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Gentle Hands by @sheriff-bodecker
Drabble; 40s!bucky x nurse!reader;
"You behave so much better when I have my hands on you."
Change Your Mind by @marvelstoriesepic
College!Athlete!Bucky x College!Reader;
Natasha drags you to an NYU baseball game. And despite yourself, one player catches your attention.
Written In Skin by @godmadeaterribleerror
[18+] avengers!au: avenger!bucky x avenger!reader;
Bucky's been gone on a mission for about a week, and you love him, so you wait. And when he returns, he has a question that might finally let you say those three words aloud.
Home Isn’t A Place, It’s A Person by @kissedbycas
Avengers!au: Avenger!Bucky x Avenger!Reader;
You finally get home from a long mission, but it just so happens that “home” isn’t the compound, but rather a pair of arms inside.
Safe by @harveystan
Friends to lovers
A question from his therapist causes Bucky to reevaluate the most important relationship in his life.*
More Than Words by @/harveystan
Fluff; established relationship
You find some letters Bucky wrote that date back to before you were dating, and they’re all addressed to you.*
Sam And Dean Winchester As Dads by @wendichester
headcanon
Map of Him by @/wendichester
Drabble; established relationship
completely obsessed with Dean’s freckles.
Off Limits Never Looked So Good by @/wendichester
drabble; best friend’s brother, friends to lovers; hunter!reader
your best friend’s brother has the hots for you. and against all odds, you have the hots for him, too!
Margin Notes In Someone Else’s Ending by @/wendichester
drabble; enemies to lovers; hunter!reader
you and dean are not meant to be. enemies. civil, at best. you despise the guy. but do you even have a say in it?
Gasoline and Sunlight by @/wendichester
Drabble; red-haired!reader, hunter!reader
“I can see him in that leather jacket calling her ‘red’ while she gives him that usual fiery sass he loves so much. How much he loves to see it hit the sun while she rides in the impala.”
System Overload by @/wendichester
Drabble; established relationship; Hunter!reader, plus size!reader;
dean has seen you in hunter gear, pajamas, and blood-soaked jackets—but the moment you walk out in a sundress, his brain completely short-circuits.
Historically Down Bad by @/wendichester
Drabble; history teacher!reader; established relationship;
you’re a slightly intimidating history teacher with a permanent furrow in your brow. dean is absolutely, embarrassingly in love with you anyway.
Feeling Known by @/wendichester
drabble; hunter!reader, hard of hearing(hoh)!reader; friends to lovers;
you don't need to hear dean to know it's him. the shift in the air when he enters a room is enough.
Steady Hands by @/wendichester
Drabble; hunter!reader
when your back pain hits hard after a hunt, dean trades sarcasm for steady hands and proves he’s gentler than anyone gives him credit for.
Bobby’s Niece & Part 2 by @/wendichester
Drabbles; Bobby’s niece!reader; friends to lovers
dean might kinda be crushing on you
So Highschool & Part 2 & Part 3 by @/wendichester
Drabbles; teen!Dean x teen!reader;
strangely enough, dean will be staying in the same place for more than a week. it seems like you caught his eye
3am doesn’t fix everything by @stargazedwinchester
drabble; friends to lovers; hunter!reader
it's 3am and dean's obsessing over the impala that doesn't need fixing. it's 3am and he's thinking about you.
Stuck With You by @/stargazedwinchester
drabble; hunter!reader, chaotic!reader
you accidentally trap yourself in a room with dean. and he's definitely not annoyed by it.
It’s All We Know by @/stargazedwinchester
drabble; older!dean winchester x younger!reader, Hunter!reader;
dean can never take you seriously. you're twelve years younger than him, therefore, he knows best. plot twist: he doesn't.
Half Asleep With You by @castielscaplan
Drabble; hunter!reader;
Cuddling with Dean has never felt better
Too Damn Lazy by @livinglegendxoxo
drabble; fluff;
you and dean are just as grumpy when it comes to waking up early.
Dean Wants to Look At You Forever By @andmeiamherdagger
drabble; established relationship;
dean thinks you're the prettiest person ever to exist, and would like to look at you forever. if you'll let him.
Cuddling Dean After A Long Day by @/andmeiamherdagger
drabble; established relationship; Hunter!reader; fluff
you and dean have been taking too many cases, and have barely any time to spend together. but he can multitask, you're sure.
Love Confession In The Impala By @/andmeiamherdagger
Drabble; best friends to lovers; Hunter!reader
he’s secretly in love with his best friend, but is too afraid to mess anything up— until he can’t take it anymore.
Dean Needs You Close by @/andmeiamherdagger
drabble; established relationship; hunter!reader
dean, who is so irrevocably in love with you, that he just needs you close to him at all times.
Love To A Lonely Boy by @/andmeiamherdagger
drabble; established relationship; fluff
dean gets to indulge in you again after a week of absence.
Dean With His Aloof Partner by @/andmeiamherdagger
headcanon; rockstar!reader, golden retriever!Dean x black cat!reader
How Dean Reacts to an Affectionate Partner by @/andmeiamherdagger
headcanon; fluff, established relationship
Closer by @mmidnightfragments
Drabble; hunter!reader, dark-haired!reader; established relationship;
Dean and Sam talking about the reader.
I Wish I’d Known You In Your Wilder Days by @sorryitsmyfirstdayonearth
[18+] Series: complete; older!Dean x younger!reader, retired!dean x hunter!reader
Dean's been out of the family business for nearly ten years. Living in a cabin, helping hunters with their cases and staying out of trouble has given him the peace he always thought he wanted. Maybe too much of it.
Everything changes when he is called in on a hunt gone south. The young huntress he finds is everything he's been avoiding: trouble, adventure, and temptation. Dean doesn't need any of this. And yet, as you slowly worm your way into his life and into his heart, he finds he has a hard time letting go.
Sam And Dean Winchester As Dads by @/wendichester
headcanon
s14-15!sam winchester realizing he’s in love with a younger!f!hunter!reader by @/wendichester
Headcanon; older!sam x younger!reader
the slow, quiet kind of realization that sneaks up on him… and then absolutely wrecks him.
I’ll Find You by @/wendichester
drabble; established relationship; hunter!reader
through it all, despite it all, you're sam’s. even when you feel happy or sad. beautiful or ugly. his love is unconditional.
Scratch My Back; Save My Soul by @/wendichester
drabble; Hunter!reader
sam is usually the one melting under your back scratches—but tonight you decide it’s your turn to ask for the same treatment.
Soft Thunder by @/wendichester
Drabble; Established relationship; Hunter!reader; fluff
a storm rolls in, the bunker goes quiet, and you and sam spend the afternoon tangled together on the couch watching documentaries neither of you are fully paying attention to.
Through Headaches by @/wendichester
Drabble; established relationship the brothers help you through a migraine despite your insistence that you don’t need it.
Breaking the Rule & Part II by @/wendichester
twoshot; hunter!reader; friends to lovers
so, sam has this rule: only dean can call him sammy. you do it once, testing the waters. receive a glare and a warning. then you do it again, because no man can tell you what to do. and there's a twitch in his lips. he likes it, you reckon.
lowdown ☆ a week passes, training becomes routine again, and soldier boy decides it’s time for the knife to stop sitting by the sink.
ride or die ☆ soldier boy x reader ( f )
miles ☆ 2968 ride style ☆ tense
danger on the trail ☆ knife trauma, mentions of killing, rough training, soldier boy being blunt/crude, emotional avoidance, unresolved healing
liv's log ☆ yall are gonna go wild with chapter 23
𐚁 .ᐟ masterlist ☆ join the taglist ☆ listen to the playlist
a week passes without the safehouse catching fire, which feels less like peace and more like everyone waiting for the spark to light.
that is what it becomes after the warehouse. waiting.
butcher hates it with his whole body. he paces, smokes, snaps at frenchie for taking too long with notes he does not understand and then snaps again when frenchie tells him to stop breathing over his shoulder. mm builds a wall of manuals across the kitchen table and lives behind it, highlighter in one hand, coffee in the other, looking more exhausted every day and somehow more stubborn for it. annie watches the windows. hughie gets quieter, then louder around you, almost as if he’s trying to prove that you both survived the warehouse. kimiko sits beside frenchie for hours.
and soldier boy stays. that is the part nobody says. not because it’s surprising anymore. because saying it would make it into something. he stays through the waiting, through butcher’s ugly little calculations, through frenchie muttering about vapor systems and reinforced restraint anchors, through every mention of a chamber that could hold two supes at once. he doesn’t soften around it. he doesn’t talk about it. sometimes he leaves the room when the conversation turns too clinical, jaw tight, shoulders locked, and nobody follows.
you don’t either. not because you don’t notice. you notice everything now. you notice the way his hand curls around a beer bottle when frenchie says temperature regulation. the way his eyes stop blinking when mm reads restraint failure analysis aloud. the way his chest stays dark, no glow, no heat, but his breathing changes just slightly, enough for you to hear it if you’re close.
and you are close. more often than either of you admits. not in front of everyone, not openly, not in a way butcher can weaponize with that awful little smile of his. but at night, when the safehouse thins out and the old war movies start lying on the tv again, you end up beside him on the couch. not always leaning into him. sometimes just close enough that your knee touches his thigh under a blanket he definitely does not put over you. some nights, you fall asleep there for an hour with his arm heavy behind you, not wrapped—not quite—but near enough that if your body tips, it has somewhere to land.
other nights, you make it to your room and wake before sunrise with him still half-sitting against the headboard, neck stiff, expression murderous, acting like spending another night there was some tactical decision instead of whatever it actually is.
you don’t ask.
he doesn’t explain.
training resumes without ceremony. no please, no challenge, no big dramatic conversation in the gym. you just show up one afternoon, wraps in hand, and he is already there, rolling his shoulders, looking at the patched wall. he glances at you once, eyes dropping to your hands, then nods toward the mat.
that is all.
the routine comes back, but it doesn’t come back the same.
before, training was a fight dressed up as instruction. now, it’s something stranger. sharper. too familiar in places that make your skin remember things you have no business remembering while learning how to block a hook. soldier boy still pushes you hard. harder, sometimes, because you are no longer recovering and he no longer has that excuse to keep his hands careful. he knocks you down. you get up. he traps your wrist. you twist free. he drives you toward the wall mat. you plant your foot before your back hits.
you are getting good. not good in the way he’s good. that would be ridiculous. he’s still a supe, still unfairly strong, still built like vought and america had a fistfight over propaganda and somehow produced shoulders. you cannot hurt him. not really. your best punch barely turns his head if he doesn’t let it. when your knee catches the inside of his thigh, he shifts because he chooses to account for the move, not because you can actually drop him.
but now he has to account for it. that matters. you learn his weight. his timing. the little shift in his left shoulder before he reaches. the way his right foot plants before he decides to crowd you. you learn the difference between a real grab and a trap he wants you to think is real. you stop flinching when his hand comes near your throat in a controlled hold, stop freezing when his arm locks across your chest, stop wasting energy fighting the strongest part of him when his elbow, his wrist, his balance gives you something easier.
“again,” he says, because he always does.
you go again.
his hand catches your forearm; you turn under it before he can lock your shoulder. he steps in; you slide back half an inch instead of giving him your whole body. he reaches for your waist; you knock his hand aside and drive your palm toward his chest, not hard enough to move him much, but clean enough to make him look down at where you landed.
“again,” he says, but he’s breathing harder now. not exhausted—never that—but harder.
you smile before you can stop it. “you okay?”
his eyes lift. “don’t get cocky.”
“i’m concerned.”
“you’re annoying.”
“that too.”
he moves before you finish, but you see it coming. that is the beautiful part. you see it. his hand aims for your wrist, fast and brutal, and you let him take it for half a second before you drop your weight, twist, and slip free so quickly that his fingers close around empty air.
soldier boy pauses. just one beat. barely anything.
you catch it anyway. “getting slow?”
“getting lucky?”
his mouth twitches, but instead of answering, he steps in behind you, one arm cutting across your path. you expect the hold. you expect the pressure at your hip, the hard correction, the usual rough shove into position. what you get is his hand flat against your stomach.
your breath stalls while his palm spreads there, warm through your shirt, pulling you back against him just enough to correct your center. not your hip. not your wrist. your stomach. the touch is not practical in the clean way it used to be. it’s still useful, sure. he can pretend that if he wants.
but his fingers press once, almost playful, and his chin dips near your shoulder, close enough that his next words brush the side of your neck, “brace.”
you stare at the punching bag in front of you. “i am.”
his hand squeezes once, not hard. “you’re not.”
“are you training me or feeling me up?”
“multitasking.”
you should shove him off. instead, you turn sharply under his arm, catch the wrist at your stomach, and use the angle to pull yourself free before he can lock you back. your elbow drives toward his ribs, stopping short because his ribs are unfairly useless as a target, but the move is clean.
he looks at you.
you lift both brows. “multitasking.”
his grin flickers and dies before it gets comfortable. “cheap.”
“effective.”
“again.”
some days, his chin rests on your shoulder for half a second too long when he corrects the angle of your guard. some days, he squeezes your side just to make you hiss and call him an asshole. some days, his hand trails across your stomach as he steps away, and you use the distraction to sweep low, catch his ankle, and make him shift his balance enough that he curses under his breath.
those are your favorites.
you break the almosts before they can become something too soft. when his mouth gets too close, you duck under his arm. when his eyes drop to yours too long, you hit. when his hand stays at your waist, you twist it into a lock and shove him back with your shoulder. not because you don’t want it. that would be simpler. because wanting it is starting to feel too much like giving someone a loaded gun and trusting them not to aim.
he knows what you’re doing. of course he does.
one late afternoon, after a week of waiting and training and sleeping too close without naming it, you catch him properly.
it happens fast. he drives you back toward the mat wall, not hard, just enough pressure to make you choose. you let him think you’re giving ground. then you pivot inside his reach, shoulder under his arm, hand catching the back of his shirt, your knee driving toward the inside of his thigh as your free hand comes up toward his face. he expects hesitation. you know because he leaves the smallest opening. maybe to test you. maybe because he thinks you’ll stop again.
you don’t.
your fist cuts clean toward his jaw and stops less than an inch from his mouth—not because you freeze—because you choose it.
his eyes drop to your knuckles. then to your face. your breathing is high, but steady. “dead.”
the word lands between you.
slowly, soldier boy smiles. it’s not soft. not sweet. it’s worse. proud and hungry and irritated all at once, like he hates that you got there and hates more that he wanted you to. “took you long enough.”
“you were wide open.”
“i let you think that.”
“sure.” you pull your fist back. “whatever helps.”
his hand catches yours before you can drop it. not to block. not to correct. he just holds your wrapped knuckles for a second, thumb pressing over the line of fabric. his other hand comes to your stomach again, steadying you though you don’t need steadying.
the room gets very small. you look at his mouth. his hand tightens once at your stomach.
then you hook your foot behind his ankle and shove.
he doesn’t fall. obviously. but he has to step back—actually step back. his hand leaves you, his shoulder shifting, his mouth parting around a sharp breath that might have become something else if you had let the almost live another second.
instead, you grin. “still standing.”
he stares at you. “you’re getting real full of yourself.”
“earned it.”
“maybe.”
that maybe follows you all the way to the end of training.
by the time the sun drops low enough to turn the gym gold at the edges, your shirt is damp, your arms are heavy, and soldier boy is breathing through his nose with that particular kind of annoyance that means you made him work. he doesn’t say it. he doesn’t need to. you see it in the way he flexes his fingers after you break a hold. in the way he watches you reset without correcting your feet. in the way he stops calling your form shit unless it actually is.
you sit on the bench to unwrap your hands. the old patch on the wall catches the late light. it’s still a slightly different shade from everything around it, even after mm painted it. better than before, but definitely not invisible.
nothing really is.
soldier boy leans against the wall opposite you, arms crossed, sweat darkening the collar of his shirt. “tomorrow,” he says, “i want the knife.”
you keep unwrapping. “what knife?”
his face gives you nothing. “the one sitting by the sink.”
the air changes. but it’s subtle—no shift anyone outside your body would notice. but your stomach tightens, and your fingers pull at the wrap too quickly, tangling the fabric around your wrist. “it’s fine where it is.”
“no, it isn’t.”
“did mm complain?”
“this isn’t about mm.”
“then it’s not your problem.”
“it is if you walk into another room without it.”
your eyes lift to his. “i’ve been training without it all week.”
“and tomorrow you train with it.”
“no.”
he pushes off the wall. slow. not angry yet, but getting there. “not asking.”
you laugh once, short and ugly. “you really have to stop mistaking your voice for the law.”
“you freeze every time you look at it.”
your jaw tightens. “don’t tell me what i do.”
“i watch you in the kitchen every night. you stand there for a full minute staring at it like it’s gonna bite.”
“maybe i don’t feel like touching it.”
“yeah. got that.”
you stand before you think better of it, wraps hanging loose from one hand. “what do you want from me? pick it up, strap it on, pretend everything’s fine?”
“i want you to stop leaving yourself open because you’re scared of a piece of steel.”
“i killed someone with it.”
“you saved hughie with it.”
“i know that!” your voice snaps off the walls, sharper than you intend. “i know. everyone keeps finding different ways to say it, like if you phrase it correctly, i’ll suddenly feel clean about it.”
soldier boy’s expression hardens. “clean’s got nothing to do with alive.”
“that is such a you thing to say.”
“because it’s true.”
“because it’s easy for you.”
his eyes go cold. “watch it.”
you should. you know you should. but something in you is already too raw, too cornered by the knife on the counter, by the fact that he’s right and wrong at the same time, by the ugly knowledge that the new placement at your hip saved hughie and broke something in you.
so you step closer. “i’m not gonna become a killing machine just because you found something fragile to work on.”
that lands. you know it lands because his face empties first.
then his jaw flexes. “you think that’s what i’m doing?”
“isn’t it?”
“if i wanted a killing machine, i wouldn’t waste my time teaching you how to stay alive.”
your mouth opens, then closes. it cuts straight through the anger, which only makes you angrier because you are not ready to soften. not with the knife still waiting in the kitchen. not with your hands finally clean and still not feeling clean enough.
“i’m not your concern,” you say.
he looks at you like you slapped him. “bullshit.”
“i mean it.”
“no, you don’t.”
“you don’t get to decide that.”
“i’m the one who had to watch you sit in a van with blood on your pants looking like someone scooped your insides out,” he snaps, voice rough now. “i’m the one who knows exactly where your knife should sit because the wrong inch gets somebody killed. so don’t stand there and tell me you’re not my concern when you keep making yourself my concern.”
silence. your chest rises once. too quick. his does too.
for a second, the fight hangs there with nowhere to go. too ugly to be nothing. too honest to survive.
then soldier boy ruins it—his eyes drag over your sweaty shirt, your damp hair, the wraps loose in your hand. “and you need a shower.”
you blink. “excuse me?”
“you heard me.”
“we’re in the middle of a fight.”
“yeah, and you smell like one.” his mouth curls, crude and familiar enough that your anger stumbles over it. “no way i’m spending the night in your bed if you keep the attitude and smell like a locker room.”
you stare at him.
he stares back like he has said something entirely reasonable.
“you are unbelievable.”
“been told.”
“you think you’re coming to my room tonight?”
“yeah.”
“after this?”
“especially after this.”
your laugh comes out disbelieving and a little too close to something else. “i’ll lock the door.”
“i’ll punch it open.”
“mm will kill you.”
“he can try.”
“i’ll let him.”
“no, you won’t.”
you hate that he sounds so certain. hate more that he might be right. “fuck off.”
“shower first.”
“fuck off twice.”
his mouth twitches. not a smile. close enough to be dangerous. “there she is.”
you turn away before he can see what your face does, gathering your towel with more violence than the fabric deserves. “i’m not touching the knife tomorrow.”
“yes, you are.”
“no, i’m not.”
“we’ll see.”
you stop at the doorway, looking back despite yourself. he’s still standing near the bench, arms crossed again, expression carved back into something stubborn and almost calm. but his eyes are on you.
“you’re not fixing me,” you say, quieter now.
his face changes by almost nothing. “never said you were broken.”
you leave before the room can ask anything else of you.
the hallway is dimmer than the gym, cooler against your skin. you walk toward the bathroom first, then stop halfway when the kitchen comes into view. the knife is still by the sink, clean and dry on its folded cloth. frenchie put it there carefully, blade turned away from the edge, handle facing outward. easy to pick up.
you stand in the doorway and look at it. your hand does not reach. not really. your fingers flex once at your side, then curl into your palm. not yet.
you go shower.
later, with your hair damp and your body sore in the dull, satisfying way training leaves behind, you pass the kitchen again. the knife is still there. the safehouse hums around it. mm and frenchie are murmuring over notes in the back room. annie is asleep or pretending to be. hughie has left a mug in the sink. butcher is gone somewhere with a cigarette and a bad idea.
you look at the knife. then you look away.
when you reach your room, you pause with your hand on the doorknob. for one stubborn second, you consider locking it. you even turn the small metal button halfway. then stop.
the fight is still in your chest. so is his voice. i want you alive. you let the lock turn back.
lowdown ☆ morning comes slowly after the warehouse, and somehow the hardest thing is not the blood anymore.
ride or die ☆ soldier boy x reader ( f )
miles ☆ 3187 ride style ☆ still angsty/comfort
danger on the trail ☆ first kill aftermath, guilt, hughie almost dying, grief/shock, soldier boy being emotionally repressed but present
liv's log ☆ this is more of a filler chapter, but bear with me guys!
