars available to him, would rather spend his cash on cheap hand soap than the real thing.
Instead of Clé de Peau, he would always buy Cloū de Peau. They both looked really similar, almost smelled identical, but the way it was manufactured was nothing alike. One was real, one was a fake.
Steve takes the soap in his hand and plays with it.
It even felt different.
Steve’s smile slides off his face. He places the soap back in its place.
Cold realization washes over him.
He should’ve known the second he had pulled out all of the resignation forms that something was wrong. He had seen it on the desk, and he knew something was wrong. Working for Mr. Barnes for so long, he should’ve known.
Steve shuts the water off and gives it a few seconds to make it seem like he’s drying his hands.
With a deep breath, he walks back out into his best friend’s apartment.
He sees her standing there, arms crossed, distraught, and deep in thought.
How could he be so stupid?
He eyes her diligently up and down, approaching her like prey would a predator, and then he stops.
He sees her tense arms and the way she rubs them as if she were cold.
He clears his throat and she turns around, uncertainty clouding her face.
She didn’t know if he was still upset with her.
“Steve.” She mutters, her eyes just briefly darting behind him.
He takes a second before answering, swallowing thickly.
His thoughts are running wild.
He approached this delicately.
“Are you feeling better?” He asks, nodding towards her belly.
Ashlyn looks down, rubbing her belly consciously.
“I’m fine.” She says.
Steve nods.
His eyes dart to the open window, an incoming storm making its appearance in the dark sky as if flashes.
He had heard it would be a bad one.
The rumble shakes within the walls and under their feet.
“It’s going to storm.” Ashlyn says lowly, looking towards the window as well, but not taking to long to divert her attention back to the man in front of her, “I - shouldn’t…”
His furrows his brows, “Shouldn’t what?”
She takes a deep breath, pushing her hair behind her ear.
“I shouldn’t have done any of it.” Her words held heavyweight. She knows it as she licks her bottom lip, biting it slightly to keep from shedding a tear, “I was vulnerable, I wanted to take what would make me happy.”
My best friend wasn’t enough for you? Steve wants to shout.
But he knows that shouldn’t be how he should play this game. Instead, he settles for a nod.
“Yeah, you shouldn’t have.” He says it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Ashlyn takes a deep breath, wrapping her arms around herself tighter around herself.
“I need to know who tried to open that file, I need to make sure he doesn’t find out, Steve, because if he does, I don’t know what I would do with myself.”
Steve feels the heavy hot iron in his chest - the represented himself being torn in half.
He wanted to help his best friend, but something about the way the woman was crying in front of him also made him feel pain.
“I don’t condone anything that you did to him.” He says.
“I understand-“
He cuts her off, “It wasn’t right. It was wrong. It makes you a bad person.”
“I get that, I do.” She pleads.
Steve bites the need to scoff, literally as he bits the inside of his cheek.
He digs his toe into her living room floor. Fuck his best friend for having the most beautiful girl on his arm and the most gorgeous dark wood floors he’s ever seen.
“Damnit,” he whispers under his breath, running his hands through his hair, “Look, I’ll help you.”
Ashlyn’s eyebrows shoot up surprised.
“What?”
Steve sucks in his bottom lip, wanting to yell at himself for what he was getting into, “I have a plan.”
And when she hugs him, thanking him for being her friend, he has to close his eyes tight together and hug her back, or else it would all fall apart.
The sun crept over the white bedsheets like a warm hello.
He was happy because this time you hadn’t run away.
You had allowed yourself to be wrapped up in his arms, his legs sliding in-between yours as he held your back tighter against his bare chest.
He had whispered good morning right under your ear, kissing you in the same spot.
He repeated it and you chuckled.
It had soon turned into a conversation of heavy sighs, moans, and giggles as his kisses turned into playful bites. He pulled on your ear lobe with his teeth.
“Stop it, Bucky!” You chuckled, swatting his arm behind you.
“Come on, just a little longer sleepy head.” His voice was a husky rumble.
“I’m already up, you idiot.”
He hummed against the back of your neck. You felt his hot breath hitting you there and goosebumps popped up on your arms.
“Are you now?” He asks playfully.
You enjoyed this. But you had to be real.
Your smile fell off your face as you looked at the wall across from you.
“Yeah. And it’s Monday. We need to get going soon.” You pull his arm off of you, sitting up in bed.
He eyes up at you like a puppy dog, his eyes big and a small pout to complement it.
You sigh, looking away but pulling the covers higher towards your breasts.
“I have to talk to her today. Today is the day we go back to reality. We had enough of our fun on catching up, but now we have to think about what happens next. There’s much still left to do.”
Bucky sighs, throwing his covers off of himself, not caring that he was baring his entire naked self to the world.
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” He murmurs, picking his sweats up off the floor and pulling them on slowly.
He did know, but he wanted to enjoy you a little bit longer. He wanted to enjoy this live omit of headaches.
He looks back at you once he’s half-dressed and his face falls at the look of yours.
You were terrified, that much was clear.
Bucky stretches his arms on the bed, leaning himself closer to you.
Your eyes look up slowly to meet his eyes.
“Hey, it’ll be okay. I promise.” He says. You look at him for a second before nodding. “Come here.” He adds.
He leans forward just a few more inches, capturing your lips in a tender kiss.
You raise your hand to grab the side of his jaw, kissing him back just as sweetly.
When you pull apart your eyes are glowing and you can’t look away from him.
“I love you.” You whisper.
He leans in and gives you another long kiss, letting his soft lips drag over yours sensually.
“I love you, too.”
You both take a separate shower and afterward you begin to pack your things.
It’s a comfortable silence, one for the books, as you both share flirtatious looks over folding your clothes.
You fold a shirt and he clears his throat.
You look up at him and he’s biting his bottom lip to keep a smirk from growing. He folds his sock as you bite your own.
You clear your throat and the game commences, he looks up at you and you drag the tip of your tongue over your top lip.
It goes on for a bit until you’re both rolling your luggage out from his room.
He wraps his arm around you in the doorway and lays a kiss on the top of your head.
You sigh contently, holding his arm around your front.
You don’t say anything to each other for a while. You don’t need to.
Bucky takes the things to the car and you stay behind to tidy up the home before the departure.
Your stomach rumbles and you perk up the need to make a quick breakfast sandwich before the trip.
You’re buttering up one side of the loaf of bread when you feel a hot wall against your back.
He wraps it’s arm around your waist and plants his chin on your shoulder.
He quiets for a bit until he mumbles, “Food.”
You smile. “Yeah, it’s for the road. We have a long drive ahead of us. I didn’t feel like stopping at a rest stop this time.”
Bucky makes a sound that is very much like a protest, “What’s wrong with rest stop food?” He asks, slightly offended.
“Seriously, Bucky?”
“Sorry, I forgot you were a chef.”
You just laugh as he pulls away to lean against the island behind you. He watches you silently as you scramble an egg and add a slice of melted cheddar to the top. He watches you intently as you fry the bacon, as you build the sandwiches, and then wrap them individually in foil.
“You’re amazing.”
You chuckle as you finish wrapping the last sandwich, your fingers pressing into the foil.
“It’s barely anything. A twelve-year-old could make this.” You shrug.
“Why can’t you just take a compliment for once?”
You sigh, placing the sandwiches beside him on the table.
His tone is playful and so is the sparkle in his eye when your eyes meet.
You step up closer to him until your bodies are flushed together. He hums softly.
His eyes turn dark as you give him that look.
You bring your fingers slowly to the edges of his lips, just hovering, but not really touching.
A tease.
“There’s something I never told you.” You whisper, looking at his lips.
Bucky swallows thickly.
“Oh, yeah?” His voice is husky and thick.
“Yeah,” your voice is almost inaudible. You drag your hand down his neck, like you’re inspecting a statue, and then down his pecks. They’re firm. “Remember how I told you that from the moment I saw I knew I always found myself attracted to you?”
Bucky’s Adam's apple bobbles up and down...
“Yes.”
“After I realized I had feelings for you, like real feelings —“
“—Wait, I thought you said you always had feelings.”
“I thought you were always cute and I had a crush, but as I said, I harbored those down after I found out you were with Ash. But when I started—“
“Tell me.” He whispers, eyes darting to your lips.
“When I fell in love with you, when I realized it, I never wanted to kiss someone so much in my entire life.” You continue your hand down to the waistband of his jeans. You play with it, “but there was this other side of my brain, this carnal side, I never wanted to make someone feel good so badly before.” Your eyes dart up to his and his pupils are huge, and he’s also breathing a little heavier now. He feels your fingers on the button of his pants and he feels when you undo it, “I’ve wanted to suck you off for so long.” You say, pulling down his zipper.
The sound it makes is absolutely erotic.
He has no words. He’s never been so turned on by another soul before. The way you looked up at him, teasing him by allowing your lips to hover over his, and the way your fingers open his pants.
You leave him completely speechless until he sees you getting down on your knees, pulling his pants and boxers down along with you.
He lets out a long puff of air and a curse.
Bucky subconsciously juts out his hips, his right hand gripping onto the island behind him.
When you wrap your fingers around him, he’s already hard and leaking copious amount of pre-cum for you.
“Shit.” He says through his teeth, his left hand going to the back of your head.
You take him in slowly at first, teasing him. It’s the first time you’ve ever tasted him and he tastes just like how you imagined he would: Salty, musky, but an underlying taste that is just him.
It’s delicious.
You bob your head a few times, letting your tongue drag over the vein under his cock.
He groans beneath you.
“That feels so good.” He says almost pained. He pushes your head farther down and your right-hand lands on his tense thigh as you take him down your throat. You flex your throat a few times and he groans even louder, “yes.”
You pull back, needing to breathe, but you don’t take too long to dive back in again, letting him guide you with his hand as he fucks your mouth.
You feel his thigh clench beneath your fingers and you look up at him from beneath your eyelashes.
He’s looking down at you with so much desire. His eyes are half-closed and his face is completely flushed. His mouth is swollen from biting and licking and it’s gaping, moans leaving it.
“God, look at you.” He says almost admirably innocent, given the situation you were both currently in. He runs his thumb over the top of your head.
You quickly your pace, even more, bringing your hand to help stroke what you can’t reach with your mouth.
“Oh god.” He starts panting and you know he’s close.
You pull off him and grab his hot rod into a fist. Quickly, and with determination, you start jacking him off quickly.
You run your hand over his tip a couple of times, letting your thumb go over his slit, and then back over his entire cock. The sound is soaking wet and squelching.
Both his hand leaves your head and is gripping onto the table behind him.
You stroke and stroke his hard cock like it’s the only thing you want to do for the rest of your life and…
“I’m gonna cum.” He whines.
You jerk him faster until your hand is almost a blur, and with a tight groan, followed by a grunt, he cums right into your open mouth.
He throws his head back, a curse escaping his mouth as he continues to thrust into your hand.
You swallow everything he gives you and a shiver runs through him when you stroke him again.
You know he’s sensitive at this point but you love it.
He pulls away from you with a cry as you stroke him one last time. So, so sensitive.
You pull yourself back to your feet on wobbly knees and you’re momentarily caught off guard when he wastes no time to pull you into him by your elbow.
He kisses you deeply, running both his hands in through your hair.
You kiss for a bit until you lay your head on his chest, tucking him away back into his jeans.
You share chuckles as you each grab your sandwich and then close up the house.
Everything felt so surreal, it was amazing. You’ve never felt happier.
When you both get into the car, soaked from the rain, you’re smiling like two teenage idiots.
You’re a mess of giggles and laughter when you plug the address into his phone and then set it up on his dashboard.
Bucky turns on his Bluetooth on his phone and soft rock fills the speakers.