𐚁 .ᐟ masterlist ☆ join the taglist ☆ listen to the playlist
morning does not arrive so much as it leaks in—thin gray light slips through the curtains in ugly strips, finding the floor first, then the chair with your vest folded over it, then the corner of your bed where one of soldier boy’s legs has ended up hanging half off the mattress because he is too large for your room and apparently too stubborn to acknowledge that furniture has limits.
you wake in pieces.
first, your cheek pressed against his chest. then, the weight of his arm across your back. almost immediately, the dull stiffness in your neck from sleeping wrong, if it can even be called sleeping. lastly, the slow, horrible return of memory. warehouse. knife. hughie. blood.
your eyes open.
soldier boy is still there. for a second, that confuses you more than anything else. he is propped against the headboard, exactly where he was when you finally stopped shaking sometime before sunrise, except somehow more uncomfortable now. his head rests back against the wall, jaw shadowed, hair messy, one arm still around you with a kind of heavy, unconscious discipline, like even his exhaustion has orders to follow. except he is not asleep. his eyes are open, fixed on the far wall with the blank patience of a man who has been awake for too long and refuses to admit his neck is probably screaming.
you stay very still. not because you’re embarrassed. embarrassed is too simple for waking up with your face on soldier boy’s chest after crying into his shirt for half the night. there are several other feelings in the room and none of them have washed their hands.
his chest rises beneath your cheek. “you awake?” he asks, voice rough. low. sleep-damaged, even though he clearly has not slept enough for that to be fair.
you blink slowly. “unfortunately.”
“thought so.”
“what time is it?”
he looks toward the small clock on your dresser. “noon.”
you lift your head too fast and immediately regret it when your skull gives a faint, offended throb. “noon?”
“yeah.” his eyes slide down to you. “you drooled on my shirt around eight, if you want the full report.”
you stare at him.
he looks back without a single trace of mercy.
“i did not.”
“sure.”
“i don’t drool.”
“shirt says different.”
your gaze drops before you can stop it. there is, horrifically, a darker patch of fabric near the center of his chest. not large. not damning. but clearly there. “that could be anything,” you say.
“yeah. maybe i got shot in the tit and didn’t notice.”
a laugh catches in your throat before you can prepare for it. it comes out small, scraped, not fully alive yet, but there. it surprises you enough that your face shifts and almost breaks again.
soldier boy sees that too. his expression tightens for half a second, like the laugh is worse than tears because he doesn’t know what the hell to do with either. then he looks away first, jaw working.
you sit up slowly. his arm falls from your back. not like he’s pulling away because someone might see. just ending the thing because you moved and he lets you. the room feels colder without it. your hair is dry now, messy around your face. your eyes burn in that raw way they do after a night of not-quite-sleep and too much crying. your hands are still tender from scrubbing. when you flex them, the skin pulls tight across your knuckles.
soldier boy shifts his shoulder once. something in his neck cracks.
you look at him. “your back must hurt.”
“i’ve had worse.”
silence settles between you. not heavy in the same way as last night. not easy either. you look at the blanket bunched near his thigh, then at the wrinkled shirt you cried into, then at his hand resting on the bed between you like it has no idea what to do now that it is no longer holding you together.
“thank you,” you say.
his eyes cut to yours. you expect him to make a joke. to ruin it on purpose. to say something about you being a mess, or drooling, or owing him a shirt. and maybe he almost does. you see it flicker across his face, the reflexive reach for something crude enough to kick the sincerity out of the room. instead, he looks away. “don’t make it weird.”
you huff. “you spent the night in my bed.”
“yeah, and you snore like an engine, so nobody won.”
“i do not snore.”
“sure.”
“you’re lying.”
“i’m a national hero. wouldn’t dare.”
you give him a flat look. “you are physically incapable of saying that convincingly.”
his mouth twitches. barely. then the room quiets again.
you look down at your hands. “i mean it.”
his face changes by almost nothing. “i know.”
that’s all. somehow, it is enough.
you climb out of bed first. he doesn’t stop you. doesn’t ask where you’re going. doesn’t tell you to eat or shower again or go back to sleep. he just watches you stand, watches you steady yourself against the edge of the mattress for a second too long, and says nothing when you pretend you didn’t need to.
by the time you reach the door, his voice follows you. “eat something.”
you turn back. “look at you, being all caring.”
“that was me not wanting to hear annie bitch when you pass out.”
“sweet.”
“practical.”
“same thing with you, apparently.”
you leave before he can answer, but you hear the low sound he makes under his breath. not a laugh. close enough to haunt you.
the safehouse is quieter than it should be at noon. it has that after-a-bad-night feeling, the one where everyone moves gently around the evidence.
the manuals from the warehouse are stacked on the kitchen table. frenchie has three open notebooks beside them, handwriting messy and tight. mm is by the sink, coffee in hand, reading a page with a frown that has probably caused permanent damage to his face. butcher is nowhere in sight, which means he is either sleeping, plotting, or doing both with a cigarette in his mouth.
annie looks up when you enter. her eyes move over you once. quick. careful. not invasive. “hey,” she says.
“hey.”
“you hungry?”
no are you okay. no how are you feeling. no soft, dreadful question you would have to lie your way around. you could kiss her for that if you weren’t already busy having several problems. “maybe,” you say.
“toast?”
“please.”
she turns to make it like this is normal. like you coming into the kitchen at noon with swollen eyes and soldier boy’s shirt wrinkles still imprinted somewhere on your cheek is just another tuesday. kimiko sits at the counter and gives you a small, warm look. you manage one back.
then you see hughie. he is standing near the living room entrance, half-hidden by the doorframe like he has been trying to decide whether entering the kitchen would make things better or worse. his hair is messy. his sweater sleeves are pulled over his hands. there are shadows beneath his eyes, and when he sees you looking, his whole face tightens with guilt.
your stomach drops. not because you’re angry—you’re not. that is harder.
“hey,” he says.
your mouth goes dry. “hey.”
annie stills near the toaster. mm looks up from his papers. kimiko’s gaze moves between you and hughie.
hughie steps in properly. slow, like you might bolt if he moves too quickly. “can we—uh. can we talk?”
you nod before you feel ready. “yeah.”
the hallway outside the kitchen is narrow. the wallpaper peels near the baseboards. someone has left a box of ammunition beside a laundry basket, because everyone in this house has the potential to be studied by professionals. you stop near the end, where the wall turns toward the bedrooms, and hughie stops across from you with his hands clasped too tightly together. for a second, neither of you says anything.
he swallows. “i keep wanting to say sorry.”
you respond too quickly. “don’t.”
“i know.” he nods too fast. “i know. i know you said not to. and annie said not to. and mm gave me a look that kind of felt like a warning. so i’m trying not to.”
despite everything, your mouth almost moves. hughie sees it and lets out a shaky breath that is almost relief.
then his face crumples a little at the edges. not crying. trying not to. “i froze,” he says.
you shake your head. “hughie—”
“no, i did. and maybe that’s not useful to say, but i did. i had his wrist, and i could feel the knife, and i just…” his voice thins. “i couldn’t move it. i couldn’t make my hands do what they were supposed to do.”
you remember his hands on the guard’s wrist. white-knuckled. slipping. “you were trying.”
“yeah.” his laugh breaks in the middle. “trying is a really fun word when someone else has to fix it.”
“don’t do that.”
“i’m not trying to make you comfort me.” he looks at you then. “i promise. i just need you to know i know what happened. i know what you did. i know it wasn’t nothing.”
your throat tightens.
hughie breathes in slowly, like he rehearsed this and still might lose it halfway through. “i’m alive because of you.”
your eyes burn immediately. “hughie.”
“no, please. just—let me say it right once.” his voice shakes. “i’m alive because of you. i’m sorry it cost you that, but i’m not sorry you saved me.”
the words hit somewhere deep and awful. not like butcher’s did. butcher anchored you to the outcome: alive, alive, alive. hughie anchors you to himself. to the fact that he is standing here in front of you, breathing, guilty, grateful, alive in a sweater with too-long sleeves and eyes that refuse to let you turn him into a clean excuse.
you look at him, and for the first time since the warehouse, you can hold the whole thing for more than a second. the guard is dead. hughie is alive. your hands did both. a sound leaves you, small and cracked.
hughie’s face folds with panic. “no, no, i’m sorry—”
“stop apologizing,” you say, and then you step forward and hug him.
he freezes for half a second, startled. then his arms come around you so tightly you almost lose breath. not enough to hurt. enough to prove he is there. solid. alive. you grip the back of his sweater and close your eyes. alive.
“i’m glad you’re okay,” you whisper.
his breath stutters near your shoulder. “i’m glad you’re okay too.”
you let out a wet little laugh. “debatable.”
“fair.”
you stay there for another few seconds. maybe too long. maybe not enough. when you pull back, his eyes are red, and yours probably are too.
“are we okay?” he asks.
you think about it. then nod. “we’re okay.”
his shoulders drop like the words have taken weight off his bones.
“but if you apologize again,” you add, “i’ll make annie give you the disappointed face.”
hughie winces. “that’s cruel.”
the almost-joke helps. not because anything is fixed, but because the room inside your chest has air in it again. when you both return to the kitchen, annie does not ask. she just puts toast in front of you. mm gives hughie one look, then you, then nods like something has been settled enough for now. kimiko reaches across the counter and squeezes your wrist once, over the raw skin. gentle. brief. you eat half the toast.
the day moves around you in quiet labor. frenchie and mm work through the manuals, finding enough awful details to make the freezer feel less theoretical and more real with every passing hour. butcher reappears around two, accepts that you are upright with one glance, and does not mention last night. that might be his version of mercy.
soldier boy comes out later, fully dressed now, hair still damp from a shower, expression back to its usual carved annoyance. he sees you at the table. you see him seeing you. nothing happens.
he sits on the couch and complains about the movie selection within five minutes. normal. aggressively normal. you answer him once from the kitchen without thinking, something about his taste being older than color television, and his eyes flick toward you with something that is almost relief before he buries it under a scoff.
the day does not become easy. but it is survivable. night comes slowly. no mission. no training. no urgent move on vought’s shipment yet, because mm and frenchie need time with the manuals and butcher needs time to pretend he is not impatient enough to chew through drywall. the safehouse settles into scattered corners. annie and hughie disappear to the back room with mugs of tea. frenchie falls asleep over a notebook until kimiko makes him get up. mm stays at the table way until dark. butcher goes out to make a call.
you help clean the kitchen because your hands need something simple to do. plates. mugs. crumbs. wipe the counter. fold a towel. put it down. pick it up again.
then you see the knife. it is on the far side of the counter, beside the sink, cleaned and dry on a folded cloth. frenchie must have left it there after scrubbing the blood from the handle. the blade catches the low kitchen light in one narrow line. ordinary now. almost innocent.
your body stops before your mind does. the safehouse noise thins as you stare at it. you know you should put it away. it is yours. your gear. your responsibility. you will need it again, probably sooner than anyone should. the sheath is empty, and that emptiness has been there all day.
you reach for it, but your fingers stop inches away.
the handle is clean. you can see that. no blood in the grooves. no red under the edge. no proof except the proof in you. your hand curls back. not yet.
you breathe in once. too shallow. then again. still not enough.
from the living room, the tv crackles with old gunfire. black-and-white shouting. dramatic music under an explosion that sounds too clean. soldier boy is on the couch, one arm over the back, beer on the table in front of him. war movie. of course. the universe has very little imagination.
you leave the knife where it is. you’re not brave enough to touch it tonight.
the couch dips when you sit down on the opposite end from him. soldier boy’s eyes move to you. then past you, toward the kitchen. toward the counter. he knows. maybe he saw the whole thing in the dark reflection of the tv. maybe he guessed from the way your breathing changed. maybe he just knows too much now, and that is becoming a problem.
he doesn’t say anything.
you pull your knees up, tucking your feet beneath you. not close to him—not far enough either. the couch has become its own kind of negotiation.
on screen, soldiers run across fake smoke and painted rubble. after a minute, soldier boy says, “this one’s bullshit.”
you look at the tv. “why do you even watch these?”
that gets him to look at you. his face gives nothing away. the movie keeps lying to both of you. you watch it anyway.
for a while, neither of you moves closer. his arm stays on his side of the couch. your feet stay tucked beneath you. there is space between your bodies, and in that space sits the knife on the counter, the guard on the floor, hughie’s hug, butcher’s rough voice telling you alive, alive, alive.
then the room gets colder. or maybe you do. you shift once, pulling your sleeves over your hands. soldier boy notices. you know he notices because his eyes move, not to your face, but to the way your shoulders tuck in.
“window’s open,” he says eventually.
“then close it.”
“you’re closer.”
“you have longer legs.”
“and?”
you stare at the tv. “and i’m emotionally recovering from murder. be useful.” that should be too dark to work. maybe it is. the words leave your mouth and sit there, ugly and honest enough to make you feel exposed.
soldier boy is quiet for a second. then he gets up with a grumble and shuts the window.
you watch him do it without turning your head fully. broad back. loose shirt. bare forearms. the casual irritation in the line of his shoulders, like basic decency is an errand someone keeps making him run.
he returns to the couch and this time, he sits closer. not next to you. not openly. but closer by enough that the cushion dips differently and the warmth of him reaches the edge of your space.
you look at the tv very hard.
he drinks his beer.
the movie continues being terrible.
a few minutes pass.
you don’t decide to move closer so much as stop deciding not to. your body is tired. your head is loud. the knife is still in the kitchen, and the war movie is lying, and soldier boy is warm beside you in a way that does not ask questions.
you shift across the cushion and settle against his side carefully at first, like the wrong movement might ruin the whole thing. your shoulder touches his ribs. then your cheek finds the side of his chest, not exactly the same place as last night, but close enough that your body remembers the shape of resting there. your knees stay tucked beneath you. your hands stay gathered near your stomach, not reaching for him, not yet. just there.
soldier boy goes still. completely still. for a second, you think he might say something awful. or worse, something gentle. his chest lifts under your cheek. “you—”
“don’t make it weird,” you say.
his mouth shuts. the silence that follows is so sharp and immediate that if you had any strength left, you might laugh. instead, you close your eyes.
his arm shifts. not tender in the way people write songs about. it just moves from the backrest and settles behind you, heavy across the couch, his forearm not quite wrapped around you but close enough that if you leaned back, it would hold.
he mutters, “brat.”
you breathe out, almost a laugh. “unstable.”
“snorer.”
“liar.”
his hand comes to rest near your shoulder. not moving. not stroking. just there.
you let yourself sink another inch closer. this time, he doesn’t make a joke. the movie keeps playing. someone on screen gives a speech about sacrifice that neither of you believes. down the hall, the pipes knock inside the wall. the safehouse lives around you in small, stubborn sounds.
you don’t touch the knife. you don’t sleep. but your breathing evens out against soldier boy’s side, and he stays exactly where he is, warm and solid and silent beside you, letting the strange little shape of this exist without naming it.
Maybe it’s wishful thinking for me, but how about a soldier boy x reader, can be set in season 3 or 5 where he wakes up, meets a supe!reader and is like lovesick or basically head over heels when meeting her. Tries to show off and get her to be with him, reader likes seeing him that way and just teases along….i dark too much caffeine
LOVE IS EMBARRASSING
soldier boy x supe!reader cw old-fashioned views, nsfw mentions, sb is a softie behind all the macho stuff notes thank u anon!! based on the scene with hughie in 3x6! definitely thinking of writing more for sb and supe reader
ben wasn’t expecting to feel like this, especially not after everything with crimson countess. hell, he wasn’t even sure he’d felt this with her. he likes his women older, so this is completely new territory for him. if anyone asked him, he’d deny, deny, deny, but he’s pretty sure he blacked out while meeting you. all he remembers is seeing your face, then butcher laughing at him for his “fuckin’ puppy-dog eyes.” he can’t even remember what he said to you.
his immediate response to… whatever he feels, is confusion. he’s been shown enough tv to know that women nowadays wouldn’t react well to pickup lines he’d have used back in the fifties and sixties, maybe even the eighties, and he can't just ask to fuck you - it's not that kind of feeling. he’s not a pussy, though. he’s not about to tell you about his feelings. instead, he tries showing you how much of a man he is. puffs his chest out, brags, gives you his best blue steel, picks fights.
nothing.
in fact, he’s going in the wrong direction. you’ve both lost count of the amount of times you’ve told him to fuck off, or shut the fuck up (another thing that sends blood straight to his dick - you’re feisty, not afraid of him. he unexpectedly loves it). regardless of how much he’s enjoying the back and forth between you, he can tell he isn’t getting anywhere.
at least, not until you’re put on babysitting duty, and he spouts some emotional, pussy bullshit that somehow makes the annoyance in your eyes soften.
“i didn’t mean to kill those people.” it’s a soft murmur - he hadn’t even meant to say it out loud. he looks up after it slips out. he lifts his head to regain his manliness, but pauses when he sees how your head has tilted slightly, how your eyes have softened.
you encourage him with a small hum. "hm?"
he sighs. this is the closest he's gotten to anything with you in weeks. he can't back off now, even if he's sacrificing his masculinity.
"those people in the street... i didn't mean to kill them. i didn't blow anything up on purpose," he mutters.
"i guessed that. and you didn't really fight in world war 2, did you? or all those other wars they said you were in?" you ask. well, not really. there's a knowing look on your face that he's seen before. he sighs and glares, and you smirk.
holy shit. his heart stops.
he bites back a comment about how you should smile more. if normal women in this day and age don't like it, he can only imagine you having a visceral reaction... and probably hating him forever.
"so... big man soldier boy was just a vought prop?" you tease.
"don't start, doll," he mutters. if you were an animal, your hackles would be standing up.
your face changes and your voice is suddenly sharp. "don't call me doll."
right. princess, doll, sweetheart were off-limits to practical strangers nowadays. "got it."
there's silence for a long moment, but it's not uncomfortable, and you don't have a constant look of annoyance on your face anymore. he's getting somewhere.
you get up eventually, heading to another room. before you leave, you turn around with a small smile.
"y'know, you're not as bad as they say, soldier boy," you tease lightly. god, he loves the look of that smile on your face.
"ben," he says. he has no idea what possesses him to say it.
you nod, the smile getting softer. "ben. you're kind of alright, ben."
I was wondering if I could get Castiel x (preferably fem) reader where reader is really hurting after a hint and Cas offers to rub her back? If prefer if it was just fluffy and sweet, but you can make it suggestive if you’d like!!
Tysm and I love your work 💖
⋆｡ ˚ stay still a second
summary ˚˖𓍢ִִ໋ after a hunt leaves you sore and quietly wrecked, castiel offers comfort in the simplest yet best of ways
pairing ˚˖𓍢ִִ໋ castiel x reader ( f )
wordcount ˚˖𓍢ִִ໋ 480 genre ˚˖𓍢ִִ໋ fluff
warnings ˚˖𓍢ִִ໋ post-hunt soreness, physical touch, soft intimacy
notes ˚˖𓍢ִ໋ ִ❀໋ consider supporting my work .ᐟ
you don’t realize how bad it is until you stop moving.
that’s always how it gets you—adrenaline burning through everything, masking it, keeping you upright and sharp until it’s over and you’re safe and suddenly your body remembers.
everywhere.
you make it halfway down the bunker hallway before you slow, hand pressing into your lower back, breath hitching just slightly. it’s stupid. you’ve been through worse. it still hurts.
you push your door open, meaning to just lie down for a second, just a minute—except the second you sit on the edge of the bed, something pulls wrong and… “shit—” quiet, but sharp enough.
“you are injured.”
you don’t even flinch at his voice anymore.
“i’m fine,” you mutter automatically, shoulders tight, fingers digging into your side like you can hold everything in place.
castiel steps closer anyway. you can feel him there before you look—something steady, something that doesn’t rush or crowd. “you are not,” he says, softer now.
you exhale, long and tired, head tipping forward. “i’m just sore, cas. i’m okay.”
a pause. then, carefully, “may i?”
you blink, glancing back at him. “may you what?”
his gaze flicks to your back, then back to your face, something almost uncertain there. “i can help,” he says. “i have observed that pressure applied to muscle tension can be… beneficial.”
you stare at him for a second.
it would almost be funny if you didn’t feel like you’re held together with tape and stubbornness.
“…you’re offering to rub my back.”
“yes.”
you huff out a quiet breath, something loosening just from the way he says it. simple. no weight attached.
“okay,” you mumble, shifting a little. “yeah. okay.”
he moves closer, slow enough that you could stop him. you don’t. his hands settle carefully at your sides at first, like he’s mapping you out, figuring where it’s safe to press. warm through the fabric of your shirt, steady.
the first press makes you suck in a breath.
“too much?” he asks immediately.
“no,” you say, a little too fast. “just—don’t stop.”
something shifts in his expression at that, subtle but there, and then his hands move again, more sure now, working into the tight ache with slow pressure. it hurts. and then it doesn’t. your shoulders drop before you can stop them, tension bleeding out in quiet pieces, your body giving in despite yourself.
“you carry more strain than you acknowledge,” he murmurs.
you let out a soft, tired sound, forehead dipping forward. “yeah. i know.” you mutter. then, quieter, “this helps.”
his hands still for half a second, before continuing, a little gentler now. “i am glad,” he says.
you don’t say anything else. you just sit there, letting him take care of you in this small, quiet way, eyes slipping shut, breath evening out little by little.
it’s not much.
but it’s enough to make you stay.
ꔛ. all works ; writing guidelines ; writing schedule.
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summary ˚˖𓍢ִִ໋ dean spends the night pretending your ghost games are stupid—until you almost say the wrong name into the wrong mirror
pairing ˚˖𓍢ִִ໋ teen!dean winchester x reader ( gn )
wordcount ˚˖𓍢ִִ໋ 849 genre ˚˖𓍢ִִ໋ fluff
warnings ˚˖𓍢ִִ໋ teen fluff, ghost talk, mild panic, kissing, dean being a dramatic little menace
notes ˚˖𓍢ִ໋ ִ❀໋ consider supporting my work .ᐟ
dean acts like your sleepover is beneath him.
which is rich, considering he’s the one sitting cross-legged on your bedroom floor in mismatched socks, eating chips straight from the bag and pretending not to care about the glitter pen you used to write ghost night across the top of your notebook.
“this is dumb,” he says, mouth full.
“you came.”
“your mom ordered pizza.”
“you came early.”
he pauses. you grin. he throws a chip at you. it hits your shoulder and falls onto your blanket, which feels deeply disrespectful, so you throw one back and miss completely. dean laughs, loud enough that you shush him even though your parents are downstairs watching tv and very much used to the two of you sounding like raccoons trapped in a closet.
“okay,” you say, dragging the ouija board from under your bed with both hands, trying to make it look more mysterious than it actually is. “time to contact the dead”.
dean looks at it. then at you. then back at it. “where’d you get that?”
“garage sale.”
“awesome,” he says flatly. “haunted by suburban divorce.”
you glare. “you’re ruining the energy.”
“the energy is dust and bullshit.”
you should be annoyed. you are annoyed. sort of. except dean is sitting there with his hair falling into his eyes, smirking like he knows everything and you know nothing, and it makes your stomach do this stupid, jumpy thing you’d rather blame on pizza.
you put your fingers on the little heart-shaped pointer. “come on.”
he hesitates just for a second. then he sighs, dramatic, and puts two fingers down beside yours. “fine. but if a ghost tells us to do homework, i’m leaving.”
“is anyone here with us?” you ask, lowering your voice.
dean snorts.
“shut up,” you whisper.
“i didn’t say anything.”
“your face did.”
the pointer doesn’t move.
obviously.
you ask three more questions. dean makes fun of every single one. apparently ghosts don’t care about favorite colors, who likes who at school, or whether your history teacher is “secretly evil,” though dean says he’d still put money on yes.
after ten minutes, you flop backward onto the rug. “this is boring.”
“wow,” dean says. “ghosts hate you.”
“maybe they hate you.”
“everybody loves me.”
“that is not even a little bit true.”
he points at you. “hurtful.”
you sit up suddenly, struck by brilliance, which dean recognizes immediately and clearly does not trust.
“no.”
“i didn’t say anything.”
“your face did.”
you grin, scrambling to your feet. “bathroom mirror.”
his smile fades by half an inch.
you notice, because you notice dean. too much, probably. “what?” you ask.
“nothing.” he stands too fast, trying to look casual and failing in a way that makes something in your chest tug. “just—what are you doing?”
“bloody mary.”
the words land weird.
the room feels smaller for one strange second.
dean laughs, but it comes out wrong. “yeah, okay, very original.”
you walk backward toward the bathroom, pleased with yourself. “scared?”
“no.”
“you look scared.”
“i look annoyed.”
“you always look annoyed.”
“because you’re always annoying.”
you flick on the bathroom light, then off again, leaving only the hallway glow behind you. your reflection hovers faintly in the mirror, soft and blurry.
dean stands in the doorway, one hand gripping the frame. “don’t,” he says. definitely not joking.
you turn, smile slipping. “dean.”
“seriously.” and something about his voice makes you want to listen.
it also makes you want to push, because you’re sixteen and dumb and you hate not knowing why he suddenly cares. “it’s just a game.”
“yeah, well, maybe don’t.”
“bloody mary,” you say, quieter than before.
dean goes still.
you look at the mirror again, pulse fluttering. “bloody mary.”
“hey,” he snaps, stepping in.
you inhale, half thrilled, half nervous, mouth already forming the third one because now it feels impossible not to. “bloo—”
dean grabs your wrist. not hard. just enough. you turn your head, ready to argue, ready to call him dramatic, ready to ask why his face has gone pale. instead, he kisses you. it is fast at first. clumsy. all panic and warm breath and his hand still around your wrist, then loosening, like he remembers himself all at once.
you should pull back. you should ask what the hell he’s doing. you don’t. because dean’s mouth is soft and nervous under all that stupid confidence, and your whole body forgets the mirror, the game, the ghost, everything but the impossible fact of him leaning into you.
then he pulls away, breathing hard. for once, he has nothing smart to say.
you blink at him. “was that… to shut me up?”
his ears go red. “worked, didn’t it?”
you stare.
then you laugh, shaky and too loud, pressing your hand over your mouth before your parents hear. “you are unbelievable.”
“and alive,” he mutters, glancing at the mirror like it insulted his mother. “you’re welcome.”
you don’t understand. not really. but you look at him, his messy hair and scared eyes and fake-brave mouth, and you think maybe the dead can wait.
ꔛ. all works ; writing guidelines ; writing schedule.
summary ˚˖𓍢ִִ໋ with two deans in front of you, the only thing left to trust is the part of him no monster can steal cleanly
pairing ˚˖𓍢ִִ໋ dean winchester x reader ( f )
wordcount ˚˖𓍢ִִ໋ 807 genre ˚˖𓍢ִִ໋ angsty !!
warnings ˚˖𓍢ִִ໋ emotional distress, weapon mention, blood/injury mention
notes ˚˖𓍢ִ໋ ִ❀໋ consider supporting my work .ᐟ
the worst part is that they both look tired.
not evil. not wrong. not even slightly off in the easy, merciful way you need one of them to be.
they both stand under the flickering motel sign with dean’s face, dean’s blood on their knuckles, dean’s green eyes fixed on you like you are the only solid thing left in the whole ruined parking lot. rain dots the windshield of the impala behind them. somewhere far off, a dog won’t stop barking.
your gun shakes in your hands.
“sweetheart,” the one on the left says, breathless. “look at me.”
the one on the right flinches. “don’t call her that,” he snaps.
same voice. same rough edge. same wounded anger tucked under the words. your stomach turns. “stop,” you say, and it comes out smaller than you want. “both of you. stop talking.”
they do and it almost makes it worse.
the shapeshifter has dean’s memories. sam warned you, voice tight over the phone while you were still running through wet alleyways and trying not to throw up. it can know things. private things. motel rooms and bad jokes and the way dean hums under his breath when he thinks you’re asleep. the first time he kissed you. the first time he said i love you and then immediately panicked and pretended to check the car’s oil. all of it. stolen.
“ask me something,” left-dean says, stepping half an inch forward.
you lift the gun higher. “don’t.”
he stops.
right-dean’s jaw tightens. “ask me.”
your eyes burn. “you both know.”
“not everything,” right-dean says.
left-dean scoffs, and god, it sounds so much like him you feel sick. “that’s what i’d say too.”
your finger rests near the trigger. not on it. near.
you think of dean’s hands on your hips in the bunker kitchen, warm and grease-stained from fixing something that didn’t need fixing. you think of him stealing your fries, then pretending he didn’t. you think of the night he crawled into bed beside you without a word after a hunt went bad, pressing his forehead between your shoulder blades, silent until he finally whispered “don’t make me talk yet”.
you know him. you do. so why can’t you breathe? “what did you tell me,” you start, voice cracking despite the effort, “after jolene’s case? when i wanted to quit?”
both of them go still. left-dean answers first. “i told you that you could. that i’d drive you anywhere you wanted. no guilt trip.”
your chest caves a little. right answer. perfect answer.
right-dean swallows hard. “and then i said i was selfish.”
left-dean turns sharply. you freeze.
right-dean looks at you. “i said i was selfish because i wanted you to stay,” he says. “and then i got scared you’d hear that as pressure, so i made a joke about your terrible motel coffee and you threw a pillow at my head.”
no. it doesn’t. that’s the awful thing. it still doesn’t.
then left-dean softens his face, careful and familiar, and takes one slow step toward you. “baby, come on. you know me.”
baby. too easy. too clean. your dean almost never uses that when he’s scared. he gets rougher. quieter. meaner to himself.
right-dean’s eyes flick to your gun. then to you. “shoot me,” he says.
your heart drops. left-dean goes silent.
“what?”
right-dean’s voice is hoarse. “if you can’t tell, shoot me. leg, shoulder, whatever. silver’ll show you. don’t let him near you.”
“dean—”
“don’t argue with me.” his face breaks, just for a second. “please.”
there. not in the memory. not in the words. in the way he makes himself the sacrifice before he lets you become one.
your hand steadies.
left-dean sees the shift before you move. his expression hardens, dean’s face turning strange with something that is not dean at all. “you sure about that?” he says.
you aim at him. “yeah,” you whisper. “i am.”
the shot splits the rain. silver hits shoulder, not heart, because even now—stupid, stupid—you can’t shoot dean’s face without mercy. the thing screams with his mouth, skin rippling wrong under the streetlight, and then sam is there from nowhere, finishing it before your knees can give out.
after, dean catches you before you fall. the real dean. solid. shaking. warm. you grab his jacket with both fists and shove your face into his chest, furious at him, furious at yourself, furious that you ever had to learn him this way.
“you told me to shoot you,” you choke.
his arms tighten around you. “yeah,” he says, voice breaking at the edges. “i know.”
“i hate you.”
“yeah,” he whispers into your hair. “i know that too.”
you hold him harder anyway, because his heartbeat is under your ear and it is his. it is his. it is his.
ꔛ. all works ; writing guidelines ; writing schedule.
Bad Performances and Bending Light - Chapter 1: Morning Mist
✦Read on aO3! - Series Masterlist - Main Masterlist✦
✦summary: The first time you see him, you fall for him. Easy and quickly. But Dean quickly becomes your best friend, and you're not willing to risk that. Is he?✦
✦warnings/tags: friends to lovers, changing channels, canon divergence, angst, fluff, pining, action, no use of y/n or reader description✦
✦author's note: Based off of a previous one-shot you can find here, extended into a full series! You can read both, but I recommend you read this one first if you don't want spoilers. Enjoy!✦
The world is an expensive place to live, and no one seems to care all that much if you can’t. Your landlord won’t renew you lease, because if he does he’d have to keep rent the same. There’s no reason for him to do that, when he could just kick you out and get an extra two hundred dollars from the next person.
So you’re cross legged on your bed, looking for somewhere new. You’ve got it filtered close to work, but there’s nothing in your budget. If you could, you’d keep living by yourself. No one to bother you. No one to be bothered by you.
If you’re desperate, maybe you can find a boyfriend to live with. Doesn’t matter if you love him, if he has a parking space. Better if he’s a little misogynistic and doesn’t let you pay rent-
No.
No.
You’re a grown woman. You can find a place to live that doesn’t turn you into a housewife. You’d be a horrible housewife. You can’t even keep yourself tidy.
But everything on Zillow is a million dollars, compared to the scraps in your bank account. You go on Craigslist, and spend half an hour weighing the cost benefit of answering this guy’s request for feet pics. He’ll pay five hundred dollars, cash. You’ve never even held five hundred dollars. If you turn it all into hundreds, you can roll around in it like Scrooge McDuck.
All while some creep on the internet jerks off to your feet.
Not worth it.
But you bookmark the tab. Just in case.
Craigslist is a dead end. You move onto one of those roommate websites, wrapping your blanket tight around your body. You’ll find something. You have to find something.
There’s a room with a rent for two hundred, but it’s a group of men looking for a woman only. Best case scenario, they’re trying to live out a sitcom. Worst case, you get a documentary.
Another room is looking for someone who’s fine with dogs that bite. The next one is hoping you’ll be able to watch her snake and water all her plants. About five more listings refuse to say the building rent, and you’re pretty sure you’ll be getting scammed. It’s past midnight. You’ve hit the studios where you’ll get your own mattress.
Then you see it.
A sparkle of gold in the water.
Six hundred dollar rent, which isn’t nothing, but the place is close enough to work and you’d only be splitting with the lister. Spacious. Free washer and dryer. Parking space. Good security. Looking for a chill roommate. No couples. Can negotiate about pets. Please don’t be an ass. Contact for info.
There’s a number listed at the bottom.
Dean.
No picture, but that’s a man’s name. You’ve lived with men before, but it had been a co-ed apartment. Just a man is gambling that he’s not a murderer.
You click on his profile. He’s a mechanic—you have no idea how much that pays, but it could be helpful if your car breaks down—and enjoys movies and food.
Maybe this is a social experiment. To see if you’re stupid enough to fall for this.
And you wouldn’t call yourself stupid. Just desperate.
You text Dean. He responds in an hour, setting up a time to meet. He doesn’t sound like a serial killer over text.
You think you can make Friday work?
Friday is perfect. Yeah. How about noon?
Would eleven be okay? Don’t want to take up your whole day :)
He uses smiley faces. That’s cute. Eleven works. Then, just to not seem like a bitch, you add, thank you. Very considerate.
You’re welcome. I was trained well.
That makes you snort. Funny, too. Does the ‘don’t be an ass’ rule apply to you as well?
He doesn’t respond for a second. You think you might’ve blown it, when your phone rings.
Of course it does. Was that what made you message.
Your lips twitch. It helped.
Knew it. There’s a pause. My friend made the ad. She thought I was joking when I suggested. Said it would drive people away.
Well, you can tell her she can suck it.
Already did.
You laugh again. Dean seems nice. He’s friends with a woman, which is a good sign. He responds quickly. Nothing that’s screaming run.
You think your heart does little flips, whenever your phone buzzes with his name. You chalk it up to an unfortunate side affect of not getting laid for months.
And the light moves, when he walks.
You notice it the first time you meet. You walk up to the building, shifting on your feet and peer at the buttons, and he’d elbowed right past you with a grunted apology.
“Sorry, gonna be late- Shit-“
He walks right into the glass.
And you like to think of yourself as at least an okay person. The kind that helps someone, when they run into a door like a bird. But you laugh at the dazed expression on his face as he stumbles back. You laugh, and you catch his arm to steady him. It makes you falter a little bit as well. He’s a lot heavier than you expect—even for someone so taller—and you have to sink your nails into his arm to stay upright. His bicep had flexes under your hand.
He grabs your wrist with a grunt, both of you finding footing at the same time, and looks you right in the eyes.
He has the prettiest eyes you’ve ever seen in your damn life. His lashes might be longer than yours, the dark green almost hypnotizing, and his face-
You didn’t know men were allowed to look like that. You’re so sure that the face looking at you was from a dream. Full lips and strong features, a slightly crooked nose and, sharp clean-shaven jaw.
You blink at him slowly. Hold on a little tighter, in case this is a dream. Morning mist bites at your fingers, but his body is warm. The haze of it all makes it feel like a dream, and you lean a little forward, but-
There’s ice under your feet. You slip with a tiny yelp.
He grabs you quickly. Wide eyed with an arm around your waist, pulling you a little closer. Your ankle hurts—not a dream and his breath turns to fog over your face. Only a foot or so apart, something magnetic pulling you closer, something louder in your brain—call it a survival instinct—making you place a hand on his chest to stop yourself from melting into this complete stranger.
His mouth curves into a small grin. You stare at it, trying not to mirror the movement, then look back into his eyes.
The light moves.
“Hi.”
“Hey.” You swallow. “Are you-“
“I’m good.” He shrugs lazily. Still looking at you. “You?”
“I’m fine.” You whisper. “It’s- Happened before.”
That’s a lie. You’ve never felt anything like this, that makes your heart go to your ears and your whole body sing. It’s light by an electric fire, sparking when his thumb brushes a small line over your waist.
He must see right through you. His smile grows.
“You slip on ice while standing a lot?” He teases.
“You run into glass doors a lot?”
He stares at you for a second. You bite your tongue. You didn’t need to be that angry, that defensive, you don’t even know him and he probably thought you were some kind of standoffish bitch-
He laughs. Loud and clear, the first note of a song you think you’ve been waiting to hear all your life. Your heart had skips in your chest, and falls into a beat you’ve never felt. It feels right. He, with his arm around you and a wide smile on his face, feels right.
Then he pulls back, grabbing your arms to make sure you were steady on the ground, before coughing and rubbing the back of his neck. Still smiling. Still so close.
“Guess I don’t. Was just in a rush to get inside, I think I got someone waitin’ on me- Not like that.” He adds quickly, ears going red. “I live upstairs, and my friend moved in with her girlfriend, and my brother was crashing with his girlfriend but they found a place and now I- Never mind.” He shakes his head, making a face that you don’t fully understand.
In a year or two, you still won’t understand it. He’ll only ever make that face when he’s talking to you. And you’ll know, because you watch everything he does.
Just to see if he knows he has your heart. That it’s wrapped around his hands, to pull and play with however he pleases. That he grabbed it when he caught you slipping, and he’d left a depression on your body where he’d touched you so easily. Fit so perfectly. You watch him all the time, because there’s nothing better than just watching someone you love.
You don’t know you love him now. You only know that he’d seems nervous, and it’s sweet. You know his face is confused and adorable, even if you aren’t able to place why.
He extends his hand, an almost sheepish smile on his face.
“Dean Winchester.” He says. “That’s- My name.”
You would giggle, if you weren’t so busy panicking.
Dean Winchester.
You don’t understand why he didn’t put up a picture. A face like that could’ve made an angel fall from heaven, just to stand at his side.
You say your own name softly, and watch it hit him. You slip your hand into his, fingers shaking—the cold or nerves, you’re still not sure—and he still feels right. So right. His fingers are wrapped, safe and firm around yours. In another life you wonder if he would’ve pulled you forward into his arms.
But you don’t live in that life. You live where he needs a roommate, and you needed a place to live, and that was more important than anything else. That wasn’t something you had the luxury to jeopardize, even for Dean.
And you’ll know soon. You’d jeopardize a lot of things for Dean.
“I think you’re supposed to be waitin’ upstairs for me.” He rasps, and you laugh weakly.
“I couldn’t get in the building.”
“Oh- Uh- Right.” He glances at the doors. Still holding your hand.
You don’t want him to let go.
“At least you’re not late.” You say with a smile, and he looks back to you.
His eyes shine, and in the mist, he’d still looked like an angel. A little more solid and real, but somehow less tangible. A little further away, but right in your hands at the same time. The light moves. He chuckles, and it moves something deep in your chest. Something final, shifting where it was always supposed to be.
“Yeah.” He says. “I guess I’m not.”
✦Chapter Two✦
✦End note: Even if you've read the original, I still hope you enjoy this extened version! I had a lot of fun exploring and adding to these characters, and I considered just deleting the orginal but if you want the abriged version or total spoilers, I'm keeping it up. I really recommend not reading one-shot first, but you do you. thank you!✦
✦If you like this story, please reblog, share, or leave a comment! <3✦
✦Bucky Masterlist - Main Masterlist - Read on aO3!✦
✦summary: you can't stand bucky barnes. despite all your attempts to get rid of him, he's always somewhere in your orbit. you say you hate it. hate him. but you're also a very good liar.✦
✦warnings/tags: bucky barnes x female!reader, college!au, frat!bucky, no use of y/n, mutual pining, rivals to lovers but the rivalry is one-sided, no description of reader (pictures for aesthetic only), fluff, angst, love confessions, bucky being a yearner, plot to earn porn, feral level smut, (teasing, stripping, nipple play, praise kink and degradation kink, soft dom!bucky, mean bucky but you're into it, possiveness, dacryphila, pussy spanking, brat!reader, fingering, manhandling, doggy style, dumbification, big dick bucky, p in v sex, creampie), soft!bucky outside of smut✦
✦wc: 9.2k✦
✦Author's Note: one day I'll just write porn without plot. today is not that day. we earn the horny. Enjoy!✦
You’ve gotten used to him. He’s like a fly that lives in your kitchen, and after a while you stop trying to kill it and just give it a name. It buzzes past your head and you swat at it, but it also sits on the window and you pretend it isn’t there.
Bucky Barnes laughs loudly from the table over, and you turn up the music in your headphones.
Telling him to be quiet never works in your favor. He smirks and tries to flirt with you. All his friends oooooo, like you’re still in middle school, then cause even more noise after you reject Barnes and they jump him like a pack of animals.
If you were smarter, you’d sit all the way in the corners of the cafeteria. Where there wouldn’t be a table big enough to fit all of them.
Something tells you they’d find a way to invade your space anyway. It’s one of their traits.
Pissing you off.
You’ve studied them. The little pack—or maybe pride—of frat boys that Barnes belongs to. It’s a good exercise. Field studying a microculture. You have a whole corner of your mind that’s devoted just to how they behave.
How Barnes behaves, with his pride. If his behavior changes. How it effects his values and actions.
You tell yourself that’s why you tolerate him. He interests you.
A very shiny fly.
You’d been in the same freshman orientation group. Barnes had been one of those boys that you’d long written off—since about middle school, when they’re started cropping up—with his styled hair, proud smile, and natural ease that flowed through the whole room. You don’t remember much from the actual group—the leader had pissed you off by talking like you were a kindergartener, but most people pissed you off—but at the time, you thought you wouldn’t have to.
It hadn’t seemed unreasonable to think that you’d never see these people again. The girls who you were nice to, but didn’t have anything in common with. The lanky boy who’d tried hitting on all of you, and struck out every time. The… others.