You throw your head back against the seat, not believing your life right now.
He pulls out of his driveway the same time you decide to unlock your phone.
Hey, Bucky wants to sit down tonight to talk about everything. Is that fine?
You send the text to Nat and you let Bucky know right away that it's been sent.
“I hope things will be easier from here on out.” You mutter, looking out the window.
“I’m sure they will. The hard part is over.” Bucky answers.
Your phone vibrates in your hand.
That’s good. Please tell him to come to the office. We’ll be there at 6.
About 100 miles west, Steve sits in his own office building.
His finger types away at the keyboard as he accesses the files that he hadn’t looked at since the dreaded day he left Barnes Enterprises.
He clicks and clicks until finally, a big smile fills his entire face.
He clicks the print button on the top left of the screen and he pulls out his phone.
He finds Ashlyn’s name.
I found out who it is.
With a reluctant pause, he clicks send and then tucks his phone away in his back pocket.
The rain was a downpour now. The drive took longer than you both wanted, but it was better late than dead.
Bucky held your hand in the middle as he drove through the heavy sheets of water on the highway.
It was around six-thirty when you both pulled up in front of the tower in the city.
You both run towards the front doors, trying to stay as dry as you possibly could.
There’s something strange in the air when you and Bucky stand to wait for the elevator. You’re not sure what it was, but something was different.
He gives your hand a tight squeeze when you’re both alone in the elevator.
“This is good, right? They’re going to help us.” You say slowly, looking up as the numbers of the floors grow.
51…
52…
53…
“Of course it’s good. Even if it weren’t about me and you, you have no idea how tied down I’ve been because of this damn will.”
“Trust me, I know.”
Bucky sighs.
“Y/N, everything will be fine.”
“So when these doors open, do we go in hand in hand or?”
There’s a brief pause and you know Bucky is thinking about it.
“Stand next to me. I don’t want anyone giving you shit.”
You nod. No physical contact.
You’re not upset or offended. You knew this needed to be trodden carefully.
The doors finally open to a busy floor of late Monday afternoon workers. A few throw Bucky an additional nod and greeting. Others were shocked to see him and nervous.
He was their boss, after all.
He forces a smile as you both make your way to Nat’s office. If only these people knew what was going on around them.
Bucky stares at the mahogany door for a few moments before knocking. They echo in your ears as you felt the nervous butterflies in your gut.
The door opens and you’re both briefly surprised to see Wanda is the one behind the door.
“Hey, Wanda.” Bucky greets slowly. You do the same.
Wanda smiles at you but when she looks over at Bucky her face is stern and almost…afraid?
“Hey…” she says back, her hand sliding down the door and to the knob.
She closes the door behind both of you as you come in and it’s then that you both notice the other people in the room.
There, at the corner of the beautiful room, was Nat, Scott, and Loki.
You’re confused as hell as your eyes land on him.
He looks guilty as he looks at you and you know you look nothing short of stunned and confused.
Bucky’s face is covered in pure jealousy as he stares at the man.
He looks at all the others next, standing up taller. He feels a heavy knot in his stomach.
“What is this?” He whispers harshly. He looks over at Nat, visibly upset. “Nat, this was supposed to be private. Why—“ His voice grows stronger with each other, his eyes diverting back to each person.
Nat steps up to him, putting a hand up in the air as if to calm him down.
“Bucky, please, this—“
Bucky’s eyes dart once more towards Loki.
He remembers that night.
“Especially this guy? Are you fucking kidding me?”
Loki looks away from him, and his eyes catch yours for a moment.
Jesus, if it hadn’t been a minute…
“Bucky, there is more to this than you know.”
Bucky fumes for a bit longer before looking back at Nat. It takes time for her words to register in his head.
“What are you talking about?” He says slowly, “I thought you guys said you had a plan; a way out.”
“We do, Bucky, we do,” Nat confirms. She stretches her arm out and takes his hand in hers.
The silence in the room is overbearing to him.
“But there are other things you need to know, too. Other things we discovered.” Nat whispers, running a hand over his.
Buck swallows thickly, growing nervous.
Nat looks over at you and, lets go of Bucky and takes your hand. With the other, she grabs your elbow.
“Y/N, sweetie.”
You can see the conflict in her eyes.
What was going on?
“What’s going on?” You ask.
Nat looks at Bucky and sighs.
“We found out the loophole in the will. There was no signature from a witness when Ashlyn had signed it. Thereby, it’s invalid. We don’t know how it got passed through everyone in this goddamn building or any lawyer, but it did. We can easily set up a case with a lawyer about this, but I know for a fact that it won’t be hard to win it.” She says softly.
Your lips perk at the side.
“That’s great,” you look over at Bucky, “Bucky that’s great.” But his face is stone cold and he’s still looking at Nat, “Buck?”
His eyes are hard as they look at Natasha. He’s known her for so many years, he knew something was wrong.
“What aren’t you telling us?” He asks lowly.
Your eyes fall as you look away from him and to everyone else in the room.
Nobody is happy or smiling.
It’s unnaturally solemn.
Nat pulls you aside and whispers, “We should let them talk in private.”
Your face falls.
“What? Nat, no. I’m part of this.”
Her face grows hard at your words.
“No, you’re not.” You gape at her and then at everyone else. They all hold that same look. “Please. I’m sure you’ll know soon enough, but at the moment this does not concern you.”
Bucky still looked distraught and fearful.
The whole interaction between you and Nat leaves Bucky on edge. He had a bad feeling. A really bad one.
You finally let her guide you outside and into the hall. You throw Bucky one last look over your shoulder.
The second the doors closes behind you, Bucky’s eyes dart towards the other individuals.
“Does someone finally want to explain to me what the hell is going on?” His tone is tart.
Loki’s face is nothing short of an upset. It’s obvious that if it were up to him, he would’ve been out of there in a heartbeat.
Scott looks between the two of them like a kid watching his two parents arguing.