And Barnes.
He’d been charm personified. A sweet cake made out of chivalry and smooth words. You’d walked into the room and thought he was pretty. You’d walked out and thought he was gorgeous.
But that had been fine. Because you’d thought you’d never see him again.
And he hasn’t stopped buzzing around you since.
You’re in separate majors, separate lives, but every single GenEd class you take, Barnes is there. Freshman semester it had been your philosophy class, and you’d had to give a presentation together. You’d done most of the work. Barnes had tried to help, but he was bad at it, so he’d mostly just sat there flirting with you and looking pretty.
“I think man is inherently evil.” He said, grinning at you from the library table.
You snorted. “Of course you do.”
“Yeah, that’s- Is that not what our presentation is about?”
Barnes leaned over you, peering at the computer. His body radiated warmth. You hadn’t touched anyone in a while. You’d almost leaned in him, and he never had to know that.
“Nature versus nurture.” He read from the screen. His tongue flicked over his lips. “Uh- I thought we were supposed to be talkin’ about good versus evil, doll.”
“This is good versus evil.” You muttered. “I’m arguing that all people are good until taught to be otherwise.”
“But- You don’t actually believe that-“
“Yes, I do.”
Barnes snorted. “Yeah. You think everyone is good.”
That made you look up. His attention—so close and heated—made you feel all strangely fuzzy.
You ignored it.
You were going to get very good at that.
“I do think everyone is good.” You snapped.
“You hate everyone-“
“I do not hate everyone. I-“ Your face burned, as he’d just kept staring at you “I don’t.”
Barnes smirked, looking you up and down like you were some kind of fuzzy bunny. “Alright.”
“You’re still looking at me-“
“I gotta look at you to talk to you-“
“Not like that-“
“Like what?”
“Like you- You don’t believe me.”
He shrugged, his smirk widening. You thought about punching him in his smug, beautiful face, but decided that wouldn’t help your case.
“Whatever.” You turned back to your computer with a scowl.
Barnes leaned forward, saying your name far too gently. “Hey, I was just joking-“
“Really? I hadn’t been able to tell.”
He sighed. “If this- If it’s important to you that I believe you-“
“It’s not.”
It had been. For some reason, Bucky thinking that you really hated everyone had itched. You slept poorly that night. Stared at the ceiling with thoughts that tumbled and ripped over each other like a river.
He got under your skin. He’s always gotten under your skin.
After philosophy was theology. He sat next to you in every class, bugging you and trying to invite you to study.
“We work well together-“
“No we don’t.”
“C’mon, doll, we got that A before-“
“I got that A.” You shot him glare. “You stood there like a pretty statue, and bumped us down to an A-.”
Barnes wasn’t been fazed. You remember thinking he’d gotten hotter over winter break. Something in his eyes had started to shine, and he might’ve gotten a new product for his hair. It had smelled like thick, spicy fruit. He still wore it today.
It made you want to throttle him more.
“You think I’m pretty?”
He leaned forward, and that smell had flooded your senses. It was like a second hand high.
Barnes licked his lips. He looked down to yours.
You had to rip your gaze away.
“Shut up.”
He laughed. It sounded more like a sigh.
When he turned back to his own notes, you took a deep breath through your nose.
He always smelled so good.
And he was always so handsome. And charming. If you didn’t have your wits, you would’ve been dragged into his little den a long time ago. If you weren’t so careful with every place you stepped, you would’ve stumbled into his chest and let him sweep you off your feet like some damsel in distress.
He’s there for Spanish, both semesters of Sophomore year.
The first one, you saw a girl drop him off in class and watched them make out in the doorway. It was sloppy and loud. A few of Bucky’s little pride members had whooped when he walked inside, smirking and wiping his mouth.
You felt sick, and didn’t let yourself think about why.
The second one had been Spanish and arts. A painting class, where he’d made you a butterfly off of your spirit.
“Look.” He showed it to you with a proud grin. “It’s got your eyes.”
You squinted at it. It did. In an almost shocking resemblance.
“I didn’t know you could paint.” You muttered.
Barnes shrugged. “My best friend is in art school. We’ve known each other forever, I picked up a few things. Nothing big.”
You nodded, looking down at your own—relatively shit—butterfly. It had been more of a bat. You’ll dump it in the trash and start over in hour later.
“Stevie,” you mumbled absentmindedly.
“I- Yeah. How’d you know that.”
“You told me.” You glared at him under your eyelashes. “I listen.”
Barnes stared at you as if you’d just told him he was destined to be a king. It made you a little dizzy.
“And it’s good.” You muttered, against your will.
When Bucky looked at you, a lot of coherent thoughts tended to… Become lacking.
“Yeah.” He breathed, his ears turning red. “It- It is.”
You blinked. “Well, go turn it in, then.”
“What?”
“The butterfly.”
“The-“ He sat a little taller, his fingers curling on the paper. “Oh. Right.”
“Right.” You frowned. “What were you talking about-“
“Nothing. It’s- Nothing.” He stared at his butterfly with an odd expression, smoothing the edges with careful fingers.
Bucky always moved his fingers so carefully. Like everything he touched was glass. It makes you wonder how he’d touch a soft body below him, though he never gets to know that.
“You want this?”
“The-“
“I’m not turnin’ it in.” He held out the butterfly. “It’s for you.”
You stared at the butterfly. At Bucky.
An image of him wiping his mouth and laughing with his pride flashed through your head. It seared some kind of hole in your heart.
“I don’t think your girlfriend would like you giving drawings to other girls.” You muttered. The words had tasted bitter.
Barnes hadn’t seemed able to tell.
“I don’t have a girlfriend.” He said, giving you another strange look. “I’ve never had a girlfriend.”
You scoffed. “Please-“
“I have fun.” Barnes cut you off, lips twitching. “You know, doll. Fun?”
“I know fun.”
“Uh huh-“
“Stop doing that, I do-“
“Never seen you have it.”
“That’s- I don’t have it with you.”
You spat the words, and Bucky flinched back like you’d flung acid. He blinked, and you swallowed. You hadn’t meant for it to be so loud. To sound so harsh.
“James-“
“It’s fine.” He muttered, looking back to his paper. “I just- If you ever-“
He cut himself off, glaring down at nothing. He shook his head, nostrils flaring slightly.
You’d never seen him look like that before. You hadn’t liked it.
“Whatever.” He sighed. “I don’t have a girlfriend.”
And you nodded weakly. To this day you’re not sure what happened.
But you know Bucky had left the butterfly out on the table, after class.
You know it’s still in your bag, folded neatly and tucked safely. You pull it out sometimes to stare at it.
It’s better, really. Not to think about why.
Junior year was the community internship. Again, you and Bucky were in the same class. He bothered you, same as always, but always seemed to have some girl sticking to his side. They barely even seemed to see you.
All you could ever see was them. Running their hands over his broad chest and kissing the stubble he’d been growing. One bit his nose and your hands curled into fists.
You wondered if he made any of them butterflies.
You decide that he doesn’t. He’s only known them a handful of weeks, and he knew you for years.
“We gotta go down the library tomorrow,” he told you. You shrugged.
“I can go myself.”
Barnes frowned. “It’s not in a good part of town, you shouldn’t go alone.”
“I carry pepper spray-“
“That’s not enough.”
You sighed, giving him an exasperated look. “Fine. I’ll bring Brock.”
Barnes stiffened. You’d never seen him stand so tall. “Who’s Brock.”
“He’s in our class? He has been, all semester-“
“You talkin’ about Rumlow?”
You nodded. Barnes worked his jaw, looking off the side and huffing a low laugh.
“What-“
“You’re not goin’ with Rumlow.”
Your mouth fell open. “You don’t get to tell me that-“
“I know.” Barnes crossed his arms. “But I am.”
That had made you feel all gooey, in a very low part of you tummy. You’d gotten good at making sure Bucky didn’t see it.
“Fuck you, James-“
“He’s a dick.” Barnes didn’t waver. “He got kicked out of the frat, you know how big a piece of shit you gotta be for that to happen?”
You paused.
Fuck, that was a good point.
You hated it when he made good points.
“Fine.” You grumble, looking down to your phone. “You got with Natasha.”
Natasha. She’d managed to stick to Bucky longer than the others. She was gorgeous, and smart. You wished she was a bitch, too. It would make her a lot easier to hate.
You thought Bucky would jump at the chance to get one on one with her. They could fuck in the car after, and before, and you could drink yourself to sleep imagining it.
“No. I’m goin’ with you.”
You stick out your tongue. “Well, I’m not going with you.”
“Huh. Guess no one’s going then.”
You’d looked up with a glower. Barnes had raised his brows in challenge. He knew you’d cave. Knew you wouldn’t just let something slip through the cracks because of a petty fight.
He knew you.
You hated him.
“Fuck you.”
“You said that already.” He muttered. “And I’m not holding my breath.”
You blinked. “Wha-“
“I’ll pick you up at noon tomorrow.”
He walked away. You didn’t remember how to move for five minutes.
He asked you about Brock the next day. Like he was checking on you. Like he cared.
You don’t let yourself think he does. You’ve reminded yourself of that over and over, since Freshman year.
Bucky doesn’t care about you, so you’re allowed not to care about him. It’s necessary. Important to survival.
Because you’ve studied his kind. You’ve studied him.
Frat boys. In their natural habitat—the college campus—they’re apex predators. They’re loud because they don’t have to worry about being quiet. Most of them are here on athletics scholarships, so they care about that more than their actual classes. The ones who aren’t are rich, and never learned to worry about anything.
They have a lot of sex. They get girlfriends, then cheat on them. Your roommate Wanda knows a lot of people—she’s in a lot of clubs—so you’ve heard all the stories. Seen a few firsthand, or overheard crying in bathrooms. Everyone keeps dating and fucking them because they’re hot and athletic and rich, and you’re all young and stupid.
“It’s fun to make bad choices.” Wanda’s told you. “While we’re still young enough that it doesn’t matter.”
But you don’t make bad choices.
Ever.
You don’t understand that philosophy at all. Why make a bad choice when you could make a good one. Why risk someone curb stomping your heart when you could just… not.
Second semester of junior year, you take a public speaking class with Bucky. He comes up to you in the cafeteria, his pride just as loud as always.
“Hey,” he says your name, standing at the other end of the table. You don’t look up from your computer.
“Hi.”
“You got the homework for public speaking?”
“Yes.”
Barnes clears his throat, drumming his fingers. “You gonna share it with me?”
“It’s online, James.”
He’s silent for a moment, and you look up.
He’s staring at you, the expression on his face unreadable. You almost ask if he’s okay.
“I know that.” He says, rubbing the back of his neck.
You cross your arms. “Did you.”
“Yeah.” He throws you that charming grin. You hate that it still makes you think he’s beautiful. “I was asking if you wanted help with it.”
“If I wanted… Help?”
Barnes didn’t read the quiet, bubbling fury in your tone. He never does.
“Yeah, I was thinking you could come over, practice on me, you know. I’m a very good audience.”
You narrowed your eyes. Barnes kept grinning, and you wonder if he actually thought this was going to work.
“I don’t need your help.”
He deflated slightly. But he didn’t give up.
You’ve never known him to before. You shouldn’t have expected that he would now.
“Maybe I need your help?”
“You always need my help.”
Bucky snorted. “Yeah, you got no idea.”
“What’s that supposed to mean-“
“You wanna come over Thursday?”
“No.”
“Alright, I’ll go to you-“
“I’m working Thursday.”
Bucky paused. “You got a job?”
You nodded. He frowned.
“Where?”
“Corner store.”
His frown deepened. “That’s not safe.”
You scoffed. “Okay, dad-“
“You’re working late, it’s not-“
“I’ve been fine.”
“But what about when you’re not-“
“But I am-“
“I know you are now, but-“ He ran a hand over his face, his voice dropping with frustration.
It always went right to your core, when that happened. You wished it didn’t.
“What about when you’re not?” He demanded. “We live in a city, what about when someone does a holdup and you’re the cashier-“
“Why do you care.”
Bucky went still. He opened his mouth closed it, and gave that tight shake of his head that you know means something, but can never figure out what.
“What corner store.” He grunts.
“Fifth and twenty, why-“
“We’re studying while you work.”
Your mouth fell open. “No-“
“Yeah. Or- I’m studying. There.”
“I can kick you out-“
“You won’t.”
He walked away. And you hate him. You hate that you know he’s sleeping with Natasha—and who knows who else—and that makes you want to sink your teeth into his neck like some kind of claim. You hate that you are going to let him. You hate that he knows you so well he starts fucking things in the homework up on purpose, just so you stop pretending not to pay attention and study with him.
You hate how warm he is sitting next to you.
You hate that you don’t shove him away, and you feel colder when he’s gone.
He came over to work every night for the rest of the semester. You’re sure he had better things to do, but he doesn’t do them.
Bucky sat its behind the counter with you, and does homework. He did funny voices while practicing his speeches, and brushed his hand over the back of your knee whenever he stood up.
You shivered every time. A smug look flashed over his face.
He made you giggle.
You hate him for that, too.
And Wanda’s told you to make the bad choice.
Everyone tells you to make the bad choice.
Wanda had became good friends with Natasha. You try not to feel any way about it—Natasha, who’s touched what you’ve never allowed yourself to reach for—but then Wanda asks if she can move in, and you get sick.
You say yes. You won’t be one of those girls who holds those kinds of grudges.
Natasha moves in when summer vacation starts. And she’s lovely. You hate that she’s lovely. She’s cool and interesting and has pretty hair.
You wonder if Bucky liked running his fingers through it. You lie on the floor of the bathroom and refuse to cry about it, just staring up at the ceiling.
For the first time, you don’t have a class with him. It’s making you choke on clean air, because there’s this spicy, intoxicating fruit smell that’s supposed to be there, and it’s not, and you’re detoxing on a drug you never even got to take.
“My boyfriends coming over tonight.” Natasha tells you and Wanda one night.
Black spots dance in front of your vision. Faraway, you hear yourself say that’s fine.
It is not fine.
Bucky’s going to be here, and he’s going to be kissing Natasha in front of you, and that shouldn’t matter but it does, it does, it does.
But when Natasha’s boyfriend comes over, it’s not Bucky.
It’s Sam.
You know Sam. He’s one of the nice members of Bucky’s pride. He and Bucky are close. He’s always lingering in the background, laughing while you verbally impale Bucky and clapping his friend on the back when he walks it off. He and Bucky shared a room sophomore year. They go to baseball games together and eat five hotdogs every time.
You can’t think of any facts about Sam that aren’t related to Bucky.
And Sam kissed Natasha. And you stood there stupidly, certain that you really must have missed something.
“Oh,” Sam said when he saw you. “You’re Bucky’s girl.”
You stammered. Said a lot of babbling words you don’t really remember, while Sam gave Natasha an amused look. Natasha shrugged, light dancing behind her eyes.
Neither of them feel like elaborating that. No one ever does. There are just passive comments that make you more confused, like Wanda casually mentioning how you really should try going after Barnes and Natasha telling you that Sam asked her out after she and Bucky fizzled.
“We never really got started, though.” She mused. “His heart wasn’t in it. He even told me that, but-“ She laughed breathily. “You know. You think you’re going to be the girl that makes them settle, then you wake up and realize that you’re better with someone who actually wants that. With you.”
You blinked at her. You did not know how it was. You’ve had… affections for one person your entire college career, and you’ve known that he’d never settle with you.
There’s no point in telling Natasha that. With the glint in her eyes, you’re sure she already knows.
“He talked about you all the time,” she told you casually on another day. “God, it was so annoying, but-“ She looked you up and down. It always made you flush. “I get it.”
And people had been doing that a lot, lately. Telling you how much Bucky talks about you. Making little comments you think you’re supposed to understand, but you don’t.
Sam invites Bucky to go out with you guys, because Nat invited him. No one asked for your approval. They probably knew you would never have given it.
“You look nice.” Bucky muttered in the car.
Your thighs were pressed together, your shoulder bumped whenever the car rattled, and you had to keep yourself locked up to not melt into him.
“Thanks.”
“No problem.” He sighed. “It’s, uh- weird, right? Us not having a class together.”
You hummed. It was. It made the whole world tilt off it’s axis. Bucky didn’t get to know that.
“You know, I still got homework.”
You frowned up at him. “Okay.”
Bucky cleared his throat, and rubbed the back of his neck. “And, uh- I don’t have a study partner anymore.”
“You’ll find one.” You grumbled. There’s that acid again, stinging on your tongue.
He will. He’s Bucky. There will be a line of people clamoring to have his attention, because you’ve been stealing it for far too long and everyone wants a taste of that spicey, calming fruit-
“I’m still free most nights.” He said, looking straight ahead. “You still work at the corner store?”
You blinked.
Oh.
“Yeah. I do.”
Bucky nodded. His lips twitched. “Okay.”
And sure enough, he’s there on Monday. It’s strange talking about classes you’re not taking, but it makes you want to strangle him less.
Although you haven’t wanted to strangle him in a while. You’ve mostly wanted his hand around your throat, pinning you below him, touching you until everything is just floating light.
“You look tired.” He said. Something in his voice was too casual. Like he was weighing every word.
“I am tired.”
“You been eating enough?”
“I’m eating right now-“
“I brought you food.” He fixed you with a stern glare.
It made you feel all kinds of breathless and gooey.
That night you’ll lie in bed with your fingers between your legs. They’re not thick enough, slipping right in and out of your pussy with no relief. Bucky’s fingers would be bigger.
“I would’ve eaten anyway.” You grumbled, watching some teenagers move around the drink aisle.
Bucky chuckled. “Sure, doll.”
Your cheeks heated. You went over when the teenagers started shouting about the store not having the right drinks, but you had to stand on wobbly knees.
Bucky hasn’t called you doll in years.
It felt different now. It felt like it matters.
You’re not going to do the stupid thing. It didn’t matter how much Wanda pushed you into it, or how many comments Nat made about Bucky not sleeping around anymore. You’ve gotten this far. You graduate in the spring. And Bucky will just always be a warm memory you worship between your legs.
He left his folder at the store last night. You thought about giving it to him next time he dropped in, but then Natasha said she was going to his place for some party and you figured you could hitch a ride.
Not because you wanted to see him sooner. Nat made a comment about that, that teasing smirk over her lips.
You ignored her. You’re very good at it now.
The party is raging, when you arrive. It’s loud, so loud. You’ve stepped into the frat boy den, and it aligns with your every study. Hot, sweaty bodies grinding into each other, music you can feel in your ribs, drinks being poured and clicked open. So much noise. So many people.
“Go find Bucky!” Nat whispers in your ear, and you swallow.
“Where do you think he is- Nat-“
She’s already gone. You have to go find Bucky alone.
You think it’s going to be an impossible quest. There are so many people you’re sure it’s a fire hazard, you don’t know anyone but Sam and Nat—who are sucking face in the corner and no fucking help at all—and if you ask someone random to help you find Bucky, you’re going to get mocked about it.
Weird girl was asking for you, Barnes. Knew you wouldn’t care.
You bite the inside of your cheek, spinning around for any possible direction that might take you to Bucky.
He finds you first.
“You’re here!” Bucky calls your name, and you almost jump out of your skin. “Thought you’d never be here!”
You stumble a little as he collapses over you. He’s heavy, his eyes glossy and unfocused, and you’ve never seen him smiling so wide. He stops you from falling with an arm around your waist, and your breath catches.
“I’m here.” You whisper. “I- I have your folder-“
“Shhh.” Bucky drops his forehead against yours, eyes fluttering shut. “Don’t talk ‘bout my school.”
“I-“
“You can talk about your school.” He presses further over you. Backing you against the counter, his fingers digging into your hips. “Love it when you talk about stuff. ‘S smart.”
“Thanks.” You look off to the side, trying to see if anyone is watching.
Bucky grabs your jaw and turns it back. You almost whimper at the intensity in his gaze. You’ve never seen it so great, and you’ve seen it a lot.
“You’re here.” He mumbles. “In m’ house.”
“I needed to drop something off.”
Your voice is soft, but Bucky’s whole face falls.
“You’re not stayin’?”
“I- I don’t-“
You stumble, and realize you’ve grabbed the collar of his shirt. You’re already trying to stop him from moving away, even thought you know you shouldn’t.
“There’s a lot people.” You breathe. “I don’t like crowds.”
Bucky blinks. You could swear his eyes clear slightly, even if his grip on you tightens.
“Alright.” He gives that strange little nod. “C’mon.”
“Come- James-“
You squeal as he picks you up. Scoops you into his arms like you weigh nothing. And you knew he was strong, but you’ve never felt it.
Feeling it is dangerous. It makes you want that strength everywhere. Pinning you down and slamming into you, making your head nice and empty as you feel him everywhere.
“You’re drunk, be careful-“
“’M not that drunk.”
“You’re slurring-“
“I’m buzzed.” He says the words more clearly. Like he wants you to hear that he can. “Not drunk. I won’t drop you.”
You grunt, wrapping your arms tight around his neck. He gives you a tiny smile.
“You’re here.”
He says it like he can’t believe it. Like it’s the most beautiful thing in the world. He’s beaming like he adores you.
You can’t help yourself from smiling in return.
“Yeah. I am.”
Bucky’s grin gets impossibly wider. He kisses your cheek, messy and quick.
It’s like being shocked by lightning. Your heart does a flip in your chest, and you hold onto him a little tighter.