“I think you should tell him, man.” Scott says, “Or at least let me tell him, the tension is killing it.”
“Quit it, Lang.” Nat snaps.
She takes Bucky’s elbow in her hands. He looks at her confused.
“We got the will, be happy about that. We did it. We can break this hold that you are under.” She says softly, looking into his eyes for any answers that there’s still underlying hope there for his sanity.
“Stop jumping around the bush, Romanoff.” He snaps quietly.
Nat’s eyes divert to Loki’s and he gives her a slight nod. A go-ahead for her to continue.
“There’s something you need to know.” She takes a deep breath and sits on the edge of her dark desk, her hands holding onto either side of it. Bucky swallows thickly and she feels bad for him. Her eyes drift away for a slight moment before looking back up. “When you and Ashlyn were still dating, Loki was with Y/N was he not?” She asks quietly.
Bucky looks at Loki for a fraction of a second.
“Briefly.” He answers curtly.
Natasha nods.
“What do you think went through his mind when he saw you that night?”
Her question makes Bucky’s gut boil in anger.
His face turns into a tight scowl as he takes a step closer to Loki.
His left-hand closes into a fist.
“You told-“ he starts, but Nat cuts him off with a hand to his chest. She pushes him slightly back away from Loki.
“Yes,” she says, “because there’s something else related to that.” Loki gives Bucky a slightly empathic look that makes him coward down a bit. Bucky took a deep breath and licked his lips, “Now answer my question.”
Bucky thinks about it for a moment.
“I don’t know, you tell me.” He says sharply.
“I was confused, Barnes.” Loki finally says, stepping closer to him.
Nat lets her arm drop off as Bucky’s attention goes back to Loki…again.
“Confused about what? The fucking weather? The hell are you talking about?”
“Stop snapping at him, Bucky. He’s here to help you. Stop taking out your anger on him just because he went out with her.” Nat groans, running her hands through her hair. There's a moment of silence between all of them when Nat finally motions back to Loki, “continue.”
Loki takes a deep breath and clears his throat.
“I was confused,” He repeats, “I thought to myself, that’s not right, something had to be wrong back at home for him to run after his girlfriend’s girl,” Bucky swallows thickly, looking away, “So, you know what, yeah,” Loki motions with his hand, “I did my own digging, and I found out what drove you away from her - your wife.”
Bucky eyes him narrowly, “Yeah. She was always away, always on her business trips and we drifted apart. She changed. We all know this.”
Loki’s eyes suddenly softened. Everyone in the room shares a look with each other and it makes Bucky’s skin boil.
He didn’t like it. He knew something was very wrong and it sat unwell with him.
He looks at each person, waiting for elaboration.
“I -I don’t think he needs an audience for this.” Loki whispers, shaking his head to himself.
Nat nods and Wanda’s already opening the door to leave.
It takes Scott a questioning look from Loki - go, man - for him to get the message and he’s hurrying out of his seat.
“Yep. Right. I don’t even know why I’m here,” He stops awkwardly in front of Bucky and gives him a weird pat on the arm, “okay, bye.” And scurries off.
Bucky peaks a brow up at Loki until everyone’s gone.
The final sound of the door closing is his cue.
He wants to keep his tough demeanor and he wants to appear bigger to Loki. It took him months to get the image of Loki fucking you out of his head.
When Loki had left, it did him well. Seeing him again, brought it all up again.
But he knew he had to hear Loki out. A long sigh leaves his lips and Bucky sees the tired look in his eyes as he waited for everyone to leave.
“I want to show you something.” Loki finally says, guiding Buck to behind Nat’s desk.
He opens the laptop next to it.
Bucky recognizes it immediately as he takes a seat on the leather chair.
“I’m surprised you kept it after you quit.” Bucky mumbles.
“Bucky, just-“ Bucky could now tell he was losing his cool as the man took a deep breath. The two share a look of truce and Bucky nods for him to continue.
“I had found something that day and I did find something,” Loki decides to dive right in. Milking this cow wasn’t going to make this any easier. He had to rip the bandaid, “It’s going to be very hard for you to see, man.”
“Stop stalling. Just show me.” Bucky sighs, running a hand up to his face.
Strange, his hand was clammy and sweaty. Was he nervous?
There’s a few clicking sounds here and there.
Finally, a thumbnail to security footage comes on.
Bucky eyes the date.
What could Loki possibly have to show him that was so old? This was before he ever started falling for you. He was still fully committed to Ashlyn at the time of this footage.
He still loved her during this time.
“I’m gonna play it, okay?”
Bucky doesn’t respond, he just waits for it.
He notices Loki stiffen, taking a deep breath. Then, he clicks play.
Bucky’s eyes sink into the image being shown to him. He recognized the hallway right away.
But he stills at the image of his father.
Of course, it was him, even in the black and white image, that silver hair was uncanny.
What really stilled his heart was the brunette wrapping her arms around his waist…
Bucky’s heart was in his ears...
…his hips…
His chest grew heavy.
…and lastly, his upper thighs as she sunk down to her knees.
Bucky’s could hear his blood flow and his chest grew frigid cold. He felt himself struggling to breathe correctly as he shut his eyes tightly together.
Loki quickly froze the image, knowing it was best to not show him anything else- nothing graphic.
Bucky was breathing hard as he pushed the chair away from the desk.
“Wha-“ he groaned painfully as he brought a wrist to his eyes, trying to rub the image out of his head, “Why are -“ He shook his head quickly back and forth, “No, that’s not—“
“Bucky.” He says calmly, closing the laptop.
Bucky continued to shake his head, a look of absurd pain on his face.
He felt sick. He was going to be sick, right here in Nat’s office.
He could feel it coming up his throat in heavy waves.
“If we just told you, you wouldn’t believe us. I won’t show you the rest.” Loki promises him.
A whimper escapes Barnes’ chest as he manages to swallow down whatever it was that was trying to come up his throat and Loki flinches.
Bucky’s left hand was clinging tightly to the armrest, his right hand still digging into his eyes as he rubbed them harshly.
No.
Loki looks away, not knowing how to deliver the next part. It had to happen.
He waits for a bit longer.
Bucky is the first one to speak after a few minutes, “Did they…?”
He knows what’s he’s asking and his face falls. He gives a short nod.
“They were, yeah.”
Bucky covers his face with both his hands now, dragging them till it fell off the edge of his chin.
He looked like he was praying, especially when he shut his eyes tightly together.
Loki hated this.
“Bucky, I- he knew I found out.”
Bucky swallows again, blinking his eyes open.
“What?”
“Your…father. He knew I had seen the footage. He interrogated me shortly after. He threatened my life if I ever said anything to anyone. It’s why I left.”
Bucky couldn’t believe it. It was so unlike his father. But yet his own dad had… another ball of nausea makes its way up his throat.
How could she?
Loki takes another deep breath, “I don’t know why, there might be a reason, somewhere we haven’t looked, but he left this footage available to us for a reason. He knew the camera was rolling. He wanted to be caught. Or maybe,” He licks his lips, clasping his hands together on his knee as he sat with one thigh on the desk, “or maybe get her caught.”
This was too much information for Bucky to take in.
He needed to lay down; none of this made sense.
“Loki, I can’t-“ his voice is pained and hoarse.
Loki nods. “I’ll get you some water.” He pushes himself off the desk and walks to the side where there’s a little bar cart. He pulls out a scotch glass and then opens a bottle of water.
The room is silent as he pours the water into the glass.
Bucky feels numb, shocked for the first time in his life, as he stares at the closed laptop.
He couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t real. No.
She wouldn’t.
He’s remembered of the fight he had with you the day he had asked Ashlyn to marry him.
“She wouldn’t cheat on me. She would never.”
He had been so certain of that.
He felt sick.
He doesn’t even notice the water is already in front of him.
He doesn’t take it, he couldn’t move.
Loki looks concerned as he places it on the desk with a clunk. He could see the poor man fuming. He didn’t want to continue this. He knew that the guy was hurting. He couldn’t even imagine what he was feeling; what this felt like.
“I don’t want to continue doing this to you, I really don’t. But there’s more.”
Bucky’s breath hitches audibly as he looks up at Loki. His eyes are pleading.
There’s more? They ask. They almost squint it physical pain.
“I was able to hack into the international CCTV footage of when she had been away on those work trips.” Bucky’s face paled even further at his words, “I don’t have to show you if you don’t want to see it, but I do have it. It’s all in here.” He had a feeling he knew where this was going.
Bucky swallowed thick and was silent for a few long seconds. He eventually gives a short nod.
“You want to see them?” Loki asks breathlessly, “I could just tell you what they are. I know it’s hard —”
“I-“ he pulls his hand away from his mouth and groans. God this hurt him, “I want to see them.” He squeaks out, almost not even believing himself, “but not with you here.”
Loki nods, understanding completely.
“I’m just going to open it for you, and you can click play whenever you’re ready. There’s several of them.”
Bucky stills and then nods. Loki opens each tab.
Ten tabs, ten videos, ten different dates.
Son a bitch.
He wants to scream.
Ten fucking nights…
Loki leaves him to be, letting the door shut behind him.
Bucky doesn’t open it right away. He leans back, hand back to his mouth as he watches the thumbnails of each frozen video.
He was seething, his blood boiling under his skin like knives of steel.
Some of the thumbnails are alleyways in Paris, some are hotel lobbies, hotel hallways, one is even in a hotel bedroom where clearly cameras were allowed for some odd reason.
He doesn’t want to watch it, he fucking can’t pull himself to, but he knows part of him needs to see it to believe it.
His finger shakes as he moves up to press play on the first video.
He felt sick.
He’s thankful there's no audio in the CCTV videos.
The first one he watches is the hotel lobby, then he briefly watches the next nine.
He skims them, only trying to get a general idea of what he was seeing, but not wanting to taint his mind.
He’s shocked by the acts in them - kissing, oral sex, intimate holding. Obvious signs of a cheater.
What pisses him off more is the men. He’s surprised that only one of them had been his father.
He had expected all of them to feature him, that he had been her secret lover all along. He was wrong.
He recognizes the men. Hank, damn Tony-Effing-Stark.
He shakes his head again, trying to clear his eyes of all the burning tears in them.
This is what it felt like.
Dishonesty, betrayal, unfaithfulness.
Used.
He slams the laptop closed and stares at it in revulsion.
He feels the walls around him cave in, the walls he had trusted for so many years.
He had trusted and loved his own damn dad.
Bucky’s bottom lip trembled as he sucked in into his mouth.
He couldn’t take it.
Roughly, he pushes himself away from the desk and walks around it.
He was seeing red.
He opens the door to the hallway roughly, not surprised to see everyone else standing outside, waiting.
You grew intensely worried at the expression on his face. You could tell he was very angry about something.
You wish they could tell you what it was, but you knew he would tell you eventually.
You reach your arm out to grab him.
You could feel him breathing harshly out of his nose. He looks down at you, eyes blurred.
You see the tears in them as they beg to boil over.
“Bucky…”
He sucks in a deep breath. “I’ll be okay. Go to your hotel for a bit, same one as last time,” he pulls out his wallet from his back pocket and hands you his card, “Nat can take you. Get another room. I’ll meet you there tonight. There’s something I need to do.”
He’s not in his head as he says it, you could tell his mind was somewhere else, you knew he had to do something and be somewhere else urgently.
You nodded blankly as you stared at the card, taking it from him.
And then he was gone.
Seven and a half years ago
[It's everything you wanted
It's everything you don’t]
He looked at her from across the table.
This beautiful girl had him wrapped around her finger. A chuckle left her lips as she swiped the whipped cream off his pancake, sticking it in her own mouth.
He gave her a bright smile.
“You’re beautiful.” He had said like it was the most natural thing in the world.