“James-“
“Y’know, you’re the only person I let call me James.” He reaches the top of the stairs, the music dulled by the distance.
The only drum left in your chest is your heartbeat. You wish he’d stop looking at you like that. It’s dangerous.
“You- You never told me you didn’t want me to.”
He hums. “You ever hear anyone else call me that?”
“I- Um-“
“One time a girl tried.” He pulls open a door. “Made me more into it, she got real excited.”
There it is. That toxic curl of jealousy in your gut.
“James-“
“Then I called your name with my dick inside her. Think that ruined it.”
Bucky says it lazily. Like it doesn’t change your whole life.
“What?” You squeak.
He just grins, slowly lowering you down his body.
“I call your name when I have sex.”
“I- I- Why-“
“’Cause I love you.”
“James-“ Your voice cracks, and tears are burning at your eyes.
You’re confused. So confused. You came over with a folder and a mission to be in and out. Your walls had been just as spiked and guarded as always, and maybe Bucky’s been able to slip through a few times, but you’ve learned how to not let that matter. Because it didn’t matter to him.
But now he’s saying this.
And you’re in what has to be his room, sitting on his mattress. If you weren’t so drunk on whatever’s happening, you’d be scanning around. You’d be studying how Bucky keeps his own space, because it’s another thing you’d get to have about him.
Instead, all you can see it Bucky kneeling in front of you. The impossible softness on his face. The lips that he’s licking again. The thick arms, keeping you sitting on the edge of his bed.
You say the only thing you can think of. The only thing that gets you out of here with your heart intact.
“You don’t mean it.”
Bucky doesn’t even flinch.
“I do.”
“You’re drunk-“
“I’m uninhibited.” His eyes shine. “You taught me that word.”
“James-“
“Hmm.”
He leans forward, tilting his head slightly. Your breath catches. You can feel the heat of his breath over your face. He’s looking at you like you’re the only thing in the world.
“Freshman year.” He murmurs. He won’t stop staring at you, that soft smile on his lips. “You were so bossy and mean to me.”
You flush deeper. “You- You were annoying-“
“I liked workin’ you up.”
“That’s mean.”
“Got me your attention.” He mumbles. “Otherwise you woulda just ignored me.”
You swallow. “I still tried to ignore you.”
“I know.” He shrugs. “But you didn’t. You’re not as mean as you wanna be. ‘S why I love you.”
Tears burn behind your eyes. “Please stop saying that-“
“But I mean it.”
“You can’t mean it.” Your voice cracks slightly. “It- It’s not fair if you mean it now.”
He frowns again. It’s adorable. Like he’s really worried about you. “What’d you mean, now?”
“I- I mean you won’t mean it in the morning.” You whisper. “And that won’t be fair.”
“Why not?”
“Because.”
It’s all you can say. You haven’t even been able to tell yourself the reason, you’re certainly not telling Bucky first.
“’Cause why?” Bucky’s lips twitch. He leans forward until your noses bump. “Why do you care?”
You blink. And you can see it in his eyes.
The challenge.
Why do you care.
Of course you fucking care. You always care. It’s Bucky, it doesn’t matter how hard you tried, you’ve never been able to not care, and now you’re in his room, on his bed, and he’s saying things and looking at you like- Looking at you like-
Your brain short circuits, and it sparks in your core.
Your body moves.
Bucky grunts when you grab his face and drag him into a kiss. It’s quick and rough. A sudden slam of mouths together with no plan or real fire. He doesn’t kiss you back.
When you pull back, you’re sure you’re going to cry. You’re panting, your lips wobbling, and Bucky’s just staring at you.
“I- I’m sorry.” You shrink back. He can’t see you cry. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have- I’ll go-“
Bucky almost lurches. He dives over you like an animal, and before you know what’s happening, you’re kissing again.
Really kissing.
The way you’d always pictured it, in the greatest privacy of your mind and room. Hidden under the covers so no one could see the shame of how deeply you imagined it.
Bucky’s lips moving against yours. That tongue flicking over your lips before he nips on your lower lip, and grins at your moan.
This is that, and better. Because he’s really here. He tastes a little like liquor, but mostly like mint and something that’s purely Bucky. You’re being pressed backwards into the mattress, Bucky moving up until he’s caging you to the mattress. His knees braced over your waist, his chest pushed against yours, his hands wandering and grabbing every bit of you that he can reach.
Rough fingers slip under your shirt, teasing your sides. You gasp into his mouth, and Bucky groans.
“Ja- James-“
“I know.” He mumbles. “Wanna take care of you, doll.”
“Mhmm.” You whine in a half protest. It’s hard to think with one massive hand mapping every curve of your body, and the other sliding up to grab your neck.
Bucky tips your head back, and hums in satisfaction, when you willingly open your mouth to deepen the kiss.
“Please lemme take care of you.” He rasps. He sounds like a man wrecked.
And who are you to tell him no?
“Oh- Okay- Oh!”
Bucky doesn’t waste time. He pulls back with something like clarity in his eyes, licks his lips, and runs a large hand fully up your side. You arch into the touch with a soft gasp, eyes fluttering shut. He wraps around your breast, groaning as his thumb flicks over your perked nipple.
“No bra, hm?”
“Didn’t- Didn’t think I’d be here for more than five minutes-“
“Or you were hopin’ you’d be here.” He teases, smirking down at you. “Right here.”
He pinches your nipple, rolling it between expert fingers. You toss your head back with a moan. Bucky chuckles.
“Yeah, that’s right. This is exactly what you wanted, isn’t it doll.”
“N- No-“
Your words fall off into a whine as Bucky yanks his hand away. You grab his wrist, trying to drag it back, but he’s too strong.
“Wha- What’re you doing-“
“If you’re gonna tell me you don’t want this.” He shrugs, soothing the edge of your shirt like it’s a blanket. “I’m not gonna do it.”
“But- But I do want it.” You squeeze his wrist, pouting as tears start to gather in your eyes.
Bucky clicks his tongue. He’s moved on to soothing out your hair.
“Bucky, please-“
“Please what?”
He grabs your cheek, forcing your gaze onto his. Heat floods your core at the possessive motion, and your legs fall open. Bucky’s attention flicks down, but he doesn’t waver.
“You gonna spend the whole time pretending you don’t want me?” He demands, dragging his thumb over your lower lip. “Or are you going to be a good girl and let me have you how I want?”
And you realize what that glint in his eyes means. He’s giving you a choice, for how you want this to go. Soft and sweet, or what he wants to do.
What you want him to do.
You might be drooling. Your grip on his wrist tightens, and you feel a little faint. Every fantasy you’ve ever had is above you. You just have to grab it.
“I didn’t come here tonight for this.” You breathe out, testing the waters.
Bucky’s nostrils flare. His plants a hand on your hip, pinning you down to the mattress.
“You didn’t, huh.”
You shake your head. Bucky’s tongue flicks over his lips.
“You need me to show you what you want?” He’s using a low tone that rushes right to your pussy.
You nod, slowly trying to press your thighs back together. There’s too much pressure, you need a way to relieve it.
Bucky grabs your knee and shoves it back open, and you squeak in elated surprise.
“I’ll be good to you, doll.” He mutters, rubbing the inside of your thigh. His knuckles brush near your pussy, and you clench around nothing. “Show you exactly what you need.”
“You- You don’t know what I need-“
Bucky crashes back down, kissing you into the mattress with brutal, unrelenting force. Your arms fly around his neck and he groans, dropping his hips down over yours.
“Yeah, I do.” He says against your lips, rutting down. Forcing you to feel the push of his bulge against your clothed core. “And you fuckin’ know it.”
God, you do. You don’t have a single question of it.
Bucky pulls away, and you grumble in protest, trying to reach up and drag him back far another kiss. Just that is enough for you to feel like you’re in Heaven.
But Bucky swats your hands away, giving you a stern look.
“No touching.”
He starts to pull you shirt over your head, and you scowl.
“You’re touching-“
“I,” Bucky leans down to kiss over the valley of your breasts, his eyes gleaming with amusement. “Can do whatever the hell I want to you. Isn’t that right, babydoll.”
He must be putting a spell over you. You nod dazedly, and Bucky laughs. His lips wrap around your nipple, sucking and flicking the little bud like it’s candy. The sensation makes you restlessly needy, the heat between your legs only building and building.
“Buh- Bucky- Oooh-“
There’s an extra, strong little flick that only makes you think of what his mouth is going to be able to down where you need him.
“Fuck- James-“
Bucky groans, biting down softly. Your hips buck with delight, and your whine when he shoves them back down.
“C’mon.” He mutters, slowly kissing back to the other breast. “Keep still.”
You make an incoherent noise, but you try. You really do try.
Bucky wiggles down your pants and underwear without taking his mouth from your breasts, and you force yourself to keep still. Cold air doesn’t even hit your cunt, because he’s so folded over you. Trapping all the frictionless heat between your bodies, letting his covered cock drag against your core whenever he moans and ruts, but never offering anything else.
“More.” You breathe, eyes squeezed shut in frustration. “James, I- I need more-“
You moan as Bucky bites your breast again. He kisses over the hurt, humming lazily.
“Thought you didn’t know what you need.”
You shake your head, legs falling further open. “I- I need you- Bucky I need you-“
“Where’d you need me.” He kisses just under your breast. “’Cause I’m here. Touchin’ you.”
He grabs your thigh, rubbing it slowly back and forth. You try to arch off the bed, but you can’t get an inch out from under him.
“Touch- Touch me more.” You gasp out. “I need you to touch me more, I- I don’t care how, just- Touch me-“
You cry out, as Bucky brushes his thumb over your clit. He repeats the featherlight motion once more, then twice. It’s too much and not nearly enough. Your pussy is weeping, but Bucky just grazes you clit like he’s wiping something off your cheek.
“What a needy girl.” He coos against your skin, kissing along the side of your breast. Up to your neck. “You’re even more reactive than I thought you’d be, sweetheart. And I thought,” he presses his thumb down hard, and you scream.“You’d be plenty reactive.”
Tears push at your eyes, from frustration and humiliation. You’re being pathetic, you’ve dogwalked him the whole time you’ve known him and suddenly you’re a flushed, begging disaster below him.
Bucky sucks a dark spot on your neck, and you moan. His thumb drags between the lips of your pussy and teases over your hole. It’s gone as soon as it gets there, and the sound you make is downright undignified.
“You want to swallow me, don’t you.” Bucky nips at your ear. “Dirty fuckin’ slut.”
Oh, no. That shouldn’t turn you on so much.
“I- I’m not-“
“Yes, you are.” Bucky kisses along your jaw. “Say it, doll.”
You shake your head. Bucky repeats the slow drag, this time swapping for his middle finger, and pushing slightly into your cunt.
“Bucky- Fuck-“
Your arms fly up to grab him. Bucky leans up and fixes you with a stern glare.
“No touching.”
You whimper, but pull back away. You fist the sheets, splaying your body out in the hope it’ll make him you faster.
And it almost works. Bucky’s brow works and he slowly traces up the curve of your waist. Your breathing shutters, as he traces the outline of a love bite on your breast. His finger twists, and the pad of it presses right into the entrance of your pussy.
Bucky meets your glossy eyes, and his jaw clenches. There are big, fat tears welling up.
His voice drops to something soft. “Are you still-“
“Yes.” You push your chest up, trying to give him a better view of your breasts. “Please.”
Bucky nods to himself. He leans fully over you, searching your gaze, and slowly starts to push his finger into your pussy.
Your breath catches. Your eyes flutter, and Bucky grabs your cheeks.
“Eyes stay on me.”
He’s not asking. You don’t want him to. You moan and nod weakly, watching him under tear stained lashes. He slowly pulls his finger out, then drives it back in a little faster. He’s a lot bigger than your own hand is. Everything about him is bigger. You’re worried you’re going to die on his cock.
“You like that,” Bucky coos, squeezing your cheeks slightly. “Look at you, gettin’ so worked up over just a finger.”
You give him a pleading look, and he chuckles, leaning down to kiss your puckered lips.
“You get two when you tell me you’re my dirty little slut.”
You clench down around him, and Bucky groans, pushing in a little deeper.
He finds the spongey spot that makes your vision go all blurry. Your mouth falls open in a long moan, and bucky raises his brows.
“There it is. That’s what a wanna see.”
He pushes harder against it. You squeeze around him again, breath coming in pants.
“Who’s owning this pussy, baby, huh?” Bucky’s eyes bore into yours, and the hot shame pricks more and more over your skin.
You think a waterfall might be coming out of your cunt. The wet sounds as Bucky finger fucks you certainly seem like proof.
You can’t form a full answer. You gape at him, rolling your hips in tiny movements to try and chase a little bit more.
Buckly yanks his finger out of your pussy, lands a harsh smack on your clit, then shoves them right back in. It’s an overwhelming, electric feeling. The tears burst from your eyes, and you almost reach for him.
“That’s a girl.” He kisses your cheek so sweetly, pumping his finger deep into your soaked cunt. “Keep cryin’ for me, babydoll. Let it out.”
You pull at the sheets, a low hum of pleasure building in your lower stomach. Your head tries to roll to the side, but Bucky keeps it up. His staring just makes everything worse and better.
The deep affection in his eyes as he watches you right on the edge. Trying to claw your way to an orgasm while he keeps you from letting go. There’s no attention being given to your clit, only his finger bumping your g-spot. It’s throbbing from his spanking. You want him to do it again.
“Buh- Bucky-“
“Ah.” He pauses, and you almost scream. “Try again.”
“James.” You whimper, giving him your most pleading eyes.
A smile curves on his lips. “Yeah, babydoll?”
“Do it again.”
It’s less than a whisper. Part of you doesn’t even want him to hear it.
But he does. Of course he does. Surprise flashes over his face for the briefest second, and you think about running away. You shouldn’t have asked. He’s going to say no, it’s going to humiliate you more, and then that’s going to make you cum on his hand and he’ll never look at you again-
“What?” His voice dropped. You’re screwed. “This?”
Bucky pulls back and spanks your pussy again. You sob, nodding as the shock rushing through you again. Bucky licks his lips, leaning back to watch you. He does it again, and you seize up.
“Jesus, you’re spilling everywhere.” He traces two fingers through your pussy, and you clench around nothing. “Messy girl, bet you’re going to fucking squirt on my cock.”
You whimper, and Bucky chuckles.
“I know, sweetheart. But you’re gonna love it, aren’t you.”
He spanks your pussy again. Any thought to protest is drained from your head.
“Ye- Yes.” You cry out.
Bucky smirks, prowling back over your body.
“And?”
You blink at him through the tears. “And?”
“What are you?”
Your breath hitches. Bucky holds up his shiny hand, making a gun motion.
“Two fingers.” He reminds you.
And just like that, you cave.
“I- I’m your dirty-“ You hiccup a little, the tears starting to free flow again. “I’m-“
“Look at me.” He reminds sternly. “Come on, be good-“
“I’m your dirty slut.” You push out, grinding your hips up into Bucky’s knee. “James, I’m yours, I’m your cockslut, please-“
Bucky makes a feral sound from his chest, and you sob in relief when he shoves those two fingers into you cunt. You shudder, eyes rolling back and hips grinding down. Bucky doesn’t try to stop you this time, just groaning as he finger fucks you into oblivion.
“That’s it, that’s my fuckin’ girl.” He scissors his fingers, and you writhe in the sheets. “So pretty on my fingers, bet you’ll look even better when I’m fuckin’ you stupid on my cock.”
You moan. “Yes, oh- Oh my god- “
Bucky twists his wrist and starts to pummel your g-spot, right as his thumb finds your clit. He rubs it tight circles in time with his thrusts, and presses his lips back over yours. You almost can’t breathe, between the pleasure he’s pulling from you and the demand of his mouth. Your body starts to twitch and go all tight.
“I- I’m gonna- James, I think-“
“I know.” He kisses the corner of your mouth, then your upper lip. “Show me what you’ve got, baby, come on.”
Your orgasm rushes through you, staring in your tummy and leaking down Bucky’s fingers and through your whole system. He pulls out immediately, landing a few more spanks on your weeping cunt. In the post-orgasm sensitivity, it’s almost too much to take.
You spread your legs and beg for it anyway.
“Demanding, aren’t you.” Bucky mocks. “Want to feel me tomorrow, when you walk around all cool and collected, pretending you weren’t callin’ yourself my cockslut a few hours ago.”
You shake your head, shivering as Bucky rubs your pussy back and forth. “I- I won’t-“
“Won’t what? Keep it a dirty little secret. You want me to spell my fucking name on your face, so everyone knows who this tight little pussy belongs to?”
“Nuh- No-“
“You think you won’t feel me? Doll,” Bucky takes his hand away, and you almost start to cry again before he pushes two thick fingers between your lips.
“Mmmm-“
“That’s right.” He mutters to himself, and you can feel his attention as you clean your own release off his fingers. “Gonna ruin you for everyone else, doll, you won’t be able to fuck anyone without wishin’ it was me.”
You pull him away by his wrist, risking the punishment to give him your best, sexiest doe-eyes.
“Don’t want anyone else.” You say, and Bucky blinks. “Won’t pretend I wasn’t with you. Want everyone to know.”
Bucky’s nostrils flare. He stares, shoulders heaving, and you think he’s going to do the thing again. The one where he pounces over you and makes you beg.
Instead he grabs your hips like he’s steadying himself, and stares at you like you’re the moon.
“Flip over.” He grunts.
You frown. “Wha-“
“Over. Just-“
Bucky flips you onto your stomach like you weight nothing, then drags your ass high in the air. You squeal, grabbing at the sheets and trying to look at him over your shoulder.
A massive hand presses you back into the sheets by your shoulder blades. Probably for the best. Your knees were shaking too much to be steady.
“Stay there.” There’s a clink of metal behind you. He’s taking off his belt. “Need to be inside you. Now.”
“James-“
“Please.”
His voice cracks.
You’re far, far past trying to tell him no.
You flop obediently, and it earns you a soothing stoke over the curve of your ass.
“So pretty.” He says it so soft, you’re not actually sure you’re supposed to hear. “Wanted this for so fuckin’ long, ‘s even better than I imagined.”
Bucky rubs his cock between your pussy lips and you moan, melting into the sheets. Your knees almost drop down. Bucky wraps an arms around your waist and drags you back up.
“I’ve gotcha. There we go.”
He keeps rubbing it, gathering your arousal to make the entrance easier. There’s plenty of it. Even more when his fat head presses against your clit, and you wiggle.
“Done so good for me, babydoll.” His praise shoots straight to your already burning pussy. You try to push yourself higher with a whine. “Already nice and stupid for me, just gotta- Fuuuuck-“
Bucky pushes himself in slowly, and you cry out.
“Oh- Oh my god-“
It’s good he didn’t let you see him before. He’s big. Stupidly big. You can feel every thick vein, every pulse as you squeeze around him, every inch of Bucky dragging through your tight channel. You sob into the sheets, pushing back to try and take more. You have to take more. You need to take all of him, so when he fucks you he can drive every single fucking thought from your head.
“That’s it.” Bucky groans, pressing his face into the curve of your neck as he bottoms out.
He’s folded over you, fully buried in your pussy, breath hot and heavy. You whimper, trying to adjust to the size of him. Bucky’s arm snakes around you, rubbing your clit lightly. Trying to help you relax.
“You’re so tight, baby.” He rasps, kissing behind your ear. “Best pussy I’ve ever fuckin’ felt.”
“Mmmm.” You tip your head, pressing your cheek into the mattress. “You’re so big.”
“I know. But you’re gonna take it, aren’t you?”
You whimper, and Bucky chuckles. The sound vibrates between your legs, not helping anyone at all.
“Yeah. You are.”
And if Bucky says you are, you are.
He starts by pulling almost fully out, then rolling slowly back in. It goes easier than the first time, but still knocks the air from your lungs. Your eyes roll back. A strangled sound leaves your throat, and Bucky laughs.
“Look at you, silly girl. We’ve barely even started.”
“’S- ‘S a lot-“
“But it’s your my fuckin’ cockslut.” Bucky slams his hips forward, and you scream in pleasure. “You’re the one who said it, remember. My. Fucking. Cockslut.”
He emphasizes each word with another thrust, and soft, caring Bucky is gone. The hot, demanding version is back, and he brought your tears with him.
Bucky fucks into your like an animal, pushing you down into the mattress and forcing an impossibly deep angle. You’re sensitive. So sensitive it almost hurts in the best fucking way.
“Can see your pussy taking me, doll.” Bucky groans, his fingers digging into your hips. “Fucking gorgeous, greedy little thing swallowing this cock whole. Pussy made for me to fuck it.”
You keen, and Bucky laughs.
“Jesus, might tie you up and keep you just like this for me. Crying like a brat when you begged for it, can’t ever figure out what you want without my help, huh?”
You can’t form a strong enough thought to respond. Bucky’s drilling into you, and rubbing over your g-spot with every thrust and filling you up until there’s no space for things like words.
“No mouthy little comebacks?” He mocks. “My smart doll can’t even tell me to go fuck myself?”
“I- Jaaames-“
“Yeah, that’s right.” Bucky almost growls. “I own this pussy now, sweetheart. Gonna cum inside and make you walk around with it dripping out of your cunt, make you scream my name so loud everyone hears.”
You babble, clenching down on his cock. Bucky’s hips stutter slightly.