She smiled.
“Bucky, I — we’ve only known each other for a few weeks. Why do I feel like I’ve known you forever?” She says it quickly, but then laughs in disbelief, “I’m sorry, I can’t believe I said that.”
Bucky grabs her hand on the table, “Hey,” he says softly, “No, I feel the same way.”
They stared at each other, not believing what was happening.
They were both so happy.
[It's one door swinging open
And one door swinging closed]
Present
Another shot of lightning flashes in the sky outside their multi-million dollar window, followed by a loud crackle of thunder.
It had been raining for two days straight and Ashlyn had just about had enough of it. She missed how everything used to be.
She missed how her life used to be with Bucky before shit hit the fan before she messed up.
Immense hope grew in her heart as she laid on her back on the soft, white Serena & Lily couch.
Her right hand dug into its luxurious fabric, her left rubbing her now empty tummy.
She took a deep breath as she closed her eyes tightly together.
The one strand of hope that she had left had been taken from her.
She felt alone for the first time in a very long time.
She knew she had been selfish, she knew that, but she had good intentions.
She hoped that whatever plan Steve had, that it would really help her get her man back, and the life she was supposed to live.
It had to before the truth came out.
She was terrified of losing it all.
Her eyes peak open at the ceiling above.
They had tall ceilings, about thirty feet high, but they closed in on her as she forced herself to listen to the soft creak of her front door opening.
After a few seconds, it closed softly.
She tried to hear for heavy approaching footsteps, but it was hard to hear anything at all. It was almost as if whoever it was, they were purposefully trying to be quiet.
It was eery.
She sat up slowly, her one hand still on her lower stomach, the other now on the back of the couch to help pull her up into a sitting position.
She looked across the room towards her foyer.
Her heart hammered away inside of her as if it was seven and a half years ago all over again.
She had been afraid she would never feel that way again, yet here she was, hypnotized and enthralled.
She whispers his name like a prayer and his eyes dart up to meet hers in a heavy gaze.
His eyes are sunken, lighter than usual, and so was his skin. He was sickly pale.
Her eyes darted down, not seeing any luggage by his side.
She grew concerned at the sight of his tight fist as her eyes drifted. His other hand was trembling slightly.
It was quiet around them, too quiet. He was quiet.
Ironic. Considering the events of the last few days.
“Bucky?” She says again, this time concerned.
He looks at her and sucks in a deep breath.
For a moment, he seems like he’s going to turn away and give up, but then he turns back again, taking another step towards her.
“What’s going on?” Ashlyn asks. She doesn’t miss the way his hand and jaw clench.
He looks up at her- watching her - and examines the face of the woman he had loved once upon a time.
It sent a chill up his spine and it made his heart hurt. No way that face could belong to such an evil human being.
It was the same girl he had seen with the red hat and snowflakes in her hair, the one he had tried so hard to please, the one he had tried so hard to make it work with, the same girl he took to the Hamptons because he did love her.
He did.
Once upon a time.
He feels the anger, the betrayal, and the blood in his veins grow ice cold.
His mouth turns into a heavy snarl as he takes in her face, heavy tears clouding his vision.
He remembers it— the video.
“You-“ he starts, his voice is pure venom, like as if just the noun itself was distressful to him and it makes her physically shrink back, “You fucking —“ It comes out pained, almost inaudibly as he sucks his bottom lip into his mouth.
Ashlyn’s face crumbles.
He knew.
Part of her knows, the part that is so far back into her mind. The same part that had convinced herself that everything she had done to him wasn’t actually real.
Suddenly, like the strike of lightning outside, he comes for her.
It’s so fast she almost stumbles back in fear as to what he was going to do to her...
She cringes in terror, standing towards the middle of the living room. She blinks her eyes open at the lack of attack.
He stopped.
He barely made it more than four feet from where he was when she watches him take a deep breath, pulling hard on his hair.
A heavy whimper leaves his chest as he shuts his eyes, looking away from her. He curves into himself.
Ashlyn felt herself breathing heavily now too.
She didn’t know what to ask, what to do, where to go.
He sucks in a deep gasp, meeting her eyes again.
His eyes are drowned with hot, salty tears.
They fill his eyes to the brink, a few trickle out and travel down his cheeks.
He replays the images he had seen just earlier.
And then all eleven together.
He sobs and Ashlyn takes a tentative step closer to him until she’s around the other side of the couch.
His head falls as he shakes it back and forth.
No, no, no.
So many years for what?
He groans.
“How could you?” He asks. His head snaps back up to look at her, “How could you!” He screams.
She steps back again, terrified again.
Her heart was beating like crazy as he took in her mental state.
“Bucky, please just let me explain everything,” his head is shaking and his words don’t make sense as this lips move, but she’s stepping closer to him, she had to make it right, “Please, just let me explain,” she reaches up to touch his arm, “Please—“
He jolts.
His sadness quickly turns into aggressive anger, and he’s got her wrist in his hand, and her back up against the wall of their very expensive living room.
It’s coated in the off-white color paint that he had let her choose after they had gotten married.
Linen white, she had said.
He’s looking down at her, enraged. His hot breath was hitting off her forehead.
“Don’t fucking touch me again,” he growls. Ashlyn feels her own eyes fill with tears and she feels the pain of his grip on his wrist. He snarls again, pushing himself off of her, “you whore.” He seethes, not looking away from her.
Ashlyn’s face crumbles.
“You fucking disgust me.” He sneers, looking down her body in shame and loathing.
He never knew was true distaste was until now.
“Please.” She whimpers.
More tears cloud his vision.
“I gave you everything you ever wanted and needed. I continued to chase you, I tried to make it right, and for what?” Ashlyn turns, her hair falling over the side of her face, “For fucking what!” He shouts, “I gave you this home, ourhome. After everything, I still tried to make it right, regardless of what I was going through, what we were going through. You made me think I was so horrible when the whole time you were—“ he sucks in a deep breath.
He felt that anger again.
He feels like he’s going to cry harder as he brings his hands to his eyes. He rubs them furiously.
He hears a whimper leave her lips.
He rips his hands off his face.
“Don’t you dare cry. Don’t you fucking dare.” He sobs, stepping farther away from her but raising his voice. It cracks with sobs, “you have no right.”
They stand there both crying.
He takes her in with his eyes and he shakes his head, almost just to himself.
“Why would you do something like that?” He says weakly.
“I did it for us.”
Bucky’s face crumbles in confusion and anger, “You—you did it for us? You—“ he takes a deep breath, “You had sex —!“ he screams, but cuts himself off.
He feels that bile again. He was going to be sick.
His heart was aching.
Ashly shakes at his tone. Her wrist throbs.
“It didn’t mean anything.” She whispers, cowering towards the wall and holding her arm to herself.
Bucky glared at her.
“You fucked my own father.” Ashly crashes into herself as she collapses down onto her knees, “Who the fuck does that?” He spats at her, “Huh! You didn’t just cheat on me over and over again on your stupid work trips, but you had slept with my own dad.”
Ashlyn cries harder as she holds her hand to her chest.
Bucky’s chest moves rapidly up and down as he heaves.
“You have no right to cry. You have no fucking right! Fuck!” He spins around and slides the glass vase off the entry table.
It shatters to the floor.
Bucky runs his hands through his hair again as he tugs on it, sobbing.
How could she?
“You have no right. You have no right. You have no right.” He says it over and over again until it’s a whisper, “You never loved me. Not even when I loved you. You just wanted the money, the fucking power, it’s why you both signed the damn will.” He breathes harshly.
“It’s not,” Ashlyn shakes, pulling her knees to her chest, “It’s not.”
He looks down at her, repulsed.
“What, you can’t talk now? Huh?” He turns slightly to the other side towards the direction of the hallway, this time sliding the decor plates and wine glasses off the set dining table and onto the floor.
It’s loud.
Ashlyn’s sobbing grew more hysteric at the sound and so did Bucky’s whimper.
“You don’t even realize what you’ve done. What you did. You don’t know.”
Her lips were shaking and so were her hands.
“You cheated on me, too.”
Buck spins around, pointing a finger down in her face but from a distance, “Don’t!” He takes a deep breath and shakes his head, “Don’t you dare. No.”
Ashlyn sniffs harshly.
Her eyes go to the shattered glasses on the floor.
“So what’s your excuse? Was I not fucking you properly? Was I too young for you? Not rich enough? Not powerful enough? Pathetic? Didn’t love you enough? Didn’t have enough to offer you? Was I too kind to you?”
“No…” She digs her forehead into her knees.
This pisses Bucky off.
He knows he shouldn’t, he knew he already did wrong by almost hurting her wrist, but he wanted to drag her up forcefully up on to her legs.
She kept hiding away as if she was the victim.
“Look at me.” His tone is harsh. It takes a bit long but she does as he says. Her eyes were red. “Now stand up. Why?” He finally asks when she’s up.
“He made me.” It comes out frail.
Bucky tilts his head at her. Taunting.
“He made you? I saw the damn video. You wanted it. You wanted it good.”
Ashlyn covers her face with her hands.
“You don’t understand! He promised me it would help us. Help our future.”
Bucky makes a disgusted face.
“Help our future?” Ashlyn nods.
It takes a second for Bucky to connect the dots.
“You slept your way into getting the contracts.” It’s not a question. Bucky takes a deep breath, covering his face with his hands.
He curses as he walks into their living room, as he looks out the window into the thunderstorm.
“This is all possible because you fucking opened your legs to all those men? While you were with me? It’s how we pay for all our stuff like our goddamn TV?” He screams.
Ashlyn takes a deep breath.
“I—yes.” She says.
Bucky rubs the back of his head and a dry laugh leaves his lips as if to say that’s just great.
He continues to stall around the room, rubbing his head and face like a mad man.
“I loved you. I slept next to you every time you came back,” his voice dwindles down again to a whimper, “even after you did that with dad and I didn’t even know.” His voice is a pathetic cry again, “that’s so fucked.” His hands clasp together and go to his mouth. He tries to control his tears and the bile in his throat.
“You both lied to me, not just you. This whole life is a lie. You never loved me.” He says.
“Of course I loved you.”
This angers him. “No woman that loves her man would ever do something like that!”
“I hated it after every time, please. You need to believe me.”
Bucky takes a deep breath. He scoffs.
“Don’t you realize, you —“ he wants to call her degrading things. But he can’t bring himself too. Maybe he didn’t have it in him, “—it’s not how you felt when you did it or after, it’s what you did. It’s what you fucking did to me!”
“I know that now.”
Bucky scoffs again.
“Now? Seven years later? Were you even going to tell me? Were you going to keep living this damn lie?”
“Don’t even try that. You kept your secret about my sister from me for five years, Bucky! Five years!”
“I know! Okay? I Know. I should have told you after it happened. I know I messed up on that part. But the difference between you and me is that what I had done to you killed me! I still felt bad! What you did to me doesn’t even bother you! You don’t see how much this hurts me! How it fucking makes me feel.” Ashly wipes her nose on the back of her hand. “You gave me shit for sleeping with her. You slapped me when I told you.” Bucky eyes her up and down, disgusted, “Don’t you realize what I want to do to you for what you did to me for all those goddamn years? Yours was worst. You gave me shit, and what you did was worst!” He takes one of the books knick-knacks off the coffee table and throws it at the tv and it shatters, “you’re sick!”
After he screams it’s dead silent again.
“I’m so sorry.”
“No. You’re not. If you were sorry, you wouldn’t have done what you did in the first place. If you really loved me you wouldn’t have done this to us from the start. I didn’t destroy this relationship you did.” Bucky moves quickly towards where Ashlyn is and she’s scared.
He stares down at her.
“Tell me this. Did you ever love any of them? Hank? Stark?”