“Oh you love that. Love the idea of everyone knowing that I just made you my stupid little cockdrunk slut. Fuck-“
Bucky wraps an arm around your waist, hauling you back against his chest. You toss your head onto his shoulder, writhing in his arms as he keeps thrusting up into your pussy. God, you hope the music downstairs is loud enough that they can’t hear, but you also don’t know how they could hear anything else. The whole room is filled with Bucky’s groans and your open sobs.
“Still crying, babydoll?” He kisses over your neck, and you whimper, grabbing at his forearms.
“Can’t- Can’t take it-“
“Yeah, you can.”
You shake your head, tears streaming down your face. “Mh- I’m gonna cum-“
Bucky spanks your clit, and you shriek, arching into his hand.
“Fuckin’ cum, dirty girl, soak this dick like a good girl-“
You scream with this orgasm, thrashing in Bucky’s arms as it completely overtakes your senses. There’s a familiar wet feeling coming out of your pussy and slicking over your ass and thighs. Bucky groans, bending over to kiss you as he keeps your impaled on his cock. He thrusting sharply, chasing his own release. You try to grind down to help him, and he moans right into your ear.
“Wh- Where-“
“In.” You whimper. “In, James, wanna feel you, fuck-“
Bucky groans shamelessly as his cock starts to spurt hot cum over your gooey walls. The sound as he keeps fucking up into you is obscene, his lips over glued over yours as you both ride it out.
You’ve never been so ruined before. You think you might smell of cum and sweat for the rest of your life, and you can’t even bring yourself to mind.
And part of you worries that Bucky’s going to vanish. Kick you out of his room now that he got what he wanted, and break the heart you’d just offered him with shaking hands.
Instead, he kisses you before he pulls out, mumbling that he’ll be right back. He draws a bath and cleans you up, gets you water and wipes the dried tears on your cheeks.
“Too much?” He asks softly, and you can see the real worry in his eyes.
You shake your head, and offer him a tiny smile.
“Perfect.”
His eyes light up. “Really?”
You giggle. “Yeah.”
Bucky kisses your nose, and you hum happily.
“You’re were perfect too.”
“Thanks.” You breathe.
He pulls back, running a hand through your hair. His eyes soften.
“You still want me to take it back?”
And you almost laugh. Why would you ever possibly want to go back.
“No, thank you.”
Bucky chuckles. “So polite. Think I fucked some manners into you-“
“I had manners-“
“Yeah, but you’re gonna be nice to me now-“
“Don’t hold your breath-“
He shuts you up with a deep kiss. You could get used to it.
“Let me take you out.” He breathes when he’s done, looking at you with unending hope in his eyes. “For real.”
And you wonder.
If it had really been there, the whole time.
“Okay.”
✦End note: i love being so self indulgent with my horniness.✦
✦If you like this story, please reblog, share, or leave a comment! <3✦
You’ve studied them. The little pack—or maybe pride—of frat boys that Barnes belongs to. It’s a good exercise. Field studying a microculture. You have a whole corner of your mind that’s devoted just to how they behave.
for science, of course
Bucky the very shiny fly.🤣
“I got that A.” You shot him glare. “You stood there like a pretty statue, and bumped us down to an A-.”
“You think I’m pretty?”
I think that you’re a pretty menace to society
He’s such an idiot (mostly affectionate). Of course she’s not gonna think you like her or have fun with you, if you’re fuckin’ suckin’ other girls faces, James!
You don’t understand that philosophy at all. Why make a bad choice when you could make a good one. Why risk someone curb stomping your heart when you could just… not.
THANK YOU! SOMEONE UNDERSTANDS!
“He’s a dick.” Barnes didn’t waver. “He got kicked out of the frat, you know how big a piece of shit you gotta be for that to happen?”
You paused.
Fuck, that was a good point.
You hated it when he made good points.
Rumlow is in fact a giant penis. And Bucky is going about this whole situation wrong but he does have good points. He’s a bit of a dummy (affectionate).
“Fuck you.”
“You said that already.” He muttered. “And I’m not holding my breath.”
JAMES YOU ABSOLUTE DINGUS
He’s so fucking persistent. We never stood a chance smh.
And people had been doing that a lot, lately. Telling you how much Bucky talks about you. Making little comments you think you’re supposed to understand, but you don’t.
I can’t even be mad because I would 100% be this oblivious irl. It’s glaringly obvious that bucky likes her and yet we’re I actually living this out in real time, I would miss every single neon sign.
“You’re here.” He mumbles. “In m’ house.”
“I needed to drop something off.”
Your voice is soft, but Bucky’s whole face falls.
He is not playing fair with his big smiles and his puppy eyes
He’s such an idiot (mostly affectionate). Of course she’s not gonna think you like her or have fun with you, if you’re fuckin’ suckin’ other girls faces, James!
he is but i love him anyway.
THANK YOU! SOMEONE UNDERSTANDS!
i got u queen💖
Rumlow is in fact a giant penis. And Bucky is going about this whole situation wrong but he does have good points. He’s a bit of a dummy (affectionate).
rumlow is hated in every universe
JAMES YOU ABSOLUTE DINGUS
He’s so fucking persistent. We never stood a chance smh.
HE IS I LOVE HIM. (a dingus and persistent)
I can’t even be mad because I would 100% be this oblivious irl. It’s glaringly obvious that bucky likes her and yet we’re I actually living this out in real time, I would miss every single neon sign.
Note I know the title might sound dramatic and that this is probably sad but it is not. Not this time, maybe. And yes, this whole thing is based on Guilty as Sin? by Taylor Swift.
Time After Time has been on repeat for forty-seven minutes.
You know this because you’ve checked your phone three times, not to see the time, but to watch the timestamp on the song crawl forward like a confession. Cyndi Lauper has been giving you a lovely serenade for quite some time. You hadn’t heard it in years—not since college, maybe, when you used to play it on cheap headphones while staring out a rain-streaked window, romanticizing your own loneliness like a trophy.
But he sent it to you.
You don’t even remember how it started. A stray comment on a mission debrief many months ago. A joke about vibranium and chafing. A late-night text that was supposed to be about logistics—"Did you see the intel on the Odessa file?"—that spiraled into something else entirely. Something that now lives in your chest like a second heartbeat, something that has grown roots so deep you’re not sure anyone could surgically remove it without killing you.
You’re lying in your bed at your apartment, the sheets tangled around your ankles, one arm thrown over your eyes. The room is dark except for the blue glow of your phone screen. The song swells, that lush, aching synth washing over you like tidewater, and you think… am I allowed to cry?
Because your boredom is bone-deep. This cage—this life of safe houses and sanctioned missions and endless propriety—was once just fine. You chose it. You signed the nondisclosure agreements, took the psych evaluations, swore you could handle the gray areas. And you have. For years, you've been a model operative. Steady hands. Clean conscience. A reputation for being the one who doesn't crack under pressure, who doesn't get attached, who can walk away from anything.
But that was before he started looking at you like you were the only soft thing left in a world made of only the purest things allowed here.
The song builds. That gorgeous, aching crescendo. The lyrics drift through your skull like smoke. Maybe you’re seeing vision. Maybe you’re bad. Or mad. Or wise. Yeah, you think. That’s the question, isn’t it?
Your hand drifts to your thigh. Just below your hip, where the sheet has fallen away. You don’t mean to do it—it’s not a sexual thing, not exactly—it’s just that you’ve been thinking about the word mine so often lately that you swear you can feel it branded into your skin. Like he’s already claimed you. Like your body knows something your brain is still too cowardly to admit. Him writing 'mine' on your upper thigh. Not in a possessive, toxic way but in a way of being that exactly. His. You press your palm flat against the spot, and your eyes sting.
You scroll through your messages with him. You tell yourself it's a terrible idea. You do it anyway.
Bucky: Can't sleep.
You: Same.
Bucky: What's keeping you up?
You: Everything. Nothing. You?
Bucky: The usual.
The usual. You know what that means. The dreams. The memories. The faces of people he can't save, even now, even after all the amends and apologies and years of therapy. You know because he's told you. Because somewhere along the way, you became the person he tells at 2 AM when the weight of his own history gets too heavy to carry alone.
Bucky: Do you ever think about how different things would be if we'd met before?
You: Before?
Bucky: Before everything. Before I was... this.
You remember staring at that message for a long time. Your thumbs hovering over the keyboard. All the things you wanted to say—I like who you are now. I like the person you've chosen to become. I don't want a version of you that hasn't survived the things that made you gentle—but you don’t say them.
You: All the time.
He'd sent a voice message after that. Just a few seconds. When you played it, all you could hear was your name in his voice, the way he was breathing. Slow. Steady. Like he was trying to prove to you that he was still there, still real, still breathing in the same world as you.
You'd saved it. You'd told yourself it was for professional reasons—in case he needed backup, in case something happened and you needed to verify his voice—but you knew the truth. You listened to it when you missed him. Which was always.
Your phone buzzes now, and you nearly drop it.
Bucky: You listening? The song, I mean.
You swallow. Your throat clicks. You press your fingers to your pulse point and feel it rabbiting under your skin, and you think about hedge mazes and ocean rocks and all the ways a person can die without ever touching the thing they want most.
You: Yeah.
Bucky: And?
And what? you think. And I'm drowning. And I've imagined the weight of your metal arm across my ribs approximately six hundred times. And I keep recalling things we never did—messy top lip kisses, how I long for our trysts without ever touching your skin...
You type, "It's good." and delete it.
You type, "Makes me feel sad." and delete that too.
You type, "I think about you every time I hear it, which has been almost fifty times now." and if course, delete it before your thumb even lifts from the screen.
You: Come over.
The three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again. You hold your breath for so long your vision starts to spot.
Bucky: That a good idea?
You laugh, but it comes out wet. You press the heel of your palm to your sternum, like you can physically hold yourself together, like you can keep the cracks from spreading.
You: Probably not.
Bucky: I'll be there in ten.
The complex where you live is quiet at this hour. The kind of quiet that amplifies everything—the hum of the HVAC, the creak of floorboards, the frantic rabbit-thump of your own heart. You get up. Pace to the window. Look out at the dark trees swaying in the breeze. The moon is half-full, hanging low and yellow like a bruised fruit. You press your forehead to the cool glass and try to remember how to breathe like a normal person.
You’re already regretting it. Already rewriting the text in your head, imagining a version of yourself with better judgment, someone who would have typed, "Actually, never mind, I’m fine, forget I said anything", and rolled over and gone to sleep like a normal person. But you’re not normal. You haven’t been normal since the first time he’d brushed past you in a hallway and you’d felt the static jump between you like a live wire, like a warning, like a promise.
You push off from the window and start tidying. It's a nervous habit—straightening the stack of books on your nightstand, smoothing the already-smooth duvet, fluffing a pillow that doesn't need fluffing. You catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror and wince. Dark circles under your eyes. Hair that looks like you've been running your hands through it all night. Lips chapped from biting them.
You run your fingers through your hair, then immediately mess it up again because you don't want to look like you tried. You pull on an oversized sweatshirt—his, technically, though he doesn't know you stole it from the time he came over to watch a movie three weeks ago—and wrap your arms around your knees where you settle back on the bed.
The sweatshirt smells like him. Cedar and gunmetal and something underneath that's just Bucky. You've worn it four times. You've washed it twice, but the smell lingers, or maybe you're imagining it, maybe you've imprinted the memory of him so deeply onto the fabric that you can't tell the difference anymore.
The knock comes soft. Two taps. A pause. One more.
He’s learned to knock like that because you once told him you hate sudden noises. Because he remembers everything. Because he’s a paradox—all sharp edges and brutal history wrapped around a center that’s still, impossibly, gentle.
You stand, feeling your legs unsteady, like you’ve been asleep for a hundred years and are only just learning to walk again. You walk out of your bedroom, walk in your living room and then put your hand on the doorknob. You close your eyes and think that, once again there’s a slip and falling back into the hedge maze. Oh, what a way to die.
You open the door.
Bucky stands in the hallway, backlit by the emergency lights, and you forget how to breathe.
He’s wearing a henley. Gray. Sleeves pushed up to his elbows, and there it is, that difference in flesh and metal, that impossible union of soft and hard that your brain has catalogued like scripture. He’s been letting his hair grow a bit, curling at the nape of his neck. His jaw is shadowed with stubble. His eyes are the color of a winter sky just before snow, and they’re looking at you like you’re the only warm thing in a frozen world.
“Hey,” he says. His voice is low. Rough with sleeplessness. It scrapes along your skin like a physical thing.
“Hey,” you manage. It comes out breathy. Pathetic. You clear your throat.
He shifts his weight. “You okay? Your text sounded…”
“Sad?” you offer.
“Yeah.” He searches your face. “That.”
You step back, letting him in. The door clicks shut behind him, and suddenly the living room feels half its size. He moves like he’s afraid of breaking things—a lifetime of restraint baked into his bones. Then starts walking freely towards your bedroom and sits on the edge of your bed, not quite settling, like he’s ready to bolt.
You stay standing. Lean against the dresser. Put furniture between you like a coward.
“I’ve been thinking,” you say.
He chuckles. “Dangerous.” His wink makes your knees weak.
A laugh escapes you. “You have no idea.”
He watches you. Patient. That’s the thing about Bucky Barnes—he’s learned to wait. Decades of waiting. What’s a few more minutes while you try to find the words for something you can barely admit to yourself?
“The song,” you start. “You sent it for a reason.”
He looks down at his hands—flesh and metal, both still now. “Yeah.”
“What reason?”
He’s quiet for a long moment. Time After Time has ended. Your room is silent except for the sound of two people breathing too carefully, too deliberately, like they’re both afraid of what might happen if they let their guard down.
“I heard it,” he says finally, “and I thought of you. That’s all.”
That’s all. As if that’s not everything. As if that’s not a declaration of war on the walls you’ve both spent months building. As if that’s not the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to you, and he probably doesn’t even realice it.
“James.” His name comes out wrong—too soft, too raw. “I need you to be honest with me.”
His head snaps up. Something flickers behind his eyes. Fear, maybe. Or hope. They look the same on him—a widening of the pupils, a slight parting of the lips, a tension in the shoulders that could go either way.
“I’m always honest with you,” he says. “You’re the only one I can be honest with. Always honest.”
“Are you?”
He flinches. Just a fraction. But you see it. You see everything when it comes to him. You’ve made a study of his micro-expressions, the way his jaw tightens when he’s lying, the way his metal fingers twitch when he’s nervous, the way he looks at the floor when he’s about to say something he’s afraid of.
You push off the dresser. Take a step closer. Then another. Until you’re standing in front of him, close enough to count the scars on his knuckles, close enough to smell the soap he uses—something plain, something military, something that shouldn’t make your knees weak but does.
“What are we doing?” you whisper.
He looks up at you. Swallows. “I don’t know.”
“We text every day. You send me songs at two in the morning. You remember things I've told you—things I've never told anyone else.” Your voice cracks on the last word, and you hate yourself for it, hate how needy you sound, hate that he's seeing you like this. “You look at me like I'm something, and then you leave, and I spend the next three days trying to convince myself it didn't mean anything.”
“It means something,” he says quickly. Too quickly. Like the words are escaping without permission, like they've been trapped behind his teeth for so long that they've finally broken free.
“Then what?”
He stands.
Now there’s no furniture between you. Now there’s just the heat of him, the solid wall of his chest inches from yours, and you have to tilt your head back to hold his gaze. His jaw is tight. His left hand—the vibranium one—curls and uncurls at his side, a nervous tic you’ve learned to read.
“You wanna know what I think about?” he says, voice low. “When I can’t sleep?”
You nod. Because you can’t speak.
“I think about your hands.” He says it like an accusation. “The way you hold your coffee mug. Both hands, like you’re warming them. I think about the sound you make when you laugh—not the polite one you do in briefings, the real one, the one that’s kind of ugly and snorty and makes me feel like I’ve done something right.”
Your eyes sting. You blink rapidly, trying to hold it back.
“I think about what you'd look like in my shirts,” he continues, and now his voice is rougher, scraped raw, like he's pulling each word out of his own chest with a hook. “In my bed. With my name—” He stops. Shakes his head. A muscle jumps in his jaw. “Doesn't matter.”
“It matters,” you echo his own words back at him.
He makes a sound. Something between a laugh and a groan. “Jesus.”
“No,” you say, and you’re crying now, you realize, tears sliding hot and silent down your cheeks. “Not Jesus. Just you. Just me.” A weak smile is plastered in your face.
He reaches up. Slow. So slow. Like he's asking permission with every millimeter, like he's giving you every possible chance to stop him. His flesh hand cups your face, thumb brushing away a tear, and the gentleness of it breaks something inside you. Something you've been holding together with duct tape and denial for months.
“I’ve already done it,” you confess. “In my head. A thousand times.”
“Done what?”
“Everything.” The word comes out shattered. “I've kissed you. I've—God, Bucky, I've imagined what you sound like when you fall apart. I've imagined it so many times I can't tell the difference between fantasy and memory anymore.”
His breath catches. You feel it—the sharp inhale, the way his chest expands against yours.
“I’ve imagined your hands on me. Your mouth. The things you’d say.” You’re sobbing now, ugly and uncontrollable, and you can’t stop. “I’ve imagined waking up next to you. Making you coffee. Arguing about whose turn it is to do the dishes. Normal things. Things I’ll never have because I’m too scared to reach out and take them.”
“Hey,” he says, and his voice is wrecked. “Hey. Stop.”
“I can’t. I’ve been keeping these longings locked in lowercase inside a vault, and I can’t—someone told me there’s no such thing as bad thoughts, only your actions talk, but my actions are screaming, Bucky, every time I look at you, every time I don’t kiss you, every time I let you walk away—And I keep telling myself it’s wrong,” you go on, the words spilling out now, unstoppable. “That we’re colleagues. That we’re just friends. That you’re recovering. That I shouldn’t want you like this because wanting you like this makes me selfish, makes me bad, makes me—”
He kisses you.
It’s not gentle. It’s not tentative. It’s the kiss of a man who’s been holding himself back for so long that the dam has finally cracked, and now he’s drowning too. His metal hand comes up to the back of your neck, cool and sure, and he pulls you into him like you’re the only solid thing in a world that’s been trying to drown him for seventy years.
You make a sound against his mouth. Something desperate. Something that tastes like salt and want and finally.
His lips are softer than you imagined. That’s the first thing you notice. You’d expected them to be rough, chapped, but they’re not—they’re warm and yielding, and he kisses like he’s trying to memorize the shape of your mouth. His flesh hand slides into your hair, tangles there, holds on like you might disappear.
You grab his shirt. Fist the fabric at his chest. Pull him closer, closer, until there’s no space left, until you can feel the steady thump of his heart against your own racing pulse.
When he pulls back, you’re both breathing hard. His forehead rests against yours. His eyes are closed. His lips are reddened, wet, parted.
“I’ve done it too,” he murmurs. “In my head. You and me. A hundred different ways. A thousand.”
“Then why—” You can’t finish. The words stick in your throat.
“Because I’m afraid.” He says it simply. Honestly. Like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Because everyone I’ve ever loved gets hurt. Because you’re the best thing that’s happened to me in a lifetime of bad things, and I can’t—I can’t fuck this up by wanting it too much, wanting you too much, honey.”
You frame his face with your hands. Feel the stubble, the warmth, the solid realness of him. He’s here. He’s real. He wants you.
“What if,” you say slowly, “the way you hold me is actually what’s holy?”
His eyes open. Search yours.
“What if all those years of suffering, of propriety, of doing what we’re supposed to do—” you continue, “what if it was just keeping us from this? From each other?”
“You don’t believe in those things,” he says, but it’s not a question. He knows you. He knows everything.
“I don’t know what I believe in,” you admit. “But I believe in this. I believe in you.”
Something shifts in his expression. The last wall, maybe. The last lock. The last barrier between the two of you and something that feels terrifyingly close to forever.
He kisses you again. Slower this time. Deeper. His hands find your waist, and he walks you backward until your knees hit the bed, and you go down together in a tangle of limbs and sheets and the sound of your own heartbeat in your ears.
“You sure?” he asks, pulling back just enough to look at you. His pupils are blown. His lips are wet. He looks like a prayer you forgot you were saying.
“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life,” you say.
And when he smiles—really smiles, the kind that reaches his eyes and softens every hard line of his face—you think, "Oh. This is what they meant. This is what all the songs were about".
Later, you lie in the dark with your head on his chest. His metal arm is cool against your bare shoulder. His flesh hand traces lazy patterns on your spine. Time After Time is playing again, because you’d queued it up on a loop, and neither of you has bothered to turn it off.
The sheets are a disaster. Tangled. Twisted. Half on the floor. Your hair is a rat’s nest, and there’s a mark on your collarbone that you’re going to have to explain tomorrow, and you don’t care. You don’t care about any of it.
“Hey,” he says.
“Mm?”
“That thing you said. About the way I hold you being holy.”
You tilt your head up and look at him. The moonlight filters through the blinds, striping his face in silver and shadow. He looks younger like this. Softer. Like the weight of the world isn’t pressing down on him for once.
“I think you’re right,” he says quietly. “I think I’ve been looking for something sacred my whole life. I just didn’t know it had your face.”
You bury your face in his neck. Smile against his skin.
“That’s the cheesiest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
“Shut up.”
“Make me.”
He does.
When you come up for air, you’re both laughing—real laughter, the kind that comes from somewhere deep and surprised. His eyes crinkle at the corners and his nose scrunches. He looks happy, and the sight of it makes your chest ache in a completely different way.
“I have a confession,” you say.
His eyebrows lift. “That sounds ominous.”