Ashlyn looks away.
“Tell me, Ashlyn.”
“Stark and I got close, briefly. But it never turned into anything, I swear.”
Bucky nods.
“But you had feelings.”
Ashly doesn’t answer.
That itself is an answer to him and he looks away in disbelief. Like this couldn’t get any worse.
“Look what you did to everyone around you.” Bucky whispers, “Come on, take a look.”
Ashlyn doesn’t raise her eyes.
“Yeah, you know what, I did cheat on you. We hurt you bad, but you need to take fucking responsibility for your shit and own up to the consequences of the awful decisions you made. You think you can just fuck your way around to the top? For some material gold and material satisfaction? You think that’s the key to a healthy marriage? News flash, I’m not my fucking father. I would never do the things he did. Not in a million years. I’m a good man, I know that now. I fucking know it. I would never do that —.” Bucky looks back at her again. “Jesus, fuck. I can’t even look at you anymore, you make me sick.”
Bucky takes a deep breath and looks around his home. He takes in the shattered vase, the plates, and glass.
The vicious anger from earlier has dissipated. He was still equally as upset, but his mind has defogged.
“This isn’t a home anymore. At least not yours.”
Ashlyn’s face falls at his words.
“Bucky—.”
“I’ll find a place for you to stay, but you’re out of here. I want you out of here.” He looks at the shattered glass, “I’ll take care of the mess like I always do. It’s not your stuff anyway.”
“I worked for this stuff, too—after he died and after the affairs, I still worked just like you! This is my hard work, too.”
“You married into this. This is mine. The only thing that is rightfully yours is that damn china in the fucking kitchen cabinet and all your fucking clothes. Because that’s all you spent our money on, anyway. Let me ask you one more thing? Are you sure that was the last time?”
“Of course it was."
“Really? Because I remember you going away not too long ago on another business trip where I couldn’t be. And all those late nights at the office, were you fucking Stark then, too?”
Ashlyn’s heart hurt at his words.
“That was a real business trip,” she screams, her finger pointing behind her in the air, “I devoted myself to you one hundred percent the last few years of our marriage.” Bucky scoffs, “I love you.”
“Love. This isn’t love. This is obsession. You’re obsessed with the idea of the life you want to live, you don’t love me.”
She snarls.
“And she does?”
“Yes! And I love her, too.” This stuns Ashlyn and she physically recoils, “We love each other. We have respect for each other.” Ashlyn scoffs, “What the hell is wrong with you?”
She says nothing.
Bucky takes another look around.
“Tonight you can stay, or you can find somewhere to stay. I could care less. I don’t want to see you right now, or possibly ever again. I’ll find someone that will you find a place, but you’re not living here anymore.”
“You’re gonna throw me out into the street like a dog? What, you’re just expecting me to let you bring my little sister here to live in my house and replace me?”
“Actually, no, you’re right. You can keep this place. I never liked it anyway, I only got it for you. I just hope you’ll be able to pay for it all when you’re out of a goddamn job.”
Bucky turns back towards the direction of his front door, preparing to leave.
“I’ll move out.”
He leaves his home feeling no better than when he had gotten there.
Betrayal was an awful feeling.
He wouldn’t wish it on his worst enemy, not even his father, the man who literally fucked him over.
He still couldn’t wrap his mind around it.
Most of it didn’t make any sense.
Why would his dad do that to him? Why would he want his own son to find out?
How could someone be so sick? How could Ashlyn be so sick?
To add to his nausea, he felt a migraine coming on.
He had pulled out his cell when he got to the same hotel you had been staying at before and texted you, asking for your room number.
1335. come up whenever you’re ready.
Your message had said.
He pressed the button to your floor - 13 - quite harshly. He couldn’t get to you any faster.
You opened on the first knock and the first thing he did when you opened the door, was kiss the life out of you.
Just a peck, but enough to leave you breathless.
You pull away from him with your hands to his face. You would never get tired of that.
You look at him tenderly and his eyes are so bloodshot that your heart sinks.
This man had been hurt so badly.
You run your thumb over his cheek and then lower your hand, taking his in your own.
You pull him in and close the door softly behind him.
It’s then that Bucky sees Steve sitting on your bed in a tux.
Steve gives him a short wave.
What was going on now? He couldn’t take it anymore. He really couldn’t.
You take his hand back in yours and you pull him over to your bed between you and Steve. Your touch comforts him a bit.
It’s then that Bucky noticed the piece of paper in Steve’s had.
“What’s going on?” Bucky asks.
You rub his arm softly up and down.
“Tell him, Steve.” You say.
Steve takes a deep breath.
“Ashlyn thinks I’m helping cover her. I used her credentials to log into George’s and hers files. This is the supposed copy of your father’s will,” Bucky’s swallowed bile at the mention of his father, “the one Ashlyn signed.”
Steve hands Bucky the form.
Bucky looks at it. But sees nothing out of the ordinary.
“That’s Ashlyn’s copy.”
“Okay…”
Steve clears his throat and hands him another paper.
It looks the same, but a bit different in shade, and missing Ashlyn’s page.
“This was your father’s original copy.” A weird feeling creeps up Bucky’s back, “Do you see the difference?”
Bucky nods.
“The original is missing Ashlyn’s signature.”
“The original,” Steve corrects, “Is a real.”
Bucky shakes his head. He looks at you and then back at Steve.
His head was still spinning. He still felt so, so sick.
“I don’t understand.” He breathes.
Steve took a deep breath. “The one she signed was a fake.”
@wxntersoldxer16 @void-imaginations @heykarsyn @avashroom @sarcastic-and-cool @lunaticbarnes @benhardygalileo @wildmavs @runaway-escape @stevieboyharrington @kimvmarvel @chipilerendi @hardygal69
#bucky x reader#bucky x you#bucky barnes#bucky barnes smut#bucky barnes x reader#bucky barnes x you#Marvel fanfic#marvel fanfiction#MCU
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