“I stole your sweatshirt. Three weeks ago, when we had that movie night.”
He blinks. Then he looks down at the floor—the oversized gray sweatshirt, the one that drowns you, the one with the tiny hole in the cuff. His sweatshirt laying there along with your and his clothes.
“I know,” he says.
“You knew?”
“You really think I casually forgot that thing here?” He’s grinning now. Actually grinning. “I wanted something mine here, in your safe space. And then yeah, when I was walking away that night, saw you taking the sweatshirt and simply putting it along with that fluffy blanket you have.”
“Then why didn’t you say anything?”
He shrugs, the movement jostling you gently. “Looked better on you anyway.”
You punch his chest. Lightly. He catches your hand, brings it to his mouth, kisses your knuckles one by one.
“I have a confession too,” he says against your skin.
“What?”
“I’ve been sending you songs for six months. Every single one of them was about you.”
Your heart stutters. “Every single one?”
“Every. Single. One.” He meets your eyes. “I just didn’t know how to say it out loud.”
“Bucky.”
“I know. I’m an idiot.”
“No.” You sit up, propping yourself on your elbow so you can look down at him. “You’re not an idiot. You’re just—” You search for the word. “—careful. And I get it. I do. But you don’t have to be careful with me. I’m not going to break.”
His expression flickers. Something raw and vulnerable surfaces before he can hide it.
“I know,” he says. “That’s what scares me.”
“Scares you?”
“Because if you’re not going to break, then I have no excuse. No reason to keep my distance. No reason not to—” He stops. Swallows.
“Not to what?”
“Not to love you.”
The word hangs in the air between you. Love. You’ve been dancing around it for months, using every synonym, every euphemism, every careful avoidance. But here it is. Naked. Unavoidable.
“Too late,” you whisper.
“What?”
“I already love you. I’ve loved you for a while. I just didn’t want to say it first.”
He stares at you. For a moment, he doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe. Then he pulls you down, rolls you both over until you’re underneath him, and kisses you like he’s trying to pour every unsaid word into your mouth.
When he finally pulls back, his eyes are bright. Wet, maybe. It’s hard to tell in the dark.
“I love you,” he says. Like he’s testing the weight of it. Like he’s amazed it’s true. “I love you. I love you. I love you.”
“You’re going to wear it out,” you tease, but you’re crying again, and so is he, and it doesn’t matter because you’re both laughing and crying and kissing and it’s the most beautiful mess you’ve ever been a part of.
You wake to sunlight and the sound of someone moving around your kitchen.
For a disorienting moment, you don't know where you are. The light is wrong—too bright, too golden. Then you feel the ache between your thighs, your body covered by your fluffy blanket and everything comes rushing back.
You turn your head and the space beside you is empty, but the sheets are still warm. You sit up, pull on his sweatshirt—your sweatshirt now, you're never giving it back—and pad barefoot toward the kitchen.
He's standing at your counter, shirtless, hair still sleep-mussed, making coffee with the focus of a man defusing a bomb. His metal arm catches the morning light, the vibranium shimmering like liquid mercury. The scars on his left shoulder—where flesh meets metal—are pale and puckered, and you want to kiss every single one of them.
“Morning,” you say.
He looks up. His eyes soften. “Morning, honey.”
“You made coffee.”
“You said you can't function without it.” He pours a mug, slides it across the counter toward you. “Cream, no sugar.”
You wrap your hands around the mug—both hands, just like he said—and take a sip. It's perfect.
“Thank you,” you say.
He nods. Leans against the counter. Crosses his arms over his chest, and god, the way his muscles shift when he does that should be illegal.
“What?” he asks, catching you staring.
“Nothing.” You take another sip. “Just thinking.”
“About?”
You set the mug down. Walk around the counter until you're standing in front of him. Reach up and push his hair out of his eyes.
“I'm thinking,” you say slowly, “that I don't want this to be a one-time thing.”
His hands find your hips. Settle there like they belong.
“Good,” he says. “Because I was thinking the same thing.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He ducks his head, presses a kiss to your forehead. “I was thinking I don't want to sleep in my bed alone ever again. I was thinking I want to wake up next to you every morning. I was thinking—” He pulls back, meets your eyes. “—that I'm tired of being afraid.”
“So don't be.”
“It's not that simple, baby.”
“It can be.” You frame his face with your hands. “We can make it simple. We wake up. We make coffee. We go to work. We come home. We fall asleep. Repeat. That's it. That's all it has to be.”
He searches your face. “You really think it's that easy?”
“I think,” you say, “that nothing about us has been easy. And maybe that's why we deserve this. The easy part.”
He's quiet for a long moment. Then he pulls you into his chest, wraps both arms around you—flesh and metal, soft and hard, everything he is and everything he's trying to be—and holds you like you're something precious.
“I love you,” he says into your hair.
“I love you too.”
And somewhere in the distance—or maybe just in your head—the song swells one last time. You think about hedge mazes and ocean rocks and all the ways you almost died before you ever got here. You think about locked vaults and lowercase longings and the sheer, terrifying miracle of being seen.
All those nights you spent dreaming about him writing 'mine' on your upper thigh, your waist, your collarbones… They’re not just in your mind. Not anymore.
You feel him smile against your hair, and you know—with absolute, bone-deep certainty—that you are not guilty of anything except wanting something good. Something real. Something that—finally, impossibly—wants you back.
lowdown ☆ the warehouse mission is tomorrow night, which means gear checks, bad plans, and soldier boy’s hands becoming a problem again.
ride or die ☆ soldier boy x reader ( f )
miles ☆ 3071 ride style ☆ fluff!
danger on the trail ☆ weapons/gear, suggestive tension, butcher interrupting because he’s allergic to peace
liv's log ☆ don't forget to vote on this pool to influence the story directly~
𐚁 .ᐟ masterlist ☆ join the taglist ☆ listen to the playlist
the safehouse spends the next day pretending this is not a dangerous move. it does a terrible job.
there are maps spread across the kitchen table, three laptops open at once, guns being cleaned on old towels, batteries charging in every available outlet, and frenchie moving between all of it with the frantic elegance of a man who considers electrical shocks a love language. butcher has been staring at the warehouse layout for twenty minutes like the walls might surrender if he looks mean enough. hughie keeps asking questions that start practical and end existential. annie is quiet in the corner, checking and rechecking the same knife strapped to her boot. kimiko sits on the counter, swinging one foot slowly, eyes moving over everyone like she’s memorizing each and every face before the bruises that will bloom.
soldier boy is in the living room. he sits on the couch with a beer he hasn’t finished, one arm over the backrest, watching the room work around him through the reflection in the dark tv screen. every now and then, butcher asks him something about old vought storage sites, old military contractors, old anything, and soldier boy answers with clipped irritation.
you don’t blame him.
the warehouse is a couple of states away. old vought shell company. officially empty, unofficially receiving enough reinforced alloy and vapor-regulation tech to build something that looks very much like a freezer with a budget increase. frenchie keeps saying it might only be parts. mm keeps saying that is how people talk right before discovering a fully operational nightmare in a basement.
butcher, naturally, has decided you’re all going.
“small team my ass,” he says, tapping ash into a chipped mug annie has already told him not to use for that. “we go in, we see what they’ve got, we take what we need, burn what we don’t, and fuck off before vought starts clappin’.”
“you make it sound simple,” hughie grimaces.
“it is simple.”
“last time simple happened, i watched someone get hit with a crowbar.”
“and?” butcher asks.
hughie pauses. frowns. “i don’t know. i feel like that’s enough of a sentence.”
you are sitting at the table with a checklist mm gave you, pretending to review your gear while actually reading the same line four times. flashlight. earpiece. lockpick kit. spare magazine. knife. emergency gauze. the list is practical. necessary. boring enough that it should be impossible to get distracted from. yet, your eyes keep drifting toward the living room.
not to soldier boy’s mouth. absolutely not. maybe to his hands. which is worse. because his hands are wrapped loose around the beer bottle, one thumb worrying at the label, and all your brain can supply is the memory of those same hands rewinding your wrap slowly around your knuckles. warm fabric. rough fingers. his thumb pressing once over the back of your hand. his voice low enough to become a bad decision before you could name it.
wrap’s loose. god.
you look back at the checklist so hard the paper should feel threatened.
“you good?” annie asks beside you.
“yes.”
you make the mistake of glancing at her.
she doesn’t smile, but her eyes do something knowing and awful.
“don’t start.”
“i didn’t say anything.”
“you were about to.”
“i was about to ask if your earpiece works.”
you stare at her.
she stares back with the face of a woman who could probably survive sainthood if she had to.
“does it?” she asks.
you pick up the earpiece and shove it into the pouch on your vest. “yes.”
“great.”
“you’re unbearable.”
“i learned from you.”
across the room, soldier boy shifts on the couch. you feel it more than see it. which is stupid. you should not have body-awareness of a man sitting twelve feet away.
you stand too fast, grabbing your vest off the back of the chair. “i’m going to check the rest of my stuff.”
annie lifts both hands. “sure.”
you leave before she can look at you any harder.
you don’t go to the gym. instead, you go to your room, leaving the door cracked slightly to still hear the living room commotion.
your room is small. poorly made bed. clean shirt thrown over the chair. boots near the dresser. the deep poster folded badly and shoved face-down under a stack of old magazines because apparently you are incapable of throwing away historical evidence of your own humiliation. your vest lands on the bed with a dull, heavy sound, followed by the knife, the holster, the spare magazine, the lockpick kit, the little roll of gauze annie keeps sneaking into your things like you don’t notice.
you stand there for a second with your hands on your hips and stare at all of it.
mission prep should be simple. it used to be simple. check the gear, check the exits, check the weapon. now, somehow, even a vest feels complicated because your brain keeps reaching back to the gym, to warm hands and rewound wraps and soldier boy’s mouth finding yours.
you take a breath and pull the vest on. it sits wrong immediately. “of course,” you mutter, tugging at the side strap. it twists beneath your fingers, catches under the buckle, and refuses to lie flat. you pull harder. it only gets worse, because apparently even fabric has decided to develop a personality in this house.
behind you, a shadow shifts in the doorway.
you don’t turn around right away. “you lost?” you ask.
soldier boy doesn’t answer for a beat. then, “strap’s twisted.”
slowly, you look over your shoulder.
he stands outside the doorway, not in your room. that’s the first thing you notice. not the messy hair, not the old shirt stretched across his chest, not the way his eyes are already on the vest like he was built to find weak points. the threshold. he stops at it.
“i know,” you say.
“doesn’t look like you know.” his gaze flicks past you once, quick, taking in the bed, the gear, the face-down stack of magazines. then it returns to the strap. “move your hands.”
you look down at yourself. “i have it.”
“you’re making it worse.”
you reach for the buckle again, mostly because spite remains the only reliable source of renewable energy in your life, but soldier boy steps in before you can get your fingers under the twisted nylon. one second he’s at the threshold, the next he’s in your room, close enough that the air changes around your shoulders.
he doesn’t ask. he just huffs through his nose, catches both your wrists in one broad hand, and moves them out of the way like you’re an inconvenience with a pulse.
“hey—”
“stand still.”
your mouth opens. closes. because he’s already got his hands on the vest, already dragging the strap free from where you’ve jammed it under the buckle, already crowding into your space with that unbearable confidence of his, all blunt force and old-world entitlement wrapped up in the deeply annoying fact that he knows exactly what he’s doing.
his knuckles brush your side.
you know it’s not by accident because he could make this quick. he could yank, tighten, step back, and be done with it in three seconds. instead, he takes his time. not soft. not gentle. it’s a lot worse. measured. practical enough to deny, slow enough to make your skin heat under the vest.
“arms up,” he says.
you stare at him.
his eyes lift to yours, unimpressed. “now.”
you lift them with all the dignity available to a woman being physically bullied by tactical gear and one extremely insufferable supe in her own bedroom.
soldier boy uses the opening immediately. his hands go to your waist, rough and sure, turning you half an inch to the left like your body is another piece of equipment he has decided to correct. his fingers press against the lower edge of the vest, tugging it down, then flattening the strap across your side.
“you had it sitting too high.”
“did i?”
“yeah.”
“thank god you came in here, then. could’ve died of poor tailoring.”
his mouth twitches, but it doesn’t soften him. if anything, the almost-smile makes you weaker. like he knows exactly how little space there is between you and is enjoying the fact that you’re trying so hard to pretend you don’t notice.
“don’t tempt me,” he says.
the strap pulls tight. you inhale sharply before you can stop yourself.
his eyes cut up. “too tight?”
the question is almost swallowed by irritation. nearly disguised. still there. “no.”
“good.”
then he does it tighter by a fraction anyway, just enough to make the vest sit firm against your ribs. secure. stable.
his hands stay there, testing the fit, palms broad against the sides of your body while his thumbs press along the front edge.
your room feels painfully small around him. the cracked door. the bed behind you. the gear spread over the blanket. the folded deep poster hiding under magazines. soldier boy taking up the space in front of you with his head bent, hair falling slightly over his forehead, jaw shadowed, mouth set like this is nothing but a gear check.
his hands drag down once more, checking the line of the vest.
your heart does something stupid. “you always this handsy with equipment?” you ask, because if you don’t speak, you might combust.
his gaze doesn’t lift. “only when it keeps moving.”
“i’m breathing.”
“try doing it quietly.”
you scoff. “you’re in my room.”
“door was open.”
“cracked.”
“open enough.”
“that your excuse?”
“worked so far.”
he shifts behind you without warning, one hand at your hip, the other at your shoulder, turning you away from him. positioning. your breath catches—the sudden jolt of being moved by him again, so easily, so completely, like your weight is a suggestion he’s already dismissed. his chest is close to your back. close enough that you can feel the heat of him through your shirt and the vest, close enough that when he reaches around you to check the front buckle, his forearm brushes just beneath your ribs.
“don’t tense,” he says near your ear.
you glare at the wall. “don’t manhandle me.”
“then stop needing it.”
“you are such an asshole.”
“and your knife’s in the wrong place.”
you blink, thrown by the shift. “my knife is fine.”
“no, it’s where you like it. not where it’s useful.”
his hand moves to your hip again, fingers finding the sheath. he unclips it before you can protest, then slides it forward along your belt. the motion is efficient, but the contact is not brief. his fingers press at your waist, his thumb hooking under the strap to secure it, and your body remembers the gym so vividly that for half a second you’re there again: his hand holding yours, his mouth hard and hot, your back near the bench, bad idea, bad idea, bad idea.
you swallow. he notices. of course he notices. “what?” he asks, voice lower.
“nothing.”
“liar.”
“you’re imagining things.”
“i’m old, not blind.”
“could’ve fooled me.”
his hand closes over yours before you can move the knife back. he brings your fingers to the handle, not gently, but with purpose. guiding. showing. making you feel the difference. “there,” he says. “faster.”
you pull the knife halfway from the sheath. it comes easier now. cleaner. damn him. “fine,” you mutter.
“say that again.”
“absolutely not.”
“you were wrong.”
“i was not wrong. i was less right.”
he huffs behind you, and the sound hits the side of your neck.
“if someone gets behind you,” he says, rougher now, the humor thinning out of his voice, “you don’t reach back. you go down, make space, cut if you have to.”
the tunnel flashes through your head again. the hand over your mouth. concrete under your heel. your own breath trapped behind someone else’s palm. your fingers tighten around the knife handle. soldier boy’s hand stays over yours. steady. hard. not comforting, exactly. more like a command your body understands.
“don’t let anybody get a hand on you that long again,” he says.
you breathe out slowly. “i got out.”
“you did.”
“then trust that,” you say.
his hand shifts, thumb pressing once against your knuckles. “i do.”
you go still. he seems to realize what he said a second after saying it. his jaw tightens. he lets go of your hand too fast, like the words are still touching him and he doesn’t like it.
you turn around.
he’s closer than you expect. or maybe exactly as close as he meant to be. your back nearly brushes the bedpost, and he stands in front of you with the vest between you like a poor excuse for distance. his eyes are on your face now, not your gear, and whatever practical reason brought him into your room has worn thin enough to see through.
“you trust me?” you ask. the words come out quieter than planned.
his expression hardens immediately. defensive. insulted by the softness of the question. “don’t get excited.”
“too late. i’m practically swooning.”
“you’d hit your head on the way down.”
“you’d catch me.”
his mouth curves, small and sharp. “would i?”
the room stops behaving. it has no right to do that. there are people just outside. maps on the table. butcher’s voice somewhere down the hall. a mission tomorrow that could put all of you face-first into vought’s newest nightmare. this is not the time. this is aggressively not the time.
and yet.
soldier boy’s hand lifts to the front of your vest again. no reason this time. he catches the top edge near your collarbone and tugs it into place, slow enough to make your breath change. his knuckles brush the base of your throat.
you hate the sound you almost make. his eyes drop to your mouth.
“strap’s fixed,” you say.
“yeah.”
“knife’s fixed.”
“mhmm.”
“so you’re done.”
he doesn’t move. “looks like it,” he says.
“doesn’t feel like it.”
his gaze returns to yours, dark and direct. “no?”
you should step back. you should shove him. you should say something cutting enough to get the room back under control, something about old men and his apparent inability to understand personal space unless it’s reinforced with concrete.
instead, you stand there. like an idiot. like you want him to notice.
he leans in a fraction.
your fingers curl at your sides to stop yourself from grabbing his shirt. his mouth is close now. not touching. but making every other thought in your head look embarrassingly flimsy.
then butcher’s voice cuts through the door. “you two done playin’ dress-up?”
you jerk back so fast your hip knocks into the bedframe.
soldier boy doesn’t move.
butcher stands in the door with his cigarette tucked behind his ear, one eyebrow raised and his mouth curled around the exact kind of smile that makes you want to commit assault with a bedside lamp. his eyes move from soldier boy’s hand still near your collar, to your face, to the vest, then back again.
“gear check,” you say.
“looked thorough.”
“that tends to be the point.”
“didn’t know he was qualified.”
soldier boy turns his head slowly. “you got a reason to be here?”
“unfortunately.” butcher’s smile sharpens. “frenchie got a better read on the warehouse. underground level. two loading bays. cameras on the north side are dead, which means either we’re lucky or it’s bait.”
“it’s bait,” you and soldier boy say at the same time.
butcher’s grin widens. awful. horrific. you want to walk into the sea. “harmony,” he says. “beautiful thing.”
“don’t be disgusting.”
“fuck off,” soldier boy says.
butcher looks between you again, and something in his expression shifts. not much. just enough. the joke thins into calculation, and you feel the change before you fully understand it. you don’t like it. not one bit. “meeting in five,” he says. “try not to get tangled in the buckles.”
“butcher.”
he lifts both hands, already backing away. “five minutes.”
his footsteps retreat down the hall.
you look down at the vest, adjusting the front panel just to have something to do with your hands. “that was horrible.”
a beat passes. then soldier boy reaches out again. not for your waist. not your neck. he taps two fingers against the knife sheath he moved. “faster,” he says.
you look at him. his face is back to unreadable, but not empty. he means it. the mission, the knife, the warning. all of it. “yeah,” you say.
his hand drops. “and next time you get an opening,” he adds, “finish it.”
you lift your chin. “still upset i didn’t punch your face?”
“i’m upset you stopped.”
“that’s a very strange complaint.”
“it was clean.”
“your nose was in the way.”
“then break it.”
you stare at him. he is completely serious. you breathe out, slow and irritated. “you are such a romantic.”
“you’ll be alive.”
that shuts you up. not because it’s soft. it isn’t. not because he says it gently. he doesn’t. but it lands like a promise made by someone who would rather swallow glass than call it one.
you look away first. “meeting,” you say, stepping around him.
he lets you go.
at the doorway, you pause, one hand on the frame. “soldier boy?” his eyes lift. you tap the knife sheath at your hip, right where he moved it. “it’s better there.”
he holds your gaze. then nods once. small. simple. dangerous in the way all small things have become with him. you leave before your face does something stupid.
when you walk back into the main room, annie’s eyes go immediately to your vest. then to your expression. then to the hallway behind you. “gear check?” she asks.
you sit down beside her with great dignity. “don’t.”
her mouth curves. “i didn’t say anything.”
“you were about to.”
across the room, soldier boy walks in a minute later and takes his usual place by the wall, arms crossed, face blank, every inch of him looking like nothing happened. except his eyes cut once to the knife at your hip. then to you. you look away before anyone else notices.almost before anyone else notices. butcher is watching from the head of the table, cigarette between his fingers, smile gone quieter now. and that is worse than if he’d laughed.
lowdown ☆ the warehouse has no freezer, only the pieces to build one. then the knife soldier boy moved saves hughie’s life.
ride or die ☆ soldier boy x reader ( f )
miles ☆ 2731 ride style ☆ angst
danger on the trail ☆ violence, blood, human death, knives, freezer-capsule parts, soldier boy ptsd, shock response
𐚁 .ᐟ masterlist ☆ join the taglist ☆ listen to the playlist
the warehouse looks abandoned except for the electricity bill still being paid every month.
from the outside, it’s all rusted siding, broken signage, cracked asphalt, weeds pushing through the lot like nobody has been here in years. one loading bay hangs crooked. half the windows are boarded. the vought shell company name on the old metal plaque has been scraped down to ghost letters.
inside, according to frenchie, there are active motion sensors, two patrol routes, reinforced doors on the lower level, and enough power draw to make the building’s ‘condemned’ status feel deeply fictional.
“north side camera grid is dead,” frenchie whispers through the comms from the driver’s seat of the van, parked two blocks out with the engine cooling under him. “not looped. dead dead.”
hughie frowns beside you. “dead dead sounds suspicious.”
“everything sounds suspicious to you,” butcher says.
“because everything is suspicious.”
mm scans the dark lot through binoculars. “or neglect.”
annie stands near the fence, hood up, face focused in that way that means she’s already building light somewhere under her skin. kimiko crouches beside frenchie’s open toolkit, watching the two guards near the employee entrance with sharp, steady focus. soldier boy stands a few feet behind you, shield on his arm, expression unreadable in the low light.
you don’t look back at him. you check your knife instead—right where he moved it. easy reach. clean angle. faster. your thumb brushes the handle once, and your stomach does something you don’t have time to name.
“no bodies unless we have no choice,” mm says quietly.
butcher gives him a look. “we doin’ ethics hour now?”
“we’re doing quiet,” mm says. “dead guards bring heat.”
soldier boy snorts under his breath. “modern warfare. everybody gets a nap.”
you glance at him then, because you can’t help it. his eyes are on the warehouse. jaw set. shoulders squared. no beer, no lazy sprawl, no dirty comment hanging ready at his mouth. he looks exactly like what vought once sold on posters and what russia later locked in a box.
“annie,” mm says.
she lifts one hand. the lights die. they flicker first, a ripple through the lot, the streetlamps stuttering hard enough to make the shadows jump. then, the whole north side of the building drops into black, and annie draws the dying power into herself with a soft, golden flare that curls beneath her skin and brightens her eyes.
the two guards at the employee entrance turn. kimiko moves. so does frenchie. it’s quick, quiet, almost elegant. kimiko takes the closest guard down by the throat and shoulder, controlling the fall so his skull doesn’t crack against the concrete.
frenchie fires something small and soft into the second guard’s neck. “sleeping beauty,” frenchie murmurs.
kimiko zip-ties the first guard’s wrists and ankles with a businesslike efficiency that would be terrifying if she weren’t also sticking duct tape over his mouth with the care of someone wrapping leftovers.
“clear,” annie says.
you move as one unit after that. no teams this time. no splitting corridors. no van jokes over camera feeds. the building is too large, the stakes too ugly, and whatever vought is building below it too close to the shape of something all of you have already seen once.
the dead camera zone is not bait. that becomes obvious within the first minutes. the hallway inside is poorly lit, damp around the ceiling seams, one camera hanging open with its wiring exposed like someone came to fix it months ago and got bored halfway through. vought didn’t plan the blind spot. they just never bothered to care.
you pass stacked crates, old forklifts, metal shelving wrapped in plastic, and sealed pallets marked with shipping numbers that match the files frenchie printed. butcher takes photos of each label. mm checks the manifests.
soldier boy walks near the back at first. not behind you. not exactly. close enough that you know where he is without turning.
the lower level sits behind a reinforced access door that takes frenchie three minutes, four whispered curses, and one small device that sparks violently enough to make hughie flinch into a shelving unit.
“i hate that thing,” hughie says.
“she hates you also,” frenchie replies, patting the device before the lock clicks.
the door opens into cold air. not freezing. but colder than the rest of the building by enough to make every conversation stop.
the stairwell beyond is concrete, narrow, and lit by emergency strips along the floor. at the bottom, a second door opens into a wide storage level filled with metal frames, crates, plastic-wrapped machinery, and long reinforced panels stacked upright like pieces of a future cage.
nobody speaks for a moment.
then butcher says, softly, “well, look at that.”
you hate his voice when it does that. when it goes quiet with want.
mm moves first. “photos. fast.”
everyone spreads out within sight of each other. not far. never far. frenchie goes to the manuals stacked on a worktable. annie checks the far exits. hughie starts photographing labels with shaky concentration. kimiko watches the upper catwalk. butcher starts opening crates like he has never met a bad idea he didn’t want to touch with both hands.
you stop near one of the reinforced panels. it’s taller than you. thicker than the schematics made it look. inside the plastic wrap, the metal has a dull, pale sheen, layered with something that catches annie’s light and throws it back cold.
frenchie goes very still at the table.
“what?” mm asks.
frenchie doesn’t answer right away. he turns a manual toward him, then another page, then another. his face drains of every trace of its usual restless charm.
“frenchie,” annie says.
“this is not the chamber,” he says quietly.
“what?”
he swallows. “it is more.”
soldier boy is standing near the panels now. his face gives nothing away. but the stillness is wrong. too fixed. too internal. he stares at the metal pieces like his body knows their purpose better than anyone in the room can explain it.
frenchie’s voice lowers further. “the russian capsule was crude compared to this. this has better vapor delivery, better temperature control, better restraint anchoring. reinforced twice over.” his fingers tap the page once. “mon dieu… this could hold two supes at the same time.”
hughie’s camera lowers. annie looks toward butcher. butcher looks at the manual. you look at soldier boy. he does not look at anyone.
two supes. homelander. soldier boy. the idea sits heavy in the room.
“take everything,” butcher says.
mm’s eyes cut to him. “we take copies. not everything.”
“we take what helps.”
“we take what we can carry without turning this into a damn siege.”
butcher smiles without looking at him. “always so practical, marvin.”
“somebody has to be.”
you move without thinking. not to soldier boy. not touching him. not saying his name. you just step closer to the table, putting yourself slightly between him and butcher’s direct line of sight. it’s barely anything. a shift. a foot of space. deniable.
a sound cracks overhead. not loud. a boot on metal, maybe.
kimiko’s head snaps up first. then the catwalk erupts. three guards in black gear drop from the upper level, and something bigger moves behind them. not homelander. not anyone famous. just a supe with too much muscle and not enough fear, landing hard enough to shake dust from the ceiling. annie blasts him before he can fully straighten, light slamming into his chest and driving him back against a stack of crates.
kimiko is on the nearest guard before he can raise his weapon. she breaks his wrist with a clean twist, catches the gun, and kicks his knee out from under him. not dead. neutralized. frenchie ducks under a swing and jams a syringe into another guard’s thigh. hughie scrambles behind a crate. soldier boy hits the supe second. not with full strength. you can tell. everyone can tell. he drives the shield into the supe’s ribs with enough force to fold him, then slams him down onto the concrete and plants a boot between his shoulder blades.
“stay down,” he barks. the supe groans. “smart.”
you move toward the worktable, grabbing manuals, shoving loose pages into a bag, hands steady because there is something to do and doing something is better than thinking about the cold air and the panels and soldier boy’s silence.
another guard comes around the shelving unit to your left. you catch him early. your body knows what to do now. step in. block. weight low. you drive your elbow into his stomach, catch his arm, twist until his weapon clatters to the floor. he swings clumsily with his other hand and you duck under it, catching his knee with your boot the way soldier boy taught you. he drops hard. not graceful. not pretty. effective.
you zip-tie one wrist before he can fully process that you’re the reason he’s on the floor.
“atta girl,” mm says from across the room, breath rough as he pins another guard against a crate.
“autograph session in the van,” you shoot back, because talking is easier than admitting your hands are shaking.
hughie yelps. terrified enough to cut through everything. a human guard has him pinned near the worktable, one hand twisted in hughie’s jacket, the other holding a knife low and close, angled toward the soft place under his ribs. hughie has both hands on the guard’s wrist, trying to keep the blade from moving.
annie is too far. mm has his hands full. kimiko is on the floor with a guard’s arm locked under her knee. soldier boy turns, but there are crates between him and hughie. you are closest. there is no time. that is the whole thing. no time to think no killing. no time to remember rules. no time to decide who you are before your body does what it has been trained to do.
your hand goes to your hip. the knife is there. not too far back. not stuck behind the line of your vest. right where soldier boy moved it, right where your fingers fall clean and fast over the handle.
you draw. you move. the guard sees you half a second too late.
you don’t think of the blade going in. you think of hughie. hughie’s wide eyes. hughie’s breath caught in his throat. hughie’s hands slipping on the guard’s wrist.
it is either the guard or hughie. so it is the guard.
the knife hits. his body jerks once, hard, and the sound he makes is smaller than you expect. not movie-loud. not meaningful. just a broken exhale against your shoulder before he drops his grip on hughie and folds down between you.
for one second, you keep moving, sliding down to the floor with hughie. adrenaline is merciful like that. you grab him by the front of his jacket, eyes already scanning him. “are you hurt?”
hughie stares at you. “i—”
“hughie. are you hurt?”
“no,” he says, voice thin. “no, i don’t think—”
“lift your shirt.”
“what?”
“lift it.”
he does, hands shaking, and you check quickly. no blood blooming under the fabric. no slice. no wet red opening where the knife had been aimed. good. hughie is alive. that is what matters. you can breathe through that.
then the blood on your trousers starts to cool. at first, you don’t understand the sensation. damp warmth turning cold against your thigh. heavy fabric clinging to your skin. not yours. too much to be yours. your eyes lower slowly, and the world narrows with them.
the guard is on the floor. your knife is still in your hand. blood has spread across the concrete, dark, soaking into the knee of your trousers where you dropped beside hughie. it glistens on your fingers. under your nails. along the handle soldier boy had guided your hand to only yesterday.
your hearing changes. everything goes distant. annie saying your name. mm shouting something. butcher cursing. frenchie whispering merde. hughie is still in front of you, alive, breathing, saying something too fast. his mouth moves around your name and sorry and i’m okay and you can’t hold onto any of it.
you killed him. not neutralized. not stopped. killed.
easy. so easy your body did it before your mind arrived.
your fingers loosen around the knife. someone catches it before it hits the floor. frenchie, maybe.
annie is in front of you then, hands hovering near your shoulders but not grabbing. “hey. look at me.”
you look at her. or through her.
she understands too quickly. “not down. don’t look down. look at me.”
hughie’s voice breaks beside her. “i’m sorry. i’m so sorry, i didn’t—”
“hughie,” annie says, sharp enough to cut him quiet.
mm appears at your side, breathing hard, one cheek split near the jaw. “we move,” he says, not unkindly. “now. process later.”
process. as if this is a file. a folder. a thing to open when the room is safer.
your mouth feels numb. “i killed him,” you say.
no one answers fast enough. that answers enough.
butcher steps over the body, face unreadable. “saved hughie.”
your eyes flick to him. wrong voice. wrong answer.
annie steps between you and butcher before either of you can say anything. “don’t.”
butcher’s jaw tightens, but he doesn’t push. miracles happen.
soldier boy stands a few feet away. not comforting. not anything. his eyes are on the blood first. then the knife. then the sheath at your hip. then your face. something hard moves through his expression and vanishes before it becomes useful. he doesn’t say good. he doesn’t say it was necessary. he doesn’t say anything.
frenchie moves fast after that. photos of the manuals. scans of the manifest. crate numbers. shipment dates. alloy specs. vapor ratios. annie keeps one glowing hand lifted and one on your sleeve, steering without forcing. kimiko clears the hall. mm takes the bag of copied manuals and throws it over one shoulder. hughie stays close enough that you can hear his breathing.
no one takes the full parts. not tonight. but they take enough. enough to know what vought is building. enough to know homelander might fit inside it. enough to know soldier boy might too.
the exit feels longer than the way in. no one jokes. the guards on the first floor are still unconscious, still breathing. annie keeps looking back at you. hughie keeps looking like he might be sick. butcher carries the manuals like they are treasure stolen from hell. soldier boy walks behind you now, shield raised, steps steady and quiet.
outside, the night air hits your face cold enough to sting.
the van waits.
you climb in because annie’s hand at your elbow tells you to. because mm says your name once. because your body still knows how to obey simple instructions even if the rest of you is somewhere else, kneeling beside a body on cold concrete.
you sit. someone shuts the door. the engine starts.
nobody speaks for the first mile.
you stare down at your trousers. the blood is darker now. cold and stiffening in the fabric. your hand rests open on your knee, fingers slightly curled, and you can still feel the handle even though frenchie has the knife somewhere in the front.
hughie sits across from you, eyes red, hands clasped so tightly his knuckles are white. “you saved me,” he says, barely above the engine.
you don’t look at him. you can’t.
annie’s hand closes gently around your wrist. you let her.
mm looks out the front window, jaw tight. frenchie mutters something under his breath in french, too soft to translate. kimiko watches you with sad, steady eyes. butcher is silent, which is possibly the only decent thing he has done all night. soldier boy sits near the back doors. his gaze drops once to the knife sheath at your hip. where he moved it. where it worked. then to the blood on your trousers. then to your face.
outside, the warehouse disappears behind you, carrying its cold metal pieces and unfinished cage and one dead guard on the floor where you left him. inside the van, nobody says simple. nobody says clean. nobody says easy. the road hums under the tires, and you sit very still with someone else’s blood drying against your skin.
hi! for a veeery long time ive had an idea stuck in my head, i tried to write it myself but i literally have no skills…i was wondering if you would like to maybe write it :) so, remember the episode where lisa nearly dies, and dean asks castiel to make her forget abt him and everything that happened between them? so, what if reader is also a hunter (they become one after meeting dean) and dean constantly has some doubts abt it, he feels very guilty cause as he says “he is the reason they got involved in that monster life”. then during one hunt reader nearly dies too, and even though its devastating for dean, he decides to ask castiel to make the reader forget abt the hunting life and dean as well. a bit different plot, but i got an idea from that ep. i would LOVE it if you decided to write it and make it very angsty, but there is totally no pressure, especially since i gave so many details😭
⋆｡ ˚ mercy in pieces
summary ˚˖𓍢ִִ໋ dean saves you the only way he knows how—by erasing himself from your life
pairing ˚˖𓍢ִִ໋ dean winchester x reader ( gn ) ft. castiel
wordcount ˚˖𓍢ִִ໋ 1018 genre ˚˖𓍢ִִ໋ angst
warnings ˚˖𓍢ִִ໋ near-death experience, memory loss (forced), emotional sacrifice, guilt, themes of loss and identity
notes ˚˖𓍢ִ໋ ִ❀໋ consider supporting my work .ᐟ
It happens fast.
It always does.
One second you’re there—breathing, moving, swearing under your breath as you reload—and the next you’re on the ground, the world tilting wrong, blood spreading too quickly for Dean to pretend it’s not bad.
“Hey—hey, no, no, no—” His voice breaks before he can stop it, hands pressing against your side, trying to hold something in that won’t stay. “Stay with me, c’mon, look at me—”
You try. God, you try.
Your eyes find his, unfocused but still there, still you, and it makes something in his chest cave in because this—this is exactly what he was afraid of. From the moment you chose to stay, from the moment you picked up a weapon and refused to put it down, from the moment you said I’m not leaving you to do this alone.
“This is my fault,” he mutters, frantic, shaking, not even sure if you can hear him anymore. “I shouldn’t’ve let you—I should’ve—”
Your hand twitches weakly against his wrist.
“Dean,” you breathe, barely there.
And it wrecks him.
“Don’t,” he chokes, leaning closer, forehead almost knocking against yours. “Don’t do that, don’t say my name like that—just—just hold on, okay? Please. Please.”
But you’re slipping.
He can feel it.
And suddenly, he’s not in control anymore.
The bunker is too quiet when he gets you back.
Too clean. Too still. Like it doesn’t belong to what just happened.
You’re alive.
Barely.
Sam’s pacing somewhere behind him, voice tight, asking questions Dean doesn’t answer. None of it matters. None of it fixes what’s sitting heavy in his chest, what’s been there for a long time now—this constant, gnawing certainty that you were never supposed to be part of this life. That he dragged you into it anyway.
“She almost died, Dean.”
“I know.”
“You can’t keep blaming yourself for—”
“I know.”
But he doesn’t stop.
Because he does blame himself.
He always will.
“Castiel.” The name leaves his mouth like something desperate, something already decided before he even says it.
Castiel appears without a sound, trench coat rumpled, eyes immediately finding Dean’s. Then flicking to you. “…what happened?”
Dean exhales slowly, but it doesn’t steady him. Nothing does. “Same thing that always happens,” he mutters. “They got hurt because they were standing next to me.”
Castiel steps closer, gaze softening as he looks at you, taking in the damage, the fragility of it. “They will recover.”
“Yeah,” Dean says, hollow. “That’s the problem.”
Cas looks back at him, something unreadable passing through his expression. “Dean—”
“I need you to do something for me.”
The words land heavy. Final.
Castiel goes still. “No,” he says quietly.
Dean’s jaw tightens. “I didn’t even tell you what it is.”
“I know what it is.”
Silence stretches between them, sharp and unbearable.
Dean swallows hard, forcing the words out anyway, because if he doesn’t say them now, he won’t. “I need you to take it away. All of it. The hunts, the monsters—” His voice falters, just for a second. “Me.”
Castiel’s gaze sharpens. “Dean.”
“They almost died,” he snaps, the emotion breaking through, raw and ugly. “Do you get that? This—this is what happens to people around me. They don’t get out clean, they don’t get a choice, they just—” He cuts himself off, breathing uneven. “I can’t let that be their life anymore.”
“You don’t know that it isn’t what they would choose.”
“I don’t care.” The words come out harsher than he means, but he doesn’t take them back. “I’m not giving them the option to die because of me.”
Castiel studies him, something heavy settling in his expression. “And what about you?” he asks softly. “What does this do to you?”
Dean laughs, but there’s nothing funny in it. “Doesn’t matter.”
“It does.”
“It doesn’t,” he insists, quieter now, more certain in the worst way. His eyes flick toward you, unconscious, still, too still. “They deserve better than this. Better than me.”
Castiel doesn’t answer right away. He just looks at Dean like he’s trying to find something worth arguing for. Then—“…what would you have me do?”
Dean exhales, something in him breaking even as he speaks. “Give them a life where this never touched them. Where they never met me. Where they don’t have to wake up every day wondering if it’s the last one.”
The silence that follows is unbearable.
Then Castiel nods, once. Reluctant. Heavy. “…as you wish.”
You wake up in a hospital room that smells too clean.
Your head aches faintly, your body heavy but intact, like something happened that you can’t quite remember. There’s a vague sense of wrongness sitting in your chest, something missing, but when you reach for it, there’s nothing there. Just empty space.
A nurse tells you you were in an accident.
That you’re lucky to be alive.
You believe her.
Because there’s nothing else to believe.
Dean watches from a distance.
He doesn’t get close. Doesn’t step into your line of sight. He just stands there, hidden enough that you’d never notice, hands shoved deep into his jacket pockets like that might hold him together.
You look… okay.
Confused, maybe. A little tired.
But safe.
Safe in a way you never were with him.
“Dean.”
He doesn’t turn.
“I have done what you asked,” Castiel says quietly beside him.
Dean nods once, stiff. “That is good,” he mutters.
Castiel watches him for a moment. “Is it?”
Dean’s throat tightens, his gaze still locked on you as you shift in the hospital bed, adjusting the blanket, completely unaware of the life that was carved out of you.
Of him.
“Yeah,” he says, voice rough, barely holding. “It is.”
Because you’re breathing.
Because you’re alive.
Because you’ll never have to look at him like you did on that hunt again—like you were slipping away, like he was the last thing you’d ever see.
That has to be enough.
It has to be.
Dean stays there a moment longer, just watching, memorizing the way you look without him in your world.
Then he turns.
And walks away before you can forget him twice.
ꔛ. all works ; writing guidelines ; writing schedule.
𖤐 464 words. requested. MDNI. all angst, no comfort.
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━ DEAN WINCHESTER wants three things. just three. he’s not allowed to want any of them, obviously. but of course, he still aches for them to be real. still dreams about them on the off-chance he doesn’t have a nightmare one night. still wishes that in some fucked-up timeline, they’d be his to keep. his to have all to himself. they are as follows:
⁰¹ no more hunting.
the first thing dean wants is to stop fucking hunting. it’s a ridiculous thing to want, considering that he’d never rest knowing something’s lurking out there in the dark—but he still does. he’s been tired of it. been so exhausted from being on the road since he was 4 years old. he can never actually take a break, can never fully relax—yet he wants to. needs to. he just can’t seem to obtain it. it just slips away through his fingers instead. and he can’t feel this way. he can’t. he shouldn’t. he’s not permitted to. yet it happens anyway. dean reminisces to a fake life where he doesn’t have to watch his back 24/7. where he could just be. he doesn’t even know what he’d do for a living, besides hunting. and he’ll never know. not as long as there’s something to kill.
⁰² you.
possibly more stupid than the last. yeah, dean wants you. you’ve been in his life forever, but he wants more. wants more always. he thinks about you always, about how you’d love him. because you do, he knows that. but he won’t act on it. won’t ever be the one to say that he loves you back. won’t tell you how he really feels—because he’d rather die. also because he knows that it won’t work out. that someone, something would find you both, and use the love between you to their advantage. so he’ll suffer. and he’ll only touch you, love you the way he really wants when he sees you in his dreams.
⁰³ happiness.
the most stupid, saved for last. dean, god forbid, wants to be happy. does he know how? no. is it obtainable? no. does he deserve it? fuck no. he deserves to rot in a pine box or spend the rest of eternity in hell for what he’s done in his life. but for some reason, he’s still breathing. still here. and he hates it. hates the fact that so many good, deserving people have died, yet he still somehow still gets to be here, living. it’s unfair. it’s cruel—and definitely a punishment, because dean could die as easy as breathing, but living is hard. having to look himself in the mirror is harder than slipping away and out of this world. so yes, he wants to be happy. but it’ll only come when he takes his final breath.
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